“NATURAL” MYSTICISM

While Merton affirms that our symbols can bring us into closer contact with reality, he cautions against

"What is this (contemplative prayer) in relation to action? Simply this. He (and she) who attempts to act

and do things for others or for the world without this deepening of his own self-understanding, freedom,

integrity, and capacity to love, will not have anything to give others. He will communicate to them nothing

but the contagion of his own obsessions, his aggressiveness, his egocentered ambitions, his delusions about

ends and means, his doctrinaire prejudices and ideas." Thomas Merton," The Climate of Monastic Prayer"

To the extent that natural mysticism and enlightenment seem to gift humans with what I think are authentic

insights and intuitions about cosmotheandric unity and human solidarity and Divine immanence, then I

truly believe they foster human authenticity in the fullest lonerganian sense. They contribute, in my view,

to Lonergan's secular conversions: intellectually, affectively, morally and socially. So it is with anything

that truly humanizes a human being: good diet, good hygiene, good discipline, good awareness, good

asceticism, good habits, etc Even the construction of the false self, the social persona, is part of the

humanization process of this animal, Homo sapiens. So, this drives at the question of whether or not

humanization and divinization are the same thing, perhaps. And I think we can answer in the affirmative.

However, complete humanization, into the Imago Dei, seems to require the Lonerganian religious

conversion, too, and seems to require Helminiak's theotic focus or realm of concern. Humanization and

divinization go hand in hand but the process can be frustrated before one undergoes religious conversion

and before one's realm of concern opens up beyond the positivistic, philosophic and theistic into the theotic.

So, I think, yes, there is something dynamically ordered about Zen and TM and natural mysticism, that

moves one toward humanization and authenticity and which can improve on human nature in such a way

that grace can build on a better foundation. That is what the Holy Spirit does n'est pas? Grace builds on

nature. So, anything that helps us more fully realize our humanity and authentic human nature can help

dispose us to gifts of the Spirit, among which is infused contemplation. [Especially since enlightenment

seems to gift one with docility, openness, quietness, stillness, solitude, solidarity, compassion, good

asceticisms and habits that transmute into true virtue, all related to the life of love and prayer that help

properly dispose others to infused contemplation etc?] The Spirit, however, as with anyone who progresses

in the prayer life on through advanced stages of meditation to the simplest forms of active prayer, remains

sovereignly in control, in my view, of contemplative grace.

Further, it does seem that one must have habitually nurtured kataphatic devotion and loving intentionality

in a fully relational approach, in addition to any apophatic experience of nonduality or void, if one is to

then expand their focus of concern to include the theotic, if one is to have their secular conversions

transvalued by a distinctly religious conversion, which is clearly explicit and kataphatic, devotional and

intentional and relational. In other words, for example, ditching one's mythic-membership consciousness

(credally) is NOT the way to go, for that is a negation of a stage and not rather a transvaluation.

Merton has touched upon a dynamic, when he speaks of existential crisis, which is very much related to the

Cross for Christians although it happens with all people, even in science. The dynamic, more specifically,

involves our confrontation with a problem. We initially perceive the problem as soluble and we work

mightily to solve it. It matters not whether it is a philosophical conundrum or some scientific hypothesis or

some existential crisis/spiritual emergency. We exhaust all of our resources and then arrive at the point

where we pretty much conclude that this particular issue is insoluble. At this point, we resolve to leave it

alone, give it a rest, to forget about it altogether. So, we do. Then, when you least expect it, whether in a

dream or while playing or working or chopping wood and carrying water, the solution comes to us in a

flash, totally gratuitously and unmerited as pure grace, so to speak. Now, this dynamic is very natural and

involves the workings of the human mind at a subconscious level, intuitions bubbling up to the surface, to

be sure, not unaided by the Holy Spirit.

Another distinction from Merton.

Merton discusses two of the types of confessio, of confession, but I don't recall the latin terms for both. One

of Reconciliation and from police shakedowns, or parental busts re: hands in cookie jars.

This distinction makes for rich reflection and meditation but I'll try to control my imagination and focus on

the transformative process.

The confession of praise is the converse: "It was God. He done it."

