Tim F,

I'm interested if the "energies below the neck", according to BR, survive the great passage she describes in the "EofN-S"? She wrote that she lost interiority and lost her personal, affective energies. I also experienced the loss of the sense of interiority but in my experience it doesn't cause the loss of emotional or affective energy in lower chakras. So how is it in her case?



Neither JOC, nor STA mention anywhere the "degrees or levels of interior silence". They talk about the levels of union of our will with God's will, and the degrees of our loving surrender. Silence is present in the prayer of union, but it seems to be a side-effect, not the essence.


"There are other delicate movements in this region, but, altogether, these experiences are responsible for a sense of deep interiority and spirituality, and because of these experiences we say God is 'personal.'"

It's not because of "these experiences" we say God is personal, but because Jesus revealed to us His Father as a Person, and Himself as a Person, and because St. Paul refers to the Spirit as a Person too. So our faith in the personality or hyper-personality (as Phil calls it) of our God is based in the first place on the revelation that is beyond experience, and only secondarily on contemplative experience which is nothing more than a vivid experience of the content of our faith.



"The sense of presence, infusion of love, prayer-of-quiet, will-to-God, and living flame of love" - I wonder if BR is aware of the difference between those experiences.

"The sense of presence" may refer generally to all kinds of supernatural prayer as well as "infusion of love".
"Prayer of quiet" is in STA view one of the degrees in which our will is overpowered by God.
"Will-to-God" can be a natural phenomenon, which can be present in every one without any contemplative graces. It can be also supernatural but not contemplative, if it is the same as "faith".
"living flame of love" - generally, it can mean the Holy Spirit, and sometimes people experience the power of the Spirit that way. But for JOC it signifies a very special experience of the Holy Spirit - he says it's not common even among contemplatives, but only in chosen souls. For JOC it's the highest experience in this life, but BR seems to disagree with that.


Do you agree with BR's view on Christian contemplative path?
(Sorry, if I'm being argumentative - I know her writings are important to you. But my experiences have been so different lately from what BR describes, that I cannot agree to her putting "silence" above "love".)

Tim, thanks for jumping into the discussion (and if you've actually read the whole thing so far, you get three gold stars ). In truth, I think BR's writings have prompted us all to reflect more deeply on our experiences and understanding of the spiritual journey. Like you, I've read her books several times, have corresponded with her, and even had her over to Wichita to present a workshop on the spiritual journey back in 1991.

You note: I think the strongest initial impression that comes to my mind is the perception throughout this thread, seldom disputed, that BR is less than realistically engaged with the energies "below the neck" . . .

Your rebuttal of this point is well-taken, but I don't think it goes to the core of Arraj's critique or her response to him (and, yes, too bad she removed that). The substance of my own difficulties with her writings were summarized above as follows:

quote:

My problem with her writings all along (as evidenced from my own "many words" on this thread) is not so much what she says as what she doesn't -- especially concerning her own human nature. For B.R., there is God, ego and self, with the latter two having little correspondence with what psychology describes as such. So we begin with idiosyncratic descriptions, and are left wondering what to make of the soul's innate subjectivity, not to mention B.R.'s personhood, which is obviously alive and well, with all of her faculties intact. So whatever one wants to make of B.R.'s "no-self" state (which she considers transitional), it is clear that this is not a no-soul or no-person state.

Iow, there's insufficient treatment of anthropological issues, and when she says (again and again) that "God is everything that exists, but the self," one wonders what the heck she considers creatures -- especially human ones. Do we somehow cease to exist? That's not the traditional understanding of theosis/sanctification.

She also ventures, at times, into the realm of theology, using her experience as the basis for making some pretty incredible statements. E.g., she sees the journey beginning "with the Christian experience of self's union with God... But when the self disappears forever into this Great Silence, we come upon the Buddhist discovery of no-self..." (p. 109) "Then finally, we come upon the peak of Hindu discovery, namely: "that" which remains when there is no self is identical with "that" which Is, the one Existent that is all that Is." (p. 109 -- "The Experience of No-Self")

So, Hinduism's insight into the divine is king of the hill? Apparently. It's interesting that she's removed this passage from a later edition of this work.

Arraj notes:

quote:

Once the no-self experience is placed above the Christian experience of union, then there is an almost irresistible movement towards reinterpreting Christian dogma in the light of this experience. This seems to be what is happening when Bernadette Roberts says, "and when I finally saw 'that' which remains when there is no self, I thought of Christ and how he too had seen 'that' which remained - a seeing which is the resurrection itself." (p. 131) Or "...even the seeing of the Trinitarian aspect of God is not the final step. The final step is where there is no Trinity at all, or when the aspects of God are seen as One and all that Is." (p. 132)

So the resurrection is a kind of "seeing" and we move to a deeper mysticism that transcends the Trinity -- that there is no Trinity at all. . . that the Persons are "aspects"? Maybe these kinds of statements should be regarded as primarily experiential (with no theological implications), but she sure sounds like she's saying that relating to God as Trinity is (like the Christian union with God) a phase on the way to something deeper (and more impersonal, btw). There's a major disconnect here with Christian mystical theology, and I don't think it's because she's gone "beyond" SJC and others.

I think Arraj is spot-on with his conclusion:

quote:

This approach immediately runs into immense theological difficulties which threaten to obscure the real contribution that Bernadette Roberts can make to Catholic thought. We can accept the value of her experience without being compelled to accept her interpretation of its relationship to Christianity. If she is experiencing what the Buddhists call enlightenment, then she can help us understand the nature of this experience, for she is describing it afresh and from a Western point of view and in a non-Buddhist language, and by doing so she can help us to deal with the difficult problem of how to relate Christian mysticism to Buddhist enlightenment.

Do you resonate with these concerns?

Peace, Phil

quote:

Theologically, there's no God apart from the Father, the Son, and the HS, just as there's no "Human" apart from human persons (but some platonic-oriented theologists, and Eckhart among them, could turn this direction). So There's Father, Son, and HS and they are God, but without the Three, there's no God. That's how I understand the teaching of the Church from the 4th century.

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Mt:

I was taking the Hindu understanding and trying to place it into the Christian understanding. I guess it can't be done. The bible isn't real clear on the state of God before the creation. Hindus believe that the different aspects of God came into being as part of the creation, that before creation God was all inclusive, the one impersonal God. In the act of knowing himself he created the different aspects.
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that now I'm a bit suspicious when the Trinity is bypassed.
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Hindus don't bypass the Trinity, they just understand it differently. I'm not an expert, but I think they see Brahma as the creator, Vishnu as the maintainer of the creation and Shiva the destroyer of ignorance concerning the creation. I believe to Shiva is attributed the kundalini and also the impersonal God.

As far as BR, I'd like to know what she experienced before unity. If her journey up to that point was typical for a Christian, then she must have experienced the Trinity. Does she have any writings that explain that part of her life?

In my vision of the Trinity,I saw them in their three persons as well as one. It was sort of like they were superimposed upon each other.

