Fr. Bede Griffiths
Practical Praxis
From a spiritual practices perspective, praxis, can range from extended retreats, to fasting and vigils, Liturgy of the Hours and contemplative prayer, from among many additional methods or techniques for transformation and encountering the Divine Beloved. Any practice that inspires, challenges, and liberates the practitioner is suitable for the student / disciple... which of course, is all well and good for those persons with both the time and energy (resources as well). But, what about the worker? What about the householder barely managing to survive? And what about the farmer, doctor, teacher, or truck driver working twelve hour days?
Perhaps for many (if not most) of us, one more thing to do is the most debilitating and frustrating of possibilities. It isn't as if we too don't want liberation or contemplation or a monastic peace (and quiet). Are there simple methods of practical praxis that we can do anywhere, in whatever moments of pause we might be able to muster? Blessed Be! There are!
The practices I am going to briefly outline are gleaned from my studies and life on the one hand, and on the other, thirty years of the crazy-busy of a Soup Kitchen, shelters, jobs programs, camps for youth, and the other projects of the intentional community I helped initiate: when survival was the moment-by-moment task knocking me like a two-by-four on the side of my head... Each of these core practices cross every border of any religion (and no religion): they are universal and applicable to everyone. The mystic-life is first of all a fully human life: the conscious cultivation of beauty, intimacy, family, sexuality, community, faith, art, music, food (growing and sharing), poetry, etc., are assumed to already be integral parts of your life: are they? If not, why not? What excuse do you have for not being fully alive? Come on, now! None of us know how many breaths we have before us!
As a fully alive human being, already conscious of the preciousness of just being alive, you should be ready to explore the increasingly deep dimensions of your conscious being: if you have awakened to the precariousness of this exact moment in time, then surely you have also awakened to the need for both personal and social transformation: have you not? Everything is on the line: where are you? If you are nudging (or jumping) towards that line, then these core practices are for you...
1) It goes by different names, but it is in essence all the same: japa, mantra meditation, the rosary, the Jesus Prayer, or the prayer of the Heart... As has now been discovered, vibration is the vehicle of material manifestation: the essential nature of every atom is its vibratory nature: they all dance... And, they all hum... World mystics have long reported that they can hear the vibratory hum of the dancing atoms... Leaving aside the fact that any child placing a seashell to her ear can hear the same hum, nature and metaphysical insight meet in the cleaving to the Beautiful One in Her Hum... In sitting meditation, take up the words So Hum, linked to your in-coming and out-going breath, with each syllable... In sleeping, walking, working, eating, exercising, etc., take up japa... the repetition of the Holy Name, linked to your breath. Mentally chant the Name of the Divine. Follow the Name into your heart: gather your consciousness into feeling love and adoration: the Divine Name is a vibratory structure that will penetrate your entire being... Eventually, the repetition of the Holy Name will happen by itself, with little to no effort on your part... your every breath will be replete with adoration...
2) Let all thoughts dissolve as they arise... rest in simply loving... This simply loving is the deep praxis: no metaphysical insight can surmount the height or depth of simply loving... if you are not disappearing into this loving, then you have simply not yet surrendered either heart or mind (let alone life) to the Divine Beloved: without surrender, there is no spiritual life, no genuine religious life, and no metaphysical insight worth a single pinto bean. The point of sitting meditation and japa is the letting of thoughts dissolve in simply loving... the point of simply loving is the reception of the Divine gift of Compassion... "Without great compassion no real progress on the spiritual path can be made." (Thuksey Rinpoche) Compassion is the meaning of life: we participate in the Endless Compassion of the Universe, of the Divine Beloved, through the simple fact of our lives: we breathe the Mystery from our first breath into our last... The electric hum of the Divine Breath surges through the consciousness that is the Unity of All and Everything: consecrate your breath to this Great Compassion... Pansacramentalism: "All things sacramentally exist in the sacred, and the sacred sacramentally exists in all things: in other words, you cannot go anywhere without meeting the Beloved: wash dishes and She is right there! Scrub the toilet and She is right there!
3) What is the very summit of your praxis? Infinite Compassion through Adoration... Compassion and Adoration are the electrical consciousness that is powering the manifestation of matter and the evolutionary drive of all life: the Hindus call this sacred power Mother (Shakti)... Through Compassion and Adoration we co-create with the Divine ourselves, every other, every being, and all of matter. Adoration is the out-folding of the love-movements of our hearts: more... shh, this is a secret... Compassion and Adoration is the hearts desire and life in the co-creation of the Divine Beloved!
