Yoga Methods in Christian Mysticism

[Guest guest]

Dear All,

 

This is a lecture that was given at Kensington Central Library on

20th October, 1979, regarding the 'Yoga Methods in Christian Mysticism!' It

should be informative, helping Christians to understand 'Yoga' in their

terminology!

 

One highlight that should be of interest to everyone is the quote from the Katha

Upanishad, which says:

 

" This true Self cannot be reached through right knowledge by one who has not

desisted from evil ways, nor by him who has not a concentrated mind, nor even by

one whose mind is not composed. " (I.2.24)

 

Another highlight, by the American Cistercian monk Thomas Merton in his Seeds of

Contemplation is:

 

" One of the greatest paradoxes of the mystical life is this: that a man cannot

enter into the deepest centre of himself and pass through that centre to God,

unless he is able to pass entirely out of himself and empty himself and give

himself to other people in the purity of a selfless love. "

 

Enjoy,

 

violet

 

 

Yoga Methods in Christian Mysticism

 

IN THE CHRISTIAN tradition the spiritual life has been classically divided into

three stages, called by the saints and mystics the stage of purgation, the stage

of illumination and the stage of union. When one reads the writings of the

Christian mystics it is clear what they mean by these three stages. The first

concerns the purification of the soul, to render it fit for the spiritual path,

the second is concerned with the training of the mind in recollection and

contemplation and its progress towards a knowledge of God, and the third

describes that state, sometimes called the unitive life, which the greatest of

the mystics have attained in this life, where the fullest spiritual perfection

which can be achieved while in the body has been attained.

 

In Yoga exactly the same three elements in the spiritual path are distinguished,

but it is important not to be confused by the different terminology, in

particular the use of the word 'illumination'. The word 'illumination' is used

in the Christian tradition to describe the second stage of the path, the stage

particularly concerned with the practice of recollection and contemplation, i.e.

meditation. The same word, 'illumination', in the Yoga tradition is used to

describe the third or culminating stage of Self-knowledge or God-realisation -

what in the Christian tradition corresponds to union or the unitive life. For

the yogi, the stage of purgation, the refinement and purification of the mind,

corresponds to the stage of the arurukshu, which means 'the one attempting to

climb to the steps of Yoga', the second stage of illumination corresponds to the

stage of the yunjana, 'the one who is actually engaged in the practice of Yoga',

while the third stage of union can be said to correspond to the yogarudha, 'the

one who has already reached the highest stages of Yoga'. Different means and

methods are enjoined for aspirants at each of these stages. In this short

outline it is impossible to cover all this ground, but an attempt will be made

to give examples of the close parallels between the teachings of the mystics of

both the Christian and yogic traditions in regard to the object of each stage of

the spiritual path and some of the key individual practices recommended.

 

It is at once apparent that both paths insist on the need for purification and

refinement of the mind and heart - in other words of the thought and feelings -

as a necessary prior qualification for the practice of the inner enquiry into

spiritual reality through the higher meditation. In Yoga this is called the

acquisition of 'sattva-shuddhi', purity of the mind. And it is acquired through

the practice of Karma Yoga (see, for example, Shankara's commentary on the Gita

3.20), benevolent and enlightened action and the acquisition of the sixfold

spiritual wealth.

 

As the Gita says:

 

Work is said to be the means for the 'arurukshu', the (wise) man who wishes to

attain to Yoga; when he has attained to Yoga and become a 'yogarudha', serenity

is said to be the means. (6.3)

 

It is no good thinking that one can dispense with this moral preparation for the

spiritual path, because it is an essential pre-requisite. As the Katha Upanishad

says:

 

This true Self cannot be reached through right knowledge by one who has not

desisted from evil ways, nor by him who has not a concentrated mind, nor even by

one whose mind is not composed. (I.2.24)

 

Karma Yoga, the practice of benevolent and disinterested action, and the

unselfish sacrifice of time and energy for the good of others and as an offering

to the Lord, is an important element in the spiritual path. It is part of what

is called 'purgation' in the Christian tradition.

