Contemplation

Contemplation embraces all the forms of reflection which call for a recollected frame of mind and have in them the quality of intuitive vision. It is associated not only with the mental attitude necessary for apprehending spiritual truth, but also in the initiation and understanding of complex and fundamental scientific and philosophical theories. Contemplation is therefore the state in which major innovations are conceived. It is not antagonistic to rational, analytic thought, but is complementary to it providing an alternative means of apprehending the nature of things. Marxism defines contemplation as a [sensory]

stage of knowledge. However, Thomas Merton refers to it as "the highest expression of man's intellectual and spiritual life ... that life itself, fully awake, fully active, fully aware that it is alive". With a certitude beyond reason and beyond simple faith, beyond knowing and unknowing, it is awareness of the source of life and being, an experience of "I am".

Christian mysticism distinguishes between two kinds of contemplation, that achieved by psychological effort - [acquired contemplation]

; and that arising through the gratuitous making known of God to the individual - [infused contemplation]

. This latter form entails deprivation of some natural operations, such as discursive rational knowledge, and first appears in purification from preoccupation with the external. This has been described as [aridity]

or the [dark night of the soul]

.

François Fénelon, quoting Dionysius the Areopagite, says that in the contemplative state the holy soul is occupied with pure or spiritual divinity, with God and not the image of God which could be addressed to the senses. The desires of the soul are not satisfied at being occupied with the attributes of God; the soul loves to unite itself with God as the subject of His attributes.