Dit is de transcriptie van een video-opname. Ik deel deze tekst omdat hierin zo mooi wordt verwoord dat als wij het goddelijke zoeken, dit al in ons en in ons zoeken aanwezig is.
Thank you, thank you very much. Glad to be here. I realize that there are some here who are going to be staying on for the St. John of the Cross retreat. There are some people coming for the retreat who aren’t here. So I don’t want to directly get into John of the Cross right now and instead what I’d like to do is to share with you a passage in the writings of Thomas Merton that helps us to gain clarity in developing a contemplative worldview. And the reason I think this is so helpful or so important is that I think what often happens is that we sense that there’s more we desire to go deeper. We read the Mystics and we sense in what they say something that goes straight to our heart. We long to realize it and yet it’s not really clear what we’re getting ourselves into or just how we should proceed or how we are to understand what’s happening to us. And so what we find in the writings of all the Mystics is their kind of empathy with us because they know what this is like. They try to give us a feel for the big picture, a sense of the inner landscape what all this is about.
You know sometimes you’re going to a big mall or something and though there’ll be a little arrows as you are here and you get your bearings. And it’s helpful to have one of those in the mystic path you know this great big trans cosmic journey that were caught up in and the reassuring clarity you are here and how to take the next step that kind of thing so I’d like to read this passage in the writings of Merton and draw from it these universal themes of the mystic journey and then we can then see how Teresa or John of the Cross or Meister Eckhart or the teachings a man of Buddhism is in yoga all these are different languages that help each of us understand this Universal journey and each one of us is unique expression of.
This is the last two paragraphs of new seeds of contemplation by Thomas Merton and excuse the sexist language it’s before they knew better. What is serious to men is often very trivial in the sight of God. What in God might appear to us his play is perhaps what God takes most seriously. At any rate the Lord plays and diverts himself in the garden of his creation and if we could let go of our own obsession with what we think is the meaning of it all we might be able to hear his call and follow him in his mysterious cosmic dance. We do not have to go very far to catch echoes of that game and of that dancing when we are alone on a starlit night. When by chance we see the migrating birds in autumn descending on a grove of junipers to rest and eat. When we see children in a moment they are really children.
When we know love in our own hearts like the Japanese poet Basho we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with a solitary splash. At such times the awakening, the turning out inside out of all values, the newness, the emptiness and the purity of vision that make themselves evident provide a glimpse of the cosmic dance for the world and time. For the dance of the Lord and emptiness, the silence of the spheres, is the music of a wedding feast. The more we persist in misunderstanding the phenomena of life, the more we analyze them out into strange finalities and complex purposes of our own, the more we involve ourselves in sadness, absurdity and despair. But it does not matter very much because no despair of ours can alter the reality of things or stain the joy of the cosmic dance which is always there. Indeed we are in the midst of it and it is in the midst of us. For it beats in our very blood whether we wanted to or not. Yet the fact remains that we are invited to forget ourselves on purpose, cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance. Not bad.
I’d like to walk through this text and I’d like to single out seven themes in this text. And suggest here that if we had the time to do so we could take all the Mystics of all the great world’s religions and see how each mystic in his or her own way bears witness to this theme. So the gathering of these themes creates a gestalt. It creates an interiorly awakened vision of reality as it really is and can help us find our way in this big picture that were are caught up in and of which we are apart.
First theme then. The first theme is the mystic bearing witness to the already perfectly holy nature of the life that we’re living. In the text by Merton the world and time are the dance of the Lord. And emptiness, the silence of the spheres, is the music of a wedding feast. This is what I want to look at here together with you. The Mystics proclaim that the present moment just the way it is already is the perfect manifestation of the mystery that we seek. That we ourselves are what we’re looking for precisely because we are looking for God and we are God’s self manifestation. As is everyone in the world. As is everything that is. That nothing is missing anywhere. That the generosity of the infinite is infinite and it gives itself completely as us, as the world, as reality just the way it is. This is the clarion call of the awakened heart. Now I put it another way. That if we understand God to be the word that we use for reality itself. That if God is the word that we use for reality itself, the God is beginningless. God is the beginningless endless mystery of what it is. To be is God then to say that God is reality itself that gives itself as the reality of all that is real. For Teresa for all the credit, all these Christian mystics they make reference to this passage where when God is speaking to Moses out of the burning bush. And God tells Moses you go tell the Pharaoh to let my people go and the fair. And Moses says well who should I say sent me since the Pharaoh might not go along with this idea. And God uses this cryptic phrase of Yahweh that I am Who am. You go tell the Pharaoh that isness sent you. You go tell the Pharaoh that reality says you see how that flies. You go tell the Pharaoh that the one who is isness sent me, the one who is that by which you are, sent me.
