Abstract
The Mystical Age calls for the spirituality of mystic bodisciousness. The proposed mystic practice of “bodisciousness” involves the entire body during the “wake-ful” state to enter into a bodily felt sense of being in a mystical state. This state is a bodily feeling or a felt sense/experience that one’s body is a porous space of “compenetrative presence” – a bodily experience of the earth, the cosmos, creation “compenetrating” the body, and one’s body is the space that mystically conjoins the earth, the cosmos and creation.
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Notes
- 1.
Pieris (2008, 185, 187) speaks of mindfulness as “primarily the art of becoming wholesome and fully human” through being “perpetually mindful or watchful of God working in all things and at all time.” See his article, “Spirituality As Mindfulness: The Biblical and Buddhist Versions,” in Patrick Gnanapragasam and Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, eds., Negotiating Borders: Theological Explorations in a Global Era (Delhi: ISPCK, 2008), 185–198.
- 2.
See Frank X. Tuoti, The Dawn of the Mystical Age: An Invitation to Enlightenment (New York: The Crossroad Publishing Co., 1997) and Kathleen Coyle, “Theology and the New Cosmology: A Quantum Leap in Theological and Spiritual Insight,” EAPR, 50, 2 (2013), 189–205.
- 3.
For more details, see M. Nadarajah, Living Pathways: Meditations on Sustainable Cultures and Cosmologies in Asia (Penang, Malaysia: Areca Books, 2013).
- 4.
Kendra Crossen Burroughs, The Essential of Ken Wilber (Boston and London: Shambhala, 1998), 51.
- 5.
Rahner spoke of the human as spirit which “reaches out toward what is nameless and by its very nature is infinite” (FCF, 62) or “reaches out beyond the word and knows the metaphysical” (SW, liii); see http://www.people.bu.edu/wwildman/bce/rahner.htm; accessed on October 25, 2013. At the same time, Teilhard de Chardin also mentioned that the deepest identity of his mystical anthropology is not just energy but spirit too. Teilhard de Chardin, Human Energy (London: Collins, 1969), 93.
- 6.
Rahner expanded on the possibility of human knowing to the transcendental dimension although Thomas Sheehan opines “the stark outcome of Geist in Welt is that human knowledge is focused exclusively on the material order, with no direct access to the spiritual realm.” See Thomas Sheehan, “Rahner’s Transcendental Project,” in Declan Marmion and Mary E. Hines, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Karl Rahner (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 31.
- 7.
P.J. Fritz Peter speaks of the humans whose beings are in the world with the vorgriff’s infinitude that remains open to the transcendent mystery of God. See Peter Joseph Fritz, “Sublime Apprehension: A Catholic, Rahnerian Construction,” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Notre Dame, 2010.
- 8.
Philip Clayton, Adventures in the Spirit (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), 137. Also see Darmuid O’ Murchu, In the Beginning Was the Spirit, 138.
- 9.
See Jeffrey D. Sachs, “Making Sense of the Global Impasse,” see http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/sachs168/English, accessed on May 23, 2011]) and “World Suffering a sustainability crisis?” Bangkok Post, April 26, 2012:10; Arianna Huggington, “The Future of Capitalism,” Times Magazine, 173, 20, May 25, 2009, 28; Joseph E. Stiglitz, “The Ideological Crisis of Western Capitalism,” see http://www.projectsyndicate.org/commentary/stiglitz140/English; accessed on November 23, 2012.
- 10.
Jojo M. Fung, SJ “Sacred Space for Sacred Sustainability,” Landas 20 (2012), 267–290.
- 11.
Rayappa A. Kasi, “Anthropology Versus Cosmology: A Schism in Cosmogenesis,” Journal of Dharma 37, 2 (2012), 171.
- 12.
George Monbiót, “Neoliberal Policies fail, but never go away,” The Guardian Weekly (January 25, 2013), 20–21, accessed on October 20, 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/14/neoliberal-theory-economic-failure.
- 13.
