What a strange meeting it would be if Julian of Norwich, St. Augustine, Rumi and Einstein met to discuss The Cloud of Unknowing . The Cloud of Unknowing is a book title as well as a concept relating to discovering through the darkness the One, Divine source that manifests itself into all things and how to have an immediate, real relationship with this unnamable, ineffable source we call God. You would have the opinion of a female, Christian mystic, male Christian saint, Sufi mystic and the greatest physicist of all time. Although each of these people come from different disciplines all are concerned with understanding, knowing and sharing their relationship with God.

The cloud of unknowing is how an anonymous writer described the darkness of unknowing created by the absence of a relationship with God. He explains that realizing the immensity of our own existence causes great pain and suffering and those who understand this unceasingly try to be free of their humanness and to become in touch with their divinity. The essence of the Divine within each of us is the immediate relationship all mystics attempt to secure. Mystics understand that by letting go of their ego, or Self, what the Buddhists call "mindstuff," we can directly participate in the eternal.

The "failure of conceptualization" refers to the inability of any language to truly define and describe the nature, presence and reality of God. Physicists such as Albert Einstein worked tirelessly to discover the underlying force that moves the universe yet their findings could only be expressed in mathematical language thereby negating the power of the eternal which transcends all words or speech. However, great thinkers including Einstein felt it their life mission to use science as a means of expressing and enlivening a cosmic, religious feeling that would keep our link to the Divine alive.

St. Augustine, Julian of Norwich and Rumi each talked directly to God; however, Rumi and Julian viewed God as a Lover or Friend while St. Augustine seemed to have a more child to parent dialogue. Each of these mystics explain an individual perception of God that can only be described through abstract language. I believe they would all agree with the author of The Cloud of Unknowing that using the simplest means necessary such as focusing on a mantra or one word repeated over and over would free the mind of all concepts so that the inexpressible feeling of God could permeate the being.

The loss of the self is mandatory for anyone creating a relationship with God. The self, or ego, is the busiest, clingiest part of our psyche and it does not like to be ignored. The ego lunges for chaos and mindstuff and it is our bane to try and still its constant wanderings. However, it is also our responsibility to wait until our "water unmuddies" so that we can be one with the Divine, eternal source. One must surrender the individual self to the universal One which Rumi would explain he did through ecstatic dancing and praise. Julian would explain that she had committed her love to God alone as the bride of Christ and he her bridegroom. St. Augustine would describe his confessions to God as self-inflicted anguish, contrition for his disobedience and ignorance towards Divine will. Einstein would gush about the immensity of space and time and how the self should become lost in awe and wonder about the miraculous, physical universe surrounding us.

Rumi, Augustine, Julian, and Einstein would all agree with the author of The Cloud of Unknowing that only through pain or sorrow can one lose the self and feel God as love. Each of these beautiful mystics sought the relationship of the self to All - the collective soul which permeates the universe - despite the longing and sorrow derived from their separation from God. I believe each of these people writing to and about God wanted to share with humanity that only through the darkness of the cloud of unknowing can one be reborn to the light of the universal source or God.

Einstein would use the relationship of the self to the All as a foundation for explaining universal unity. He would describe the space-time continuum and how it brings us into the realm of the eternal now. Einstein would use The Cloud of Unknowing author's use of meditation upon a single word as a method to bring one into universal unity. Each of the mystics would agree that the realization of this unity should inspire one to serve humankind. They would all stress selflessness, patience, compassion and simplicity at all times but particularly in times of adversity. This service would come in whatever form an individual's gifts and talents had been bestowed be it through mathematics, prayer, teaching, or dancing. They would champion the need for humankind to treat their brethren as they themselves want treated, because every interaction with others is an interaction with oneself.

I believe that Rumi, Julian of Norwich, Einstein and St. Augustine would agree with the author of The Cloud of Unknowing that not all people are ready for transcendence; yet, all are capable. The anonymous author, much like the priests of the Egyptian mysteries, warns those beginning on the contemplative or mystical journey to not be faint of heart or soft-skinned. The road to awareness of universal unity is paved with fiends, demons, and devils, both within and without, that taunt us to stray from our main purpose: to intimately know God. An immediate, real relationship with God in whatever form one chooses to envision him/her/it/that is the only true salvation of the spirit. And when one of us is healed and reunited with the All, we are all brought a step closer to divinity.

We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute
of eternity. We are pain
and what cures pain. We are
the sweet, cold water in the jar that pours.
- Rumi, Open Secret, quatrain 1652

In our making we had beginning; but love wherein He
made us was in Him from without beginning: in which love
we have our beginning. And all this shall we see in God,
without end.
- Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love

O you sons of men, how long will you be dull of heart?...But how can you ascend when you have set yourselves up high and have placed your mouth against heaven? Descend, so that you may ascend, so that you may ascend to God...Tell this to those souls, so that they may weep in the valley of tears, and thus you will carry them along with you up to God. For it is of his spirit that you tell them this, if you speak while burning with the fire of charity.
- The Confession of St. Augustine, St. Augustine

In general only individuals of exceptional endowments, and exceptionally high-minded communities, rise to any considerable extent above this level. But there is a third stage of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form: I shall call it cosmic religious feeling...The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole..
- Albert Einstein, Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists, edited by Ken Wilbur

The active life is such that it begins and ends on earth. The contemplative life, however, may indeed begin on earth but it will continue without end into eternity. This is because the contemplative life is Mary's part which shall never be taken away. The active life is troubled and busy about many things but the contemplative life sits in peace with the one thing necessary.
- Author unknown, The Cloud of Unknowing: and The Book of Privy Counseling

© Copyright Paula Vaughan
Not to be reprinted without permission.

Resources for further study

The Cloud of Unknowing

Julian of Norwich

Jellaludin Rumi

Albert Einstein

Mysticism

Contemplative Prayer