St. Bonaventure: The Mind’s Journey to God: Oct 20, 2005

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St. Bonaventure: The Mind’s Journey to God: A Mystic’s Journal Entry October 20, 2005/ Meditation Class

Thursday, October 20

A new message from Tamsyn. I had sent her my Mystic’s Journal entry to check over before I posted it:

"I can’t think of a single thing to delete, Laurie; to me, it reads like poetry and brought back warm and loving memories of the beauty of Windgarth and the joy of good friends. I am convinced that my time at Windgarth was meant to be in order to help me now in this most difficult of times. Had I not learned to feel the divine presence of our Lord, I mean truly feel it as I was healing Stephanie and when I was meditating, I would have a very hard time dealing with my father’s passing. But I am happy for him, for the reasons I think I stated in an earlier e-mail to you shortly after he had gone to God; and that makes his passing much easier to deal with."

A very special person, my friend Tamsyn.

Last night’s class was again on Bonaventure’s The Mind’s Journey to God (Franciscan Herald Press; Lawrence Cunningham translator). In this Journal entry, Bonaventure’s words are in quotes.

We began Chapter Three: "On the Knowledge of God through His Image Impressed on the Powers of the Soul" in meditation class. In my opinion, we could have spent the entire class on the chapter title. What an amazing image and thought, that the Divine Image is impressed upon the powers of the soul. And yet, of course, this would have to be true, if the soul is in fact a ray of the Divine. I see it as the Divine Consciousness or Light coming through the soul even as it creates it. In this way, God and the soul are not two separate entities; therefore, all that is in God is, in some form or imprint or Image, also embedded in the soul.

Bonaventure begins this chapter saying that now that we have completed the first two steps of the Mind’s Journey, we are ready to "enter into the mind itself where the Divine Image reveals itself". Here, we will try to get a glimpse of God as through a mirror, the mirror of our own mind and consciousness. Then comes one of the most beautiful sentences I have ever read: "Similar to a candelabrum, the light of truth shines on the face of our mind with the Image of the Most Holy Trinity radiating over it".

Bonaventure has assigned the three powers of the soul as: memory, intellect and will.

The first power: Memory

Bonaventure, in this chapter of his book, is discussing memory as a power of the soul: therefore, we knew that he was not only speaking of the memory of the waking state mind, the ego mind. Here Bonaventure is saying that the soul itself has the power of memory, and that eternal Principles have been placed within the soul.

After much discussion, we arrived at the interpretation that Bonaventure’s concept of memory as a power of the soul, based on Augustine’s writings, refers to the imprint of the Divine Mind within the soul. That Divine Principles, Eternal Principles are given to the soul, and these Eternal Principles, by definition, exist before the creation of the soul. These eternal Principles embedded in the soul can then be grasped by reason, be made conscious by the power of memory. Bonaventure says: "Think of 'a proposition is either true or false' or 'the whole is greater than the parts' or something else that cannot be negated in our innermost reason". Bonaventure writes that we recall truths of this nature as "innate and familiar". This understanding and memory by the intellect is a simple Knowing, a recognition of truths already placed in the soul.

We then discussed these Eternal Principles further. One might be the idea of Man. As an Eternal Principle, this idea of Man would not be any specific man or woman or child, but rather the Ideas in the Mind of God before he created Man. And the same for all created creatures and things, including the planets and stars and other Heavenly bodies.

We then agreed that because these physical truths are manifested in the physical universe, given to it by the Divine Mind - the soul would recognize these truths. And that the same would be true of spiritual truths. We then added that the Divine Ideas behind all the events of the physical universe would also be given to the soul, that these Divine Ideas which are first created prior to manifestation run through every moment of each day. And we would recognize them as truth, when revealed to us through the use of the intellect.

C. added that the creatures and things of the universe were representative of these Eternal Principles.

The second power: Intellect

Bonaventure writes: "The intellect knows that this truth is unchangeable. Now our mind is changeable so this perception of the immutable character of truth must come from some light radiating an unchangeableness which is beyond the power of a created being."

Here Bonaventure is making the distinction between the individual intellect, our individual mind, and the Intellect that is a power of the soul. When he says: "Now our mind is changeable", he means that our individual minds have a multiplicity of thoughts, which are constantly changing and contradictory. Therefore, our own minds could not be the unchangeableness of truth, nor could our individual intellect perceive this immutable character of Truth. Therefore, Bonaventure introduces the idea of: "a light radiating an unchangeableness which is beyond the power of a created being." This tells us that even though Intellect is a power of the soul, Truth has been, or is being given to the soul from a Source beyond itself. M. added that these Divine Ideas and impressions are given to us by the Divine Mind, in that deep part of us where the soul and the Divine connect, i.e. in the spiritual Heart.

Bonaventure also writes: "As Augustine says in 'De Vera Religione' the light of every thinker is kindled by the very truth that he is striving to attain." He continues: "From all this it is clear that our intellect is united to the Eternal Truth and we are incapable of truth without Eternal Truth teaching us. Thus you are able to see within you the Truth which teaches you as long as unruly desire and phantasms do not cloud the rays of Truth coming towards you."

After Trudy finished reading: "Thus you are able to see within you the Truth which teaches you as long as unruly desire and phantasms do not cloud the rays of Truth coming towards you", she said that it reminded her of St. Paul’s: "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face ... " (Cor:13;12.) We agreed that the meaning was the same. That our personal flaws, and the action of the ego - our thoughts and emotions - blocked these rays of Truth and this meeting with God, face to face.

"Our intellect is united to the Eternal Truth." We interpreted this phrase to mean that the Divine Mind is the very Source of all our thought, and arises and exists concurrently with the intellect. "Our intellect is united to the Eternal Truth" tells us that our individual minds are in some mysterious way connected to the Divine Mind Itself. That this Divine Mind is the very Source of all our thought. That without this Divine Source - we would be incapable of thought. Here I added that even though the Divine is the very Source of our human thought - we persist in looking only at our thoughts and not the Divinity behind them. Our every thought is a connection to the Divine Itself, the Divine Presence is in our every thought - and yet we put our attention on the mundane, on the physical world, on our thoughts and emotions. That in our meditation practice, we are trying to remedy this. In meditation we are attempting to put our full concentration on the soul and this Eternal Truth, rather than our thoughts and emotions. That to have a Glimpse of God through the mirror of the mind - was our greatest human potential as thinking beings.

"Thus you are able to see within you the Truth which teaches you", i.e. Truth has already been placed in the soul, and to find Truth, we must look within. We must meditate, strive to attain the state of contemplation, where there are no thoughts. "As long as unruly desire and phantasms do not cloud the rays of Truth coming towards you." i.e. the flaws of the ego, the flaws in our thinking and our emotional responses to life blind us to truth. That this truth that St. Bonaventure speaks of: the Truth that we are luminous beings, the soul, and that the physical world is Divinity.