I do believe my experience of being consumed by the void is the same as Phil's because it felt like I was being sucked into a black hole. There was no emotion to it, no feeling of warmth. The the body felt like it didn't exist, the mind was still and at peace, the emotions were not active, the ego was in surrender. However, before I went into complete surrender in the transition of the experience, there was some fear. The other experience with I guess it was Maharishi, I'm not certain, there was terror because it took me by surprise and I started to feel the peace over take me but was unable to surrender to it. I read the example of "ecstatic union" and it was not that.

How did I feel after? Since I had wanted this experience, I was appreciative of the fact that Jesus had given it too me. I remember thinking it was very profound and overwhelming. It only seemed to last a few seconds. Because of my background I felt it was the experience of the void, but this was the first time that I was so consumed by it. In my TM meditation practice my mind would be taken to a point via the mantra, the ground of the mind, I believe and I would lose awareness of the self for short periods. It wasn't the same experience.

The thought never came that this consuming black hole was the Father. There was nothing personal about it.

I did have an experience of what I believe was the Father. I can't remember if it was before this or after. He actually said "Welcome". It was a personal experience, not totally consuming, it was like looking into the darkness, but it did seem unbounded and I just wanted to remain in that peace. I felt like the Father cared for me.

Maybe BR's experience is what Maharishi calls witnessing, but it is not the ultimate goal, the heart is not engaged, there's no devotion, its not a unitive state, there is a separation of self and creation, but the self is not active, the ego is not engaged. Thoughts and impressions come but it's like a line on water, they disappear back into the ocean. It's like the will of God has over taken the self and you act automatically according to his will. It reminds me of BR's "doing" and her search for what happened to herself. With Hindus they experience the no-self first and then the heart is awakened and they become devoted to God, and then unity.

Maybe BR's no-self experience has overshadowed her unitive experience but now she needs to integrate them.

What is the beautific vision. Does this describe it? Light starts pouring out of everything you see before you until everything is consumed by this beautiful golden light and in the center of that is Christ, not in form,(I could not see his face) and the love coming out from that is his all consuming love.

Jasalerno:

I've been following the recent exchanges, and thought you might find Ramakrishna's account of nonduality interesting, if you haven't already read his biography. As I recall the story, he meets his advaidic teacher well into the period of ecstatic devotional union, which of course began very early for him. The account is somewhat humorous, because apparently Ramakrishna wasn't impressed that nonduality was the next step, or the be-all-end-all, but was open to the teaching and the teacher. The teacher, however, one day expressed rage and mistreated one of R's poor friends. R laughs at him, not scornfully, but in a gentle rebuke. Sounds like "crazy wisdom" revealed for what it often turns out to be: the overestimation of the enlightenment experience, where consciousness is saturated with cosmic energy before the heart is purified.

What a marvelously energetic forum this is.

Mt:

re, your: "I'm interested if the "energies below the neck", according to BR, survive the great passage she describes in the "EofN-S"? She wrote that she lost interiority and lost her personal, affective energies. I also experienced the loss of the sense of interiority but in my experience it doesn't cause the loss of emotional or affective energy in lower chakras. So how is it in her case?"

I'm not in any way qualified to answer to BR's no-self "experience" (and all the paradoxes any attempts to express it in words clearly entail). But in the sense of "by their fruits ye shall know them," it does appear to me that whatever place/no-place she has gotten to has given her an exceptionally lucid (and to me very helpful) view of a lot of what Bonaventure called the itinerarium mentis in Deum, the journey of the soul into God.

I think it is important to emphasize that Roberts posits two very distinct transitions into two very distinct states of being: the first being the transition from an ego-centered existence into a God-centered existence, which in her view results in a life lived in transforming union with God, as the natural fulfillment of our human nature; and the second, which comes only when the unitive life has been "lived out" (whatever that may mean) in its entirety, being the passage into what she calls no-self. Her view of the unitive life, including the dark night(s) through which one must pass to arrive in it, is very much akin to John of the Cross's; and I think that the points in her writing where she writes about the freedom, joy, and fearlessness of the unitive state, and emphasizes the life of selfless charity that arises from it, are some of the most helpful in contemplative literature, where many accounts end at the realization of the unitive state. Roberts likens that realization to a butterfly emerging from its cocoon, and one of her great gifts is acknowledging and addressing the sometimes baffling experiences and occasional dilemmas the newly-fledged butterfly encounters as it begins to explore and live out its new condition.

In Roberts' experience, this unitive stage lasted for about thirty years, and it was the peak of what she was prepared to expect from her spiritual life. The passage into no-self came to her completely unexpectedly, and I believe it is part of her intention in her writings to give people what she considers a helpful head's-up. As I said, I cannot speak at all to her no-self experience, except from a few glimpses in ecstasies (she describes the condition as stabilized and continuous).

re, your: "Do you agree with BR's view on Christian contemplative path?
(Sorry, if I'm being argumentative - I know her writings are important to you. But my experiences have been so different lately from what BR describes, that I cannot agree to her putting "silence" above "love".)"

As I said, BR's map of the territory has been helpful to me now for over a quarter-century. It may come down to temperament, in some ways, the ineffable flavor of individual experience and the resonance of particular language. As you note, her experiences and yours seem so different as to appear irreconcilable. I would submit, however, that this may in part come from putting the cart before the horse here: the cart being the no-self experience, and the horse being the unitive life (the heart of which, for her as for me, is Christ's love, and not I, but Christ in me). I think it's a great horse. As for the cart: For myself, I feel like I am in coastal Virginia, having wandered up from North Carolina, and BR's map of the route so far matches up pretty well with where I am and how I got here. Whether it will still work when I get to the Blue Ridge Mountains, some distance west and uphill all the way, certainly remains to be seen!

Phil: Obviously, your post is rich in issues. Having come late to this party, I will start with one, your first--

re, your: "My problem with her writings all along (as evidenced from my own "many words" on this thread) is not so much what she says as what she doesn't -- especially concerning her own human nature. For B.R., there is God, ego and self, with the latter two having little correspondence with what psychology describes as such. So we begin with idiosyncratic descriptions, and are left wondering what to make of the soul's innate subjectivity, not to mention B.R.'s personhood, which is obviously alive and well, with all of her faculties intact. So whatever one wants to make of B.R.'s "no-self" state (which she considers transitional), it is clear that this is not a no-soul or no-person state."

I think the confusion of terms here is unnecessary. Roberts says, in What Is Self? 9p. 53), "As used in modern psychology the terms ego and self are not synonymous or interchangeable; on the contrary, a distinction has been made quite clear in contemporary literature. Where Western philosophy and theology made no distinction between these terms or their meaning, in the Christian contemplative tradition, at least, there has always been a distinction between a lower and higher self--the lower being the ego, the higher being the true self. But now that the specific terms 'ego' and 'self' are in common usage, it is important to articulate the contemplative journey in the prevailing language. This means we can no longer use the terms eho and self interchangeably or fail to make an experiential distinction between them."

