Search for the Meaning of Life: Essays and Reflections on the Mystical Experience Book

Willigis Jager is a Benedictine priest and a Zen teacher who used to be affiliated with the Sanbo Kyodan group. This is not a perfect book: it repeats itself a fair amount, and the chapter on Psychological Aspects of the Inner Path really wore me out. It was way too long. But Jager writes with deep understanding about the mystical experience, and connects the esoteric aspects of all religions in a remarkable way. He was censured by the present Pope (back when the man was a Bishop), and that seems a strong credential. His interpretation of the Christian message is that Jesus is an exemplar, not a being to be worshiped; his wish was that we would become like him. He says it most succinctly here:

"The key to all this is not so much imitatio as conformatio. The divine in us has to be laid bare just as it was manifest in Jesus Christ. The redemptive process in us aims at a process of becoming Christ, which in the final analysis is the process of becoming fully human, indeed of "becoming God."

Change a few words around and you have the message of the Buddha as well, and in fact of all the true teachers. They didn't want to be imitated. They wanted us to follow their example.

This is a startling book.