Richard Rohr - What the Mystics Know: Seven Pathways to Your Deeper Self

RICHARD ROHR

WHAT THE

MYSTICS
KNOW

Seven Pathways to Your Deeper Self

A C ROSSROAD B OOK
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I HOPE THAT THIS BOOK CAN INVITE YOU into the seemingly simple yet always profound realm of those who have found their way close to God and all of creation, and it can place the path of the mystic within your reach. We have failed our people profoundly by mystifying the very notion of mysticism.

Can seeing with the eyes of mystics really have relevance in our busy modern world? I think it is not only relevant but absolutely necessary to change our levels of consciousness, which many religious traditions might have also called growth in holiness or divine union. As Einstein said, but now in my own words, we have tried to solve todays problems with yesterdays softwarewhich often caused the problem in the first place. Through a regular practice of contemplation we can awaken to the profound presence of the unitive Spirit, which then gives us the courage and capacity to face the paradox that everything isourselves included. Higher levels of consciousness always allow us to include and understand more. Deeper levels of divine union allow us to forgive and show compassion toward more and more, even those we are not naturally attracted to, or even our enemies.

Mystics have plumbed the depths of both suffering and love and emerged with depths of compassion for the world, and a learned capacity to recognize God within themselves, in others, and in all things. If we can read with an attitude of simple mindfulness, the insights and practices shared here can equip us with a deep and embracing peace, even in the presence of the many kinds of limitation and suffering that life offers us. From such contact with the deep rivers of grace, we can live our lives from a place of nonjudgment, forgiveness, love, and a quiet contentment with the ordinariness of our lives. Knowing now that it is not ordinary at all!

Through each of the seven pathways outlined in the book, we can discover, in the context of a mature Christianity, or any religion, the God who is closer to me than I am to myself, as St. Augustine puts it. Through the use of scriptures and both traditional and new metaphors, I want to give thoughtful guidance from classic sources, so you can know that your experience is not just your experience but the common domain of the perennial, or wisdom, traditions, which will always come to the surface in every age. How else can we distinguish the guidance of the Holy Spirit from our own egoic whims and fantasies?

Read a small passage from this bookall selected by others from a lifetime of speaking and writingand carry it with you in your thoughts, hearts, and prayers throughout the day, and then notice what rises up within you. By applying what the mystics know to your momentary outlook, you will be able to bring open-heartedness into the life you lead and the work you do. Then you might just be able to recognize that the ordinary path can also be the way of the mystic. It is all a matter of the eyes and the heart.

I want to full-heartedly dedicate this book to the love, work, and memory of a dear friend, John Jones. He was more excited about making this book happen than I was! He used his own time, with the full support of Gwendolin Herder and Crossroad Press to make this book happen. John was able to see and deeply value things that I had said as I merely grasped for words that might express my own inner experiencethings I often wrote only intuitively or haphazardly. It was he who had the wisdom and perception of the saints to know what I really wanted to say!

John Jones had the courage and clarity to perceive the seven underlying themes that became this small book. When the Crossroad staff quietly presented the first draft to me, after John had tragically passed overso youngI could only sigh and weep, and recognize that he was still my friend, but now from the other side. I thank you, John, a truly good man! For that is what you are.

Part One
T HE E NLIGHTENMENT Y OU S EEK
A LREADY D WELLS W ITHIN Y OU

We dont think ourselves into a new way of living.
We live ourselves into a new way of thinking.

How do you find what is supposedly already there? Why isnt it obvious? How do you awaken the Center? By thinking about it? By praying and meditating? By more silence and solitude? Yes, perhaps, but mostly by livingand living consciously. The edges suffered and enjoyed lead us back to the Center. The street person feels cold and rejection and has to go to a deeper place for warmth. The hero pushes against his own self-interested edges and finds that they dont matter. The alcoholic woman recognizes how she has hurt her family and breaks through to a compassion beyond her. In each case, the edges suffer, inform, partially self-destruct, and all are found to be unnecessary and even part of the problem. That which feels the pain also lets it go, and the Center stands revealed and sufficient! We do not find our own Center; it finds us. The body is in the soul. It is both the place of contact and the place of surrender.

We dont think ourselves into a new way of living. We live ourselves into a new way of thinking. The journeys around the circumference lead us to life at the Center. Then by what is certainly a vicious and virtuous circle, the Center calls all the journeys at the circumference into question! The ruthless ambition of the businessman can lead him to the very failure and emptiness that is the point of his conversion. Is the ambition therefore good or evil? Do we really have to sin to know salvation? Call me a sin mystic, but that is exactly what I see happening in all my pastoral experience.