CENTERING
PRAYER AND CYNTHIA BOURGEAULT’S BOOK
CENTERING
PRAYER AND INNER AWAKENING
“Sadly
many have been misled into thinking that methods of Eastern mysticism involving
the continual repetition of mantras is not only in conformity with the
Christian mystical tradition, but the high point at which Eastern and Western
religion meet.
However,
contemplative prayer is so important for the future reform in the Church – as
it has been in the past – that it must be protected from its counterfeit...
If anyone wants to be guided by the authentic Catholic tradition rather
than by its counterfeit, then they must look, in the first instance, to Jesus
Himself, who never taught the use of mantras”.
(David Torkington, Letter to Susanna 43: the
authentic tradition. Catholic Herald
(U.K.), 28/5/99. (www.davidtorkington.com)
“New
Age ideas sometimes find their way into preaching, catechesis, workshops and
retreats, and influence even practicing Catholics, who perhaps are unaware of
the incompatibility of those ideas with the Church’s faith. In their
syncretistic and immanent outlook, these para-religious movements pay little
heed to Revelation, and instead try to come to God through knowledge and
experience based on elements borrowed from Eastern spirituality or from
psychological techniques. They tend to
relativize religious doctrine, in favour of a vague world view expressed as a
system of myths and symbols dressed in religious language”.
(Pope St. John Paul II – Address to U.S. Bishops, May
28, 1993)
Cynthia Bourgeault is a well-known American New Age
Movement (NAM) writer, divorced Episcopalian minister and regarded as a
mystic. She is an amusing and highly
articulate lecturer in all things NAM.
Her encounter with this eclectic movement began with G.I. Gurdjieff, an
“enigmatic occultist” (The Aquarian Guide to the New Age, 1990). She admits twice her indebtedness to
Gurdjieff in this book on Centering Prayer (CP)(pp.xiii and p.129). But, Professor Mitch Pacwa S.J. called
Gudjieff “a charlatan and a swindler who was into Gnosticism”. (Southern Cross, 30/8/1992)
Another great influence on Cynthia was Teilhard de
Chardin who was also into Gnosticism according to the great Lutheran
theologian, Karl Barth (see sine-glossa.blogspot.com). According to Pope John Paul II, the NAM is a resurgence
of Gnosticism. (Crossing the Threshold of Hope)
The NAM is a syncretistic amalgam of Gnosticism,
pantheism, the esoteric and the occult, of magic and myths about the secrets of
life mixed in with ideas from astrology, astrophysics and pop psychology. It borrows from all religions, but is under
obedience to none! Like the NAM that
cannot be pinned down on anything, so Cynthia eludes categorisation! As regards the NAM, Gurdjieff’s personality
typing tool called the Enneagram, it classifies nine personality types. Cynthia says she’s “a ten”! Her cheeky, chirpy, breathless humour makes
her the Til Eulenspiegel of the NAM! She
is unflappable and not even the death of her old cat, Lily, on her birthday,
Friday 13th (“a wrenching synchronisation”) could faze her for long!
As said above, the NAM borrows from all religions and
is under obedience to none. So with
Cynthia, as we shall see:
1. NAM INFLUENCE:
“Jesus... a master of Tantra” p.173.
“If
you are comfortable with the language of chakras, in Centering Prayer,
you are working directly with the third chakra, the seat of the will”. (p.176)
In her book purporting to be about Christian
contemplation, Cynthia quotes numerous NAM writers and a surfeit of Sufis, even
though these NAM writers syncretistic and immanent outlook is incompatible with
Christianity. The book also quotes from
prominent NAM publishers like Shambala, Element Books, Namaste etc.
a. George
Gurdjieff: Cynthia is one of the
“foremost contemporary bridge builders between
the Gurdjieff Work and the contemporary spiritual sensibility”. (Spirituality and practice.com)
b. Ira
Progoff – a Jewish Jungian psychotherapist who believes that through
journaling “mankind has to renew its sacred scriptures (including the Bible)
which are now outdated”.
c. Matthew
Fox, an ex priest who received warnings from the Vatican for his unorthodox
views.
Robert
Brow characterises Fox’s teachings as “esoteric excursions into ethics,
theology and mysticism”. One of his more
unforgettable books is: Whee! We, Wee
All the Way Home : A Guide to Sensual Prophetic Spirituality.
d. Ken
Wilber, the theosophist whom Cynthia called “the brilliant contemporary
metaphysician”. The Aquarian Guide to
the New Age calls him “the foremost writer on consciousness and transpersonal
psychology”. The latter is concerned
with transcendental states, mystical and other peak experiences.
e. Michael
Washburn, a transpersonal psychologist and “psychic energy” expert.
f. René
Daumal and Maurice Nicoll – two Gurdjieff devotees.
g. Eckhart
Tolle, named after the famous Meister Eckhart whom Cynthia calls a
“mystic”, but he was no more a mystic than Bernard McGinn, for to write on
mysticism does not make one a mystic!
Eckhart
Tolle is one of the most fashionable NAM gurus who humbly claims to know the
timeless spiritual teaching, the essence of all religions. Oprah Winfrey is a great devotee.
h. Marcus
Borg, one of the “Jesus Seminar” scholars who “determined that the over 500
sayings of Jesus – recorded in the Gospels, only 31 are authentic and the rest
can be discounted”!
If one is known by one’s friends, then Cynthia has a
pretty bizarre bunch!
2. GNOSTICISM:
Like Gurdjieff, Cynthia is into Gnosticism. She is a great admirer of the odd Gnostic
Gospels, like the Gospels of Thomas, Philip and Mary Magdalen... especially
Mary Magdalen! Cynthia reports Jesus as
referring to Mary Magdalen as “my wife” and Cynthia asks “why has institutional
Christianity become so invested in maintaining that Jesus has to be a celibate
to be Jesus?” Her answer: “This is all
later Christian midrash, the product of an increasingly patriarchal and
misogynist hierarchy” – later referred to as ‘obdurate traditionalists’. (The Contemplative Society, Sept. 22, 2012,
Newsletter entitled Jesus’ Wife!
Gnostic is of, or relating to knowledge especially
esoteric mystical knowledge. So Cynthia
really digs Jesus’ emphasis on prayer ‘in secret’ (p.59). “Jesus himself gives us fair warning that his
teachings are indeed intended to be heard more subtly by ‘those who have ears’
(p.60). So “Jesus both practiced and
taught a form of meditation” (p.60).
