Cosmic Christ, Religion of Experience, God the Mother

“It is of tremendous importance in our day to recover the wisdom of so ecumenical a figure as Hildegard of Bingen. Why? Because there can be no global peace and justice without global spirituality. And there will be no global spirituality without a new and deeper level of ecumenism occurring at that level of mysticism. The key ingredient that has up to now been sadly lacking in ecumenical exchange, except in rare instances such as the person of Thomas Merton, is mysticism. It has been missing in religious rapport because the West is so out of touch with its own deepest and most holistic mystics. It has so readily forgotten and dismissed its holistic feminist tradition - the very tradition that Hildegard summarises in her person and work - in effect launching the Rhineland mystical movement. Ecumenism need not mean dashing off to foreign shores to find spiritual nourishment at least it need no longer mean that. With giants like Hildegard and Eckhart, Francis and Aquinas, Mechtild and Dante, Julian and Nicolas of Cusa, the West can cease its mystical embarrassment vis-à-vis the East. Hildegard challenges Westerners to take another and deeper look at their own spiritual roots, especially those nearly forgotten roots of the creation-centered spiritual tradition. Jung celebrates this re-examinatlon or our own roots when he writes: "Of what use to us is the wisdom of the Upanishad or the insight of Chinese yoga, if we desert the foundations of our own culture as though they were errors outlived and, like homeless pirates, settle with thievish intent on foreign shores?" Hildegard, as universal as she is, is also thoroughly grounded in the Western spiritual tradition. To ground ourselves in that tradition is the best and most certain way to be ecumenical in the fullest sense.

The ecumenism Hildegard champions is not a religious affair to be worked out by the professionally ordained or religious ones. As we saw in the previous contributions Hildegard makes, her world is as scientific and artistic as it is religious. She helps us to broaden our understanding of ecumenism bringing together all the creativity of the human being in touch with the cosmos. Perhaps what she accomplishes is best summarised in the Eastern sacred literature, in the Upanishad . "In the space that is within the heart lies the Lord ofAll, the Ruler of the Universe, the King of the Universe ..Truly like the extent of space is the void within the heart. Heaven and earth are in it. Agni and Vayu, the sun and the moon, likewise also the stars and the lightning and all other things which exist in the universe and all that which does not exist, all exists in that void." Tucci comments on what has been described here: "In the space of the heart, magically transfigured into cosmic space, there takes place the rediscovery of our interior reality, of that immaculate principle which is out of our reach, but from which is derived - in its illusory and transcendent appearance - all that is in process of becoming." I have never shared Hildegard's illuminations, thoughts, sayings, or music with anyone whose interior space was not touched. Why is this? Because Hildegard was first and foremost a mystic who trusted her experience and images. She invites us to do the same. Her power cuts through time and space as conventionally understood.”

Hidlegard of Bingen: Cosmic Christ, Religion of Experience, God the Mother, www.sol.com.au

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