What prompts this surrender -- this total turning to God in self-donation and makes it possible is the realistic recognition that my very life and being is a gift of love. It is a recognition which becomes experiential in contemplative prayer, in a "knowing" that is beyond knowledge; it is the graced knowledge of love. Only such a gift can make unconditional self-surrender possible, for it is an experience of the unconditional love of a person, a personal God. It is such a recognition that breaks forth joyously in Daniel Berrigan's "All, all is gift. Give it away. Give it away."
The symbolism of a sacred mountain is full of intimations of meditation. It is a state of strong immovability, of perfect balance; a state in which all motion hangs suspended, not in death or inertia but in that great stillness that is the origin and resolution of all things... Any mountain that is sacred is a symbol of the Centre: that point where divine reality impinges on profane reality. The true Centre, the real seat of the great mystery of ultimate reality, resides in our heart.