This is rather presumptuous. Cynthia says elsewhere that whilst “The
Desert Fathers clearly practiced intentional silence. I am, myself, not comfortable in moving from this to the
assumption that they therefore taught meditation per se” (p.63). The same could be said about her claim about
Jesus teaching meditation!
Until recently, Cynthia says about the Gnostic
gospels, “the actual legacy of these teachings remained unknown to everyday
Christians” (p.61). But now the secret
knowledge is out! Incidentally Cynthia
has some insider knowledge that Jesus was “a master of Tantra, perhaps the
greatest master of all times”. (p.173)
Tantra is defined as “adherence to the doctrines or principles of the
tantras, involving mantras, meditation, yoga and ritual”. (Concise Oxford
Dictionary)
Cynthia seems to subscribe to the NAM legend that
Jesus spent his “hidden years” in India.
That’s probably where he came in contact with the mystical mantra OM (or
AUM) that Cynthia writes about: “It is probably not by coincidence that the
same deep “ah” of the OM sound – widely regarded in the East as the primordial
vibration of creation – continues to resonate through Christian prayer words
such as alleluia, amen, Abba and Maranatha” (p.169).
Cynthia also maintains that “if you are comfortable
with the language of the Chakras, in Centering Prayer, you are working directly
with the third Chakra, the seat of the will” (p.176). So now we know! She quotes Joseph Needleman, the author of Lost Christianity, which one
commentator in Kirkus Review branded as “unremittingly vague and diffuse” and
quipped that the “esoteric depths of Christianity, may well be lost, but at
this rate they’re going to stay that way!“
Cynthia is party to another lost secret: that Jesus never said: “whoever loses his
life for me will save
it”. The ‘for me’ is “a later
interpolation” (p.173), she says. Her
“ground-breaking” book, The Heart of
Centering Prayer : Non-dual Christianity in Theory and Practice helps
us rediscover “the hidden non-dual path away from graced experiences”. So, if you think that only Hinduism and
Buddaism believed in non-duality, then Cynthia has uncovered some new evidence
hidden for 2000 years!
CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER:
In the introduction to the book, Cynthia expresses her
concern in the lack of real ownership for the Centering Prayer practice within
“the classic institutions of Christian nurture: churches, seminaries and
schools of theology, etc”. But if one
ignores the classic traditional teaching as exemplified in the Jesuit, Harvey
Egan’s Anthology of Christian
Mysticism, or Adolphe Tanquerey’s The
Spiritual Life (“an invaluable source book for spiritual reading” – Dr.
Susan Muto) etc., how can one be taken seriously? The words Tantra, “Chakras”, “Aum”.
“non-duality”, “zen”, “karma (137)”, “vibration (122)”, occur nowhere in Christian
spirituality, even though Cynthia alludes to them in her book on Christian
prayer.
Cynthia quotes Pierre Ferrucci that “genuine prayer is
based on recognising the origin of all that exists and opening ourselves to it”
(p.3). This definition may be
Hindu/Buddhist or NAM, but it is not classic Christian. Cynthia defines contemplative prayer as
“simply a wordless, trusting, opening of self to the divine presence”
(p.5). But this is not the classic
Christian definition either. She calls
Centering Prayer “boot camp in Gethsemane” (p.24).
St. Francis de Sales says “Prayer is called meditation
until it has produced the honey of devotion, after that it changes into
contemplation”. Traditionally the first
stage of contemplation is called “acquired contemplation” and this prepares the
soul to receive ‘infused’ contemplation, should God grant it. Cynthia has problems with classis Christian
definitions like ‘acquired’ and ‘infused’ and states in no uncertain terms: “IT
IS TIME TO SCRAP THESE CATEGORIES ALTOGETHER!” (p.75).
She states that “Centering Prayer is based on very
sound apophatic theology” (p.9.v.). It
is once again obvious that Cynthia’s ideas are shaped by the NAM where there
are no rules, no boundaries and the anchor and compass are thrown away, as the
NAM borrows from all religions and is under obedience to none. Cynthia gives her own definition of apophatic
prayer and it is not the traditional one.
St. John of the Cross says of apophatic prayer: “God
puts a soul in this dark night in order to dry up and purge the sensory
appetites, He does not allow it to find sweetness or delight in anything” (Dark
Night, Ch.9). So traditionally apophatic
prayer is something God grants by His grace, not by consciousness-raising, nor
by TM or CP techniques. The Cloud of
Unknowing says ‘that techniques and methods are ultimately useless for
awakening contemplative love’.
Harvey Egan maintains that “St. Teresa contradicts
those who advocate apophatic prayer and insist that thought, images, and even
Christ’s humanity prevent one from reaching the higher stages of prayer”
(Anthology, p.44). Clearly Cynthia is
not speaking for the Catholic Church, but for the NAM.
It is worthwhile reading Harvey Egan’s excellent
summary of the Cloud:
In
summary, the Cloud provides an
excellent illustration of orthodox Christian, apophatic mysticism. It urges forgetting and unknowing in the
service of a blind, silent love beyond all images, thoughts, and feelings – a
love which gradually purifies, illuminates, and unites the contemplative to the
Source of this love. Discursive
meditation, self-knowledge, study, Scripture, pious practices, etc., remain the
indispensable kataphatic basis for future, deeper prayer. They build the launch pad from which the
apophatic thrust is correctly aimed.
Only if special signs are present, however, can the person move on to contemplation. The kataphatic dimension manifests itself in
different ways thereafter. The
contemplative remains anchored in, and at least implicitly guided by, the
devotional liturgical, and sacramental life of the Christian community. He must respect visions, undergo a variety of
mystical experiences which cannot be categorized as strictly apophatic, and
incarnate various aspects of the tiny flame of love. His writings, his person, and his activities
all indicate that he has become an icon of agapic Love. Moreover, he never loses contact with the
icon of agapic Love, Jesus Christ.
Without these Christian kataphatic moments, the question can be raised
as to which type of transcendence he has experienced and to what he has become
united. Only one is holy. A mystic can get lost in the depths of the
self or the beautiful “oneness” of nature without ever being united with the
God of Love.
(H.D.
Egan S.J., Christian Apophatic and
Kataphetic Mysticisms, Theological Studies, Sept. 1978, p.413.
This summary by Egan helps correct misunderstandings
by some Protestants. For example, Morton
Kelsey “comes very close to calling the apophatic tradition non-Christian” (H.D. Egan S.J., What Are They Saying About Mysticism, Paulist Press, 1982, p.127)
TM AND CP:
Cynthia states that: “the Cloud of Unknowing is the
immediate source for Centering Prayer” (p.58).
