Comparative Mysticism

[notself]

Hi, Bakmoon, Vouthon,

It’s good to read your comments after such a long break.

“…To be converted to the truth means nothing else but a turning from the love of created things, and a coming into union with the uncreated Highest Good. And in one who is thus converted there is a joy beyond conception, and his understanding is unclouded and not perverted by the love of earthly things…”

• Pseudo-Dionysius (5th century), Syrian mystic

This could also be a description of nibbana. Perhaps once one strips away the words of all religious teaching, the goal is the same, to become in union with the uncreated good.

 

[Bakmoon]

What is the meaning of union in this context? Does it mean oneness or closeness?

 

[SteveVH]

Contemplation and meditation are points of departure, faith is the path, union with the uncreated is the goal?

Peace

Exactly.

 

[Vouthon]

Is there any literature on the transition from meditation into active contemplation? When practicing active contemplation, where is the mind’s attention placed?

It often goes by the name of “ordinary contemplation” or “the prayer of simplicity”. It is known in the literature as a “simple gaze of love”. Saint Francis de Sales described it as “a loving, simple and permanent attentiveness of the mind”.

There is a vast body of literature on the transition from discursive meditation to acquired/active contemplation. I will dwell more on that later but here is a short passage from the, “Three Ages of the Interior Life” by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P:

"…The mind meditates on a subject with the aid of the imagination and of discourse or reasoning. Resolutions must be made after the affections, and the meditation should end with thanksgiving, with an offering of self, and a petition to God to grant us His grace that we may put into practice the resolutions He has inspired in us.

But if one perseveres in this way, meditation becomes simplified affective prayer in which the various acts tend to fuse into a single act. Thus the faithful soul is gradually raised to contemplation, which is “a loving, simple, and fixed attention of the mind on divine things.”(4 ) At this moment the life of the soul is entirely simple and concentrated…We no longer linger over one detail or another; we attain to a general view which dwells on God with admiration and love, as the gaze of an artist rests on nature, or that of a child on his mother’s features…"

Our interiore recollection and all mental activity becomes simplified.

St Teresa of Avila describes the last or the highest of the acquired prayers as follows:

"…It is called (active) “recollection,” because by its means the soul collects together all the faculties and enters within itself to be with God…

If this recollection is genuine it is easily discerned, for it produces a certain effect that I cannot describe, but which will be recognized by those who know it from personal experience. The soul seems to rise from play - for it sees that earthly things are but toys - and therefore mounts to higher things. Like one who retires into a strong fortress to be out of danger, it withdraws the senses from outward things, so thoroughly despising them that involuntarily the eyes close so as to veil from the sight what is visible, in order that the eyes of the soul may see more clearly. Those who practice this prayer almost always keep their eyes shut during it. This is an excellent custom for many reasons. . . . The soul appears to gather strength and to dominate itself at the expense of the body. . . .By persevering in the habit [of recollecting itself] for several days, and by controlling ourselves, the benefits that result will become clear…"

St Nicodemus tells us:

"The mind, the activity of the mind, is used from a very early age to be scattered toward the external world. For this reason when you say this sacred prayer do not breathe continually as is natural to our nature, but hold your breath until your inner consciousness has a chance to say the prayer once. By holding your breath even for this short interval the heart is pressed and troubled and feels pain for not receiving natural oxygen. The mind on the other hand is much more readily controlled to return to the heart, both because of the pain and suffering of the heart but also because of the pleasure that is created from this warm and vivid memory of God (A Hand Book on Spiritual Counsel pg.160).

Various techniques can be used at this stage of acquired contemplation which is the result of human activity, rather than God’s grace (as with infused, passive contemplation which does not arise from human effort at all) although such techniques are not necessary and are simply tools to help re-focus our attention from ourselves, our thoughts, feelings etc. and detach ourselves from them ie “I am not my thoughts, I am not my feelings, I must go deeper into my heart where God dwells”.

