Further thoughts on the Non-dualistic position

Non-dualism valuable but not ultimate
To the Buddhist and to many Christians influenced by esoteric ways of thinking 'non-dualism' (or 'and/also' as opposed to 'either/or' thinking) is an ultimate goal. To me from a Christian perspective non-dualism is not an end in itself but a means to a higher calling. I refer not to our ultimate end after death or in the Apostle Paul’s words “The mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus”.  I refer to our calling here on earth. A passage which comes to mind in this context is that of the experience of the 3 disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration -  the great mystical experience of seeing the transformed  Jesus was immediately contrasted by what followed - a (dualistic) confrontation with the demonised child. This seems to be also how Jesus operated. He came as a light shining in the darkness and the darkness was not able to contain it. Spending time with his Father was the source of His power to do his His will and advance His kingdom. (the Lords prayer). Jesus was acting out an aware dualism due to his time with God his Father and this too is the Christian calling.
Onenesswith God not equivalent to non-dualism
 I’m not sure if oneness with God is identical with the non-dual way of thinking. It does not seem to me to be how Jesus viewed it - his praying and fellowship with God seemed to not be reducible to an internal impersonal enlightenment but more an objective personal relationship with a God who was ‘out there’.  Perhaps that is why we have recorded in scripture an external voice saying 'This is my Son in whom I am well pleased' also at the Mount of transfiguration and at our Lord’s baptism. I’m sure non-dualism was an important aspect of Jesus thinking which we should recapture but to extrapolate it to being equivalent to our ultimate end or goal seems to be overdoing it a bit. Non dualism was made for man not man for non-dualism. Whatever unity with God means it will transcend and eclipse any concept we can come up with that relates to our internal experience. From a biblical viewpoint it will be personal – we will see Him and be like Him which is our Christian hope (1 John 3).
Grace the foundation of relationship with God
This leads to my other point in that the Trinitarian relationship towards which we are called through Jesus and his Cross allows for objectivity and reciprocal relationship available to the poor and the outcast, the afflicted and the powerless through grace. This is a far cry from the elitism of higher consciousness implied by Ken Wilber’s Integral Model. I am sure I would be placed well down the scale. 
Christianity more suitable for proactive Love
I believe that Buddhists are seeking to move away from a more passive state. However as much as I know about western Buddhism and modern esoteric teachers we are to love unitively loving you as me because I am one with evrything - there are no (dualistic) distinctions - just perfect oneness. As with her relationship with God the Christian’s love has to do with loving the other who is different from me. The one is subjective and unitive embracing isness, the other embracing 'otherness' and difference. Some have said that love can only exist if there is another to love – hence the Trinity. Perhaps it is for this reason that Buddhism tends towards introspection, quietism, divine egoism and social indifference But by insisting on the transcendence of God (the qualitative distinction between divine and human) we get wonder, astonishment, fear and trembling, curiosity, moral and political adventure, righteous indignation and social justice – Christianity.

Richard Rhor (2) - "The Naked Now" - Dualism. Ken Wilber insufficient

I have further thoughts also about the dualist/non-dualist dualism! I think Richard R is being very fair and wise in the way he chooses his words. He recognises duality thinking to be something that has been very beneficial to our culture: P32 - "Binary thinking is not wrong or bad in itself. In fact it is necessary in many if not most situations..". Also he is willing to own his own tendencies towards such ways of thinking (p40).
JESUS AND NON-DUALISTIC THINKING
The values of non-dualistic thinking are evident in his experience. It is also evident in some of the teaching of Jesus in the gospels that He is non-dualistic. The one that stands out for me is the fact that when he was challenged with questions (perhaps at the attempt to control) Jesus simply answered with another question perhaps switching the balance of power or simply refusing to be forced in the 'either/or' way of thinking. I love it!