Yves Congar opined that “physical miracles and interventions in human history were eliminated from Christianity by the thinkers of the Enlightenment and later by Bultmann and his followers in demythologization” to the point that the Charismatic Renewal “claims to have experienced the direct intervention of divine power in the lives of its members and insists that God is ‘living.’” See Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit: Lord and Giver of Life, Vol. II, Trans. David Smith (London and New York: Geoffrey Chapman and The Seabury Press, 1983), 150.
- 14.
See David Tracy, “On Naming the Present,” in Naming the Present: God, Hermeneutics and Church, David Tracy (ed)., (London and New York: SCM Press and Orbis Books, 1994).
- 15.
See Jacques Audinet “Foreigner as an Opportunity,” in Norbert Greinacher and Norbert Mette, eds., The New Europe: A Challenge For Christians, Concilium 2 (1992), 57–65. For more details, see Don McCaskill, Prasit Leepreecha, and He Shaoying, eds., Living in a Globalized World: Ethnic Minorities in the Greater Mekong Subregion (Chiangmai: Mekong Press, 2008).
- 16.
In the homily of Pope Francis on January 3, 2014, at the Gesu in Rome in honor of the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus and to give thanks for the canonization of Peter Faber, the Bishop of Rome spoke of synchronicity: “To march beneath the standard of His Cross” means “to think like Him, to love like Him, to see (things the way He sees them), to walk like Him – it means doing what he did, and with the same sentiments He had, with the sentiments of His heart.” See Servizio Stampa, XVIII, 1 (January 10, 2014).
- 17.
Taj Thi Ta Tau is the name of the Creator of the Karen Hilltribes in the upland of Hod District, Northern Thailand. Julian F. Pas explains WU (“What is not” “what does not exist”) is explained in relation to YU (“what is” “what exists”). WU as “non-being” or “emptiness” as in space has its usefulness in relation to a carriage made up of various parts (they exist) and the empty space in the carriage makes possible the transportation of goods and persons. See Julain F. Pas, in collaboration with Man Kam Leung, Historical Dictionary of Taoism (Boston and London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1998), 242.
- 18.
Of interest is the insight of St. Simeon, one of the greatest Christian mystics born in 949 refers to the light as the “the light of the Holy Spirit” as light plays a very important part in his mystical experience. See Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit: The Experience of the Holy Spirit, Vol. 1 (London and New York: Geoffrey Chapman and The Seabury Press, 1979), 94 and footnote 3, p. 101.
- 19.
I am grateful to Dr. Ruben Habito for the initial guidance to understand what is WU when we met in early July 2013 in Manila.
- 20.
I am grateful to Dr. Ruben Habito and Joey de Leon, SJ for inviting me to this visit to Karma Yeshe Lhundrup’s (Virgil S. Antonio) residence on July 11, 2013 where he invited us for a conversation over tea. The conversation culminated in an interfaith chant, communal silence and shared prayer.
- 21.
When I met Dr. Ruben Habito again in July 19, 2013, at Loyola House of Studies, he asked me, “just breathe in WU and breath everything (what I know of WU into WU) and see what comes out.”
- 22.
Ken Wilber, “Always Already: The Brilliant Clarity of Ever-Present Awareness,” in Ken Wilber, ed., The Eye of Spirit: An Integral Vision for a World Gone Slightly Mad (Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, 2001), 290–308.
- 23.
This weekend retreat can be held at the Novaliches Retreat Center of the Philippine Province will be the culminating event of the ATP (Asian Theology Program) course entitled DOING CONTEXTUAL THEOLOGY IN DIALOGUE WITH INDIGENOUS PEOPLES at the Loyola School of Theology in 2014. At the same time, it will be offered to the pray-ers who are interested in imbibing this emergent mystical cosmology and anthropology with the insights from the book of this author entitled A Shamanic Theology of Sacred Sustainability: Shamans in Dialogue with the Church for their Liberative Struggle (Manila: Jesuit Communications Foundations Inc., 2014).
- 24.
Joseph A. Tetlow, S.J., opined that the Principle and Foundation, otherwise known as the Fundamentum, has been interpreted as a philosophical statement about ends and means which unfortunately hollowed it of mysticism of Ignatius at Cardoner that pervaded the overall dynamic of the Spiritual Exercises. See Joseph A. Tetlow, S.J., “The Fundamentum: Creation in the Principle and Foundation,” Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 21/4 (September 1989), 26 ff.