She goes on to add, "By the same token we cannot equate no-self with no-ego or fail to distinguish between these two different events." This gets back, however, to the cart and the horse I spoke of in my previous post: I think it is crucial that we address the horse of the no-ego condition that Roberts calls the unitive life before we try to make the cart of no-self go someplace.

jasalerno--

re, your: "As far as BR, I'd like to know what she experienced before unity. If her journey up to that point was typical for a Christian, then she must have experienced the Trinity. Does she have any writings that explain that part of her life?"

BR's writings are rooted in basic Catholic theology (she names Aquinas as her primary theologian). On the Trinity, I think her best discussion comes in What Is Self?, in Part III, The Christian Passage." Just to dip in, here, from pp. 129-130: "What Christ added to the Judaic revelation was the ultimate nature of God, that is, the Trinitarian nature of the one God. Perhaps nothing so testifies to the profound mystery of this Trinitarian nature that that many non-Christians have been convinced over the centuries that Christians believe in three Gods. . . . The Trinity is virtually tied to Christ; it is Christ's ultimate revelation, the revelation of Christ's divine nature or mystical body. Without Christ this revelation could not be forthcoming or known at all--for which reason it is unknown in other religious traditions."

Tim F:

One thing worth metioning here about BR's written account, is her resistance to the energies below the neck. She seemed quite deliberate about this, and her lack of mention of a devotional heart-orientation, even when she considers her past unitive experience, stands out to me. I don't know what it means, of course, as she doesn't explain, but her advice to others seeking her counsel (as reported by some people attending her programs) seems to perpetuate this kind of resistance. So the loss of self experience may have come upon her unexpectedly; however, her report of having been warned as to "Quietism" by her spiritual directors when a nun, her saying she had no use for devotions to Jesus (apparently even prior to and during her unitive periods), and her self-reported resistance to energies below the neck as crucial in her formation, all add up to a paradoxical picture, whether attempting to view it in terms of another nondual tradition, or from a traditional Christian mystical pov.

quote:

Originally posted by Tim F:
Phil: Obviously, your post is rich in issues. Having come late to this party, I will start with one, your first--

Thank you, Tim. I've read "What is Self?" and her explanations of what she means by ego and self. As noted in the post to which you are replying, my larger problem is not with the manner in which she uses these terms, but the deeper, anthropological implications of what she's saying. It's been much more common in Christian mystical theology to speak of the soul rather than self or ego, as the soul is the substance of our creaturely identity and personhood. BR's silence on this point, her favorable view of Hinduism, and statements like "God is everything that exists, but the self," can leave one wondering whether or not she's a pantheist. To my thinking, the innate subjectivity of her soul -- her personhood -- is very much alive and well, regardless of what's happened to "self" or "ego." There is still an individual person living life through that individual body of hers. Her writings simply don't address these kinds of metaphysical/ontological considerations.

quote:

As far as BR, I'd like to know what she experienced before unity. If her journey up to that point was typical for a Christian, then she must have experienced the Trinity. Does she have any writings that explain that part of her life?

Jasalerno, yes, she has one book entitled "The Path to No-Self" wherein she shares her experience of the Christian journey up to the point where she experienced the inner God-self union falling away.

quote:

I was taking the Hindu understanding and trying to place it into the Christian understanding. I guess it can't be done. The bible isn't real clear on the state of God before the creation. Hindus believe that the different aspects of God came into being as part of the creation, that before creation God was all inclusive, the one impersonal God. In the act of knowing himself he created the different aspects.

Yes, that's an area where Christianity would differ from the Hindu understanding. In Christian teaching, God doesn't become Trinity with the creation, but is always, eternally Trinity. The revelation came through time progressively.

It sounds like we've had similar experiences of this "black hole" silence. I understand it now to be a kind of "kundalini mysticism," which is not to imply that it's got nothing to do with God. The fruit seems more about opening the higher chakras, especially the third-eye, or "witness" consciousness, as you noted.

Wt,

Thanks for your post concerning your experience of the Father. You are the first person I know who has described this. I would like to know if there are any Christian saints who describe a meeting with the person of the Father in contemplation.

Phil,

"The revelation came through time progressively." So this is the Christian understanding.

W.C. Thanks for your suggestion about Ramakrishna. I haven't read his biography. I think there are many Hindus who very much need this purification of the heart.

Tim F. There is definately two aspects, the horse and the cart, and for me, knowing Jesus was necessary to fully ride the horse. The horse and the cart have to be integrated. I'm still not convinced that Jesus is the only person who knows the Christ. I see the Christ as a revelation not a person, a title that belongs to Jesus because of his revelation not because he is the only Christ.

The Hindus have a second person of their trinity who they believe acts as the Christ. They even have a sacrifice with involves hanging a horse on a poll which I believe is symbolic of our own death on the cross that we all must embrace. This idea existed before Christianity. It's true that Jesus seems to embody the Christ more fully and he is my Lord because I know him, whereas I don't personally know Vishnu/Krishna. But I feel that's just the Hindu name, its knowing the revelation of the Christ that counts. And all Hindus don't know this, just like all Christians don't fully know this. Certainly those that practice TM don't know the horse.

It seems apparent to me that those Hindus who know both the horse and the cart and have fully integrated them are not lost souls.

Hi w.c.--glad to "meet" you!

re, your: ". . . [BR's] resistance to the energies below the neck. She seemed quite deliberate about this. . ."

As I said in an earlier post, I think this is a misreading of Roberts' work, in the terms of her fundamental simplication of contemplative experience into "above the neck" and "below the neck." In The Path to No-Self, p. 16, she equates "above the neck" with "the experience of self-consciousness made possible by the reflexive mechanism of the mind" and "below the neck" with "a gut-level feeling of personal energy or power," and in which category she includes "the sense of presence, infusion of love, prayer-of-quiet, will-to-God, and living flame of love. Here too we encounter the true center of being, the stillpoint, and realize our union with God, along with varying levels and degrees of interior silence. From the center arises the peculiar pain of God's absence, the wound of love, and the peace which surpasses understanding. There are other delicate movements in this region, but, altogether, these experiences are responsible for a sense of deep interiority and spirituality. . ."
These are hardly the words of someone who devalues the contemplative experience below the neck!

re, your: "Her lack of mention of a devotional heart-orientation, even when she considers her past unitive experience, stands out to me."

I think it is true that BR comes across as more of a jnani, to use the Sanskrit characterization of someone with an intellectual orientation, than a devotional, or bhakti, type. But her writings are replete with peace, love, and joy experienced "below the neck." She also speaks, in The Path to No-Self, p. 131, of a "pierced heart," which I take to be what John of the Cross calls the wound of love, and she says there, paraphrasing the Psalmist, "A broken heart is the pathway to vision." Yet even here, identifying with "the suffering heart of Christ and his mother," she has occasional to refer to "the joy at the center." She does make distinctions between "emotions" in the usual sense, which she says arose from the ego-self and its concerns, and the "infused emotions" she finds in the unitive ("no-ego," in No-Self terms) state. It may be here that the discussion of her relations with energies "below the neck" is running into what I continue to see as misunderstanding.

re, your: ". . . her advice to others seeking her counsel (as reported by some people attending her programs) seems to perpetuate this kind of resistance."

