Apr 242014
 

As a topic of interest, mysticism includes thinking about theology and other spiritual subjects, and states or events of consciousness are certainly among them.  In fact, it seems to me that those of us who are fascinated by mysticism spend a lot of our time thinking and talking about these things.  To people just beginning to scratch the surface of mysticism, it could even look like that kind of thinking and talking is pretty much all mysticism is about!  But mysticism isn’t just a topic of interest, or even a way of thinking.  Mysticism is a way of life, and this article will join others in this blog by trying to offer an approach to its practical dimension.  Said another way, today I’m inviting us to consider how to bring mysticism into our everyday ordinary experience and action, and more specifically by considering the practice of empathy.

What is Empathy?

Here is a definition of empathy provided by Merriam-Webster:

the [capacity or] action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner

Let’s note that empathy can be in thought or in feeling, and in both at the same time.  This is an important point, because most of us lean more toward either thinking or feeling in our way of connecting with and understanding others, some of us are at one of the extremes of this polarity, and all of us can find one or the other more challenging at at times.  Therefore, as it is defined here, empathy is possible for anyone to practice at anytime, although each of us will vary somewhat in exactly how that practice comes most naturally in the moment.

How can Empathy be Mystical?

Mysticism is about the faith and hope in, and the pursuit of or opening to, realizing direct, unmediated, union with the Divine One.  The essential mystical experience is thus a complete loss of any subject-object duality between self and God, and involves a dissolution of all concepts, feelings, and perceptions of any “other,” even if it seems to have been only for a brief flashing moment when reflected upon from ordinary consciousness.  Yet empathy actually requires the subject-object duality of perceiving another entity with its own inner experiences.  So how can it be mystical?

Many mystics who claim to who have had the essential mystical experience have realized in its aftermath that at the deepest levels of their being they were already intimately connected with God.  In fact, Genesis 2:7 makes it clear that the Nishmat Hayyim (nishmat = breath, spirit, or soul; hayyim = of life) that animates Adam is God’s own breath or spirit, which in Christianity we call the Holy Spirit.  This breath is obviously not literally the air we breathe, so the analogy informs us that the Nishmat Hayyim is just as necessary and universally present to all human beings, both around us and within us, as the oxygen that is essential to our physical existence.

Those mystics who have received and realized the essential mystical experience can know this truth as immediately as we each know our own existence – we are all children of the Divine One, each of us always in direct communion with the Holy Spirit, and thus we are always in communion with each other in our deepest or highest dimension of being.

For example, the Book of Acts records the Apostle Paul  as preaching this:

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth … he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. … ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’

In her Revelations of Divine Love, the great mystic St. Julian of Norwich similarly says:

Our soul is so fully united to God of His own Goodness that absolutely nothing comes between God and our soul.  …  It is more worshipful to behold God in all than in any special thing.

And this is also the greatest significance of  words Jesus Christ speaks in prayer according to the Gospel of John:

I have given them [my followers] the glory you [God] gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. Father, I want these whom you have given me to be with me where I am.

And yet, it isn’t possible to be fully present to our individualized places in creation, and thus in dualistic interactions with others, while simultaneously having our awareness completely dissolved in the Divine One without the faintest hint of subject-object duality.  It is possible, however, to be mindful that our individual beings are occurring in and of the One, just as the more or less distinct thoughts of a mind are nonetheless each expressions of and united with the mind that thinks them – their essence is one.  In fact, just as the words prayed by Jesus suggest, the fully realized mystic can be immediately aware of union with and in the Divine One that both encompasses and flows through all our dualistic perceptions of self and others.

Sacred-heart-of-jesus-ibarraranBecause each human being is one with God at heart, it follows that empathy, the capacity or act of seeking deeper understanding and communion with another human being, leads us into deeper and more complete communion with the Divine One.  The scriptures teach us not only to love God with all that we are, but also to love others as ourselves, because both are necessary for the most complete experience and expression of the unity Jesus prayed for us to know.  This is also the deepest understanding of Christianity’s tradition of regarding an encounter with a stranger as a potential visitation from Christ.   To practice empathy with this understanding is therefore to engage it as a mystical practice.

How do we Practice Empathy?

As noted before, there are two primary categories of empathic experience – thinking and feeling.  While we may find ourselves spontaneously experiencing either or both, to actually practice empathy requires us to intentionally engage these potentials.  In other words, the practice of empathy is the conscious choice to try understanding and/or feeling what another person thinks and/or feels.  It’s that simple!  Yet, as simple as the explanation is, the application can be more complicated, and it has a number of dimensions that can be attended to and refined.  Rather than go into a more lengthy examination of those dimensions, for now I prefer to offer some steps to actually develop our abilities to empathize.  We’re going to focus primarily on empathy for the feelings of others, because most of us get much less training and practice with this in Western culture than we do with paying attention to and understanding the thoughts of others.

Step One: Perception and Identification

This step requires that we turn our attention toward the experience of another person with the intention of identifying the thoughts and feelings the person is having.  This requires not only listening to what the person says, but also paying attention to facial expressions, gestures, posture, and other non-verbals or “body language.”  At this point, the aim is not to analyze, critique, or judge the thoughts, feelings, and actions of the person, but to try recognizing them as clearly as if they were our own.  Such recognition in thinking includes the ability to accurately restate the other person’s thoughts, but in our own words.   It also includes the ability to understand how one idea connects with another in that person’s chain of thoughts.  In feeling, empathic recognition includes the ability to actually experience some degree of the sensations or emotions of the other person.  Empathic thought and feeling begin to combine when we not only share in the feelings of another, but we are also able to name those feelings and understand how they are related to the other’s thoughts.

