By listening deeply to the message of any given moment, I shall be able to tap the very Source of Meaning and to realize the unfolding meaning of my life. To listen in this way means to listen with one's heart, with one's whole being. The heart stands for that center of our being at which we are truly "together." Together with ourselves, not split up into intellect, will, emotions, into mind and body. Together with all other creatures, for the heart is that realm where I am paradoxically not only most intimately myself, but most intimately united with all. Together with God, the source of life, the life of my life, welling up in the heart. In order to listen with my heart, I must return again and again to my heart through a process of centering, through taking things to heart. Listening with my heart I will find meaning.
In centering, we begin to leave aside our own thoughts and images and feelings and to make space for the Spirit to begin to operate in us through the gifts. Outside the time of prayer we begin--and often others begin before us--to perceive the presence of these wonderful gifts in our daily lives. These are the fruits by which we judge the "tree" of our centering prayer. It is only through these fruits and the healing they represent that we can know the spirit is working in our lives through this deep, quiet communion with Love at the center of our being.
~ from THE CALL TO THE CENTER by M. Basil Pennington
Prayer is an energy that, like oxygen, feeds our whole being even when we are not aware of it. When we pray, a positive, life-enhancing energy that affects us physically, emotionally, intellect-ually, and spiritually is activated within us. Prayer ministers to us. It engages the creative energy of the universe, Love. This divine energy unites with our own deepest, truest intention and goes into action. We ingest a higher, more refined kind of thinking, and this higher vibration brings its nutrients to our whole being.
Center yourself to God and PRAY night and day "without ceasing." ALL you do, think, or read can be made into prayer. Great music, art, literature, architecture, friendships are, or can be, forms of prayer. What is gained by prayer can never be lost. PRAYER is eternity breathing in time.
Center yourself to God and PRAY night and day "without ceasing." ALL you do, think, or read can be made into prayer. Great music, art, literature, architecture, friendships are, or can be, forms of prayer. What is gained by prayer can never be lost. PRAYER is eternity breathing in time.
Prayer is the process by which one continually empties out what one thinks one knows and surrenders to the mystery in the moment ... Prayer is an opening on your part to receive the gifts of God, an opening to God's unconditional love for you, an opening to God's unconditional acceptance of you as you are. When you enter the temple of prayer, you are blessed beyond measure. For, in entering, you surrender, and in surrendering, you are washed clean of all judgments you make about yourself or others.
In prayer the stilled voice learns to hold its peace, to listen with the heart to silence that is joy, is adoration. The self is shattered, all words torn apart in this strange patterned time of contemplation that, in time, breaks time, breaks words, breaks me, and then, in silence, leaves me healed and mended.
During prayer a new state comes on. A kind of "largesse," an indescribable vastness, so great as to encompass the whole of creation. This immeasurableness simply flows right through me, no resistance from "self-important demands" blocks the flow, a feeling of absolute weightlessness and transparency. The expression "emptied of self" is a living reality.
