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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/21774-h.zip b/21774-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ab46c68 --- /dev/null +++ b/21774-h.zip diff --git a/21774-h/21774-h.htm b/21774-h/21774-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a5caddb --- /dev/null +++ b/21774-h/21774-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3265 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Practical Mysticism, by Evelyn Underhill</title> +<style type="text/css"> + body {margin-top:100px; + margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; + text-align:justify} + hr { width: 100%; + height: 5px; } + a:link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + link {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:visited {color:blue; + text-decoration:none} + a:hover {color:red} + pre {font-size: 85%;} +</style> +</head> +<body> +<h1 align="center">The Project Gutenberg eBook, Practical Mysticism, by Evelyn Underhill</h1> +<pre> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at <a href = "http://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a></pre> +<p>Title: Practical Mysticism</p> +<p> A Little Book for Normal People</p> +<p>Author: Evelyn Underhill</p> +<p>Release Date: June 8, 2007 [eBook #21774]<br> +Most recently updated: October 6, 2012</p> +<p>Language: English</p> +<p>Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1</p> +<p>***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRACTICAL MYSTICISM***</p> +<br><br><center><h3>E-text prepared by Ruth Hart<br> + ruthhart@twilightoracle.com</h3></center><br><br> +<h4 align="center">Transcriber's note:</h4> + +<p>In the original book, the Table of Contents was located after the Preface, +but I have placed it at the beginning of the text for this online version.</p> +<p> </p> +<hr noshade> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<center> +<h2>PRACTICAL MYSTICISM</h2> + +<h4>BY</h4> + +<h3>EVELYN UNDERHILL</h3> +<p></p> +<p>Author of "Mysticism," "The Mystic Way," "Immanence: A Book of +Verses."</p> +<p></p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p>"If the doors of perception were cleansed, <br> +everything would +appear to man as it is, infinite. <br> +For man has closed himself up, <br> +till he sees +all things through the narrow chinks of his cavern."<br> +WILLIAM BLAKE<br> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> + +<p>NEW YORK<br> +E.P. DUTTON & COMPANY<br> +681 FIFTH AVENUE<br> + </p> +<p>Copyright 1915 by<br> +E.P. Dutton & Company<br> +<br> + </p> +<p></p> +<p>TO THE UNSEEN FUTURE<br> +<br> + </p> +<p></p> + + + + + +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> +<table id="table1"> +<tr><td align="right"> </td><td><a href="#1"> Preface</a></td><td align="right"> + vii</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">I. </td><td><a href="#2"> + What is Mysticism</a></td><td align="right"> + 1</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">II. </td><td><a href="#3"> + The World of Reality</a></td><td align="right"> + 13</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">III. </td><td><a href="#4">The Preparation of + the Mystic</a></td><td align="right"> + 21</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">IV. </td><td><a href="#5">Meditation and + Recollection</a></td><td align="right"> + 56</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">V. </td><td><a href="#6">Self-Adjustment</a></td><td align="right"> + 29</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VI. </td><td><a href="#7">Love and Will</a></td><td align="right"> + 74</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right">VII. </td><td><a href="#8">The First Form of + Contemplation</a> </td><td align="right"> + 87</td></tr> +<tr> + <td align="right">VIII. </td><td><a href="#9">The Second Form of + Contemplation</a></td><td align="right"> + 105</td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td align="right">XI. </td><td><a href="#10">The Third Form of + Contemplation</a></td><td align="right"> + 126</td> +</tr> +<tr><td align="right">X. </td><td><a href="#11">The Mystical Life</a></td><td align="right"> + 148</td></tr> + +</table> + +</center> +<br> + +<a name="1"></a> +<br> +<br> +PREFACE +<br> +<br> + +<p>This little book, written during the last months of peace, goes +to press in the first weeks of the great war. Many will feel that in such a time +of conflict and horror, when only the most ignorant, disloyal, or apathetic can +hope for quietness of mind, a book which deals with that which is called the +"contemplative" attitude to existence is wholly out of place. So obvious, +indeed, is this point of view, that I had at first thought of postponing its +publication. On the one hand, it seems as though the dreams of a spiritual +renaissance, which promised so fairly but a little time ago, had perished in the +sudden explosion of brute force. On the other hand, the thoughts of the English +race are now turned, and rightly, towards the most concrete forms of +action--struggle and endurance, practical sacrifices, difficult and +long-continued effort--rather than towards the passive attitude of +self-surrender which is all that the practice of mysticism seems, at first +sight, to demand. Moreover, that deep conviction of the dependence of all human +worth upon eternal values, the immanence of the Divine Spirit within the human +soul, which lies at the root of a mystical concept of life, is hard indeed to +reconcile with much of the human history now being poured red-hot from the +cauldron of war. For all these reasons, we are likely during the present crisis +to witness a revolt from those superficially mystical notions which threatened +to become too popular during the immediate past.</p> +<p>Yet, the title deliberately chosen for this book--that of +"Practical" Mysticism--means nothing if the attitude and the discipline which it +recommends be adapted to fair weather alone: if the principles for which it +stands break down when subjected to the pressure of events, and cannot be +reconciled with the sterner duties of the national life. To accept this position +is to reduce mysticism to the status of a spiritual plaything. On the contrary, +if the experiences on which it is based have indeed the transcendent value for +humanity which the mystics claim for them--if they reveal to us a world of +higher truth and greater reality than the world of concrete happenings in which +we seem to be immersed--then that value is increased rather than lessened when +confronted by the overwhelming disharmonies and sufferings of the present time. +It is significant that many of these experiences are reported to us from periods +of war and distress: that the stronger the forces of destruction appeared, the +more intense grew the spiritual vision which opposed them. We learn from these +records that the mystical consciousness has the power of lifting those who +possess it to a plane of reality which no struggle, no cruelty, can disturb: of +conferring a certitude which no catastrophe can wreck. Yet it does not wrap its +initiates in a selfish and otherworldly calm, isolate them from the pain and +effort of the common life. Rather, it gives them renewed vitality; administering +to the human spirit not--as some suppose--a soothing draught, but the most +powerful of stimulants. Stayed upon eternal realities, that spirit will be far +better able to endure and profit by the stern discipline which the race is now +called to undergo, than those who are wholly at the mercy of events; better able +to discern the real from the illusory issues, and to pronounce judgment on the +new problems, new difficulties, new fields of activity now disclosed. Perhaps it +is worth while to remind ourselves that the two women who have left the deepest +mark upon the military history of France and England--Joan of Arc and Florence +Nightingale--both acted under mystical compulsion. So, too, did one of the +noblest of modern soldiers, General Gordon. Their national value was directly +connected with their deep spiritual consciousness: their intensely practical +energies were the flowers of a contemplative life.</p> +<p>We are often told, that in the critical periods of history it is +the national soul which counts: that "where there is no vision, the people +perish." No nation is truly defeated which retains its spiritual +self-possession. No nation is truly victorious which does not emerge with soul +unstained. If this be so, it becomes a part of true patriotism to keep the +spiritual life, both of the individual citizen and of the social group, active +and vigorous; its vision of realities unsullied by the entangled interests and +passions of the time. This is a task in which all may do their part. The +spiritual life is not a special career, involving abstraction from the world of +things. It is a part of every man's life; and until he has realised it he is not +a complete human being, has not entered into possession of all his powers. It is +therefore the function of a practical mysticism to increase, not diminish, the +total efficiency, the wisdom and steadfastness, of those who try to practise it. +It will help them to enter, more completely than ever before, into the life of +the group to which they belong. It will teach them to see the world in a truer +proportion, discerning eternal beauty beyond and beneath apparent ruthlessness. +It will educate them in a charity free from all taint of sentimentalism; it will +confer on them an unconquerable hope; and assure them that still, even in the +hour of greatest desolation, "There lives the dearest freshness deep down +things." As a contribution, then, to these purposes, this little book is now +published. It is addressed neither to the learned nor to the devout, who are +already in possession of a wide literature dealing from many points of view with +the experiences and philosophy of the mystics. Such readers are warned that they +will find here nothing but the re-statement of elementary and familiar +propositions, and invitations to a discipline immemorially old. Far from +presuming to instruct those to whom first-hand information is both accessible +and palatable, I write only for the larger class which, repelled by the +formidable appearance of more elaborate works on the subject, would yet like to +know what is meant by mysticism, and what it has to offer to the average man: +how it helps to solve his problems, how it harmonises with the duties and ideals +of his active life. For this reason, I presuppose in my readers no knowledge +whatever of the subject, either upon the philosophic, religious, or historical +side. Nor, since I wish my appeal to be general, do I urge the special claim of +any one theological system, any one metaphysical school. I have merely attempted +to put the view of the universe and man's place in it which is common to all +mystics in plain and untechnical language: and to suggest the practical +conditions under which ordinary persons may participate in their experience. +Therefore the abnormal states of consciousness which sometimes appear in +connection with mystical genius are not discussed: my business being confined to +the description of a faculty which all men possess in a greater or less degree.</p> +<p>The reality and importance of this faculty are considered in the +first three chapters. In the fourth and fifth is described the preliminary +training of attention necessary for its use; in the sixth, the general +self-discipline and attitude toward life which it involves. The seventh, eighth, +and ninth chapters treat in an elementary way of the three great forms of +contemplation; and in the tenth, the practical value of the life in which they +have been actualised is examined. Those kind enough to attempt the perusal of +the book are begged to read the first sections with some attention before +passing to the latter part.</p> +<p>E. U.</p> + +<p><i>September</i> 12, 1914.</p> + +<a name="2"></a> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER I +<br> +<br> +WHAT IS MYSTICISM? +<br> + +<p>Those who are interested in that special attitude towards the +universe which is now loosely called "mystical," find themselves beset by a +multitude of persons who are constantly asking--some with real fervour, some +with curiosity, and some with disdain--"What <i>is</i> mysticism?" When referred +to the writings of the mystics themselves, and to other works in which this +question appears to be answered, these people reply that such books are wholly +incomprehensible to them.</p> +<p>On the other hand, the genuine inquirer will find before long a +number of self-appointed apostles who are eager to answer his question in many +strange and inconsistent ways, calculated to increase rather than resolve the +obscurity of his mind. He will learn that mysticism is a philosophy, an +illusion, a kind of religion, a disease; that it means having visions, +performing conjuring tricks, leading an idle, dreamy, and selfish life, +neglecting one's business, wallowing in vague spiritual emotions, and being "in +tune with the infinite." He will discover that it emancipates him from all +dogmas--sometimes from all morality--and at the same time that it is very +superstitious. One expert tells him that it is simply "Catholic piety," another +that Walt Whitman was a typical mystic; a third assures him that all mysticism +comes from the East, and supports his statement by an appeal to the mango trick. +At the end of a prolonged course of lectures, sermons, tea-parties, and talks +with earnest persons, the inquirer is still heard saying--too often in tones of +exasperation--"What <i>is</i> mysticism?"</p> +<p>I dare not pretend to solve a problem which has provided so much +good hunting in the past. It is indeed the object of this little essay to +persuade the practical man to the one satisfactory course: that of discovering +the answer for himself. Yet perhaps it will give confidence if I confess pears to cover all the +ground; or at least, all that part of the ground which is worth covering. It +will hardly stretch to the mango trick; but it finds room at once for the +visionaries and the philosophers, for Walt Whitman and the saints.</p> +<p>Here is the definition:--</p> + +<p><i>Mysticism is the art of union with Reality. The mystic is a +person who has attained that union in greater or less degree; or who aims at and +believes in such attainment.</i></p> + +<p>It is not expected that the inquirer will find great comfort in +this sentence when first it meets his eye. The ultimate question, "What is +Reality?"--a question, perhaps, which never occurred to him before--is already +forming in his mind; and he knows that it will cause him infinite distress. Only +a mystic can answer it: and he, in terms which other mystics alone will +understand. Therefore, for the time being, the practical man may put it on one +side. All that he is asked to consider now is this: that the word "union" +represents not so much a rare and unimaginable operation, as something which he +is doing, in a vague, imperfect fashion, at every moment of his conscious life; +and doing with intensity and thoroughness in all the more valid moments of that +life. We know a thing only by uniting with it; by assimilating it; by an +interpenetration of it and ourselves. It gives itself to us, just in so far as +we give ourselves to it; and it is because our outflow towards things is usually +so perfunctory and so languid, that our comprehension of things is so +perfunctory and languid too. The great Sufi who said that "Pilgrimage to the +place of the wise, is to escape the flame of separation" spoke the literal +truth. Wisdom is the fruit of communion; ignorance the inevitable portion of +those who "keep themselves to themselves," and stand apart, judging, analysing +the things which they have never truly known.</p> +<p>Because he has surrendered himself to it, "united" with it, the +patriot knows his country, the artist knows the subject of his art, the lover +his beloved, the saint his God, in a manner which is inconceivable as well as +unattainable by the looker-on. Real knowledge, since it always implies an +intuitive sympathy more or less intense, is far more accurately suggested by the +symbols of touch and taste than by those of hearing and sight. True, analytic +thought follows swiftly upon the contact, the apprehension, the union: and we, +in our muddle-headed way, have persuaded ourselves that this is the essential +part of knowledge--that it is, in fact, more important to cook the hare than to +catch it. But when we get rid of this illusion and go back to the more primitive +activities through which our mental kitchen gets its supplies, we see that the +distinction between mystic and non-mystic is not merely that between the +rationalist and the dreamer, between intellect and intuition. The question which +divides them is really this: What, out of the mass of material offered to it, +shall consciousness seize upon--with what aspects of the universe shall it +"unite"?</p> +<p>It is notorious that the operations of the average human +consciousness unite the self, not with things as they really are, but with +images, notions, aspects of things. The verb "to be," which he uses so lightly, +does not truly apply to any of the objects amongst which the practical man +supposes himself to dwell. For him the hare of Reality is always ready-jugged: +he conceives not the living lovely, wild, swift-moving creature which has been +sacrificed in order that he may be fed on the deplorable dish which he calls +"things as they really are." So complete, indeed, is the separation of his +consciousness from the facts of being, that he feels no sense of loss. He is +happy enough "understanding," garnishing, assimilating the carcass from which +the principle of life and growth has been ejected, and whereof only the most +digestible portions have been retained. He is not "mystical."</p> +<p>But sometimes it is suggested to him that his knowledge is not +quite so thorough as he supposed. Philosophers in particular have a way of +pointing out its clumsy and superficial character; of demonstrating the fact +that he habitually mistakes his own private sensations for qualities inherent in +the mysterious objects of the external world. From those few qualities of +colour, size, texture, and the rest, which his mind has been able to register +and classify, he makes a label which registers the sum of his own experiences. +This he knows, with this he "unites"; for it is his own creature. It is neat, +flat, unchanging, with edges well defined: a thing one can trust. He forgets the +existence of other conscious creatures, provided with their own standards of +reality. Yet the sea as the fish feels it, the borage as the bee sees it, the +intricate sounds of the hedgerow as heard by the rabbit, the impact of light on +the eager face of the primrose, the landscape as known in its vastness to the +wood-louse and ant--all these experiences, denied to him for ever, have just as +much claim to the attribute of Being as his own partial and subjective +interpretations of things.</p> +<p>Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most +part to live in a world of labels; to make of them the current coin of +experience, and ignore their merely symbolic character, the infinite gradation +of values which they misrepresent. We simply do not attempt to unite with +Reality. But now and then that symbolic character is suddenly brought home to +us. Some great emotion, some devastating visitation of beauty, love, or pain, +lifts us to another level of consciousness; and we are aware for a moment of the +difference between the neat collection of discrete objects and experiences which +we call the world, and the height, the depth, the breadth of that living, +growing, changing Fact, of which thought, life, and energy are parts, and in +which we "live and move and have our being." Then we realise that our whole life +is enmeshed in great and living forces; terrible because unknown. Even the power +which lurks in every coal-scuttle, shines in the electric lamp, pants in the +motor-omnibus, declares itself in the ineffable wonders of reproduction and +growth, is supersensual. We do but perceive its results. The more sacred plane +of life and energy which seems to be manifested in the forces we call +"spiritual" and "emotional"--in love, anguish, ecstasy, adoration--is hidden +from us too. Symptoms, appearances, are all that our intellects can discern: +sudden irresistible inroads from it, all that our hearts can apprehend. The +material for an intenser life, a wider, sharper consciousness, a more profound +understanding of our own existence, lies at our gates. But we are separated from +it, we cannot assimilate it; except in abnormal moments, we hardly know that it +is. We now begin to attach at least a fragmentary meaning to the statement that +"mysticism is the art of union with Reality." We see that the claim of such a +poet as Whitman to be a mystic lies in the fact that he has achieved a +passionate communion with deeper levels of life than those with which we usually +deal--has thrust past the current notion to the Fact: that the claim of such a +saint as Teresa is bound up with her declaration that she has achieved union +with the Divine Essence itself. The visionary is a mystic when his vision +mediates to him an actuality beyond the reach of the senses. The philosopher is +a mystic when he passes beyond thought to the pure apprehension of truth. The +active man is a mystic when he knows his actions to be a part of a greater +activity. Blake, Plotinus, Joan of Arc, and John of the Cross--there is a link +which binds all these together: but if he is to make use of it, the inquirer +must find that link for himself. All four exhibit different forms of the working +of the contemplative consciousness; a faculty which is proper to all men, though +few take the trouble to develop it. Their attention to life has changed its +character, sharpened its focus: and as a result they see, some a wider +landscape, some a more brilliant, more significant, more detailed world than +that which is apparent to the less educated, less observant vision of common +sense. The old story of Eyes and No-Eyes is really the story of the mystical and +unmystical types. "No-Eyes" has fixed his attention on the fact that he is +obliged to take a walk. For him the chief factor of existence is his own +movement along the road; a movement which he intends to accomplish as +efficiently and comfortably as he can. He asks not to know what may be on either +side of the hedges. He ignores the caress of the wind until it threatens to +remove his hat. He trudges along, steadily, diligently; avoiding the muddy +pools, but oblivious of the light which they reflect. "Eyes" takes the walk too: +and for him it is a perpetual revelation of beauty and wonder. The sunlight +inebriates him, the winds delight him, the very effort of the journey is a joy. +Magic presences throng the roadside, or cry salutations to him from the hidden +fields. The rich world through which he moves lies in the fore-ground of his +consciousness; and it gives up new secrets to him at every step. "No-Eyes," when +told of his adventures, usually refuses to believe that both have gone by the +same road. He fancies that his companion has been floating about in the air, or +beset by agreeable hallucinations. We shall never persuade him to the contrary +unless we persuade him to look for himself.</p> +<p>Therefore it is to a practical mysticism that the practical man +is here invited: to a training of his latent faculties, a bracing and +brightening of his languid consciousness, an emancipation from the fetters of +appearance, a turning of his attention to new levels of the world. Thus he may +become aware of the universe which the spiritual artist is always trying to +disclose to the race. This amount of mystical perception--this "ordinary +contemplation," as the specialists call it--is possible to all men: without it, +they are not wholly conscious, nor wholly alive. It is a natural human activity, +no more involving the great powers and sublime experiences of the mystical +saints and philosophers than the ordinary enjoyment of music involves the +special creative powers of the great musician.</p> +<p>As the beautiful does not exist for the artist and poet +alone--though these can find in it more poignant depths of meaning than other +men--so the world of Reality exists for all; and all may participate in it, +unite with it, according to their measure and to the strength and purity of +their desire. "For heaven ghostly," says <i>The Cloud of Unknowing</i>, "is as +nigh down as up, and up as down; behind as before, before as behind, on one side +as other. Inasmuch, that whoso had a true desire for to be at heaven, then that +same time he were in heaven ghostly. For the high and the next way thither is +run by desires, and not by paces of feet." None therefore is condemned, save by +his own pride, sloth, or perversity, to the horrors of that which Blake called +"single vision"--perpetual and undivided attention to the continuous +cinematograph performance, which the mind has conspired with the senses to +interpose between ourselves and the living world.</p> + +<a name="3"></a> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER II +<br> +<br> +THE WORLD OF REALITY +<br> + +<p>The practical man may justly observe at this point that the +world of single vision is the only world he knows: that it appears to him to be +real, solid, and self-consistent: and that until the existence--at least, the +probability--of other planes of reality is made clear to him, all talk of +uniting with them is mere moonshine, which confirms his opinion of mysticism as +a game fit only for idle women and inferior poets. Plainly, then, it is the +first business of the missionary to create, if he can, some feeling of +dissatisfaction with the world within which the practical man has always lived +and acted; to suggest something of its fragmentary and subjective character. We +turn back therefore to a further examination of the truism--so obvious to those +who are philosophers, so exasperating to those who are not--that man dwells, +under normal conditions, in a world of imagination rather than a world of facts; +that the universe in which he lives and at which he looks is but a construction +which the mind has made from some few amongst the wealth of materials at its +disposal.</p> +<p>The relation of this universe to the world of fact is not unlike +the relation between a tapestry picture and the scene which it imitates. You, +practical man, are obliged to weave your image of the outer world upon the hard +warp of your own mentality; which perpetually imposes its own convention, and +checks the free representation of life. As a tapestry picture, however various +and full of meaning, is ultimately reducible to little squares; so the world of +common sense is ultimately reducible to a series of static elements conditioned +by the machinery of the brain. Subtle curves, swift movement, delicate +gradation, that machinery cannot represent. It leaves them out. From the +countless suggestions, the tangle of many-coloured wools which the real world +presents to you, you snatch one here and there. Of these you weave together +those which are the most useful, the most obvious, the most often repeated: +which make a tidy and coherent pattern when seen on the right side. Shut up with +this symbolic picture, you soon drop into the habit of behaving to it as though +it were not a representation but a thing. On it you fix your attention; with it +you "unite." Yet, did you look at the wrong side, at the many short ends, the +clumsy joins and patches, this simple philosophy might be disturbed. You would +be forced to acknowledge the conventional character of the picture you have made +so cleverly, the wholesale waste of material involved in the weaving of it: for +only a few amongst the wealth of impressions we receive are seized and +incorporated into our picture of the world. Further, it might occur to you that +a slight alteration in the rhythm of the senses would place at your disposal a +complete new range of material; opening your eyes and ears to sounds, colours, +and movements now inaudible and invisible, removing from your universe those +which you now regard as part of the established order of things. Even the +strands which you have made use of might have been combined in some other way; +with disastrous results to the "world of common sense," yet without any +diminution of their own reality.</p> +<p>Nor can you regard these strands themselves as ultimate. As the +most prudent of logicians might venture to deduce from a skein of wool the +probable existence of a sheep; so you, from the raw stuff of perception, may +venture to deduce a universe which transcends the reproductive powers of your +loom. Even the camera of the photographer, more apt at contemplation than the +mind of man, has shown us how limited are these powers in some directions, and +enlightened us as to a few of the cruder errors of the person who accepts its +products at face-value; or, as he would say, believes his own eyes. It has shown +us, for instance, that the galloping race-horse, with legs stretched out as we +are used to see it, is a mythical animal, probably founded on the mental image +of a running dog. No horse has ever galloped thus: but its real action is too +quick for us, and we explain it to ourselves as something resembling the more +deliberate dog-action which we have caught and registered as it passed. The +plain man's universe is full of race-horses which are really running dogs: of conventional waves, first seen in +pictures and then imagined upon the sea: of psychological situations taken from +books and applied to human life: of racial peculiarities generalised from +insufficient data, and then "discovered" in actuality: of theological diagrams +and scientific "laws," flung upon the background of eternity as the magic +lantern's image is reflected on the screen.</p> +<p>The coloured scene at which you look so trustfully owes, in +fact, much of its character to the activities of the seer: to that process of +thought--concept--cogitation, from which Keats prayed with so great an ardour to +escape, when he exclaimed in words which will seem to you, according to the +temper of your mind, either an invitation to the higher laziness or one of the +most profound aspirations of the soul, "O for a life of sensations rather than +thoughts!" He felt--as all the poets have felt with him--that another, lovelier +world, tinted with unimaginable wonders, alive with ultimate music, awaited +those who could free themselves from the fetters of the mind, lay down the +shuttle and the weaver's comb, and reach out beyond the conceptual image to +intuitive contact with the Thing.</p> +<p>There are certain happy accidents which have the power of +inducting man for a moment into this richer and more vital world. These stop, as +one old mystic said, the "wheel of his imagination," the dreadful energy of his +image-making power weaving up and transmuting the incoming messages of sense. +They snatch him from the loom and place him, in the naked simplicity of his +spirit, face to face with that Other than himself whence the materials of his +industry have come. In these hours human consciousness ascends from thought to +contemplation; becomes at least aware of the world in which the mystics dwell; +and perceives for an instant, as St. Augustine did, "the light that never +changes, above the eye of the soul, above the intelligence." This experience +might be called in essence "absolute sensation." It is a pure feeling-state; in +which the fragmentary contacts with Reality achieved through the senses are +merged in a wholeness of communion which feels and knows all at once, yet in a +way which the reason can never understand, that Totality of which fragments are +known by the lover, the musician, and the artist. If the doors of perception +were cleansed, said Blake, everything would appear to man as it is--Infinite. +But the doors of perception are hung with the cobwebs of thought; prejudice, +cowardice, sloth. Eternity is with us, inviting our contemplation perpetually, +but we are too frightened, lazy, and suspicious to respond: too arrogant to +still our thought, and let divine sensation have its way. It needs industry and +goodwill if we would make that transition: for the process involves a veritable +spring-cleaning of the soul, a turning-out and rearrangement of our mental +furniture, a wide opening of closed windows, that the notes of the wild birds +beyond our garden may come to us fully charged with wonder and freshness, and +drown with their music the noise of the gramaphone within. Those who do this, +discover that they have lived in a stuffy world, whilst their inheritance was a +world of morning-glory; where every tit-mouse is a celestial messenger, and +every thrusting bud is charged with the full significance of life.</p> +<p>There will be many who feel a certain scepticism as to the +possibility of the undertaking here suggested to them; a prudent unwillingness +to sacrifice their old comfortably upholstered universe, on the mere promise +that they will receive a new heaven and a new earth in exchange. These careful +ones may like to remind themselves that the vision of the world presented to us +by all the great artists and poets--those creatures whose very existence would +seem so strange to us, were we not accustomed to them--perpetually demonstrates +the many-graded character of human consciousness; the new worlds which await it, +once it frees itself from the tyranny of those labour-saving contrivances with +which it usually works. Leaving on one side the more subtle apprehensions which +we call "spiritual," even the pictures of the old Chinese draughtsmen and the +modern impressionists, of Watteau and of Turner, of Manet, Degas, and Cezanne; +the poems of Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, Whitman--these, and countless others, +assure you that their creators have enjoyed direct communion, not with some +vague world of fancy, but with a visible natural order which you have never +known. These have seized and woven into their pictures strands which never +presented themselves to you; significant forms which elude you, tones and +relations to which you are blind, living facts for which your conventional world +provides no place. They prove by their works that Blake was right when he said +that "a fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees"; and that +psychologists, insisting on the selective action of the mind, the fact that our +preconceptions govern the character of our universe, do but teach the most +demonstrable of truths. Did you take them seriously, as you should, their ardent +reports might well disgust you with the dull and narrow character of your own +consciousness.</p> +<p>What is it, then, which distinguishes the outlook of great poets +and artists from the arrogant subjectivism of common sense? Innocence and +humility distinguish it. These persons prejudge nothing, criticise nothing. To +some extent, their attitude to the universe is that of children: and because +this is so, they participate to that extent in the Heaven of Reality. According +to their measure, they have fulfilled Keats' aspiration, they do live a life in +which the emphasis lies on sensation rather than on thought: for the state which +he then struggled to describe was that ideal state of pure receptivity, of +perfect correspondence with the essence of things, of which all artists have a +share, and which a few great mystics appear to have possessed--not indeed in its +entirety, but to an extent which made them, as they say, "one with the Reality +of things." The greater the artist is, the wider and deeper is the range of this +pure sensation: the more sharply he is aware of the torrent of life and +loveliness, the rich profusion of possible beauties and shapes. He always wants +to press deeper and deeper, to let the span of his perception spread wider and +wider; till he unites with the whole of that Reality which he feels all about +him, and of which his own life is a part. He is always tending, in fact, to pass +over from the artistic to the mystical state. In artistic experience, then, in +the artist's perennial effort to actualise the ideal which Keats expressed, we +may find a point of departure for our exploration of the contemplative life.</p> +<p>What would it mean for a soul that truly captured it; this life +in which the emphasis should lie on the immediate percepts, the messages the +world pours in on us, instead of on the sophisticated universe into which our +clever brains transmute them? Plainly, it would mean the achievement of a new +universe, a new order of reality: escape from the terrible museum-like world of +daily life, where everything is classified and labelled, and all the graded +fluid facts which have no label are ignored. It would mean an innocence of eye +and innocence of ear impossible for us to conceive; the impassioned +contemplation of pure form, freed from all the meanings with which the mind has +draped and disguised it; the recapturing of the lost mysteries of touch and +fragrance, most wonderful amongst the avenues of sense. It would mean the +exchanging of the neat conceptual world our thoughts build up, fenced in by the +solid ramparts of the possible, for the inconceivable richness of that unwalled +world from which we have subtracted it. It would mean that we should receive +from every flower, not merely a beautiful image to which the label "flower" has +been affixed, but the full impact of its unimaginable beauty and wonder, the +direct sensation of life having communion with life: that the scents of ceasing +rain, the voice of trees, the deep softness of the kitten's fur, the acrid touch +of sorrel on the tongue, should be in themselves profound, complete, and simple +experiences, calling forth simplicity of response in our souls.</p> +<p>Thus understood, the life of pure sensation is the meat and +drink of poetry, and one of the most accessible avenues to that union with +Reality which the mystic declares to us as the very object of life. But the poet +must take that living stuff direct from the field and river, without +sophistication, without criticism, as the life of the soul is taken direct from +the altar; with an awe that admits not of analysis. He must not subject it to +the cooking, filtering process of the brain. It is because he knows how to elude +this dreadful sophistication of Reality, because his attitude to the universe is +governed by the supreme artistic virtues of humility and love, that poetry is +what it is: and I include in the sweep of poetic art the coloured poetry of the +painter, and the wordless poetry of the musician and the dancer too.</p> +<p>At this point the critical reader will certainly offer an +objection. "You have been inviting me," he will say, "to do nothing more or less +than trust my senses: and this too on the authority of those impracticable +dreamers the poets. Now it is notorious that our senses deceive us. Every one +knows that; and even your own remarks have already suggested it. How, then, can +a wholesale and uncritical acceptance of my sensations help me to unite with +Reality? Many of these sensations we share with the animals: in some, the +animals obviously surpass us. Will you suggest that my terrier, smelling his way +through an uncoordinated universe, is a better mystic than I?"</p> +<p>To this I reply, that the terrier's contacts with the world are +doubtless crude and imperfect; yet he has indeed preserved a directness of +apprehension which you have lost. He gets, and responds to, the real smell; not +a notion or a name. Certainly the senses, when taken at face-value, do deceive +us: yet the deception resides not so much in them, as in that conceptual world +which we insist on building up from their reports, and for which we make them +responsible. They deceive us less when we receive these reports uncooked and +unclassified, as simple and direct experiences. Then, behind the special and +imperfect stammerings which we call colour, sound, fragrance, and the rest, we +sometimes discern a <i>whole fact</i>--at once divinely simple and infinitely +various--from which these partial messages proceed; and which seeks as it were +to utter itself in them. And we feel, when this is so, that the fact thus +glimpsed is of an immense significance; imparting to that aspect of the world +which we are able to perceive all the significance, all the character which it +possesses. The more of the artist there is in us, the more intense that +significance, that character will seem: the more complete, too, will be our +conviction that our uneasiness, the vagueness of our reactions to things, would +be cured could we reach and unite with the fact, instead of our notion of it. +And it is just such an act of union, reached through the clarified channels of +sense and unadulterated by the content of thought, which the great artist or +poet achieves.</p> +<p>We seem in these words to have come far from the mystic, and +that contemplative consciousness wherewith he ascends to the contact of Truth. +As a matter of fact, we are merely considering that consciousness in its most +natural and accessible form: for contemplation is, on the one hand, the +essential activity of all artists; on the other, the art through which those who +choose to learn and practise it may share in some fragmentary degree, according +to their measure, the special experience of the mystic and the poet. By it they +may achieve that virginal outlook upon things, that celestial power of communion +with veritable life, which comes when that which we call "sensation" is freed +from the tyranny of that which we call "thought." The artist is no more and no +less than a contemplative who has learned to express himself, and who tells his +love in colour, speech, or sound: the mystic, upon one side of his nature, is an +artist of a special and exalted kind, who tries to express something of the +revelation he has received, mediates between Reality and the race. In the game +of give and take which goes on between the human consciousness and the external +world, both have learned to put the emphasis upon the message from without, +rather than on their own reaction to and rearrangement of it. Both have +exchanged the false imagination which draws the sensations and intuitions of the +self into its own narrow circle, and there distorts and transforms them, for the +true imagination which pours itself out, eager, adventurous, and self-giving, +towards the greater universe.</p> + +<a name="4"></a> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER III +<br> +<br> +THE PREPARATION OF THE MYSTIC +<br> + + +<p>Here the practical man will naturally say: And pray how am I +going to do this? How shall I detach myself from the artificial world to which I +am accustomed? Where is the brake that shall stop the wheel of my image-making +mind?</p> +<p>I answer: You are going to do it by an educative process; a +drill, of which the first stages will, indeed, be hard enough. You have already +acknowledged the need of such mental drill, such deliberate selective acts, in +respect to the smaller matters of life. You willingly spend time and money over +that narrowing and sharpening of attention which you call a "business training," +a "legal education," the "acquirement of a scientific method." But this new +undertaking will involve the development and the training of a layer of your +consciousness which has lain fallow in the past; the acquirement of a method you +have never used before. It is reasonable, even reassuring, that hard work and +discipline should be needed for this: that it should demand of you, if not the +renunciation of the cloister, at least the virtues of the golf course.</p> +<p>The education of the mystical sense begins in +self-simplification. The feeling, willing, seeing self is to move from the +various and the analytic to the simple and the synthetic: a sentence which may +cause hard breathing and mopping of the brows on the part of the practical man. +Yet it is to you, practical man, reading these pages as you rush through the +tube to the practical work of rearranging unimportant fragments of your +universe, that this message so needed by your time--or rather, by your want of +time--is addressed. To you, unconscious analyst, so busy reading the +advertisements upon the carriage wall, that you hardly observe the stages of +your unceasing flight: so anxiously acquisitive of the crumbs that you never +lift your eyes to the loaf. The essence of mystical contemplation is summed in +these two experiences--union with the flux of life, and union with the Whole in +which all lesser realities are resumed--and these experiences are well within +your reach. Though it is likely that the accusation will annoy you, you are +already in fact a potential contemplative: for this act, as St. Thomas Aquinas +taught, is proper to all men--is, indeed, the characteristic human activity.</p> +<p>More, it is probable that you are, or have been, an actual +contemplative too. Has it never happened to you to lose yourself for a moment in +a swift and satisfying experience for which you found no name? When the world +took on a strangeness, and you rushed out to meet it, in a mood at once exultant +and ashamed? Was there not an instant when you took the lady who now orders your +dinner into your arms, and she suddenly interpreted to you the whole of the +universe? a universe so great, charged with so terrible an intensity, that you +have hardly dared to think of it since. Do you remember that horrid moment at +the concert, when you became wholly unaware of your comfortable +seven-and-sixpenny seat? Those were onsets of involuntary contemplation; sudden +partings of the conceptual veil. Dare you call them the least significant, +moments of your life? Did you not then, like the African saint, "thrill with +love and dread," though you were not provided with a label for that which you +adored?</p> +<p>It will not help you to speak of these experiences as "mere +emotion." Mere emotion then inducted you into a world which you recognised as +more valid--in the highest sense, more rational--than that in which you usually +dwell: a world which had a wholeness, a meaning, which exceeded the sum of its +parts. Mere emotion then brought you to your knees, made you at once proud and +humble, showed you your place. It simplified and unified existence: it stripped +off the little accidents and ornaments which perpetually deflect our vagrant +attention, and gathered up the whole being of you into one state, which felt and +knew a Reality that your intelligence could not comprehend. Such an emotion is +the driving power of spirit, an august and ultimate thing: and this your +innermost inhabitant felt it to be, whilst your eyes were open to the light.</p> +<p>Now that simplifying act, which is the preliminary of all +mystical experience, that gathering of the scattered bits of personality into +the <i>one</i> which is really you--into the "unity of your spirit," as the +mystics say--the great forces of love, beauty, wonder, grief, may do for you now +and again. These lift you perforce from the consideration of the details to the +contemplation of the All: turn you from the tidy world of image to the ineffable +world of fact. But they are fleeting and ungovernable experiences, descending +with dreadful violence on the soul. Are you willing that your participation in +Reality shall depend wholly on these incalculable visitations: on the sudden +wind and rain that wash your windows, and let in the vision of the landscape at +your gates? You can, if you like, keep those windows clear. You can, if you +choose to turn your attention that way, learn to look out of them. These are the +two great phases in the education of every contemplative: and they are called in +the language of the mystics the purification of the senses and the purification +of the will.</p> +<p>Those who are so fortunate as to experience in one of its many +forms the crisis which is called "conversion" are seized, as it seems to them, +by some power stronger than themselves and turned perforce in the right +direction. They find that this irresistible power has cleansed the windows of +their homely coat of grime; and they look out, literally, upon a new heaven and +new earth. The long quiet work of adjustment which others must undertake before +any certitude rewards them is for these concentrated into one violent shattering +and rearranging of the self, which can now begin its true career of +correspondence with the Reality it has perceived. To persons of this type I do +not address myself: but rather to the ordinary plodding scholar of life, who +must reach the same goal by a more gradual road.