Step Two: Enhancing Perception and Identification

For this step, I suggest you try an experiment, and that you repeat it often.  During your ordinary daily activities, find times to carefully observe another human being.  The person might be someone you live with, a stranger out in public somewhere, or, as a last resort, someone in a movie or some other video medium.  As you observe the person, pay attention at a physical level and try to recall or imagine what it physically feels like to do whatever it is the person is physically doing. If the person is walking, call up the feeling of your feet impacting the floor or ground, the movement of your legs and arms, and so on.  If the person is talking on a phone, feel the phone in your hand, pressed to your ear, etc.  Is the person drinking a cup of coffee?  Feel all the sensations of holding the cup, smelling the coffee, and sipping the warm liquid into your mouth and swallowing it.

Once you have conducted this experiment several times, start to bring in the emotional dimension.  Listen to and watch people having emotional experiences.  As they do so, make an effort to share in those feelings to a manageable extent.  If the person is laughing, recall not only the physical sensations of laughter, but the happiness that goes with it.  When people laugh at themselves, feel the added emotional “flavor” of that experience. (We all know what that’s like!)   Similarly, seeing an angry person, imagine what that anger actually feels like.

Step Three: More Fully Integrating Empathic Thinking & Feeling

A useful tool in identifying emotions, and thus to integrating empathic feeling with empathic thinking, is building a vocabulary rich enough to distinguish subtle differences in the intensity and combinations of emotions.  There are many models and resources available for anyone interested in developing a vocabulary and understanding of emotions, each with its own appeal, but I’d like to offer Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions as a good starting point. (This model doesn’t entirely suit me, even though I find it immensely useful.  For instance, I prefer the word “affection” where Plutchik shows “love.”  I don’t agree with labeling an emotion as “love,” because love isn’t simply a function of emotion, yet it can be experienced and expressed in any emotional state.)

1000px-Plutchik-wheel.svg

Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions
(Click for Expanded Image)

As you study the wheel, try to recall how each emotion actually feels, and how it affects your thinking, behavior, speech, and so on.  It may help to remember specific moments in your life when you felt each emotion.  Then, as you practice perceiving the feelings of others, use your growing vocabulary and understanding to more fully connect with their personal experiences.

Empathic thinking can be even further integrated by trying to identify what the feelings seem to be about.  What is it that’s so funny or angering?  Why is it so?  How can this feeling affect the way a person thinks and behaves?  What has it been like for me to feel and manage this emotion in my own experiences?

In working with that last question, and with the previous recommendation of recalling similar experiences of our own, we are engaging the aspect of empathy that we commonly call relating.  Relating to others can be a very helpful aspect of empathy, but it can also distract from empathy when we allow it to lead us into hasty assumptions about what others are experiencing.  It’s therefore important to be mindful that relating may offer us clues to deeper understanding of another person, but we cannot take this for granted; there is much room for error.

Step Four: Communicating Empathy

At this point, we are no longer merely observing and empathizing with another from some distance, but reflecting back to the person our effort to accurately feel and/or understand their experience.  Perhaps the most basic way of doing this is to simply state an awareness that the other person is experiencing some feeling or feelings, and ask them to speak about it.  Just these two very basic acts of empathy — (1) recognizing the fact that another is experiencing something, and then (2) opening to share in that experience — can be immensely powerful!  On the one hand, they demonstrate to the other person that we are loving them in one of the most fundamental and unconditional of ways.  On the other hand, these acts also welcome the honor of a clearer connection and deeper understanding of the other person’s experience with less potential for distortion and misunderstanding from our own assumptions.

Once an experience has been communicated to us by other persons, we then have the opportunity to test and refine our empathy for the experience.  We do this by reflecting upon it with our own words, summarizing and paraphrasing what they have said, appropriately expressing relevant emotions through our own non-verbals, and perhaps also offering some insight about the experience’s meaning in one way or another.  As they receive the reflection, they can indicate to us where our empathy is or is not accurate and helpful, and we can then work with them to gain clarity.   In this process, we may use the practice of relating their experience to our own not only to more adequately feel and understand their experience, but to reveal to them and ourselves that we have these things in common.  In other words, accurate empathic relating is a very intimate and profound way of communing, of realizing union, with other human beings.  It is one of the most beautiful ways of loving others as ourselves, and thereby more completely loving God.

Conclusion

While the practice of Christian mysticism is commonly understood to include thinking about theology and other spiritual subjects, it also has a practical dimension without which it is only a topic of academic interest, at best.  Certainly there are many forms of ritual, prayer, and meditation that come to mind for mystical practice.  Yet we should also realize that mysticism as a way of life is incomplete if it isn’t integrated into the social dimension of our everyday experiences.  The practice of empathy is one of the most meaningful ways we actualize the mystical life.

No one has ever seen God. But if we love one another, God lives in us. God’s love is made complete in us.We know that we belong to God and God belongs to us. God has given us the Holy Spirit.  1 John 4:12-13

Blessed_Virgin_Mary

Agape

 

Mar 092012
 

from Lenten meditations

Oh you who live the religious life,
if you persevere a time may come
when you finally realize
that all your performance of ritual,
all your prayer and meditation,
all your sacrifices and alms,
all your fasting and service,
have not of themselves
washed away your sinfulness,
made you a better person,
or endeared you more to God.
You will see that none of it
has brought more healing
to your wounded heart
or light to your searching mind,
let alone to the world around you.

If you do not fight or flee this realization,
you may yet come to see
why it is that others before you
have continued in these ways,
as if poets writing poems soon forgotten,
dancers dancing when no one else watches,
or whistlers whistling without thought.
Perhaps then will you begin to know
the true depths of cleansing,
virtue, endearment, healing, and illumination
that were there all along,
already flowing in and through you
and all the world.

Jan 282012
 

Holy Sophia,
……You who silently moves
………upon the primordial deep,
…………Who communes with the One
……………in every moment of creation,
………………Whom Solomon the Wise
…………………praises as the grace most desired,
……………………O Paraclete and Pentecostal Fire
………………………I open myself to You.

