As it's obviously of great relevance in Christian spirituality to identify what is the "basic source of sin," I thought we might discuss this topic a bit (not that we haven't touched on it in many places).

To begin, see http://tinyurl.com/n7mqwb

Note Fr. Keating's statement: The source of all sin is the sense of a separate self. The separate self-sense is, of course, the false self . . .

There are a few youtube videos where he says the same; in one, he is on a stage with Ken Wilber, who nods approvingly.

I'm wondering what he can mean by this -- that the recognition of oneself as a person distinct from other beings is the source of all sin? What is the alternative to this? No sense of self at all? That can't be a good thing!

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To my understanding, the basic source of sin is willfulness, which is, ultimately, a defensive response to the perception of being loved conditionally. Such perception comes to us early on; even the sex act where conception occurs can be tainted with energies of conditional love. Willfulness is thus a consequence of conditional love, which condition ultimately inheres in the loss of perfect love enjoyed by our First Parents.

But what of the separate self sense? Would we have such a perception without willfulness?

I don't see why not, for it is not willfulness that constitutes us as individuals; the senses and reason cannot help but recognize that other humans and creatures exist, and that they act apart from the exercise of our will.

Fr. Keating's teaching, here, seems more Buddhist than Christian. Note that his reflection begins with "The basic text for Christian practice is 'the Father and I are One.'" Where does that come from? Why not the two great commandments? Keep going until the part on page 302 where he writes that on the journey we go beyond personal, transpersonal, etc., to finally discover Ultimate Reality to be That Which Is. I've called attention to this in the Bernadette Roberts/Jim Arraj discussion, but we have a different context for situating it here.

This all annoys me enormously, as I'm sure must be obvious. So what do you think? How do you understand "the basic source of sin"? Is it such a bad thing to have a sense of being a separate self?

It sounds like Keating is reducing Christ's identity with the Father to the "I am that" of the east.

You don't hear much of the "will" in Buddhist teachings, which is really no surprise since all is considered ultimately a projection of the mind. There is "will" implied in Meta practice, where one cultivates compassion for the other: "May my enemy have peace of mind, be free of fear, live kindly and with ease." The other person is implied here, even though the nondual Buddhist tradition might say this is merely a preliminary practice. But none of that really washes in the real world of Buddhists, at least as far as I saw. And I'd say that the will implies the other as subject to him/herself for the way it operates; it witholds itself to some degree, or surrenders. Witholding and surrendering imply another person to whom we give or join ourselves to.

And to become one with another is really impossible, as we all intuitively know. To think otherwise is deceitfulness, and, ultimately, a betrayal of the other person. If we could become one with the other we'd be able to know that person's very thoughts and intentions, indeed, would have no thoughts or intentions different from their own. Even the vast amount of random thought courses through each of us differently, whether our wills are consciously engaged or not. Much of the worst of the eastern teachings comes from this notion of self-annihalation, which to me is just a carefully practiced form of dissociation. Every aspect of creation having the same transcendent Origin, when our faculties, incapable of grasping the transcendent, are immersed in the resulting immanent cosmic presence (kundalini at large), can leave us feeling indistinguishable, as we aren't capable of seeing this distinction from the transcendent point-of-view. We're bathing in the effects of a Cause we don't, and can't, produce. Little wonder we get deluded, but you'd think not being omniscient, omnipresent, omni-benevolent or omnipotent, along with dying, would be enough to put the "I am that" illusion to rest; yet, the mood alteration of such states is profound, if misleading.

I doubt anybody who knows Bernadette Roberts really well, such as her children or grandchildren, would say, in an honest moment, that she is purely loving all the time. So the loss of self still leaves the will, especially in its unconscious aspects, operating outside the will of God.

Once our Parents withdrew their will from God, there was no power in them to regain that original connection. Buddhism assumes the lost connection is merely ignorance, and of course the only way to overcome the sense of separation at the level of knowledge is to have no knower or subject.


So this notion of becoming one with another, or of the dissolving separate self, is actually rather shallow. We can only surrender our wills completely to pure Love (where relationship is always implied), and only pure Love can bring that about, since it's purity isn't known in our own experience as a cause arising from consciousness. Trying to annihalate the self, or "letting it happen," is just a convolution of the will that can't orchestrate its own escape. And who of us can really honestly say we want God to completely take over? None of us are that miserable! We get our consolations, yes, and draw near to Him and have some sense of His unbelievable love, but in the end there is alway this felt sense of having witheld ourselves somewhat, however much we may lament the distance. Much waits upon death and beyond, I think.

