Just some food for thought. This reminds me a tad of a thread from years ago: Kundalini and the Holy

Spirit

My spiritual sensibilities have grown increasingly Franciscan, beyond my fascination with Francis and

nature, to include a few thoughts that are more philosophical like those of folks like Duns Scotus vis a vis

the Incarnation and also his scholastic realism, which influenced Charles Sanders Peirce. Peirce called

Scotus and Ockham "the greatest speculative minds of the middle ages, as well as two of the profoundest

metaphysicians that ever lived." (Writings of Charles S. Peirce, Vol. 2, W2, p. 311.) In fact, I discovered

Peirce when someone pointed out to me that some of my writings resembled his, although I in turn pointed

out that I had never heard of Peirce and my writings in question were influenced, rather, by Scotus and,

before that, pseudo-Dionysius and some of the neo-platonic mystics of very early Christianity....

Consider the following mostly in the poetic vein. Take away from it what grows in your own heart.

I devised the following rubrics from meditating on Peirce:

The normative sciences mediate between phenomenology and metaphysics to effect the pragmatic.

The normative mediates between the descriptive and interpretive to effect the evaluative.

The philosophic mediates between the positivist and theistic to effect the theotic. (using Helminiak's foci of

concern)

The axiological mediates between the epistemological and ontological to effect the teleological.

Instrumental causes mediate between formal causes and efficient causes to effect final causes. (Thomistic

categories and tacit dimensionality)

The probable (necessary) mediates between the possible and the actual to effect the valuable. (modal

ontology)

Delimitations mediate between visualizations and actualizations to effect realizations (value-realizations).

Objective delimitations mediate between subjective visualizations and interobjective actualizations to effect

intersubjective value realizations. (relating this all to Wilber)

this has primarily been a descriptive enterprise. When it comes to epistemology, in other words, how we

realize what we realize, everything is inherently normative.

And this is why goodness mediates between beauty and truth to effect unity.

And why code (law) mediates between cult (liturgy) and creed to effect community.

Our love of God for sake of God mediates between our love of self for sake of self and love of God for sake

of self to effect our love of self for sake of God. (St. Bernard)

Agape mediates between eros and storge' to effect philia. (C.S. Lewis & You are my friends if you do what

I command you.)

Our love of God mediates between our love of self and our love of nature to effect our love of others.

(Merton)

And why our formative spirituality is ordered toward unitive strivings and communion.

In the context, then, of our manifold and multiform nondual realizations, those realizations are philosophic,

epistemic, aesthetical, moral, linguistic, semiotic, ascetical, psychological, spiritual, mystical, ecstatic,

metaphysical, ontological, social and religious and so on and so forth:

quote:

Nondual has different meanings that pertain to 1) theological concerns: journey toward intimacy; dance

between relationship and identity 2) psychological and affective states: altered states of consciousness,

ecstasy 3) epistemological states and structures: nondiscursive, preconceptual and transconceptual

awareness; avoidance of subject-object cleavage; epistemic vagueness; nominalism & essentialism 4)

linguistic and semiotic approaches: Dionysian logic, semantical vagueness, triadic semiotic grammar;

deconstruction strategies 5) metaphysical & ontological theories: idealist and materialist monisms;

aristotelian hylomorphism; ontological vagueness; modal ontology 6) philosophical categories: false

dichotomies; binary logic; dualistic conceptions 7) ascetical practices & spiritual disciplines of all sorts,

what we might call spiritual technology 8) aesthetical and moral sensibilities 9) social interactions and 10)

religious concerns.

from my page on Christian Nonduality

The practical upshot of our nondual realizations from a theological perspective as we gaze through this

reality, the moon, which but reflects the Light of the Sun.

Note: The reason that we do not conceive of good and evil dualistically is because they are not equal

members in comparison, good triumphing over evil.

64 Reasons Not To be Dualistic

1) I'm a politician.

2) I'm a mystic.

3) You missed the kataphatic predication.

4) You missed the apophatic predication.

5) You missed the unitive predication.

6) You missed the dionysian logic.

7) You missed the neoplatonic logic.

8) You missed the semiotic grammar.

9) You missed the deliberate parsing.

10) You missed the high nuance.

11) You missed the careful disambiguation.

12) You missed the rigorous definition.

13) You missed the antinomial paradox.

14) You missed the conditional paradox.

15) You missed the veridical paradox.

16) You missed the falsidical paradox.

17) You missed the literal and historical sense.

18) You missed the tropological and moral sense.

19) You missed the anagogical sense.

20) You missed the allegorical sense.

21) You missed the mystagogical sense.

22) You missed the univocal predication.

23) You missed the equivocal predication.

24) You missed the analogical and metaphorical predication.

25) You missed the temporal nature of the reality.

26) You missed the eternal nature of the reality.

27) You missed the eschatological nature of the reality.

28) You missed the proleptical nature of the reality.

29) You missed the implicit epistemic, ontological and semantical vagueness.

30) You missed the false dichotomy.

31) You missed the ecstatic nature of the utterance.

32) You missed the subject-object cleavage.

33) You missed the nondiscursive nature of the utterance.

34) You missed the preconceptual nature of the utterance.

35) You missed the transconceptual nature of the utterance.

36) You missed the deconstructive strategy being employed.

37) You missed the tautological structure being inhabited.

38) You missed the binary logic yielding to monadic and triadic reality.

39) You missed the evaluative nature of the utterance.

40) You missed the distinction between the descriptive and interpretive.

41) You missed the distinction between the descriptive and the prescriptive.

42) You missed the distinction between the given and the normative.

43) You missed the distinction between the phenomenal and phenomenological.

44) You missed the distinction between the epistemic and the ontological.

45) You missed the distinction between exegesis and eisegesis.

46) You missed the conflation of the metaphysical and theological.

47) You missed the distinction between the primary and secondary.

48) You missed the distinction between the essential and the accidental.

49) You missed the distinction between the propositional and the experiential.

50) You missed the distinction between the existential and the neurotic.

51) You missed the distinction between the altered state of consciousness and psychosis.

52) You missed the distinction between engagement and obsession.

53) You missed the distinction between being driven and being inspired.

54) You missed the distinction between being spontaneous and being compulsive.

55) You missed the conflation of the empirical, rational, practical and relational.

56) You missed the distinction between the practical and theoretical or speculative.

57) You missed the distinctions between primacy, autonomy and integrality.

58) You missed the distinction between the necessary and sufficient.

59) You missed the distinction between epistemic methodological constraints and ontological occulting.

60) You missed the distinction between the dogmatic, heuristic and theoretic.

61) You missed the creative ambiguity and creative tension.

62) You missed the distinction between phenomenal states, developmental stages and psychic structures.

63) You missed the distinction between visualization, actualization, delimitation and realization.

64) You missed the distinction between pattern & paradox, chance & necessity, order & chaos, symmetry

& asymmetry, random & systematic.

Christianity is recovering its mystical core via a neoplatonic-influenced dionysian logic. The classical

emphasis has been on the dialectic between the apophatic and kataphatic, the former referring literally to

what God is not, the latter an affirmation of what God is like, analogically. This has reduced all God-talk to

metaphor and leaves a question begging as to how there can be any causal efficacy between Creator and

creatures with such a causal disjunction as is necessarily implied by such a weak analogy.

The classical logic looks like this:

1) God is | x | is true analogically and kataphatically.

2) God is | not x | is true literally and apophatically.

Dionysian logic breaks out of this dualistic dyad, going beyond it but not without it:

3) God is neither | x | nor | not x | is true unitively.

the growth in intimacy with ultimate reality, by affirming both an interobjective identity between creature

and Creator, in a panentheistic divine matrix of interrelated causes and effects, as well as an intersubjective

intimacy between creature and Creator, the creature thus being quasiautonomous. (auto = self)

Metaphysically, this is best expressed in the neoclassical theism of Charles Hartshorne and the panentheist

re: other examples

Although I'm preoccupied on another project, in case anyone comes across this and is interested, the

examples I am trying to gather or harvest re: my list of nondualia above are those that would take the form

of poetry, haiku, jokes, koans, riddles, short stories, cartoons and such. And these examples and this list

pertain to nonduality broadly conceived, the Big Tent approach, such as might be described at wikipedia or

the Nonduality Salon. I'm not really collecting examples of the more narrowly conceived, but most

commonly considered, "theological" interpretations of nonduality as it differs between, for example, the

Hindu Advaitic type, the Buddhist type: all is empty of self or neoplatonic henosis, or, in other words, those

conceptions that are often the subject of East vs West odium theologicum. So, this is to say that I'm

collecting nondualia that involve practice not doctrine, methods or processes and not systems (not to deny

For Rohr, I'd say the nondual refers mostly to an epistemic process, such as in Zen's dethroning of the

conceptualizing ego in order to otherwise relate to some seeming contradictions, instead, as paradoxes,

which might perdure as mystery, resolve dialectically, dissolve from a stepping out of an inadequate

framework of logic or any other dispositions (or lack thereof) known to this paradox or another (see my

inventory of nondualia above). [This maps fairly well with the broad conceptions of nonduality such as at

Nonduality Salon and Wikipedia.] Predominantly, though, Rohr affirms nondual thinking in an over against

fashion as related to either-or thinking, i.e. false dichotomies, and as related to a failure to self-critique

one's own systems and logical frameworks, as a failure, too, to affirm the rays of truth in other perspectives

and traditions. It is a failure to move beyond the Law thru the Prophets to the Wisdom tradition, not to do

away with them but to properly fulfill them.

From Rohr's heavy reliance on Merton, to the extent the nondual refers to metaphysical realities, again,

looking to Zen, then I'd say Rohr would affirm its metaphysical intuition of the ground of being. [Of

course, this doesn't map perfectly well over certain Hindu and Buddhist ontological interpretations, which,

vis a vis creature and creator, impute complete identity rather then a causal nexus or matrix, relating them

wholly by nature rather than grace.]

My interpretation of Rohr is that he is pretty much grounded, as would be expected, in Franciscan

sensibilities, which includes a Scotist philosophy (Scholastic) and the theology of St. Bonaventure, who

was influenced by Dionysius, among others of neoplatonic leanings, and who was also influenced by

Richard of St. Victor. Interestingly, though, in his prayer life, Rohr chose Thomas Merton as his model,

which explains, I'd suppose, why he works with Jim Finley. In my view, these influences come together to

provide the leit motif of Rohr's teachings and the rosetta stone to interpretation of Rohr.

Richard of St. Victor thus informs the Franciscan tradition thru Bonaventure about the occulus carnis (eye

of the senses), the occulus rationis (eye of reason), and the occulus fidei (eye of faith). This "eye of faith" is

what Rohr would refer to as the "third eye" and, consistent with Merton, it integrally takes us beyond our

senses and reason but not without them. [In my view, this maps fairly well, but not completely, over such

as Jewish and Tibetan concepts of Third Eye seeing, for example.]

Zen, for Merton, gifts us with a process for going beyond both concepts as well as conceptual frameworks.

For some, per Merton, as a form of natural contemplation, Zen leads also to metaphysical insight or

intuition of being. (And this reveals Merton's reliance on Maritain. He employs other Thomist formulations,

too. I can only imagine that Rohr simply misspoke or was misdictated or there was a typo or something in

his Radical Grace article.) Merton could affirm Zen's metaphysical intuition of the ground of being as

compatible with Christianity but certainly distinct from infused contemplation.

Rohr writes:

quote:

Contemplation is also saying how you see is what you will see, and we must clean our own lens of seeing. I

call it knowing by "connaturality" (Aquinas), or knowing by affinity or kinship, it is the participative

knowing by which the Indwelling Spirit in us knows God, Love, Truth, and Eternity. LIKE KNOWS LIKE,

and that is very important to know. There definitely is a communion between the seer and the seen, the

knower and the known Hatred cannot nor will not know God, fear cannot nor will not recognize love.

Because this deep contemplative wisdom has not been taught in recent Catholic centuries, and hardly at all

among Protestants, it is a great big lack and absence in our God given ability to "know spiritual things

spiritually", as Paul would say (1 Cor.2:13).

As for a Zen Catholicism, Arraj writes:

quote:

We cultivate the intuition of being by pursuing our deepest inner aspirations that transcend metaphysics

itself. The more we situate Zen in this ascent, the better able we will be to let it inspire both metaphysics

and Christian mysticism, and be inspired by them in turn. Each is enamored by existence in its own way.

The metaphysics of St. Thomas wants to understand it, and to do so, it uses concepts and pushes them to

their ultimate limits where they display their innermost nature as reflections of existence. Zen wants to

actively embrace existence so it resolutely puts aside all concepts, and in this emptiness finds the way to

existence. Christian mysticism wants to be embraced by existence and see revealed in its depths its most

intimate face, which is love. There is no reason except our own weakness that prevents all three from

sharing with each other the riches they have found in the service of this one Existence, or Nothingness.

