I thought next, that I would be posting more on the Eucharistic themes of the last entry.
But an unexpected impulse has led me to put up more on the former Anthroposophist Valentin Tomberg (including further material previously unavailable in English, as far as I know) regarding Tomberg´s later attitudes to Anthroposophy, as well as to the Catholic Faith.
By way of departure however, I want to focus on how, in the 1960`s, the anonymous author of Meditations on the Tarot regarded the Anthroposophical movement. There he speaks of the wings of this movement being:
“clipped … which has rendered it, such as it is, since the death of its founder: a movement for cultural reform (art, education, medicine, agriculture) deprived of living esotericism, i.e. without mysticism, without gnosis and without magic.”
In terms of esotericism then, the anonymous author clearly considered the movement lifeless since 1925 – the year in which Rudolf Steiner died.
He goes to say that living esotericism has ´been replaced by lectures, study and intellectual work aiming at establishing a concordance between the writings and stenographed lectures of the master.´
Now all of this does not seem very far removed from the perspective of Valentin Tomberg, twenty years earlier, after he had decisively left Anthroposophy behind and entered the Catholic Church.
Recently, German notes have been published from Bernhard Martin (the author of Von der Anthroposophie zur Kirche, - which in English reads From Anthroposophy to the Church).
They are notes of what Valentin Tomberg is said to have related to Martin during two conversations in the mid-1940´s.
According to the German biography they are drawn from, these notes emerged in a context where Tomberg had unmistakably said: “Die Anthroposophie ist gescheitert.” Anthroposophy has failed.
And this is, I suspect, not unrelated to the fact that Tomberg *decisively* believed his 1930´s Anthroposophical works should not be republished.
More on this another time. For now, I feel that, sparse and fragmentary as they are, these notes offer much food for contemplation, and I publish a translation here, which a German friend of my Heart, gave to me as a personal favour.
" * First comes the test of Faith, only then Vision (about the reappearance of Christ). Knowledge as such is dangerous, also in relation to one's own past incarnations; it is of use only to the one who has stood the test of faith.
* Rudolf Steiner has given truth "on credit". It ought to have been repaid by the corresponding morality. Rudolf Steiner had the courage and the trust that humanity would justify his work.
* To begin with, Valentin Tomberg had joined his own work to this, but then abandoned it to work externally. There was to be no more "credit system". Enough had been said.
* The Catholic Church is an uncompromising force which unites and forgives.
* Confession (....cordis, confessio,satisfactio operum) = Help through self-knowledge and preparation for the meeting with the Dweller on the Threshold.
*Without devotion no progress. The effort is what counts, not the actual status.
* Living in the Tradition! Only the one with genius, ought to (and can) transcend it.
* The transformation in the Mass deeply shakes (erschuettert ihn) him(Tomberg) every time in his innermost being.
* The Mass has to be spoken in formulas; everything personal has to precede in the preparation."
I am hoping to say more on the Eucharist, but it could take me a week or more.
In the meantime, anyone interested in this post might appreciate a thread that ran here from Thursday 15 December to 22 December last year. This six-entry series definitely connects to the issues in the above, and is also one of the things that I feel most happy with in the entire weblog.
Christ be with you, friends.
Friday, June 23, 2006
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Intermission of Fragments IV – More on the Eucharist, Valentin Tomberg and The Lady of All Nations …
As I said last time, I was very grateful for all the responses to my piece on the Eucharist. And rather than post one of my previously written pieces, I thought I would respond here to some of these comments, within the main section of this weblog.
This could take two or three entries – but I thought would begin today with Bruce questioning Valentin Tomberg´s 1930´s statement that "There is nothing in the physical world more holy - more healing in the deepest sense of that word - than the bread of the Communion Service."
Scepticism here is understandable. All over the world, people receive this bread and there seems to be very little in the way of accounts, which would justify Tomberg´s remarkable assertion.
But then, who is to say what the world situation would be, were the Holy Communion to cease all together? For all we know, were humanity to be deprived of this colossal, collective act of Transubstantiation, catastrophic effects would be very much in evidence.
In other words, there are 400,000 Catholic priests in the world, whose principal duty is the Transubstantiation, and in most cases, this is undertaken on a daily basis.