Phil:

Here's what C.S. Lewis ("The Problem of Pain," p.75) has to say, which is more or less in keeping with Augustine in some places:

"This sin (resulting in the Fall) has been described by Augustine as the result of Pride, of the movement whereby a creature (that is, an essentially dependent being whose principle of existence lies not in itself but in another) tries to set up on its own, to exist for itself."

Now, just in that, it occurs to me how the depth of the person as self can't be known as self awareness, but only seen in His face as He knows us, since our existence lies not in itself, but in God whom we cannot know as He knows Himself.

"Such a sin requires no complex social conditions, no extended experience, no great intellectual development. From the moment a creature becomes aware of God as God and of itself as self, the terrible alternative of choosing God or self for the center is opened to it. This sin is committed daily by young children and ignorant peasants as well as by sophisticated persons . . . it is the fall in every individual life, and in each day of each individual life, the basic sin behind all particular sins: at this very moment you and I are either committing it, or about to commit it, or repenting it."

And I'd go further and say the sin is committed prior to conscious awareness more often, since in our prefallen parents there was no subconscious, or unconscious: all unfallen creation was embodied in the glory of the human as mirroring the second Person of the Trinity, fully receiving in praise and gratitude for its identity, or sense of self. Since the Fall we can say, for instance, that a person is always a self in principle, and with dignity beyond its own means, but as self often loses the precious sense of personness, which is received in gratitude, not acquired by subtle methods.

All very good, w.c. Thank you.

One wonders how pride could have arisen in the case of the first parents? It would seem that the union with God and creation they enjoyed must have been completely satisfactory. I guess that old story about the snake/temptor is crticial to understanding the Fall, as the ploy was to entice them to a "more" they probably hadn't thought of and felt no deprivation from.

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Re. "the Father and I are one" -- it's from Jn. 10, and here's the context:

quote:

25Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, 26but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all[d]; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. 30I and the Father are one."

That doesn't sound like anything close to a "text for Christian practice," as Fr. Keating puts it, unless one considers oneself also to be a giver of eternal life with "sheep" to be called and protected. Jesus is saying that those who belong to him also belong to the Father, with Whom He is One in his ministry. One can certainly draw out ontological implications about Jesus and the Father, here, but not between the sheep and Jesus or the Father, who is "greater than all."

Later in John's Gospel, Jesus describes the nature of our union with himself and the Father in John 17:

quote:

20"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. 25"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."

This is clearly a union of loving participation, wherein we are enabled to live in God and God in us, and eventually enabled to see the glory of God as Christ himself see it (v. 24). Again: no ontological confusion between creatures/selves and God, here; no innate divinity realized.

So that's where things end up, and Jesus even tells us in v. 25 that this loving, participative "knowing" he communicates is something the world does not know. The "world," here, is not the creation so much as the fallen aspect of human culture, which has become a "basic source of sin" along with our fallen "flesh" and the devil.

Phil:

In response to your first paragraph, where you're wondering about how pride arose in such a state of union with God, if you have time you might read, or re-read, Lewis' second in his space trilogy, "Perelandra." In that book he kind of "answers" that question by exploring an Eve figure who is tempted but does not sin. It's not only a good read theologically, but touches the heart.

I read "Perelandra" many years ago and remember enjoying it, but not much has stayed with me.

An interesting idea: St. Thomas Aquinas mused that even if the First Parents hadn't fallen, their children or grandchildren might have. He speculated on the possibility of a culture with both fallen and non-fallen humans. Who knows but in a planet somewhere in the universe, a situation like this might actually exist!

Adds a whole new twist to the cynicism:

"If only those youngsters would mind their elders!"

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I read this passage by Keating few years ago and I liked it very much, in my non-dual times... ;-)
now I no longer understand how the sense of separate self can be related to our morality. For example, when I underwent a no-self experience, nothing changed in my moral attitude. I think I became less occupied with myself, but still the same temptations arised and my will wasn't particularly aided by the no-self.