</p> +<p>What is it that smears the windows of the senses? Thought, +convention, self-interest. We throw a mist of thought between ourselves and the +external world: and through this we discern, as in a glass darkly, that which we +have arranged to see. We see it in the way in which our neighbours see it; +sometimes through a pink veil, sometimes through a grey. Religion, indigestion, +priggishness, or discontent may drape the panes. The prismatic colours of a +fashionable school of art may stain them. Inevitably, too, we see the narrow +world our windows show us, not "in itself," but in relation to our own needs, +moods, and preferences; which exercise a selective control upon those few +aspects of the whole which penetrate to the field of consciousness and dictate +the order in which we arrange them, for the universe of the natural man is +strictly egocentric. We continue to name the living creatures with all the +placid assurance of Adam: and whatsoever we call them, that is the name thereof. +Unless we happen to be artists--and then but rarely--we never know the "thing +seen" in its purity; never, from birth to death, look at it with disinterested +eyes. Our vision and understanding of it are governed by all that we bring with +us, and mix with it, to form an amalgam with which the mind can deal. To +"purify" the senses is to release them, so far as human beings may, from the +tyranny of egocentric judgments; to make of them the organs of direct +perception. This means that we must crush our deep-seated passion for +classification and correspondences; ignore the instinctive, selfish question, +"What does it mean to <i>me</i>?" learn to dip ourselves in the universe +at our gates, and know it, not from without by comprehension, but from within by +self-mergence.</p> +<p>Richard of St. Victor has said, that the essence of all +purification is self-simplification; the doing away of the unnecessary and +unreal, the tangles and complications of consciousness: and we must remember +that when these masters of the spiritual life speak of purity, they have in +their minds no thin, abstract notion of a rule of conduct stripped of all colour +and compounded chiefly of refusals, such as a more modern, more arid asceticism +set up. Their purity is an affirmative state; something strong, clean, and +crystalline, capable of a wholeness of adjustment to the wholeness of a +God-inhabited world. The pure soul is like a lens from which all irrelevancies +and excrescences, all the beams and motes of egotism and prejudice, have been +removed; so that it may reflect a clear image of the one Transcendent Fact +within which all others facts are held.</p> +<p></p> +<p> "All which I took from thee I did but take,<br> + Not for thy harms,<br> + +But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms."</p> +<p></p> +<p>All the details of existence, all satisfactions of the heart and +mind, are resumed within that Transcendent Fact, as all the colours of the +spectrum are included in white light: and we possess them best by passing beyond +them, by following back the many to the One.</p> +<p>The "Simple Eye" of Contemplation, about which the mystic +writers say so much, is then a synthetic sense; which sees that white light in +which all colour is, without discrete analysis of its properties. The Simple Ear +which discerns the celestial melody, hears that Tone in which all music is +resumed; thus achieving that ecstatic life of "sensation without thought" which +Keats perceived to be the substance of true happiness.</p> +<p>But you, practical man, have lived all your days amongst the +illusions of multiplicity. Though you are using at every instant your innate +tendency to synthesis and simplification, since this alone creates the semblance +of order in your universe--though what you call seeing and hearing are +themselves great unifying acts--yet your attention to life has been deliberately +adjusted to a world of frittered values and prismatic refracted lights: full of +incompatible interests, of people, principles, things. Ambitions and affections, +tastes and prejudices, are fighting for your attention. Your poor, worried +consciousness flies to and fro amongst them; it has become a restless and a +complicated thing. At this very moment your thoughts are buzzing like a swarm of +bees. The reduction of this fevered complex to a unity appears to be a task +beyond all human power. Yet the situation is not as hopeless for you as it +seems. All this is only happening upon the periphery of the mind, where it +touches and reacts to the world of appearance. At the centre there is a +stillness which even you are not able to break. There, the rhythm of your +duration is one with the rhythm of the Universal Life. There, your essential +self exists: the permanent being which persists through and behind the flow and +change of your conscious states. You have been snatched to that centre once or +twice. Turn your consciousness inward to it deliberately. Retreat to that point +whence all the various lines of your activities flow, and to which at last they +must return. Since this alone of all that you call your "selfhood" is possessed +of eternal reality, it is surely a counsel of prudence to acquaint yourself with +its peculiarities and its powers. "Take your seat within the heart of the +thousand-petaled lotus," cries the Eastern visionary. "Hold thou to thy Centre," +says his Christian brother, "and all things shall be thine." This is a practical +recipe, not a pious exhortation. The thing may sound absurd to you, but you can +do it if you will: standing back, as it were, from the vague and purposeless +reactions in which most men fritter their vital energies. Then you can survey +with a certain calm, a certain detachment, your universe and the possibilities +of life within it: can discern too, if you be at all inclined to mystical +adventure, the stages of the road along which you must pass on your way towards +harmony with the Real.</p> +<p>This universe, these possibilities, are far richer, yet far +simpler than you have supposed. Seen from the true centre of personality, +instead of the usual angle of self-interest, their scattered parts arrange +themselves in order: you begin to perceive those graduated levels of Reality +with which a purified and intensified consciousness can unite. So, too, the road +is more logically planned, falls into more comprehensible stages, than those who +dwell in a world of single vision are willing to believe.</p> +<p>Now it is a paradox of human life, often observed even by the +most concrete and unimaginative of philosophers, that man seems to be poised +between two contradictory orders of Reality. Two planes of existence--or, +perhaps, two ways of apprehending existence--lie within the possible span of his +consciousness. That great pair of opposites which metaphysicians call Being and +Becoming, Eternity and Time, Unity and Multiplicity, and others mean, when they +speak of the Spiritual and the Natural Worlds, represents the two extreme forms +under which the universe can be realised by him. The greatest men, those whose +consciousness is extended to full span, can grasp, be aware of, both. They know +themselves to live, both in the discrete, manifested, ever-changeful parts and +appearances, and also in the Whole Fact. They react fully to both: for them +there is no conflict between the parochial and the patriotic sense. More than +this, a deep instinct sometimes assures them that the inner spring or secret of +that Whole Fact is also the inner spring and secret of their individual lives: +and that here, in this third factor, the disharmonies between the part and the +whole are resolved. As they know themselves to dwell in the world of time and +yet to be capable of transcending it, so the Ultimate Reality, they think, +inhabits yet inconceivably exceeds all that they know to be--as the soul of the +musician controls and exceeds not merely each note of the flowing melody, but +also the whole of that symphony in which these cadences must play their part. +That invulnerable spark of vivid life, that "inward light" which these men find +at their own centres when they seek for it, is for them an earnest of the +Uncreated Light, the ineffable splendour of God, dwelling at, and energising +within the heart of things: for this spark is at once one with, yet separate +from, the Universal Soul.</p> +<p>So then, man, in the person of his greatest and most living +representatives, feels himself to have implicit correspondences with three +levels of existence; which we may call the Natural, the Spiritual, and the +Divine. The road on which he is to travel therefore, the mystical education +which he is to undertake, shall successively unite him with these three worlds; +stretching his consciousness to the point at which he finds them first as three, +and at last as One. Under normal circumstances even the first of them, the +natural world of Becoming, is only present to him--unless he be an artist--in a +vague and fragmentary way. He is, of course, aware of the temporal order, a +ceaseless change and movement, birth, growth, and death, of which he is a part. +But the rapture and splendour of that everlasting flux which India calls the +Sport of God hardly reaches his understanding; he is too busy with his own +little movements to feel the full current of the stream.</p> +<p>But under those abnormal circumstances on which we have touched, +a deeper level of his consciousness comes into focus; he hears the music of +surrounding things. Then he rises, through and with his awareness of the great +life of Nature, to the knowledge that he is part of another greater life, +transcending succession. In this his durational spirit is immersed. Here all the +highest values of existence are stored for him: and it is because of his +existence within this Eternal Reality, his patriotic relationship to it, that +the efforts and experiences of the time-world have significance for him. It is +from the vantage point gained when he realises his contacts with this higher +order, that he can see with the clear eye of the artist or the mystic the World +of Becoming itself--recognise its proportions--even reach out to some faint +intuition of its ultimate worth. So, if he would be a whole man, if he would +realise all that is implicit in his humanity, he must actualise his relationship +with this supernal plane of Being: and he shall do it, as we have seen, by +simplification, by a deliberate withdrawal of attention from the bewildering +multiplicity of things, a deliberate humble surrender of his image-making +consciousness. He already possesses, at that gathering point of personality +which the old writers sometimes called the "apex" and sometimes the "ground" of +the soul, a medium of communication with Reality. But this spiritual principle, +this gathering point of his selfhood, is just that aspect of him which is +furthest removed from the active surface consciousness. He treats it as the busy +citizen treats his national monuments. It is there, it is important, a +possession which adds dignity to his existence; but he never has time to go in. +Yet as the purified sense, cleansed of prejudice and self-interest, can give us +fleeting communications from the actual broken-up world of duration at our +gates: so the purified and educated will can wholly withdraw the self's +attention from its usual concentration on small useful aspects of the +time-world, refuse to react to its perpetually incoming messages, retreat to the +unity of its spirit, and there make itself ready for messages from another +plane. This is the process which the mystics call Recollection: the first stage +in the training of the contemplative consciousness.</p> +<p>We begin, therefore, to see that the task of union with Reality +will involve certain stages of preparation as well as stages of attainment; and +these stages of preparation--for some disinterested souls easy and rapid, for +others long and full of pain--may be grouped under two heads. First, the +disciplining and simplifying of the attention, which is the essence of +Recollection. Next, the disciplining and simplifying of the affections and will, +the orientation of the heart; which is sometimes called by the formidable name +of Purgation. So the practical mysticism of the plain man will best be grasped +by him as a five-fold scheme of training and growth: in which the first two +stages prepare the self for union with Reality, and the last three unite it +successively with the World of Becoming, the World of Being, and finally with +that Ultimate Fact which the philosopher calls the Absolute and the religious +mystic calls God.</p> + +<a name="5"></a> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER IV +<br> +<br> +MEDITATION AND RECOLLECTION +<br> + +<p>Recollection, the art which the practical man is now invited to +learn, is in essence no more and no less than the subjection of the attention to +the control of the will. It is not, therefore, a purely mystical activity. In +one form or another it is demanded of all who would get control of their own +mental processes; and does or should represent the first great step in the +education of the human consciousness. So slothful, however, is man in all that +concerns his higher faculties, that few deliberately undertake this education at +all. They are content to make their contacts with things by a vague, unregulated +power, ever apt to play truant, ever apt to fail them. Unless they be spurred to +it by that passion for ultimate things which expresses itself in religion, +philosophy, or art, they seldom learn the secret of a voluntary concentration of +the mind.</p> +<p>Since the philosopher's interests are mainly objective, and the +artist seldom cogitates on his own processes, it is, in the end, to the initiate +of religion that we are forced to go, if we would learn how to undertake this +training for ourselves. The religious contemplative has this further attraction +for us: that he is by nature a missionary as well. The vision which he has +achieved is the vision of an intensely loving heart; and love, which cannot keep +itself to itself, urges him to tell the news as widely and as clearly as he may. +In his works, he is ever trying to reveal the secret of his own deeper life and +wider vision, and to help his fellow men to share it: hence he provides the +clearest, most orderly, most practical teachings on the art of contemplation +that we are likely to find. True, our purpose in attempting this art may seem to +us very different from his: though if we carry out the principles involved to +their last term, we shall probably find that they have brought us to the place +at which he aimed from the first. But the method, in its earlier stages, must be +the same; whether we call the Reality which is the object of our quest +aesthetic, cosmic, or divine. The athlete must develop much the same muscles, +endure much the same discipline, whatever be the game he means to play.</p> +<p>So we will go straight to St. Teresa, and inquire of her what +was the method by which she taught her daughters to gather themselves together, +to capture and hold the attitude most favourable to communion with the spiritual +world. She tells us--and here she accords with the great tradition of the +Christian contemplatives, a tradition which was evolved under the pressure of +long experience--that the process is a gradual one. The method to be employed is +a slow, patient training of material which the licence of years has made +intractable; not the sudden easy turning of the mind in a new direction, that it +may minister to a new fancy for "the mystical view of things." Recollection +begins, she says, in the deliberate and regular practice of meditation; a +perfectly natural form of mental exercise, though at first a hard one.</p> +<p>Now meditation is a half-way house between thinking and +contemplating: and as a discipline, it derives its chief value from this +transitional character. The real mystical life, which is the truly practical +life, begins at the beginning; not with supernatural acts and ecstatic +apprehensions, but with the normal faculties of the normal man. "I do not +require of you," says Teresa to her pupils in meditation, "to form great and +curious considerations in your understanding: I require of you no more than to +<i>look</i>."</p> +<p>It might be thought that such looking at the spiritual world, +simply, intensely, without cleverness--such an opening of the Eye of +Eternity--was the essence of contemplation itself: and indeed one of the best +definitions has described that art as a "loving sight," a "peering into heaven +with the ghostly eye." But the self who is yet at this early stage of the +pathway to Reality is not asked to look at anything new, to peer into the deeps +of things: only to gaze with a new and cleansed vision on the ordinary +intellectual images, the labels and the formula, the "objects" and ideas--even +the external symbols--amongst which it has always dwelt. It is not yet advanced +to the seeing of fresh landscapes: it is only able to re-examine the furniture +of its home, and obtain from this exercise a skill, and a control of the +attention, which shall afterwards be applied to greater purposes. Its task is +here to <i>consider</i> that furniture, as the Victorines called this +preliminary training: to take, that is, a more starry view of it: standing back +from the whirl of the earth, and observing the process of things.</p> +<p>Take, then, an idea, an object, from amongst the common stock, +and hold it before your mind. The selection is large enough: all sentient beings +may find subjects of meditation to their taste, for there lies a universal +behind every particular of thought, however concrete it may appear, and within +the most rational propositions the meditative eye may glimpse a dream.</p> +<p></p> +<p> "Reason has moons, but moons not hers<br> + +Lie mirror'd on her sea,<br> + Confounding her astronomers <br> + +But, O delighting me."</p> +<p></p> +<p>Even those objects which minister to our sense-life may well be +used to nourish our spirits too. Who has not watched the intent meditations of a +comfortable cat brooding upon the Absolute Mouse? You, if you have a philosophic +twist, may transcend such relative views of Reality, and try to meditate on +Time, Succession, even Being itself: or again on human intercourse, birth, +growth, and death, on a flower, a river, the various tapestries of the sky. Even +your own emotional life will provide you with the ideas of love, joy, peace, +mercy, conflict, desire. You may range, with Kant, from the stars to the moral +law. If your turn be to religion, the richest and most evocative of fields is +open to your choice: from the plaster image to the mysteries of Faith.</p> +<p>But, the choice made, it must be held and defended during the +time of meditation against all invasions from without, however insidious their +encroachments, however "spiritual" their disguise. It must be brooded upon, +gazed at, seized again and again, as distractions seem to snatch it from your +grasp. A restless boredom, a dreary conviction of your own incapacity, will +presently attack you. This, too, must be resisted at sword-point. The first +quarter of an hour thus spent in attempted meditation will be, indeed, a time of +warfare; which should at least convince you how unruly, how ill-educated is your +attention, how miserably ineffective your will, how far away you are from the +captaincy of your own soul. It should convince, too, the most common-sense of +philosophers of the distinction between real time, the true stream of duration +which is life, and the sequence of seconds so carefully measured by the clock. +Never before has the stream flowed so slowly, or fifteen minutes taken so long +to pass. Consciousness has been lifted to a longer, slower rhythm, and is not +yet adjusted to its solemn march.</p> +<p>But, striving for this new poise, intent on the achievement of +it, presently it will happen to you to find that you have indeed--though how you +know not--entered upon a fresh plane of perception, altered your relation with +things.</p> +<p>First, the subject of your meditation begins, as you surrender +to its influence, to exhibit unsuspected meaning, beauty, power. A perpetual +growth of significance keeps pace with the increase of attention which you bring +to bear on it; that attention which is the one agent of all your apprehensions, +physical and mental alike. It ceases to be thin and abstract. You sink as it +were into the deeps of it, rest in it, "unite" with it; and learn, in this +still, intent communion, something of its depth and breadth and height, as we +learn by direct intercourse to know our friends.</p> +<p>Moreover, as your meditation becomes deeper it will defend you +from the perpetual assaults of the outer world. You will hear the busy hum of +that world as a distant exterior melody, and know yourself to be in some sort +withdrawn from it. You have set a ring of silence between you and it; and +behold! within that silence you are free. You will look at the coloured scene, +and it will seem to you thin and papery: only one amongst countless possible +images of a deeper life as yet beyond your reach. And gradually, you will come +to be aware of an entity, a <i>You</i>, who can thus hold at arm's length, be +aware of, look at, an idea--a universe--other than itself. By this voluntary +painful act of concentration, this first step upon the ladder which goes--as the +mystics would say--from "multiplicity to unity," you have to some extent +withdrawn yourself from that union with unrealities, with notions and concepts, +which has hitherto contented you; and at once all the values of existence are +changed. "The road to a Yea lies through a Nay." You, in this preliminary +movement of recollection, are saying your first deliberate No to the claim which +the world of appearance makes to a total possession of your consciousness: and +are thus making possible some contact between that consciousness and the World +of Reality.</p> +<p>Now turn this new purified and universalised gaze back upon +yourself. Observe your own being in a fresh relation with things, and surrender +yourself willingly to the moods of astonishment, humility, joy--perhaps of deep +shame or sudden love--which invade your heart as you look. So doing patiently, +day after day, constantly recapturing the vagrant attention, ever renewing the +struggle for simplicity of sight, you will at last discover that there is +something within you--something behind the fractious, conflicting life of +desire--which you can recollect, gather up, make effective for new life. You +will, in fact, know your own soul for the first time: and learn that there is a +sense in which this real <i>You</i> is distinct from, an alien within, the world +in which you find yourself, as an actor has another life when he is not on the +stage. When you do not merely believe this but know it; when you have achieved +this power of withdrawing yourself, of making this first crude distinction +between appearance and reality, the initial stage of the contemplative life has +been won. It is not much more of an achievement than that first proud effort in +which the baby stands upright for a moment and then relapses to the more natural +and convenient crawl: but it holds within it the same earnest of future +development.</p> + +<a name="6"></a> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER V +<br> +<br> +SELF-ADJUSTMENT +<br> + +<p>So, in a measure, you have found yourself: have retreated behind +all that flowing appearance, that busy, unstable consciousness with its moods +and obsessions, its feverish alternations of interest and apathy, its conflicts +and irrational impulses, which even the psychologists mistake for You. Thanks to +this recollective act, you have discovered in your inmost sanctuary a being not +wholly practical, who refuses to be satisfied by your busy life of +correspondences with the world of normal men, and hungers for communion with a +spiritual universe. And this thing so foreign to your surface consciousness, yet +familiar to it and continuous with it, you recognise as the true Self whose +existence you always took for granted, but whom you have only known hitherto in +its scattered manifestations. "That art thou."</p> +<p>This climb up the mountain of self-knowledge, said the Victorine +mystics, is the necessary prelude to all illumination. Only at its summit do we +discover, as Dante did, the beginning of the pathway to Reality. It is a lonely +and an arduous excursion, a sufficient test of courage and sincerity: for most +men prefer to dwell in comfortable ignorance upon the lower slopes, and there to +make of their more obvious characteristics a drapery which shall veil the naked +truth. True and complete self-knowledge, indeed, is the privilege of the +strongest alone. Few can bear to contemplate themselves face to face; for the +vision is strange and terrible, and brings awe and contrition in its wake. The +life of the seer is changed by it for ever. He is converted, in the deepest and +most drastic sense; is forced to take up a new attitude towards himself and all +other things. Likely enough, if you really knew yourself--saw your own dim +character, perpetually at the mercy of its environment; your true motives, +stripped for inspection and measured against eternal values; your unacknowledged +self-indulgences; your irrational loves and hates--you would be compelled to +remodel your whole existence, and become for the first time a practical man.</p> +<p>But you have done what you can in this direction; have at last +discovered your own deeper being, your eternal spark, the agent of all your +contacts with Reality. You have often read about it. Now you have met it; know +for a fact that it is there. What next? What changes, what readjustments will +this self-revelation involve for you?</p> +<p>You will have noticed, as with practice your familiarity with +the state of Recollection has increased, that the kind of consciousness which it +brings with it, the sort of attitude which it demands of you, conflict sharply +with the consciousness and the attitude which you have found so appropriate to +your ordinary life in the past. They make this old attitude appear childish, +unworthy, at last absurd. By this first deliberate effort to attend to Reality +you are at once brought face to face with that dreadful revelation of +disharmony, unrealness, and interior muddle which the blunt moralists call +"conviction of sin." Never again need those moralists point out to you the +inherent silliness of your earnest pursuit of impermanent things: your solemn +concentration upon the game of getting on. None the less, this attitude +persists. Again and again you swing back to it. Something more than realisation +is needed if you are to adjust yourself to your new vision of the world. This +game which you have played so long has formed and conditioned you, developing +certain qualities and perceptions, leaving the rest in abeyance: so that now, +suddenly asked to play another, which demands fresh movements, alertness of a +different sort, your mental muscles are intractable, your attention refuses to +respond. Nothing less will serve you here than that drastic remodelling of +character which the mystics call "Purgation," the second stage in the training +of the human consciousness for participation in Reality.</p> +<p>It is not merely that your intellect has assimilated, united +with a superficial and unreal view of the world. Far worse: your will, your +desire, the sum total of your energy, has been turned the wrong way, harnessed +to the wrong machine. You have become accustomed to the idea that you want, or +ought to want, certain valueless things, certain specific positions. For years +your treasure has been in the Stock Exchange, or the House of Commons, or the +Salon, or the reviews that "really count" (if they still exist), or the +drawing-rooms of Mayfair; and thither your heart perpetually tends to stray. +Habit has you in its chains. You are not free. The awakening, then, of your +deeper self, which knows not habit and desires nothing but free correspondence +with the Real, awakens you at once to the fact of a disharmony between the +simple but inexorable longings and instincts of the buried spirit, now beginning +to assert themselves in your hours of meditation--pushing out, as it were, +towards the light--and the various changeful, but insistent longings and +instincts of the surface-self. Between these two no peace is possible: they +conflict at every turn. It becomes apparent to you that the declaration of +Plotinus, accepted or repeated by all the mystics, concerning a "higher" and a +"lower" life, and the cleavage that exists between them, has a certain +justification even in the experience of the ordinary man.</p> +<p>That great thinker and ecstatic said, that all human personality +was thus two-fold: thus capable of correspondence with two orders of existence. +The "higher life" was always tending towards union with Reality; towards the +gathering of it self up into One. The "lower life," framed for correspondence +with the outward world of multiplicity, was always tending to fall downwards, +and fritter the powers of the self among external things. This is but a +restatement, in terms of practical existence, of the fact which Recollection +brought home to us: that the human self is transitional, neither angel nor +animal, capable of living towards either Eternity or Time. But it is one thing +to frame beautiful theories on these subjects: another when the unresolved +dualism of your own personality (though you may not give it this high-sounding +name) becomes the main fact of consciousness, perpetually reasserts itself as a +vital problem, and refuses to take academic rank.</p> +<p>This state of things means the acute discomfort which ensues on +being pulled two ways at once. The uneasy swaying of attention between two +incompatible ideals, the alternating conviction that there is something wrong, +perverse, poisonous, about life as you have always lived it, and something +hopelessly ethereal about the life which your innermost inhabitant wants to +live--these disagreeable sensations grow stronger and stronger. First one and +then the other asserts itself. You fluctuate miserably between their attractions +and their claims; and will have no peace until these claims have been met, and +the apparent opposition between them resolved. You are sure now that there is +another, more durable and more "reasonable," life possible to the human +consciousness than that on which it usually spends itself. But it is also clear +to you that you must yourself be something more, or other, than you are now, if +you are to achieve this life, dwell in it, and breathe its air. You have had in +your brief spells of recollection a first quick vision of that plane of being +which Augustine called "the land of peace," the "beauty old and new." You know +for evermore that it exists: that the real thing within yourself belongs to it, +might live in it, is being all the time invited and enticed to it. You begin, in +fact, to feel and know in every fibre of your being the mystical need of "union +with Reality"; and to realise that the natural scene which you have accepted so +trustfully cannot provide the correspondences toward which you are stretching +out.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, it is to correspondences with this natural order +that you have given for many years your full attention, your desire, your will. +The surface-self, left for so long in undisputed possession of the conscious +field, has grown strong, and cemented itself like a limpet to the rock of the +obvious; gladly exchanging freedom for apparent security, and building up, from +a selection amongst the more concrete elements offered it by the rich stream of +life, a defensive shell of "fixed ideas." It is useless to speak kindly to the +limpet. You must detach it by main force. That old comfortable clinging life, +protected by its hard shell from the living waters of the sea, must now come to +an end. A conflict of some kind--a severance of old habits, old notions, old +prejudices--is here inevitable for you; and a decision as to the form which the +new adjustments must take.</p> +<p>Now although in a general way we may regard the practical man's +attitude to existence as a limpet-like adherence to the unreal; yet, from +another point of view, fixity of purpose and desire is the last thing we can +attribute to him. His mind is full of little whirlpools, twists and currents, +conflicting systems, incompatible desires. One after another, he centres himself +on ambition, love, duty, friendship, social convention, politics, religion, +self-interest in one of its myriad forms; making of each a core round which +whole sections of his life are arranged. One after another, these things either +fail him or enslave him. Sometimes they become obsessions, distorting his +judgment, narrowing his outlook, colouring his whole existence. Sometimes they +develop inconsistent characters which involve him in public difficulties, +private compromises and self-deceptions of every kind. They split his attention, +fritter his powers. This state of affairs, which usually passes for an "active +life," begins to take on a different complexion when looked at with the simple +eye of meditation. Then we observe that the plain man's world is in a muddle, +just because he has tried to arrange its major interests round himself as round +a centre; and he is neither strong enough nor clever enough for the job. He has +made a wretched little whirlpool in the mighty River of Becoming, +interrupting--as he imagines, in his own interest--its even flow: and within +that whirlpool are numerous petty complexes and counter-currents, amongst which +his will and attention fly to and fro in a continual state of unrest. The man +who makes a success of his life, in any department, is he who has chosen one +from amongst these claims and interests, and devoted to it his energetic powers +of heart and will; "unifying" himself about it, and from within it resisting all +counter-claims. He has one objective, one centre; has killed out the lesser +ones, and simplified himself.</p> +<p>Now the artist, the discoverer, the philosopher, the lover, the +patriot--the true enthusiast for any form of life--can only achieve the full +reality to which his special art or passion gives access by innumerable +renunciations. He must kill out the smaller centres of interest, in order that +his whole will, love, and attention may pour itself out towards, seize upon, +unite with, that special manifestation of the beauty and significance of the +universe to which he is drawn. So, too, a deliberate self-simplification, a +"purgation" of the heart and will, is demanded of those who would develop the +form of consciousness called "mystical." All your power, all your resolution, is +needed if you are to succeed in this adventure: there must be no frittering of +energy, no mixture of motives. We hear much of the mystical temperament, the +mystical vision. The mystical character is far more important: and its chief +ingredients are courage, singleness of heart, and self-control. It is towards +the perfecting of these military virtues, not to the production of a pious +softness, that the discipline of asceticism is largely directed; and the ascetic +foundation, in one form or another, is the only enduring foundation of a sane +contemplative life.</p> +<p>You cannot, until you have steadied yourself, found a poise, and +begun to resist some amongst the innumerable claims which the world of +appearance perpetually makes upon your attention and your desire, make much use +of the new power which Recollection has disclosed to you; and this Recollection +itself, so long as it remains merely a matter of attention and does not involve +the heart, is no better than a psychic trick. You are committed therefore, as +the fruit of your first attempts at self-knowledge, to a deliberate--probably a +difficult--rearrangement of your character; to the stern course of +self-discipline, the voluntary acts of choice on the one hand and of rejection +on the other, which ascetic writers describe under the formidable names of +Detachment and Mortification. By Detachment they mean the eviction of the limpet +from its crevice; the refusal to anchor yourself to material things, to regard +existence from the personal standpoint, or confuse custom with necessity. By +Mortification, they mean the resolving of the turbulent whirlpools and currents +of your own conflicting passions, interests, desires; the killing out of all +those tendencies which the peaceful vision of Recollection would condemn, and +which create the fundamental opposition between your interior and exterior life.</p> +<p>What then, in the last resort, is the source of this opposition; +the true reason of your uneasiness, your unrest? The reason lies, not in any +real incompatibility between the interests of the temporal and the eternal +orders; which are but two aspects of one Fact, two expressions of one Love. It +lies solely in yourself; in your attitude towards the world of things. You are +enslaved by the verb "to have": all your reactions to life consist in corporate +or individual demands, appetites, wants. That "love of life" of which we +sometimes speak is mostly cupboard-love. We are quick to snap at her ankles when +she locks the larder door: a proceeding which we dignify by the name of +pessimism. The mystic knows not this attitude of demand. He tells us again and +again, that "he is rid of all his asking"; that "henceforth the heat of having +shall never scorch him more." Compare this with your normal attitude to the +world, practical man: your quiet certitude that you are well within your rights +in pushing the claims of "the I, the Me, the Mine"; your habit, if you be +religious, of asking for the weather and the government that you want, of +persuading the Supernal Powers to take a special interest in your national or +personal health and prosperity. How often in each day do you deliberately revert +to an attitude of disinterested adoration? Yet this is the only attitude in +which true communion with the universe is possible. The very mainspring of your +activity is a demand, either for a continued possession of that which you have, +or for something which as yet you have not: wealth, honour, success, social +position, love, friendship, comfort, amusement. You feel that you have a right +to some of these things: to a certain recognition of your powers, a certain +immunity from failure or humiliation. You resent anything which opposes you in +these matters. You become restless when you see other selves more skilful in the +game of acquisition than yourself. You hold tight against all comers your own +share of the spoils. You are rather inclined to shirk boring responsibilities +and unattractive, unremunerative toil; are greedy of pleasure and excitement, +devoted to the art of having a good time. If you possess a social sense, you +demand these things not only for yourself but for your tribe--the domestic or +racial group to which you belong. These dispositions, so ordinary that they +almost pass unnoticed, were named by our blunt forefathers the Seven Deadly Sins +of Pride, Anger, Envy, Avarice, Sloth, Gluttony, and Lust. Perhaps you would +rather call them--as indeed they are--the seven common forms of egotism. They +represent the natural reactions to life of the self-centred human consciousness, +enslaved by the "world of multiplicity"; and constitute absolute barriers to its +attainment of Reality. So long as these dispositions govern character we can +never see or feel things as they are; but only as they affect ourselves, our +family, our party, our business, our church, our empire--the I, the Me, the +Mine, in its narrower or wider manifestations. Only the detached and purified +heart can view all things--the irrational cruelty of circumstance, the tortures +of war, the apparent injustice of life, the acts and beliefs of enemy and +friend--in true proportion; and reckon with calm mind the sum of evil and good. +Therefore the mystics tell us perpetually that "selfhood must be killed" before +Reality can be attained.</p> +<p>"Feel sin a lump, thou wottest never what, but none other thing +than <i>thyself</i>," says <i>The Cloud of Unknowing</i>. "When the I, the Me, +and the Mine are dead, the work of the Lord is done," says Kabir. The substance +of that wrongness of act and relation which constitutes "sin" is the separation +of the individual spirit from the whole; the ridiculous megalomania which makes +each man the centre of his universe. Hence comes the turning inwards and +condensation of his energies and desires, till they do indeed form a "lump"; a +hard, tight core about which all the currents of his existence swirl. This heavy +weight within the heart resists every outgoing impulse of the spirit; and tends +to draw all things inward and downward to itself, never to pour itself forth in +love, enthusiasm, sacrifice. "So long," says the <i>Theologia Germanica</i>, "as +a man seeketh his own will and his own highest good, because it is his, and for +his own sake, he will never find it: for so long as he doeth this, he is not +seeking his own highest good, and how then should he find it? For so long as he +doeth this, he seeketh himself, and dreameth that he is himself the highest +good. . . . But whosoever seeketh, loveth, and pursueth goodness, as goodness +and for the sake of goodness, and maketh that his end--for nothing but the love +of goodness, not for love of the I, Me, Mine, Self, and the like--he will find +the highest good, for he seeketh it aright, and they who seek it otherwise do +err."</p> +<p>So it is disinterestedness, the saint's and poet's love of +things for their own sakes, the vision of the charitable heart, which is the +secret of union with Reality and the condition of all real knowledge. This +brings with it the precious quality of suppleness, the power of responding with +ease and simplicity to the great rhythms of life; and this will only come when +the ungainly "lump" of sin is broken, and the verb "to have," which expresses +its reaction to existence, is ejected from the centre of your consciousness. +Then your attitude to life will cease to be commercial, and become artistic. +Then the guardian at the gate, scrutinising and sorting the incoming +impressions, will no longer ask, "What use is this to <i>me</i>?"<i></i> before +admitting the angel of beauty or significance who demands your hospitality. Then +things will cease to have power over you. You will become free. "Son," says a +Kempis, "thou oughtest diligently to attend to this; that in every place, every +action or outward occupation, thou be inwardly free and mighty in thyself, and +all things be under thee, and thou not under them; that thou be lord and +governor of thy deeds, not servant." It is therefore by the withdrawal of your +will from its feverish attachment to things, till "they are under thee and thou +not under them," that you will gradually resolve the opposition between the +recollective and the active sides of your personality. By diligent +self-discipline, that mental attitude which the mystics sometimes call poverty +and sometimes perfect freedom--for these are two aspects of one thing--will +become possible to you. Ascending the mountain of self-knowledge and throwing +aside your superfluous luggage as you go, you shall at last arrive at the point +which they call the summit of the spirit; where the various forces of your +character--brute energy, keen intellect, desirous heart--long dissipated amongst +a thousand little wants and preferences, are gathered into one, and become a +strong and disciplined instrument wherewith your true self can force a path +deeper and deeper into the heart of Reality.</p> + +<a name="7"></a> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER VI +<br> +<br> +LOVE AND WILL +<br> + + +<p>This steady effort towards the simplifying of your tangled +character, its gradual emancipation from the fetters of the unreal, is not to +dispense you from that other special training of the attention which the +diligent practice of meditation and recollection effects. Your pursuit of the +one must never involve neglect of the other; for these are the two sides--one +moral, the other mental--of that unique process of self-conquest which +Ruysbroeck calls "the gathering of the forces of the soul into the unity of the +spirit": the welding together of all your powers, the focussing of them upon one +point. Hence they should never, either in theory or practice, be separated. Only +the act of recollection, the constantly renewed retreat to the quiet centre of +the spirit, gives that assurance of a Reality, a calmer and more valid life +attainable by us, which supports the stress and pain of self-simplification and +permits us to hope on, even in the teeth of the world's cruelty, indifference, +degeneracy; whilst diligent character-building alone, with its perpetual +untiring efforts at self-adjustment, its bracing, purging discipline, checks the +human tendency to relapse into and react to the obvious, and makes possible the +further development of the contemplative power.</p> +<p>So it is through and by these two great changes in your attitude +towards things--first, the change of attention, which enables you to perceive a +truer universe; next, the deliberate rearrangement of your ideas, energies, and +desires in harmony with that which you have seen--that a progressive uniformity +of life and experience is secured to you, and you are defended against the +dangers of an indolent and useless mysticality. Only the real, say the mystics, +can know Reality, for "we behold that which we are," the universe which we see +is conditioned by the character of the mind that sees it: and this +realness--since that which you seek is no mere glimpse of Eternal Life, but +complete possession of it--must apply to every aspect of your being, the rich +totality of character, all the "forces of the soul," not to some thin and +isolated "spiritual sense" alone. This is why recollection and +self-simplification--perception of, and adaptation to, the Spiritual World in +which we dwell--are the essential preparations for the mystical life, and +neither can exist in a wholesome and well-balanced form without the other. By +them the mind, the will, the heart, which so long had dissipated their energies +over a thousand scattered notions, wants, and loves, are gradually detached from +their old exclusive preoccupation with the ephemeral interests of the self, or +of the group to which the self belongs.</p> +<p>You, if you practise them, will find after a time--perhaps a +long time--that the hard work which they involve has indeed brought about a +profound and definite change in you. A new suppleness has taken the place of +that rigidity which you have been accustomed to mistake for strength of +character: an easier attitude towards the accidents of life. Your whole scale of +values has undergone a silent transformation, since you have ceased to fight for +your own hand and regard the nearest-at-hand world as the only one that counts. +You have become, as the mystics would say, "free from inordinate attachments," +the "heat of having" does not scorch you any more; and because of this you +possess great inward liberty, a sense of spaciousness and peace. Released from +the obsessions which so long had governed them, will, heart, and mind are now +all bent to the purposes of your deepest being: "gathered in the unity of the +spirit," they have fused to become an agent with which it can act.</p> +<p>What form, then, shall this action take? It shall take a +practical form, shall express itself in terms of movement: the pressing outwards +of the whole personality, the eager and trustful stretching of it towards the +fresh universe which awaits you. As all scattered thinking was cut off in +recollection, as all vagrant and unworthy desires have been killed by the +exercises of detachment; so now all scattered willing, all hesitations between +the indrawing and outflowing instincts of the soul, shall be checked and +resolved. You are to <i>push</i> with all your power: not to absorb ideas, but +to pour forth will and love. With this "conative act," as the psychologists +would call it, the true contemplative life begins. Contemplation, you see, has +no very close connection with dreaminess and idle musing: it is more like the +intense effort of vision, the passionate and self-forgetful act of communion, +presupposed in all creative art. It is, says one old English mystic, "a blind +intent stretching . . . a privy love pressed" in the direction of Ultimate Beauty, +athwart all the checks, hindrances, and contradictions of the restless world: a +"loving stretching out" towards Reality, says the great Ruysbroeck, than whom +none has gone further on this path. Tension, ardour, are of its essence: it +demands the perpetual exercise of industry and courage.</p> +<p>We observe in such definitions as these a strange neglect of +that glory of man, the Pure Intellect, with which the spiritual prig enjoys to +believe that he can climb up to the Empyrean itself. It almost seems as though +the mystics shared Keats' view of the supremacy of feeling over thought; and +reached out towards some new and higher range of sensation, rather than towards +new and more accurate ideas. They are ever eager to assure us that man's most +sublime thoughts of the Transcendent are but a little better than his worst: +that loving intuition is the only certain guide. "By love may He be gotten and +holden, but by thought never."