The psalms are about 50:50 penitential supplication taking the form of "I done it" and of praise taking the

form of adoration of "He done it."

Now, there comes a point where we pass through existential crisis or a series of crises and recognize that

there is little meritorious effort on our behalf other than cooperation with grace and that all else is pure

unmerited Grace. This is part of recognizing our radical dependence on God, Whom we can trust because,

well, look around at What He Done!

My point pertaining to this thread, however, is that, prior to getting to that place of praise and He Done It,

we must get both to the place of I Done It re: our abject sinfulness as well as It Isn't/Wasn't Me! re: our

manifold blessings and very existence.

Part of the nondual experience, then, is the existential realization of It Isn't Me --- not this creation, not

these feelings, not these thoughts, not any rule-following or goodness, iow, It Isn't Me cognitively,

affectively or morally, that's responsible for starting all of this, holding it all together and taking it

anywhere.

This can be quite liberating.

The famous singer-songwriter, James Taylor, once made a wisecrack about AA, saying that half of the

people that are in it are trying to come to the realization that they are not God, while the other half had the

job once and are desperately busy trying to tender their resignation.

Well, it isn't enough to stop with It Isn't Me, and that, I believe, is where an existential experience of the

no-self can leave us. But this apophatic realization must be dialectically related to HE DID IT! IT'S HER!

and this is the positive, kataphatic content that is truly fitting and proper, coming from a tongue that cannot

confess same without the initiative of the Spirit's prompting.

So, the loss of the affective ego can occur, in any of the many ways we have conceived it and experienced

it, I think, and particularly in a manner that Merton wisely discerned was apophatic, natural, impersonal,

existential, but needing completion in the kataphatic, supernatural, personal and theological, these

processes nurturing and mutually enriching and entailing one another. This is where Tony deMello went

awry to some extent in some of his later work and it is where Bernadette likely errs, too.

Point is, the confession of It's Not Me is necessary but not sufficient.

What comes to mind with respect to adulterers and murderers like both King Herod and King David, is

what, ultimately, makes the difference between our going Herod's route or that of David?

To a certain extent, all that society asks by way of reformation is that we be rehabilitated into a good social

persona, that we function well in our interpersonal dealings -- politically, economically, socially and

culturally. IOW, society asks that we follow the rules, that we obey the law. Adherence to the Law is what

was required of these Old Testament persons, in accordance with the Old Covenant. David became a good

man and a great king by meeting these standards. He became his true self, the psalmist, when he went

deeper in his relationship to God.

So, in its very essence, the Old Covenant very much corresponds to that second level of development, that

which pertains to our socialization, and, although there were certain prophecies and foreshadowings, the

crosses borne by these peoples were not the same as THE CROSS. Certainly, there must have always been

some opportunity for humans on earth to partake of the transformative process effected by Jesus for once

and for all through his birth, life, passion, death and resurrection. Indeed, many did undergo such radical

transformation, especially, one might suspect, someone like David, the Psalmist, who points the way to

Jesus, to the Father, in the Spirit.

At the same time, the explicit announcement of the New Testament, the proclamation of the Good News,

the living out of the Gospel, of the Kerygma, through the Cross, marked an existential crisis at a global

level for ALL PEOPLES, and played itself out as, not a total renunciation but, as a total surpassing of the

old way. This is directly analogous to the death to self that is called for on the journey of each individual

but involved a type of death for the People of God as a whole, who were being called to a new level of

intimacy.

Again, we invoke, as individuals, because we have been convoked, as an entire People of God. We are

called as a People and respond, radically alone (in many respects), as individuals.

What happens as we make the turn and drop the persona, which, again, was formatively necessary, is that

we seek enlightenment out of compassion for the world, which constantly suffers our unenlightened selves.

No longer are we in search of consolation or sensible positive affect because Perfect Love is its own

reward, is totally unconditional, entirely kenotic.

