Posted by Dennis on February 16, 19101 at 10:43:31:
In Reply to: Re: True Self, False Self. . . Bernadette Roberts posted by Dennis on February 16, 19101 at 09:59:03:
: : Do you really want to listen to someone off the cuff telling you that Bernadette Roberts is self serving? What does your heart say? Bernadette is so far beyond anything that has been published in the Christian contemplative literature that you will often run across people who are willing to tell you where it is at, when in truth they are simply talking from their experience and from the conditioned mind. If the speaker is not living from the heart, but the mind instead, then you need not take them seriously, since they don't have the direct experience of what Bernadette is talking about. If you recognize that she is true to the contemplative experience in her personal description of it, then why doubt her? You will only come to know the truth of what she says by God's grace if you totally give yourself to the Divine. People of limited experience with rigid mind sets will attempt to keep their positions in tact because to do otherwise is threatening. But the mind and all of its entrenched beliefs have to be offered as a gift of your self to God. What remains is after you have fully inspected them and gave them as an offering is what is your truth. The language you use and the beliefs you hold after they are offered are still taken from your life's experience. The heart, on the other hand, knows the truth directly without being dependent on the mind other than to communicate and describe what is given. Even then the descriptions often don't fully express the experience. This is obvious when you experience a tree directly versus trying to describe a tree verbally or in writing. You can never convey the actual experience. If this is true in describing a tree, then it is all the more difficult to describe something as intangible as the spiritual heart. In either case you have to experience it to really know what is being described. So don't get too dependent on others descriptions, find out for yourself by taking serious your total commitment to God.
Love, Dennis