There are also countless acts of such consecration happening in other areas of the Sacramental Church, though, as for example with the Orthodox, the work may not be undertaken daily, but rather weekly.
As you read these lines, dear friend, you might wish to pause and consider how many times, at this very instant, His Body and Blood becomes present in our world … And perhaps what the global results of that continuous coming-into-being, have been over these past centuries?
In any event, I ask myself, who can really say what humanity would be like, were it not to be receiving this continuous RADIATING sustenance - whether directly or indirectly? Personally, I believe the world situation would be far, far worse …
Nonetheless, though I myself am not skeptical of Valentin Tomberg´s dramatic statement, I also cannot help but profoundly resonate with Bruce´s feeling, when he tells us:
“The stature of the priest is so important in the delivery of the Communion. At the Catholic Mass I attended last week … the sermon was mumbled and disjointed. There was hardly any ritual or observable intention in the blessing of the wafer and cup. About six lay people handed out the wafers (which may have been sprinkled beforehand with the contents of the cup). In short it was a shemozzle.”
Yes I am in deep resonance here with Bruce about the present state of the liturgy.
The further I travel with the Church, the greater my sense of the immense tragedy of the post-Vatican II destruction of the liturgy – a liturgy that was still very much intact, of course, in 1930´s Catholicism.
Yet however much I agree with Bruce on this point, I feel the most crucial question has yet to be raised.
That question, it would seem to me, is not so much concerned with the stature of the priest, the sermon, distribution and so forth – as important as all of these undoubtedly are.
But rather, the crucial question is whether a consecration, a Transubstantiation has taken place. Or not.
That is to say, whether the bread and wine has been transformed into that which belongs to the One Whom is most ´holy … healing in the deepest sense of that word.´ ... ?
Now there may well be Catholic Masses, where a consecration has not taken place. Though personally I recall suspecting that only once in my entire experience. That came in a Mass by a priest, whom I, at least, perceived, as being of an ultra-liberal persuasion. And where so many elements of the Mass had been deleted, that I really had to ask myself, if I had been to Mass at all …
I admit I have not been to many Masses in America. Perhaps what I call this ultra-liberal Mass is more the norm there than I fear … Still I tend to doubt it, though am open to correction.
But in the question of whether the Transubstantiation has survived the 1960´s destruction of the liturgy, I want to return to Valentin Tomberg, by way of an unusual departure …
For in later life, Valentin Tomberg took most seriously the apparitions in Holland of ´the Lady of All Nations, who once was Mary´.
From his German biography, I offer the following rough translation (for which, please see my note in the comments section):
“Valentin Tomberg took this appearance of the Holy Virgin very seriously, as he communicated to Ernst von Hippel [in a 1956 letter, after visiting the site of the Marian apparitions in Holland].
´In short: we made sure at this place, that it is a matter of a genuine and real revelation of the Holy Virgin and that the message and reports conveyed there are genuine and true. …
I understand - after everything – this, in such a way that, as at that time in Lourdes the ´Immaculate Conception´ brought a healing source for the individual illnesses of humans to effectiveness, now it is a matter for the development of a healing source for the diseases of the peoples by the “Mother of all peoples” [ie, the Lady of All Nations].
There is much concern around peace in the world, but where is the POWER, the SUBSTANCE of Peace? It concerns not thus political or other measures, but a – how shall I say it? - MAGICAL action of peace, as a direct contrast to Moscow´s measures to bring about peace and everyone, who participates in this action with thought and prayer, helps the flowing spreading-out of its effect.”
Concerning the magical action, which Tomberg speaks of spreading-out, it is perhaps necessary to say that this must certainly involve the central Prayer given by the Lady of all Nations:
'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Father,
Send *now* your Spirit over the earth.
Let the Holy Spirit live in the hearts of *all* nations,
That they may be preserved from degeneration, disaster and war.
May the Lady of All Nations, who once was Mary,
Be our Advocate. Amen.'
(The asterisked words are those which the visionary reported that the Lady asked to be especially emphasised when praying this prayer.)
