Richard Rohr – The Wisdom Way (Part Ten)

About this sermon

“The Wisdom Way: Scripture, Tradition, and Experience” was a week-long retreat held at the Center for Action and Contemplation for students from Fuller Seminary in April and May 2013. The week of teaching was designed with the goal of “understand[ing] scripture and tradition and experience in a critical way.” Ultimately, Father Richard Rohr and the Fuller students sought to develop a working definition of wisdom for those seeking contemplative spirituality. In this final session of day 3, Fr. Richard Rohr spends the first half completing his timeline of non-dualistic thinkers and mystics throughout history, drawing upon the Fuller students’ knowledge to add figures that have stood out to them as teachers of non-dual consciousness. Fr. Richard stresses the dangers of piety, which he argues is most often “a cover for the shadow.” He goes on to define mysticism as both “experiential knowledge of God” and “experiential knowledge of connection.” He teaches that unitive consciousness is respect—or “second seeing”—for everything around us: “you’ll find that that gap which appears to be between you and that object that you’re gazing at softens, lessens. And you’ll be able to grant that object that you’re looking at a certain dignity.” The second half of the session, after the students take a 45-minute walking meditation break, focuses on the concepts of the True Self and the False Self. Fr. Richard defines the True Self as “your objective identity” whereas the False Self is “your stage costume.” He points out that the False Self is not wrong; it is simply not going to last beyond death, and therefore we shouldn’t take it too seriously. The students and Fr. Richard explore human sexuality as one of the Church’s most misplaced targets throughout its history. Fr. Richard argues that instead of focusing on the language of “flesh” and “spirit,” we ought to be focused on teaching people how to identify the True Self and the False Self. Indeed, as he argues, “The sexual self can be part of the True Self . . . and the religious self can be, commonly, part of the False Self.” CENTER FOR ACTION AND CONTEMPLATION The Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) is an educational nonprofit introducing seekers to the contemplative Christian path of transformation. Founded by Richard Rohr in 1987, our programs and resources are designed to help deepen prayer practice and strengthen compassionate engagement in the world. https://cac.org Subscribe: https://bit.ly/3QypRgu Learn more about Who We Are: https://bit.ly/3D8TtdU Learn more about What We Do: https://bit.ly/3qrYFGc Learn more about Richard Rohr: https://bit.ly/3ozYdmP Learn more about Contemplation: https://bit.ly/3wNojGF

Topics

• Wisdom