</p> +<p>Yet here you are not to fall into the clumsy error of supposing +that the things which are beyond the grasp of reason are necessarily +unreasonable things. Immediate feeling, so far as it is true, does not oppose +but transcends and completes the highest results of thought. It contains within +itself the sum of all the processes through which thought would pass in the act +of attaining the same goal: supposing thought to have reached--as it has +not--the high pitch at which it was capable of thinking its way all along this +road.</p> +<p>In the preliminary act of gathering yourself together, and in +those unremitting explorations through which you came to "a knowing and a +feeling of yourself as you are," thought assuredly had its place. There the +powers of analysis, criticism, and deduction found work that they could do. But +now it is the love and will--the feeling, the intent, the passionate desire--of +the self, which shall govern your activities and make possible your success. Few +would care to brave the horrors of a courtship conducted upon strictly +intellectual lines: and contemplation is an act of love, the wooing, not the +critical study, of Divine Reality. It is an eager outpouring of ourselves +towards a Somewhat Other for which we feel a passion of desire; a seeking, +touching, and tasting, not a considering and analysing, of the beautiful and +true wherever found. It is, as it were, a responsive act of the organism to +those Supernal Powers without, which touch and stir it. Deep humility as towards +those Powers, a willing surrender to their control, is the first condition of +success. The mystics speak much of these elusive contacts; felt more and more in +the soul, as it becomes increasingly sensitive to the subtle movements of its +spiritual environment.</p> +<p></p> +<p> "Sense, feeling, taste, complacency, and sight,<br> + These are the true and real joys, <br> + The living, flowing, inward, +melting, bright <br> + And heavenly pleasures; all the rest are toys; +<br> + All which are +founded in Desire <br> + As light in flame and heat in fire."</p> +<p></p> +<p>But this new method of correspondence with the universe is not +to be identified with "mere feeling" in its lowest and least orderly forms. +Contemplation does not mean abject surrender to every "mystical" impression that +comes in. It is no sentimental aestheticism or emotional piety to which you are +being invited: nor shall the transcending of reason ever be achieved by way of +spiritual silliness. All the powers of the self, raised to their intensest +form, shall be used in it; though used perhaps in a new way. These, the three +great faculties of love, thought, and will--with which you have been accustomed +to make great show on the periphery of consciousness--you have, as it were, +drawn inwards during the course of your inward retreat: and by your education in +detachment have cured them of their tendency to fritter their powers amongst a +multiplicity of objects. Now, at the very heart of personality, you are alone +with them; you hold with you in that "Interior Castle," and undistracted for the +moment by the demands of practical existence, the three great tools wherewith +the soul deals with life.</p> +<p>As regards the life you have hitherto looked upon as "normal," +love--understood in its widest sense, as desire, emotional inclination--has +throughout directed your activities. You did things, sought things, learned +things, even suffered things, because at bottom you wanted to. Will has done the +work to which love spurred it: thought has assimilated the results of their +activities and made for them pictures, analyses, "explanations" of the world +with which they had to deal. But now your purified love discerns and desires, +your will is set towards, something which thought cannot really +assimilate--still less explain. "Contemplation," says Ruysbroeck, "is a knowing +that is in no wise . . . therein all the workings of the reason fail." That +reason has been trained to deal with the stuff of temporal existence. It will +only make mincemeat of your experience of Eternity if you give it a chance; +trimming, transforming, rationalising that ineffable vision, trying to force it +into a symbolic system with which the intellect can cope. This is why the great +contemplatives utter again and again their solemn warning against the +deceptiveness of thought when it ventures to deal with the spiritual intuitions +of man; crying with the author of <i>The Cloud of Unknowing</i>, "Look that <i> +nothing</i> live in thy working mind but a naked intent stretching"--the +voluntary tension of your ever-growing, ever-moving personality pushing out +towards the Real. "Love, and <i>do</i> what you like," said the wise Augustine: +so little does mere surface activity count, against the deep motive that begets +it.</p> +<p>The dynamic power of love and will, the fact that the heart's +desire--if it be intense and industrious--is a better earnest of possible +fulfilment than the most elegant theories of the spiritual world; this is the +perpetual theme of all the Christian mystics. By such love, they think, the +worlds themselves were made. By an eager outstretching towards Reality, they +tell us, we tend to move towards Reality, to enter into its rhythm: by a humble +and unquestioning surrender to it we permit its entrance into our souls. This +twofold act, in which we find the double character of all true love--which both +gives and takes, yields and demands--is assured, if we be patient and +single-hearted, of ultimate success. At last our ignorance shall be done away; +and we shall "apprehend" the real and the eternal, as we apprehend the sunshine +when the sky is free from cloud. Therefore "Smite upon that thick cloud of +unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love"--and suddenly it shall part, and +disclose the blue.</p> +<p>"Smite," "press," "push," "strive"--these are strong words: yet +they are constantly upon the lips of the contemplatives when describing the +earlier stages of their art. Clearly, the abolition of discursive thought is not +to absolve you from the obligations of industry. You are to "energise +enthusiastically" upon new planes, where you shall see more intensely, hear more +intensely, touch and taste more intensely than ever before: for the modes of +communion which these senses make possible to you are now to operate as parts of +the one single state of perfect intuition, of loving knowledge by union, to +which you are growing up. And gradually you come to see that, if this be so, it +is the ardent will that shall be the prime agent of your undertaking: a will +which has now become the active expression of your deepest and purest desires. +About this the recollected and simplified self is to gather itself as a centre; +and thence to look out--steadily, deliberately--with eyes of love towards the +world.</p> +<p>To "look with the eyes of love" seems a vague and sentimental +recommendation: yet the whole art of spiritual communion is summed in it, and +exact and important results flow from this exercise. The attitude which it +involves is an attitude of complete humility and of receptiveness; without +criticism, without clever analysis of the thing seen. When you look thus, you +surrender your I-hood; see things at last as the artist does, for their sake, +not for your own. The fundamental unity that is in you reaches out to the unity +that is in them: and you achieve the "Simple Vision" of the poet and the +mystic--that synthetic and undistorted apprehension of things which is the +antithesis of the single vision of practical men. The doors of perception are +cleansed, and everything appears as it is. The disfiguring results of hate, +rivalry, prejudice, vanish away. Into that silent place to which recollection +has brought you, new music, new colour, new light, are poured from the outward +world. The conscious love which achieves this vision may, indeed must, +fluctuate--"As long as thou livest thou art subject to mutability; yea, though +thou wilt not!" But the <i>will</i> which that love has enkindled can hold +attention in the right direction. It can refuse to relapse to unreal and +egotistic correspondences; and continue, even in darkness, and in the suffering +which such darkness brings to the awakened spirit, its appointed task, cutting a +way into new levels of Reality.</p> +<p>Therefore this transitional stage in the development of the +contemplative powers--in one sense the completion of their elementary schooling, +in another the beginning of their true activities--is concerned with the +toughening and further training of that will which self-simplification has +detached from its old concentration upon the unreal wants and interests of the +self. Merged with your intuitive love, this is to become the true agent of your +encounter with Reality; for that Simple Eye of Intention, which is so supremely +your own, and in the last resort the maker of your universe and controller of +your destiny, is nothing else but a synthesis of such energetic will and such +uncorrupt desire, turned and held in the direction of the Best.</p> + +<a name="8"></a> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER VII +<br> +<br> +THE FIRST FORM OF CONTEMPLATION +<br> + + +<p>Concentration, recollection, a profound self-criticism, the +stilling of his busy surface-intellect, his restless emotions of enmity and +desire, the voluntary achievement of an attitude of disinterested love--by these +strange paths the practical man has now been led, in order that he may know by +communion something of the greater Life in which he is immersed and which he has +so long and so successfully ignored. He has managed in his own small way +something equivalent to those drastic purifications, those searching +readjustments, which are undertaken by the heroic seekers for Reality; the arts +whereby they defeat the tyranny of "the I, the Me, the Mine" and achieve the +freedom of a wider life. Now, perhaps, he may share to some extent in that +illumination, that extended and intensified perception of things, which they +declare to be the heritage of the liberated consciousness.</p> +<p>This illumination shall be gradual. The attainment of it depends +not so much upon a philosophy accepted, or a new gift of vision suddenly +received, as upon an uninterrupted changing and widening of character; a +progressive growth towards the Real, an ever more profound harmonisation of the +self's life with the greater and inclusive rhythms of existence. It shall +therefore develop in width and depth as the sphere of that self's intuitive love +extends. As your own practical sympathy with and understanding of other lives, +your realisation of them, may be narrowed and stiffened to include no more than +the family group, or spread over your fellow-workers, your class, your city, +party, country, or religion--even perhaps the whole race--till you feel yourself +utterly part of it, moving with it, suffering with it, and partake of its whole +conscious life; so here. Self-mergence is a gradual process, dependent on a +progressive unlimiting of personality. The apprehension of Reality which rewards +it is gradual too. In essence, it is one continuous out-flowing movement towards +that boundless heavenly consciousness where the "flaming ramparts" which shut +you from true communion with all other selves and things is done away; an +unbroken process of expansion and simplification, which is nothing more or less +than the growth of the spirit of love, the full flowering of the patriotic +sense. By this perpetually-renewed casting down of the hard barriers of +individuality, these willing submissions to the compelling rhythm of a larger +existence than that of the solitary individual or even of the human group--by +this perpetual widening, deepening, and unselfing of your attentiveness--you are +to enlarge your boundaries and become the citizen of a greater, more joyous, +more poignant world, the partaker of a more abundant life. The limits of this +enlargement have not yet been discovered. The greatest contemplatives, returning +from their highest ascents, can only tell us of a world that is "unwalled."</p> +<p>But this growth into higher realities, this blossoming of your +contemplative consciousness--though it be, like all else we know in life, an +unbroken process of movement and change--must be broken up and reduced to the +series of concrete forms which we call "order" if our inelastic minds are to +grasp it. So, we will consider it as the successive achievement of those three +levels or manifestations of Reality, which we have agreed to call the Natural +World of Becoming, the Metaphysical World of Being, and--last and highest--that +Divine Reality within which these opposites are found as one. Though these three +worlds of experience are so plaited together, that intimations from the deeper +layers of being constantly reach you through the natural scene, it is in this +order of realisation that you may best think of them, and of your own gradual +upgrowth to the full stature of humanity. To elude nature, to refuse her +friendship, and attempt to leap the river of life in the hope of finding God on +the other side, is the common error of a perverted mysticality. It is as fatal +in result as the opposite error of deliberately arrested development, which, +being attuned to the wonderful rhythms of natural life, is content with this +increase of sensibility; and, becoming a "nature-mystic," asks no more.</p> +<p>So you are to begin with that first form of contemplation which +the old mystics sometimes called the "discovery of God in His creatures." Not +with some ecstatic adventure in supersensuous regions, but with the loving and +patient exploration of the world that lies at your gates; the "ebb and flow and +ever-during power" of which your own existence forms a part. You are to push +back the self's barriers bit by bit, till at last all duration is included in +the widening circles of its intuitive love: till you find in every manifestation +of life--even those which you have petulantly classified as cruel or +obscene--the ardent self-expression of that Immanent Being whose spark burns +deep in your own soul.</p> +<p>The Indian mystics speak perpetually of the visible universe as +the <i>L<font FACE="Times New Roman,Times New Roman">ī</font>l<font FACE="Times New Roman,Times New Roman">ā</font> +</i>or Sport of God: the Infinite deliberately expressing +Himself in finite form, the musical manifestation of His creative joy. All +gracious and all courteous souls, they think, will gladly join His play; +considering rather the wonder and achievement of the whole--its vivid movement, +its strange and terrible evocations of beauty from torment, nobility from +conflict and death, its mingled splendour of sacrifice and triumph--than their +personal conquests, disappointments, and fatigues. In the first form of +contemplation you are to realise the movement of this game, in which you have +played so long a languid and involuntary part, and find your own place in it. It +is flowing, growing, changing, making perpetual unexpected patterns within the +evolving melody of the Divine Thought. In all things it is incomplete, unstable; +and so are you. Your fellow-men, enduring on the battlefield, living and +breeding in the slum, adventurous and studious, sensuous and pure--more, your +great comrades, the hills, the trees, the rivers, the darting birds, the +scuttering insects, the little soft populations of the grass--all these are +playing with you. They move one to another in delicate responsive measures, now +violent, now gentle, now in conflict, now in peace; yet ever weaving the pattern +of a ritual dance, and obedient to the music of that invisible Choragus whom +Boehme and Plotinus knew. What is that great wind which blows without, in +continuous and ineffable harmonies? Part of you, practical man. There is but one +music in the world: and to it you contribute perpetually, whether you will or +no, your one little ditty of no tone.</p> +<p></p> +<p> "Mad with joy, life and death dance to the rhythm of this music:<br> + The hills and the sea and the earth dance: <br> + The world of man +dances in laughter and tears."</p> +<p></p> +<p>It seems a pity to remain in ignorance of this, to keep as it +were a plate-glass window between yourself and your fellow-dancers--all those +other thoughts of God, perpetually becoming, changing and growing beside +you--and commit yourself to the unsocial attitude of the "cat that walks by +itself."</p> +<p>Begin therefore at once. Gather yourself up, as the exercises of +recollection have taught you to do. Then--with attention no longer frittered +amongst the petty accidents and interests of your personal life, but poised, +tense, ready for the work you shall demand of it--stretch out by a distinct act +of loving will towards one of the myriad manifestations of life that surround +you: and which, in an ordinary way, you hardly notice unless you happen to need +them. Pour yourself out towards it, do not draw its image towards you. +Deliberate--more, impassioned--attentiveness, an attentiveness which soon +transcends all consciousness of yourself, as separate from and attending to the +thing seen; this is the condition of success. As to the object of contemplation, +it matters little. From Alp to insect, anything will do, provided that your +attitude be right: for all things in this world towards which you are stretching +out are linked together, and one truly apprehended will be the gateway to the +rest.</p> +<p>Look with the eye of contemplation on the most dissipated tabby +of the streets, and you shall discern the celestial quality of life set like an +aureole about his tattered ears, and hear in his strident mew an echo of</p> +<p></p> +<p> "The deep enthusiastic joy, <br> + The rapture of the hallelujah sent +<br> + From all that breathes and is."</p> +<p></p> +<p>The sooty tree up which he scrambles to escape your earnest gaze +is holy too. It contains for you the whole divine cycle of the seasons; upon the +plane of quiet, its inward pulse is clearly to be heard. But you must look at +these things as you would look into the eyes of a friend: ardently, selflessly, +without considering his reputation, his practical uses, his anatomical +peculiarities, or the vices which might emerge were he subjected to +psycho-analysis.</p> +<p>Such a simple exercise, if entered upon with singleness of +heart, will soon repay you. By this quiet yet tense act of communion, this +loving gaze, you will presently discover a relationship--far more intimate than +anything you imagined--between yourself and the surrounding "objects of sense"; +and in those objects of sense a profound significance, a personal quality, and +actual power of response, which you might in cooler moments think absurd. Making +good your correspondences with these fellow-travellers, you will learn to say +with Whitman:</p> +<p></p> +<p> "You air that serves me with breath to speak!<br> + You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them +shape!<br> + You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable +showers!<br> + You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadside! <br> + I +believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me."</p> +<p></p> +<p>A subtle interpenetration of your spirit with the spirit of +those "unseen existences," now so deeply and thrillingly felt by you, will take +place. Old barriers will vanish: and you will become aware that St. Francis was +accurate as well as charming when he spoke of Brother Wind and Sister Water; and +that Stevenson was obviously right when he said, that since:</p> +<p></p> +<p> "The world is so full of a number of things, <br> + I'm sure we ought +all to be happy as kings."</p> +<p></p> +<p>Those glad and vivid "things" will speak to you. They will offer +you news at least as definite and credible as that which the paper-boy is +hawking in the street: direct messages from that Beauty which the artist reports +at best at second hand. Because of your new sensitiveness, anthems will be heard +of you from every gutter; poems of intolerable loveliness will bud for you on +every weed. Best and greatest, your fellowmen will shine for you with new +significance and light. Humility and awe will be evoked in you by the beautiful +and patient figures of the poor, their long dumb heroisms, their willing +acceptance of the burden of life. All the various members of the human group, +the little children and the aged, those who stand for energy, those dedicated to +skill, to thought, to plainest service, or to prayer, will have for you fresh +vivid significance, be felt as part of your own wider being. All adventurous +endeavours, all splendour of pain and all beauty of play--more, that grey +unceasing effort of existence which makes up the groundwork of the social web, +and the ineffective hopes, enthusiasms, and loves which transfuse it--all these +will be seen and felt by you at last as full of glory, full of meaning; for you +will see them with innocent, attentive, disinterested eyes, feel them as +infinitely significant and adorable parts of the Transcendent Whole in which you +also are immersed.</p> +<p>This discovery of your fraternal link with all living things, +this down-sinking of your arrogant personality into the great generous stream of +life, marks an important stage in your apprehension of that Science of Love +which contemplation is to teach. You are not to confuse it with pretty fancies +about nature, such as all imaginative persons enjoy; still less, with a +self-conscious and deliberate humanitarianism. It is a veritable condition of +awareness; a direct perception, not an opinion or an idea. For those who attain +it, the span of the senses is extended. These live in a world which is lit with +an intenser light; has, as George Fox insisted, "another smell than before." +They hear all about them the delicate music of growth, and see the "new colour" +of which the mystics speak.</p> +<p>Further, you will observe that this act, and the attitude which +is proper to it, differs in a very important way even from that special +attentiveness which characterised the stage of meditation, and which seems at +first sight to resemble it in many respects. Then, it was an idea or image from +amongst the common stock--one of those conceptual labels with which the human +paste-brush has decorated the surface of the universe--which you were encouraged +to hold before your mind. Now, turning away from the label, you shall surrender +yourself to the direct message poured out towards you by the <i>thing</i>. Then, +you considered: now, you are to absorb. This experience will be, in the very +highest sense, the experience of sensation without thought: the essential +sensation, the "savouring" to which some of the mystics invite us, of which our +fragmentary bodily senses offer us a transient sacrament. So here at last, in +this intimate communion, this "simple seeing," this total surrender of you to +the impress of things, you are using to the full the sacred powers of sense: and +so using them, because you are concentrating upon them, accepting their reports +in simplicity. You have, in this contemplative outlook, carried the peculiar +methods of artistic apprehension to their highest stage: with the result that +the sense-world has become for you, as Erigena said that all creatures were, "a +theophany, or appearance of God." Not, you observe, a symbol, but a showing: a +very different thing. You have begun now the Plotinian ascent from multiplicity +to unity, and therefore begin to perceive in the Many the clear and actual +presence of the One: the changeless and absolute Life, manifesting itself in all +the myriad nascent, crescent, cadent lives. Poets, gazing thus at the "flower in +the crannied wall" or the "green thing that stands in the way," have been led +deep into the heart of its life; there to discern the secret of the universe.</p> +<p>All the greater poems of Wordsworth and Walt Whitman represent +an attempt to translate direct contemplative experience of this kind into words +and rhythms which might convey its secret to other men: all Blake's philosophy +is but a desperate effort to persuade us to exchange the false world of "Nature" +on which we usually look--and which is not really Nature at all--for this, the +true world, to which he gave the confusing name of "Imagination." For these, the +contemplation of the World of Becoming assumes the intense form which we call +genius: even to read their poems is to feel the beating of a heart, the upleap +of a joy, greater than anything that we have known. Yet your own little efforts +towards the attainment of this level of consciousness will at least give to you, +together with a more vivid universe, a wholly new comprehension of their works; +and that of other poets and artists who have drunk from the chalice of the +Spirit of Life. These works are now observed by you to be the only artistic +creations to which the name of Realism is appropriate; and it is by the standard +of reality that you shall now criticise them, recognising in utterances which +you once dismissed as rhetoric the desperate efforts of the clear-sighted +towards the exact description of things veritably seen in that simplified state +of consciousness which Blake called "imagination uncorrupt." It was from those +purified and heightened levels of perception to which the first form of +contemplation inducts the soul, that Julian of Norwich, gazing upon "a little +thing, the quantity of an hazel nut," found in it the epitome of all that was +made; for therein she perceived the royal character of life. So small and +helpless in its mightiest forms, so august even in its meanest, that life in its +wholeness was then realised by her as the direct outbirth of, and the meek +dependant upon, the Energy of Divine Love. She felt at once the fugitive +character of its apparent existence, the perdurable Reality within which it was +held. "I marvelled," she said, "how it might last, for methought it might +suddenly have fallen to naught for littleness. And I was answered in my +understanding: <i>It lasteth, and ever shall, for that God loveth it</i>. And so +All-thing hath the being by the love of God." To this same apprehension of +Reality, this linking up of each finite expression with its Origin, this search +for the inner significance of every fragment of life, one of the greatest and +most balanced contemplatives of the nineteenth century, Florence Nightingale, +reached out when she exclaimed in an hour of self-examination, "I must strive to +see only God in my friends, and God in my cats."</p> +<p>Yet it is not the self-tormenting strife of introspective and +self-conscious aspiration, but rather an unrelaxed, diligent intention, a steady +acquiescence, a simple and loyal surrender to the great currents of life, a +holding on to results achieved in your best moments, that shall do it for you: a +surrender not limp but deliberate, a trustful self-donation, a "living faith." +"A pleasing stirring of love," says <i>The Cloud of Unknowing</i>, not a +desperate anxious struggle for more light. True contemplation can only thrive +when defended from two opposite exaggerations: quietism on the one hand, and +spiritual fuss upon the other. Neither from passivity nor from anxiety has it +anything to gain. Though the way may be long, the material of your mind +intractable, to the eager lover of Reality ultimate success is assured. The +strong tide of Transcendent Life will inevitably invade, clarify, uplift the +consciousness which is open to receive it; a movement from without--subtle yet +actual--answering each willed movement from within. "Your opening and His +entering," says Eckhart, "are but one moment." When, therefore, you put aside +your preconceived ideas, your self-centred scale of values, and let intuition +have its way with you, you open up by this act new levels of the world. Such an +opening-up is the most practical of all activities; for then and then only will +your diurnal existence, and the natural scene in which that existence is set, +begin to give up to you its richness and meaning. Its paradoxes and inequalities +will be disclosed as true constituents of its beauty, an inconceivable splendour +will be shaken out from its dingiest folds. Then, and only then, escaping the +single vision of the selfish, you will begin to guess all that your senses were +meant to be.</p> +<p></p> +<p> "I<i></i> swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete, +<br> + The earth remains jagged and broken only +to him or her who remains jagged and broken."</p> +<p></p> + +<a name="9"></a> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER VIII +<br> +<br> +THE SECOND FORM OF CONTEMPLATION +<br> + +<p>"And here," says Ruysbroeck of the self which has reached this +point, "there begins a hunger and a thirst which shall never more be stilled."</p> +<p>In the First Form of Contemplation that self has been striving +to know better its own natural plane of existence. It has stretched out the +feelers of its intuitive love into the general stream of duration of which it is +a part. Breaking down the fences of personality, merging itself in a larger +consciousness, it has learned to know the World of Becoming from within--as a +citizen, a member of the great society of life, not merely as a spectator. But +the more deeply and completely you become immersed in and aware of this life, +the greater the extension of your consciousness; the more insistently will +rumours and intimations of a higher plane of experience, a closer unity and more +complete synthesis, begin to<i></i> besiege you. You feel that hitherto you nave +received the messages of life in a series of disconnected words and notes, from +which your mind constructed as best it could certain coherent sentences and +tunes--laws, classifications, relations, and the rest. But now you reach out +towards the ultimate sentence and melody, which exist independently of your own +constructive efforts; and realise that the words and notes which so often +puzzled you by displaying an intensity that exceeded the demands of your little +world, only have beauty and meaning just because and in so far as you discern +them to be the partial expressions of a greater whole which is still beyond your +reach.</p> +<p>You have long been like a child tearing up the petals of flowers +in order to make a mosaic on the garden path; and the results of this murderous +diligence you mistook for a knowledge of the world. When the bits fitted with +unusual exactitude, you called it science. Now at last you have perceived the +greater truth and loveliness of the living plant from which you broke them: +have, in fact, entered into direct communion with it, "united" with its reality. +But this very recognition of the living growing plant does and must entail for +you a consciousness of deeper realities, which, as yet, you have not touched: of +the intangible things and forces which feed and support it; of the whole +universe that touches you through its life. A mere cataloguing of all the +plants--though this were far better than your old game of indexing your own poor +photographs of them--will never give you access to the Unity, the Fact, whatever +it may be, which manifests itself through them. To suppose that it can do so is +the cardinal error of the "nature mystic": an error parallel with that of the +psychologist who looks for the soul in "psychic states."</p> +<p>The deeper your realisation of the plant in its wonder, the more +perfect your union with the world of growth and change, the quicker, the more +subtle your response to its countless suggestions; so much the more acute will +become your craving for Something More. You will now find and feel the Infinite +and Eternal, making as it were veiled and sacramental contacts with you under +these accidents--through these its ceaseless creative activities--and you will +want to press through and beyond them, to a fuller realisation of, a more +perfect and unmediated union with, the Substance of all That Is. With the great +widening and deepening of your life that has ensued from the abolition of a +narrow selfhood, your entrance into the larger consciousness of living things, +there has necessarily come to you an instinctive knowledge of a final and +absolute group-relation, transcending and including all lesser unions in its +sweep. To this, the second stage of contemplation, in which human consciousness +enters into its peculiar heritage, something within you now seems to urge you +on.</p> +<p>If you obey this inward push, pressing forward with the "sharp +dart of your longing love," forcing the point of your wilful attention further +and further into the web of things, such an ever-deepening realisation, such an +extension of your conscious life, will indeed become possible to you. Nothing +but your own apathy, your feeble and limited desire, limits this realisation. +Here there is a strict relation between demand and supply--your achievement +shall be in proportion to the greatness of your desire. The fact, and the +in-pressing energy, of the Reality without does not vary. Only the extent to +which you are able to receive it depends upon your courage and generosity, the +measure in which you give yourself to its embrace. Those minds which set a limit +to their self-donation must feel as they attain it, not a sense of satisfaction +but a sense of constriction. It is useless to offer your spirit a garden--even a +garden inhabited by saints and angels--and pretend that it has been made free of +the universe. You will not have peace until you do away with all banks and +hedges, and exchange the garden for the wilderness that is unwalled; that wild +strange place of silence where "lovers lose themselves."</p> +<p>Yet you must begin this great adventure humbly; and take, as +Julian of Norwich did, the first stage of your new outward-going journey along +the road that lies nearest at hand. When Julian looked with the eye of +contemplation upon that "little thing" which revealed to her the oneness of the +created universe, her deep and loving sight perceived in it successively three +properties, which she expressed as well as she might under the symbols of her +own theology: "The first is that God made it; the second is that God loveth it; +the third is that God keepeth it." Here are three phases in the ever-widening +contemplative apprehension of Reality. Not three opinions, but three facts, for +which she struggles to find words. The first is that each separate living thing, +budding "like an hazel nut" upon the tree of life, and there destined to mature, +age, and die, is the outbirth of another power, of a creative push: that the +World of Becoming in all its richness and variety is not ultimate, but formed by +Something other than, and utterly transcendent to, itself. This, of course, the +religious mind invariably takes for granted: but we are concerned with immediate +experience rather than faith. To feel and know those two aspects of Reality +which we call "created" and "uncreated," nature and spirit--to be as sharply +aware of them, as sure of them, as we are of land and sea--is to be made free of +the supersensual world. It is to stand for an instant at the Poet's side, and +see that Poem of which you have deciphered separate phrases in the earlier form +of contemplation. Then you were learning to read: and found in the words, the +lines, the stanzas, an astonishing meaning and loveliness. But how much greater +the significance of every detail would appear to you, how much more truly you +would possess its life, were you acquainted with the Poem: not as a mere +succession of such lines and stanzas, but as a non-successional whole.</p> +<p>From this Julian passes to that deeper knowledge of the heart +which comes from a humble and disinterested acceptance of life; that this +Creation, this whole changeful natural order, with all its apparent collisions, +cruelties, and waste, yet springs from an ardour, an immeasurable love, a +perpetual donation, which generates it, upholds it, drives it; for "<i>all-thing +</i>hath the being by the love of God." Blake's anguished question here receives +its answer: the Mind that conceived the lamb conceived the tiger too. +Everything, says Julian in effect, whether gracious, terrible, or malignant, is +enwrapped in love: and is part of a world produced, not by mechanical necessity, +but by passionate desire.</p> +<p>Therefore nothing can really be mean, nothing despicable; +nothing, however perverted, irredeemable. The blasphemous other-worldliness of +the false mystic who conceives of matter as an evil thing and flies from its +"deceits," is corrected by this loving sight. Hence, the more beautiful and +noble a thing appears to us, the more we love it--so much the more truly do we +see it: for then we perceive within it the Divine ardour surging up towards +expression, and share that simplicity and purity of vision in which most saints +and some poets see all things "as they are in God."</p> +<p>Lastly, this love-driven world of duration--this work within +which the Divine Artist passionately and patiently expresses His infinite dream +under finite forms--is held in another, mightier embrace. It is "kept," says +Julian. Paradoxically, the perpetual changeful energies of love and creation +which inspire it are gathered up and made complete within the unchanging fact of +Being: the Eternal and Absolute, within which the world of things is set as the +tree is set in the supporting earth, the enfolding air. There, finally, is the +rock and refuge of the seeking consciousness wearied by the ceaseless process of +the flux. There that flux exists in its wholeness, "all at once"; in a manner +which we can never comprehend, but which in hours of withdrawal we may sometimes +taste and feel. It is in man's moments of contact with this, when he penetrates +beyond all images, however lovely, however significant, to that ineffable +awareness which the mystics call "Naked Contemplation"--since it is stripped of +all the clothing with which reason and imagination drape and disguise both our +devils and our gods--that the hunger and thirst of the heart is satisfied, and +we receive indeed an assurance of ultimate Reality. This assurance is not the +cool conclusion of a successful argument. It is rather the seizing at last of +Something which we have ever felt near us and enticing us: the unspeakably +simple because completely inclusive solution of all the puzzles of life.</p> +<p>As, then, you gave yourself to the broken-up yet actual reality +of the natural world, in order that it might give itself to you, and your +possession of its secret was achieved, first by surrender of selfhood, next by a +diligent thrusting out of your attention, last by a union of love; so now by a +repetition upon fresh levels of that same process, you are to mount up to higher +unions still. Held tight as it seems to you in the finite, committed to the +perpetual rhythmic changes, the unceasing flux of "natural" life--compelled to +pass on from state to state, to grow, to age, to die--there is yet, as you +discovered in the first exercise of recollection, something in you which endures +through and therefore transcends this world of change. This inhabitant, this +mobile spirit, can spread and merge in the general consciousness, and gather +itself again to one intense point of personality. It has too an innate knowledge +of--an instinct for--another, greater rhythm, another order of Reality, as yet +outside its conscious field; or as we say, a capacity for the Infinite. This +capacity, this unfulfilled craving, which the cunning mind of the practical man +suppresses and disguises as best it can, is the source of all your unrest. More, +it is the true origin of all your best loves and enthusiasms, the inspiring +cause of your heroisms and achievements; which are but oblique and tentative +efforts to still that strange hunger for some final object of devotion, some +completing and elucidating vision, some total self-donation, some great and +perfect Act within which your little activity can be merged.</p> +<p>St. Thomas Aquinas says, that a man is only withheld from this +desired vision of the Divine Essence, this discovery of the Pure Act (which +indeed is everywhere pressing in on him and supporting him), by the apparent +necessity which he is under of turning to bodily images, of breaking up his +continuous and living intuition into Conceptual scraps; in other words, because +he cannot live the life of sensation without thought. But it is not the man, it +is merely his mental machinery which is under this "necessity." This it is which +translates, analyses, incorporates in finite images the boundless perceptions of +the spirit: passing through its prism the White Light of Reality, and shattering +it to a succession of coloured rays. Therefore the man who would know the Divine +Secret must unshackle himself more thoroughly than ever before from the tyranny +of the image-making power. As it is not by the methods of the laboratory that we +learn to know life, so it is not by the methods of the intellect that we learn +to know God.</p> +<p>"For of all other creatures and their works," says the author of +<i>The Cloud of Unknowing</i>, "yea, and of the works of God's self, may a man +through grace have full-head of knowing, and well he can think of them: but of +God Himself can no man think. And therefore I would leave all that thing that I +can think, and choose to my love that thing that I cannot think. For why; He may +well be loved, but not thought. By love may He be gotten and holden; but by +thought never."</p> +<p>"Gotten and holden": homely words, that suggest rather the +outstretching of the hand to take something lying at your very gates, than the +long outward journey or terrific ascent of the contemplative soul. Reality +indeed, the mystics say, is "near and far"; far from our thoughts, but +saturating and supporting our lives. Nothing would be nearer, nothing dearer, +nothing sweeter, were the doors of our perception truly cleansed. You have then +but to focus attention upon your own deep reality, "realise your own soul," in +order to find it. "We dwell in Him and He in us": you participate in the Eternal +Order now. The vision of the Divine Essence--the participation of its own small +activity in the Supernal Act--is for the spark of your soul a perpetual process. +On the apex of your personality, spirit ever gazes upon Spirit, melts and merges +in it: from and by this encounter its life arises and is sustained. But you have +been busy from your childhood with other matters. All the urgent affairs of +"life," as you absurdly called it, have monopolised your field of consciousness. +Thus all the important events of your real life, physical and spiritual--the +mysterious perpetual growth of you, the knitting up of fresh bits of the +universe into the unstable body which you confuse with yourself, the hum and +whirr of the machine which preserves your contacts with the material world, the +more delicate movements which condition your correspondences with, and growth +within, the spiritual order--all these have gone on unperceived by you. All the +time you have been kept and nourished, like the "Little Thing," by an enfolding +and creative love; yet of this you are less conscious than you are of the air +that you breathe.</p> +<p>Now, as in the first stage of contemplation you learned and +established, as a patent and experienced fact, your fraternal relation with all +the other children of God, entering into the rhythm of their existence, +participating in their stress and their joy; will you not at least try to make +patent this your filial relation too? This actualisation of your true status, +your place in the Eternal World, is waiting for you. It represents the next +phase in your gradual achievement of Reality. The method by which you will +attain to it is strictly analogous to that by which you obtained a more vivid +awareness of the natural world in which you grow and move. Here too it shall be +direct intuitive contact, sensation rather than thought, which shall bring you +certitude--"tasting food, not talking about it," as St. Bonaventura says.</p> +<p>Yet there is a marked difference between these two stages. In +the first, the deliberate inward retreat and gathering together of your +faculties which was effected by recollection, was the prelude to a new coming +forth, an outflow from the narrow limits of a merely personal life to the better +and truer apprehension of the created world. Now, in the second stage, the +disciplined and recollected attention seems to take an opposite course. It is +directed towards a plane of existence with which your bodily senses have no +attachments: which is not merely misrepresented by your ordinary concepts, but +cannot be represented by them at all. It must therefore sink inwards towards its +own centre, "away from all that can be thought or felt," as the mystics say, +"away from every image, every notion, every thing," towards that strange +condition of obscurity which St. John of the Cross calls the "Night of Sense." +Do this steadily, checking each vagrant instinct, each insistent thought, +however "spiritual" it may seem; pressing ever more deeply inwards towards that +ground, that simple and undifferentiated Being from which your diverse faculties +emerge. Presently you will find yourself, emptied and freed, in a place stripped +bare of all the machinery of thought; and achieve the condition of simplicity +which those same specialists call nakedness of spirit or "Wayless Love," and +which they declare to be above all human images and ideas--a state of +consciousness in which "all the workings of the reason fail." Then you will +observe that you have entered into an intense and vivid silence: a silence which +exists in itself, through and in spite of the ceaseless noises of your normal +world. Within this world of silence you seem as it were to lose yourself, "to +ebb and to flow, to wander and be lost in the Imageless Ground," says +Ruysbroeck, struggling to describe the sensations of the self in this, its first +initiation into the "wayless world, beyond image," where "all is, yet in no +wise."</p> +<p>Yet in spite of the darkness that enfolds you, the Cloud of +Unknowing into which you have plunged, you are sure that it is well to be here. +A peculiar certitude which you cannot analyse, a strange satisfaction and peace, +is distilled into you. You begin to understand what the Psalmist meant, when he +said, "Be still, and know." You are lost in a wilderness, a solitude, a dim +strange state of which you can say nothing, since it offers no material to your +image-making mind.</p> +<p>But this wilderness, from one point of view so bare and +desolate, from another is yet strangely homely. In it, all your sorrowful +questionings are answered without utterance; it is the All, and you are within +it and part of it, and know that it is good. It calls forth the utmost adoration +of which you are capable; and, mysteriously, gives love for love. You have +ascended now, say the mystics, into the Freedom of the Will of God; are become +part of a higher, slower duration, which carries you as it were upon its bosom +and--though never perhaps before has your soul been so truly active--seems to +you a stillness, a rest.</p> +<p>The doctrine of Plotinus concerning a higher life of unity, a +lower life of multiplicity, possible to every human spirit, will now appear to +you not a fantastic theory, but a plain statement of fact, which you have +verified in your own experience. You perceive that these are the two +complementary ways of apprehending and uniting with Reality--the one as a +dynamic process, the other as an eternal whole. Thus understood, they do not +conflict. You know that the flow, the broken-up world of change and +multiplicity, is still going on; and that you, as a creature of the time-world, +are moving and growing with it. But, thanks to the development of the higher +side of your consciousness, you are now lifted to a new poise; a direct +participation in that simple, transcendent life "broken, yet not divided," which +gives to this time-world all its meaning and validity. And you know, without +derogation from the realness of that life of flux within which you first made +good your attachments to the universe, that you are also a true constituent of +the greater whole; that since you are man, you are also spirit, and are living +Eternal Life now, in the midst of time.</p> +<p>The effect of this form of contemplation, in the degree in which +the ordinary man may learn to practise it, is like the sudden change of +atmosphere, the shifting of values, which we experience when we pass from the +busy streets into a quiet church; where a lamp burns, and a silence reigns, the +same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. Thence is poured forth a stillness which +strikes through the tumult without. Eluding the flicker of the arc-lamps, thence +through an upper window we may glimpse a perpetual star.