We begin our practice of adoration within the circle of people in our lives... and simply loving... loving without attachment to desired outcomes... we "build" a house of love... we "encircle" every room with its own version of beauty and adoration... everyone is safe and wanted in this house that we build... until, every loving in our house is a unitive experience of One Love...
We open our hearts: we clear out the systems of domination, oppression, and fear that have manipulated us into the caricatures of humans we have become... hatred goes, sexism goes, racism goes, greed has to go, oh my! Whatever will become of us without these props of patriarchy! How about, a free human being! No longer needing to protect either an identity (false) or an agenda (domination), we can begin to walk into conscious evolution... into the Divine Life of the Beloved!
Compassion and Adoration is the devotional path of the world-mystic: it is the Way of the Sacred Feminine: and it is the Direct Route to the Mother's Heart... The politics and economics of the Mother is radical compassion: cause no harm is the first rule, (and since that rule is the highest evolutionary goal-post and we are still kids on-the-way), the second is like it: cause as little harm as possible (which translates into sacred action)... Ultimately, adoration means to adore each being and every aspect of creation as if they are the Mother Herself... the devotional path is to build your life in such a way that it becomes a simple loving with the very tenderness of the Mother Herself...
St. Hildegard referred to the "greenness" of things: having experienced the electric consciousness of the Divine Breath surging through all of Creation: everything is alive with the "green energy" of the Beloved, Hildegard steadily became a mystic-teacher for the ages. St. Francis of Assisi, following his radical path of poverty, ultimately arrived at the same door as Hildegard: on his death-bed he sang of the electric consciousness surging through all of creation in his "Song of the Creatures"... the mystic-saints of every land, time and place, turned their hearts toward the One Heart of the Beloved, the Sun and Moon of compassion and adoration... a practical praxis for the transformations that need our Mother-Spirit: we are the ones who are supposed to Birth God in the Universe...
Resources:
The Marriage of East and West / Fr. Bede Griffiths
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ / Rev. Matthew Fox
Be Love Now / Ram Dass
The Return of the Mother / Andrew Harvey
The Hope / Andrew Harvey
Son of Man / Andrew Harvey
The Intelligence of the Cosmos / Ervin Laszlo
Perhaps for many (if not most) of us, one more thing to do is the most debilitating and frustrating of possibilities. It isn't as if we too don't want liberation or contemplation or a monastic peace (and quiet). Are there simple methods of practical praxis that we can do anywhere, in whatever moments of pause we might be able to muster? Blessed Be! There are!
The practices I am going to briefly outline are gleaned from my studies and life on the one hand, and on the other, thirty years of the crazy-busy of a Soup Kitchen, shelters, jobs programs, camps for youth, and the other projects of the intentional community I helped initiate: when survival was the moment-by-moment task knocking me like a two-by-four on the side of my head... Each of these core practices cross every border of any religion (and no religion): they are universal and applicable to everyone. The mystic-life is first of all a fully human life: the conscious cultivation of beauty, intimacy, family, sexuality, community, faith, art, music, food (growing and sharing), poetry, etc., are assumed to already be integral parts of your life: are they? If not, why not? What excuse do you have for not being fully alive? Come on, now! None of us know how many breaths we have before us!
As a fully alive human being, already conscious of the preciousness of just being alive, you should be ready to explore the increasingly deep dimensions of your conscious being: if you have awakened to the precariousness of this exact moment in time, then surely you have also awakened to the need for both personal and social transformation: have you not? Everything is on the line: where are you? If you are nudging (or jumping) towards that line, then these core practices are for you...
1) It goes by different names, but it is in essence all the same: japa, mantra meditation, the rosary, the Jesus Prayer, or the prayer of the Heart... As has now been discovered, vibration is the vehicle of material manifestation: the essential nature of every atom is its vibratory nature: they all dance... And, they all hum... World mystics have long reported that they can hear the vibratory hum of the dancing atoms... Leaving aside the fact that any child placing a seashell to her ear can hear the same hum, nature and metaphysical insight meet in the cleaving to the Beautiful One in Her Hum... In sitting meditation, take up the words So Hum, linked to your in-coming and out-going breath, with each syllable... In sleeping, walking, working, eating, exercising, etc., take up japa... the repetition of the Holy Name, linked to your breath. Mentally chant the Name of the Divine. Follow the Name into your heart: gather your consciousness into feeling love and adoration: the Divine Name is a vibratory structure that will penetrate your entire being... Eventually, the repetition of the Holy Name will happen by itself, with little to no effort on your part... your every breath will be replete with adoration...