Zen Catholicism?

Here's a great quote from Pseudo-Dionysius:

quote:

Do thou, in the intent practice of

mystic contemplation,

leave behind the senses and the

operations of the intellect, and all things

that the senses or the intellect can percieve,

and all things which are not and

things which are, and strain upwards

in unknowing as far as may be

towards the union with Him who is

above all being and knowledge.

For by unceasing and absolute

withdrawal from thyself and

all things in purity, abandoning

all and set free from all,

thou wilt be borne up to the

ray of the Divine Darkness

that surpasses all being.

Rohr goes beyond these Mertonesque Zen-like formulations though:

quote:

Contemplation is a long, loving look at what really is.

quote:

Contemplation means returning to this deep source. Each one of us tries to find the spiritual exercise that

helps us come to this source. If reading the Bible helps you, then read the Bible. If the Eucharist helps, then

celebrate the Eucharist. If praying the rosary helps, pray the rosary. If sitting in silence helps, just sit there

and keep silence. But we must find a way to get to the place where everything is. We have to take this long,

loving look at reality, where we don't judge and we simply receive.

quote:

Before answering that Rohr question re: the nondual, I was coming here to share these great quotes:

quote:

As previously mentioned in passing, Dionysius (in contrast with, e.g., St. Thomas) held that our highest

activity is an un-knowing, a union. Yet, Dionysius also believes that in the life to come “we shall be ever

highest activity is an unknowing, a union—that which is beyond nous. In other words, for Dionysius our

willingly bows to mystical experience. That an unknowing union is our ultimate perfection must be the case

since our knowledge is limited to that which is and therefore necessarily excludes God who is beyond

being. “If all knowledge is of that which is and is limited to the realm of the existent, then whatever

transcends being must also transcend knowledge.”

I felt some resonance with that quote and the distinction theologians draw between primary and secondary

objects of our beatific vision (vis a vis my own interpretation of Thomas Keating's nonduality article in

Radical Grace).

Cynthia closes that paper with a quote from Jean-Luc Marion:

quote:

“[T]o say God requires receiving the gift and—since the gift occurs only in distance—returning it. To

107 God Without Being. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1991.

Be sure to check out Cynthia's Blog if you're a fan of John Duns Scotus. At this link, she quotes Mary Beth

Ingham, who works with Richard Rohr, also, most recently in a conference on Paradox.

quote:

The soul utterly puts off itself and puts on divine love; and being conformed to that beauty which it has

beheld, it utterly passes into that other glory.

quote:

I was in the Church of St. Francis at Havana. It was a Sunday. I had been to Communion at some other

church, I think at ElCristo, and now I had come here to hear another Mass. The building was crowded. Up

in front, before the altar, there were rows and rows of children, crowded together. I forget whether they

were First Communicants or not: but they were children around that age. I was far in the back of the

church, but I could see the heads of all those children.

It came time for the Consecration. The priest raised the Host, then he raised the chalice. When he put the

chalice down on thealtar, suddenly a Friar in his brown robe and white cord stood up in front of the

children, and all at once the voices of the children burst out:

"Creo en Dios.

"I believe in God the Father Almighty, the creator of heaven and earth . . ."

The Creed. But that cry, "Creo en Dios!" It was loud, and bright, and sudden and glad and triumphant; it

was a good big shout, that came from all those Cuban children, a joyous affirmation of faith.

But what a thing it was, this awareness: it was so intangible, and yet it struck me like a thunderclap. It was

a light that was so bright that it had no relation to any visible light and so profound and so intimate that it

seemed like a neutralization of every lesser experience.

And yet the thing that struck me most of all was that this light was in a certain sense "ordinary"--it was a

light (and this most of all was what took my breath away) that was offered to all, to everybody, and there

was nothing fancy or strange about it. It was the light of faith deepened and reduced to an extreme and

sudden obviousness.

It was as if I had been suddenly illuminated by being blinded by the manifestation of God's presence.

Another thing about it was that this light was something far and beyond the level of any desire or any

appetite I had ever yet been aware of. It was purified of all emotion and cleansed of everything that savored

of sensible yearnings. It was love as clean and direct as vision: and it flew straight to the possession of the

Truth it loved.

And the first articulate thought that came to my mind was: 'Heaven is right here in front of me: Heaven,

Heaven!" It lasted only a moment: but it left a breathless joy and a clean peace and happiness that stayed

for hours and it was something I have never forgotten. The strange thing about this light was that although

it seemed "ordinary" in the sense I have mentioned, and so accessible, there was no way of recapturing it.

In fact, I did not even know how to start trying to reconstruct the experience or bring it back if I wanted

except to make acts of faith and love. But it was easy to see there was nothing I could do to give any act of

faith that peculiar quality of sudden obviousness: that was a gift and had to come from somewhere else,

beyond and above myself.

It may very well be that, from a theological perspective, Rohr might, once again, if following Merton, view

the distinction between acquired and infused contemplation as irrelevant, see the argument as defunct with

no real differences in principle in play with respect to the kinds of experience to which they refer, those

experiences differing only in degree.

Merton, of course, was a big fan of acquired contemplation and would have, therefore, I suppose, heartily

endorsed modern contemplative prayer in most of its forms or structures, which dispose pray-ers to ever

more full realizations of God working in us. Rohr provides general counsel to people to "find that spiritual

exercise that helps them return to the source," however simple, whether discursive or nondiscursive, to

whatever extent facultative. As folks climb the classical (and apparently dynamic) prayer ladder (with

rungs added for emergent prayer forms), when they move into the contemplative forms, such general

counsel, of course, must yield to more specific spiritual direction because those distinctions we draw

regarding the fullness of experiences in prayer are certainly significant from a practical perspective.

Now, to the extent that this transcendental thomist take on divine action is taken seriously, this might seem

to introduce a problem in discernment of what exactly is coming from the world, the self, levels of

consciousness, the devil or God with regard to various human impulses, feelings, insights and images. That

problem is not new, however. The same question has arisen with respect to the inspiration and exegesis of

Scripture and with all manner of so-called private revelation, too, along with miracles, apparitions,

possessions, oppressions and so on and so forth, and we have time-honored rubrics for dealing with it all.

My favorite is called the hermeneutic of suspicion.

One doesn't need access to my library to discover how Rohr uses the word nondual. Google works well

enough. It's results are consistent with what I have gathered from all of my primary sources. And I have

already described that usage. I don't expect any surprises from Third Eye. He isn't talking ontologically or

metaphysically. He isn't denying relationality and neither is Keating. He's talking about transcending our

analytical and logical and empirical and practical and evaluative mindsets by engaging, also, for example,

our simple awareness, our nonrational aspects of knowing, our nonpropositional faculties that are precisely

involved in our grammar of relationship, etc.

Nondualism is the proper metaphysical term.

The other forms - nondual and nonduality - just aren't dictionary words (not even BIG dictionaries).

Duality, on the other hand, is an M-W word that corresponds to dichotomy. It is fair enough, then, to say

that nonduality is another way of saying no dichotomy. And that is the best definition, in fact, for Rohr's

habitual usage: no false dichotomies. He amplifies this in his teaching on paradox, which, as I mentioned

word choice to explicate our c/Catholic both/and approach in relationship to an either/or approach.

I am a great advocate of disambiguating terms, parsing phrases, high nuancing, rigorous definition and selfcritique

of one's presuppositions. And I have been searching for a better way of saying what it is I advocate

Clearly, though, Rohr advocates nonduality and not nondualism. The latter is a metaphysical proposition;

the former is an epistemic method. In philosophy, we have recognized that methods can be successfully

extricated from systems. In our East-West dialogue, we have recognized that some practices can be

successfully extricated from their doctrinal contexts. Nonduality is a practice, a method, that can be

successfully extricated from nondualism (as system or doctrine). In fact, it has a philosophical meaning vis

a vis the false dichotomy fallacy that is quite independent of any Eastern traditions. That's the meaning

employed by Rohr.

Because of the plethora of misunderstandings coming out of the East-West dialogue, I recognize that

suspicions are warranted when certain terms that have become cultural buzzwords are being used, whether

ambiguous buzzwords can often do more to obfuscate than to clarify. I also hope I have laid any suspicions

to rest regarding Rohr because I earnestly believe that I have interpreted his true position, even if others

think his expression of same has been rather inartful. (I empathize due to my own habit of inartful

expression.)

Finally, as regard various practices, certainly, some require cautionary notes --- just like medical

prescriptions require contraindications and side-effects. Most cautionary notes deserve the status of

footnotes and fine print: if lasting longer than 4 hours ...

recognizes a distinction (in degree) between classical Eastern contemplation, classical Christian

nondiscursive, affective, loving, gaze. Zen complements these other forms.

quote:

Here the soul, aided by ordinary grace, works in the familiar natural mode. One reasons and one uses one's

imagination and elicits affections in the will. One makes use of all the resources of theology and

philosophy and art and music in order to focus a simple and affective gaze on God. All the traditional

means and practices of the interior life come under the heading of 'active contemplation' to the extent that

they help us to know and love God by a simple gaze on Him.

quote:

What possible good can be done for a monk by deciding whether or not his contemplation is "infused"?

Even those who are interested in the defunct argument, acquired versus infused contemplation, agree that in

practice it makes little difference in the direction of a person whose prayer is simple and contemplative in a

general way. A contemplative is not one who takes his prayer seriously, but one who takes God seriously,

who is famished for truth, who seeks to live in generous simplicity, in the spirit.

quote:

In today’s spiritual theology the

distinction between active and passive prayer

tends to be downplayed. Long ago Thomas

Merton rejected the distinction between

infused and acquired contemplation as being

irrelevant. The experience is the thing, not an

abstract explanation of its principles.

Moreover, the mystical or grace character of

the entire spiritual life is being emphasized in

many sectors, for example, in twelve-step

spirituality and in writings inspired by Karl

Rahner’s theology.

For Karl Rahner, all experience of God

is the expression of faith and love, all of it is

rightly called mystical, and all knowledge and

love of God are infused. Not only prayer

experiences, but even the mundane

experiences of average Christians which are

products of faith are movements of the Holy

Spirit and constitute “ordinary mysticism” or

the “mysticism of everyday life.” In Rahner’s

view, what has been designated as infused

contemplation in the tradition is a high degree

of the one basic experience of a loving faith.

The classical mystical experience of the saints

remains “extraordinary,” not because of its

principles, but because of its perfection and

rarity. Theologically, the experience of God

in meditation or in human activity or in

classical infused contemplation is the same

one gift of God working within us, the same

one reality, different not in kind but in degree.

In the light of this Rahnerian theology,

the question raised in this paper is less urgent:

the contemplative prayer forms are

contemplation in one or the other sense, broad

or strict, ordinary or extraordinary, and the

two outcomes are only different degrees of the

same one gift of God.

good reasons to reject some aspects of that Rahnerian account of grace, I am trying to wrap my mind

around such distinctions as we've drawn between different contemplative prayer forms vis a vis grace as

transmuted experience. See Donald L. Gelpi: Two Spiritual Paths: Thematic Grace vs. Transmuting Grace

(Part II). Initially, I am thinking that, in either model of grace, still, we are considering degrees and not

kinds of God-experience.

Again, this is all consonant with Rohr's approach (see below). Also, we draw a distinction between Rohr's

philosophical treatment or method of nonduality or nondual consciousness and the practice of

contemplative prayer forms. The former is at the service of the latter, to be sure, but it is also at the service

wrote an essay: Contemplation as Epistemic Virtue.)

quote:

Rohr goes beyond these Mertonesque Zen-like formulations though:

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contemplation is a long, loving look at what really is.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contemplation means returning to this deep source. Each one of us tries to find the spiritual exercise that

helps us come to this source. If reading the Bible helps you, then read the Bible. If the Eucharist helps, then

celebrate the Eucharist. If praying the rosary helps, pray the rosary. If sitting in silence helps, just sit there

and keep silence. But we must find a way to get to the place where everything is. We have to take this long,

loving look at reality, where we don't judge and we simply receive.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Of course, emptiness in and of itself isn't enough. The point of emptiness is to get ourselves out of the way

so that Christ can fill us up. As soon as we're empty, there's a place for Christ, because only then are we in

any sense ready to recognize and accept Christ as the totally other, who is not me.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Simplicity revised from 1991, Crossroad Publishing 2003

He is not going pantheistic.

He is not abandoning relationality.

He is not equating nondual thinking with nondualism.

He's coming from a contemplative prayer tradition (per his report, Merton as model) that does not draw

distinctions in kind between natural, acquired and infused contemplation, so, what's the practical upshot,

from his perspective, of any failure on his part to describe the distinctions in degree properly?