In active contemplation the mind’s attention is said to be “recollected”, interiorised rather than exteriorised. One is meant not to focus on passing thoughts that might disturb one’s calm. It is characterised by actively remaining in a state of stillness. Focus is variously suggested to be placed on: the breath (Hesychas, Ignatius of Loyola), a short prayer word or phrase or even simply on God Himself, not in an imaginative sense but directed towards the unknown deity, not with an image or any conceptions of Him but rather simply in a state of openness, without words. One is trying to tame what the Desert Fathers called “the passions”, emotions in other words. Regardless it is always focused towards God but not with discursive thought, rather intuitive unthinkingness one might say.

(CONTINUED…)

 

[Vouthon]

One also has insights from this activity. Not forced insights that use discursive thought but ones that come spontaneously, in the silence, beyond the everyday mental chatter of our minds. St. Alphonsus Liguori tells us: “*At the end of a certain time ordinary meditation produces what is called acquired contemplation, which consists in seeing at a simple glance * the truths which could previously be discovered only through prolonged discourse” (Homo apostolicus, Appendix I, No. 7). St Alphonsus compared it to the attitude of a mother watching over the cradle of her child: she has a single-pointed, intuitive love towards her child but without reflection and amid interruptions.

Truths about reality, human nature or God arise without effort - almost like quick bursts of wisdom or enlightenment that before would have taken us many years to acquire.

Also, what are the key characteristics of this natural state of emptiness you mention? Are there any key features of it?

Well, yes. It is really an experience one would have perhaps after a period of acquired/active contemplation in that it is a result of human attempts at controlling the train of one’s own thinking through essentially doing nothing. That might sound somewhat strange but one literally sits in stillness, turned within and has come to a state (perhaps after focusing on the breath or a prayer word or God) of having no activity whether within or without.

Ruusbroec, whom I mentioned earlier, describes this natural contemplation as a “sitting-still (een stille sitten) without any practice within or without in emptiness (ledicheit) …” We feel that we are suspended in God. “It is immobile and is higher than the supreme heaven and deeper than the bottom of the sea and wider than the whole world… and it is a natural reign of God and the end of all the soul’s activity.” and such people “feel nothing save the simplicity of their essence, hanging in the essence of God.”.

The only other thing that one usually finds about it is that, to use Ruusbroec again, there is the danger that when one experiences this purely natural state of emptiness one associates the bare simplicity of one’s essence as God, meaning that in a Hindu pantheistic sense one thinks that one’s created essence and changeable soul is actually Uncreated and is something akin to the Vedantic Atman. This is a very dangerous illusion according to orthodox Catholic mystics because it is essentially prevents the person from transcending their creaturely essence and reaching a deeper level of contemplation, such as infused contemplation through the grace of God. Ruusbroec explains that what they mistake for the unknowable Essence of God is rather their own essence. Essentially this leads one to commit “self-idolatry” which is very dangerous since mysticism is about detachment from self:

“…And because they are without practice and do not cling to God in love, they do not go beyond themselves but rest and idle in their own essence. And so their essence is their idol for they think they have and are one essence with God, and that is impossible…”

***- Blessed John Ruusbroec, (1293-1381), Flemish mystic & Catholic priest ***

 

[Vouthon]

What is the meaning of union in this context? Does it mean oneness or closeness?

It does not mean oneness of essence (as with Vendantic Non-Dualism and the concept of an Atman), nor does it mean simply “closeness”. One participates in this Highest Good that is God and thereby becomes by grace deified, sharing in its nature. One becomes God by participation but not by essence since our essence is created not Uncreated and our soul changeable not Unchangeable like God.

Jacapone da Todi (a 13th century mystic) says that the deified human being experiences

"a sweet tranquility superior to all other states, Not susceptible to change…

You have cast out both pleasure and displeasure;
Surrendering yourself.
You have drowned both wanting and not wanting
And extinguished desire; yours is unending peace

Within and without I am shattered,
Reduced to nothingness
Caught in the swell of the sea,
I drown!
Being and nonbeing I have fused together…"

All human affections and desires melt away, as Saint Bernard explains:

“…When will this sort of elevation be felt that, inebriated with divine love, the mind may forget itself, making itself like a broken vessel…? To lose yourself, as it were, like one who has no existence, and to have no self-consciousness whatever, and to be emptied of yourself and almost annihilated, belongs to heavenly not to human love. It is deifying to go through such an experience. As a little drop of water, blended with a large quantity of wine, seems utterly to pass away from itself and assumes the flavour and colour of wine, and as iron when glowing with fire loses its original or proper form and becomes just like the fire; and as the air, drenched in the light of the sun, is so changed into the same shining brightness that it seems to be not so much the recipient of the brightness as the actual brightness itself: so all human sensibility in the saints must then, in some ineffable manner, melt and pass out of itself, and be lent into the Will of God. How will God be all in all if something human survives in man?. …”

***- Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), Catholic mystic, Cistercian abbot & Doctor of the Church ***

 

[Vouthon]

Nibbana is referred to as the uncreated, unborn, unmade. Nibbana is the goal of Buddhists.

Welcome back sister Notself! I am very happy to see you here

 

[hazcompat]

What is the meaning of union in this context? Does it mean oneness or closeness?

Bliss beyond all bliss, and joy beyond all joy. Better than life! Ten years at the university in “no time”. A nanosecond, a single ray, unutterable. The perfect highest good in the union of love. The omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Triune Divinity SHARES the beginning of eternal life.

Peace

 

[Vouthon]

Bliss beyond all bliss, and joy beyond all joy. Better than life! Ten years at the university in “no time”. A nanosecond, a single ray, unutterable. The perfect highest good in the union of love. The omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Triune Divinity SHARES the beginning of eternal life.

Peace

Again, wonderful brother. I love how you are able to capture in short, pithy sentences what I normally take whole passages to explain

Bliss beyond bliss is an excellent way of describing it. From Ruusbroec (I have his works close to hand atm which is why I’m quoting him so copiously!):

“…If above all things we would taste God, and feel eternal life in ourselves, we must go forth into God with our feeling, above reason and there we must abide, unified, empty of ourselves, and free from mental images, lifted up by love into the open bareness of our mind, for when we transcend all things in love and die to all rational observations in a dark state of unknowing, then we are wrought and transformed through the working of the Eternal Word, who is an image of the Father. In the empty being of our spirit we receive the Incomprehensible Light, which enwraps us and penetrates us, as the air is penetrated by the light of the sun. And this Light is nothing else than a fathomless staring and seeing. What we are, that we behold; and what we behold, that we are: for our thought, our life, and our very being are uplifted in oneness, and made one with the Truth which is God. In this simple act of seeing we are therefore one life and one spirit with God. This is what I call a contemplative life…The Spirit of God now speaks within our own spirit in its hidden immersion: ‘Go out, into a state of eternal contemplation and blissful enjoyment after God’s own manner.’ All the richness which is in God by nature is something which we lovingly possess in God –and God in us– through the infinite love which is the Holy Spirit. … There the spirit is caught up in the embrace of the Holy Trinity and eternally abides within the superessential Unity in a state of rest and blissful enjoyment. In this same Unity, considered now as regards its fruitfulness, the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, while all creatures are in them both…One can neither leave it nor grasp it, neither do without it nor attain it, neither be silent on it nor speak of it, for it is above reason and understanding, and it transcends all creatures; and therefore we can never reach nor overtake it. But we should abide within ourselves: there we feel that the Spirit of God is driving us and enkindling us in this restlessness of love. And we should abide above ourselves. And then we feel that the Spirit of God is drawing us out of ourselves and burning us to nothingness…that is, in the Superessential Love with which we are one, and which we possess more deeply and more widely than all else. This possession is a simple and abysmal tasting of all good and of eternal life; and in this tasting we are swallowed up above reason and without reason, in the deep Quiet of the Godhead, which is never moved…And therefrom follows the last point that can be put into words, that is, when the spirit beholds a Darkness into which it cannot enter with the reason. And there it feels itself dead and lost to itself, and one with God without difference and without distinction…”

***- Blessed Jan Van Ruusbroec (1293-1381), Flemish Catholic mystic & Augustinian priest, “The Sparkling Stone” ***

Ruusbroec uses very Triniatarian language here but one should still if not a Christian be able to understand the sense of what he is grappling to explain, the ineffable that he has experienced even if he uses the doctrinal language of theology to explain it.

