Preface
THE SPIRIT OF CONTEMPLATION
“What I tell you in the dark, you must speak in the light.”
Matthew 10:27
“…there is nothing hidden that will not be seen, and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light.”
Luke, 18:17
“You must become as little children.”
Among the most beautiful words of Jesus are those that say before we can enter under the Rule of Heaven we must become like children. Like all rich symbols, the image of adults becoming like children evokes layers and layers of meanings. One of them is that we must become small. Childhood in an adult demands the lowering of status that is the sign of humility. We become like children when we identify ourselves with none of the levels of status we acquire as adults, including the status of being an adult.
Becoming like a child also implies becoming dependent or losing our independence. Any sense of independence we have is an illusion. All material independence is relative. We may be momentarily “independent” financially. This “independence” we can easily lose, and, however long it lasts, it never lasts forever. Once we face the truth of the illusion of material independence, the collapse of the illusion of spiritual independence follows.
Spiritual independence is the illusion that the energy or spirit that sustains all our actions and so our very lives belongs to us. If we finally see that the things that appeared to excite our spirits are only relative goods, goods relative to an absolute good, then we also see that our energy is relative to these goods and these goods are relative to, or dependent on, the absolute. We ourselves are spiritual dependents of this absolute.
Finally, becoming like children means attaining as adults the purity of mind natural to the innocent infant. This is the hardest of all the childlike qualities to reach. Our minds are filled with words, thoughts, and reasoning processes. All of them we must silence before we can become like children and enter the Kingdom of Heaven. This is why the final stage, just before the fulfillment of the contemplative life, is one of inner stillness, total detachment, emptiness, nothingness and affliction, a void, a dark night. It is also why we need so long a period of meditation to prepare the way. Meditation must clear out every obstacle, empty us, and straighten each curve of the mind that has been twisted by the “straight” lines of logic.
The need for this childlike purification makes the process of moving to integrative knowledge so very hard for intellectuals. Their minds are full of terms that they have been told again and again in their training are the key to expanding their understanding and improving their lives. These words represent the ideas that contain the knowledge that is the foundation of every profession. Years of labor erode great canyons of deep reasoning that twist around to bypass the boulders of life. Intellectuals take great pride in, and identify strongly with, how well they develop and use their powers of critical reasoning. It is, therefore, not only their training that they must overcome but also the identification of themselves with it. They must transcend their very ego. The path upward through meditation is truly like the death of who we think we are, and it is the most profound death to intellectuals who most identify not with purity of mind but with intricacy of thought.
Above all, the whole purpose of thinking must be reversed. All worldly learning seeks to build up: to multiply and revise words, to construct theories, to take possession of powerful tools in formulas that allow us to rule the world. Spiritual education inverts this. Where spiritual education uses words, it is only to oppose them with other words and end in deadlock. Where it uses symbolic logic, it is to repudiate it and show how it gets nowhere. Instead of gaining a sense of power over the world, it ends in confusion and weakness before the world. In short, it looks like the utter failure of the intellect as it is organized and known in outer learning.
Nowhere is the dilemma of the intellectuals so stupendously revealed as in their attempts to develop a theology. “Theology” is, literally, “discourse (logos) on God (Theos).” Theology is exactly the subject where discourse must be of a kind diametrically opposed to that of modern “logos” as pursued endlessly in “fields” like “biology,” “physiology,” “psychology,” or any other “-logy.” Discourse on “Theos” must be one of emptying the mind of words, theories, and “proofs.” It must be one of mortifying the mind. The closer we get to understanding the Source of life, the closer we come to experiencing the death of our human science. It is hard to imagine anything more absurd than rational “proofs” for the existence of God. We can be certain those who rest their “faith” in God on rational proofs have no faith in God at all but only in their own, subjective, human powers of reason.
Even more catastrophic, if that is conceivable, is the situation where we base our whole sense of God and Heaven on “feelings.” Reliance on emotions is as unstable, unpredictable, and as regularly violent as are emotions themselves. They are the antithesis of the eternal. To be full of feelings for “God” is to leave no room at all for God. Absolute disintegration of the human soul is the fate of those who combine these two false faiths. Moreover, scientists who have faith in reason and proofs as far as dealing with the world is concerned and who have faith in their feeling of immense mystery they call the “universe” or “God” are living disasters.
