It was in the study of Theology that I first met the mystics; saints long dead, who had experienced and recorded their experience of listening for, and ultimately hearing the voice of God, of Truth buried deep within their own souls. I was stunned!
Was my memory playing tricks? Would others, currently called mentally ill recognise their agony in the experiences of the mystics? I conducted a survey (for my doctoral dissertation) to find out. That information is contained in that dissertation and later published in the book Suicide or Adoration – a Theology of Mental Health, so I will not go into it here. But the answer was an emphatic ‘yes’ … they all (84 in number) identified with the spiritual experiences of the mystics. Now I knew!
There is no point in giving what would be a long, convoluted description of my spiritual journey after I became consciously aware of what the silence I had been hearing for so many years meant. Fortunately, God is very patient.
Back then I had a spiritual director with profound wisdom who seemed to understand me; where I was in my life and where I wished to go to. The following is the advice he gave me, which I followed as precisely as I could … until my advice began to come from the Source I was seeking.
All I wish to say now is that every day, in as far as it is possible, I sit in quiet silence for around 20-25 minutes (I never count the time) and simply listen. I endeavour to empty my mind of all thought. It took several weeks of this daily practice before I learned to empty my mind of thought. But here is what I do; what I have always done. I begin with concentration on the name “Jesus”, until eventually the name disappears and there is nothing but “Him and me”. It is not a space; it has no graphics as such; it has no sound audible to human ears. It is nothing but silent quiet with no sense of intent or direction or desire or fear or anything else … from me. I do not always achieve that ‘place’ that is no-place where He comes to communicate with me. In fact, I mostly do not achieve that. But every day I go to meet Him and listen with hope.
That is the source, the ground, the font of my mental health. That to me is the spirituality I need to accompany and indeed permeate my mental, physical and emotional self. That, to me, is mental health. It is simply ‘walking with God’. Not the pious eternal praying of the spiritual masters; not the terror of ‘doing the wrong thing’; not the prophetic voice of potential doom or success – I have no more knowledge of life and living than any other person. It is just that I acquire my knowledge in the presence of, and in company with the Spirit who created me.