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That's right, Phil. My thrust was to make obscure what too many others have seen way too clearly. My message: Caveat Emptor: Buyer Beware! My contributions, somewhat redacted, have been been archived here. I am also lurking on the Nonduality Salon Listserv, where they are discussing:
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LOL. Well, let's hope people also see in some of this an attempt to "distinguish in order to clarify." They? On a nonduality list? You do realize that's an oxymoron, don't you.  :Seriously, though, I agree with Conti in that she's not, on the whole, advocating the kind of nonduality that the advaitans are -- not now, at least. Only, without affirming the ongoing existence of individual humans in some manner, she can certainly give the impression of saying that, beneath the surface of things, a pantheistic order prevails. And when she comes right out in the first edition of The Experience of No-Self and places the Buddhist experience as going beyond the unitive stage, then the Hindu mystical union as beyond even that, what are readers to think? Now, however, she writes in the response to Arraj: Well, hell's bells, wouldn't you know that it isn't really her fault for perpetuating any misunderstanding! Somehow, publishing that book was forced upon her? (Kind of sounds like Eden, doesn't it -- "someone else made me do it; it's not my fault"!) And those were someone else's words -- not hers -- that are at the heart of the problem? I don't think we've spent enough time on this issue, for it turns out that these "few carefully selected quotes" turn out to be a kind of summary of the spiritual journey in the light of her experience. Here they are again (109-110, TEONS): Can anyone see now why people like Wilber thought her writings were an endorsement for Advaita and consolation for his view that Christian mystical experience is somewhat immature because it is still caught up in "duality"? And is Jim Arraj to be blamed for objecting to this way of looking at things, which clearly places the Buddhist and Hindu experiences higher than the Christian? Now we are told that all this shouldn't have been published, and to pick out quotes like this are inquisitorial tactics!  Of course, what would it mean if she were to say, "well, that's the way I understood things then, but I have a different understanding now?" Nothing wrong with revising/updating one's understanding and writings. That's very human! | ||||
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Originally posted by johnboy: Thanks for that nondual mind reference! And, again, and mostly, welcome to catholicism.  Thank you, jb. | ||||
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Phil, could you elaborate on the distinctions between BR and the advaitans in a quick compare and contrast? Thanks. | ||||
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Oh, and also the Mahayana Buddhists? | ||||
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JB et al, a big difference is that BR makes a distinction between self and God, while this is often conflated in the advaitic literature. Helminiak confronts Wilber about this, for example: - http://www.visionsofdaniel.net/R&HSch4.htm BR's critique of Marion's work on the Friends of Bernadette site also makes it clear that she thinks that Advaita is about self, and as she's already explained that self passes away, leaving only Christ, then that's a distinction (although, as I noted in my post above, the first edition of The Experience of No-Self sounded like an endorsement of Avaita, and she's probably edited out the implicating passages.) In What is Self?, a later work, she examines Hinduism more closely and finds the descriptions of Atman to be similar to what Christians mean by the divine union -- God/self union. That they consider Atman to be Brahman or God is, to her, a mistake, as the whole point of her writing is to say that this kind of union eventually passes away, leading to what she calls the death of the unitive self, leaving no-self, an experience of void. Here, she finds resonance with Buddhism's teaching on non-atman and appreciates the radical nature of what the Buddha was describing. That Buddha says nothing about God in his enlightenment is understandable, as there's nothing to say about this void/form insight without revelation of its true nature as Father/Creator - Logos/Word (a debatable interpretation, of course, but a personal revelation to her). Of course, where BR ends up is a state that she says is devoid of human individuality, so while she's not conflating God and consciousness, she does end up affirming a situation similar to the advaitans -- there there is only one Being out there. This might be orthodox, as in "God is my being, but my being is not God," only that statement needs much more explanation and qualification. E.g., the term "is" could be taken in the sense of mathemmatic's commutative law: that if A = B, then B = A. Only "is" doesn't mean = and so the statement can be made, though with qualifications concerning the reality of created being, contingency, etc. BR does none of this, as we've noted many times, and so it's easy to conclude from her testimony and ongoing explanations that individual human beings somehow cease to exist with "no-self" and only Christ exists beyond. This could be paradoxical in some manner, or it could be explanation requiring more clarification. Or it could be nonsense. | ||||
