Contemplative

“ In examining these effects we must keep in view the double side of the contemplative attitude, the wide range of free movement which perception and imagination claim and enjoy, and the willing subjection of the contemplative mind to the spell of the object. A deeper inspection of the contemplative mood may be expected to render clearer the difference between the mental activity employed in aesthetic perception and imagination and intellectual activity proper ”

“ The contemplative life essentially concerns the intellect. But all the intellectual perfections of this life will be made void, as we read: Whether prophecies shall be made void, or tongues shall cease, or knowledge shall be destroyed. ”

“ But the Philosopher says that the contemplative life is "beyond man" in the sense that it belongs to us according to what is Divine in us—namely, our intellect; for our intellect is incorruptible and impassible in itself, and consequently its action can be more lasting. ”

“ A thing may pertain to the contemplative life either essentially or by way of disposition towards it. Essentially, then, the moral virtues do not pertain to the contemplative life; for the goal of the contemplative life is the consideration of truth. ”

“ And in this lies the full perfection of the contemplative life: that the Divine Truth should not only be seen but loved.
2. Again, strife and contention hinder delight. But in contemplation there is strife and contention, for S. Gregory says [387] : "The soul, when it strives after the contemplation of God, finds itself engaged in a species of combat; at one time it seems to prevail, for by understanding and by feeling it tastes somewhat of the Infinite Light; at other times it is overwhelmed, for when it has tasted it faints." ”

“ Authentic spirituality, with its concomitant societal concern, illustrates the need for an engaged commitment for the factuality of human experience in all areas of the human endeavour, not only in moments of beauty and wonder, but also in times of monotony and opaqueness. A contemplative spirituality, which is open to the mystical, manifests a greater sense of wonder and awe in the natural world. ”

“ The contemplative soul, unequally guided, sometimes toward abundance and sometimes toward barrenness, though ever advancing, is illuminated by the primitive ideas, the rays that emanate from the Divine Intelligence, whenever it ascends toward the Sublime Treasures. ”

“ And the intellect itself is divided into the contemplative and the active, for the aim of intellectual knowledge is either the actual knowledge of the truth—and this belongs to the contemplative intellect, or it is some external action—and this concerns the practical or active intellect. Hence life is quite sufficiently divided into the active and the contemplative. ”

“ In the active life all the vices are first of all to be removed by the practice of good works, so that in the contemplative life a man may, with now purified mental gaze, pass to the contemplation of the Divine Light. ”

“ Therefore this transitional stage in the development of the contemplative powers--in one sense the completion of their elementary schooling, in another the beginning of their true activities--is concerned with the toughening and further training of that will which self-simplification has detached from its old concentration upon the unreal wants and interests of the self. Merged with your intuitive love, this is to become the true agent of your encounter with Reality ”

“ That this happiness is contemplative, has been already said, and this would seem to be consistent with truth, for this, in the first place, contemplative working is of the highest kind, our intellect being the highest of our internal principles ”

“ The deep, contemplative, spiritual soul could find little or no food in the false, clap-trap representations of the modern stage. And to find an increased interest here is evidence that one lacks spiritual life, at least deep-seated spiritual life. ”

“ Eighthly, because the contemplative life pertains to that which is more peculiar to man—namely, his intellect—whereas in the works of the active life our inferior powers—those, namely, which we share with the brute creation—have a part ”

“ But contemplation is concerned with the simple dwelling upon the truth itself. Hence Richard of S. Victor says [343] : "Contemplation is the soul's clear, free, and attentive dwelling upon the truth to be perceived; meditation is the outlook of the soul occupied in searching for the truth; [Pg 189] thought is the soul's glance, ever prone to distraction."
2. Further, the Apostle says: But we all, beholding the glory of the Lord with open face, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory. [344] But this refers to the contemplative life ”

“ Hence contemplation, having regard to the actual essence of it, is an act of the intellect; but if we consider that which moves us to the exercise of such an act, then contemplation is an act of the will; for it is the will which moves all the other faculties, including the intellect, to the exercise of their appropriate acts. ”

“ But we may also consider the active life from the standpoint of the harmony and order which it introduces into the interior passions of the soul; and from this point of view the active life is an assistance to contemplation since this latter is hindered by the disturbance arising from the passions. ”

“ Consequently it seems that many acts belong to contemplation.
But wonderment is a species of fear arising from our learning something which it is beyond our powers to understand. Hence wonderment is an act subsequent to the contemplation of sublime truth, whereas contemplation reaches its goal in the affective powers. ”

“ Into his spiritual sight will come the Principles of the divine Life, and as he approaches them, their incomparable beauty and majestic symmetry will astonish his vision, and gladden his heart with a gladness hitherto unknown. ”

“ Thus meditation is a certain inquisitive power of the mind, sagaciously striving to look into the obscure and unravel the perplexed. Contemplation is that acumen of intelligence which, keeping all things open to view, comprehends all with clear vision. ”

“ What would the soul in its perfection mirror? Would it reflect within itself the myriad life of humanity? Would the spirit mirror the heavens, and the imaginations of the Divine Mind well up within it in mystic and transcendental ideations? ”

“ I do not believe that either to myself or my friend were such words spoken, but the whole being is lifted up in vision and overmastered, and the words that came flying upward in consciousness perhaps represent our sudden harmony with a life which is beyond ourselves, we in our words interpreting the life of the spirit. ”

“ What is contemplation? It is attention to the things of the spirit: surely no outlandish or alarming practice, foreign to the general drift of human life. Were we true to our own beliefs, it should rather be our central and supremely natural activity; the way in which we turn to the spiritual world, and pick up the messages it sends to us. ”