This is patently untrue as it is Transcendental Meditation (TM) that is
the real source and only the blind cannot see this. CP is a Christianised TM; TM for the
Christian market; CP “is simply TM in Christian dress” (Fr. Emil Lafranz S.J.) “Centering Prayer is TM, and nothing else”
(Mother Veronica Goulard P.C.C. of Malawi Poor Clares). If something looks like a duck, waddles like
a duck, quacks like a duck, then it is a duck!
One of the founders of CP, Fr. Basil Pennington, wrote
that for a Christian, TM “can be for him an authentic method of contemplative
prayer”! (Daily We Touch Him, p.68).
Fr. Basil goes on to say: “TM corresponds, step by step, to classical
Christian teaching” (Daily We Touch Him, p.103),
and “when we transcend by means of the TM technique, we come into an immediate
experience of the Absolute, of our God, an awareness of our oneness with him. We are not contacting him mediately, through
objects. We experience our oneness with
him... The man lacking faith can indeed
have this experience of God. He may or
may not recognize God in the experience”.
It should be noted that Fr. Basil was in at the
mutation of TM into CP from the very beginning.
He, along with Frs. Mehinger and Keating have taken liberties with
authentic Catholic prayer and have reinterpreted and falsified it and betrayed
the faith, confusing many sincere and eager Christians. Yes, Pope Paul VI asked the Benedictines to
look at Meditation for modern people, but he did not ask for syncreticism and
he did not approve the final results: CP
or TM for the Christian market.
When the Pope made this appeal, the Catholic
Charismatic Renewal in the Holy Spirit was gaining momentum and people were
discovering true prayer and “a kind of passing contemplation” that Tanquerey
wrote about in The Spiritual Life. This was much closer to Pope Paul’s appeal
than syncretism!
“There are even times when, through His operating grace, the Holy Ghost
enkindles temporarily an unwanted
fervour of soul which is a kind of passing contemplation. What fervent soul has not at times felt these
sudden inspirations of grace when all it had to do was to receive the divine
motion and follow it? It may have been
while reading the Gospels or some devout book, on the occasion of some
Communion or of a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, at the time of some retreat
or when making a choice of a state in life, at the time of ordination or
religious profession, that it seemed to us that the grace of God sweetly and
strongly carried us along” (No. 1314).
CONSCIOUSNESS:
“Expansion of
consciousness: if the cosmos is seen as one continuous chain of being,
all levels of existence – mineral, vegetable, animal, human, cosmic and divine
beings – are interdependent. Human
beings are said to become aware of their place in this holistic vision of
global reality by expanding their consciousness well beyond its normal
limits. The New Age offers a huge
variety of techniques to help people reach a higher level of perceiving
reality, a way of overcoming the separation between subjects, and between
subjects and objects in the knowing process, concluding in total fusion of what
normal, inferior, awareness sees as separate or distinct realities”.
(Vatican document:
Jesus Christ the Bearer of the
Water of Life, p.68)
“The heart of Christian mysticism is a mystery of
love, whereas, both in Hinduism and in Buddhism, it is primarily a
transformation of consciousness”.
(William Johnston S.J.)
One could say the same about Bourgeaultism: it is primarily a transformation of
consciousness, as the word appears countless times in her book. In Egan’s Anthology, the words love, desire,
longing, yearning for God appear countless times, but not once in Cynthia’s
work. Perhaps Cynthia, with NAM
chutzpah, has rewritten the words in the Cloud, No. 75; “that
the entire life of a good Christian is nothing less than holy desire”, dropping
out the last two words and adding “consciousness expansion”.
Cynthia and the CP brigade have made prayer so
complicated and cerebral, rephrasing traditional words so that they die the
death of a thousand qualifications. For
example, look at this piece of Bourgeaultspeak:
“In the classic language of the Christian spiritual
path, it cannot exceed the ‘illuminative’ stage because it is trapped within
the experience/experience dualism by virtue of its basic operating system: the self-reflexive ‘I’ that see the world
through the subject/object polarity” (p.104).
The CP industry, for all its stress on the ecology, is
wiping out whole forests of trees trying to explain again and again how CP is
in conformity with classic Catholic prayer – trying to square the circle.
Jesus stressed the need for childlikeness and
simplicity when praying. The New Manual
of Prayer by the Catholic Book Company published in 1901, used by a generation
of U.K. and Irish Catholics, shows how simply meditation can be explained.
THE NEW GNOSTICS:
“None can understand the grace, till he becomes the
place where the Holy Spirit has his dwelling”.
New Agers like Cynthia have taken great liberties with
the Cloud of Unknowing, reading into it whatever they like.
Ira Progoff, the non-Christian, has done a Jungian
psychological commentary on the Cloud.
Cynthia says that the Progoff version is “more accurate and helpful”
[than the William Johnston version] “because of his acute psychological
understanding of the ‘work’ of inner awakening” (p.170). Why
would a Jungian psychologist be a better authority than a Catholic priest? After all, “a surprising number of Jung’s
cases... ended in failure” (Colin Wilson, Lord of the Underworld : A Study of
Jung, 1984, p.131).
In Chapter 40 of the Cloud, the author refers to sin,
venial and mortal. New Agers, like
Cynthia, think that talk of sin is overdone in Christianity. Cynthia is critical of St. Augustine as
regards original sin (p.106), and agrees with Keating’s suggestion that “the
false self is a modern equivalent for the traditional concept of the
consequences of original sin” (p.94).
In her cavalier disregard for tradition and
deconstruction of it, Cynthia states that what the anonymous author of the
Cloud, is actually describing by the word ‘contemplation’ is the transition to unitive
or non-dual consciousness. But this
fanciful interpretation is typical of New Agers as non-duality is an important
tenet of the NAM. Cynthia buys into this
and has her own Science and non-duality website!
So, like the ancient Gnostics, the New Age Gnostics have
effectively emptied Christianity of its real meanings and invested new and
alien esoteric meanings and definitions to their own liking. Then they claim that the contemplative
tradition in Christianity has been “lost” because they disregarded all mystics
that do not fit their new definitions.
Professor Peter Milward S.J., of Sophia University in
Japan, once said that Fr. Bede Griffiths O.S.B. - greatly admired by Cynthia
(p.170) – “has betrayed the very cause that brought him to India” – by dabbling
in syncretism, not authentic Christianity.
