Spirituality Studies 11-1 Spring 2025 1 EDITORIAL Editorial The central spiritual process of self-transcendence is always accompanied by some form of love. Love is the force that makes the process of ego transcendence possible. A typical feature of theistic spiritualities, such as a Christian one, “is particularly intent on debunking this ego-centeredness,” as Patrick Laude (2025, 4) points out in his opening study of the eleventh volume of Spirituality Studies. The spiritual instruction of The Cloud of Unknowing, a classic fourteenth-century mystical text from the same tradition, promotes loving contemplation without words and thoughts, that is, without an object of consciousness (non-intentionality), culminating in self-surrender where one’s love reaches its peak, “lovingly making itself nothing and exalting God as all in all” (The Epistle of Privy Counsel 1982, 178). The same is true of the Indian traditions of bhakti, as Hari M. G. (2025, 78) reminds us in the concluding article of the first issue of the same volume: “The sustained intensity of bhakti differentiates it from ordinary emotions – it is an all-consuming fire that transforms the devotee’s entire being.” Surprisingly, though, even the wisdom traditions are not as different as one might think. In the Spring 2024 issue of Spirituality Studies, Michael James (2024, 10) drew our attention to the Indian jñāni Ramana Maharshi’s key teachings on bhakti, which “in its deepest sense is alone what motivates us to investigate ourselves deeply enough to see what we actually are and thereby eradicate ego.” I invite you, dear readers, to explore these, and other topics featured in the Spring 2025 edition of Spirituality Studies and be inspired by the insights of its authors. Cordially Martin Dojčár
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTUwMDU5Ng==