Beginning of Contemplation in Sight of St. John of the Cross and Ala Al-Dawla Semnani

Contemplation is a central topic in the gnostic customs of Christianity and Islam. Christian and Islamic mystics, however, dissent on whether or not contemplation is a kind of position or an emotional mood. St. John of the Cross and Ala Al-Dawla Semnani are among the mystics of Christianity and Islam who have talked on contemplation, and comparison of views of these two can bring new sights on the subject. According to Ala Al-Dawla Semnani, disciples must strive to reach gnostic excellence by praising verbally and heartily. That is, the disciple must schedule praising around the clock and give all his or her attention to the God and heartily pray for the gloriousness of the exalted God. According to John of the Cross, however, one must keep going forward only and only by heeding the God without doing anything else. Both mystics have different views about how to enter the course of contemplation. Ala Al-Dawla Semnani has covered this topic by outlining more features and in a more transparent manner. But according to John of the Cross, entry to a course of contemplation is a vague experience of the God that we receive passively not as a result of our efforts.

Don Quixote and Saint John of the Cross’s Spiritual Chivalry

Despite its ludic appearance, “The adventure Don Quixote had with a dead body” (part I, chapter XIX) is one of the most complex pieces of Cervantes’ famous novel. In the midst of a dark night, the Manchegan knight errant confronts an otherwordly procession of robed men carrying torches who transport a dead “knight” on a bier. Don Quixote attacks them to “avenge” the mysterious dead man, discovering they were priests secretly taking the body from Baeza to Segovia. He wants to see face to face the relic of the dead body, but humbly turns his back, avoiding the “close encounter”. Curiously enough, his easy victory renders him sad. Cervantes is alluding to the secret transfer of St. John of the Cross’ body from Úbeda to Segovia, claimed by the devoted widow Doña Ana de Peñalosa. However, Cervantes is also establishing a surprising dialogue with St. John’s symbolic “dark night”, in which he fights as a brave mystical knight. Concurrently, he is quoting the books of chivalry‘s funeral processions and the curiosity of the occasional knight who wants to glance at the dead body. Furthermore, we see how extremely conversant the novelist is with the religious genre of spiritual chivalry, strongly opposed to the loose fantasy of the books of chivalry. Unable to look at St. John’s relic, an authentic knight of the heavenly militia, Don Quixote seems to silently acknowledge that there are higher chivalries than his own that he will never reach. No wonder he ends the adventure with a sad countenance, gaining a new identity as the “Caballero de la Triste Figura”.

Savoring God

This book compares two mystical works central to the Christian Discalced Carmelite and the Hindu Bhakti traditions: the sixteenth-century Spanish Cántico espiritual (Spiritual Canticle), by John of the Cross, and the Sanskrit Rāsa Līlā, originated in the oral tradition. These texts are examined alongside theological commentaries: for the Cántico, the Comentarios written by John of the Cross on his own poem; for Rāsa Līlā, the foundational commentary by Srīdhara Swāmi along with commentaries by the sixteenth-century theologian Jīva Goswāmī, from the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava school, and other Gauḍīya theologians. The phrase “savoring God” in the title conveys the Spanish gustar a Dios (to savor God) and the Sanskrit madhura bhakti rasa (the sweet savor of divine love). While “savoring” does not mean exactly the same thing for these theologians, they use the term to define a theopoetics at work in their respective traditions. The book’s methodology transposes their notions of “savoring” to advance a comparative theopoetics grounded in the interaction of poetry and theology. The first chapter explains in detail how theopoetics is regarded considering each text and how they are compared. The comparison is then laid out across Chapters 2, 3, and 4, each of which examines one of the three central moments of the theopoetic experience of savoring that is represented in the Cántico and Rāsa Līlā: the absence and presence of God, the relationship between embodiment and savoring, and the fulfillment of the encounter between the divine and the lovers.