(In a private letter)
JOHN MAIN O.S.B.:
Cynthia takes another Benedictine, Fr. John Main
O.S.B. of “Christian Meditation” (sic) to task on pages 63f for manipulation –
seeing mantras in John Cassian’s writings where there are none. Cynthia says he “has subsequently referred to
this [mantra] giving the impression that the Desert Fathers actually used the
word mantra and specifically
sanctioned and taught a practice of meditation”
(p.63). Fr. John Main was taught
Hindu meditation by a Hindu guru in Malaya, but then he went on to market it as
“Christian Meditation”!
This is the problem with Cynthia and her NAM
colleagues in the “pick and mix” brigade:
though words like God, meditation, mysticism, compassion, prayer etc.,
appear in nearly all world religions, they are not defined the same way,
obviously. Meditation in Christianity is
not the same as meditation in Hindu/Buddhism/NAM. There is a danger in dipping into other
religions, of getting cosmologies mixed up, and making category mistakes,
getting confused in the process and confusing others.
For example, the word ‘unitive’ in Cynthia’s book (cf.
pp.49, 72, 104/5, 158) is not as we Catholics use it, e.g. in the expression
“the unitive way”. Cynthia seems to use
it as “non-duality” – a Hindu/Buddhist concept (cf. pp.72/73). Cynthia says that “the goal of contemplative
life is unitive seeing: not so much
‘union with God’ understood as wanting God to the exclusion of all else, but
rather, gradually coming to realise that really, there is nothing that is not
God!” (p.158). Cynthia speaks for
herself!
Harvey Egan states that: “not a few insist that only apophatic
mysticism is “pure” mysticism and view kataphatic mysticism as primarily
discursive and a definite obstacle to the deepest levels of mystical
prayer. Although orthodox Christian
mysticism may proceed either apophatically or kataphatically, I propose to show
that any genuine Christian mysticism must contain apophatic as well as
kataphatic elements”. (Christian
Mysticisms, Theological Studies, Sept. 1978, p.404)
Cynthia seems to see kataphatic and apophatic as two
totally different things, so totally misunderstanding the Cloud of
Unknowing. She even sees kataphatic as
being inferior. Perhaps she has bought into the NAM concept of Maya –
the illusion or appearance of the phenomenal world. In the Cloud of
Unknowing one only enters the apophatic way when called to by God. But Newagers like Prometheus snatching the
fire, have no desire to wait on God, they just demand and take. They don’t readily bend the knee to the
Biblical God.
Cynthia seems to be surrounded by promethean types
like the Luciferian theosophists and the Ken Wilbers. Cynthia’s cavernous Episcopal cathedral of
St. John the Divine in New York, seems to relish its reputation as a New
Age/Theosophy centre. It has always been
associated with Freemasonry from its inception and Freemasonic symbols are in
prominent display in the building.
The Cloud of Unknowing warns of “pseudo
contemplatives” and states that “the devil has his contemplatives”. Cynthia can probably be included in
this. She strives to show sometimes in
her book that Centering Prayer is in accordance with classic Christian prayer,
but then introduces alien, non-Christian or occult elements like tantra,
chakras, aum, non-duality, zen, karma, vibrations, etc.
The English priest, Fr, Herbert Thurston also dabbled
heavily in the occult, (see google: sine-glossa.blogspot.com,
“Iconoclasm”) and then began with great zeal and enthusiasm his lifetime work
of being a “wrecking ball” in the Church.
So with Cynthia. Once one opens
the door to the occult, one becomes the witting or unwitting tool of the Devil,
also known as the “Destroyer” (Rev. 9:11).
Centering Prayer is like a Trojan Horse in
Christianity. It is gradually
introducing alien NAM elements as those mentioned above. The way things are going in the CP
juggernaut, Cynthia’s next book will probably be called Centering Prayer and Kundalini Awakening, as her mentor,
Thomas Keating, is already into this dangerous occult kundalini. (See Appendix
below).
Kundalini, in the concept of dharma, refers to a form
of primal energy said to be located at the base of the spine, and rises up
through the chakras. “Dharma is a rich
man’s game!” (Roger Kamenetz) And whilst
on the subject of rich men, Cynthia, though into consciousness, shows no signs
of social conscientiousness. Perhaps she
would agree with the founder of TM that the poor “will be hungry, but they will
be happy”.
TRUE CHRISTIAN PRAYER:
This is all about the love of God and neighbour,
William Johnston says, and not as Cynthia and Newagers would have it: the transformation of consciousness. Although Cynthia is aware of
psychotechnologies (e.g. on page 175 she mentions neuromeditation and that CP
works characteristically in the alpha band), she seems ignorant of biofeedback
defined in the Aquarian Guide to the New Age:
“Biofeedback
training has enabled ordinary individuals to emulate several of the more
advanced feats of yoga, notably slowing the heart rate via electro-cardiac
feedback and achieving altered states of consciousness through the monitoring
of brainwave patterns”.
Dr. Barbara
Brown, the great pioneer in biofeedback research, and student of world
religions for over 25 years, says that
“there is unquestionably a similarity between what biofeedback can accomplish
and what practice of Indian arts of yoga could accomplish. In the early days of biofeedback, when the
ability to control one’s own brainwave alpha activity was seized upon as
instant zen or instant yoga, it was a new problem for scientists; many of them promptly became converts to
Oriental mind-body control philosophies”.
(New Mind, New Body, 1975).
All of Cynthia’s prolixity about consciousness (out of
place and unwarranted in a book on Christian Prayer) is unnecessary as
biofeedback machines etc., to transform consciousness are instant and can be
bought for the price of a bicycle or the price of the collected works of
Cynthia Bourgeault!
True Christian prayer is very holistic and not
cerebral as CP etc., and does not give a hoot about consciousness, posture,
breathing exercises, mantras or “meditation rooms”. True Christianity is all about seeking first
the Kingdom of God and its justice and everything else follows from this, (cf.
Mt. 6:33), including prayer and meditation.
Christian prayer doesn’t begin in the “meditation room” but with right
conduct or virtue in the home, workplace or school, whereas the
Hindu/Buddhist/NAM variety can be done by amoral or immoral people as Mircea
Eliade points out in one of his books as regards Haridas, a yoga master, but “a
man of loose morals”. (Putanjali and
Yoga, p.76)
It is sad that priests and religious seem to prefer
this morally indifferent spirituality to the genuine article, if Catholic
retreat centres are anything to go by with rock crystals, lotus flowers,
figurines locked in yoga postures preferred to traditional statues or icons of
Jesus and Mary.
