Studying the analogies between Tantric yogis and Christian mystics, Matus relates the kundalini awakening to the Christ mystery.
Studying the analogies between Tantric yogis and Christian mystics, Matus relates the kundalini awakening to the Christ mystery.
Eastern, Yoga
Thomas Matus studies the yogic realization described by Hindu Tantric writers and the personal testimony of a great Eastern Christian mystic, Symeon the New Theologian (949-1022). The convergence of their respective narratives in a shared symbolic language points to an "analogy of experience" between them. On the basis of this analogy, Matus suggests that the awakening of hidden energies in the body can be understood as the fulfillment of a life of faith in Jesus. In this revised edition of his pioneering study of 1984, Matus goes beyond a purely theoretical reflection and offers both an account of his own experience as a Christian yogi and a clear description of the yogic rites and techniques into which he was initiated more than fifty years ago.
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[From a letter dated April 20, 1985:] I am now reading your Yoga and the Jesus Prayer Tradition with what I might even call excitement, learning a new vocabulary and discovering new meanings in terms long known to me but otherwise understood... This precious little book has already become my guide to a new order of realizations... Paulist Press, some years ago, advertised a great series of Occidental mystical writings to be published, of which I have been receiving the volumes, one be one, as they have appeared. What I missed was a comprehensive introduction, and that is what you have now given me. ~ Joseph Campbell, best-selling author of Myths to Live by and many other important works.
In the Christian tradition the Body of Christ has had a threefold meaning: Jesus Christ, the Church, and the Eucharist. As a result of a genuine fecundation with the Tantric tradition, Thomas Matus reminds us that it also means the Body of Man. This is a pioneer work in the right direction. ~ Raimon Panikkar, author of The Vedic Experience: Mantramanjari and The Cosmotheandric Experience.
This is an unusual book, bringing together two traditions, that of Eastern Orthodoxy and that of Hindu and Buddhist Tantra, which as far as I know have never been related before. Beneath the obvious differences of conceptual framework the author discovers a remarkable similarity of experience... [Thomas Matus] has given one of the best expositions of the essential meaning of Tantra that I know, and for this alone his work is of great value. But he also shows how the Tantra can be related to Christian experience. ~ Bede Griffiths, author of The Marriage of East and West and The Golden String.
An extraordinary work... The book informs and it inspires us to pause and ponder prayerfully, often in awe at what is being laid before us. Thomas Matus is especially good at cross-cultural spiritual correlations. He neatly relates or connects the physical and psychic ways by which some of us attempt to enter, or begin to enter, the mystery we call God. ~ Anthony Wilhelm, author of the Catholic best-seller Christ Among Us.
A most important message: to bring Christianity and the mystical traditions of the East into a theological dialogue... I have yet to find a work that has dealt with this area of investigation, and so I applaud Father Thomas' work. ~ George Maloney, author of The Breath of the Mystic.
Fascinating... an important contribution. I can think of a number of people who will read it with real delight and profit. ~ Daniel O'Hanlon, author of Integration of Christian practices: A Western Christian Looks East.
