PRESENTATION THREE Journey to the Inner Dwelling of Awakening - PDF document

PRESENTATION THREE Journey to the Inner Dwelling of Awakening Consciousness Slide 1 – no notes Slide 2 It is an honor to be with you in the mystery of your theme of transformation. This is what the universe has been doing all along in the 13.7 billion history of its unfolding, and all humankind has been part of that journey of transformation. Looking at this image, we can see part of a swirling galaxy that speaks of stillness at the center; there is dynamic energy tossing out what is no longer needed and taking in something new. Your theme of transformation witnesses to your consent to the life energy at the center of the universe. Some things make us afraid to live on that evolutionary edge where the universe continually recreates itself. But we cannot stop this. Slide 3 No, you cannot stop this evolutionary re-creation of the universe, nor your own journey of inner transformation, unless of course, you want to put yourself in total peril. It’s like being on a roller coaster – you can scream all you want, but it won’t stop; it’s going somewhere and you’re not getting off. Me change? You mean I’m not authentic? ? ? I’m perfect just the way I am, and that’s enough! Where are we going in this journey of transformation? Ultimately, it can only be to our inner dwelling of awakening consciousness. Wait until we hear the words of Jesus tomorrow! Slide 4 OSF Tiffin Pre-Chapter Retreat 2014 Slide 5 1

The invitation in this journey is not simply to look for new ways of doing things based upon old beliefs, but to bring forth a total shift in consciousness . . . a cumulatively transformative process, in which something of the utmost importance is taking place . . . Tiffin February 2013 OSF Tiffin Pre-Chapter Retreat 2014 One year ago you were beginning to integrate your Chapter work with the Journey of Transformation. These quotes were found among your materials. These thoughts provided a context in which you would be making choices to inform your vision and action development, while deepening your awareness of how this might be done. Truly, this journey was to require a non-negotiable transfiguration of the heart so that you could communally develop communion with one another and be a community for the People of God. It’s worth noting here, that for the Egyptians, the brain served no purpose in thinking. For them, all thinking took place in the heart – that inner dwelling where all consciousness is awakened. Slide 6 NOW James Hollis So, here you are, in this mysterious now. With your history receding like the sound of a hunter’s horn along the wind, with your future rushing toward you like the next season. Now is the moment , the only moment that exists, in which becoming can be and in which consciousness can make a difference. OSF Tiffin Pre-Chapter Retreat 2014 We need to move beyond the past, carry the tradition forward, and welcome every future moment. We cannot fix the past. It is finished. We must pay attention to the present. It is our time of Kairos when everything is at stake and it is a time for finding God in it. The Paschal Mystery always calls us to clothe ourselves in “new life”, whatever that means for the future as it beckons us. New life, all of life is connected on the fundamental level of oneness or unity. . . A contemplative stance is essentially the capacity to be aware of Love’s presence everywhere. It requires engagement of our imagination and trust that this imagination is energized by the Spirit. Together in community we form a paradigm of ever- greater connectedness. We literally sit in one another’s energy fields and make it possible to be transformed by the call to intentional growth in consciousness. Slide 7 From Gail Worcelo, Sister of the Green Mountain Monastery We live in a place that Karl Rahner describes as “the loving acceptance of the mystery and it unpredictable disposal of us”. Awakening to this consciousness is the prerequisite for the experience of 2

resurrection – an exquisite knowing nothing but the love of the Holy One. Making no effort to sustain what has been, we free the Spirit to work in and through us, to face our darkest fears and to trust the Holy. We then are the Spirit’s work itself. DANCE - Stand: All that surrounds me is sacred, (hands all around the body) from the earth, (shape a sphere with hands) to the heavens, (hand above head; wave back and forth) from the waters, (hands below waist with rippling motion) to the fire. (hands up and clap) I salute all, (bow profoundly) and all is one. (namaste gesture) 2 nd time repeat: All that surrounds me is sacred, . . . . 3 rd time as Tai Chi What did we just do? We moved. This slow undeniable revelation that WE ARE MOVING affects how we understand ourselves and Religious Life; not only are we moving, but toward deeper expressions of relationality and love in an awakening consciousness at the center of our souls. Evolution is not an external event; it’s not just an event in the outer world, but a deep interior evolutionary consciousness to itself. Evolution and “we are moving” – what do they really mean? It’s happening right now inside you, as a congregation, and as part of the tradition as well. It is a moment of grace, a one-time event in which something radically new is coming into existence. Remember the slide I showed you this morning about the 6 moments of grace that historicized the unfolding of Religious Life? Something had to be let go of for something new to emerge. The Christ event was the initiating and first moment of grace in our Christian tradition. It has unfolded into greater complexity and relationality through the centuries. Slide 8 Cosmos World Tribe Ego OSF Tiffin Pre-Chapter Retreat 2014 As the tradition unfolds, there is an inside to it that unfolds with the interior dimension. New moments of grace arise because of social, political, and cultural forces pressure tradition into ever deeper dimensions of love, justice, mercy, compassion as part of a whole cosmic context. Karl Rahner says that this internal dynamism is Christ pushing the tradition into greater “active transcendence”. When a new moment of grace comes into existence, the other moments have the weight and “gravitas” that prop els us forward. The whole thing comes with us. This is not an isolated moment. When a new moment arises, the power of emergence is at work in the tradition; not only an improvement but the arising of something totally new. 3