</p> +<p>The walls of the church, limiting the range of our attention, +shutting out the torrent of life, with its insistent demands and appeals, make +possible our apprehension of this deep eternal peace. The character of our +consciousness, intermediate between Eternity and Time, and ever ready to swing +between them, makes such a device, such a concrete aid to concentration, +essential to us. But the peace, the presence, is everywhere--for us, not for it, +is the altar and the sanctuary required--and your deliberate, humble practice of +contemplation will teach you at last to find it; outside the sheltering walls of +recollection as well as within. You will realise then what Julian meant, when +she declared the ultimate property of all that was made to be that "God keepeth +it": will <i>feel</i> the violent consciousness of an enfolding Presence, +utterly transcending the fluid changeful nature-life, and incomprehensible to +the intelligence which that nature-life has developed and trained. And as you +knew the secret of that nature-life best by surrendering yourself to it, by +entering its currents, and refusing to analyse or arrange: so here, by a +deliberate giving of yourself to the silence, the rich "nothingness," the +"Cloud," you will draw nearest to the Reality it conceals from the eye of sense. +"Lovers put out the candle and draw the curtains," says Patmore, "when they wish +to see the God and the Goddess: and in the higher communion, the night of +thought is the light of perception."</p> +<p>Such an experience of Eternity, the attainment of that intuitive +awareness, that meek and simple self-mergence, which the mystics call sometimes, +according to its degree and special circumstances, the Quiet, the Desert of God, +the Divine Dark, represents the utmost that human consciousness can do of itself +towards the achievement of union with Reality. To some it brings joy and peace, +to others fear: to all a paradoxical sense of the lowliness and greatness of the +soul, which now at last can measure itself by the august standards of the +Infinite. Though the trained and diligent will of the contemplative can, if +control of the attention be really established, recapture this state of +awareness, retreat into the Quiet again and again, yet it is of necessity a +fleeting experience; for man is immersed in duration, subject to it. Its demands +upon his attention can only cease with the cessation of physical life--perhaps +not then. Perpetual absorption in the Transcendent is a human impossibility, and +the effort to achieve it is both unsocial and silly. But this experience, this +"ascent to the Nought," changes for ever the proportions of the life that once +has known it; gives to it depth and height, and prepares the way for those +further experiences, that great transfiguration of existence which comes when +the personal activity of the finite will gives place to the great and compelling +action of another Power.</p> + +<a name="10"></a> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER IX +<br> +<br> +THE THIRD FORM OF CONTEMPLATION +<br> + +<p>The hard separation which some mystical writers insist upon +making between "natural" and "supernatural" contemplation, has been on the whole +productive of confusion rather than clearness: for the word "supernatural" has +many unfortunate associations for the mind of the plain man. It at once suggests +to him visions and ecstasies, superstitious beliefs, ghosts, and other +disagreeable interferences with the order which he calls "natural"; and inclines +him to his old attitude of suspicion in respect of all mystical things. But some +word we must have, to indicate the real cleavage which exists between the second +and third stages in the development of the contemplative consciousness: the real +change which, if you would go further on these interior paths, must now take +place in the manner of your apprehension of Reality. Hitherto, all that you have +attained has been--or at least has seemed to you--the direct result of your own +hard work. A difficult self-discipline, the slowly achieved control of your +vagrant thoughts and desires, the steady daily practice of recollection, a +diligent pushing out of your consciousness from the superficial to the +fundamental, an unselfish loving attention; all this has been rewarded by the +gradual broadening and deepening of your perceptions, by an initiation into the +movements of a larger life, You have been a knocker, a seeker, an asker: have +beat upon the Cloud of Unknowing "with a sharp dart of longing love." A +perpetual effort of the will has characterised your inner development. Your +contemplation, in fact, as the specialists would say, has been "active," not +"infused."</p> +<p>But now, having achieved an awareness--obscure and indescribable +indeed, yet actual--of the enfolding presence of Reality, under those two forms +which the theologians call the "immanence" and the "transcendence" of the +Divine, a change is to take place in the relation between your finite human +spirit and the Infinite Life in which at last it knows itself to dwell. All that +will now come to you--and much perhaps will come--will happen as it seems +without effort on your own part: though really it will be the direct result of +that long stress and discipline which has gone before, and has made it possible +for you to feel the subtle contact of deeper realities. It will depend also on +the steady continuance--often perhaps through long periods of darkness and +boredom--of that poise to which you have been trained: the stretching-out of the +loving and surrendered will into the dimness and silence, the continued trustful +habitation of the soul in the atmosphere of the Essential World. You are like a +traveller arrived in a new country. The journey has been a long one; and the +hardships and obstacles involved in it, the effort, the perpetual conscious +pressing forward, have at last come to seem the chief features of your inner +life. Now, with their cessation, you feel curiously lost; as if the chief object +of your existence had been taken away. No need to push on any further: yet, +though there is no more that you can do of yourself, there is much that may and +must be done to you. The place that you have come to seems strange and +bewildering, for it lies far beyond the horizons of human thought. There are no +familiar landmarks, nothing on which you can lay hold. You "wander to and fro," +as the mystics say, "in this fathomless ground"; surrounded by silence and +darkness, struggling to breathe this rarefied air. Like those who go to live in +new latitudes, you must become acclimatised. Your state, then, should now be +wisely passive; in order that the great influences which surround you may take +and adjust your spirit, that the unaccustomed light, which now seems to you a +darkness, may clarify your eyes, and that you may be transformed from a visitor +into an inhabitant of that supernal Country which St. Augustine described as "no +mere vision, but a home."</p> +<p>You are therefore to let yourself go; to cease all conscious, +anxious striving and pushing. Finding yourself in this place of darkness and +quietude, this "Night of the Spirit," as St. John of the Cross has called it, +you are to dwell there meekly; asking nothing, seeking nothing, but with your +doors flung wide open towards God. And as you do thus, there will come to you an +ever clearer certitude that this darkness enveils the goal for which you have +been seeking from the first; the final Reality with which you are destined to +unite, the perfect satisfaction of your most ardent and most sacred desires. It +is there, but you cannot by your efforts reach it. This realisation of your own +complete impotence, of the resistance which the Transcendent--long sought and +faithfully served--now seems to offer to your busy outgoing will and love, your +ardour, your deliberate self-donation, is at once the most painful and most +essential phase in the training of the human soul. It brings you into that state +of passive suffering which is to complete the decentralisation of your +character, test the purity of your love, and perfect your education in humility.</p> +<p>Here, you must oppose more thoroughly than ever before the +instincts and suggestions of your separate, clever, energetic self; which, +hating silence and dimness, is always trying to take the methods of Martha into +the domain of Mary, and seldom discriminates between passivity and sloth. +Perhaps you will find, when you try to achieve this perfect self-abandonment, +that a further, more drastic self-exploration, a deeper, more searching +purification than that which was forced upon you by your first experience of the +recollective state is needed. The last fragments of selfhood, the very desire +for spiritual satisfaction--the fundamental human tendency to drag down the +Simple Fact and make it ours, instead of offering ourselves to it--must be +sought out and killed. In this deep contemplation, this profound Quiet, your +soul gradually becomes conscious of a constriction, a dreadful narrowness of +personality; something still existing in itself, still tending to draw inwards +to its own centre, and keeping it from that absolute surrender which is the only +way to peace. An attitude of perfect generosity, complete submission, willing +acquiescence in anything that may happen--even in failure and death--is here +your only hope: for union with Reality can only be a union of love, a glad and +humble self-mergence in the universal life. You must, so far as you are able, +give yourself up to, "die into," melt into the Whole; abandon all efforts to lay +hold of It. More, you must be willing that it should lay hold of you. "A pure +bare going forth," says Tauler, trying to describe the sensations of the self at +this moment. "None," says Ruysbroeck, putting this same experience, this meek +outstreaming of the bewildered spirit, into other language, "is sure of Eternal +Life, unless he has died with his own attributes wholly into God."</p> +<p>It is unlikely that agreeable emotions will accompany this utter +self-surrender; for everything will now seem to be taken from you, nothing given +in exchange. But if you are able to make it, a mighty transformation will +result. From the transitional plane of darkness, you will be reborn into another +"world," another stage of realisation: and find yourself, literally, to be other +than you were before. Ascetic writers tell us that the essence of the change now +effected consists in the fact that "God's <i>action</i> takes the place of man's +<i>activity</i>"--that the surrendered self "does not act, but receives." By +this they mean to describe, as well as our concrete language will permit, the +new and vivid consciousness which now invades the contemplative; the sense which +he has of being as it were helpless in the grasp of another Power, so utterly +part of him, so completely different from him--so rich and various, so +transfused with life and feeling, so urgent and so all-transcending--that he can +only think of it as God. It is for this that the dimness and steadily increasing +passivity of the stage of Quiet has been preparing him; and it is out of this +willing quietude and ever-deepening obscurity that the new experiences come.</p> +<p></p> +<p> "O night that didst lead thus, <br> + +O night more lovely than the dawn of light, <br> + +O night that broughtest us<br> + Lover to lover's sight--<br> + Lover with loved in marriage of delight,"</p> +<p></p> +<p>says St. John of the Cross in the most wonderful of all mystical +poems. "He who has had experience of this," says St. Teresa of the same stage of +apprehension, "will understand it in some measure: but it cannot be more clearly +described because what then takes place is so obscure. All I am able to say is, +that the soul is represented as being close to God; and that there abide a +conviction thereof so certain and strong, that it cannot possibly help believing +so."</p> +<p>This sense, this conviction, which may be translated by the +imagination into many different forms, is the substance of the greatest +experiences and highest joys of the mystical saints. The intensity with which it +is realised will depend upon the ardour, purity, and humility of the +experiencing soul: but even those who feel it faintly are convinced by it for +evermore. In some great and generous spirits, able to endure the terrific +onslaught of Reality, it may even reach a vividness by which all other things +are obliterated; and the self, utterly helpless under the inundations of this +transcendent life-force, passes into that simple state of consciousness which is +called Ecstasy.</p> +<p>But you are not to be frightened by these special +manifestations; or to suppose that here the road is barred against you. Though +these great spirits have as it were a genius for Reality, a susceptibility to +supernal impressions, so far beyond your own small talent that there seems no +link between you: yet you have, since you are human, a capacity for the Infinite +too. With less intensity, less splendour, but with a certitude which no +arguments will ever shake, this sense of the Living Fact, and of its mysterious +contacts with and invasions of the human spirit, may assuredly be realised by +you. This realisation--sometimes felt under the symbols of personality, +sometimes under those of an impersonal but life-giving Force, Light, Energy, or +Heat--is the ruling character of the third phase of contemplation; and the +reward of that meek passivity, that "busy idleness" as the mystics sometimes +call it, which you have been striving to attain. Sooner or later, if you are +patient, it will come to you through the darkness: a mysterious contact, a clear +certitude of intercourse and of possession--perhaps so gradual in its approach +that the break, the change from the ever-deepening stillness and peace of the +second phase, is hardly felt by you; perhaps, if your nature be ardent and +unstable, with a sudden shattering violence, in a "storm of love."</p> +<p>In either case, the advent of this experience is incalculable, +and completely outside your own control. So far, to use St. Teresa's well-known +image, you have been watering the garden of your spirit by hand; a poor and +laborious method, yet one in which there is a definite relation between effort +and result. But now the watering-can is taken from you, and you must depend upon +the rain: more generous, more fruitful, than anything which your own efforts +could manage, but, in its incalculable visitations, utterly beyond your control. +Here all one can say is this: that if you acquiesce in the heroic demands which +the spiritual life now makes upon you, if you let yourself go, eradicate the +last traces of self-interest even of the most spiritual kind--then, you have +established conditions under which the forces of the spiritual world can work on +you, heightening your susceptibilities, deepening and purifying your attention, +so that you are able to taste and feel more and more of the inexhaustible riches +of Reality.</p> +<p>Thus dying to your own will, waiting for what is given, infused, +you will presently find that a change in your apprehension has indeed taken +place: and that those who said self-loss was the only way to realisation taught +no pious fiction but the truth. The highest contemplative experience to which +you have yet attained has seemed above all else a still awareness. The cessation +of your own striving, a resting upon and within the Absolute World--these were +its main characteristics for your consciousness. But now, this Ocean of Being is +no longer felt by you as an emptiness, a solitude without bourne. Suddenly you +know it to be instinct with a movement and life too great for you to apprehend. +You are thrilled by a mighty energy, uncontrolled by you, unsolicited by you: +its higher vitality is poured into your soul. You enter upon an experience for +which all the terms of power, thought, motion, even of love, are inadequate: yet +which contains within itself the only complete expression of all these things. +Your strength is now literally made perfect in weakness: because of the +completeness of your dependence, a fresh life is infused into you, such as your +old separate existence never knew. Moreover, to that diffused and impersonal +sense of the Infinite, in which you have dipped yourself, and which swallows up +and completes all the ideas your mind has ever built up with the help of the +categories of time and space, is now added the consciousness of a Living Fact +which includes, transcends, completes all that you mean by the categories of +personality and of life. Those ineffective, half-conscious attempts towards free +action, clear apprehension, true union, which we dignify by the names of will, +thought, and love are now seen matched by an Absolute Will, Thought, and Love; +instantly recognised by the contemplating spirit as the highest reality it yet +has known, and evoking in it a passionate and a humble joy.</p> +<p>This unmistakable experience has been achieved by the mystics of +every religion; and when we read their statements, we know that all are speaking +of the same thing. None who have had it have ever been able to doubt its +validity. It has always become for them the central fact, by which all other +realities must be tested and graduated. It has brought to them the deep +consciousness of sources of abundant life now made accessible to man; of the +impact of a mighty energy, gentle, passionate, self-giving, creative, which they +can only call Absolute Love. Sometimes they feel this strange life moving and +stirring within them. Sometimes it seems to pursue, entice, and besiege them. In +every case, they are the passive objects upon which it works. It is now another +Power which seeks the separated spirit and demands it; which knocks at the +closed door of the narrow personality; which penetrates the contemplative +consciousness through and through, speaking, stirring, compelling it; which +sometimes, by its secret irresistible pressure, wins even the most recalcitrant +in spite of themselves. Sometimes this Power is felt as an impersonal force, the +unifying cosmic energy, the indrawing love which gathers all things into One; +sometimes as a sudden access of vitality, a light and heat, enfolding and +penetrating the self and making its languid life more vivid and more real; +sometimes as a personal and friendly Presence which counsels and entreats the +soul.</p> +<p>In each case, the mystics insist again that this is God; that +here under these diverse manners the soul has immediate intercourse with Him. +But we must remember that when they make this declaration, they are speaking +from a plane of consciousness far above the ideas and images of popular +religion; and from a place which is beyond the judiciously adjusted horizon of +philosophy. They mean by this word, not a notion, however august; but an +experienced Fact so vivid, that against it the so-called facts of daily life +look shadowy and insecure. They say that this Fact is "immanent"; dwelling in, +transfusing, and discoverable through every aspect of the universe, every +movement of the game of life--as you have found in the first stage of +contemplation. There you may hear its melody and discern its form. And further, +that It is "transcendent"; in essence exceeding and including the sum of those +glimpses and contacts which we obtain by self-mergence in life, and in Its +simplest manifestations above and beyond anything to which reason can +attain--"the Nameless Being, of Whom nought can be said." This you discovered to +be true in the second stage. But in addition to this, they say also, that this +all-pervasive, all-changing, and yet changeless One, Whose melody is heard in +all movement, and within Whose Being "the worlds are being told like beads," +calls the human spirit to an immediate intercourse, a <i>unity</i>, a fruition, +a divine give-and-take, for which the contradictory symbols of feeding, of +touching, of marriage, of immersion, are all too poor; and which evokes in the +fully conscious soul a passionate and a humble love. "He devours us and He feeds +us!" exclaims Ruysbroeck. "Here," says St. Thomas Aquinas, "the soul in a +wonderful and unspeakable manner both seizes and is seized upon, devours and is +herself devoured, embraces and is violently embraced: and by the knot of love +she unites herself with God, and is with Him as the Alone with the Alone."</p> +<p>The marvellous love-poetry of mysticism, the rhapsodies which +extol the spirit's Lover, Friend, Companion, Bridegroom; which describe the +"deliberate speed, majestic instancy" of the Hound of Heaven chasing the +separated soul, the onslaughts, demands, and caresses of this "stormy, generous, +and unfathomable love"--all this is an attempt, often of course oblique and +symbolic in method, to express and impart this transcendent secret, to describe +that intense yet elusive state in which alone union with the living heart of +Reality is possible. "How delicately Thou teachest love to me!" cries St. John of +the Cross; and here indeed we find all the ardours of all earthly lovers +justified by an imperishable Objective, which reveals Itself in all things that +we truly love, and beyond all these things both seeks us and compels us, "giving +more than we can take and asking more than we can pay."</p> +<p>You do not, you never will know, <i>what</i> this Objective is: +for as Dionysius teaches, "if any one saw God and understood what he saw, then +it was not God that he saw, but something that belongs to Him." But you do know +now that it exists, with an intensity which makes all other existences unreal; +save in so far as they participate in this one Fact. "Some contemplate the +Formless, and others meditate on Form: but the wise man knows that Brahma is +beyond both." As you yield yourself more and more completely to the impulses of +this intimate yet unseizable Presence, so much the sweeter and stronger--so much +the more constant and steady--will your intercourse with it become. The +imperfect music of your adoration will be answered and reinforced by another +music, gentle, deep, and strange; your out-going movement, the stretching forth +of your desire from yourself to something other, will be answered by a movement, +a stirring, within you yet not conditioned by you. The wonder and variety of +this intercourse is never-ending. It includes in its sweep every phase of human +love and self-devotion, all beauty and all power, all suffering and effort, all +gentleness and rapture: here found in synthesis. Going forth into the bareness +and darkness of this unwalled world of high contemplation, you there find stored +for you, and at last made real, all the highest values, all the dearest and +noblest experiences of the world of growth and change.</p> +<p>You see now what it is that you have been doing in the course of +your mystical development. As your narrow heart stretched to a wider sympathy +with life, you have been surrendering progressively to larger and larger +existences, more and more complete realities: have been learning to know them, +to share their very being, through the magic of disinterested love. First, the +manifested, flowing, evolving life of multiplicity: felt by you in its wonder +and wholeness, once you learned to yield yourself to its rhythms, received in +simplicity the undistorted messages of sense. Then, the actual unchanging ground +of life, the eternal and unconditioned Whole, transcending all succession: a +world inaccessible alike to senses and intelligence, but felt--vaguely, darkly, +yet intensely--by the quiet and surrendered consciousness. But now you are +solicited, whether you will or no, by a greater Reality, the final inclusive +Fact, the Unmeasured Love, which "is through all things everlastingly": and +yielding yourself to it, receiving and responding to its obscure yet ardent +communications, you pass beyond the cosmic experience to the personal encounter, +the simple yet utterly inexpressible union of the soul with its God.</p> +<p>And this threefold union with Reality, as your attention is +focussed now on one aspect, now on another, of its rich simplicity, will be +actualised by you in many different ways: for you are not to suppose that an +unchanging barren ecstasy is now to characterise your inner life. Though the +sense of your own dwelling within the Eternal transfuses and illuminates it, the +sense of your own necessary efforts, a perpetual renewal of contact with the +Spiritual World, a perpetual self-donation, shall animate it too. When the +greater love overwhelms the lesser, and your small self-consciousness is lost in +the consciousness of the Whole, it will be felt as an intense stillness, a quiet +fruition of Reality. Then, your very selfhood seems to cease, as it does in all +your moments of great passion; and you are "satisfied and overflowing, and with +Him beyond yourself eternally fulfilled." Again, when your own necessary +activity comes into the foreground, your small energetic love perpetually +pressing to deeper and deeper realisation--"tasting through and through, and +seeking through and through, the fathomless ground" of the Infinite and +Eternal--it seems rather a perpetually renewed encounter than a final +achievement. Since you are a child of Time as well as of Eternity, such effort +and satisfaction, active and passive love are both needed by you, if your whole +life is to be brought into union with the inconceivably rich yet simple One in +Whom these apparent opposites are harmonised. Therefore seeking and finding, +work and rest, conflict and peace, feeding on God and self-immersion in God, +spiritual marriage and spiritual death--these contradictory images are all +wanted, if we are to represent the changing moods of the living, growing human +spirit; the diverse aspects under which it realises the simple fact of its +intercourse with the Divine.</p> +<p>Each new stage achieved in the mystical development of the +spirit has meant, not the leaving behind of the previous stages, but an adding +on to them: an ever greater extension of experience, and enrichment of +personality. So that the total result of this change, this steady growth of your +transcendental self, is not an impoverishment of the sense-life in the supposed +interests of the super-sensual, but the addition to it of another life--a huge +widening and deepening of the field over which your attention can play. +Sometimes the mature contemplative consciousness narrows to an intense point of +feeling, in which it seems indeed "alone with the Alone": sometimes it spreads +to a vast apprehension of the Universal Life, or perceives the common things of +sense aflame with God. It moves easily and with no sense of incongruity from +hours of close personal communion with its Friend and Lover to self-loss in the +"deep yet dazzling darkness" of the Divine Abyss: or, re-entering that living +world of change which the first form of contemplation disclosed to it, passes +beyond those discrete manifestations of Reality to realise the Whole which +dwells in and inspires every part. Thus ascending to the mysterious fruition of +that Reality which is beyond image, and descending again to the loving +contemplation and service of all struggling growing things, it now finds and +adores everywhere--in the sky and the nest, the soul and the void--one Energetic +Love which "is measureless, since it is all that exists," and of which the +patient up-climb of the individual soul, the passionate outpouring of the Divine +Mind, form the completing opposites.</p> + +<a name="11"></a> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER X +<br> +<br> +THE MYSTICAL LIFE +<br> + +<p>And here the practical man, who has been strangely silent during +the last stages of our discourse, shakes himself like a terrier which has +achieved dry land again after a bath; and asks once more, with a certain +explosive violence, his dear old question, "What is the <i>use</i> of all this?"</p> +<p>"You have introduced me," he says further, "to some curious +states of consciousness, interesting enough in their way; and to a lot of +peculiar emotions, many of which are no doubt most valuable to poets and so on. +But it is all so remote from daily life. How is it going to fit in with ordinary +existence? How, above all, is it all going to help <i>me</i>?"</p> +<p>Well, put upon its lowest plane, this new way of attending to +life--this deepening and widening of outlook--may at least be as helpful to you +as many things to which you have unhesitatingly consecrated much time and +diligence in the past: your long journeys to new countries, for instance, or +long hours spent in acquiring new "facts," relabelling old experiences, gaining +skill in new arts and games. These, it is true, were quite worth the effort +expended on them: for they gave you, in exchange for your labour and attention, +a fresh view of certain fragmentary things, a new point of contact with the rich +world of possibilities, a tiny enlargement of your universe in one direction or +another. Your love and patient study of nature, art, science, politics, +business--even of sport--repaid you thus. But I have offered you, in exchange +for a meek and industrious attention to another aspect of the world, hitherto +somewhat neglected by you, an enlargement which shall include and transcend all +these; and be conditioned only by the perfection of your generosity, courage, +and surrender.</p> +<p>Nor are you to suppose that this enlargement will be limited to +certain new spiritual perceptions, which the art of contemplation has made +possible for you: that it will merely draw the curtain from a window out of +which you have never looked. This new wide world is not to be for you something +seen, but something lived in: and you--since man is a creature of +responses--will insensibly change under its influence, growing up into a more +perfect conformity with it. Living in this atmosphere of Reality, you will, in +fact, yourself become more real. Hence, if you accept in a spirit of trust the +suggestions which have been made to you--and I acknowledge that here at the +beginning an attitude of faith is essential--and if you practise with diligence +the arts which I have described: then, sooner or later, you will inevitably find +yourself deeply and permanently changed by them--will perceive that you have +become a "new man." Not merely have you acquired new powers of perception and +new ideas of Reality; but a quiet and complete transformation, a strengthening +and maturing of your personality has taken place.</p> +<p>You are still, it is true, living the ordinary life of the body. +You are immersed in the stream of duration; a part of the human, the social, the +national group. The emotions, instincts, needs, of that group affect you. Your +changing scrap of vitality contributes to its corporate life; and contributes +the more effectively since a new, intuitive sympathy has now made its interests +your own. Because of that corporate life, transfusing you, giving to you and +taking from you--conditioning, you as it does in countless oblique and +unapparent ways--you are still compelled to react to many suggestions which you +are no longer able to respect: controlled, to the last moment of your bodily +existence and perhaps afterwards, by habit, custom, the good old average way of +misunderstanding the world. To this extent, the crowd-spirit has you in its +grasp.</p> +<p>Yet in spite of all this, you are now released from that crowd's +tyrannically overwhelming consciousness as you never were before. You feel +yourself now a separate vivid entity, a real, whole man: dependent on the Whole, +and gladly so dependent, yet within that Whole a free self-governing thing. +Perhaps you always fancied that your will was free--that you were actually, as +you sometimes said, the "captain of your soul." If so, this was merely one +amongst the many illusions which supported your old, enslaved career. As a +matter of fact, you were driven along a road, unaware of anything that lay +beyond the hedges, pressed on every side by other members of the flock; getting +perhaps a certain satisfaction out of the deep warm stir of the collective life, +but ignorant of your destination, and with your personal initiative limited to +the snatching of grass as you went along, the pushing of your way to the softer +side of the track. These operations made up together that which you called +Success. But now, because you have achieved a certain power of gathering +yourself together, perceiving yourself as a person, a spirit, and observing your +relation with these other individual lives--because too, hearing now and again +the mysterious piping of the Shepherd, you realise your own perpetual forward +movement and that of the flock, in its relation to that living guide--you have a +far deeper, truer knowledge than ever before both of the general and the +individual existence; and so are able to handle life with a surer hand.</p> +<p>Do not suppose from this that your new career is to be +perpetually supported by agreeable spiritual contacts, or occupy itself in the +mild contemplation of the great world through which you move. True, it is said +of the Shepherd that he carries the lambs in his bosom: but the sheep are +expected to walk, and put up with the inequalities of the road, the bunts and +blunders of the flock. It is to vigour rather than to comfort that you are +called. Since the transcendental aspect of your being has been brought into +focus you are now raised out of the mere push-forward, the blind passage through +time of the flock, into a position of creative responsibility. You are aware of +personal correspondences with the Shepherd. You correspond, too, with a larger, +deeper, broader world. The sky and the hedges, the wide lands through which you +are moving, the corporate character and meaning of the group to which you +belong--all these are now within the circle of your consciousness; and each +little event, each separate demand or invitation which comes to you is now seen +in a truer proportion, because you bring to it your awareness of the Whole. Your +journey ceases to be an automatic progress, and takes on some of the characters +of a free act: for "things" are now under you, you are no longer under them.</p> +<p>You will hardly deny that this is a practical gain: that this +widening and deepening of the range over which your powers of perception work +makes you more of a man than you were before, and thus adds to rather than +subtracts from your total practical efficiency. It is indeed only when he +reaches these levels, and feels within himself this creative freedom--this full +actualisation of himself--on the one hand: on the other hand the sense of a +world-order, a love and energy on which he depends and with whose interests he +is now at one, that man becomes fully human, capable of living the real life of +Eternity in the midst of the world of time.</p> +<p>And what, when you have come to it, do you suppose to be your +own function in this vast twofold scheme? Is it for nothing, do you think, that +you are thus a meeting-place of two orders? Surely it is your business, so far +as you may, to express in action something of the real character of that +universe within which you now know yourself to live? Artists, aware of a more +vivid and more beautiful world than other men, are always driven by their love +and enthusiasm to try and express, bring into direct manifestation, those deeper +significances of form, sound, rhythm, which they have been able to apprehend: +and, doing this, they taste deeper and deeper truths, make ever closer unions +with the Real. For them, the duty of creation is tightly bound up with the gift +of love. In their passionate outflowing to the universe which offers itself +under one of its many aspects to their adoration, that other-worldly fruition of +beauty is always followed, balanced, completed, by a this-world impulse to +creation: a desire to fix within the time-order, and share with other men, the +vision by which they were possessed. Each one, thus bringing new aspects of +beauty, new ways of seeing and hearing within the reach of the race, does +something to amend the sorry universe of common sense, the more hideous universe +of greed, and redeem his fellows from their old, slack servitude to a lower +range of significances. It is in action, then, that these find their truest and +safest point of insertion into the living, active world of Reality: in sharing +and furthering its work of manifestation they know its secrets best. For them +contemplation and action are not opposites, but two interdependent forms of a +life that is <i>one</i>--a life that rushes out to a passionate communion with +the true and beautiful, only that it may draw from this direct experience of +Reality a new intensity wherewith to handle the world of things; and remake it, +or at least some little bit of it, "nearer to the heart's desire."</p> +<p>Again, the great mystics tell us that the "vision of God in His +own light"--the direct contact of the soul's substance with the Absolute--to +which awful experience you drew as near as the quality of your spirit would +permit in the third degree of contemplation, is the prelude, not to a further +revelation of the eternal order given to you, but to an utter change, a vivid +life springing up within you, which they sometimes call the "transforming union" +or the "birth of the Son in the soul." By this they mean that the spark of +spiritual stuff, that high special power or character of human nature, by which +you first desired, then tended to, then achieved contact with Reality, is as it +were fertilised by this profound communion with its origin; becomes strong and +vigorous, invades and transmutes the whole personality, and makes of it, not a +"dreamy mystic" but an active and impassioned servant of the Eternal Wisdom.</p> +<p>So that when these full-grown, fully vital mystics try to tell +us about the life they have achieved, it is always an intensely active life that +they describe. They say, not that they "dwell in restful fruition," though the +deep and joyous knowledge of this, perhaps too the perpetual longing for an +utter self-loss in it, is always possessed by them--but that they "go up <i>and +down</i> the ladder of contemplation." They stretch up towards the Point, the +unique Reality to which all the intricate and many-coloured lines of life flow, +and in which they are merged; and rush out towards those various lives in a +passion of active love and service. This double activity, this swinging between +rest and work--this alone, they say, is truly the life of man; because this +alone represents on human levels something of that inexhaustibly rich yet simple +life, "ever active yet ever at rest," which they find in God. When he gets to +this, then man has indeed actualised his union with Reality; because then he is +a part of the perpetual creative act, the eternal generation of the Divine +thought and love. Therefore contemplation, even at its highest, dearest, and +most intimate, is not to be for you an end in itself. It shall only be truly +yours when it impels you to action: when the double movement of Transcendent +Love, drawing inwards to unity and fruition, and rushing out again to creative +acts, is realised in you. You are to be a living, ardent tool with which the +Supreme Artist works: one of the instruments of His self-manifestation, the +perpetual process by which His Reality is brought into concrete expression.</p> +<p>Now the expression of vision, of reality, of beauty, at an +artist's hands--the creation of new life in all forms--has two factors: the +living moulding creative spirit, and the material in which it works. Between +these two there is inevitably a difference of tension. The material is at best +inert, and merely patient of the informing idea; at worst, directly recalcitrant +to it. Hence, according to the balance of these two factors, the amount of +resistance offered by stuff to tool, a greater or less energy must be expended, +greater or less perfection of result will be achieved. You, accepting the wide +deep universe of the mystic, and the responsibilities that go with it, have by +this act taken sides once for all with creative spirit: with the higher tension, +the unrelaxed effort, the passion for a better, intenser, and more significant +life. The adoration to which you are vowed is not an affair of red hassocks and +authorised hymn books; but a burning and consuming fire. You will find, then, +that the world, going its own gait, busily occupied with its own system of +correspondences--yielding to every gust of passion, intent on the satisfaction +of greed, the struggle for comfort or for power--will oppose your new eagerness; +perhaps with violence, but more probably with the exasperating calmness of a +heavy animal which refuses to get up. If your new life is worth anything, it +will flame to sharper power when it strikes against this dogged inertness of +things: for you need resistances on which to act. "The road to a Yea lies +through a Nay," and righteous warfare is the only way to a living and a lasting +peace.</p> +<p>Further, you will observe more and more clearly, that the stuff +of your external world, the method and machinery of the common life, is not +merely passively but actively inconsistent with your sharp interior vision of +truth. The heavy animal is diseased as well as indolent. All man's perverse ways +of seeing his universe, all the perverse and hideous acts which have sprung from +them--these have set up reactions, have produced deep disorders in the world of +things. Man is free, and holds the keys of hell as well as the keys of heaven. +Within the love-driven universe which you have learned to see as a whole, you +will therefore find egotism, rebellion, meanness, brutality, squalor: the work +of separated selves whose energies are set athwart the stream. But every aspect +of life, however falsely imagined, can still be "saved," turned to the purposes +of Reality: for "all-thing hath the being by the love of God." Its oppositions +are no part of its realness; and therefore they can be overcome. Is there not +here, then, abundance of practical work for you to do; work which is the direct +outcome of your mystical experience? Are there not here, as the French proverb +has it, plenty of cats for you to comb? And isn't it just here, in the new +foothold it gives you, the new clear vision and certitude--in its noble, +serious, and invulnerable faith--that mysticism is "useful"; even for the most +scientific of social reformers, the most belligerent of politicians, the least +sentimental of philanthropists?</p> +<p>To "bring Eternity into Time," the "invisible into concrete +expression"; to "be to the Eternal Goodness what his own hand is to a +man"--these are the plainly expressed desires of all the great mystics. One and +all, they demand earnest and deliberate action, the insertion of the purified +and ardent will into the world of things. The mystics are artists; and the stuff +in which they work is most often human life. They want to heal the disharmony +between the actual and the real: and since, in the white-hot radiance of that +faith, hope, and charity which burns in them, they discern such a reconciliation +to be possible, they are able to work for it with a singleness of purpose and an +invincible optimism denied to other men. This was the instinct which drove St. +Francis of Assist to the practical experience of that poverty which he +recognised as the highest wisdom; St. Catherine of Siena from contemplation to +politics; Joan of Arc to the salvation of France; St. Teresa to the formation of +an ideal religious family; Fox to the proclaiming of a world-religion in which +all men should be guided by the Inner Light; Florence Nightingale to battle with +officials, vermin, dirt, and disease in the soldiers' hospitals; Octavia Hill to +make in London slums something a little nearer "the shadows of the angels' +houses" than that which the practical landlord usually provides.</p> +<p>All these have felt sure that a great part in the drama of +creation has been given to the free spirit of man: that bit by bit, through and +by him, the scattered worlds of love and thought and action shall be realised +again as one. It is for those who have found the thread on which those worlds +are strung, to bring this knowledge out of the hiddenness; to use it, as the old +alchemists declared that they could use their tincture, to transmute all baser; +metals into gold.</p> +<p>So here is your vocation set out: a vocation so various in its +opportunities, that you can hardly fail to find something to do. It is your +business to actualise within the world of time and space--perhaps by great +endeavours in the field of heroic action, perhaps only by small ones in field +and market, tram and tube, office and drawing-room, in the perpetual +give-and-take of the common life--that more real life, that holy creative +energy, which this world manifests as a whole but indifferently. You shall work +for mercy, order, beauty, significance: shall mend where you find things broken, +make where you find the need. "Adoro te devote, latens Deitas," said St. Thomas +in his great mystical hymn: and the practical side of that adoration consists in +the bringing of the Real Presence from its hiddenness, and exhibiting it before +the eyes of other men. Hitherto you have not been very active in this matter: +yet it is the purpose for which you exist, and your contemplative consciousness, +if you educate it, will soon make this fact clear to you. The teeming life of +nature has yielded up to your loving attention many sacramental images of +Reality: seen in the light of charity, it is far more sacred and significant +than you supposed. What about <i>your</i> life? Is that a theophany too? "Each +oak doth cry I AM," says Vaughan. Do you proclaim by your existence the +grandeur, the beauty, the intensity, the living wonder of that Eternal Reality +within which, at this moment, you stand? Do your hours of contemplation and of +action harmonise?</p> +<p>If they did harmonise--if everybody's did--then, by these +individual adjustments the complete group-consciousness of humanity would be +changed, brought back into conformity with the Transcendent; and the spiritual +world would be actualised within the temporal order at last. Then, that world of +false imagination, senseless conflicts, and sham values, into which our children +are now born, would be annihilated. The whole race, not merely a few of its +noblest, most clearsighted spirits, would be "in union with God"; and men, +transfused by His light and heat, direct and willing agents of His Pure +Activity, would achieve that completeness of life which the mystics dare to call +"deification." This is the substance of that redemption of the world, which all +religions proclaim or demand: the consummation which is crudely imagined in the +Apocalyptic dreams of the prophets and seers. It is the true incarnation of the +Divine Wisdom: and you must learn to see with Paul the pains and disorders of +creation--your own pains, efforts, and difficulties too--as incidents in the +travail of that royal birth. Patriots have sometimes been asked to "think +imperially." Mystics are asked to think celestially; and this, not when +considering the things usually called spiritual, but when dealing with the +concrete accidents, the evil and sadness, the cruelty, failure, and degeneration +of life.</p> +<p>So, what is being offered to you is not merely a choice amongst +new states of consciousness, new emotional experiences--though these are indeed +involved in it--but, above all else, a larger and intenser life, a career, a +total consecration to the interests of the Real. This life shall not be abstract +and dreamy, made up, as some imagine, of negations. It shall be violently +practical and affirmative; giving scope for a limitless activity of will, heart, +and mind working within the rhythms of the Divine Idea. It shall cost much, +making perpetual demands on your loyalty, trust, and self-sacrifice: proving now +the need and the worth of that training in renunciation which was forced on you +at the beginning of your interior life. It shall be both deep and wide, +embracing in its span all those aspects of Reality which the gradual extension +of your contemplative powers has disclosed to you: making "the inner and outer +worlds to be indivisibly One." And because the emphasis is now for ever shifted +from the accidents to the substance of life, it will matter little where and how +this career is actualised--whether in convent or factory, study or battlefield, +multitude or solitude, sickness or strength. These fluctuations of circumstance +will no longer dominate you; since "it is Love that payeth for all."</p> +<p>Yet by all this it is not meant that the opening up of the +universe, the vivid consciousness of a living Reality and your relation with it, +which came to you in contemplation, will necessarily be a constant or a +governable feature of your experience. Even under the most favourable +circumstances, you shall and must move easily and frequently between that +spiritual fruition and active work in the world of men. Often enough it will +slip from you utterly; often your most diligent effort will fail to recapture +it, and only its fragrance will remain. The more intense those contacts have +been, the more terrible will be your hunger and desolation when they are thus +withdrawn: for increase of susceptibility means more pain as well as more +pleasure, as every artist knows. But you will find in all that happens to you, +all that opposes and grieves you--even in those inevitable hours of darkness +when the doors of true perception seem to close, and the cruel tangles of the +world are all that you can discern--an inward sense of security which will never +cease. All the waves that buffet you about, shaking sometimes the strongest +faith and hope, are yet parts and aspects of one Ocean. Did they wreck you +utterly, that Ocean would receive you; and there you would find, overwhelming +and transfusing you, the unfathomable Substance of all life and joy. Whether you +realise it in its personal or impersonal manifestation, the universe is now +friendly to you; and as he is a suspicious and unworthy lover who asks every day +for renewed demonstrations of love, so you do not demand from it perpetual +reassurances. It is enough, that once it showed you its heart. A link of love +now binds you to it for evermore: in spite of derelictions, in spite of darkness +and suffering, your will is harmonised with the Will that informs the Whole.