Some Aspects of Spiritual "Contemplation"

I have a few things I'd like to share today, especially for those who may understand the context, and perhaps even for some who do not. But first, if there is to be any hope of understanding that context, I must first introduce and explain a few things about the Christian spiritual notion of "contemplation." And I choose to let Thomas Merton, a 20th-century Cistercian (Trappist) monk, introduce it for me.

Thomas Merton:

[...] And so contemplation seems to supersede and to discard every other form of intuition and experience--whether in art, in philosophy, in theology, in liturgy or in ordinary levels of love and belief. This rejection is of course only apparent. Contemplation is and must be compatible with all these things, for it is their highest fulfillment. But in the actual experience of contemplation all other experiences are momentarily lost. They "die" to be born again on a higher level of life. 

--New Seeds of Contemplation, Ch. 1, by Thomas Merton (1961)

As you may have gathered, if you didn't already know, the term "contemplation" as used in the lexicon of Christian monastics and contemplatives does not share the same meanings that attach to it in common English usage. It is something of an arcane term of art, a term refashioned and used to suit the need because there is no other word that comes close to capturing the intended meaning--the range and depth of that meaning--implied by the referenced spiritual path and experience. Merton continues in Ch. 1:

In other words, then, a contemplation reaches out to the knowledge and even to the experience of the transcendent and inexpressible God. It knows God by seeming to touch Him. Or rather it knows Him as if it had been invisibly touched by Him....Touched by Him Who has no hands, but Who is pure Reality and the source of all that is real. A vivid awareness of our contingent reality as received, as a present from God, as a free gift of love. This is the existential contact of which we speak when we use the metaphor of being "touched by God."

This contemplation is something some people feel a spiritual intuition about and inclination toward; it is spiritually visited upon them. And it is not for everyone; it just does not resonate with most. To read books on it to try to learn how to do it, how to achieve it, as though it were the next ambitious step on some step-ladder of spiritual advancement, is to misunderstand it completely. Again from Ch.1, Thomas Merton: 

Contemplation is also the response to a call: a call from Him Who has no voice, and yet Who speaks in everything that is, and Who, most of all, speaks in the depths of our being: for we ourselves are words of His. But we are words that are meant to respond to Him, to echo Him, and even in some way contain Him and signify Him. Contemplation is this echo....It is as if in creating us God asked a question, and in awakening us to contemplation He answered the question, so that the contemplative is at the same time, question and answer. 

[...] Hence contemplation is more than a consideration of abstract truths about God, more even than affective meditation on the things we believe. It is awakening, enlightenment and the amazing intuitive grasp by which love gains certitude of God's creative and dynamic intervention in our daily life. Hence contemplation does not simply "find" a clear idea of God and confine Him there as a prisoner to Whom it can always return. On the contrary, contemplation is carried away by Him into His own realm, His own mystery and His own freedom. It is a pure and virginal knowledge, poor in concepts, poorer still in reasoning, but able, by its very poverty and purity, to follow the Word "wherever He may go."

But if you would know more, if you would try to understand this contemplative experience, there are books you could consult. Reading the accounts of the contemplative writers across the millennia can be of great benefit to those called to it and experiencing it. And there are trained and experienced spiritual directors who can also help you better make sense of it all.

For me, there have been several such mentors from earlier times, but most important and helpful have been the 16th-century Collected Works of St. John of the Cross (ICS Publications, 1991), and the more recent 20th-century writings of Thomas Merton, a Cistercian monk and author of many books, including New Seeds of Contemplation (New Directions Books, 1961, 2007) and Contemplative Prayer (Bantam Doubleday, 1996). But to those without a felt inspiration or inclination, the reading can be dull, recondite and confusing. You have to need to read it. (Further reflections on this can be found in my 2007 post "Guides, Past & Present" on my What God? site.)

Now having come all that way (but really having barely scratched the surface of the topic), we may attempt to move on to two aspects of the contemplative journey and understandings that have been recurrent themes, resonating again and again with me. The first has to do with having one's spirituality and faith compromised and misguided by the co-optation of demagogues of cultural brittleness, narrowness, biases, and bigotry, whether based on nationalism, race, or distorted religious or sectarian motivations. After reciting a long list of things and experiences that contemplation is not, Merton also offers this:

There are many other escapes from the empirical, external self, which might seem to be, but are not, contemplation. For instance, the experience of being seized and taken out of oneself by collective enthusiasm in a totalitarian parade: the self-righteous upsurge of party loyalty that blots out conscience and absolves every criminal tendency in the name of Class, Nation, Party, Race or Sect. The danger and the attraction of these false mystiques of Nation and of Class is precisely that they seduce and pretend to satisfy those who are no longer aware of any deep or genuine spiritual need. The false mysticism of the Mass Society captivates men who are so alienated from themselves and from God that they are no longer capable of genuine spiritual experience.   

--New Seeds of Contemplation, Ch. 2, by Thomas Merton (1961)

The second has to do with the mistaken notion that in spiritual contemplation there is some form of escape from conflict, ambiguity, despairing times, and challenges to identity and understandings, both existential and spiritual. Not true. More from Ch. 2, Thomas Merton:

Let no one hope to find in contemplation an escape from conflict, from anguish or from doubt. On the contrary, the deep inexpressible certitude of the contemplative experience awakens a tragic anguish and opens many questions in the depths of the heart like wounds that cannot stop bleeding. For every gain in deep certitude there is a corresponding growth of superficial "doubt." [This important but discomfiting experience can last for years and is addressed more comprehensively, more helpfully perhaps, in the expositive writings on the Dark Night by St. John of the Cross.]  

Hence it is clear that genuine contemplation is incompatible with complacency and with smug acceptance of prejudiced opinions. It is not mere passive acquiescence in the status quo, as some would like to believe--for this would reduce it to the level of spiritual anesthesia. Contemplation is no pain-killer. What a holocaust takes place in this steady burning to ashes of old worn-out words, clichés, slogans, rationalizations!  

The worst of it is that even apparently holy conceptions are consumed along with all the rest. It is a terrible breaking and burning of idols, a purification of the sanctuary, so that no graven thing may occupy the place that God has commanded to be left empty: the center, the existential altar which simply "is." 

In the end the contemplative suffers the anguish of realizing that he no longer knows what God is. He may or may not mercifully realize that, after all, this is a great gain, because "God is not a what," not a "thing." That is precisely one of the essential characteristics of contemplative experience. It sees that there is no "what" that can be called God. There is "no such thing" as God because God is neither a "what" nor a "thing" but a pure "Who." He is the "Thou" before whom our inmost "I" springs into awareness. He is the I am before whom with our own most personal and inalienable voice we echo "I am."

That was Thomas Merton's experience and understanding, a more-or-less consistent one among many contemplatives. But yours or mine may not be entirely the same. And it is allowed, of course. We are each called to our unique path to walk, our own dealt cards to understand and play. Thomas Merton followed the direction of his contemplation beyond the history and life of his Christian monastic and contemplative experience to find what common ground and experience there was with the contemplative traditions of other faiths, spiritualities and philosophies.

In that process, he found both understanding and respect for them. In addition to Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian contemplatives or mystics, he studied, and where possible, spent extensive time with and wrote about the Chan/Zen Buddhist masters, the Taoist masters (Chuang Ze), and at the end of his life, the Sufi masters. He came to understand that God can be found anywhere in creation and among all people, but especially among those who in so many different but related ways seek Him and, yes, in one way or another, find and experience Him.