I am not sure what advice she gave, in what context, so cannot address this.

re, your: ". . . her report of having been warned as to "Quietism" by her spiritual directors when a nun,. . ."

In context, as recounted in The Path to No-Self, p. 57ff., the warning about Quietism was directed at BR in a manner that has been well-covered by John of the Cross in his several discussions of spiritual directors who are unable to discern the dark nights in those they counsel and so persist in trying to get their counselees to return to more standard devotions and meditations when in fact the darkness and stillness of a more naked faith is what their soul requires at that point.

re, your: ". . . her saying she had no use for devotions to Jesus (apparently even prior to and during her unitive periods),. . ."

I don't know where she said this. The closest thing I know of in her writings is in What Is Self?, p. 131, where she says, "In my childhood and youth I often thought that the historical Christ, because of his physical form and personality, was more of an obstacle to understanding the formless mystery of God than he was a help. Eventually, however, I came to see that without the historical Christ we would have missed the furthest reaches of both God and man, which is the oneness of Form and Formless--Christ and the Father in the absolute sense. Because of this purely Trinitarian oneness (Form and Formless) Christ's revelation neither begins nor ends with our realization of the formless divine. . . . What we must come to first of all, however, is Jesus' own human experience of oneness with God; only after this can we begin to penetrate the true mystery of Christ's Trinitarian nature--and consequently our own destiny."

re, your: ". . . and her self-reported resistance to energies below the neck as crucial in her formation, all add up to a paradoxical picture, whether attempting to view it in terms of another nondual tradition, or from a traditional Christian mystical pov."

Again, I truly have no idea what you are referring to about the self-reported resistance to energies below the neck. Indeed, she says, in Path, p. 71, among many other unambiguous examples, "The drama of the unitive life is primarily interior or focused on exeriences 'below the neck. . .'" I don't know how much more explicit she could be.

Phil--

I am presuming a genuine will to dialogue on your part.

You said: "The substance of my own difficulties with her writings were summarized above as follows:
quote:
My problem with her writings all along (as evidenced from my own "many words" on this thread) is not so much what she says as what she doesn't -- especially concerning her own human nature. For B.R., there is God, ego and self, with the latter two having little correspondence with what psychology describes as such. So we begin with idiosyncratic descriptions, and are left wondering what to make of the soul's innate subjectivity, not to mention B.R.'s personhood, which is obviously alive and well, with all of her faculties intact. So whatever one wants to make of B.R.'s "no-self" state (which she considers transitional), it is clear that this is not a no-soul or no-person state."

By the "substance of [your] difficulties with her writings", as summarized, I took your meaning to be that was the substance of your difficulties with her writings. In response, I said:

"Roberts says, in What Is Self? 9p. 53), "As used in modern psychology the terms ego and self are not synonymous or interchangeable; on the contrary, a distinction has been made quite clear in contemporary literature. Where Western philosophy and theology made no distinction between these terms or their meaning, in the Christian contemplative tradition, at least, there has always been a distinction between a lower and higher self--the lower being the ego, the higher being the true self. But now that the specific terms 'ego' and 'self' are in common usage, it is important to articulate the contemplative journey in the prevailing language. This means we can no longer use the terms ego and self interchangeably or fail to make an experiential distinction between them."

You replied: "Thank you, Tim. I've read "What is Self?" and her explanations of what she means by ego and self. As noted in the post to which you are replying, my larger problem is not with the manner in which she uses these terms, but the deeper, anthropological implications of what she's saying. "

I am left wondering which is true: that you do not understand BR's crucial terms, as implied in your characterization of them as "having little correspondence with what psychology describes as such" and "idiosyncratic," or that you do understand them, as implied by you saying that you have read the relevant work, in which case you opening position seems somewhat disingenuous.

In either case, you seem to be saying now that by addressing what you said was the "substance" of your difficulty with her writings by beginning to clarify the problematic terms, I somehow missed your "larger problem." But your larger problem strikes me as a moving target at the moment.

Tim F:

Here is the main passage from "The Path To No Self" which suggests resistance:

"The interior flame rose up to become a burning torch, a great love wherein the last vestige of self awareness was but a flickering match. But when the flame rose up, other unknown powers and energies rose with it, which gave rise to certain extraordinary experiences - as if I were about to be used as a medium. Because this role of medium was unfamiliar, incongruous with past and personality, it was judged unacceptable, but I finally knew it was worthless because it was obviously mixed with self - a self that could no longer deceive or entice. The denial of those energies was the unwitting denial of the deepest roots of selfhood - the same self which is one with God. This denial is difficult, but once done, the energies disappear and in their place is a blessed, divine stillness (p. 14)."



You might want to look over the links Derek provided, on the first page of this thread, which are summaries from two people who have attended BR's retreats, I think in 06. You'll see there her comments re: Jesus, i.e, her not finding Him, as an historical person, attractive as a source of devotion, as well as statements that do sound like Advaita or Quietism, such as starring at the Void, rather than a relational focus of her attention. She does tell her retreatants, in places, to avoid an inward-orientation of attention, but at other times seems to suggest this is inevitable and part of the process leading to the no-self state. She does speak of God as personal, even though, for her, the loss of self leaves Him beyond objects. However, she still uses the rosary to still her mind, admitting apparently to internal dialogue, which would imply a self-sense.

I have read her books several times over the years, and found her quite intelligent, but not really helpful in terms of spiritual direction. Her experience seems quite idiosyncratic to me, as it is neither closely akin to Advaita or Christian mystical accounts. When she says that John of the Cross went further than the unitive stage, she seems to be saying that her own life is now a kind of model for the rest of us immersed in an unwitting dillusion, of sorts. Yet, how this all happened for her was quite beyond her own doing, she says, which means each of us is left to him/herself in a basically uncharted, or unchartable, course.

I can somewhat relate to her notion of no-self from doing hospice work over the years. As people die, their sense of self seems to fade, or fall apart, but their personness becomes even stronger, not unlike the profound presence of personness in the eyes of an infant who lacks a self-identity. BR might share such a view, as she is quite her own person, and still relates, per the retreat report, to God as Trinity (the relational nature of persons is at least implied here). I think in one place, in one of her three books, she tells of having a friend whose child was mentally retarded, lacking a self-sense from the inability of the nervous system to sustain that process.

I also wonder as to her very early experiences, beginning about age five, and how these shaped her rather unique path later on in the monastery. Other than a few Hindu adepts, I've never heard of young children experiencing such profound kundalini arousals - to the point where self annihalation was feared. Hard to imagine that not having a major shaping effect on her development as a person at such a tender age when "self" is gradually being embodied.

Tim, I don't know if it's poor writing on my part or if what I've been saying (numerous times on this thread) just isn't making sense, as I have to keep raising the point again and again. Whatever the case, I thank you for your patience, and for your civility. Do hang in there with the discussion.