JESUS AND DUALISTIC THINKING
However on page 32 RR goes on to say that dualistic thinking is "completely inadequate for the major questions and dilemmas of life" but in my mind this is precisely where Jesus comes down strongest on the dualistic side. To deny this would be to do the gospels a great injustice. The idea of conflict is central to the life of Jesus. Again this is not to devalue non-binary thought but if we reduce the life and teaching of Jesus to it exclusively it would be  too simplistic and convenient. Reading the gospels is an untidy business and in them non dualism and dualism rest side by side.

INTEGRAL LIFE
Integral Life and the likes seem to say anything that purports to be anything less than unitive (non-dualistic) is of a lower order
I quote from a post on Integral Life:
The Wilber Integral Vision is generally good at seeing different traditions in their own terms and integrating them through a pluralistic/aperspectival vision or seeing how they fit via "orienting generalization", to the larger model.  However this model is biased towards non-dual traditions which are radically apophatic, causing blind spots in looking at traditions which are not.  The outcome is, that Wilber's Vision seeks out the spiritual representatives in each tradition which confirm his model, and writes off the ones that don't as simply being "lower" on the color scale (e.g. they may be authentic representatives of a tradition, but at a lower level, then this enlightened fellow whose model we are endorsing).  This means that the Wilber model sets up a perspective which is not questioned, but used to evaluate all other traditions. This can lead to a type of Integral Facism! (we the elite understand you, you must grow according to our model).

ABSOLUTE DUALISM
I put forward the idea that non-dual consciousness is not an end but a means to something higher to which Jesus, His teaching and life call us. He calls us to a new type of dualism - an absolute dualism. A relative dualism is one that consists of equal and opposites but an absolute dualism is one where one side of the dual is superior. Through Jesus light conquers darkness, Life conquers death, Love conquers hatred. How? Through the Cross where Love non-dualistically absorbs the hatred and in so doing overcomes it dualistically! In the Cross the dichotomy between the two ways of thinking is transcended through this Absolute dualism.

Just a thought but in my mind Centering prayer is not to lead us ultimately to a passive state of acceptance most perfectly symbolised by the inward looking of the Buddha important as this is. The symbol of Christianity is the Cross – The symbol of the agonising Saviour-God reaching out to embrace a suffering world in love. Whilst we accept the injustices of the world as the ‘way of it’ we are to be those who do not leave it there but in the spirit of love go out and make a difference pro-actively which I am sure many of you are doing so much more than I. The negative side of dualistic thinking, for the purposes of his argument, has been adequately documented by RR.  However, so much has been and is being accomplished by the Church and that not necessarily by those who hold exclusively to the non-dualistic mindset.

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Intimacy v Scientific separation

The western scientific world view does not lend itself to participation/intimacy with God. It needs to separate in order to observe. Behind this we can detect the need to control.  Theologically I understand the Desert Fathers went to the desert to continue in their relational/participational interpretation of the Trinity rather than formulating doctrines. The Trinity was not to be understood through analysis and categorisation but through participation and relationship. Their theology was not conceptual but relationally intuitive and thus was best defined by how they lived their lives as a result.(Karen Armstrong’s book 'The case for God' I found very informative on this)
At the other end of the timeline (I'm no scientist) I understand that advances have been made in quantum physics - the study of subatomic particles. All sorts of weird things happen on that level that indicate intelligence and relationship between observer and the observed.
 If we are not careful we can be so non-dualistic that we reject dualism to the extent that we have created another dualism! ... After all any 'non'-anything is potentially creating duality. OAnother way of puuting it may be "We can be right in that which we affirm and wrong in that which we deny". We are right in affirming the non-dual dynamic participation in God but wrong as a consequence in denying the value of scientific observation even if it merely serves to show its limitations and  its existential emptiness in order that we may explore the ways that invite the dimensions of intimacy.
Truly we all long for intimacy and Centering Prayer is that consenting to the activity of God's presence within. In so doing the false self must surrender to the Cross. Awakened by His risen power we are empowered to love and to serve.
And it is not our doing but we are being 'done unto' and He gets the glory!