 

[hazcompat]

I am about to begin to read

BLESSED JAN VAN RUYSBROEK
THE SPIRITUAL ESPOUSALS
translatedfrom the Dutch
with an introduction by
ERIC COLLEDGE

The title explains the meaning of union. Consolations, locutions, visions are engagement gifts. Union is the marriage.

Peace

 

[Bakmoon]

Interesting descriptions of union. The Buddhist tradition generally tries to avoid too much description of Nibbana in order to prevent misunderstanding, and so usually used a rather apophatic means of describing it. The exception to this is the use of certain rather poetic titles given to Nibbana which seek to more evoke an understanding of Nibbana than describe it. The traditional list of them is called the thirty three synonyms of Nibbana and they go:

The Unconditioned
The destruction of lust, hate, delusion
The Uninclined
The taintless
The truth
The other shore
The subtle
The very difficult to see
The unaging
The stable
The undisintegrating
The unmanifest
The unproliferated
The peaceful
The deathless
The sublime
The auspicious
The secure
The destruction of craving
The wonderful
The amazing
The unailing
The unailing state
The unafflicted
Dispassion
Purity
Freedom
Non attachment
The island
The shelter
The asylum
The refuge
The destination and the path leading to the destination

Which I might imagine probably have analogues in other traditions as well.

So does union fit into a larger sort of roadmap of mystical experience?

 

[hazcompat]

It is a very personal encounter with the three divine persons of the one God.

Peace

 

[Julia_Mae]

This could also be a description of nibbana. Perhaps once one strips away the words of all religious teaching, the goal is the same, to become in union with the uncreated good.

Precisely.

Although I would have said “jargon.”

 

[Julia_Mae]

It does not mean oneness of essence (as with Vendantic Non-Dualism and the concept of an Atman), nor does it mean simply “closeness”. One participates in this Highest Good that is God and thereby becomes by grace deified, sharing in its nature. One becomes God by participation but not by essence since our essence is created not Uncreated and our soul changeable not Unchangeable like God. :

I don’t know. My experience is disappearing entirely into Eternal Love. That uncreated essence is part of us.

 

[notself]

I don’t know. My experience is disappearing entirely into Eternal Love. That uncreated essence is part of us.

You must regularly practice meditation and contemplation. I am sure that your words can only partially describe your experience. How wonderful. I am happy for you.

 

[SteveVH]

I don’t know. My experience is disappearing entirely into Eternal Love. That uncreated essence is part of us.

You have not stated your religion so I’m not sure where your basis in belief lies, but from a Catholic perspective we believe “uncreated essence” as you call it, is not a part of our human nature. The only “uncreated” anything is God. All else has been created by him. It is very important to separate the creatures from the Creator or we end up in idolatry. To put it simply, there is a God and he is not me.

 

[Vouthon]

I don’t know. My experience is disappearing entirely into Eternal Love. That uncreated essence is part of us.

That would not be surprising Julia The mystics I have read explain that at some of the deepest stages of the unio mystica the so-called ‘powers of the soul’ or of the ‘mind’ give way, stop functioning, and we cannot distinguish between God and ourselves. In fact, our essence is not uncreated. The Buddha, actually, recognised this fact when he rejected the theory of Atman. Hinduism is such a rich, diverse and venerable tradition. There are basically two main interpretations of Vedanta - Advaita (Non-Dualism) and Dvaita (Dualism). The Advaita school includes the theory of an uncreated aspect of the human person, that is that when one peels away the layers of the surface intellect, one finds oneself to be unchanging, eternal Godhead. Atman, the Sanskrit expression of Soul, Self, or Ego, is a permanent, everlasting and absolute entity, which is the unchanging substance behind the changing phenomenal world, it is everything at its heart - everything is the “Self”.

Alternatively the Catholic mystics taught that in the highest states of union we participate or share in the true Uncreated beyond our own minds where we are “empty of ourselves”. The Self is not naturally “part” of our essence.