Centering Prayer and John Main’s so-called “Christian
Meditation” are found in U.S. convents and elsewhere – as if Christianity has
nothing to offer than hybrid, syncretistic mixtures.
Cynthia admits that “Centering Prayer was reborn not
merely as a devotional method, but as a psychological one as well” (p.93), and
“Centering Prayer is a psychological method” (p.98). This is probably its attraction in many
convents, but a fatal attraction! Dr.
William Coulson, the disciple of American psychologist, Carl Rogers, in a
devastating article entitled “We
overcame their traditions, we overcame their faith” admits contritely
about his central role in the destruction of religious orders by psychotherapy,
including the IHM’s, and later two dozen other orders, among them the Sisters
of Mercy, the Sisters of Providence and the Jesuits” (www.ewtn.com). Now another tsunami : the Centering Prayer
juggernaut.
THE AUTHENTIC CATHOLIC TRADITION:
After all the miasma of the above NAM/occult confusion
and darkness, what a joy to dip into the genuine article, e.g. this extract
from one of the homely English mystics, Richard Rolle (1300-49), “the father of
English literature”:
“If you wish to be on good terms
with God and have his grace direct your life and come to the joy of love, then
fix this name “Jesus” so firmly in your heart that it never leaves your
thought. And when you speak to him using
your customary name “Jesu”, in your ear it will be joy, in your mouth honey,
and in your heart melody, because it will seem joy to you to hear that name
being pronounced, sweetness to speak it, cheer and singing to think it. If you think the name “Jesus” continually and
cling to it devotedly, then it will cleanse you from sin and set your heart
aflame. It will enlighten your soul,
remove turbulence, and eliminate lethargy;
it will give the wound of love (The Song 5:7-8) and fill the soul to
overflow with love; it will chase off the devil and eliminate terror, open
heaven, and create a mystic. Have
“Jesus” in your mind, because it expels all wickedness and delusion from his
lover; and greet Mary frequently, both day and night. Great will be the love and joy you feel if
you are willing to act in accordance with this instruction. There is no need for you to be very eager for
a lot of books: Hold on to love in heart
and deed, and you’ve got everything which we can talk or write about. For the fulfilment of the law is love: On that, everything depends”. (From The Fire of Love)
What a breath of fresh air compared to the heavy,
anaemic, abstract cerebral theories of the CP brigade with its mantra-like repetition
of words, like “consciousness”! When we
commit our lives totally and unreservedly to Jesus, like Richard Rolle above,
we are led by the Spirit to see Jesus in all creation, as “all things were
created through Him and in Him, and he holds all things in being” (Col, 1:16) like J.M. Plunkett. Since God saw all that He had made and found
it “very good” (Genesis 1:31), we relish and delight in what God relished and
delighted in, like St. Francis of Assisi and numerous others who saw Christ in everything. This is brought out in the famous poem by
Joseph Mary Plunkett:
I see
his blood upon the rose
And
in the stars the glory of his eyes;
His
body gleams amid eternal snows,
His
tears fall from the skies.
I see
his face in every flower;
The
thunder and the singing of the birds
Are
but his voice – and carven by his power,
Rocks
are his written words.
All
pathways by his feet are worn,
His
strong heart stirs the ever beating sea,
His
crown of thorns is twined in every thorn
His
cross is every tree.
But there can come a time when God can block this
delight in creation to lead us to a deeper union with Him. Some are called to this as Harvey Egan says
above, but not all. The rest of us can carry on glorying in God’s
creation. The theologian, Bernard Häring,
advocated a “holy worldliness” which includes contemplation with all five
senses. It is a wondering acceptance of
God’s visible revelation of himself; it is a final assent to the mystery of the
Incarnation:
“That
which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our
eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the Word
of life”. (1 John 1:1)
(Bernard
Häring, CssR, The Church on the Move, Alba House, N.Y., 1970, p.30)
John O’Riordain says of the poem above by J.M.
Plunkett: “This sacramentalizing of the
environment is endemic to the whole Celtic tradition and is most evident,
perhaps, in our astonishingly large corpus of popular prayers. There are prayers to accompany almost every
action and chore within and without the home and throughout one’s life”. O’Riordain gives a good example of this in
Peig Sayers, most of whose life was lived in the obscurity of a remote
off-shore island: the Great Blasket.
In her spirituality is “a wonderful sense of unity and
rhythmic harmony with the world around.
The sky above and the earth beneath, the pounding of the ocean, the
phases of the moon, the changing seasons, the bird on the bush, sunrise and
sunset, are woven into a rich and sustaining tradition which speaks
continuously of the glory of God.
Besides, there is a communicated a wonderful sense of time; almost a
timelessness” (p.11).
When visitors had left Peig Sayer’s house at night,
she would smoor the fire by gathering ashes over the live coals to preserve
them till morning. In the process Peig
would pray:
I
preserve the fire as Christ preserves all.
Brigid
at the two ends of the house,
And
Mary at the centre.
The
three angels and the three apostles
Who
are highest in the Kingdom of Grace,
guard
this house and its contents until day.
I well remember my father performing the same ritual
and accompanying it with prayer, but as to the words of that prayer, I never
asked, much to my regret now.
Among the hundreds of prayers in Diarmuid
O’Laoghaire’s collection, are invocations and blessings relating to coming in
and going out of the house, lighting and extinguishing the lamp or candle,
smooring the fire and kindling it, putting the child to bed, blessing the cow,
blessing the herd, blessing the work, mending the nets, crossing a bridge or a
river or the great sea.
Blowing out the candle at night brought thoughts of a
light eternal: ‘May God never quench the
light of heaven on us’. Assessing the
weather prospects on an overcast day, it is said that ‘if there is enough blue
to make a mantle for Our Lady, the day will come good’. The crowing of the cock is not
‘cock-a-doodle-do’, but ‘Tá-Mac-na-hÓighe-Slán’
– the Son of the Virgin is risen – literally, ‘the Son of the Virgin is safe’. On the way to Mass: ‘Let us walk together
with the Virgin Mary and the other holy people who accompanied her only Son to
the Hill of Calvary’. Lighting the lamp:
‘Saviour, may you give the light of heaven to every poor soul who has left this
life, and every poor soul who ever prayed’. Blessing the bed: ‘The cross of
Christ between me and all enemies of my soul and body’. Before speaking: ‘Jesus, Son of God, who was
silent before Pilate, do not let us begin to wag our tongues without
considering what we have to say, and how to say it’. At the end of work: ‘The blessing of God on
the souls of the dead, and may the great God leave us our life and our health,
and may God bless our work and the work of all Christians’. Baking bread: ‘The bounty of God and the
blessing of Patrick on all that I see and take.
