LET NOTHING DISTURB YOU

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things are passing away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things,
Whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.

This little poem of Saint Teresa of Ávila [pictured below] was found in her breviary after her death. Some refer to it as 'Saint Teresa's bookmark.’ Saint Teresa is one of the best-loved saints in Catholic Christianity as well as being a spiritual figure of universal appeal. She was, and remains, a giant in the Christian mystical tradition for which I have great respect.

Now, when the word ‘mystic’ is used, some people think of gurus, swamis, transcendental (or at least ‘altered’) states of expanded consciousness, and all sorts of supernaturalism. Not so. As I’ve said elsewhere, mysticism is not essentially about ‘mystical experiences’---experiences come and go---but is focused on the lasting experience of a greater reality, leading to a transforming union with that reality. For me, that reality is not something ‘out-of-this-world,’ but the extraordinary in the ordinary.

A mystic is a person who is aware of their innate oneness with all life and, in particular, with the stream of life and the sacred ‘essence’ of life. That essence can be sensed in a beautiful sunset or flower, the birth of a baby, and even in the loss of someone dear to us. Yes, even the ‘dark night of the soul’ experience can be a mystical experience. The mystic not only knows that all life is one, they feel and sense its oneness in the deepest part of their being.

Church window at the Convent of St Teresa

Saint Teresa’s verse really speaks for itself. Such good advice isn’t it? We trouble ourselves over so many things, yet all things are transient, temporary and ephemeral, all things pass away (including us). Yes, all things … except One, namely, God. Who or what is God? Well, the word is not the thing, as Krishnamurti would say. The word ‘God’ is just that—a word. The reality behind that word is the important thing. That reality exists even if you do not believe in a traditional God or in any god at all for that matter. What is that reality? Well, for one thing, it is the stream of life itself which marches on inexorably---the stream of which in which all things, including us, live and move and have their being. Things come and go, and wax and wane, but life itself is eternal and unceasing. It alone remains when all other things disappear from view. It is more than enough. That life is all about us, and in us. It existed before we came into this world, and it will exist long after we have left this world. All we have to do in this life is to experience the reality of our being-ness as it truly is. Curiously, and almost paradoxically, the only way we can experience the very essence of life is from one moment to the next. Yes, life---also known as truth or reality---can only be experienced and known from moment to moment. It is something dynamic. It is never static.

This is where mindfulness---in effect, a secular and everyday (indeed, moment to moment) form of the mystic's 'prayer of quiet'---comes into the picture. The regular practice of mindfulness helps you to appreciate the transience and ephemeral nature of all things on the one hand and the permanence of the stream of life itself on the other. As we pay mindful attention ('choiceless awareness') to life unfolding from one moment to the next we become increasingly knowingly aware of, and acute to, the ongoing rhythm of life, its ebb and flow, its highs and lows. (We are knowingly aware when we are aware that we are aware.) We learn to cling to nothing, for all that we cling to will eventually pass away. True, we enjoy, even cherish, those brief, ephemeral moments of love and happiness we have with our loved ones and friends. Those moments are all the more precious when we come to understand that they will not last. But we must be prepared to let them go when it is time so to do.

I said above that Saint Teresa’s verse speaks for itself. Well, almost. There’s one line which seems---at least to me---to be a bit cryptic and seemingly misplaced. The line is, ‘Patience obtains all things.’ What has patience got to do with the main ideas of the poem, namely, that all things pass, God never changes, God alone suffices, so let nothing disturb or frighten you? There is another English word that also begins with the letter ‘p’ that comes close to what Saint Teresa meant by the word ‘patience.’ That word is perseverance, and here is something the mystic said about that matter in some sound advice she gave to her sisters:

... I say that it is very important – it is everything to have a strong and firm resolution, not to stop till we arrive at the water [union with God], come what may, or whatever may be the consequence, or whatever it may cost us. No matter who complains, whether I reach there or die on the way, or have not courage to endure the troubles which I may meet with, or though the world should sink under us ... (The Way of Perfection, Chapter XXI)

