THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING — Meditation
Posted on 14 May 2019, 12:01
This anonymous work of Mysticism was written in the 1300s continues to inspire many until the present day. A South Korean video introduces it well:
THE CLOUD OF UNKNOWING
You have to read this book with your heart.
Being smart or well educated will not help you understand this.
God responds to humility and love, not pride.
Between you and God there is a Cloud of Unknowing.
You cannot know God with words and ideas.
You can only know God with love.
So humble yourself and seek God with the prayer of your heart
You were created in God’s image.
And prayer of your heart will heal your relationship with him.
If your relationship with God does not come with humility and love, your relationship with him is a fantasy that will only exist in your imagination.
Some people can imitate humility and love but they are deceived and may fall into strange behaviours so be careful you don’t pray only in your imagination.
When you come to the cloud of unknowing put aside everything you know.
Under a cloud of forgetting ...”
Here is the link to the complete video. I find it very helpful.
The Cloud of Unknowing is a form of “Centering Prayer” of which I wrote about in my previous blog.
When I engage in Centering Prayer I often make use the app Centering Prayer which I have download to my mobile phone. . When I open this app it reminds me what I am about when engage when I engage in Centering Prayer, allows me to select a period of time for the meditation, say 20 minutes for meditation, plays some musical notes to get me started, and arouses at the end. Before I personally meditate, I like to prepare to meditate, I like to read those words introducing The Cloud of Unknowing, inste of the words suggested in the Centering Prayer app. It would be helpful to view this video by Father Thomas Keating.
As I look through my book, Afterlife Teaching from Stephen the Martyr I discover that it is a wonderful resource for those engaged in this non-dual meditation. Given the simplicity of such meditation, which is quite similar to the Buddhist meditation of non-attachment, it may be surprising that many books have be written about it and the original fourteenth century The Cloud of Unknowing one of them.
Stephen deals with it succinctly when he suggests the following prayer:
Lord let me forget that I am me,
Let me know that I am with thee,
Let me not separate myself from thee because I am me.
My advice is, it should be read again and again.
Michael Cocks edits the journal, The Ground of Faith.
Afterlife Teaching From Stephen the Martyr by Michael Cocks is published by White Crow Books and available from Amazon and other bookstores.
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