Hilde Sanden HOW CAN WE BECOME MORE AWARE OF THE TRUE SELF IN THIS POST-MODERN ERA? A study on Thomas Keating’s understanding of Centering Prayer. MASTER OF THEOLOGY Methodist theology 2007 Spring Supervisor: Professor Harald Hegstad MF – Norwegian School of Theology Contents 1.0. Introduction p. 4 1.1. Personal background 4 1.2. Postmodern actuality 5 1.3. True self and false self 6 1.4. Research question 7 1.5. Method and sources 8 2.0. Background 14 2.1. Mystical Theology 14 2.2. The Church Fathers 16 2.3. Contemplative spirituality 18 2.3.1. Kataphatic and Apophatic Theology 18 2.3.2. The state of unknowing 20 2.3.3. Lectio Divina 21 2.4.Who is Thomas Keating? 23 2.5.The beginning of Centering Prayer in the 1970’s 25 3.0. Centering Prayer according to Thomas Keating 27 3.1. What is Centering Prayer? 27 3.1.1. The method of Centering Prayer 27 3.1.2. What Centering Prayer is not 28 3.2. What happens in the silence? 29 3.2.1. Sacred word 29 3.2.2. Seeking silence beyond words 31 3.2.3. What kind of thoughts rise usually in silence? 34 3.2.4. The practice of Centering Prayer 36 3.3. The true and false self 38 3.3.1. Inner emotional programs 38 3.3.2. Over-identification 42 3.3.3. How does contemplative prayer deal with emotional programs? 44 3.3.4. Divine Therapy 46 3.4. Theological basis of Centering Prayer 47 3.4.1. Trinitarian theology 47 2 3.4.2. Christology 48 3.4.3. Ecclesial theology 49 4.0. Discussion 50 4.1. Has Keating a trustworthy psychology? 51 4.1.1. Inner emotional programs seen from other views 51 4.1.2. Alternative views on emotions 54 4.1.3. Spiritual experience 55 4.2. Critique and reflections on the theology of Centering Prayer 56 4.2.1. Is CP a mixture of Pantheism, New Age and Eastern meditation? 56 4.2.2. Is Centering Prayer really prayer? 59 4.2.3. Centering Prayer and the fear of occultism 62 4.2.4. Thomas Merton and Gerard Hughes reflects on Contemplative Prayer according to Pantheism and New Age Spirituality 63 4.2.5. Inter-religious implications 65 4.2.6. From a Wesleyan view 66 4.2.7. A resource for ecumenical work? 68 4.3. A way to a truer self? 71 5.0. Conclusions and summary 75 6.0. References 78 3 1.0. Introduction 1.1. Personal background During the recent decade I have been observing more and more people searching the church for spiritual guidance. Many of them come because their lives have lost its meaning, their faith is nothing more than a distant way of thinking. Deep down in their inner being they are thirsty and hungry for a living relationship with God, but they don’t know how to come into connection with it. Many search for their own true self, because they have a feeling that they are not living the life they were created to live. They have a desperate need both of finding their authentic self and a God they can trust. The image of God many have inherited through parents and peers in the culture around seems not to be trustworthy any longer. To be in a position of both risking trust in themselves and in the God they used to believe in, feels rather scary. There is a great need for finding a way through this existential problem. For many years I have been searching a deeper spiritual life myself. I started attending silent retreats, especially Ignatian retreats1 that offered spiritual guidance. During talks with a spiritual companion and during the silent awareness of God’s love I began gradually to be aware of false ideas that had given directions in my life. Physically, emotionally and spiritually I experienced some kind of divine therapy starting to grow in my very being. I continued to attend annual retreats and found that God all the time was digging deeper into my existential/spiritual life. I realized that silence was a “place” where I more easily became aware of God’s presence. Not that he was absent or in other “places”, but silence cleared my mind more easily than a noisy environment, and made me more attentive to him. Often when I started to pray with words, I felt my words somehow came in the way. After many years of receiving spiritual direction, I finally met one who understood that my heart was a contemplative one, more than meditative. This opened up a new freedom both in my prayer life and my whole being. One of the things this spiritual director introduced me to, was the method of “Centering Prayer”, taught by Thomas Keating. Ignatian retreats have been arranged frequently over the last ten to twelve years in Norway and Sweden. Many people join