As Merton writes:

quote:

A director who can encourage simplicity and faith will find many genuine, simple contemplatives

responding to his guidance, with little or no nonsense about ligature, prayer of quiet, prayer of full union

and so on. The trouble is not that these things are unimportant or unreal, but rather that the verbiage that

tends to surround them actually gets between the contemplative and reality, between the soul and God. ... ...

... Neither the director nor the one directed should become obsessed with the problem of gifts and graces,

but should concern themselves with God the Giver, not with His gifts. ... ... ...

Graces and gifts are never going to turn the head of anyone who keeps his attention fixed on God, instead

of on himself, and the more truly contemplative a state of prayer is, the more will it be obscure and

transparent and unaware of itself.

Merton sounds like John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila and Ignatius vis a vis consolations.

What's the practical upshot, from others' perspectives, of any failure on anyone's part to describe the

distinctions in degree properly?

re: acquired vs infused, as Merton says:

quote:

... in practice it makes little difference in the direction of a person whose prayer is simple and

contemplative in a general way ...

However, Larkin, re: acquired and infused, says:

quote:

Rahner’s theology does not erase the considerable differences between the two on the

experiential level, and this is terrain of our

inquiry. We are asking questions that are

important for spiritual direction, whatever the

explanations offered by systematic theology.

Larkin concludes:

quote:

A figure from twelvestep experience may help us understand the

widespread attraction of these new forms of

contemplative prayer and, at the same time,

serve as a bridge to St. John of the Cross. The

figure is this: It used to be said that a person

had to “hit bottom” before he or she were a

candidate for the twelve-step program.

Today, I am told, clients are advised to “raise

the bottom” and begin the program before a

crisis occurs. Something like this may be

working in contemplative prayer today.

The forms do not presuppose infused

contemplation or even an advanced spiritual

state, and they teach the person to be

appropriately active in the prayer. And they

promise a fuller outpouring of the Spirit.

And that is the best definition, in fact, for Rohr's habitual usage: no false dichotomies. He amplifies this in

inventory of nondualia above). [This maps fairly well with the broad conceptions of nonduality such as at

Nonduality Salon and Wikipedia.] Predominantly, though, Rohr affirms nondual thinking in an over against

perspectives and traditions.

He isn't talking ontologically or metaphysically. He isn't denying relationality and neither is Keating. He's

And, as I wrote elsewhere:

quote:

I see Keating saying that we and Jesus lose this self. I don't hear him denying that we and Jesus get it back.

I do hear him affirming that we and Jesus must also go beyond this self, Jesus, for His part, returning to His

essence in the Godhead, the primary object of our beatific vision and our essential beatitude; we, for our

part, becoming members of the Mystical Body; creation, for its part, the Cosmic Christ. Neither do I hear

Keating denying that, as an accidental beatitude, we encounter Jesus' full resurrected humanity as one of

the secondary objects of our beatific vision. I do hear Keating emphasizing the primary and essential and

not addressing the secondary and accidental but don't find anything inherently wrong in that.

And this wholly consistent with what Dionysius wrote, as well as this teaching:

http://oce.catholic.com/index.php?title=Heaven

quote:

It is controverted among theologians whether or not a mental image, be it a species expressa or a species

impressa, is required for the beatific vision. But by many this is regarded as largely a controversy about the

appropriateness of the term, rather than about the matter itself. The more common and probably more

correct view denies the presence of any image in the strict sense of the word, because no created image can

represent God as He is (cf. Mazzella, "De Deo creante", 3rd ed., Rome, 1892, disp. IV, a. 7, sec. 1). The

beatific vision is obviously a created act inherent in the soul, and not, as a few of the older theologians

thought, the untreated act of God's own intellect communicated to the soul. For, as seeing and knowing are

immanent vital actions, the soul can see or know God by its own activity only, and not through any activity

exerted by some other intellect. Cf. Gutberlet, "Das lumen gloriae" in "Pastor bonus", XIV (1901), 297 sqq.

Theologians distinguish the primary and the secondary object of the beatific vision. The primary object is

God Himself as He is. The blessed see the Divine Essence by direct intuition, and, because of the absolute

simplicity of God, they necessarily see all His perfections and all the persons of the Trinity. Moreover,

since they see that God can create countless imitations of His Essence, the entire domain of possible

creatures lies open to their view, though indeterminately and in general. For the actual decrees of God are

not necessarily an object of that vision, except in as far as God pleases to manifest them. For just as the

Divine Essence, notwithstanding its simplicity, could exist without these decrees, so God can also manifest

His Essence without manifesting them. Therefore finite things are not necessarily seen by the blessed, even

if they are an actual object of God's will. Still less are they a necessary object of vision as long as they are

mere possible objects of the Divine will. Consequently the blessed have a distinct knowledge of individual

possible things only in so far as God wishes to grant this knowledge. Thus, if God so willed, a blessed soul

might see the Divine Essence without seeing in It the possibility of any individual creature in particular.

But in fact, there is always connected with the beatific vision a knowledge of various things external to

God, of the possible as well as of the actual. All these things, taken collectively, constitute the secondary

object of the beatific vision.

The blessed soul sees these secondary objects in God either directly (formaliter), or in as far as God is their

cause (causaliter). It sees in God directly what-ever the beatific vision discloses to its immediate gaze

without the aid of any created mental image (species impressa); in God, as in their cause, the soul sees all

those things which it perceives with the aid of a created mental image, a mode of perception granted by

God as a natural complement of the beatific vision. The number of objects seen directly in God cannot be

increased unless the beatific vision itself be intensified; but the number of things seen in God as their cause

may be greater or smaller, or it may vary without any corresponding change in the vision itself.

The secondary object of the beatific vision comprises everything the blessed may have a reasonable interest

in knowing. It includes, in the first place, all the mysteries which the soul believed while on earth.

Moreover, the blessed see each other and rejoice in the company of those whom death separated from them.

The veneration paid them on earth and the prayers addressed to them are also known to the blessed. All that

we have said on the secondary object of the beatific vision is the common and reliable teaching of

theologians. In recent times (Holy Office, December 14, 1887) Rosmini was condemned, because he taught

that the blessed do not see God Himself, but only His relations to creatures (Denz., 1928-1930—old, 1773-

75). In the earlier ages we find Gregory the Great ("Moral.", 1. XVIII, c. liv, n. 90, in P.L., LXXVI, XCIII)

combating the error of a few who maintained that the blessed do not see God, but only a brilliant light

streaming forth from Him. Also in the Middle Ages there are traces of this error (cf. Franzelin, "De Deo

uno", 2nd ed., thes. 15, p. 192).

Although the blessed see God, they do not comprehend Him, because God is absolutely incomprehensible

to every created intellect, and He cannot grant to any creature the power of comprehending Him as He

comprehends Himself. Suarez rightly calls this a revealed truth ("De Deo", 1. II, c. v, n. 6); for the Fourth

Council of the Lateran and the Vatican Council enumerated incomprehensibility among the absolute

attributes of God (Denz., nn. 428, 1782—old nil. 355.1631). The Fathers defend this truth against

Eunomius, an Arian, who asserted that we comprehend God fully even in this life. The blessed comprehend

God neither intensively nor extensively—not intensively, because their vision has not that infinite clearness

with which God is knowable and with which He knows Himself, nor extensively, because their vision does

not actually and clearly extend to everything that God sees in His Essence. For they cannot by a single act

of their intellect represent every possible creature individually, clearly, and distinctly, as God does; such an

act would be infinite, and an infinite act is incompatible with the nature of a created and finite intellect. The

blessed see the Godhead in its entirety, but only with a limited clearness of vision (Deum totum sed non

totaliter). They see the Godhead in its entirety, because they see all the perfections of God and all the

Persons of the Trinity; and yet their vision is limited, because it has neither the infinite clearness that

corresponds to the Divine perfections, nor does it extend to everything that actually is, or may still become,

an object of God's free decrees. Hence it follows that one blessed soul may see God more perfectly than

another, and that the beatific vision admits of various degrees.

The beatific vision is a mystery.

Remember, mysteries are incomprehensible but not impenetrable. We DO know what the heaven is going

to happen and in such a measure as has profound existential import and great practical significance.

One dynamic that has interested me is how many of our growth paradigms in psychology and spirituality

have a sequential trajectory, an emergent dynamic, that lends itself to being characterized in terms of higher

and lower.

For example, some speak in terms of

lower and higher chakras

lower and higher levels of consciousness (in Yoga or in Wilber's Integral Theory)

purgative, illuminative and unitive ways

developmental psychology and Lonerganian conversion: intellectual, affective, moral, sociopolitical,

religious

personality development

Jungian individuation and self-realization

Enneagram directionality

Maslovian hierarchy

Initiation and Rites of Passage

Stage Theories of Cognitive & Moral & Faith Development

Spiral Dynamics

Prayer Ladder or Steps in Lectio Divina

Bernardian Love

Ascent of Mt. Carmel

and so on and so forth.

While there are general tendencies that can be observed cross-culturally, individual development remains a

rather uneven affair, which is to recognize that it is not always clearly linear or sequential, and sometimes it

exhibits modularity, which is to recognize some amount of independence between one type of development

or another. Overall, then, to use Wilber's description: "Thus, there is nothing linear about overall

development. It is a wildly individual and idiosyncratic affair (even though many of the developmental

lines themselves unfold sequentially)."

Even, then, it would be silly to deny that, in spirituality, there is clearly a stage-like dynamic in play, for, as

Wilber recognizes:

quote:

The fact that these three great realms/states can be engaged separately; the fact that many contemporary

writers equate spirituality predominantly with altered and nonordinary states (which is often called without

irony the fourth wave of transpersonal theory); the fact that lines in general can develop unevenly (so that a

person can be at a high level of development in some lines and low or pathological in others)--and that this

happens more often than not--have all conspired to obscure those important aspects of spiritual

development that do indeed show some stage-like phenomena. My point is that all of these aspects of

spirituality (four of which I mentioned and will elucidate below) need to be acknowledged and included in

If we combine the idea of levels of development with states of consciousness, and we realize that a person

at virtually any level or stage of development can have a peak experience or an altered state, we get a rather

remarkable grid of many of the various types of spiritual and nonordinary experiences.

Much genuine confusion sets in when we conflate descriptions of phenomenal states and stages of

development and structures of consciousness, so Wilber's grid approach does seem to better recognize how

such things do not lend themselves to facile mapping exercises. Perhaps a singularly important message we

might come away with is the old philosophical distinction between necessary and sufficient. This is

consideration of salvific efficacy, living the good life is both necessary and sufficient. However, when it

comes to ad majorem Dei gloriam, giving God the greatest possible glory, as it pertains to Bernardian Love

or Ignatian Degrees of Humility or such, in some sense, then, our ongoing transformation or theosis or

deificiation or humanization will, for the most part, remain always a work in progress.

I mention all of this within the context of recognizing the natural human tendency and curiosity regarding

where we are on the journey, how we fit into this stage model or growth paradigm, and especially our

tendency, sometimes, to try to shoehorn or pigeonhole our experiences in an effort to present them in the

best possible light to others. And this has everything to do, then, with our remaining attached to our False

processes.

What I am suggesting, then, is that Merton's teachings on our False and True Self, and the Christian

paradigm of transformation, tends to cut to the chase vis a vis any considerations of who is where in this or

that ascent or level or stage and, more especially, serves to give credit where credit is due, to place the

glory where it truly belongs, to dismantle any silly meritocracies, to discredit any facile imperialist notions,

whether of the nondual variety or the exclusivistic variety of fundamentalistic Christians.

I say all of this to provide the backdrop for next examining, more precisely, what is going on in different

quarters regarding nondual consciousness, which is to say that I am asking who is getting it right or

properly situated and who is getting it wrong and to what degree.

quote:

Originally posted by johnboy:

I generally like Wilber's AQAL approach and Integral account or psychological model when it is taken as a

heuristic device. It matches the intuitions I have regarding a genuinely whole brain approach to reality and

how I conceive epistemology, in general. I even like his description of mystical states and his discussion of

the hard problem of consciousness, from a vaguely phenomenological perspective and as heuristic devices.

Where I part company with Wilber however is when he makes the moves from the merely heuristical and

vaguely phenomenological to the clearly explanatory and robustly metaphysical. Unless I am

misunderstanding him, in his

Stages of Spiritual Unfolding? and in his The Hard Problem , he is precisely busting these moves.

When Rohr speaks of Tolle, then, that "he is teaching process not doctrine or dogma. He is teaching how to

see and be present, not what you should see when you are present," and when he provides his inventory of

what Tolle is and is not doing, he is precisely drawing the distinctions that are necessary to avoid these

interface with the Wilberian hermeneutic; this is how we must parse and nuance, in other words; what is

wiggle room) and theologically (where there is less wiggle room); what is practice and method and what is

doctrine and system (and can they, indeed, be successfully extricated, because not all can).

