(Source: Faith & Renewal, Ann Arbor, USA - May 1991)
Thanks for the copies of your two talks. I especially appreciated the one on centering prayer... your thorough analysis confirms my immediate impressions then. There's got to be room for a few "vanilla Catholics". Not everybody has to experiment with every possible new flavour. (Joseph Fessio, S.J.)
Thank you so much for the text of your talk on Centering Prayer and the New Age phenomenon. I found it quite helpful and charitable, and a truly scholarly approach to the subject.
(Bro. John Michael Talbot)
Don't
let the packaging fool you...
Toward the end of the
1970's I was caught up in the enthusiasm for meditation that swept the university
in England where I was living. I took a course in Transcendental Meditation,
and began to practice it
After a while I
noticed strange things about TM. For example, I was told at the outset that the
mantra I was given to repeat over and over in meditation was a meaningless word.
I later learned I had been unknowingly chanting the name of a Hindu god.
I came to the
realization that Transcendental Meditation is a highly deceitful organization.
It presents itself as a nonreligious form of self-improvement. But it is
actually a “neo-Hindu movement” (1) a “revival of ancient Indian Brahmanism.” (2)
I began looking for
alternative forms of meditation, and discovered Father Basil Pennington's Centering
Prayer." This appeared to be designed as a Christian alternative to TM.
Convinced of its value, I became a promoter of it. Now, ten years later, with
the benefit of pastoral experience in Britain, South Africa, and the U.S., I see
that I was also wrong in recommending Centering Prayer. Rather than functioning
as a Christian alternative to TM, Centering Prayer actually introduces
Christians to TM and to other non-Christian Eastern techniques. Indeed, as an
ex-TM meditator, I find it hard to see any difference between Centering Prayer
and Transcendental Meditation.
An increasing number
of Christians, especially Roman Catholics, are attracted to Centering Prayer. They
do not realize they are adopting a Hindu approach to meditation, which brings
with it the Hindu view of reality. The deeper they invest themselves in
Centering Prayer, the farther it leads them away from Christ and the church.
Christians who are attracted to Centering Prayer should take note of
the following
realities:
1. CP is basically
similar to 'IM, adopting TM's Hindu view of God and man and of “enlightenment.”
2. This "enlightenment"
is not the same as true knowledge of God, but comes from a self-induced altered
state of consciousness.
3. Given their lack
of discernment about TM and other New Age spiritualities, the proponents of CP are
not reliable guides to Christian spirituality.
1.
SIMILARITIES OF CP AND TM
Centering Prayer's
similarities to TM are readily apparent. For example, both use 20-minute
meditations and rely on the mental repetition of a word, or mantra.
CP advocates speak
about meditation in ways very similar to TM. In Finding Grace at the Center, CP proponent Father Thomas Keating
echoes TM instructors when he writes: "If we have lots of thoughts--good,
lots of tension is being released. If we have few thoughts -- good, there was
no need for them." (3)
Father Keating says
that "as you go to a deeper level of reality, you begin to pick up vibrations
that were there all the time but not perceived." (4)
"Vibrations" is common TM language. Father Pennington advises that
"when we meditate together there are set up supportive currents of grace
and even physical vibrations that are helpful." (5)
Only slightly
rephrasing TM instruction, Father Permington writes in Centering Prayer: "Whenever in the course of the prayer we
become aware of anything else, we simply gently return to the Presence by use
of the prayer word. . . . Increasing peace will let us move through life with
less tension, and repeated soakings in the prayer will release the built-up
tensions of the past." (6)
Father Pennington
explicitly praises IM. He writes: "In making a comparison between CP and TM,
I do not want to downgrade in any way the latter technique. I have seen too
many derive very real benefits from it to do that. I believe that a Christian can
make use of the TM technique without any hesitation, and, if he puts it into
the context of faith (without in any. way modifying the technique in itself),
it can be for him an authentic method of contemplative prayer." (7)
Hindu
Outlook Accepted
Centering prayer
adopts not only TM's techniques and language but also its Hindu view of man's
relationship with God.
TM's founder, the
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, claims that regular practice of TM leads beyond the
ordinary experiences of waking, sleeping, and dreaming to a fourth state of
consciousness, called "simple awareness." Constant practice leads to
"cosmic consciousness," then "God consciousness," and
finally unity consciousness. TM thus sees God as impersonal and thinks that separation
from him can be overcome by meditation. It regards man as capable of perfection
apart from Christ's incarnation and atonement.