The bounty God gave the five loaves and two fishes, let him give to this
food’. Walking: ‘O God, bless every step
that I am taking, and bless the ground beneath my feet’. On seeing the sunrise: ‘King of the
brightness and of the sun, you alone know the reason for our being, be with us
every day, be with us every night, be with us every night and day, be with us
every day and night’. Passing a
graveyard: ‘My blessing on you, Christ’s faithful people, who are here awaiting
the glorious resurrection. May he who
suffered the Passion for your sake grant to you eternal rest’. A boatman on seeing the moon: ‘Glory to you,
O God of the Elements, for the bright lantern of the bay. Your own hands on the rudder ad your mysterious
love behind the wave’. Protection: ‘The
protecting circle of the God of the Elements, of gentle Christ, of the Holy
Spirit, be keeping me safe’.”
(J.J. O’Riordain, CssR., The Music of What Happens,
Columba Press, Dublin, 1996 (pp. 89, 90)
The above is one way of obeying the injunction of the
Lord to pray at all times (Luke 18:1).
The delightful Russian classic “The Way of a Pilgrim”
is another way to pray always.
For more on CP please see Appendix below.
APPENDIX 1
TRUE PRAYER AND ITS COUNTERFEITS:
There is a lot of confusion today about prayer due to
false teachers.
“Many false prophets will arise; they will deceive
many... love in most people will grown
cold”. (Mt. 24:11)
“The Spirit has explicitly said that during the last
times some will desert the faith and pay attention to deceitful spirits and
doctrines that come from demons”. (1
Tim. 4:1)
“Not every spirit is to be trusted; test the spirits
to see whether they come from God, for many false prophets are at large in the
world”. (1 Jn. 4:1)
There is a lot of confusion today about prayer due to
false teachers. The New Age Movement
(NAM) has produced its fair share. This
NAM is an eclectic mixture of pantheism, the occult, of magic and myths about
the secrets of life mixed in with ideas from astrology, astro-physics and pop
psychology. It borrows from all
religions, but is under obedience to none.
It’s pick and mix, or whatever!
The Church has been greatly exercised over the last few
decades, counteracting this flood of deception with documents like:
Some aspects of Christian meditation (J. Ratzinger); a
New Age of the Spirit? (Irish Theological Commission; Christ or Aquarius: Exploring the New Age Movement (Godfried Danneels)
and best of all: New Age: a Christian
Reflection: Jesus Christ the Bearer of
the Water of Life by two Vatican Pontifical Councils.
I world religions not all words have the same meaning,
e.g. Meditation (cerebral in Hindu/Buddhism), but holistic involving mind,
heart, and the moral life in Christianity.
Buddhist compassion is not the same obviously, as the Christian
variety. Islamic peace (as in ‘Islam is
a religion of peace’) is not the same as Christian peace that “surpasses all
understanding”. (Philip 4:7)
The word mantra
never appears in traditional Christian spirituality. It is not to be confused with monologistos or one word
prayer. St. John Climacus refers to the
Jesus Prayer as monologistos. New Agers
wrongly claim that mantras can be found in works like the Jesus Prayer, John Cassian’s Conferences, The Cloud of
Unknowing, St. Teresa of Avila’s writings, etc.
But in spite of hijacking these works as mantra-based, they never
recommend these so-called mantras as they are too long: Jesus Prayer (15 words); Cassian’s
aspirational prayer (13 words). So they
are not suitable as meaningless shields against thoughts ad for inducing
altered states of consciousness! NAM
meditators prefer harmonic words to build up a resonance of powerful sound
waves to empty the mind and expand consciousness to reach a mental void. ‘Maranatha’ has good vibes but not ‘Come Lord
Jesus’, it seems! Altered states and
mind voiding, especially for children, are dangerous as they can lead to
depression, madness and openness to the demonic.
St. Teresa, writing of people in the 4th
Mansion, who have progressed beyond the beginner stage to the advanced stage in
prayer, when distractions come, can utter a single word occasionally, to solve
the problem.
This is not
mantra meditation which is used to attain altered states of consciousness
(ASC’s) and dissolve stress.
The Church has endorsed the teaching of both St.
Teresa and St. John of the Cross. On his
feastday (14th December) the Collect for the Mass goes ‘by imitating
him closely at all times, we may come to contemplate eternally your
glory’. For Teresa’s feastday on October
15th, we read ‘grant that we may always be nourished by the food of
her heavenly teaching’.
St. Teresa notes that infused contemplation (for
proficients in prayer) is especially subject to mental wondering, even more
than discursive meditation. So a
proficient can still the mind by a single word.
That is not a mantra and the same goes for all the other so-called
mantra works above.
The Jesus Prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Living
God, have mercy on me, a sinner).
Johanette Benkovic says it “expresses a complete thought, thereby
putting a thought into our mind. It also
places the pray-er in right relationship with Our Lord as one who is a sinner
in need of God’s mercy. Further, it
tells us who Jesus Christ is – the Son of the Living God. Rather than using the Jesus Prayer to dismiss
thought, the pray-er is to meditate on the profound mystery expressed by the
words, eventually making them the substance of his life”. (Johanette Benkovic,
The New Age Counterfeit, p.22f)
The same is true of the monologistos prayer of Abbot
Isaac of John Cassian’s Conferences (O God make speed to save me; O Lord make
haste to help me). Like the Jesus
Prayer, this formula places us in proper relationship to God who saves us, and
its content too, is crucial to the prayer.
The Cloud of Unknowing is often simplistically quoted
as mantra-based. But it is spirituality
of love like St. Teresa and quotes St. Augustine favourably that “the entire
life of a good Christian is nothing less than holy desire (Ch. 75). The
Cloud states that “techniques and
methods are ultimately useless for awakening contemplative love”. This is because God’s love is poured (or
infused) into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5), not by some anonymous
force or by self-induced altered states of consciousness.
CENTERING PRAYER:
Centering prayer “is simply transcendental meditation
in a Christian dress”.
(Fr. Emil Lafranz S.J., U.S.A.)
