Category: Spirituality

One of the thoughts I need to set aside is that thought that God could be angry all the time. Angry for my failures. Angry for my stubbornness. Angry for my many sins.

If I feel that God is always angry, how could I desire to sense His presence?

God is love. There may be a lot of times when He feels sad and disappointed for my faults, but I must set aside my image of Him that’s angry all the time.

After all, did He not want us to refrain from hate? Hate is a poison that kills the heart and soul. Hate is that which prompts a person to kill his brother. To hate is to already suffer the pains of hell even while on earth.

Is that the kind of feeling then I must attribute to God? It is certain that He will never approve of my sins, but it is also certain that He is the God of Infinite Mercy and Compassion. He knows my weakness. He knows I’m but like dust. And He loves me. That’s what I must always keep in mind.

Here’s one of the most beautiful quotes I’ve ever read from Julian of Norwich:

“our Protector God has no need to forgive us, for the Divine is not angry with us; it would be impossible for God to be filled with vengeful wrath. I saw that our lives are grounded and rooted in love; without love, we would not be alive. When grace allows us to look into the amazing Divine Goodness, we see we are endlessly made one with God in love and it is impossible that anger separate us from Divine Love. For wrath and friendship are opposite forces. How could the One who erases and heals our angry arrogance, making us gentle and humble, be anything but unified in love, all gentleness and humility, which is the opposite of wrath?”
— Julian of Norwich (All Shall Be Well: A Modern-Language Version of the Revelation of Julian Norwich by Ellyn Sanna)

Here is an excerpt from The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence:

“I consider myself as the most wretched of men, full of sores and corruption, and who has committed all sorts of crimes against his King. Touched with a sensible regret, I confess to Him all my wickedness, I ask His forgiveness, I abandon myself in His hands that He may do what He pleases with me. The King, full of mercy and goodness, very far from chastising me, embraces me with love, makes me eat at His table, serves me with His own hands, gives me the key of His treasures; He converses and delights Himself with me incessantly, in a thousand and a thousand ways, and treats me in all.”

There’s a certain attraction one could feel about the concept of reincarnation. It’s that feeling of being able to start again, that thought that you can just leave everything and become another person.

This is more tempting when one is undergoing a difficult time in life. When you feel so tired and hopeless, and when there’s nothing in your life that seems to be working well, it’s so tempting to dream of another life, a fuller life, the kind of life that reincarnation may offer you.

But if we go back to the Christian faith, we could clearly see how the concept of reincarnation could never fully satisfy our hunger for a happy life. It is not one that could give us true freedom and satisfaction of heart. If we compare this concept to the kind of life God has made for us, both here and the one after, it would fall short of God’s goodness and generosity.

In the end, the concept of reincarnation falls short of the Mercy of God. And here are just some of the reasons why:

1. The concept of reincarnation leads to a certain longing to escape from ourselves. It also leads to our failure to recognize God’s unique purpose for our lives. Why? Because with reincarnation, we lose our identity and our core gifts. We shift from one kind of person to another that we don’t know anymore who we really are.

Here is an excerpt from the New World Encyclopedia:

Rebirth refers to a process whereby beings go through a succession of lifetimes as one of many possible forms of sentient life, each running from conception to death. In Buddhist thought, this rebirth does not involve any soul, because of its doctrine of anatta (Sanskrit: anatman, no-self doctrine) which rejects the concepts of a permanent self or an unchanging, eternal soul, as it is called in Hinduism and Christianity.

Paul Williams, a Buddhist who converted to Catholicism has this to say:

“It seems to me patently obvious that if I am reborn the person I am now in this life ceases to exist. This is blindingly obvious if I am reborn as a cockroach in South America… Could we anymore say I would be the same person if my rebirth involved a human embryo in Africa? Or in Bristol, in my own family? And the standard Buddhist position (correctly) explicitly denies that the rebirth is the same person as the one who died. Thus rebirth is incompatible with the infinite value of the person.

But Christianity is the religion of the infinite value of the person. The person we are, or can become, is not accidental to us, and is not unimportant. Each person is an individual creation of God, as such infinitely loved and valued by God.”

2. Living over and over again is short of God’s mercy that only wills for us to live this painful life once.

If we already feel tired just living this life, how much more if we live over and over again? This is different from the perfect eternal life in heaven Christians look forward to after living one lifetime on earth.

3. Considering the final goal of reincarnation, which is nirvana, it leads only to the extinction of self instead of the redemption of the person.