“ In our immature sense of spiritual things, let us say of the beauties of the sensuous universe: “I love your promise; and shall know, some time, the spiritual reality and substance of form, light, and color, of what I now through you discern dimly; and knowing this, I shall be satisfied. Matter is a frail conception of mortal mind; and mortal mind is a poorer representative of the beauty, grandeur, and glory of the immortal Mind.” ”

“ The contemplation of the first elevates the mind, expands the capacity, produces grateful reflections, and fills the mind with wonder, admiration, and enlivening hopes; the contemplation of the second produces doubt, distrust, and uncertainty, and fills the mind with gloomy apprehensions. ”

“ In a word, the key to any important spiritual experience is intention, inward pre-perception, that holds the mind intently focussed in expectation, without which the "flash" of spiritual vision is not likely to come. ”

“ He who resolves that he will not rest satisfied with appearances, shadows, illusions shall, by the piercing light of that resolve, disperse every fleeting phantasy, and shall enter into the substance and reality of life. ”

“ So that if at this time the will desires to understand and consider particular things, however spiritual they be, this would obstruct the pure and simple general light of the spirit, by setting those clouds in the way; even as a man might set something before his eyes which impeded his vision and kept from him both the light and the sight of things in front of him. ”

“ What we wish to contemplate here are the plain facts, the knowledge of which enlivens and enriches one’s mind and nature. If the contemplation of them kindles one’s fancy or excites one’s emotions, these results at least will not be second-hand. ”

“ As in lofty experiences of appreciation of beauty, or of music, or when the chords of life are swept by a great love, or by a momentous moral issue, the spirit rises in mystical experience to a form of consciousness which no longer marks clock-time and succession of events, whether outward or inward. ”

“ Outside that contemplation of hers nothing in the world exists; and the deeper that contemplation is, the more silent. Believe me, Will, Action, Effort, are only enfeebled and deflected contemplations of God. ”

“ By means of such discipline the mental horizon can be flooded with the sunshine of beauty, wholeness, and harmony. To inaugurate pure and lofty thinking may at first seem difficult, even almost mechanical, but perseverance will at length render it easy, then pleasant, and finally delightful.
“The soul's real world is that which it has built of its thoughts, mental states, and imaginations. If we will, we can turn our backs upon the lower and sensuous plane, and lift ourselves into the realm of the spiritual and Real, and there gain a residence. ”

“ Ever doth this same nature double its divine form, and stand forth—now before the inner, now before the outer sense of man—at once substance and form, image and idea, so that God shall never slip wholly from consciousness of the Soul. ”

“ The commonest objection which the doctrine there laid down runs up against is drawn from the existence of our ‘affections.’ In our pleasures and pains, our loves and fears and angers, in the beauty, comicality, importance or preciousness of certain objects and situations, we have, I am told by many critics, a great realm of experience intuitively recognized as spiritual, made, and felt to be made, of consciousness exclusively, and different in nature from the space-filling kind of being which is enjoyed by physical objects. ”

“ What seems to be contemplation—that consciousness which the spirit acquires of itself, and, acquiring which, realises itself—is a creation: a creation not of things but of its own self. For what are things but the spirit as it is looked at abstractly in the multiplicity of its manifestations? ”

“ The soul in contemplation views the world from afar off, just as, when we proceed to God by the way of abstraction, we deny Him, first all bodily and sensible attributes, then intelligible qualities, and, lastly, that being (esse) which keeps Him among created things. ”

“ How can there be any conscious life, natural or spiritual, without sensation? Sensation, and perception which is only a more interior sensation, are the states of the spirit itself in the act of recognizing the existence and qualities of things. ”

“ That is its soul—only it is silent in the flower, while it manifests itself in man by words. Real life is, after all, the bodily and spiritual life; real consciousness is, after all, the bodily and spiritual consciousness ”

“ For this dark contemplation infuses into the soul love and wisdom jointly, to each one according to his capacity and need, enlightening the soul and purging it, in the words of the Wise Man, from its ignorances, as he said was done to himself. ”

“ Thus, and this is the conclusion at which we aim, it is in the soul, regarded as the focus of all those rays refracted through the senses, as the central light outshining all others, that we must set the power and the right to discern what the senses do not discern, and to pierce to a depth forever beyond their reach. ”

“ Under the vitalising touch of the Beautiful, our consciousness seems filled with the affirmation of what life is, what is worth being, what among our many thoughts and acts and feelings are real and organic and important, what among the many possible moods is the real, eternal ourself. ”

“ Yet, we may faintly shadow those ecstatic raptures, if we remember that every faculty of the mind, each affection of the spirit, will then be fully and forever occupied in fulfilling its highest destinies—Love, Knowledge, Use. ”

“ How, then, should we act on these facts? Plainly we must endeavor to draw in as much spiritual life as possible, and we must place our minds in any attitude which experience shows to be favorable to such indrawal. ”

“ V THE PLACE OF AFFECTIONAL FACTS IN A WORLD OF PURE EXPERIENCE [75]
Common sense and popular philosophy are as dualistic as it is possible to be. Thoughts, we all naturally think, are made of one kind of substance, and things of another. Consciousness, flowing inside of us in the forms of conception or judgment, or concentrating itself in the shape of passion or emotion, can be directly felt as the spiritual activity which it is, and known in contrast with the space-filling objective ‘content’ which it envelopes and accompanies. ”

“ Seeing that my soul is tending towards You through knowledge which is spiritual, strange, unknown to sense, also communicate Yourself to it so interiorly and so profoundly that the senses may not observe it. ”

“ But the moment the mind opens, and reveals the laws which traverse the universe, and make things what they are, then shrinks the great world at once into a mere illustration and fable of this mind. What am I? and What is? asks the human spirit with a curiosity new-kindled, but never to be quenched. ”