- 25.
Brian Swimme and Thomas M. Berry, The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era – A Celebration of the Unfolding of the Cosmos (New York: Harper Collins, 1992), 250.
- 26.
K.S. Juan opines that the “First Week is about self-knowledge of the different dimensions of the self: “strength and weaknesses, lights and shadows, wounds and wonders” and thus “sees the self as God sees it: with rigorous honesty and transparency…through an examination of conscience, a deep knowledge of patterns of sinfulness, and a profound sense of being loved and forgiven.” In this way the retreatant sees her/himself as “sinful, needing much grace and redemption but loved by a merciful God – life as a journey of knowing the mystery of his self and God.” See Karel San Juan, “Forming Leaders Through the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius,” Windhover (First Quarter, 2005), 7–9. From V.R. Baltazar’s perspective, the Ignatian First Week focuses on the retreatant’s foundational experience of God’s love and the genuine penitence, healing and reconciliation brought about by the experience of God’s unconditional love. These twin themes of God’s love and the person’s experience of sinfulness sets forth a long program of discipleship where the disciple prays over the mysteries of Christ’s life, seeing in Jesus Christ both an exemplar and ideal of obedient sonship, and a transforming spiritual dynamic of love that consistently pulls the disciple out of egoism into transcendent self-giving.” See Victor R. Balthazar, S.J. “Sacred Space and Time” in the Mind of St. Ignatius,” ANTIG: Views and News from the Center for Ignatian Spirituality, 14 (December 2012), 8–9, 12.
- 27.
Ignatius opines that the active indifference of the third class of persons is necessary for a reaching a genuinely free decision in a process of discernment. See V.R. Balthazar, S.J. “Sacred Space and Time” in the Mind of St. Ignatius,” 8–9, 12.
- 28.
On September 20, 2013, in the EAPI staff’s retreat in Novaliches, Danny Gusar, SJ, the retreat master, explained that the Three Classes of Disciples presupposed the Three Degrees of Humility. The incremental progression from the gradual to the total freedom/liberation from all slavish additions to mammon (Class 1–3) enables the retreatants to avoid grave/mortal sins (1st Degree) and venial sins (2nd Degree). This liberation is made possible out of an affective love for Christ and this deepening love enables the retreatants to embrace the manifest desire and will of God (3rd Degree) with selfless and total freedom of heart (3rd Class) even if such discipleship entails contempt, humiliation, poverty and considered foolish as a result of the resolute renunciation of the addiction to honor, pride and riches. Unpublished material.
- 29.
Sacred sustainability is a theological insight that explains that the sacred power of the Great Spirit has sacredly sustains the cosmos and anthropos. See Jojo M. Fung, “An Asian Liberation Theology of Sacred Sustainability: A Local Theology in Dialogue with Indigenous Shamans,” Asian Horizon, 4, 2 (December 2010), 401–415.
- 30.
Edward Mees, MDJ, “Mission.” 2013. Unpublished manuscript.
- 31.
Ameer Ali, “Globalization and Greed: A Muslim Perspective,” in Paul Knitter and Chandra Muzaffar, eds., Subverting Greed: Religious Perspectives on the Global Economy (New York: Orbis Books, 2002), 33.
- 32.
Balthazar postulates that praying on God’s love and sinfulness frees the pray-ers to be initiated into a process of discipleship whence the pray-ers contemplate “the mysteries of Christ’s life, seeing in Jesus Christ both an exemplar and ideal of obedient sonship” to the extent that the total and unconditional self-offering of the Son “pulls the disciple out of egoism into transcendent self-giving.” See Victor R. Balthazar, S.J. “Sacred Space and Time in the Mind of St. Ignatius,” 8–9, 12.
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Fung, J.M. (2017). Spirituality Of Mystic “Bodisciousness”. In: A Shamanic Pneumatology in a Mystical Age of Sacred Sustainability. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51022-4_7
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