THE PATH OF DEVOTION
As
human beings we give outward expression to the inward reality of our love with
our human beloveds. We speak our
love; we have special places in our homes where we connect with our loved ones
in images, symbols, and objects of remembrance. We have private spaces where we share intimacy with them,
emotional, physical, and spiritual. We express our love in whispers, smiles,
gestures, posture, and in physical embrace. Sometimes we even sing songs or
lullabies. Throughout our day we
have moments of pause to turn our attention and affection to our cherished
ones. In our wallets, in our
offices, we keep photographic images of our beloveds to remind us of the sacred
connections and life purpose we are committed to, and that give us refuge and
solace. We create and sustain
sacred rituals of togetherness and intimacy, whether in the dining room or the
bedroom where we sometimes we even light candles and turn off the phone or
other distraction, and play special music. All these are acts of devotion. They establish us and return
us to the presence of our loved ones, and enable us to invoke our deeper
intention to give our lives, our presence, and our love to them day to
day. These outward expressions not
only nourish this unitive love and incarnate it in direct or symbolic
expression, but in their totality they hold our life together and return us to
our grounding in deeper purpose, meaning, and communion. All of this practice of relational love
holds true even more profoundly in our relational life of communion with the
Divine Beloved. Such is the Path
of Devotion.
Nurturing and Expressing Devotional Love
In the mystic path of Christianity, unitive love
is both the goal and the way. The core practice is intimate communion with the
Beloved, Who abides in the sanctuary of our heart and the heart of all
beings. Even though the Divine is
beyond words and form, reverent rituals, sacred chants and physical gestures
lead us to the threshold of intimacy, where we embody Christ in our physical
forms and daily lives. A human
love affair includes both the assuredness of an unspoken love, as well as the
dance of romance in words of endearment, acts of kindness, tender looks and
gentle touches that nurture and deepen a union that extends beyond words and
emotion. Similarly, in the love
affair with the Divine Beloved, we both abide in the stillness of pure
Presence, where we eternally belong, as well as nurture our longing for the
Divine. Both attention, being present to the abiding Presence, and intention, our loving surrender, are essential dimensions of
our devotional practice. The way
of devotion helps us engage, nurture, and focus our deep longing of the soul for
the Divine embrace.
In Hindu spiritual tradition the practices
that cultivate intimacy with the Divine are called yoga, which means joining,
or yoke. In the tradition of yoga, pure meditation is called “raja (highest)
yoga,” where the practice of awareness or attention is the focus. The yoga of devotional love is called
bhakti yoga, where the practice of intention or loving desire for God is
cultivated and liberated. Bhakti
can have many expressions, including chanting, singing, dancing, prostrations,
bowing and so on. All of these are
forms that engage the humanity, body and soul, of the practitioners in their
desire for God. We find parallel
expressions in the Christian path of devotional love.
My own life experience and spiritual
journey has brought me into contact with many rich forms of both Christian and
Soto Zen Buddhist monastic devotional practice. (As a young person I attended a
Benedictine seminary and was also a lay minister practicing in a Soto Zen
monastery.) Some may be surprised that the Zen monk who sits countless hours
facing a wall, still and passionless, also chants, bows, does offerings,
prostrations, recites vows, and sings litanies to the Mahayana deities of
Buddhism. The Benedictine monastic
life embodies many of the highest forms of Gregorian chant and liturgical forms
of devotional expression. The
chanting of the Liturgy of the Hours, or Divine Office, is the center of the
Benedictine Life. I was graced to
live this devotional life for a time as a young person. I should also say that
the Zen Master and Abbess of Shasta Abbey, Margaret Jiyu Kennett Roshi, my
first spiritual teacher in the practice of meditation, had a doctorate in
liturgical music from London University, and as a musician played for many of
the great Cathedrals of England. She translated the Zen sutras into English and
put the chanting into Gregorian forms. One of the daily morning scriptures at
Shasta Abbey was put to the music of a beautiful Russian Orthodox hymn. Thus I
was blessed to have engaged in a deep and beautiful devotional practice during
my tenure as a lay practitioner in training at Shasta Abbey and its associated
priories.
