Reading CS you have noticed my Christian background. I grew up as child in a family divided by the convictions of my parents. In the years of World War II, I was reared by my pious mother alone. When my father came back from war I was five years old. He had lost his faith and had left the Catholic church. Soon my new homeland became an atheist state. I was living in the German Democratic Republic among a lot of people who - as party members - were decided atheists.
Teachers especially had to profess this new 'religion', and to convince their pupils of its scientific character. How often have I heard this sentence, 'Christians are people who believe in fairy tales.'

When I studied philosophy I heard about the different arguments and demonstrations for an ultimate absolute cause by which each contingent being is created. This absolute reality is named God. Its essence is with necessity - when you follow the immediate evidence of the 'ens in se', the absolute being that cannot be caused by any being that exists 'before' it. You cannot go 'in infinitum'. There must finally be a being the essence of which is to exist by itself. It is impossible that there are two or three such absolute beings, for how will you explain the unity of the universe, how can you find untiy in the innumerable multitude? Hence there can be only one God - if 'a God' exists at all.
When my father, who returned to the Catholic church about the year 1958, talked with his collegues (most of them were party members) he used to say, "What you call 'eternal matter' is named by us Christians 'God'." It is my conviction that there can be only one source of reality. The oneness of our world enables us to conceive such concepts as naught, nothingness, infinity, to count numbers, to teach mathematics, logic etc. As psalm 36, 9 says, "In your light we see light".

Since I am convinced that there is only one God, this God of mine is the God of Jews and Muslims too. The Christian creed that God exists in three persons does by no means diminish the oneness and uniqueness of the one God, but it corresponds to a reality where all is one ('Coincidentia oppositorum' by Nikolaus von Kues). How can there be differences and distinctions in a world created by the one God? There has to be in God already the principle of multiplicy resp. procreation because we find it in a world created by him. At the end of my thoughts about CON-Spiration I want to assure you that I had by no means begun this undertaking, if I had not gone through many trials and tribulations. Without them I would certainly still follow my former maxim 'Late biosas' (Greek) - Lead your life in obscurity.)

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Some of my experiences with the Incessant Jesus Prayer

I'd like to give you a short review about my praying as regarda the Jesus Prayer. After the usual reciting of prayers known by heart, I got a solid training in meditating according to the method of Saint Ignatius during the two years of my novitiate.
The year before my ordination I spent in Neuzelle. When they reduced the number of volumes in the library of the seminary I took some of the books about mysticism that had been sorted out. At that time I became an addict of Saint John of the Cross and threw away all my photos. Since then the Negative Theology got the upper hand.
The most important part in my prayer life played the prayer that is attributed to Saint Francis Xavier. I cannot remember exactly when I had learned it by heart, but I remember clearly that it carried me through many 'dry periods'. I think the reason is because it opens with a declaration of love, and it illustrates Christ's love for me. Ever since this prayer has been sticking in my mind, and I say it daily after Holy Communion and after lunch when our community visits our chapel.
Although I had read a lot from the old 'Desert Fathers' when I was studying philosophy, and got then a first knowledge about their Incessant Jesus Prayer, at that time I had no access to it. Only years later, when I was chaplain in Dresden and read the 'Memories of a Russian Pilgrim' (I do not remember the exact English title), I began to practise praying to the rhythm of my breathing. Since then there have been times when I practised it, and times without doing it.

At the age of 56 I went through a crisis - maybe a belated midlife crisis. To get clarity about my future life I used Saint Ignatius' advice. 'If you are looking for the solution of some problem, use first those means that will more unite the creature with its creator.' So I chose prayer and fasting. For the first time in my life I fasted for forty days. And I remembered the words of Jesus, 'Ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.' I plucked up courage and said to God, 'I will see if your words are true. I shall beg, knock and search.' And so I did. I can only guess, why I choose the prayer of Brother Nicholas of the Flue. I think because its opening words are 'My Lord and my God', and because it is a prayer that goes for the kill. It was during those forty day of fasting that I got the CS-idea. At that time it was rather an obsession, and I did not trust it but rather regarded it as temptation to love of fame. Only later I understood: If anybody wants to prevent that people pray together for justice and peace and dedicate their lives to the needy, it will be Satan and not God!
I went through such marvellous experiences while I was praying and fasting that I said to myself, 'The word of God is true. I have experienced it in my own body.'

There has always been and still is in my heart a longing for living together with people who say the Incessant Jesus Prayer in the same community, under the same roof. 'Dum spiro spero.' - 'As long as I am breathing I will hope.'
I appreciate the formula of Brother Nicholas because it is so daring. I have said it - in the way of the Incessant Jesus Prayer - when I went through that crisis in my life. I have earnestly and sincerely spoken these words because I am convinced they point to the most important thing in my life.
There is not the place to talk about my inner experiences of those 40 days of praying and fasting. But I can assure you that I went through a phase of my life where I experienced a reality behind and beyond the reality of everyday life. I had chosen this formula rather by chance, but maybe I chose it because I had reached a point in my life where I had to go for the kill. This prayer has accompanied me since then and will accompany me in the future. Give and take, attachment and detachment, finally the surrender - to whom? at what time? forever? what? everything? - myself!

In the meantime I am confident that the old saying of Gamaliel will show its truth. 'If this matter has come from God, one cannot dissolve it.' In any case, people will come together, not only by external means - internet, commerce etc - but inwardly, spiritually, in their minds and hearts. I am looking confidently to the future of humankind, since it originates in God.

O Deus Ego Amo Te
O God, I love Thee, I love Thee -
Not out of hope of heaven for me
Nor fearing not to love and be
In the everlasting burning.
Thou, Thou, my Jesus, after me
Didst reach Thine arms out dying,
For my sake sufferedst nail and lance,
Mocked and marred countenance,
Sorrows passing number,
Sweat and care and cumber,
Yea and death, and this for me,
And Thou couldst see me sinning;
Then I, why should not I love Thee,
Jesus, so much in love with me?
Not for heaven's sake; not to be
Out of hell by loving Thee;
Not for any gains I see;
But just the way that Thou didst me
I do love and I will love Thee:
What must I love Thee, Lord, for then?
For being my king and God. Amen.

(translated by G.M.Hopkins SJ)