Richard Rhor - "The Naked Now" - Movement and Stillness

On page 23 of Richard Rohr's book "The Naked Now" “God becomes more of a verb than a noun, more a process than a conclusion, more a personal relationship” (ref a message by RR on the Trinity)
This  has been reminding me of some thoughts I have had recently about prayer being a dynamic participation with a Living God. We all instinctively relate contemplative prayer with stillness and there has been at least within me the intention of looking for that ‘still point’. However in prayer we are entering into ‘perichoresis’ (“ dance around") of the Trinity and therefore also entering into movement - a self emptying movement (kenosis). This became very clear when I heard a message by Cynthia Bourgeault on Kenosis as well as reading her books. My intention now in prayer is not static or containable but to, in the stillness,  recognise ‘not the noun but the verb’ and 'not the conclusion but the process’ referred to by RR. As the Psalmist says in Psalm 46 ‘Be still and know that I am God’ indicating stillness ... yet earlier on there is the verse that says ‘There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God’ indicating movement. Furthermore on reading TS Eliot’s ‘Burnt Norton’ from the 4 quartets he says so brilliantly ...

At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;

Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,

But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,

Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,

Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,

There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where.

And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time.

The inner freedom from the practical desire,

The release from action and suffering, release from the inner

And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded

By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving ....

In the mind of God stillness and movement are not opposites but are held together in a way only He can do!
Praise Him!

Psalm 131 - Resting like a child in the arms of God

 My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty;  I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul;  like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. O Israel, put your hope in the LORD both now and forevermore.

We have just had the addition of Lola to our family … the image of a baby with mother is clear in my mind. In the first month I saw her about 4 times. She did not open her eyes and she looked so peaceful in the arms of mother. To her nothing else existed and nothing else mattered … and so this verse causes me to think that in some way that is to be an important aspect of my relationship with God. The Greek word for that early need of affection is ‘Storge’. Here is a description from C.S.Lewis book “Four Loves”
Storge ... ‘affection, especially of parents to offspring’; but also of offspring to parents. And that, I have no doubt, is the original form of the thing as well as the central meaning of the word. The image we must start with is that of a mother nursing a baby, a bitch or a cat with a basketful of puppies or kittens; all in a squeaking, nuzzling heap together; purrings, lickings, baby-talk, milk, warmth, the smell of young life.
Herbert Ratner, M.D. tells us:
Research shows that the newborn is responsive to the face from birth. The response is initially elicited by the eyes and forehead, and subsequently, by the full face. This coincides with the focal length of the newborn's vision which is about nine inches, a measure that approximates the distance from the baby at the breast to the mother's eyes and face. In contrast to the perceptual ability of primates whose young are mobile and clinging, the eyes of the immobilized infant, during the early months of nursing, are steadily fixed on the mother's face. When the Psalmist pleads to God to turn His "shining face" upon him, he echoes the acceptance the nursling seeks from its mother, its source of security.
The infant's need to be held, carried and comforted bespeaks the woman's cradling arms, arms that contrast significantly with the throwing arms of the male. The difference is not only evident in sports, but is even seen in the way children carry their books: boys at their sides; girls in front of them with flexed arms. The girls' inclinations to encircle and encompass foretells the future cradling of the nursling close to the heart and breast of an initiation of a bosom friendship.
Now, I am aware that the idea of ‘weaned’ implies a weaning away from the mothers breast but I feel a liberty to see in this the image of a child at its mother’s breast.
PHYSICAL BUSY-NESS
‘I have stilled and quieted myself my soul’ … Whereas the baby has no choice in the matter we have a responsibility to still and quieten our soul … but we find it so hard to rest in God in such a way.
‘Be still and know that I am God’ says the psalmist. First of all there is a physical element in this. We can be so busy – we need to simply sit down and be still – have some time out. We can be so busy as though our lives depended on it.  If we are not busy our lives have can have no meaning. Our identity can be wrapped up in our work which is fine until we retire or are made redundant … but then we soon find things to fill the time … keep our selves busy. We don’t find the idea of ‘stillness in God’s presence’ very appealing. Praying is hard enough but at least it has some purpose! Working for God is sometimes so much easier than resting in Him. Perhaps that is why he has to allow us to get to such a point. We do well to take heed to the saying: “Some desert the saviour and enter his service instead”.
“We have forgotten how to exist – to be – we can only think about being.”
MENTAL BUSY-NESS
But maybe yes we have lost our energies we do get weary  ... the truth is we do spend a lot more time being still physically resting. … but OUR MINDS are so busy … there is so much mental noise. Far from being still in Gods ‘present – ness’ our minds are either reliving the past which is unreal because it is now only an interpretation of the past … or racing ahead into the future … it can be very subtle but I know a person who was so irritated by the person they worked with in the office that even before the workday had begun his predictions based upon past experience almost made it a self fulfilling prophecy. He was living in the past experience which so coloured his present he could see things in no other way until the light dawned and he realised that each day was new in the presence of God and he discovered that things were not bad at all with that person – he had created accumulatively … so our past can so often control our lives that we are no longer living in the present and the love that is contained therein.
SPIRITUAL BUSY-NESS
But perhaps I am being unfair there are those who spend a lot of time in study and in thought about God and Scripture … Still I would say there is room to simply put all that to one side so we can say:  But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.”
Remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees “…you diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, 40yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”(J 5:38) John Wimber after giving a sermon was shaking hands at the door. A lady shook his hand and waved a piece of paper up in the air saying, “I’ve got the notes!”. “Poor lady” thought Wimber,” She ate the menu but missed the meal”. So our academic readings and knowledge of the Bible are no substitute for an intimate resting in God. Reading the Bible is good but it can be so conceptual and fail to take us to the place of intimacy with God. We need to learn to be like a little child again.