Here is a definition of Nirvana per Catholic Encyclopedia:

To obtain deliverance from birth, all forms of desire must be absolutely quenched, not only very wicked craving, but also the desire of such pleasures and comforts as are deemed innocent and lawful, the desire even to preserve one’s conscious existence. It was through this extinction of every desire that cessation of misery was to be obtained. This state of absence of desire and pain was known as Nirvana (Nibbana). This word was not coined by Buddha, but in his teaching, it assumed a new shade of meaning. Nirvana means primarily a “blowing out”, and hence the extinction of the fire of desire, ill-will, delusion, of all, in short, that binds the individual to rebirth and misery. It was in the living Buddhist saint a state of calm repose, of indifference to life and death, to pleasure and pain, a state of imperturbable tranquility, where the sense of freedom from the bonds of rebirth caused the discomforts as well as the joys of life to sink into insignificance.

Following is an excerpt taken from Wikipedia:

Nirvana literally means “blowing out, quenching, becoming extinguished”. In early Buddhist texts, it is the state of restraint and self-control that leads to the “blowing out” and the ending of the cycles of sufferings associated with rebirths and redeaths. Many later Buddhist texts describe nirvana as identical with anatta with complete “emptiness, nothingness”. In some texts, the state is described with greater detail, such as passing through the gate of emptiness (sunyata)—realising that there is no soul or self in any living being, then passing through the gate of signlessness (animitta)—realising that nirvana cannot be perceived, and finally passing through the gate of wishlessness (apranihita)—realising that nirvana is the state of not even wishing for nirvana.

In Christianity, what we hope for is a blessed eternal life with God, a life filled with incomparable happiness where we remain as the person we are and we recognize the people we love. It is not the dissolution of the self but the salvation of the person with an eternal soul that is one’s goal.

“Inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once, and after this, judgement, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.”?—?Hebrews 9:27–28, WEBBE

4. Reincarnation seeks our attraction on the satisfaction of our desires in this life rather than in the perfect life God wills for us in the new heaven and earth. With reincarnation, the concept of karma also comes into play. I can compare it to a game with many levels. The more you gain experience, and the better you perform, the better also will your status be in life. You will be richer, stronger and more talented. Those things will become your reward.

Here is a relevant excerpt from Wikipedia:

While Buddhism considers the liberation from samsara as the ultimate spiritual goal, in traditional practice, the primary focus of a vast majority of lay Buddhists has been to seek and accumulate merit through good deeds, donations to monks and various Buddhist rituals in order to gain better rebirths rather than nirvana.

In Christianity, on the other hand, man looks for God Himself as his eternal reward. We look forward to something that even our wildest dreams and imaginings could never contain.

5. It deceives us into believing we can overcome the weakness of the flesh and of our fallen nature on our own.

With reincarnation, we are made to believe that we can save ourselves, and that it is within our power to overcome our sinful nature. But the truth revealed in Christianity is that it is God Himself who gives us grace to do so. It is true that it will always require cooperation on our part, but we could never do it on our own. It is not a certain number of repeated lives that we need, but faith in Jesus Christ who came to do what we could never accomplish on our own.

6. It eradicates the existence of a loving personal God in whom alone we can find happiness.

Reincarnation for me is a lonely concept. Isn’t it lonely to always be separated from the people you meet and love in life? The movies make this more attractive when it suggests that we’d still meet those people again and again in other lives. But when we really think about it, would it still be them? And would it still be us? It would be a very lonely journey that never seems to end.

7. It makes us believe that all our current sufferings is a just punishment and a result of karma.

If you believe in karma, how would you see the people around you? And how would you see yourself? When you see suffering people, won’t you be tempted to simply assume they are just paying the price for their previous sins?

It also ignores the wisdom and truth that even the innocent can suffer and that their suffering is not their due punishment.

“The Buddhist views karma as a way to explain why one person is born into luxury and another is homeless or why one man is a genius and another has severe mental challenges. According to the law of karma, none of these inequalities is accidental, but each is the result of something the person did either in this or a past life for which he or she is being punished or rewarded.”
— Susan Brinkmann, A Catholic Guide to Mindfulness

8. Belief in reincarnation brings danger of the occult and influence of deceiving spirits that can make people imagine an illusion of a past life.

Curiosity for their past lives may lead some people to consult hypnotists or those who can help them recall their past lives. This method puts the person at risk of being open to deceiving spirits.

