This is an offshoot of a discussion that arose on another thread.

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Originally Posted by ordinaryguy

This is a pretty fundamental difference between us. I don't think the real truth of God is "out there", I think it's "in here", and that's where I've been able to find what I know of it.

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Originally Posted by Akoue

With this you appear to be touching on something with which I have a long-standing interest (in a non-pejorative sense of "interest"), and I wonder if you'd be willing to say more about what you have in mind with the contrast between "out there" and "in here". Given the reception you seem to be getting I will, of course, quite understand it you'd rather not expand on what you've said. But if you are willing, I'd like very much to hear more about how you think about this: what "in here" refers to and what is to be found there; whether there are things to be found "in here" that aren't available "out there".

This isn't intended as a challenge, nor to set-up a challenge. I don't see that you've said anything hostile to Christianity. In fact, it looks like you may be giving voice to something that a good many Christians feel (or, at least, something I've often heard said). I'd be grateful if you would be willing to say more about how you think about these matters.

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Where to start? I guess since you seem to be conversant with some fairly obscure sources, I can tell you some of the authors who have inspired me and planted seeds in my heart and mind. They're mostly in one or another strand of the mystical tradition that seems to form as a minority alongside the more mainstream versions of all the major religions.

Within the Christian tradition, the anonymous author of "The Cloud of Unknowing" is probably my favorite, but I'm also indebted to Jacob Boehme, William Blake, and many others of their ilk. I've also read several Kabalistic sources, though I've never been instructed in the oral tradition.

Among the oriental traditions, I'm most attracted to Lao Tzu (The Tao Teh King), but I also find much to respond to in The I Ching, The Upanishads, The Bhagavad Gita, and The Tibetan Book of the Dead. I haven't read much Sufi literature, but from what little I know of their tradition, they seem to be of one mind with the other mystics of the world.

I have also studied Astrology, Alchemy, Tarot, and some of the other occult traditions. I use astrology on an ongoing basis in my personal life and relationships.

As best I understand at this time, a central tenet of the mystical approach is what I would describe as intellectual humility, which is simply to bear in mind always that every attempt to define and constrain the Spirit in order to tame it and make it suitable for domestic service in the house of the rational intellect is bound to fail. In other words, Spirit is primary, Mind is secondary. As Jesus put it to Nicodemus, "The wind blows where it will and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes. So also is every one who is born of the Spirit"

In terms of the within/without distinction, Spirit is within, thought and sensation is without. It's the same distinction that the sages of the occult tradition draw between "above" and "below", as in the ancient dictum, "As above, so below", meaning that the inner spiritual world is "above", i.e., superior to and causative of the outer mental and material world "below".

That should do as an intro. I'm most interested to know your response and further thoughts.

Thanks so much for being willing to talk about this further. I was delighted to find that you'd opened this thread.

I share several of the interests that you've mentioned above. Mysticism and the various mystical traditions have been an abiding interest of mine for many years and substantially motivated my interest in Christianity. That said, I have only a passing familiarity with a number of the things you mention, in particular, the occult, Tarot, and eastern mysticism. My exposure to astrology and alchemy is limited to what I've read in the course of studying the history of science; I've never pursued these as spiritual regimes in their own right. My knowledge of eastern mysticism is quite limited. I've read the texts you mention but cannot claim to have studied them in any real depth.

I am more familiar with Christian and Islamic mystical traditions and have devoted considerable effort to their study. And while not myself a Muslim, Ibn Arabi remains one of my favorite spiritual writers of any tradition.

This, hopefully, will give you at least some sense where I am coming from with what follows. Not only do I harbor no hostility toward, or suspicion of, mysticism, I hold it in high esteem (for the most part--the New Age stuff tends to get under my skin).

As you know, what first led me to ask you to say more about your views was your mention of "in here" vs. "out there". I greatly appreciate your sharing with me where you are coming from since this helps me to have a better idea what this distinction means for you. That said, I hope it's okay if I ask some further questions. Here goes...

One of the things that intrigues me about many mystics is the way in which they problematize (sorry, I can't think of a better word for it) the distinction between inner and outer. Many mystics regard the goal of their spiritual praxis to be the annihilation of the self in the divine--in something radically transcendent. The mystic undertakes years and years of study, performs and seeks to perfect himself in the practice of rituals (including prayer, meditation, worship) in order ultimately to experience union with the divine. In much of Christian and Islamic mysticism, there is a progression from purification to illumination to, finally, union.

You mention humility and this is a hugely important point which I am delighted to see brought up. In the absence of humility, purification, illumination, and union aren't possible. But there are different kinds of humility, different respects in which one must seek to master the practice of humility. One is the awareness of one's own sinfulness or fallenness. Another is the awareness that what is most radically outer is at the same time radically inner, namely the Divine, coupled with the awareness of radical dependence upon the Divine. (I keep using the word "radical" in an attempt to honor the great emphasis that is placed on these and the fact that they are understood rather differently by mystics than might otherwise be imagined.) God is not out there; but neither is God in here: The distinction between inner and outer, between oneself and the Other is itself something to be overcome, or seen through.

This brings me back to something you say, namely the inability to get our minds around fundamental spiritual realities. The mystics themselves enact this through their use of language in order to demonstrate the inability for language to comprehend, say, God's essence or the intimate relation of the soul to God in the experience of ecstatic union. Language itself breaks down in the face of these realities, these truths, and we have no concepts with which to bring them within the grip of our cognitive faculties. These things are through-and-through experiential: One must experience them, one cannot understand them by rational means--at least, not without distortion.

So, as I understand it, mysticism isn't a retreat into the realm of the purely subjective or individualistic. It is, rather, the transformation of the individual and the transcending of the purely subjective through the striving for the Divine. This, of course, requires that the individual undertake lots and lots of hard work, but always with the aim of overcoming or transcending one's individuality and particularity. This is certainly what one finds in The Cloud of Unknowing and in Boehme, to say nothing of the tradition from which they spring. But you are absolutely right, that there is an emphasis on the need to go beyond the senses, beyond senuous (not to mention sensual) experience. Augustine illustrates this beautifully with his description of the Vision at Ostia in the ninth book of his Confessions, where he displays for the reader not only the break-down of language and discursive thought but of the senses and sensory experience as well.

It appears I don't have a well-articulated question for you (although I honestly thought I had when I began writing this post). Perhaps what I am asking you for is just your thoughts about what I have said so far. I realize that you are drawing on mystical traditions with which I am not as familiar as I would like to be, and that my account of mysticism speaks only to those traditions with which I am familiar. So you may be thinking about things rather differently. I would be most interested to hear more of your thoughts about any or all of this.

And thank you again for opening this thread and discussing this with me. I look forward to your next post.

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Originally Posted by Akoue

for the most part--the New Age stuff tends to get under my skin.

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Yes, most of it is pretty thin gruel, I'm afraid.

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One of the things that intrigues me about many mystics is the way in which they problematize (sorry, I can't think of a better word for it) the distinction between inner and outer. Many mystics regard the goal of their spiritual praxis to be the annihilation of the self in the divine--in something radically transcendent. The mystic undertakes years and years of study, performs and seeks to perfect himself in the practice of rituals (including prayer, meditation, worship) in order ultimately to experience union with the divine. In much of Christian and Islamic mysticism, there is a progression from purification to illumination to, finally, union.

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Something that rings especially true to me in The Cloud of Unknowing is the notion of "naked intent". The idea is that the impulse toward the Spirit is not "for" anything, and the spiritual quest should not be motivated by a desire to experience or achieve any particular state, however ecstatic or exalted. Such states may occur from time to time, for some people, but they are not the goal or purpose of spiritual practice. The only goal is to be completely open, responsive, and available to the Spirit at every moment of every day in every situation, whether that brings agony or ecstasy, tedium or delight, union or solitude.