</p> +<p>We said, at the beginning of this discussion, that mysticism was +the art of union with Reality: that it was, above all else, a Science of Love. +Hence, the condition to which it looks forward and towards which the soul of the +contemplative has been stretching out, is a condition of <i>being</i>, not of <i> +seeing</i>. As the bodily senses have been produced under pressure of man's +physical environment, and their true aim is not the enhancement of his pleasure +or his knowledge, but a perfecting of his adjustment to those aspects of the +natural world which concern him--so the use and meaning of the spiritual senses +are strictly practical too. These, when developed by a suitable training, reveal +to man a certain measure of Reality: not in order that he may gaze upon it, but +in order that he may react to it, learn to live in, with, and for it; growing +and stretching into more perfect harmony with the Eternal Order, until at last, +like the blessed ones of Dante's vision, the clearness of his flame responds to +the unspeakable radiance of the Enkindling Light.</p> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<hr noshade> + +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRACTICAL MYSTICISM***</p> +<p>******* This file should be named 21774-h.txt or 21774-h.zip *******</p> +<p>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:<br> +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/7/7/21774">http://www.gutenberg.org/2/1/7/7/21774</a></p> +<p>Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed.</p> + +<p>Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Practical Mysticism + A Little Book for Normal People + + +Author: Evelyn Underhill + + + +Release Date: June 8, 2007 [eBook #21774] +Most recently updated: October 6, 2012 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRACTICAL MYSTICISM*** + + +E-text prepared by Ruth Hart ruthhart@twilightoracle.com + + + +Transcriber's note: + + In the original book, the Table of Contents was located after + the Preface, but I have placed it at the beginning of the text + for this online version. + + + + + +PRACTICAL MYSTICISM + +by + +EVELYN UNDERHILL + +Author of "Mysticism," "The Mystic Way," "Immanence: A Book of Verses." + + + + + + + +"If the doors of perception were cleansed, +everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. +For man has closed himself up, +till he sees all things through the narrow chinks of his cavern." +WILLIAM BLAKE + + + +New York +E.P. Dutton & Company +681 Fifth Avenue +Copyright 1915 by +E.P. Dutton & Company + + + +TO THE UNSEEN FUTURE + + + +CONTENTS + + Preface vii + I. What is Mysticism 1 + II. The World of Reality 13 + III. The Preparation of the Mystic 21 + IV. Meditation and Recollection 56 + V. Self-Adjustment 29 + VI. Love and Will 74 + VII. The First Form of Contemplation 87 + VIII. The Second Form of Contemplation 105 + XI. The Third Form of Contemplation 126 + X. The Mystical Life 148 + + + +PREFACE + +This little book, written during the last months of peace, goes to +press in the first weeks of the great war. Many will feel that in +such a time of conflict and horror, when only the most ignorant, +disloyal, or apathetic can hope for quietness of mind, a book +which deals with that which is called the "contemplative" attitude +to existence is wholly out of place. So obvious, indeed, is this +point of view, that I had at first thought of postponing its +publication. On the one hand, it seems as though the dreams of a +spiritual renaissance, which promised so fairly but a little time +ago, had perished in the sudden explosion of brute force. On the +other hand, the thoughts of the English race are now turned, and +rightly, towards the most concrete forms of action--struggle and +endurance, practical sacrifices, difficult and long-continued +effort--rather than towards the passive attitude of self-surrender +which is all that the practice of mysticism seems, at first sight, to +demand. Moreover, that deep conviction of the dependence of all +human worth upon eternal values, the immanence of the Divine +Spirit within the human soul, which lies at the root of a mystical +concept of life, is hard indeed to reconcile with much of the +human history now being poured red-hot from the cauldron of +war. For all these reasons, we are likely during the present crisis +to witness a revolt from those superficially mystical notions +which threatened to become too popular during the immediate +past. + +Yet, the title deliberately chosen for this book--that of "Practical" +Mysticism--means nothing if the attitude and the discipline which +it recommends be adapted to fair weather alone: if the principles +for which it stands break down when subjected to the pressure of +events, and cannot be reconciled with the sterner duties of the +national life. To accept this position is to reduce mysticism to the +status of a spiritual plaything. On the contrary, if the experiences +on which it is based have indeed the transcendent value for +humanity which the mystics claim for them--if they reveal to us a +world of higher truth and greater reality than the world of +concrete happenings in which we seem to be immersed--then that +value is increased rather than lessened when confronted by the +overwhelming disharmonies and sufferings of the present time. It +is significant that many of these experiences are reported to us +from periods of war and distress: that the stronger the forces of +destruction appeared, the more intense grew the spiritual vision +which opposed them. We learn from these records that the +mystical consciousness has the power of lifting those who +possess it to a plane of reality which no struggle, no cruelty, can +disturb: of conferring a certitude which no catastrophe can wreck. +Yet it does not wrap its initiates in a selfish and otherworldly +calm, isolate them from the pain and effort of the common life. +Rather, it gives them renewed vitality; administering to the +human spirit not--as some suppose--a soothing draught, but the +most powerful of stimulants. Stayed upon eternal realities, that +spirit will be far better able to endure and profit by the stern +discipline which the race is now called to undergo, than those +who are wholly at the mercy of events; better able to discern the +real from the illusory issues, and to pronounce judgment on the +new problems, new difficulties, new fields of activity now +disclosed. Perhaps it is worth while to remind ourselves that the +two women who have left the deepest mark upon the military +history of France and England--Joan of Arc and Florence +Nightingale--both acted under mystical compulsion. So, too, did +one of the noblest of modern soldiers, General Gordon. Their +national value was directly connected with their deep spiritual +consciousness: their intensely practical energies were the flowers +of a contemplative life. + +We are often told, that in the critical periods of history it is the +national soul which counts: that "where there is no vision, the +people perish." No nation is truly defeated which retains its +spiritual self-possession. No nation is truly victorious which does +not emerge with soul unstained. If this be so, it becomes a part of +true patriotism to keep the spiritual life, both of the individual +citizen and of the social group, active and vigorous; its vision of +realities unsullied by the entangled interests and passions of the +time. This is a task in which all may do their part. The spiritual +life is not a special career, involving abstraction from the world +of things. It is a part of every man's life; and until he has realised +it he is not a complete human being, has not entered into +possession of all his powers. It is therefore the function of a +practical mysticism to increase, not diminish, the total efficiency, +the wisdom and steadfastness, of those who try to practise it. It +will help them to enter, more completely than ever before, into +the life of the group to which they belong. It will teach them to +see the world in a truer proportion, discerning eternal beauty +beyond and beneath apparent ruthlessness. It will educate them in +a charity free from all taint of sentimentalism; it will confer on +them an unconquerable hope; and assure them that still, even in +the hour of greatest desolation, "There lives the dearest freshness +deep down things." As a contribution, then, to these purposes, +this little book is now published. It is addressed neither to the +learned nor to the devout, who are already in possession of a +wide literature dealing from many points of view with the +experiences and philosophy of the mystics. Such readers are +warned that they will find here nothing but the re-statement of +elementary and familiar propositions, and invitations to a +discipline immemorially old. Far from presuming to instruct +those to whom first-hand information is both accessible and +palatable, I write only for the larger class which, repelled by the +formidable appearance of more elaborate works on the subject, +would yet like to know what is meant by mysticism, and what it +has to offer to the average man: how it helps to solve his +problems, how it harmonises with the duties and ideals of his +active life. For this reason, I presuppose in my readers no +knowledge whatever of the subject, either upon the philosophic, +religious, or historical side. Nor, since I wish my appeal to be +general, do I urge the special claim of any one theological +system, any one metaphysical school. I have merely attempted to +put the view of the universe and man's place in it which is +common to all mystics in plain and untechnical language: and to +suggest the practical conditions under which ordinary persons +may participate in their experience. Therefore the abnormal states +of consciousness which sometimes appear in connection with +mystical genius are not discussed: my business being confined to +the description of a faculty which all men possess in a greater or +less degree. + +The reality and importance of this faculty are considered in the +first three chapters. In the fourth and fifth is described the +preliminary training of attention necessary for its use; in the +sixth, the general self-discipline and attitude toward life which it +involves. The seventh, eighth, and ninth chapters treat in an +elementary way of the three great forms of contemplation; and in +the tenth, the practical value of the life in which they have been +actualised is examined. Those kind enough to attempt the perusal +of the book are begged to read the first sections with some +attention before passing to the latter part. + +E. U. + +_September_ 12, 1914. + + + +CHAPTER I + +WHAT IS MYSTICISM? + +Those who are interested in that special attitude towards the +universe which is now loosely called "mystical," find themselves +beset by a multitude of persons who are constantly asking--some +with real fervour, some with curiosity, and some with disdain-- +"What _is_ mysticism?" When referred to the writings of the +mystics themselves, and to other works in which this question +appears to be answered, these people reply that such books are +wholly incomprehensible to them. + +On the other hand, the genuine inquirer will find before long a +number of self-appointed apostles who are eager to answer his +question in many strange and inconsistent ways, calculated to +increase rather than resolve the obscurity of his mind. He will +learn that mysticism is a philosophy, an illusion, a kind of +religion, a disease; that it means having visions, performing +conjuring tricks, leading an idle, dreamy, and selfish life, +neglecting one's business, wallowing in vague spiritual emotions, +and being "in tune with the infinite." He will discover that it +emancipates him from all dogmas--sometimes from all morality-- +and at the same time that it is very superstitious. One expert tells +him that it is simply "Catholic piety," another that Walt Whitman +was a typical mystic; a third assures him that all mysticism comes +from the East, and supports his statement by an appeal to the +mango trick. At the end of a prolonged course of lectures, +sermons, tea-parties, and talks with earnest persons, the inquirer +is still heard saying--too often in tones of exasperation--"What +_is_ mysticism?" + +I dare not pretend to solve a problem which has provided so +much good hunting in the past. It is indeed the object of this little +essay to persuade the practical man to the one satisfactory course: +that of discovering the answer for himself. Yet perhaps it will +give confidence if I confess pears to cover all the ground; or at +least, all that part of the ground which is worth covering. It will +hardly stretch to the mango trick; but it finds room at once for the +visionaries and the philosophers, for Walt Whitman and the +saints. + +Here is the definition:-- + +_Mysticism is the art of union with Reality. The mystic is a +person who has attained that union in greater or less degree; or +who aims at and believes in such attainment_. + +It is not expected that the inquirer will find great comfort in this +sentence when first it meets his eye. The ultimate question, +"What is Reality?"--a question, perhaps, which never occurred to +him before--is already forming in his mind; and he knows that it +will cause him infinite distress. Only a mystic can answer it: +and he, in terms which other mystics alone will understand. +Therefore, for the time being, the practical man may put it on one +side. All that he is asked to consider now is this: that the +word "union" represents not so much a rare and unimaginable +operation, as something which he is doing, in a vague, imperfect +fashion, at every moment of his conscious life; and doing with +intensity and thoroughness in all the more valid moments of that +life. We know a thing only by uniting with it; by assimilating it; +by an interpenetration of it and ourselves. It gives itself to us, just +in so far as we give ourselves to it; and it is because our outflow +towards things is usually so perfunctory and so languid, that our +comprehension of things is so perfunctory and languid too. The +great Sufi who said that "Pilgrimage to the place of the wise, is to +escape the flame of separation" spoke the literal truth. Wisdom is +the fruit of communion; ignorance the inevitable portion of those +who "keep themselves to themselves," and stand apart, judging, +analysing the things which they have never truly known. + +Because he has surrendered himself to it, "united" with it, the +patriot knows his country, the artist knows the subject of his art, +the lover his beloved, the saint his God, in a manner which is +inconceivable as well as unattainable by the looker-on. Real +knowledge, since it always implies an intuitive sympathy more or +less intense, is far more accurately suggested by the symbols of +touch and taste than by those of hearing and sight. True, analytic +thought follows swiftly upon the contact, the apprehension, +the union: and we, in our muddle-headed way, have persuaded +ourselves that this is the essential part of knowledge--that it is, in +fact, more important to cook the hare than to catch it. But when +we get rid of this illusion and go back to the more primitive +activities through which our mental kitchen gets its supplies, we +see that the distinction between mystic and non-mystic is not +merely that between the rationalist and the dreamer, between +intellect and intuition. The question which divides them is really +this: What, out of the mass of material offered to it, shall +consciousness seize upon--with what aspects of the universe shall +it "unite"? + +It is notorious that the operations of the average human +consciousness unite the self, not with things as they really are, +but with images, notions, aspects of things. The verb "to be," +which he uses so lightly, does not truly apply to any of the +objects amongst which the practical man supposes himself to +dwell. For him the hare of Reality is always ready-jugged: he +conceives not the living lovely, wild, swift-moving creature +which has been sacrificed in order that he may be fed on the +deplorable dish which he calls "things as they really are." So +complete, indeed, is the separation of his consciousness from the +facts of being, that he feels no sense of loss. He is happy enough +"understanding," garnishing, assimilating the carcass from which +the principle of life and growth has been ejected, and whereof +only the most digestible portions have been retained. He is not +"mystical." + +But sometimes it is suggested to him that his knowledge is not +quite so thorough as he supposed. Philosophers in particular have +a way of pointing out its clumsy and superficial character; of +demonstrating the fact that he habitually mistakes his own private +sensations for qualities inherent in the mysterious objects of the +external world. From those few qualities of colour, size, texture, +and the rest, which his mind has been able to register and +classify, he makes a label which registers the sum of his own +experiences. This he knows, with this he "unites"; for it is his +own creature. It is neat, flat, unchanging, with edges well +defined: a thing one can trust. He forgets the existence of other +conscious creatures, provided with their own standards of reality. +Yet the sea as the fish feels it, the borage as the bee sees it, the +intricate sounds of the hedgerow as heard by the rabbit, the +impact of light on the eager face of the primrose, the landscape as +known in its vastness to the wood-louse and ant--all these +experiences, denied to him for ever, have just as much claim to +the attribute of Being as his own partial and subjective +interpretations of things. + +Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most +part to live in a world of labels; to make of them the current coin +of experience, and ignore their merely symbolic character, the +infinite gradation of values which they misrepresent. We simply +do not attempt to unite with Reality. But now and then that +symbolic character is suddenly brought home to us. Some great +emotion, some devastating visitation of beauty, love, or pain, lifts +us to another level of consciousness; and we are aware for a +moment of the difference between the neat collection of discrete +objects and experiences which we call the world, and the height, +the depth, the breadth of that living, growing, changing Fact, of +which thought, life, and energy are parts, and in which we "live +and move and have our being." Then we realise that our whole +life is enmeshed in great and living forces; terrible because +unknown. Even the power which lurks in every coal-scuttle, +shines in the electric lamp, pants in the motor-omnibus, declares +itself in the ineffable wonders of reproduction and growth, is +supersensual. We do but perceive its results. The more sacred +plane of life and energy which seems to be manifested in +the forces we call "spiritual" and "emotional"--in love, +anguish, ecstasy, adoration--is hidden from us too. Symptoms, +appearances, are all that our intellects can discern: sudden +irresistible inroads from it, all that our hearts can apprehend. The +material for an intenser life, a wider, sharper consciousness, a +more profound understanding of our own existence, lies at our +gates. But we are separated from it, we cannot assimilate it; +except in abnormal moments, we hardly know that it is. We now +begin to attach at least a fragmentary meaning to the statement +that "mysticism is the art of union with Reality." We see that the +claim of such a poet as Whitman to be a mystic lies in the fact +that he has achieved a passionate communion with deeper levels +of life than those with which we usually deal--has thrust past the +current notion to the Fact: that the claim of such a saint as Teresa +is bound up with her declaration that she has achieved union with +the Divine Essence itself. The visionary is a mystic when his +vision mediates to him an actuality beyond the reach of the +senses. The philosopher is a mystic when he passes beyond +thought to the pure apprehension of truth. The active man is a +mystic when he knows his actions to be a part of a greater +activity. Blake, Plotinus, Joan of Arc, and John of the Cross-- +there is a link which binds all these together: but if he is to make +use of it, the inquirer must find that link for himself. All four +exhibit different forms of the working of the contemplative +consciousness; a faculty which is proper to all men, though few +take the trouble to develop it. Their attention to life has changed +its character, sharpened its focus: and as a result they see, some a +wider landscape, some a more brilliant, more significant, more +detailed world than that which is apparent to the less educated, +less observant vision of common sense. The old story of Eyes and +No-Eyes is really the story of the mystical and unmystical types. +"No-Eyes" has fixed his attention on the fact that he is obliged to +take a walk. For him the chief factor of existence is his own +movement along the road; a movement which he intends to +accomplish as efficiently and comfortably as he can. He asks not +to know what may be on either side of the hedges. He ignores the +caress of the wind until it threatens to remove his hat. He trudges +along, steadily, diligently; avoiding the muddy pools, but +oblivious of the light which they reflect. "Eyes" takes the walk +too: and for him it is a perpetual revelation of beauty and wonder. +The sunlight inebriates him, the winds delight him, the very effort +of the journey is a joy. Magic presences throng the roadside, or +cry salutations to him from the hidden fields. The rich +world through which he moves lies in the fore-ground of his +consciousness; and it gives up new secrets to him at every step. +"No-Eyes," when told of his adventures, usually refuses to +believe that both have gone by the same road. He fancies that his +companion has been floating about in the air, or beset by +agreeable hallucinations. We shall never persuade him to the +contrary unless we persuade him to look for himself. + +Therefore it is to a practical mysticism that the practical man is +here invited: to a training of his latent faculties, a bracing and +brightening of his languid consciousness, an emancipation from +the fetters of appearance, a turning of his attention to new levels +of the world. Thus he may become aware of the universe which +the spiritual artist is always trying to disclose to the race. This +amount of mystical perception--this "ordinary contemplation," as +the specialists call it--is possible to all men: without it, they are +not wholly conscious, nor wholly alive. It is a natural human +activity, no more involving the great powers and sublime +experiences of the mystical saints and philosophers than the +ordinary enjoyment of music involves the special creative powers +of the great musician. + +As the beautiful does not exist for the artist and poet alone-- +though these can find in it more poignant depths of meaning than +other men--so the world of Reality exists for all; and all may +participate in it, unite with it, according to their measure and to +the strength and purity of their desire. "For heaven ghostly," says +_The Cloud of Unknowing_, "is as nigh down as up, and up as +down; behind as before, before as behind, on one side as other. +Inasmuch, that whoso had a true desire for to be at heaven, then +that same time he were in heaven ghostly. For the high and the +next way thither is run by desires, and not by paces of feet." None +therefore is condemned, save by his own pride, sloth, or +perversity, to the horrors of that which Blake called "single +vision"--perpetual and undivided attention to the continuous +cinematograph performance, which the mind has conspired with +the senses to interpose between ourselves and the living world. + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE WORLD OF REALITY + +The practical man may justly observe at this point that the world +of single vision is the only world he knows: that it appears to him +to be real, solid, and self-consistent: and that until the existence-- +at least, the probability--of other planes of reality is made clear to +him, all talk of uniting with them is mere moonshine, which +confirms his opinion of mysticism as a game fit only for idle +women and inferior poets. Plainly, then, it is the first business of +the missionary to create, if he can, some feeling of dissatisfaction +with the world within which the practical man has always lived +and acted; to suggest something of its fragmentary and subjective +character. We turn back therefore to a further examination +of the truism--so obvious to those who are philosophers, so +exasperating to those who are not--that man dwells, under normal +conditions, in a world of imagination rather than a world of facts; +that the universe in which he lives and at which he looks is but a +construction which the mind has made from some few amongst +the wealth of materials at its disposal. + +The relation of this universe to the world of fact is not unlike the +relation between a tapestry picture and the scene which it +imitates. You, practical man, are obliged to weave your image of +the outer world upon the hard warp of your own mentality; which +perpetually imposes its own convention, and checks the free +representation of life. As a tapestry picture, however various and +full of meaning, is ultimately reducible to little squares; so the +world of common sense is ultimately reducible to a series of +static elements conditioned by the machinery of the brain. Subtle +curves, swift movement, delicate gradation, that machinery +cannot represent. It leaves them out. From the countless +suggestions, the tangle of many-coloured wools which the real +world presents to you, you snatch one here and there. Of these +you weave together those which are the most useful, the most +obvious, the most often repeated: which make a tidy and coherent +pattern when seen on the right side. Shut up with this symbolic +picture, you soon drop into the habit of behaving to it as though it +were not a representation but a thing. On it you fix your attention; +with it you "unite." Yet, did you look at the wrong side, at the +many short ends, the clumsy joins and patches, this simple +philosophy might be disturbed. You would be forced to acknowledge +the conventional character of the picture you have made +so cleverly, the wholesale waste of material involved in the +weaving of it: for only a few amongst the wealth of impressions +we receive are seized and incorporated into our picture of the +world. Further, it might occur to you that a slight alteration in the +rhythm of the senses would place at your disposal a complete +new range of material; opening your eyes and ears to sounds, +colours, and movements now inaudible and invisible, removing +from your universe those which you now regard as part of the +established order of things. Even the strands which you have +made use of might have been combined in some other way; with +disastrous results to the "world of common sense," yet without +any diminution of their own reality. + +Nor can you regard these strands themselves as ultimate. As the +most prudent of logicians might venture to deduce from a skein +of wool the probable existence of a sheep; so you, from the raw +stuff of perception, may venture to deduce a universe which +transcends the reproductive powers of your loom. Even the +camera of the photographer, more apt at contemplation than the +mind of man, has shown us how limited are these powers in some +directions, and enlightened us as to a few of the cruder errors of +the person who accepts its products at face-value; or, as he would +say, believes his own eyes. It has shown us, for instance, that the +galloping race-horse, with legs stretched out as we are used to see +it, is a mythical animal, probably founded on the mental image of +a running dog. No horse has ever galloped thus: but its real action +is too quick for us, and we explain it to ourselves as something +resembling the more deliberate dog-action which we have caught +and registered as it passed. The plain man's universe is full of +race-horses which are really running dogs: of conventional +waves, first seen in pictures and then imagined upon the sea: of +psychological situations taken from books and applied to human +life: of racial peculiarities generalised from insufficient data, and +then "discovered" in actuality: of theological diagrams and +scientific "laws," flung upon the background of eternity as the +magic lantern's image is reflected on the screen. + +The coloured scene at which you look so trustfully owes, in fact, +much of its character to the activities of the seer: to that process +of thought--concept--cogitation, from which Keats prayed with so +great an ardour to escape, when he exclaimed in words which +will seem to you, according to the temper of your mind, either an +invitation to the higher laziness or one of the most profound +aspirations of the soul, "O for a life of sensations rather than +thoughts!" He felt--as all the poets have felt with him--that +another, lovelier world, tinted with unimaginable wonders, alive +with ultimate music, awaited those who could free themselves +from the fetters of the mind, lay down the shuttle and the +weaver's comb, and reach out beyond the conceptual image to +intuitive contact with the Thing. + +There are certain happy accidents which have the power of +inducting man for a moment into this richer and more vital +world. These stop, as one old mystic said, the "wheel of his +imagination," the dreadful energy of his image-making power +weaving up and transmuting the incoming messages of sense. +They snatch him from the loom and place him, in the naked +simplicity of his spirit, face to face with that Other than himself +whence the materials of his industry have come. In these hours +human consciousness ascends from thought to contemplation; +becomes at least aware of the world in which the mystics dwell; +and perceives for an instant, as St. Augustine did, "the light that +never changes, above the eye of the soul, above the intelligence." +This experience might be called in essence "absolute sensation." +It is a pure feeling-state; in which the fragmentary contacts with +Reality achieved through the senses are merged in a wholeness of +communion which feels and knows all at once, yet in a way +which the reason can never understand, that Totality of which +fragments are known by the lover, the musician, and the artist. If +the doors of perception were cleansed, said Blake, everything +would appear to man as it is--Infinite. But the doors of perception +are hung with the cobwebs of thought; prejudice, cowardice, +sloth. Eternity is with us, inviting our contemplation perpetually, +but we are too frightened, lazy, and suspicious to respond: too +arrogant to still our thought, and let divine sensation have its +way. It needs industry and goodwill if we would make that +transition: for the process involves a veritable spring-cleaning of +the soul, a turning-out and rearrangement of our mental furniture, +a wide opening of closed windows, that the notes of the wild +birds beyond our garden may come to us fully charged with +wonder and freshness, and drown with their music the noise of +the gramaphone within. Those who do this, discover that they +have lived in a stuffy world, whilst their inheritance was a world +of morning-glory; where every tit-mouse is a celestial messenger, +and every thrusting bud is charged with the full significance of +life. + +There will be many who feel a certain scepticism as to the +possibility of the undertaking here suggested to them; a prudent +unwillingness to sacrifice their old comfortably upholstered +universe, on the mere promise that they will receive a new +heaven and a new earth in exchange. These careful ones may like +to remind themselves that the vision of the world presented to us +by all the great artists and poets--those creatures whose very +existence would seem so strange to us, were we not accustomed +to them--perpetually demonstrates the many-graded character of +human consciousness; the new worlds which await it, once it +frees itself from the tyranny of those labour-saving contrivances +with which it usually works. Leaving on one side the more subtle +apprehensions which we call "spiritual," even the pictures of the +old Chinese draughtsmen and the modern impressionists, of +Watteau and of Turner, of Manet, Degas, and Cezanne; the +poems of Blake, Wordsworth, Shelley, Whitman--these, and +countless others, assure you that their creators have enjoyed +direct communion, not with some vague world of fancy, but with +a visible natural order which you have never known. These have +seized and woven into their pictures strands which never +presented themselves to you; significant forms which elude you, +tones and relations to which you are blind, living facts for which +your conventional world provides no place. They prove by their +works that Blake was right when he said that "a fool sees not the +same tree that a wise man sees"; and that psychologists, insisting +on the selective action of the mind, the fact that our preconceptions +govern the character of our universe, do but teach the most +demonstrable of truths. Did you take them seriously, as you +should, their ardent reports might well disgust you with the +dull and narrow character of your own consciousness. + +What is it, then, which distinguishes the outlook of great poets +and artists from the arrogant subjectivism of common sense? +Innocence and humility distinguish it. These persons prejudge +nothing, criticise nothing. To some extent, their attitude to the +universe is that of children: and because this is so, they +participate to that extent in the Heaven of Reality. According to +their measure, they have fulfilled Keats' aspiration, they do live a +life in which the emphasis lies on sensation rather than on +thought: for the state which he then struggled to describe was that +ideal state of pure receptivity, of perfect correspondence with the +essence of things, of which all artists have a share, and which a +few great mystics appear to have possessed--not indeed in its +entirety, but to an extent which made them, as they say, "one with +the Reality of things." The greater the artist is, the wider and +deeper is the range of this pure sensation: the more sharply he is +aware of the torrent of life and loveliness, the rich profusion of +possible beauties and shapes. He always wants to press deeper +and deeper, to let the span of his perception spread wider and +wider; till he unites with the whole of that Reality which he feels +all about him, and of which his own life is a part. He is always +tending, in fact, to pass over from the artistic to the mystical +state. In artistic experience, then, in the artist's perennial effort +to actualise the ideal which Keats expressed, we may find a point of +departure for our exploration of the contemplative life. + +What would it mean for a soul that truly captured it; this life in +which the emphasis should lie on the immediate percepts, the +messages the world pours in on us, instead of on the sophisticated +universe into which our clever brains transmute them? Plainly, it +would mean the achievement of a new universe, a new order of +reality: escape from the terrible museum-like world of daily life, +where everything is classified and labelled, and all the graded +fluid facts which have no label are ignored. It would mean an +innocence of eye and innocence of ear impossible for us to +conceive; the impassioned contemplation of pure form, freed +from all the meanings with which the mind has draped and +disguised it; the recapturing of the lost mysteries of touch and +fragrance, most wonderful amongst the avenues of sense. It +would mean the exchanging of the neat conceptual world our +thoughts build up, fenced in by the solid ramparts of the possible, +for the inconceivable richness of that unwalled world from which +we have subtracted it. It would mean that we should receive from +every flower, not merely a beautiful image to which the label +"flower" has been affixed, but the full impact of its unimaginable +beauty and wonder, the direct sensation of life having communion +with life: that the scents of ceasing rain, the voice of +trees, the deep softness of the kitten's fur, the acrid touch of sorrel +on the tongue, should be in themselves profound, complete, and +simple experiences, calling forth simplicity of response in our +souls. + +Thus understood, the life of pure sensation is the meat and drink +of poetry, and one of the most accessible avenues to that union +with Reality which the mystic declares to us as the very object of +life. But the poet must take that living stuff direct from the field +and river, without sophistication, without criticism, as the life of +the soul is taken direct from the altar; with an awe that admits not +of analysis. He must not subject it to the cooking, filtering +process of the brain. It is because he knows how to elude this +dreadful sophistication of Reality, because his attitude to the +universe is governed by the supreme artistic virtues of humility +and love, that poetry is what it is: and I include in the sweep of +poetic art the coloured poetry of the painter, and the wordless +poetry of the musician and the dancer too. + +At this point the critical reader will certainly offer an objection. +"You have been inviting me," he will say, "to do nothing more or +less than trust my senses: and this too on the authority of those +impracticable dreamers the poets. Now it is notorious that our +senses deceive us. Every one knows that; and even your own +remarks have already suggested it. How, then, can a wholesale +and uncritical acceptance of my sensations help me to unite with +Reality? Many of these sensations we share with the animals: in +some, the animals obviously surpass us. Will you suggest that my +terrier, smelling his way through an uncoordinated universe, is a +better mystic than I?" + +To this I reply, that the terrier's contacts with the world are +doubtless crude and imperfect; yet he has indeed preserved a +directness of apprehension which you have lost. He gets, and +responds to, the real smell; not a notion or a name. Certainly the +senses, when taken at face-value, do deceive us: yet the deception +resides not so much in them, as in that conceptual world which +we insist on building up from their reports, and for which we +make them responsible. They deceive us less when we receive +these reports uncooked and unclassified, as simple and direct +experiences. Then, behind the special and imperfect stammerings +which we call colour, sound, fragrance, and the rest, we +sometimes discern a _whole fact_--at once divinely simple and +infinitely various--from which these partial messages proceed; +and which seeks as it were to utter itself in them. And we feel, +when this is so, that the fact thus glimpsed is of an immense +significance; imparting to that aspect of the world which we are +able to perceive all the significance, all the character which it +possesses. The more of the artist there is in us, the more intense +that significance, that character will seem: the more complete, +too, will be our conviction that our uneasiness, the vagueness of +our reactions to things, would be cured could we reach and unite +with the fact, instead of our notion of it. And it is just such an act +of union, reached through the clarified channels of sense and +unadulterated by the content of thought, which the great artist or +poet achieves. + +We seem in these words to have come far from the mystic, and +that contemplative consciousness wherewith he ascends to the +contact of Truth. As a matter of fact, we are merely considering +that consciousness in its most natural and accessible form: for +contemplation is, on the one hand, the essential activity of all +artists; on the other, the art through which those who choose to +learn and practise it may share in some fragmentary degree, +according to their measure, the special experience of the mystic +and the poet. By it they may achieve that virginal outlook upon +things, that celestial power of communion with veritable life, +which comes when that which we call "sensation" is freed from +the tyranny of that which we call "thought." The artist is no more +and no less than a contemplative who has learned to express +himself, and who tells his love in colour, speech, or sound: the +mystic, upon one side of his nature, is an artist of a special and +exalted kind, who tries to express something of the revelation he +has received, mediates between Reality and the race. In the game +of give and take which goes on between the human consciousness +and the external world, both have learned to put the emphasis +upon the message from without, rather than on their own reaction +to and rearrangement of it. Both have exchanged the false +imagination which draws the sensations and intuitions of the self +into its own narrow circle, and there distorts and transforms them, +for the true imagination which pours itself out, eager, +adventurous, and self-giving, towards the greater universe. + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE PREPARATION OF THE MYSTIC + +Here the practical man will naturally say: And pray how am I +going to do this? How shall I detach myself from the artificial +world to which I am accustomed? Where is the brake that shall +stop the wheel of my image-making mind? + +I answer: You are going to do it by an educative process; a drill, +of which the first stages will, indeed, be hard enough. You have +already acknowledged the need of such mental drill, such +deliberate selective acts, in respect to the smaller matters of life. +You willingly spend time and money over that narrowing and +sharpening of attention which you call a "business training," a +"legal education," the "acquirement of a scientific method." But +this new undertaking will involve the development and the +training of a layer of your consciousness which has lain fallow in +the past; the acquirement of a method you have never used +before. It is reasonable, even reassuring, that hard work and +discipline should be needed for this: that it should demand of +you, if not the renunciation of the cloister, at least the virtues of +the golf course. + +The education of the mystical sense begins in self-simplification. +The feeling, willing, seeing self is to move from the various and +the analytic to the simple and the synthetic: a sentence which +may cause hard breathing and mopping of the brows on the part +of the practical man. Yet it is to you, practical man, reading these +pages as you rush through the tube to the practical work of +rearranging unimportant fragments of your universe, that this +message so needed by your time--or rather, by your want of time-- +is addressed. To you, unconscious analyst, so busy reading the +advertisements upon the carriage wall, that you hardly observe +the stages of your unceasing flight: so anxiously acquisitive of +the crumbs that you never lift your eyes to the loaf. The essence +of mystical contemplation is summed in these two experiences-- +union with the flux of life, and union with the Whole in which all +lesser realities are resumed--and these experiences are well +within your reach. Though it is likely that the accusation will +annoy you, you are already in fact a potential contemplative: for +this act, as St. Thomas Aquinas taught, is proper to all men--is, +indeed, the characteristic human activity. + +More, it is probable that you are, or have been, an actual +contemplative too. Has it never happened to you to lose yourself +for a moment in a swift and satisfying experience for which you +found no name? When the world took on a strangeness, and you +rushed out to meet it, in a mood at once exultant and ashamed? +Was there not an instant when you took the lady who now orders +your dinner into your arms, and she suddenly interpreted to you +the whole of the universe? a universe so great, charged with so +terrible an intensity, that you have hardly dared to think of it +since. Do you remember that horrid moment at the concert, when +you became wholly unaware of your comfortable seven-and-sixpenny +seat? Those were onsets of involuntary contemplation; sudden +partings of the conceptual veil. Dare you call them the least +significant, moments of your life? Did you not then, like the +African saint, "thrill with love and dread," though you were not +provided with a label for that which you adored? + +It will not help you to speak of these experiences as "mere +emotion." Mere emotion then inducted you into a world which +you recognised as more valid--in the highest sense, more rational-- +than that in which you usually dwell: a world which had a +wholeness, a meaning, which exceeded the sum of its parts. Mere +emotion then brought you to your knees, made you at once proud +and humble, showed you your place. It simplified and unified +existence: it stripped off the little accidents and ornaments which +perpetually deflect our vagrant attention, and gathered up the +whole being of you into one state, which felt and knew a Reality +that your intelligence could not comprehend. Such an emotion is +the driving power of spirit, an august and ultimate thing: and +this your innermost inhabitant felt it to be, whilst your eyes were +open to the light. + +Now that simplifying act, which is the preliminary of all mystical +experience, that gathering of the scattered bits of personality into +the _one_ which is really you--into the "unity of your spirit," as +the mystics say--the great forces of love, beauty, wonder, grief, +may do for you now and again. These lift you perforce from the +consideration of the details to the contemplation of the All: turn +you from the tidy world of image to the ineffable world of fact. +But they are fleeting and ungovernable experiences, descending +with dreadful violence on the soul. Are you willing that your +participation in Reality shall depend wholly on these incalculable +visitations: on the sudden wind and rain that wash your windows, +and let in the vision of the landscape at your gates? You can, if +you like, keep those windows clear. You can, if you choose to +turn your attention that way, learn to look out of them. These are +the two great phases in the education of every contemplative: and +they are called in the language of the mystics the purification of +the senses and the purification of the will. + +Those who are so fortunate as to experience in one of its many +forms the crisis which is called "conversion" are seized, as it +seems to them, by some power stronger than themselves and +turned perforce in the right direction. They find that this +irresistible power has cleansed the windows of their homely coat +of grime; and they look out, literally, upon a new heaven and new +earth. The long quiet work of adjustment which others must +undertake before any certitude rewards them is for these +concentrated into one violent shattering and rearranging of the +self, which can now begin its true career of correspondence with +the Reality it has perceived. To persons of this type I do not +address myself: but rather to the ordinary plodding scholar of life, +who must reach the same goal by a more gradual road. + +What is it that smears the windows of the senses? Thought, +convention, self-interest. We throw a mist of thought between +ourselves and the external world: and through this we discern, as +in a glass darkly, that which we have arranged to see. We see it in +the way in which our neighbours see it; sometimes through a +pink veil, sometimes through a grey. Religion, indigestion, +priggishness, or discontent may drape the panes. The prismatic +colours of a fashionable school of art may stain them. Inevitably, +too, we see the narrow world our windows show us, not "in +itself," but in relation to our own needs, moods, and preferences; +which exercise a selective control upon those few aspects of the +whole which penetrate to the field of consciousness and dictate +the order in which we arrange them, for the universe of the +natural man is strictly egocentric. We continue to name the living +creatures with all the placid assurance of Adam: and whatsoever +we call them, that is the name thereof. Unless we happen to be +artists--and then but rarely--we never know the "thing seen" in its +purity; never, from birth to death, look at it with disinterested +eyes. Our vision and understanding of it are governed by all that +we bring with us, and mix with it, to form an amalgam with +which the mind can deal. To "purify" the senses is to release +them, so