Reflections on the Cloud of Unknowing, #2

One facet of the Cloud of Unknowing that strikes me most is the anonymous author's clarity. Although he uses some expressions incomprehensible to the mind, such as how God is "nothing and nowhere," and he often speaks of paradoxes, on matters of faith he is resonatingly clear.

In my reading over the past few days, I find myself excited by the questions he posits. I write each word of the questions down, contemplating them in anticipation of the answer. The answer surprises me and brings immediate lucidity to my soul.

The truth doesn't have to confuse. Confusing the mind does not help one abandon the mind. Jesus sought to clarify, rather than confuse, with his parables. The absolute genius of the parables of Jesus lies in how we are shown the paradoxes we believe about every day life, without our even realizing they are paradoxes.

From the point of grasping the principle through the metaphoricaly imagery, somehow we grasp a deeper truth than may be explained with logic or reason. The parable of the prodigal son contains the paradox of being undeserving and yet receiving abundant reward. Another example is of the mustard seed, tinier than other seeds, which grows into a large and powerful tree.

Have you ever thought about how many paradoxes you believe every day and take for granted? What about how the sun appears to rise and set, but you also know it isn't really doing that? How about the way an electron can be either or a particle or a wave, depending on whether you are observing it or not? We don't understand these things, yet we do not question that they are.

It is possible to speak the truth with clarity and also on the level that only your soul, beyond the mere mind, is able to grasp it. Anonymous, through the Cloud of Unknowing, has helped me see the purpose of reason and its best uses. This was a welcome relief to the way I saw reason before, as something unneeded and just to be discarded in the spiritual journey.

Make no mistake, Anonymous stridently recommends that we throw everything imaginable into the "Cloud of Unknowing," and that includes good and bad, sinful and virtuous thought. However, his approach is to gradually guide his reader to this end, making sure a firm foundation is built first of pure motives and love without selfish aims. I understood for the first time who I am in relation to God, what grace is and what it takes to experience union with God.

I had come from a previous tradition that was just too convoluted and confusing for me to build up my relationship with God, which is why the structure fell apart in the end. My understanding and practice of what it means to be fulfilled have shifted towards a more productive process. I'm learning to simplify thoughts and experience their new potency.

"Motivated by a strong desire to reduce themselves to nothing, they will have a strong desire that God be all." -Anonymous, from The Cloud of Unknowing

Interior Castle, Second Mansions: Change of Will

This morning, I have continued my study of The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila, and supplemented it with my newly arrived book, The Could of Unknowing, by Anonymous, translated by Carmen Acevedo Butcher. Happily, these two texts fit together beautifully in my growing awareness.

In yesterday's blog post, I discussed the entry into the internal castle, which is based on prayer, and its first mansions, which are dark and full of "reptiles." A network of mansions surrounds the center, which is Christ. The task of entering the first mansion is to learn both humility and trust for that which you do not understand. I see that there are two options at the point of the first mansions.

One option is to run back out through the gate and to seek comfort and security in the things of the world, such as a romantic partner, alcohol, drugs, compulsive tv, etc. We've been taught that love and God may only be found within ourselves, but usually first-time meditators find themselves caught in the first mansions St.Teresa describes. It is dark. It is hard to stop thinking. Emotional disturbances happen. We are sometimes beset with anxious or terrifying thoughts. It is no wonder so many give the practice up, although we do have another option.

Anonymous, in the Cloud of Unknowing, writes, "Make your home in the darkness." For me, it is better to live in the darkness within than the falseness outside. As St.Teresa writes, "Outside the castle, it(the soul) will find neither security or peace." It is okay to make our home in the darkness, because we know deep down that we can find our way through it to the center.

Some people find, when they begin meditation, that they also need psychotherapy. This can help to brave the world within. When overwhelmed, it is fine to run back out but then to enter in again with a professional. However the method we use in exploring the first mansions, there reaches a point where we know it is time to go deeper. One indicator is that we are no longer feeling threatened in our journey within, although some, St.Teresa writes, "get to the second mansion through the desire to flee the first." She then writes, "All powers of hell try to drive the soul back to the first mansion."

The difference in these two levels of mansions is that in the second mansions, there is a little more light and the soul can hear for the first time. The soul can hear God calling. The soul then becomes consumed by grief by not being able to respond. So, in many ways, St.Teresa considers this mansion full of more suffering.

To go forward, St.Teresa writes takes "fixed determination to risk everything rather than return to the first mansions." This morning as I was reading Cloud of Knowing, I came upon the phrase, "naked intent," which the Cloud's author describes as being essential. Purity of intent fixes detrmination upon seeking God. Anonymous writes, in the Cloud of Unknowing, that "You only need a naked intent for God--when you yearn for Him, it is enough."

In the second mansions, we experience a deepening of the experience in the first. Humility deepens. Desire for God deepens. We are moving farther away from worldly concerns as we move towards the middle, where Christ dwells. My understanding so far of the Cloud of Unknowing is that the darkness is of knowing what you don't know and it is also what you have forgotten. Forgetting the pull of outside influences begins the process of alignment towards God's reign.

The supreme gift of the second mansions is that the will "inclines to love God."

"The will shows the soul how the true love never leaves it, but goes with it everywhere and gives it life and being." -St.Teresa of Avila