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Bernadette Roberts

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Bernadette Roberts is a contemplative in the Catholic tradition who writes about her journey to foreground an event that she refers to as "no-self"--the ending of all "consciousness" and the revelation of what remains beyond self. In her writings she distinguishes between two major milestones in the spiritual journey. The first of these, the "unitive" state, is the breakthrough of God at the center, followed by a permanent and abiding union in which God becomes the "other half" that completes us as human beings. This milestone is well known in the Catholic contemplative literature, as well as in other religious traditions, and marks the beginning of our mature life as human beings.

According to Bernadette, this first milestone is often mistaken for the end of the spiritual journey. What the "no-self" event reveals is that union with God is not the end but the beginning of our life with God. The end of the journey comes many years after union. The years on between are marked above all by a way of life that is selfless. With years of selfless giving, the self is literally eroded away as God consumes more and more of the human being. Bernadette is very careful to note that the self that is eroded away beyond union is not the fragile, egotistical self that was the center of existence before union. Rather the self that slowly vanishes is a self centered in God: beautiful, holy, and strong. The no-self event is a surprise, and it reveals a second, and final milestone in the journey with God. The self ceases forever and with it all human experience. What remains now is the mystery of Resurrection, of Christ and the Trinity.

Bernadette Roberts was born in 1931 and raised in a devout Catholic family. From early childhood, she had a number of mystical or contemplative revelations of God--as present in nature, as within her, and as entirely transcendent. She has written about these early experiences in an unpublished manuscript that circulates among some of her friends.

She entered the Carmelite order in her early teens. Soon after entering the Carmelites, she experienced the spiritual deepening of the "dark nights" described by Saint John of the Cross. She also experienced what has been described by Saint Teresa of Avila as contemplative prayer. She recounts that when she was 18, a new novice mistress asked her about her prayer life, "so I told her: I do nothing; there is just silence. This astounded and upset her" (Path to No-Self, p. 57). Her superior believed Bernadette to be deceived, possibly even to be under the influence of Satan and falling into the heresy of Quietism. But Bernadette's reading of Saint John of the Cross convinced her that her experiences were valid, and that she could trust in the journey so carefully described by the great saint.

She distinguishes between the mystic's journey to God and the contemplative path, saying of Saint Teresa of Avila, "she was a mystic and I, a common contemplative" (Path to No-Self, p. 62). St.Teresa of Avila's writings did not resonate as much with her as the writings of Saint John of the Cross who emphasized the path of naked faith, and warned contemplatives to be wary of mystical visions and revelations. In this sense she distinguishes between a mysticism based on visions, ecstasies, and other fascinating and paranormal experiences, and the contemplative journey, in which transformation comes about through the silent and non-experiential working of God's grace in the soul. While grace comes only from God, the contemplative must follow up on this grace to make any progress. The first responsibility is to do all we can to reform our lives and pursue God with single-minded focus. When we have done all we can, God steps in, and the breakthrough of the "dark nights" begins.

After spending 10 years as a cloistered nun, Bernadette left the Carmelite order, with permission from her superiors. She married, raised four children, and lived an ordinary life with God "in the marketplace." She remarks that this particular stage of life is characterized most of all by the intense and outward leap of the "living flame" within.

But her experience took her beyond the union with God into a terrain where both the experience of God and the experience of self would fall away. This final event reveals that the human journey goes beyond self. It is a journey that follow Christ's own journey to the very end.

Father Thomas Keating, a Trappist monk and leader in the Catholic contemplative movement, has written prefaces to her books.

Importance

The most important element of her discovery is that there is a further stage in the contemplative journey beyond that of the unitive state. Roberts describes this passage as heading into the complete unknown. This is where the map ends as far as the well worn path of Catholic mysticism is historically described. Roberts discovered this passage - "the path to no-self" - accidently and describes it as a "falling away" of the unitive centre. However, she believes that other contemplatives, perhaps Saint John of the Cross himself, also walked the path of the dissolution of self, but was unable to speak of it. Her book "The Experience of No-Self" describes the journey through this passage in an experiential and autobiographical way, while the following two books are attempts to describe and unpack the experience of no-self for the reader.