Precious mystical Spirit,
a mere puff of Your hallowed breath
clears away the clouds and dust
from my unsettled mind
so that the dark shining stillness
ever possessing my soul
may better reflect You,
the Unspotted Mirror,
the Peace that Passes Understanding,
the Eternally Virgin Womb
upon Whom the Will casts Itself,
and within Whom the Word
is ever born anew.

Jan 202012
 

As part of my current religious practices, I am charged with praying a daily office, consisting of morning and evening prayer periods with specified scriptures, prayers, chants, etc.  The Psalms are central to most traditional offices, and obviously almost all of Christianity makes use of the Psalms in some way.  While many parts of the Psalms are quite beautiful, inspiring, and comforting, there are others that I have long found disturbing and even contradictory to the biblical warmessages of Jesus as I currently understand them.  Of course, this is true not only of my reading of the Psalms but also of other writings in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament; I am nevertheless most frequently presented with this challenge by this particular book attributed to King David.   I explicitly refer to King David because he was a warrior king who clearly saw bloodshed as a legitimate way to serve God.  As I dig into these issues, please keep in mind that nothing I say here is meant to denigrate the Jewish people or their scriptures or traditions, but merely to reflect upon how I am challenged by those scriptures as a member of a faith that preserves its historical connections with them.

Here is an example of such passages:

In your unfailing love, silence my enemies; destroy all my foes, for I am your servant. Psalm 143:12

So I ask myself, how can I reconcile with such a prayer, let alone actually speak it, when I have received this teaching from Jesus?

But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Luke 6:27-29

I could simply refuse to speak such words as in Psalms 143:12, and at times I have done so.  There are Christians who essentially ignore the Old Testament because they regard too much of it as incompatible with their understanding of Jesus.  The rejection of scriptures that beg for or seem to command hatred and violence toward others is, to me, a completely understandable response to the teachings of Jesus about agape.  However, that approach also concerns me because I sense in it the slippery slope of denial about who we are as the Church, which includes where we came from and how we got to where we are.  For me to deny that violence and ill-will toward our fellow human beings is part of the Church’s past would be just as misguided as me trying to deny the racist, sexist, and homophobic attitudes of my youth simply because I want to be free of them now and in the future.  For this reason alone I can find value in frequently revisiting these scriptures, and so when I speak them it is not to voice their literal meanings but to acknowledge them as part of our history and thus part of our present and our future.   That kind of mindfulness is meaningful to me because I’ve found truth in this adage from George Santayana:  Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

Thankfully there are other benefits to maintaining my connection with even the most disturbing of scriptures.  At times I have found it a meaningful connection with the fact that I do sometimes feel anger and fear toward others and then, despite my best intentions, perhaps even fantasize about a violent intervention that would forever end the threat. On other occasions it has seemed helpful to think of these scriptures as speaking about the enemies I perceive in my own soul, vices that lead me to do things I regret, and about which I grow impatient and angry with myself.  Yet whether the perceived threat is external or internal, I believe that hatred and violence is not the answer. In those moments, scriptures like these can help me accept and integrate those dark thoughts and feelings and more carefully ponder the perceived threat and discern a more loving response.

Harsh scriptures also help me to empathize with those Christians, Jews, and Muslims who feel compelled by scripture to take a more dogmatic, legalistic, or militant approach in their religion.  I am further reminded of how the Bible and other spiritual writings, such as creeds and liturgies, are very much human texts, and how even the most illuminated prophets cannot help but respond to Divine inspiration in ways that are more or less affected by countless cultural and personal factors.  I strive to remember that this must also be true of my own understanding of life and the Divine, and so I try to not allow myself the conceit of feeling superior to those who “just don’t get it” the way I think I do.

In discussing this matter with a friend, it was further suggested to me that Judaism’s own awareness and struggle with such scriptures has been invaluable to the development of their culture’s social justice movements.  The spirit behind the warrior-like words of Psalms can be taken as  a combination of pleas to God and zealous determination to right wrongs, protect the weak, defend the innocent, free the oppressed, and support the righteous.  We Christians inherited that spirit from our Jewish forebears. There is a parallel to this transformation of historical messages within Christianity as well, where once hateful and bloodthirsty orders of Christian knighthood have been reconstructed as peaceful orders of service to all humanity.  I am fully aware that their existence is offensive to many people, especially those whose ancestors suffered the Crusades.  Yet, in what I personally consider to be the best examples of such orders, rather than deny or celebrate the heinous parts of their history, they acknowledged them with humility and remorse. The sword that was once an instrument of conquest and oppression has become a symbol for courageous commitment to Truth and a reminder that intolerance and violence too often only beget more intolerance and violence.

In terms of what most people typically think of as mystical experience, the practice of reciting such scriptures doesn’t seem to do much for me.   For that sort of thing, I’ll take the Rosary, the Jesus Prayer, chanting Maranatha, or sitting in centering prayer over reciting the Psalms any day.  This practice has, however, obviously helped me to become more aware of my place in the family of the Church, the “Mystical Body of Christ,” and to feel more compassion for and communion with all Christians, Jews, and Muslims.  And since I believe any awareness of love is an awareness of the Divine, then in that sense I must acknowledge that this practice, even with all its operational and discursive distractions, is mystical in its own way.

Maranatha

Agape

Oct 062011
 

At various times along our mystical paths, it can prove rewarding to perform a spiritually directed experiment for a period of at least a week.  Each of the activities listed below can provide meaningful and educational experiences.  You can select something that builds naturally upon strengths and talents, or you can choose something that might challenge your perceived weaknesses or shortcomings.  Because this is a time of experimentation, it is especially recommended that you try something significantly different from your usual practices. In any case, avoid setting yourself up for failure. It is recommended that you keep a simple log or calendar to chart your activity, and that you discuss the experiment with a mentor or spiritual friend at least once before proceeding and once upon ceasing the experiment.

