Thursday, September 16, 2010

Does God Create?

Full of anxiety and worried about my Future the day I completed my Masters degree in HRM from Loyola College during June 1997. While winding up my Masters degree I was attending a retreat in Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Kilpak, Chennai. The retreat was conducted by Rev.Fr. Agustine Valloran from Chalakudi/Pota from Kerala. During the adoration time on the last day of the retreat, He called specifically my name and said, Francis, 'Do not fear, for I am with you; Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, surely I will help you, Surely I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.' These are the assurance he proclaimed while holding the Blessed Sacrament. Till this day, I realize these words are verily true and resounding in my ears.



The Next day, I approached Mr. Anto Vincent in his residence in Alwarpet, he asked me whether I am interested to join with his son Mr. Arul Dev to run “People First Consultants Pvt. Ltd” I was delighted to begin my career and started my work with assistance of Secretary in the building adjacent to St.Antony’s Church in Paris, Chennai. During my career he sponsored me for a “Communication workshop” conducted by Prerana Institute. There the instructor taught me to have a paradigm of “Everything and Nothingness” He enabled me to back track my life and to get rid of ego. The mindset of divine consciousness is singularity of Nothingness and Fullness; it is a state of being, Wherein I create communication in this mindset and being response able. (Responsible).



Later on, I attended “Art of Living” workshop conducted by Swami. Sukabodananda. He taught me, our mind is having a pattern of thoughtfulness and thoughtlessness. Like ridges and furrows (waves) happens in our mind. We need to sustain and experience the “thoughtlessness” as nothingness in our mind. This is called in Vedas, “Chidambara Rahasiam” thus explained by Swamiji. The Sunyata and the Pleroma, it is a state of being and it is not a plenum of action.



Christian mysticism always recognizes the "You" of God.

Yes, it isn't dissolution; it is encounter.

Christian mysticism is characterized by the Incarnation, which is always a gift; it isn't something that the human being gains.

In it, the "You," the duality of a God who gives himself and the man who receives, though there is fusion, always recognizes the other.

We are speaking of duality in unity, as a spiritual marriage. The two always recognize one another; they are not confused; they keep their own identity.



Experience is a category that is used in all the disciplines. I prefer to speak of mystical experience; it is something that God gives to man who receives it passively, and, in fact, makes an effort on receiving it.

It is what John of the Cross calls "the night."There is collaboration in the acceptance, but the initiative is always God's, who makes Himself known. And the greatest revelation takes place in Jesus Christ.

Hence, mystical experience is always Christ-centered and Trinitarian. And it is revealed only gratuitously, without our merits.



Mystics are men and women of this world. Not from another world! Today there is a tendency to trivialize mysticism, as if it were something of another world, and that it has nothing to do with us. But it isn't so. Moreover, the mystics' experience fits in the Church and is related to faith, not foreign to it.



Mystical experience cannot be separated from faith; it can only take place in it. Mystical experience calls for a mystical theology, a reflection whose basis is mysticism itself.



Today there is a persistence of the mystical event. It is part of the post-modern society. This universal mystical richness is rediscovered in Western and Eastern religiosity. And Eastern mysticism has exercised great fascination in the West.



Religion and mysticism are different realities, and it is necessary to make distinctions.



Why does God create? Why is this necessary for a Perfect Being, who is perfect in its quiescence?



It is God, not man, whom the Lord makes the criterion; the heavenly Father, not the dread moral governor as made known to Israel, but our Father. What are His affections, what His will about us? Nothing is more foreign here than the delusion of our being freed now from the indwelling evil of our nature.



"Ye therefore shall be perfect," says the Lord, as your heavenly Father is perfect." His is love, because He is love; it is the energy of His nature going out in goodness where there is need, and above all reference to merit, or congruity with what He loves and is. And this in all its perfection He was then showing in the Lord Jesus, image of the invisible God.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

God

In the ancient days, when the first quiver of speech came to my lips, I ascended the holy mountain and spoke unto God, saying, 'Master, I am thy slave. Thy hidden will is my law and I shall obey thee for ever more.' But God made no answer, and like a mighty tempest passed away.


And after a thousand years I ascended the holy mountain and again spoke unto God, saying, 'Creator, I am thy creation. Out of clay hast thou fashioned me and to thee I owe mine all.' And God made no answer, but like a thousand swift wings passed away.

And after a thousand years I climnd again spoke unto God, saying, 'My God, my aim and my fulfilment; I am thy yesterday and thou art my tomorrow. I am thy root in the earth and thou art my flower in the sky, and together we grow before the face of the sun.'

Then God leaned over me, and in my ears whispered words of sweetness, and even as the sea that enfoldeth a brook that runneth down to her, he enfolded me.

And when I descended to the valleys and the plains, God was there also.