Sunday, March 29, 2009
Invitation to a Meditation Blog: Working with the St. John Gospel
We began our meditation group under Georg Kühlewind’s tutelage at the New York Branch as an offshoot of the Owen Barfield group in the mid 1990s. For about the first six months we worked exclusively and rigorously out of the first few verses of the St. John Gospel. We were impressed to learn that Georg had been meditating on that prologue daily for 30 years.
Some months ago, at a dozen plus years remove from that beginning and nearly three years after Georg’s passing, we received some requests from a few individuals who wished to join the meditation group. The older members saw this as an excellent opportunity to go back to the beginning, not only to give the newer members a good start, but also because of the timely posthumous publication of Georg’s The Light of the “I”—(Lindisfarne Books, 2008) a slender volume that concisely elaborates the meditation methods that had evolved out of Georg’s own personal work and out of his work with groups over the years.
That return to “In the beginning” (or more accurately translated, Georg insisted, “In beginning”) has been met with enthusiasm and a rapid expansion of the group. With an appreciation that many who can’t physically participate might wish to, and with gratitude for the authenticity and potentialities of this approach, we offer this experimental blog on meditation.
Before outlining its terms, it may be good to look at the most obvious question: What makes the John Prologue such an apt and essential subject for meditation, and in particular, the approach refined by Georg Kühlewind?
Georg Kühlewind was an anthroposophist who was born Jewish, who developed a deep respect for Zen Buddhism and later in life for Quakerism, and who like Rudolf Steiner, never was a churchgoing Christian. But the profound and even central significance of the St. John Gospel was evident to both Georg and to Rudolf Steiner. One answer to the question is suggested through a comparison of the creation stories in the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament Genesis 1:1 depiction, “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth…” is a straightforward narrative that unfolds stages of creation that, while inviting us to imagine events that we have not ourselves witnessed, still amounts to a sequential relating that our ordinary thinking can follow and accompany. There was (and still is on ebay) a children’s Golden Bible, and Golden Collection of Bible Stories lending themselves to all kinds of visual depictions of the creation of “lights in the firmament of the heaven,” “grass and the herb yielding seed” and “great whales and every living creature that moveth.” Not so with the John Gospel. When we hear, “In beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1) our story making and picture making stumble. And when we add, “The same was in the beginning with God,” (John 1:2) we’re worse off yet. Momentous change has occurred. Whatever conventional cognitive faculties and sensibilities the Genesis narrative engaged completely fail us in John. We meet a barrier that says, “Something else is required.” That something is not any nugget of esoteric knowledge, chart of chakras, or listing of subtle bodies-- but instead an effort, a gathering of our ordinary at-hand capabilities to a kind of focus that never occurs unless we intend it. Meditation.
We invite you to participate in this blog and to work with us on the John Gospel and perhaps other such texts, texts so constructed that when they are addressed with sufficiently intensified attention, they open to the actual sources of meaning informing them.
For our part, we will invite various individuals with a depth of experience working in this manner to present meditation subjects and introductions to them. You are welcome to ask questions about, comment on or share results of your efforts. Let’s begin!
The following, from In the Light of the I, may be helpful. All selections are included through the kind permission of Lindisfarne Books.
We do not seek thinking, but not-thinking. That is to say, we seek to return to the pure power of empty thinking attention. Meditation, even when it is directed attention onto a theme, is not-thinking (p. 47).
It is best to begin our meditation by “pondering” the text or image: chewing it over with ever-deepening thinking. In a concentrated state, we think through the words and the structure of the sentence. The function of this concentrated reflection is to exhaust thinking. When our attention is focused in meditation, we should not be thinking. But thinking can help us enter meditation—as for instance, when something new arises in the light of thinking (p. 50).
Opening theme: In beginning was the Word (John 1:1)
Sample question: How long should my meditation effort sessions last?
Sample reply: At our sessions we often set the duration at ten minutes. Other times, however, we agreed to let the effort period conclude “naturally.” Working by yourself, you can, of course, extend the length. Because intensity of attention is desired, you may find that allowing the time to be open-ended is not conducive to deepening your practice.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Walter Alexander
We do not allow anonymous postings, so to join in and leave comments on the St. John Meditation Blog you will need a free Google or similar account. Simply click on the comments line below a post you want to respond to, go through the steps to publish a comment, and if you do not have an account, choose Google account and continue. You will be prompted to create an account, and then you can comment freely.
