Cloud of Unknowing

Rating:
Summary: Gem of Western Spirituality
Review: A very interesting description of a contemplative discipline conveyed intimately from an unknown teacher to an unknown student. The text is a mystic exploration of the divine that rejects the use of the intellect and the imagination, preferring an inner knowing, like a numinous experience based on feeling, a gnosis of the heart. An important theme is the difference between the active and the contemplative personality; others include the awareness of self, death of the ego, and advice on leading the contemplative life. Although this writing is deeply embedded in Christian tradition and I disagree with many of these beliefs, I still admire the author's gentleness and sense of humor. All spiritually-minded people will benefit from a study of this almost poetic text. The most beautiful sentiment is this: "For it is not what you are nor what you have been that God regards with his most merciful eyes, but what you would like to be."

Rating:
Summary: Good writing, lousy edition
Review: Although the work itself is magnificent, this particular edition of it is very disappointing. It looks nothing like what's pictured here (and I checked the link to make sure I ordered the right one). The one I received is an oversized purple volume. It appears that someone just xeroxed an earlier edition of the work and bound it together. Also this edition has almost no footnotes or translation, and some of the medieval text is a bit difficult to understand. I'd recommend the penguin edition.

Rating:
Summary: The Essence of Spirituality
Review: This beautiful, extraordinary and timeless book by an anonymous 14th century author is one of the greatest mystical treatises of any time in any religion. It is to be most warmly recommended to all true and sincere students of mysticism. It radiates the warmth of St. Francis de Sales, touches in a uniquely loving and gentle way on the sufferings on the soul immersed in the dark night of the spirit, offers guidance on ways of contemplation and the attainment of true humility, which, as the author asserts, is the prerequisite of self-knowledge preparing the way for the love of God which the purified soul must enter through the cloud of unknowing. This book is my steady companion along with Jean-Pierre de Caussade, Rumi and The Hidden Words of Baha'u'llah.

Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking
Review: This is a beautiful translation of one of the most exceptional surviving mystical works.

What words can capture the breadth of a mystical work that, five minutes into reading it, brings forth tears of ecstasy running down the reader's cheeks?

Whoever wrote these words was most certainly one close to God, and Underhill's translation is incredible.

Read it. The scope is breathtaking.

Oh Heavenly Father, I beg you: fill me with your Being!

Blessings,

Stephan Vrudny

Rating:
Summary: A Mystic in the Mists
Review: This very gently edited version of The Cloud of Unknowing is a must read for aspiring mystics or those who seem to be becoming mystics through little intent of their own. The language of this edition captivates by retaining many of the 14th century original phrases and is easily understood, despite antiquity, by any reader who already feels to be within God's mists.