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God is not out there; but neither is God in here: The distinction between inner and outer, between oneself and the Other is itself something to be overcome, or seen through.

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Yes, I would say seen through, rather than overcome. The experience of being separate is an illusion, a useful and necessary one for certain times and purposes, but not fundamentally real.

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This brings me back to something you say, namely the inability to get our minds around fundamental spiritual realities. The mystics themselves enact this through their use of language in order to demonstrate the inability for language to comprehend, say, God's essence or the intimate relation of the soul to God in the experience of ecstatic union. Language itself breaks down in the face of these realities, these truths, and we have no concepts with which to bring them within the grip of our cognitive faculties. These things are through-and-through experiential: One must experience them, one cannot understand them by rational means--at least, not without distortion.

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Yes, the beginning of wisdom is to acknowledge the limits of the rational mind. However sharp and fit an instrument it may be for understanding the outer world, there are realms of being and consciousness where it is inoperative, and trying to use it inappropriately in those realms is not only futile, it can actually do damage.

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So, as I understand it, mysticism isn't a retreat into the realm of the purely subjective or individualistic. It is, rather, the transformation of the individual and the transcending of the purely subjective through the striving for the Divine.

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Yes, that's pretty much how I understand it as well.

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This, of course, requires that the individual undertake lots and lots of hard work, but always with the aim of overcoming or transcending one's individuality and particularity.

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Well, I wouldn't necessarily call it "hard work" with an "aim of overcoming" something, be it individuality or separation. I see it more as cultivating an attentive willingness to serve the needs of the Spirit in whatever way we are able in whatever situation we find ourselves in. Life lived this way will probably produce moments of heightened awareness of the unity of all things, including ourselves, but those moments are the icing, not the cake.

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It appears I don't have a well-articulated question for you (although I honestly thought I had when I began writing this post). Perhaps what I am asking you for is just your thoughts about what I have said so far. I realize that you are drawing on mystical traditions with which I am not as familiar as I would like to be, and that my account of mysticism speaks only to those traditions with which I am familiar. So you may be thinking about things rather differently. I would be most interested to hear more of your thoughts about any or all of this.

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Not so very differently, it seems, except maybe the traditions you mention are a bit more focused on striving and struggle and effort.

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Originally Posted by Akoue

Many mystics regard the goal of their spiritual praxis to be the annihilation of the self in the divine--

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I think this is more true of the Eastern tradition, not the Western tradition. Christian mystics seek union with the divine but not at the price of self. The self is always distinct from the Creator/divine. I don't know if this is true in every case - it's been a long time since I've read Eckhart - but Merton clearly made this distinction.

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Originally Posted by Athos

I think this is more true of the Eastern tradition, not the Western tradition. Christian mystics seek union with the divine but not at the price of self. The self is always distinct from the Creator/divine. I don't know if this is true in every case - it's been a long time since I've read Eckhart - but Merton clearly made this distinction.

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Yes, Athos, you are right, and thank you for correcting me. It was terribly sloppy of me to write that. In fact, even though Eckhart is often said to have spoken about the annihilation of the self, it's really pretty clear that that's not what he was saying (although his playful use of language can easily mislead). While there are writers in various mystical traditions who have flirted with the annihilation of the self, this is not representative of the mainstream of Western mystical thinking. I'll be more careful in future.

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Originally Posted by ordinaryguy

Something that rings especially true to me in The Cloud of Unknowing is the notion of "naked intent". The idea is that the impulse toward the Spirit is not "for" anything, and the spiritual quest should not be motivated by a desire to experience or achieve any particular state, however ecstatic or exalted. Such states may occur from time to time, for some people, but they are not the goal or purpose of spiritual practice. The only goal is to be completely open, responsive, and available to the Spirit at every moment of every day in every situation, whether that brings agony or ecstasy, tedium or delight, union or solitude.

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I want to avoid the passive voice here... I too have a great fondness for the notion of stillness or quietude and the centrality of this in mystical writing. There is a useful and pregnant tension between the purposive and the non-purposive: Mystical praxis isn't mere play, it is purposive, and yet at the same time it isn't overtly goal-directed in the way in which many other sorts of spiritual praxis are. This, I think, provides an important counterbalance.

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Yes, I would say seen through, rather than overcome. The experience of being separate is an illusion, a useful and necessary one for certain times and purposes, but not fundamentally real.

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This is something I wonder about from time to time: How illusory is difference or separation really? It seems to me that these are scalar, that there are non-trivial ways in which there is no separation as well as non-trivial ways in which there really is deep separation. Very often one finds lots of metaphor swirling around in order to capture that absence of separation, and it isn't always clear to me what to make of the metaphors--whether they bottom-out in something non-metaphorical. I'm thinking here especially of the one author in the alchemical tradition with whom I have any real familiarity, Paracelsus. There is this sort of elaborate organicism at work, but it's all couched in metaphor. I have often wondered whether there is really anything at work here beyond the play of metaphor (i.e. language). I would be interested to know your thoughts about this (not Paracelsus in particular, but the broader issue).

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Yes, the beginning of wisdom is to acknowledge the limits of the rational mind. However sharp and fit an instrument it may be for understanding the outer world, there are realms of being and consciousness where it is inoperative, and trying to use it inappropriately in those realms is not only futile, it can actually do damage.

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I agree with you, that it can in fact do damage. At the same time, I feel called to be very cautious whenever one calls for suspending rational thought. Irrationalism can do profound damage, as well, of course. I seem to be most attracted to those mystics who call upon the individual to exercise all of one's faculties--even if this involves cultivating the ability to quiet those faculties when appropriate. And discernment, knowing when it is appropriate, is something that I believe comes only after one has acquired a good del of experience and wisdom. I find hesychasm to be a remarkably deep tradition, and it speaks to me, especially with regard to these matters.

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Well, I wouldn't necessarily call it "hard work" with an "aim of overcoming" something, be it individuality or separation. I see it more as cultivating an attentive willingness to serve the needs of the Spirit in whatever way we are able in whatever situation we find ourselves in. Life lived this way will probably produce moments of heightened awareness of the unity of all things, including ourselves, but those moments are the icing, not the cake.

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I like the way you put this. As I understand it, the hard work that one undertakes is by way of preparation: No one can, by virtue of his own efforts, achieve union. This is the sense in which mystical praxis isn't purposive or goal-directed: I cannot force the divine to be one with me. What I can, and must, do is to remove in myself those obstacles which I have put into place and which cause me to be unreceptive. This, as I understand it, is the place for striving and struggle. I struggle with myself, to overcome my own vices and passions and preconceptions--all those things about me which keep me rooted in my own particularity and close me off to the transcendent Other. This is, of course, the Christian tradition of spiritual combat. But this goal is for this to give way to utter stillness, so that I can be maximally receptive of the Other, the Divine. And this is precisely why so many mystics include in their work a program of spiritual ascesis, since an important part of growing in the Spirit (to appropriate the way you put it) is the removing of obstacles in myself.

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Not so very differently, it seems, except maybe the traditions you mention are a bit more focused on striving and struggle and effort.

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That may well be. As I say, I don't have a deep knowledge or understanding of, in particular, many eastern traditions. In part this is because the bits that I have read emphasized a kind of quietism that I feel often (and I could easily be mistaken here) fails adequately to take into account the ways in which we have already established within ourselves manifold obstacles. There is a similar quietism in Boehme, and it tends to irk me a bit there as well. But my feeling a bit irked is certainly far from a reasoned objection.

