The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See [Paperback]

Richard Rohr (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2009

For Christians seeking a way of thinking outside of strict dualities, this guide explores methods for letting go of division and living in the present. Drawn from the Gospels, Jesus, Paul, and the great Christian contemplatives, this examination reveals how many of the hidden truths of Christianity have been misunderstood or lost and how to read them with the eyes of the mystics rather than interpreting them through rational thought. Filled with sayings, stories, quotations, and appeals to the heart, specific methods for identifying dualistic thinking are presented with simple practices for stripping away ego and the fear of dwelling in the present.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Franciscan priest and spirituality author Rohr (Everything Belongs) again brings his energy to the reclamation of the Christian mystical tradition. He has a lot of scripture on his side, with many citations from the gospels and epistles. He also offers a distinctive definition of prayer as a nondualistic way of seeing the moment. To see as a mystic sees is to pray continually, as scripture enjoins. Some of his criticisms of institutional forms of religiosity as a barrier to seeing with insight are familiar. Yet his understanding of prayer as a tool for contemplation and transformation is forcefully argued. The somewhat theoretical re-reading of Catholic Christian tradition is brought down to earth by a series of appendixes that contain practices for those who want to know what to do; attaining insight is not self-evident nor is it easy. Rohr is enriched by other world religious traditions, but clearly knows his own. Those interested in contemplative Christianity, and particularly Catholics interested in their own tradition, will benefit from this book. (Sept.)
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Review

"Rohr is enriched by other world religious traditions, but clearly knows his own. Those interested in contemplative Christianity, and particularly Catholics interested in their own tradition, will benefit from this book."  —Publishers Weekly

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: The Crossroad Publishing Company; 1 edition (September 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0824525434
• ISBN-13: 978-0824525439
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (66 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,260 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #13 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Other Religions, Practices & Sacred Texts > Mysticism

More About the Author

Fr. Richard Rohr is a globally recognized ecumenical teacher bearing witness to the universal awakening within Christian mysticism and the Perennial Tradition. He is a Franciscan priest of the New Mexico Province and founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (www.cac.org) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Fr. Richard's teaching is grounded in the Franciscan alternative orthodoxy--practices of contemplation and lived kenosis (self-emptying), expressing itself in radical compassion, particularly for the socially marginalized.

Fr. Richard is author of numerous books, including Everything Belongs, Adam's Return, The Naked Now, Breathing Under Water, Falling Upward, and Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self.

CAC is home to the Rohr Institute where Fr. Richard is Academic Dean of the Living School for Action and Contemplation. Drawing upon Christianity's place within the Perennial Tradition, the mission of the Rohr Institute is to produce compassionate and powerfully learned individuals who will work for positive change in the world based on awareness of our common union with God and all beings. Learn more at www.cac.org.

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

224 of 232 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars If you are a seeker and a wanna be mystic, read this one. October 28, 2009

By C. S. Smith

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I have read 5 of Rohr's works, and this one is the culmination of several of his classics. His seminal work is Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer, which is his first attempt at the description of the holistic nature of Spiritual life, and how the Eternal is unitive, and not dualistic. This unitive theme is refined and brought home in an even more lucid way in this writing.
In the Naked Now, he brings together much of the works of others that he has synthesized and learned. He is truly an avid learner and gleaner of the wisdom of sages of all traditions and schools of thought. This contemporary writing reflects this new insight.
Fr. Rohr, like his contemporaries: Eckhart Tolle- The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, Cynthia Bourgeault The Wisdom Way of Knowing: Reclaiming An Ancient Tradition to Awaken the Heart, many of the explorers of the Nag Hammadi texts, Francis of Assisi-the founder of Rohr's Franciscan order, and many ancient desert fathers have discovered a foregone conclusion- that true wisdom is evidenced and is experienced in the Eternal Now--where Yahweh exists and has always existed.( I AM That I Am.)
Rohr's description of the origination of YHWH: the name of God in the Hebraic tradition, as the source of the breath of all humanity is particularly profound.
I have come to appreciate Richard Rohr so very much.... He is expressing the Perennial Wisdom of the Ages in the contemporary Christ centered context- forging ahead in the contemplative tradition within Christianity--and has escaped the traps of the reformation and of Western Christianity's power-centered morality and judgmental dogmatism. He reminds us of the essence of the Truth: that Jesus was not a catholic, nor was he a westerner. He was a Middle Eastern Wisdom Teacher who gathered disciples who would follow him and be taught a wisdom centered, practice oriented path-which early on was called "The Way"-while he lived on earth.
This book is excellent for learners of all traditions and paths. I will reread it soon. Read more ›

125 of 137 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars ROMAN CATHOLIC LECTIO DIVINA FOR THIS COMING ADVENTIDE, FOR EVERY TIME, FOR THE NAKED NOW November 6, 2009

By C. Scanlon VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

The Reverend Father Richard Rohr has long served as the pre-eminent American author, speaker, retreat director and counsellor of Roman Catholic spirituality, including mysticism, coming from a profoundly Franciscan foundation.

This new release is the culmination and summary of all that has gone before and a glimpse of the riches to come.

As well as several retreats presenting this work across America, the Reverend Father Rohr will host on a Saturday morning in early January an official webcast we all may easily attend. Thus we have left no reason left not to accompany the Reverend Father Richard Rohr in his introduction to this essential work of Catholic spirituality.

Released mere weeks ago, we gratefully find here a summary of his long life of spiritual mastery in the Roman Catholic tradition, beginning with an explanation of why he wrote this book. The book is then divided into three parts, plus eight appendices, as well as extra back material; an overflowing cornucopia os spirituality in the Roman Catholic tradition which all may find profoundly beneficial and instructive.

