MDMD Re: German enthusiasts, Eckhart & Wicks Cherrycoke

[Doug Millison]

"Inviting" may not be the best term, but I'll let others quibble with that;
the metaphors of "host" and "guest" are both used to talk about spiritual
experience in a Christian framework, and in Eckhart's writings -- opening
the door at Jesus' knock, or moving in the other direction and reaching out
to invite God into one's heart.  Maybe "receptive" is a better term,
opening oneself to God who is already at the heart of one's being.
Sometimes the experience comes without any specific action on the subject's
part, unbidden; sometimes it comes after the subject initiates some action,
opens herself to the experience. Ken Wilbur relates E's approach to that of
some Eastern mystics, who speak of levels of consciousness where the
subject can move from the experience of deity (God as loving other) to a
sort of fusion with God as ground of being beyond subject-object or other
duality  (and there are many more levels than this). Wicks Cherrycoke
speaks of similar experiences, I believe. P also looks at levels of
consciousness in his use of mystical lore in GR, especially Jewish
mysticism.

One interesting fact, in light of P's treatment of this sort of material in
M&D and elsewhere, is that the Roman Catholic church more or less
systematically removed this sort of spirituality from common practice in
the Middle Ages, excommunicating and even executing people like Eckhart who
taught a direct path from the worshipper to God, investing more and more
power into the priestly authority in the service of secular Empire, acting
to suppress practices and philosophies that undermine the authoritarian
structure of the Church and State.  Ken Wilbur puts it well, I think, when
he talks about individuals who experience "enlightenment" and are welcomed
warmly in Eastern traditions, while people in the Christian tradition who
come along and claim what Jesus claimed, "I and the Father are one," have
tended to be burned at the stake.  Only in recent decades has the Church
moved to accept this sort of spiritual practice, and as a result we have
seen a blossoming of it -- Thomas Merton was a visible and popular
exponent, Fr. Thomas Keating and others have helped contemplative Christian
spiritual practice move even further into the mainstream with the Centering
Prayer movement (see below); Centering Prayer was explicitly a response to
the embrace of Eastern mysticism by people in the 60s, Keating and others
wanted to remind them that we have this practice and potential in the
Christian tradition, too.

That Pynchon moves these "German enthusiasts" into the American colonial
scene is interesting and fun. In addition to what this may say about what
Pynchon is saying re America at the time of its conception, the Redzinger
reference invites readers to compare the 1960s (Nixon's America, as seen in
GR)  to the 1760s (the scene that M&D encountered), and perhaps also
compare the 1780s (time frame of Wicks telling the tale) with the 1980s
(the Reagan-Bush era that bears the poisoned fruit of choices, decisions,
actions of the 1960s as well as reaching back further to a US foundation of
imperialism and genocide that we glimpse in M&D's 1760s setting, a reading
that he tight intertextual links between M&D and Vineland (which we
demonstrated in some detail in the group reading of Vineland) would seem to
support.  Much more can be said about Peter Redzinger and the various
cultural influences he seems to represent and how they play out in America.

I don't think there's much question that Otto is right to point to the
parallels between the historical perspective that Christianity (but not
Christ) brings into Western thought and the Manifest Destiny ideology in
American thought; how far this kind of imperialistic thinking can carry
rogue state America is only now being seen under the current fundamentalist
Christian President.

http://www.thecentering.org/centering_method.html

The Method of Centering Prayer

by Thomas Keating

Theological Background
The grace of Pentecost affirms that the risen Jesus is among us as the
glorified Christ. Christ lives in each of us as the Enlightened One,
present everywhere and at all times. He is the living Master who
continuously sends the Holy Spirit to dwell within us and to bear witness
to his resurrection by empowering us to experience and manifest the fruits
of the Spirit and the Beatitudes both in prayer and action.

Lectio Divina
Lectio Divina is the most traditional way of cultivating friendship with
Christ. It is a way of listening to the texts of scripture as if we were in
conversation with Christ and he were suggesting the topics of conversation.
The daily encounter with Christ and reflection on his word leads beyond
mere acquaintanceship to an attitude of friendship, trust and love.
Conversation simplifies and gives way to communing, or as Gregory the Great
(6th century), summarizing the Christian contemplative tradition, put it,
"resting in God." This was the classical meaning of contemplative prayer
for the first sixteen centuries.

Contemplative Prayer
Contemplative Prayer is the normal development of the grace of baptism and
the regular practice of Lectio Divina. We may think of prayer as thoughts
or feelings expressed in words. But this is only one expression.
Contemplative Prayer is the opening of mind and heart - our whole being -
to God, the Ultimate Mystery, beyond thoughts, words and emotions. We open
our awareness to God whom we know by faith is within us, closer than
breathing, closer than thinking, closer than choosing - closer than
consciousness itself. Contemplative Prayer is a process of interior
purification leading, if we consent, to divine union.

The Method of Centering Prayer
Centering Prayer is a method designed to facilitate the development of
contemplative prayer by preparing our faculties to cooperate with this
gift. It is an attempt to present the teaching of earlier time (e.g. The
Cloud of Unknowing) in an updated form and to put a certain order and
regularity into it. It is not meant to replace other kinds of prayer; it
simply puts other kinds of prayer into a new and fuller perspective. During
the time of prayer we consent to God's presence and action within. At other
times our attention moves outward to discover God's presence everywhere.

The Guidelines
Choose a sacred word as the symbol of your intention to consent to God's
presence and action within.

Sitting comfortably and with eyes closed, settle briefly and silently
introduce the sacred word as the symbol of your consent to God's presence
and action within.

When you become aware of thoughts, return ever-so-gently to the sacred word.

At the end of the prayer period, remain in silence with eyes closed for a
couple of minutes.  [...]



Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 19:56:40 -0800
From: "s~Z" <keithmar at msn.com>
Subject: NP Re: German enthusiasts, Eckhart

http://www.ccel.org/e/eckhart/sermons/htm/iv.htm
"Now, people say when they commit sin, that they do not intend to
do so always; they intend to turn away from sin. That is just as
though a man were to kill himself and suppose that he could make
himself alive again by his own strength. That is, however,
impossible; but to turn from sin by one's own power and come to
God is still much more impossible. Therefore, whosoever is to turn
from sin and come to God in His heavenly kingdom, must be drawn by
the heavenly Father with the might of His divine power."

        --Meister Eckhart

I was just having trouble with the idea that the individual does
the inviting.