In this regard, we have also already commented on how the the Catholic author of Meditations on the Tarot regarded these apparitions of Mary. For those who have not seen it, I suggest that further clarification might be found by reading my weblog entry for 1 December 2005:'Woe to me if I tell and woe to me if I do not tell!'
Now in 1981, there was another apparition in Holland of the Lady of All Nations to the same Dutch visionary encountered by the anonymous Catholic author.
The Lady of All Nations is recorded as saying:
“The Moral decline in the Church and in the World are coming about, and the Wars are still going on. My Lord sent Me to warn them of all of this, but they did not listen.”
But according to the report, the Lady went on to offer hope.
The visionary reports that “the Lady turned towards the Tabernacle and pointed to it with Her right hand saying … “The Eucharist still exists.”
Now this is taken from the book Eucharistic Experiences – where the entire book offers this visionaries´ongoing revelation of the disastrous contemporary state of the Catholic Church ...
One can justifiably interpret these words of the Virgin then, as pointing to a definite ray of hope and consolation in a dire context: The Eucharist still exists!
But to return to Bruce´s comments, one certainly does not need the experiences of a Dutch visionary, however deeply trusted by Valentin Tomberg, to confirm for us, the tragic state of much of the Church.
For we can certainly feel it for ourselves.
The Catholic Church is in trouble.
And as far as I am concerned, much of the trouble of the Church is the trouble with the Novus Ordo – the new Mass initiated in the 1960´s after the Second Vatican Council. (A Council which also certainly succeeded in many ways, perhaps as much as it failed in this one.)
Now Bruce suggests “Perhaps if one was looking for tradition, the Orthodox churches are the way to go. As Rudolf Steiner observed, when folk were running off to India for enlightenment, it would have been better if they had headed off to Mt. Athos.”
Such a direction is certainly appropriate for some.
For myself, I prefer to contemplate Valentin Tomberg´s counsel, when he said in his Covenant of the Heart:
"The darkening which today is described as ´the present crisis of the Catholic Church´ can lead to the necessity for the solitary sons of the Church to hurry to the aid of the Holy Father, the most solitary of solitaries, in order to save the Church from the abyss toward which she is moving."
Yes I spend my life contemplating what he meant by these words, ´darkening´, ábyss´ and the NECESSITY to hurry ... As I also do his many, many other indications of profound support for the Catholic Mystery.
And I also prefer to take heart from the message that the Lady of All Nations sought to give us – that in the Catholic Church, “The Eucharist still exists.”
Yes this is my conviction – based on this and countless personal experiences - that there still exists at the heart of the Church, the life-transforming encounter with Jesus Christ.
Thus while I would certainly agree that the Novus Ordo liturgy has tragically served to OBSCURE this ENCOUNTER in innumerable cases, it has not succeeded in destroying it ...
But the obscuration can indeed be so great, that it is necessary to develop a special form of attention in order to perceive what underlies it, and to HELP DISPERSE it, if one is to go beyond the clouds of fog generated by what Bruce so aptly calls a `shemozzle´.
And I will be shortly turning to what I mean by this special form of attention ... and I hope to other comments made here on the Eucharist.
This could take two or three entries – but I thought would begin today with Bruce questioning Valentin Tomberg´s 1930´s statement that "There is nothing in the physical world more holy - more healing in the deepest sense of that word - than the bread of the Communion Service."
Scepticism here is understandable. All over the world, people receive this bread and there seems to be very little in the way of accounts, which would justify Tomberg´s remarkable assertion.
But then, who is to say what the world situation would be, were the Holy Communion to cease all together? For all we know, were humanity to be deprived of this colossal, collective act of Transubstantiation, catastrophic effects would be very much in evidence.
In other words, there are 400,000 Catholic priests in the world, whose principal duty is the Transubstantiation, and in most cases, this is undertaken on a daily basis.
There are also countless acts of such consecration happening in other areas of the Sacramental Church, though, as for example with the Orthodox, the work may not be undertaken daily, but rather weekly.
As you read these lines, dear friend, you might wish to pause and consider how many times, at this very instant, His Body and Blood becomes present in our world … And perhaps what the global results of that continuous coming-into-being, have been over these past centuries?
