The visit of the numinous ~ a transforming benediction
Nov 20, 2019
Saying For Today: Mystery is the norm to the person awakened to Life, the Unfamiliar the familiar.
Brian Wilcox. 'Hiddenness'. Flickr
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"Awe precedes faith."
*Abraham J. Heschel
The room became full with that benediction. Now what followed is almost impossible to put down in words; words are such dead things, with definite set meaning, and what took place was beyond all words and description. It was the centre of all creation; it was a purifying seriousness that cleansed the brain of every thought and feeling; its seriousness was as lightning that destroys and burns up; the profundity of it was not measurable, it was there immovable, impenetrable, a solidity that was as light as the heavens. It was in the eyes, in the breath. It was in the eyes and the eyes could see. The eyes that saw, that looked were wholly different from the eyes of the organ and yet they were the same eyes. There was only seeing, the eyes that saw beyond time-space. There was impenetrable dignity and a peace that was the essence of all movement, action. No virtue touched it for it was beyond all virtue and sanctions of man. There was love that was utterly perishable and so it had the delicacy of all new things, vulnerable, destructible and yet it was beyond all this. It was there imperishable, unnameable, the unknowing. No thought could ever penetrate it; no action could ever touch it. It was ‘pure’, untouched, and so ever dyingly beautiful.
The room became full with that benediction. ... All this seemed to affect the brain; it was not as it was before. ... Because of it, relationship seems to have changed. As a terrific storm, a destructive earthquake gives a new course to the rivers, changes the landscape, digs deep into the earth, so it has leveled the contours of thought, changed the shape of the heart.
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Jiddu Krishnamurti wrote the above words in his notebook, July 20, 1961.
What does he mean "benediction"?
In a formal sense, "benediction" is religious in usage, referring to an invocation of blessing. Many religious meetings end with a benediction. In a non-religion sense, "benediction" refers to any expression of good wishes or to anything promoting good or well-being.
He spoke against all religions. It seems he had to mean this in a nonreligious sense.
He did speak against all religions. He did not, however, speak against being religious. Being religious for him was discovering in this moment, free of memory, the truth, reality. For him, the religious person is sensitive and aware of beauty. He spoke of this mind as "religious mind" and "blessed mind." He affirmed that to speak of God without experiencing that we speak of, and with a mind totally free and, so, open to the unknown, is of little value. Krishnamurti compared this to playing with toys, and calling this religion, we create confusion and suffering in our world. "Realizing is experiencing, not imitating," Krishnamurti rightly remarked.
A reason I read the above account is to highlight, however, the experience of mystery, or the Mystery. He struggles, we see, to put it into words, so his words add up to appear wordy, as though he is speaking from the overflow of the experience, or as though maybe searching in the dark to light a candle so we can get a glimpse. He failed to speak it, for he could not speak it. Yet, he is sharing of what cannot be imitated; for a taste of the Ineffable, one must have a direct, unmediated encounter with it. Hence, when a religious sect seeks to mediate this meeting with the Sacred, it hinders the one seeking the Holy. A religion can provide means, but cannot mediate. There can be no go-between in the taste of Grace. The Jewish Scriptures have a passage reading, "Taste and see that the Lord is good." That is what Krishnamurti is saying: only the experience makes it real for you, even as no one can taste for you the taste of what you drink or eat. You cannot vicariously taste. We do ourselves a disservice when we become dependent on mediators, be they a church, a guru, a spiritual teachers, ... anyone. A humble, wise spiritual guide will inspire you to seek the Truth for yourself.
This kind of experience shared by Krishnamurti is what is called the numinous by some, isn't it?
Yes, a sense of the presence of the Holy, the Mystery. This is linked with the word "numen," referring to a presiding divinity or divine spirit. The result is awe, a deep sense of reverence. The suchness of the Holy can feel overpowering. This is a reason some have spoken of the mysterium tremendum, meaning, "the terrible mystery," meaning awe-inspiring, urgent, mysterious. Rudolf Otto, in the Idea of the Holy, set forth this concept, and he presented another form of the numinous, the fascinans, meaning "fascinating." I would prefer not to make these divisions, but say the numinous can include all these and different degrees. I have had experiences when I was fearful, feeling like I was in the presence of a power that shocked me with its awe-fulness.
