Christianity is NOT a Mystical Religion

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And yet… if you look at general mystical experiences across religions, you will see that people who do have such experiences tend, on average, to become better, more moral human beings, with greater compassion for others and less selfishness. “By their fruits ye shall know them”?
 
The goal of Christianity is not to make people better, more moral human beings, with greater compassion for others and less selfishness (which may be good fruits along the way), but to transfigure fallen, sinful humanity and make it a partaker of the Divine Nature, thus raising it beyond its pre-fallen paradisal state in preparation for the Dread Judgement and End of Days. Our goal is communion and reunion with the One True God, the Divinely Revealed Holy Trinity, and preparation for eternity. This life is passing away and we must make every effort to be in a fit state for the Second Coming of Christ, whether that be in our own physical death or should He return in our lifetime.
 
Think of it this way. From Teresa of Avila’s 5th 6th and 7th stages of prayer there are many similarities between the various encounters with God that she has. They are all good, wonderful etc and they all produce fruits too but there is as much of a difference between stage 5 and 7 as there is between a caterpillar and a butterfly.

Just because all of these encounters are “good” and I personally agree with you that they are. That does not mean they are all the same.

I have spoken with people from a number of traditions who have had the highest of spiritual experiences from various traditions and I can tell you with absolute certainty that they are not the same at all. The difference I described absolutely apply and are important. It is not a matter of language and these people sitting next to one another do not think so either.

I think it is deeply interesting that various contemplative traditions have "different: penetrations into spiritual reality.

Take into account Bede Griffiths, a christian monk who wanted to being Christ to India. He went to the Hindu masters and told them he wanted to being Christ to them but wanted to first see what they had. He became their student until he reached enlightenment from that tradition. Its called SacCitAnanda – the place beyond which there is no further to go.

Once Bede attained that state he said now let me introduce you to the Trinity and those Hindu masters then went further into the mystery and had an experience not of the impersonal atman but of the person God who knows, loves and is powerful.

Neither side thought that these two systems were saying the same thing. Both sides recognized very significant differences between them.

Bede Griffiths even mapped out the different penetrations from Buddhism to Hinduism and Christianity and the differences in how they are felt, experienced and reflected upon and their relation to one another.

I can also just simply draw from my own experience having started meditating in the Buddhist approach because as a Christian I did not know there was such a thing as contemplation for us.

My relationship with Christ began drawing me into certain stages of prayer that are listed in Avila’s works and I was told definitively by Buddhist lineage holders that I was doing it wrong and going the wrong way and entering the wrong states. This was not a matter of language but of a meeting of the minds and parsing out very subtle spiritual reality experience and quality.

But when I finally met my Trappist monk and guide he was able to confirm with certainty that I was on the right path…
 
The very important result of following the process of ascetical prayer, through the stages mentioned, at a rate of progress that is fitted to the development of the soul in prayer, is this: right spiritual formation of the soul - in mind and heart, intellect and will.

Why is this important? Because we are called - commanded - first and last, to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength. To do this we need to come to know Him in Truth, and rightly - our mind needs to formed in His Truth. The love we have for Him must be conformed to His love, in Truth. Our acts much be conformed to His will. How do we come into this crucial and right interior formation? It begins with vocal prayer, prayed in Truth and with right intention - that is, with true vocal prayer prayed well, prayed rightly.

Such vocal prayer, prayed rightly, urges the soul toward deeper prayer, which is nourished and strengthened by moving forward into discursive meditation - especially upon the Truth of Holy Scripture. This is how we begin to really KNOW Jesus - and through Jesus, the Father and the Spirit. And as St. Jerome said, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” The converse is also true. A soul rightly formed in Holy Scripture, comes to know Christ in Truth.

This formation continues to deepen and grow as the stages of ascetical prayer are grown into, step by step.

Prayer - communion with God - Needs to be TRUE. Lest a man prays to a Lord he hardly knows - to one he may only imagine, and wrongly. The Lord gave us Holy Scripture for a good reason! We need to use it, to learn HIM by means of it, to pray His Truth with the light of it, to grow in Him to the very threshold of authentic mystical prayer-communion with him and in Him. THERE, we can meet Him - we are prepared in Truth to meet Him - in the supernatural meeting of contemplative prayer.