In any event, I ask myself, who can really say what humanity would be like, were it not to be receiving this continuous RADIATING sustenance - whether directly or indirectly? Personally, I believe the world situation would be far, far worse …
Nonetheless, though I myself am not skeptical of Valentin Tomberg´s dramatic statement, I also cannot help but profoundly resonate with Bruce´s feeling, when he tells us:
“The stature of the priest is so important in the delivery of the Communion. At the Catholic Mass I attended last week … the sermon was mumbled and disjointed. There was hardly any ritual or observable intention in the blessing of the wafer and cup. About six lay people handed out the wafers (which may have been sprinkled beforehand with the contents of the cup). In short it was a shemozzle.”
Yes I am in deep resonance here with Bruce about the present state of the liturgy.
The further I travel with the Church, the greater my sense of the immense tragedy of the post-Vatican II destruction of the liturgy – a liturgy that was still very much intact, of course, in 1930´s Catholicism.
Yet however much I agree with Bruce on this point, I feel the most crucial question has yet to be raised.
That question, it would seem to me, is not so much concerned with the stature of the priest, the sermon, distribution and so forth – as important as all of these undoubtedly are.
But rather, the crucial question is whether a consecration, a Transubstantiation has taken place. Or not.
That is to say, whether the bread and wine has been transformed into that which belongs to the One Whom is most ´holy … healing in the deepest sense of that word.´ ... ?
Now there may well be Catholic Masses, where a consecration has not taken place. Though personally I recall suspecting that only once in my entire experience. That came in a Mass by a priest, whom I, at least, perceived, as being of an ultra-liberal persuasion. And where so many elements of the Mass had been deleted, that I really had to ask myself, if I had been to Mass at all …
I admit I have not been to many Masses in America. Perhaps what I call this ultra-liberal Mass is more the norm there than I fear … Still I tend to doubt it, though am open to correction.
But in the question of whether the Transubstantiation has survived the 1960´s destruction of the liturgy, I want to return to Valentin Tomberg, by way of an unusual departure …
For in later life, Valentin Tomberg took most seriously the apparitions in Holland of ´the Lady of All Nations, who once was Mary´.
From his German biography, I offer the following rough translation (for which, please see my note in the comments section):
“Valentin Tomberg took this appearance of the Holy Virgin very seriously, as he communicated to Ernst von Hippel [in a 1956 letter, after visiting the site of the Marian apparitions in Holland].
´In short: we made sure at this place, that it is a matter of a genuine and real revelation of the Holy Virgin and that the message and reports conveyed there are genuine and true. …
I understand - after everything – this, in such a way that, as at that time in Lourdes the ´Immaculate Conception´ brought a healing source for the individual illnesses of humans to effectiveness, now it is a matter for the development of a healing source for the diseases of the peoples by the “Mother of all peoples” [ie, the Lady of All Nations].
There is much concern around peace in the world, but where is the POWER, the SUBSTANCE of Peace? It concerns not thus political or other measures, but a – how shall I say it? - MAGICAL action of peace, as a direct contrast to Moscow´s measures to bring about peace and everyone, who participates in this action with thought and prayer, helps the flowing spreading-out of its effect.”
Concerning the magical action, which Tomberg speaks of spreading-out, it is perhaps necessary to say that this must certainly involve the central Prayer given by the Lady of all Nations:
'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Father,
Send *now* your Spirit over the earth.
Let the Holy Spirit live in the hearts of *all* nations,
That they may be preserved from degeneration, disaster and war.
May the Lady of All Nations, who once was Mary,
Be our Advocate. Amen.'
(The asterisked words are those which the visionary reported that the Lady asked to be especially emphasised when praying this prayer.)
In this regard, we have also already commented on how the the Catholic author of Meditations on the Tarot regarded these apparitions of Mary. For those who have not seen it, I suggest that further clarification might be found by reading my weblog entry for 1 December 2005:'Woe to me if I tell and woe to me if I do not tell!'
Now in 1981, there was another apparition in Holland of the Lady of All Nations to the same Dutch visionary encountered by the anonymous Catholic author.
The Lady of All Nations is recorded as saying:
“The Moral decline in the Church and in the World are coming about, and the Wars are still going on. My Lord sent Me to warn them of all of this, but they did not listen.”