Patience. Perseverance. Resolution. No, we are not talking about so-called will power, which is nothing more than the imposition of one desire over all others, thus subjugating the latter. We are talking about something closer to courage and fortitude---guts, some call it. Life is tough, damn hard, and bloody unfair at times. We all know that to be the case. Bad things do indeed happen to good people, assuming for the moment that any of us are truly good. Patience---‘stick-at-it-ness’---obtains all things. What does Teresa mean by ‘all things’? Material things? Riches of a financial kind? No, nothing like that. Those things tend only to result in further disturbance and fear. The words ‘all things’ refer to ‘all things that truly matter’---that is, spiritual riches, enlightenment, God. (Note, in that respect, that the very next line says, ‘Whoever has God lacks nothing.’ Get the point?) Saint Teresa, as I see it, is saying that if we persevere, and are diligent, single-minded and strong, we will come to know that God---our True Self, the very ground of our being---is One. All is One. The One is all. The One becomes the many. We are one of the many. May we come to know that the many are One.

We are truly patient when we know and understand in the very depth of our being that all things pass except life itself. We are truly patient when we so detach ourselves from the everyday ups and downs of life that we are capable of seeing what some have called ‘the larger view,’ namely, the endless stream of life itself of which we are ever a part. We are truly patient when we are prepared to let go of all that holds us back, including all those little ‘false selves’ with which we so closely identify. We then experience a deep sense of life fulfilling itself. Yes, our joys will all come to an end, as will our sufferings. Those we love will eventually vanish from view. Even this world as we now know it will come to an end. God---or, if you wish, life, truth, and love---alone remains … and suffices.

Here’s another word for the type of patience to which Teresa refers---lightness. Yes, if we would travel far, we must travel light. That advice was given to me many decades ago by a bishop when I was confirmed in the Anglican faith. I wish I had heeded that good advice when I first received it. I might not have suffered as much, nor caused as much suffering to others, as I did.

I will finish with another little verse that I like:

GOD AND I

I walked with God, God walked with me,

But which was God, and which was me?

And thus I found, the Truth profound,

I live in God, God lives with me.  Anon.

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MINDFULNESS AND MYSTICISM

The essence of the mystical experience is this---to see, feel, or otherwise know that you are or have become one with all that is. One with the ‘wholly other.’ The mystical experience involves more than just feeling. It usually takes the form of some direct and immediate and unsolicited apprehension of something wonderfully immanent or transcendent (or both) that is both self-sufficient and of ultimate significance (at least to the recipient of the experience if not others as well).

Plotinus [pictured left], that great Neoplatonist philosopher of the ancient world, expressed it this way:

For how can one describe as other than oneself that which, when one saw it, seemed to be one with oneself.

It is not possible to see it or to be in harmony with it, while one is occupied with anything else. The soul must remove from itself, good and evil, and everything else, that it may receive the One alone, as the One is alone. When the soul is so blessed and is come to it, or rather when it manifests its presence, when the soul turns away from visible things … and becomes like the One … And seeing the One suddenly appearing in itself, for there is nothing between, nor are they any longer two, but one, for you cannot distinguish between them, while the vision lasts. … When is this state, the soul would exchange its present condition for nothing, no, not for the very heaven of heavens … . 

Rudolf Otto (1868-1937) [pictured below right] was one of the most influential and original thinkers and writers about religion in the first half of the 20th century. He is perhaps best known for his analysis of what he saw as the underlying experience of all religion, namely, a sense of the ‘numinous’ or ‘holy’. In his wonderful book The Idea of the Holy Otto expressed his opinion that, at the heart of the so-called mystical experience, there was this sense of the numinous or the holy. The numinous experience was, according to Otto, ‘inexpressible, ineffable’. Otto saw the numinous or holy as a mysterium tremens et fascinans, that is, a ‘tremendous’ (read, awe- and fear-inspiring) and ‘fascinating’ mystery. The experience of the numinous or holy is, according to Otto:

a unique experience of confrontation with a power … ‘Wholly Other,’ outside of normal experience and indescribable in its terms; terrifying, ranging from sheer demonic dread through awe to sublime majesty; and fascinating, with irresistible attraction, demanding unconditional allegiance. 

