false self Archives - Saint Sophia

The First Thursday of Great Lent: Knowing Our Source

03/10/2022

Within Christianity, contemplation was not systematically taught for the last 400 or 500 years. Thankfully, Trappist monk Thomas Merton (1915–1968)—who died fifty years ago today—helped reintroduce contemplation to Western Christianity. Here’s just a taste of what Merton had to say about contemplation: Contemplation is the highest expression of [human] intellectual and spiritual life. It is that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe

Knowing the Knowledge that Transforms

10/22/2021

By Father Stephen Freeman, March 22, 2016 “If only I had known…” These are, not infrequently, the words of an apology. They are also an explanation of why we are sometimes the way we are. Ignorance is, in the mind of the Fathers, a major cause of sin. Of course, if sin is understood in a legal/forensic framework, then ignorance would be nothing more than a form of innocence. Not knowing is excusable in most

Growing in Love’s Likeness: Two Halves of Life

08/25/2020

All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image that we reflect. This is the work of the Lord who is Spirit. —2 Corinthians 3:18 We are created in the image and likeness of God from the moment of our conception. The Creator gives us our core identity as sons and daughters of God, “from the beginning” (Ephesians 1:4-5). Throughout our lives we co-create our

Self-Emptying: Letting Go of the False Self

06/09/2020

Meister Eckhart, the German Dominican mystic (c. 1260-c.1328), said that spirituality has much more to do with subtraction than it does with addition. [1] Yet our culture, both secular and Christian, seems obsessed with addition: getting rich, becoming famous, earning more brownie points with God or our boss, attaining enlightenment, achieving moral behavior. Jesus and the mystics of other traditions tell us that the spiritual path is not about getting more or getting ahead, which

Fifth Tuesday after Pascha. Death and Resurrection: Dying Before We Die

05/19/2020

In one way or another, almost all religions say that you must die before you die, and then you will know what dying means—and what it does not mean! Your usual viewing platform is utterly inadequate to see what is real. It is largely useless to talk about the very ground of your being, your True Self, or your deepest soul until you have made real contact with these at least once. That demands dying to the

Third Tuesday after Pascha. Death and Resurrection: Do Not Be Afraid

05/05/2020

I am aware of the phrase “true self” occurring only once in the Bible. Paul used the words to describe what he was desperately trying to locate in the midst of some major trials with his false self. He wrote of it in a telling way: “When I act against my own will, then it is not my true self doing it, but sin which lives in me” (Romans 7:20, Jerusalem Bible). Somehow, he knew there was

Forgiveness: Including Everything

01/13/2020

The True Self is always humble. It knows that we didn’t do it right and that it isn’t even about doing it right; it’s just about doing it. Our True Self knows that everything belongs. That means holding together the good and the bad, the dark and the light, the sinner and the saint—which are two parts of me and two parts of everything. It is our participation in divinity which allows us to be this large.

True Self and False Self: The Illusion of Our False Self

08/19/2019

Guest writer and CAC faculty member James Finley continues exploring insights on the true self and false self that he gleaned from Thomas Merton. In the following text, Merton makes clear that the self-proclaimed autonomy of the false self is but an illusion: Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self. This is the man I want myself to be but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything

True Self and False Self: Living in God

07/29/2019

Guest writer and CAC faculty member James Finley continues exploring insights on the true self and false self that he gleaned from Thomas Merton. In ways known only to God, the one seeking God in silence unexpectedly falls through the barriers of division and duplicity to discover, as Merton writes, that: . . . here, where contemplation becomes what it is really meant to be, it is no longer something infused by God into a

What the Fathers Sought

07/23/2019

What the Fathers sought most of all was their own true self, in Christ. And in order to do this, they had to reject completely the false, formal self, fabricated under social compulsion in “the world.” They sought a way to God that was uncharted and freely chosen, not inherited from others who had mapped it out beforehand. They sought a God whom they alone could find, not one who was “given” in a set,

Archive

The First Thursday of Great Lent: Knowing Our Source

Knowing the Knowledge that Transforms

Growing in Love’s Likeness: Two Halves of Life

Self-Emptying: Letting Go of the False Self

Fifth Tuesday after Pascha. Death and Resurrection: Dying Before We Die

Third Tuesday after Pascha. Death and Resurrection: Do Not Be Afraid

Forgiveness: Including Everything

True Self and False Self: The Illusion of Our False Self

True Self and False Self: Living in God

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