Meditation or Prayer: There are many possibilities for methods of meditation and prayer, and perhaps a mentor or spiritual friend can be of help in making choices. See some options I recommend by clicking here.  Select a regular place and time(s) to practice.  Commit to practice once, twice or three times per day for 10, 20, 30 or 60 minutes per sitting, at least three times per week.

Devotional Ritual: Design and perform a short devotional ritual to be performed at a regular place and time(s) once or twice each day, at least three times per week.  See an example by clicking here. Consider the use of elements such as these:

  • An altar or shrine bearing an image and/or book you consider sacred
  • Placing a fresh token of faith or thanks on the altar each time
  • Bowing and/or kneeling
  • Crossing yourself
  • Lighting a candle and/or incense
  • Ringing a bell
  • A short inspirational reading
  • Saying an opening and/or closing prayer

Journaling: Spend time each day recording your thoughts and feelings about your spiritual life. This can be an activity of its own, or combined with any of the others.

Reporting: This experiment can be an activity of its own, or combined with any of the others.  Once or twice per week send your mentor or spiritual friend a written report of your thoughts, feelings, readings and other actions relevant to your spiritual life, and invite that person’s feedback.

Mindfulness: Find a time each day to mindfully perform a common activity, such as taking a walk, eating a meal, or completing a particular routine chore. As you perform the activity, keep focusing your attention on it, being as aware as possible of every action involved, no matter how minor or automatic it may seem.  It is usually helpful to be alone in this activity.

Meditative Reading: Select inspirational material such as scripture, or spiritual poetry or lyrics to read slowly and carefully at least three times per week.  Choose a short passage that captures your attention and imagination, and focus upon it more intently. Memorize it and continually return your thoughts to it until the next reading, allowing and noting all thoughts and feelings that arise in connection with it.

Nightly Review: Before you fall asleep each night, review the events of the day. The review can be from morning to night or, in reverse order, from night to morning.  In either case, consider performing it with your eyes closed so that you can visualize events as you recall them.

Dream Work: Record your dreams immediately upon awakening. Consider what messages they may have about your spiritual life.

Inspirational Artwork:  At least three times per week set aside time to try to artistically express your thoughts and feelings relevant to your spiritual life.  This experiment can be any kind of art – drawing, painting, poetry, sculpting, music, dance, etc.

Expressing Gratitude: Tell at least one person each day how you are especially thankful for her or his presence in your life. This experiment should be done in person if possible, but can also be done by phone or mail.

Anonymous Acts of Kindness: Each day do something for another person without her or him knowing, and take precautions not to be discovered.  It is much easier to do this with strangers and people you do not closely interact with on a daily basis. Try to be creative and do something that could be especially pleasing or touching to the recipient.

Virtue Commitment:  Select a single virtue, continually striving to think and act in accord with it.  Practice simple awareness and acceptance of your successes and your difficulties.  Consult with your mentor or spiritual friend if you want help making your selection.

Sacrifice: Select a particular pleasure to forgo.  Your sacrifice should be something you regularly if not habitually enjoy, and can be primarily physical, social or intellectual in nature.  You might choose something you consider to be a vice, or something that seems totally innocent and even beneficial to you in some way.  In any case, perform this experiment as an act of spiritual devotion, taking note of all the thoughts and feelings you have about it.

 

Aug 242011
 

With this post I want to draw attention to the work of healing prayer, often called “intercessory prayer.” This is something that I personally feel is a very important kind of service, and I also think it is a spiritual practice of the highest order. There are a lot of metaphysical and esoteric teachings about healing prayer, and it is central to a number of organizations, like the Order of St. Luke, the Guild of St. Raphael, and the Church of Christ Scientist. The Unity Church also has specific teachings on healing prayer. With this post I want to briefly highlight some of the elements of effective prayer that are common to such teachings.

First and foremost, it’s a common element of belief that our power is limited to serving as instruments or catalysts for healing, and that all healing is ultimately accomplished by Divine Grace. In this view, no matter what practices we employ we are fooling ourselves if we attribute the results solely to our own personal power. This is not to say that one’s own personal energies are unimportant. Rather, the challenge is to allow the Divine Will to manifest in us as a zealous hopefulness for healing and fervent faithfulness that the Divine works through us for that purpose. Few of us can ever know exactly how the Divine Will works in our own lives, let alone another human soul. Our best wisdom is therefore in giving such energy freely as an act of love, without making our hopes into specific expectations. Maintaining this realistic humility is sometimes no small feat, and the relationship and differentiation of hope and expectation is a matter well worth pondering.

In the act of prayer or meditation on the healing of someone, there are other important attitudes that tradition, metaphysical theory, and good old common sense urge us to practice. Certainly close to, if not on the same level as humility, is positivity, which relates to the earlier phrases, “zealous hopefulness” and “fervent faithfulness.” In practical terms, we are talking about the emotions, images and other thoughts we have with regard to the people for whom we are praying. While a certain amount of sorrowful sympathy may be natural and even helpful, in the moment of healing prayer we want to fill our hearts and minds with the most positive energies of love and health. We do not dwell on images of injury, disease and suffering, or wallow in feelings of pity, sadness, anxiety or despair. Rather, we imagine the subject of our prayer as receiving our own feelings of affection, courage and hope, while bathing in the light of Divine Grace, her or him smiling in happiness and health. For many mystics, our faith if not actual knowledge is that, no matter how much an individual may be suffering in body and soul, at the very deepest levels of spirit he or she is already and always in harmony with the Divine Will. We abide in the trust that whatever happens is ultimately an opportunity for that soul to learn and grow toward greater and more complete harmony.