 

The American Cistercian monk Thomas Merton writes in his Seeds of Contemplation:

 

One of the greatest paradoxes of the mystical life is this: that a man cannot

enter into the deepest centre of himself and pass through that centre to God,

unless he is able to pass entirely out of himself and empty himself and give

himself to other people in the purity of a selfless love.

 

In the Bhagavad Gita, the sovereign secret, by which one can be liberated from

evil, is given to Prince Arjuna by Shri Krishna in the ninth chapter. He speaks

of it as the supreme purifier, very easy to perform. And it is clearly a

particularly potent and effective way of performing Karma Yoga, based on the

recognition that, as the Lord explains: 'By Me all this world is pervaded...all

beings dwell in Me' (9.4). The Lord goes on to say: 'The Mahatmas...worship Me

with mind turned to no other, knowing Me as the imperishable source of all

beings' (9.13). And one is reminded at once of the first commandment to the

Christian: 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all

thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as

thyself.' (Mark 12:29-31; Luke 10:27). The words 'with mind turned to no other'

exactly parallel this thought. Perhaps few Christians stop to think what the

words 'with all thy heart and with all thy mind' actually mean. Note that the

love of the Lord is not to be separated from the love of our fellow-men:

'Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have

done it unto me.' (Matthew 25:40) Who is our neighbour? Not necessarily the

person who lives next door or our near acquaintances. The Good Samaritan was a

stranger to the man who had fallen among thieves, but he treated him as he would

have wished to be treated himself. (Luke 10:29-37)

 

The sovereign remedy for man's ills, which the Lord gives in the Gita, is

contained in the simple advice:

 

Whatever thou doest, whatever thou eatest, whatever thou sacrificest, whatever

thou givest, in whatever austerity thou engagest, do it as an offering to Me.

When one offers to Me with devotion a leaf, a flower, a fruit, or water, that I

accept, offered with devotion by the pure-minded. (9.27 and 26)

 

And the fruit of this simple but all-embracing practice of offering what we do

to the Lord, promised in the next verse, is:

 

Thus shalt thou be liberated from the bonds of action which are productive of

good and evil results; equipped in mind with the Yoga of renunciation, and

liberated, thou shalt come to Me. (9.28)

 

If one of even very evil life worships Me, resorting to none else, he must

indeed be deemed righteous, for he is rightly resolved. Soon he becomes

righteous and attains eternal peace; do thou, O son of Kunti, proclaim that my

devotee never perishes. (9.30-31)

 

Having reached this transient joyless world, do thou worship Me. Fix thy mind on

Me, be devoted to Me, sacrifice to Me, bow down to Me. Thus steadied, with Me as

thy Supreme Goal, thou shalt reach Myself, the Self. (9.33-34)

 

This is the central message of the Bhagavad Gita with regard to the practice of

Karma Yoga and it follows closely the injunction laid down in the first

commandment in the Gospel.

 

Perhaps one of the best examples of this practice, applied in the midst of

practical life in exactly the way in which the Gita advocates, is given by the

teachings of Brother Lawrence. A lay brother who served in the kitchen of the

Carmelite monastery in Paris during the seventeenth century, he made his whole

spiritual practice depend on this sovereign secret. He says:

 

That practice which is alike the most holy, the most general, and the most

needful in the spiritual life is the practice of the presence of God. It is the

schooling of the soul to find joy in His divine companionship...

We search for stated ways and methods of learning how to love God, and to come

at last to that love we disquiet our minds by I know not how many devices; we

give ourselves a world of trouble and pursue a multitude of practices to attain

to a sense of the presence of God. And yet it is so simple. How very much

shorter it is and easier to do our common business purely for the love of God,

to set His consecrating mark on all we lay our hands to, and thereby to foster

the sense of His abiding presence by communion of our heart with His. There is

no need of either art or science; just as we are, we can go to Him, simply and

with a single heart.* (* From the Practice of the Presence of God.)

 

Here in Brother Lawrence's teaching we find the same message as in the Lord's

words in the Gita:

 

When someone offers to Me with devotion a leaf, a flower, a fruit or water -

that I accept, offered with devotion by the pure-minded.

