|
Christian Mysticism
by Anwar Shaikh |
MYSTICISM
| Not only the universe is built on the
principle of uncertainty, but human life itself is based on this doctrine
because we do not know what may happen during the next hour.
This notion of mystery may be held as the strand
common to both the living and unliving. This is the reason that the living
(humans) ardently want to know what lies behind the unliving i.e., the
physical phenomena of the universe. Therefore, man's desire to know
himself in relation to the cosmos emerges as a discipline which is called
"Mysticism.''
Though the roots of mysticism as a discipline lie
in Hinduism, man's desire to know himself is universal. This is why the
followers of the Semitic religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam
indulge in mysticism under various ruses though these faiths are
principally opposed to it.
The author, Anwar Shaikh, believes that man is
God and God is man. Though this doctrine is mysterious in itself, the
solution emerges when man becomes a part of Godhead through good deeds.
The author has propounded this concept in his unpublished book: "The
Universal Mystery, " which is being serialised in the form of these
articles.
In this issue is presented an extra excerpt under
the title of "Idolatory, Islam and India," from "The
Universal Mystery," which shows man's basic desire to achieve
eternity by becoming a part of godhead but when this aspiration is blinded
by extreme intensity, how he wants to be worshipped as God by declaring
war on all other Gods under the cloak of monotheism. |
CHRISTIAN MYSTICISM
A Christian mystic seeks the same goal as
any other mystic i.e., the union of soul with God, but it has to be within the
context of Christianity. According to Henri Bergson, the Christian mysticism
aims at more than attaining an inner state of consciousness, as other religions
do; its goal is an active state of the mind through which God acts using soul as
the medium. The purpose of a Christian mystic, it is claimed, is not to seek
escape from life but to use love as the dynamic force of action.
However, despite their high sounding claims of
monotheism, Christians substitute Christ for God, and thus union apparently
means union with Christ. This is the principle and practice of Paul and John.
The concept of union is more embracing because it seeks palrticipation in
Christ's suffering, resurrection and destiny. However, according to the
interpretation of Chapter 17 of St. John, union does not end with Christ because
all those who have become one with Christ, automatically share his union with
God, the Father.
The Eastern interpretation of Christian mysticism
associated with Dionysius the Areopagite, incorporates yet another fundamental
principle which treats this universe as the manifestation of monism; it denies
the doctrine of creation. According to this view, creation is, in fact, a
process of emanation, which enables the divine Being to transport outside
himself to dwell in the heart of all things.
This is certainly an extension of the Hindu notion, and
is further reinforced by the methods adopted to achieve divineness, which is of
fundamental importance to mysticism irrespective of whether it exists, in the
East or the West. Gregory Palamas acclaimed as saint and honoured as
"Father and Doctor of the Orthodox Church" established the monastic
school of mysticism known as Hesychasm ( state of quiet ) . As in yoga, he
invented an ascetical method which combines repetitive prayer formulas with
bodily postures and controlled breathing for inducing a state of inner peace and
mystical union. His opponent, Barlaam the Calabrian, a Greek Monk, made fun of
St. Gregory's rationalisation. He held that it was impossible to express
mystical prayer or the essence of communication between man and God through
intellectual concepts. Targeting one of the Hesychast meditative postures, which
required focusing one's eyes on a spot below the chest for intensifying the
effect of mystical experience, Barlaam composed a satirical work calling
followers of Hesychasm, "men with their souls in their navel."
Palamas wrote his "Apology" to refute what
had been said against his methods and prayers, and incorporated in them yet
another element of the Hindu mysticism. As the Hindus recite "Om"
repetitively, he introduced a methodical invocation of the name of Jesus during
intense concentration. The Apology, also known as "Triad" because of
its division into three parts, became the theological basis of the mystical
experience which involved not only the human soul but also the entire human
person. This came to rank as an inner transformation effected by a mystical
illumination uniting man with God in the depth of his spirit.
Mysticism, as in the Eastern Church, was equally
influenced in the Weslern Church, by Neoplatonism. St. Augustine, who died in
430, was a major figure in this respect. He thought that the vision of the
divine Light was the inmost fact and the most powerful medium of transformation.
Pope Gregory the Great, also believed that God is the boundless light and
treated contemplation as an endeavour to fix the eye of the heart on its ray.
The mystical life in Europe suffered a setback during 7th to 10th centuries
known as the Dark Ages, but was revived thereafter in the 12th century. In this
connection, many names deserve mention such as St. Hildegard Von Bingen, a
visionary and a prophetess: St. Bernard (1090-1153) who preached unon of soul
with God; Richard of 5aint-Victor (died 1173), St. Francis of Assisi (died
1226), Dante and Agnela da Foligno.