I remember that few years ago I felt that what stands between me and God is some kind of inner tension and self-limitation that I called "ego" or "self". I felt this as a tension or energy, I guess. I felt that it won't let me "be one with" God. Then it disappeared when I started to work with koans and never came back in that form. But I don't think it gave me closer union with Christ - it was rather transition in the natural order.
There wasn't any considerate moral improvement after the dissolving of this "self", which gave up to the more relaxed state of awareness.

So I agree that the source of sin is in the will not in awareness level.
But do you know this passage when Merton describes his way of prayer to his sufi friend, I guess. He says that he rests in silence, and waits for God to remove the sense of being separate from him. Merton explained it in Cloud of Unknowing's terms, but it always sounded to me very Buddhist. Do you know this passage?

I found it. The quote from Merton is there.

http://books.google.pl/books?i...t&ct=result&resnum=2

Good reference, Mt (although p. 37 didn't display). I'd read the quote by Merton before and the reflection on it was well-done. It's a good example of apophatic prayer, and as the author notes, the whole context of Merton's life, including his liturgical prayer, situate it in a specifically Christian context. Also, there's no question of Merton using philosophical language, here; he's not denying individuality or personhood or anything like that.

My reading of Merton on this topic is that he considers the false self to be our inner resistance to God. James Finley has discussed Merton's view of this at length in his book, "Merton's Palace of Nowhere." False-self language is more psychological than theological, and so is easier for people of these times to relate to. But I've no doubt that, for Merton, this whole false-self complex is a consequence of sin.

Btw, see http://shalomplace.com/res/orgfss.html for my own take on the origin of the false self system (might help to brush up on your Transactional Analysis ).
Also: http://shalomplace.com/res/flslf.html

Phil:

Thanks for posting those!

As I remember how my view of this has changed over the years, there has been a gradual understanding of how pride may be more fundamental than fear. I used to think fear itself was the core element of our fallenness, and I guess, being healed only by love, it is certainly deeply involved. But I can sense more subtle threads of pride along with the fear as well. I'm afraid of letting God have His way with me, fully, but I'm also wanting life in my own terms in response to all the abuse that has not entirely healed. So the fear and the pride are like chicken and egg. And then there's the subtle pride showing up even in spiritual life as we discover just how vain and defensive we can really be i.e., when spiritual growth is experienced mainly as comfort-seeking while the real work is His well-beneath our perceptions, and even hidden in the painful events and interactions that expose our true motives.

And I also know that it has taken much comfort of love, human and Divine, for me to be able to tolerate seeing and feeling just how vain I can be, without falling into toxic shame, which is just another response of the false self, rather than the conscience undergoing a crisis toward increased humility.

This distinction between surrender of the will, without toxic shame, and awareness, seems such a fruitful path for exploring the differences between Zen, etc., and Theistic/mystical traditions. The two really need each other, and to characterize the limits of the will purely in terms of "ignorance" can, as Mt mentions, account for some of the mania associated with guru-disciple relationships. It seems like a focus on the will in the heart, where we would experience our longings and limitations without toxic shame would almost naturally lead one to an understanding of grace, or the need of it, since nothing in awareness can fill in those gaps.

Thanks Phil, next month I'll be getting my basic certificate in TA... ;-)

I think TA doesn't have room for lot of spirituality (as well as other psychodynamic approaches, in general), but I guess that idea that the Natural Child or the Free Child as they tend to call it now (at least in Europe), is somewhat close to the idea of innocence - if it's united properly to the Adult, providing perception of reality. The Natural Child's relation to the world is always + + (me OK/you OK), and thus it's the basis for any healthy relationship. I think the distortions that inevitably arise when the child has to adapt to more or less unhealthy environment, can be seen as a way to the false self system.

There's also a nice TA fairytale written by Claude Steiner:

http://www.emotional-literacy.com/fuzzy.htm

the cause of problems and the origin of "unnatural" emotions like shame, guilt, anxiety etc. is a lie told by a witch: that we can "run out of love".
I think it's interesting. Questioning God's love and accusing Him of not giving enough was Snake's strategy, too.

What you think? Did you know the story?

Mt:

Not to butt in where you and Phil are exchanging, but I wonder if that accusation, i.e, that God can't give us enough, is a fear of our own neediness . . . that we'd need too much, or that the endless need brings us to so much more dependence upon Him. That might not be the meaning of this fairy tale, but I see a kind of fear where the unknown either leads to more trust or withdrawal of trust.