Chapter One describes the Gift Already Given and our yearning for union (not perfection) now with God, who is already one with us, our birthright. Prayer is described as Practicing Heaven Now.

Each chapter, beginning with a Biblical passage, conludes with a bold print summary, or commissioning, we may safely say, here in Chapter One with the great hope of union with God in which we already dwell.

Chapter Two goes on to explore the Great Unsaying, the root of mystic union with God. As Father Rohr explains in the introduction: "All saying must be balanced by unsaying, and knowing must be humbled by unknowing.... Without this balance, religion invariably becomes arrogant, exclusionary and even violent (p. 11)."

Each chapter begins with passages from the Bible, and this second chapter on Unsaying commences therefore with the exhortation, the commandment if you will, from Exodus 20: "Do not utter the name of God in vain." Upon this warning the chapter examines deeply the name of God, specifically the Sacred Tetragrammaton, drawing us back into a contemplation, a remembrance, of the sacredness of the name of God. This chapter in itself can last a lifetime of reading, meriting and rewarding careful re-reading, as we come to appreciate this holy name, which is not to be spoken, but breathes, universally.

The third chapter provides us three ways to see a sunset, and draws us to the contemplative way, to the "Urgent Need for Contemplative Seeing," sharing what it means to be a mystic (I must now make this review much more brief, pardon the haste here; this book is so full, so rich, that I regret cutting short a full examination of all it has to offer in our Faith).

Chapter four discusses paradigms of "knowing" and chapter five shares lessons from the monks. Upon this basis chapter six begins us on our quest for God, who is now with us.

Chapter Seven guides us in our judgments and our letting go of judging. "We see what we are ready to see." Chapter eight and nine discuss our doubts and our conversion from wilfullness to willingness, like Mary.

Part Two begins with a direct discussion of Jesus (as if we progress here from the Old Testament to the New, through Mary), and of the Jesus Prayer. Again we see conversion in these chapters, and the levels of conversion, and how the observor comes to the healing of vision. Chapter Twelve looks at how our ego hates the change which comes with conversion; Chapter Thirteen watches how we come from polarity to prayer, as flase dilmnas resolve. "Prayer is resonance." Chapter Fourteen laments our lost tradition of contemplation, and struggles for its necessary rediscovery. Chapter Fifteen examines faith as how to believe, the process and dynamic of belief, while Chapter sixteen opens the door to great love and thus to great suffering (and then greater love).

Perhaps I have filled my space too much here, but Part Three shows what nondual thinking is not, what we mean by wakeful, watchful seeing. Chapter nineteen unfurls the meaning of spiritual love; read this chapter in the least, at the most. The following chapter celebrates paradox, mystics, sinners, and discusses what it means to follow Jesus. The following Chapters are summaries, with an urge to leadership.

The eight appendices are mainly various forms of prayer, including the Litany of the Holy Spirit; the extra material following these appendices include a Joyful Mind and The Shining Word "And."

Once again I apologize very much for such a long report here, and I hope this little is helpful to realize what great value this work of truly Roman Catholic spirituality is for all of us, all of us who whether we realize it now or not are pilgrims upon this spiritual pathway. Here with the Reverend Father Richard Rohr we find a capable, wise and powerful guide, a companion who kindly walks this path with us.

Read this book by Christmas! Send it to all you know!
Peace! Read more ›

103 of 115 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A deep and lovely book September 19, 2009

By Paul R. Smith

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a lovely book, deep in the Christian tradition of direct connection to Spirit. The pages are filled with phrases and sentences that explode into your consciousness.

I loved sentences such as: "We already know far more than Jesus or Buddha ever knew, but the great differrence is that they knew what they did know from a different level and in a different way."
Or "the brilliance of a God who creates things that keep creating themselves."
Or "Theism believes there is a God. Christianity believes that God and humanity can coexist in the same place! These are two utterly different proclamations about the nauture of the universe."

I didn't want the book to end, but it did. And I am richer for it. Thanks, Father Richard!

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Christian Book on Non-Duality April 11, 2010

By M. Baker

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is an amazing work. It feels to me like this book combines some of what "Putting on the Mind of Christ" sets up, along with "The Wisdom Jesus." But for reasons not clear it also feels like it advances beyond where those books go. In part it is perhaps because Rohr has clearly done his contemporary reading and his contemplation.

This is one of the only Christian writers I have seen who seems to understand the role Ken Wilber has had on clarifying what, for goodness sake, all true religious teachings are trying to get human beings to realize. He also calls our attention to contemporary non-dual realized beings and teachers, such as Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle.

Perhaps that is what feels so unique about this book. It feels to me like this is the first time I have read a Christian writer who has really gone out an read, assimilated, and then integrated the current non-dual awakening process happening all over the world right now with the actual message and teaching of Christ: Jesus. It is as if some sort of mental wall that has been separating Christianity from the the vital and enormously powerful work of the Holy Spirit that is going on right now in the non-dual spiritual world gets conceptually and actually torn down in this book.

I feel on some level like I have been waiting all my life for this book to show up. I thank Rohr and God, Christ and The Holy Spirit for bringing it out. Since Christ: Jesus is my spiritual Teacher and model, I have had little choice but to wait for this kind of book to make sense of how he fits in with the larger non-dual teachings of the world both past and present. In-other-words, I feel, at last that someone has explained very well why I experience Christ: Jesus as I do, as a non-dual master, fully divine and fully human.... Rohr does not hold back or pull any punches. To me, he actually steps up and explains the radical path that Jesus exemplified.

This is a great book to help open the Christian world to the deeper truth-teachings of the West's great Teacher and Initiator.

Below are links to the two books mentioned above.

Refs:
Putting on the Mind of Christ: The Inner Work of Christian Spirituality
The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind--A New Perspective on Christ and His Message

Enjoy! Read more ›