As for methods of healing prayer, they are many and diverse. One method is the “Heart of Love” meditation I have previously provided, working specifically through the first two phases with the intention of sharing love especially for healing.  It is also traditional for many Christians to address their healing prayers not only to Christ, but also to our Holy Mother Mary, to St. Luke the Physician, and/or St. Raphael the Archangel, whose name roughly means “God’s healing,” or “God’s healer.”  There are many traditional prayers to these saints available online.

 

 

Jul 252011
 

Practice

Combining-Meditation-And-PrayerIn Part 2 we reflected on the non-dual transcendence of the one Love that is God, and the possibility that everything is therefore in some way an experience or expression of Love.  But now we turn to ponder the practical significance of these views, as we should do with all philosophical and spiritual insights and propositions, no matter how intuitively, intellectually, or emotionally certain we may be of their truth.

What difference might it make in our lives to live with faith, if not knowledge, that everything is Love?  If we carefully consider this question, we may become aware of how muddy and murky our perceptions and conceptions of Love have been, how much we have habitually judged things as either being loving or not, or perhaps how we have semi-consciously ranked things on some vague scale of more or less loving. So, if nothing else, serious regard for Love as ever-present in, even essential to, the existence of all things and acts may help us be more mindful and immediately present in our experiences and expressions of love.  This mindfulness can repeatedly confront us with our own assumptions, preferences, and expectations of Love, our own biases and prejudices about Love and its many forms. Thus, when we find ourselves reacting to an experience as though it is somehow opposed to Love, this practice begs us to look beyond the surface and deeply into the desires, motives, intentions, hopes, and fears that have shaped our judgments of it, and perhaps those that have played more external roles in the experience.  Most of us know what it’s like to see the mask of hostility on the face of a loved one, initially respond to it with our own defensive hostility, and then later discover the love that was there, even if it was only the other person’s self-love fearfully hiding behind that mask.  Love never left; we just failed to recognize it in our knee-jerk reactions of self-protection, of our own self-love. To some of us it may even be apparent that all hostility and violence in the world is the result of creatures, all acting in their own self-love, competing with each other for survival, comfort, and propagation of their species. In any case, one effect of such a practice is that it can aid us in living with greater openness to understanding others and ourselves, and thus into greater compassion and action for the wellbeing of each and all.

You probably noticed that the last statement strongly implies that a love characterized by understanding, compassion and serving mutual wellbeing is more desirable than one characterized by unchecked selfishness, defensiveness and hostility. This view seems to be something that most of humanity has always agreed with.  Still it is clear that we humans experience and express love in different ways, and that each of us tends to consider some expressions of Love more desirable than others.  We often use words like “true” or “pure” to speak of the most desirable or admirable forms of Love.  But if everything is a manifestation of the One Love, are such distinctions just illusions we should try to banish from our minds?  If all is God, then how can we justify preferring one thing over another, let alone one form of Love over another?  Wouldn’t whatever we find ugly and unhealthy be just as pleasing and acceptable to God as anything else, and, if it is, shouldn’t it be so to us as well?

To begin responding to these questions, let’s recall that non-duality does not exclude duality, but transcends and subsumes it.  Thus a non-dual spirituality does not necessarily put one in the position of denying any meaning or value in dualistic experiences and expressions of Love.  So we should not be surprised to find the mystics of every religion and tradition have asserted the desirability and importance of various virtues to the most whole human expressions of Love.  Where, then, does a Christian look for a guide to living a love that most fully and completely reflects the transcendence of Love in our ordinary dualistic experience?

Let’s consider what we know or believe about how God, or Love, has expressed Itself through this dualistic creation.  First, there is the act of creation as presented in Genesis 1 & 2.   Love somehow makes it possible for duality to manifest and reproduce itself within Love’s unity.  Acting within that duality to create humanity, our tradition asserts that Love makes us in Love’s image, breathes life into us with Love’s own Spirit, and thereby endows us with intelligence and free will, so that we might choose what to do in this creation.  So we can see that Love is creative and giving of itself and wills for its offspring to be of the same nature.

As Christians, we consider Love’s greatest gift to humanity to be the life of Jesus Christ, whom we take to be our chief exemplar of what it means to live the fullness of Love as much as humanly possible.  In one of Jesus’ most significant moments of preaching, the Sermon on the Mount, he extolled a number of virtues, such as those in the Beatitudes, and provided his own version of the law of Love for our dualistic world:

You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’ and hate your enemy.  But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!  In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.  If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much.  If you are kind only to your friends, how are you different from anyone else? Even pagans do that.  But you are to be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Jesus speaks very clearly in this moment about how human love can come closest to Divine Love.  There is also clarity on another occasion when, speaking for God, for Love Itself, he says:

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me. … whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus also teaches that there is no greater love than laying one’s life down for others, which he then did in reflection of Love’s grace continually giving Itself to us.  Love apparently has no limitations with being Self-sacrificing, perhaps because in Its transcendence Love knows that ultimately there is nothing lost; Love knows Itself in all things.

Love, as taught and practiced by Jesus, is what all Christians, whether or not we consider ourselves mystics, are called to do. Nowhere in scripture is the ideal of Christian love more poetically extolled than in 1 Corinthians 13. In the Greek text of this chapter, in the law of Love given in the Sermon on the Mount, and in the Great Commandments given by Jesus, the term used for love is agape, or intentional, careful, gracious, self-sacrificing love that is understood to transcend all knowledge, works, faith, and hope.  Agape is also used in 1st John to say God is Love.  Jesus and the New Testament authors obviously considered agape to be the form of Love in ordinary human experience that comes closest to the fullness of Love Itself.  It may thus be considered the form of love in which all others – such as philia, eros, sturge, and xenia – are most beautifully experienced and expressed.