9. The concept of reincarnation fails to help the person correct one’s mistakes for the simple reason that it makes him forget his previous life.

If reincarnation was meant to help people become better until one reaches nirvana, how can we ever succeed and get out of the cycle when a new life only breeds more and more mistakes?

‘When the single course of our earthly life is completed, we shall not return to other earthly lives’ (CCC 1013).

But someone will say, “How are the dead raised?” and, “With what kind of body do they come?”…The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power…Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must become imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable body will have become imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then what is written will happen: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “Death, where is your sting? Hades, where is your victory?”- 1 Corinthians 15, WEBBE

I spent a day recently doing my research about mindfulness and meditation. I’ve long felt something uncomfortable within me about the said practices that seem to abound these days, though I just couldn’t pinpoint exactly what’s wrong with them.

Wikipedia defines mindfulness as follows:

“Mindfulness is the practice of purposely bringing one’s attention in the present moment without judgment, a skill one develops through meditation or other training.”

The American Psychological Association (APA.org, 2012) defines mindfulness as follows:

“…a moment-to-moment awareness of one’s experience without judgment. In this sense, mindfulness is a state and not a trait. While it might be promoted by certain practices or activities, such as meditation, it is not equivalent to or synonymous with them.”

I started by re-reading some posts by Connie Rossini who writes about Contemplative Prayer (and discusses more about it in her Facebook Group Authentic Contemplative Prayer). She explained how mindfulness and Eastern forms of meditation can be problematic in terms of the Catholic faith. By problematic meditation, I don’t mean to refer to Christian meditation but to practices that are more from Buddhist origins.

True enough, there were dangers to the said type of meditation. And the risks range from spiritual to psychological and physical levels. I have read several articles that document people who are adversely affected by it, especially those who are more vulnerable like those with PTSD.

Here are some examples:
Is mindfulness making us ill?
The dark side of mindfulness: It’s supposed to be calming. But there’s growing evidence the fashionable therapy can be harmful

More and more, mindfulness and meditation have been penetrating the realms of psychology. It is no wonder that people see it as merely secular or scientific, forgetting their Buddhist origins.

Here is an excerpt of its historical development as per Wikipedia:

Mindfulness as a modern, Western practice is founded on Zen and modern vipassana, and involves the training of sati, which means “moment to moment awareness of present events”, but also “remembering to be aware of something”…

Sati is one of the seven factors of enlightenment. “Correct” or “right” mindfulness… is the seventh element of the noble eightfold path.

In addition, therefore, to the psychological risks cited by some sources as in the above, mindfulness and meditation also have deep spiritual repercussions especially for Christians.

Here are some of its spiritual risks:

1. The attraction to Buddhism

As mindfulness and Eastern meditation both came from Buddhist origins, it can’t be helped that some may be attracted to Buddhism itself. With it comes a total turnaround from the values and beliefs of Christianity to a whole new spirituality that opens the following themes:

– belief in karma and reincarnation (both have their own spiritual dangers)
– belief that the self is but an illusion or that there is no true individual soul, which is contrary to the Christian belief that man was created in the image and likeness of God.

2. Tendency to lose one’s sense of right and wrong

A description of mindfulness that often comes to the surface is one similar to that given by the APA: “a moment-to-moment awareness of one’s experience without judgment.”

The key phrase is “without judgment”. In the long run, people may have such a confusion of mind as to no longer be able to distinguish between right and wrong. While we do have to avoid “misjudging” people and circumstances, we do have to possess a good kind of discernment to distinguish good from evil, the things that could harm us and the things that could bring us good.

3. Addiction to spiritual pleasures

While it is not the purpose of Buddhism to lure one into the addiction of spiritual pleasures, it is a natural tendency for human beings to be attracted to that which gives them delight. Without a proper grounding and a stable path to spiritual growth, it is a danger to one’s spiritual life to be exposed to pleasurable sensations brought about by meditation.

This is very different from the prayerful contemplation of the Catholic saints, whose end is to love God.  While such contemplation may also be associated with a heightened sense of joy, it is grounded in one’s relationship with God and a kind of surrender that is willing to suffer for His sake.  These saints are willing even to endure spiritual periods of dryness for the sake of love.  It is also a kind of love that pours forth to other people, not being confined to oneself but always expresses itself fully in one’s love of neighbor not only in thought but in word and action.