I wonder if you would be willing to expand on the way you think about God's being "in here" as opposed to "out there". You have touched on this in several ways, of course, but I would like very much to hear more about how you think about this given the traditions upon which you have drawn. Part of what intrigues me about this is whether you take there to be a very deep distinction between the two, "in here" and "out there", and whether you think that the two are complementary or whether you think that we should, as it were, turn insofar as we are able from what is "out there" and seek our spirituality entirely within.

Man, you MUST to be a teacher of some sort. You've sent me off on several different reading tangents, which I now have to mull over, reread in some cases, and then think about some more, before I can fashion a response. I'm just going to do it in bits and pieces as I am able to formulate a coherent thought or two, and find the time to write them down.

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Originally Posted by Akoue

This is something I wonder about from time to time: How illusory is difference or separation really? It seems to me that these are scalar, that there are non-trivial ways in which there is no separation as well as non-trivial ways in which there really is deep separation.

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Paradox, contradiction, conundrum, simultaneous affirmation of opposites, these are all the mystic's stock in trade. It causes the rationalist/logicians no end of heartburn. I understand the Sufis are especially adept at inventing games and riddles of this sort.

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Very often one finds lots of metaphor swirling around in order to capture that absence of separation, and it isn't always clear to me what to make of the metaphors--whether they bottom-out in something non-metaphorical. I'm thinking here especially of the one author in the alchemical tradition with whom I have any real familiarity, Paracelsus. There is this sort of elaborate organicism at work, but it's all couched in metaphor. I have often wondered whether there is really anything at work here beyond the play of metaphor (i.e. language). I would be interested to know your thoughts about this (not Paracelsus in particular, but the broader issue).

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Yes, the mystics hardly ever come at things directly, and I think the reason is that they are acutely aware of the human tendency to confuse a symbol with the thing itself, as well as the spiritual danger of doing so. All this metaphorical, allegorical, and analogical language just makes it a little bit harder to make that mistake. My guess is that this is why Jesus taught so predominately through parables, and also why he wrote no books. I'm sure he knew full well that the books, and the arguments they engendered, would come soon enough, and as we see everyday on these boards, he was right.

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I agree with you, that it can in fact do damage. At the same time, I feel called to be very cautious whenever one calls for suspending rational thought. Irrationalism can do profound damage, as well, of course.

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Well, yes, but suspending rational thought doesn't cause irrational thought. The quiet mind is not irrational, it is trans-rational.

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I seem to be most attracted to those mystics who call upon the individual to exercise all of one's faculties--even if this involves cultivating the ability to quiet those faculties when appropriate. And discernment, knowing when it is appropriate, is something that I believe comes only after one has acquired a good del of experience and wisdom.

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Yes, there is a tendency to think that spiritual progress is dependent on, and necessarily follows the mastery of technique, but really, the limiting factor is more often discernment than technical expertise.

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I find hesychasm to be a remarkably deep tradition, and it speaks to me, especially with regard to these matters.

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This is what sent me Googling and Wikipedaling. I had never even encountered the word before, so I have a lot of catching up to do. I have known that the Orthodox branch of Christianity carried within it a much stronger mystical thread than the Latin Church, but I have almost no exposure to it, so this is like stumbling into a gold mine. What I've read so far makes me feel right at home.

I have to go to bed, and I'll be gone for the weekend, so it will be a few days before I get back to this. That's OK though, I need the processing time. Thanks for the stimulating exchange. I'm enjoying it immensely.

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Originally Posted by ordinaryguy

Man, you MUST to be a teacher of some sort. You've sent me off on several different reading tangents, which I now have to mull over, reread in some cases, and then think about some more, before I can fashion a response. I'm just going to do it in bits and pieces as I am able to formulate a coherent thought or two, and find the time to write them down.

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Uh-oh. If I've been teacherly I promise it was unintentional (yes, I've been teaching for many years, and I suppose I don't always realize the degree to which that shows). It's a little discouraging to see what many years in lecture halls and seminar rooms has done to me, but I hope at least that I haven't been teacherly in a bad way. If I have, or am in future, please don't hesitate to tell me so. I'll do my best to tone it down where I can (though, honestly, I don't trust myself to notice when I'm doing it--I'm afraid it's probably become second-nature by now).

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Paradox, contradiction, conundrum, simultaneous affirmation of opposites, these are all the mystic's stock in trade. It causes the rationalist/logicians no end of heartburn. I understand the Sufis are especially adept at inventing games and riddles of this sort.

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Perhaps my favorite here is St.John of the Cross, especially his poetry. He does something that is, to my mind, quite remarkable: He enacts the disintegration of language, displaying the struggles of language to get around what cannot be said, the ineffable, giving way to wild juxtapositions of light and dark imagery, until finally it is reduced to a single vowel: O! He was the master of this sort of thing--though by no means the only adept practitioner of it. In fact, Melville does something quite similar in some of his poetry. And Melville was no mystic.

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Yes, the mystics hardly ever come at things directly, and I think the reason is that they are acutely aware of the human tendency to confuse a symbol with the thing itself, as well as the spiritual danger of doing so. All this metaphorical, allegorical, and analogical language just makes it a little bit harder to make that mistake. My guess is that this is why Jesus taught so predominately through parables, and also why he wrote no books. I'm sure he knew full well that the books, and the arguments they engendered, would come soon enough, and as we see everyday on these boards, he was right.

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That's an interesting point, about the tendency to confuse signifier and signified. There is also the fact that they are trying to get language around something that lies outside the bounds of thought and langauge, enacting in the process the disintegration of language and meaning.

In addition to these, there is another important aspect of an awful lot of mysticism: esotericism. I keep hoping that one day I'll stumble upon a really good study of esotericism in the mystical tradition(s), but I have as yet been unable to find anything good. And I'm for sure not going to try to write the sucker!

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Well, yes, but suspending rational thought doesn't cause irrational thought. The quiet mind is not irrational, it is trans-rational.

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A good point. You are absolutely right. For me--and I am speaking only to my own quirks and foibles--the threat of irrationalism is a great concern. While you are right that the mystics' call for the superation of rational thought is not itself an endorsement, let alone an embracing, of irrationalism, we have seen in the modern era the emergence of conservative political ideologies that undertake to merge a certain kind of mysticism with a certain kind of political theory (usually of the state) which are pretty overtly irrationalist. Carl Schmitt is a great example; so too, some of the Romantics (who became arch-conservatives after they grew disillusioned with the French Revolution). I recognize that this is not at all what you are talking about; and I also recognize that the mystics' talk of suspending rational thought was not at all in the service of a proto-National Socialist political ideology. I bring this up only in order to explain the source of my own reservations about the threat of irrationalism. Also, I've encountered a surprising number of people over the years (when I stop and think about it) who, in the name of mysticism, did in fact embrace a kind of irrationalism. And while I further recognize that this was, on their part, a distortion of mysticism, I also don't want to lose sight of the ease with which the one can give way to the other.

Having said all that, I agree with you, as with the mystics to whom we are alluding, that in matters spiritual, the rational must at some point yield to something, as you say, trans-rational.

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Yes, there is a tendency to think that spiritual progress is dependent on, and necessarily follows the mastery of technique, but really, the limiting factor is more often discernment than technical expertise.

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It would be a mistake to reduce the spiritual to a matter of technique. Technique is a means, not an end. In fact, I prefer to think of it as discipline rather than as technique. And discipline, the spiritual discipline articulated by the mystics, is not disposable, nor is it to be dispensed with. It is itself part of the fabric of the spiritual life. (I'm not sure you'll agree with that.)

