The Cloud of Unknowing

Father Dennis Billy presents his publication "The Cloud of Unknowing."

[@Jack-il3qv]

Nothing can separate us from the love of God. - Truth.

[@tgflux]

Lovely. I started to read "The Cloud" thirty years ago, and knew I wasn't ready. Perhaps---just _perhaps!_ ---I am now.

[@jennbaker6964]

as someone who is an agnostic with an understanding of the grandness of the world this piece makes christianity make sense in a way it previously did not to me

[@kristinak1972]

I went on a retreat that Fr. Dennis was speaking at recently. He is such a gentle spirit and has such an eloquent way of explaining the contemplative life.

[@jacklastname4320]

Just started watching this video and it’s easy to tell this is a guy who anyone would get along with

[@TheFunfolks]

Thank you, Fr. Dennis for presenting this manuscript. Many years ago, cenering Prayer was introduced . Being young and 'unknowing', it was difficult to grasp. Over 50 years latter, it has been introduced with Lectio Divina and NOW you explain it again. Thank you for enabling a humble soul the opportunity to take up the journey again !!!! Prayers for your success.

[@stephendufort4154]

At last, someone who actually studied the book and got the essentials out to his audience!

[@georgewahl2498]

He captured the essence well.

[@steviedfromtheflyovercount4739]

Excellent comment.

[@devoradamaris]

This book did something to me 🕊🕊🫂🕊

[@elisabethsitungkir7024]

This is my second time listening this beautiful explanation and help me to understand more about 'The Cloud of Unknowing', thanks Father!

[@BryanKirch]

Thank God

[@blargsmarg7784]

What a pity if one dies before reading the cloud

[@JacksonRitchie]

many are called but few are chosen

[@robertpapa7929]

good talk

[@JanisKudins]

Thankyou! This was a truly wonderful invitstion to read this book. Fascinating work!

[@FearlessWisdom]

Fascinating, thanks for sharing!

[@Cheguebuddha]

Very much what the Buddha was teaching :) interesting indeed! Contemplative practices of the World seem to have much in common. Will read this book, thank you.

[@g_1673]

I noticed that. I wonder if the concept of forgetting and yielding were grasped independently across space and time. Or, did one lead the way for the other...

[@alfredhitchcock45]

Centering Prayer

[@JacksonRitchie]

wow. amazing. love it

[@kathrynphillips3710]

Beautiful 🙏❤ Thankyou

[@tinarodriguez5182]

I am so thank to God, I came across Fr. William Meninger, KZbin and mention a book that I bought yrs ago. So I looked for it here at my house and found it. After listening to Fr. Meninger this video came up next The Cloud of Unknowing. My book is translated and edited by William Johnston. I am so bless to have found this video. God bless you all.

[@dickturpin435]

'Wisdom is heard, not spoken.' Anon.

[@scottbaker-ScottyB]

Jesus Christ comes to you in a cloud if your willing to learn.

[@alfredhitchcock45]

Mystical Theology

[@heyjoefred]

The Cloud of Unknowing was written by an anonymous author in the 14th Century, not by Rev. Billy as the description says. He writes that the only way to know God, is to drop any knowledge of Him. To rest in love in a space of unknowing, and 'feel' God. This sets up any church as an unnecessary structure, not needed to love and know God intimately. In fact, it implies church would only get in the way, and should be transcended.

[@migueldelagos6635]

Well, Rev. Billy and the author of the Cloud both make a point to insist that the Church and it's sacraments are foundational to a contemplative undertaking. The author even advises that one considering such a path first seek approval from a spiritual guide, to further ensure one is mentally and spiritually prepared. The course of action prescribed by the Cloud is not, according to the author, for the "curious", by which I take him to mean "amateur". I think of it kind of like the launch of a rocket or the space shuttle back when that program was running. The contemplative is like the spacecraft which is used to make discoveries and "pound incessantly on the cloud", but it launches from a well organized support infrastructure, which would be the Church. The Church provides the discipline and training needed for the successful contemplative. But this is just my interpretation.

[@thissunchild]

@@migueldelagos6635 The Church is completely useless and stands in the way of man's freedom.

[@migueldelagos6635]

@@thissunchild Thank you for sharing your opinion.....but that is all it is, and I respectfully disagree.

[@thissunchild]

@@migueldelagos6635 Likewise🙏🏾

[@pierrolosapio4623]

Miguel Delagos I agree that the Church can be helpful in that regard but it depends on the Teachings of the preachers within the church. If it’s an bombardment of „Jesus is the only way, repent or you’re going to hell“ and all this guilt trip, the church won’t help.

[@CAVEDATA]

Read it

[@alfredhitchcock45]

Ordinary Special Silent Perfect

[@gooddaysahead1]

Read this book: THE STILL POINT. It coalesces the meditation experiences of Eastern religion's practitioners and the prayer experiences of those who follow this method. The experiences are uncannily similar.

[@mynamesuptothepublic8328]

Contemplating on the unknown of nothing tapping into an ancient imperfections are normal, Practicing contemplating in the power that only grows as it's never known accepting that unknown is ok trusting unknown is ok it actually frees you from your self be bondage, meditation dodging thought, not staying on a thought but staying on unknown as to just Be is to be, satisfied and whole. To hit the unknown is to tap the Fathers unknown power and it's overflowing with something unexplainable

[@blondiekowalski8803]

Thank you for that lecture. It seems esoteric Christian mysticism for the few is a lot like mainstream Buddhism. If there were more works like this being made availabe through the ages--instead of the belief is Santa that Catholicism has become--then the Churches wouldn't be so empty these days. Just saying.

[@maryann7619]

We get out what we put in.

[@treytrev]

The restriction on the Latin Mass is driving people away.