Finally, let’s reflect on how all of this might be more meaningful specifically in the context of mysticism.  Many of us tend to think of mysticism as being a more or less solitary practice in which one turns inward to more fully commune with God.  This is certainly a profound way to love God, yet if God is Love Itself then every experience and expression of love is, to some degree, communion with God.  To mindfully practice love in our everyday lives is therefore a mystical practice with just as much significance as, if not more than, our solitary practices.  Such a practice makes our mysticism a more complete response to the call of Christ to love God with all we are and others as ourselves, and thus toward a more complete expression of Love’s non-dual transcendence.  To give and receive Love is mystical experience, if we would only realize it.

Agape!

Maranatha!

Jul 222011
 

Love

In Christian mysticism, we acknowledge that God is ultimately a mystery while affirming it is also possible to know many things about God.  In Part 1, for example, it was suggested BlackMadonna_8that it is possible to know God is non-dual, and that God is transcendent in a way that includes immanence rather than opposes it.  Within that scope, our tradition speaks of many attributes of God that we can know, such as creativity, wisdom, understanding, mercy, justice, beauty, and so on.  But there is one word that stands above all others as the supreme attribute through which we can most fully know God, the one that encompasses all others, and that word is “love.”  Our scriptures even boldly declare that God is love.  If we are to take such scriptures literally (in this case I do), and if God is non-dually transcendent, then love must also be non-dually transcendent.  But this is a very intellectual and abstract way of coming to a position on the nature of love, and if there is truth to it then we should find it reflected in our actual lives.

The ways we experience and express love span the entire range of the human psyche and its functions: intuition, thought, emotion, sensation, and action. Love has both conscious and unconscious dimensions, and it is found both “above” in the most sublime realms of illumination and transformation and “below” in the darkest depths of instinct and inertia. Love as an agent of human reproduction encompasses the union of two, their separation, and the birth of a third.  Love can be either passive or active, and it is expressed by the gentle hand of tender caresses as well as the strict hand of punitive discipline.  Love is known in the hottest throes of passionate lovemaking and the coolest musings of philosophy (literally the “love of wisdom”).  The love of self at the expense of loving others, no matter how selfish, shortsighted, and confused it might be, is still a form of love. When we explore the ubiquity of love deeply, we can find its spark lurking within even the most unconscionable desire. Even hate, fear, and apathy, each of which might sometimes appear to be the opposite of love, are still conditions we can experience within the context of a love that isn’t merely limited to feelings of affection, confidence, and care. It is also poignant to me that we actually speak of forms of love, such that our language itself reveals at least a vague apprehension of a single love that transcends the different ways we experience, express, and conceptualize love.  Even the Greeks, who were the source of much of our language about love, didn’t always hold clear and consistent distinctions among the various forms of love they discerned, including agape, eros, philia, sturge and xenia. Plato’s Symposium is a fascinating discussion just of eros, and the views of the participants span a very broad range of experience, expression and meaning.  (It’s also interesting to me that “love” is one of those English words that is both a noun and a verb. An entire sentence can be formed using no other word but “love”, such as “Love love, love.”  This statement means “I urge you to love love itself, my beloved.” Perhaps this is another word game, but I digress.)

In all of these ways we find evidence that love is not bound to dualistic oppositions though it is known in and through them.  Furthermore, the unconscious dimensions of love contribute to our inability to completely grasp the meaning of love.   Yes, we can know many things about love, and we can clearly see that it not only crosses all boundaries of human experience, but we also cannot deny that the whole truth of love is mysterious.  So it is that we can arrive at an understanding of love’s transcendence apart from any metaphysical speculations or extraordinary spiritual experiences.

If we take seriously the equation that God is love, the mystical assertion of the non-duality of God, and the conclusion that ordinary human experience itself reveals the non-dual transcendence of love, then we must consider the possibility that all human experiences of love, from the most spiritual to the most mundane, participate to some degree in a transcendent love that is divine, that is God (and is therefore worthy of being written as “Love” with a capital L).  Indeed, this way of thinking has led many people to conclude that everything is an experience or expression of Love.

But here is the rub:  To describe everything as an experience or expression of Love verges on a statement with as little everyday usefulness to many people as saying everything is an experience or expression of energy.  It might be true, but what difference does it make?   Does it imply that all experiences and expressions of Love are equal and worthy of no distinction in our lives?   These questions lead us directly into the practical dimensions of loving in this world, which we’ll address in Part 3.

 

Jul 202011
 

After the last series I muttered to myself about never wanting to do another series again.  Hah!   Well, here I am doing it again because, when I stopped to look at how much I had written, I found I had too much on this topic for a single post.  I sure can be a long-winded fool!  So right now it looks like this will be a three-part series, beginning with an examination of how we might understand “transcendence” in a non-dualist way, followed by explanation of what I mean by “transcendent love” in that context, and ending with a consideration for how those ideas might shape one’s spiritual practice.

Transcendence

What do we mean by “transcendent“?  In common use, and especially in spiritual circles, it usually means a state of elevation above other things.  We mystical types often speak ofdali-salvador-the-rose-8300094 transcendence as a blissful experience or state of consciousness closer to God and further, if not completely, removed from the pains of mundane existence. In short, we make transcendence something otherworldly. This expectation fits neatly into the dualistic thinking of heaven vs. earth, unity vs. separation, love vs. hate, and so on.  In that dualistic thinking we find it easy to define transcendence as otherworldly because we want to escape the part of existence we have judged to be lacking, wrong, corrupted, diseased, bad, or evil.  In short, we have a desire for a “there” we can get to in order to be away from the “here” we find unacceptable, and our notions about transcendence seem to offer us the way out.

