Monday, September 22, 2008

Things fall into line when you are in alignment

Wow! Chapter 9 started with a bang & certainly did not end with a whimper. Despite Eckhart appearing again a little under the weather (perhaps the unwanted side-effect of all the fame & attention), Chapter 9 was by any measure the finest program in the series.

With 52 seconds of silent meditation on an Old Testament Bible quotation from the Book of Psalms, Eckhart fires the opening salvo on the recurring theme that has developed in these programs -- integrating contemporary Christianity with direct spiritual experience.

The show has barely started & Eckhart is reminding his audience that many contemporary Christians do not associate silence with their faith & yet for contemplative Christians this has been their principal form of worship for 2 millennia. The silent meditation on Psalms 46:10 immediately followed to prove the point.

There can now be no doubt that Oprah & Eckhart are openly responding to e-mails, Skypers, & callers with the specific purpose of inviting them to integrate their Christianity with the Power of Now.

It's not so much that they took the gloves off with fundamentalists, it's more like they don't care. Both made it clear that A New Earth may not be the book for people who believe the earth is only 6,000 years old.

And even though fundamentalists have accused Oprah on her message boards of being a sinner and a Scientologist, she goes right ahead on the very same program talking about her visit to the Colorado mountain retreat of her friend Tom Cruise -- a vocal Scientologist.

All of this is to say that each of us has to find out what path we are aligned with or as Eckhart taught in this class: "Things fall into line when you are in alignment."