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Thanks for that clarification, Phil. I think one of the problems in interpretation is that, cross-culturally and between traditions, we don't share enough of the categories, hence vocabulary. From what Joe Conti said at Nonduality Salon, I would label BR's paradigm as panentheist, experiencing God within and that unlike the Advaita Vedanta affirmation that "the experience of the divine within, indicates that �True Self� IS the divine, and the True Self as (Atman/Brahman) IS ultimate Reality. ... In contrast, B�s paradigm says that the experience of the divine within --though an experience of a true revelation of the divine -- is OUR experience, not the divine�s experience." Conti suspects that, what most people mean by nonduality is either "a)the Hindu Advaitic type (Thou art That! --the True Self = God, of the Upanishads a la Shankara's interpretation) or (b) the Buddhist type: all is empty of self, all is truly Buddha-nature." Joe wrote: Interestingly, Joe asked: Conti did a good job, too, of explicating the doctrine of purgatory vis a vis notions of karma and reincarnation. There was also some dicussion of what lies beyond the Resurrection, and beyond no-self vis a vis what BR calls the "Ascension." And to the extent this experience of the "Father" as the Eternal Unmanifest is transpersonal, I read into that my own interpretation of that being our experience of the primary object of our beatific vision, our essential beatitude of the Divine Essence as experienced by direct intuition. I do not see that as mutually exclusive, however, with our experiences of the secondary objects and accidental beatitudes of the Eternal Manifest in unity with the Eternal Manifesting and our Community of Saints and so on. With regard to the Eternal Unmanifest, I can hold what BR says below as consonant with my distinctions between primary and secondary objects of beatific vision and essential and accidental beatitudes: And with what Conti says here: That there might have been good reason for many of us to be confused, Jerry Katz said it very well:
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A few responses to your post above, JB. Why would people even bother getting involved in this discussion if there were absolutely no sign of nonduality in her teaching? Well, that's right! And, again, she has only herself to blame for the way she phrased the summary of her journey in The Experience of No Self. As for Christian and Advaitan archetypes, I just don't know . . . Preconceptions, maybe, but I don't think Jung would agree that there are such archetypes. In contrast, B�s paradigm says that the experience of the divine within --though an experience of a true revelation of the divine -- is OUR experience, not the divine�s experience." I've read that distinction from her again and again and heard her try to explain it, using the analogy that if we get pricked by a needle, we know how it affected us, but we do not know the needle's experience of it's pricking us. This always seemed rather odd, and almost seems to be saying that since our experience of the divine is mediated by self, what we know in such experiences doesn't really tell us anything about the divine . . . Well, I thought the whole point of the Incarnation was human-mediated-divinity! So, yes, she is really saying that with the loss of self, what she experiences now is the divine's experience of itself. That's quite a claim, to say the least, but, with you, I'm willing to grant that it's possible. Still, I'm wondering about the human soul of Bernadette Roberts, and who's doing all that writing and even revising her understanding, etc. Without such an accounting, what she gives testimony to does, in fact, collapse into another kind of non-duality. | ||||
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What if that was amended to say: what we know in such experiences doesn't really tell us EVERYthing about the divine . . . ? | ||||
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Right. I'm sure this is moreso a discussion re: formative development. | ||||
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I haven't had the time to read through it all, but I think there may be something here that might help one come to grips with how she would describe what's going on: This sounds like --- not only a loss of the affective ego, but --- a loss of reflexive self-awareness. I wonder how close this is --- analogously --- to how a good musician merges with their instrument, playing effortlessly and even un-self-aware, merging also with the music. I recall how much effort and mindfulness was required of me as a novice on both trumpet and guitar but how that experience was transformed through years of practice and "playing." The persons watching me play, as an advanced novice or as a proficient, may not have been able to tell the difference in the quality of the music, phenomenologically, but my own experience of producing the music had drastically changed, phenomenally. I could NOT imagine going through the motions of everyday life with the same phenomenal state that I experience when playing a musical instrument, especially at the height of any ecstatic enjoyment of same, or boredom, as was sometimes the case. Maybe, at a deeper level, this is experienced by us as artists when we are writing music, lyrics, poetry, aphorisms or anything that comes with a creative flourish that seems almost channeled, not that we lay claim to same but we can phenomenally experience something akin thereto in the fluidity and facility of composition, even with no strong affect or sense of self-awareness: just taking dictation. I know this may be a very weak analogy, but I am trying to weakly articulate what I think I hear her saying in more concrete experiential terms rather than in some of the more abstract illustrations she has employed with balloons and construction paper. BR, then, is testifying, perhaps, to her phenomenal experience, which, for her, is radically different with both a loss of affective ego and reflexive self-consciousness, which, for us, phenomenologically, is difficult to discern. This could account for her confrontational tone and tenor and interactions, which could be unwitting. This is not supposed to be something we can easily wrap our hearts and minds around, by definition. It is expected that there would be misunderstandings, as BR observes:
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Yes, JB, we touched earlier on how "training" can become "automatic" and life can go on without one thinking about it. Also, I've read all those quotes many times and have tried to discuss some of them with her. I can grant the loss of "reflexive self consciousness" and I understand clarity of mind, loss of preconceived notions, present-moment living, etc. Wonderful! But there is obviously still an intellect and will in play, here, and a soul expressing itself. That's always been my major quibble, really. She could easily say that her soul is being directly moved by God, who makes use of the "training" she had during the journey through self. Also, present-moment living doesn't preclude ongoing learning, loving, etc. This is all happening to an individual human person, who even still has her individual body, and who feels so amazed by it all that she had to write three books, give numerous workshops, and correspond with lots of people about it. I'm not asking her to say she has a "self" as she understands the term, only to affirm the fact of her ongoing existence. Until/unless she does so, she cannot really escape the accusation that she is teaching another form of nonduality. See what I mean? | ||||
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From that write-up you provide above, JB, I'm struck by the paradoxical position of BR on her experience of the void. Her description sounds exactly like my brief experience of the void that I described earlier, and I've never heard anyone refer to it in this same way. It is surely a 'place' that is terrifying in a way you cannot know fear except when seeing non-existence. Somehow, you 'see' emptiness, an infinite sea of nothingness where there is no me, no world, and no God. At the same time, paradoxically, there was a 'me' who was capable of this reaction and a me to report back to you! In BR's report below, who is experiencing the fear, dread, insanity, etc. if her "self has fallen away"? Who is doing the name-calling and "coping with the loss of self"? It just doesn't add up...is it Christ in her who is terrified at staring into the void?? Why would Christ be terrified? ======================================= It was a time of utter terror for her as the self fell away: "Now I cannot convey what it is like to stare at some invisible horror when you don't know what it is. Just knowing what it is may be all the defense you need; but when you've gone through your list of name-calling and it does no good, you just have to resign yourself to not knowing and face it anyway. This thing I had to stare down was simply a composite of every connotation we have of 'terror,' 'dread,' 'fear,' 'insanity,' and things of this order." ... The Passageway, then, was a time after this encounter during which she just coped with the loss of self. =================================== Furthermore, as I think you or w.c. mentioned, it doesn't feel to me as though she is describing a normative event through which we must all pass on the contemplative Christian path, as BR suggests. She said that her state is not one she would wish upon others, is "totally unrewarding," and it is not meant to experience while living in the world... so I wonder, as others have too on this thread, how can it be a gift from God? how can it be a spiritually evolved reality given by the God of our Lord Jesus if she wouldn't wish it on anyone? It just doesn't add up.  I don't at all doubt her profound experiences and that she is radically transformed, but I wonder if "God is not done with her yet," as they say. The God of the Bible gives us gifts for the "equipping and perfecting" of his Church and surely her surrendered life and teachings will amount to such. | ||||
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Oh, I do see what you mean. And, at the same time, I am wondering if she has the conceptual apparatus and categories to even make some of our questions meaningful to her. In other words, what might appear to us as evasions or coyness might very well be the radical inability to dialogue outside of her newly ordered perceptual filters, a tautological structure of sorts. For example, people who inhabit a thomistic framework and who take existence to be a predicate of being can make sense of Heidegger's question: Why is there not rather nothing? But, some reject this as a meaningless tautology, which is to say that they think that the affirmation that Being exists is a redundancy. These people would read and write in a language called E-prime, which does not employ the verb "to be" or its forms and tenses. For them, the word nothing is a meaningless reification; there ain't no such thing and never was. It's an empty concept that does not refer. | ||||