So we say then that God is reality itself. And creation is reality itself. Giving itself is all that is real. That we are all here together but none of us are here by virtue of our power to be here. We are not in this present moment by virtue of our power to be in this present for our power to be is given to us by God who is being itself. The scripture says that God is love and so we might say that infinite love is loving you into your chair. Such that of infinite love or not loving you into your chair at the count of three your chair would be empty. That we are the manifestations of the unmanifested mystery of love. It’s who we are as is the person to the right of you, the person to the left of you, as is the reality of all things. The darkness of the night, the brightness of the Sun, the chilliness of a chilly day. Love manifested perfectly is that which simply is. This is the great fundamental point. so we’re all sitting here in this room together. But really really really, deep deep deep down, we’re all sitting here in God together. And then we live and move and have our being. So that if all of us right now could collectively see all that we really are, sitting here right now just the way we are, we would all see God. Giving herself manifesting herself giving himself as all of us being here right now just the way we are. Like a mandala of the divine, like a configuration of the ineffable. Just so. Just like this.
And in this realization we would know the peace that surpasses understanding. We would know endless joy. We would know that fear has no foundations and we would realize our destiny. And so this is what it is. Then to look up at the stars at night and to see that the muse, the silence of the spheres, is the music of a wedding feast. In that the world and time are the dance of the Lord in emptiness. And this is the first theme. That the world just the way it is, is God’s body in that it bodies forth the love that’s uttering it into being as is the concrete immediacy of this room, of this present moment. If we had time now then we could go through the interior Castle, then the writings of John of the Cross and Meister Eckhart, then the desert fathers. All the way. And just kind of see how they all kind of say this next point.
Next theme. The next theme we find in the Mystics is that we tend not to go around realizing this that most of us wake up in the morning tending not to realize the divinity of waking up in the morning. Most of us touch our feet to the floor without realizing the god-given godly nature of touching our feet to the floor. That’s the thing. See we’re manifestations of the divine. Seeking the divine then we ourselves are the manifestations of what we’re looking for. And that the concrete immediacy the moment, just the way it is, is that. But we tend not to see it. We did not see it. And why don’t we see it? Because we tend to be obsessed with what we think is the meaning of it all.
I share with you a story. There’s a woman who marries a psychologist and on their 25th wedding anniversary he gives her a gift. Her 25th wedding anniversary gift. And it’s a book he’s been secretly writing about her for 25 years. And when she opens the box and lifts the heavy tome out of the box he says with a sense of pride in his voice, and the book is titled you. And he says if you just look to the back there you’ll see you’re completely indexed so anything you want to know about yourself you can look yourself up. And tears come to her eyes and she throws the book at him. And damn you she says. You do this to me nothing. And he’s crestfallen because he’s already secretly begun work on their golden anniversary. Which is a three-volume work called us. Cross-referenced with the you volume.
We tend not to realize the unthinkable immediacy of ourselves because we think so much. When I would used to go on and see Thomas Merton for spiritual direction. I saw this is my great opportunity to sit in the presence of this person. And so I would go in ready with a list of things I wanted him to solve for me. Like life’s dilemmas and problems. And I would list them in priority like my biggest problem first, my second problem, third problem. So if we ran out of time that the two or three left we could carry over to the next session. At one time I was sitting there like this checking off my list of things for him to solve and he stopped me in the middle. He said you know what I think your problem really is? He says I think you think too much. And I went out and I thought about that. That no idea of God is God. Every idea of God is infinitely less than God. See no idea of you is you. Every idea of you is infinitely less than you. You cannot think yourself. You cannot thank God. Thinking cannot carry us all the way home. Notice when you love someone very very much for a long long time you can barely say what you know about them. You know no matter what you’d say, it isn’t what you know about them because you can’t say it. Your heart breaks when you try. This is the living heart knowledge of the god-given godly nature of the preciousness of ourselves, of our life.
