We don’t teach meditation to the young monks. They are not ready for it until they stop slamming doors. — Thich Nhat Hanh to Thomas Merton in 1966
The piercing truth of this statement struck me as a perfect way to communicate the endless disguises and devices of the false self. There is no more clever way for the false self to hide than behind the mask of spirituality. The human ego will always try to name, categorize, fix, control, and insure all its experiences. For the ego everything is a commodity. It lives inside of self-manufactured boundaries instead of inside the boundaries of the God-self. It lives out of its own self-image instead of mirroring the image of God. It is that superior self-image which must die.
The ego is constantly searching for any solid and superior identity. A spiritual self-image gives us status, stability, and security. There is no better way to remain unconscious than to baptize and bless the forms of religion, even prayer itself. As long as I am going to church, it is really meaningless whether I close the door quietly or slam the door. A spiritual master would say, “first stop slamming doors, and then you can begin in the kindergarten of spirituality.” Too many priests, bishops, and ministers are still slamming doors, so how can we expect the laity to be any better?
In the name of seeking God, the ego pads and protects itself from self-discovery, which is an almost perfect cover for its inherent narcissism. I know this because I have done it all myself.
~Richard Rohr, Contemplation in Action
Jesus, particularly in Matthew’s Gospel, shows himself to precede the psychologists Jung and Freud by thousands of years, with several of his extremely insightful teachings on shadow work: (1) the metaphors of “the log in your own eye and seeing the splinter in your neighbor’s eye” (Matthew 7:3-5), (2) the teaching that “the eye is the lamp of the body” (Matthew 6:22-23), and (3) coming to terms with your [inner] opponent (Matthew 5:25-26) before he can “take you to court and make you pay the last penny.”
I would also like to point out a lesser-noted teaching that uses the imagery of Satan. It warn us against trying to cast out our demons, who find no place to occupy, and return to us “all swept and tidied” (Matthew 12:43-44), and then bring with them “seven other demons,” and we’re “worse than we were before.” This to me is sheer psychological brilliance on Jesus’ part, and people instead waste time arguing about whether demons really exist.
If you try to achieve a superior identity by projecting your demons onto other people or groups, and temporarily feel “swept and tidied,” you have only achieved a seeming and a very false victory. Your ego willfulness and your superiority complex are now even more disguised—from yourself. But they are still there, and now well-defended by a sense of “purity.” As Jesus says in another place, you cannot “drive out Satan by Satan,” for such a “divided house cannot stand” (Luke 11:17-18). We can only be reconciled to our shadow by honest admissions, and must never think we can dismiss it, deny it, or punish it. We cannot deny our ego, or it will only return in different forms.
~Richard Rohr, Yes, And….
Contemplation, or meditation in some groups, was rediscovered in contemporary Christian times beginning with the writings of Thomas Merton in the 1950s and 1960s. The word most Christians are more familiar with is simply “prayer.”
Unfortunately, in the West, prayer had become something functional; something you did to achieve a desired effect—which too often puts the ego back in charge. As soon as you make prayer a way to get what you want, you’re not moving into any kind of new state of consciousness. It’s the same old consciousness, but now well disguised: “How can I get God to do what I want God to do?” It’s the egocentric self, deciding what it needs, but now, instead of just manipulating everybody else, it tries to manipulate God.
This is one reason religion is so dangerous and often so delusional. If religion does not transform people at the level of both mind and heart, it ends up giving self-centered people a very pious and untouchable way to be on top and in control. Now God becomes their defense system for their small self! Even Jesus found this to be true of his own scribes, Pharisees, and teachers of the law.
~Adapted from Richard Rohr, CAC Foundation Set: Gospel Call to Compassionate Action and Contemplative Prayer (CD)
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