Yet Father Pennington
writes that this way "traced out by the Maharishi, to be attained by the
regular practice of TM, corresponds, step by step, to classical Christian
teaching." Father Pennington writes: "When we transcend by means of
the TM technique, we come into an immediate experience of the Absolute, of our
God, an awareness of our oneness with him. We are not contacting him mediately,
through objects. We experience our oneness with him. . . The man lacking faith
can indeed have this experience of God. He may or may not recognize God in the
experience." (9)
Father Pennington's
acceptance of TM's Hindu views is especially remarkable in light of TM's
explicit denial that Christ played a redemptive role. The Maharishi has said,
"I don't think Christ ever suffered or could suffer," (10) – a
statement I often heard on the lips of TM teachers.
2.
WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT?
TM's attainment of
higher consciousness, of awareness of the Absolute, through constant meditation
is called "enlightenment. Is this the same as knowledge of God?
Speaking of the
Maharishi's fourth state of consciousness -- "simple awareness" --
Father Pennington says that "one descends into his deepest self and comes
into the Absolute, leaving behind all that is relative. There is great peace,
joy, rest here, for man is finding his truest self, what he is all about. The
Christian knows that this Absolute is our God of love, Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, who dwells in us.” (11) Is this claim true?
Archimandrite
Sophrony, an Orthodox monk, denies that meditation based on a nonpersonal
notion of God can lead the meditator closer to God himself. Sophrony admits
that Eastern meditation techniques enable people to rise to a "suprarational
contemplation of being, to experience a certain mystical trepidation." But
"the God of truth, the living God, is not in all this," Sophrony
says.
"The tragedy of
the matter lies in the fact that man sees a mirage which, in his longing for
eternal life, he mistakes for a genuine oasis. . . . The man who is blinded by
the imaginary majesty of what he contemplates has in fact set his foot on the
path to self-destruction. He has discarded the revelation of a personal God. .
. . The movement into the depths of his own being is nothing else but
attraction toward the nonbeing from which we were called by the will of the
creator." (12)
Merely
Natural Peace
Eastern meditation
does yield, as TM and CP proponents state, a lessening of tension. But this is
a purely natural form of psychological rest, not produced by the action of God
on the soul.
William Johnston,
S.J., observes that if you sit quietly, let go of all discursive thinking, and
focus your attention inwardly, and do this for many weeks, eventually you may
come to a "shattering enlightenment" which will fill you with joy and
exaltation, liberating you from craving and anxiety, even allowing you to
experience a timeless moment of illumination. But Johnston states that this is
not Christian mysticism, because it is not "knowledge coming from
love." (13)
The medieval Flemish
mystic Ruysbroeck wrote that "when a man is bare and imageless in his senses,
and empty and idle in his higher powers, he enters into rest through mere
nature. This rest may be found and possessed within themselves in mere nature
by all men without the grace of God, when-ever they can strip themselves of
images and of all activity. This natural rest is a sitting still, without either
outward or inward acts, in vacancy. In this bare vacancy, the rest is pleasant
and great." (14)
But Ruysbroeck
cautions, "When they immerse themselves in an absolute silence that is
purely natural, a false liberty of spirit is born. They mistake these types of
simplicity for those which are reached through God. iN reality they have lost
God." (15)
Enlightenment's
Sources
There is good reason
to believe that the "pure awareness," "enlightenment," or
"mystical unity” experienced in TM and CP is in fact due to psychological
factors.
In his research into
drugs and altered states of consciousness Dr. Stanislav Grof shows that
so-called mystical experiences can be induced by drugs. He also notes that
people close to death often experience changes in consciousness. (16)
Grof writes that in
these altered states of consciousness people lose their sense of time and
space. They feel a spiritual rebirth and a unity with other human beings, with
the entire universe, and with God. (17)
Mystical near-death
experiences, he says, may be due to anoxia-- insufficient supply of oxygen to
the tissues of the body. Drugs like LSD may lead to similar experiences by
interfering with the transfer of oxygen on the enzymatic level in the human
body." (18)
Techniques for
deliberately producing anoxia are widely used in Eastern religions to induce
altered states of consciousness. Pranayama – which I was taught in TM classes –
and other Eastern techniques use alternate periods of hyperventilation with
prolonged withholding of breath to alter the state of consciousness.
The
Effects of Mantras
Not only breathing
techniques but also the use of mantras gives rise to mystical states of
consciousness. When I did a TM weekend retreat for those pondering taking the
advanced siddhi course (which teaches one to levitate and become invisible!),
we did a lot of prolonged meditation, or “rounding,” as it was called. But it
was interspersed with other activities, as it was found that too much concentrated
mantra work can have bad effects.
The work of the
psychologist Robert Ornstein suggests that the recitation of a mantra produces
effects on the nervous system similar to "experimental uniform stimulation
of a sense." (19) If awareness is restricted to one unchanging source of
stimulation, for example, the TM or CP mantra, "a 'turning off ' of consciousness
of the external world follows." (20) The altered state of consciousness
resulting from the suppression of perception and thought by the monotonous
repetition of the mantra seems eventually to lead to an experience of
timelessness and cosmic unity. The self seems to merge inwardly with the universe,
with the ground of being, with the "field of Creative Intelligence,"
as TM puts it. (21) Practitioners of TM and CP, then, make the mistake of
equating altered
states of consciousness—beautiful as they may be--with God himself. God is not
a product of our little minds expanded by anoxia or mantras.