Rohr writes:

quote:

Eckhart Tolle is not a Christian theologian or teacher.

He is not teaching Christian contemplative prayer or Christian prayer at all.

He is not presuming or teaching that there is a personal/relational God (but

neither is he denying it).

He is not a proponent of the social, communitarian nature of religion.

Eckhart Tolle is teaching a form of natural mysticism or contemplative practice.

In Tolle’s world, Jesus is not central.

He does assume and imply a worldview that is foreign to many, if not most Christians. For Tolle, Being,

He might understand reality itself as gracious. We would localize that grace in and through

Jesus, as the “Sacrament” of all of Creation.

Because of the profound existential import and immediate (as well as ultimate) practical significance of all

things having to do with heaven, moreso out of pastoral sensitivity than theological precision, I would tend

to want to go out of my way to affirm those heavenly realities that I know are of utmost concern to most

people. I know I mindfully take this approach with my children, for instance, in order to properly form their

hopes and aspirations and shape their outlooks and provide them the deep consolations that are so

desperately needed in a reality that can be so apparently contradictory, paradoxical, ambiguous. Now, there

are times when I might crowd their psychological threshold to lead them into paradox and thereby broaden

their perception and deepen their understandigs of certain mysteries, like the Easter realities, and I might do

so by precisely providing them a partial truth, as I hope Keating is doing, but I would not leave them

hanging long and would certainly amplify my account either in the next chapter, or in a footnote, or what

have you.

I was also supposing that Merton's dismissal of this concern, on the practical level, was due to the fact that

his experience addressed monastic religious, who enjoy a robust lectio divina and an environs more

generally conducive to acquired contemplation (or simplified prayer, which we're of course recognizing as

distinct from exercises that are moreso emptying). Acquired or active or masked contemplation does not

quite capture the significant nuances that are needed to describe the manifold and multiform approaches to

prayer in what are not otherwise described in, for example, Zen, natural mysticism, infused contemplation.

forms in modern Christianity might be Zen-informed, or vipassana-informed, for example, and, for another

example, because some emphasize, let's say, presence and others emptiness, all using these as gateways to

fullness (even the abyss, paradoxically, as the way to the ground), it would seem that these different types

of emphases are going to make direction a tad more problematical than what Merton either experienced or

imagined. Where Merton was concerned, that prayer form, for many of his monks, was already, in his

words, "simple and contemplative in a general way." In other words, Merton's invitation to contemplative

prayer to us anawim opened up quite the pandora's box of surprises and maybe he'd have a few revisions

for his spiritual direction book.

I have ordered the Third Eye and I am guessing that the dynamic, however implicit or explicit, will be

oriented toward moving people beyond the humanization and socialization involved in what Merton

describes vis a vis, in my words, the ongoing construction, maintenance and repair of the persona and False

Self.

For the possibility is that many, in their practice of religion, do not move beyond the socialization

processes, which enabled them to function in the world, to engage the transformation process, which helps

them realize the Good News of the Kingdom of God.

It is because so many get trapped in this false self dynamic, unable to self-critique their own

presuppositions and those of any systems --- philosophical, religious and cultural --- which they have

bought into wholesale, that we must then enlist the holistic help of any spiritual exercises, asceticisms,

disciplines, practices, methods, prayer forms, psychological individuation tools and advanced critical

thinking in order to get people to JOTS (jump outside their systems), not to abandon them but to critique

them. And to eventually realize that to engage God using only the logic of socialization, which is

sometimes, for example, avoidance-approach reinforcement at its crudest and an enlightened self-interest

meritocracy at its best, is utterly NUTS.

God loves us because of who we are, His creatures, and not because of what we do.

So, in addition to exploring various practices and prayer forms and ways of thinking to JOTS, to transcend

our humanization and socialization via transformation, we employ a Third Eye. Again, to wit:

quote:

Richard of St. Victor thus informs the Franciscan tradition thru Bonaventure about the occulus carnis (eye

of the senses), the occulus rationis (eye of reason), and the occulus fidei (eye of faith). This "eye of faith" is

what Rohr would refer to as the "third eye" and, consistent with Merton, it integrally takes us beyond our

senses and reason but not without them.

Rohr also teaches, as we know, how suffering and prayer can both be efficacious in moving us out of mere

socialization to "enjoy" transformation. If you've been on this journey, then you know that the word "enjoy"

marks my own introduction of paradox and creative ambiguity.

In a nutshell, the general thrust of this whole brain approach is that, in order to have a relationship with

your spouse in marriage, as was intended in creation, one has to approach one's spouse with more than

words, logic, science, math, analytical skills and pragmatic considerations. One has to go beyond (NOT

WITHOUT) these ways of knowing (Aquinas-like approach) to a knowledge that comes from love

(Bonaventure's approach). One must enter a relational realm, in addition to the logical, empirical and

practical realm. One must move beyond the language of math, philosophy, business & commerce,

engineering and so on to learn the language of relationship, the grammar of assent, loyalty, fidelity, trust,

faith, hope, love.

We tend to eventually "get this" in marriage, or it dissolves (and half of all marriages do). There is reason

to suspect, then, that "getting this" in our relationship with God is similarly problematical for most people.

Our institutions, in fact, tend to socialize and infantilize us and not, rather, grow us. Dogma deteriorates

into dogmatism. Ritual into ritualism. Law into legalism.

This is why we need to deconstruct (purgatively) this false self system. But not to leave it in a shambles. It

must be reconstructed (illuminatively) back into one of authenticity in relationship to creed, cult, code and

community. That places us, then, on the threshold of further transformation (unitively), and the realization

of our True Self (a la Merton, not a la some other conceptions of same).

Cautionary notes, as I said before, are like pharmaceutical contraindications and side-effects, and should

neither be neglected nor overemphasized.

I don't think I have misplaced my confidence in Rohr. I understand your concerns but, as I think you have

acknowledged, the jury is out on whether Rohr is being sloppy or heterodox. I don't fully share your

concerns for reasons already set forth. Rohr is heavily invested in Thomas Merton, who in turn was heavily

invested in Maritain when it comes to an understanding of contemplative prayer forms. And I encounter the

relevant distinctions in his work repeatedly, while seeing no serious problems, theoretically or practically.

You refer to other problems, in generalities; I can only address specifics. The man is extremely prodigious,

which makes it much less problematic to clarify any ambiguities; much less difficult to situate and

contextualize any of his more isolated sayings or essays; much easier to indict for any shortcomings, which

should be much more readily apparent to a much wider audience than most enjoy; much less susceptible to

having anything of his wrenched from its context in the whole and swollen to madness in its isolation.

very complicated, corresponding to the manifold and multiform and complex realities that go with the

territory of our human depth dimension, which, as imago Dei, is richly textured and depthful indeed!

I think it is very important for us to recognize and affirm that, even as we draw distinctions between such as

natural, acquired and infused contemplation, between such as implicit and explicit faith, between such as

the immanent, impersonal, apophatic, existential and natural and such as the transcendent, personal,

kataphatic, theological and supernatural, between East andWest, between degrees of fullness of experience

in our God-realizations THAT

STILL, it is the same Gift, the same Holy Spirit, being experienced and at work in ALL of these practices

and prayer forms, and wherever else people of goodwill are practicing the upright and moral life ... now

implicitly, now explicitly, now understood anonymously, then inchoately, now incipiently, then

overflowing ...

even as we all continue to seek AMDG, ad majorem Dei gloriam, some implicitly, others explicitly, such

that we aspire to an ever more nearly perfect articulation of the truth through creed (dogma), an ever more

nearly perfect celebration of beauty through cult (liturgy), an ever more nearly perfect preservation of

goodness through code (law) and an ever more nearly perfect enjoyment of unity through community

(fellowship) ...

and it is this aspiration to AMDG that causes me to want to avoid, then, any facile syncretistic blending of

traditions; any insidious indifferentism regarding which contains the greatest fullness of truth, beauty,

goodness and unity even if as a pilgrim tradition; any false irenicism as if our great traditions were already

at peace and in unity; or any imprecise mapping by metaphysical and spiritual cartographers ...

but, nevertheless, being inclusivistic, at the same time, I take great comfort in knowing that, at least, from a

more minimalist perspective, these manifold and multiform paths, however perfect or imperfect in degree,

can and do indeed foster both salvific efficacy and Lonerganian conversion processes, again, all gifted

without merit by the same Gift, the Holy Spirit!

What you will encounter in his Third Eye rendition, I predict, will be Rohr's hauntingly beautiful litany to

the Holy Spirit, Whom we encounter as a Stable Witness to all of our interactions with others and life

circumstances. Rohr will emphasize that most of these interactions, even within our organized religions,

take place between one False Self and another, between our false self and life circumstances, and that we

must transcend our incomplete ways of knowing reality by going beyond our normal senses and critical

thinking, not abandoning critical thinking but sharpening it, by our turning to the Holy Spirit and

surrendering our False Self through prayer, realizing our True Self and then engaing it with other people

and life circumstances. And this entails detachment and poverty and dispossession and emptying, such as

through surrendering our mind in prayer, surrendering our will in fasting, surrendering our wealth through

almsgiving, while transcending our senses and thinking through relationship. The movement involves

transcending the merely functional to enjoy the robustly personal. It involves self-criticism of our different

logical frameworks, solving problems with a different consciousness than that which caused them. He uses

the sterile religiosity of a spiritually impoverished false-self system.

He's not going to come out and deny the Holy Spirit's presence anywhere or in anyone or anything. That

would be the most arrogant of false dichotomies of all for a Franciscan, quite an impoverished

pneumatology, quite the tragically exclusivistic ecclesiocentricism! Even the Holy Spirit seems to have a

preferential option for the poor, while the spiritually "rich," He sends empty, away. Our answer to any

advaitic nondual imperialism is not going to be any ecclesiocentric pneumatological imperialism.

Rohr will, however, recognize the degrees of fullness in experience, hence the fruits, when he sees them,

wherever he sees them, in whomever he sees them. And he won't be preoccupied with experiences or gifts

but with the Giver and inviting us to thus "fix" (pun intended) our gaze!

the apophatic tradition, that he can see why the church backed away from it, because, he says, he'll be the

first to admit that this is sort of dangerous. He said, roughly: I've had all sorts of people come up to me and

say "I know. I know" and I've had plenty of them in my life and I just wanted to say: "Oh gee, she's nuts!"

So, I can see why the church backed away from this part of the tradition after the first thousand years. It

had a tendency to lead all sorts of people to claim authority and legitimation and validation for their

opinions when, frankly, they were nuts, when, in fact, they were egocentric idiots. The problem is, says

Rohr, that the tradition was nonetheless true and he goes on to describe it in a conventional manner and

how it is integrally related to kataphatic tradition. He adds that his use of unkind language was purposeful.

The reason we do not want to be indifferentist, syncretistic, falsely irenic or imprecise in our approach to

truth, beauty, goodness and unity, as we consciously choose creed, cult, code and community, is not so

much because we do not believe that the Holy Spirit is universally accessible, not because we deny salvific

efficacy in other traditions, not because we deny their ability to foster ongoing Lonerganian conversion, not

because we deny various degrees of fullness of the experience of God-realization in this or that practice,

method, discipline, asceticism or process BUT precisely because, to the extent anyone's orthopraxis

authenticates orthodoxy and to the extent we differentiate our tradition via a consciously competent theosis

... we have suggested that one can move more swiftly and with less hindrance toward this Giver of all good

gifts, best disposed and best prepared to experience and realize the utter fullness of relationship with one

another through our God, with our God through one another, in His creation for all eternity, through the

rich experience of knowing Christ with a full certainty and deep understanding!

The other project I have been working on, in fact, is a deeper investigation into the Wilber-Helminiak

dialogue. It is manifestly clear that, however much Wilber's work provides a helpful heuristic structure,

when Wilber ventures beyond the vaguely heuristic into the more robustly metaphysical and theological, he

is clearly revealing his departure into an arational gnosticism, fragmenting the integral nature of human

value-realization. I will share some of my assessment before I leave later this week, maybe even later

today.

On the other hand, what Rohr is talking about in regard to the False Self and tertium quid is not this

Wilberian nondualism but more of a Mertonesque transformational account, emphasizing that Faith is the

real tertium quid, that proper relationship to the Holy Spirit and proper realization of our True Self is

distinct from socialization process and persona or False Self construction & maintenance. To the extent we

successfully institutionalize conversion, then we will foster Lonerganian conversions and move beyond

functional relationships with God, one another and creation and into more robustly personal relationships,

which is all to say, toward authenticity. Rohr's advocacy of contemplative prayer forms, like CP, is but one

aspect of this larger project of not over-intellectualizing our God-relationship, not seeing this relationship in

functional terms, not experiencing this relationship out of the False Self. Apophasis is but one tool in the

spiritual technology toolbox to help us move out of our heads and away from our ego-centered agenda and

out of our False-self system frameworks to taste and see the goodness of God.

