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- The Jesus Prayer - Continued
CONTEMPLATION,
MYSTICISM AND THE JESUS PRAYER
This study will
address two principle themes in the history of human and thought and Christian theology
and spirituality: Contemplation and Mysticism. Mysticism means union with God through
love. Contemplation means looking with love
upon God. The Jesus Prayer unites us with God
by calling upon the Lord Jesus with loving attention.
Everything we say here about Contemplation and Mysticism will be a study of
the Jesus Prayer as an act of Contemplation and as an experience of mysticism.
STARTING DEFINITIONS
We will develop careful and more complete definitions as we proceed but we have to
begin with some simple idea of what we are talking about. So let us start by saying that Contemplation
means looking or beholding with the eye of the mind. Two
examples: Think of a triangle. Or, right now, use your eyes and take mental note of color
of the rug on the floor of this room. In the
first example, the triangle, you gazed with your mind upon a mental image an idea
inside your mind. In the second example,
that of the rug on the floor, you fixed your physical and mental gaze upon an existing
being outside your mind. This
distinction between contemplating mental thoughts (like triangles, ideas, forms and
essences) and contemplating real things that exist outside the mind needs to be kept in
mind as we study the history of contemplation and mysticism. Again and again we will see that those who spoke
of mysticism and contemplation failed to observe this difference. As a result, there is an immense amount of
confusion in the literature.
As an opening statement, let us say that Mysticism means the pursuit of
conscious union with God, or the verbal description of the experience of union with God. The first is an event in the personal life of
the mystic. The second is an intellectual activity that tries to clothe the experience in
concepts and words. An example of the first
would be: The experience of a Christian when she or is visited by grace with an
extraordinarily vivid impression of the Presence and Love of God. An example of the second would be The activity
of Julian of Norwich thinking about and writing down her (previous) experience of God in
the Crucified Jesus.
The two words, Contemplation and Mysticism, have become formidably esoteric. They seem dangerous close to heresy and insanity. Yet, in everyday reality, every human being knows
(contemplates) and loves (is united with) other things and people. God has revealed God’s Self in a supernatural
light to believers and the Divine Spirit has infused into them a Love that unites us in a
unique manner to God. Therefore, all
Christians-- including you and me—all of us are contemplatives and mystics.
PLATONIC CONTEMPLATION
In Platonism and
Christian Platonism the human person is more or less identified with the faculty of
intellectual knowledge or contemplation. They
called that faculty the nous” (nous), which
is translated “mind” or “intellect”.
Christians in the biblical tradition who are critical of the Platonic
view insist that the whole person, composed of body-soul-spirit, is the agent of
intellectual knowledge and contemplation. The
embodied person, not the isolated mind, has the spiritual ability to know. The body is essential to the person who knows and
contemplates by means of its spiritual components.
While the Platonic (and Neo-Platonic) interpretation separates the
spiritual power of contemplative knowledge from the body-person in whom it resides, the
biblical understanding sees the spirit and the soul with their spiritual activities as
residing in the body person. My intellect
does not know. I know. And “I” means myself composed of body,
soul and spirit.
Already we see the
origin and outline of the essentially dis-incarnational aspect of Platonism and Platonist
Christianity. The body is a non-essential.
Platonists have called the body “inferior,” “lower”, and
“evil,” They have considered it to be an impediment to contemplation and a
“prison” of the soul.
It was considered a
great compliment to say of Plotinus that he was “ashamed” of having a body. This devaluation of the body, which still has deep
roots in Christian thought, is the very antithesis of the divine glorification of the
embodied person. God’s revelation in
Christ shows us God taking on a mortal body just like ours and then refusing to let it
decay in death but raising it up in a glorified state for eternal impassible life.
When we reflect on
the object of Platonic contemplation it confirms our perception that for these people
“bodies” are obstacles in the way, useless and detrimental to true human well
being.
The object of
Platonic knowledge and contemplation is the intelligible world of the forms. Forms are ideas, ideal, thoughts, and concepts
that we do not know with our senses. We know
heat or cold by feeling it in our bodies. We
know truth, beauty, and goodness by contemplating their forms with our intellect (nous).