The claim of TM and
CP to attain direct experience of God is doubly strange given the Maharishi's
admission that "enlightenment" is the result of a psycho-physiological
conditioning process of the nervous system. (22) How can the nervous system
hold the key to reality after it has been subjected to a process of
conditioning? The Maharishi's admission clearly shows that TM involves
self-deception, not self-transcendence.
Technique
vs. Childlikeness
Christian prayer is
not technique. As Hans Urs von Balthasar explains, everything in man's response
to God that "smacks of technique" is "opposed to the gospel's
grace of childlikeness.”
Von Balthazar writes
that "Whoever uses or exercises techniques to achieve 'concentration,'
'detachment,' for expansion of his inner space – whether by Transcendental
Meditation, yoga, zen, or any other exercise – is not poor in spirit. Rather he
is full of ability and capability; he belongs to the 'rich ' who do not pass
through the eye of the needle, to the 'wise and clever ' from whom the Father
has concealed the kingdom. He is ultimately a Pharisee, who relies on his works
instead of entrusting himself to God in faith. For technique is achievement,
even if its goal is attainment of inner poverty." (23)
In the
Judaeo-Christian revelation we come to see that we cannot reach God or save
ourselves, and so God has stooped down to us. "The central difference
between Christianity and all other religions is that God came to us in Christ.
He reached down to us. However sincerely and with noble intentions all others
reach up toward God, the truth is that man's arms are not long enough." (24)
3.
RELIABLE GUIDES?
Anyone attracted to
Centering Prayer should pause to consider the credibility of its progenitors, who
have made themselves advocates of the Maha- rishi and of other New Age leaders
and trends. Father Pennington has only words of praise for TM's founder, the
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whom he warmly commends as "a truly spiritual
man." (25) Father Pennington salutes the Maharishi as a moral leader:
"His aim, through the experience of unity in the Absolute, is clarity of
vision, universal love and compassion-- a 'feeling with ' all creation. Rightly
then is Mahesh Yogi convinced that if all men embarked on this way and
faithfully pursued it, it would lead to an era of universal peace."
But, in fact, the
Maharishi's morality is that of Hinduism. Hinduism teaches that all is one, and in this scheme of things there
is ultimately no good or evil, as this would be dualism. This puts the adherent
beyond morality. The effects of this thinking are clearly visible in the
Maharishi's views.
Harvey Egan, S.J.,
cites the Maharishi's commentary on the Hindu holy book, the Bhagavad-Gita. (26) In a passage from
his commentary on the Bhagavad-Gita
dealing with the moral predicament of the hero Arjuna, who is called to fight
and kill even his closest relatives, the Maharishi comments: "Arjuna has
set himself a task which is impossible unless he attains a state of
consciousness which will justify any action of his and will allow him even to
kill in love in support of the purpose of evolution." (27)
Professor Arthur
Danto says the vision of Krishna and Arjuna slaying their ways
"dispassionately across the field of conflict, as though they were cutting
their ways with scythes through a field of wheat," is not a pretty one.
"It is a picture, however, of a self that has located itself beyond good
and evil. That is a dangerous space. It has been occupied by Nietzsche's
Superman and by those who thought of themselves as supermen." (28)
Beyond
Good and Evil
Certainly some of the
Maharishi's statements show a mentality which is beyond morality as we know it.
The Maharishi exercises deception about 'IM's real nature. He emphatically
claims that it is not a religion, and then says, "TM is a path to
God" and "a very good form of prayer." He claims that the mantras
are meaningless words, yet elsewhere acknowledges that the mantras are calling
on "the gods we bow down to in the puja." (29) These contradictions
prompted Mad Melvin, a professor at Temple University and ex-TMer, to say that
the Maharishi is flexible in what he considers truth." (30)
It is not that the
Maharishi is a bad man. Rather he is being true to his religious background as
he interprets it. Like Arjuna, he resolves his moral dilemmas by attaining a
state of consciousness which dissolves morality. The "enlightened"
TMer is beyond good and evil.
Is this the moral
outlook that Father Pennington wishes to commend to Christians when he
describes the Maharishi as a truly spiritual man?
The
Occult and More
In the last year or
two, Fathers Pennington and Keating have both enthusiastically endorsed a book entitled
Meditations on the Tarot: A Journey into
Christian Hermeticism, published anonymously by the highly eclectic New Age
publisher, Amity House.