far as human beings may, from the tyranny of egocentric +judgments; to make of them the organs of direct perception. +This means that we must crush our deep-seated passion for +classification and correspondences; ignore the instinctive, selfish +question, "What does it mean to _me_?" learn to dip ourselves in +the universe at our gates, and know it, not from without by +comprehension, but from within by self-mergence. + +Richard of St. Victor has said, that the essence of all purification +is self-simplification; the doing away of the unnecessary and +unreal, the tangles and complications of consciousness: and we +must remember that when these masters of the spiritual life speak +of purity, they have in their minds no thin, abstract notion of a +rule of conduct stripped of all colour and compounded chiefly of +refusals, such as a more modern, more arid asceticism set up. +Their purity is an affirmative state; something strong, clean, and +crystalline, capable of a wholeness of adjustment to the +wholeness of a God-inhabited world. The pure soul is like a lens +from which all irrelevancies and excrescences, all the beams and +motes of egotism and prejudice, have been removed; so that it +may reflect a clear image of the one Transcendent Fact within +which all others facts are held. + + "All which I took from thee I did but take, + Not for thy harms, + But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms." + +All the details of existence, all satisfactions of the heart and +mind, are resumed within that Transcendent Fact, as all the +colours of the spectrum are included in white light: and we +possess them best by passing beyond them, by following back the +many to the One. + +The "Simple Eye" of Contemplation, about which the mystic +writers say so much, is then a synthetic sense; which sees that +white light in which all colour is, without discrete analysis of its +properties. The Simple Ear which discerns the celestial melody, +hears that Tone in which all music is resumed; thus achieving +that ecstatic life of "sensation without thought" which Keats +perceived to be the substance of true happiness. + +But you, practical man, have lived all your days amongst the +illusions of multiplicity. Though you are using at every instant +your innate tendency to synthesis and simplification, since this +alone creates the semblance of order in your universe--though +what you call seeing and hearing are themselves great unifying +acts--yet your attention to life has been deliberately adjusted to a +world of frittered values and prismatic refracted lights: full of +incompatible interests, of people, principles, things. Ambitions +and affections, tastes and prejudices, are fighting for your +attention. Your poor, worried consciousness flies to and fro +amongst them; it has become a restless and a complicated thing. +At this very moment your thoughts are buzzing like a swarm of +bees. The reduction of this fevered complex to a unity appears to +be a task beyond all human power. Yet the situation is not as +hopeless for you as it seems. All this is only happening upon the +periphery of the mind, where it touches and reacts to the world of +appearance. At the centre there is a stillness which even you are +not able to break. There, the rhythm of your duration is one with +the rhythm of the Universal Life. There, your essential self exists: +the permanent being which persists through and behind the flow +and change of your conscious states. You have been snatched to +that centre once or twice. Turn your consciousness inward to it +deliberately. Retreat to that point whence all the various lines of +your activities flow, and to which at last they must return. Since +this alone of all that you call your "selfhood" is possessed of +eternal reality, it is surely a counsel of prudence to acquaint +yourself with its peculiarities and its powers. "Take your seat +within the heart of the thousand-petaled lotus," cries the Eastern +visionary. "Hold thou to thy Centre," says his Christian brother, +"and all things shall be thine." This is a practical recipe, not a +pious exhortation. The thing may sound absurd to you, but you +can do it if you will: standing back, as it were, from the vague +and purposeless reactions in which most men fritter their vital +energies. Then you can survey with a certain calm, a certain +detachment, your universe and the possibilities of life within it: +can discern too, if you be at all inclined to mystical adventure, the +stages of the road along which you must pass on your way +towards harmony with the Real. + +This universe, these possibilities, are far richer, yet far simpler +than you have supposed. Seen from the true centre of personality, +instead of the usual angle of self-interest, their scattered parts +arrange themselves in order: you begin to perceive those +graduated levels of Reality with which a purified and intensified +consciousness can unite. So, too, the road is more logically +planned, falls into more comprehensible stages, than those who +dwell in a world of single vision are willing to believe. + +Now it is a paradox of human life, often observed even by the +most concrete and unimaginative of philosophers, that man seems +to be poised between two contradictory orders of Reality. Two +planes of existence--or, perhaps, two ways of apprehending +existence--lie within the possible span of his consciousness. That +great pair of opposites which metaphysicians call Being and +Becoming, Eternity and Time, Unity and Multiplicity, and others +mean, when they speak of the Spiritual and the Natural Worlds, +represents the two extreme forms under which the universe can +be realised by him. The greatest men, those whose consciousness +is extended to full span, can grasp, be aware of, both. They +know themselves to live, both in the discrete, manifested, +ever-changeful parts and appearances, and also in the Whole Fact. +They react fully to both: for them there is no conflict between the +parochial and the patriotic sense. More than this, a deep instinct +sometimes assures them that the inner spring or secret of that +Whole Fact is also the inner spring and secret of their individual +lives: and that here, in this third factor, the disharmonies between +the part and the whole are resolved. As they know themselves to +dwell in the world of time and yet to be capable of transcending +it, so the Ultimate Reality, they think, inhabits yet inconceivably +exceeds all that they know to be--as the soul of the musician +controls and exceeds not merely each note of the flowing melody, +but also the whole of that symphony in which these cadences +must play their part. That invulnerable spark of vivid life, that +"inward light" which these men find at their own centres when +they seek for it, is for them an earnest of the Uncreated Light, the +ineffable splendour of God, dwelling at, and energising within +the heart of things: for this spark is at once one with, yet separate +from, the Universal Soul. + +So then, man, in the person of his greatest and most living +representatives, feels himself to have implicit correspondences +with three levels of existence; which we may call the Natural, the +Spiritual, and the Divine. The road on which he is to travel +therefore, the mystical education which he is to undertake, shall +successively unite him with these three worlds; stretching his +consciousness to the point at which he finds them first as three, +and at last as One. Under normal circumstances even the first of +them, the natural world of Becoming, is only present to him-- +unless he be an artist--in a vague and fragmentary way. He is, of +course, aware of the temporal order, a ceaseless change and +movement, birth, growth, and death, of which he is a part. But the +rapture and splendour of that everlasting flux which India calls +the Sport of God hardly reaches his understanding; he is too busy +with his own little movements to feel the full current of the +stream. + +But under those abnormal circumstances on which we have +touched, a deeper level of his consciousness comes into focus; he +hears the music of surrounding things. Then he rises, through and +with his awareness of the great life of Nature, to the knowledge +that he is part of another greater life, transcending succession. In +this his durational spirit is immersed. Here all the highest values +of existence are stored for him: and it is because of his existence +within this Eternal Reality, his patriotic relationship to it, that the +efforts and experiences of the time-world have significance for +him. It is from the vantage point gained when he realises his +contacts with this higher order, that he can see with the clear eye +of the artist or the mystic the World of Becoming itself-- +recognise its proportions--even reach out to some faint intuition +of its ultimate worth. So, if he would be a whole man, if he would +realise all that is implicit in his humanity, he must actualise his +relationship with this supernal plane of Being: and he shall do it, +as we have seen, by simplification, by a deliberate withdrawal of +attention from the bewildering multiplicity of things, a deliberate +humble surrender of his image-making consciousness. He already +possesses, at that gathering point of personality which the old +writers sometimes called the "apex" and sometimes the "ground" +of the soul, a medium of communication with Reality. But this +spiritual principle, this gathering point of his selfhood, is just that +aspect of him which is furthest removed from the active surface +consciousness. He treats it as the busy citizen treats his national +monuments. It is there, it is important, a possession which adds +dignity to his existence; but he never has time to go in. Yet as the +purified sense, cleansed of prejudice and self-interest, can give us +fleeting communications from the actual broken-up world of +duration at our gates: so the purified and educated will can +wholly withdraw the self's attention from its usual concentration +on small useful aspects of the time-world, refuse to react to its +perpetually incoming messages, retreat to the unity of its spirit, +and there make itself ready for messages from another plane. +This is the process which the mystics call Recollection: the first +stage in the training of the contemplative consciousness. + +We begin, therefore, to see that the task of union with Reality +will involve certain stages of preparation as well as stages +of attainment; and these stages of preparation--for some +disinterested souls easy and rapid, for others long and full of +pain--may be grouped under two heads. First, the disciplining and +simplifying of the attention, which is the essence of Recollection. +Next, the disciplining and simplifying of the affections and will, +the orientation of the heart; which is sometimes called by the +formidable name of Purgation. So the practical mysticism of the +plain man will best be grasped by him as a five-fold scheme of +training and growth: in which the first two stages prepare the self +for union with Reality, and the last three unite it successively +with the World of Becoming, the World of Being, and finally +with that Ultimate Fact which the philosopher calls the Absolute +and the religious mystic calls God. + + + +CHAPTER IV + +MEDITATION AND RECOLLECTION + +Recollection, the art which the practical man is now invited to +learn, is in essence no more and no less than the subjection of the +attention to the control of the will. It is not, therefore, a purely +mystical activity. In one form or another it is demanded of all +who would get control of their own mental processes; and does or +should represent the first great step in the education of the human +consciousness. So slothful, however, is man in all that concerns +his higher faculties, that few deliberately undertake this education +at all. They are content to make their contacts with things by a +vague, unregulated power, ever apt to play truant, ever apt to fail +them. Unless they be spurred to it by that passion for ultimate +things which expresses itself in religion, philosophy, or art, they +seldom learn the secret of a voluntary concentration of the mind. + +Since the philosopher's interests are mainly objective, and the +artist seldom cogitates on his own processes, it is, in the end, to +the initiate of religion that we are forced to go, if we would learn +how to undertake this training for ourselves. The religious +contemplative has this further attraction for us: that he is by +nature a missionary as well. The vision which he has achieved is +the vision of an intensely loving heart; and love, which cannot +keep itself to itself, urges him to tell the news as widely and as +clearly as he may. In his works, he is ever trying to reveal the +secret of his own deeper life and wider vision, and to help his +fellow men to share it: hence he provides the clearest, most +orderly, most practical teachings on the art of contemplation that +we are likely to find. True, our purpose in attempting this art may +seem to us very different from his: though if we carry out the +principles involved to their last term, we shall probably find that +they have brought us to the place at which he aimed from the +first. But the method, in its earlier stages, must be the same; +whether we call the Reality which is the object of our quest +aesthetic, cosmic, or divine. The athlete must develop much the +same muscles, endure much the same discipline, whatever be the +game he means to play. + +So we will go straight to St. Teresa, and inquire of her what +was the method by which she taught her daughters to gather +themselves together, to capture and hold the attitude most +favourable to communion with the spiritual world. She tells us-- +and here she accords with the great tradition of the Christian +contemplatives, a tradition which was evolved under the pressure +of long experience--that the process is a gradual one. The method +to be employed is a slow, patient training of material which the +licence of years has made intractable; not the sudden easy turning +of the mind in a new direction, that it may minister to a new +fancy for "the mystical view of things." Recollection begins, she +says, in the deliberate and regular practice of meditation; a +perfectly natural form of mental exercise, though at first a hard +one. + +Now meditation is a half-way house between thinking and +contemplating: and as a discipline, it derives its chief value from +this transitional character. The real mystical life, which is the +truly practical life, begins at the beginning; not with supernatural +acts and ecstatic apprehensions, but with the normal faculties of +the normal man. "I do not require of you," says Teresa to her +pupils in meditation, "to form great and curious considerations in +your understanding: I require of you no more than to _look_." + +It might be thought that such looking at the spiritual world, +simply, intensely, without cleverness--such an opening of the Eye +of Eternity--was the essence of contemplation itself: and indeed +one of the best definitions has described that art as a "loving +sight," a "peering into heaven with the ghostly eye." But the self +who is yet at this early stage of the pathway to Reality is not +asked to look at anything new, to peer into the deeps of things: +only to gaze with a new and cleansed vision on the ordinary +intellectual images, the labels and the formula, the "objects" and +ideas--even the external symbols--amongst which it has always +dwelt. It is not yet advanced to the seeing of fresh landscapes: it +is only able to re-examine the furniture of its home, and obtain +from this exercise a skill, and a control of the attention, which +shall afterwards be applied to greater purposes. Its task is here to +_consider_ that furniture, as the Victorines called this preliminary +training: to take, that is, a more starry view of it: standing back +from the whirl of the earth, and observing the process of things. + +Take, then, an idea, an object, from amongst the common stock, +and hold it before your mind. The selection is large enough: all +sentient beings may find subjects of meditation to their taste, for +there lies a universal behind every particular of thought, however +concrete it may appear, and within the most rational propositions +the meditative eye may glimpse a dream. + + "Reason has moons, but moons not hers + Lie mirror'd on her sea, + Confounding her astronomers + But, O delighting me." + +Even those objects which minister to our sense-life may well be +used to nourish our spirits too. Who has not watched the intent +meditations of a comfortable cat brooding upon the Absolute +Mouse? You, if you have a philosophic twist, may transcend such +relative views of Reality, and try to meditate on Time, +Succession, even Being itself: or again on human intercourse, +birth, growth, and death, on a flower, a river, the various +tapestries of the sky. Even your own emotional life will provide +you with the ideas of love, joy, peace, mercy, conflict, desire. +You may range, with Kant, from the stars to the moral law. If +your turn be to religion, the richest and most evocative of fields is +open to your choice: from the plaster image to the mysteries of +Faith. + +But, the choice made, it must be held and defended during the +time of meditation against all invasions from without, however +insidious their encroachments, however "spiritual" their disguise. +It must be brooded upon, gazed at, seized again and again, as +distractions seem to snatch it from your grasp. A restless +boredom, a dreary conviction of your own incapacity, will +presently attack you. This, too, must be resisted at sword-point. +The first quarter of an hour thus spent in attempted meditation +will be, indeed, a time of warfare; which should at least convince +you how unruly, how ill-educated is your attention, how +miserably ineffective your will, how far away you are from the +captaincy of your own soul. It should convince, too, the most +common-sense of philosophers of the distinction between real +time, the true stream of duration which is life, and the sequence +of seconds so carefully measured by the clock. Never before has +the stream flowed so slowly, or fifteen minutes taken so long to +pass. Consciousness has been lifted to a longer, slower rhythm, +and is not yet adjusted to its solemn march. + +But, striving for this new poise, intent on the achievement +of it, presently it will happen to you to find that you have +indeed--though how you know not--entered upon a fresh plane of +perception, altered your relation with things. + +First, the subject of your meditation begins, as you surrender to +its influence, to exhibit unsuspected meaning, beauty, power. A +perpetual growth of significance keeps pace with the increase of +attention which you bring to bear on it; that attention which is the +one agent of all your apprehensions, physical and mental alike. It +ceases to be thin and abstract. You sink as it were into the deeps +of it, rest in it, "unite" with it; and learn, in this still, intent +communion, something of its depth and breadth and height, as we +learn by direct intercourse to know our friends. + +Moreover, as your meditation becomes deeper it will defend you +from the perpetual assaults of the outer world. You will hear the +busy hum of that world as a distant exterior melody, and know +yourself to be in some sort withdrawn from it. You have set a +ring of silence between you and it; and behold! within that +silence you are free. You will look at the coloured scene, and it +will seem to you thin and papery: only one amongst countless +possible images of a deeper life as yet beyond your reach. And +gradually, you will come to be aware of an entity, a _You_, who +can thus hold at arm's length, be aware of, look at, an idea--a +universe--other than itself. By this voluntary painful act of +concentration, this first step upon the ladder which goes--as the +mystics would say--from "multiplicity to unity," you have to +some extent withdrawn yourself from that union with unrealities, +with notions and concepts, which has hitherto contented you; and +at once all the values of existence are changed. "The road to a +Yea lies through a Nay." You, in this preliminary movement of +recollection, are saying your first deliberate No to the claim +which the world of appearance makes to a total possession of +your consciousness: and are thus making possible some contact +between that consciousness and the World of Reality. + +Now turn this new purified and universalised gaze back upon +yourself. Observe your own being in a fresh relation with things, +and surrender yourself willingly to the moods of astonishment, +humility, joy--perhaps of deep shame or sudden love--which +invade your heart as you look. So doing patiently, day after day, +constantly recapturing the vagrant attention, ever renewing the +struggle for simplicity of sight, you will at last discover that there +is something within you--something behind the fractious, +conflicting life of desire--which you can recollect, gather up, +make effective for new life. You will, in fact, know your own +soul for the first time: and learn that there is a sense in which this +real _You_ is distinct from, an alien within, the world in which +you find yourself, as an actor has another life when he is not on +the stage. When you do not merely believe this but know it; when +you have achieved this power of withdrawing yourself, of making +this first crude distinction between appearance and reality, the +initial stage of the contemplative life has been won. It is not +much more of an achievement than that first proud effort in +which the baby stands upright for a moment and then relapses to +the more natural and convenient crawl: but it holds within it the +same earnest of future development. + + + +CHAPTER V + +SELF-ADJUSTMENT + +So, in a measure, you have found yourself: have retreated behind +all that flowing appearance, that busy, unstable consciousness +with its moods and obsessions, its feverish alternations of interest +and apathy, its conflicts and irrational impulses, which even the +psychologists mistake for You. Thanks to this recollective act, +you have discovered in your inmost sanctuary a being not wholly +practical, who refuses to be satisfied by your busy life of +correspondences with the world of normal men, and hungers for +communion with a spiritual universe. And this thing so foreign to +your surface consciousness, yet familiar to it and continuous with +it, you recognise as the true Self whose existence you always +took for granted, but whom you have only known hitherto in its +scattered manifestations. "That art thou." + +This climb up the mountain of self-knowledge, said the Victorine +mystics, is the necessary prelude to all illumination. Only at its +summit do we discover, as Dante did, the beginning of the +pathway to Reality. It is a lonely and an arduous excursion, a +sufficient test of courage and sincerity: for most men prefer to +dwell in comfortable ignorance upon the lower slopes, and there +to make of their more obvious characteristics a drapery which +shall veil the naked truth. True and complete self-knowledge, +indeed, is the privilege of the strongest alone. Few can bear to +contemplate themselves face to face; for the vision is strange and +terrible, and brings awe and contrition in its wake. The life of the +seer is changed by it for ever. He is converted, in the deepest and +most drastic sense; is forced to take up a new attitude towards +himself and all other things. Likely enough, if you really knew +yourself--saw your own dim character, perpetually at the mercy +of its environment; your true motives, stripped for inspection +and measured against eternal values; your unacknowledged +self-indulgences; your irrational loves and hates--you would be +compelled to remodel your whole existence, and become for the +first time a practical man. + +But you have done what you can in this direction; have at last +discovered your own deeper being, your eternal spark, the agent +of all your contacts with Reality. You have often read about it. +Now you have met it; know for a fact that it is there. What next? +What changes, what readjustments will this self-revelation +involve for you? + +You will have noticed, as with practice your familiarity with the +state of Recollection has increased, that the kind of consciousness +which it brings with it, the sort of attitude which it demands of +you, conflict sharply with the consciousness and the attitude +which you have found so appropriate to your ordinary life in the +past. They make this old attitude appear childish, unworthy, at +last absurd. By this first deliberate effort to attend to Reality you +are at once brought face to face with that dreadful revelation of +disharmony, unrealness, and interior muddle which the blunt +moralists call "conviction of sin." Never again need those +moralists point out to you the inherent silliness of your earnest +pursuit of impermanent things: your solemn concentration upon +the game of getting on. None the less, this attitude persists. Again +and again you swing back to it. Something more than realisation +is needed if you are to adjust yourself to your new vision of the +world. This game which you have played so long has formed and +conditioned you, developing certain qualities and perceptions, +leaving the rest in abeyance: so that now, suddenly asked to play +another, which demands fresh movements, alertness of a different +sort, your mental muscles are intractable, your attention refuses +to respond. Nothing less will serve you here than that drastic +remodelling of character which the mystics call "Purgation," the +second stage in the training of the human consciousness for +participation in Reality. + +It is not merely that your intellect has assimilated, united with a +superficial and unreal view of the world. Far worse: your will, +your desire, the sum total of your energy, has been turned the +wrong way, harnessed to the wrong machine. You have become +accustomed to the idea that you want, or ought to want, certain +valueless things, certain specific positions. For years your +treasure has been in the Stock Exchange, or the House of +Commons, or the Salon, or the reviews that "really count" (if they +still exist), or the drawing-rooms of Mayfair; and thither your +heart perpetually tends to stray. Habit has you in its chains. You +are not free. The awakening, then, of your deeper self, which +knows not habit and desires nothing but free correspondence with +the Real, awakens you at once to the fact of a disharmony +between the simple but inexorable longings and instincts of the +buried spirit, now beginning to assert themselves in your hours of +meditation--pushing out, as it were, towards the light--and the +various changeful, but insistent longings and instincts of the +surface-self. Between these two no peace is possible: they +conflict at every turn. It becomes apparent to you that the +declaration of Plotinus, accepted or repeated by all the mystics, +concerning a "higher" and a "lower" life, and the cleavage that +exists between them, has a certain justification even in the +experience of the ordinary man. + +That great thinker and ecstatic said, that all human personality +was thus two-fold: thus capable of correspondence with two +orders of existence. The "higher life" was always tending towards +union with Reality; towards the gathering of it self up into One. +The "lower life," framed for correspondence with the outward +world of multiplicity, was always tending to fall downwards, and +fritter the powers of the self among external things. This is but a +restatement, in terms of practical existence, of the fact which +Recollection brought home to us: that the human self is +transitional, neither angel nor animal, capable of living towards +either Eternity or Time. But it is one thing to frame beautiful +theories on these subjects: another when the unresolved dualism +of your own personality (though you may not give it this +high-sounding name) becomes the main fact of consciousness, +perpetually reasserts itself as a vital problem, and refuses to take +academic rank. + +This state of things means the acute discomfort which ensues on +being pulled two ways at once. The uneasy swaying of attention +between two incompatible ideals, the alternating conviction that +there is something wrong, perverse, poisonous, about life as you +have always lived it, and something hopelessly ethereal about the +life which your innermost inhabitant wants to live--these +disagreeable sensations grow stronger and stronger. First one and +then the other asserts itself. You fluctuate miserably between +their attractions and their claims; and will have no peace until +these claims have been met, and the apparent opposition between +them resolved. You are sure now that there is another, more +durable and more "reasonable," life possible to the human +consciousness than that on which it usually spends itself. But it is +also clear to you that you must yourself be something more, or +other, than you are now, if you are to achieve this life, dwell in it, +and breathe its air. You have had in your brief spells of +recollection a first quick vision of that plane of being which +Augustine called "the land of peace," the "beauty old and new." +You know for evermore that it exists: that the real thing within +yourself belongs to it, might live in it, is being all the time invited +and enticed to it. You begin, in fact, to feel and know in every +fibre of your being the mystical need of "union with Reality"; and +to realise that the natural scene which you have accepted so +trustfully cannot provide the correspondences toward which you +are stretching out. + +Nevertheless, it is to correspondences with this natural order that +you have given for many years your full attention, your desire, +your will. The surface-self, left for so long in undisputed +possession of the conscious field, has grown strong, and +cemented itself like a limpet to the rock of the obvious; gladly +exchanging freedom for apparent security, and building up, from +a selection amongst the more concrete elements offered it by the +rich stream of life, a defensive shell of "fixed ideas." It is useless +to speak kindly to the limpet. You must detach it by main force. +That old comfortable clinging life, protected by its hard shell +from the living waters of the sea, must now come to an end. A +conflict of some kind--a severance of old habits, old notions, old +prejudices--is here inevitable for you; and a decision as to the +form which the new adjustments must take. + +Now although in a general way we may regard the practical +man's attitude to existence as a limpet-like adherence to the +unreal; yet, from another point of view, fixity of purpose and +desire is the last thing we can attribute to him. His mind is full of +little whirlpools, twists and currents, conflicting systems, +incompatible desires. One after another, he centres himself on +ambition, love, duty, friendship, social convention, politics, +religion, self-interest in one of its myriad forms; making of each a +core round which whole sections of his life are arranged. One +after another, these things either fail him or enslave him. +Sometimes they become obsessions, distorting his judgment, +narrowing his outlook, colouring his whole existence. Sometimes +they develop inconsistent characters which involve him in public +difficulties, private compromises and self-deceptions of every +kind. They split his attention, fritter his powers. This state of +affairs, which usually passes for an "active life," begins to take on +a different complexion when looked at with the simple eye of +meditation. Then we observe that the plain man's world is in a +muddle, just because he has tried to arrange its major interests +round himself as round a centre; and he is neither strong enough +nor clever enough for the job. He has made a wretched little +whirlpool in the mighty River of Becoming, interrupting--as he +imagines, in his own interest--its even flow: and within that +whirlpool are numerous petty complexes and counter-currents, +amongst which his will and attention fly to and fro in a continual +state of unrest. The man who makes a success of his life, in any +department, is he who has chosen one from amongst these claims +and interests, and devoted to it his energetic powers of heart and +will; "unifying" himself about it, and from within it resisting all +counter-claims. He has one objective, one centre; has killed out +the lesser ones, and simplified himself. + +Now the artist, the discoverer, the philosopher, the lover, the +patriot--the true enthusiast for any form of life--can only achieve +the full reality to which his special art or passion gives access by +innumerable renunciations. He must kill out the smaller centres +of interest, in order that his whole will, love, and attention may +pour itself out towards, seize upon, unite with, that special +manifestation of the beauty and significance of the universe to +which he is drawn. So, too, a deliberate self-simplification, a +"purgation" of the heart and will, is demanded of those who +would develop the form of consciousness called "mystical." All +your power, all your resolution, is needed if you are to succeed in +this adventure: there must be no frittering of energy, no mixture +of motives. We hear much of the mystical temperament, the +mystical vision. The mystical character is far more important: and +its chief ingredients are courage, singleness of heart, and +self-control. It is towards the perfecting of these military virtues, +not to the production of a pious softness, that the discipline of +asceticism is largely directed; and the ascetic foundation, in one +form or another, is the only enduring foundation of a sane +contemplative life. + +You cannot, until you have steadied yourself, found a poise, and +begun to resist some amongst the innumerable claims which the +world of appearance perpetually makes upon your attention +and your desire, make much use of the new power which Recollection +has disclosed to you; and this Recollection itself, so long +as it remains merely a matter of attention and does not involve +the heart, is no better than a psychic trick. You are committed +therefore, as the fruit of your first attempts at self-knowledge, +to a deliberate--probably a difficult--rearrangement of +your character; to the stern course of self-discipline, the +voluntary acts of choice on the one hand and of rejection on the +other, which ascetic writers describe under the formidable names +of Detachment and Mortification. By Detachment they mean the +eviction of the limpet from its crevice; the refusal to anchor +yourself to material things, to regard existence from the personal +standpoint, or confuse custom with necessity. By Mortification, +they mean the resolving of the turbulent whirlpools and currents +of your own conflicting passions, interests, desires; the killing out +of all those tendencies which the peaceful vision of Recollection +would condemn, and which create the fundamental opposition +between your interior and exterior life. + +What then, in the last resort, is the source of this opposition; the +true reason of your uneasiness, your unrest? The reason lies, not +in any real incompatibility between the interests of the temporal +and the eternal orders; which are but two aspects of one Fact, two +expressions of one Love. It lies solely in yourself; in your attitude +towards the world of things. You are enslaved by the verb "to +have": all your reactions to life consist in corporate or individual +demands, appetites, wants. That "love of life" of which we +sometimes speak is mostly cupboard-love. We are quick to snap +at her ankles when she locks the larder door: a proceeding which +we dignify by the name of pessimism. The mystic knows not this +attitude of demand. He tells us again and again, that "he is rid of +all his asking"; that "henceforth the heat of having shall never +scorch him more." Compare this with your normal attitude to the +world, practical man: your quiet certitude that you are well within +your rights in pushing the claims of "the I, the Me, the Mine"; +your habit, if you be religious, of asking for the weather and the +government that you want, of persuading the Supernal Powers to +take a special interest in your national or personal health and +prosperity. How often in each day do you deliberately revert to an +attitude of disinterested adoration? Yet this is the only attitude in +which true communion with the universe is possible. The very +mainspring of your activity is a demand, either for a continued +possession of that which you have, or for something which as yet +you have not: wealth, honour, success, social position, love, +friendship, comfort, amusement. You feel that you have a right to +some of these things: to a certain recognition of your powers, a +certain immunity from failure or humiliation. You resent +anything which opposes you in these matters. You become +restless when you see other selves more skilful in the game of +acquisition than yourself. You hold tight against all comers your +own share of the spoils. You are rather inclined to shirk boring +responsibilities and unattractive, unremunerative toil; are greedy +of pleasure and excitement, devoted to the art of having a good +time. If you possess a social sense, you demand these things not +only for yourself but for your tribe--the domestic or racial group +to which you belong. These dispositions, so ordinary that they +almost pass unnoticed, were named by our blunt forefathers the +Seven Deadly Sins of Pride, Anger, Envy, Avarice, Sloth, +Gluttony, and Lust. Perhaps you would rather call them--as +indeed they are--the seven common forms of egotism. They +represent the natural reactions to life of the self-centred human +consciousness, enslaved by the "world of multiplicity"; and +constitute absolute barriers to its attainment of Reality. So long as +these dispositions govern character we can never see or feel +things as they are; but only as they affect ourselves, our family, +our party, our business, our church, our empire--the I, the Me, the +Mine, in its narrower or wider manifestations. Only the detached +and purified heart can view all things--the irrational cruelty of +circumstance, the tortures of war, the apparent injustice of life, +the acts and beliefs of enemy and friend--in true proportion; and +reckon with calm mind the sum of evil and good. Therefore the +mystics tell us perpetually that "selfhood must be killed" before +Reality can be attained. + +"Feel sin a lump, thou wottest never what, but none other thing +than _thyself_," says _The Cloud of Unknowing_. "When the I, +the Me, and the Mine are dead, the work of the Lord is done," +says Kabir. The substance of that wrongness of act and relation +which constitutes "sin" is the separation of the individual spirit +from the whole; the ridiculous megalomania which makes each +man the centre of his universe. Hence comes the turning inwards +and condensation of his energies and desires, till they do indeed +form a "lump"; a hard, tight core about which all the currents of +his existence swirl. This heavy weight within the heart resists +every outgoing impulse of the spirit; and tends to draw all things +inward and downward to itself, never to pour itself forth in +love, enthusiasm, sacrifice. "So long," says the _Theologia +Germanica_, "as a man seeketh his own will and his own highest +good, because it is his, and for his own sake, he will never find it: +for so long as he doeth this, he is not seeking his own highest +good, and how then should he find it? For so long as he doeth +this, he seeketh himself, and dreameth that he is himself the +highest good. . . . But whosoever seeketh, loveth, and pursueth +goodness, as goodness and for the sake of goodness, and maketh +that his end--for nothing but the love of goodness, not for love of +the I, Me, Mine, Self, and the like--he will find the highest good, +for he seeketh it aright, and they who seek it otherwise do err." + +So it is disinterestedness, the saint's and poet's love of things for +their own sakes, the vision of the charitable heart, which is the +secret of union with Reality and the condition of all real +knowledge. This brings with it the precious quality of suppleness, +the power of responding with ease and simplicity to the great +rhythms of life; and this will only come when the ungainly +"lump" of sin is broken, and the verb "to have," which expresses +its reaction to existence, is ejected from the centre of your +consciousness. Then your attitude to life will cease to be +commercial, and become artistic. Then the guardian at the gate, +scrutinising and sorting the incoming impressions, will no longer +ask, "What use is this to _me_?" before admitting the angel of +beauty or significance who demands your hospitality. Then +things will cease to have power over you. You will become free. +"Son," says a Kempis, "thou oughtest diligently to attend to this; +that in every place, every action or outward occupation, thou be +inwardly free and mighty in thyself, and all things be under thee, +and thou not under them; that thou be lord and governor of thy +deeds, not servant." It is therefore by the withdrawal of your will +from its feverish attachment to things, till "they are under thee +and thou not under them," that you will gradually resolve the +opposition between the recollective and the active sides of your +personality. By diligent self-discipline, that mental attitude which +the mystics sometimes call poverty and sometimes perfect +freedom--for these are two aspects of one thing--will become +possible to you. Ascending the mountain of self-knowledge and +throwing aside your superfluous luggage as you go, you shall at +last arrive at the point which they call the summit of the spirit; +where the various forces of your character--brute energy, keen +intellect, desirous heart--long dissipated amongst a thousand little +wants and preferences, are gathered into one, and become a +strong and disciplined instrument wherewith your true self can +force a path deeper and deeper into the heart of Reality. + + + +CHAPTER VI + +LOVE AND WILL + +This steady effort towards the simplifying of your tangled +character, its gradual emancipation from the fetters of the unreal, +is not to dispense you from that other special training of the +attention which the diligent practice of meditation and +recollection effects. Your pursuit of the one must never involve +neglect of the other; for these are the two sides--one moral, the +other mental--of that unique process of self-conquest which +Ruysbroeck calls "the gathering of the forces of the soul into the +unity of the spirit": the welding together of all your powers, the +focussing of them upon one point. Hence they should never, +either in theory or practice, be separated. Only the act of +recollection, the constantly renewed retreat to the quiet centre of +the spirit, gives that assurance of a Reality, a calmer and more +valid life attainable by us, which supports the stress and pain of +self-simplification and permits us to hope on, even in the teeth of +the world's cruelty, indifference, degeneracy; whilst diligent +character-building alone, with its perpetual untiring efforts at +self-adjustment, its bracing, purging discipline, checks the human +tendency to relapse into and react to the obvious, and makes +possible the further development of the contemplative power. + +So it is through and by these two great changes in your attitude +towards things--first, the change of attention, which enables you +to perceive a truer universe; next, the deliberate rearrangement of +your ideas, energies, and desires in harmony with that which you +have seen--that a progressive uniformity of life and experience is +secured to you, and you are defended against the dangers of an +indolent and useless mysticality. Only the real, say the mystics, +can know Reality, for "we behold that which we are," the +universe which we see is conditioned by the character of the +mind that sees it: and this realness--since that which you seek is +no mere glimpse of Eternal Life, but complete possession of it-- +must apply to every aspect of your being, the rich totality of +character, all the "forces of the soul," not to some thin and +isolated "spiritual sense" alone. This is why recollection and +self-simplification--perception of, and adaptation to, the Spiritual +World in which we dwell--are the essential preparations for +the mystical life, and neither can exist in a wholesome and +well-balanced form without the other. By them the mind, the will, the +heart, which so long had dissipated their energies over a thousand +scattered notions, wants, and loves, are gradually detached from +their old exclusive preoccupation with the ephemeral interests of +the self, or of the group to which the self belongs. + +You, if you practise them, will find after a time--perhaps a long +time--that the hard work which they involve has indeed brought +about a profound and definite change in you. A new suppleness +has taken the place of that rigidity which you have been +accustomed to mistake for strength of character: an easier attitude +towards the accidents of life. Your whole scale of values has +undergone a silent transformation, since you have ceased to fight +for your own hand and regard the nearest-at-hand world as the +only one that counts. You have become, as the mystics would +say, "free from inordinate attachments," the "heat of having" does +not scorch you any more; and because of this you possess great +inward liberty, a sense of spaciousness and peace. Released from +the obsessions which so long had governed them, will, heart, and +mind are now all bent to the purposes of your deepest being: +"gathered in the unity of the spirit," they have fused to become an +agent with which it can act. + +What form, then, shall this action take? It shall take a practical +form, shall express itself in terms of movement: the pressing +outwards of the whole personality, the eager and trustful +stretching of it towards the fresh universe which awaits you. As +all scattered thinking was cut off in recollection, as all vagrant +and unworthy desires have been killed by the exercises of +detachment; so now all scattered willing, all hesitations between +the indrawing and outflowing instincts of the soul, shall be +checked and resolved. You are to _push_ with all your power: not +to absorb ideas, but to pour forth will and love. With this +"conative act," as the psychologists would call it, the true +contemplative life begins. Contemplation, you see, has no very +close connection with dreaminess and idle musing: it is more like +the intense effort of vision, the passionate and self-forgetful act +of communion, presupposed in all creative art. It is, says one old +English mystic, "a blind intent stretching . . . a privy love +pressed" in the direction of Ultimate Beauty, athwart all the +checks, hindrances, and contradictions of the restless world: a +"loving stretching out" towards Reality, says the great +Ruysbroeck, than whom none has gone further on this path. +Tension, ardour, are of its essence: it demands the perpetual +exercise of industry and courage. + +We observe in such definitions as these a strange neglect of that +glory of man, the Pure Intellect, with which the spiritual prig +enjoys to believe that he can climb up to the Empyrean itself. It +almost seems as though the mystics shared Keats' view of the +supremacy of feeling over thought; and reached out towards +some new and higher range of sensation, rather than towards new +and more accurate ideas. They are ever eager to assure us that +man's most sublime thoughts of the Transcendent are but a little +better than his worst: that loving intuition is the only certain +guide. "By love may He be gotten and holden, but by thought +never." + +Yet here you are not to fall into the clumsy error of supposing +that the things which are beyond the grasp of reason are +necessarily unreasonable things. Immediate feeling, so far as it is +true, does not oppose but transcends and completes the highest +results of thought. It contains within itself the sum of all the +processes through which thought would pass in the act of +attaining the same goal: supposing thought to have reached--as it +has not--the high pitch at which it was capable of thinking its way +all along this road. + +In the preliminary act of gathering yourself together, and in those +unremitting explorations through which you came to "a knowing +and a feeling of yourself as you are," thought assuredly had its +place. There the powers of analysis, criticism, and deduction +found work that they could do. But now it is the love and will-- +the feeling, the intent, the passionate desire--of the self, which +shall govern your activities and make possible your success. Few +would care to brave the horrors of a courtship conducted upon +strictly intellectual lines: and contemplation is an act of love, the +wooing, not the critical study, of Divine Reality. It is an eager +outpouring of ourselves towards a Somewhat Other for which we +feel a passion of desire; a seeking, touching, and tasting, not a +considering and analysing, of the beautiful and true wherever +found. It is, as it were, a responsive act of the organism to those +Supernal Powers without, which touch and stir it. Deep