Platonic discipline
involves withdrawing our love and attention from the “outer world” of bodies and
fleeing into the “inner world” of the mind where we can contemplate the forms. This means moving away from interaction with
“bodies” in the world and retreating into your inner self, your nous, and
there seeking to contemplate the form (idea) of the Good with Plato or the form (idea) of
the One with Plotinus. In one sentence: the
object of Platonic contemplation is thought in the mind.
The object of contemplation in the biblical understanding is God really
existing outside of our thoughts in the midst of the physical world of bodies, even in the
midst of our own person, body-soul-spirit.
- Augustine, in a passage of his autobiography, uses the literary figure of a conversation with the body-creatures in the physical world. As he seeks God, he goes to each one of them (like the sea, the mountains, and the sun) and they tell him “Look Higher” for God. That is certainly true in the sense that God is above all creation. Yet, we should not be led into Platonisms disvaluing of material creation, This “Look Higher” is a Platonist telling us to look away from creatures and go beyond bodies. Because of the incarnation and resurrection, every body creature is filled with God in a new way, beyond the ubiquitous immanence of God’s presence by creation. God has made the created body God’s temple and chosen dwelling place. More than that, God has established a kind of supernatural symbiosis with the graced body. God lives God’s life in them. Jesus Risen has brought all things together into unity within Himself. Now in grace, created bodies have their being and live their lives within the being and life of God in the Risen Jesus. Reborn in grace, human bodies (that is, persons), and all other bodies by implication and involvement are the place of contemplation. Christians of this conviction contemplate God in the temple of His Body—including all the material bodies redeemed by Christ and made one with Him. This is a far cry from a platonic flight from bodies into the thoughts of the mind.
PLATONIC MYSTICISM
Under the heading of
Platonic “mysticism” we will reflect on the idea of union with God that
we find in Platonism.
First of all, it is
not the human person (indivisible composite of body, soul, and spirit) that is united with
God. Only the intellect (nous) is
united with God.
Neo-Platonists hold
that knowledge unites the knower and the known.
But remember, in the Platonist understanding, we do not know bodies;
we know forms (ideas). When a Platonist knows
“the form of the Good” or a Neo-Platonist knows “the form of the One”
that knowledge unites the contemplative with the object of contemplation. As a critic of this theory, I say that
contemplating the forms does indeed unite the knower with those forms. The union, however, is not between the knower and
the Good or the One and certainly not with God. The
union is that of the knower with his or her own idea of the Good or the One.
In Neo-Platonic
mysticism, the contemplative is united with the thought that is being contemplated. Platonism mistakes our thought of the Good for the
Good that really exists outside of our thoughts. The
Platonist contemplates thoughts in the mind (nous). Christians can also practice Platonic
contemplation. Contemplatives in the biblical
tradition, however, contemplate divine things that exist outside the thoughts of our mind.
PLATONIC DUALISM
In his early years Plato studies with the Pythagoreans. The Pythagorean school
had been influenced by itinerant spiritual teachers, Yogis, from India. They incorporated some Hindu ideas into
their system, notably, dualism of body and soul. This
seems to be the original source of that dualism in Plato, although Plato develops it
differently than do the Hindu Yogis.
Plato, and Christian Platonists like Dionysius (pseudo Areopagite) in the Greek
Church and Augustine in the Latin Church always denigrate the body, sexuality, and women. The body is not an essential part of the person. It is passible and the seat of the passions which
impede contemplation. It is mortal. It is a burden. The more one is involved with the actions of the
body (your own body and other bodies) the less one is involved with the life of the mind (nous). The body plays no part in human happiness and
fulfillment. The body imprisons the mind (nous), weighs
it down, and defiles it.
Christian Platonists, enlightened by faith, do not go so far as to call the body evil or filthy. However, since they think of the body as something other than their true selves, they ignore it or they treat it as an opponent of the soul, or they tend to consider it inferior to the mind (soul, or spirit). In critical contrast, the biblical tradition does not think of the body or the soul (spirit) as something separate from the person. Body and soul can be thought of separately, but the human person cannot exist other than as an incarnate spirit. Platonic comparisons between the corporeal and spiritual aspects of a person are based on the assumption that what is thought is real.
Christians in the biblical tradition do not
oppose body and soul as if they were two separate things.
They hold body and soul to be ideas representing mental
aspects of the indivisible human person. The
ideas of body and soul have no existence outside the mind. The unique indivisible person is what exists
outside our thoughts. The comparison of
the soul as “above” or “better” than the body is not a
comparison of things that exist in the world but of thoughts that exist only in the mind.
