Notes from TAT re Bernadette Roberts' Grailville Retreat &upcoming

[Guest guest]

Doug's Notes and Reflections:

 

 

The retreat was held at Grailville, a retreat center located in

farmland and rolling hills in southwest Ohio, about 35 minutes from

Cincinnati. Bernadette started with a confrontational introductory

session where she asked each participant to describe their path and

spiritual practices. The rest of the weekend was spent on a set of

presentations and discussions covering ideas such as the Trinity, the

mystery of Christ, faith as a mystical experience, unique

characteristics of Christian mysticism, and the characteristics of

revelation. There was also silent time for prayer and meditation

scheduled between sessions.

 

During the retreat she often recommended active involvement in the

Catholic Church with love of God being the guiding force of your life

and actions. " All the saints spent much time in silent prayer, they

lived the sacramental life in the church, went to mass faithfully,

went to confession, read many of the same books, said the same

rosary, and sang many of the same hymns, " she said. Although she was

a very warm and friendly person, she could also be very

confrontational and critical. Her biggest criticisms were directed at

selfish, self-absorbed, spiritual lifestyles and paths. " The

Christian tradition is a proven 2,000 year old tradition. There is no

need for ineffective do-it-yourself religions and practices, " she

said. As evidence for the success of the Christian approach, she

pointed out that she knows many monks in the unitive state in

monasteries; however, most of them don't talk about it, so that's why

you don't hear about it if you've been at one. To sum this up, she

mentioned: " The monastic rules make saints. You'll get holier and

holier as you stay there. "

 

A rule of thumb that she reiterated was: " How it went for Christ is

how it goes for us. " She said, " We recapitulate his journey. Christ

gave no indication of searching for anything, of looking or suddenly

discovering something new or old. He wasn't seeking enlightenment or

Oneness with God. He offered no techniques, laws or paths; rather, he

said: 'I am the Way' -- Love of God being the sole path. "

 

Some of her statements of a more esoteric angle:

 

" God doesn't know who he is! "

" Heaven is here-and-now because there is no space and time in

heaven. "

" The reason that God is a mystery is because he is too close, closer

to us than we are to ourselves. "

" That in you that loves God is not you; it is Christ. "

" You people are seeing God all the time and you don't realize it! "

" You never can have more or less of God. You can have more or less of

self. As self decreases, God increases. "

" The truth is very simple; it is also unbelievable. "

" I wouldn't wish the no-self experience on anyone. It's a totally

unrewarding life! "

" God doesn't transform. He takes away. "

" Self is experience, and needs experience to grow. "

Some things she said about her spiritual way of living:

 

" Faith was the one constant in my life. "

" What motivated me was love. "

" I wanted to give up everything so there was no self in everything. "

" I was never looking for experience. I was looking for something

permanent. Experiences lead to peaks and valleys. "

Some general recommendations:

 

" When someone confronts you, don't go out in reaction. Just be with

it. It will burn the ego out eventually if you keep doing that. "

" You need to go to church and pour your heart out to God. "

" Repeating the rosary over and over can save you from distraction. "

She said she still says the rosary regularly.

" All you have to do is give your whole life to God. Love of God is

the sole path. "

" Use your mind until it goes out on you. "

" Self-discipline is imperative. "

" You should be in this for love of God only and not for something you

can get for yourself. " This is something she repeatedly stressed.

" Ask the guy who's on the rung right above you for help. Don't ever

ask for help from the guy on top. " Kiffy and I smiled when we heard

this one. This is part of Richard Rose's law of the ladder almost

verbatim.

When I was talking with her one-on-one, she recommended spending time

in the woods alone and spending time in a monastery. She said that

everyone should experience both at some point in their life.

" I believe in detachment and ascetic practices if you're a beginner,

but most things are taken away. How to do detachment? God takes

things away from us, and then we can practice detachment. "

" You practice and practice and practice until you reach the unitive

state. You still continue the same practices, but it's spontaneous so

it's no longer a practice.