The tarot, of course,
is the deck of cards used in fortune telling. Meditations on the Tarot is a mix of occult, theosophical,
alchemical, esoteric, astrological, and reincarnational ideas, stilled together
with Judaism, Christianitv, Islam, and Sufism in a manner reminiscent of the
works of C.G. Jung. (The Library of Congress catalogs the book under
"occult sciences.”) The whole jumble shows a cavalier disregard for the
differences between good and evil. Father Keating calls the book "the
greatest contribution to date towards the rediscovery and renewal of the
Christian contemplative tradition." Father Pennington says it is
"without doubt the most extraordinary work I have ever read." (31)
Filling
a Vacuum
Many Christians do
not realize how much they are buying into when they begin to use TM prayer
techniques. TM's techniques are based on Hindu assumptions about the nature of
God and man. If you adopt the techniques, you are implicitly accepting
the assumptions. As a
Catholic ex-TM teacher observed: "You start with Catholicism and a bit of
TM. Then successively TM becomes a part, eventually a major part, of your life.
Finally if totally displaces Catholicism." (32)
Oriental spiritual
techniques fill a tremendous vacuum in people's lives. Thus a simple
condemnation is not enough. We must propose alternatives. Above all, we must
make it clear that Christian prayer is an expression of love or desire for God.
The Scriptures are full of the theme of hunger or thirst for God. We see this
for example in the Old Testament in Psalms 42, 63, 143. In the New Testament Jesus
talks of those who hunger and thirst for what is right (Matt. 5:6). St. Paul
says that we sigh, "so great is our desire" for our heavenly home
with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8). St. Augustine says to God, "You have made us
for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless till they rest in you."
St. Augustine states that "the whole life of a good Christian is a holy
desire" and that "this very desire of yours is your prayer. If your
desire is continual, your prayer is continual too. . . . If you do not want to
cease praying, do not cease desiring. It is this kind of prayer filled with
love for God and the truth he has revealed--rather than prayer
that empties the mind
and loses sight of God's personal being, that we need to practice and teach in
the church.
NOTES
1. The Christian Century, 16 February 1977,
p. 150
2. Psychology Today, April 1974, p. 38
3. Thomas Keating, Finding Grace at the Center
(Petersham, Massachusetts: St. Bede's Publications, 1978),
4. Ibid, P. 25
5. Basil Pennington, Centering Prayer (Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday Image Books), p. 234
6. Ibid, PP. 104, 117
7. Basil Pennington, Daily We Touch Him (Garden City, N.Y.:
Doubleday, 1977), p. 68
snfd., P. 103
9 Ibid, P. 98
10. Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi, Meditations of Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi (New York: Bantam Books, 1968), p. 123
11. Pennington, Daily, p. 97
12. Archimandrite
Sophrony, His Life Is Mine (Crestwood,
N.Y. : St. Vladimir's Seminary Press,197D, p. 115
13. William Johnston,
S.J. The Inner Eye of Love (London:
Collins, 1978), p. 63
14. John Ruysbroeck, Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage
(London: Watkins, 1951), pp. 155-156
15. Jacques Servais,
S.J., ''In Search of the Hidden God," 30
Days, January 1990, p. 33
16. Compare Finbarr
Flanagan, O.F.M., "Reflections on Moody's Life after Life," The Clergy Review, November 1981
17.Stanislav Grog and
Joan Halifax, The Human Encounter with
Death (London: Souvenir Press, 1977), P. 153
18. Stanislav Grog in
Arnold Toynbee, Life after Death
(London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1976), p. 192
19. Claudio Naranjo
and R.E. Ornstein, On the Psychology of Meditation
(London: Allen & Unwin, 1971), PP. 166-167
20. David Haddon and
Vail Hamilton, .T M (Grand Rapids,
Mich.: Baker Book House, 1976), pp. 111-112
21. Ibid,
22. Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi, On the Bhavagad-Gita (London:
Penguin, 1969), p. 226
23. Hans Urs von
Balthasar, "On Unceasing Prayer,” Communio,
Summer 1977
24. Christopher J.
Noble, Catholic Evangelization Trainer’s
Program (Steubenville, Ohio:
Franciscan University Press, 1989), p. 35
25. Pennington, Daily, p. 96
26. Harvey Egan,
S.J., "Christian Apophatic and Ketaphatic Mysticisms," Theological Studies, 39 (3), 1978, P. 407
27. Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi, On the Bhavagad-Gita, p. 7
28. A.C. Danto, Mysticism and Morality (London: Penguin,
1976) pp. 98-99
29. Maharishi Mahesh
Yogi, Meditations, pp. 69-70
30. Constance Holden,
"Maharishi International University," Science, 28 March 1976, p. 1180
31. Dust jacket and
Amity House catalog
32. 30 Days, December 1989, Letters