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See my response to Phil. She may perceive our questions as major category errors per her de novo perceptual framework. This is likely a weak analogy but imagine her going through an experience that existentially confirmed for her the "realities" of solipsism and atheism at the same time. Keep in mind, for example, that solipsism is not a belief that can be defeated by empirical observation or rational demonstration. It is something most of us a priori reject as a foundational presupposition, believing, for all practical purposes, in the existence of other minds. To transist from a unitive state into an atheistic solipsism, which would be the philosophical equivalent of her phenomenal experience, best I can interpret same, would be a horror indeed. The existential angst would be suffocating unless and until, to use Richard Rohr's expression, one eventually learned how to breathe underwater. In BR's case, she came to the realization that she was a cell in the Mystical Body of Christ, which had to be a blessed relief, a most blessed deliverance in manifold ways. This is her existential-theotic gateway, then, to her experience of the Eternal Unmanifest, the Father. Apparently, her phenomenal experience as a cell in the Body is radically different from her more conventional experience of self, but, as a cell, communicates with other cells and so on. The best analog I can think of in order to relate to this is the corporate org chart and our unique place and function in the corporation, with which we surely identify, but, in a manner that is quite different from the way we identify with, let's say, the neighbors up and down our street, or our extended family. I am just using my imaginative faculties to try to relate, best I can, with the experiences she describes, charitably interpreting those descriptions as sincere and authentic. And I am trying to explain the obvious disconnects between her reports and our perspectives in the same way, giving her the utmost benefit of the doubt, which is to say that I do not want to think that she is purposefully trying to stretch our credulity; rather, she's gone down a path that has blown her mind as much as any of ours and is desperately trying to process same best she can. | ||||
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Right, Shasha. And to be clear, I haven't gathered that she has at all suggested that a life of heroic virtue or unparalleled merit is what occasioned it all, or that she is suggesting any peculiar set of preparations for those who are destined to trod the same path, other than the life of worship and service the Church already forms us in? in our relationships to God, others, nature and self? | ||||
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Even then, another thing I have been wondering, what is all of this supposed to mean for the rest of us, for all practical purposes? Knowing this all, stipulating to this all, what do we do differently, now? | ||||
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From Shasha: In BR's report below, who is experiencing the fear, dread, insanity, etc. if her "self has fallen away"? Who is doing the name-calling and "coping with the loss of self"? It just doesn't add up...is it Christ in her who is terrified at staring into the void?? Why would Christ be terrified? LOL! Exactly! Who "sees" all this? There is still observation and even evaluation. That's what I mean when I say the faculties of the spiritual soul are alive and well throughout her journey. I'm not doubting that God communicated some kind of consolation and meaning to her, only affirming that it was give to her.From JB: I am wondering if she has the conceptual apparatus and categories to even make some of our questions meaningful to her. In other words, what might appear to us as evasions or coyness might very well be the radical inability to dialogue outside of her newly ordered perceptual filters, a tautological structure of sorts. I don't know, JB. She's sharp as a tack in some of her analyses, and seems to be firing on all intellectual cylinders. Granted her lack of inclination to the kind of philosophical discussion you enjoy, still, to affirm that one is a living soul whose memory, intellect and will have continuity through what she experienced isn't such a stretch. In BR's case, she came to the realization that she was a cell in the Mystical Body of Christ, which had to be a blessed relief, a most blessed deliverance in manifold ways. That's a very generous interpretation, JB. She never says anything quite like this, to my knowledge. The relief she describes came with what she calls "the smile of recognition," which is the beginning of her resurrection experience. Here she realizes that Christ lives on and is everything that exists, pure form, etc. Nothing whatsoever about how she now lives in him as a cell in the body, etc. I've laid this all this out for her before and it went nowhere, as it seemed she heard anything moving in the direction of affirming her individual existence as wanting to stick her with "self" again (and in the same defensive tone as the response to Arraj). So we just have to do that work for her, I guess, as the alternative is another kind of non-duality that negates individual existence just as surely as Wilber's conflation of consciousness and God. - - - I'm repeating myself again and again, here, I know.  | ||||
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I got that imagery from a a wikipedia article. But it is disputed and I do not know who all contributed to same. Keep in mind, too, that the lack of a certain perceptual apparatus is not the same thing as the lack of intellect. It can take a great deal of Zen koan-like medidation and/or philosophical contemplation to JOTS --- jump outside the system --- in order to see the world through different interpretive lenses. I know. I know. What is uncanny, here, is that you are only asking her to jump back inside a system she once inhabited and that, it seems, shouldn't be such a stretch. For her to RE-cognize might be more difficult than we can even imagine. I do not want to push this type of analysis further than the bounds of charity might permit, so I think I am really at the point where I must simply accept her stipulations without fully understanding their implications. | ||||