PLATONIC SEXISM
Human suffering
beyond calculation has fallen upon human beings because people have esteemed themselves,
their bodies, and their sexuality in these Platonic categories. For the past three millennia at least, males have
dominated Western society. In
patriarchal society Platonist rejection of the body has led inevitably to the moral
exaltation of celibacy. When males strive for
fulfillment and happiness platonically conceived as mental contemplation, females appear
as “temptations” leading men to become involved in the gross life of the body. Women now become the downfall of men by
drawing them away from the contemplation of the Good into the vile pleasures of the body.
PLATONIC INTELLECTUALISM
Plato believed that
people who arrived at the knowledge of the forms were better than the lower classes who
live sense information and by impulse of the passions.
As the mind should rule the body, so the achieved intellectual should rule
those who minds (nous) are less
developed. Society should be ruled and
governed by Philosopher Kings—those who have seen with their mind (nous) the form
of the Good.
Plato also believed
that knowledge makes a person morally good. If
a person is educated so as to know what is morally good, the person will do the good
thing. Therefore if you come to believe, as
Plato and his followers believed, that you have superior knowledge, than you have a
prevailing right to the accomplishment of your will, even by forceful means if necessary.
The communist
experiment of the 20th century was a Platonic project. Those who saw the form of the Good, that is, the
communist leaders who knew what was best for human beings, imposed their vision with
messianic fervor upon their subjects. Hundreds
of millions of people were put to death as a necessary means the ideal end: universal
prosperity and equality. God save us from
Platonic idealists! They can be unspeakably
cruel while enjoying a good conscience because they only do what is required by the form
(idea) of the “Good” they see in their minds.
CONTEMPLATION, MYSTICISM, AND
THE JESUS PRAYER
The agent of
Christian contemplation is the person, not simply the Platonic mind or intellect (nous). The Christian contemplative contemplates by
exercising the mind. The mind is an aspect of
the person just as the body is an aspect of the person.
A person has the power to know things that exist. It comes into that knowledge when it is in some
way acted upon by another. The sun shines in
the eyes, the rain falls on the face, and the gardenias send their aroma into the
nostrils. God makes God’s light shine in
our hearts. In all these cases we know
what we experience. After we know by
pre-reflective experience, we reflectively think about what we know. We add thought to
thought. Will load our minds with thoughts
about what we know. Now the thoughts
themselves can become objects of our attention. We
can know things and we can know thoughts. We
can know the gardenia while we are experiencing it and later on when we are not in the
presence of the flower we can know the thought of the gardenia that resides permanently in
our mind.
The Jesus Prayer,
simply stated, is a freely chosen conscious act of loving.
In this act of holy and loving attention the created person knows and
loves the Uncreated Person. The human person
expresses this loving attention by calling to the Divine Person by Name. Any name referring to the Divine
Person may be used. The formula in which the
Name is invoked my be longer (15 words or so) or it may be shorter (Less than five words,
or even just one word such as “Jesus”, or “Lord”).
THE JESUS PRAYER AS PRAYER
Christians address
God from the world and from one’s own heart as the world and the heart appear to
God. God has freely chosen to glorify
human beings and the entire material creation that goes with it. The glory that shall be is beyond human thought
and imagination. By God’s revelation we
know that it is but we do not know what the Glory is. Even in our ignorance, we can say some things
about it. It is a union with God and a
sharing in God’s life that makes us partakers of the divine nature. In a finite manner, we will live the life of
God. We will know with God’s knowledge
and love with God’s love. We will be
happy with God’s own happiness. This
glory that is to come will have the effect of making us like God. We are already like God in some sense simply being
His creatures made in God’s image and likeness. But when we enter the light of glory
in the Eternal Presence, we will be transformed by it becoming like God in an entirely new
way that no one has ever conceived. The final
likeness to God that shall be ours in Glory is a promised surprise awaiting us at the end
of life.
The glorification we
have been describing is the only purpose for which we have been created and the only goal
God has set for the human race. No one, in
this material world, has actually attained it. We
hope that many or even all will eventually come to the fulfillment in glory for which they
were eternally predestined. But that
fulfillment, assured as it is on God’s part, still remains subject to the free choice
of the human will under the influence of grace.