Rohr is using "dualistic" almost interchangeably with False-self and nondualistic almost interchangeably

with the life of faith and authenticity and the True Self. If you use this as your cipher or glossary, vis a vis

his vocabulary useage of dualistic and nondualistic, and recogize that it is moreso out of the dictionary

(dualistic is there, typically, not nondualistic, but one can infer the negation as etymologically correct) and

not so much borrowed from the rather esoteric literature, which is really dealing with metaphysical (even

theological) nondualism, then you will have a better grasp of his overall thrust.

Our churches can do a better job inviting people past the state of being good little socialized Christians and

into a disposition of being sweet little transformed Christians is his project, which was also Merton's.

It has always seemed to me that, in the East, the Bhakti movement had a better owner's manual in that it's

schematic more accurately depicted our human hardwiring as it was Designed and purposed. I resist too

facile a mapping of same but always felt an affinity for those particular Hindu sensibilities. I was initiated

into some of this by a friend over a five year period, but will desist from going into the details. It was

mostly positive.

I think we need a little more rigor in our descriptions such that we distinguish between epistemic stances,

phenomenal experiences and metaphysical propositions.

The descriptor, blissful non duality, applies to a pheneomenal experience. Nondualism applies to Eastern

metaphysics, which includes both epistemic stances and metaphysical propositions, since they conflate the

two by definition.

The predominant useage of nonduality vis a vis my major thrust here, lately, discussing what Rohr means,

merely means that we are being invited into a robustly personal relationship with God. In order to fully

enjoy same, we must supplement those value-realization strategies that we employ in science and math and

philosophy and engineering and business and commerce and government and crime & punishment (the

social matrix) with many of the same value-realization strategies that we employ in our love of Mom and

Dad, brother and sister, cousin and friend. And what are those? Those do not exclude our binary thinking,

our analytical left-brain, our categorical schemes, our pramatic concerns, which are inherently dual

(necessarily employ subject-object cleavage) but they certainly GO BEYOND them, to include the nondual

(the other than those dual things): the nonrational and superrational value-realization strategies like

affection, storge', philia, eros, agape, faith, hope, love, fidelity, loyalty, trust. Some mystics go BEYOND

even this: to love of God like the love of a spouse or lover. If you pay close attention to the nuance,

some are advocating going beyond the dual AND WITHOUT the dual, which then makes one's journey not

only nondual but also not nonrational and superrational but ARATIONAL.

There are many tools in our spiritual technology toolchest. If we take the path VERY seriously, which is

not required (we must only take it seriously), then we will avail ourselves of many more tools, necessarily.

If we make the TOOL our focus, then we will have quite missed the point. If we make the gifts our focus,

then we will quite miss the Giver.

As we survey conventional religion today, we are interested in how well transformational dynamics have

been institutionalized. And, we've got to work the system to make the system work. If we keep doing only

what we have always been doing, then we will keep getting the same results we have always gotten. And if

institutionalized religion is turning out folks who have gone beyond socialized, ego-centered approaches to

more transformed, True-self realizations, then all is well. If not, reaching into the toolbox is not

contraindicated just because some folks misuse such tools. They should, of course, consult the owner's

manual.

Andre Marquis, Janice Holden, and Scott Warren at the University of North Texas write, in their Response

to Helminiak's Treatment of Spiritual Issues in Psychotherapy at

http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/watch/helminiak/index.cfm/ :

quote:

Thus, our appreciation and respect for Helminiak's (2001) efforts to develop a spiritual psychology for the

mental health profession are outweighed by our overriding reaction that his model provides a far less

comprehensive approach than does Wilber's (1999a) integral psychology model. We came to Helminiak's

work with a background in integral psychology, and we approached his work with the question of whether

it added to, or even might more comprehensively substitute for, the integral perspective. Our answer on

both accounts is, essentially, no. Whereas Wilber's integral perspective encompasses, clarifies, and affirms

Helminiak's views as well as numerous phenomena that Helminiak addressed incidentally or not at all,

Helminiak's (p. 17) outright rejection of Wilber's model shows that, conversely, Helminiak's model does

not encompass the integral perspective. We value the broadest possible approach to spiritual psychology

because it seems better suited to account for the experiences of all people across cultures and throughout

history; consequently, we opt to continue to use the integral perspective as our guiding model. However,

we want to repeat that the integral model does not reject but, rather, affirms much of Helminiak's model as

having some applicability for, but only for, the level of human experience it addresses. Because Wilber's

integral perspective subsumes Helminiak's, the integral model would appear to offer mental health

professionals a more complete framework with which to conceptualize and work with the varieties of

spiritual experiences and issues that clients might bring to counseling.

The dynamic going on here, in this critique of Helminiak, in my view, is the failure to draw the distinction

Both approaches aspire to the same goals of integrality but only Helminiak’s approach lends itself to

misses the integrality mark by facilely conflating same with comprehensivity, which is a confusion

of that reality, which again lends itself to empirical falsifiability and predictability, hypothetical fecundity,

rational demonstrability and a host of other epistemic criteria, which will be examined in my engagement

of this article. In other words, to talk about many, many things might meet the criteria of comprehensivity,

and that is fine for heuristic placeholding, but this is a distinct epistemic enterprise from explaining and

predicting in a robustly scientific approach.

ndre Marquis, Janice Holden, and Scott Warren at the University of North Texas write, in their Response

to Helminiak's Treatment of Spiritual Issues in Psychotherapy at

http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/watch/helminiak/index.cfm/

quote:

... from the integral perspective, a humanistic, existential perspective is not uniquely spiritual and is

inadequate to address the spiritual domain. In Wilber's (1999a) model, the existential domain is found at the

outer limits of the personal realm of development, just short of the qualitatively different transpersonal

domain. Helminiak (2001) did briefly mention that the cultivation of spirituality "would result in an ongoing

way of living and/or extraordinary experiences associated with enlightenment or mysticism" (p. 7).

However, he did not elaborate on these phenomena described by contemplatives the world over as

involving transcendence of some of the very precepts Helminiak considers central to spirituality:

Let's reintroduce the Peircean rubric, that the normative sciences (logic, ethics, aesthetics; the philosophic)

mediate between phenomenology (science, the empirical, the positivist, the descriptive) and metaphysics

(the interpretive; the thestic) to effect human value-realizations (the evaluative; truth, beauty, goodness &

unity; creed, cult, code & community; the theotic).

As a human being develops --- intellectually, affectively, morally, socially and religiously, there is already

an integral dance going on between all of these faculties --- rational, nonrational and transrational.

Rationally, we learn reading, writing and arithmetic. Nonrationally, we grow affectively, our neurotic

reactivity yielding to a more life-enhancing and relationship-enhancing existential responsivity.

Transrationally, our relationships with parent and siblings and society are slowly being transformed from

the merely functional to the robustly personal. The rational, in a real way, mediates along the way, between

our nonrational and transrational value-realizations effecting conversions: intellectually, affectively,

morally, socially and religiously.

Our transrationality does not emerge, therefore, out of our rationality, which did not emerge out of our

nonrationality. They were all already innately present and integrally-related.

This is a flat-out denial of integrality from the standpoint of psychological development and Lonerganian

conversion.

Andre Marquis, Janice Holden, and Scott Warren at the University of North Texas write, in their Response

to Helminiak's Treatment of Spiritual Issues in Psychotherapy at

http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/watch/helminiak/index.cfm/

quote:

Helminiak (2001) also asserted that "spirituality names the committed pursuit to become the best one can

be" (p. 7) and that "spiritual practices are geared toward enhancing inner experiences" (p. 28).

From the integral perspective (Wilber, 1999a), the goals of self-improvement and experiential enhancement

belong to the domain of spiritual translation. However, the self-transcending dimension by which

Helminiak himself defined spirit pertains, in the integral perspective, to spiritual transformation.

objective world). Although they are not inherently "evil," they can powerfully divert spiritual seekers who

are "ignorant of [the] true nature [of these experiences] and [who are] ensnared by them" (Yasutani Roshi

in Kapleau, 1989, p. 42). Chogyam Trungpa referred to the pursuit of such experiences as "spiritual

At the crux of this argument lies the question of just what one might mean by self-transcendence.

So, if one takes that to mean going beyond one's sense of self or persona or False Self or socialized self or

functional self

to a sense of one's True Self, seeing oneself as God sees oneself with Ignatius, with a sense of self in

relationship to God and others that is no longer merely functional but robustly relational,

then, quite simply put, we do not disvalue our socialized, functional self

but, instead, realize that we need to get in touch with a sense of our more authentic self, beyond any facade

or persona or mask,

if we want to enjoy deeply personal relationships, intimate even, with God and others.

even. Helminiak's internal coherence and logical consistency cannot be subverted from without by using

Wilber's definitions and categories and it cannot be subverted from within because he is manifestly

consistent and coherent.

That is correct! They ARE "entangled ," which is another way of recognizing that they ARE integrallyrelated.

Andre Marquis, Janice Holden, and Scott Warren at the University of North Texas write, in their Response

to Helminiak's Treatment of Spiritual Issues in Psychotherapy at

http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/watch/helminiak/index.cfm/

quote:

Regarding theism, Helminiak (2001) asserted that the human concept of God is often merely projection

and, therefore, unreliable. He also cited Wilber's assertion -- and, we might add, the collective assertion of

contemplatives across history and cultures -- that the innermost consciousness of humans is identical to the

absolute and ultimate reality of the universe. Helminiak seemed to have concluded that this assertion also is

a projection and, therefore, is incompatible with his spiritual psychology. For people who have not directly

realized the Absolute, this issue becomes a question of authority. For ourselves, we find greater authority in

the collective wisdom of the world's saints and sages, and we consider the exclusion of that wisdom to

render any spiritual psychology incomplete, even potentially harmful.

Let us back up here and distinguish the nature of the claims under consideration by careful parsing.

This is an empirical datum, verifiable and falsifiable by the science of psychology.

There are all sorts of philosophy of mind positions by some very competent philosophers and

neuroscientists. I lean toward a nonreductive physicalist account but am, at bottom, metaphysically

agnostic where this question is concerned.

adjudicated, in the end, by nonpropositional aspects of our epistemic stance.

This is not to deny a place for natural theology which can demonstrate the reasonableness of our claims

even if not producing conclusive proofs beyond a mere Scottish verdict. What we can argue, however, is

Wilber's facile invocation of authority, a fallacious appeal but, like I said, we have to fall back on

nonpropositional aspects vis a vis our will to believe and the existential warrants that back it up as a living,

vital and forced option.

and movements, in general, and the Abrahamic traditions, in particular.

Andre Marquis, Janice Holden, and Scott Warren at the University of North Texas write, in their Response

to Helminiak's Treatment of Spiritual Issues in Psychotherapy at

http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/watch/helminiak/index.cfm/

quote:

We believe Helminiak's (2001) model will not be very helpful to mental health professionals (MHPs) who

are not already proficient in spiritual matters. Take, for example, his approach to validating aspects of

spirituality. Referring to a client's belief in God, the need to have meaning in one's life, and so forth

How is an MHP to determine whether or not a belief or practice is facilitating integration or reinforcing

pathology in the sense of Battista's (1996) offensive and defensive spirituality? We believe the integral

model has provided far more guidance. One example is Wilber, Engler, and Brown's (1986) accounts of

how Vipassana meditation loosens and breaks down psychic structure. Thus, for a client suffering from

psychotic, borderline, or narcissistic disorders -- disorders involving an insufficiently organized sense of

self -- recommending or affirming such meditation is contraindicated. This notion has been corroborated

even by those unsympathetic with the transpersonal perspective (Yalom, 1989, p. 52-53).

using a similar criterion for years which, compared to Helminiak's, she still finds more elegant: the old "1,

2, 3" National Association of Mental Health criteria of whether a belief or practice helps one 1) feel better

about oneself, 2) have more harmonious relationships with others, and 3) carry out more effectively the

At what point would criteria like these lose their value?