But according to the report, the Lady went on to offer hope.
The visionary reports that “the Lady turned towards the Tabernacle and pointed to it with Her right hand saying … “The Eucharist still exists.”
Now this is taken from the book Eucharistic Experiences – where the entire book offers this visionaries´ongoing revelation of the disastrous contemporary state of the Catholic Church ...
One can justifiably interpret these words of the Virgin then, as pointing to a definite ray of hope and consolation in a dire context: The Eucharist still exists!
But to return to Bruce´s comments, one certainly does not need the experiences of a Dutch visionary, however deeply trusted by Valentin Tomberg, to confirm for us, the tragic state of much of the Church.
For we can certainly feel it for ourselves.
The Catholic Church is in trouble.
And as far as I am concerned, much of the trouble of the Church is the trouble with the Novus Ordo – the new Mass initiated in the 1960´s after the Second Vatican Council. (A Council which also certainly succeeded in many ways, perhaps as much as it failed in this one.)
Now Bruce suggests “Perhaps if one was looking for tradition, the Orthodox churches are the way to go. As Rudolf Steiner observed, when folk were running off to India for enlightenment, it would have been better if they had headed off to Mt. Athos.”
Such a direction is certainly appropriate for some.
For myself, I prefer to contemplate Valentin Tomberg´s counsel, when he said in his Covenant of the Heart:
"The darkening which today is described as ´the present crisis of the Catholic Church´ can lead to the necessity for the solitary sons of the Church to hurry to the aid of the Holy Father, the most solitary of solitaries, in order to save the Church from the abyss toward which she is moving."
Yes I spend my life contemplating what he meant by these words, ´darkening´, ábyss´ and the NECESSITY to hurry ... As I also do his many, many other indications of profound support for the Catholic Mystery.
And I also prefer to take heart from the message that the Lady of All Nations sought to give us – that in the Catholic Church, “The Eucharist still exists.”
Yes this is my conviction – based on this and countless personal experiences - that there still exists at the heart of the Church, the life-transforming encounter with Jesus Christ.
Thus while I would certainly agree that the Novus Ordo liturgy has tragically served to OBSCURE this ENCOUNTER in innumerable cases, it has not succeeded in destroying it ...
But the obscuration can indeed be so great, that it is necessary to develop a special form of attention in order to perceive what underlies it, and to HELP DISPERSE it, if one is to go beyond the clouds of fog generated by what Bruce so aptly calls a `shemozzle´.
And I will be shortly turning to what I mean by this special form of attention ... and I hope to other comments made here on the Eucharist.
Monday, June 12, 2006
Intermission of Fragments III - The Spirituality and Politics of the Heart
First, a personal note.
I regret that it has taken so, so long to return. The obstacles were much more significant than I anticipated. And while significant problems remain, I can now say that this blog will definitely be appearing more frequently - though a full return to the old pattern is not quite possible yet.
Due to the same obstacles, both my e-mail responses and those on the comments pages will also be limited for a little while longer.
But I want to express my deep gratitude in particular, for all the loving, thoughtful and insightful remarks that followed my previous post on the Eucharist. I WILL be attempting a response to these, when I can do some justice to them.
And now a piece on a popular New Age text, that I know will be highly controversial in some quarters at least ...
One of the most successful books of the New Age phenomenon in recent years must be Eckhart Tolle´s The Power of Now.
Since its first publication in 1997, it has been translated into thirty languages, reached millions of people and made the Number One spot on the New York Times Bestseller List.
All of this constitutes a phenomenon which - incidentally but *significantly* I think - would seem unimaginable thirty years ago.
On the back of this book, there is a recommendation by Oprah Winfrey, which exclaims "The Power of Now can transform your thinking ... The result? More joy - right now! "
The back cover blurb then goes onto inform us that:
"To make the journey into the Power of Now, we will need to leave our analytical mind and ego behind ... We can find our way out of psychological pain.
Authentic human power is to be found by surrender to the Now ... the present moment where problems do not exist.
... It is here that we discover that we are already complete and perfect."
Now this book I feel contains a profound depth of authentic experience, and summing up a profound book by its blurb is admittedly fraught with pitfalls.