them and benefit greatly from them. We do not often hear about “contemplative” retreats. Some think that this is the same thing. They 1 Retreats given in the tradition of Ignatius of Loyola. I first attended several short versions of 5 days, then some 8 days, then the full “Spiritual Exercises” for 30 days. 4 have much in common, but still there is a difference. In the contemplative way of prayer, there is less meditation2, but more non-discursive opening for existential awareness of God’s presence. Contemplation is not a technique, it is more a pure rest in God. It is to let go of thoughts and words, just stay in an embrace of God’s love. Nothing is supposed or anticipated to happen at a rational or emotional level.3 The fruit in a longer perspective of this way of praying seems to be a clearer knowledge of our false and true self and a deeper awareness of who God is, according to Thomas Keating.4 Is this really trustworthy? This is an important question I want to pose in this thesis. I want to do that because I find that there is a deep connection between this question and the questions many human beings of today are asking, searching for an identity that is trustworthy for their personal inner life. 1.2. Postmodern actuality Our culture has reached a time many will call the Postmodern period of history. Though experts will discuss whether we should call this time Late Modernism or Postmodernism, there is a broad agreement that our western society has reached a dramatic change in the way of understanding its place in history. Postmodernism is partly a protest against the age of Enlightenment.5 We have gone through centuries of Modernism where the understanding has been that science would find “all” the answers of the universe. God was put on the “shelf” by many of those believing in this postulate. For many of those who continued to believe in God, God had to fit into the great narrative of how the world was created and how man could explain God’s work on earth and in heaven. In this Postmodern era, we see perhaps science is not providing all the answers. Science will always have more questions to ask. By definition, science is expected to explore and push back boundaries of understanding. Stanley Grenz points to Jean-Francois Lyotard in his book “A Primer on Postmodernism”, when he says: “According to the postmodern appraisal, science cannot achieve its goal of expelling myth from the realm of knowledge6” and further: 2 Meditation in Ignation tradition is mostly staying with a text and let images, impulses, new insight or inner challenges rise in my thoughts through the words I read. 3 http://www.annunciationtrust.org.uk/approaches/meditation_contemplation.shtml, 18.04.2007. 4 Keating: Reawakenings, p. 7. 5 Grenz: A primer to Postmodernism, p.2-3. 6 Grenz: A primer on Postmodernism”, p. 47. 5 Lyotard welcomes a world in which multiple incompatible language games flourish alongside one another. He rejoices that we are no longer ruled by the modern concern that all discussion lead toward consensus. 7. Realising that science never will find all the answers of any time, neither in biological, philosophical or theological matters, we find that there is not an objective great narrative that can explain who God is for anyone. In this era the human being is “liberated” to search for his own narrative, a narrative where he can find his own “true self”. This realisation opens new perspectives for the human being in searching more widely than what used to be scientifically consensus in the period of Modernism. It opens again the world wide tradition for exploring the mysterious aspects of life. It connects us with other religions, and we realize that people of “no religion” are out searching for a meaning of life that goes beyond the materialistic and scientific point of view as well. This is a great challenge to the Christian church in our culture and time. We, who belong to the church, may try to close our eyes to this new perspective and go on as we did in the Modernistic time, or we may try to fight against it and meet the new “ideas” as if they were enemies, or we can turn the other way around and see the great chance and possibilities this gives us to show a way to a greater Kingdom of God than we used to offer. 1.3. True self and false self According to the emphasis of finding the “true self” throughout this thesis, I find it necessary to explain what these terms mean in a Christian contemplative context.