I have to say while there can be beautiful music
expressions, the average lay person’s devotional practice in Western
Christianity of the European or North American kind can be greatly
impoverished. Worshippers are often limited to sitting in pews, sometimes
standing or kneeling. Either alone or in community the average Christian has no
experience in the exercise of devotional chanting, bowing, devotional hand
gestures of adoration or offering, and, least of all, prostrations. For too
many, devotional practice is largely a barren experience that scarcely nurtures
nor expresses to any great degree the interior life of Inner Communion and
Intimacy with the Divine Beloved. It is no wonder that the young especially
find devotional practice to hold little spiritual nourishment.
Devotional Practice in Daily Life
My friend and excellent teacher in the
Christian contemplative prayer arena, Cynthia Bourgeault, tells the story of a
young man who seeks out an Orthodox priest in search of faith and purpose at a
time of despair and discouragement in his life. The spiritual guide advises him
to drop his obsessive mind questions and instead adopt a simple practice of 100
reverent prostrations daily for a month. In other words let the body, rather
than the thinking egoic mind resolve the spiritual dilemma and find true
connection in the heart, or spiritual center. The story goes that the young man
returned in a month in a transformed state. With the burden of belief lifted
from his shoulders through the body and the Heart he found Faith in the
connection to Inner Communion and taking refuge in Divine Mercy through
devotional practice. It is also no accident that for practitioners undertaking
the spiritual journey in the Tibetan Buddhism tradition the initiation practice
is the completion of 100,000 prostrations. Such wisdom of the Path of Devotion extends across the
mystic traditions of the world.
Our Home Sanctuary: Sacred Meditation Space
Everyone who has experienced conscious
intimacy with a human or Divine Beloved knows that becoming accessible to
intimate union requires the dropping of the boundaries of separateness to
reveal an exquisite interior receptivity and sensitivity of the soul. This same sensitivity as revealed in
the Song of Solomon “My Beloved is mine, and I am his..” is where we respond
with full surrender to the invitation of Yeshua to “Abide in my love.” This interior exposure and nakedness
requires the presence of complete safety and trust, made possible only through
the creation of a sacred sanctuary space. It is a sad reality that so few
humans experience this sacred sanctuary space in their lives, especially in
their own homes. What a different world it would be, if at the center of every
home was a room dedicated to utter silence and communion with the Divine, a
space where silent meditation and devotional practice could take place without
intrusion and with full respect and reverence from all who take residence in
the home.
At minimum a serious spiritual
practitioner who is on the path of Inner Communion and seeks to be immersed in
the interior love of Christ should set aside a sanctuary space in her/his
living space. Ideally it should be
a room, at minimum, a corner of a room, where no other activity takes place, a
space where quiet and non-intrusion is the rule, at least when meditation/Prayer
of the Heart or devotional prayers are taking place. This space should be
consecrated space, wholly set aside and made holy by its dedication to the
purpose of Unitive Love with the Divine. Reverence requires it should be kept
clean and uncluttered and prayerfully decorated with those sacred symbols and
objects that are an expression of its high purpose. The space should be entered with a reverent attitude,
reverent movements, and practices. Heartful bows, prayerful hand position, and
even removal of shoes expresses this for many practitioners.
(Bringing the hands
together, palm to palm, in a prayerful bow, gathers our awareness and
willingness, into the devotional energies of heartful love in the central heart area of the chest. Such a
devotional practice is powerful in anchoring us in the Stream of Christ’s Love
as we gather the totality of our heartful presence and longing in the heart and
settle into the interior quiet and
communion of the heart as our hands move from palm to palm bowing and are
folded resting in our lap.)
