An Impediment to Meditation

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[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

In this stimulating post, you write: “The ego resists meditation because in its deepest reaches meditation is a rehearsal for death. (See Plato, Phaedo, St. 64) For in letting all thoughts go, we let go of all objects of thought including material possessions, the regard of others, our pet theories, our very bodies, our self-image. In short, in deep meditation we seek the ultimate in non-attachment; we seek to let go of the ego and everything that it identifies with.”

My reaction to this observation is that, perhaps, it I good that the ego resists deep meditative states, since long ago, Freud pointed to the protective function that this part of the mind, operating under the reality principle, exercises in a material world fraught with dangers. Leaving aside the shortcomings of his overall psychoanalytic theory, this aspect of his thought holds up well, and leads me to at least consider the possibility that the ego, which is rational and realistic, senses the real dangers, whether natural or preternatural, that the suspension of our normal thinking processes possesses for most men, save perhaps for those endowed with a special grace or unusual spiritual strengths. The ego, performing normally, senses these perils and disrupts our attempts to leave the discursive intellect behind.

Vito

[BV]

Thanks for the comment, Vito, but I acknowledge the point you make in your second paragraph in the two paragraphs of my piece just before the one from which you quote:

>>On the one hand, the ego is a principle of separation, self-assertion, and self-maintenance. Without a strong ego one cannot negotiate the world. Meditation, however, is a decidedly unworldly activity: one is not trying to advance oneself, secure oneself, or assert oneself. [. . .]

So while the ego is necessary for worldly life, it is also a cause of division, unproductive competition, and hatred. It is the self in its competitive, finite form. A. E. Taylor hit upon a fine phrase, “competitive finite selfhood,” which well describes the self of the worldling. Not all competition between egos is unproductive; some is, some isn’t. But as the mystically inclined see it it, the ego is rooted in, and a manifestation of, a deeper reality which could be called the true self or the soul. [. . .]<<

[BV]

But you also bring the preternatural into it: >>that the ego, which is rational and realistic, senses the real dangers, whether natural or preternatural, that the suspension of our normal thinking processes possesses for most men . . . <<

Now 'preternatural' or 'praeternatural' as I use the term refers to what lies beyond the natural, and thus covers both the diabolical and the non-diabolical. Do you agree with that definition? Your point, then, would be that the ego, "which is rational and realistic," is useful for avoiding the traps set by demonic agents. I take your point. Here we get into the murky area called 'discernment." How does the spiritual aspirant or quester discern whether the inner locution (or some other type of mystical deliverance) comes from above or below?

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

I did see that part of the post, seeing that you understand the productive, necessary function of the ego in the world. I guess what I am trying to get at is the idea that perhaps the failure to reach a deep meditative state should be taken not as an individual failing, as many do, but rather as something more neutral, a kind of ego check on an activity that is not entirely free from risk.

Vito

[BV]

Teresa of Avila, the great Spanish mystic, sets forth a criteriology of discernment in her Interior Castle, Sixth Mansions, Chapter III. So here, to Vito's point, the discursive intellect, and with it, the ego, is at work in this twilight zone between world-immersion (the normal state of the ego) and the ego being called beyond its captivation by the world by various intimations from Elsewere. This is my way of putting it, not Teresa's, though I think my way of putting it is consonant with her text.

[BV]

Vito @ 1:38 points out the need for >>a kind of ego check on an activity that is not entirely free from risk.<<

I agree about the risk, and the risks are considerable as we learned from our discussion a while back of Dr Gallagher's Demonic Foes. But nothing ventured, nothing gained! One does have to be careful, however. Discursive prayer is a very good idea before any 'deep dive.'

But death is coming, and it will be a deep dive that will do a number on our precious egos -- so a little death-meditation beforehand is a good idea.

Vito: have you read Augustine Baker? https://www.amazon.com/Contemplative-Prayer-Augustine-Teaching-Thereon/dp/1492897795

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

I am not familiar with the book of Augustine Baker.

Vito

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

“[S]o a little death-meditation beforehand is a good idea.”

I agree, and although I don’t meditate, I certainly think about death and dying. It is the latter that most concerns me, for I have accompanied several persons in the hard process of dying, remaining with them alone for many hours until the final moments, and the experience has left me with the conviction that the getting out of here is the thing most to be dreaded.

As for death itself, I hold in one hand the Christian vision and promise of the life to come and in the other the vivid and comforting memory of utter darkness, of nothing, that I experienced nine years ago while under anesthesia for surgery in Bordeaux. I remember the regret that I felt in come out of this state, deeper than any sleep, and finding myself once again in the world of the senses. While I don’t ascribe to the Buddhist soteriological notion of non-being as the ultimate good, I must say that I do understand something of it appeal. It is harder to imagine what a Christian post-mortem state would look like, whether one imagines it as a soul sleep under the final resurrection of the dead or as the soul perduring in some reduced state until that time, but I certainly do not reject its possibility, although those who think that this sort of belief is comforting no nothing about the stringent moral and intellectual demands that adherence to it impose on the believer and the rather terrifying prospects of punishment for unremitted sin. Trying to live a true Catholic life, for instance, is hard, which is why so many "believers' find ways to distort or evade the heavy moral demands imposed on us by the Decalogue and by Christ.

Vito

[BV]

>>As for death itself, I hold in one hand the Christian vision and promise of the life to come and in the other the vivid and comforting memory of utter darkness, of nothing, that I experienced nine years ago while under anesthesia for surgery in Bordeaux.<<

Was it a memory of nothing, or a memory of becoming aware of the sense world? I think you must mean the second.

Or it may be that you remember, while under anaesthesia, that you were not aware of anything. You were, after all, alive while under anaesthesia.

'Aware of nothing' is ambiguous as between (a) not being aware of anything, and (b) being are of something called 'nothing.'

We have no idea what Nothing/Nothingness is like -- if it is like anything -- any more than we have any idea what God/Being is like. And so we need to consider that perhaps the Buddhists and the Thomists are driving in the same direction . . .

[Vito B. Caiati]

Bill,

I see what you mean with regard to my use of the phrase "aware of nothing," and I thank you for the clarification. I certainly would not claim that I was aware of "(b) something called 'nothing'"; however, there was something about the experience under anesthesia, and this I can't express precisely in words, a blankness or blackness deeper than any sleep that has made the idea of the termination of self in death as, if not desirable, then less frightening. I felt a certain regret in waking up from this state and reentering the often painful world of the senses.

Vito

Vito