I'll try again. "Ego" and "Self" are psychological terms, and even though BR uses them somewhat idiosyncratically, she does qualify her meanings, especially in "What is Self?" But traditional Catholic mystical theology hasn't used that kind of language very much, and the terminology about "self" is all over the place. The more traditional language is philosophical -- about "soul" and "person." These terms do not equivocate with "self" or "ego." "Soul" refers to the basis of our individual creaturely existence; we are living, embodied souls. The human soul is immortal . . . spiritual . . . created by God and held in existence moment-by-moment. As spiritual, it is also an individual subject-of-attention, an "I" if you will. As an embodied spirit, it constitutes us as "individual" persons, and it is God who "speaks" us into existence as such -- individual persons. Psychological life (ego, self, unconscious) is our ordinary experience of our individual personhood, but it does not account for its deeper groundings in the soul itself, much less its origins in God.

So let me ask you and others who've read BR.
1. Does she seem to be saying that no-self means no more individual person? That's the impression I got, and as she nowhere addresses the issue of soul or person (in the more traditional, philosophical sense), what else is one to think?
(My response: no-self does not mean the end of individual personhood, only the end of the way "self" or consciousness was structured; henceforth, the inner energetic milieu is "blown out" and is thus transparent to the deeper Ground of Being or "apex of the soul," where we receive existence from God).
2. If there's no individual person around, then "who" went through that transformative process, remembered it, and wrote those books? Who dialogues with others about them?
(My response: The individual embodied soul/person, Bernadette Roberts, has gone through this process and written those books.)
3. Who is responsible for the operations of BR's faculties of intellect, memory, will, etc. If there's no person, then are we to believe that she is a passive vessel in whom the Word itself now expresses, and so everything she says and does should be regarded in the manner that we regard Christ's words and actions?
(My response: Bernadette Roberts is responsible for the exercising of her faculties and her behavior. Although the faculties are open and no longer converge on a self-image or sense of self, they are still the property of a person, Bernadette Roberts. She is the one who publishes articles to her web (then retracts them), decides to accept speaking invitations or rejects them, composes her responses to questions, then changes them, etc. Graced though her life may be, she is still capable of making mistakes, even sinning.)

The traditional understanding of theosis and beatific vision affirms the persistence of individual personhood, though not in the sense of being separate or over-and-against. Just as the cells in our bodies are individual cells, but live by the life of the body and for the body, so do/will we in the fullness of God's reign. Christ came to save individuals, who rejoice forever in his redemption. His resurrection and ascension reveal the persistence of individuality/personhood; Jesus of Nazareth lives on after the crucifixion (BR seemed to deny this in an exchange we had at a workshop). We do not "go away" in the spiritual life, but the life of our being becomes nourished by that of the True Vine, and we even come to participate in the divine "knowing".

It's my sense that BR is not speaking about ontological issues (soul, individuality, personhood) in her books, but about her experience of inner life. She's quite clear about what this has been for her, but the message she communicates resonates less with traditional theotic/beatific understandings than it does with eastern, enlightenment-oriented metaphysics. Her use of Christian language to account for her experience is understandable, given her strong commitment to the Christian mysteries, but there are, nonetheless, major disconnects with a number of Christian teachings. Additionally, she seems to consider her experience as clarifying and even paradigmatic for the human race, which is also highly problematic.

Hopefully, this all helps to clarify what I intended to express in my earlier post.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Phil,

From jasalerno:

quote:

"The revelation came through time progressively." So this is the Christian understanding.

Yes. Is that not so in our relationships with anyone . . . that we come to know them more and more through time, as they self-disclose more and more?

quote:

I'm still not convinced that Jesus is the only person who knows the Christ. I see the Christ as a revelation not a person, a title that belongs to Jesus because of his revelation not because he is the only Christ.

I'm not sure you understand what Christianity teaches on this and a number of other topics; it seems you're much more familiar with Hindu philosophy and theology. I don't say this to criticize, just to note what comes across.

In Christianity, Jesus is considered the Word-incarnate, and that is why we call him the Christ, or anointed one. Certainly, people outside of Judaism and Christianity have relationship with God, but none of these are incarnations of the Word -- not even the great Hindu avatars. There are numerous reasons why Christians hold to this exclusivist position, the main one being that Jesus alone has risen, and he alone has restored right relationship between humanity and God. Take some time to read up on these matters, especially since you have discovered a new relationship with God in Christ. Ultimately, there is a connection between one's spirituality and one's theology. Without some theological updating, one continues to understanding one's experiences in the light of earlier paradigms (i.e., to interpret Christianity through Hindu lenses). Maybe our discussion on Why Christianity? would be a good place to pursue some of those topics.

Jasalerno,

I think many mystics had the experiences of the Father, but I don't recall any particular passages, just St. Sister Faustina from my Polish playground.

And, not to compare my little experiences to the great Master, but it seems to be something of a kind:

How well I know that flowing spring
in black of night.

The eternal fountain is unseen.
How well I know where she has been
in black of night.

I do not know her origin.
None. Yet in her all things begin
in black of night.

I know that nothing is so fair
and earth and firmament drink there
in black of night.

I know that none can wade inside
to find her bright bottomless tide
in black of night.

Her shining never has a blur;
I know that all light comes from her
in black of night.

I know her streams converge and swell
and nourish people, skies and hell
in black of night.

The stream whose birth is in this source
I know has a gigantic force
in black of night.

The stream from but these two proceeds
yet neither one, I know, precedes
in black of night.

The eternal fountain is unseen
in living bread that gives us being
in black of night.

She calls on all mankind to start
to drink her water, though in dark,
for black is night.

O living fountain that I crave,
in bread of life I see her flame
in black of night.

I'd like to share some of my ideas that I had hard time getting rid of. I think now they were some obstacle to my fuller and deeper relationship with the Trinity.
They were formed mostly Thomas Keating, who, as I found out, was greatly influenced by Bernadette Roberts. Some of those ideas I gave up through deepening my knowledge of Christian theology and tradition, some of them I let go through reading discussions on Shalomplace, and some of them were got rid of directly by God through mystical experiences and visions.
Those are some of the ideas I had (maybe you can comment on some of those):

1. God is the unknown, nothingness, darkness, emptiness of which we can say or know nothing. He is so transcendent that we shouldn't think or speak about him, and we find him BEST in the complete silence, darkness, unknowing. When we find "someone" who has a form, it is not true God.

(Yes, God is mystery beyond everything, but not because he is empty, but because he is of another order of being. Through Jesus we come to know his inner nature and life which has a form and is actually not simple - the Trinity).

2. Love, devotion, adoration, holy fear, desire, all kinds of emotions and feelings that are called "bhakti" by the hindus are a phase, a stage in our spiritual life, which is transcended into pure, direct SEEING of God's unknowingness: from saguna to nirguna brahman. So if we feel something concrete about God, we're not really "there" yet.

(Love, devotion and desire are present in our experience of God and will be there in all eternity, because this is what relationship with a Person looks like. God isn't "nirguna" - without qualities. Without qualities can be our experience of God. And feelings in our friendships and love-relationships also aren't a "stage", are they?)

