false self Archives - Page 2 of 4

True Self and False Self: Existence

07/22/2019

Guest writer and CAC faculty member James Finley continues exploring insights on the true self and false self that he gleaned from Thomas Merton. The contemplative journeys within, to discover “that if you descend into the depths of your own spirit . . . and arrive somewhere near the center of what you are, you are confronted with the inescapable truth that, at the very roots of your existence, you are in constant and immediate

True Self and False Self: Freedom to Be Our True Self

07/15/2019

Guest writer and CAC faculty member James Finley continues exploring insights on the true self and false self that he gleaned from Thomas Merton. Merton quotes Meister Eckhart as saying, “For God to be is to give being, and for man to be is to receive being.” [1] Our true self is a received self. At each moment, we exist to the extent we receive existence from God who is existence. Our deepest freedom rests not in our freedom

True Self and False Self: Discovering Self in Discovering God

07/08/2019

Guest writer and CAC faculty member James Finley continues exploring insights on the true self and false self that he gleaned from Thomas Merton. For Merton, the spiritual life is a journey in which we discover ourselves in discovering God, and discover God in discovering our true self hidden in God. Merton writes: The secret of my identity is hidden in the love and mercy of God. But whatever is in God is really identical

True Self and False Self: Our Ultimate Identity

07/01/2019

Thomas Merton (1915-1968) developed wonderful insights into the true self and false self. James Finley, one of CAC’s core faculty members, lived and prayed with Merton for six years at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. This week Jim shares some of what he learned from this great contemplative teacher. Merton’s whole spirituality, in one way or another, pivots on the question of ultimate human identity. Merton’s message is that we are one with God.

What Is the False Self?

06/24/2019

Your egoic false self is who you think you are, but your thinking does not make it true. Your false self is a social and mental construct to get you started on your life journey. It is a set of agreements between you and your parents, your family, your school chums, your partner or spouse, your culture, and your religion. It is your “container.” It is largely defined in distinction from others, precisely as your separate and

The Twenty-Ninth Day of Great Lent. Love, Not Atonement

04/08/2019

All the great religions of the world talk a lot about death, so there must be an essential lesson to be learned here. But throughout much of religious history our emphasis has been on killing the wrong thing and avoiding the truth: it’s you who has to die, or rather, who you think you are—your false self. It’s never someone else! Historically we moved from human sacrifice to animal sacrifice to various modes of seeming self-sacrifice, usually

The Moral Path of Being

09/21/2018

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, February 9, 2015 If Christian morality is not a legal or forensic matter, how are we to think about moral behavior? Does the word have no use for Orthodox Christians? What do we think about when we confess our sins? If morality is ontological – a matter of being – what does that look like? To say that morality is ontological, a matter of our being, is to confess that the commandments of God are

Trinity: Kenosis

06/18/2018

The Trinity is unhindered kenosis or self-emptying, self-giving, holding nothing back. Jesus modeled such vulnerability and surrender: becoming human, serving the poor and the sick, and giving up his life. As Paul writes: Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Pascha. When “I” Awakens.

05/01/2018

God’s enduring presence places the false self in a blessed insecurity. The false self is like a drop of stagnant water thrown into the raging furnace of the love of God. Even in our sins, in God’s eyes we remain the great pearl for which he has lost all upon the cross in order to possess us as his own. Even in the midst of revolt, we remain his one lost sheep for which he

Trinity: Creative Continuation

01/29/2018

Daniel Walsh, who was Thomas Merton’s primary philosophy teacher, says he’s not sure if the human person can even legitimately be called a creation, because we are a continuance of, an emanation from, a “subsistent relation” with what we call Trinity. Wow! This is getting very wonderful and also very dangerous. [1] He taught that the human person must see itself in continuity with God, and not a fully separate creation. We are “chosen in

Archive

True Self and False Self: Existence

True Self and False Self: Freedom to Be Our True Self

True Self and False Self: Discovering Self in Discovering God

True Self and False Self: Our Ultimate Identity

What Is the False Self?

The Twenty-Ninth Day of Great Lent. Love, Not Atonement

The Moral Path of Being

Trinity: Kenosis

Christos Anesti! Christ is Risen! Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Pascha. When “I” Awakens.

Trinity: Creative Continuation

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