We lay down our false selves, not for our own benefit, not because we are tired of the pain it causes us, but

because of the pain we are transmitting to our loved ones, to the world. Any pain that is not thusly

transformed, however neurotic or psychotic or emotional or idiopathic, we transmit to others. We seek to be

rid of this pain that we may desist from transmitting it to others. Perfect Love and Perfect Contrition are

inextricably bound up. It is suffcient to enter the Kingdom, through the law, through the old gate, of

following the rules and being sorry for the consequences to ourselves when we don't. That was the old way

and it still works.

BUT, if we take up our cross, go through the existential crisis, and come to that breakthrough where we are

moreso sorry for our sin because of the consequences to others and to God, then we crucify the Old Man

and rise as a New Creation, seeking the contemplative gaze, as Teresa says, not so much for the

consolations but, rather, in order to gain the strength to serve. We become Christs. We allow God to be

God-in-us, our truest selves. This isn't a requirement, but it is an invitation. The most important one that

any of us will RSVP or not.

Let me insert this here. Losing something like fear does not mean that we have come to any pollyannish

conclusion that all of the bad things that could happen to us are not going to happen --- rather, it means that,

we know full well they are even likely to happen but are nothing, ultimately, to fear. So, too, with guilt,

anger ... We give up the neurotic version in exchange for the existential version, which is quite THE

CROSS to arrive at the resurrected version, which is ALL IS WELL.

This, too, is dialectical, like the Kingdom. It is on its way. It has already arrived. Paradise is ours to inherit.

It is already in our hearts. All is decidely NOT well, temporally, in this earthly tent wherein we dwell,

BUT, in reality, ours is a robe of resplendent glory and, eternally (not at the end of time or for a long time,

but outside of time where we have both origin and destiny), ALL is, indeed, well.

I cannot report a loss of affect as much as I can discern, rather, a tendency for feelings to follow me into

action rather than leading me into action.

St. Thomas described how our love of God increases in proportion to our knowledge of God. And this is

true.

St. Bernard described how our knowledge of God increases in proportion to our love of God. This, too, is

true.

The knowledge of God that St. Bernard describes, however, surpasses that which St. Thomas was speaking

and writing about. St. Thomas was talking about that knowledge of God that comes from both natural and

supernatural revelation, a discursive knowing that increases through our study of philosophy, metaphysics,

theology and such, such a knowing as could never attain to God's essential nature even as it might infinitely

advance toward same.

The love of which both Thomas and Bernard spoke of, however, can indeed communicate with God's

essential nature, leading one to a mysterious type of knowledge that certainly informs our normative

sciences (of logic, aesthetics and ethics) and descriptive sciences (for instance, natural science) but which

also far surpasses them, a knowledge difficult to describe or articulate. Such a love, I believe, is

experienced on the threshold of contemplation.

Such is the love which casts out all fear. And here is the link to the loss of the affective ego that I'd like to

explore. The perfect love that casts out all fear is a love that has grown in dependency on God, has learned

to trust God, that knows that, however bad the situation or dire the circumstances, in the final analysis, all

will be well. It is the mystical love of Julian that sings all may, can, will and shall be well and is the

distinction we draw between existential fear and neurotic fear, existential guilt and neurotic guilt,

existential anger and neurotic anger, the existential always in service of life and love and relationship, the

neurotic invariably life-detracting, love-detracting, relationship-destroying. We are not dealing only with

neuroses that are overcome in the process of individuation but also those sinful resistances to conversion

that are overcome on our journey of transformation, distinct but intertwined realities.

So, I would describe the loss of the affective ego as an energy inversion whereby the emotions and feelings

and affective life don't so much energize our behaviors by initiating them but rather energize our behaviors

by reinforcing them. It seems that this state could be effected all of a sudden through some precipitating

event or could arise through time and a habit of virtue.

I will stop here as my thoughts are fogging up, but there is a dynamic of love and surrender that seems to be

involved and either a sudden metanoia or a force of habit where this dynamic is concerned?

Love, eminently reasonable, needs no reason, inasmuch as it is sufficient unto itself. Happiness, finally,

cannot be pursued but must ensue. So, too, with good feelings. They aren't needed but will often ensue,

which is to say, follow, love.

