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| Mystical Contemplation |
| BY IMRE VALLYON. EXCERPT FROM HEAVENS AND HELLS OF THE MIND |
The Theologia Germanica asks: What is it like to partake of God's Divine Nature, to be filled with Divine Light, to be imbued with the Eternal Love of Christ?
For that, in truth, is the essential purpose of Christianity. In the early days of Christianity, this infusion of Light into the Soul was to be done now, in this lifetime, while in the body. When Christianity became "Churchianity," however, this became only a promise for a future afterlife in "Heaven".
The true Christian Tradition—true Gnosticism, Hesychasm, and Mysticism—is not about asking God for things to pamper one's personality (however useful such things might be). It is about loving God, simply because God is.
Mystical contemplation occurs when you subdue the thoughts of your ordinary, discursive, reasoning mind, leave behind all attachments to worldly things, and, in absolute detachment from all things (including yourself!), raise yourself into the Stream of Divine Light. Thus taught, also, Saint Dionsius the Areopagite.
Thus, the earliest forms of Christian prayers (meditations) were to allow the transcendence of the thinking faculty, to stop the chatter of the mind, imagination, and memory. Then, in a wordless, thoughtless mind-state, one could ascend above the mind to the contemplation of the Presence of God by a direct Knowing, a Soul-touch.
In this sense, Christianity is identical with true Yoga, Sufism, Buddhism, Taoism, Jewish Mysticism, and Zen.
Brother Lawrence, the 17th century Carmelite monk, taught: We should establish in ourselves the sense of God's Holy Presence by continually conversing with Him.
This is known as The Practicing of the Presence of God. This is also what Saint Paul meant when he said, “Pray without ever ceasing” [1 Thessalonians 5:17]; that is, pray continually.
The beginner in spiritual life might interpret this as talking to God verbally, asking Him favors for the personality, or whatever; but this is not so. Only in the beginning does one talk to God verbally. It is important for the beginner to pray or meditate verbally, with thoughts; but when one masters the art of true meditation, prayer, or contemplation, one talks to God telepathically, intuitively, silently, non-discursively, non-logically, non-rationally, above the mental chatter, by the impulses of one's Soul.
The 14th century monk who wrote The Cloud of Unknowing described contemplation as: A blind Love towards God, beating upon the Clouds of Unknowing. And... A naked intent directed to God for God alone.
He described a Mystic as: One who seeks nothing but God.
And his favorite motto was: Nowhere physically is everywhere spiritually. |
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