I’m sure that most people in the Western world have never really met the person who they themselves really are. Because at every moment, all our life long, we identify ourselves either with our thoughts, our self-image, or our feelings. We have to find a way to get behind our thoughts, feelings and self-image. We have to discover the face that we already had before we were born. We have to find out who we were all along in God before we did anything right or wrong. This is the first goal of contemplation.
I ask you to imagine a river or stream. You’re sitting on the bank of this river, where boats and ships are sailing past. While the stream flows past you inner eye, I ask you to name each one of these vessels. For example, one of the boats cold be called “my anxiety about tomorrow.” Or along comes the ship “Objections to my husband,” or the boat “Oh, I don’t do that well.” Every judgement that you pass is one of those boats. Take the time to give each one of them a name, and then let it move on.
For some people this is a very difficult exercise, because we’re used to jumping aboard the boats immediately. As soon as we own a boat, and identify with it, it picks up energy. But we have to practise is un-possessing, letting go. Pp. 94-95
Of course, we have to return to our “boats” but we can’t have any genuine freedom unless we know who we are apart from them. In the final analysis the purpose of letting go is so that we can freely lay hold of something. And the purpose of this new liberation from bondage is so I can commit myself from free and healthy motives. The effect of contemplation is authentic action, and if contemplation doesn’t lead to genuine action, then it remains only navel-gazing and self-preoccupation. P.98
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