Merton noted that often, when we are in pain and conflict and contradiction, we incorrectly associate same

with old wounds, with old injuries that truly have been resolved and healed already. During such times,

Merton encourages us to consider the very real possibility that we are, rather, being invited to open

ourselves to a new level of being through such pain and conflict and contradiction. In other words, if we are

not properly attentive, then we run the risk of stagnation, desolation and aridity, sometimes for months or

years, dwelling on the wrong integrative and transformative issues, missing the invitation to move to

another level, a level that could be attained in a day even.

One of the chief obstacles to advancing in the spiritual life, then, is to gain a certain clarity of vision

regarding the route to sanctity or to psychological integration (routes that are much intertwined) and then

acting as if the vision itself is the attainment when, in fact, it is not the mapping of the journey that marks

our growth but the walking of the road, which is to say that, if you are on the illuminative or unitive way,

then get on with it, and so on. Further, the mapping never involves the entire journey but entails, rather, our

next good step, a step which is the spiritual equivalent of taking the entire journey Thus it is that the entire

road is traversed, one step at a time in faith with the trust that that step is truly what is required for now, for

today. We can get caught up with seeing the road and then fail to walk it, is our constant peril.

Two lessons here: Sometimes one has to quit beating one's head against the wall just because it feels good

when you stop. Sometimes one has to quit circling the same developmental block on the journey just

because some of the signs look the same, which is to say that emotional memories can get in the way by

misleading us into thinking that our pain is rooted in old unresolved issues when it is moreso about leading

us in a new direction entirely (with a genesis in new issues), inviting us to another level entirely. Then,

once we see this new direction, it is of the essence to WALK it and not merely content ourselves in the

consolation of SEEING it!

Well, this is a very loose rendering of the meaning I gathered from Merton and any misconstructions are

my own. I will leave it to the forum to sort through how the integration/transformation of the affective ego

fits in, for that may be a better way of describing what I think is going on in what is being called the loss of

the affective ego. Point is that old emotional memories can get improperly associated with new spiritual

emergence issues and that we can misdiagnose the reason for our present pain, conflict and contradiction.

I believe it was in that very same lecture that Merton noted that the spiritual path and the path of scientific

breakthroughs is analogous. Specifically, the steps are: 1) We find an issue, sort through it and set about to

solve it. 2) We grapple and grapple with it until we realize that it is virtually irresolute, unsolvable, beyond

us, too difficult. 3) We let go and move on. 4) Sometimes, years later, the solution comes to us in an

instant, in a flash.

Nothing very profound here.We've all used this approach in balancing our checkbooks, eh? But the point is

that that is how our human natures are constructed and that that is how our unconscious and conscious

minds and spirits seem to interface.

Seeing after not before is axiomatic for the spiritual mapping of the journey. Others' journeys, even those of

the great mystical doctors, let's say the Carmelites like John of the Cross and Teresa of Jesus, can give us

touchpoints for the journey, indications that we are on the road, but they have no predictive value. The

same is true with Ignatian and sanjuanian discernment such as re: consolation and desolation, maybe even

such as regarding loss of affect, depression, acedia, beginnings of contemplation -- where we are moreso

discerning retrospectively and not so much being guided prospectively.

Finally, BINGO re: this wisdom as not being a property of the mind even though it works very much in

concert with the mind. The contemplative gaze in love transcends our cognitive and discursive faculties and

penetrates through to the Divine Essence, actually communicating and relating to God's essential nature, a

nature that is, in principle, incomprehensible.

We must be careful, however, in confusing incomprehensible with unintelligible. If these experiences were

unintelligible and God was unintelligible, this forum wouldn't be possible, huh?

Another Mertonesque thought: We are moving toward an existential realization of how critical to our

spiritual survival prayer really is. This realization is attained when we feel our need for prayer as acutely as

we would feel the need for a breath when underwater.

That is my crude rendering from memory. I think this has something to say to us all whether we are called

to discursive mediation, lectio, meditatio, oratio, contemplatio, operatio or what have ya. Whatever our

prayer gift as led by the Spirit, it is to be engaged with the sense of critical and acute and urgent need that

affirms our radical dependence and perennial state of existential crisis.