A fear of neediness brings to my mind the mechanism that is developed when a child doesn't get enough care in the first year of life, and so he or she makes a decision: "I won't need or want anything, because it's to painful not to get it". Then people, as you know, experience unconscious fear that their desires and needs are insatiable, bottomless pit, so they prefer not to need anything from anyone, and they satisfy others instead.

It seems to me that before the fall it might be as in the case of innocent child: we need and we hope that they can be fulfilled (by God, by the world, by others). Child's needs are satisfied "each time a piece" - we're hungry, we get food, then we're hungry again, we get food again etc. In the case of God it's more the gradual and infinite satisfaction - the hunger grows, and the satisfaction grows - like in St.Gregory of Nyssa concept of epektasis.

the fear of not being satisfied can be a cause of sin both in the relationship to God and to other people. The difference is that parents and other people just aren't able to fulfill our heart, and God - is able.

Do you think this makes a substantial difference with regard to our growth in love, psychological and spiritual?

Yes, and as you're saying, the soul's discovery of itself as unique in term of personness is infinite. I suppose there is a vague sort of time or progression suggested in this, but from an earthly pov whenever I've seen my grandmother or other deceased relatives, they do seem to grow in wisdom and in grace, which may simply be the nature of the soul, i.e, to show, in its new body, this infinite depth as depth upon depth. Mysterious. A surprise for us all, no doubt.

So somehow the soul differentiates and does so infinitely as its nature is realized via Eternal Grace. Nothing static. No overly-repititious or familiar songs to sing. Each expression new as the Source is Eternal and impossible to know fully by a creature.

This inability to know God fully must create at least some potential for fear in the soul for not being in control of what may happen to it except in pure trust. Again, it's all speculation as the next life is concerned. But in fallen life we're seldom concretely aware that "we live and move and have our being in Him." Much of our life is lived outside this truth, even though our bodies know it, seemingly, but this bodily knowing may be the knowledge of our death and dying as creatures returning to Him - something the mind wants no part of; hence our need for the subconscious. So to discover the magnitude of this truth, yet not be able to know the truth as fully as we are dependent upon it, must leave quite an opening for fear. And where this fear is awe/worship/praise/shuddering reverence in the unfallen, it mutates quite rapidly in us into other things as compensation. Our knowledge of good and evil reflects this fear of being known by Him who can't be known accept as He gives that knowledge via worship of Love.

Will our wounds, in being disappointed and hurt by others, be openings to increased trust and risk, where we find grace hidden in these experiences, or become dark and forbidding barriers?

It seems like it is only the saints, or those fairly far down the road, who realize how deeply they need God. Really know it. It's beyond loving Him for his consolations, but at least wanting to love Him for his own sake, even though He needs nothing in return. But He is a Lover who changes everything and can't let us make the decisions about how things will procede.

quote:

So the fear and the pride are like chicken and egg

I agree, w.c. That wasn't the case with our first parents, however; their pride was more "pure," lacking in any sort of compensation for inner brokenness. Something of this pride was passed along with the shame, fear and resentment, wounding us from our earliest days of development. No matter how much inner work we do to facilitate healing the fear, shame and resentment, pride remains, to some degree, and every time we go along with it, we become more vain. One can see this vanity alongside and within our fear, and especially our shame, frustrating the healing that needs to happen.

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Mt., I like the "warm fuzzy" story. That's a good parable.

I use TA in some of my teaching to illustrate the how we are split and divided within ourselves as a consequence of non-love (sin). I agree that it is limited in application to spirituality, although it seems nearly impossible for healthy spirituality to flourish if the Adult isn't "driving the bus."

Yes, even in the midst of grief that isn't driven by shame there lurks some vanity, since we seldom grieve truly for the sake of others. Not like "Father forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing." He could see our deranged neediness even as we nailed Him to the wood.

I was driving home today and let a fellow cut in front of me. You could tell we were both on the verge of the common unkindness. I could certainly feel it in myself, but let him pass, and then there was his gratitude and mine, the softening that says "I'm really just desperate and lonely and unaware of this, but not truly out to hurt you." The pain is a yearning we aren't aware of until we see how what we need and how we hurt others is so inter-related.

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