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Buddha in the Earth Witness Posture

Let’s consider, however, that this might say more about the dynamics of our thoughts and feelings than it does about the whole truth of transcendence. Mystics of many traditions agree that it is possible to know transcendence here and now, even while living and moving in this world. They claim that the non-dual One is not only beyond our common world of seeming separation, but It interpenetrates and is present here and now in a way that defies the either/or logic we are trained to idolize. Christianity is no exception, and here are some of its messages from non-dual perspectives: God is the One in which we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28); the Kingdom of Heaven is within you (Luke 17:21), and it is also spread out over the face of the entire earth (Thomas 113); Jesus speaks of lifting a rock or splitting wood and finding him there (Thomas 77). From such a perspective it is clear that the One we call God, and thus the experience/state of being closer to God, is not limited to either/or duality; it is both beyond the world as we commonly know it and present within it.  One of my favorite analogies for such an experience/state is lucid dreaming, which means being aware that you are dreaming while you are still in the dream.  Lucid dreaming transcends the usual either/or opposition we make; it is both dreaming and wakefulness, and it is suggested this has significant relevance to mystical transcendence.

At this point, it might be objected that the non-duality of God is traditionally spoken of as both transcendent and immanent.  I appreciate this statement and have often used it.  Yet in the present context it can be seen that this statement is only another way of tackling the non-duality of God through our dualistic language and logic, and it is a way that continues to imply transcendence is apart from the here-and-now as we commonly know it.  To me, that use of the word “transcendence” fails to open to its larger meaning of climbing across boundaries, of being without limitation, and so God’s transcendence would remain limited by being conceptually opposed to immanence; a transcendence that is not also immanent isn’t fully transcendent after all.    I admit it’s a bit of a word game, but I’ve found it to be a helpful one, not unlike a Zen koan.

For Part 2: How can we understand love as transcendent in this non-dualist way?

 

Feb 272011
 

The Apostle Paul admonished his followers to “pray without ceasing,” which might seem like an impossible goal.  If we take the admonition literally, and also think of prayer in the most common sense of bowing our heads, closing our eyes and speaking to God, then it would be practically impossible.  On the other hand, we don’t have to take Paul literally, but we can understand him to be strongly encouraging us to pray as often as we might. That shift opens the door for attitudes about prayer that aren’t trapped by all-or-nothing thinking.  It is also not necessary for us to be limited by one method of prayer. Christianity actually offers a wide variety of methods we can adopt to enrich our prayer lives, but it isn’t the purpose of this essay to examine or even list all the different ways we can pray.  So it is that this post offers some ideas on how we can more frequently attend to our relationship with the Divine in the course of a typical day for most Westerners, and thereby more fully enter into the heart of God.

If there is more than one way to pray, then perhaps we ought to begin by considering the very nature of prayer.  In The Essentials of Mysticism, Evelyn Underhill says:

[prayer is] that part of our active and conscious life which is deliberately oriented towards, and exclusively responds to, spiritual reality. The being of God, who is that spiritual reality, we believe to be immanent in all things.

In other words, prayer is intentionally giving attention to our relationship with the Divine, here and now.

The Love Affair with God

While we cannot limit the Divine to being a single person in the human sense, it remains that the expression of personal affection and devotion is one of the most powerful ways we can relate to God.  In Vedic terminology this path is called “bhakti yoga” (literally “devotion/participation” + “uniting”).  This experience was clearly part of the life of Jesus, who repeatedly declares his oneness with God, which he addresses as “Abba”, the Hebrew equivalent of “Papa”.

One of the most touching and memorable ways humans share their love with each other is through words and actions that express our feelings of fondness, attraction, admiration and even passion.  We may even acknowledge a sense of attachment and interdependence, such that we cannot fully conceive of ourselves without referring in some way to the beloved.  While the great mystic sages are united in claiming that blind attachment to a human personality is misplaced, interpersonal devotion is nonetheless well founded if we acknowledge that the Spirit of the Living God is shining through each person’s life in a limited and yet wonderfully unique way.  As mystics on the Way of the Heart, we owe it to God, our fellow human beings, and to ourselves to express our love for God as directly as possible within our souls and through our love for other people.  Any attempt to engage that love affair consciously and intentionally is prayer, and the following methods are based upon awareness of that truth.

Ritualized Prayer

When we love others, we often make it a point to share certain times of our lives with them.  We share meals with them, make phone calls or send emails, and we meet with them on holidays and other routine events.  In effect, we demonstrate our commitment to them, and so communicate our love, by establishing and maintaining rituals of interconnection. We likewise ritualize our connections with God in many ways, such as going to church or meditating routinely, or learning and practicing specific prayers at various times.

Building upon this dynamic, one of the most common ways to more fully incorporate prayer into one’s life is through ritually reading or recalling prayers at specific times of the day and night, such as upon rising, at meals and before sleep.  Further steps can be taken by saying those prayers at the turn of specific hours, or setting a minimum number of repetitions to be completed each day.  Praying the Rosary is one of the most widely practiced methods of Christian ritualized prayer, as is the children’s bedtime prayer, “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.”

Perhaps the greatest challenge in ritualized prayer is not allowing the practice to become relatively spiritless, with some mechanical part of the mind simply replaying the words while the majority of one’s consciousness is occupied with anything but attention to the Divine.  Still there is hope that even in those cases the prayer is stimulating the soul in some beneficial way at an unconscious level.  Another challenge is that we may be in a setting where performing ritualized prayer aloud would be uncomfortable.  In these cases there is nothing wrong with performing them entirely within the imagination, making no external sounds or movements to betray the inner work.

There are many traditional prayers suitable for these practices. The Lord’s Prayer and the 23rd Psalm are familiar to most Christians.  Hail Mary and the Jesus Prayer are also traditional favorites among Anglican, Catholic and Orthodox Christians.

“Hail Mary” (Roman Catholic version)

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. (“sinners” is omitted by some people)

“The Jesus Prayer” (according to the rule of St. John Chrysostom)

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us. Amen.