However it truly is a union of “indistinction” with God from the perspective of the deified person. the lines between Lover and Beloved become indistinct from the perspective of the person experiencing it, even while they remain different from God in essence, they become so pure that they are in a sense God by grace.

Thus Saint Catherine of Siena:

“…My I is God, and I know of no other I than this my God…In this way God so transforms the soul into Himself, its God, that it sees nothing but God…The more the soul is purified, so much the more it annihilates self till at last it becomes quire pure and rests in God…Thus purified the soul rests in God without any alloy of self; my very being is God…My being is God, not through participation only, but through true transformation and through annihilation of my own being…So in God is my me, my I, my strength, my bliss, my desire. But this ‘I’ that I often call so - I do it because I cannot speak otherwise, but in truth I no longer know what the I is, or the Mine, or desire, or good, or bliss. I can no longer turn my eyes on anything, wherever it be, in heaven or on earth…I do not want a love that would be for or in God. I cannot bear to see this word for, this word in, for to me they indicate a thing that would be between me and God…Faith seems to me wholly lost…for it seems to me that I have and hold in certainty that which I believed and hoped in former times. I no longer see union, for I know nothing more and can see nothing more than Him alone without me. I do not know where the I is, nor do I seek it, nor do I wish to know or be cognizant of it. I am so plunged and submerged in the source of his infinite love, as if I were quite under water in the sea and could not touch, see, feel anything on any side except water…Everything to do with self passes away. It [the soul] neither sees, speaks, nor knows loss or pain of its own…God became man in order to make me God; therefore I want to be changed completely into pure God…”

***- Saint Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510), Catholic mystic ***

Now one might think when she says, “My I is God” that this is a powerful connection to Vedanta. However she goes on to explain that “I do not know where the I is, nor do I seek it, nor do I wish to know or be cognizant of it”. She has a powerful experience of having no “I-hood” at all.

(continued…)

 

[Vouthon]

Likewise Henry Suso explains that the “self” of all things is actually “nothing” - empty, ephemeral, changeable:

"…Whoever wants to achieve a true return and become a son in Christ, let him in true detachment turn to him and away from himself. Then he will come to where he should be - true detachment…Take note with careful discrimination of these two words: oneself and leave. If you know how to weigh these two words properly, testing their meaning thoroughly to their core and viewing them with true discernment, then you will quickly grasp the truth.

Take, first of all, the first word - oneself or myself - and see what it is. It is important to realize that everyone has five kinds of self.

The first ‘self’, one has in common with a stone, and this is being. The second one shares with plants, and that is growing. The third self one shares with the animals, and this is sensation. The fourth one shares with all other men, and this is that one possesses a common human nature in which all men are one.

The fifth - which belongs to a person exclusively as his own - is his personality, **one’s individual human self, both with respect to one’s nobility and with respect to accident. Now, what is it that leads a person astray and robs him of happiness?

It is exclusively this last self . Because of it a person turns outward, away from God and toward himself, when he should be re-turning inward, and he fashions for himself his own self according to what is accidental. He thoughtlessly makes himself a ‘self’ of his own. In his ignorance he appropriates to this ‘self’ what is God’s. This is the direction he takes, and he eventually sinks into sinfulness**.

But whoever would really leave this self should have three insights. First, he should turn his thoughtful gaze upon the nothingness of his own self and see that this self, and the self of all things, is a nothing, removed and excluded from that something which is the sole productive force. The second insight is that it not be overlooked that in this state of utter detachment one’s own self rests entirely upon one’s operative being, (as one realizes) after one becomes conscious of oneself again and is not utterly destroyed. The third insight occurs as one becomes less and less, and freely surrenders oneself in everything in which one had become involved by looking to one’s creaturely existence in unfree multiplicity, as opposed to divine truth.