But within the limits of a short space, I feel this blurb can and does suffice to give an accurate reflection of the book´s content - at least to a degree.
The author, I believe, has had a rare, deep and life-transforming experience of transcendant peace, which allows him to recommend to others an approach of transcending the mind and ego, in order to reach this peace.
I do not dispute the authenticity and profundity of his experience.
But I do take issue with the New Age ideology, it is unfortunately muddled-up with.
To take but a single example, after speaking of his transformational experience, Tolle confidently asserts:
"It wasn´t until several years later, after I had read spiritual texts and spent time with spiritual teachers, that I realized that what EVERYBODY WAS LOOKING FOR had already happened to me (Emphasis mine, pg 5)."
***Implicit*** here is a splendid example of New Age ideology, repeated so, so, so many times, that it has become axiomatic, and therefore unquestioned and unchallenged.
The implicit ideology here then, is the claim that there is ONE spiritual goal that we are ALL seeking - and as the author goes on to elaborate, that this single goal involves a transcendance of suffering.
Throughout my long New Age years, the implicit assumption Tolle is making might have washed over me ... completely unnoticed ...
Unnoticed, because I had never paid serious attention - as I strongly suspect Tolle has also never paid serious attention - to the fact that there is another profound school of spirituality, which does NOT involve what Tolle asserts ´everybody´is ´looking for´ ...
In time, I hope to expand considerably. For now, suffice it to say that Christianity - both esoteric and traditional - seeks not the transcendance of suffering, but the EMBRACE of suffering.
And that such Christianity is not about seeking 'More joy, right now´.
Rather it concerns a compassionate identification with world suffering, that may not lead at all to relieving oneself of suffering, though it will lead to tremendous depth, strength, meaning and riches, ***within*** the experience of that suffering ...
And having come to a point in my life where I now DO pay serious attention to Christian approaches beyond the New Age ideology of a single, spiritual path, I cannot help but feel that Tolle has missed a great deal. To say the very least.
That is, I cannot help but feel, that even if we turn simply to the last century alone, we will find great representatives of Christianity - from Rudolf Steiner to John Paul II - who not only do NOT go in search of what Tolle and "everybody was looking for" - but who, were they to find it, would decisively reject it.
And after my own long journey, I personally have more confidence in this approach, than that of Tolles´letting of mind and ego, for a peace that transcends suffering.
Again, I hope in time to enlarge ...
For now I will just say I am deeply concerned about the widespread popularity of a spirituality in the West with Tolle´s apparent objectives.
For these are objectives I feel, which can STUNT the heart.
That is to say, in more esoteric language, I am not at all convinced that this kind of spirituality serves the full, mature awakening of the heart chakra.
But I do believe that a collective awakening of the heart chakra, is desperately needed at this time.
Effective social, political and ecological action depends on it.
But I do not believe that Tolle´s spiritual agenda is sufficient to this awakening.
That is - to repeat for emphasis - a spiritual agenda which asks that we "leave our analytical mind and ego behind [to] find our way out of psychological pain. ... by surrender to the Now ... where problems do not exist [and where] we discover that we are already complete and perfect."
Much, much more can and must be said, I feel.
But for now I simply close this fragment with my own conviction that both Rudolf Steiner and John Paul II profoundly knew that an approach very, very different to Tolle´s was needed - for effective social, political and ecological action.
And I follow, though far, far behind them, in saying that a very different Spirituality and Politics of the Heart is needed - now more than ever.
I regret that it has taken so, so long to return. The obstacles were much more significant than I anticipated. And while significant problems remain, I can now say that this blog will definitely be appearing more frequently - though a full return to the old pattern is not quite possible yet.
Due to the same obstacles, both my e-mail responses and those on the comments pages will also be limited for a little while longer.
But I want to express my deep gratitude in particular, for all the loving, thoughtful and insightful remarks that followed my previous post on the Eucharist. I WILL be attempting a response to these, when I can do some justice to them.
And now a piece on a popular New Age text, that I know will be highly controversial in some quarters at least ...
One of the most successful books of the New Age phenomenon in recent years must be Eckhart Tolle´s The Power of Now.
Since its first publication in 1997, it has been translated into thirty languages, reached millions of people and made the Number One spot on the New York Times Bestseller List.