Human suffering cries
out to God by itself and before any words of prayer are formulated. The greatest need and suffering in the world is
the lack of the Glory of God, the glory that God made us to receive. Until the last person whom God wants to glorify
has actually been glorified, Christians will pray. We
will pray for the whole gift of Glory, as God understands it, for the whole of creation as
God wills it.
Any particular prayer
that we make rightly springs from our personal (and limited) experience of the lack of the
Glory of God. Poor children in underdeveloped
countries lack food, clothing, medicine, shelter and so on.
These particulars are manifestations of the underlying oceanic lack and need
for the Glory of God. We get seriously ill. Or a loved one is injured or sick. We are rightly moved by such experiences to lift
our hearts in prayer. But these evils are
symptomatic of the greatest evil of all and the cause of all other evils, the lack of the
Glory of God. So while our prayer is
always motivated by some particular suffering or need, our intention must be to ask God
for the end of all suffering and the fulfillment of all the needs of all people of all
time. That is, implied in every particular prayer is a universal prayer for the final gift
and reception by all of creation of the Glory of God.
People who do not
have the light of revelation concerning the Glory that is to come may think that the
absence of all conscious evils such as fear, desire, pain, and ignorance
constitutes “bliss.” This notion can be found in the Eastern Religions. Attaining “nirvana” or some equivalent
state allows the mystic to cease praying. This person has arrived at ultimate bliss as he
or she conceives it. This kind of mysticism
resolves the problem of evil in so far as it in human consciousness. It leaves the external material world untouched.
Children go on starving, the carnage of war continues, tragedy rages in human lives. But this mystic has relegated all that to mere
“illusion” Complete happiness is attainable, in spite of the sufferings of
others, to the person who destroys consciousness of evil in their own mind. In the course of this mystical quest, the whole
world is reduced to an unreal dream, an illusion, or nightmare we have to wake up from by
attaining to a state of consciousness where evil is eliminated. This approach does solve the problem of suffering
in consciousness. It is a kind of anesthetic
of the mind. However, it disassociates the
mystic from the sufferings of others as well as from ones own sense of suffering. These mystics teach this kind of mysticism. They do not dedicate themselves to caring for the
needy child, the poor, and the sick.
Mystics who do not
know they lack the Glory of God do not pray. They
do not feel their suffering and the suffering of the whole of creation until the Glory of
God comes in all fullness.
Christian mystics
always pray and never stop praying. They pray
always because they are always aware of the “not yet” fully received Glory. No one will be happy, as God wants them to be
happy, until they are glorified.
Prayer in this
context means the act of faith by which the Christian loves God and wants God in all
fullness for herself or himself and for all creatures to the full extent of their God
given capacity to receive God. That is the
Glory we lack and pray for unceasingly.
This prayer does not
need to be explicitly mentioned in words addressed to God.
It is perfectly present when a person gazes upon God in faith (perhaps while
using the Jesus Prayer) and desires the “more” of God that has not yet been
received. That “more” includes what the one who prays lacks but it is not
limited to that individual. The
“more” of God we pray for extends to every human being of all time. By grace we love God and all that God loves.
Therefore, we want all that God has to give (the Glory!) to be received by every creature
to whom God wants to give it.
In every
contemplation of God by a Christian, there is desire for more. That desire for more is prayer for Glory for
oneself along with all creation.
In the Jesus Prayer,
we lovingly attend to the Lord whom we experience as the One who is bathing our souls in
His Light and filling our hearts with His Love. We
experience the action of God the Father drawing us in trust to God the Son, Jesus, by an
inner impulse of love infused into us by God the Spirit.
Under this experience, we give our attention lovingly to the God who is
touching us lovingly. We call to God in
Person by Name, “Abba Father” or “Jesus Lord,” or “Holy
Spirit;” or simply “Lord,” without distinguishing Persons within the
Trinity. We call on the Name with
the enjoyment of loving, or in the pain of suffering.
At times the enjoyment of loving eclipses from awareness the pain of suffering
(which still remains though unaware). At
times the pain of suffering eclipses the enjoyment of loving (which still remains though
unaware).