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This is what sent me Googling and Wikipedaling. I had never even encountered the word before, so I have a lot of catching up to do. I have known that the Orthodox branch of Christianity carried within it a much stronger mystical thread than the Latin Church, but I have almost no exposure to it, so this is like stumbling into a gold mine. What I've read so far makes me feel right at home.

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Well, I hope my inadvertent teacherliness has at least paid some dividends. That would make me feel a lot better about it. If you haven't already come across it, I will bet dollars to doughnuts that you would thoroughly enjoy reading the Philokalia. I won't try to describe it here and run the risk of descending from teacherliness to pedantry, but you can look it up and get a sense for its contents. I mention it because I really am confident, on the strength of things you have already said, that you would find it enriching and nourishing. Also, it's the best one-stop shopping for hesychasm.

I have often heard it said that Orthodox Christianity is more mystical that Catholic Christianity. This, I think, is a misconception. It is rather the case, I believe, that they are equally mystical but that they sometimes give expression to their espective mysticisms in different ways. Orthodoxy is sometimes more overtly mystical; it more frequently wears its mysticism on its sleeve (I don't mean that to be a pejorative, though I realize that's how it sounds). There are, I think, respects in which Orthodoxy is more at peace with its mysticism than is Catholicism where one sometimes finds a scholastic spirit that is a bit suspicious of the mystical. Of course, one finds this principally among those who have failed to appreciate how thoroughgoingly mystical scholasticism itself can be. Just the same, though, the mysticism of the Eastern and Western Churches is remarkably similar. As I say, I think the real difference tends to be one of tone (and in this regard, I think the West has something to learn from the East).

Both Orthodoxy and Catholicism are far more mystical than Protestantism. This has actually been a bone of contention, especially between the Orthodox and Protestants. Protestantism tends to be far more rationalistic and suspicous of the mystical and of the impulse from which it arises. Boehme tends not to be held in especially high regard among mainline Protestants, whereas Gregory Palamas is revered by the Orthodox and John of the Cross is a Doctor of the Catholic Church.

But that's enough on the sectarian the front. I don't think that either of us is terribly interested in that stuff. (Though, if I am mistaken, and you'd enjoy discussing some of the different traditions among these, there may be things to be gained from that.) Personally, I'm interested to hear more of your own thoughts and views about the things we're discussing. It is in their mystical traditions that the various religions and religious traditions are most similar. I suspect that if one were unaware of reading al-Jilani or Ibn Arabi, but had only the text itself, one might never know that she was reading a Muslim as opposed to a Christian or Jewish mystic. That's food for thought in its own right (though I wouldn't want to be overhasty in drawing any conclusions from it).

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I have to go to bed, and I'll be gone for the weekend, so it will be a few days before I get back to this. That's OK though, I need the processing time. Thanks for the stimulating exchange. I'm enjoying it immensely.

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Thanks! I'm enjoying it as well. I look forward to your return.

You guys are way over my head, but I enjoy reading your posts in hopes that I can get something out of them.
Personally I'm still trying to fathom all that is mean by. "Be still and know that I am God"
And how to be (or achieve) that "still".
Peace and kindness,
Fred

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Originally Posted by Akoue

Uh-oh. If I've been teacherly I promise it was unintentional (yes, I've been teaching for many years, and I suppose I don't always realize the degree to which that shows). It's a little discouraging to see what many years in lecture halls and seminar rooms has done to me, but I hope at least that I haven't been teacherly in a bad way. If I have, or am in future, please don't hesitate to tell me so. I'll do my best to tone it down where I can (though, honestly, I don't trust myself to notice when I'm doing it--I'm afraid it's probably become second-nature by now).

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No, no, don't apologize. I meant it in the most complimentary sense. You didn't put me to work by being "teacherly", you did it by pointing out things I hadn't thought of, and referencing sources that bear directly on the subject matter at hand that I wasn't aware of. It's my "studently" nature, not any "teacherly" habits of yours that directed me to follow up on the leads you supplied. I am greatly in your debt. It will take me a long time to mine the lodes you pointed out.

I'm just back home from the weekend, and it will take me a little while to pick up the thread here. I want to read and think some more before responding to several things you said.

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Originally Posted by Akoue

I wonder if you would be willing to expand on the way you think about God's being "in here" as opposed to "out there". You have touched on this in several ways, of course, but I would like very much to hear more about how you think about this given the traditions upon which you have drawn. Part of what intrigues me about this is whether you take there to be a very deep distinction between the two, "in here" and "out there", and whether you think that the two are complementary or whether you think that we should, as it were, turn insofar as we are able from what is "out there" and seek our spirituality entirely within.

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The distinction between "inner" and "outer", "above" and "below", "spiritual" and "material" is pretty fundamental, I think, but, like all distinctions, it is a creation of the rational intellect. This doesn't mean it isn't "real", but it does mean that it should be recognized as secondary, or derivative in nature.

In Jacob's dream of the ladder between earth and heaven, he saw angels both ascending and descending. I think it is a grave error to suppose that the goal is to "get to heaven" and leave the "earth" completely behind. The real purpose of spiritual practice while we are in the body is to harmonize and unite heaven and earth, to bring heaven into earth, not to get away from earth and into heaven.

Jesus said, "this is the will of Him who sent me, that of all that He has given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day". I interpret this teaching to mean that the ultimate goal of spiritual practice is to imbue matter with Spirit, to infuse it with meaning and purpose, to bring it into full cooperative union with the values and purposes of Spirit, not to call it bad names and try to get away from it.

From this point of view it is equally important to take some "earth" with us into "heaven". The Apostle Peter's vision of the net that caught all kinds of fish was interpreted to mean that he should "call nothing common or unclean". I know this is usually interpreted to mean that he should take the gospel to Gentiles as well as Jews, but I think its esoteric meaning is that there is tremendous spiritual value in material existence, and we should not denigrate it and call it evil.

So no, I don't think God is found only and exclusively "within". There is a right and proper alternation of focus between the inner and outer worlds. While we are in the body, it is far easier, and thus more common, to become completely focused on the outer world. But it is entirely possible to go too far the other direction, and I think this is what some of the more extreme forms of the ascetic tradition do. The antidote to avoiding either extreme is healthy alternation. It is yet another illusion of the rational mind to suppose that one or the other has to be "right" and should be embraced exclusively, while the other is "wrong" and therefore must be shunned completely.

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Originally Posted by arcura

You guys are way over my head, but I enjoy reading your posts in hopes that I can get something out of them.
Personally I'm still trying to fathom all that is mean by. "Be still and know that I am God"
and how to be (or achieve) that "still".
Peace and kindness,
Fred

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I'm afraid I may not be much help with "Be still and know that I am God" because this isn't how I think about these things and so it is foreign to me. But please, if I say anything that doesn't make sense tell me so in order that I can try to be more clear. I have a longstanging interest in the Catholic mystical tradition but I still often find it difficult to articulate myself clearly when discussing it.

On the question of stillness: This isn't the first time you've written something that made me think that you might really like St.Teresa of Avila. If you haven't already encountered her extraordinary book The Interior Castle, it's something you might want to read. I can't think of a better or more accessible work on the subject of stillness and the prayer of stillness. It is one of the great treasures of Catholic mystical writing.

