Ten Dimensions of Contemplative Thought
1. When you think about the divine or the ultimate, it feels most like:
An infinite Ein Sof — the Infinite that overflows into finite worlds through hidden vessels
The One — beyond all categories, unknowable directly, but the source of all being
Pure Consciousness — not a being but Being itself, the ground from which I am not separate
The Beloved — infinitely personal, infinitely beyond, sought through love and annihilation
Nothing special — already here, not to be sought but to be recognized
A person who loves — transcendent and present, both beyond reach and intimately near
2. The purpose of spiritual practice is primarily to:
Repair and restore — the world is broken, and human action can mend it
Be transformed — to become by grace what God is by nature
Dissolve — to lose the illusion of a separate self in the ocean of the divine
Recognize — to see through the illusion of separation that was never real
Return — to the ordinary, which is also the sacred, which was never absent
Ascend — to rise through contemplation from matter through soul to Intellect to the One
3. The material world is:
The lowest but still sacred — divine sparks are hidden within all things, awaiting release
Good but fallen — creation reflects the Creator but has been wounded and needs restoration
A veil and a mirror — it conceals the divine but, rightly seen, reflects it everywhere
Appearance — real as appearance, but not ultimately real as the sole truth
Just this — no more or less sacred than anything else. The ordinary is the extraordinary.
The lowest emanation — real but distant from the source, the most attenuated expression of the One
4. What happens to the individual self in the deepest mystical state?
Transformed and preserved — the self is not dissolved but glorified, brought into union while remaining itself
Annihilated — fana, the extinction of the individual in the divine ocean
Revealed as never having existed separately — there was only Brahman
Seen through — the self was always empty of inherent existence, and that emptiness is liberation
Elevated and returned — the soul ascends through the Sephirot and returns transformed to the world
Absorbed and then returns — the soul returns to the One and then descends again to animate the world
5. The role of language and text in the spiritual life:
Central and inexhaustible — the Torah is the name of God, and every letter contains infinite worlds
Revelatory and insufficient — Scripture points beyond itself; the Word became flesh
Metaphorical and essential — poetry and music can carry what doctrine cannot
Useful but ultimately to be transcended — the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon
A finger pointing at the moon — and even the finger must eventually be dropped
Necessary scaffolding — dialectic and contemplation lead toward what cannot be said
6. Suffering and spiritual darkness (the "dark night"):
A necessary passage — John of the Cross: the dark night purifies and opens to divine union
The condition of longing — the Beloved's apparent absence is the intensification of love
The concealment of divine light — the Sitra Achra, the other side, is part of the divine plan
Dukkha rooted in ignorance — suffering arises from the illusion of separation
Neither sought nor avoided — the tradition is suspicious of dramatizing the path
Purification through prayer — the heart must be cleansed through hesychia before divine light
Your Contemplative Tradition