2) Let all thoughts dissolve as they arise... rest in simply loving... This simply loving is the deep praxis: no metaphysical insight can surmount the height or depth of simply loving... if you are not disappearing into this loving, then you have simply not yet surrendered either heart or mind (let alone life) to the Divine Beloved: without surrender, there is no spiritual life, no genuine religious life, and no metaphysical insight worth a single pinto bean. The point of sitting meditation and japa is the letting of thoughts dissolve in simply loving... the point of simply loving is the reception of the Divine gift of Compassion... "Without great compassion no real progress on the spiritual path can be made." (Thuksey Rinpoche) Compassion is the meaning of life: we participate in the Endless Compassion of the Universe, of the Divine Beloved, through the simple fact of our lives: we breathe the Mystery from our first breath into our last... The electric hum of the Divine Breath surges through the consciousness that is the Unity of All and Everything: consecrate your breath to this Great Compassion... Pansacramentalism: "All things sacramentally exist in the sacred, and the sacred sacramentally exists in all things: in other words, you cannot go anywhere without meeting the Beloved: wash dishes and She is right there! Scrub the toilet and She is right there!
3) What is the very summit of your praxis? Infinite Compassion through Adoration... Compassion and Adoration are the electrical consciousness that is powering the manifestation of matter and the evolutionary drive of all life: the Hindus call this sacred power Mother (Shakti)... Through Compassion and Adoration we co-create with the Divine ourselves, every other, every being, and all of matter. Adoration is the out-folding of the love-movements of our hearts: more... shh, this is a secret... Compassion and Adoration is the hearts desire and life in the co-creation of the Divine Beloved!
We begin our practice of adoration within the circle of people in our lives... and simply loving... loving without attachment to desired outcomes... we "build" a house of love... we "encircle" every room with its own version of beauty and adoration... everyone is safe and wanted in this house that we build... until, every loving in our house is a unitive experience of One Love...
We open our hearts: we clear out the systems of domination, oppression, and fear that have manipulated us into the caricatures of humans we have become... hatred goes, sexism goes, racism goes, greed has to go, oh my! Whatever will become of us without these props of patriarchy! How about, a free human being! No longer needing to protect either an identity (false) or an agenda (domination), we can begin to walk into conscious evolution... into the Divine Life of the Beloved!
Compassion and Adoration is the devotional path of the world-mystic: it is the Way of the Sacred Feminine: and it is the Direct Route to the Mother's Heart... The politics and economics of the Mother is radical compassion: cause no harm is the first rule, (and since that rule is the highest evolutionary goal-post and we are still kids on-the-way), the second is like it: cause as little harm as possible (which translates into sacred action)... Ultimately, adoration means to adore each being and every aspect of creation as if they are the Mother Herself... the devotional path is to build your life in such a way that it becomes a simple loving with the very tenderness of the Mother Herself...
St. Hildegard referred to the "greenness" of things: having experienced the electric consciousness of the Divine Breath surging through all of Creation: everything is alive with the "green energy" of the Beloved, Hildegard steadily became a mystic-teacher for the ages. St. Francis of Assisi, following his radical path of poverty, ultimately arrived at the same door as Hildegard: on his death-bed he sang of the electric consciousness surging through all of creation in his "Song of the Creatures"... the mystic-saints of every land, time and place, turned their hearts toward the One Heart of the Beloved, the Sun and Moon of compassion and adoration... a practical praxis for the transformations that need our Mother-Spirit: we are the ones who are supposed to Birth God in the Universe...
Resources:
The Marriage of East and West / Fr. Bede Griffiths
The Coming of the Cosmic Christ / Rev. Matthew Fox
Be Love Now / Ram Dass
The Return of the Mother / Andrew Harvey
The Hope / Andrew Harvey
Son of Man / Andrew Harvey
The Intelligence of the Cosmos / Ervin Laszlo