I'm sorry to keep dropping names. This thread has made me realize that I think about these topics in terms of particular mystics whom I've read and from whom I've learned. But I know that it can become quite tedious to have a discussion with someone who keeps dropping names and referring to books one hasn't oneself read. If you can bear with me, and let me know when I haven't been sufficiently clear, I will be most grateful for your patience. And as for The Interior Castle, there are a number of good translations available in paperback (the best translations are those by Allison Peers and Kieran Kavanaugh). It's the kind of book that is nice to own, because it's so chock-full of insight that it is nice to have a copy of one's own in which to write and circle and underline. One can learn a lot about prayer from St.Teresa.

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Originally Posted by ordinaryguy

No, no, don't apologize. I meant it in the most complimentary sense. You didn't put me to work by being "teacherly", you did it by pointing out things I hadn't thought of, and referencing sources that bear directly on the subject matter at hand that I wasn't aware of. It's my "studently" nature, not any "teacherly" habits of yours that directed me to follow up on the leads you supplied. I am greatly in your debt. It will take me a long time to mine the lodes you pointed out.

I'm just back home from the weekend, and it will take me a little while to pick up the thread here. I want to read and think some more before responding to several things you said.

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This is certainly very gracious of you and I am deeply appreciative. I see you have posted something in the last few minutes which I expect I will be thinking about throughout the day--so thanks for that too. As always, I look forward to your future posts with great eagerness.

(I assume this discussion is open to all and don't want to appear as an intruder, but the topic has been of interest to me for a long time. So here are some comments on what has been written so far).

Hesychasm, Transcendental Meditation, Centering Prayer, and "The Cloud of Unknowing" all describe a technique of meditation. The techniques are so similar that we can assume a common source - probably in India 2 or 3 millennia ago. The proponents, however, each see their own practice as unique. Once relegated to monks and mystics, the practice has been described by Herbert Benson in his book "The Relaxation Response" which demystifies it and brings it to the masses without its religious trappings. An effective method of coping with stress and even capable of bringing on "oceanic feelings", it is another question entirely whether this is a means to union with the divine.

Hesychasm (the Jesus prayer) is Orthodox, TM is from Hinduism, and the remaining two from Catholic Christianity.

Aside from meditation, the Sufi dervishes seek union through dance; the Tao is filled with mystical, often light-hearted contemplations of the divine (although it doesn't use that term); and Zen, a Japanese mix of Chinese Tao and Indian Buddhism, employs the koan as a way to enlightenment. The philosophers Plato and Pythagoras are both seen as early mystics.

The point being - all traditions have sought the divine within even though the terms can be different: God, Atman, Nirvana, Brahman, etc. We all, East and West, seem to be prey to the need to realize ultimate reality with the methods used being remarkably similar, the crucial difference being the "self" as mentioned in my post above.

It is noteworthy that mystics in the West have often been looked upon with suspicious eyes by the established Church. Where Francis of Assisi toed the line, Madame Guyon went her own way and was soon off in la-la land with her clairvoyance, mental telepathy, levitation (never observed) and wound up in prison (17th century France). She is a good example of what the spiritual masters in all traditions have warned against, and what mysticism is NOT.

A good survey of the whole subject remains Evelyn Underhill's book "Mysticism" written about one hundred years ago.

(Excuse the interruption and please continue).

Okay, so I know I'm going to need to think about this, and will probably return to post on what you've written again. But I enjoyed reading it and would like at least to take a first pass at your very thoughtful and pregnant remarks. There's a good chance that I will end up rethinking what I say and revising at least some of it in a future post. Hope that's okay.

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Originally Posted by ordinaryguy

The distinction between "inner" and "outer", "above" and "below", "spiritual" and "material" is pretty fundamental, I think, but, like all distinctions, it is a creation of the rational intellect. This doesn't mean it isn't "real", but it does mean that it should be recognized as secondary, or derivative in nature.

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It is intriguing to me that you associate, or appear to associate (please correct me if I've jumped to unwarranted conclusions) the "inner" with the "above" and the "spiritual" and the "outer" with the "below" and the "material". I like what you say about the derivative nature of these distinctions. This makes a good deal more sense to me than what one sometimes finds, namely the idea that the "outer"-"below"-"material" is somehow fictive. I hope we can return to this in time, since I am interested to learn more about the ways in which this plays itself out in spiritual practice. (You've already said some interesting things about this below, but it's such a rich a topic that it would be fun to mine it further.)

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In Jacob's dream of the ladder between earth and heaven, he saw angels both ascending and descending. I think it is a grave error to suppose that the goal is to "get to heaven" and leave the "earth" completely behind. The real purpose of spiritual practice while we are in the body is to harmonize and unite heaven and earth, to bring heaven into earth, not to get away from earth and into heaven.

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I like what you say here a great deal. Personally, I find myself turned off by those who think of their spirituality in terms of heaven and hell. I don't begrudge them this, it's just that it's not what occurs to me when I think about these things. I suppose that this is due, in part at least, to the fact that--as you say--it is so often accompanied by the notion that the here-and-now is something to be denigrated or fled from or otherwise regarded with suspicion. And you've touched on another common theme in many mystical traditions, viz. the striving for harmony. Augustine, whose work has had the greatest impact on me, held that where there is disharmony there is disorder and so the absence of peace--this can be true of the self no less than the world or one's relation to others. Dis-integration leads to disintegration and dispersion. (This motivates the "integrationist" tendencies in my thinking which I mention at the end of this post.)

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Jesus said, "this is the will of Him who sent me, that of all that He has given me, I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day". I interpret this teaching to mean that the ultimate goal of spiritual practice is to imbue matter with Spirit, to infuse it with meaning and purpose, to bring it into full cooperative union with the values and purposes of Spirit, not to call it bad names and try to get away from it.

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I'd like to hear more about imbuing matter with Spirit. I'm not sure I understand what you have in mind. But I certainly do agree with you that the broadly Gnostic attitude which sees matter as evil or as the source of evil is gravely mistaken. There is a tendency for people to suppose that our spiritual life is something purely and wholly inner, that we pray and worship only with our minds, as though we were nothing more than minds in a fleshy prison. I believe we are minded bodies or bodily minds, by which I just mean to say that it ought to be the whole person and not just some one faculty or other that is called upon in prayer and worship, etc. This is something acknowledged by many mystics when they call our attention to the importance of different bodily postures and the like. It isn't just the mind that prays. The body prays too because we are bodily.

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From this point of view it is equally important to take some "earth" with us into "heaven". The Apostle Peter's vision of the net that caught all kinds of fish was interpreted to mean that he should "call nothing common or unclean". I know this is usually interpreted to mean that he should take the gospel to Gentiles as well as Jews, but I think its esoteric meaning is that there is tremendous spiritual value in material existence, and we should not denigrate it and call it evil.

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This is a very interesting point, not to mention an interesting reading of the text. I can't tell you how very nice it is to find someone at this site refer to the "esoteric meaning". Too much supine literalism. That said, I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you mean by taking some "earth" with us to "heaven". I have the vague sense that I'm being thick-headed about this--which is to say that I suspect my faillure to understand is my fault and not yours. I'll give it more thought.

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So no, I don't think God is found only and exclusively "within". There is a right and proper alternation of focus between the inner and outer worlds. While we are in the body, it is far easier, and thus more common, to become completely focused on the outer world. But it is entirely possible to go too far the other direction, and I think this is what some of the more extreme forms of the ascetic tradition do. The antidote to avoiding either extreme is healthy alternation. It is yet another illusion of the rational mind to suppose that one or the other has to be "right" and should be embraced exclusively, while the other is "wrong" and therefore must be shunned completely.

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I agree with what you say about some of the more extreme forms of asceticism. And, as I say above, I think that this is in evidence outside of asceticism, in the view that it is the mind alone that is engaged in our spiritual life. Here I believe that what is required is integration of the whole person.