A number of doxologies, or short traditional hymns of praise, are also suitable. Here are two common examples:

“Gloria Patri” (an English version)

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, it is now and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.

“Praise God from Whom all Blessings Flow”

Praise God from Whom all blessings flow; praise Him, all creatures here below; praise Him above, ye heavenly host; praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

Of course, many beautiful prayers have been composed by or attributed to Christian saints, and have become standards throughout the Christian community. Consider this one attributed to St. Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. Amen.

For the purposes of performing ritualized prayer from memory, it is perfectly acceptable to choose shorter excerpts or fragments of prayers. Here is an excerpt from a prayer by Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin:

May Thy life, which is one everywhere, transform my whole being in the unity of Thine image, my heart in the unity of Thy love, my activity in the unity of the works of justice, and my thought in the unity of all lights.  Amen.

Internal Chant

Just as we frequently stir the memory of a beloved in our hearts and minds, we can redirect our awareness to the Divine through frequent, silent repetition of a few words, phrases or a short sentence that naturally evokes spiritual thoughts or opens the heart to God’s presence.  This practice is a sacrifice of some portion of one’s moment-to-moment consciousness, allowing internal space to be devoted to purposes more meaningful than the petty obsessions that too often waste our time and energy.  At first, it may be necessary to frequently remind oneself to return to the chant whenever the mind is not occupied by something of immediate importance.  In time the practice can become more like a constantly flowing stream that one joyfully hears again whenever other sounds have quieted.  Some people practice the Jesus Prayer this way, and you could also employ one of these options, among many others:

Be still and know that I am God.

Thou art with me.

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Love God and thy neighbor as thyself.

As you have done to the least of these, so have you done to me.

I and my Father are one.

Please note that for this form of chanting we have not included any sacred names or words, such as Adonai, Elohim, Emmanuel, Yeshua Xristos, or Maranatha.  The chanting of sacred words, either silently or aloud, is recommended for times dedicated specifically to that purpose, and is often done in conjunction with other rituals and meditations. These matters are important and deserve further attention, but are tangential to our consideration of prayer in the typical course of daily life.

Love Notes & Other Keepsakes

One of the most pleasant ways we express our thoughts and feelings for loved ones is through sharing written words, pictures and other mementos with each other.  Heartfelt letters, poetry, songs, and even greeting cards are tangible manifestations, actual documents, of love.  We can relate to the Divine in the same way, and that is precisely what has led so many people to write their own prayers, or compose spiritual music and poetry.  Many great paintings and sculptures have also been expressions of prayerful states of mind. Other people find it meaningful to keep a journal or diary in which they write entries addressed to God, just as they would write letters to a most trusted friend.

When we receive artistic gifts from others, or make them for ourselves, it is very common to set them out where they can easily be seen and revisited, or to preserve them in collections of keepsakes through which we occasionally reminisce.  People typically frame the most cherished pictures or writings, making them perpetually available.  Many of us also do these things with the spiritual writings and icons we find most inspiring.  Every time we lay our eyes on such artifacts, they provide an opportunity to remember our relationship with the Divine, and to attend to it in that very moment.  Sometimes, and often just when we most need it, these items catch the eye not so much as reminders to attend to God, but rather strike us as personal messages from the Divine, reawakening our hearts and minds to the immediate presence of infinite wisdom and love.

Laborare Est Orare

“To work is to pray.”  This motto summarizes the Rule of St. Benedict, a guide to Christian monks of many orders that places honest work on an equal footing with religious study and formal prayer.  This value is present in the teachings of many spiritual traditions, and so we do well to incorporate it into our own lives.  As noted in the previous section, spiritual works of art often come from a reverent or inspired state of mind, and this can be true for almost any kind of benevolent human activity.  While it may be difficult for some of us to see our occupations in terms of relating to the Divine, it helps to remember that each person we interact with is a child of God, a manifestation of the Logos and a vessel of the Holy Spirit, and that even the most isolated work may touch the lives of others in some way. So we can at least be prayerful in how we work, knowing that to work in the spirit of love for our fellow human beings is to serve God (Colossians 3:23)

Silence

Have you ever noticed the touching sense of peace and comfort communicated by lifelong partners or old friends as they quietly go about their business with awareness of each other?  We can relate with God in much the same way.

Conclusion: Deus Caritas Est

This Latin phrase translates to “God is love”, a timeless axiom reminding us that we can have no truer concept of God than all-knowing, all-powerful, limitless and perfect Love. With this view in mind, we recall that in the Acts of the Apostles it is said, “we live and move and have our being” in God. That statement brings us back full-circle to the initial reference from Underhill, which voices the mystical realization of God’s presence.  When these ideas connect, we cannot avoid considering all of existence as an expression of Divine Love, no matter how distorted or corrupted many of its particulars might seem to us.  Of course, the challenge is to be mindful of this reality, to wake up to it and see it as clearly and directly as possible.  This wisdom is beautifully composed in 1st Corinthians 13:8-13:

Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

We are always and everywhere interacting with God, being loved by God, and we are prayerful to the extent that we are mindful of this truth.  All the methods of prayer we have been considering are meant to nurture such mindfulness, and each has its own value. But there is no substitute for the simple moment-to-moment remembrance and appreciation that the Divine is always right here, right now, both within us and without us, and this presence is Love.  Even in moments of the worst struggle and suffering, even in the hearts of people whose words and actions inflict pain, anger and despair, even when reason and understanding fail, and even in our own souls when we betray those closest to us and betray ourselves, Divine Love calls out and patiently waits to be rediscovered, embraced and shared, and this is a deep secret of acceptance and forgiveness.  To be loving is to midwife the Divine in giving birth to Itself, and there is no greater form of prayer than this.

Agape