Lectures
Ibn al-‘Arabi was initiated into Sufism when he was about twenty and throughout his life various women saints influenced his spiritual development. Of Fatima of Cordova, who was in her nineties and only ate scraps of food left by people at her door, Arabi writes: “Of those who come to see me I admire none more that Ibn al-‘Arabi.” She said the reason for this is “that the rest of you come to me with part of yourselves, leaving the other part of you with your concerns, while Ibn al -‘Arabi is a consolation to me, because he comes to me with all of himself. When he rises up, it is with all of himself and when he sits it is with his whole self, leaving nothing of himself elsewhere.”
The talk ends with a guided meditation that moves you away from the activity of the day and into the center of your being. I hope this month’s podcast helps you to fulfill your heart’s longing to be fully present in and passionate about your spiritual life.
The talk examines some of the characteristics of mystical union. What does it feel like? What does it do inside of us? What kind of life do we live from that place?
Once we have found that intimacy, every breath we take, every act we perform, every moment of life is God. It is the divine in us. It is that momentary expression of the beautiful which dwells in us, which we offer over to each other.
Beverly Lanzetta, “The Longing Heart” series, lecture 7 “Living Without Why”. Series conducted at St. Benedict’s Monastery, June 2003.
The lecture speaks about the importance of reimagining our world to hold all religions and spiritual traditions as part of our collective inheritance, and to honor the dignity of all species and life forms. The talk is divided into four areas: 1. What is Global Spirituality and why it is important today; 2. Global Spirituality as an Emerging Faith; 3. The contemplative heart of Global Spirituality; 4. In what ways Global Spirituality transforms the spiritual journey.
This podcast is lecture number 10 from “The Longing Heart” series. I address how this vision of unity was actualized in the lives and thought of the social mystics, including Thomas Merton, Mahatma Gandhi, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and others.
Beverly Lanzetta, “The Longing Heart” series, lecture 10 “Communion That Surpasses Words”. Series conducted at St. Benedict’s Monastery, June 2003.
The Christian mystics had a vision that compelled them, that drove them from the cities out into the desert to be in silence and solitude. This vision of oneness was that each one of us was in some way participating in God’s incarnation in this world. The efficacy of the mystic notion that the mystical dwells within us, that the very things we do every day are a reflection of divinity, is paramount in reuniting with God. Even though we may not know it, even though we fear the divine is not within us, or have given up hope, or lost faith, the Christian mystics are one voice in the wilderness saying, “Come with me, come with us.”
Beverly Lanzetta, “The Longing Heart” series, lecture 1 “Christian Mysticism”. Series conducted at St. Benedict’s Monastery, June 2003.
In this talk, I address several core insights of Christian Mysticism: The divine and eternal Presence of God in the ground of the soul; the inseparable unity of God and the soul; the transformation and deep pain that this insight brings; and how the ultimate longing to know God allows us to revision who we are from the eyes of Spirit and not from the eyes of the world.
In the lives of the mystics, we also will learn how this inner illumination of divine-human intimacy gives them the courage and the strength to bear suffering, because they understand suffering is but nothing compared to the Light of the Divine Heart.
And, more importantly, their vision of the inseparable union of God and the soul is true for all of us, not just for the special or chosen, but for each and every one of us.
Beverly Lanzetta, “The Longing Heart” series, Lecture 2 “Mystical Anthropology”. Series conducted at St. Benedict’s Monastery, June 2003.
In the latter decades of the twentieth century a religious experiment was taking place in a remote ashram in India. Founded by European Benedictine monks, Saccidananda Ashram or Santivanam (“forest of peace”) as it came to be known, espoused a dual Hindu-Christian monasticism, and was to become the seed foundation of a lineage of Christian sannyasis (renunciates) that would grow into an international pilgrimage site.
In this talk, I turn my attention to the ideal of the Christian sannyasi—that is, one who lives a monastic commitment fully embedded in Christianity, fully embedded in Hinduism—in Frs. Bede Griffiths and Henri Le Saux (Abhishiktananda). Basing their practice on the dialogue of religious experience as it reaches into the depths of contemplation, and anchoring their vocation in self-surrender, they were pilgrims of a new path of mystical union. I concentrate on the spiritual development of their multireligious quest for final liberation, with reference to some proposals on the spiritual knowing that informs it.
