Holistic Christianity: The Vision of Catholic Mysticism

An Interview with Joe Conti

How did you come to write Holistic Christianity: The Vision of Catholic Mysticism?

In my teens, I left Catholicism to practice esoteric yoga for about fifteen years – eight of them under the direction of a swami (Hindu monk). My goal was to live constantly in the awareness of God’s omnipresence – the divine presence which yoga so beautifully describes as Sat-Chit-Ananda: Existence, Knowledge, Bliss. I was impressed by the mystical, philosophical, and holistic resources I found in the yoga path – and came to experientially discover. As my years of sadhana continued, I came indeed to experience an abiding sense of God’s presence: a first-hand sensing of that peace and joy of which the ancient yogis had sung.

At a certain point I began reading the writings of the Christian mystics (hitherto unknown to me) and works of Catholic metaphysicians – particularly those of Jacques Maritain. I was stunned by the existential and spiritual depths of these works. I had found in yoga a deep magic – but in the intuitions of the Christian mystics I discovered (in a phrase of C.S. Lewis) a “deeper magic still.” The great principle of this sublimity is the Way of Christ – that is, Christ’s recapitulating his Mysteries in us unto intimacy with the Father in this life, and beyond this life to the divine plenitude of beatific vision.

My re-discovery of Catholicism included my amazement at its holistic character. I found Catholicism's vision of reality vital with unitive and interlacing realities. For example, while many non-Catholic understandings of Christianity exclude (or marginalize) forms of knowledge outside of the scripture, Catholicism exhibits a robust appreciation for many sources of understanding, including mystical, metaphysical, and aesthetic.

Unfortunately, integral character of Catholicism's vision remains hidden from many, given the unfortunate tendency to present its truths in isolation from one another, obscuring their unitive splendor. That's why I wrote HOLISTIC CHRISTIANITY: to disclose and elaborate Catholicism’s profoundly symphonic vision. A Great Wreath of Being – that’s that's what reality looks like from a Catholic perspective.  

There are a number of attempts to renew the Christian contemplative life. Which ones do you find the most promising?

I think Fr. Thomas Keating’s teaching on “centering prayer” has made an important contribution to this renewal. This was underscored for me some years ago at a centering prayer workshop, on hearing a participant say, after instruction in centering prayer and a twenty minute prayer period: “I have never until this evening conceived of silence as a way of openness to God-- but I have just experienced this. I feel I have found a new way to love God!”

The significance of prayer does not, of course, lie in quieting the mind per se, but in love of God. For some Christians the way of loving interior silence before God is part-and-parcel of that love. One of my favorite sayings on this comes from Blessed Elizabeth of the Trinity:

Go out of yourself
in order to adhere to God
by a very simple, wholly loving movement
which allows God to imprint Himself on them and
to transform them into Himself.

In this light, I think Keating's work has been assisting two kinds of Christians. First, it has helped Christians who have been consciously drawn to interior silence as communion with God, but have come to doubt its authenticity as true communion. They are properly reassured in centering prayer workshops that silent love of God is one (of many) authentic ways of communion with God.

Second, the centering prayer method has helped Christians who have not been consciously drawn to the way of silent love, but who (through its method) come to experience a simplicity of prayer that, unexpectedly, speaks to their hearts as love of God. Now it may become for them one of the many true ways they open themselves to God. So Keating's work is very important.

In quite a different manner, I see Bernadette's Roberts’ work (e.g., The Experience of No-Self, What is Self?) as making a uniquely important contribution to the renewal of our understanding of the contemplative life. The importance of Roberts’ work is that it supplies a compellingly profound overview of the spiritual journey from beginning to end, whereas most discussions of the journey end at the unitive life – which is only the half-way point of the journey to our final estate: the beatific vision, full incorporation in the Trinity through Christ.

What do you think of the current interest that Catholics have in Eastern forms of meditation?

Lovers of God of one religion will always want to know what lovers of God of another religion experience of their common Beloved. The French Catholic novelist Paul Mauriac expressed this well: “It is somewhat similar to our discovery of strangers who know and love as we do a secret spot in the forest which was the goal of our lonely walks. We are surprised that they found it by other paths which we did not know existed.” So interest in Eastern meditation, and the experiences of its practitioners, will be of abiding interest to Christians.

