Richard Rohr Daily Meditation: "A Different Way of Knowing" Living School for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Monday, 6 February 2017 Nondual seeing allows us to be happy and rooted in God.

Richard Rohr Daily Meditation: "A Different Way of Knowing" Living School for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States for Monday, 6 February 2017 Nondual seeing allows us to be happy and rooted in God.
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"Contemplation"

"A Different Way of Knowing"
Monday, February 6, 2017Contemplation is an entirely new way of knowing the world that has the power to move us beyond mere ideology and dualistic thinking. Mature religion will always lead us to some form of prayer, meditation, or contemplation to balance out our daily calculating mind. Believe me, it is major surgery, and you must practice it for years to begin to rewire your egocentric responses. Contemplation is work, so much so that most people give up after their first futile attempts. But the goal of contemplation is not success, only the continuing practice itself. The only people who pray well are those who keep praying! In fact, the continued re-connecting is the praying, not occasional consolations. Take that as an absolute.
The capacity for nondual seeing that is developed through contemplation allows us to be happy, rooted in God, comfortable with paradox and mystery, and largely immune to mass consciousness and its false promises. This is true wisdom knowing, and it is the job of elders to pass it on to the next generation so we need not start at zero.
Contemplation is meeting as much reality as you can handle in its most simple and immediate form—without filters, judgments, or commentaries. The ego doesn’t trust this way of seeing, which is why it is so rare, “a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:14, NJB). The only way you can contemplate is by recognizing and relativizing your own compulsive mental grids—your practiced ways of judging, critiquing, blocking, and computing everything.
When your judgmental mind and all its commentaries are placed aside, God finally has a chance to get through to you, because your pettiness and self-protective filters are at last out of the way. Then Truth stands revealed on its own!
Each person must do this homework for himself or herself. This will be experienced as the birth of the soul.
Gateway to Silence: Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.[Philippians 2:5]
Reference:Adapted from Richard Rohr, Yes, And . . . : Daily Meditations (Franciscan Media: 2013), 407, 398.

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Registration is now open!
CONSPIRE 2017
Friday, July 7–Sunday, July 9
Albuquerque, New Mexico OR Online Webcast
Richard Rohr, angel Kyodo williams, Mirabai Starr, Ken Wilber (via video)
This is the fifth conference in the CONSPIRE seven-year series. Whether or not you’ve participated previously, you are welcome! CAC’s conferences gather over 1,000 compassionate and engaged individuals. Together we hear inspiring teaching, experience contemplative practice, and reflect individually and in small groups.
Join us for a transformative weekend!
Scholarships and a student rate are available.
Register at cac.org/conspire-2017-overview/.-------

Center for Action and Contemplation

1823 Five Points Road South West (physical)
PO Box 12464 (mailing)

Albuquerque, New Mexico 87195, United States

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