Altars: At the center of the sanctuary space of practice
should be an altar. An altar in
nearly every sacred tradition is a symbol of the meeting ground between Divine
and human. It is the symbolic meeting place where the Divine offers Itself to
Creation and receives Creation’s self-offering. In this sacred place the
human/Creation self-offering and becomes transmuted and transformed, infused
and divinized with the Divine’s Gift of Self. The altar is the table of the
Wedding Feast of the Divine and Creation taught in mystic Judaic tradition. It
is also the sacred space of the daily Wedding Feast in our daily joining with
the Beloved. In our daily practice it is towards the altar that we bow and do
prostrations, reverencing the Life and Love that is our Source and to which our
own human mind and creations are forever subservient. For those who are devotees of Yeshua, as personification of
the Divine Beloved it is appropriate to place icons of the sacred traditions of
icon veneration, or other appropriate symbols of Yeshua, on the altar. The
physical altar in our devotional space stands in for the altar present in the
inner sanctuary of the Heart, and the Divine Indwelling present therein.
I am one who suggests to devotees that
they be creative and intuitive, led by grace and interior need, in the
placement of other sacred objects on the altar, and the artistic veneration of
the altar and sanctuary space. Objects of nature can be place in accordance
with the season. Objects or images, photographs of love ones, who are especially
held in prayerful concern or gratitude, are a blessing to place on the altar.
And of course, traditionally flowers or incense may also be placed on the altar
in acts of veneration. A lit candle during times of devotional or meditation
practice is meaningful. (With a childhood history of our house burning down at
age 5, I am one who is particularly concerned about fire danger, so I use
battery powered or electric lights or candles.)
Reverent etiquette should be the rule at
all times in your meditation sanctuary space. Observing silence, bowing toward
the altar and icons to begin and end every period of spiritual practice. A
protected sacred space for formal practice of meditation/Prayer of the Heart,
should be a prime purpose in this sanctuary. Some practitioners use a
meditation bench or cushion; some use a chair. We make these choices based on
physical considerations or prior training. I started out in my meditation
practice at age 21 sitting on a cushion in half lotus position. Since then I have
graduated to a meditation bench and now to a chair at age 62. So in 40 years I have adapted to the
state of my body. There is no need to inflict needless pain to attain some
externally prescriptive ideal of what a meditation posture should be. Most prefer
to have the meditation space facing the altar, while some prefer the Zen style
of facing a wall during silent meditation and facing the altar during
devotional practice.
A Daily Order of Devotional Practice
In order to flesh out the varied dimensions of
devotional life and practice I am going to draw on examples from my daily
patterns. The specific forms I may use might not be the best for everyone, but
the basic elements are applicable to all practitioners. My devotional practice
in the course of the day is largely wrapped around and is an outward expression
of my silent meditation practice:
Morning:
The early morning is a most receptive time for
beginning your daily practice, before the obsessive mind has a chance to get
fully engaged. For me the time of rising is usually at 5 AM. After a quick cup
of English tea I enter my meditation space with hands folded over the heart. I
approach the altar, bow with palms pressed together over the heart, and light
the candles, three of them. My altar is many tiered with Orthodox icons at
various levels, along with Taize
and Celtic devotional crosses.
The central icon on the altar is the
Christ Pantocrator icon from St. Catherine of Sinai monastery (5th
c.). I then strike a Japanese style temple bell three times in invocation of
the Holy Trinity before the altar, and in namaste’ prayer style, again with
palms together before the heart, I chant this invocation, “Yeshua, Yeshua, you
in me, I in you.” This establishes me in my intention as I prepare to enter
into silent Prayer of the Heart practice. (A variant of this might be an
extended period of devotional chanting. For example a contemplative community I
am affiliated with has a practice of five minutes of devotionally chanting
“Shalom” in the morning and evening before the first meditation period. In a
group it is quite powerful.) I then extend my hands outward toward the altar
reciting softly a prayer of consecration, “ O Beloved, take my life
and make it yours. O Beloved, take all that I am and transform it into you.
Heart of Yeshua, I vow to take refuge always in you.” I then hit the bell with the ringer one more time,
bow and turn to my meditation seat. I have a meditation quilt that was made by
my dear step-mother, Margie, and given to me at her death. It has ritual as
well as emotional value for me, so I place my hands folded on the quilt as I am
seated, with an erect back but comfortable posture, and begin my first period
25 min. period of meditation, and I introduce the Holy Name of Yeshua,
synchronized with my breath and continue on in silence.
