Session One
Preface
You’re ready to go deeper when you’re ready and not before.
Chapter one
There are four stages of spiritual maturity
Ordinary - ordinary Christian life live in the world with your friends
Special - God’s eternal love calls you closer and leads you as if on a leash to serve God and others.
Singular - God gently pulls you to this level where you learn to walk in kindness toward purity
Perfect - this final level can begin this side of paradise as a gift from Grace, but it “will last forever in the heavenly joy of eternity.”
Chapter two
“Cheer up, Yes, you’re weak. And yes, life is hard.” And we’re off down the contemplative path! Now we see why he said in the preface that this book is NOT for everyone.
In this chapter the author has us diving right into self-reflection and humility. This is standard fare for the mystics at the beginning of the contemplative trail. You can’t skip this work if you seek to go further down the path.
“In every possible way turn your will over to God.”
Chapter three
“Lift up your heart to God with a gentle stirring of love.”
The author is teaching us how to pray by letting go of or as he puts it “forgetting” everything that is less than or other than God. That is, all created things. To let go is the assumption of an inner stance of vulnerability to reception of the gift of having your senses and your mind veiled by a “cloud of unknowing.” Understanding and feeling God in this dark cloud are impossible. “Waiting in this darkness and this cloud is the closest you can get to God on earth.” “Contemplation follows.”
Chapter four
Contemplation is not time consuming “it is as brief as an atom.”
Aspirations and cravings run innumerably down the stream of consciousness.
“We can only know God by experiencing his love.”
Each of us has two strengths - the power to know and the power to love. We can only know God through the latter.
“You were made for contemplation. Contemplation will heal you.”
“Love Jesus, and everything he has will be yours.”
Contemplation is a sudden involuntary impulse toward God flying up from the infinite depth of your own soul like a spark flying up off of a coal into the endless sky above. Afterward you realize you’ve forgotten every attachment you ever had. Then immediately the thoughts come cascading down the stream. That’s no bad thing. The spark will rise just as fast as it did before.
He counsels us to squash the ego in every way. He’s adamant! You’re ready when you’re ready.
Don’t approach contemplation with your intellect or your imagination. Let go. Detach.
When he says, Darkness, he means absence of knowing. Likewise the cloud is a cloud of unknowing.
Chapter five
The cloud of unknowing is above you between you and God
The cloud of forgetting is below you between you and all created things
If you feel alienated when the cloud of unknowing is in place it’s because you haven’t put the cloud of forgetting in place. Alienation comes from the feeling that you’re missing out on something. The cloud of forgetting takes care of that.
Chapter Six
“We can’t think our way to God.”
“Beat on the thick cloud of unknowing with a sharp arrow of longing and never stop loving, no matter what comes your way.”
Skip over discursive meditation even if you are pondering God’s great love. Forget everything covering even the best thoughts of the purity of God’s love with the cloud of forgetting.
Chapter seven
“Thoughts will come.”
Dismiss all thoughts
The thought wants your attention and once it gets it it will start rambling on and on.
The thought will try to engage in long, wonderful conversation about the goodness and kindness of God the love of Jesus.
The thought wants you to listen. It will lead you through a life review of all your past sins and misdeeds.
You set the thought free when you listened to it.
“You only need a naked intent for God. When you long for him that’s enough.”
You might like to gather your focus into a one syllable word (not two). God or love are good ones. This word is your sword and your spear with which you beat on the cloud of unknowing and knock down every thought as it arises. This is the origin of the sacred word in Centering Prayer.
Whenever a thought arises, answer it with this one word. When you refuse to “let if feed” the thought will vanish.
Chapter eight
There are two kinds of life in the church - active (lower) and contemplative (higher) - and both have two stages - higher and lower. The higher stage of the active is the same as the lower stage of the contemplative. All stages are necessary.
“The active life starts and ends on earth, but the contemplative life begins on earth and never ends.”
Lower stage of the active life - you learn acts of mercy and the practice of loving
Higher stage of the active life (also the lower stage of contemplative life) - you start looking deeper and begin meditation. You are remorseful for your “flaws and mistakes” and amazed at God’s mercy. You start getting acquainted with yourself. Self reflection and humility.
Higher stage of contemplative life - as far as we can know it here on earth is only darkness and the cloud of unknowing as we receive “loving nudges to gaze at the naked being of God alone.”
If you’re going to advance to the higher stage of the active life (lower stage of contemplative life) you must “not let your mind turn to you life” and to thoughts. Return every so gently to the sacred word. “Only love [not thinking] can help us reach God.”