Abandonment to Divine Providence by Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade

Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade seems to be addressing himself to persons in holy orders and that may give a wrong impression. You may think that their daily routine is strictly timetabled and running on the rails of obedience. That is true but the book is also relevant for the looser scheduled. We have to make decisions for ourselves and therefore the distortion of ego can impinge. To overcome this the presence of God in the heart must be cultivated so when we act it is under that discipline. He writes:

 There are, then, prescribed duties to be fulfilled, and necessary duties to be accepted, and further there is a third kind which also forms part of active fidelity, although it does not properly belong to works of precept. In this are comprised inspired duties; those to which the spirit of God inclines the hearts that are submissive to Him. The accomplishment of this kind of duty, requires a great simplicity, a gentle and cheerful heartiness, a soul easily moved by every breath of directing grace; for there is nothing else to do but to give oneself up, and to obey its inspirations simply and freely. So that souls may not be deceived, God never fails to give them wise guidance to indicate with what liberty or reserve these inspirations should be made use of. The third kind of duty takes precedence of all law, formalities, or marked-out rules. It is what, in saints, appears singular and extraordinary; it is what regulates their vocal prayer, interior words, the perception of their faculties, and also all that makes their lives noble, such as austerities, zeal, and the prodigality of their self-devotion for others. As all this belongs to the interior rule of the Holy Spirit, no one ought to try to obtain it, to imagine that they have it, to desire it, nor to regret that they do not possess the grace to undertake this kind of work, and to practise these uncommon virtues, because they are only really meritorious when practised according to the direction of God. If one is not content with this reserve one lays oneself open to the influence of one’s own ideas, and will become exposed to illusion.

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abandonement

Into the Mystic

What is mystical experience and what role should it play in religion? Is it a confirmation of the existence of God? If a convinced naturalist has mystical experience does that negate the confirmation aspect for the believer or is it evidence of the limitations of the naturalist's schema? I think the latter because the evidence for the natural roots of the mystical experience is overwhelming. Usually this experience is subsumed under the religious tradition that the mystic belongs to and indeed it often takes the standard forms that are validated by that tradition.

So how does the naturalist mystic fall short of a full understanding? For a start the interpretation of all events as having their roots in causal mechanisms that are material in origin is inadequate. Secondly the incoherence from their own point of view of the judgement of 'sameness'. One doesn't have to be a rabid Wittgensteinian to doubt this equivalence. It is just not demonstrable and therefore ought not to be considered by a thoroughgoing naturalist.

Then there is the variety of forms that mystical experience takes even within a single tradition. Why does the Blessed Virgin not appear to Hindus, does she not like them? Is she sniffy about Protestants too? Here the concept of ishta devata comes in: God will appear to you in your chosen form to strengthen your faith. What it may be asked is the faith that naturalists have that needs to be strengthened? They have a self, a nature, a consciousness which links them to the divine. That's quite enough to be going on with.

Haybote and Turbary

Philosophy or mysticism won’t fail or falter because they go with the land, they go with consciousness. Like serfs we have haybote and turbary. We’re alright, that’s for sure. How do you begin? At the beginning, go on to the end, and then, stop said Alice. The Advaitins of all the merry serfs that I have encountered in my peripatetic peregrinations keep the closest to that original face, the face you had before you were born. Pratibodha videtam or known with every state of consciousness is what the Katha Upanisad declares. How? Because every state is self-luminous, it knows itself as it exists in every moment. Famously the Buddhist Nihilists or Scholiasts of the Void drew this ort from the Vedic matrix and by isolating it made consciousness incoherent, strictly incoherent because there is nothing to bind it together. They ignored the binding problem being fascinated by the synchronic and left the diachronic out of their considerations. All those bundles of perceptions and no one to gather them up. Haybote not exercised lapses as you well know.

The Advaitins keep it very simple and direct. There are mental modifications or vritti, perceptions, experiences, cerebral events or what you will. They are well aware of illusions but are not tempted into founding their philosophy on them rather they take their stand on the normal, everyday veridical.

I see the stone. The stone is in my mind. But how? In one redaction of the original turn of consciousness which is paradoxically called empirical, that is all we have to go on. That fingerpost points to the quaking bog where turbary has lapsed and only the ignis fatuus flits. Advaitins amongst others find that intentionality establishes the object and look for a metaphysical grounding for knowledge in the unity of the substratum that is to say consciousness itself.

Quite obviously you don’t have to think this out in a programmatic way to know it. Here the merry mystic swaggers in with three broad and pointless divisions in his ananda. You have the nature boy, the savikalpa samadhi realisation in which there is the feeling of the absolute unity of everything. This is the aesthetic unity of the substratum. There is following this and regarded as an intensification, the nirvikalpa samadhi or the complete absorption and dissolution of the subject/object division. At this point the devotees panic and begin trying to pour milk and food into the guru’s mouth as they fear he may die and leave them. Next having been brought round or coming round there is the sahaj samadhi, the everyday in which there is no difference in consciousness, it always is what it is.

Zen Saying: First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is....