Han de Wit 0102
Question: Would you agree that the meaning of the terms "meditation" and "contemplation" have been inverted during the course of history?
de Wit: If you look at how the terms "meditation" and "contemplation" were used in former times, you will see that they now mean exactly the opposite of what they used to mean. "Meditation" now means watching, looking at the movement of mind, what we create in it and how this colours our experience. While "contemplation" now means something like thinking about or pondering on something. But originally the meaning of these words was the other way around. And this is why I hark back to the old interpretation of the term "contemplation" as a witnessing, a looking at; the acquisition of a certain clarity of mind. Also because I felt that it would combine well with the term "psychology", giving us contemplative psychology. Several people have asked me whether it would not have been better to call it "spiritual psychology". There’s a lot to be said for that as well. And in fact, that is what it is: psychology as we find it in the spiritual traditions.
Question: You took a lot of psychological ideas from the mystical side of Christianity. Is this because the mystics developed more psychological ideas than the mainstream church?
de Wit: The mystics in the Christian tradition were - shall we say - spiritual doers. They were people who practiced, who spent a large part of their life trying to get a clear view of what it means to be a human being, and how our passions, as they were often called in those days - demons was another word - how they stir up and muddy the mind, how they get us in their clutches, and how we can free ourselves from them so that we can open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit. These questions call for a lot of practice. This approach taken by the mystics is quite different from, for instance, an approach that starts from the scriptures, from texts that you read and on which you reflect, or "contemplate" in the modern sense of the term, and about which you think: "Yes, this has some truth to it".
By contrast, the mystics are people who try to mould their mind in such a way that Christ comes to life inside them. And because they have this kind of attitude they are often also not at all dogmatic. For them, the scriptures are there only as background literature, in a supporting role. But in reality you have to do it for yourself. You have to explore how you can follow Christ, how you can develop in the same direction, towards unlimited and unconditional compassion towards all living beings and complete clarity of mind, and how you can manifest this.
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