"What is Self?" Roberts has understood the answer to this perennial question experientially. She describes the experiences as the process of human maturation but a maturity that is only possible through God's grace. The ego and Self are both self-reflexive and dualistic modes of psychological functioning based on the subtle process of mental discriminating judgement, a process that is inherently built into the structure of the psyche. Her understanding of the spiritual path can been seen as the relationship between self and God - nothing revelatory here - but it is the unveiling of the truth of this relationship which is where the profoundity lies. For the western tradition in general, Roberts is quite radical, even moreso because unlike the Eastern traditions, there was no human Master or Teacher to introduce her to this state.

Brief overview of the Journey

The ego, matured through life experience and spiritual practice, falls away to reveal the unitive state, the oneness or wholeness of the self in unity with God, a state characterized by the feelings of love and subtle ecstasy. This was the end of the Christian journey--or so Roberts initially believed--and from this point we can see where Roberts travels beyond the limits of doctrinal Christianity. The Self, the mature human in a state of union with God, also falls away. This is the import of Roberts work. So what does this mean and what is left when there is no-self? Fundamentally the unitive state is still a form of dualism - Self and God - it means that an idea or archetype of God is still captured by the psyche. Roberts experiences the falling away of the idea of God simultaneously with the experience of the falling away of self - when there is no self, there is no God. For someone wholely devoted to the spiritual life and to God, to discover that there is no God, not one iota of subtle conception of God left to grasp at or attach to, was a particularly horrendous and terrible experience and is described in detail in "the experience of no-self". The experience is of a raw, pure and unadulterated reality without the imposition of concepts and ideas. Gradually this state, this initial loss, cleared to become a profound understanding of reality itself. In place of "unity" with God comes identity with God--a state she calls seeing with God's own eyes. But neither the ego-based sense nor the spiritualized self is "God." Instead, God is Reality itself, of which the human person is a single cell.

"Beyond self, the revelation is not of an immaterial soul or spirit but, rather, the revelation of the true nature of the body as part and parcel of Christ's eternal Mystical Body. This Mystical Body dwells in the glory of the Father and its enlightenment is the Holy Spirit." (from the preface of "The Path to No-Self").

Summary

There is a lot to be gained from a study of Roberts' works. It shouldn't be too difficult for Western Buddhists to relate to her realisation of no-self, particularly if they come from Catholic backgrounds, though her work is Catholic mysticism of the highest order. She didn't know that there was a spiritual conception of "no-self" until after she had the experience and decided to research the phenomenon in other spiritual traditions. She discusses her discovery of the Buddhist concept of the skhandas in "What is Self" where she agrees with the Buddha that these portals of the senses are the structures of consciousness itself. Roberts also equates the Self with the totality of consciousness - the self IS consiousness - which is different from the work of Jung and others (she compares her discovery to Jung's work in "What is Self").

Works

Roberts has written three books about the spirtitual journey.

  • Her first book is The Experience of No-Self: A Contemplative Journey State University of New York Press. ISBN 0791416941 (revised edition March, 1993) (the first edition was published by Iroquois House (1982) ISBN 0931980070 )
  • Her second book is The Path to No-Self: Life at the Center(1985) Shambhala Publications. ISBN 0394729994
  • The third book is What is Self? : A Study of the Spiritual Journey in Terms of Consciousness(2005) Sentient Publications ISBN 1591810264

A short biography and excerpt from The Journey to No-Self is included in Mystics, Masters, Saints, and Sages by Robert Ullman and Judyth Reichenberg-Ullman. (2001) ISBN 1573245070

  • Nonduality - outline of The Experience of No-Self.
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