CONTEMPLATION IN ACTION

“How can I be more holy?” We don’t have to make ourselves holy. We already are, and we just don’t know it yet. In Christian terminology this inherent holiness is called the Divine Indwelling or the gift of the Holy Spirit. That proclamation, and the awakening of the True Self in God, is the essential foundational and primary task of all religion. Thus authentic religion is more about subtraction than addition, more letting go of the false self than any attempt at engineering our own True Self. You can’t create what you already have.

We become the One we gaze upon. And the “eyes by which we look back at God are the same eyes by which God has first looked at us” (Meister Eckhart). This reciprocal gaze is the True Self, perfectly given to us, and always waiting to be perfectly received. It is so dear and so precious that it needs no external payoffs whatsoever. The True Self is abundantly content as it is.

Prayer: Teach me to hold the paradox of being contemplative in my actions.