4. Tendency to be trapped in one’s inner world

It is another human tendency to escape from the suffering of life. Once some relief is tasted, it is a temptation to remain in one’s inner world and forget other aspects of one’s life. In a way, this can also lead some to a form of self-centeredness where one is no longer interested in forming healthy relationships around him or her. Instead of addressing one’s problems, one becomes too focused on one’s meditation practices, seeking only temporary relief from one’s troubles.

Final words

I just pray that people, especially Christians could just avail of the practices that are within the safety of the Church. Instead of meditating in a lotus position, trying to rid your mind from all thoughts, why not bow down on your knee and pray to God? Pray and surrender to Someone who loves you and sees you.

Christianity is quite simple in many ways, so simple that it is available even for the likes of young children. Instead of mindfulness, why not practice being the very presence of God? Through His presence, we are assured that we are not abandoned. Through His love, we are comforted that we are not alone.

“It is, however, necessary to put our whole trust in God, laying aside all other cares, and even some particular forms of devotion, though very good in themselves, yet such as one often engages in unreasonably, because these devotions are only means to attain to the end. So when by this exercise of the presence of God we are with Him who is our end, it is then useless to return to the means; but we may continue with Him our commerce of love” – Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

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“The difficulties of life do not have to be unbearable. It is the way we look at them – through faith or unbelief – that makes them seem so. We must be convinced that our Father is full of love for us and that He only permits trials to come our way for our own good.” – Brother Lawrence

I have been reacquainted with the classic book The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, a 17 century Carmelite friar. He was able to find connection with God even in everyday tasks like working in the kitchen.

I wanted to read this book because I wanted to acquire the same sense of God’s presence in my life. I wanted to be near Him not only when I pray or when I read the Bible, but even as I go about my ordinary tasks.

While I could start on my own and try to call to mind God’s presence, I wanted to have assistance in this journey. On my own, I know that due to my weaknesses, it will not be an easy task. Because while it is ideal, the thought of being connected always to God is not a light matter even for those who believe in Him.

What if I keep on sinning? What if my thoughts wander all the time? Considering my somewhat scrupulous tendencies, I need God’s grace to help me with this.

If you also want to read the book, below are the links to the free copies you may download online:

Gutenberg

Ccel

Traditional religion has had its share of criticism in modern times. It has been seen as stifling, domineering, misjudging and empty, a mere set of rules and traditions that never help one grow within. Not a few people have been hurt by those who claim righteousness and holiness. Not a few have felt condemned and cast away.

Perhaps this is why many have been outspoken against religion and many would like to claim they are no longer religious but spiritual. Spirituality had been a new refuge for those who feel that their needs could no longer be satisfied by the traditional religions they knew before.

This kind of spirituality has its advantages, and one of its first incentives is freedom. For the first time, one is freed from all the voices that seem to curtail one’s thoughts and actions. One is no longer told what to do. One can finally do as one wishes.

This kind of spirituality is also convenient. You can take it along with you wherever you go. You can dig deeper into the unknown universe at any time of the day and however fast or long you want to. You are the master of your own beliefs. You can seek whatever powers you long to have.

For all its merits, we should have finally been satisfied. But are we? For all its advantages, we should have finally achieved happiness. But have we?

It’s funny when you thought you’ve already reached that thing you wanted most only to realize it could never satisfy you in the end. You’ve had everything you wanted, what do you still lack?

Perhaps that’s where the problem is. You have always considered only the things you knew and desired. In pursuit of yourself, you have left something else, Someone else. You have gone your own way and you finally realize that you are alone.

The spirituality you sought could never give you the satisfaction that you need. The energies you have summoned could never even speak. The whole universe itself could never be your spouse. All the powers of the world could never comfort your aching heart. Your own subconscious mind could never take you further than the world of your own making.

Live forever if you wish. Travel the galaxies for as much as you desire. Whatever you may do, you would still be damned. A spirituality divorced from a sacred relationship with the True God could never save your soul from being alone.

“God is an ocean, a fire, a living fountain…That is the essence of prayer: this contact with a living God, a God who reacts not like a simple inanimate being but like a living person, with a thrill of joy, with the gift of Himself.” – Marie-Eugene of the Child Jesus, OCD (Where the Spirit Breathes)

“If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burnt, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing.” – 1 Corinthians 13:1-3, WEBBE

I think what makes Christianity so frightening is that you can’t be a part of it unless you’re willing to risk engaging in a relationship.