Monday, January 09, 2006
AWAKE !
If a man dies without having awakened he cannot be born. If a man is born without having died he may become an 'immortal thing.' Thus the fact that he has not 'died' prevents a man from being 'born'; the fact of his not having awakened prevents him from 'dying'; and should he be born without having died he is prevented from 'being.' (p. 217-218 _In Serch of the Miraculous: The Teachings of G. I. Gurdjieff_ by P. D. Ouspensky, with a Foreword by Marianne Williamson)
Citing Brother Wayne Teasdale, of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue, an article about awakening titled "An Awakening Church: A Catholic Papacy" appears on the website of the White Robed Monks of St. Benedict, a non-denominational order. There we can read that:
With organizations such as the Parliament of the World's Religions, the World Conference on Religion and Peace, the Temple of Understanding, and the World Congress of Faiths, the human race is awakening to bonds of community and commonality. This awakening grounds in spirituality, an interspirituality that is "a willingness and determination to taste the depth of mystical life in other traditions."
It's difficult to say what Russian occultist Gurdjieff had in mind with his juxtaposition of death and awakening. He talks a lot about awakening to oneself. Most of his spirituality is of the experiential nature. You have to take a course to get the message. Whatever it is, "awakening" is central to the Gurdjieffian Fourth Way. The White Robed Monks are a little more specific:
Idealism and pessimism and/or realism and optimism aside, the awakening Church as matrix occurs only within the heart/mind of each individual awakening to his or her own divinity in one's own humanity and one's own humanity in one's own divinity. We are all Children of God — by whatever name or no-name. To what is it that we awaken: that we each are the creator of our own experience, we each are the perceiver who creates the perception, we each are the believer who creates the belief, we each are the story teller who creates our story.
No wonder the monks of the Interreligious Dialogue Institute are working with the Gurdjieffian Church. They are teaching the spirituality of Gurdjieff in the form of "awakening", and it is not Roman Catholic, it is Gnostic Catholic. Occult expert James Webb has written a thick tome on Gurdjieff.
Yesterday I blogged some comments about the design of the church at Emmaus Catholic Parish. In looking at their calendar, I happened to notice the "Longhorn Awakening Peace Staff" scheduled for 8 a.m. on January 28.
Longhorn Awakening. It's a program for college students. There is something unusual in the website. On this webpage, notice the three dots preceding each link. I've never seen that symbol used in a Catholic website until now. I have seen the symbol, however. Thousands of times. It's all over occult websites. Just coincidental, I suppose someone is going to tell me.
Anyway...
There are some pictures of an Awakening weekend, or retreat, or whatever the newest fad calls itself. You can see them here. It actually looks about as harmless as any of the other teen programs...and about as lacking in substance. There are the usual pictures of girls with their arms draped over each other, and boys with their arms draped over each other, and boy-girl combinations of same. There is the usual clowning for the camera. There is the arts and crafts project, or at least what looks like one, and the group gathered around the food. There is a peace sign in the background. There is a picture of "Jodi enjoying death." (I'm not kidding! Gurdjieff would be proud.) There is a picture of hands on what is implied to be a bottle of something alcoholic. That one is labeled "good times." There is a picture of Will when he "was taken down." (He looks like he survived it.) There is the inevitable guitar picture. And there is the naked male chest labeled "This is awakening." (Oh really! Tell me about it. That's supposed to occur on your wedding night!) There are the group photos, and more of them, and more of them; standing upright, pushing each other over, falling to the ground. A good time was had by all. Lots of comradiere. Not a hint of God or Jesus or a saint or anything else of a spiritual nature. Not one. Not in any of those pictures. There is not a hint of maturity there either. This is high school at the college level.
It's something else. It's duplication of the sort of pictures that appear at Novus Ordo Watch and other websites that have been chronicaling the degeneration of the European Catholic churches. Pictures of airheaded youth engaging in foolishness that passes for spirituality in the contemporary Church. The plague of European Catholicism has crossed the pond.
I think it is not terribly wise for a parent to turn their offspring over to the care of the Catholic Church.
In any case, the Longhorn Awakening takes place in the Austin Diocese, where the Emmaus Catholic Parish is located, where the Heart of Texas Contemplative Outreach is located, and where the Gurdjieffian Church of Conscious Harmony is located as well.
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
