Not One, Not Two

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

The following dialogue was extracted from Fr. Anthony de Mello’s “One Minute Wisdom”: 

“How does one seek union with God?” 

“The harder you seek, the more distance you create between Him and you.” 

“So what does one do about the distance?” 

“Understand that it is not there.” 

“Does that mean that God and I are one?” 

“Not one.  Not two.” 

“How is that possible?” 

“The Sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, the singer and his song - not one.  Not two.” 

Much of what the late Jesuit priest wrote is very much congruent with taswawwuf, that in 1998, 11 years after Fr. de Mello’s death, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the same Catholic committee that was responsible for such events as the Spanish Inquisition, under the leadership of its then Cardinal-Prefect, Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, conducted a review.  This is the same Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger who went on to become Pope Benedict XVI.  They released a lengthy commentary expressing concerns about his theology.  They conceded that while there was no explicit heresy, some might be misled into seeing Jesus (a.s.) was not the Son of God.