I have my sneaking suspicions as to how this would be answered by one who disvalues the socialized,

functional sense of self.

ndre Marquis, Janice Holden, and Scott Warren at the University of North Texas write, in their Response to

Helminiak's Treatment of Spiritual Issues in Psychotherapy at

http://wilber.shambhala.com/html/watch/helminiak/index.cfm/

quote:

We further believe Helminiak's (2001) limited existential perspective could risk laying the groundwork for

a counselor to do harm. One form of potential harm involves category errors, as when, for example, a

counselor indiscriminately conceptually reduces a near-death experience to a consoling fantasy built into

the human brain through evolution to comfort the person facing existential annihilation. Another form of

potential harm in an exclusively existential view is that the counselor lacks a framework to offer a client

who seeks to understand a transpersonal experience. For example, how can an existential perspective

explain spontaneous physical healing or the complex phenomenon of spiritual emergency (Holden,

VanPelt, & Warren, 1999)? "At stake," as Helminiak likes to say, is whether to affirm a spiritual reality that

is not merely existential: not merely "intelligent" but also intuitive and contemplative, not merely "rational"

but also transrational, not merely "humanistic" but also transpersonal yet apprehensible to humans.

Yes, I like to say that, too. Beyond but not without. What's at stake is integrality, itself.

What seems to be missing from this account is that Helminiak's paradigm does not begin and end with the

positivist and philosophic foci of human concern. It precisely anticipates the broadening of these foci to

include the theistic and theotic, which have all manner of interpretations available for all manner of

experiences, none of which a good MHP would cruelly dispossess a client.

Might radical grace be a redundancy? Or is it, rather, an oxymoron?

Does an analogical imagination affirm the radicality of grace and gift us with an optimistic theological

anthropology, while a dialectical imagination denies it, while gifting us with a pessimistic stance toward

human nature?

Perhaps there is a tertium quid that will mediate these extremes, gifting us, instead, with a Goldilocks

anthropology that is “just right.”

Will such mediation dissolve this dichotomy by revealing some category error and thus the nonsensical

nature of our approach? Or might this mediation resolve it in a Hegelian-like, dialectical synthesis? Perhaps

the mediation will maintain a creative tension between these extremes, gifting us with a supremely

intelligible but otherwise utterly incomprehensible mystery?

There are worldviews, some ancient and others modern, that venture an answer to these questions about

human nature along this optimism-pessimism spectrum. These manifold worldviews represent both ends of

this spectrum and every conceivable point in between. Even within Christianity, there are theological

anthropologies representing both ends of this spectrum and every conceivable point on it.

As we consider our own answer, perhaps there is a clue in our preparation for communion as we pray with

the centurion, “Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed.”

One might be tempted, due either to habitual piety or self-image, to find the answer in the most obvious

place, at the beginning of that prayer, which matter of factly dismisses our worthiness. There are more

compelling reasons, however, to focus on the clause, “only say the word and I shall be healed.” Those

reasons are not found at the beginning of that communion prayer, but are found at the beginning of

creation, when the foundations of the world were laid: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was

with God, and the Word was God.” Still more reasons are found in the Magnificat: “Be it done to me

according to Thy word. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”

Any lingering doubts we might entertain about human nature and whether or not optimism or pessimism is

most warranted in our theological anthropologies have been laid to rest, because the Word was spoken; we

have been healed; He did come, is with us now and will come again, in glory.

Our optimism or pessimism is not rooted in any consideration of our worthiness or what we can do on our

own behalf. We turn our attention, rather, to our primal origin, primal meaning, primal cause, primal

support and primal destiny. We look not at the gift, then, but to the Giver. How can we keep from singing?

All may be well. All can be well. All will be will. All shall be well. And you will know that all manner of

things shall be well.

From John Duns Scotus, we properly gather that the Incarnation was part of God’s Divine Plan from the

very beginning, notwithstanding our almost reflexive felix culpa. This is not a theology of atonement but

one of at-one-ment, which is to say that Jesus was coming, anyway.

Of course Jesus’ coming has salvific efficacy but, if everything is honky dory, why is it, we must ask, that

we really don’t feel so very well? And this is a subtle way of framing the timeless question of theodicy,

which addresses the meaning of suffering and evil. The honest, hence humble, response must first be that

we are dealing with an immense mystery, even as the overall plan has been revealed. So, we do not know

exactly why it is that there is evil or that we suffer.

From a Scotistic perspective, however, two partial responses to this theodicy mystery suggest themselves.

To some extent, the vision of creation that we have been gifted by Scotus, and repeatedly regifted by his

Franciscan family, is that of an aesthetic teleology, which is to say, a striving toward beauty, toward the

attainment of the maximum aesthetic value.

We can glimpse something of this dynamic in the science of nonequilibrium thermodynamics, whereby the

greater the number of bifurcations and permutations underlying an emergent, but otherwise still dissipative,

structure, the greater that structure’s fragility. The more fragile, as we have experienced, the more beautiful

something is. And beauty entails, in this same dynamic, the shedding of monotony and the appropriation of

novelty, which further runs the risk of disintegration toward the amplification of even more beauty.

We have not explained suffering, here, but have described it, have discerned a pattern of how evil and

suffering seem to get trumped, over and over again, and transformed into ever greater realizations of

beauty. We witness this dynamic on microcosmic and macrocosmic scales and can testify to it in our own

lives as there can be efficacy in suffering. And there are many varieties of efficacies in suffering. Foremost,

though, we are created co-creators as we set out on this grand cosmic adventure and, in such a role, the

Scotist witnesses evil and suffering and, rather than ask why it is so, instead, asks what can be done about

it. Thus Francis loved not only Brother Sun and Sister Moon but, also, the leper.

This turns our attention now to the question of how we are to inhabit this Kingdom, even as we all groan in

creation’s ongoing act of giving birth. What does all of this mean for our journey?

Thomas Merton describes the earliest part of our individual journeys in terms of humanization, which is

nothing more or less than our early formation from being little animals to becoming little humans. (Many

teachers seem to testify that this has not always been accomplished by the commencement of grade school.)

Following this earliest formative period, we are next socialized, which is to say that we learn how to

function in society in order to get what we both need and desire. Even our earliest relationships to parents

and other significant others are mostly functional, oriented to meeting needs and desires, and only slowly

transform into the robustly personal, where we value one another for our intrinsic worth.

This early formative development, Merton tells us, is necessary. It is not, however sufficient --- at least, not

where transformation is involved, which is to speak of theosis or deification, as we move from image to

likeness of God. This socialized self, or persona, oriented to mostly functional relationships but with the

incipient emergence of a few more authentically personal relationships, is ego-centered and oriented toward

ongoing construction, maintenance and repair of one’s self and one’s needs and desires. It is a program. It

was taught. It was necessary. It is good. And it is unfortunate, then, that in the formative spirituality

literature it has been given the name False Self.

The False Self got its name honestly, though, because this descriptor has significance in our relationship

with God, which, if it is going to ever be more robustly personal needs to be engaged with something

beyond our socialized self with its needs and desires orientation. And this is just to say that, if we are going

to realize a more robustly relational experience of God and others and all of created reality, then we

certainly would aspire to value them all beyond what it is that we can extract from them all in terms of our

own needs and desires, which is to value them all, again --- not for any extrinsic value, but --- for their

intrinsic worth, in and of themselves. That’s our aspiration. It is very often frustrated.

Let’s look at what might be going on with this intractable frustration regarding our ongoing failure to enter

into more robustly personal encounters with all of reality, employing not the socialized self but what

Merton calls our True Self. If only, with Ignatius, we could see ourselves as God sees us, we would be

moved into proper relationship (justice) out of pure love.

I like to describe the human psyche in terms of value-realization using something derived from the great

American pragmatist, Charles Sanders Peirce. My Peircean formulization goes something like this: the

normative mediates between the descriptive and the interpretive to effect the evaluative.

The normative entails the philosophic (philosophical methods), and traffics in logic, aesthetics and ethics,

which correspond to our value-realization approaches to truth, beauty and goodness (How do I get that?).

The descriptive entails the scientific, or the empirical, and traffics in data or facts (What is that?).

The interpretive entails the hermeneutical (Is that what I think it is?), metaphysical, theological and

ideological, and it traffics in worldviews, philosophical systems and, plain and simple, strategies to get

what one needs and desires and all manner of perversions and illusions regarding same.

The evaluative entails the objects of our needs and desires (What’s it to me?) and traffics in what we value,

which is truth, beauty, goodness and unity.

Philosophers have labeled, arranged and related these foci of human concern in many different ways,

which, to a great extent, correspond to the subject matter of our opening consideration regarding

theological anthropology. All are philosophers, each of us, even the Rolling Stones, “You Can’t Always

Get What You Want,” and the Beatles, “All You Need is Love.”

In order to get what one wants or desires, two immediate problems present themselves. The normative

(How do I get that?) and evaluative (What’s it to me?) realms or foci of concern pretty much take care of

themselves, in an unconsciously competent manner, or through what we call instinct, which gets trained

somewhat through socialization. The descriptive (What is that?) and interpretive (Is that what I think it is?)

foci of concern, however, continue to confound individuals and professional philosophers, alike.

If the descriptive focus asks: What is that? And the interpretive asks: Is that what I think it is? --- then a big

problem immediately arises between our subjective take on reality and reality’s objective status. Do our

concepts correspond or cohere with reality?

Philosophy of mind academics and major philosophical schools remain divided in their accounts of how it

is that humans know reality and whether or not our concepts truly refer to actual realities. In an overly

simplified scheme, one can imagine them divided into those that think we know reality just as it is

(essentialism) and those that think we only know our concepts (nominalism).

And this includes the Aristotelian and Humean schools as well as the Kantian tradition, which took the

Humean critique of the Aristotelian seriously, which Mortimer Adler rightly suggests that it should not

have done, for all practical purposes. And it included the Platonic tradition, too.

Somewhere along the way, in the 3rd Century, a Neoplatonic tradition began and, its accommodation to

Christianity was attributed to Dionysius, in the 5th Century, whose work was translated by John Scotus in

the 9th Century and further transmitted by Bonaventure, Duns Scotus and other Franciscans in the 12th

Century. The common theme that I picked up on, years ago, unwittingly as to any historical philosophical

lineage, was that of breaking out of this either-or, dualistic mindset of nominalism versus essentialism, with

a triadic approach, a language of mysticism that inchoately resembles the more modern semiotic science of

Charles Sanders Peirce, who was heavily influenced by Duns Scotus.

It is the Peircean formula above that I am amplifying now but it represents a modern semiotic realism that

marked an advancement and improvement of Scotus’ own moderate realism, which was inherently triadic.

What is going on in this triadic approach? When we suggest that the normative mediates between the

descriptive and interpretive to effect the evaluative, to a large extent, we are saying, at a much more basic

level, that the necessary mediates between the possible and the actual. This is pretty straightforward. All it

is saying is that, as we survey possibilities and wonder which will become or already is an actuality, we

only need recourse to the necessary in order to figure it out. This is almost too simple. But that is how

profundity operates, with elegance.

So, all that little socialized person needs to know in order to have his or her needs and desires satisfied is,

descriptively - What is that?; and interpretively - Is that what I think it is?; and if normatively, it necessarily

is or is not, then, evaluatively, one’s needs and desires are then met or not.

By now, you might see a problem in this schema. Who in the world, interpretively, has unfettered access to

the necessary? Peirce suggested that, recognizing our intractable fallibility, we need to back up, or prescind

from this interpretive stance, in order to better grapple with reality. Too many mistakes were being made,

mistakes that had profound existential import and enormous practical significance in human valuerealization

strategies.

This Peircean maneuver can be thought of as a move from ontological certainty to ontological vagueness.

Now, vagueness is not the same as being occulted completely. It just makes things a little fuzzier, like our

logic for example. So, ontological vagueness looks like this: The probable mediates between the possible

and the actual. All we did was change the necessary to the probable.

What happens to our logic, then? What happens, in other words, epistemologically? Peirce would have us

adopt, of course, epistemological vagueness, too. What does that look like? It merely involves a change in

our application of First Principles, such as Noncontradiction [PNC] and Excluded Middle [PEM]. What

makes a reality “possible” is the status where PNC folds (doesn’t apply) and PEM holds. An “actual”

reality is the status where both PNC and PEM hold, as would any necessary reality. A “probable” reality is

one where PNC holds but PEM folds, which is to say that something is going to definitely be determined

here, within given boundaries or limits even, but it is “not necessarily” this or that. And that, my friends, is

the philosophical nonfoundation of nondual thinking. It inheres in Dionysian and Scotistic logic and in

Richard Rohr’s appropriation of Merton. Here’s how.

Coming full circle back to the normative mediating between the descriptive and interpretive to effect the

evaluative, a person locked into any interpretive stance that relates to other people and God in a mostly

functional mode, where one’s needs and desires are to be necessarily met, is going to eventually experience

a great deal of cognitive dissonance and existential anxiety as the gap between the descriptive – “What is

that?” and interpretive – “Is that what I think it is?” grows larger and larger, with the practical upshot being

that either one’s normative or interpretive stance is going to have to go, or at least be suitably amended or

addended. This is because “How do I get that?” isn’t working any longer. When it comes to a robustly

personal relationship with God, it doesn’t work at all.