humility +as towards those Powers, a willing surrender to their control, is +the first condition of success. The mystics speak much of these +elusive contacts; felt more and more in the soul, as it becomes +increasingly sensitive to the subtle movements of its spiritual +environment. + + "Sense, feeling, taste, complacency, and sight, + These are the true and real joys, + The living, flowing, inward, melting, bright + And heavenly pleasures; all the rest are toys; + All which are founded in Desire + As light in flame and heat in fire." + +But this new method of correspondence with the universe is not +to be identified with "mere feeling" in its lowest and least orderly +forms. Contemplation does not mean abject surrender to every +"mystical" impression that comes in. It is no sentimental +aestheticism or emotional piety to which you are being invited: +nor shall the transcending of reason ever be achieved by way of +spiritual silliness. All the powers of the self, raised to their +intensest form, shall be used in it; though used perhaps in a new +way. These, the three great faculties of love, thought, and will-- +with which you have been accustomed to make great show on the +periphery of consciousness--you have, as it were, drawn inwards +during the course of your inward retreat: and by your education +in detachment have cured them of their tendency to fritter their +powers amongst a multiplicity of objects. Now, at the very heart +of personality, you are alone with them; you hold with you in that +"Interior Castle," and undistracted for the moment by the +demands of practical existence, the three great tools wherewith +the soul deals with life. + +As regards the life you have hitherto looked upon as "normal," +love--understood in its widest sense, as desire, emotional +inclination--has throughout directed your activities. You did +things, sought things, learned things, even suffered things, +because at bottom you wanted to. Will has done the work to +which love spurred it: thought has assimilated the results of their +activities and made for them pictures, analyses, "explanations" of +the world with which they had to deal. But now your purified +love discerns and desires, your will is set towards, something +which thought cannot really assimilate--still less explain. +"Contemplation," says Ruysbroeck, "is a knowing that is in no +wise . . . therein all the workings of the reason fail." That +reason has been trained to deal with the stuff of temporal existence. +It will only make mincemeat of your experience of Eternity if +you give it a chance; trimming, transforming, rationalising +that ineffable vision, trying to force it into a symbolic +system with which the intellect can cope. This is why the great +contemplatives utter again and again their solemn warning against +the deceptiveness of thought when it ventures to deal with the +spiritual intuitions of man; crying with the author of _The Cloud +of Unknowing_, "Look that _nothing_ live in thy working mind +but a naked intent stretching"--the voluntary tension of your +ever-growing, ever-moving personality pushing out towards the Real. +"Love, and _do_ what you like," said the wise Augustine: so little +does mere surface activity count, against the deep motive that +begets it. + +The dynamic power of love and will, the fact that the heart's +desire--if it be intense and industrious--is a better earnest of +possible fulfilment than the most elegant theories of the spiritual +world; this is the perpetual theme of all the Christian mystics. By +such love, they think, the worlds themselves were made. By an +eager outstretching towards Reality, they tell us, we tend to move +towards Reality, to enter into its rhythm: by a humble and +unquestioning surrender to it we permit its entrance into our +souls. This twofold act, in which we find the double character of +all true love--which both gives and takes, yields and demands--is +assured, if we be patient and single-hearted, of ultimate +success. At last our ignorance shall be done away; and we shall +"apprehend" the real and the eternal, as we apprehend the +sunshine when the sky is free from cloud. Therefore "Smite upon +that thick cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love"-- +and suddenly it shall part, and disclose the blue. + +"Smite," "press," "push," "strive"--these are strong words: yet +they are constantly upon the lips of the contemplatives when +describing the earlier stages of their art. Clearly, the abolition of +discursive thought is not to absolve you from the obligations of +industry. You are to "energise enthusiastically" upon new planes, +where you shall see more intensely, hear more intensely, touch +and taste more intensely than ever before: for the modes of +communion which these senses make possible to you are now to +operate as parts of the one single state of perfect intuition, of +loving knowledge by union, to which you are growing up. And +gradually you come to see that, if this be so, it is the ardent will +that shall be the prime agent of your undertaking: a will which +has now become the active expression of your deepest and purest +desires. About this the recollected and simplified self is to gather +itself as a centre; and thence to look out--steadily, deliberately-- +with eyes of love towards the world. + +To "look with the eyes of love" seems a vague and sentimental +recommendation: yet the whole art of spiritual communion is +summed in it, and exact and important results flow from this +exercise. The attitude which it involves is an attitude of complete +humility and of receptiveness; without criticism, without clever +analysis of the thing seen. When you look thus, you surrender +your I-hood; see things at last as the artist does, for their sake, not +for your own. The fundamental unity that is in you reaches out to +the unity that is in them: and you achieve the "Simple Vision" of +the poet and the mystic--that synthetic and undistorted +apprehension of things which is the antithesis of the single vision +of practical men. The doors of perception are cleansed, and +everything appears as it is. The disfiguring results of hate, rivalry, +prejudice, vanish away. Into that silent place to which +recollection has brought you, new music, new colour, new light, +are poured from the outward world. The conscious love which +achieves this vision may, indeed must, fluctuate--"As long as +thou livest thou art subject to mutability; yea, though thou wilt +not!" But the _will_ which that love has enkindled can hold +attention in the right direction. It can refuse to relapse to unreal +and egotistic correspondences; and continue, even in darkness, +and in the suffering which such darkness brings to the awakened +spirit, its appointed task, cutting a way into new levels of Reality. + +Therefore this transitional stage in the development of the +contemplative powers--in one sense the completion of their +elementary schooling, in another the beginning of their true +activities--is concerned with the toughening and further training +of that will which self-simplification has detached from its old +concentration upon the unreal wants and interests of the self. +Merged with your intuitive love, this is to become the true agent +of your encounter with Reality; for that Simple Eye of Intention, +which is so supremely your own, and in the last resort the maker +of your universe and controller of your destiny, is nothing else +but a synthesis of such energetic will and such uncorrupt desire, +turned and held in the direction of the Best. + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE FIRST FORM OF CONTEMPLATION + +Concentration, recollection, a profound self-criticism, the stilling +of his busy surface-intellect, his restless emotions of enmity and +desire, the voluntary achievement of an attitude of disinterested +love--by these strange paths the practical man has now been led, +in order that he may know by communion something of the +greater Life in which he is immersed and which he has so long +and so successfully ignored. He has managed in his own small +way something equivalent to those drastic purifications, those +searching readjustments, which are undertaken by the heroic +seekers for Reality; the arts whereby they defeat the tyranny of +"the I, the Me, the Mine" and achieve the freedom of a wider life. +Now, perhaps, he may share to some extent in that illumination, +that extended and intensified perception of things, which they +declare to be the heritage of the liberated consciousness. + +This illumination shall be gradual. The attainment of it depends +not so much upon a philosophy accepted, or a new gift of vision +suddenly received, as upon an uninterrupted changing and +widening of character; a progressive growth towards the Real, an +ever more profound harmonisation of the self's life with the +greater and inclusive rhythms of existence. It shall therefore +develop in width and depth as the sphere of that self's +intuitive love extends. As your own practical sympathy with and +understanding of other lives, your realisation of them, may be +narrowed and stiffened to include no more than the family group, +or spread over your fellow-workers, your class, your city, party, +country, or religion--even perhaps the whole race--till you feel +yourself utterly part of it, moving with it, suffering with it, and +partake of its whole conscious life; so here. Self-mergence is a +gradual process, dependent on a progressive unlimiting of +personality. The apprehension of Reality which rewards it is +gradual too. In essence, it is one continuous out-flowing +movement towards that boundless heavenly consciousness where +the "flaming ramparts" which shut you from true communion +with all other selves and things is done away; an unbroken +process of expansion and simplification, which is nothing more +or less than the growth of the spirit of love, the full flowering of +the patriotic sense. By this perpetually-renewed casting down of +the hard barriers of individuality, these willing submissions to the +compelling rhythm of a larger existence than that of the solitary +individual or even of the human group--by this perpetual +widening, deepening, and unselfing of your attentiveness--you +are to enlarge your boundaries and become the citizen of a +greater, more joyous, more poignant world, the partaker of a +more abundant life. The limits of this enlargement have not yet +been discovered. The greatest contemplatives, returning from +their highest ascents, can only tell us of a world that is +"unwalled." + +But this growth into higher realities, this blossoming of your +contemplative consciousness--though it be, like all else we know +in life, an unbroken process of movement and change--must be +broken up and reduced to the series of concrete forms which we +call "order" if our inelastic minds are to grasp it. So, we will +consider it as the successive achievement of those three levels or +manifestations of Reality, which we have agreed to call the +Natural World of Becoming, the Metaphysical World of Being, +and--last and highest--that Divine Reality within which these +opposites are found as one. Though these three worlds of +experience are so plaited together, that intimations from the +deeper layers of being constantly reach you through the natural +scene, it is in this order of realisation that you may best think of +them, and of your own gradual upgrowth to the full stature of +humanity. To elude nature, to refuse her friendship, and attempt +to leap the river of life in the hope of finding God on the other +side, is the common error of a perverted mysticality. It is as fatal +in result as the opposite error of deliberately arrested +development, which, being attuned to the wonderful rhythms of +natural life, is content with this increase of sensibility; and, +becoming a "nature-mystic," asks no more. + +So you are to begin with that first form of contemplation which +the old mystics sometimes called the "discovery of God in His +creatures." Not with some ecstatic adventure in supersensuous +regions, but with the loving and patient exploration of the world +that lies at your gates; the "ebb and flow and ever-during power" +of which your own existence forms a part. You are to push back +the self's barriers bit by bit, till at last all duration is included in +the widening circles of its intuitive love: till you find in every +manifestation of life--even those which you have petulantly +classified as cruel or obscene--the ardent self-expression of that +Immanent Being whose spark burns deep in your own soul. + +The Indian mystics speak perpetually of the visible universe as +the _Lila_ or Sport of God: the Infinite deliberately expressing +Himself in finite form, the musical manifestation of His creative +joy. All gracious and all courteous souls, they think, will gladly +join His play; considering rather the wonder and achievement of +the whole--its vivid movement, its strange and terrible evocations +of beauty from torment, nobility from conflict and death, its +mingled splendour of sacrifice and triumph--than their personal +conquests, disappointments, and fatigues. In the first form of +contemplation you are to realise the movement of this game, in +which you have played so long a languid and involuntary part, +and find your own place in it. It is flowing, growing, changing, +making perpetual unexpected patterns within the evolving +melody of the Divine Thought. In all things it is incomplete, +unstable; and so are you. Your fellow-men, enduring on the +battlefield, living and breeding in the slum, adventurous and +studious, sensuous and pure--more, your great comrades, the +hills, the trees, the rivers, the darting birds, the scuttering insects, +the little soft populations of the grass--all these are playing with +you. They move one to another in delicate responsive measures, +now violent, now gentle, now in conflict, now in peace; yet ever +weaving the pattern of a ritual dance, and obedient to the music +of that invisible Choragus whom Boehme and Plotinus knew. +What is that great wind which blows without, in continuous and +ineffable harmonies? Part of you, practical man. There is but one +music in the world: and to it you contribute perpetually, whether +you will or no, your one little ditty of no tone. + + "Mad with joy, life and death dance to the rhythm of this music: + The hills and the sea and the earth dance: + The world of man dances in laughter and tears." + +It seems a pity to remain in ignorance of this, to keep as it were a +plate-glass window between yourself and your fellow-dancers-- +all those other thoughts of God, perpetually becoming, changing +and growing beside you--and commit yourself to the unsocial +attitude of the "cat that walks by itself." + +Begin therefore at once. Gather yourself up, as the exercises of +recollection have taught you to do. Then--with attention no +longer frittered amongst the petty accidents and interests of your +personal life, but poised, tense, ready for the work you shall +demand of it--stretch out by a distinct act of loving will towards +one of the myriad manifestations of life that surround you: and +which, in an ordinary way, you hardly notice unless you happen +to need them. Pour yourself out towards it, do not draw its image +towards you. Deliberate--more, impassioned--attentiveness, an +attentiveness which soon transcends all consciousness of +yourself, as separate from and attending to the thing seen; this is +the condition of success. As to the object of contemplation, it +matters little. From Alp to insect, anything will do, provided that +your attitude be right: for all things in this world towards which +you are stretching out are linked together, and one truly +apprehended will be the gateway to the rest. + +Look with the eye of contemplation on the most dissipated tabby +of the streets, and you shall discern the celestial quality of life set +like an aureole about his tattered ears, and hear in his strident +mew an echo of + + "The deep enthusiastic joy, + The rapture of the hallelujah sent + From all that breathes and is." + +The sooty tree up which he scrambles to escape your earnest gaze +is holy too. It contains for you the whole divine cycle of the +seasons; upon the plane of quiet, its inward pulse is clearly to be +heard. But you must look at these things as you would look into +the eyes of a friend: ardently, selflessly, without considering his +reputation, his practical uses, his anatomical peculiarities, or the +vices which might emerge were he subjected to psycho-analysis. + +Such a simple exercise, if entered upon with singleness of heart, +will soon repay you. By this quiet yet tense act of communion, +this loving gaze, you will presently discover a relationship--far +more intimate than anything you imagined--between yourself and +the surrounding "objects of sense"; and in those objects of sense a +profound significance, a personal quality, and actual power of +response, which you might in cooler moments think absurd. +Making good your correspondences with these fellow-travellers, +you will learn to say with Whitman: + + "You air that serves me with breath to speak! + You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them + shape! + You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers! + You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadside! + I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear + to me." + +A subtle interpenetration of your spirit with the spirit of those +"unseen existences," now so deeply and thrillingly felt by you, +will take place. Old barriers will vanish: and you will become +aware that St. Francis was accurate as well as charming when he +spoke of Brother Wind and Sister Water; and that Stevenson was +obviously right when he said, that since: + + "The world is so full of a number of things, + I'm sure we ought all to be happy as kings." + +Those glad and vivid "things" will speak to you. They will offer you +news at least as definite and credible as that which the paper-boy +is hawking in the street: direct messages from that Beauty +which the artist reports at best at second hand. Because of your +new sensitiveness, anthems will be heard of you from every +gutter; poems of intolerable loveliness will bud for you on every +weed. Best and greatest, your fellowmen will shine for you with +new significance and light. Humility and awe will be evoked in +you by the beautiful and patient figures of the poor, their long +dumb heroisms, their willing acceptance of the burden of life. All +the various members of the human group, the little children and +the aged, those who stand for energy, those dedicated to skill, to +thought, to plainest service, or to prayer, will have for you fresh +vivid significance, be felt as part of your own wider being. All +adventurous endeavours, all splendour of pain and all beauty of +play--more, that grey unceasing effort of existence which makes +up the groundwork of the social web, and the ineffective hopes, +enthusiasms, and loves which transfuse it--all these will be seen +and felt by you at last as full of glory, full of meaning; for you +will see them with innocent, attentive, disinterested eyes, feel +them as infinitely significant and adorable parts of the +Transcendent Whole in which you also are immersed. + +This discovery of your fraternal link with all living things, this +down-sinking of your arrogant personality into the great generous +stream of life, marks an important stage in your apprehension of +that Science of Love which contemplation is to teach. You are +not to confuse it with pretty fancies about nature, such as all +imaginative persons enjoy; still less, with a self-conscious and +deliberate humanitarianism. It is a veritable condition of +awareness; a direct perception, not an opinion or an idea. For +those who attain it, the span of the senses is extended. These live +in a world which is lit with an intenser light; has, as George Fox +insisted, "another smell than before." They hear all about them +the delicate music of growth, and see the "new colour" of which +the mystics speak. + +Further, you will observe that this act, and the attitude which is +proper to it, differs in a very important way even from that +special attentiveness which characterised the stage of meditation, +and which seems at first sight to resemble it in many respects. +Then, it was an idea or image from amongst the common stock-- +one of those conceptual labels with which the human paste-brush +has decorated the surface of the universe--which you were +encouraged to hold before your mind. Now, turning away from +the label, you shall surrender yourself to the direct message +poured out towards you by the _thing_. Then, you considered: +now, you are to absorb. This experience will be, in the very +highest sense, the experience of sensation without thought: the +essential sensation, the "savouring" to which some of the mystics +invite us, of which our fragmentary bodily senses offer us a +transient sacrament. So here at last, in this intimate communion, +this "simple seeing," this total surrender of you to the impress of +things, you are using to the full the sacred powers of sense: and +so using them, because you are concentrating upon them, +accepting their reports in simplicity. You have, in this +contemplative outlook, carried the peculiar methods of artistic +apprehension to their highest stage: with the result that the +sense-world has become for you, as Erigena said that all creatures +were, "a theophany, or appearance of God." Not, you observe, a +symbol, but a showing: a very different thing. You have begun +now the Plotinian ascent from multiplicity to unity, and therefore +begin to perceive in the Many the clear and actual presence of the +One: the changeless and absolute Life, manifesting itself in all +the myriad nascent, crescent, cadent lives. Poets, gazing thus at +the "flower in the crannied wall" or the "green thing that stands in +the way," have been led deep into the heart of its life; there to +discern the secret of the universe. + +All the greater poems of Wordsworth and Walt Whitman represent +an attempt to translate direct contemplative experience of +this kind into words and rhythms which might convey its +secret to other men: all Blake's philosophy is but a desperate +effort to persuade us to exchange the false world of "Nature" on +which we usually look--and which is not really Nature at all--for +this, the true world, to which he gave the confusing name of +"Imagination." For these, the contemplation of the World of +Becoming assumes the intense form which we call genius: even +to read their poems is to feel the beating of a heart, the upleap of +a joy, greater than anything that we have known. Yet your own +little efforts towards the attainment of this level of consciousness +will at least give to you, together with a more vivid universe, a +wholly new comprehension of their works; and that of other poets +and artists who have drunk from the chalice of the Spirit of Life. +These works are now observed by you to be the only artistic +creations to which the name of Realism is appropriate; and it is +by the standard of reality that you shall now criticise them, +recognising in utterances which you once dismissed as rhetoric +the desperate efforts of the clear-sighted towards the exact +description of things veritably seen in that simplified state of +consciousness which Blake called "imagination uncorrupt." It +was from those purified and heightened levels of perception to +which the first form of contemplation inducts the soul, that Julian +of Norwich, gazing upon "a little thing, the quantity of an hazel +nut," found in it the epitome of all that was made; for therein she +perceived the royal character of life. So small and helpless in its +mightiest forms, so august even in its meanest, that life in its +wholeness was then realised by her as the direct outbirth of, and +the meek dependant upon, the Energy of Divine Love. She felt at +once the fugitive character of its apparent existence, the +perdurable Reality within which it was held. "I marvelled," she +said, "how it might last, for methought it might suddenly have +fallen to naught for littleness. And I was answered in my +understanding: _It lasteth, and ever shall, for that God loveth it_. +And so All-thing hath the being by the love of God." To this +same apprehension of Reality, this linking up of each finite +expression with its Origin, this search for the inner significance +of every fragment of life, one of the greatest and most balanced +contemplatives of the nineteenth century, Florence Nightingale, +reached out when she exclaimed in an hour of self-examination, +"I must strive to see only God in my friends, and God in my +cats." + +Yet it is not the self-tormenting strife of introspective and +self-conscious aspiration, but rather an unrelaxed, diligent intention, +a steady acquiescence, a simple and loyal surrender to the great +currents of life, a holding on to results achieved in your best +moments, that shall do it for you: a surrender not limp but +deliberate, a trustful self-donation, a "living faith." "A pleasing +stirring of love," says _The Cloud of Unknowing_, not a +desperate anxious struggle for more light. True contemplation +can only thrive when defended from two opposite exaggerations: +quietism on the one hand, and spiritual fuss upon the other. +Neither from passivity nor from anxiety has it anything to +gain. Though the way may be long, the material of your mind +intractable, to the eager lover of Reality ultimate success is +assured. The strong tide of Transcendent Life will inevitably +invade, clarify, uplift the consciousness which is open to receive +it; a movement from without--subtle yet actual--answering each +willed movement from within. "Your opening and His entering," +says Eckhart, "are but one moment." When, therefore, you put +aside your preconceived ideas, your self-centred scale of values, +and let intuition have its way with you, you open up by this act +new levels of the world. Such an opening-up is the most practical +of all activities; for then and then only will your diurnal +existence, and the natural scene in which that existence is set, +begin to give up to you its richness and meaning. Its paradoxes +and inequalities will be disclosed as true constituents of its +beauty, an inconceivable splendour will be shaken out from its +dingiest folds. Then, and only then, escaping the single vision of +the selfish, you will begin to guess all that your senses were +meant to be. + + "I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who + shall be complete, + The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who + remains jagged and broken." + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE SECOND FORM OF CONTEMPLATION + +"And here," says Ruysbroeck of the self which has reached this +point, "there begins a hunger and a thirst which shall never more +be stilled." + +In the First Form of Contemplation that self has been striving to +know better its own natural plane of existence. It has stretched +out the feelers of its intuitive love into the general stream of +duration of which it is a part. Breaking down the fences of +personality, merging itself in a larger consciousness, it +has learned to know the World of Becoming from within--as a +citizen, a member of the great society of life, not merely as a +spectator. But the more deeply and completely you become +immersed in and aware of this life, the greater the extension of +your consciousness; the more insistently will rumours and +intimations of a higher plane of experience, a closer unity and +more complete synthesis, begin to besiege you. You feel that +hitherto you nave received the messages of life in a series of +disconnected words and notes, from which your mind constructed +as best it could certain coherent sentences and tunes--laws, +classifications, relations, and the rest. But now you reach +out towards the ultimate sentence and melody, which exist +independently of your own constructive efforts; and realise that +the words and notes which so often puzzled you by displaying an +intensity that exceeded the demands of your little world, only +have beauty and meaning just because and in so far as you +discern them to be the partial expressions of a greater whole +which is still beyond your reach. + +You have long been like a child tearing up the petals of flowers +in order to make a mosaic on the garden path; and the results of +this murderous diligence you mistook for a knowledge of the +world. When the bits fitted with unusual exactitude, you called it +science. Now at last you have perceived the greater truth and +loveliness of the living plant from which you broke them: have, +in fact, entered into direct communion with it, "united" with its +reality. But this very recognition of the living growing plant does +and must entail for you a consciousness of deeper realities, +which, as yet, you have not touched: of the intangible things and +forces which feed and support it; of the whole universe that +touches you through its life. A mere cataloguing of all the plants-- +though this were far better than your old game of indexing your +own poor photographs of them--will never give you access to the +Unity, the Fact, whatever it may be, which manifests itself +through them. To suppose that it can do so is the cardinal error of +the "nature mystic": an error parallel with that of the psychologist +who looks for the soul in "psychic states." + +The deeper your realisation of the plant in its wonder, the more +perfect your union with the world of growth and change, the +quicker, the more subtle your response to its countless +suggestions; so much the more acute will become your craving +for Something More. You will now find and feel the Infinite and +Eternal, making as it were veiled and sacramental contacts with +you under these accidents--through these its ceaseless creative +activities--and you will want to press through and beyond them, +to a fuller realisation of, a more perfect and unmediated union +with, the Substance of all That Is. With the great widening and +deepening of your life that has ensued from the abolition of a +narrow selfhood, your entrance into the larger consciousness of +living things, there has necessarily come to you an instinctive +knowledge of a final and absolute group-relation, transcending +and including all lesser unions in its sweep. To this, the second +stage of contemplation, in which human consciousness enters +into its peculiar heritage, something within you now seems to +urge you on. + +If you obey this inward push, pressing forward with the "sharp +dart of your longing love," forcing the point of your wilful +attention further and further into the web of things, such an +ever-deepening realisation, such an extension of your conscious +life, will indeed become possible to you. Nothing but your own +apathy, your feeble and limited desire, limits this realisation. +Here there is a strict relation between demand and supply--your +achievement shall be in proportion to the greatness of your +desire. The fact, and the in-pressing energy, of the Reality +without does not vary. Only the extent to which you are able to +receive it depends upon your courage and generosity, the measure +in which you give yourself to its embrace. Those minds which set +a limit to their self-donation must feel as they attain it, not a sense +of satisfaction but a sense of constriction. It is useless to offer +your spirit a garden--even a garden inhabited by saints and +angels--and pretend that it has been made free of the universe. +You will not have peace until you do away with all banks and +hedges, and exchange the garden for the wilderness that is +unwalled; that wild strange place of silence where "lovers lose +themselves." + +Yet you must begin this great adventure humbly; and take, as +Julian of Norwich did, the first stage of your new outward-going +journey along the road that lies nearest at hand. When Julian +looked with the eye of contemplation upon that "little thing" +which revealed to her the oneness of the created universe, her +deep and loving sight perceived in it successively three +properties, which she expressed as well as she might under the +symbols of her own theology: "The first is that God made it; the +second is that God loveth it; the third is that God keepeth it." +Here are three phases in the ever-widening contemplative +apprehension of Reality. Not three opinions, but three facts, for +which she struggles to find words. The first is that each separate +living thing, budding "like an hazel nut" upon the tree of life, and +there destined to mature, age, and die, is the outbirth of another +power, of a creative push: that the World of Becoming in all its +richness and variety is not ultimate, but formed by Something +other than, and utterly transcendent to, itself. This, of course, the +religious mind invariably takes for granted: but we are concerned +with immediate experience rather than faith. To feel and know +those two aspects of Reality which we call "created" and +"uncreated," nature and spirit--to be as sharply aware of them, as +sure of them, as we are of land and sea--is to be made free of the +supersensual world. It is to stand for an instant at the Poet's side, +and see that Poem of which you have deciphered separate phrases +in the earlier form of contemplation. Then you were learning to +read: and found in the words, the lines, the stanzas, an +astonishing meaning and loveliness. But how much greater the +significance of every detail would appear to you, how much more +truly you would possess its life, were you acquainted with the +Poem: not as a mere succession of such lines and stanzas, but as a +non-successional whole. + +From this Julian passes to that deeper knowledge of the heart +which comes from a humble and disinterested acceptance of life; +that this Creation, this whole changeful natural order, with all its +apparent collisions, cruelties, and waste, yet springs from an +ardour, an immeasurable love, a perpetual donation, which +generates it, upholds it, drives it; for "_all-thing_ hath the being +by the love of God." Blake's anguished question here receives its +answer: the Mind that conceived the lamb conceived the tiger +too. Everything, says Julian in effect, whether gracious, terrible, +or malignant, is enwrapped in love: and is part of a world +produced, not by mechanical necessity, but by passionate desire. + +Therefore nothing can really be mean, nothing despicable; +nothing, however perverted, irredeemable. The blasphemous +other-worldliness of the false mystic who conceives of matter as +an evil thing and flies from its "deceits," is corrected by this +loving sight. Hence, the more beautiful and noble a thing appears +to us, the more we love it--so much the more truly do we see it: +for then we perceive within it the Divine ardour surging up +towards expression, and share that simplicity and purity of vision +in which most saints and some poets see all things "as they are in +God." + +Lastly, this love-driven world of duration--this work within +which the Divine Artist passionately and patiently expresses His +infinite dream under finite forms--is held in another, mightier +embrace. It is "kept," says Julian. Paradoxically, the perpetual +changeful energies of love and creation which inspire it are +gathered up and made complete within the unchanging fact of +Being: the Eternal and Absolute, within which the world of +things is set as the tree is set in the supporting earth, the enfolding +air. There, finally, is the rock and refuge of the seeking +consciousness wearied by the ceaseless process of the flux. There +that flux exists in its wholeness, "all at once"; in a manner which +we can never comprehend, but which in hours of withdrawal we +may sometimes taste and feel. It is in man's moments of contact +with this, when he penetrates beyond all images, however lovely, +however significant, to that ineffable awareness which the +mystics call "Naked Contemplation"--since it is stripped of all the +clothing with which reason and imagination drape and disguise +both our devils and our gods--that the hunger and thirst of the +heart is satisfied, and we receive indeed an assurance of ultimate +Reality. This assurance is not the cool conclusion of a successful +argument. It is rather the seizing at last of Something which we +have ever felt near us and enticing us: the unspeakably simple +because completely inclusive solution of all the puzzles of life. + +As, then, you gave yourself to the broken-up yet actual reality of +the natural world, in order that it might give itself to you, and +your possession of its secret was achieved, first by surrender of +selfhood, next by a diligent thrusting out of your attention, last by +a union of love; so now by a repetition upon fresh levels of that +same process, you are to mount up to higher unions still. Held +tight as it seems to you in the finite, committed to the perpetual +rhythmic changes, the unceasing flux of "natural" life--compelled +to pass on from state to state, to grow, to age, to die--there is yet, +as you discovered in the first exercise of recollection, something +in you which endures through and therefore transcends this world +of change. This inhabitant, this mobile spirit, can spread and +merge in the general consciousness, and gather itself again to one +intense point of personality. It has too an innate knowledge of--an +instinct for--another, greater rhythm, another order of Reality, as +yet outside its conscious field; or as we say, a capacity for the +Infinite. This capacity, this unfulfilled craving, which the cunning +mind of the practical man suppresses and disguises as best it can, +is the source of all your unrest. More, it is the true origin of all +your best loves and enthusiasms, the inspiring cause of your +heroisms and achievements; which are but oblique and tentative +efforts to still that strange hunger for some final object of +devotion, some completing and elucidating vision, some total +self-donation, some great and perfect Act within which your little +activity can be merged. + +St. Thomas Aquinas says, that a man is only withheld from this +desired vision of the Divine Essence, this discovery of the +Pure Act (which indeed is everywhere pressing in on him and +supporting him), by the apparent necessity which he is under of +turning to bodily images, of breaking up his continuous and +living intuition into Conceptual scraps; in other words, because +he cannot live the life of sensation without thought. But it is not +the man, it is merely his mental machinery which is under this +"necessity." This it is which translates, analyses, incorporates in +finite images the boundless perceptions of the spirit: passing +through its prism the White Light of Reality, and shattering it to a +succession of coloured rays. Therefore the man who would know +the Divine Secret must unshackle himself more thoroughly than +ever before from the tyranny of the image-making power. As it is +not by the methods of the laboratory that we learn to know life, +so it is not by the methods of the intellect that we learn to know +God. + +"For of all other creatures and their works," says the author of +_The Cloud of Unknowing_, "yea, and of the works of God's self, +may a man through grace have full-head of knowing, and well he +can think of them: but of God Himself can no man think. And +therefore I would leave all that thing that I can think, and choose +to my love that thing that I cannot think. For why; He may well +be loved, but not thought. By love may He be gotten and holden; +but by thought never." + +"Gotten and holden": homely words, that suggest rather the +outstretching of the hand to take something lying at your very +gates, than the long outward journey or terrific ascent of the +contemplative soul. Reality indeed, the mystics say, is "near and +far"; far from our thoughts, but saturating and supporting our +lives. Nothing would be nearer, nothing dearer, nothing sweeter, +were the doors of our perception truly cleansed. You have then +but to focus attention upon your own deep reality, "realise your +own soul," in order to find it. "We dwell in Him and He in us": +you participate in the Eternal Order now. The vision of the +Divine Essence--the participation of its own small activity in the +Supernal Act--is for the spark of your soul a perpetual process. +On the apex of your personality, spirit ever gazes upon Spirit, +melts and merges in it: from and by this encounter its life arises +and is sustained. But you have been busy from your childhood +with other matters. All the urgent affairs of "life," as you absurdly +called it, have monopolised your field of consciousness. Thus all +the important events of your real life, physical and spiritual--the +mysterious perpetual growth of you, the knitting up of fresh bits +of the universe into the unstable body which you confuse with +yourself, the hum and whirr of the machine which preserves your +contacts with the material world, the more delicate movements +which condition your correspondences with, and growth within, +the spiritual order--all these have gone on unperceived by you. +All the time you have been kept and nourished, like the "Little +Thing," by an enfolding and creative love; yet of this you are less +conscious than you are of the air that you breathe. + +Now, as in the first stage of contemplation you learned and +established, as a patent and experienced fact, your fraternal +relation with all the other children of God, entering into the +rhythm of their existence, participating in their stress and their +joy; will you not at least try to make patent this your filial +relation too? This actualisation of your true status, your place in +the Eternal World, is waiting for you. It represents the next phase +in your gradual achievement of Reality. The method by which +you will attain to it is strictly analogous to that by which you +obtained a more vivid awareness of the natural world in which +you grow and move. Here too it shall be direct intuitive contact, +sensation rather than thought, which shall bring you certitude-- +"tasting food, not talking about it," as St. Bonaventura says. + +Yet there is a marked difference between these two stages. In the +first, the deliberate inward retreat and gathering together of your +faculties which was effected by recollection, was the prelude to a +new coming forth, an outflow from the narrow limits of a merely +personal life to the better and truer apprehension of the created +world. Now, in the second stage, the disciplined and recollected +attention seems to take an opposite course. It is directed towards +a plane of existence with which your bodily senses have no +attachments: which is not merely misrepresented by your +ordinary concepts, but cannot be represented by them at all. It +must therefore sink inwards towards its own centre, "away from +all that can be thought or felt," as the mystics say, "away from +every image, every notion, every thing," towards that strange +condition of obscurity which St. John of the Cross calls the +"Night of Sense." Do this steadily, checking each vagrant +instinct, each insistent thought, however "spiritual" it may seem; +pressing ever more deeply inwards towards that ground, that +simple and undifferentiated Being from which your diverse +faculties emerge. Presently you will find yourself, emptied and +freed, in a place stripped bare of all the machinery of thought; +and achieve the condition of simplicity which those same +specialists call nakedness of spirit or "Wayless Love," and which +they declare to be above all human images and ideas--a state of +consciousness in which "all the workings of the reason fail." +Then you will observe that you have entered into an intense and +vivid silence: a silence which exists in itself, through and in spite +of the ceaseless noises of your normal world. Within this world +of silence you seem as it were to lose yourself, "to ebb and to +flow, to wander and be lost in the Imageless Ground," says +Ruysbroeck, struggling to describe the sensations of the self in +this, its first initiation into the "wayless world, beyond image," +where "all is, yet in no wise." + +Yet in spite of the darkness that enfolds you, the Cloud of +Unknowing into which you have plunged, you are sure that it is +well to be here. A peculiar certitude which you cannot analyse, a +strange satisfaction and peace, is distilled into you. You begin to +understand what the Psalmist meant, when he said, "Be still, and +know." You are lost in a wilderness, a solitude, a dim strange +state of which you can say nothing, since it offers no material to +your image-making mind. + +But this wilderness, from one point of view so bare and desolate, +from another is yet strangely homely. In it, all your sorrowful +questionings are answered without utterance; it is the All, and +you are within it and part of it, and know that it is good. It calls +forth the utmost adoration of which you are capable; and, +mysteriously, gives love for love. You have ascended now, say +the mystics, into the Freedom of the Will of God; are become +part of a higher, slower duration, which carries you as it were +upon its bosom and--though never perhaps before has your soul +been so truly active--seems to you a stillness, a rest. + +The doctrine of Plotinus concerning a higher life of unity, a lower +life of multiplicity, possible to every human spirit, will now +appear to you not a fantastic theory, but a plain statement of fact, +which you have verified in your own experience. You perceive +that these are the two complementary ways of apprehending and +uniting with Reality--the one as a dynamic process, the other as +an eternal whole. Thus understood, they do not conflict. +You know that the flow, the broken-up world of change and +multiplicity, is still going on; and that you, as a creature of the +time-world, are moving and growing with it. But, thanks to the +development of the higher side of your consciousness, you are +now lifted to a new poise; a direct participation in that simple, +transcendent life "broken, yet not divided," which gives to this +time-world all its meaning and validity. And you know, without +derogation from the realness of that life of flux within which you +first made good your attachments to the universe, that you are +also a true constituent of the greater whole; that since you are +man, you are also spirit, and are living Eternal Life now, in the +midst of time. + +The effect of this form of contemplation, in the degree in which +the ordinary man may learn to practise it, is like the sudden +change of atmosphere, the shifting of values, which we experience +when we pass from the busy streets into a quiet church; where +a lamp burns, and a silence reigns, the same yesterday, to-day, +and for ever. Thence is poured forth a stillness which strikes +through the tumult without. Eluding the flicker of the arc-lamps, +thence through an upper window we may glimpse a perpetual star. + +The walls of the church, limiting the range of our attention, +shutting out the torrent of life, with its insistent demands and +appeals, make possible our apprehension of this deep eternal +peace. The character of our consciousness, intermediate between +Eternity and Time, and ever ready to swing between them, makes +such a device, such a concrete aid to concentration, essential to +us. But the peace, the presence, is everywhere--for us, not for it, +is the altar and the sanctuary required--and your deliberate, +humble practice of contemplation will teach you at last to find it; +outside the sheltering walls of recollection as well as within. You +will realise then what Julian meant, when she declared the +ultimate property of all that was made to be that "God keepeth +it": will _feel_ the violent consciousness of an enfolding +Presence, utterly transcending the fluid changeful nature-life, and +incomprehensible to the intelligence which that nature-life has +developed and trained. And as you knew the secret of that +nature-life best by surrendering yourself to it, by entering its +currents, and refusing to analyse or arrange: so here, by a +deliberate giving of yourself to the silence, the rich "nothingness," +the "Cloud," you will draw nearest to the Reality it conceals +from the eye of sense. "Lovers put out the candle and draw the +curtains," says Patmore, "when they wish to see the God and the +Goddess: and in the higher communion, the night of thought is +the light of perception." + +Such an experience of Eternity, the attainment of that intuitive +awareness, that meek and simple self-mergence, which the +mystics call sometimes, according to its degree and special +circumstances, the Quiet, the Desert of God, the Divine Dark, +represents the utmost that human consciousness can do of itself +towards the achievement of union with Reality. To some it brings +joy and peace, to others fear: to all a paradoxical sense of the +lowliness and greatness of the soul, which now at last can +measure itself by the august standards of the Infinite. Though the +trained and diligent will of the contemplative can, if control of +the attention be really established, recapture this state of +awareness, retreat into the Quiet again and again, yet it is of +necessity a fleeting experience; for man is immersed in duration, +subject to it. Its demands upon his attention can only cease with +the cessation of physical