 

As Brother Lawrence says, it is not needful that we should have great things to

do. The secret of Karma Yoga is to do the actions that we have to do,

unselfishly as an offering for the good of all, without concern for the

consequences.

 

George Herbert, who was a seventeenth century parish priest in Wiltshire, makes

the same point as Brother Lawrence in his poem 'The Elixir', a title which

refers to the mythical elixir sought by the alchemists which had the power of

changing all to gold:

 

Teach me, my God and King,

In all things Thee to see,

And what I do in any thing

To do it as for Thee...

 

A man that looks on glasse,

On it may stay his eye;

Or if he pleaseth, through it passe,

And then the heav'n espie.

 

All may of Thee partake:

Nothing can be so mean,

Which with his tincture, 'for Thy sake'

Will not grow bright and clean.

 

A servant with this clause

Makes drudgerie divine;

Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws,

Makes that and th'action fine.

 

This is the famous stone

That turneth all to gold;

For that which God doth touch and own

Cannot for lesse be told.

 

With regard to the key practice leading to the purification of the mind,

therefore - the first stage of purgation spoken of by the Christians - the

sovereign secret prescribed by both the Christian mystics and the yogis is the

same. Not to refrain from one's duties in life, but to act in an entirely

different way from one's ordinary way of acting. To rob the action of its

selfish and individualistic object by doing it as an offering for the good of

all. Of course, in both traditions, it is accepted that the individual must

desist from evil action. No action is too trivial to be offered and sanctified

in this way, but it must be a good action and inspired by love.

 

Perhaps enough has now been said about the main teachings of both traditions on

transforming the outer active life or the practice of Karma Yoga. Let us now

look very briefly at some comparable aspects of the inner practice of mind

control and meditation. Again we have to be careful not to be misled by the

different terms used in the two traditions. For instance, the word 'prayer' in

the writings of the Christian mystics is an all-embracing term, covering

virtually all the practices of the inner life, including all the stages of

meditation, both lower and higher, as well as the introductory practices leading

to the control of the mind. It is in precisely this sense that one finds St.

Teresa, for instance, speaking of the four degrees of prayer. Nonetheless there

are fairly precise terms used in the Christian tradition for particular

practices. And it is worth giving some examples of these in order to bring out

the parallels with the methods of Yoga.

 

Let us start with one of the most simple, called by the Western spiritual

writers 'vocal prayer'. It involves the constant repetition of a spiritual

thought again and again, and it is very comparable to the repetition of the

'mantram' prescribed by the Eastern mystics. In both traditions one finds it

recommended that the repetitions should be done with a rosary, so that the

number of repetitions of the prayer are counted. One of the best examples of

this in the Western tradition is the Jesus Prayer or the Prayer of the Heart,

practised in the Russian Orthodox Church. Here the aspirant is told to repeat

the formula 'Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me', saying it aloud with the lips,

although quietly, and repeating this many thousands of times until the prayer

becomes continuous. As with the mantram in the Yoga tradition, the object is

said to be that the prayer will become automatic and will eventually continue

even at a time when it is not being consciously said. While at the outset it is

recommended that it should be said with the lips, when it has become established

through practice over some time, it can be said silently in the heart.

 

One of the best accounts of this practice is given in the little book The Way of

a Pilgrim, the manuscript of which was found in one of the monasteries on Mount

Athos. It was written by a member of the Russian Orthodox Church who describes

setting out to find out how to obey the injunction of St. Paul to the

Thessalonians: 'Pray without ceasing.' He was led first to the teachings of St.

Dmitri who wrote: 'The words of the Apostle " pray without ceasing " should be

understood as referring to the creative prayer of the understanding. The

understanding can always be reaching out towards God, and pray to Him

unceasingly.'

 

But he did not fully understand from these words what the method is by which the

understanding can always be turned towards God. How can it never be disturbed

and pray without ceasing? With the burning desire to answer this question, he

went to a monastery and consulted the elderly abbot about his problem. He was

told by him that the main task is to learn how to pray:

 

The continuous interior Prayer of Jesus is a constant uninterrupted calling upon

the divine name of Jesus with the lips, in the spirit, in the heart, while

forming a mental picture of His constant presence, and imploring His grace,

during every occupation, at all times, in all places, even during sleep.