After the self falls away, there's still the practice, but there is

no self practicing. The path goes on but there's no longer a self on

the path.

" Don't want experience, but the change it has on you. "

" Your intellect should run the show. You need to learn how to keep

the emotions in check. "

" All you can do is try to give your all to God. If you think you

have, then you probably haven't. "

Statements critical of the do-it-yourselfers, their practices, ideas

and other non-Christian traditions and ideas:

 

" I can't stand this non-duality business! "

On vipassana: " One hour of that and I'd be raving mad! "

" I don't understand the use of regular practices; they're tedious,

boring, and depressing! "

" No other religion but Christianity accepts man in his humanity -- a

limitation of Buddhism is that it denies any existence of a self; you

cannot transcend something that you deny exists. "

" I don't believe in techniques. Love cannot be made into a

technique. " She later added: " I'm all for practice -- not for

techniques that you think will get you somewhere. I've probably spent

more hours in silent meditation than anyone in this room. "

" I have no use for a non-personal God. It has to be a God that is

personal and cares for us. The essence of the Trinity is

relationship. It you didn't have a personal relationship with God,

then why would you keep going? If God is utterly transcendent, then

what does it matter? You might as well be agnostic. "

" If you're in it for your own self-serving, forget it. "

Jesus didn't focus on himself; he focused on the father. Love the

Lord God with your whole heart, your whole soul, etc. Jesus didn't

have regular practices. "

" There is no other way to God. I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

You have to have your whole life focused on God. "

Bernadette doesn't have her critical eye aimed only at non-Christian

traditions; she also has much to say about weaknesses in mainstream

Christianity:

 

" 99% of the churches are teaching nothing. "

" The Methodists today are totally into social work. "

" The Bible -- a paper God. " (Directed towards Bible-thumping

Protestants.)

" Christianity is mysticism. They don't stress this in the church. "

" The Nicene Creed shouldn't be as it's worded anyway. There never was

a time when there wasn't a Logos or Holy Spirit. The creed seems to

say otherwise. "

" I don't believe in original sin. It's ridiculous. We're born without

sin but not perfect. "

" Hell -- You have to believe in it, but you don't have to believe

there is anyone there! "

" God -- I have to wonder about some of his mistakes! "

" I never liked the man Jesus or had a special devotion to him. To me

the big mystery was Christ. "

On the book of Revelations -- " I would have thrown that out years

ago! I wouldn't bother with it. "

" Underhill's book on Christian mysticism was the biggest mess on

Christian mysticism ever written. She didn't know what she was

talking about. "

Someone asked me, " What's the most important thing you got out of the

Bernadette Roberts retreat? " I think it was the powerful experience

of meeting someone who had dedicated their entire life

uncompromisingly to the love of God and search for truth and had an

authentic no-self experience. I also learned that there is a world of

difference between reading someone's books and meeting them in

person. She was more confrontational and interesting than I would

have expected from reading the books. I thought, especially after

watching a video of one of her presentations, that it would be a

rather dry academic experience.

 

It was uncomfortable at times because she didn't hold back anything

in her criticisms. She made fun of what she called " do-it-yourself "

spiritual paths, and she stated that if you're in it for yourself,

you'll get nowhere. I've already mentioned many of her general

criticisms, but here's a few more just for good measure: On

Swedenborg -- " Forget him! " On Berkeley -- " Those liberal creeps! " To

me and Kiffy -- " I know you guys. You're dabblers. You dabble in a

little bit of this and a little bit of that! "

 

Bernadette's message is one of uncompromising search for truth no

matter what the cost. I certainly couldn't argue with this, and it

definitely fits in with Rose's view of the spiritual path. She

differs with Rose and other teachers I respect in that she emphasizes

this path has to be dedicated to a personal God, which is a very

different attitude if not a fundamentally different message. I also

think that although she doesn't appear like it on the surface because

of the intellectual nature of her writings, her path was in the end a

bhakti path since it was love of God that led her to do everything

she did, as she mentioned several times during the weekend.