Now, to some extent, we might consider our evaluative concerns as nonrational or nonpropositional. We

don’t really reason our way into intrinsically valuable relationships with people or other aspects of reality.

We already experience a deeply seated existential orientation to these theological imperatives of truth,

beauty, goodness and unity.

Our realizations of these values, evaluatively, might also be considered transrational in that they certainly

require our rational faculties as employed in our normative, descriptive and interpretive foci of concerns in

order to be effected but they clearly go beyond those propositional aspects in their essentially evaluative

aspirations and realizations.

These different foci of human concern are, then, intellectually-related but not strictly logically-related in

that they represent distinctly different value-commitments. Differently formulated, goodness often comes

flying in on the wings of truth and beauty as uplifted by unity.

The transrational, then, does not orphan the rational but merely goes with it and then beyond. To jettison

the rational is not a transrational or even nonrational maneuver, it is an arational maneuver that leads to

arational gnosticism.

The present point is, however, that the False Self, or socialized self, similarly needs to be transcended,

neither annihilated nor orphaned. And this process of True Self realization requires a new way of looking at

reality, at God, at other people. And, in order to JOTS [jump outside the system], our old false self system,

we need to make this transrational move. We need to go beyond the dualistic thinking that predominates in

the mind of one who relates to reality in a solely functional way, which is what dualistic thinking was

designed to do: “What is that?” and “Is that what I think it is?” and “How do I get that?”.

To go beyond such thinking, not without it, we need to embrace both ontological and epistemological

vagueness, to prescind from the a priori metaphysics of the dualistic dead-ends of nominalism versus

essentialism.

We even need to embrace epistemic vagueness, a recognition of our fallibility, which does not rush to

closure when confronted with reality, does not even rush to closure when confronted with paradox and

whether it should be dissolved, resolved or maintained in creative tension, as would be appropriate vis a vis

the demands of reality.

Fallibility (semiotic and critical realism), again, is not a recognition that reality is in any way occulted, in

principle, which some aspects might be, only a recognition that we cannot stand in an ontological bucket

and pull our epistemological systems up by the handles (classical foundational systems and naïve realism).

Neither do we saw off the epistemological limbs where our ontological eggs are nested (radical

postmodernism and agnosticism).

Nor do we go beyond our rational faculties by going without them (arational gnosticism).

Fallibility is the tertium quid, the Third Eye, between gnosticism and agnosticism, between scientism and

fideism, between religious fundamentalism and Enlightenment fundamentalism. We prescind from the eye

of the senses and the eye of reason to employ, also, the eye of faith, where, early on our journey, all was

clear but tentative, while later, all was certain but obscure.

Because these human foci of concern are intellectually-related and not logically-related, we have something

to learn from every perspective, from every person, who offers a ray of God’s truth, beauty, goodness and

love. As Fr. Rohr says, then, Everything Belongs.

We can, then, in our East-West contemplative dialogue, as well as in other interideological and political

discourse, abstract their good descriptive and normative methods, practices, disciplines, asceticisms from

their otherwise seemingly heterodox interpretive stances and appropriate them for use in our own traditions,

such as when Dionysius accommodated the neoplatonic triadic logic for Christianity long, long ago, such as

when Charles Peirce turned to the brilliance of a medieval Franciscan and elaborated his own triadic

semiotic realism, which might recommend a more fully inculturated American theology for our new

millennium, which, at bottom, would be as old as the hills of Athens and Jerusalem.

Radical grace is, then, a redundancy.

Below is a unproofed summary of Fr. Rohr's The Third Eye from some rather sketchy notes. There's

nothing new in his approach here except for his emphasis, perhaps, on praxis vis a vis our realization of

True Self.

Father Rohr spent five weeks, this past Lent, in a hermitage, in solitude. He spent this time reflecting and

writing a new book, The Third Eye. On Easter Monday, he made a presentation of an outline of these

thoughts and this conference is available in a 4 CD set.

It’s not until the 3rd CD of this 4 CD presentation that Fr. Rohr speaks directly to or defines the Third Eye

per se. His use of this descriptor, he then explains, is derived from two 11th Century monks, Hugh and

Richard of the Monastery of St. Victor in Paris. The flowering of this thinking in his Franciscan tradition,

he tells us, took place in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Although the metaphor is similar to the same concept of Hindu and Buddhist traditions, it is independent of

those in that there was no contact between those and this Christian conceptualization.

As I mentioned elsewhere, we are talking about the eyes of 1) sense, 2) reason and 3) faith.

Basically, Fr. Rohr is amplifying his teaching on contemplative living, which continues to be heavily

informed by his love of Thomas Merton. He makes frequent references to Merton, False Self and True Self

and compares and contrasts them in many different ways, using many different adjectives and metaphors.

Fr. Rohr likes the word “realization” and sees it as being richer than the word “experience” for he describes

the robust encounter of God as a “total body blow,” where not only head and heart are engaged but the

body, too. Unfortunately, we “localize knowing” and too often try to access God only in the top 3 inches of

the body and only on the left side at that. This dualistic, binary or dyadic thinking, which we employ in

math, science and engineering, or when we are driving a car, is of course good and necessary. It is the mind

that “divides the field” into classes and categories and then applies labels through compare and contrast

exercises. It is the egoic mind that is looking for control and order, but, unforunately, also superiority. It

can lead to both intellectual and spiritual laziness, however, to an egoic operating system (Cynthis

Bourgeault), which views all through a lens of “How does it affect me?”

An aside: Rohr says that all that participates in love in our lives is forever, even your dog. So, there’s one

view of heaven among others.

The contemplative mind goes beyond the tasks of the dualistic mind to deal with concepts like love, mercy,

compassion and forgiveness. It doesn’t need to “divide the field” for such tasks.

The contemplative mind is practicing heaven in that it sees the Divine image as being “equally distributed”

and present in all others. We see that presence, honor it and know it. The contemplative mind starts each

moment with “yes.” It is vulnerable before the moment, opening “heart space.” It is present to people and

does not put them in a box. So, in our primary level encounter with others, we do not prejudge. At the

secondary and tertiary level, a “no” may be absolutely necessary. Once you know you can say “yes,” then it

is important to be able to say “no,” when appropriate.

Rohr makes clear, in his words, that we “include previous categories” and “retain what we learn in early

stages.” Our goal, in his words, is to master both dualistic and nondualistic thinking.

We must go beyond (not without) that part of our tradition that was informed mostly by Greek logic in

order to be more open to paradox and mystery. Rohr described some of the early apophatic and nondual

elements of the Christian tradition, especially in the first three centuries with the Desert Mothers and

Fathers, especially in the Orthodox and eastern Christian churches, and describing John of the Cross and

Teresa of Avila as the last supernovae. The apophatic and unknowing tradition has not been constant. For

400 years after these Carmelites there has been no real tradition. He credits Merton with almost singlehandedly

retrieving authentic contemplative teaching that has not been taught for almost 500 years. This

type of mysticism, he, like Merton says, is available to all but it takes a type of humility to “let go of our

control tower.”

We and others are living tabernacles, even given the contrary evidence. That God dwells in us is the

foundation of human dignity.

Fr. Rohr discusses the Gift of Tongues in this contemplative vein and notes that when it died out, prayerbased

beads emerged. He apparently went on to discuss prayer beads in other traditions but that part was

truncated.

Fr. Rohr notes that the East and West differ in that more emphasis is placed on discipline, practice and

asceticism in the East, while, in the West, we emphasize surrender and trust.

Our Christian path is more one of letting go and yielding of self. He believes that most of us, a very high

percentage, have enjoyed unitive moments, but that there was no one there to say “that’s it.” He thinks that

it would be useful to retrieve our contemplative tradition because we apparently need some degree of

discipline or practice to keep seeing and trusting our unitive moments, our union, our communion. The

Spirit will thus teach us all things and re-mind you that you are in union with God, that you are select; you

are chosen; you are beloved. We need to learn how to live in communion, now, for that is what we’ll enjoy

in heaven.

Fr. Rohr then describes practices that open up this contemplative mind: silence, stillness, solitude, patience

about needing to know everything, poetry, art, body movement, music, humility and redemptive listening.

He describes how we need to stand back and compassionately and calmly observe reality, without initial

regard for how it affects us, but to see persons and events nakedly, seeing our drama almost as if it wasn’t

us. If we cannot thus detach, then we are over-identified. Whenever we’re defensive, it is usually our false

self. What characterizes an addict is typically all or nothing thinking. We do not hate the False Self. We

must simply see it. It is not our “bad” self, just not our “true” self. We need to better learn to hold together

opposites and contradictions. A modern retrieval of our ancient practices of contemplative seeing can foster

this type of nonjudging awareness. Rohr says that a master of nondual thinking needs to also be a master of

dualistic thinking. Our Catholic tradition has great wisdom in retaining icon and art and symbols and

music. The primary teachers of this approach to God and others and all of reality are great love and great

suffering. Our primary paths have been suffering and prayer.

When head and heart and body are all connected, that is prayer. This, says Fr. Rohr, is not esoteric

teaching. Everybody has the Holy Spirit!

What appears to be the new theme emerging from Fr. Rohr’s latest thought is that of supplementing and

complementing our traditional approach to belief-based religion with more practice-based religion. In

particular, he sees great wisdom in retrieving those practices which have been lost or deemphasized that we

can better cultivate a contemplative outlook. In prayer, we are like “tuning forks” that come in to God’s

presence and seek to abide inside of a resonance with God. We need to set aside whatever blocks our

reception, especially a lack of love or lack of forgiveness.

Fr. Rohr does describe much of Buddhism as gifting one with “practices” and not “conclusions.”

In our Catholic social justice approach there has been remarkable growth in our methodologies as I have

documented elsewhere (at the ethos_eros link at the bottom of this post, for example. Scroll down, about

half way, where it is subtitled: The Witnesses to Revelation & New Methodologies). These new

methodologies reflect updated understandings that provide a better bridge to interreligious dialogue and

dialogue with the modern world. They have not been adapted, however, to our classical moral theology,

which remains stuck in old categories, essentialisms and legalisms, in many ways, although not wholly

unimproved.

Now, when it comes to spiritual theology, which is a practical discipline, moral theology, ascetical theology

and mystical theology should form an integral whole, even though, traditionally, they represent rather

sharply distinguished areas of study. What I'd like to more fully explore is how our traditional categories in

spiritual theology writ large might be updated in a manner that does not jettison the insights of the past but

that deepens our understanding of our tradition.

For example, what does it mean to articulate a more robustly Christocentric inclusivism over against an

ecclesiocentric exclusivism? How would these reflections inform, for example, sanjuanist categories,

Maritain's distinctions and Merton's experiences vis a vis East-West contemplative dialogue? Might some

of the old categories be, indeed, untenable, as we compare and contrast the spirituality of East and West, or

even try to deepen our understanding of such distinctions as have been controversial even within our

tradition, like that between infused and acquired contemplation?

If, as I have suggested elsewhere, an inclusivistic Christocentrism is best understood as our tradition gifting

us with the ways and means to move more swiftly and with less hindrance to our unitive destinations, to

more nearly perfectly articulate truth in creed, more nearly perfectly celebrate beauty in ritual or cult, more

nearly perfectly preserve goodness in code or law, more nearly perfectly enjoy fellowship and community

in unity, better avoiding dogmatism, ritualism and legalism, avoiding, at the same time, any facile

syncretistic blending of traditions, any false interreligious irenicism, any insidious indifferentism toward

traditions, any imprecise cartography in our mapping of moral, ascetical and mystical experiences in our

spiritualities ...

Then, does that mean that we are in any manner also suggesting that we must necessarily view other

traditions as if they otherwise differed from our own with respect to our unitive destinations, themselves,

however ultimate or proximate, however fleeting or enduring?

Certainly, as it pertains to our ultimate unitive destinations, in terms of ultimate salvific efficacy (getting to

heaven), we in no way maintain any distinction between religions, even as we maintain our giftedness in

moving more swiftly and with less hindrance with our explicit faith. At least we have updated this vision

since Vatican II and its document regarding nonChristian religions. We trust that even nonbelievers,

explicit atheists, can be saved by living the good and moral life.

I am precisely thinking that we must be open, in a similar way, to breaking open our old categories of

ascetical and mystical theology over against what I have been calling an ecclesiocentric pneumatological

exclusivism. And this is to suggest that it is indeed untenable to maintain distinctions that would suggest

that, while we may indeed move more swiftly and with less hindrance with our explicit faith toward our

more proximate unitive destinations, let's say in terms of mystical experience and infused contemplation,

that are informed only by implicit faith, which, when animated by love, are undeniably guided by the Holy

Spirit.

