The Gist of Richard Rohr’s The Naked Now: Learning to See How the Mystics See (2009)

‘There are two trees in the middle of the garden, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ (Genesis 2:9).

Here are some notes I took while reading Franciscan Richard Rohr’s latest book. I hope I’m representing his approach accurately. All this is basic, and yet very profound – life-changing for those who ‘get it’. I’ve read about ten Richard Rohr books, listened to a three-figure number of his tapes over the past 30 years, attended a dozen conferences with him (including a men’s retreat in Arizona), and been privileged to have him stay in our Melbourne home. He’s the person I would most regard as a mentor, and my delight with his teaching will, I hope, be evident in this little summary of The Naked Now – a book I reckon is his ‘magnum opus’.

1. SUMMARY.

In one or two sentences, Richard is saying: ‘The dualistic mind is preoccupied with good and evil, right and wrong, true and false, us and them, this and that… whereas the (minority of) religious people who have access to the tree of life enjoy a life-giving “pure consciousness”. Their contemplative (non-dualistic) mind lives in the Naked Now: these fortunate people do not have to be constantly fixing things to be happy, they simply live lives of faith, hope and love. And this way of doing (or ‘being’) life is available always, everywhere, to you, now.’

The feedback Richard gets when he talks about all this is that he has a ‘fixation’ with ‘both/and’. Yes, he says throughout this brilliant little book, to be either (exclusively) conservative or liberal is sad/problematical: neither sees or thinks like the mystics do. There are three ways of ‘seeing’ – flesh (thought or sight); reason (meditation or reflection), and true understanding (contemplation). The mystics see with all three sets of eyes. (Note that! They are not ‘off the planet’!). Further, contemplatives have a non-dualistic way of experiencing the present moment as ‘sacramental’ (Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Brother Lawrence). But there will always be a creative tension balancing belief and belonging systems into a full lifestyle.

Prayer is any interior journey or practice that allows you to experience faith, hope and love within yourself. Prayer is not an attempt to change God’s mind, but to change the one who is praying. And it is not confined to words (‘Yahweh’ was not spoken, but breathed: it’s the sound of inhalation and exhalation). Real prayer is ‘resonance’, tuning in to receive the present message (cf. a tuning fork).

God does not love us because we are that good. God loves us because God is good. God’s unconditional goodness and love are problematical for many people: ordinary ‘Joes on the block’ would not imagine torturing people who do not like them or worship them or believe in them. Many Christians’ God is rather petty, needy, narcissistic and easily offended.

We love, because we are first loved: most loving Christians had at least one unconditionally loving parent or friend along the way, ‘and God was able to second the motion’. And it is crucial to allow God – and at least one other person – to see us in our imperfection, and accept us (that’s grace).

Conversion is the experience by which one becomes an authentic human being: it’s a transformation into love. Jesus’ primary metaphor for this new consciousness was ‘the kingdom of God’ – which is not a place, or an after-life, but a way of seeing and thinking now.

The prophet – a ‘professional inside critic’ – was a protected office in Israel, and Paul lists prophecy as the second most important gift for the church (after apostles, 1 Corinthians 12:28), yet in recent centuries it has largely disappeared.

Here’s another major idea: immediate, unmediated contact with the moment is the clearest path to divine union; naked, undefended, nondual presence has the best chance of encountering the Real Presence. And this process is enhanced through experiences of love and suffering, as we move from a fear-based to a love-based life. (But note: if you do not transform your pain, you will surely transmit it to those around you, and even to the next generation).

The Psalmist said it well (Psalm 34:8): not ‘think and see’ but ‘taste and see’.

More on Dualistic vs Non-Dualistic minds in the next article.