At times, you appear to discourage seeking such experiences?
Yes, but when they come, welcome them. Also, to be open to them invites them. What is most important is not that they happen, however, but how are you after they happen.
What do you mean?
Krishnamurti shared of how he was transformed by the experience. He wrote of this in the language of intimacy of heart, that this benediction "changed the shape of the heart." Any arising of Mystery is meant to be transformative. If we receive it in the right spirit, we are never the same again.
Interesting he doesn't attribute this to God, as many would.
He is poetic, not wanting to frame it in theological language. Yet, he is true to his sense of something being religious in choosing the word "benediction," I think. Again, to be sensitive to the present, to reality, without imposing the past onto it, that is what a religious person does. He does not want to explain, that would betray the experience, he wants to leave it in the form of connotation. He does not want to treat the sacred as recognizable.
What, not recognizable? Do we not want persons to recognize when they have a divine visitation?
What is meant is that the Holy meets us at the point beyond what we would call the known. We recognize these visitations in that they introduce us to something unrecognizable; again, we may have hints of past experience, but the experience is free of that past. The Holy never repeats Itself.
So, religious means poetic?
All religiousness, contrasted with religion, is poetic, even when in prose. Poetry is metaphorical, gives a hint, but does not clarify, leaving the mystery mysterious, the numinous in all its numinosity. Religious language is evocative, not explanatory. When we explain, we denude the landscape of mystery.
Kahlil Gibran said of his The Prophet, which at times is surely obtuse, "If these be vague words, then seek not to clarify them." So, some things we need to relax with, appreciate the lack of understanding, letting the vagueness remain untouched: the vague of the Holy elicits not explanation but resignation, not clarification but reverence, not loquaciousness but silence.
So says the narrator when referring to the Prophet, when the Prophet awaits the ship that he has seen from the shore, the ship to take him to his homeland: "These things he said in words. But much in his heart remained unsaid. For he himself could not speak his deeper secret." In meeting the Ineffable that we call "God" or otherwise, we meet the same Reality as the "deeper secret" of the withinness of ourselves. The secret of the Universe all around us, is the same secret as that within us. So, persons may feel baffled by the mystery of the Universe or God, but the heart is equally a secret, and, indeed, the secret in the heart is the same Unspeakable. Your heart is how intimate the numinous is to you. To sense this mystery, you do not have to go anywhere, and you really do not have to have a special experience. Mystery is the norm to the person awakened to Life, the Unfamiliar the familiar.
Why do we tend to take the mystery out of mystery?
We cannot take the mystery out of mystery, or out of the Mystery. We flee the Mystery and mystery by reverting to our head, escaping the heart. The heart is wild and mystifying. The heart is always in the present, never overlaying the present with the past, the sensitivity to now with the deadness of then. To live in the past is death, to live in the moment is life.
What do you most recommend in working with the mysterious?
Lean into it, relax into it. Work with this leaning into, daily. Feel into the mystery, into the feeling-sense, which allows an alert receptivity and sensitive clarity. Trust Grace to appear, really that it is already present, but do not decide what that is or how it will or should feel. We are experiencing God all the time, we miss that partly for we equate the Divine with a particular kind of experience, rather than That in this experience right now. So, work with this, in meditation and stop during the day and night for brief times, even if a few moments, to welcome a receptivity and feeling-of Presence.
I found it odd for him to call this benediction "dyingly beautiful," rather than it being undying, timeless.
It is the same. We can only experience the deathless in the dying of this one moment. Once Life, which is timeless, boundless, manifests Itself in the sequence of time-space, that manifestation is, yes, dyingly beautiful. Beauty in experience is enhanced, for we know it cannot last. Surely, do we not adore the rose even more, for we know it will soon wilt? Do we not cherish our lives the more, for we know the brevity of our time here?
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Access from original site via top left artist-title, if video does not play from this site.
*The theme of "Lotus of the Heart" is 'Living in Love beyond Beliefs.' This work is presented by Brian K. Wilcox, of Maine, USA. You can order Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, through major online booksellers.
*Materials from Krishnamurti, from Jiddu Krishnamurti. On God; of Gibran, from Kahlil Gibran. The Prophet. Penguin Classics.