All parts of this trilogy, The Science of Life, need to be approached with a double awareness. The method it uses is, on the one hand, a verbal, reflective discourse that appeals to the intellect. It is, on the other hand, not only different from the prevailing method of using the intellect but also directly opposed to it. The Science of Life does not accumulate words and theories as the key to understanding. A reader will not benefit from it by exercising a “critical mind” toward it and its logic as the reading progresses. It is designed itself to be a criticism of ordinary life and ordinary patterns of thought. These prevailing patterns cannot penetrate its gaze. It is designed to lead them to confusion. It is a criticism of criticism and so must stand outside criticism. Readers must seek to boost up their powers of comprehension by stretching them to contain apparent inconsistencies and contradictions in the writing instead of critically choosing sides where there are contradictions and seeking to “prove” or “disprove” one side or the other. This takes a special spirit of passive seeking. We must listen in this spirit from the start to benefit spiritually from any reading.
What I have recorded in this text are not logical conclusions nor are they mere empirical observations. They are sightings. It is as if in the beginning I saw something far off in the distance, and, without my moving closer, it becomes clearer and clearer. It is in front of me, and I see it face to face, but is at a distance and only gradually does it become more distinct. I have had a very strong sense over the years that the goal is not to reach a point of absolute clarity but instead that I will keep progressing indefinitely. Consequently, none of what I say here is other than a snapshot frozen moment of a movement. I ask the reader neither to accept nor reject what is written but to join me in the process of seeking to see better.
Purity of Intent
When writing of so high subjects, ones you can reach only by theology, your intention must be pure. Purity of intention is hard find, though, and the traps and snares that deceive the seeker are numerous and complex. The two major elements of intention are purpose and motive. Of these, purity of purpose is the easier to attain. My purpose here is to explore and express knowledge of the single standard of good that alone can bring integration to life. The proper name for this ultimate good is God. This endeavor, however, demands the greatest humility since accurate knowledge of this subject is impossible as long as we still dwell in this world and since every expression of whatever truth we might approach is flawed. No language can contain truth, though it may point to it. Truth is found not in letters but in spirit.
Purity of motive is still more elusive. Motive refers to why we pursue a purpose. It is what moves us to act. Who but God can know ultimately what motives we have. God is the final source of all life and so of all our motives, but rarely if ever do we receive the divine inspiration in purity. We can glibly say “Thy Kingdom come” and “Thy will be done” over and over with as much sincerity as we can muster, yet who knows the divine kingdom and the divine will other than the Divine. Who knows, therefore, when they have departed from and replaced the purity of motive in representing the Divine that is the source and original of all our motives.
Clearly, motive is not divine if it focusses on accumulating wealth. Then what moves us is obviously sullied by a worldly concept. Wealth, however, can take more forms than mere money. The wealth of fame or the wealth of having a fine reputation for wisdom and holiness or even the wealth of self-satisfaction in our knowledge—all are more seductive demonic motives than cash. Even the desire for a reward that is not earthly but heavenly is still a great distortion of the divine motive. It is a motive still conditioned by human definitions of good; it is not the Good itself.
All these considerations would paralyze me as they would anyone taking up this subject were it not for two things. The first is that all the writing I have ever done has been under a command. I write not because I choose to do so but because I am ordered to do so. The strange thing is that I do not know ahead of time what it is that I am supposed to write. On the best of occasions, an inspiring subject comes to me, and the writing flows from it. On other occasions—definitely inferior—my words are more directed, though the original inspiration is no less exterior to me. It is within me but beyond me. Still more strange is that I have never been commanded to seek publication for what I have written, but merely to write it. On the other hand, no command has forbidden publication when opportunities for it have fallen into my lap. The writing I am inspired to do is meant to be read, but by whom and under what form is a complete mystery.
The second thing involves my own incapacity to judge. No human can judge anyone’s purity of intention including their own. It would be equally arrogant to deny purity as to affirm it. This denial would also be based on human definitions and natural knowledge. Thus, I must act by faith, recognizing the possibility of unseen impurity and yet trusting in God to expose it where it exists. It is certain that the paralysis that can come from doubt is ungodly. God exposes sin to us only in the fruits of our acts. Divine judgment follows upon our actions. Action and experience are the path to correction and betterment. Moreover, even products generated by impure intent God can appropriate and use for divine purposes. God may bring to the reader a purity of spirit and wisdom lacking in the writer.