It is therefore interesting to me the way you put this in terms of alternation rather than in terms of integration. It would be nice if we could talk more about this some time (it certainly doesn't have to be now) since I tend to be more "integrationist" on this score.

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Originally Posted by Athos

(I assume this discussion is open to all and don't want to appear as an intruder, but the topic has been of interest to me for a long time. So here are some comments on what has been written so far).

Hesychasm, Transcendental Meditation, Centering Prayer, and "The Cloud of Unknowing" all describe a technique of meditation. The techniques are so similar that we can assume a common source - probably in India 2 or 3 millenia ago. The proponents, however, each see their own practice as unique. Once relegated to monks and mystics, the practice has been described by Herbert Benson in his book "The Relaxation Response" which demystifies it and brings it to the masses without its religious trappings. An effective method of coping with stress and even capable of bringing on "oceanic feelings", it is another question entirely whether this is a means to union with the divine.

Hesychasm (the Jesus prayer) is Orthodox, TM is from Hinduism, and the remaining two from Catholic Christianity.

Aside from meditation, the Sufi dervishes seek union through dance; the Tao is filled with mystical, often light-hearted contemplations of the divine (although it doesn't use that term); and Zen, a Japanese mix of Chinese Tao and Indian Buddhism, employs the koan as a way to enlightenment. The philosophers Plato and Pythagoras are both seen as early mystics.

The point being - all traditions have sought the divine within even though the terms can be different: God, Atman, Nirvana, Brahman, etc. We all, East and West, seem to be prey to the need to realize ultimate reality with the methods used being remarkably similar, the crucial difference being the "self" as mentioned in my post above.

It is noteworthy that mystics in the West have often been looked upon with suspicious eyes by the established Church. Where Francis of Assisi toed the line, Madame Guyon went her own way and was soon off in la-la land with her clairvoyance, mental telepathy, levitation (never observed) and wound up in prison (17th century France). She is a good example of what the spiritual masters in all traditions have warned against, and what mysticism is NOT.

A good survey of the whole subject remains Evelyn Underhill's book "Mysticism" written about one hundred years ago.

(Excuse the interruption and please continue).

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I will return to your post in a few minutes, but I didn't want to delay encouraging your participation. Please don't feel the least hesitation about joining us. Your contributions are most welcome, Athos, and I look forward to more posts from you as we continue.

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Originally Posted by Athos

(I assume this discussion is open to all and don't want to appear as an intruder, but the topic has been of interest to me for a long time. So here are some comments on what has been written so far).

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You are decidedly not an intruder. I think we all appreciate, and can benefit from, your contributions.

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Hesychasm, Transcendental Meditation, Centering Prayer, and "The Cloud of Unknowing" all describe a technique of meditation. The techniques are so similar that we can assume a common source - probably in India 2 or 3 millennia ago. The proponents, however, each see their own practice as unique. Once relegated to monks and mystics, the practice has been described by Herbert Benson in his book "The Relaxation Response" which demystifies it and brings it to the masses without its religious trappings. An effective method of coping with stress and even capable of bringing on "oceanic feelings", it is another question entirely whether this is a means to union with the divine.

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I'm honestly a little incredulous about the "common source" hypothesis, myself. But I suppose that's neither here nor there. I would like to pause briefly over the cottage industry that has emerged over the last hundred years or so and which involves the de-mythologization (to appropriate a technical term from a rather different theoretical context) of the various mystical traditions in order to put them in the service of the "self-help"/"personal growth" crowd. I find the attempt to detach these mystical practices from the broader religious and cultural traditions in which they are rooted, in order to sanitize them of anything too overtly religious and offer them up to the syncretistic tastes of the Western reading public, to be itself a kind of violence. Certainly I think that it does violence to these traditions. Part of the hard work involved in studying them is that, in order to understand them without desiccating them, one has to do the work to at least try to encounter them on their own terms, in the light of their own commitments and self-understanding. We in the West tend to pillage and distort these ancient practices and traditions by demanding (all too often) that they meet us on our own terms, conform to our own often relativistic prejudgments regarding different religious and spiritual traditions. This ends up stripping them of much of their content. At least, this is my own opinion. I recognize that I am very likely in the minority, and I don't wish to try to compel anyone to see things my way. This is just where I am on this question, and why I have such a dim view of so much of the New Age stuff.

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Hesychasm (the Jesus prayer) is Orthodox, TM is from Hinduism, and the remaining two from Catholic Christianity.

Aside from meditation, the Sufi dervishes seek union through dance; the Tao is filled with mystical, often light-hearted contemplations of the divine (although it doesn't use that term); and Zen, a Japanese mix of Chinese Tao and Indian Buddhism, employs the koan as a way to enlightenment. The philosophers Plato and Pythagoras are both seen as early mystics.

The point being - all traditions have sought the divine within even though the terms can be different: God, Atman, Nirvana, Brahman, etc. We all, East and West, seem to be prey to the need to realize ultimate reality with the methods used being remarkably similar, the crucial difference being the "self" as mentioned in my post above.

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I'm not sure that I agree with you about this. To be sure, the various mystical traditions have a lot in common. But they differ in important and deep ways. They certainly aren't interchangeable (I know you haven't said that they are). Each of these traditions is itself embedded and rooted in broader traditions from which--in my opinion--it cannot be detached without causing considerable distortion. I've witnessed a number of people in the comparative religions crowd seize upon some feature or features that these traditions share, say the call to stillness or quietude, hold it up and say something to the effect that these traditions are all really doing and talking about the same thing. But the notion of stillness or quietude often means different things, and is situated in different ways, serves different ends, and is achieved by different means in the different traditions. I myself have called attention to the often remarkable similarities, of course, but this should never come at the very high price of disregarding the differences. Stillness in, say, Teresa of Avila, isn't interchangeable with stillness in, say, Zen, this for the reason that the notion of stillness is embedded in two radically different thought-worlds. I am a big fan of the synthetic approach which sees affinities and establishes connections across traditions, but this must be disciplined by a rigorous appreciation of deep and important distinctions.

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It is noteworthy that mystics in the West have often been looked upon with suspicious eyes by the established Church. Where Francis of Assisi toed the line, Madame Guyon went her own way and was soon off in la-la land with her clairvoyance, mental telepathy, levitation (never observed) and wound up in prison (17th century France). She is a good example of what the spiritual masters in all traditions have warned against, and what mysticism is NOT.

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I don't know how often this has happened. Surely it has, but it seems to me that the reasons have been different in different cases. Origen got in a lot of trouble but not for his mysticism. St. Anthony was regarded as an emulable character throughout the early Church and there were a great many mystical writers whose work found ready acceptance by the ecclesiatical authorities. Meister Eckhart got in trouble for delivering sermons in German and saying things like "God is nothing(ness)"--and then refusing to explain what he meant when queried. St Catherine of Siena was, as a teenager, regarded with sufficient esteem in her own lifetime that the Pope himself was obliged to pay attention to her. So you're right that there has been some tension, but there's also been lots of acceptance. It depends upon what the mystic says or what he or she calls for (in the way of reform, mostly). Personally, I think it's a good thing for there to be a little bit of tension between the mystic and the prelate, the prophet and the priest. They tend to keep each other honest.

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A good survey of the whole subject remains Evelyn Underhill's book "Mysticism" written about one hundred years ago.

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It's been some years since I read Underhill, but I'm glad you mentioned it. I suspect it's time for a re-read. There's an excellent three-volume history of Christian mysticism by Bernard McGinn, if you're interested and haven't already read it. It's quite scholarly, but not so scholarly as to be a bore. I'm not completely jazzed by his discussion of Augustine, but on the whole I don't think I've found anything in English to compete with it. He's especially good on the Medieval mystics.