And yet when we don’t know someone very much at all. It’s easy to say a lot about them. Let me tell you about so-and-so. And this is prejudice, really prejudice, is ideological living. Prejudice is the notion that our idea of someone is someone. That we can think reality. Now thinking is a great gift. Thank God for it. But the sign of clear thinking is to realize the limitations of thinking. It is a sign of great thinking which is wisdom. St. John of the Cross says: God grants it to some people to understand that everything remains to be understood. It’s pretty good. So we tend not. Here we are. The manifestations of God. All sitting here. Like this shining brighter with an bright. See just the way we are. And here we are all sitting here befuddled, scratching our heads, roaming around. Hoping that coming here just might clear up a little bit like this. Because we see that we tend not to see. We know that we don’t know. Just the beginning to know, just to know that we don’t know.
Next theme. The next theme is the reassuring word that we do not have to look very far to find the divinity of ourselves and all things. We do not have to look very far to get echoes of that gaming, of that dancing. When we are alone on a starlit night. When we know love in our own arms. When we see children in a moment they’re really children. When we hear an old frog land in a quiet pond with the solitary splash. The newness. The turning inside out of all values. The virginal immediacy of the unthinkable clarity of the gift of what it is to be just like this. And I think here then there’s another theme here for us to look at in these teachings of these great mystics. I think what makes them so challenging is not that they’re trying to say very subtle abstract things. But rather they’re struggling to find words to help us awaken to the immediacy of being aware prior to the first thought arising. There is the immediacy of that. There is the immediacy of being here and before you’ve had a chance to have your first thought about it. To comment on it. They’re trying to help us get to that point of clarity before thought begins. And so it seems to me here then for a word of reassurance to know that we have all had moments where we’ve been momentary mystics. All of us were like part-time mystics.
All of us have had a taste of the unexplainable virginal immediacy of the gift of what it is to be. And we use the same examples that Merton uses in his in his text. So whether it is in the midst of nature or it is in the midst of the arms of the beloved. Or it is in the midst of solitude being all alone without any addictive props or escapes. Or it is in the midst of art. The beautiful in the midst of loving service to others. In the midst of deep suffering. In the midst of joy in our prayer. In the midst of our most ordinary moment it flashes forth unexplainably. And for a sudden instant we discover directly for ourself the already perfectly holding nature of the moment. Just as it is. It’s the serendipity. A stumbling upon. See that which we’re looking for unexplainably just like this.
There’s also I think in these moments a kind of a childlike intuition that were fleetingly glimpsing what every moment deep down really is. It’s in these moments it’s saying this is Who I am. So this is what it is. It’s so unthinkably clear. Just like that Thomas Merton once said there are certain things in life where you simply have to surrender to is true. You go crazy inside. And that are the things that you cannot prove to anybody including yourself. Nor do you need to. So we are then the manifestations of God.
First theme that the generosity of the infinite is infinite and it gives itself away completely as us, as the world just, as it is.
Secondly there is our tendency not to be aware of that. And so rising the fear and the reactivity and the contractions and the worrisome ruminations all of them.
Next, although we are confused and we cannot find it every so often it flashes forth and finds us like this.
Next theme is that these moments of clarity, if you’ve noticed, don’t last. They don’t last. They tend to dissipate. And as they dissipate we find ourselves circling back to our ruminating self like this. But now if we really take this in. And I think this is another thing the Mystics are always trying to tell us. And this is the paradoxical tension that runs throughout their writings. Now that we’ve tasted the immediacy of that which gives itself to us. Even though we don’t know how to find it. See even though we don’t know how to find it, it perpetually finds us. We know it’s true because we experienced it. We experienced it and yet we find ourselves unable to access the innate wisdom. Like the childlike innate wisdom of that. And we worry so. And now we know that the ego, no matter how clever its strategy, cannot deliver itself from itself. That no strategy devised from the ego can deliver the ego from egocentricity, because every strategy devised by the ego is ego. As a matter of fact the big problem of all strategies of the ego of delivering itself from itself is the unawareness of itself as the manifestation of God as endlessly holy in all its confusion. It’s very confusing.