[@Francesca-df4lk]

Once you understand the Eucharist, you can never leave the Church. Not because the Church won't let you but because your heart wont let you.

[@dobermanpac1064]

Interesting this priest is speaking on this work...I’m baffled quite frankly. It’s not work many can ever consider. Unless you are leading a monastic life, how could you possibly understand or venture down this path. I guess he’s speaking to Religious.

[@lifewithlaura4057]

There are few, but yet there are some of us, Christians, who have not been indoctrinated and who have navigated the path by ourselves, I believe he speaks to us and all the others who have LSO understood the teachings, which are universally fundemental, it is just the Christian faith which make it very clear, if and when you come to the right teachings, church and priests......there are definitely out there, I am in the UK and we are very much different to what the outside world believes about us and our 'religion' the people are the church 🤗🌻🌟

[@Francesca-df4lk]

Suggestion: Make a quick U-turn ahead. “He who trusts in his own mind is a fool;but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.” -Proverbs 28:26 “Anyone who takes himself for his own spiritual director is the disciple of a fool.” -St Bernard

[@willieluncheonette5843]

" Mysticism itself, by its very nature, is a contradiction, because it is not an ism. It is not a creed or dogma in which you can believe. You can be a mystic, but there is nothing like mysticism. And when one is a mystic the paradox deepens, it does not disappear. When one is a mystic there is no one left. There is a mystery, but with no center to it. It is like a cloud: translucent darkness, infinite darkness. One of the most important statements about mysticism in the Western hemisphere is the book called The Cloud of Unknowing. The name of the author is not known; it is good that we don’t know who wrote it. It indicates one thing: that before he wrote it he had disappeared into a cloud of unknowing. It is the only book in the Western world which comes close to the Upanishads, The Tao Te Ching, The Dhammapada. There is a rare insight in it. First he calls it a cloud. A cloud is vague, with no definable limits. It is constantly changing; it is not static - never, even for two consecutive moments, is it the same. It is a flux, it is pure change. And there is nothing substantial in it. If you hold it in your hand just mist will be left, nothing else. Maybe your hands will become wet, but you will not find any cloud in your fist. That’s what happens to the mystic: he becomes wet, really wet. Those countries where alcohol is prohibited they call dry, and those countries where alcohol is not prohibited they call wet. But the only wet person is the mystic. He is a real alcoholic! He cannot be helped by Alcoholics Anonymous. If a mystic enters there, they will all become alcoholics themselves! But for Dionysius it is even more a contradiction because he was a theologian. His whole book is written with a disguise, as if it is a treatise on theology; mysticism is just something by the side, secondary, not primary. Hence the name Theologia Mystica - as if mysticism is only a consequence of getting deep into the world of theology. Just the reverse is the case. The word “theology” means logic about God; theo means God. But there can be no logic about God. There is love about God, love for God, but no logic about God. There are no proofs possible. The only proof is the existence of the mystic. The presence of Dionysius, of Ramakrishna, of Bahauddin - the presence of these people is the proof that God exists, otherwise there is no proof. Because Buddhas have walked on the earth, there are a few footprints of God left behind on the shores of time. Philosophers have argued for centuries, but all their arguments are utterly futile and impotent; they have not come to a single conclusion. The mystic has to speak in contradictions because he is speaking about the whole, and the whole contains the contradictions. It contains the day and the night, both. If you call God the day, then it is only half the truth; if you call him the night, that too is only half the truth. Hence Dionysius calls God translucent darkness - as if the sun has risen in the night. The whole consists of both life and death. If you call God life, only life, then it is a half-statement. And remember a half-truth is far more dangerous than a complete lie because the complete lie is bound to be discovered sooner or later - just a little intelligence is needed. But the half-truth is very dangerous; even intelligent people, very intelligent people, may not be able to find that it is untrue. That is the danger of half-truths: they look like truths and they are not. They can keep you deceived for centuries. Mysticism is the whole truth; it has to be contradictory. Somewhere logic and love have to meet, because they both exist. Hence Theologia Mystica. Somewhere man and woman have to meet and merge and disappear into each other because they both exist and they are both halves of one whole. Hence the beauty and the bliss of a real meeting between a man and a woman: the orgasmic joy is possible only because two halves of a single whole have come together. Both were suffering, both were missing something. Suddenly, all that feeling of missing has disappeared. Of course, the meeting between a man and a woman can only be momentary. Again they are separate, and again the misery sets in, and again the desire to be united. Because the meeting is physical it cannot be very deep and it cannot be lasting either. But the meeting of the mystic with the whole is absolute; there is no coming back. He has gone beyond the point of no return. He has dissolved himself like a dew-drop slipping out of the lotus leaf into the lake. He has become the lake. Then whatsoever he says will be contradictory, because a part of it will be the vision of the dew-drop and a part of it will be the vision of the total lake, a part will be the standpoint of the part and a part will be the standpoint of the whole. Hence all mystics have spoken in contradictory terms. This is one of the reasons why intellectuals are against them, because the intellectual demands consistency and the mystics cannot be consistent. By the very nature of things that is not possible. He is helpless - he has to be contradictory. He has to say, “I am contradictory because I am vast enough to contain contradictions.” Logic is a small thing, love is infinity."

[@andrewharmon3653]

The paragon of Christian and Hebrew prayer is the Psalter. This is our school of prayer. Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, is the Son of God and the Son of David. But David did not pray as this priest teaches. Does this method have any relation in either content or praxis with the Psalms? I contend it does not. This is the refuge of a bewildered Paganism.

[@alfredhitchcock45]

Learned Ignorance

[@philmcdonald6088]

book recommend: BREATH: YOU ARE ALIVE/thich nhat hanh. = anapanasati sutta.