And yes, it is possible for a generous, simple, earnest soul to know and pray one prayer - the Our Father - and to pray it with the whole heart and mind and soul and strength! And God will honor such prayer.

But God wants His children to give their all to Him in prayer! And NOT to look for short-cuts and an easy path to meet Him on. He deserves more than that.
 
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I think things are not always as they first seem.
 
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Hello everyone from Spain, I am new to this site.And as iambout to go to bed i came across this topic. And let me disagree with the proponent here. I am one of those you blame for being too mystic or contemplative, and no, there´sno such thing as too much contemplation or too much mysticism. In fact, I see none of that where I live, Liturgy is terrible these days, noise is all around, and the sermons are nothing but social engineering.The vehicle that should take you to the pressence of the Lord, does not take you anywhere.I agree that loving your neighbour is the second commandment and that implies action, but the first one does not.
Good night
 
Hello Plotino - Greetings to you in Christ our Lord!

Yes, there are barren places in the U.S. also - in the Holy Liturgy, one can find noise, shallow platitudes, rich vestments, artful gestures and impoverished souls. These are difficult times, but He is still very near - even while many, in many ways, are proclaiming that The Kingdom of God is far away.
 
Nothing here proves centering prayer is heretical or outside of the Catholic teachings or that it is New Age. You have simply shown a way to do it. Not the only way. Innovations is a welcome aspect of Christian history.

People who practice centering prayer do all of these things but to think that it MUST happen in exactly this order and exactly this way is to deny Christian experience in favor of a fundamentalist dogmatism.

People who spend 20 years of their lives doing daily contemplative prayer, attending mass, praying verbally and meditating on the scriptures are not taking shortcuts.

I have met people and known them deeply who have done it in many ways as the Holy Spirit brings us all in unique ways for each individual.
 
That would certainly suggest that the mystical experience is a real encounter with God’s love and grace, even if experienced by people who understand it differently, and not with anything demonic.

Wasn’t your original contention that such practice is questionable at best? The fruits you cite would seem to argue otherwise.
 
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ragus93 said:
Because contemplative prayer is focused on blocking out the senses and intellect in order to be in touch with the “divine spark” inside as Meister Eckhart would call it. Essentially, you are blocking out the external world and going into yourself. This is the opposite of coming OUT of yourself and pouring love into the world, isn’t it?
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And yet we see instances of Jesus “blocking out the external world” - prime example being his spending 40 days alone in the desert fasting and praying before beginning his ministry. Another being His hours praying alone in Gethsemane before His passion. None of this prevented Him being active or engaged.

As has been rightly said, it is not at all a case of “either/or”. Jesus even said “come to me you who are heavy burdened and I will give you rest”. That is part of what contemplative prayer is - as important as engaging with the world is, contemplation provides the “rest”, and He praised Mary for her devotion to it in contrast with the busy “engagement” of Martha.
 
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“Prayer is not to be thought of as an occasional visit to God, but as an all encompassing orientation of our being towards him in love.” - Adrian Van Kaam

Abiding silently in God’s presence allows us to be ready to receive the slightest touch of his nearness.

If that is not mystical, if that does not open our hearts to welcome Christ, if that does not summarize his own prayer, than I am lost.
 
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The real problem at bottom with your understanding is that you have not read any of the early writings of Christians. There is so much literature up to and including literature from saints who were living at the time the New Testament was compiled.

Think about this. The people who compiled the New Testament left writings for us to read. There is a such a depth of understanding of what the scriptures mean and you have not been exposed to any of it. I had not either and when I did i was blown away. The depth they saw in the scriptures that I had NEVER heard anyone speak of was astounding.

This is the real problem --you don’t see contemplation in the scriptures when the early church fathers saw it everywhere and wrote about it. It’s a whole new world.

Moses’s first encounter with the burning bush and the purification he underwent separating himself from the people, his accent up the mount. First seeing God in light and then seeing God in darkness.

These are favorite scriptures used to describe the stages of prayer from the obvious that you can see in the burning bush to the inexpressible and unkowable in the cloud and only seeing God’s backside.

All of this is used by the early church fathers to describe the levels of prayer and contemplation.

Most of the Gospel of John (the contemplatives Gospel) is speaking of the contemplative dimension of our relationship with Christ.

Who says so? The saints of the early church who handed the various books of the bible down to us that is who.