One surrenders oneself in happiness or suffering, in action or inaction in such a way that one loses oneself completely and utterly, withdrawing from oneself irreversibly and becoming one in unity with Christ, so that one always acts at his urging and receives all things and views all things in this unity. And this…becomes the same form as Christ about whom the scripture by Paul says, “I live, no longer I, Christ lives in me”…

What happens to a drunken man happens to him, though it cannot really be described, that he so forgets his self that he is not at all his self and consequently has got rid of his self completely and lost himself entirely in God, becoming one spirit in all ways with him, just as a small drop of water does which has been dropped into a large amount of wine. Just as the drop of water loses itself, drawing the taste and colour of the wine to and into itself, so it happens that those who are in full possession of blessedness lose all human desires in an inexpressible manner, and they ebb away from themselves and are immersed completely in the divine will. Otherwise, if something of the individual were to remain of which he or she were not completely emptied, scripture could not be true in stating that God shall become all things in all things. Certainly one’s being remains, but in a different form, in a different resplendence, and in a different power. This is all the result of total detachment from self…"

***- Blessed Henry Suso (1295-1366), Catholic mystic ***

Notice the part “he appropriates to this ‘self’ what is God’s”.

 

[Vouthon]

Interesting descriptions of union. The Buddhist tradition generally tries to avoid too much description of Nibbana in order to prevent misunderstanding, and so usually used a rather apophatic means of describing it. The exception to this is the use of certain rather poetic titles given to Nibbana which seek to more evoke an understanding of Nibbana than describe it. The traditional list of them is called the thirty three synonyms of Nibbana and they go:

Which I might imagine probably have analogues in other traditions as well.

So does union fit into a larger sort of roadmap of mystical experience?

Wonderful passage Bakmoon. It does indeed remind me of understandings of God from the Christian, Islamic and Jewish spiritual traditions.

In Catholicism the apophatic way of negative theology is held to be a higher path than the catataphic:

“…In Christian belief all things are manifestations, or theophanaie, of God. But God is also infinetly beyond creatures since they are defined by their limited nature. The first truth founds the way of cataphasis, or positive speaking about God based on creation, while God’s infinite otherness founds the way of apophasis, or the negative speaking in all statements must be unsaid in deference to God’s hidden reality. Although Christian mystics affirm the superiority of the apophatic way - lest God be thought to be just another reality - they have insisted that both positive and negative approaches to speaking about God are necessary, though in different measures depending upon one’s spiritual progress…”

***- Bernard McGinn (Catholic scholar of mysticism) ***

Thus Henry Suso once said:

“…Eternity is life that is beyond time but includes within itself all time but without a before or after. And whoever is taken into the Eternal Nothing possesses all in all and has no ‘before or after’. Indeed a person taken within today would not have been there for a shorter period from the point of view of eternity than someone who had been taken within a thousand years ago…You and I do not meet on one branch or in one place. You make your way along one path and I along another. Your questions arise from human thinking, and I respond from a knowledge that is far beyond all human comprehension. You must give up human understanding if you want to reach the goal, because the truth is known by not knowing…This is the highest goal and the ‘where’ beyond boundaries. In this the spirituality of all spirits ends. Here to lose oneself forever is eternal happiness…Here in this region beyond thought the human spirit actively soars…In this wild mountain region of the ‘where’ beyond God there is an abyss full of play and feeling for all pure spirits…It is hidden for everything that is not God, except for those with whom he wants to share Himself…In a detached person nothing merely temporal is born in possessiveness. His eyes are opened. He becomes fully aware and, receiving his blessed existence and life, is one with Him; for all things are here one in the One…No one can explain this to another just with words. One knows it by experiencing it…”

***- Blessed Henry Suso (c. 1296-1366), German Catholic mystic & Dominican priest ***

 

[Julia_Mae]

You must regularly practice meditation and contemplation. I am sure that your words can only partially describe your experience. .

Yes, I think when we discuss this, we have to be really careful to keep in mind no one can possibly describe these experiences in words that are emitted by a tiny human brain. We are trying to discuss the infinite and ineffable through the limited and mundane physical process.

I* used to* do daily contemplation, so my remarks are all based on experiences I have had. To be very clear for this thread, I do very little contemplation now, as I have no spiritual director and know how much I need one. I believe - I seem to be in a waiting room, while God is sorting this all out. I imagine when I begin again, I will no longer be found on internet forums.