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everyone, it has taken me some time to absorb all of these 'opinions', but i want to put some thoughts of mine out here. i have come to a sort of conclusion in my own opinion that we need to define the word'enlightenment' again, if we are to define in any way, shape or form,BR's experience. what strikes me is her lack of accountability to those that have taken her workshops. she does not seem very 'enlightened' when it comes to compassion for those who have travelled to see her and understand her way. the more i hear from those people, the more i change my opinion of whether or not she is truly enlightened. i know 'enlightenment' does not make one 'perfect', but i do believe that if you are ONE with THE ONE, then you would be more loving and sensitive to your fellow man. perhaps we have aknowleged her 'enlightenment', because of ken wilburs endorsement that this is so. wilbur may or may not know all that we have shared on this site, but he is not the END ALL for me( although i have great respect for him.)has anyone thought of the possibility that BR was CONTINUING to have totally metaphysical and psychic experiences and had NOT truly put a stop to them as she thought she had? she may have interpreted her experience through her christianity, but perhaps she was actually tapping into the afterlife and some of the experiences that happen in the next life, such as a meeting with her negative self that led her to the VOID within herself that had NOT reached eternal life yet. different religions have different names for this stage. perhaps she became so terrified of it,that she gave it 'the name' of 'no self'?! does anyone understand what i am trying to say? or agree with me? rebecca | ||||
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Still, when Merton and Maritain draw distinctions between different types of experiences, they are not at all suggesting that one attains to God and the other does not, they are not drawing distinctions between the natural and supernatural on the order of substance but only regarding modes, they are not, then, disvaluing one journey and elevating another in terms of comparatives and superlatives vis a vis varying degrees of sanctity and virtue, they are, rather, placing value-neutral philosophical labels on this approach to God versus that, distinguishing in order to properly unite, precisely with a practical goal in mind --- that of properly integrating these different spiritual technologies and enjoying the riches they have found. As I quoted before: Now, with all due respect, that anyone would receive and interpret Merton and Maritain's distinctions as an exercise in not just comparative spirituality but as in anyway a disvaluing or denigrating of one journey vs another vis a vis levels or degrees of virtue, sanctity or supernatural substance in terms of superlatives, does not really say anything at all about Merton and Maritain but might, instead, reveal more about where their critics are coming from? | ||||
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Folks, I'm pretty much done, here. Any other discussion topics related to BR are likely to be sidebars that we've either already taken up on other threads, or should maybe have it's own. I'll keep checking in, of course. | ||||
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I got acquainted with shalom place, when I was googling Bernadette Roberts. I was completely confused by her latest book on Not Self, and dismayed by the lack of inclusion of family, and how her "not Self" states may have affected them. I couldn't finish the book, and returned it as soon as I could. I wish I could say that I found the discussion on shalomplace helpful, but you are all so intellectual about something which seems so beyond the intellect. I like you all.I am just confused. I am also confused by all the negativity on this site about Centering Prayer. All I have it seems is my experience of the Risen Christ, and my seeking of Him. I am not anti-intellectual, and have quite an intellectual job. I love reading,especially in the last 6 years or so that iI have been practising Centering Prayer, books by Teresa of Avila, P.Marie-Eugenie,O.C.D., Ruth Burrows, Thomas Keating, Cynthia Bourgealt, deCaussade, but I find they, in the end, lead me to deeper prayer, not in any intellectual understanding. Centering Prayer is a prayer of surrender to me. Of course, I can't will contemplation, that is a gift that God gives in the prayer and outside of the prayer. My intention is to let go, to surrender, i have never felt like a zombie, or with some sort of a blank mind. I kind of enjoy watching my thoughts and sort of incorporate them into my prayer without actaully thinking them, if you get my drift. For example, if I have the thought, I need to get the oil changed on the car, I leave it at that, I don't start calculating how long it has been since the oil has been changed, etc., I just watch with bemusement this thought come and go. Somehow my concern for the car becomes part of my prayer without me having to articulate it. Insights and illuminations are just more thoughts. God likes my littleness, He enjoys revealing Himself to me in lots of ways.,including a sense of humor about my thoughts. This surrender action of CP increases my love of God, so it must be good. And I ffel I don't take myself so seriously either, and that is good. By the way, sometimes I pray a lot longer than 20 minutes, and sometimes I miss it altogether, and that seems ok. I like being married, with children and grandchildren, and living in community , and working, and volunteering with hospice. I am not sure i would be able to function as well as I do if it wasn't for prayer. Barbara | ||
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