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    The Soul's Journey: Finding Our Way Home
    The Soul's Journey: Finding Our Way Home
    The Soul's Journey: Finding Our Way Home
    Ebook118 pages1 hour

    The Soul's Journey: Finding Our Way Home

    By William Haardt

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    About this ebook

    In the 21st century, we find ourselves in dialogue with each other in new and profound ways. Given the rise of secular and atheist culture alongside fundamentalist strains in many world religious traditions, the world stage may appear quite confusing, perhaps overwhelming, given the complexity and diversity of the world in which we live. There is great peace in our time and great violence depending on where and how you are looking. The questions of our time, of all time, remain what is true? what is real? what is most authentic in living our human lives? and how can we live those lives in harmony with all creation? There is a middle path in between fundamentalism and atheist secularism that may help provide an inner compass to navigate our current situation.

    Relying on the mystics of the Christian and Buddhist traditions primarily with some reference to other spiritual masters, a spiritual vision for the 21st century will be laid out for anyone from any tradition or no tradition at all. When we look through the contemplative lens of the mystical lineage, we begin to see with the eyes of Thomas Merton who said the following:

    “Contemplation is life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive. It is spiritual wonder. It is spontaneous awe at the sacredness of life, of being. It is gratitude for life, for awareness, and for being. It is a vivid realization of the fact that life and being in us proceed from an invisible, transcendent, and infinitely abundant Source. Contemplation is, above all, awareness of the reality of that Source.”

    The first book from William Haardt describes the essence of the spiritual journey through the experience of those who have traversed the path, especially the great Christian monk, Thomas Merton. The book also highlights the great insights that have come out of Christian-Buddhist dialogue, which Merton helped begin in the 1960′s. Finally, William Haardt shares glimpses of his own journey and what has helped him along the way.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWilliam Haardt
    Release dateDec 10, 2013
    ISBN9781311601650
    The Soul's Journey: Finding Our Way Home

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      Book preview

      The Soul's Journey - William Haardt

      The Soul’s Journey: Finding Our Way Home

      BY WILLIAM HAARDT

      Published at Smashwords

      Copyright 2014 William Haardt

      All Rights Reserved

      Smashwords Edition

      This file is licensed for private individual entertainment only. The book contained herein constitutes a copyrighted work and may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into an information retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means (electrical, mechanical, photographic, audio recording, or otherwise) for any reason (excepting the uses permitted to the licensee by copyright law under terms of fair use) without the specific written permission of the author.

      Table of Contents

      Chapter I. Oneness

      Reflections Questions

      Chapter II. Forgetfulness

      Reflections Questions

      Chapter III. Glimpses

      Reflections Questions

      Chapter IV. Holy Longing

      Reflections Questions

      Chapter V. The Path – True Self/False Self

      Reflections Questions

      Chapter VI. The Buddhist Insight

      Reflections Questions

      Chapter VII. Love

      Reflections Questions

      Endnotes

      Acknowledgements

      I was privileged to have access to Jim Finley to clarify these reflections during the early stages of writing. Jim Finley gave me the overall sequence that is listed in the Table of Contents. He also explained that Thomas Merton is one of the main contemporary voices that reclaims the Christian spiritual tradition and thus, these 6 themes/chapters reflect the Christian spiritual tradition beginning with Christ, the early Desert Fathers and continuing with Gregory of Nyssa, Origen, Augustine, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena and up to our present day with Merton among others. Of course, I am unable to include countless men and women here, who are otherwise deserving of our attention, but for our purposes suffice it to say that Merton relied heavily on the tradition that came before him. Thank you Thomas Merton and thank you Jim Finley.

      Introduction

      Walk into a bookstore today and browse the Psychology and Religion sections and you are hit over the head with a diverse, confusing and often contradictory list of titles. From the now famous The Secret to The God Delusion and God is Not Great, How Religion Poisons Everything, from What Jesus Meant to There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, how does any sane person know how to navigate through this maze, even if one does have the time to read many of the books for themselves and make their own sense of things. As someone who often frequents these sections of bookstores, I have spent the last 15 years reading as much as I could to get a sense of why so many people are convinced of such different ways of seeing the world, especially when it comes to God. My B.A and M.A are in the fields of Theology and Religious Studies, in large part due to my desire to find some clear answers. What answers have I found? Thanks to some brilliant teachers, writers and mentors from various religious backgrounds, a certain clarity has made its way into my life and as part of that process, I wanted to offer anyone interested a very simple and yet essential understanding of the human person and what we are designed for during this relatively short life – 80+ years is really not that long when compared to the 4 billion year old Earth. I do not stand on my own, here, rather, I am leaning on persons past and present who have helped clarify a very basic and clear vision of what this human life is all about. I simply hope to add to that clarity from this human life I am living.

