MYSTICISM AND SPIRITUALITY - MYSTICISM, FULLNESS OF LIFE

This first volume of Opera Omnia is partly autobiographical, dealing as it does with the most important theme of Raimon Panikkar’s life. It has been a distinct inspiration for all his writings, to the extent that it has become their indispensable hermeneutical key.
Mysticism represents the third dimension that brings all the pages that follow into relief and into life.
The reduction of existence to the senses or to reason limits Man to the status of a mere species among the various life forms: that of the rational animal. As we shall repeatedly see, human life (zoe) is not just its biological existence (bios). Man is not only in the likeness of God, the Source, the Beginning, the Wellspring, the Cause (all homeomorphic equivalents) but also in the image of Reality, a mikrokosmosas the Ancients used to say (up until Paracelsus and the followers of the philosophia adepta) that mirrors the whole makrokosmos. The distinction between image and likeness is more theological than lexical.
Although for practical reasons this volume has been divided into two parts, it should be clarified from the outset that the two themes, mysticism and spirituality, may be distinguished but not separated. Few topics have had a worse reputation in some circles than mysticism, on which, to tell the truth, too much has been written, and badly; if we add the theme of spirituality as well, that the situation is even worse.

INDEX OF ORIGINAL TEXTS IN VOLUME I. Part 1

(Books in bold and italic)

A prologue instead of an epilogue: preface to J Martin Velasco, Il Fenomeno mistico. Struttura del fenomeno e contemporaneità, Jaca Book, Milan 2003, pp 9-14. Text partially revised.

The new innocence: from La nuova innocenza. Innocenza cosciente, Servitium, Sotto il Monte-Bergamo 2003, new edition 2005, pp 25-38, 39-57, 105-109, 229-258. “Lightning” is a summary of the three prefaces.

Meditation without object: “Gedankenfreie”. Meditation oder seinserfüllte Gelassenheit?, in H M Enomiya-Lassalle, Munen Musö. Ungegenständliche Meditation, edited by G Stachel, Grünewald, Mainz 1978, pp 309-316.

The Origin: silence: in La dimora della saggezza, Mondadori, Milano 2005, pp 97-123.

Contemplating in the world’s naves: in AA VV, L’utopia di Francesco si è fatta… Chiara, Cittadella, Assisi 1994, pp 102-110.

Some aspects of the spirituality of John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila: Some aspects of the spirituality of St John of the Cross and of Saint Teresa in “The Living Word”, 1976, pp 258-268.

The experience of life. Mysticism: L’esperienza della vita. La mistica, Jaca Book, Milan 2005, (complete original work).
The supreme experience: the ways of East and West: in Mito, fede ed ermeneutica. Il triplice velo della realtà, Jaca Book, Milan 2000, pp 287-311.

Prayer: unpublished.