 

In this passage one is reminded at once of the verses in the eighteenth chapter

of the Bhagavad Gita:

 

Fly unto Him for refuge with all thy being, O Bharata; by His grace shalt thou

obtain supreme peace and the eternal resting-place... Abandoning all [dependence

on] righteous deeds, seek Me as thy sole refuge; I will liberate thee from all

sins; do thou not grieve. (18.62,66)

 

The thought is the same, but still the actual practical method has to be learnt.

The abbot drew the attention of his enquirer to the instruction by St. Simeon:

 

Sit down alone and in silence... shut your eyes, breathe out gently and imagine

yourself looking into your own heart. Carry your mind, i.e. your thoughts, from

your head to your heart. As you breathe out, say: 'Lord Jesus Christ have mercy

on me.' Say it moving your lips gently, or simply say it in your mind. Try to

put all other thoughts aside. Be calm, be patient, and repeat the process very

frequently.

 

Here we have a practice which could be found in the yogic classics themselves.

In the same way the individual who is setting out on the yogic path is given the

mantram to repeat inwardly. Many of these mantras express the most beautiful

spiritual thoughts. For instance, one mantram means in translation: 'Wherever my

mind goes, there I find Thee. Wherever my head goes, it is there at Thy feet.'

 

The Russian pilgrim in his account describes how he learned to say the prayer of

the heart and of the way in which it transformed his life. In one passage he

says: 'Sometimes, by calling upon the name of Jesus, I was overwhelmed with

bliss, and now I know the meaning of the words: " The kingdom of God is within

you " .'

 

So much for vocal prayer and the repetition of the inner prayer of the heart.

But this is only one of the preliminary practices of the inner life. An even

greater importance in both Eastern and Western traditions is given to the

practice of meditation. This too can be divided into a stage of preparation and

a stage of practice. In the Christian tradition the stage of preparation is

called the practice of recollection, while the stage of the practice of higher

meditation is called contemplation. Recollection has been defined by a Christian

writer, Evelyn Underhill, as 'no more than the subjection of the attention to

the control of the will'. In other words it corresponds exactly to that

preliminary stage of meditation described by the yogis which consists in the

restraint and control of the functions of the mind. This is part of the

conscious living, of which the Yoga speaks - to actively take charge of the mind

and transform it into an ally and an instrument of spiritual progress. The most

characteristic thing about the mind when it is uncontrolled is its rapidly

shifting focus of attention. And it is only when it has been controlled and

focused that it can attend effectively to the practice of meditation.

 

In the Bhagavad Gita the mind is likened to the flame of a lamp and, remembering

the time at which this classic was written, it is no doubt an oil lamp which the

author had in mind. Like a flickering flame, the thoughts of the irresolute,

those who have not controlled and restrained their minds, are said to be

many-branched and endless. In other words the flame flickers, caught in every

draught of wind raised by the roving senses. In this flickering light one cannot

see clearly. It is only in a steady bright light, with undistracted gaze, that

one really begins to see clearly what is there. In the same way, say the yogis,

two things are necessary in preparing the mind for meditation. Firstly the

quality of the mind-stuff, which is to say its thought content, has to be

refined and purified. The wick must be clean and trimmed, the oil pure.

Otherwise the flame is smoky and dim and the lamp becomes blackened by deposits

of soot. And, secondly, the mind must be brought under control and focused, like

the flame of a lamp in a windless spot. Then it provides what the Gita calls

steady knowledge, 'stitha-prajna'.