Now, don't get Merton wrong. This is all dialectical. One moves into crisis to lose crisis. One loses self to

gain self. First, there is a mountain. Then, there is no mountain. Then, there is. One recognzies one's radical

dependency to move to place of radical trust. One experiences one's emptiness and abject poverty to realize

one's utter fullness. One moves into paradox and pain and contradiction to realize that, whatdaya know, all

is well.

This is something re: the loss of self that is affirmed by the Sufi (Islamic)and the Hasidic (Jewish) mystics

and that Merton, building on Buber as well as the Sufis, so well understood.

So, too, with human affects and desires. John of the Cross speaks of disordered appetites and Ignatius

speaks of inordinate desires. It is not the appetite or desire we seek to eradicate, ultimately, but through

proper ascticism and renunciation, we lose our emotional energy that intitiates so many of our behaviors

(both virtue and vice) only to regain it to reinforce our virtues. Think of Ignatian discernment re:

consolation and desolation, for example, and of how the different spirits console or afflict us, variously, as

we either cooperate with Grace or backslide.

This dialectic is working, I believe, with the affective ego. Now, there may be something very deeply

analogous going on with spiritual consolations and desolations and psychological affects that is not

completely identical. This could account for how psychologically developmentally deformative influences

might intefere/interact with spiritually transformative processes. This is no easy nut to crack and might

profoundly influence with what facility one moves through an existential crisis to the experience of nocrisis-

after-all. IOW, a spiritual emergence issue that gets foisted upon someone may not achieve its

dialectical goal of teaching one to breathe underwater but could, for all practical purposes, drown a person.

When He knew for certain only drowning men could see Him, He said all men shall be sailors, then, until

the sea shall free them.

Merton speaks of a Sufi scholar, who draws many parallels to psychoanalysis, which is to say who sees the

therapy process as analogous to the spiritual journey.

If in therapy our primary concern is the resolution of unresolved subconscious conflicts, then Sufism might

be thought of in the same way, only on a deeper level.

In therapy and normal individuation, we are resolving certain conflicts, the resolutions of which 1) take us

from an infantile level, take us from the merely instinctual animal to a human type of being where our

cognitive and affective development is concerned 2) then further take us and adapt us to successful social

and cultural beings.

Many struggle at the first level, such as with an Oedipus complex, by way of example, staying Momma's

boys their entire life, but most get through it to the second level of struggle, some falling prey to escapes

from the difficult realities of social-cultural life. AA is an example of a good way to deal with such

evasions, helping primarily by providing motives to change, wise to the fact that one has to want to change

in order to change and no one can do it for us. This is pretty much where conventional therapy stops,

helping one deal with one's neurotic evasions of social responsibility.

This, however, is insufficient for bringing about the general honesty required to go deeper and to become

an authentic human who has faced life's fundamental challenges, life's BIGGER problems, gaining life's

existential awareness.

What are these BIG PROBLEMS? 1) continuity vs discontinuity - death 2) creativity - having a life that is

meaningful, a presence that makes a difference.

What are the mistakes that even analysts/therapists make here? What mistakes are made by us as

individuals at this level? We treat these issues as if they were problems of social adaptation (that second

level we talked about). IOW, if you are esteemed by your society or in a particular cultural milieu, then

you've conquered these problems, your presence not only has made a difference but lives on, in a manner of

speaking. WRONG! This "solution" leads people into a further evasion from a truly meaningful life. This

blueprint is wrong and must be torn up and thrown away. [Think here of our affective reward system and

not only what vices are reinforced by certain emotions but also by what so-called virtues are being

reinforced by our range of emotions. There needs to be a rewiring.]

What is called for, rather, is a BREAKTHROUGH into existential awareness. IOW, we recognize that this

social esteem and instinctual control we have gained is MEANINGLESS, not meaningless, to be sure, for

our functioning in ordinary life, but certainly in terms of life's ultimate meaning. {Here Merton

recommends Viktor Frankl.]

So, from this deeper level, our social success is meaningless. On one hand, though, it is great and

necessary, but, otoh, it is TOTALLY NUTS!