Some months ago, at a dozen plus years remove from that beginning and nearly three years after Georg’s passing, we received some requests from a few individuals who wished to join the meditation group. The older members saw this as an excellent opportunity to go back to the beginning, not only to give the newer members a good start, but also because of the timely posthumous publication of Georg’s The Light of the “I”—(Lindisfarne Books, 2008) a slender volume that concisely elaborates the meditation methods that had evolved out of Georg’s own personal work and out of his work with groups over the years.
That return to “In the beginning” (or more accurately translated, Georg insisted, “In beginning”) has been met with enthusiasm and a rapid expansion of the group. With an appreciation that many who can’t physically participate might wish to, and with gratitude for the authenticity and potentialities of this approach, we offer this experimental blog on meditation.
Before outlining its terms, it may be good to look at the most obvious question: What makes the John Prologue such an apt and essential subject for meditation, and in particular, the approach refined by Georg Kühlewind?
Georg Kühlewind was an anthroposophist who was born Jewish, who developed a deep respect for Zen Buddhism and later in life for Quakerism, and who like Rudolf Steiner, never was a churchgoing Christian. But the profound and even central significance of the St. John Gospel was evident to both Georg and to Rudolf Steiner. One answer to the question is suggested through a comparison of the creation stories in the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament Genesis 1:1 depiction, “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth…” is a straightforward narrative that unfolds stages of creation that, while inviting us to imagine events that we have not ourselves witnessed, still amounts to a sequential relating that our ordinary thinking can follow and accompany. There was (and still is on ebay) a children’s Golden Bible, and Golden Collection of Bible Stories lending themselves to all kinds of visual depictions of the creation of “lights in the firmament of the heaven,” “grass and the herb yielding seed” and “great whales and every living creature that moveth.” Not so with the John Gospel. When we hear, “In beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1) our story making and picture making stumble. And when we add, “The same was in the beginning with God,” (John 1:2) we’re worse off yet. Momentous change has occurred. Whatever conventional cognitive faculties and sensibilities the Genesis narrative engaged completely fail us in John. We meet a barrier that says, “Something else is required.” That something is not any nugget of esoteric knowledge, chart of chakras, or listing of subtle bodies-- but instead an effort, a gathering of our ordinary at-hand capabilities to a kind of focus that never occurs unless we intend it. Meditation.
We invite you to participate in this blog and to work with us on the John Gospel and perhaps other such texts, texts so constructed that when they are addressed with sufficiently intensified attention, they open to the actual sources of meaning informing them.
For our part, we will invite various individuals with a depth of experience working in this manner to present meditation subjects and introductions to them. You are welcome to ask questions about, comment on or share results of your efforts. Let’s begin!
The following, from In the Light of the I, may be helpful. All selections are included through the kind permission of Lindisfarne Books.
We do not seek thinking, but not-thinking. That is to say, we seek to return to the pure power of empty thinking attention. Meditation, even when it is directed attention onto a theme, is not-thinking (p. 47).
It is best to begin our meditation by “pondering” the text or image: chewing it over with ever-deepening thinking. In a concentrated state, we think through the words and the structure of the sentence. The function of this concentrated reflection is to exhaust thinking. When our attention is focused in meditation, we should not be thinking. But thinking can help us enter meditation—as for instance, when something new arises in the light of thinking (p. 50).
Opening theme: In beginning was the Word (John 1:1)
Sample question: How long should my meditation effort sessions last?
Sample reply: At our sessions we often set the duration at ten minutes. Other times, however, we agreed to let the effort period conclude “naturally.” Working by yourself, you can, of course, extend the length. Because intensity of attention is desired, you may find that allowing the time to be open-ended is not conducive to deepening your practice.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Walter Alexander
We do not allow anonymous postings, so to join in and leave comments on the St. John Meditation Blog you will need a free Google or similar account. Simply click on the comments line below a post you want to respond to, go through the steps to publish a comment, and if you do not have an account, choose Google account and continue. You will be prompted to create an account, and then you can comment freely.
Labels: getting started, invitation, meditation
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