Three dimensions of Eastern forms of meditation have had salubrious effect on Christians. The first is the immanence of God – God with us as the innermost dimension of our being. Though this is a hoary Christian view, its underscoring by Eastern religion has invited many Christians to look within for God. A second benefit is Eastern religion's emphasis on the spirituality of interior silence (my remarks on Keating's work speak to the significance of silence in Christian prayer.) Third, elements of Eastern mysticism's critique of the ego have been a bracing antidote to the secular world's celebration of egoism; elements of the Eastern critique of ego has enriched the Christianity's critique.)

And yet, I am concerned that the current interest that Catholics have in Eastern forms of meditation often leads to uncritical and wholesale acceptance of Eastern paradigms of reality. Surely there are likenesses in these paths and their visions of reality; but too often Christians uncritically import elements of Eastern paradigms into Christianity. One of the tenets of the Eight Fold path of Buddhism is "right views." The Buddhists truly affirm the importance of “right views” – as Catholics ought to, also, for wrong views lead to debilitating wrong practices, which fail to invite the Real.

Here are four wrong views I find in far Eastern religions (though each of them is not found in every religion of the East).

One is that the ego is just an idea, an illusion, a concept, that can be transcended by dismissing it in meditation and eschewing it in action. The Christian view is that the ego is not an idea, or an illusion or concept, but a created energy that is not most effectively dismissed by not thinking about it. Because the ego is real, a created energy, the door leading to union with God beyond the ego is not held by a lock turned by a human hand, but one melted by the lightning of grace. This does not mean that human effort is not spiritually efficacious; clearly, to let go of the ego’s demands, moment by moment, is essential to life in God. But the journey beyond ego entails more than a cognitive and even practical dismissal of the ego – because the journey beyond ego is a journey of grace.

So it is that the Christian turns to transforming grace in the spiritual journey, especially that of the Eucharist. Far Eastern religions that reject the help of a personal God (derogating such relationship as unenlightened “duality”) are, in my view, going against the flow of What Is: God is, God cares for all that God has created, God’s grace is. This is not to say people outside of Christianity do not receive transforming grace – they do, and any given non-Christian may be closer to God than any particular Christian. But elevating grace is certainly in the sacraments – God's gift for our transformation. Spiritualities that dismiss Christian sacramentalism (e.g., the Eucharist) as “external religious forms” are not rightly recognizing the significance of grace in the spiritual journey.

A second wrong view of Eastern religion (particularly Hinduism) is that self minus the ego is God. Certainly consciousness that puts the ego aside for love of Truth is inviting deep spiritual insight; Christians certainly ought do this in daily life. But the (Vedantic) Hindu view that God is pure consciousness (egoless consciousness) is incorrect. God far transcends consciousness, egoic or “transcendental.” Human consciousness which has attained a non-egoic state does not know God as God knows God, for God as Trinity is entirely beyond consciousness. The idea that God is consciousness, or awareness, can lead to amorality: now-consciousness can become the ultimate spiritual stance, a stance beyond good and evil, which are erroneously construed as "dualities" that interfere with pristine now-consciousness. But now-consciousness apart from love is spiritually vapid. Love is the way and the means to God, who is Love.

A third wrong view is that the ego is intrinsically deluded, or evil. Is it? Surely when the ego turns to itself as the highest good, it is deluded. But the ego can turn to God as its highest Good, and pursue God. So the ego is not intrinsically disordered or deluded, but is in fact the essential means by which we avidly pursue God as the highest good, and invite God’s grace. Is an energy that can attain God by surrendering to God an illusion?

A fourth wrong view connected to far Eastern forms of meditation is that Christianity is a memorized belief system – based on “faith” – while the truths of far Eastern religions are experimentally verifiable. This critique misunderstands Christianity on two points. It misconceives the Christian understanding of faith, confusing it with mere memorized belief, which faith isn't. Faith, deeply grasped, is thoroughly mystical: it is “divine light exceeding all understanding,” in the words of St. John of the Cross.

Second, the critique incorrectly suggests that the truth of Christ is not verifiable through practice. It is. Christ himself encourages this experiment: “If anyone chooses to do God’s will, he will find out whether my teaching comes from God or whether I speak on my own” (John 7:17).

Joe Conti's email address is: jgconti2003@yahoo.com

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