How do we get in touch with what is needed on the deeper level? Through the Psalmist is one way, for the

deeper level whether praying the mad, glad or sad psalms is always GOD.

The CROSS is the demonstration of this struggle, the realization of this conflict in Jesus, a conflict between

the establishment of the religion, such as in society, on one hand, and the realization of authentic religion,

such as in one's heart, otoh. It REJECTS the silly notion of "Keep the rules and there you've got all the

answers," which Merton calls a wooden nickel. It similarly rejects: "Don't keep the rules," which is a stupid

form of the same silly game.

The ultimate solution to our biggest subconscious unresolved conflicts, our existential questions, is

experiencing our rootedness in God, God in our very hearts. Death loses its significance as an end because

we are already finalities, already ends unto ourselves because of our being-in-God, being-in-love, which is

sufficient unto itself with no further reason or justification. Our creativity is found in our issuing forth from

the Creator and not in anything we do to gain social approval or cultural amenities. The obligational has

become aspirational. One then studies and prays, fastening and binding one's spirit to God, clinging to God,

after the manner I wrote about previously, needing prayer as badly as one who is under water needs a

breath. Then, in all we see and experience, God is present, and we don't at all take seriously the self we

have to be to operate in society, the role playing, the best things in life not being demanded by us but

received a pure gift from God FOR ME, who lets God be Himself in me, when my false self has vanished.

The old emotional programming, that was even formative and not deformative, must be re-wired, in order

to move on to the deeper level of a human being-in-love-with-God. Hence the dark Nights. Hence, the

transformation of the affective ego as we move from a false to a true self.

Hence, what Merton is describing is our social persona, which must die. True enough, our formation from

the animal-instinctual to the social-cultural self is required, is necessary for the journey. In fact, we cannot

surrender this self to the Cross, which is to say, to the existential crisis, until we have fully come into

possession of same.

self, and, when it is upon us, everything we see and observe and relate to in our existence is then seen

through the lens of this crisis, of this Cross.

For society-at-large, then, the Gospel is this lens. The problem is that we have talked about the Cross so

much, about the Gospel so much, that we have, in some sense, trivialized it and robbed it of its profound

and radical significance for our individual lives and our lives in community. While in this crisis, however,

we come to realize that the reason the world has so many huge problems -- socially, culturally, politically,

economically -- is because of people, people like me who are living on a phony, superficial level of

existence, out of contact with our true source, Who is God, alone.

The ultimate idolatry, then, is our self. So, we take this socially-formed self and crucify it and it is not like

going to a movie or coming into an Internet discussion forum but is, rather, much more like walking into a

fire.

The reward system, the reinforcement mechanisms, the old emotional programs, which worked so well for

those of us who made it through our formative years with more formation, reformation and information

than deformation, must be transformed. This mirrors, in fact, how our loving knowledge of God no longer

comes through our senses, no longer is accompanied by sensible consolations, but is a direct

communication with the Divine Essence that is beyond our discursive faculties. All of this is a massive

upheaval of the way things have been for us --- cognitively, affectively, morally even, for it is no longer a

mere following of the rules that brings one closer to God, although that part of our formation was

absolutely necessary. This is a huge project and undertaking, multilayered and multitextured and quite

unique for each individual, although we have discussed the touchpoints and the mapping of this journey.

The soul now approaches the God, Who needn't approach, Who dwells within, and the heart remains

restless that has not made God its all. Rooted in God in radical trust and surrender, a new reward and

reinforcement system gets set in place, where Love of self for sake of self has been transcended by love of

God for sake of self, which has been transcended by love of God for sake of God, 'til, finally, our true self

emerges and we love that self for the sake of God. The dialectic takes us back into self-possession,

paradoxically, by self-surrender. This has cognitive, affective and moral aspects.

This is why we are here.

The care and nurturance of a soul is a most awesome task! You will appreciate this from C.S. Lewis:

"It is a serious thing, to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and

most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be

strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a

nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It

is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them,

that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics.

There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations

-- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whome we joke with,

work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that

we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact,

the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no

flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling

for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as

flippancy parodies merriment." From __The Weight of Glory__