The Cloud of Unknowing

-connctin manual

suggests acknowledgement and atonement "When once you feel that you have done all that is in your power to make amends..., then you must begin to dispose yourself earnestly for the labour of this exercise."(p. 179)

suggests reading, reflection, and prayer (p. 187)

suggests a Archetypal Cleansing, clearing of thought process that would interfere with apprehension of God. Emphasizes this. cloud of forgetting to

"Try to destroy all understanding and awareness of anything under God and tread everything down deep under the cloud of forgetting. Understand that in this exercise you are to forget all other creatures besides yourself or their deeds or yours; and in this exercise, you must also forget yourself and your own activities, as well as all other creatures and their activities..." (p. 201).

Need to establish Rigth Action and Right Thought "The lower part of the active life consists in good and honest corporal works of mercy and of charity. The higher part of the active life, and the lower part of the contemplative consists in good spiritual meditations and earnest consideration...and contrition...with thanksgiving and praise." (p. 137).

Without cleansing and "spiritual direction" risk of becoming a victim of "spiritual illusion." (p. 205).

Offers techniques for clearing distracting thoughts/corrupting archetypes (p. 180-181)

"For as long as the soul dwells in this mortal body, the clarity of our understanding in the contemplation of all spiritual things, and especially of God, is always mixed up with some of imagination; and because of it this exercise of ours would be trained, and it would be very surprising if it did not lead us into great error." (p. 139).

Press everything back into a Cloud of Forgetting so as to have a pure and pristine connection, what the author calls the Cloud of Unknowing "...the higher part of contemplation, insofar as it is possible to possess it here below, consists entirely in this darkness and in this cloud of unknowing, with a loving impulse and a dark gazing into the simple being of God himself alone." (p. 137).

Note, Cloud of Unknowing seems to be the type of "empty" connection espoused by TM. "facing" the glory of The Fabric without actually allowing it to penetrate through.