- prayer in secret
- an experience which passes beyond the exercise of the human faculties to rest in God Centering Prayer into the apophatic experience
- also called “infused contemplation”
- is not in opposition to so-called Kataphatic contemplation, which draws on the exercise of our rational faculties to reach divine union
- Kataphatic contemplation is normally necessary as a preparation for the Apophatic experience
I got that from this article on Centering Prayer that basically tries to teach that Jesus went into the inner silence to medidate and that this is what He meant by finding rest for your soul.
Still not clear on what it meant, I tried another article called Apophatic or Kataphatic Prayer? This one said that kataphatic prayer employs thoughts and images while apophatic transcends these. And that the Cloud of Unknowing will give us a clear, concise and convincing statement on what is 'apophatic' prayer, which is about rising ecstatically within the Cloud of Unknowing, where one can know God by simply letting one's mind rest in the consciousness of God in His naked existence, where, in this state of being beyond conscious awareness, one does not know or even care who or what God is. One is simply satisfied with the Lord as He exists at this moment in a relational union with oneself.
So...let me get this straight...this Cloud of Unknowing will help you to...clearly not know who or what God is? So this is why it's called the Cloud of Unknowing? Eureka! I did know know this! Now I know...nothing...
Eugene Peterson apparently also knows all about this nothingness. He says Kataphatic prayer is praying with the eyes open, apophatic prayer is praying with the eyes closed. Here is a quote from his book, The Contemplative Pastor:
There are two great mystical traditions in the life of prayer, sometimes labeled kataphatic and apophatic. Kataphatic prayer uses icons, symbols, ritual, incense; the creation is the way to the Creator. Apophatic prayer attempts emptiness; the creature distracts from the Creator, and so the mind is systematically emptied of idea, image, sensation until there is only the simplicity of being. Kataphatic prayer is praying with your eyes open; apophatic prayer is praying with your eyes shut.
At our balanced best, the two traditions intermingle, mix, and cross-fertilize. But we are not always at our best. The Western church is heavily skewed on the side of the apophatic. The rubric for prayer when I was a child was, Fold your hands, bow your head, shut your eyes, and we’ll pray. My early training carries over into my adult practice. Most of my praying still is with my eyes shut. I need balancing.
Other pro-apophatic writers say that prayer is a frustrating ‘dilemma’ for many Christians. I really don’t see what is so frustrating about having a relationship with the Lord and talking to Him. I would think that it might be frustrating only to the person who doesn’t really know the Lord.
Prayer is not complicated. Yet this whole apophatic thing has even been given a name, a complicated definition, and even a theology (see Apophatic Theology: the name given to the theology based on the VIA NEGATIVA).
Incidentally, Apo-pathetic....oops, let's try that again. Apophatic Theology is a term you will find on pretty much every emerging church website. It is said to be appropriate to the emergent culture and the emerging church (see here).
You know, people have made such a supreme mess of prayer by trying to fancy it all up. Take this Methodist Church prayer chart, for example…starts out good, but gets bad very quickly.
So what this all boils down to is this. People like to give prayer smart sounding names and definitions and rules. Then they religiously combine these with images, candles, incense, music, and surroundings with prayer methods, discplines, and techniques...all things to create an ambiance to have a spiritual experience…these all go together to create the environment to FEEL the presenceof God.
That's the K thing to the A thing in a nutshell. This goes for ANY religion. Just look around. I’ve seen this referred to as ‘the way of ascent’, but isn’t this all man’s attempt to ascend to God? I wonder if He finds it all rather insulting, since He already descended down to us and made a way for us to meet up with Him. In fact, the Bible says that none of these attempts and methods of our own will ever work. The good news is that we can boldly enter the throne room and talk to Him. But...there is only one way...and that's through the blood of Jesus!
The only method we need is E 213+312.
4 comments:
Carla, just read your post and did a search on apophatic prayer - thought you might like to check out the website I've included here. From my understanding it is equated with breath or mantra prayer. At http://www.shalomplace.com/inetmin/contemplative/apophatic.html
a pro-contemplative website, there is a good and fairly short explanation of apophatic prayer. Although the author of this articles denies that he uses a mantra to reach this state, he does describe the same process. Controlling the breath is another way to pray apophatically. These are no doubt Eastern meditation techniques, and yes they focus more on emptying the mind, rather than using the senses to try to connect with God through icons, incense, etc. How Christians cannot see that this is all Eastern meditation is beyond me!
What you say about prayer must also apply to Christian Theology. It seems that to dismiss people's study on the experience of God through prayer and their use of technical words to describe that experience must also apply to two thousand years of theological research and the confusing technical jargon that has arisen from it. I don't think though you would dismiss that so I would suggest you show some respect to those who seek to unravel the mysteries of God and not use oversimplification as a pseudo spiritual lever for your own sense of security ... but hey no big deal if it makes you wrong then you can take recourse to the Blood of Jesus which truly is foundational to our experience of God (if not of necessity denying the exploration of that experience "apophatically" or "kataphatically"!)
Baroo,
The mysteries of God can be found by digging in the Bible. No where in the Word of God are we taught to go into a meditative state beyond concious awareness using methods like centering prayer or the Cloud of Unknowing. I don't think we need to toss out Christian theology to figure that out.
True Christian prayer is simply talking to God, and we are given so many examples of this in the Bible. Prayer is not about us and our experiences, it's about God's will and His people and His plans and His glory. I don't know why He chooses to do so, but He does answer our prayers and requests. It's pretty amazing. The confusion comes in when we look to people, like the Desert Fathers or Thomas Keating, for extra-biblical experience based instructions.
By the way, if you watch Thomas Keating (founder of centering prayer meditation) and Ken Wilber together on youtube videos, you will understand that something is very wrong with this picture.
Just as a rose by any other name is still a rose, eastern meditation is still eastern meditation if you give it another name (apophatic or katophatic prayer). If you take a ouija board, rename it and say a prayer over it, it doesn't change what it is. It's not the name that's important, it's the process and the end it achieves that matters. God forbids his followers to use divination or other occultic techniques in their spiritual practices. God's Word alone must be our guide or we will quickly be deceived and head down the wrong path. In this case, straight into the arms of the occult.
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