“Centering Prayer is Transcendental Meditation and
nothing else. It had nothing to do with
relationship with God in growing exercise of the theological virtues. It does not matter if you take a Hebrew word
(Abba or Jesus or Amen...) instead of a sanscrit one as a mantra because anyway
you do not pronounce it with faith, love or contrition as in the Jesus Prayer,
but only as a shield, a meaningless shield against thoughts”.
(Mother Veronica Le Goulard p.c.c., Lusaka)
One subject that has caused a lot of confusion is
Centering Prayer. (Not the centering
prayer, with a small “c” and “p”, which is legitimately centered on
Jesus). It originates with three monks
at St. Joseph’s Abbey, Spencer, Massachusetts:
Frs. William Mehinger, Basil Penington and Thomas Keating. Most of the monks in the Abbey did
Transcendental Meditation (TM) – a form of meditation that is purely cerebral
and used a Hindu mantra which was the name of a Hindu god or goddess. This is the background to Centering Prayer.
Most of the monks then did a highly occult TM- Siddhi
programme to develop psychic powers.
Once the door to the occult is opened it is very difficult to close it
again. Confusion began to grow and
syncretism which I believe has done a great deal of harm to authentic Catholic
teaching on prayer and meditation.
Fr. Pennington praised the Hindu TM as an authentic
method of contemplative prayer, and that it ‘corresponds step by step to
classical teaching’. (Centering Prayer,
Faith and Renewal, May 1991) This is
manifestly untrue. He praised Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi as a ‘truly spiritual man and a moral leader’. A fellow Hindu, Agehananda Bharati and a
prolific writer, described Maharishi as “philistine, uncritical and dormantly
Hindu-fascist”. Mael Melvin, a
scientist, said ‘Maharishi is flexible in what he considers truth’. (Clergy Review, May 1979, p.168) John Lennon of the Beatles once stormed out
of Maharishi’s Indian home in disgust, where he and his group sat at
Maharishi’s feet, and wrote a sarcastic song called ‘Sexy Sadie’ against the
holy man! After Fr. Pennington’s
enthusiastic praise of TM, Fr. Keating’s distancing himself from TM looks like
damage limitation to defend the hybrid Centering Prayer.
Both Pennington and Keating sang the praises of a book
entitled ‘Meditation on the Tarot’ which was classified by the Library of
Congress under “Occult Science”! Fr.
Keating warmly endorsed a book by his disciple, Phillip St. Romain, entitled
“Kundalini Energy and Christian Spirituality”.
The author was puzzled by the effects kundalini had on him until he read
books by the Satanic Theosophical Society and was enlightened! Kundalini is a dangerous form of yoga and
nearly killed a Hindu devotee, Gopi Krishna, author of “Kundalini : the
Evolutionary Energy in Man”. A survey in
Latin America of psychologists and psychiatrists into the wisdom of developing
mediumistic or psychic powers, as in yoga, concluded in “virtual unanimity in
seeing these practices as contributing to madness”. (B. Kloppenburg, Ofm, Pastoral
Practice and the Paranormal, Franciscan Herald Press, 1979, p.56)
Fr. Basil also enthusiastically endorsed (The Priest,
Dec. 1989) the discredited EST/Forum programme of New Ager, Werner Erhard, that has been labelled as ‘fascist’ by
Professor Paul Vitz of New York University.
Erhard was even criticized by the Esalen Institute in California, the
Mecca of the New Age Movement.
Anyone attracted to Centering Prayer should pause to
consider the credibility of its progenitors who have made themselves advocated
of the Maharishi and other NAM leaders and fads. They now deny any link between TM and CP, but
if something looks like a duck, waddles and quacks like a duck, it must be a
duck!
With all this dabbling in the NAM and occult by Fr.
Keating, with the resulting confusion, an exasperated critic of the NAM,
Douglas Groothuis, exclaimed: “New Age theology is often sold as Christianity. Keating and his ilk use the Christian
vocabulary but they don’t use the Christian dictionary (the Bible)”. All the warnings on the NAM by the Vatican
mentioned above seem to have fallen on deaf ears, especially as regards the
danger of “fusing Christian Meditation with non-Christian”.
One is reminded of Gnosticism which Pope John Paul
equated with the NAM (Crossing the Threshold of Hope, p.90). Gnosticism took Christian words, emptied them
of their original meaning and then invested them with new meanings at variance
with the original. Same words, different
meanings, as in CP etc.
MEDITATION : CHRISTIAN AND HINDU:
True Christian meditation and not its counterfeit, is
mulling over Biblical realities like the beauty of creation (cf. Rom. 1:20) or
our new creation in Christ (2 Cor. 5:17).
When the Virgin Mary is said by Luke to ‘ponder’ in her heart the
mysteries of her Son’s birth ( Luke 2:19), the Greek word used is symballo, meaning that she was
putting things together and seeing the pattern in them. As we continue meditation on the Word,
especially for St. Teresa, on the passion of Christ, our hearts begin to ‘burn’
as it did for the two men on the road to Emmaus, as Jesus opened up for them
the Scriptures (Luke 24:32). This
warming of the heart is meant to continue as the Fathers say above as we grow
in loving God with all our heart, soul and mind until we become like the
Seraphs or “burning ones”!
For us Catholics growth in our union and love for
Jesus demands regular attendance at the Liturgy, concern for the poor, keeping
the Commandments and growth in virtue as Christian prayer is more holistic than
cerebral Buddhist/Hinduism. Prayer
before Jesus in the reserved Sacrament in the Tabernacle on the Sanctuary has
been described as “Son bathing” or “radiation therapy” (see Malachi 4:2 : ‘But
for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will shine out with healing
in its rays’.)
“O God you are my God, for you I long, my soul thirsts
for you like a dry, weary land without water, SO I GAZE ON YOU IN THE
SANCTUARY TO SEE YOUR STRENGTH AND YOUR GLORY. (Psalm 63:2)
MEDITATION : HINDU/BUDDHIST:
“.... the heart of Christian mysticism is a mystery of
love, whereas both Hinduism and in Buddhism it is primarily a transformation of
consciousness” (William Johnston S.J.)
A typical NAM style “Christian” meditation includes
usually the following:
1. Sitting
down with back straight for good posture, in either lotus or half lotus
position.
2. Close
eyes lightly with a slight aperture.
3. Recite
a mantra.
4. Breathe
in such and such a way. (Pranayama or
Hindu breathing)
5. Banish
all images and thoughts.