Cataphatic Apophatic a healthy mix

Perhaps the distinction between the two is unnecessary but for academic purposes some like myself like the distinction as it relates to prayer. Basically apophatic approaches to prayer are more contemplative including alot of silence and appreciation of God who transcends the limitations of rational thought. Cataphatic is more related to what is called discursive prayer which is verbal and involves rational thought. Because of the over heavy leaning of our western culture towards cleverness and headiness it is natural for a spiritual seeker to gravitate at least at some part of her spiritual life towards the apophatic prayer. however when the dust is settled we realise it is unnecessary to put one against the other but rather to value both as important aspects of prayer. One informs the other. we need to think about the fact that God is bigger than we can imagine. We need to think about who it is we believe in. we need to recognise that worship does include our mind. Conversely we need also to take one step back and in awe and wonder recognise Go's transcendence. After a little excursion away from the Cataphatic I am now seeing its value and have decided to incorporate it (if I had ever really not) into my daily prayer life and not regard it as something inferior. Most 'sensible' people probably do both without realising it. It is only the anal types such as myself who feel the need to make these distinctions!

Maximus the Confessor Apophasis and the Incarnation

I am reading at the moment a book by Andrew Louth on Maximus the Confessor a 6th century Eastern Orthodox Monk. I was interested in a reference to him by Karen Armstrong in her recent book 'The case for God'. As with these things one discovers so much more in the process. However the particular piece of content I have found in the introduction and look forward to more detail in Max's writings themselves. It is basically his use of the term 'apophatic' as it relates to the incarnation.
Apophatic Theology is also known as Negative Theology - basically it is discovering God through negation. So if for instance I said "God is great" I would then say "yes but not great in the way we limited humans could understand it. think of the greatest thing you can ... He is not that ... so Yes He is great but not in the way we can conceptualise it". by negating the concepts we hold in our minds about God we draw closer to His reality through our intuition.
But ... who would have used the incarnation as illustrative of Apophasis? Isn't the fact that Jesus became flesh distinctly cataphatic (Which is the opposite of the apophatic - ie a conceptual tangible approach to the understanding of God)?? Well no according to Maximus.
So God becoming man is a further demonstration of his transesnsational uncontainable unknowableness! How interesting! How breathtaking! The closer God comes to us the more uncontainable He becomes to our rational minds! Another great paradox.
So how does Max come to this?
Well first of all the reason he is looking into this is because he is wrestling with a poem by a Desert Dude called Gregory of Nazianzus who uses the term 'play' for the nature of Jesus Christ ... Is He God or Man? Well says Greg its a kind of paradoxical movement between both Deity and Manhood. Whereas language of apophatic and cataphatic theology is a way of classifying our knowledge of God, for Maximus it is used in relation to the Incarnation. "To ascribe ‘play’ to God is already to embark on apophatic theology, for it is only by denial, Maximus asserts, that play can be ascribed to God."
Max gives the example of the term used by the Apostle Paul 'foolishness of God' (1 Corinthians 1) Here is an example of apophatic theology in that any privation of something which is considered as favourable to man must be apophatic in that it is clearly refering to excess. Foolishness of God is a contradistinction to the wisdom of man which is as good as saying it transcends the human conceptualisation of wisdom.
So back to the incarnation. In the same way Max refers to the word 'play' used by Greg. The act of God becoming man using the term 'play' is apophatic.
Andrew Louth goes on to say that the Incarnation seen from the Divine side (John 1:1) vears towards the apophatic spiritual theological view of the Trinity and from the human side (John 1:14) towards the fleshly cataphatic side ... this reflects a patristic distinction between the theology (Doctrine of the Trinity) and economy (Doctrine of Gods dealings with the world) of God.
So 'play' = dynamic incarnation reality = apophatic
but broken down to the term of God becoming flesh = cataphatic.
