Ra Ascent of Mount Carmel!

Wednesday 8 p.m.
I've just read the first book of The Ascent of Mount Carmel by St John of the Cross, the sixteenth century Carmelite and pal of St Teresa of Avila.

This bloggie is supposed to be concerned with experiential mysticism. I think the Kagyuptas might be right about claiming to have the skillful means, but I'm not dismissing any other mystical traditions. Joes like St John of the Cross demand some respect.

He's into union with the divine and in this regard seems very like yogis everywhere... although they might not call it God, or divine. The language across the different cultures shouldn't really be very important. Does it work? is the question we should be interested in i.e. does it dispel alienation?

The Second Noble Truth is that suffering is caused by desire based on ignorance of your own true self.

The first book of the Ascent of Mount Carmel is all about desire.

In order to arrive at having pleasure in everything,
Desire to have pleasure in nothing.

In order to arrive at possessing everything,
Desire to possess nothing.

In order to arrive at being everything,
Desire to be nothing.

In order to arrive at knowing everything,
Desire to know nothing.”

He's saying what the buddhists seem to say: You've got to desire the right things.

He seems to say that the "soul" has senses, will and memory. When I was a kid at a catholic school, we were told that the soul was like a white sheet which got marks on it from sin, which were washed off in purgatory before you went to heaven. St John isn't talking about anything like that. It's as if the soul was everything that you are if you take away the flesh. The five skandas are: Body and form, sense bases, perceptions, consciousness and mental formations, which include volitional impulses. The "soul" to St John seems to be almost everything except the body.

St Teresa said she couldn't tell the difference between mind, soul and spirit.

What St John is talking about is more like what we'd call mind. Or a strata of mind. We don't in English have words for stratas of mind. They must have words for this in Tibetan.

Much pleased to have gotten through Book 1. For anyone interested in catholic mysticism, I'll put in the quotations I took out.

Prologue “…for only he that passes this way can understand it, and even he cannot describe it.”

On flatheids: “like children who, when their mothers desire to carry them in their arms, start stamping and crying, and insist upon being allowed to walk, with the result that they can make no progress; and, if they advance at all, it is only at the pace of a child.”

“For there is no going forth from the pains and afflictions of the secret places of the desires until these be mortified and put to sleep.”

“for it has gradually to deprive itself of desire for all the worldly things which it possessed, by denying them to itself;[17] the which denial and deprivation are, as it were, night to all the senses of man.”

“And in this purgation the devil flees away, for he has power over the soul only when it is attached to things corporeal and temporal.”

“ ..and liberty cannot dwell in a heart that is subject to desires, for this is the heart of a slave; but it dwells in the free man …”

“And all the delights and pleasures of the will in all the things of the world, in comparison with all those delights which are God, are supreme affliction, torment and bitterness.”

Gospel St Luke: “He that renounces not all things that he possesses with his will cannot be My disciple.”

“So he that journeys on the road and makes the ascent to God must needs be habitually careful to quell and mortify the desires; and the greater the speed wherewith a soul does this, the sooner will it reach the end of its journey. Until these be quelled, it cannot reach the end, however much it practise the virtues, since it is unable to attain to perfection in them; for this perfection consists in voiding and stripping and purifying the soul of every desire.”

Talking of different kinds of desires. Natural ones don’t bother the soul much. Ones with “will” do. “. But some habits of voluntary imperfections, which are never completely conquered, prevent not only the attainment of Divine union, but also progress in perfection.”

“And thus the soul that has attachment to anything, however much virtue it possess, will not attain to the liberty of Divine union. For the desire and the attachment of the soul have that power which the sucking-fish[117] is said to have when it clings to a ship; for, though but a very small fish, if it succeed in clinging to the ship, it makes it incapable of reaching the port, or of sailing on at all.”

On consorting with flatheids: “And thus one imperfection is sufficient to lead to another; and these lead to yet more; wherefore you will hardly ever see a soul that is negligent in conquering one desire, and that has not many more arising from the same weakness and imperfection that this desire causes. In this way they are continually filling; we have seen many persons to whom God has been granting the favour of leading them a long way, into a state of great detachment and liberty, yet who, merely through beginning to indulge some slight attachment, under the pretext of doing good, or in the guise of conversation and friendship, (my italics!) often lose their spirituality and desire for God and holy solitude, fall from the joy and wholehearted devotion which they had in their spiritual exercises, and cease not until they have lost everything; and this because they broke not with that beginning of sensual desire and pleasure and kept not themselves in solitude for God.”

“every pleasure that presents itself to the senses, if it be not purely for the honour and glory of God, must be renounced and completely rejected for the love of Jesus Christ, Who in this life had no other pleasure, neither desired any, than to do the will of His Father, which He called His meat and food.”

“Strive thus to desire to enter into complete detachment and emptiness and poverty, with respect to everything that is in the world, for Christ's sake.”

“Strive always to prefer, not that which is easiest, but that which is most difficult;

Not that which is most delectable, but that which is most unpleasing;

Not that which gives most pleasure, but rather that which gives least;

Not that which is restful, but that which is wearisome;

Not that which is consolation, but rather that which is disconsolateness;

Not that which is greatest, but that which is least;

Not that which is loftiest and most precious, but that which is lowest and most despised;

Not that which is[133] a desire for anything, but that which is a desire for nothing;

Strive to go about seeking not the best of temporal things, but the worst.

Strive thus to desire to enter into complete detachment and emptiness and poverty, with respect to everything that is in the world, for Christ's sake.

“In order to arrive at having pleasure in everything,
Desire to have pleasure in nothing.

In order to arrive at possessing everything,
Desire to possess nothing.

In order to arrive at being everything,
Desire to be nothing.

In order to arrive at knowing everything,
Desire to know nothing.”

“When thy mind dwells upon anything,

Thou art ceasing to cast thyself upon the All.

For, in order to pass from the all to the All,
Thou hast to deny thyself wholly[137] in all.

And, when thou comest to possess it wholly,
Thou must possess it without desiring anything.”

It's not easy, is it, Jack? If non- attachment was easy, we'd all be blinking floating about in ra bliss, Hotboy. So we would!