If we view grace as transmuted experience (Don Gelpi) and not thematically, as do the transcendental

thomists (Rahner), then, there is a greater sense of urgency, perhaps, to evangelize the world with the Good

News so as to gift others with the benefits of explicit faith, that they may move more swiftly and with less

hindrance to the blossoming of unitive experiences, infused contemplation and mystical graces, of which

their natural mysticism certainly places them on the threshold, and where, as the Spirit moves, the threshold

is most certainly crossed, from time to time? The distinctions between grace as transmuted experience

(Peircean) and thematic grace (Rahner & Lonergan) I must leave to the academics. Whetever the case may

be, we needn't deny all the giftedness of our own tradition even as we affirm the rays of truth in others.

And, of course, we remain mindful of the caveats I listed re: syncretism, indifferentism, irenicism,

imprecisions in mapping across traditions.

put the question of how to properly interpret what Fr. Rohr meant by infused or natural contemplation, as

employed in the Tolle article, to a friend. As a result, I just got a response from Fr. Rohr.

I have provided by the Merton biographer, Shannon, regarding natural contemplation as mystical, and by

Larkin, who describes Rahner's conception of "infused," then you will properly gather Fr. Rohr's meaning.

Also, his meaning is consistent with the excerpts below.

Who Can Be A Mystic?

quote:

Both Thomas Merton and Karl Rahner, a major Modern Catholic theologian, insist on a mysticism of

ordinary living. For Merton, the incarnation has sanctified all of human living. Far from taking the

contemplative above and beyond the ordinary, contemplation, if it is authentic, roots the human being in the

ordinary. The ordinary routine of daily life becomes the texture of contemplation for the devoted Christian.

Merton insists there is a “latent, or implicit, infused dimension to all prayer.”

quote:

In different language Karl Rahner makes a similar claim: everyone is called to the immediacy of God’s

presence. A supernatural, graced, “anonymously Christian” mysticism may even exist outside of

Christianity; that is to say, Christ himself may be working outside of established Christianity to be in touch

with mystics (known and unknown) in all parts of the globe. Rahner sets no limits on the power of God.

Rahner writes: “In every human being ... there is something like an anonymous, unthematic, perhaps

repressed, basic experience of being orientated to God, which is constitutive of man in his concrete makeup

quote:

Mysticism is sometimes a sweeping category for a variety of esoteric religious experiences. At other times

it is restricted to higher forms of the experience of God found in the saints. In this article we follow Karl

Rahner and define mystical experience as the same one experience of the Holy Spirit, given and received in

faith and love, and present as the transcendent reality within all morally good human activity. This graced

orientation to God is the unthematic, ordinarily anonymous experience of the self-communication of God.

It has multiple manifestations that differ only in degree from one another. These experiences are also called

contemplation and all of them by definition are infused. Fr. Larkin

As I mentioned previously, a major critique of this Rahnerian outlook is provided by Fr. Don Gelpi, my

fellow Yat, from New Orleans: Two Spiritual Paths: Thematic Grace vs. Transmuting Grace .

With Scotus and the Franciscans, one will already view the world through radically incarnational lenses.

Magnify that view through Merton and Rahner, where the world is not divided into natural and

supernatural, secular and sacred, where there is ONLY the supernatural, where ALL experience the Holy

Spirit, the Divine Indwelling and Infused Contemplation, then any reference to the natural refers to the

object of contemplation and not the origin, then any reference to the extraordinary refers to differences in

degree and not in kind, then the distinction that comes to the fore is whether or not the experience is

conscious or unconscious, whether or not one's faith is explicit or implicit.

practices, methods or prayer forms of the East do not lead to experiences of God that are infused. Neither is

there a reason to conclude that, when they do, Eastern practitioners are obliged to use the categories of an

explicit Christian faith to describe their experiences. It is absurd to suggest that I mean to say any such

thing. That one might be inspired toward a contemplative stance toward the world by Tolle and would

thereby experience a blossoming of infused contemplation, does not mean that one has necessarily been

formed by our explicit teachings, only that one has implicitly grasped same. Rohr makes clear that Tolle is

not employing Christian doctrine or making explicitly Chrsitian references.

in general, is did Rahner and Merton deepen our understanding of what we mean, in this sanjuanist sense,

even, when we say that an experience is 1)infused, 2) mystical or 3) a movement of the Holy Spirit. And

what I have maintained, then, is that they did both deepen and broaden our understanding in the sense that

they democratized our understanding of where the Holy Spirit might be moving, broadening our

exclusivistic.

I was not suggesting that the sanjuanist and Rahnerian lenses differed in their affirmation and description of

the extraordinary and higher forms of the experience of God found in the saints. I was recognizing, rather,

that the Rahnerian lenses had a wider field of vision and thus affirm and describe the experience of the

Holy Spirit in all morally good human activity, which can also be called mystical, graced, infused and

contemplation.

The sanjuanist account addresses a narrower category of experiences that is restricted to those found in our

because the Rahnerian account covers a wider variety of religious experiences and mysticism, then, in this

account, is a more sweeping category. That's why one would employ Rahnerian lenses to make sense of

Rohr's interpretation of Tolle, disambiguation of natural and supernatural and perspective on words like

mysticism, contemplation and infused. We are distinguishing between the sanjuanist and Rahnerian only to

unite them.

Clearly, Merton advanced our understanding of contemplation and invited us to look at contemplation as a

vocation for all. Clearly, Rahner advanced our self-understanding from an exclusivistic ecclesiocentrism to

an inclusivistic Christocentrism. Clearly, without the interreligious dialogue of these men and others like

them, no one would be affirming either Eastern practices or contemporary contemplative prayer forms as

providential gifts of the Holy Spirit. Can we call them infused? Can we call them contemplation?

Apparently, we do disagree, here, and that's okay.

think the way to reconcile the apparent differences is this. The old sanjuanist usage of the term infused

contemplation described an experience that was 1) infused 2) contemplation and 3) extraordinarily FULL.

This Rahnerian usage, as explicated by Fr. Larkin, describes experiences that are 1) infused 2)

contemplation and 3) of all manner of manifestations of varying degrees.

In this sense, what really distinguishes an experience as infused contemplation in the classical, sanjuanist

sense is NOT that it is infused or not but whether it is extraordinarily FULL or not.

So, we can all affirm that there is this experience that differs in degree and that St. John highly nuanced and

well-described it. And he called this infused contemplation. But, that's unfortunate in the same way that

calling both Cardinals and Scarlet Tanagers red birds does not serve to properly and diagnostically

distinguish the two. The term "Infused" is not what diagnostically sets apart the experience St. John wrote

extensively about, for other experiences are also infused. The term "contemplation" is not what

diagnostically sets apart the experience either, for other experiences are contemplation. Rather, the

DEGREE of fullness is what diagnostically distinguishes the sanjuanist description.

Now, there is a practical consideration for our contemporary contemplative prayer forms, broadly

considered, and it is whether or not, in Fr. Larkin's words, they teach the person to be appropriately active

in their prayer. I think, with Larkin, that most do.

The confusion is rooted, as I pointed out, in the fact that people understandably have misunderstood the

classical categories in terms of kinds and not degrees, with respect to origins and not objects, and,

resultingly, miss seeing the Holy Spirit's movements in other places and peoples. That's neither trivial nor

nitpicking.

Sorry for the delay. I was Gustaved and am about to get Iked, but I'll give you a head start based on what

Fr. Richard told me.With this glossary, below, maybe you can more precisely map his terminology and

better discern his meaning in the Tolle article:

1) Contemplation is broadly conceived, not narrowly.

2) Everything is supernatural and at God's disposal. Natural and supernatural comprise a distinction without

a difference (Rahner).

3) The Holy Spirit dwells in all (infused) and is experienced by all (naturally), not necessarily consciously

but certainly efficaciously, if we don't oppose or resist it (Rahner). It's cultivated through contemplative

practices or natural mysticism.

4) Asceticisms, teachings, disciplines, practices, exercises and such can build on this divine indwelling

bringing it to new levels of freedom and praise and conscious choice, hence acquired and theological.

5) Rohr bases his understanding of these spiritual realities, in part, on Rahner. Please understand, however,

that this is not the same thing as saying that he literally employs Rahner's specific jargon, which I have no

reason to think is not, itself, conventional. (I say this because, notwithstanding my several

acknowledgments that Rohr's usage was confusing, still, it seems that my explications in the posts above

expressions.)

6) There is a natural contemplation (natural with respect to object and not origin and also where one is

cognizant of the divine indwelling) that Merton spoke of and which his biographer described as infused,

truly mystical, but this was not under consideration by Rohr, although I had earlier thought that it might

have been. At any rate, this is not exactly the same as Underhill's first type but more in the theological vein.

7) That's all that comes to mind.

I hope this helps.

I will provide, below, a quote and comment on what I think Rohr refers to in Underhill. First, let me further

explicate myMerton reference above.

I first thought that Rohr might have been speaking of Merton's teaching on Maximus regarding natural

developmental (serial) stage in theosis. Maximus saw it more as a parallel experience in which we all

properly balance our practical and contemplative approaches. Since Rohr had mentioned Orthodoxy, I

thought he might have been talking about this. As we know now, he was, rather, invoking his Ranhnerian

hermeneutic. As for the natural contemplation of Evagrius or of Maximus, its departure point is theological,

so it doesn't really play into this Tolle consideration, at least not directly.

Underhill, regarding nature, discusses what mysticism and vitalism have in common, then goes on to show

how the mystics surpass mere vitalistic intuitions, such as the pantheists, for example. But she distinguishes

further what she calls a full mystic consciousness, which goes beyond the mere immanentist intuitions to

apprehend the utterly transcendent. Prior to that consideration, she discuses the different conceptions of

being --- naturalism, idealism, skepticism, and the religious notion that the suprasensible is important and

real.

Underhill says that the philosopher guesses and argues, the mystic lives and looks, tastes and sees. All

mystics are mystical philosophers but not all mystical philosophers are mystics. So, Underhill's "Point of

departure" chapter seems metaphysical. The chapter on vitalism seems geared toward a contemplative

stance toward nature that goes through a sort of evolution of mystic consciousness, from a mere vitalist

philosophy to a more robust immanentism to the apprehension of the transcendent.

In her consideration of the theology of mysticism, she affirms the inchoate religious forms and intuitions of

other traditions even as she exults our incarnational understanding: "It is true that the differentia which

mark off Christianity from all other religions are strange and poignant: but these very differentia make of it

the most perfect of settings for the mystic life. Its note of close intimacy, of direct and personal contact with

a spiritual reality given here and nowits astonishing combination of splendour and simplicity, of the

sacramental and transcendentall these things minister to the needs of the mystical type. Hence the Christian

system, or some colourable imitation of it, has been found essential by almost all the great mystics of the

West."

So, as I read it, Tolle does address what Underhill considers the metaphysical departure point. He also

could be addressing nature as a departure point as it culminates in the immanentist intuitions. Others could

address even the more theological departure point, at least to the extent there is a devotional component as

in Bhakti, but might only be addressing what are inchoate formulations and imitations that only hint at our

more robustly incarnational understandings. I haven't picked up Tolle in awhile and so don't know if he

goes there, but I don't see why he would not, in principle. As I observed before, he seems mostly focused

on fostering affective, moral and social conversions while being a tad cavalier about doctrinal differences.

I'm not saying he doesn't foster crtitical thinking and intellectual conversion, necessarily, but that he glosses

over, too easily, our differentia. Oh well, I get just as easily dismayed by folks on the opposite extreme who

bog down in mythic membership mindsets.

So, when I ascribed Rahnerian lenses (glossary) to such as Rohr and Larkin, I was not so very narrowly

conceiving such lenses in terms of awareness of some isolated dictionary entry as it might elucidate who

employs idiosyncratic vs conventional usages, but was thinking, instead, of the familiarity that comes from

a much more depthful critical scholarship, which is to say, one that has engaged transcendental Thomism,

in general, and Rahner’s entire life’s work, in particular, as it might shed light on comparative religion and

foster interreligious dialogue.

Whether she is talking about metaphysical mysticism or contemplation of the natural world or even

theological contemplation, all distinguished by their departure points (or what I would call objects),

Underhill seems to speak in terms of an evolution of mystical consciousness, recognizing in other traditions

inchoate forms and imitations of what we most fully experience in the Western Christian tradition with our

incarnational stance. All of those departure points seem to be, in principle, accessible to all. They can all

lead to very full experiences of the divine indwelling, even if unconsciously so. Our Christian formation, it

would seem, would help us move more swiftly and with less hindrance on this race set before us and, so, it

is out of compassion for all and in solidarity with all that we share this Good News. Even as Right Speech

may compel us to speak the truth as we best know it and so bring others to a more conscious competence,

still, there is something poignantly beautiful in unconscious competence whenever we see it in play in our

humanity, n'est pas?