All of this constitutes a phenomenon which - incidentally but *significantly* I think - would seem unimaginable thirty years ago.
On the back of this book, there is a recommendation by Oprah Winfrey, which exclaims "The Power of Now can transform your thinking ... The result? More joy - right now! "
The back cover blurb then goes onto inform us that:
"To make the journey into the Power of Now, we will need to leave our analytical mind and ego behind ... We can find our way out of psychological pain.
Authentic human power is to be found by surrender to the Now ... the present moment where problems do not exist.
... It is here that we discover that we are already complete and perfect."
Now this book I feel contains a profound depth of authentic experience, and summing up a profound book by its blurb is admittedly fraught with pitfalls.
But within the limits of a short space, I feel this blurb can and does suffice to give an accurate reflection of the book´s content - at least to a degree.
The author, I believe, has had a rare, deep and life-transforming experience of transcendant peace, which allows him to recommend to others an approach of transcending the mind and ego, in order to reach this peace.
I do not dispute the authenticity and profundity of his experience.
But I do take issue with the New Age ideology, it is unfortunately muddled-up with.
To take but a single example, after speaking of his transformational experience, Tolle confidently asserts:
"It wasn´t until several years later, after I had read spiritual texts and spent time with spiritual teachers, that I realized that what EVERYBODY WAS LOOKING FOR had already happened to me (Emphasis mine, pg 5)."
***Implicit*** here is a splendid example of New Age ideology, repeated so, so, so many times, that it has become axiomatic, and therefore unquestioned and unchallenged.
The implicit ideology here then, is the claim that there is ONE spiritual goal that we are ALL seeking - and as the author goes on to elaborate, that this single goal involves a transcendance of suffering.
Throughout my long New Age years, the implicit assumption Tolle is making might have washed over me ... completely unnoticed ...
Unnoticed, because I had never paid serious attention - as I strongly suspect Tolle has also never paid serious attention - to the fact that there is another profound school of spirituality, which does NOT involve what Tolle asserts ´everybody´is ´looking for´ ...
In time, I hope to expand considerably. For now, suffice it to say that Christianity - both esoteric and traditional - seeks not the transcendance of suffering, but the EMBRACE of suffering.
And that such Christianity is not about seeking 'More joy, right now´.
Rather it concerns a compassionate identification with world suffering, that may not lead at all to relieving oneself of suffering, though it will lead to tremendous depth, strength, meaning and riches, ***within*** the experience of that suffering ...
And having come to a point in my life where I now DO pay serious attention to Christian approaches beyond the New Age ideology of a single, spiritual path, I cannot help but feel that Tolle has missed a great deal. To say the very least.
That is, I cannot help but feel, that even if we turn simply to the last century alone, we will find great representatives of Christianity - from Rudolf Steiner to John Paul II - who not only do NOT go in search of what Tolle and "everybody was looking for" - but who, were they to find it, would decisively reject it.
And after my own long journey, I personally have more confidence in this approach, than that of Tolles´letting of mind and ego, for a peace that transcends suffering.
Again, I hope in time to enlarge ...
For now I will just say I am deeply concerned about the widespread popularity of a spirituality in the West with Tolle´s apparent objectives.
For these are objectives I feel, which can STUNT the heart.
That is to say, in more esoteric language, I am not at all convinced that this kind of spirituality serves the full, mature awakening of the heart chakra.
But I do believe that a collective awakening of the heart chakra, is desperately needed at this time.
Effective social, political and ecological action depends on it.
But I do not believe that Tolle´s spiritual agenda is sufficient to this awakening.
That is - to repeat for emphasis - a spiritual agenda which asks that we "leave our analytical mind and ego behind [to] find our way out of psychological pain. ... by surrender to the Now ... where problems do not exist [and where] we discover that we are already complete and perfect."
Much, much more can and must be said, I feel.
But for now I simply close this fragment with my own conviction that both Rudolf Steiner and John Paul II profoundly knew that an approach very, very different to Tolle´s was needed - for effective social, political and ecological action.
And I follow, though far, far behind them, in saying that a very different Spirituality and Politics of the Heart is needed - now more than ever.
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