I want to share with you a short passage from a scripture called “The Cloud of Unknowing” from an anonymous author of 14th century England together with reflections from James Finley about mantra and meditation. I hope to add another perspective to the spectrum of explorations and elaborations on the topic of meditation and mantra. May it continue to inspire and serve you in your practice.
Everything here is taken from the podcast Turning to the Mystics found on the website of the Centre for Action and Contemplation, Season 5: The Cloud of Unknowing, Session 2, Monday, March 28, 2022.
James Finley’s reflections are in italic, the quote of “The Cloud of Unknowing” in translation is in red. All headers were added by me.
We start with some passages from James Finley’s introductory remarks:
The Grace and the Practice
What we find is these fleeting tastes of this unitive state of God in us. We cannot make these fleeting moments last. They pass away as mysteriously as they arise. It doesn’t lie in our power to conjure them up, they’re granted. But we can choose, and this is where the practice comes in: We can choose in our intention to assume an inner stance that offers the least resistance to be overtaken by this oneness with God that has overtaken us so fleetingly in these quickenings.
Trans-Conceptual Knowing Borne of Love
What is this “unknowing”? What does this word unknowing mean in this light? Unknowing doesn’t mean not knowing. But also, unknowing doesn’t mean knowing as we are accustomed to knowing, conceptually, in ego consciousness. This unknowing is trans-conceptual. It is a way of knowing beyond the conceptual knowledge of knowing. Another way to say it that comes closer is: it is the knowledge borne of love.
Thoughts about the Beloved
Who do you know the Beloved to be, and your love for the Beloved? The knowledge that is born of this love is not reducible to any thought about the Beloved. It is not reducible into any words about the Beloved, but it is invited and expressed in the words to the Beloved: I love you. This self-donating love and the knowledge born of that love in this communion.
There is a wonderful passage that shines light on the entire process and the connection between mantra (the word) and meditation, what happens in meditation and how to find best practice. The text from the “Cloud of Unknowing”, which springs from Christian mysticism, suggests a word like “God” or “love”, and James Finley then uses as an example in his reflection the mantra “Jesus”. Although those are all perfect mantras, I took the liberty to introduce instead the word that we as yogis of the Kundalini tradition would use in that instance, “Satnam”.
Notice that, while “Satnam” would be the prefect mantra for the context explained below, when we practice our specific Shabad Guru meditation, we use a somewhat longer mantra which contains “Satnam”. We can use different mantras in different situations, for different purposes. However, in order to program the habit in mind and subconscious efficiently, we should stick to a few only long-term.
The Word
In chapter seven he introduces the word. You use the word to anchor yourself in this ever so subtle stance. Choose a word that is meaningful to you, it might be a phrase. […] When you are sitting in your meditation, of course, these thoughts arise and your reflective self doesn’t politely step aside so you can become mystical. These thoughts keep rising and falling in your mind like this. And we are sitting in this intention, in the rise and fall of these thoughts about God, that in the longing of our heart we are transcending, we have the desire to transcend thought in the midst of thought:
“If you want to gather all your desire into one simple word that the mind can easily retain, choose a short word rather than a long one. A one syllable word, such as God or love, is best. But choose one that is meaningful to you then fix it in your mind so that it will remain there, come what may. This word will be your defence in conflict and in peace. Use it to beat up on the cloud of darkness above you and to subdue all distractions and sending them to the cloud of forgetting beneath you. Should some thought go on annoying you, demanding to know what you are doing, answer with this one word alone. If your mind begins to intellectualise over the meaning and connotation of this little word, remind yourself that its value lies in its simplicity. Do this and I assure you, these thoughts will vanish. Why? Because you refuse to develop them with arguing.”
Spiritual Thoughts, Mystical Thoughts
Do not get into a discussion with spiritual thoughts or you’ll become a “spiritual person”. This you that listens to spiritual thoughts, that has spiritual thoughts, you that is spiritual thoughts, “Satnam, Satnam, Satnam, Satnam”, dies in the emptiness in which you wait for God. You sit a little bit longer and you might have a mystical thought, “All things are one”. Some mystical thought. Do not get into a discussion with a mystical thought or you become these people that think mystical thoughts instead of the realization that transcends all thoughts, including all mystical thoughts. And say to the mystical thought, “Satnam, Satnam, Satnam, Satnam”. And the you that has mystical thoughts, the you that is mystical thoughts, dies in the emptiness in which you wait for God.
The Darkness - No Idea of God is God
This is the passing away of the whole world of thoughts about God as the foundations for the knowledge of God. That we might move beyond the horizons of thoughts about God into this love knowledge of God. In this passage into this love, no harm happens to our sense of scripture, our religious tradition, or our moral intentions, all of that. It is just that all those thoughts, internalized thoughts of God, cease to be the basis as we move beyond the contours and confines of thought into this love that infinitely transcends thought. Because no idea of God is God. Every idea of God is infinitely less than God. And we are passing beyond all ideas of God to enter into God as God infinitely, beyond all ideas of God being divinized forever.
And this is where it is dark to us because of this thinking […] There is that in us that gets this, that in us that is quickened by this. We are drawn to this. This is why we are sitting like this in meditation. So, there is that in you that desires it, but there is also that in you that doesn’t see it yet because there is that in you that is still accustomed to the familiarity of thought.
Meditation Practice
You sit there and thought arises. You watch the thought arising. You’re not trying to stop thoughts from arising, but likewise, you’re trying not to think about the thought that’s arising. Because if you think about the thought that’s arising, it will carry you off again, you’ll be sitting there thinking. So what you’re to do instead is, you see the thought arising, and just become aware that a thought is arising. Observe, be aware as it arises, how it lingers. And as it lingers, how it passes away. Become aware of the next thought arising, the next thought lingering, as it passes away. And so on. The awareness of thought is not thought. If there was only thought, there would be no awareness of thought. The awareness of thought is this contemplative stance, this luminous attentiveness infused with love, that observes thought in a loving knowledge that transcends the thoughts that arise in this way.
And that in us used to thinking doesn’t find this easy. It takes great patience to pass beyond the frontiers of thought in this persistent, gentle and graced way. And that is the darkness. It is dark to the thinking self that is no longer created a space so it can carry out this place where it thinks what it thinks. Because it is given over to this intention of this love, of moving beyond thought into this love, and that is the intimacy of this transformative process. It’s like dying of love at the hands of love until nothing left of us is love. Born in gnosis or the wisdom of love alone.
A Final Thought ;-)
A final thought: This passing beyond thought doesn’t at all mean disrespecting thought or leaving thought behind. Quite the opposite. Because notice when reading these passages of the mystics how clearly they think. They have very clear minds. So actually, liberating ourselves from ideological thinking frees up thinking with a greater luminous clarity to think. Which is wisdom.
And also notice that to pass beyond the veil of this world doesn’t at all mean that we seek to fly off into God and leave this earthly life behind. Because notice how committed the author of The Cloud is to trying to help us. All these mystics are that way because they know by experience how hard this is. But they also know the grace that is given to us in our patient fidelity to it. That the very commitment in which these mystics speak to us is the commitment of love. And so, this way of love doesn’t remove us from the world, it radicalizes our presence in the world by deepening this love in the context in which we find ourself. Father, mothers, sister, brother, students in the classroom, passer-by on the street. Whatever the situation is.
Be still and know I am God.
Be still and know I am.
Be still and know.
Be still.
Be.
“Ek Ong Kaar Satnam Siri Waheguru”