However, Meister Eckehart, the greatest German mystic,
deserves detailed mention for his contribution to the Christian mysticism.
Johannes Eckehart was born in 1260 at Hochheim, Thurgia.
He joined the Dominican Order at the age of fifteen where he was greatly
influenced by the theology of Thomas Aquinas, who had just died. He was called
Meister because of his Master's degree in Paris during 1302.
Eckehart was the first Christian monk who boldly
expressed his basic mystical principle i.e., soul's union with God. As there is
no evidence for such a tenet in the Bible, his utterance was noted and condemned
by the Inquisition. According to him, the seeker has to pass through four stages
for uniting his soul with God.
1. Dissimilarity: At the first stage, all creatures are
pure nothingness. It is only God who inherently possesses being; creatures do
not have being but derive it from God. Thus, being of things is God. The noble
man is he who is completely detached from things because he is aware of their
nil value though he recognises that God is in all of them.
This principle, in fact, is an enunciation of the yogic
doctrine of renunciation and omnipresence of God in everything, which is held as
an emanation of the Divine.
2. Similarity: Once man has detached himself from every
individual thing, he becomes attached to the universal Being. This is when he
discovers that he is an irmage of God. As a result, there emerges a similar
likeness that exists between the Son and the Father. This resemblance is so
complete that it ranks as the image of the Father which engenders itself within
the soul of the detached man i.e,. the man who has renaunced the world for God.
3. Identity The Third stage is reached when man's
identity becomes one with God, who no longer remains outside man but is
completely interiorised in him.
Though a universal man in nature, Eckehart is still
bound by the ligatures of his Christian faith. As he describes the likeness
between man and God in the Christian terminology of Son and Father, he expresses
the doctrine of unity in similar terms when he says: "The being and the
nature of God are mine; Jesus enters the castle of the soul; the soul's light is
uncreated and cannot be created: it takes possession of God with no mediation;
the core of the soul and the core of God are one."
It is the typically Hindu view of being, soul and God
but described in the Christian language.
4. Breakthrough: It is the final stage though not quite
easy to comprehend.
This point is very similar to the point expressed in
the Bhagavad Gita which states that one's devotion to God bears no fruit unless
one's search for the Divine is motiveless. According to Eckehart, identity with
God is not the goal which can be considered sufficient. Detachment or
renunciation means abandoning all things including God Himself. It is because
man must live "without why." Even God must not be a part of man's
search. This thought leads to the separation because God exists as
"God" only when He has a separate identity and a creature can invoke
Him as such. In fact Eckehart, in keeping with the mystical tradition, calls God
"Godhead," the origin of all things that is beyond God. Thus,
according to him, God and Godhead are as different from each other as heaven is
from earth. Using the Christian terminology, he emphasises that the soul is no
longer the Son; it is now the Father. "If it were not, God would not be
God. "
Christian mysticism may have some credibility as
interpreted by the Protestant movement, which seeks broader interpretation of
the Bible rather than its literal translation. As such, I ought to mention the
"Continental Spirituals" such as Sebastian Frank, Valentin Weigel and
Jakob Bohme. Several other Protestant countries produced mystical scholars of
Christianity. Among the Anglican divines were the Cambridge Platonists, and the
Quakers, headed by George Fox. The Collegiants of Holland were similar to the
English Quakers in thought and practice.
Though different schools of the Protestant mysticism
may have varying approaches to the subject, they all profess to have the same
cardinal principle, that is, the divine element in man, which has been given
many descriptions such as the "Spark," "centre,"
"divine image," "holy," "inner light," "The
principle of God in man," "the Christ within," and so on. The
prevailing protestant mystical opinion is that the essential reality lies in the
ideal world, which according to Bohme is the "uncreated Heaven." This
is an extension of the Gnostic belief which holds that the physical world arose
from the primeval fall: it partially corresponds to the Christian idea of
Original Sin.
However, as mysticism is free from religious bigotry,
and advocates human dignity, it does not accept that man is evil by nature. Thus
the Christian mystics, both Protestant and Catholic, though admitted that sin
erects a barrier between God and man, defied the Lutheran and Calvinist doctrine
that man is totally corrupt by nature. They showed respect, not only for the
Christian saints but also, for the non-Christian saints and held them as
"apostles of a Christ within." In fact, they believed that perfection
was possible in this life.
