Saturday, June 18, 2005
Initiations Gentle and Terrible
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin speaks as follows on the sense of oneness with all that is:
"Thank you, my God, for having in a thousand different ways led my eyes to discover the immense simplicity of things. Little by little, through the irresistible development of those yearnings You implanted in me as a child, through the influence of gifted friends who entered my life at certain moments to bring light and strength to my mind, and through the awakenings of spirit I owe to successive initiations, gentle and terrible, which you caused me to undergo: through all these, I have been brought to the point where I can no longer see anyhthing, nor any longer breathe, outside that millieu in which all is made One."
(from "Hymn of the Universe")
And Meister Eckhart, speaking in a similar vein, says:
"It is not by love but by intelligence that the mystic reunion takes
>place with God; by knowledge we are one with God; that
>which knows and that which is known are one>"
At first glance, I would say just about the opposite. At least, in my own "moment of awakening," (the closest I have every come to a very, very deep mystical state of consciousness, that sense of oneness, of being nothing at all except some minute fragment of something infinitely larger , more vast, more potent than I could ever comprehend) it seemed to me that it was by surrendering the "mental faculty," that realization occurred. This is what startled me. I had long tried to "think my way to truth," but discovered that only when I surrendered the mind, did a powerful sense of ultimate reality manifest. And it came as a sense of overwhelming love, love for and love in, a totally enveloping awareness that "god" was in fact infinite rapture, and once we gave up the sense of the "little self," we could be swept into that rapture and feel its currents coursing through us, but only when we did not think about what was happening. At the key moment, lover and beloved were one, and that one was both god and self. Apparently, the high mystics remain in that state all the time. I don't--I flicker in and out, and often go along for weeks in "mundane consciousness."
However, as I reflected more, I realized that on some level mind was also involved; otherwise I would have had no awareness of what was occurring in that "moment of splendor," nor would I have been able to contemplate it later as I strove to integrate this new knowledge into my life. So--feeling entirely void of mind does not in fact exist, except in random moments of exaltation. But mind without feeling ("love," as Eckhard calls it) is arid and cannot carry us to the goal of union which we seek.
Now, I also am a sometime nature mystic, but in a slightly different sense. Here, I seem to enter a state of consciousness, in which everything is indeed lovely--trees, flowers, all the surroundings--and I feel a sense of "oneness" with all this. I forget who I am, and fall into a lovely state of delight or joy, but it does not include ecstasy or rapture as a somatic response.
For people like me, it is best, I believe, to "feel my way to god (divinity) " rather than to try to "think my way to god," since I am too much a skeptic not to challenge every assertion and question every proposition. But I can also see that intense feeling alone (unleashed emotion) could be dangerous if it were not accompanied by a capable intellect.
One further thought: when you have such an overwhelming experience, there are very few with whom you can communicate about it. I recognize that others may not be convinced by my "story" of what happened to me. But for me, it was a "self-validating experience." It was the Big Bang of the soul, and I have chosen to live by its truth ever since.
"Thank you, my God, for having in a thousand different ways led my eyes to discover the immense simplicity of things. Little by little, through the irresistible development of those yearnings You implanted in me as a child, through the influence of gifted friends who entered my life at certain moments to bring light and strength to my mind, and through the awakenings of spirit I owe to successive initiations, gentle and terrible, which you caused me to undergo: through all these, I have been brought to the point where I can no longer see anyhthing, nor any longer breathe, outside that millieu in which all is made One."
(from "Hymn of the Universe")
And Meister Eckhart, speaking in a similar vein, says:
"It is not by love but by intelligence that the mystic reunion takes
>place with God; by knowledge we are one with God; that
>which knows and that which is known are one>"
At first glance, I would say just about the opposite. At least, in my own "moment of awakening," (the closest I have every come to a very, very deep mystical state of consciousness, that sense of oneness, of being nothing at all except some minute fragment of something infinitely larger , more vast, more potent than I could ever comprehend) it seemed to me that it was by surrendering the "mental faculty," that realization occurred. This is what startled me. I had long tried to "think my way to truth," but discovered that only when I surrendered the mind, did a powerful sense of ultimate reality manifest. And it came as a sense of overwhelming love, love for and love in, a totally enveloping awareness that "god" was in fact infinite rapture, and once we gave up the sense of the "little self," we could be swept into that rapture and feel its currents coursing through us, but only when we did not think about what was happening. At the key moment, lover and beloved were one, and that one was both god and self. Apparently, the high mystics remain in that state all the time. I don't--I flicker in and out, and often go along for weeks in "mundane consciousness."
However, as I reflected more, I realized that on some level mind was also involved; otherwise I would have had no awareness of what was occurring in that "moment of splendor," nor would I have been able to contemplate it later as I strove to integrate this new knowledge into my life. So--feeling entirely void of mind does not in fact exist, except in random moments of exaltation. But mind without feeling ("love," as Eckhard calls it) is arid and cannot carry us to the goal of union which we seek.
Now, I also am a sometime nature mystic, but in a slightly different sense. Here, I seem to enter a state of consciousness, in which everything is indeed lovely--trees, flowers, all the surroundings--and I feel a sense of "oneness" with all this. I forget who I am, and fall into a lovely state of delight or joy, but it does not include ecstasy or rapture as a somatic response.
For people like me, it is best, I believe, to "feel my way to god (divinity) " rather than to try to "think my way to god," since I am too much a skeptic not to challenge every assertion and question every proposition. But I can also see that intense feeling alone (unleashed emotion) could be dangerous if it were not accompanied by a capable intellect.
One further thought: when you have such an overwhelming experience, there are very few with whom you can communicate about it. I recognize that others may not be convinced by my "story" of what happened to me. But for me, it was a "self-validating experience." It was the Big Bang of the soul, and I have chosen to live by its truth ever since.