Further, the experience, writes Otto:

grips or stirs the human mind. … The feeling of it may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide, pervading the mind with a tranquil mood of deepest worship. It may pass over into a more set and lasting attitude of the soul, continuing, as it were, thrillingly vibrant and resonant, until at last it dies away and the soul resumes its ‘profane,’ non-religious mood of everyday experience. It may burst in sudden eruption up from the depths of the soul with spasms and convulsions, or lead to the strongest excitements, to intoxicated frenzy, to transport, and to ecstasy.  It has its wild and demonic forms and can sink to an almost grisly horror and shuddering.

Conversion experiences and so-called mystical experiences often involve one or more of the elements identified by Otto. In a similar vein, Carl Jung [pictured left] wrote that religion involves ‘a careful and scrupulous observation of what Rudolf Otto aptly termed the “numinosum,” that is, a dynamic existence or effect not caused by an arbitrary act of will.’ He went on to say, ‘The numinosum is either a quality of a visible object or the influence of an invisible presence causing a peculiar alteration of consciousness.’

Mindfulness involves or requires, or at least generally results in, a certain reverence for life that carries with it an emotional intensity that can only be described as spiritual. Now, I am not talking about anything supposedly ‘supernatural’, whatever that word means. (I ask you, how could there be higher or lower levels of reality? As the Scottish-Australian philosopher John Anderson used to say, any talk of such things is simply ‘unspeakable.’) I am talking about an experience that transcends the intellect, the emotions, and the will---indeed, it is other than those three things, although the feelings, as well as elements of cognition, are involved. This experience is transformative, as you come to see all things of life differently. All things become new and fresh as if you were seeing them for the very first time. ‘Behold, I make all things new’ (Rev 21:5). Suddenly, and increasingly so over time, the so-called ordinary things of life seem ‘extraordinary.’ No, they remain ordinary, but you see them in a new light---the light of mindfulness. You have undergone a psychological mutation.

Is it a mystical experience? It can be. The experience can certainly ‘grip’ or ‘stir’ the mind, to use Otto’s words, and, yes, the feeling of it may at times come sweeping like a gentle tide or burst in sudden eruption. The important thing we learn from our practice of mindfulness is this---whatever happens, we simply note and observe. If we stop to analyse the experience, it dies on us---instantly. All momentary experiences do, of course, whether we stop to analyse them or not. Our experience of life will always be moment-to-moment and somewhat fragmentary. It is always ‘new’ and ‘fresh,’ and only becomes stale and dead when we step back from the experience and start to analyse it, judge it, and evaluate it.

Now, the ‘One’ of which Plotinus wrote is comprised of the ‘many,’ and our experience of the many can be, and is, an experience of the ‘One’ (and the ‘Other’) when we really ‘see’ it and are ‘in harmony with’ the very livingness of life as it unfolds from one moment to the next. I like Plotinus’ words---‘The soul must remove from itself, good and evil, and everything else.’ As I see it, we must stop judging (as ‘good’ or ‘evil’ or whatever) the content of our moment-to-moment experience of consciousness and simply ‘know’ and ‘feel’ that we are ‘one’ with that experience. Not one in the sense that what is happening is ‘us’ or that we own it, but one in the sense that there is no separation in time or space between the happening of some occurrence and our direct and immediate apprehension of that occurrence. The moment we stop to analyse, judge, condemn, or evaluate the occurrence there is something between us and the experience, something that puts an impenetrable wall or barrier between us and the experience such that the experience dies on us. Worse still, for so long as we are engaged in the process of analysis, judgment and evaluation we cease to be aware of what is now before us in consciousness. It’s a fate worse than death.

The bottom line? You are one with the ‘Wholly Other,’ whether or not you are aware of that fact. In a very profound sense, there is no ‘Wholly Other,’ rather it is the direct and immediate but heightened experience of choiceless awareness of the very livingness and oneness of life as it unfolds from one moment to the next. Know it. Thrill to it. It is a tremendous and fascinating mystery.


Note. Here's a link to a short paper I've written on Christian mysticism.



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LET NOTHING DISTURB YOU