 

The Christian mystics speak of the same two processes, the refining of the mind

being what they call purgation, which we have already mentioned, and the control

and restraint of the mind being what they call the practice of recollection,

'the subjection of the attention to the control of the will'. If you read what

the Christian mystic, Evelyn Underhill, has said on this simple practice, you

will appreciate how closely it corresponds to the techniques described by the

yogis. Indeed Miss Waterhouse, in her book Training the Mind through Yoga, gives

an almost identical account of the process. But here is what Evelyn Underhill

writes. She speaks first of choosing any topic or thought from the ordinary

furniture of the mind. It does not matter what:

 

But the choice once made, it must be held and defended during the time of

meditation against all invasions from without, however insidious their

encroachments, however spiritual their disguise. It must be brooded upon, gazed

at, seized again and again, as distractions seem to snatch it from your grasp.

 

A restless boredom, a dreary conviction of your own incapacity, will presently

attack you. This too, must be resisted at sword point. Never before has the

stream flowed so slowly, or fifteen minutes taken so long to pass. The first

quarter of an hour thus spent in attempted meditation, will be, indeed, a time

of warfare; which should at least convince you how unruly, how ill-educated is

your attention, how miserably ineffective your will, how far away you are from

the captaincy of your own soul.

 

This is the process of getting control of the mind which the Christians call the

practice of recollection and the yogis, the practice of 'yama' and 'niyama',

control of the senses and control of the mind. As the Gita says:

 

The dangerous senses forcibly carry away the mind of a wise man, even while

striving to control them. Restraining them all, a man should remain steadfast,

intent on Me, the Lord. His knowledge is steady whose senses are under control.

(2.60-61)

 

It is not possible in this paper to go on to consider the most advanced stages

of meditation, or, as the Christians call it, contemplation. Suffice it to say

that in the early stages the practice of meditation is a matter of the

application of the will to control and direct the mind in the way in which it is

desired to go. Later, the higher meditation transcends this stage and the will

is no longer the controller. But that is the stage only attained after

considerable mastery in Yoga. In St. Teresa's famous simile, the garden of the

soul has in the first stage of prayer to be watered by laboriously lifting the

water from a well, a process requiring much effort and bringing little reward in

return. But as progress is made and the second stage of prayer is entered, the

watering process becomes like that to be found in the Spain of her time, where

the water was often raised by a string of many buckets mounted on a wheel.

Effort is still needed to raise it, but it is very much more effective. A much

greater volume of water is raised for the same expenditure of will-power, time

and energy. This is the stage, says St. Teresa, when the soul begins to be

recollected, in other words when some degree of control and restraint of the

mind has been achieved by the earlier practice.

 

In a yet more advanced stage of meditation, which St. Teresa calls the third

degree of prayer, the watering process becomes analogous, she says, to the

watering of the garden by a stream. Here the stream flows spontaneously and

continuously and the only effort needed from the will is to direct the water

towards the part of the garden which it is desired to cultivate. The will is

becoming less important and the process easier, because of the degree of mastery

of the mind which the individual has attained. And the culmination of the

meditation process is in that fourth stage of prayer of which St. Teresa speaks,

where the garden is watered by the downpour of rain. It is the most effective

way of watering the garden and the one which most clearly ensures its fertility

and prosperity, and it is completely independent of the will of the meditator.

 

This is the state of the illumined mind, receiving its spiritual light and

nourishment from the Lord Himself, seated within the mind. This is the state

which in Yoga is called 'samadhi'. As it says in Panchadashi:

 

At the time of samadhi the will is not applied to the process of meditation on

the Self. The mind achieves the state of 'samadhi' as a result of the effort...

of will made prior to its achievement. (Panchadashi 1.57)

 

And the same author almost echoes the simile of St. Teresa when he writes:

 

The experts in the science of Yoga call 'samadhi' a rain-cloud of dharma because

it showers forth countless streams of the water of immortality. (1.60)

 

Let me end with the words of another Christian thinker, Kierkegaard:

 

The present condition of the world is diseased. If I were a doctor and was asked

for my advice I should answer, create silence, bring men to silence - the word

of God cannot be heard in the world today. And if it is blazoned forth with

noise so that it can be heard even in the midst of all other noise, then it is

no longer the word of God. Therefore create silence.

 

Freedom through Self-Realisation

A.M. Halliday

A Shanti Sadan Publication - London

ISBN 0-85424-040-3

Pgs. 195-208