Interfaith Satsang 17 October 2009 - Mystic Heart of Christianity

Tonight we were in for a special treat as it was the last in the series of the interfaith Satsangs. The topic of the evening was the mystic heart of Christianity.

After the chant, Swamiji opened the program saying, ‘Each path of every religion has something worthy, something to give and something to offer. The true path of religion is to create oneness…Once you get the notion that we can know God directly, we start to do the work that’s necessary’.The speaker tonight was Reverend Hans Christiansen, who is an ordained priest in the Anglican Church. He is an Oblate in the Camaldolese Benedictine Order and the aassistant priest of the parish of Sorrento and Rye.

Hans defined a Christian Mystic as ‘Someone who desires union with God and has experienced some form of union with God. A Christian mystic is a person who has Jesus at the core… The Christian practitioner experiences full union with God just like Jesus’. The first Christian mystic was Jesus.

The mantra in Christianity is ‘Lord Jesus have mercy on me’. Hans said, ‘Once the mind is quiet and a person reaches stillness beyond the mind, then it is darkness for many people. Christianity has a profound theology about darkness or the way of the cross. It is about Gods presence in what seems to be dark, void or empty’.

Hans spoke about paths to God or divine union in Christian Mysticism. He described two main types:

• Kataphatic: path of devotion, adoration or bhakti. It includes rituals, like Eucharist, chanting, spoken prayer, song or dance. Hans referred to the kataphatic statement: ‘I no longer live but Christ lives in me’.
• Apophatic: the way of prayer beyond words, which includes imageless meditation. Hans described it as the ‘way beyond, the way we can’t say what God is’. In this approach the aim is to experience God in the darkness. He referred to John of the Cross, who was a monk in the 16^th Century in Spain. John wrote poems about ‘the dark night of the soul’. He said, ‘All images and attachments will fall away’, ‘Even the notion and idea of God must be left behind’.

Hans said these paths are ‘not mutually exclusive. They complement each other’.

Referring to a question on the Christian Ritual, Eucharist, Hans described it as ‘losing the little ego in the new Self, the resurrected Self. It is about coming one with Christ in his dying and rising. Therefore it is a symbol of our own dying and rising. The dying of the little self and rising to the new larger Self. We drink from the same cup and break the same bread. It is a symbol of the one God, one spirit that flows through us all’.

To end his talk, Hans directed us to inwardly repeat the mantra in one of the chakras. As we began to meditate he sang a Christian Hymn that is traditionally sung in the evening before going to bed.