At the conclusion of the first
period of meditation, I hold my hands prayerfully in namaste’ (“gasho” in Zen
practice) position and recite a vow of practice. This is done each
morning at the conclusion of the first meditation period. The words of the vow
connect the silent practice of inner communion with entirely of my life and
activity. They are as follows:
“How great and wondrous
is your Mercy, O Beloved, enfolding all the universe. I vow to bring forth your
Life within me that I may help all living beings. I will love You with my whole
heart, soul, spirit, and strength. I will love all beings as myself. O Beloved,
make me a vessel of your mercy.”
The purpose of this vow is
to re-commit myself to my life’s purpose of “Theosis,” or Christification. In
this vow I commit to live out the Great Commandment of Love and to unite my
human life with the flow of Divine Life in and through me. The inner and the
outer life are united and consecrated to this one purpose.
My usual pattern is to have three 25
minute periods of Prayer of the Heart meditation practice each morning.
Sometimes they will be continuous; sometimes they will be interspersed with
walking meditation in a circular or oval fashion in the sanctuary space, with
hands folded over the heart. On rising for the walking meditation I bow towards
the altar and begin the walking meditation. The walking meditation lasts about
five minutes. At the conclusion of the walking practice I bow again toward the
altar and resume my next period of sitting meditation. At the end of my silent
Prayer of the Heart meditation practice, after striking the gong or bell twice
in the customary way, I position myself for devotional praying and holding my
devotional prayer book in my hand.
.
Devotional Praying
Across the global traditions there are
varied expressions of recited or chanted devotional texts. Buddhists recite or
chant the sutras, poetic formulations of the sayings of the Buddha or other prominent
teachers in their tradition. Muslims recite selections from the Koran.
Christian monks recite or chant the psalms and collections of other traditional
prayers. This formalized devotional praying from established texts and prayers
has the effect and the intention of reshaping the consciousness of the devotee,
bringing it into an alignment of devotional love for the Divine and grounding
the consciousness in the teachings of that spiritual tradition. In my own
background I have chanted the psalms using Gregorian modes of intonation. I
have also chanted the sutras and other tradition Buddhist prayers and texts
using both Western and Eastern (Japanese) modes of chanting. Done alone or in
community this is a powerful exercise of devotional expression.
Intercessions: While all of Prayer of the Heart is an offering of
the world to the healing touch of Yeshua, the Beloved, there is a pause in my
devotional practice for deliberate intercessions, which begin with the verse, “
O Beloved Yeshua, extend your mercy and healing touch into our soul and the
soul of humankind. Touch us and heal us, bring us to abide in your love.” Then I bring to awareness my offering of persons, beings, and situations
of need to the Mercy of Christ.
These intercessions extend from the very personal to the global,
coinciding with hand movements of offering directed towards the altar.
Integration of Chant
forms and Body Devotional Practice: In
my morning devotional practice I have included Gregorian invocations and
responses, such as the Gregorian “Kyrie,” which is recited following the
intercessions. I love deeply the prayer chants of the Taize community and
include a number of them also in my practice. In place of the traditional
psalms I chant text from the Celtic Prayers of Iona prayer book (Philip Newell). It is important that the meaning
content of words used in devotional praying be utterly in harmony with the
heart’s intention.
I also include in my morning devotions a “Litany
of Refuge in the Heart of Christ,”
modified from a traditional Catholic ”Litany to the Sacred Heart.” I
include a prayer from Brother Roger of Taize, and two verses from the ancient
Celtic Hymn, “Be Thou My Vision.” The morning devotional practice
is punctuated at the end with a chant of my own creation, emulating a form of
the Yeshua Prayer. The chant
goes “Yeshua my beloved, heart of the living God, In your Mercy, In your
Mercy, we abide.” (repeated three
times and accompanied by hand movements of offering and bowing.)
