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The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel
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Contemplation. Thoughts/questions on 'The cloud of unknowing'
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Ruth wrote: "when he says that we have to push away our thoughts. Why would we have to push them away, why can't we just let them drift."Drifting like chaff before the wind?
Funny how much it helps to be discussing this!I suppose the words 'thoughts' and 'mind' can be interpreted at multiple levels.
It never occurred to me that he might be talking about all the distracting thoughts, like your todo-list, things people said that you want to react to, worries... If you pay these any attention, before you know it you'll be actively pursuing some course of action in your mind and be completely closed to God.
This is so self-evident to me that I hadn't applied his words to those kind of distracting thoughts.
But when I speak about letting your thoughts just be, l mean more like this: when you are just 'seeing' things. What I usually call pondering. My mind is at rest and just open. Registering, connecting, just taking in whatever presents itself.
Ruth wrote: "when I speak about letting your thoughts just be, l mean more like this: when you are just 'seeing' things. What I usually call pondering. My mind is at rest and just open. Registering, connecting, just taking in whatever presents itself.."
When we're just seeing things, those things do not come from us. But, if our mind is at rest, where do those "thoughts" that present themselves come from?
Ha, there is a good question! The first time I heard about contemplation this was my one big concern. I was (and still am) so afraid that if I let down my guards I will be open to all sorts of spiritual influence. And I'm afraid I will then be enchanted by the devil. (thinking of eph. 6:12) But what I meant with seeing things when my mind is at rest, is like being open to reality. That's just another word for God, of course, but it helps me being open and not afraid.
Perhaps I can give an example. Two years ago I went for a walk with my husband and we climbed a hill from which we had a lovely view. While looking down on the river and valley below, all the towns and people in it, I pondered how we all have different perspectives, how we are all limited to one place and time, how we can either be busy and experience things, or just look and see, but not both at the same time, how this is an essential part of our nature.
I wrote a text later (limitations) and mentioned this moment, and my husband said: "did you really think all that in those few minutes?". Well, yes and no. I didn't think it in words or logical discursive reasoning. I just 'saw' it.
I am also currently reading slowly through 'The Trinity' from Augustin, currently book VIII, which also deals with how we can love God if we don't understand what he is like. What Augustin says is really a good complement to the theme of 'Unknowing' in that other book.Now on the question 'where do thoughts come from', I think Augustin also says something very interesting, namely that we must seek the truth within ourselves.
He says: how can we love 'just persons' if we don't know what 'just' is. And we cannot learn what 'just' is, because it is something internal in the mind. We cannot see that from outward physical things. (At least I think that's the point he is making, and I believe he is right, 'just' is not simply following all the rules). Anyway, to come to the point: Augustin says that we have been given a sort of 'intuition' in our creation by which we recognize truth, justice and such things. He says we need to seek in ourselves.
What it [the mind] sees is the inner truth present to the mind which is capable of beholding it. Not all are so capable, and of those who are, not all are what they behold, that is to say they are not just minds in the same way as they can see and say what a just mind is. (Augustin, The Trinity, Book VIII,6.9)
Just in case any one is still interested, I found this clarifying review : https://www.americamagazine.org/conte...
Ruth wrote: "But what I meant with seeing things when my mind is at rest, is like being open to reality. That's just another word for God..."The idea that reality is another word for God sounds familiar. I think it depends on what one means by "reality". Are the material world, animals, humans, angels also part of reality? If so, then reality is not the same as God.
This is why I asked the question about the origin of our thoughts, when we're contemplating. We all have the experience of ideas "popping into" our minds, thoughts "occurring" to us, seemingly without any activity on our part. As you put it, we "just saw it". But those ideas are not necessarily true, let alone coming from God.
I think when Augustine says we cannot "see" justice, he is saying justice is not a physical object that we can discern with our eyes, it is abstract or spiritual, and can only be discerned by the eye of the mind/spirit. Yes, we have the ability in ourselves to discern justice, but still, we need to exercise discernment.
Every time I discuss the mind, I'm reminded of the movie "A Beautiful Mind", which is about a schizophrenic mathematician and Nobel Laureate, John Nash. I remember hearing/reading this somewhere: When asked why he believed his hallucinations, Nash said it was because the hallucinations came from the same source where his ingenious mathematical ideas came from, i.e., his mind.
Thanks for the info, sounds like an interesting movie!It's very hard to question your own mind, if you do you will be very insecure.
Meditation does help to take more distance and see your thoughts more for what they are : fleeting ideas that may or may not be true.
I've now bought the book (for reading, as opposed to listening as I did before).The footnotes are a great help.
I now understand better his warnings against copying only a part. In those times books were copied by hand, and he felt very responsible that his words would be passed on correctly.
I can certainly understand that. I always find it tremendously frustrating if my texts get altered by the reaction of our church's newsletter.