3.We have to get rid of the sense of separate self or of our thoughts to experience union with God or God's love.

(We can be in the contemplative union with or without the self sense, with or without thoughts. It's not important from my pov. And certainly we feel "related", so there must be some self or person that is relating to God)

4. "Christ" is some kind of absolute reality revealed by the man Jesus who became the Cosmic Christ through his resurrection and he is now less human, and more "cosmic" or "impersonal/transpersonal" now.

(The man Jesus is God, the Word, and "Christ" is His title. As the Word He is the cosmic ground of all being, and as Jesus Resurrected He is a Human transformed and present in everything with his Humanity.)


5. We are already united to God in every way we need to, so our spiritual growth is just becoming who we are and getting rid of the obstacle. There's nothing to be done - there's just need to see.

(This is said about the natural union with God through His essence-presence-power, but Christian theosis is about the union of wills, which comes through faith and Holy Spirit. There grace needed, but there's so much to be done on our part to grow in this grace and achieve the ever fuller union of our will with God's will).

7. Non-dual pure seeing without the sense of the separate self is the ultimate experience of God.

(It's an experience of God which is more metaphysical, impersonal, than relational, even though Christian mystic often had this. It's less satisfying than sweet contemplation and resting in His love. If someone knows the taste of contemplation, there's no possibility of choosing non-dual awareness over it - that's my opinion).


8. We pray to purify our mind, still our thoughts, we pray to make something with ourselves in order to realized the already present God's presence.

(We meditate to do that, but we pray to be in relationship. What would be the quality of our frienship, if I were so much engaged in trying to still my mind in order to listen to my friend, that I wouldn't remember to share my thoughts and feelings with him, and hear what he has to say about himself to me? Concentration is good in prayer, but we don't pray to concentrate - prayer is the expression of our desire to be with God).


Maybe it sounds like some cataphatic-fanatic recovering from Zen... But I still have my apophatic side - like I emphasized in my experiences of the Father and of the heart of the Trinity - it's total darkness to our reason, only love knows it. And the light of Christ's glory is so dazzling that the mind really sees nothing, but has to cover its face. So I don't even think that apophatic/cataphatic are two poles of one dimension. Somehow the more cataphatic God is to me, the more apophatic He becomes, since the more I see of Him, the less I know and understand.

The touch of God's love is very concrete and tangible, but at the same time you know that there is Someone who loves you so much and knows you through and through, but you cannot grasp the depths of this Someone in His touch. You don't touch. He touches. It's like kissing someone you love. It's so intimate, so direct, but you still wonder what is behind those beautiful eyes that look at you with so much love. Not emptiness, nothingess, pure being. A real person with desires and choices.

Phil,

for me what you write is very clear, and I think those questions do not pertain only to BR, but to all non-dual Christianity.

I have one thought about responsibility. In Zen it's often said that if you are spiritually mature, it is not YOU who acts, but MU or Big Mind acts through you spontaneously, and you, yourself, do nothing. But I think that even though there's a "feeling" or experience that things just happen spontaneously, it cannot mean that there's no person who makes choices, as some Zen teachers would claim.

REcently I've heard a Gestalt therapist who said that all those "it happened to me", "it happened by itself" are mostly due to the fact that many things we choose and do are non-verbal, and thus escape our verbal consciousness, so we don't take responsibility for them. We make a change, but we feel that the change somehow happened to us. I think it's a very good point here - Zen experience, and BR's experience are purely non-verbal, so there's a temptation to say that "I" don't do that, it just happens spontaneously, etc. But we have to resist the temptation and take responsibility.

Sometimes when I drive my car I react so quickly and precisely, without any consciousness or verbal component, that it feels that my body does it, not "me". But of course I make those choices behind the wheel, and I'm responsible for them before other people and before God. The problem is that after no-self experience we feel like there's no driver in the car, so to speak... But the driver is still there.
It's just that the non-existent self says that because it doesn't exist, it doesn't make choices...
Did you notice, by the way that Krishnamurti changed his way of writing his personal stuff over the years. In the earliest Notebook he wrote "one felt... one experienced.. there was meditation going on..."
In the later "Diary" he wrote "You were walking through the woods and you felt..." And in his diaries just before his death he started to use "I" - I walked, I saw... I always liked it, as if he became finally free to take responsibility for Jiddu Krishnamurti.

These are wonderful insights, reflection and poetry you share with us, Mt. I'm going to link a couple of other threads to your post above with the 8 points, as I think they're very clarifying. I think if I had not had good philosophical and theological formation, I could have easily slipped into some of those pitfalls.

It is true that one can learn skills in such manner than we perform them effortlessly and un-self-consciously. Your example of driving a car is a good one; when I'm "in the zone," I play golf like that. There's a "knowing" that seems to inform everything. But this all comes from practice, and there's a sense in which B.R. is saying the same about life -- that life in union with God as a self is a training that enables one to eventually live un-self-consciously. That all makes sense, and is, indeed, experienced as a matter of course in the unitive stage as well. But in none of these cases would we say that the individual person has disappeared. Far from it!

Maybe to say this all more directly (though I think I've done so several times): individual personhood is not the same thing as self. It is very likely that death will strip us of everything we now know and experience as consciousness; there will be no more energies above or below the neck, and no sense of self drawing from energies of any kind. Ego and self, then, can be understood as the energetic manifestation of our individual personhood in this state of embodiment. But ego and self do not account for nor sum up the deeper, metaphysical roots of our individuality. Intellect, memory and will have a deeper grounding in the spiritual soul itself, which is an image of God, Who also possesses intellect, memory and will. God is Personal -- Hyper-Personal! -- and we, as humans, are images of God, persons as well. The faculties are the property of some-one, not some-thing, and so we are always to infer the presence of this individual person, even in eternity. That we come to participate fully in the divine life does not imply the loss of personhood; the resurrection affirms the opposite. Rather, we live by means of a new Life, Energy, Spirit, etc., but we are very much still "there" as one who has been gifted with Love and Relationship. With God, we live forever and rejoice in God's goodness and greatness.

Hell, then, would be the opposite of all this -- the exercising of one's personhood and its faculties in full opposition to love and relationship. That we can do so certainly "proves" the reality of individuality as well, and it's likely that some sinning goes on just to reassure ourselves that we really are individuals. Eventually, we learn that our deepest freedom is established not by saying "no," but "yes" to love and life. We are no less individual for doing so, but more.

Mt, Thank you for taking the time to describe the beliefs you had which you no longer have and also the poem from St. Sister Faustina. I find it odd that that there aren't more Christians that do know the Father.

I'd like to comment on your past beliefs

1. God is the unknown, nothingness, darkness, emptiness of which we can say or know nothing. He is so transcendent that we shouldn't think or speak about him, and we find him BEST in the complete silence, darkness, unknowing. When we find "someone" who has a form, it is not true God.