 

I found the retreat worthwhile, but I wouldn't want to go again

because her approach is too locked in the Christian paradigm, at

least from my perspective, and I find problems with her approach. For

instance, how can you love something so much that you don't know for

sure even exists? She emphasized many times that it was a personal

relationship. Is a personal relationship with God really necessary?

She said it has to be a God that cares for us, and the essence of the

Trinity is relationship. I think possibly it's because she's a woman

that she has such an emphasis on the relationship side of things. I

probably feel this way because I've always leaned towards the path of

self-inquiry instead of the path of devotion, although I know that

any path will include elements of the other. I also feel that in her

path she was trying to force-fit Christ into the picture, and this is

what led to much of the unnecessary complexity in her thought. She

talked of Christ, not God, being the problem for her. I figure

there's no reason to fit him in, but that kind of thinking would have

been unacceptable in her strongly Catholic upbringing. Of course she

doesn't insist that being a Christian is completely necessary, and

she commented once that one of her favorite saints is Ramakrishna.

She said, " You can go all the way within any tradition. " From what I

can tell, she does think however it's the most effective way for

someone who has been brought up in the west, and probably 95% of her

message is steeped in the Christian approach. I was not disappointed

about this because I had been warned beforehand of this fact, but it

does make for limitations if you're not living in the Christian

tradition.

 

In the end, I found her willingness to be unorthodox and state her

unpopular message that all religions are not one refreshing. Her

confrontational approach could be valuable in helping a seeker see

motives such as selfishness, self-absorption, and lack of

seriousness. Her confidence and statements about her realization,

together with seeing her at the retreat, leave me convinced she is an

awakened person, but her approach is not for everyone as she admits

herself. I left a little inspired at having met someone who left all

self-concern go in her search for truth, and I got a little taste of

the freedom that was possible with that attitude, but I was also

confronted with the fact I am not at that level of seriousness, at

least not at the moment.

 

 

 

Kiffy's Impressions and Notes:

 

I am writing this now one week and a half after returning from a

retreat hosted by Bernadette Roberts in Loveland, OH. Before going

into the notes I took during the retreat, and my impression 10 days

after the conclusion of the retreat, I want to share what I wrote the

Sunday I returned home, right after the retreat had finished.

 

" Just came home from Bernadette Roberts, and was more struck by the

retreat than I was expecting. The strongest message that I took from

the retreat was the sense of giving one's all for Almighty God, that

such was a legitimate path for that woman, and that she lived it like

very few people did. (I was struck by the fact that) prayer to God

was her practice, it was her way of trying to move closer to the

Truth….

" I was driving home tonight and I kept turning my mind back towards

this idea of God, this idea of a being greater than myself that would

solve my problems if I asked him to -- that there is help on this

path and that this way of trying to do it on my own ... it struck me

that I'm so clueless within myself and that only God really knows

what I need and what's going to get me there (an answer)….. I just

feel like that's more valid, and in some sense more guaranteed to be

free of errors, provided that there is this higher power to help out.

And that was my focus a few years ago, at least ostensibly, and I

trusted that higher power to basically take care of things.... And

now I'm on my own? Now I can't ask for help, though I may desperately

need it? Being around Bernadette, hearing her speak, made me think

how silly that conviction is. "

 

Now, ten days after the fact, the intensity of my praying to God has

diminished some. However, one of the key things which Bernadette

opened me up to, or at least served as a strong reminder of, was this

idea that God already knows everything about me, that prayer can

basically be an opening of myself to myself, a sort of inner

relaxation of censoring and judgment, and a recognition of my

helplessness. That inner movement, that admission of my helplessness

to myself, has the feeling of being more to the point than other

forms of spiritual work. That was the core of what I took away from

Bernadette's retreat. That said, here are some of the other notes I

took during the retreat, broken down according to category.