Ruth wrote: "I now understand better his warnings against copying only a part. In those times books were copied by hand, and he felt very responsible that his words would be passed on correctly. "Well, that's an inevitable risk of being an author, or a human being for that matter: being misinterpreted, misrepresented and misunderstood. :)
A question that just popped up in my mind when I read the preface to the Cloud of Unknowing is the following :Mr Anonymous said that we stretch out our soul, intent on God. On the other hand Augustin said that we find God within ourselves.
It seems to me that stretching out is quite different from turning inward. Are these indeed two very different approaches, or do they only use different words to describe the same?
Are they contradicting, or complementary?
Ruth wrote: "Mr Anonymous said that we stretch out our soul, intent on God. On the other hand Augustin said that we find God within ourselves. ..."I think the two authors are complementary, and there are many ways to interpret them.
God is within us as the Sprit is dwelling in us and joined with our spirit, but He is also distinct from us and transcends us, and in that sense, we stretch out our souls to God, or rather, our hearts are enlarged by God so that we may "cleave to" Him (to borrow one of Augustine's favourite expressions).
Nemo wrote: "I think when Augustine says we cannot "see" justice, he is saying justice is not a physical object that we can discern with our eyes, it is abstract or spiritual, and can only be discerned by the eye of the mind/spirit. "Ah, of course! Yes, 'justice' or 'courage' or 'love' are not visible, material things. Now I understand. I think it is very interesting how Augustin and others are of the opinion that these are still very real and existing 'things' that can be 'seen'.
Sorry that I am meandering so much from one topic/author to another, but I think this is what most impressed me when I first read The Four Cardinal Virtues. It was the first time I encountered this way of thinking where he tried to describe a concept (e.g. courage) in the best possible way. I was very impressed by this attitude that begins with believing that such a thing really exists, and then describe it. Only when I tried to share this with my father, he said it was all circular reasoning, first defining your terms and then proving things about them.
But I think that Augustin, and Josef Pieper, and I myself, believe that there really is something like an ideal abstract form of 'courage' and that we can try and 'see' that, and then describe that as best as possible. It isn't the other way round, that we define what 'courage' is.
Nemo wrote: "The idea that reality is another word for God sounds familiar. I think it depends on what one means by "reality". Are the material world, animals, humans, angels also part of reality? If so, then reality is not the same as God. "I am not sure about that. I know that lots of people insist that God is spirit and hence not material. But how can there be anything that is not God? Would that not lead to the conclusion that there are boundaries to God? Okay, that is probably not quite the right way to put it, because even 'boundaries' are something in space and if God is outside space, those boundaries have no meaning, I suppose. It's rather complicated.
But perhaps it helps when we think of ourselves, I remember another discussion we had in this group about body and soul, and the beautiful idea that perhaps we shouldn't think so dualistic. I think you quoted Heisenberg then? About how modern physics teaches us that everything is really ideas. So then there is no point in making distinctions between physical and spiritual, so both are equally 'real'.
Yesterday I read about the four stages in the Christian life, and the footnote explained that the word 'perfect', for the last stage, would have been better translated by 'pure'. I like this idea indeed a lot better than the word 'perfect' which was rather a stumbling block for me on my first read.
This word 'pure' reminds me of the beautiful things that Saint Gregory said about transparency. I once wrote a text about that (transparency) and, now that I read it again, I see that I was then also very much considering contemplation and being open to reality.
So, because it is so much in line with what we've just been discussing, I hope it's not too much self-promotion if I just share that here too: http://www.consideringlilies.nl/trans...
Ruth wrote: "So, because it is so much in line with what we've just been discussing, I hope it's not too much self-promotion if I just share that here too: http://www.consideringlilies.nl/trans......"
If I understand your article correctly, we're like diamond, and God is Light. Just as the diamond is distinct from light, so we are distinct from God. That's part of what I meant when I said "reality" is not the same as God.
Yes, I see what you mean. It remains intriguing to think that God is very closely and intimately within us, and yet also so very different from us.
Yes, all analogies fall short when we think about the relation between God and us. It is much more intimate than that between light and diamond, but the analogy helps us to understand certain aspects of the relationship.
See my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
I reviewed it rather negatively, because I think it is dangerous what he says about putting your mind under a cloud of forgetting.
But I may have misunderstood. See the comments below my review for more details, I will now take up from there:
Nemo said: There are different spiritual gifts. Some people are predominantly active, and some contemplative. Yes, I see that. I think I am quite contemplative myself (some would call it the dreamy type). I like to sit and watch people doing all sorts of stuff and then start pondering the nature of life, action, or time, or the fleetingness of everything. Or isn't that contemplation? I used to think so, but it seems this book is saying that even that is still too much action of the mind.
I think that perhaps this is also a question that I have about this book, because he turns 'contemplation' into something active, in my opinion, when he says that we have to push away our thoughts. Why would we have to push them away, why can't we just let them drift.
Well, all comments, or other viewpoints, or more questions, are welcome. I am curious if anyone else here has read it, or has some experience in contemplation and would like to share about that, perhaps?