Living Free From Desire
Good day to all. I believe living free from desire only means from selfish desires. Our will is fueled by our desires. Mystics teach us to give up these desires and desire only what is. To transcend our separate self truly we must even abandon the desire for God or Truth or whatever name we give to our spiritual goal. Meister Eckhart wrote:
A man must become truly poor and as free from his own creaturely will as when he was born. And I tell you, by the eternal truth, that so long as you desire to fulfil the will of God and have any hankering after eternity and God, for just so long you are not truly poor. He alone has true spiritual poverty, who wills nothing, knows nothing, desires nothing.
The mystics tell us to concentrate all of our desires into the one desire to know God, and then finally, as we cross the threshold of realization, to be ready to abandon this also. The Hindus imagine the separate self consumed in fire, like a corpse on a funeral pyre. The disire tor God is like the stick with wich the priest stokes the fire to make sure the body is completely turned to ash; when it is, the stick too is thrown into the flames.
It was C S Lewis who said,"Dont think of God in terms of forms, because forms are limited." He also said,"When all the suns have passed away, each one of you will still be alive."
And the next one is a saying I could apply to many so called religious people, " A man is never so proud as when striking an attitude of humility." It should never be done that people put religeous laws, or government laws, higher than the Law of Love.
Buster has been out for his run and I suppose me also, though not as much as him. The sun is shining. Outside on the balcony Harry is sawing up wood the Buster brings back. Later in the day he can chop it into firewood for his auntyViv and her partner, aunty Di.
For anyone intersted in Contemplative prayer by Thomas Merton, then look it up at http://secularfranciscans.org I hope this will be a help to at least one person as it was to me.
The signs
- at times imperceptible, at others very clear - are
all around us.
But they require careful interpretation
if they are to be transformed into a road map.
Manual of the warrior of light Paulo Coelho
One of my sons wants to go on the computer now and so I must go. Have a good day. Blessings and love, Peter
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