FOUND!! Western how-to text!!

[Guest guest]

Called THE BOOK OF PRIVY COUNSELING, this is a remarkable 14th guide to

contemplation from the anonymous English author of THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING.

PRIVY COUNSELING has what we had been discussing earlier in this thread but

hadn't really found - an authentically Western non-dual vision, a very

direct step-by-step method, and a description of the unspeakable joy that

is revealed as the fruit. This is all simpler, more explicit and more

direct than I've ever seen in a Western text. I can only suspect that

there are likely many more such texts out there, lying around monastery

libraries and English country-house attics.

 

[[This paragraph's info comes from editor William Johnston's Forward. The

author was an English churchman, mystic and theologian. He remained

anonymous. One of his influences was the great 6th century Syrian

(Christian) mystic Dionysius the Areopagite, who wrote Mystical Theology.

Our English author translated it as Hid Divinity.]]

 

Although they are in print, these two English books are little known in the

West, overshadowed by the more lyrical St. John of the Cross' DARK NIGHT OF

THE SOUL. In fact, Bernadette Roberts wrote a lot about non-dualism from

the Christian tradition, and used St. John as her guide. I never saw her

mention PRIVY COUNSELING.

 

Before the quotations, here is the bibliographical info:

 

THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING and THE BOOK OF PRIVY COUNSELING.

Edited by William Johnston, Image Books, Doubleday, c1973,

30th printing, 1996. ISBN 0-385-03097-5

 

Here are excerpts of THE BOOK OF PRIVY COUNSELING showing both aspects,

(I.) the author's non-dual vision, and a (II.) bit about the fact that he

had a method. All emphasis in the original (denoted by asterisks like *this*)

 

I. THE NON-DUAL VISION

======================

>From Chapter 1

==============

He is your being, but you are not his.

 

....

 

"That which I am, I offer to you,

O Lord, for you are it entirely."

>From Chapter 2

==============

In any case, do not think *what you are* but *that you are.*

>From Chapter 13

===============

I did not say that you must desire to un-be, for that is madness and

blasphemy against God. I said that you must desire to lose the knowledge

and experience of self.

>From Chapter 21

===============

Finally, the mind which sees and experiences God as he is in his naked

reality is no more separate from him than he is from his own being, which,

as we know, is one in essence and nature. For just as God is one with his

being because they are one in nature, so the spirit, which sees and

experiences him, is one with him whom it sees and experiences, because they

have become one in grace.

 

 

II. EXCERPTS FROM THE HOW-TO'S

==============================

 

Chapter 1

=========

When you go apart to be alone for prayer, put from your mind everything you

have been doing or plan to do. reject all thoughts, be they good or be

they evil.

 

Chapter 2

=========

It is not hard to master this way of thinking. I am certain that even the

most uneducated man or woman, accustomed to a very primitive type of life,

can easily learn it.

 

Chapter 3

=========

If you begin to analyze thoroughly any or all of man's refined faculties

and exalted qualities (for he is the noblest of all God's creatures), you

will come at length to the farthest reaches and ultimate frontiers of

thought only to find yourself face to face with naked being itself.

 

Chapter 4

=========

All this you can verify with the authority of the Scriptures, the example

of Christ, and the scrutiny of sound logic.

 

Chapter 5

=========

You have reached a point where your further growth in perfection demands

that you do not feed your mind with meditations on the multiple aspects of

your being. ... For there is no name, no experience, and no insight so

akin to the everlastingness of God than what you can ossess, percieve, and

actually experience in the blind loving awareness of this word, *is*.

[emphasis in the original]

 

Chapter 12

==========

But now I want you to understand that although in the beginning I told you

to forget everything save the blind awareness of your naked being, I

intended all along to lead you eventually to the point where you would

forget even this, so as to experience only the being of God.