Beyond Words: The Search for God in Contemplative Traditions
God is not defined but experienced.
One theme I’ve found in many writings from contemplatives and mystics is this idea of ineffability. I know, I had to look up that word, too, when I first came across it. Ineffable means unable to find words to describe something. Words are not sufficient. Words might provide attributes of it, but they’re only based on the limited and subjective experience of the observer or writer.
Language is helpful, and sometimes labels are, too. Your name can serve to identify you, but even people who know you and your name only know the part of you that you choose to reveal. You recognize through life experience how to appear to people. In other words, I might refrain from saying certain things in certain company based on what you believe to be their assumptions, beliefs, and understanding.
So when someone says my name, my name might conjure up certain concepts and episodes in their mind. Yet that’s not completely who I am. Other people might have a completely different experience with me. Some of my former students saw me as a drill sergeant with high expectations and didn’t care for me so much. Others saw me as a maternal figure who would go to bat for them no matter what.
How could so many people have such different opinions of me? Are they right or wrong? Does anyone truly know Beth Bradford? Does my resume perfectly describe me? If I had someone write a biography of me, it still wouldn’t fully explain me completely.
And so it is about God.
When you say God’s name, what comes up? What image comes to mind? For some, the name of God might strike fear. For others, God’s name might have them roll their eyes. For mystics and contemplatives, words and images don’t suffice. And they’re ok with that. They know their place in the world. They’re fine with the mystery. It’s ineffable.
That’s why I like to turn to the wisdom of other religious traditions. As a Catholic, perhaps I could be married to the words of St. Therese of Lisieux, which is a fine start, but I wandered down the contemplative path of Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen, which led me to St. John of the Cross and The Cloud of Unknowing. I never knew the Catholic tradition had such a treasure trove of profound contemplative wisdom.
But that wasn’t enough. My Christian brethren have their own teachers who have inspired me, such as Alan Jones, Eugene Peterson, Parker Palmer, C.S. Lewis, and Thomas Kelly.
I also stumbled into the yoga tradition, where I was nourished by the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. Wayne Dyer led me to the Tao Te Ching. Rumi opened me up to the Sufi tradition. Thich Nhat Hanh, Pema Chodron, and Zenju Earthlyn Manuel opened their hands to show me Buddhism. And I’m forever grateful for it.
Had I confined myself to the “right” books and teachings according to my religious tradition, I wouldn’t have arrived at the same conclusion that many of these teachers have—that our concept of God (or pure consciousness, according to the Buddhist tradition) only encompasses a small window of who God is. Even if I read every spiritual book there is (and boy, are there some sucky ones), I still wouldn’t fully “know” God enough.
The Tao Te Ching says, “The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.”
Words confine us to the world of dualism, which is ok when you’re dealing with your mother or the jerk at the office. But words also keep us locked in the world of right and wrong, us versus them, Republican vs. Democrat.
God is beyond that. God is One. God is Love. I know, many people say that and it sounds so simplistic yet also abstract. I’ve also heard something a little more my speed—that we are continually swimming in God like water, but we’re continually demanding to see physical evidence when it’s continually evident in the attraction of atoms that keep your “solid” body together.
Ok, I’ve gone all nutty now. Sorry about that. When I try to write about the concept of God, God begins to shuffle all the cards that have been written about Him. Then God says to me, “Wanna play 52 pickup?”
While the words of so many of these writers have truly been bread for my spiritual journey, providing maps, blueprints, or preparations for my spiritual eyes to see, they also tell us that they can only take us to the trailhead of the path. We must embark on our unique path to experience God ourselves. This requires a true unknowing. Unknowing, as in dropping everything we know and opening ourselves up to the mystery.
It is then that we abandon words and concepts, recognizing that they had only served to point us in the direction God intends to lead us. We meet God at the trailhead. God takes us by the hand, and we close our eyes to any expectations and allow ourselves to be led.