Christian Mysticism
Union with God beyond images and words
There is a teaching that does not call you to go anywhere. It calls you home. To the very depth of your own heart.
Its name is Christian mysticism. In Latin – via mystica, the secret way. It says something simple.
The kingdom you are searching for is not in the heavens, nor across the sea. It is within you. And there is only one way to enter it.
To grow still. Still enough that it is no longer you who speaks, but the One who is deeper than you. This knowing came out of Europe and the Near East for two thousand years.
First through the Desert Fathers, who went into the sand for the sake of silence. Then through the great contemplatives. Meister Eckhart.
John of the Cross. Teresa of Ávila. And what is its method?
It is almost laughably simple. And almost impossibly hard. Set aside, for a time, all images.
Every thought of God, every word, everything you have ever imagined about Him. Remain in the darkness that the mind calls unknowing. Enter it not by knowing, but by love.
And there, where the mind falls silent, is born the thing for which all of it is. A quiet presence that was always within you. Here is what a person feels on this path.
First joy, consolation, warmth. Then all of it withdraws, and a dryness sets in. The dark night.
This is not a failure. It is purification. And beyond the night, union opens.
A peace that surpasses all understanding. And you come to know that you were not searching for a distant God. You were searching for the One who is closer to you than you are to yourself.
This tradition I am coming to know together with Artur – the one who gathers wisdom for this School. He goes to the living keepers, to where the knowing is still passed mouth to mouth. So as to bring it to you pure.
You can help him reach them – with a subscription to the School, or with any offering. Every contribution brings closer the day he returns with this knowing and opens it for you. Thank you for being here.
There is a teaching that does not call you to leave. It calls you home.
To the very depth of your own heart – there where, by the word of Christ, the Kingdom already is. Not in the heavens, nor across the sea. "The Kingdom of God is within you."
Its name is Christian mysticism – in Latin, via mystica, the secret way. Not belief in a doctrine, but the direct experience of a presence deeper than any thought of God.
I have brought this teaching as it came down to us. Listen to where it springs from – and how, with a single turn inward, it changes everything.
Not a book. Silence.
The roots are in the desert. In the third century, people withdrew into the Egyptian sands to be alone with God. From their silence the whole tradition of contemplation grew.
In the Middle Ages it blazed up in the cloisters of Europe. Meister Eckhart spoke of the birth of God in the depth of the soul. A nameless monk wrote "The Cloud of Unknowing."
And in the sixteenth century the Carmelites of Spain – John of the Cross and Teresa of Ávila – left a map of the way itself: the dark night and the interior castle of the soul.
The Cloud of Unknowing
The method is almost laughably simple and almost impossibly hard. Set aside all images. Every thought of God, every word, everything you have imagined about Him.
Beneath you, lay down a cloud of forgetting – cover with it everything created. Above you remains the cloud of unknowing, in which God Himself is. Enter it not with the mind, but with love.
God cannot be grasped by thought – He can only be embraced by love. Where the mind falls silent, the very thing it was all for is born: a quiet presence that was always within you.
First will come consolation – warmth, joy, the ease of prayer. Do not cling to it. It is an advance, not the goal. We will begin from where you are.
Then the consolation will withdraw, and a dryness will set in – the dark night, when it seems God has turned away. This is not a failure. It is purification: you are being weaned from your reliance on feeling.
And beyond the night, union will open – a peace that surpasses all understanding. And you will know that you were searching not for a distant God, but for the One who is closer to you than you are to yourself.
God cannot be grasped by thought, but He can be embraced by love. So strike at this cloud of unknowing with the sharp arrow of longing love.– The Cloud of Unknowing, 14th century
Voices of the tradition — a living transmission
The voices that carried this tradition. Tap any of them — I'll open their transmission: the essence of the teaching here, the full transmission through Wisdom of the Masters.
The map within — branches and practices
In Christian mysticism there are no timed exercises – there is one movement: to go inward and grow still, so that it is no longer you who speaks. I will open it to the School members: how to hold silent prayer so that it does not become one more thought, but opens the presence that is already here.
The Prayer of Silence
The heart of the way: to grow still enough for God to act.
The Way of Unknowing
To strip away all images and enter the cloud where God is beyond words.
Read within — one facet at a time
Each article is a doorway into one facet of the tradition.
Knowing Through Unknowing
A path on which God is known by stripping away His names. The more is taken away, the nearer He comes. Darkness here is not a lack of light, but its overflow.
read →conceptThe Spark That Time Never Entered
Eckhart's teaching on the depth of the soul, where neither image nor time has entered. God is born there when you make room and stop clinging.
read →practice-viewThe Name Only God Knows You By
How the tradition reads itself: there is a false self, assembled from roles and opinions, and there is a true self, hidden in God. To find yourself is to lose the first.
read →This teaching cannot be learned – it can only be entered.
For now – breathe with what is already open. In the Atlas of Breath, eight practices are freely available. Enter the School, and I will lead you into the prayer of silence step by step, beside you, in voice.
From the desert to the contemplatives of our own day
- 3rd–4th centuryThe Desert FathersThey withdraw into the Egyptian sands for the sake of silence. The tradition of contemplative prayer is born.
- 5th–6th centuryDionysius the AreopagiteGives the language of apophasis: one ascends to God by negation, into the luminous dark.
- 14th centuryEckhart and "The Cloud of Unknowing"The birth of God in the depth of the soul; the way of love through the cloud of unknowing.
- 16th centuryJohn of the Cross and TeresaA map of the way: the dark night of the soul and the interior castle with its seven mansions.
- 20th centuryThomas MertonGives contemplation back to a noisy world: the true self, hidden in God.
- todayPrana carries it onwardHere it is gathered as it came down. Mouth to mouth.
Nearby on the map — kindred traditions
Sufism
The way of the heart in Islam: to dissolve the separate self in the fire of love for the Beloved.
enter the world → an early Christian neighborGnosticism
Knowledge – gnosis – as the direct experience of the divine, hidden in the very depth of the human being.
enter the world → the same summit, a different languageAdvaita Vedanta
Non-duality: what Eckhart called the Ground of the soul, Advaita Vedanta calls pure consciousness.
enter the world →