 

On Gurus, Spiritual teachers:

 

" There's no truth to this idea of sitting around a guru and picking

something up -- it's all self-fulfilling prophecy. "

On Suffering that comes from God:

" Bear it, let it burn you out, and get on with your life. "

" Our whole life is a preparation just to sustain, or bear, the

experience of no-self. "

" A dark night is a night of infused contemplation - this darkness is

caused by too much light. "

On Spiritual Desire/Intuition:

" When people say they want no-self, they really want no selfish

self. "

" There is nothing you can't go beyond without experiencing it. You

have to live self fully -- God made us that way. People think they

can somehow escape. "

" All resonance is self-resonance, it has nothing to do with God. "

" We rarely hear the truth, but when you do, it's like getting hit. I

don't know how I know, but I just know. "

" We miss a lot of truth because it's unbelievable. "

" I never felt any special mission. "

" The thought 'I want God' is the greatest good within a person,

capable of the greatest good on earth. "

On Action:

" Prayer is a spontaneous relationship with God, whatever that is, be

it joy, depression, etc. "

" A real contemplative sets their whole life to that clock, the clock

of contemplation. "

" You can let go all you want, it doesn't go any good. In one second,

God can step in, and it (what you were trying to let go of) is gone. "

" Investigating the self has nothing to do with God or the spiritual

life. "

" The only thing I ever confessed was 'I wasted time,' and I went to

pieces over it. It was the most tragic moment of my life. "

" God takes something from us, and then we can practice detachment, by

just taking it, without kicking and screaming. Real detachment is

when God takes something away. "

Bernadette mentioned that she used meditation on the rosary as a way

to clear her mind -- any time she felt distracted, she just meditated

on the rosary, and her mind was clear.

" The more you fight the way things are, the worse it's going to be

for you. "

Bernadette mentioned that our usual reaction to affliction is action,

some way of taking our attention off of the affliction. She advised

that a person instead just sit with it, let it grind internally, and

bear it. It will burn the ego out.

" Confession gives the sense of a new beginning, of a fresh start. "

" Go off by yourself -- find silence. "

On Grace/Faith/God:

" Every grace brings with it the sense of immediate change -- life

will never be the same. "

" Grace is what leads us to want God, to seek God…. (Like Joseph

Sadony with intuition) if you don't follow the grace when it comes,

you won't get any more. "

" You can't think of anything that is closer to you than yourself --

that is God. "

" I can renew my mind anytime I want -- it won't do anything to

transform me. "

" Faith is a determination to be focused on God. You can manipulate

your will, you can focus it where you want, when you keep it one-

pointed on God. "

" Faith does not have an object. "

On Helping Others:

" What people really needed was God, not a tray of mush - someone else

can bring that tray to them. "

" More than anything, people need Grace. "

On Progress:

" We don't feel we're being transformed into anything. But suddenly,

God takes something away. "

Although Bernadette framed her own experience in the context of

Catholicism, she also thought that Ramakrishna had " made the trip, "

and he did so by his devout " love of God. " Such statements as these

were proof to me that even though Bernadette advocated Catholicism as

the best means of growing spiritually, she is also willing to admit

the possibility of other paths. The way I understood it, a

person's " love of God " was the key ingredient, and indeed the only

worthwhile practice in Bernadette's mind.

A fair percentage of the people who were in attendance at the retreat

on Friday night were gone by Saturday evening. It seemed that

Bernadette's focus on Christianity turned a lot of people off. I

thought this was unfortunate, because to me she came across as a

sincere individual with a depth of wisdom I have seldom seen, and I

thought that beneath the veil of Christianity some of the things she

had to say were extremely relevant and profound.

 

 

 

See www.geocities.com/keithops/brretreat.htm for information on the

October 2006 retreat and future ones. The painting of the monk

(above) is from cover of Contemplative: Autobiography of the Early

Years, self-published by Bernadette Roberts and available through

www.bernadettesfriends.blogspot.com, which also has information on

the annual retreat in California.