I do prefer to believe, as I said previously, that before creation God is impersonal, can only be known in contemplation, and doesn't become personal until the Trinity arises. I don't think it's a no no to speak about this aspect of God, it's just almost impossible to do so because it is beyond the mind. As far as God appearing in form, it's not so much that this isn't the true God, but it is God manifesting himself for our benefit. To know God only as form is not knowing him in his totality. Jesus stopped appearing to me in form because he knew I didn't need this anymore.

(Yes, God is mystery beyond everything, but not because he is empty, but because he is of another order of being. Through Jesus we come to know his inner nature and life which has a form and is actually not simple - the Trinity).

2. Love, devotion, adoration, holy fear, desire, all kinds of emotions and feelings that are called "bhakti" by the hindus are a phase, a stage in our spiritual life, which is transcended into pure, direct SEEING of God's unknowingness: from saguna to nirguna brahman. So if we feel something concrete about God, we're not really "there" yet.

I prefer to know all aspects of God, both his unmanifest and manifest aspects. I don't refute the fact that that aspect of God that is in relationship with us is a loving God. That is certainly my experience with Christ. It's just that when we know that aspect of God that is all inclusive, there is no other to have a relationship with. God as the Father is personal, whereas God before the Trinity could not be personal. To whom would he be personal to.

(Love, devotion and desire are present in our experience of God and will be there in all eternity, because this is what relationship with a Person looks like. God isn't "nirguna" - without qualities. Without qualities can be our experience of God. And feelings in our friendships and love-relationships also aren't a "stage", are they?)

3.We have to get rid of the sense of separate self or of our thoughts to experience union with God or God's love.

Depends on which unity you are speaking of here. The unity of knowing each person of Trinity (knowing the Son in our center) does not require relinquishing our sense of self, whereas knowing the Trinity as One where I personally see the Trinity as each person super-imposed, there is no communication just stillness, but a sense of three as one. But, before the Trinity arises there can be no sense of self because to know that you have a self you have to have something to compare yourself to and that's impossible without a Trinity. That's why the Trinity exists.

(We can be in the contemplative union with or without the self sense, with or without thoughts. It's not important from my pov. And certainly we feel "related", so there must be some self or person that is relating to God)

4. "Christ" is some kind of absolute reality revealed by the man Jesus who became the Cosmic Christ through his resurrection and he is now less human, and more "cosmic" or "impersonal/transpersonal" now.

I believe that Jesus has the ability to be what best suits his purpose at the time. Since his mission is to continue to help people on earth, he needs to be able to communicate with them.

(The man Jesus is God, the Word, and "Christ" is His title. As the Word He is the cosmic ground of all being, and as Jesus Resurrected He is a Human transformed and present in everything with his Humanity.)


5. We are already united to God in every way we need to, so our spiritual growth is just becoming who we are and getting rid of the obstacle. There's nothing to be done - there's just need to see.

I agree with you on this one. I do think we can have our will so aligned with God that we surrender our will completely so that we become possessed by him and their is nothing left of us.

(This is said about the natural union with God through His essence-presence-power, but Christian theosis is about the union of wills, which comes through faith and Holy Spirit. There grace needed, but there's so much to be done on our part to grow in this grace and achieve the ever fuller union of our will with God's will).

7. Non-dual pure seeing without the sense of the separate self is the ultimate experience of God.

I believe it is important to have this experience, but we cannot know totality without becoming individuals. In order to know love, relationship, we must have a self. I like the taste of both.

(It's an experience of God which is more metaphysical, impersonal, than relational, even though Christian mystic often had this. It's less satisfying than sweet contemplation and resting in His love. If someone knows the taste of contemplation, there's no possibility of choosing non-dual awareness over it - that's my opinion).


8. We pray to purify our mind, still our thoughts, we pray to make something with ourselves in order to realized the already present God's presence.

I agree with you here, but sometimes prayer leads to meditation. I think true peace of mind has to be spontaneous, no trying. Then we can listen peacefully to our friend and communicate with him without interference from our old egoic self.

(We meditate to do that, but we pray to be in relationship. What would be the quality of our frienship, if I were so much engaged in trying to still my mind in order to listen to my friend, that I wouldn't remember to share my thoughts and feelings with him, and hear what he has to say about himself to me? Concentration is good in prayer, but we don't pray to concentrate - prayer is the expression of our desire to be with God).

Phil,

I don't consider myself an expert on Hinduism or Christianity. There are so many varying interpretations and beliefs in both religions that lately I have a tendency to go by the revelations and experiences I have received by grace and the understanding that comes to me when I do read scripture and not other people's interpretations, since no one seems to totally agree.

I once had a revelation that the word in written form has lost some of its relevancy, freshness, and it picks up the imperfections of the writer of the interpreter, and every time a new version comes out it looses some of its essence. I pray for the day when we become so pure of heart, so surrendered to his will, so free of the self that there is nothing in the way of knowing the truth. Then scripture will become a museum piece.

I know that Christians believe that Jesus is the only incarnation of the word. I believe that he is the incarnation of the word but he has appeared on earth by other names.

It is evident to me that Jesus is not the only person to have ascended. How about Enoch, Elijah, and many Hindus.

I don't believe we were born sinners, but because we follow the example of our fathers and ancestors and because of the times we live in, we fell into sin because we were no longer innocent. We came under the law. I know the bible says that Jesus had to die as the lamb of God for our atonement. Under the law atonement is accomplished through the shedding of blood, but where there is no law there is no transgression because love fulfills the law. It seems to me that we just need to repent and let love cleanse us, totally surrender our being to God, receive the HS and awaken to God's totality. Abraham and Moses were in right relationship with God before Jesus walked the earth, but they did have to love God and surrender to his will. Unconditional love in its many forms can accomplish this saving grace. Even love that you believe is unconditional even though it may not be.

I received the HS outside of Christianity as I have said. So, how can it be that only Jesus can make us right with God? Don't get me wrong. I love Jesus with all my heart. I chose him because of who he is.

I do believe it is the love of Christ that saves us, and I believe the Christ manifests in more than one form. But we must do the work of the cross. Belief alone is not enough. To me it wasn't so much Jesus death that saves us, but his love. His death on the cross shows us what we must do to follow him. It shows us who Jesus was and if we become like him, we will be saved.

To me, Jesus special gift was his teaching in his life as example. Follow me he said. However, others have taught as the Christ, using a different name, a different language, a different personality, a different teaching suited to the times.

I believe the Only Begotten is the perfect image, the Son of God manifesting in all of us when we shine forth in all his glory.

I respect you as an individual in the body of Christ as we all have our part to play in this leela, this play of life; and I thank you again for your book and appreciate your desire to help others. As BR said, at some point we need to go it alone. I still appreciate others opinions, but only to help clarify my own understanding sort of like a sounding board.

God bless all of you!

Jasalerno,

thank you for your comments. I can relate to many of them, since I had - I suppose - similar views as you do now. You probably read Meister Eckhart? Your beliefs with regard to the Trinity and the impersonal aspect of God are very much like his own. It also reminds me of Willigis Jaeger's teaching and Ken Wilber, of course. Not to deny that your beliefs are based on your personal experience, of course.

