Mystical contemplation

Contemplation is the supreme manifestation of the indivisible power of knowing which lies at the root of all artistic and spiritual satisfaction. It is an act of the whole personality working under the stimulus of mystic love. It is not a simple state of consciousness, as is the case of meditation, governed by one set of psychic conditions. It is a general name for a large group of states, partly governed by the temperament of the individual, accompanied by states of feeling varying from extreme quietude to rapturous and active love in some cases combined with intellectual vision.

A distinction is made between acquired contemplation (which is the result of man's own efforts assisted by divine grace) and infused contemplation which is solely and entirely given by God. Psychologically, contemplation is an induced state, in which the field of consciousness is greatly contracted to focus the whole self upon the chosen object, allowing the reality of that object to penetrate consciousness and thus releasing new powers of perception and opening deeper layers of the personality. The whole personality, directed by love and will, transcends the sense world, rises to freedom, there to apprehend the supra-sensible by immediate contact.

In the true contemplative mystic, consciousness moves on to a higher level as the result of the emergence and deliberate cultivation of powers which in most people are latent or totally absent. There is a complete withdrawal of attention from the sensible world and a total dedication of action and mind towards a particular interior object. Consciousness is transformed and remade, resulting in a state of permanent illumination and the withering away of the sense of individual selfhood. Thus contemplation, the [via illuminativa]

, is a step on the path to full union, the [via unitiva]

of Christian mystical teaching. Throughout the Bible there are references to seeing God face-to-face as the aim of all contemplatives; this is said to make the contemplative's face shine with illumination.

Many attempts have been made to describe the stages of the ascent from meditation through contemplation to ecstasy; for example, St Teresa refers to four stages: the prayer of recollection, the prayer of quiet, the prayer of union and the prayer of ecstasy. According to Patanjali, in this final stage of meditation: physical, mental and emotional reactions are no longer regarded; all sense of separation, of a lower personal self, disappears; reality is revealed; a sense of unity with all beings is achieved; and the state of illumination, of samadhi, is reached.