I can’t understand not exposing oneself to these writings.
 
Also the contemplative dimension has been described by the TS as blocking out ones senses and going within oneself.

Jesus said the kingdom of heaven is within you… Do you think you might find something of value in there if you look, if Jesus said it was within you? Jesus said the holy trinity would come and live inside of you-- do you think you might find something of value if you look in there if the Trinity is there? The “self” is a conglomeration of our thoughts and ideas and feelings about oneself. These are placed aside (self forgetting) for a while so that one can spend one on one time with God.

Its like two lovers in a park gazing into each others eyes seemingly unaware of all that goes on around them. This is precisely what contemplative prayer is.

One more thing for the TS to consider. It has never been the case that the ONLY information that we should consider would be the New Testament. There has never been a time in Christian history that was willing to negate and push aside ALL Christians experiences with God and Christ until the last couple hundred years. Even in the Old Testament extra biblical writings are sourced as being valuable.

The whole notion that you MUST find it explicitly stated in the bible to consider it is a false teaching. And here is the most ironic thing about that. The idea that you can ONLY use scripture (sola scriptura) does not exist and is not stated explicitly in the BIble… that is ironic isn’t it?

The early church fathers are a wealth of wisdom and commentary on the scriptures and everyone should avail themselves of that wisdom.
 
Cool, all great info, thanks for sharing.
franklinstower said:
Take into account Bede Griffiths, a christian monk who wanted to being Christ to India. He went to the Hindu masters and told them he wanted to being Christ to them but wanted to first see what they had. He became their student until he reached enlightenment from that tradition. Its called SacCitAnanda – the place beyond which there is no further to go.

Once Bede attained that state he said now let me introduce you to the Trinity and those Hindu masters then went further into the mystery and had an experience not of the impersonal atman but of the person God who knows, loves and is powerful.
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Where can I read more about this? I did find a few things but they seem to be saying something different to me (bolding is mine):

from www[.]innerexplorations[.]com/catew/5.htm (remove the [ ] brackets… so annoying that I can’t post links, and also my posts are limited in terms of the number of characters I can post)
Jim: You spoke of the tension in Fr. Le Saux’s life between advaita and Trinity. Do you think that as people begin to embrace these two contemplative paths they are experiencing the same tension?

Bede: Well, I think not. Personally I have not had the same tension. The crux of the matter is advaita, you see, nonduality, and Fr. Monchanin once said the aim of our life is advaita and the Trinity. And I believe that advaita is not one, and it’s not two. It is really relationship, and the Trinity to me is the perfect example of nondual relationship. See, the Father is not the Son, the Father and Son are not the Holy Spirit. It’s not one. Neither are they two. The Father is not simply separate from the Son. The Father is in the Son, the Son in the Father, the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit, so it’s a nondual relationship which for me is a model of all nonduality. The whole of creation, actually, is this interweaving of beings in relationship, in communion.
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Jim: In your recent book, A New Vision of Reality , you talked about the difference between a Christian mysticism based on love, and a Hindu or Buddhist mysticism based on a transformation of consciousness. Can you comment on that?
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Bede: It’s a very interesting point. In the Hindu tradition the name for the godhead as far as it can have a name is sat-chit-ananda, being, consciousness, and bliss, and the Hindu aims at reaching that state where you become one with the supreme being through reality in pure consciousness, and that produces a state of absolute bliss, transcendence, but it is not exactly love, so there is no relationship in it. I feel the danger of Hindu mysticism is to retire into an inner reality of infinite riches and beauty and so on, but it doesn’t relate you to others, and the danger of the sannyasi in India is he is not really concerned with other people. That’s why you can meet people dying in the streets of Calcutta and not worry much about it. It’s part of karma, it’s part of samsari, the way of the world, and you believe that eventually these people will come to a better state, but you are concerned with this union with the supreme in the depths of your being. It’s a wonderful experience, but it’s not love, you see. I think they teach us much about the inner life of the spirit, and so on, but I think we also can bring this principle that it’s not simply a communion with God in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, in jnana, as they say, it’s also a communion in love, and a love which goes in and through God, through Christ, to the whole creation, to all humanity. If you do not love your brother who you see, how can you love God whom you have not seen? So I think that is something the Christian tradition can bring. Though mind you, I do feel that they have a depth of God realization which very few Christians in the West have today.
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If I’m understanding this correctly, Bede sees advaita’s non-duality to be pointing towards the Trinity, which is also symbolized by the sat-chit-ananda term that the Hindus have for the Godhead. He mentions that the Hindus do not focus on love and relationship (as the Christians do), BUT that nevertheless they DO achieve a communion with God in wisdom, understanding and knowledge. They just don’t interpret it as also a communion in love. That’s why “they have a depth of God realization which very few Christians in the West have today”.
He also is pointing to the danger I also see in mysticism. Namely loving God so much that you forget about creation and participating lovingly in it.
franklinstower said:
I can also just simply draw from my own experience having started meditating in the Buddhist approach because as a Christian I did not know there was such a thing as contemplation for us.