6. Meditate
twice a day, etc.
Note that there is no reference to pondering on the
Word of God which is paramount in traditional Christian meditation, which St.
Teresa of Avila said was simply falling in love with Jesus. There is no putting oneself in the presence
of God or making the sign of the Cross, or calling on the Holy Spirit. There is no such thing as a mantra (word or
practice) in traditional Christian prayer and posture and breathing are
irrelevant. Banishing thoughts is not
for beginners, but for the well advanced in prayer. Thoughts and images are essential in
traditional Christian meditation to stir up love in our heart for God, who is
love.
In the Bible, Isaac went out into the fields to
meditate (Gen. 24:63). King David
meditated on his bed! (Ps. 63:6) In Joshua 1:8 the people are told to meditate
on the Law of God, day and night.
Timothy is told to “meditate on these things” of God. (1 Tim. 4:15)
The NAM “Christian” meditation has little in common
with traditional meditation, but more in common with the secular meditation Dr.
Herbert Benson of Harvard Medical Faculty calls the “Relaxation response”. Benson has been engaged in studies of
physiological responses to meditation since the late 1960s. He was once a prominent TM researcher of the
well-known Wallace and Benson team, but refused to become a ‘priest’ in
Maharishi’s ‘congregation’ of researchers.
Benson believes that we all have the ability to get rid of stress and
unnecessary tension by bringing what he calls the ‘relaxation response’ into
play. He maintains that this is a
natural mechanism or integrated bodily reaction which is the direct opposite of
the ‘fight or flight’ response, and which is elicited by meditation. His simple method can be learnt from a book,
giving it an obvious advantage over TM.
He tested the technique and found that it had the same beneficial
effects as claimed by TM for its product.
Briefly, his technique is to take a word like ‘one’ as a mantra and to
repeat it whilst exhaling, and so on. He
believes any word will do.
In his book, The
Relaxation Response, Benson points out that there are parallels to TM in
nearly all the world religions, and a close examination of the Christian
mystical tradition would seem to indicate this.
Ruysbroeck, the Flemish mystic, speaks of a form of rest that may be
purely natural and not induced by the action of God on the soul: ‘... when a
man is bare and imageless in his senses, and empty and idle in his higher
powers, he enters into rest through mere nature; and this rest may be found and
possessed within themselves in mere nature by all creatures without the
grace of God, whenever they can strip themselves of images and of all
activity... now, mark the way in which this natural rest is practised. It is a sitting still, without either outward
or inward acts, in vacancy, in order that rest may be found and may remain
untroubled. In this bare vacancy the
rest is pleasant and great’.
Techniques and methods are ultimately useless for
awakening contemplative love (The Cloud.
Our children in Catholic schools, our people in
parishes are being duped and sold short by these counterfeit meditation techniques
and methods, which can reduce stress as if this is the most important thing in
the world! They cannot produce the peace
that “surpasses all understanding” (Phil. 4:7) that can exist even in the midst
of stress and tribulation. Besides,
stress can be very useful in bringing people to God.
“It was good for me to be afflicted, for it has taught
me your Word... before I was afflicted I strayed, but now I keep your
Word”. (Ps. 119:71)
God’s love is poured (or infused) into our hearts by
the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5) and not by some anonymous occult “force” or by
self-induced, altered states of consciousness.
“New Age ideas sometimes find their way into
preaching, catechism, workshops and retreats, and influence even practicing
Catholics, who perhaps are unaware of the incompatibility of those ideas with
the Church’s faith. In their
syncretistic and immanent outlook, these para-religious movements pay little
heed to Revelation, and instead try to come to God through knowledge and
experience based on elements borrowed from Eastern spirituality or from
psychological techniques. They tend to
relativize religious doctrine, in favour of a vague world view expressed as a
system of myths and symbols dressed in religious language”. (Pope John Paul II)
APPENDIX
2
Opt-Out of NEW AGE MOVEMENT Education in School Form
To:
Principal:
___________________________________________
School: ___________________________________________
Date: __________________________
Dear Sir or Madam,
1. Upon your receipt of this document, you are
placed on notice that I (we), the undersigned parents, have elected to invoke
my (our) family’s “right of freedom of conscience, religion, thought, belief
and opinion” as guaranteed by the South African constitution Bill of Rights
(clause 15.1) and the child’s rights (clause 28(1)b) to “family care and
parental guidance”.
2. I (we) hereby request that you not instruct
my child(ren) about NEW AGE MOVEMENT (NAM) practice without first providing me
(us), on an incident-by-incident basis, with at least two weeks prior notice,
and obtaining my (our) written permission after allowing me (us) the
opportunity to review all materials/lessons plans. This would include any teachers/educators and
Religious programmes.
3. I (we) hereby request that you specifically
refrain from addressing issues at variance with the Bible and the Catechism
of the Catholic Church, e.g. Hindu/Buddhist/NAM Meditation with mantras,
pranayama (breathing exercises), astrology, auras, altered states of
consciousness, channelling, crystals, enneagram, holistic health, Human
Potential Movement (self-actualisation, self-transformation, self-realisation)
lotus positions, mind voiding, occultism, psychic power development, Reiki,
Reincarnation, shamanism, Theosophical society ( a.k.a. Lucis/Lucifer Trust,
World Gooodwill, Arcane school, Triangles), Transcendental Meditation (TM),
Centering Prayer (TM for the Christian market), “Christian Meditation” (John
Main), visualisation, Wicca, yoga, Zen Buddhism, etc.
4. This request extends to all school system
employees, officials, teachers and agents in any setting, on or off the school
grounds, in which my (our) child(ren) is/are in the care of the school. Similarly, this extends to visits to the
school by practitioner of NAM lifestyles.
5. Any instruction that suggest that NAM or
Hindu/Buddhism practices are normal or acceptable is antithetical to my (our)
moral beliefs. Such instruction would
therefore be a direct government intrusion on my (our) rights and duties as a
parent. I consider it the duty of the
school to protect my (our) child(ren) from such activities.
6. We will regard failure to notify me (us) of
any of the aforementioned instruction and/or programmes as an infringement of
my (our) rights as regards the ‘Promotion of Administrative Justice’ and
‘Promotion of Access to information’ acts of 2000.
7. This document shall supersede any previously
signed permission forms you may have on file.
The child(ren) to which this opt-out
notice applies is/are:
_______________________________
_______________________________
Signed:
______________________________________________________
Parent of Legal Guardian Date