Christianity, like Islam, is deeply influenced by the
Hindu mysticism though they are reluctant to acknowledge this fact. A Christian
mystic believes in contemplative prayer, leading to ecstacy. However, the goal
is not temporary ecstacy but a state of the mind permanently saturated with the
divine intoxication. What confers this condition or a mystic is the purification
of his soul of all those desires and practices which separate him from God. The
model of this conduct is to be found in Christ, who was a deified man in whom
God dwelt. Thus a Christian mystic must follow in the path of Christ, which
entails a dying to self; it means total self- denial and dedication to Christ
(God) so that the divine love may pass through the devotee. A person cannot
retain his self, which we call, "I" and "Me," and expect
union with God, the final goal of man. Ego implies a separate root from the
Deity and thus stays divided from Him; the union is possible through
self-annihilation only. Here, the Hindu yoga takes over the practice and the
goal of the Christian mysticism. This fact becomes even more pronounced when we
realise that the conduct of a Christian mystic is controlled by the idea:
"The more you strip yourself of earthly thoughts and of exterior
..entanglements ..the more your soul will regain its inner strength and povver
of knowing and tasting the things of heaven." A person is not a Christian
mystic unless he pracesses total asceticism because this is the only way that
the Will of God can become the devotee's will.
To a Christian mystic, reward of this complete
renunciation of the world accrues as illumination, which is a state of the mind
wholly free from the sense of self and the surroundings; at this stage, the
seeker is fully absorbed in the consciousness of God. However, the consciousness
of God may be mediated through the objects and forces of nature. This is what
has been called "natural theology" because the awe inspired by natural
spectacles, such as forests, mountains, birds, winds, the moon, the sky, etc.,
makes one think of the likely power behind the phenomenal world and creates the
urge of knowing Him (the hidden power) and man's relationship with Him in terms
of the purpose of his own existence and the effect of his moral magnitude on
realising his final goal. Even when a mystic seeks to traverse his destination
through the natural theology, he uses a language which is different from every
day's dialect because mystical experience is ineffable by its nature; it can
only be felt. However, such an experience is considered as "the way
back" because the observer is inspired by the natural objects to think what
is behind all this phenomenon and where it came from, whereas revelation is
considered as "the way out" being a disclosure of God Himself. Thus,
to a Christian, God discloses Himself in Christ, who Himself ranks as God,
because "being in Christ" automatically counts as "being in
God."
Thus when a Christian mystic speaks of illumination, he
talks about the vision of God, which in mystical language is akin to the
knowledge or intuition of God. Final goal of a Christian mystic is not just
illumination but soul's union with God, which Eckehart describes as "the
birth of the Son" in us, and St. John of Cross narrates it as "the
soul seems to be God rather than a soul, and is indeed God by
participation."
To a mystic, soul's union with God is the merriest of
all experiences. Since erotic sensation or the feeling of being passionately in
love is uniquely delightful, the mystics are always ready to declare that the
union is a true marriage between God and the soul and cannot be broken. This is
the reason that when a mystic solicits God or worships Him, he resorts to an
erotic image and uses the language of a lover; through devotion and feeling of
oneness, his approach appears to be sensual rather than sensuous. It is a
unitive process and can be understood when one realises that St. Catherine of
Genoa lived an active life for twenty-two years without suffering loss of even
momentary consciousness about the presence of God. An Indian yogi is yet another
example of this fact: he can be buried for weeks and then dug up alive, yet he
is free from the sense of self-mortification because he is fully absorbed in the
consciousness of God.
Finally, a branch of Christian mysticism is known as
Christ-mysticism. Its goal, of course, is the union of soul with God but it sees
Jesus as the God-man. It is rooted in the legend of the divine Light which
appeared to the disciples at the moment of Transfiguration, and they sought to
identify themselves with Christ in his divine glory. Thus, once a mystic has
possessed Christ wholly, he is sure of union with God. It is why, Christ to all
Christians is the medium of Godhead, and to some the ultimate goal for being the
God Himself.
However, there are some Christian mystics who have a
clear grasp of the concept of mysticism. Eckehart believed in God as the
greatest mystery which transcends intellectual knowledge. Every thing acts as a
mask to hide the Divine truth; even goodness acts as a veil; He can be unveiled
through mystical contemplation only. Bohme speaks of God as the Ungrund - the
great Mystery though He puts on the nature of Light, Love and Goodness to reveal
Himself to man.
To show that the basic principles of mysticism, despite
several variations, are broadly the same throughout the world irrespective of
religion the people of a land may profess to practise, I shall discuss the
Islamic mysticism in the next chapter. It shows that mysticism inspired by the
universal mystery is the natural religion of mankind.
|
Previous
Essay
