Different Paths to the Mountaintop

Just as two travellers may reach a mountaintop by different paths, Eastern meditation and Western prayer represent two complementary approaches to reality: the via negativa of transcendence and the via positiva of immanence. One path descends through discrimination, stripping away all that we are not until pure awareness shines by itself. The other ascends through love, embracing all experience as divine manifestation. Though seemingly opposite, these paths ultimately converge in the simple knowing ‘I am’ – not something, not nothing nor everything, but the unqualified presence prior to all qualities and distinctions. Like the space that remains unchanged whether a room is full or empty, this presence reveals itself as our shared essence once we move beyond the limitations of any particular tradition.

Just as two travellers may reach a mountaintop by different paths, Eastern meditation and Western prayer represent two complementary approaches to reality: the via negativa of transcendence and the via positiva of immanence. One path descends through discrimination, stripping away all that we are not until pure awareness shines by itself. The other ascends through love, embracing all experience as divine manifestation. Though seemingly opposite, these paths ultimately converge in the simple knowing ‘I am’ – not something, not nothing nor everything, but the unqualified presence prior to all qualities and distinctions. Like the space that remains unchanged whether a room is full or empty, this presence reveals itself as our shared essence once we move beyond the limitations of any particular tradition.