THE JESUS PRAYER AS CONTEMPLATION
Some forms of Christian (and non Christian) meditation employ a word or phrase to
focus the minds attention. The word(s) chosen might even be the name of God. “OHM” is an important illustration from
Eastern practice. In the East these
expressions are called mantras. This form of
meditation has measurable good effects on human metabolism. It lowers blood pressure,
reduces the heart rate, and slows and deepens breathing.
It produces calmness, peace, a sense of security, a centeredness that is not thrown
about by the incessant changes of thoughts and feelings.
This kind of meditation is a very healthful practice. The Jesus Prayer has some similarities in practice
and in effects but it is basically a different religious activity. These practices hold up to attention a mental
object. The mental object might by
rational such as the thought of peace, love, goodness, beauty, etc. Or the mental object
might by a symbol like the name of God, or the sound of OHM. I believe Zen masters use a non-rational formula,
called a koan, in order to stun the active mind into stillness: “The sound of one
hand clapping!”
From the beginning,
the Jesus Prayer is a relationship between two persons. The words used are full of the
deepest meaning (which is not important in the use of the mantra). The name of God is used
in the Jesus Prayer in direct address to the Person whose name we utter. This contrasts with the Eastern use of a name of
God as a mantra that is repeated in order to quiet the mind. Here the person-to-person attention is lacking. In the Christian practice of Centering Prayer, the
intention is always to be in the presence of the divine Person by means of
repeating the sacred word. That is what distinguishes it from meditation in the sense of
the Eastern religions. The Jesus Prayer
is also based on the intention to be in the presence of the Divine Person. The practice of the Jesus Prayer differs from
Centering Prayer in the methodic emphasis the Jesus Prayer places upon loving attention
to the Divine Person. In practicing the Jesus Prayer we focus our attention upon the
One whom we name rather than upon the repetition of the name itself.
THE JESUS PRAYER AS MYSTICISM
Using the word mysticism to mean conscious union with God, the Jesus Prayer certainly is mysticism, an experience of mystical prayer. It unites our heart (by love) and our mind (by attention) to God in Jesus.
The contemplative use of the Jesus Prayer brings us into a union
with God that mystical theologians call transforming union. Contemplative prayer does not merely unite us with
God; it also transforms us, progressively, into the likeness of God. Our minds become more and more illumined
with the truth of God and our hearts become progressively more filled with the love of
God. Our actions in the world become
increasingly a manifestation of Eternal Divine Truth and love in the temporal human world. God becomes more fully revealed to us in
contemplative prayer and more fully revealed through us in the world by means of
our faithful and loving action.
THE JESUS PRAYER AND WISDOM
The entire tradition
of philosophy, including all of the divers and opposing schools, has this one thing in
common. They disagree over a shockingly wide
spectrum, but every philosopher is trying to conceive the best way of knowing. “The best way of thinking” is a
definition of wisdom broad enough to include them all, no matter how contradictory their
individual opinions are. They look for wisdom. In
some sense, doesn’t every human being seek the wisdom of the best way of thinking
about life?
For Socrates, Wisdom
begins with self-knowledge. Plato decided
that Wisdom was attained through contemplative knowledge of the Forms, above all the Form
of the Good. Plotinus went one better than
Plato and set Wisdom above all in the experience of the One. Aristotle said that Wisdom
consisted in the knowledge of all things in their ultimate causes. In the Scriptures, Wisdom is obedience to God.
For us Christians, wisdom is the thoughts of God, the truth of God and the plan of God. Contrary to all human tradition, Christians do not believe that ultimate Wisdom is any “best way of thinking”. For us Wisdom is not a theory, not anything that can be thought or spoken, learned or taught. For us who know the Lord, Wisdom is not an idea, not a Form, not even mere obedience to God, although this obedience is included. For us Wisdom is a Person. Wisdom is the Second Person of the Only God. The Eternal Word of God’s Wisdom became flesh and dwelt among us. In Jesus, God’s Wisdom has become ours. In the Jesus Prayer we look with love and desire and we call upon Jesus, the incarnate Wisdom of God. In our receptive surrender in the Jesus Prayer we give ourselves to the Wisdom of God Who gives Himself to us. Let all the mouths of ranting philosophers be silent. Let the errant rush of all human thoughts be still. Lovingly know Jesus. This is our Wisdom.
- William Wilson
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addition resource: "The Way of a Pilgrim". This Link is a very short clip of a very beautiful story of a man who lived the Jesus Prayer.