      In the 21st century, we find ourselves in dialogue with each other in new and profound ways. Given the rise of secular and atheist culture alongside fundamentalist strains in many world religious traditions, the world stage may appear quite confusing, perhaps overwhelming, given the complexity and diversity of the world in which we live. There is great peace in our time and great violence depending on where and how you are looking. The questions of our time, of all time, remain:

      What is true?

      What is real?

      What is most authentic in living our human lives?

      How can we live those lives in harmony with all creation?

      There is a middle path in between fundamentalism and atheist secularism that may help provide an inner compass to navigate our current situation.¹

      Throughout this book, I will be held up mainly by the wisdom of two great spiritual traditions, the Buddhist and the Christian, and they will help guide us by pointing to this middle way of truth, reality, and authenticity which reveals our inherent divinity and purity of heart (our true self) while acknowledging the human capacity for sin and unwholesome desire (our false self). I will focus specifically on Thomas Merton and other contemplative Christian teachers as representatives of the Christian tradition, given their deep roots in their own faith and their history of sincere dialogue with Buddhists. Three of the main sects of the Buddhist tradition in the West are the Tibetan Buddhists (Vajrayana), Insight Meditation Community (Theravada) and Zen Buddhists (Mahayana). Due to my research and various interviews with Christians and Buddhists, I will focus on the Zen and Theravada traditions and their emphasis on awakening and the core teaching for all Buddhists - The Four Noble Truths. In any writing endeavor, we must make choices lest our ambitions only add to the confusion. A priest friend told me once, Truth is always simple and it resonates with the heart. If it sounds too complex, it is probably not the Truth, and thus, not God. Remember how Jesus taught and how his parables and teachings spoke to all people from all backgrounds. I will do my best to write simply and humbly as I represent these wisdom traditions and include my own wisdom that has come out of my experience within these communities.

      For over 10 years, I have had the great privilege of being in the classroom with high school students and discussing many issues related to the human condition in the courses I have taught – World’s Wisdom Traditions, The Challenge of Scripture and Foundations of Ethics: Morality & Social Justice. A close friend asked me who my audience would be for this book and I noted, first, I have my students in my mind, because they have taught me so much and I wanted to write something that they would find approachable. Thus, for any young person searching for a sense of grounding in this incredibly complex and fast-paced world, I have you in mind as I write. Second, I have in mind my brother and my wife, both 40 years old, my mom, 63 years old, my dad, deceased at 44 years old, and my grandmother, recently deceased at 88 years old. These people make up my immediate family and over the years they have shaped who I am and the questions I have asked, without them, I would not be writing this book. Third, I want this book to be accessible to anyone looking for a way of living and being that feels true and authentic to their own experience. Given the variety of voices we hear in this 21st century about how to live, succeed, and make our way, how do we discern what is true for us? I feel blessed to have had the time to focus on the questions that all of us face at some point in our lives, either consciously or unconsciously:

      What is really true?

      What does it mean to live an authentic life?

      What is the purpose of this human life we all find ourselves in?

      As the Scriptures state, Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you – Matthew 7:7. When approached with sincerity, this is the truth; it is something so close we tend to miss it. As many Christian mystics have explained, God is closer to us than our own breath. Essentially, we all need some pointing, an inner compass to make it clear for each of us in our own way. There is some truth in the book titles listed above, even The Secret has helped many people find their way, and yet, there is an even simpler truth, one so profound and so basic to who we are, that every major spiritual tradition names its reality. So, how can we miss it? Our religious traditions have both helped and hindered us along the way. Our culture often clarifies and confuses our vision. Thus, we need reminding, we need to refer to the great mystics and sages, past and present. These men and women have guided us all along, it is time we really listen and see for ourselves. The Virgin Point (Le Pointe Vierge) is one name for this reality, made popular by

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