Inner Authority
Document Actions
by Hilda Montalvo
It has been said that the task of this era is to go from "the experience of religious authority to the authority of religious experience." The invitation to those who desire to live authentically is to trust our own experience of God, to discover our gift and call in relationship to ourselves, our community and our God. It is not an easy task, and it is always ongoing. It demands courage, openness, trust and the willingness to abandon judgment of "right and wrong."Many years ago, when I was starting my spiritual journey, I had a recurring dream that someone very close and dear to me was dead. It was my task to keep pushing her back into the coffin and reminding her to stay dead. My terror was indescribable. I interpreted this dream according to traditional Roman Catholic spirituality that I had to die to myself. For me this meant that I had to put everybody else's desires and wishes before my own. Finally, I realized that by doing so I was giving myself away inappropriately. When I started the arduous process of acknowledging, accepting and loving my true Self in God, the dream never returned.
There is no doubt that dying to self is primordial in the spiritual life and is, in fact, the invitation of the Paschal mystery. The problem is the definition of self. What has to die is our false self, the ego, the "persona" that is formed by cultural expectations, the importance of image and "should's." The false self tries to live up to some external goal. The true Self, on the other hand, is made in the image and likeness of the Trinitarian God. We experience this Self as the interface between the finite and the infinite.
I have been helped tremendously by the writings of Beatrice Bruteau, a contemplative Christian philosopher who has integrated Eastern nondualism with Christian dogma, myths and symbols (see her books Radical Optimism and What We Can Learn from the East plus her articles, "Symbiotic Cosmos," in The Roll and "The Living One: Transcendent Freedom Creates the Future," in Cistercian Studies). Bruteau proposes that the true Self in God is simply "I am." Any predicate or description that follows this "I am" is merely ego.
We cause ourselves problems when we identify with the predicates or definitions that follow our "I am." These predicates must die or at least be very loosely held. One technique that is very helpful in this respect is one that I experienced at Shalem. I sat knee to knee with another participant. For five minutes she responded to my descriptions of myself (i.e., I am a woman, I am Cuban, wife, mother, grandmother, lazy, intelligent, etc.) with a compassionate, "God is merciful." We then switched roles. That God could be merciful toward my sinfulness or negative traits was understandable and desirable; that God also was merciful for my gifts and cherished accomplishments was hard to take. That was insightful, but the experience that radically changed my point of view was identifying with the God of mercy and experiencing God's grace flowing through me. For those few moments I rested in God's love for the other and allowed God to love the other in and with and through me.
This is the deepest meaning of "I am." Bruteau asserts that, "The contemplatives teach their pupils that at the center of our consciousness we contact the Infinite, and the goal of our spiritual practices is to experience ourselves as situated there, at the center, in touch with the Infinite, looking out on, in, or through the finite" (Radical Optimism). This is metanoia, the radical reversal of our point of view, not looking toward God, or working for God, or searching for God's will, but living from God, with God, in God.
From this stance one does not experience God as Other, as Martin Buber's "I-Thou," but as "I-I," two subjects united in self-donative love. To live from God as it were, is the invitation to live contemplatively, not looking at God but believing and trusting Jesus' words, " ... that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you" (John 15:20).
The inner authority that comes from living from this contemplative stance results in incredible gratefulness, spaciousness and freedom. Because we identify ourselves primarily with the God that "sources" our being, our doings or our ego definitions tend to be held lightly and with a sense of humor. Because we are not vested in being right or different or special, we can learn from others, cooperate and co-create the kingdom of God. We can share our truths and be present to others without fear of losing ourselves in them. We can live in the Trinitarian balance of intimacy and autonomy, receiving everything from others and giving everything in trust and love. This description may sound very idealistic and even unreal. And from the ego stance it is. But as Bruteau writes, "Our actions flow from our attitudes, and our attitudes flow from our perceptions, and our perceptions are molded by our assumptions, our faith .... Change your faith and you will get a new world" (Radical Optimism). Inner authority, then, flows from the conscious experience and choice of living with God, in God and through God. This is our faith.
Hilda is a graduate of Shalem's Spiritual Guidance Program, Class of 1987, a wife, mother, grandmother, who currently resides in Florida.
© 2008 The Shalem Institute.