The Inner Eye of Love: Mysticism and Religion

The Inner Eye of Love offers a contemporary theology of mysticism that locates it at the very center of authentic religious experience. It provides as well a practical guide for meditation even as it maps out the oceanic experience toward which meditation points. Johnston begins with the mystical tradition itself, its roots and origins, its appearance and significance in the Gospels, the letters of Paul, and the early Church. He explains what mysticism is and is not, and how it is inextricably bound up with love. It is at the level of mysticism, he maintains, that the two traditions of East and West can at last understand one another and begin to work together to heal a broken world. The Inner Eye of Love escorts the reader through the stages of the mystical journey, from initial call to final enlightenment. Johnston compares and contrasts the Oriental and Christian experience, continually revealing new points of commonality The much discussed dark night of the soulis seen here in a positive way, as an emptying preliminary to the overbrimming of the soul with the knowledge and love of God. Finally, the author considers the often misunderstood relation between mysticism and practical action.

William Johnston S.J., an Irish priest who teaches at Sophia University in Tokyo, is the author of many acclaimed books, including, from Fordham University Press, Christian Zen: A Way of Meditation, Being in Love: The Practice of Christian Prayer, and Silent Music: The Science of Meditation.