Double Unity: Flying Fish, Witnessing Presence, and Keeping it all in Perspective

^{photo courtesy of marinebiology.org}

     Discussing the ineffable with the devotedly non-religious can be tricky. For my efforts to engage them, I’ve found that their alternative perspectives can sometimes elbow me out of blind spots. Sometimes unsettling, but ultimately always welcome. That happened at a dinner party I recently hosted. It all started with spidey senses and flying fish.

     My guests were faithfully secular, yet had no trouble diving into questions about mysterious experiences and the unknown. We were artists and writers, each committed to the social good and environmental activism. I was the only one who threaded spirituality into the mix. My friends welcomed curiosity and wonder, even reverence, they said, and each had known uncanny sensations of unity and connectedness with people and the universe beyond. But they wondered why I would turn to religion to explain such things. My friends admitted they were a little confused by my commitment to study contemplative Christianity.

     It began early, I told them. The interreligious contemplative environment of my childhood gave me a deep desire to understand “the thing that happens”– the powerful visceral sensations of connectedness that can rise among serious practitioners. I learned at a young age that the contemplative arts – meditation, chant, sacred movement – can intensify the porous and interconnected nature of the human person, so that when people practice together they seem to merge with one another and the non-human world. It’s something that can happen to people in all kinds of situations, but in my case, I said, my schooling came through concentrated practices of contemplative religion.

^{photo courtesy of freepik.com}

     My friends agreed that unitive being is a basic human capacity. Cultures all over the world have nurtured practices that help us reach out beyond the boundaries of skin. Unitive experiences are often (but not always) associated with the divine. In North America, however, the prevalent concept of personhood tends not to include experiential collectivity. Instead, many North Americans see individual humans as utterly self-contained. “Sort of like limburger cheese wrapped super tight so the odour can’t get out,” I laughed. “How different is the idea of human beings industrially sealed in plastic from Solomon’s yearning cry to ‘set me as a seal upon your heart’?”

            My desire to understand “the thing that happens” led me to the disciplines of anthropology and ritual studies, where I could seriously pursue research of unitive phenomena.  Anthropologists call collective union communitas, and they highlight a characteristic critical to understand in our times: a sense of oneness occurs not only in situations of heightened awareness and benevolence, but also heightened fervour and agitation.

     Communitas has a lot in common with charisma, the term that St. Paul coined to explain the fiery energy that the apostles received from God. In recent parlance, “charisma” has been pruned down to specifically describe the power of influential leaders. Even so, charisma actually means something larger, referring to any enlivening, communicative force that draws people together, whether it rises through individual magnetism, compelling collective rites, or ecstatic group sentiment. We can find the captivating energy of communitas and charisma at sports stadiums, concert halls, political rallies, or temples. Anywhere people gather together and focus attention.

     A potter in our group asked if my research showed any way to qualitatively measure charismatic force.

     “Sure,” I said, “If, for example, you lived a year with a group of devoted white supremacists and a year in a devoted monastic community, you would likely see stark contrasts.” How we dwell in the world and what we emphasize makes all the difference. A group’s experiences of oneness are shaped by things like placement of energy in our bodies, quality of our attention and movement, and above all, how our intention inspires tone. That includes ethics and ideals.

     We can understand a group or leader best by what qualities they cultivate, just as St. Paul conveys with his fruit of the spirit. “Detachment and humility will likely create compassion, while defensiveness and self-righteousness might well bring about tar-and-feather scapegoating,” I said. “That obviously colours the character of unitive experiences.”

^{photo by Maor Attias}

     I mentioned that monks and nuns in their cells may seem to be isolated from the world, but many of them regularly experience intense sensations of interconnectedness. There is a porosity to praying bodies regardless of walls. In practice, monastic solitude can exist in a flow of energy that binds the community and the world together, whether people are in physical contact or not.

     An environmental journalist in our party made a connection between monastic porosity and biological cells. He noted that cells, like all organisms, need their exoskeletons to survive. Cell walls are protective and discerning, he said; they select what they allow in and what they put out. “Openness doesn’t mean a free-for-all,” he said, then added, “That must be true of contemplatives, too.”

     I had to think about that. The need for an exoskeleton doesn’t immediately bring to mind contemplative surrender. And yet monasteries have walls, and our ability to discern is essential. Not every form of unification, or charisma for that matter, contributes to peace and harmony, and we need to know the difference. While we greatly value contemplative surrender, we must distinguish between surrender and collapse. Danger lies in abandoning good judgment to the seductive ecstasy of union.

     Our dinner party conversation turned to the need for mentors in cultivating discernment and sound ways of being, especially in cultural environments that honour acquisitiveness and competition.

     “The guru becomes so necessary in a time when possessions are continually peddled and people snatch at power,” said the potter. “And yet we know the guru has the potential for corruption, or maybe they’re just not as wise as you’d hoped for.” She turned to me and asked, “Aren’t your spidey senses on high alert when you’re around spiritual leaders?”

     I nodded. “It’s good practice to watch whether teachers are serving their own interests or whether their actions are grounded in humility and good will. My caution around gurus and religious institutions is one reason that I’m an anthropologist and not a monastic. I want to be fully engaged, but have always felt a need to keep a little reserve to help put things in perspective. That sometimes feels like an oxymoron. Like a fish with wings.”

     “Well,” said the poet, smiling, “Flying fish do exist. And they thrive in two places at once, sea and sky. Sounds like you’re after the same thing.”

     Spidey senses, flying fish. I suddenly realized that my choice to work as an anthropologist – entering in, being engaged, keeping perspective – had come not so much from apprehension as from the pull toward awareness. Anthropological fieldwork has been my clumsy attempt at simultaneously being in union and observing union, a contemplative form of consciousness we call witnessing presence.

     Witnessing presence is a layering of consciousness that aligns one’s everyday perception with a capacity to see oneself and others in the greater context of divine being. It is the “innate capacity of human consciousness to be present to itself as a field of awareness,” writes Cynthia Bourgeault in The Heart of Centering Prayer (79-80), a kind of “double attention” that allows one to simultaneously be and see.

     Witnessing presence is not the same as self-segregation or subject-object dualism. Rather, it is a doubleness that coalesces to oneness. A double unity, if you like. As we practice this way of seeing, witnessing presence can develop an embodied and enduring centre – “the seat of attention, the place one pays attention from” (85).

^{photo by de ar}

     If we’re not careful, the energy of unitive experience can pull us into identification with its exquisite sensation, with a person or group, with a cause. And it can obliterate our capacity for discernment.

     Double unity is a salve. It helps us spot the potential seductiveness of collective oneness and the dangers of blind zeal, allowing us to simultaneously step in and stay grounded. That way we can see a way to choices that set our lives in better alignment with God.

     At the end of the evening, my creative and thoughtful friends agreed that, whether we turn to so-called religion or not, all of us need to notch up our efforts and work toward experiences of union that foster peace rather than divisiveness. Current times demand it.

     A tapestry maker in the group summed up our conversation nicely: “In the world as it is, we need our spidey senses, and we need more flying fish.”

^{photo by tcs}

Paula Pryce writes reflections for The Contemplative Society on an ongoing basis.  She is a cultural anthropologist and writer who specializes in ritual studies and contemplative religions. Her publications include The Monk’s Cell: Ritual and Knowledge in American Contemplative Christianity.

To connect with Paula about this reflection, please e-mail TCS at admin@contempaltive.org. Your e-mails will be forwarded onto her.