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(Excuse the interruption and please continue).

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Well, I do hope we've put this interruption business to rest. I enjoyed reading and thinking about your post and I hope you'll stick around and share your thoughts with us.

By the by, I've meant to ask you for some time now: Is your username a nod in the direction of the Holy Mountain? If so, it would be wonderful to have someone who can speak to the extraordinary and venerable Athonite tradition regarding the matters we are discussing here.

***EDIT***
The McGinn books I recommended are pretty thin when it comes to Orthodox mysticism. He does say a bit about early figures like Evagrius of Pontus and Ps.-Macarius, but his focus is avowedly Western. So while there's some really good stuff on people like Bernard of Clairvaux, this isn't the place to read about the history of hesychasm.

I just didn't want to lead anybody down the wrong path here. The study is very hepful in all sorts of ways, but it has clearly delimited boundaries, and it isn't the place to turn for an in-depth account of mysticism in Eastern Christianity.

For Akoue - (I haven't figured out yet how to put a quoted reply in those neat little boxes so this will have to do). Thank you for your good response. It encourages me to be more focused in what I write and less casual. Btw, Athos is not a reference to the Holy Mountain but rather from the Three Musketeers. :)

Transcendental Meditation (TM) is a yoga discipline from the Vedic tradition roughly 1000 BC. It was brought to the West in the 1970's and I took the training in 1975. It was never promoted as religious but as a practice anyone could do without reference to religion. This was not entirely true as it finishes with a Hindu ritual when the practitioner receives his/her mantra. Briefly, it consists of two daily periods of 20 minutes where one repeats the mantra until the mind is increasingly "empty". Then one more or less basks in the emptiness to provide relaxation and a sense of well-being. Done faithfully, it does indeed provide those benefits and helps to relieve stress.

Centering Prayer (CP) began as an aid to meditation at Trappist retreats and was founded by Abbot Thomas Keating. I studied CP under Fr. Basil Pennington in 1987 who was the chief promotor of the technique for many years. It consists of two daily periods of 20 minutes where one repeats a mantra (in this case, a word like Jesus, or God) until the mind is increasingly empty. The idea is to open oneself to God by eliminating all distractions and is religious. Keating specifically said that he wished to incorporate Eastern meditation techniques to help retreatants. Another primary source claimed by Pennington was The Cloud of Unknowing. This always seemed to me to be a misreading of The Cloud. In any case, the two techniques, when the religious trappings are dropped, are precisely identical.

Hesychasm is using a mantra, the Jesus Prayer, to achieve the same result - a quieting or stillness of the mind to be receptive to the divine. It is practiced usually in the evening, and is ultimately to be so habitual that the prayer, in effect, is always in the heart of the pray-er.

The similarities among all three techniques are so striking that I believe they can be sourced, through various developments, to the yoga discipline from the Vedas - especially since TM states that very fact and since CP has acknowledged its debt to TM. I don't find it unusual that the basic practice found its way to the Orthodox in the distant past.

The Relaxation Response is identical to TM and CP (without the religion) and uses the word "one" as its mantra, although any word will do. If this, as you say, is a detachment of mystical practices from their broader religious and cultural traditions, I say, so what? Isn't it a good thing to bring an effective practice to many people where the benefits can be shared? Personal growth and self-help are surely good things. This is not to say the TM or the CP people cannot continue with their ways. If they couch it in their own religious traditions, I see nothing wrong with that. I don't have what seems to be your disdain for syncretism. Certainly I don't consider it a kind of violence to older traditions. We always learn from and build upon what has gone before.

As to the various mystical traditions differing in "important and deep ways", I disagree. I agree they differ on the outside and in ritual, but the goal is the same. It's difficult to describe in words the goal, but "ultimate reality" is probably as good as any. Each tradition will express it differently, but I think it boils down to the same thing. John of the Cross was a poet and wrote beautifully as a poet in 16th century Spain. Therese of Liseaux experienced the most ordinary of lives yet each are called mystics. It seems to me both were onto the same thing, although in very different outward ways. The same holds true of Zen and Teresa of Avila - their stillness may have been from different thought worlds, but not their sought after "beyond-stillness" - stillness itself being a means and not the goal.

Having said all that, I realize that you make an excellent point of being wary of rushing helter-skelter into some jumble of synthesizing religions. I hope I haven't implied that I would be in favor of that. In my opinion, every approach has value and, as you say, is informed by culture and tradition. I don't think any one "way" is the "true" way for all. And I also appreciate your noting that most mystics have been readily accepted within the tradition they find themselves.

Thanks for the Bernard McGinn recommendation. I'll look for a used copy at Amazon.

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Originally Posted by Athos

(I assume this discussion is open to all and don't want to appear as an intruder, but the topic has been of interest to me for a long time. So here are some comments on what has been written so far).

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By all means, jump right in.

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Hesychasm, Transcendental Meditation, Centering Prayer, and "The Cloud of Unknowing" all describe a technique of meditation. The techniques are so similar that we can assume a common source - probably in India 2 or 3 millennia ago. The proponents, however, each see their own practice as unique. Once relegated to monks and mystics, the practice has been described by Herbert Benson in his book "The Relaxation Response" which demystifies it and brings it to the masses without its religious trappings. An effective method of coping with stress and even capable of bringing on "oceanic feelings", it is another question entirely whether this is a means to union with the divine.

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I might quibble a little bit with your characterization that all these sources "describe a technique of meditation". The Cloud of Unknowing is the only one of these that I'm familiar with, but my reading of it is that the author is first and foremost concerned with motives, and only secondarily with methods. He does, of course, offer suggestions about how to proceed, but again and again he returns to caution the reader against any motive but Love for undertaking this work. Whether they all have a common textual source, I'm happy to leave to scholars, but it doesn't strain my credibility at all to think that they are all inspired by the same spiritual reality.

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The point being - all traditions have sought the divine within even though the terms can be different: God, Atman, Nirvana, Brahman, etc. We all, East and West, seem to be prey to the need to realize ultimate reality with the methods used being remarkably similar, the crucial difference being the "self" as mentioned in my post above.

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That one word, and the diametrically opposite meanings attached to it by East and West is probably responsible for more misunderstandings and arguments between them than any other. It's a shame really, because the Reality that they both aspire to is the same, I think.

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It is noteworthy that mystics in the West have often been looked upon with suspicious eyes by the established Church.

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And not without reason, I'd say. Historically, seers, prophets and mystics are almost always disruptive of ecclesiastical order and tend to cause all kinds of problems for the authoritarian hierarchy. As I'm sure you can tell, my sympathies are with the mystics in that struggle.

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Originally Posted by Athos

For Akoue - (I haven't figured out yet how to put a quoted reply in those neat little boxes so this will have to do). Thank you for your good response. It encourages me to be more focused in what I write and less casual. Btw, Athos is not a reference to the Holy Mountain but rather from the Three Musketeers. :)

Transcendental Meditation (TM) is a yoga discipline from the Vedic tradition roughly 1000 BC. It was brought to the West in the 1970's and I took the training in 1975. It was never promoted as religious but as a practice anyone could do without reference to religion. This was not entirely true as it finishes with a Hindu ritual when the practitioner receives his/her mantra. Briefly, it consists of two daily periods of 20 minutes where one repeats the mantra until the mind is increasingly "empty". Then one more or less basks in the emptiness to provide relaxation and a sense of well-being. Done faithfully, it does indeed provide those benefits and helps to relieve stress.