life--perhaps not then. Perpetual +absorption in the Transcendent is a human impossibility, and the +effort to achieve it is both unsocial and silly. But this experience, +this "ascent to the Nought," changes for ever the proportions of +the life that once has known it; gives to it depth and height, and +prepares the way for those further experiences, that great +transfiguration of existence which comes when the personal +activity of the finite will gives place to the great and compelling +action of another Power. + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE THIRD FORM OF CONTEMPLATION + +The hard separation which some mystical writers insist upon +making between "natural" and "supernatural" contemplation, has +been on the whole productive of confusion rather than clearness: +for the word "supernatural" has many unfortunate associations for +the mind of the plain man. It at once suggests to him visions and +ecstasies, superstitious beliefs, ghosts, and other disagreeable +interferences with the order which he calls "natural"; and inclines +him to his old attitude of suspicion in respect of all mystical +things. But some word we must have, to indicate the real +cleavage which exists between the second and third stages in the +development of the contemplative consciousness: the real change +which, if you would go further on these interior paths, must now +take place in the manner of your apprehension of Reality. +Hitherto, all that you have attained has been--or at least has +seemed to you--the direct result of your own hard work. A +difficult self-discipline, the slowly achieved control of your +vagrant thoughts and desires, the steady daily practice of +recollection, a diligent pushing out of your consciousness from +the superficial to the fundamental, an unselfish loving attention; +all this has been rewarded by the gradual broadening and +deepening of your perceptions, by an initiation into the +movements of a larger life, You have been a knocker, a seeker, +an asker: have beat upon the Cloud of Unknowing "with a sharp +dart of longing love." A perpetual effort of the will has +characterised your inner development. Your contemplation, in +fact, as the specialists would say, has been "active," not +"infused." + +But now, having achieved an awareness--obscure and indescribable +indeed, yet actual--of the enfolding presence of Reality, +under those two forms which the theologians call the "immanence" +and the "transcendence" of the Divine, a change is to take +place in the relation between your finite human spirit and +the Infinite Life in which at last it knows itself to dwell. All that +will now come to you--and much perhaps will come--will happen +as it seems without effort on your own part: though really it will +be the direct result of that long stress and discipline which has +gone before, and has made it possible for you to feel the subtle +contact of deeper realities. It will depend also on the steady +continuance--often perhaps through long periods of darkness and +boredom--of that poise to which you have been trained: the +stretching-out of the loving and surrendered will into the dimness +and silence, the continued trustful habitation of the soul in the +atmosphere of the Essential World. You are like a traveller +arrived in a new country. The journey has been a long one; and +the hardships and obstacles involved in it, the effort, the perpetual +conscious pressing forward, have at last come to seem the chief +features of your inner life. Now, with their cessation, you feel +curiously lost; as if the chief object of your existence had been +taken away. No need to push on any further: yet, though there is +no more that you can do of yourself, there is much that may and +must be done to you. The place that you have come to seems +strange and bewildering, for it lies far beyond the horizons of +human thought. There are no familiar landmarks, nothing on +which you can lay hold. You "wander to and fro," as the mystics +say, "in this fathomless ground"; surrounded by silence and +darkness, struggling to breathe this rarefied air. Like those who +go to live in new latitudes, you must become acclimatised. Your +state, then, should now be wisely passive; in order that the great +influences which surround you may take and adjust your spirit, +that the unaccustomed light, which now seems to you a darkness, +may clarify your eyes, and that you may be transformed from a +visitor into an inhabitant of that supernal Country which St. +Augustine described as "no mere vision, but a home." + +You are therefore to let yourself go; to cease all conscious, +anxious striving and pushing. Finding yourself in this place of +darkness and quietude, this "Night of the Spirit," as St. John of +the Cross has called it, you are to dwell there meekly; asking +nothing, seeking nothing, but with your doors flung wide open +towards God. And as you do thus, there will come to you an ever +clearer certitude that this darkness enveils the goal for which you +have been seeking from the first; the final Reality with which you +are destined to unite, the perfect satisfaction of your most ardent +and most sacred desires. It is there, but you cannot by your efforts +reach it. This realisation of your own complete impotence, of the +resistance which the Transcendent--long sought and faithfully +served--now seems to offer to your busy outgoing will and love, +your ardour, your deliberate self-donation, is at once the most +painful and most essential phase in the training of the human +soul. It brings you into that state of passive suffering which is to +complete the decentralisation of your character, test the purity of +your love, and perfect your education in humility. + +Here, you must oppose more thoroughly than ever before the +instincts and suggestions of your separate, clever, energetic self; +which, hating silence and dimness, is always trying to take +the methods of Martha into the domain of Mary, and seldom +discriminates between passivity and sloth. Perhaps you will find, +when you try to achieve this perfect self-abandonment, that a +further, more drastic self-exploration, a deeper, more searching +purification than that which was forced upon you by your first +experience of the recollective state is needed. The last fragments +of selfhood, the very desire for spiritual satisfaction--the +fundamental human tendency to drag down the Simple Fact and +make it ours, instead of offering ourselves to it--must be sought +out and killed. In this deep contemplation, this profound Quiet, +your soul gradually becomes conscious of a constriction, a +dreadful narrowness of personality; something still existing in +itself, still tending to draw inwards to its own centre, and keeping +it from that absolute surrender which is the only way to peace. +An attitude of perfect generosity, complete submission, willing +acquiescence in anything that may happen--even in failure and +death--is here your only hope: for union with Reality can only be +a union of love, a glad and humble self-mergence in the universal +life. You must, so far as you are able, give yourself up to, "die +into," melt into the Whole; abandon all efforts to lay hold of It. +More, you must be willing that it should lay hold of you. "A pure +bare going forth," says Tauler, trying to describe the sensations of +the self at this moment. "None," says Ruysbroeck, putting this +same experience, this meek outstreaming of the bewildered spirit, +into other language, "is sure of Eternal Life, unless he has died +with his own attributes wholly into God." + +It is unlikely that agreeable emotions will accompany this utter +self-surrender; for everything will now seem to be taken from +you, nothing given in exchange. But if you are able to make it, a +mighty transformation will result. From the transitional plane of +darkness, you will be reborn into another "world," another stage +of realisation: and find yourself, literally, to be other than you +were before. Ascetic writers tell us that the essence of the change +now effected consists in the fact that "God's _action_ takes the +place of man's _activity_"--that the surrendered self "does not act, +but receives." By this they mean to describe, as well as our +concrete language will permit, the new and vivid consciousness +which now invades the contemplative; the sense which he has of +being as it were helpless in the grasp of another Power, so utterly +part of him, so completely different from him--so rich and +various, so transfused with life and feeling, so urgent and so +all-transcending--that he can only think of it as God. It is for +this that the dimness and steadily increasing passivity of the +stage of Quiet has been preparing him; and it is out of this +willing quietude and ever-deepening obscurity that the new +experiences come. + + "O night that didst lead thus, + O night more lovely than the dawn of light, + O night that broughtest us + Lover to lover's sight-- + Lover with loved in marriage of delight," + +says St. John of the Cross in the most wonderful of all mystical +poems. "He who has had experience of this," says St. Teresa of +the same stage of apprehension, "will understand it in some +measure: but it cannot be more clearly described because what +then takes place is so obscure. All I am able to say is, that the +soul is represented as being close to God; and that there abide a +conviction thereof so certain and strong, that it cannot possibly +help believing so." + +This sense, this conviction, which may be translated by the +imagination into many different forms, is the substance of the +greatest experiences and highest joys of the mystical saints. The +intensity with which it is realised will depend upon the ardour, +purity, and humility of the experiencing soul: but even those who +feel it faintly are convinced by it for evermore. In some great and +generous spirits, able to endure the terrific onslaught of Reality, +it may even reach a vividness by which all other things are +obliterated; and the self, utterly helpless under the inundations of +this transcendent life-force, passes into that simple state of +consciousness which is called Ecstasy. + +But you are not to be frightened by these special manifestations; +or to suppose that here the road is barred against you. Though +these great spirits have as it were a genius for Reality, a +susceptibility to supernal impressions, so far beyond your own +small talent that there seems no link between you: yet you have, +since you are human, a capacity for the Infinite too. With less +intensity, less splendour, but with a certitude which no arguments +will ever shake, this sense of the Living Fact, and of its +mysterious contacts with and invasions of the human spirit, may +assuredly be realised by you. This realisation--sometimes felt +under the symbols of personality, sometimes under those of an +impersonal but life-giving Force, Light, Energy, or Heat--is the +ruling character of the third phase of contemplation; and the +reward of that meek passivity, that "busy idleness" as the mystics +sometimes call it, which you have been striving to attain. Sooner +or later, if you are patient, it will come to you through the +darkness: a mysterious contact, a clear certitude of intercourse +and of possession--perhaps so gradual in its approach that the +break, the change from the ever-deepening stillness and peace of +the second phase, is hardly felt by you; perhaps, if your nature be +ardent and unstable, with a sudden shattering violence, in a +"storm of love." + +In either case, the advent of this experience is incalculable, and +completely outside your own control. So far, to use St. Teresa's +well-known image, you have been watering the garden of your +spirit by hand; a poor and laborious method, yet one in which +there is a definite relation between effort and result. But now the +watering-can is taken from you, and you must depend upon the +rain: more generous, more fruitful, than anything which your own +efforts could manage, but, in its incalculable visitations, utterly +beyond your control. Here all one can say is this: that if you +acquiesce in the heroic demands which the spiritual life now +makes upon you, if you let yourself go, eradicate the last traces of +self-interest even of the most spiritual kind--then, you have +established conditions under which the forces of the spiritual +world can work on you, heightening your susceptibilities, +deepening and purifying your attention, so that you are able to +taste and feel more and more of the inexhaustible riches of +Reality. + +Thus dying to your own will, waiting for what is given, infused, +you will presently find that a change in your apprehension has +indeed taken place: and that those who said self-loss was the only +way to realisation taught no pious fiction but the truth. The +highest contemplative experience to which you have yet attained +has seemed above all else a still awareness. The cessation of your +own striving, a resting upon and within the Absolute World-- +these were its main characteristics for your consciousness. But +now, this Ocean of Being is no longer felt by you as an +emptiness, a solitude without bourne. Suddenly you know it to be +instinct with a movement and life too great for you to apprehend. +You are thrilled by a mighty energy, uncontrolled by you, +unsolicited by you: its higher vitality is poured into your soul. +You enter upon an experience for which all the terms of power, +thought, motion, even of love, are inadequate: yet which contains +within itself the only complete expression of all these things. +Your strength is now literally made perfect in weakness: because +of the completeness of your dependence, a fresh life is infused +into you, such as your old separate existence never knew. +Moreover, to that diffused and impersonal sense of the Infinite, in +which you have dipped yourself, and which swallows up and +completes all the ideas your mind has ever built up with the +help of the categories of time and space, is now added the +consciousness of a Living Fact which includes, transcends, +completes all that you mean by the categories of personality and +of life. Those ineffective, half-conscious attempts towards free +action, clear apprehension, true union, which we dignify by the +names of will, thought, and love are now seen matched by an +Absolute Will, Thought, and Love; instantly recognised by the +contemplating spirit as the highest reality it yet has known, and +evoking in it a passionate and a humble joy. + +This unmistakable experience has been achieved by the mystics +of every religion; and when we read their statements, we know +that all are speaking of the same thing. None who have had it +have ever been able to doubt its validity. It has always become +for them the central fact, by which all other realities must +be tested and graduated. It has brought to them the deep +consciousness of sources of abundant life now made accessible to +man; of the impact of a mighty energy, gentle, passionate, +self-giving, creative, which they can only call Absolute Love. +Sometimes they feel this strange life moving and stirring within +them. Sometimes it seems to pursue, entice, and besiege them. In +every case, they are the passive objects upon which it works. It is +now another Power which seeks the separated spirit and demands +it; which knocks at the closed door of the narrow personality; +which penetrates the contemplative consciousness through and +through, speaking, stirring, compelling it; which sometimes, by +its secret irresistible pressure, wins even the most recalcitrant +in spite of themselves. Sometimes this Power is felt as an +impersonal force, the unifying cosmic energy, the indrawing love +which gathers all things into One; sometimes as a sudden access +of vitality, a light and heat, enfolding and penetrating the self and +making its languid life more vivid and more real; sometimes as a +personal and friendly Presence which counsels and entreats the +soul. + +In each case, the mystics insist again that this is God; that here +under these diverse manners the soul has immediate intercourse +with Him. But we must remember that when they make this +declaration, they are speaking from a plane of consciousness far +above the ideas and images of popular religion; and from a place +which is beyond the judiciously adjusted horizon of philosophy. +They mean by this word, not a notion, however august; but an +experienced Fact so vivid, that against it the so-called facts of +daily life look shadowy and insecure. They say that this Fact is +"immanent"; dwelling in, transfusing, and discoverable through +every aspect of the universe, every movement of the game of +life--as you have found in the first stage of contemplation. There you +may hear its melody and discern its form. And further, that It is +"transcendent"; in essence exceeding and including the sum of +those glimpses and contacts which we obtain by self-mergence in +life, and in Its simplest manifestations above and beyond +anything to which reason can attain--"the Nameless Being, of +Whom nought can be said." This you discovered to be true in the +second stage. But in addition to this, they say also, that this +all-pervasive, all-changing, and yet changeless One, Whose melody +is heard in all movement, and within Whose Being "the worlds +are being told like beads," calls the human spirit to an immediate +intercourse, a _unity_, a fruition, a divine give-and-take, for +which the contradictory symbols of feeding, of touching, of +marriage, of immersion, are all too poor; and which evokes in the +fully conscious soul a passionate and a humble love. "He devours +us and He feeds us!" exclaims Ruysbroeck. "Here," says St. +Thomas Aquinas, "the soul in a wonderful and unspeakable +manner both seizes and is seized upon, devours and is herself +devoured, embraces and is violently embraced: and by the knot of +love she unites herself with God, and is with Him as the Alone +with the Alone." + +The marvellous love-poetry of mysticism, the rhapsodies which +extol the spirit's Lover, Friend, Companion, Bridegroom; which +describe the "deliberate speed, majestic instancy" of the Hound of +Heaven chasing the separated soul, the onslaughts, demands, and +caresses of this "stormy, generous, and unfathomable love"--all +this is an attempt, often of course oblique and symbolic in +method, to express and impart this transcendent secret, to +describe that intense yet elusive state in which alone union with +the living heart of Reality is possible. "How delicately Thou +teachest love to me!" cries St. John of the Cross; and here indeed +we find all the ardours of all earthly lovers justified by an +imperishable Objective, which reveals Itself in all things that we +truly love, and beyond all these things both seeks us and compels +us, "giving more than we can take and asking more than we can +pay." + +You do not, you never will know, _what_ this Objective is: for as +Dionysius teaches, "if any one saw God and understood what he +saw, then it was not God that he saw, but something that belongs +to Him." But you do know now that it exists, with an intensity +which makes all other existences unreal; save in so far as they +participate in this one Fact. "Some contemplate the Formless, and +others meditate on Form: but the wise man knows that Brahma is +beyond both." As you yield yourself more and more completely +to the impulses of this intimate yet unseizable Presence, so much +the sweeter and stronger--so much the more constant and steady-- +will your intercourse with it become. The imperfect music of +your adoration will be answered and reinforced by another music, +gentle, deep, and strange; your out-going movement, the +stretching forth of your desire from yourself to something other, +will be answered by a movement, a stirring, within you yet not +conditioned by you. The wonder and variety of this intercourse is +never-ending. It includes in its sweep every phase of human love +and self-devotion, all beauty and all power, all suffering and +effort, all gentleness and rapture: here found in synthesis. Going +forth into the bareness and darkness of this unwalled world of +high contemplation, you there find stored for you, and at last +made real, all the highest values, all the dearest and noblest +experiences of the world of growth and change. + +You see now what it is that you have been doing in the course of +your mystical development. As your narrow heart stretched +to a wider sympathy with life, you have been surrendering +progressively to larger and larger existences, more and more +complete realities: have been learning to know them, to share +their very being, through the magic of disinterested love. First, +the manifested, flowing, evolving life of multiplicity: felt by you +in its wonder and wholeness, once you learned to yield yourself +to its rhythms, received in simplicity the undistorted messages of +sense. Then, the actual unchanging ground of life, the eternal and +unconditioned Whole, transcending all succession: a world +inaccessible alike to senses and intelligence, but felt--vaguely, +darkly, yet intensely--by the quiet and surrendered consciousness. +But now you are solicited, whether you will or no, by a greater +Reality, the final inclusive Fact, the Unmeasured Love, which "is +through all things everlastingly": and yielding yourself +to it, receiving and responding to its obscure yet ardent +communications, you pass beyond the cosmic experience to the +personal encounter, the simple yet utterly inexpressible union of +the soul with its God. + +And this threefold union with Reality, as your attention is +focussed now on one aspect, now on another, of its rich +simplicity, will be actualised by you in many different ways: for +you are not to suppose that an unchanging barren ecstasy is now +to characterise your inner life. Though the sense of your own +dwelling within the Eternal transfuses and illuminates it, the +sense of your own necessary efforts, a perpetual renewal of +contact with the Spiritual World, a perpetual self-donation, shall +animate it too. When the greater love overwhelms the lesser, and +your small self-consciousness is lost in the consciousness of the +Whole, it will be felt as an intense stillness, a quiet fruition of +Reality. Then, your very selfhood seems to cease, as it does in all +your moments of great passion; and you are "satisfied and +overflowing, and with Him beyond yourself eternally fulfilled." +Again, when your own necessary activity comes into the foreground, +your small energetic love perpetually pressing to deeper +and deeper realisation--"tasting through and through, and +seeking through and through, the fathomless ground" of the +Infinite and Eternal--it seems rather a perpetually renewed +encounter than a final achievement. Since you are a child of Time +as well as of Eternity, such effort and satisfaction, active and +passive love are both needed by you, if your whole life is to be +brought into union with the inconceivably rich yet simple One in +Whom these apparent opposites are harmonised. Therefore +seeking and finding, work and rest, conflict and peace, feeding on +God and self-immersion in God, spiritual marriage and spiritual +death--these contradictory images are all wanted, if we are to +represent the changing moods of the living, growing human +spirit; the diverse aspects under which it realises the simple fact +of its intercourse with the Divine. + +Each new stage achieved in the mystical development of the +spirit has meant, not the leaving behind of the previous +stages, but an adding on to them: an ever greater extension of +experience, and enrichment of personality. So that the total result +of this change, this steady growth of your transcendental self, is +not an impoverishment of the sense-life in the supposed interests +of the super-sensual, but the addition to it of another life--a huge +widening and deepening of the field over which your attention +can play. Sometimes the mature contemplative consciousness +narrows to an intense point of feeling, in which it seems +indeed "alone with the Alone": sometimes it spreads to a vast +apprehension of the Universal Life, or perceives the common +things of sense aflame with God. It moves easily and with no +sense of incongruity from hours of close personal communion +with its Friend and Lover to self-loss in the "deep yet dazzling +darkness" of the Divine Abyss: or, re-entering that living world +of change which the first form of contemplation disclosed to it, +passes beyond those discrete manifestations of Reality to realise +the Whole which dwells in and inspires every part. Thus +ascending to the mysterious fruition of that Reality which is +beyond image, and descending again to the loving contemplation +and service of all struggling growing things, it now finds and +adores everywhere--in the sky and the nest, the soul and the +void--one Energetic Love which "is measureless, since it is all +that exists," and of which the patient up-climb of the individual +soul, the passionate outpouring of the Divine Mind, form the +completing opposites. + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE MYSTICAL LIFE + +And here the practical man, who has been strangely silent during +the last stages of our discourse, shakes himself like a terrier +which has achieved dry land again after a bath; and asks once +more, with a certain explosive violence, his dear old question, +"What is the _use_ of all this?" + +"You have introduced me," he says further, "to some curious +states of consciousness, interesting enough in their way; and to a +lot of peculiar emotions, many of which are no doubt most +valuable to poets and so on. But it is all so remote from daily life. +How is it going to fit in with ordinary existence? How, above all, +is it all going to help _me_?" + +Well, put upon its lowest plane, this new way of attending to life-- +this deepening and widening of outlook--may at least be as +helpful to you as many things to which you have unhesitatingly +consecrated much time and diligence in the past: your long +journeys to new countries, for instance, or long hours spent in +acquiring new "facts," relabelling old experiences, gaining skill +in new arts and games. These, it is true, were quite worth the +effort expended on them: for they gave you, in exchange for your +labour and attention, a fresh view of certain fragmentary things, a +new point of contact with the rich world of possibilities, a tiny +enlargement of your universe in one direction or another. Your +love and patient study of nature, art, science, politics, business-- +even of sport--repaid you thus. But I have offered you, in +exchange for a meek and industrious attention to another +aspect of the world, hitherto somewhat neglected by you, an +enlargement which shall include and transcend all these; and be +conditioned only by the perfection of your generosity, courage, +and surrender. + +Nor are you to suppose that this enlargement will be limited to +certain new spiritual perceptions, which the art of contemplation +has made possible for you: that it will merely draw the curtain +from a window out of which you have never looked. This new +wide world is not to be for you something seen, but something +lived in: and you--since man is a creature of responses--will +insensibly change under its influence, growing up into a more +perfect conformity with it. Living in this atmosphere of Reality, +you will, in fact, yourself become more real. Hence, if you accept +in a spirit of trust the suggestions which have been made to you-- +and I acknowledge that here at the beginning an attitude of faith +is essential--and if you practise with diligence the arts which I +have described: then, sooner or later, you will inevitably find +yourself deeply and permanently changed by them--will perceive +that you have become a "new man." Not merely have you acquired +new powers of perception and new ideas of Reality; but a quiet +and complete transformation, a strengthening and maturing of +your personality has taken place. + +You are still, it is true, living the ordinary life of the body. You +are immersed in the stream of duration; a part of the human, the +social, the national group. The emotions, instincts, needs, of that +group affect you. Your changing scrap of vitality contributes to +its corporate life; and contributes the more effectively since a +new, intuitive sympathy has now made its interests your own. +Because of that corporate life, transfusing you, giving to you and +taking from you--conditioning, you as it does in countless oblique +and unapparent ways--you are still compelled to react to many +suggestions which you are no longer able to respect: controlled, +to the last moment of your bodily existence and perhaps +afterwards, by habit, custom, the good old average way of +misunderstanding the world. To this extent, the crowd-spirit has +you in its grasp. + +Yet in spite of all this, you are now released from that crowd's +tyrannically overwhelming consciousness as you never were +before. You feel yourself now a separate vivid entity, a real, +whole man: dependent on the Whole, and gladly so dependent, +yet within that Whole a free self-governing thing. Perhaps you +always fancied that your will was free--that you were actually, as +you sometimes said, the "captain of your soul." If so, this was +merely one amongst the many illusions which supported your +old, enslaved career. As a matter of fact, you were driven along a +road, unaware of anything that lay beyond the hedges, pressed on +every side by other members of the flock; getting perhaps a +certain satisfaction out of the deep warm stir of the collective life, +but ignorant of your destination, and with your personal initiative +limited to the snatching of grass as you went along, the pushing +of your way to the softer side of the track. These operations made +up together that which you called Success. But now, because you +have achieved a certain power of gathering yourself together, +perceiving yourself as a person, a spirit, and observing your +relation with these other individual lives--because too, hearing +now and again the mysterious piping of the Shepherd, you realise +your own perpetual forward movement and that of the flock, in +its relation to that living guide--you have a far deeper, truer +knowledge than ever before both of the general and the individual +existence; and so are able to handle life with a surer hand. + +Do not suppose from this that your new career is to be perpetually +supported by agreeable spiritual contacts, or occupy itself +in the mild contemplation of the great world through which +you move. True, it is said of the Shepherd that he carries the +lambs in his bosom: but the sheep are expected to walk, and put +up with the inequalities of the road, the bunts and blunders of the +flock. It is to vigour rather than to comfort that you are called. +Since the transcendental aspect of your being has been brought +into focus you are now raised out of the mere push-forward, the +blind passage through time of the flock, into a position of creative +responsibility. You are aware of personal correspondences with +the Shepherd. You correspond, too, with a larger, deeper, broader +world. The sky and the hedges, the wide lands through which you +are moving, the corporate character and meaning of the group to +which you belong--all these are now within the circle of your +consciousness; and each little event, each separate demand or +invitation which comes to you is now seen in a truer proportion, +because you bring to it your awareness of the Whole. Your +journey ceases to be an automatic progress, and takes on some of +the characters of a free act: for "things" are now under you, you +are no longer under them. + +You will hardly deny that this is a practical gain: that this +widening and deepening of the range over which your powers of +perception work makes you more of a man than you were before, +and thus adds to rather than subtracts from your total practical +efficiency. It is indeed only when he reaches these levels, and +feels within himself this creative freedom--this full actualisation +of himself--on the one hand: on the other hand the sense of a +world-order, a love and energy on which he depends and with +whose interests he is now at one, that man becomes fully human, +capable of living the real life of Eternity in the midst of the world +of time. + +And what, when you have come to it, do you suppose to be your +own function in this vast twofold scheme? Is it for nothing, do +you think, that you are thus a meeting-place of two orders? +Surely it is your business, so far as you may, to express in action +something of the real character of that universe within which you +now know yourself to live? Artists, aware of a more vivid and +more beautiful world than other men, are always driven by their +love and enthusiasm to try and express, bring into direct +manifestation, those deeper significances of form, sound, rhythm, +which they have been able to apprehend: and, doing this, they +taste deeper and deeper truths, make ever closer unions with the +Real. For them, the duty of creation is tightly bound up with the +gift of love. In their passionate outflowing to the universe which +offers itself under one of its many aspects to their adoration, that +other-worldly fruition of beauty is always followed, balanced, +completed, by a this-world impulse to creation: a desire to fix +within the time-order, and share with other men, the vision by +which they were possessed. Each one, thus bringing new aspects +of beauty, new ways of seeing and hearing within the reach of the +race, does something to amend the sorry universe of common +sense, the more hideous universe of greed, and redeem his +fellows from their old, slack servitude to a lower range of +significances. It is in action, then, that these find their truest and +safest point of insertion into the living, active world of Reality: in +sharing and furthering its work of manifestation they know its +secrets best. For them contemplation and action are not opposites, +but two interdependent forms of a life that is _one_--a life that +rushes out to a passionate communion with the true and beautiful, +only that it may draw from this direct experience of Reality a new +intensity wherewith to handle the world of things; and remake it, +or at least some little bit of it, "nearer to the heart's desire." + +Again, the great mystics tell us that the "vision of God in His +own light"--the direct contact of the soul's substance with the +Absolute--to which awful experience you drew as near as the +quality of your spirit would permit in the third degree of +contemplation, is the prelude, not to a further revelation of the +eternal order given to you, but to an utter change, a vivid +life springing up within you, which they sometimes call the +"transforming union" or the "birth of the Son in the soul." By this +they mean that the spark of spiritual stuff, that high special power +or character of human nature, by which you first desired, then +tended to, then achieved contact with Reality, is as it were +fertilised by this profound communion with its origin; becomes +strong and vigorous, invades and transmutes the whole personality, +and makes of it, not a "dreamy mystic" but an active and +impassioned servant of the Eternal Wisdom. + +So that when these full-grown, fully vital mystics try to tell us +about the life they have achieved, it is always an intensely active +life that they describe. They say, not that they "dwell in restful +fruition," though the deep and joyous knowledge of this, perhaps +too the perpetual longing for an utter self-loss in it, is always +possessed by them--but that they "go up _and down_ the ladder +of contemplation." They stretch up towards the Point, the unique +Reality to which all the intricate and many-coloured lines of life +flow, and in which they are merged; and rush out towards those +various lives in a passion of active love and service. This double +activity, this swinging between rest and work--this alone, they +say, is truly the life of man; because this alone represents on +human levels something of that inexhaustibly rich yet simple life, +"ever active yet ever at rest," which they find in God. When he +gets to this, then man has indeed actualised his union with +Reality; because then he is a part of the perpetual creative act, the +eternal generation of the Divine thought and love. Therefore +contemplation, even at its highest, dearest, and most intimate, is +not to be for you an end in itself. It shall only be truly +yours when it impels you to action: when the double movement of +Transcendent Love, drawing inwards to unity and fruition, and +rushing out again to creative acts, is realised in you. You are to +be a living, ardent tool with which the Supreme Artist works: one +of the instruments of His self-manifestation, the perpetual process +by which His Reality is brought into concrete expression. + +Now the expression of vision, of reality, of beauty, at an artist's +hands--the creation of new life in all forms--has two factors: the +living moulding creative spirit, and the material in which it +works. Between these two there is inevitably a difference of +tension. The material is at best inert, and merely patient of the +informing idea; at worst, directly recalcitrant to it. Hence, +according to the balance of these two factors, the amount of +resistance offered by stuff to tool, a greater or less energy must +be expended, greater or less perfection of result will be achieved. +You, accepting the wide deep universe of the mystic, and the +responsibilities that go with it, have by this act taken sides once +for all with creative spirit: with the higher tension, the unrelaxed +effort, the passion for a better, intenser, and more significant life. +The adoration to which you are vowed is not an affair of +red hassocks and authorised hymn books; but a burning and +consuming fire. You will find, then, that the world, going its own +gait, busily occupied with its own system of correspondences-- +yielding to every gust of passion, intent on the satisfaction of +greed, the struggle for comfort or for power--will oppose your +new eagerness; perhaps with violence, but more probably with +the exasperating calmness of a heavy animal which refuses to get +up. If your new life is worth anything, it will flame to sharper +power when it strikes against this dogged inertness of things: for +you need resistances on which to act. "The road to a Yea lies +through a Nay," and righteous warfare is the only way to a living +and a lasting peace. + +Further, you will observe more and more clearly, that the stuff of +your external world, the method and machinery of the common +life, is not merely passively but actively inconsistent with your +sharp interior vision of truth. The heavy animal is diseased as +well as indolent. All man's perverse ways of seeing his universe, +all the perverse and hideous acts which have sprung from them-- +these have set up reactions, have produced deep disorders in the +world of things. Man is free, and holds the keys of hell as well as +the keys of heaven. Within the love-driven universe which you +have learned to see as a whole, you will therefore find egotism, +rebellion, meanness, brutality, squalor: the work of separated +selves whose energies are set athwart the stream. But every +aspect of life, however falsely imagined, can still be "saved," +turned to the purposes of Reality: for "all-thing hath the being by +the love of God." Its oppositions are no part of its realness; +and therefore they can be overcome. Is there not here, then, +abundance of practical work for you to do; work which is the +direct outcome of your mystical experience? Are there not here, +as the French proverb has it, plenty of cats for you to comb? And +isn't it just here, in the new foothold it gives you, the new clear +vision and certitude--in its noble, serious, and invulnerable faith-- +that mysticism is "useful"; even for the most scientific of social +reformers, the most belligerent of politicians, the least +sentimental of philanthropists? + +To "bring Eternity into Time," the "invisible into concrete +expression"; to "be to the Eternal Goodness what his own hand is +to a man"--these are the plainly expressed desires of all the great +mystics. One and all, they demand earnest and deliberate action, +the insertion of the purified and ardent will into the world of +things. The mystics are artists; and the stuff in which they work +is most often human life. They want to heal the disharmony +between the actual and the real: and since, in the white-hot +radiance of that faith, hope, and charity which burns in them, they +discern such a reconciliation to be possible, they are able to work +for it with a singleness of purpose and an invincible optimism +denied to other men. This was the instinct which drove St. +Francis of Assist to the practical experience of that poverty which +he recognised as the highest wisdom; St. Catherine of Siena from +contemplation to politics; Joan of Arc to the salvation of France; +St. Teresa to the formation of an ideal religious family; Fox to the +proclaiming of a world-religion in which all men should be +guided by the Inner Light; Florence Nightingale to battle with +officials, vermin, dirt, and disease in the soldiers' hospitals; +Octavia Hill to make in London slums something a little nearer +"the shadows of the angels' houses" than that which the practical +landlord usually provides. + +All these have felt sure that a great part in the drama of creation +has been given to the free spirit of man: that bit by bit, through +and by him, the scattered worlds of love and thought and action +shall be realised again as one. It is for those who have found the +thread on which those worlds are strung, to bring this knowledge +out of the hiddenness; to use it, as the old alchemists declared +that they could use their tincture, to transmute all baser; metals +into gold. + +So here is your vocation set out: a vocation so various in its +opportunities, that you can hardly fail to find something to do. It +is your business to actualise within the world of time and space-- +perhaps by great endeavours in the field of heroic action, perhaps +only by small ones in field and market, tram and tube, office and +drawing-room, in the perpetual give-and-take of the common +life--that more real life, that holy creative energy, which this +world manifests as a whole but indifferently. You shall work for +mercy, order, beauty, significance: shall mend where you find +things broken, make where you find the need. "Adoro te devote, +latens Deitas," said St. Thomas in his great mystical hymn: and +the practical side of that adoration consists in the bringing of the +Real Presence from its hiddenness, and exhibiting it before the +eyes of other men. Hitherto you have not been very active in this +matter: yet it is the purpose for which you exist, and your +contemplative consciousness, if you educate it, will soon make +this fact clear to you. The teeming life of nature has yielded up to +your loving attention many sacramental images of Reality: seen +in the light of charity, it is far more sacred and significant than +you supposed. What about _your_ life? Is that a theophany too? +"Each oak doth cry I AM," says Vaughan. Do you proclaim by +your existence the grandeur, the beauty, the intensity, the living +wonder of that Eternal Reality within which, at this moment, you +stand? Do your hours of contemplation and of action harmonise? + +If they did harmonise--if everybody's did--then, by these +individual adjustments the complete group-consciousness of +humanity would be changed, brought back into conformity with +the Transcendent; and the spiritual world would be actualised +within the temporal order at last. Then, that world of false +imagination, senseless conflicts, and sham values, into which our +children are now born, would be annihilated. The whole race, not +merely a few of its noblest, most clearsighted spirits, would be +"in union with God"; and men, transfused by His light and heat, +direct and willing agents of His Pure Activity, would achieve that +completeness of life which the mystics dare to call "deification." +This is the substance of that redemption of the world, which +all religions proclaim or demand: the consummation which is +crudely imagined in the Apocalyptic dreams of the prophets and +seers. It is the true incarnation of the Divine Wisdom: and you +must learn to see with Paul the pains and disorders of creation-- +your own pains, efforts, and difficulties too--as incidents in the +travail of that royal birth. Patriots have sometimes been asked to +"think imperially." Mystics are asked to think celestially; and +this, not when considering the things usually called spiritual, but +when dealing with the concrete accidents, the evil and sadness, +the cruelty, failure, and degeneration of life. + +So, what is being offered to you is not merely a choice amongst +new states of consciousness, new emotional experiences--though +these are indeed involved in it--but, above all else, a larger and +intenser life, a career, a total consecration to the interests of the +Real. This life shall not be abstract and dreamy, made up, as +some imagine, of negations. It shall be violently practical and +affirmative; giving scope for a limitless activity of will, heart, and +mind working within the rhythms of the Divine Idea. It shall cost +much, making perpetual demands on your loyalty, trust, and +self-sacrifice: proving now the need and the worth of that training in +renunciation which was forced on you at the beginning of your +interior life. It shall be both deep and wide, embracing in its span +all those aspects of Reality which the gradual extension of your +contemplative powers has disclosed to you: making "the inner +and outer worlds to be indivisibly One." And because the +emphasis is now for ever shifted from the accidents to the +substance of life, it will matter little where and how this career is +actualised--whether in convent or factory, study or battlefield, +multitude or solitude, sickness or strength. These fluctuations of +circumstance will no longer dominate you; since "it is Love that +payeth for all." + +Yet by all this it is not meant that the opening up of the universe, +the vivid consciousness of a living Reality and your relation with +it, which came to you in contemplation, will necessarily be a +constant or a governable feature of your experience. Even under +the most favourable circumstances, you shall and must move +easily and frequently between that spiritual fruition and active +work in the world of men. Often enough it will slip from you +utterly; often your most diligent effort will fail to recapture it, and +only its fragrance will remain. The more intense those contacts +have been, the more terrible will be your hunger and desolation +when they are thus withdrawn: for increase of susceptibility +means more pain as well as more pleasure, as every artist knows. +But you will find in all that happens to you, all that opposes and +grieves you--even in those inevitable hours of darkness when the +doors of true perception seem to close, and the cruel tangles of +the world are all that you can discern--an inward sense of security +which will never cease. All the waves that buffet you about, +shaking sometimes the strongest faith and hope, are yet parts and +aspects of one Ocean. Did they wreck you utterly, that Ocean +would receive you; and there you would find, overwhelming and +transfusing you, the unfathomable Substance of all life and +joy. Whether you realise it in its personal or impersonal +manifestation, the universe is now friendly to you; and as he is a +suspicious and unworthy lover who asks every day for renewed +demonstrations of love, so you do not demand from it perpetual +reassurances. It is enough, that once it showed you its heart. A +link of love now binds you to it for evermore: in spite of +derelictions, in spite of darkness and suffering, your will is +harmonised with the Will that informs the Whole. + +We said, at the beginning of this discussion, that mysticism was +the art of union with Reality: that it was, above all else, a Science +of Love. Hence, the condition to which it looks forward and +towards which the soul of the contemplative has been stretching +out, is a condition of _being_, not of _seeing_. As the bodily +senses have been produced under pressure of man's physical +environment, and their true aim is not the enhancement of his +pleasure or his knowledge, but a perfecting of his adjustment to +those aspects of the natural world which concern him--so the use +and meaning of the spiritual senses are strictly practical too. +These, when developed by a suitable training, reveal to man a +certain measure of Reality: not in order that he may gaze upon it, +but in order that he may react to it, learn to live in, with, and for +it; growing and stretching into more perfect harmony with the +Eternal Order, until at last, like the blessed ones of Dante's vision, +the clearness of his flame responds to the unspeakable radiance of +the Enkindling Light. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRACTICAL MYSTICISM*** + + +******* This file should be named 21774.txt or 21774.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/1/7/7/21774 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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