WE ARE EXPLORING THE PRACTICE OF HEAVENLINESS
+ This is a post on the style of The Way of Prayer as we
continue to explore Heavenliness through the lens of the 12 styles of the Mandala process created by Edward Bastian. There are 3 more Mandala styles to explore
after this: Reason, Relationships and Wisdom. After that, we move on to the 9 Attributes of Heaven.
+ My Lord God, I
have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know
for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I
think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I
believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I
have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything
apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the
right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you
always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not
fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils
alone.
-- Thomas Merton
+ We must come to this realization that no matter how
much we want to control events in our lives we simply cannot ever achieve total
or even frequent control. It just
doesn’t happen. We must accept our
limits, learn to live with them, trust the process. Prayer is the only way to accomplish
this. Unceasing prayer is the only way
to accomplish this all the time, in every situation.
+ We could do well to explore prayer under the guidance
of such a great spiritual guide as Thomas Merton. Indeed we have been under his guidance on
this amazing journey a number of times as we have moved through the Journey of
the Mind, the Journey of the Heart, the Journey of the Body and now the Journey
of the Soul. See SE69, SE111, SE199,
SE212, SE214, SE217, SE221 & SE244. He has left us his wisdom in the many
books he wrote and his insights are found in many more. He is featured in the Spirituality & Practice Remembering
Spiritual Masters Project.
+ The 12 styles of Mandala: Creating An Authentic Spiritual
Path: An InterSpiritual Process by Edward
Bastian are listed in SE206.
+ To get inspired and illuminated by Ed Bastian, I invite you to set aside some time for these videos:
+ You can always find a link to any of the Spiritual Explorations posts by going to http://abundancetrek.com/sepostsaccess.html
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