Centering Prayer (CP) began as an aid to meditation at Trappist retreats and was founded by Abbot Thomas Keating. I studied CP under Fr. Basil Pennington in 1987 who was the chief promotor of the technique for many years. It consists of two daily periods of 20 minutes where one repeats a mantra (in this case, a word like Jesus, or God) until the mind is increasingly empty. The idea is to open oneself to God by eliminating all distractions and is religious. Keating specifically said that he wished to incorporate Eastern meditation techniques to help retreatants. Another primary source claimed by Pennington was The Cloud of Unknowing. This always seemed to me to be a misreading of The Cloud. In any case, the two techniques, when the religious trappings are dropped, are precisely identical.

Hesychasm is using a mantra, the Jesus Prayer, to achieve the same result - a quieting or stillness of the mind to be receptive to the divine. It is practiced usually in the evening, and is ultimately to be so habitual that the prayer, in effect, is always in the heart of the pray-er.

The similarities among all three techniques are so striking that I believe they can be sourced, through various developments, to the yoga discipline from the Vedas - especially since TM states that very fact and since CP has acknowledged its debt to TM. I don't find it unusual that the basic practice found its way to the Orthodox in the distant past.

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You are certainly right to point out the striking similarities regarding technique. I don't, however, regard similarites of technique to constitute especially deep similarites among the various mystical systems. I want to be cautious here, because I don't want to veer too far from my earlier post, in which I called attention to the similarities among different mystical traditions, to an excessively deflationary attitude toward their similarities. Different mystical traditions are rooted in different theological--philosophical traditions, and each has adopted (or adapted) various techniques and put them in the service of those theological--philosophical traditions. So what they have in common are an array of techniques, together with a number of (for lack of a better word) shared spiritual values like stillness, harmony, etc. But these values have different meanings in different traditions, and so the techniques which subserve these values also have different meanings. For instance: In hesychasm, the goal is theosis, and this involves grace and the efforts of the individual in order to repair the damage to the soul and self caused by sin. The mystical praxis of hesychasm serves the goal of theosis--which is itself a very complex notion deeply embedded in a rich and complex theological system. In other words, its similarities to the mystical disciplines of, say, Islam, notwithstanding, hesychasm is what it is by virtue of the particularity of the theological thought-world to which it belongs. Shorn of that thought-world, it is just a set of techniques without meaning or significance--apart from the palliative psychological effects of meditation (which are considerable). Islamic mysticism, esp. that of Ibn Arabi, tends to be pantheistic, and so the meaning and purpose of the disciplines or techniques of mystical praxis differ in important ways from those of, say, the Cistercians--who weren't pantheistic and who had a very different view of humanity-in-the-cosmos. Again, take the techniques out of the thought-world and what you have are just a bunch of techniques which stand for nothing in particular, have no meaning or significance apart from the psychological benefits reaped by the practitioner. So, I guess, what I'm getting at is--in part at least--that I am resistant to the temptation to psychologize the mystical by reducing its meaning to the feelings of inner peace or what-have-you of those who practice the techniques in isolation. I also, though, find it difficult to downplay the considerable differences between a tradition like hesychasm--for which sin is a central concept without which hesychasm makes little sense by its own lights--and a tradition from which the concept of sin (understood in quite specific terms) is absent. This looks to me like an absolutely fundamental difference.

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I don't have what seems to be your disdain for syncretism. Certainly I don't consider it a kind of violence to older traditions. We always learn from and build upon what has gone before.

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I didn't intend it to come across as disdain, but having re-read my earlier post I see that it did. For that I apologize. My disdain is not for syncretism as such, but for the repackaging and marketing of mysticism in the form of self-help schemes (emphasis here on "marketing"). This is not what you are advocating, though. Still, in the interests of clarity, allow me to say that I don't disdain syncretism; I am deeply suspicious of it--or at least of certain varieties of it. I am not at all opposed to learning about other traditions and drawing upon them for one's own development. But I am persuaded that when one strips an arsenal of techniques from the thought-worlds in which those techniques were midwifed and within which they have their meaning and significance, then palpable violence is done both to the traditions and to the techniques. I reserve my disdain for the consumerist mentality that, as I said before, pillages other cultures and traditions in search of an easy path to enlightenment or a happy. We in the West are voracious in our appetites for pseudo-spirituality, in no small measure because authentic spirituality is damn hard work. But, again, I recognize that this is off-topic, since this is not at all what you are advocating.

(But now I fear I am pontificating and so I will move along. I really don't mean to turn this into a debate about authentic vs. inauthentic spirituality. I did, however, want to offer some explanation for the disdain that came through and which you rightly called me on. There is something in the vicinity of what we are discussing that vexes me. But that isn't what we are talking about, so there's no need for me to dwell on it any more than I already have. I hope this at least makes a little more sense of my previous remarks.)

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As to the various mystical traditions differing in "important and deep ways", I disagree. I agree they differ on the outside and in ritual, but the goal is the same.

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Here it is possible we will have to agree to disagree. To my way of thinking, what you nicely shed light upon above are similarities of technique. Now, I don't want to commit myself to the idea that technique is somehow insubstantial, but it is, I am prepared to say, less substantial than the beliefs and world-views which lie beneath and motivate those techniques. I would therefore say that they agree substantially on the outside, but differ when we get to the real meat of it. It is the beliefs, the deeply held religious, philosophical, and spiritual commitments that are the real substance and the techniques are there, alongside a great many other things, to serve those commitments.

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It's difficult to describe in words the goal, but "ultimate reality" is probably as good as any. Each tradition will express it differently, but I think it boils down to the same thing. John of the Cross was a poet and wrote beautifully as a poet in 16th century Spain. Therese of Liseaux experienced the most ordinary of lives yet each are called mystics. It seems to me both were onto the same thing, although in very different outward ways. The same holds true of Zen and Teresa of Avila - their stillness may have been from different thought worlds, but not their sought after "beyond-stillness" - stillness itself being a means and not the goal.

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Here again, I suspect we just see it differently. I don't think the term "ultimate reality" can be applied univocally across traditions. I'm also not at all comfortable saying that for all these traditions "ultimate reality" is the goal. (Here, of course, a lot will turn on how the locution "ultimate reality" gets parsed.) I think that the goals do, in fact, differ but that different traditions have come to recognize certain techniques and virtues to serve their respective goals. It's true that if we abstract enough we can take all these traditions into view at a glance and see them as engaged in the same sort of endeavor. But that requires a level of abstraction that, as I see it anyway, ends up obfuscating more than it reveals. If we abstract enough then all differences fade into oblivion. So while I agree that at a certain level of abstraction these traditions share certain common contours, nevertheless I think that it is important to descend from that level of abstraction to take account of the differences--differences which I believe to be fundamental precisely because they are differences of belief and self-understanding rather than of technique.

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Having said all that, I realize that you make an excellent point of being wary of rushing helter-skelter into some jumble of synthesizing religions. I hope I haven't implied that I would be in favor of that. In my opinion, every approach has value and, as you say, is informed by culture and tradition. I don't think any one "way" is the "true" way for all. And I also appreciate your noting that most mystics have been readily accepted within the tradition they find themselves.

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I appreciate your saying this. And no, I definitely do not mean to suggest that I take you to favor the "jumble" approach-- and I hope that my speaking to it above doesn't give the impression that I take you to favor it. It was my intention to try to unpack my reservations about syncretism in light of your remarks. Perhaps you and I see this particular issue in incommensurable ways, but that's fine too, since we certainly share an interest in the same terrain. And I'm enjoying your posts greatly, whether we happen to agree on this particular point.