The contemplative mind is the most absolute assault on the secular worldview that one can have, because it is a different mind from what we’ve been taught in our time. The calculative mind, or the egocentric mind, reads everything in terms of personal advantage and personal preferences. As long as we read reality from that small self with a narrow and calculating mind, I don’t think we’re going to see things in any new or truly helpful way.
All the great religions have talked about a different way of seeing that is actually a different perspective, a different vantage point, a different goal than what I want or need the moment to be. Christians called it contemplation, and some Eastern religions called it meditation. To quote Albert Einstein, “No problem can be solved with the same consciousness that caused it.” Contemplation is a different consciousness, and its starting point is precisely not what I prefer or what I need things to be.
Adapted from Contemplative Prayer (CD)
…a bit of wisdom from Richard Rohr. You can subscribe to his daily Radical Grace email here.
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