The morning devotional practice is concluded by three
prostrations before the altar (Trinitarian devotion). These are full or kneeling prostrations with my head resting
on my hands, palms downward, on the floor, accompanied by the whispered
invocation, “Yeshua, my beloved.” “Yeshua, my beloved.” and “Yeshua, in your
mercy.” (third prostration) I then bow before the altar, strike the
bell two times and extinguish the candles. The formulation and development of this and all my devotional
practice has been a creative process over time, done with great intentionality
and intuitive discernment to include those forms and expressions that resonate
deeply with the Heart and which feed and tend the Flame of Yeshua’s Fire.
Devotional Recollection
Throughout the Day: Even in the
hermit life I live one can be forgetful and get off track and lose conscious
connection from the interior silence and communion and the interior
intentionality through the day.
Not only do I practice a habitual, ongoing return to the prayer word
invocation of the Holy Name of Yeshua, but at intervals through the day, and
especially during my exercise work out, I practice the prayer mantra, “Yeshua,
in your mercy” which helps my
consciousness find refuge in the self-offering and the offering of the world and
any special intentions or intercessions I have for persons or situations of
need. At a psychological level
this ongoing act of “offering up” the concerns that come to me is a source of
peace and compassionate detachment from the obsessive mind. At pauses in the
day I sit quietly and whisper inwardly the prayer of consecration used at the
beginning of the day, “O Beloved, take my life and make it yours, take all
that I am and transform it into you.”
Sacred Rituals in
Community or in Solitude
With those who share my love of devotional
practice I find two particular devotional rituals practiced primarily in
community (but also alone) particularly meaningful and sacred. They are the practice of the Agape Liturgy,
which is a non-canonical form of the Eucharist without a clergy presider. This sacred ritual is practiced from a
theology more in keeping with the early table Eucharist presided over by lay
people and referred to as the “Breaking of the Bread.” They are a true “Remembrance,”
awakening to the Self-Gift of the Divine Christ within and among us, without
the mediation of external institutional authorities. (Such lay-led personal
devotional expressions of the prayer of Remembrance, are not intended to
replace, but to supplement the clergy led canonically celebrated Eucharist in
community.) I also find the Taize devotional service of chanted prayers,
candles, inspirational readings, and veneration of the cross a deeply inspired
and grace-filled sacred ritual to practice in community or alone.
Evening Devotional
Practice
Possibly like most persons in their 60s I
am often fatigued toward the close of day. I bring my day to closure with a
short time of recollection of the events of the day, discerning whatever
residue of unease, unforgiveness, or disturbance of conscience may be in my
consciousness. I enter my quiet Prayer of the Heart time with the Yeshua chant
before my altar having again struck the bell as with morning. At the end of
silent practice there is a shorter devotional practice, again using text from
the evening prayer text of the Iona community, with the intercessions, and with
the offering up of any sources of interior disturbance to the healing touch of
Yeshua, praying for and opening to any need of forgiveness. The last chanted verse
comes from the Western monastic hour of Compline, “Into your hands, O
Beloved, I commend my spirit.” It is chanted twice, followed by
the responsorial of “ In Christ we are given to you day and night.” And then
“Into your hands……” is recited the third time.” This is, of course, the prayer
surrender of Yeshua at his death and an appropriate prayer of surrender for us
before entering sleep. The evening
devotions are then concluded with the same chanted form of the same Yeshua
prayer used at the conclusion of the morning devotions and a slowly whispered
recitation of the 23rd Psalm.
The Yoga of Devotional
Love
The Way of Devotion is the
complement and outward expression of the interior silent practice of Prayer of
the Heart. It releases our consciousness from the content and contagion of the
media and culture we live in, restores us from misdirection, and brings us
ceaselessly home to our heart’s true desire. In these daily patterns the fires
of loving surrender to the Beloved are fed, and the “Intention” dimension of
the life of Inner Communion in Yeshua’s Fire in the Cave of the Heart is
liberated and flames up in power and grace.