…
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This is very interesting. Would you say that it is because the experiences are different, or there is a different focus within the experiences? Clearly God in his infinite depth has inexhaustible riches to offer, so I wouldn’t see it as impossible that those were experiences just of a different “side” of God than the Buddhists were used to.
franklinstower said:
The real problem at bottom with your understanding is that you have not read any of the early writings of Christians.
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Which works would you recommend to start with?
 
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franklinstower said:
Innovations is a welcome aspect of Christian history.
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I think you have hit the modern cultural nail on the head, with this statement. The desire to innovate - to believe that we can improve on the wisdom of those before us, that we can do it better - is, I believe, (in the matter of spirituality) the recipe for staying on a merry-go-round and imagining that we’re finally getting somewhere.

I find that the interior life - the interior life of the Spirit within the baptized - has a normal path of development toward its intended end, or maturity. This normal path follows the sequence of the general categories of normal human growth and development: childhood, adolescence, adulthood.

In our normal human development, it would be absurd to think that we could step out of a confused, incompleted (or even dysfunctional) childhood, skip adolescence altogether, and decide to simply “be” a normal adult because we would like to be one, and now. So it is also, I have come to see, with the normal development of the life of prayer (communion with God, or “spiritual maturity”). There are stages of development: beginning, intermediate, perfect or mature. To “innovate” with this process is an invitation to waste much time. Better to heed the wisdom of the saints.

But - each person must live his own life.
 
I love this reply and I can see the wisdom in it and have thought deeply about this dimension of spirituality in relationship to church history and tradition. I have come to see the deep wisdom in the Catholic tradition and the Catholic spiritual and mystical tradition. I just don’t think that your position (as the only perspective allowable) tells the whole story.

We have had nothing but innovation and development all along. Each new order and each saint, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, etc who became the founder of a new approach has innovated. And each time this is done they are met by people who can only see one half of the picture and who resist and doubt and fear the loss of what is already established. This is a good thing at bottom in my opinion.

The challenge is to bring something new that is not in direct conflict with non negotiables of church doctrine and teaching. It is OK to be in conflict with non canonical approaches-- obviously. Not many should try to do this, and anyone who does can and will be met with strong resistance. That is perhaps how it should be. Nevertheless progress will be made and new ideas and approaches will emerge and some of them will be good.

I cannot help but hear the words of Jesus in this context when he says,

“Therefore every teacher of the law who has become a disciple in the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old.” Emphasis added.

I think the bias must be towards tradition-- but open to innovation. I think Jesus agrees with this and I think history agrees with this.

Using your analogy about human development though-- we do in fact see, more often than not actually, people who are arrested developmentally, but who are thrust into adulthood and given profoundly adult responsibilities to deal with. People in this state, and there are many, must raise children and be married and take on adult levels of responsibility at work without having completed previous stages. On the journey to wholeness the natural human stages often happen in an order that it not considered normative. Many people must go back and do adolescent work, while raising children. This is an unavoidable reality.

This is the messiness of life and I think this innovation or centering prayer but more broadly entering into contemplation early in the spiritual life as I did (to the degree that it really is an innovatoin as I do not grant you that all people practicing centering prayer are not doing all of the stages) is a necessary one to meet the unique challenges of bringing contemplative reality and experience to the lay person in the messiness and fragmentation of life.

I think the Centering Prayer movement in so far as it exists within the context of attending mass and fulfilling all of the other obligations of the Christian life is a much needed and beneficial development.

Still-- were I a proponent of centering prayer, and locked into that approach, I would expose people to the other levels of prayer also and in fact do in my little corner of the world.
 
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