but ... in His origin as Word wrt the Trinity = apophatic.
Anyone reading this may be slightly confused but at least it may get you thinking as it has me!

Rob Bell - Resurrection

Resurrection: Rob Bell from The Work of Rob Bell on Vimeo.

Ken Wilber - The Great Search

I read an article on the Integral Life Website which is a portion from a book by Ken Wilber. In it he makes the statement that “The Great Search is the great enemy of what is”. To be searching implies that “you have not got” so to be in a searching mode you never actually arrive. It is only when you stop the search you begin to realise all you need is all you have and all you are. There is no longer any separation – no dualism – just being and connecting with all that there is. “This realization undoes the Great Search that is the heart of the separate-self sense.” This realisation affects our relationship with all that ‘is’ around us: ”… you simply are the mountain, you are the sky, you are the clouds, you are everything that is arising moment to moment, very simply, very clearly, just so.”
This is great stuff and a much needed call to awareness and to the present moment in which we become conscious of our aliveness and the goodness of all that is. It also helps us to come to terms with the pain we suffer as we in the words of Byron Katie ‘Love what is’.
As an addition and further development of these thoughts I would like to consider some words that Jesus is recorded to have said “Seek and you shall find”. In this case it is quite clear that seeking is a favourable thing and certainly not seen to be an enemy. Admittedly Ken uses the word ‘search’ and not ‘seek’ but I do not think this matters. The Greek meaning for this word ‘seek’ is actually in the present-continuous-imperative … literally ‘Seek and keep on seeking’. Sadly our own language does not have such verb distinctions so we often miss it in translation. I believe that a good interpretation of the passage above would be ‘As you keep on seeking you will keep on finding’ or  conversely ‘The moment we stop seeking is the moment we stop finding’ … almost like saying the moment the water stops flowing out the water stops flowing in. It seems in this context the enemy is quite the opposite of seeking. It is FINDING! … because once you have found you have stopped seeking and therefore you no longer are finding … Yo! Well actually to be more precise it is not the finding but the grasping that is the problem ...  finding is perfectly acceptable provided we do not seek to possess what we find for then we have returned to the egoic as our centre. There is a dynamic in Jesus view of God not dissimilar to the concept the Desert Fathers had in their perception of the Trinity in the word perichoresis which means to dance around … one part of the Trinity flows into the other in continuity … a constant movement. Another popular word used is self emptying the Greek word being  “Kenosis” used once by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Philippian Church where he says Jesus did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but (Kenosis) emptied himself. So as long as the seeking/ finding dynamic keeps moving all is well but as soon as egoic grasping and spiritual possessiveness kicks in there we have our “enemy”.
So it seems that another dualism is broken by Jesus – that is the dualism of seeking and having by making them dynamically mutually co-existent. Ken Wilber has created a dualism where there does not need to be.
“Should we simply cease the search?” Asks Ken. I would agree and answer” No”, but for a different reason. In Jesus teaching we do not have to. The activity of searching is accommodated for and anticipated by Spirit which pre-empts our searching. The moment of searching is the moment of finding.
Instead of saying the Great Search presumes the loss of God I would say the Finding of God Assumes or even CONsumes the great search.
Ken is left with the meaninglessness of all the effort made through prayer and other disciplines. If God is immediately present any act of seeking is perpetuating the lie that He is not. Eckhart Tolle perpetually makes reference to wasted effort in attempting to attain to that which is already here present in this moment. Ken’s argument is that the only use of such discipline is that it ‘speeds up the folly’ but surely better still not to enter the folly – let’s throw all the millennia of spiritual seeking away as one big collective enemy. However if we take the kenotic view above we find that we don’t have to because the seeking is the finding ... there is no dualism here.