I just would like to clarify that in the point 6 I didn't mean "that we become possessed by him and there's nothing left of us". I think it happens in a very real way when we follow the metaphysical path, and I experienced the moments of so total loss of self-sense that there is no relationship, no self, no nothing - and what remains is for me an impersonal aspect of God. But in my recent experiences I start to discover for myself a different affair with God. I came to believe and experience that we never lose our freedom and choice with God - He shows me over and over again that I'm very much there, and I can agree on certain things with him or say no. Like e.g. in the case of the visions that brought me pain - when I asked him to stop, the visions became more rare and more bearable. For me this is a paradox, what I feel now, that I'm very much joined with Christ and my will becomes one with His will, but at the same time, I feel very free, very responsible for myself, and very, well, "distinct" from God as a separate source of decisions.
I used to imagine union with God as a sort of a situation when your car starts to slide down the hill and your unable to stop it, that we just lose ourselves and - off we go one with God... But now I see it differently. He is so respectful of our will, that he asks us many times to reaffirm our choice of him. Of course, I feel now that it's not possible for me to turn away from him, say "no" and break the spiritual betrothal - I would have to deny my very self to do that - but even though the union is deep, I still know and experience my freedom. I guess in the spiritual marriage wills are united in an unbreakable way, but still this is rather an ongoing reaffirmation of our deepest choice, than some sort of being out of it and nothing-is-left-of-me situation. Phil, would you agree?

Of course, it may feel like we're not there, immersed in God, but I my feeling is that union with God, if it is a relationship of free subjects, must have this psychological component of autonomy-and-belonging at the same time, that it's not something like symbiosis with a mother, when we cannot tell ourselves and our needs apart from mother's needs and emotions.

These are just my observations coming from last couple of weeks when I experienced deep transformation. I don't know what is yet to come, and maybe I'm wrong, but now God shows me that my personality and decisions, and freedom will be intact for all eternity, because this is what he values the most - freedom of choice, because if there be love, there must be freedom of choice. He risked sin to leave us freedom to love, and we sinned. But we also can love him back.

About the Father - I think all Christians have access to the Father through Christ, through sacraments, even though not in contemplation, but by faith. Jesus said to Philip - you have known me so long, and you don't know that I'm in the Father, and the Father in me, so whoever sees me, sees the Father also? I think many Christians have a deep relationship with the Father, I just couldn't give quick examples. Anyone on the forum?


(Btw, the poem I quoted isn't by Faustina, it's a poem by Saint John of the Cross)

Jasalerno (and Tim F, and others ),

A question popped into my mind when I was reading your description of the impersonal aspect of God "before the Trinity", as you to call it.
You said that God manifests in his personal aspect, even though he's impersonal before that, for our sake (clearly he has to manifest himself TO someone). I wonder - if the impersonal oneness is prior to personality of God - what would be the source of the impulse to manifest? why God "decides" to manifest if he's not a person before manifestation? how can he have an intention of our benefit? St. Paul says that he chose us before the creation of the world - but if before the creation he wasn't personal, how could he love us and chose us. For me there's some kind of misunderstanding here. If we really believe that God manifested from some perfect, unmanifested oneness, than:

1. IT (God) did it automatically and not freely, without an intention (here we have Plotinus idea of emanation of the Mind from the One).

2. There was some freedom, intelligence, intention and choice in this perfect oneness, but those qualities are exactly what makes God a Person(s).

If the 1. is true, than we have Buddhism, since Emptiness has not intention of our happiness, because it doesn't know us at all, It just creates spontaneously, and personal God is a random outcome of this impersonal spontaneity.

If the 2. is true, than it leads us to Rahner's theology, namely that we encounter God in our experience as oneness, darkness, mystery, possibly without a self and relation, but then this Emptiness freely opens to us revealing its Personal nature. In this case the Personal aspect it prior to the impersonal, hidden and veiled by the impersonal, because behind the impersonal manifestation of the personal there's still a personal intention and choice to manifest.

My views were the second example. I believed that God is absolute oneness, so we see Him in his purity and we cannot have a relationship with him, but I believed that "behind" this Emptiness and Oneness, there must be some intention, love, intelligence completely other than we can imagine, because otherwise I wouldn't want such "God", because it would be some impersonal Being uninterested in me in the first place. But I thought for a long time that the impersonal non-duality was the highest experience of the Personal God. I'm still wondering why...



Ah, and Jasalerno, in the thread "Dark Night of the Soul" there's some sharing about no-self experience in which there was a lot of pain because it was impossible to relate to God anymore. You said that Jesus doesn't manifest to you in relationship or form anymore - am I right to suppose that you don't experience suffering because of that? you sound rather satisfied and fulfilled in that state. That would be the opposite of my personal experience.

jasalerno, thank you for clarifying for us your position on Christianity and Hinduism. I'm glad you didn't take my feedback above as a criticism, for it wasn't intended that way, nor was it meant as a judgment of your spirituality and commitment to Christ. You do share beliefs about God, sin, salvation, etc. that go far beyond lessons you can draw from your experiences, however. Eg, in your posts above:

I do prefer to believe, as I said previously, that before creation God is impersonal, can only be known in contemplation, and doesn't become personal until the Trinity arises.

I know that Christians believe that Jesus is the only incarnation of the word. I believe that he is the incarnation of the word but he has appeared on earth by other names.

It is evident to me that Jesus is not the only person to have ascended. How about Enoch, Elijah, and many Hindus.

I don't believe we were born sinners, but because we follow the example of our fathers and ancestors and because of the times we live in, we fell into sin because we were no longer innocent.

To me, Jesus special gift was his teaching in his life as example.

I received the HS outside of Christianity as I have said. So, how can it be that only Jesus can make us right with God?

Those are all beliefs that go beyond what your personal experiences can verify, and they all seem to derive from misunderstandings you have about what Christians believe about God's nature, the incarnation, original sin, the indwelling Spirit, etc. You also seem to sidestep any duty to "update" your understanding by studying, say, the Catholic catechism: There are so many varying interpretations and beliefs in both religions that lately I have a tendency to go by the revelations and experiences I have received . . . With all due respect, Christian core beliefs are hardly a "muddle," only I'm not sure you know what these are nor why they are held. Additionally: I once had a revelation that the word in written form has lost some of its relevancy, freshness, and it picks up the imperfections of the writer of the interpreter, and every time a new version comes out it looses some of its essence. A revelation that moves you to disregard the relevancy of scripture: what makes you think that one came from the Spirit?

The general theological perspective and spirituality you're describing is much closer to Christian gnosticism or Hinduism (which does regard Jesus as an avatar) than to the apostolic tradition that brought us the New Testament and the Christian church. If that's where you want to be, fine with me, really, and your participation here is welcomed, whatever the case. I hope you're willing to re-examine some of these convictions as I do think there's a congruence between orthodoxy and orthopraxis. As you obviously value the latter, then I hope you'll come to see the connection. Are you willing to dialogue about all this?

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