Welcoming Prayer

It has been my first day without pain killers for my recently poorly back. I entered into centering prayer tonight and knowing that it is important not to allow physical sensations to distract, when the backpains started I almost gave up. Shifting from one position to the next was just not working! However the idea of "Welcoming Prayer" came to me. Basically it involves first entering into a feeling or emotion you wish to release from and then welcoming it. After moving from one to stage to the other the last stage is to let go of the desire for security, approval and control and finally the desire to change the situation as it is. (Cynthia Bourgeault excellently devotes a whole chapter to this in her book 'Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening' she sums up the process thus: 1:Focus & Sink In 2:welcome 3: Let go)
I decided to apply this to my backache. I focussed on the pain and welcomed it ocscillating between these two stages. At times feeling the pain without qualifying it as good or bad took the sting out of it. In the letting go I focussed specifically on the letting go of the desire to change the situation. In short a total acceptance of the discomfort which I felt prompted to use as my 'Sacred Word' (please note this is not a mantra but a word which simply is used to return to Centering Prayer when the mind has strayed - nothing more than that)*. Using this as my sacred word to return to His Presence was quite enlightening.
This welcoming prayer gesture being at the same moment the essence of my participation with presence seemd to mirror if not participate in the same spirit with which Jesus approached the Cross. The Central core of this specific time was an acceptance of pain which when let go of became the entry point of a deep participation of Jesus acceptance of the Cross at Gethsemene - 'Not my will but thine be done'.
Did the back ache ease or go? At times. In fact the 20 mins seemed to rush by but that was not the issue - one cannot at one and the same time welcome something and want it to go away. However it does raise the issue taht much of our suffering is caused by not accepting things as they are - being at odds with that which 'is'.

*The sacred  word  expresses our intention to be in God’s presence and to yield to the divine action (T K)

Centering Prayer - Letting go of thoughts

When I release my feeble sense of what I feel or what I think I should feel and the limited thoughts I have and every other scattered thought - not that I can 'get rid' of thoughts - but when I allow them to be as something other - detached from these things then His presence becomes all that there is. All I have left is my consent to His activity within - but what does that mean? whatever i think it means I let go of and allow Him to interpret what He means by it. Jesus in me surrendering to the will of God ... 'Not my will but Thy will be done' ... I am taken up into the Kenotic movement of the Triune God ...there is nothing that we surrender that He does not more than compensate for either im-mediately or in greater measure further down the line.

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