Christian Mysticism – A different understanding of Christ

Hi omar. Great post. I don’t pretend to be even in the same league with Nick and Bob but I am happy to see what I can do.

I can’t think of a single thing in the world that we come upon throughout life, that doesn’t meet this description, including how we interpret both the world and life itself. It’s all an inkblot test, omar.

I wouldn’t presume to deny other interpretations of Christianity. If a literalist finds union with God then his interpretation has served its purpose. I would only suggest that if one is worshipping from afar, and believing out of fear, and praying out of guilt, then one is missing the true idea of union. Is my interpretation something you should automatically accept? Well, no, and it wasn’t one I automatically accepted either. One comes to a point where one finds God (and one allows God to find) not very easily, at least in my case. It can be a long, winding, circuitous path, ultimately affirmed by a kind of direct awareness which is impossible to relate.

I think it’s interesting, though, to go beyond the Biblical literature, and here naturally is where a literalist would have a problem. But the sheer amount of life/death/rebirth motifs found throughout mythology from the ages is no less than stunning. At some point, one has to wonder just what is going on. Couple this idea with a belief in pantheism, throw in the sheer beauty of Christ’s message (the Sermon on the Mount, if nothing else), and the stretching of mysticism across Christianity becomes more justified all the time. At some point, for me, along the circuitous path previously mentioned, the idea began to resonate. This was no ivory tower discovery. This was prayer and meditation, along with philosophy and history. I have no interest really in arguing my path. I am merely suggesting that there is a point of view that marries all of these ideas together and that point of view is, essentially, Christian mysticism.

I’m not entirely sure it wasn’t a parable.

And vice-verse. “The Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth and men see it not” (The Gospel of Thomas). There’s your apocalyptic message.

Yes. And as distasteful as it is for literalists, there is more to Heaven and Earth than what is contained in the Bible. “I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written” (John 12:25).

I can’t speak for what really happened to the historical Jesus and why. I’m suggesting the death and rebirth of Christ as a metaphor.

Again, I think you’re confusing the metaphor with the real. The virgin birth, for example, is another motif prominent throughout mythology. I’m not suggesting anything with respect to the historicity of these things. I’m only suggesting that the meaning behind them might go beyond the literal.

Well one needs to be careful not to anthropomorphize. I’m not saying we can become a divine ruler sitting on a throne surveying all of Creation. We are manifestations of God and, in union with the divine, we can experience God, even be at one with God. We can, in a sense, be God. There are moments when man can be at one with the divine and the idea of separation falls away. “Loved one in the other fused as one.”

Hi jeffl,

Not quite, it is the mystic that attempts this dialogue, but he is often confronted by fundamentalism that is steered by rational and materialistic requirements of God. However, these are the proofs or the “seeing” that we are not given. The requirement of faith despite not seeing points clearly to this. It is also difficult because of the dominance of the evangelical influences in countries like America, even if it isn’t active dominance, you can see by the arguments put here that it is omnipresent. It has grown out of the protest against Catholicism which has portrayed perhaps the more feminine and intuitive side of religion. C.G.Jung saw Protestants and Catholics as a division of male (Word) and female (Maria) influences - despite the male dominance in the hierarchy of the catholic church.

I personally see the problem in the lack of balance within the humankind and a prominent one-sidedness of arguments. People like myself move towards mysticism after discovering their “feminine” attributes, for example when taking up nursing as a vocation, and moving away from typical “masculine” expectancies. A new perspective grows as if you had received a new sense organ. I have experienced the questioning look of male friends who find me mediating between men and women, rather than taking sides – and heard the speculations.

The arguments I heard from evangelical friends were curiously similar and I remembered the comparison that Jung had made. The distaste of true-blue protestants for meditative influences, considering them as something “feminine” - which on the one hand should get the backs up of all emancipated women, but on the other hand please them – was very much present when I made my transition. Although I stayed in the protestant church and am in fact an elder of the parish, and although the mainstream protestant church is moving away from such one-sidedness, there still is an opposition to be felt.

Whilst JT and I have often spoken about the agnosticism of mysticism, it isn’t that the revelation of mysticism cannot be articulated, but that it isn’t necessarily articulated in word form – unless suitable descriptions are found. Perhaps one of the reasons for protecting a canon of scripture is to provide familiar symbols and archetypes which then are used to transport the message. Language isn’t the message in itself, but only carries the message. In the past we have spoken about “reading between the lines” and not brooding on single words, or taking them literally as we would understand those words today, because we are often dealing with translations which cannot free themselves from being interpretations.

The reality behind the Metaphor “God” remains an ineffable mystery. A mystery which has diverse expressions in the various cultures. Just like the various races and their cultures are a given fact, so we must accept that the Ineffable will find a specific figurative speech within specific cultures. The kind of protectionism that is expressed in the exclusiveness of many religions will be overcome in the same way as fear is overcome – or it will be our end.

Shalom

I agree 100%. This is why i’m on about consciousness; it is the transending context, and we are understanding enough about the structure and funcion of the brain that certain productive analogies can be built. Ray Jackendoff wrote a book, ‘Semantics and Cognition;’ where certain cognitive structures were reduced to spacial relationships as a hypothetical aside. This makes a great deal of sense to me, as in myown meditations i see ‘meaning’ and ‘place’ converging.

The canon is a light, it ought to shine.

In more ways than one. It is instructive to follow the evolution of language, particularly indoeuropean.

I agree; justice, forgiveness, and grace.

Hello Jerry and thanks for the compliment, as undeserving as I feel of it.

— I can’t think of a single thing in the world that we come upon throughout life, that doesn’t meet this description, including how we interpret both the world and life itself. It’s all an inkblot test, omar.
O- Every thing that happens in our life is open to interpretation. We can agree. So why try to fix our eyes in only one? Everything, it seems, is open to interpretation, until some prophet hoist up a “correct” interpretation, and that is inevitably what religions do.

— I wouldn’t presume to deny other interpretations of Christianity.
O- I kinda doubt your neutrality. You go on to say: “If a literalist finds union with God then his interpretation has served its purpose.” If you left it at that then I would agree with your prior statement, but see how you go right into what I accuse religions of doing: "I would only suggest that if one is worshipping from afar, and believing out of fear, and praying out of guilt, then one is missing the true idea of union.
Oh yeah. There is that True bussiness to attend to. You don’t deny them, you only see them as false ideas? What an affirmation indeed! Jerry, please forgive my sarcasm. I have decided to leave it there in the post because it should express correctly my desperation that when I am promised something different, the same partiality, the same sanctimoniousness returns and I am afraid inevitably so, because that is the point of re-ligion to affirm one thing above others. The subjective, which is the breeding ground for all thyese re-ligions, is implacable and for true meaning to be achieved, error must be trimmed from the world. It means by the grace of what it denies and that is why, I believe, while the intention might truly be to be non-judgmental and tolerant, the end result does not vary because of the circumstances I have described.

— Is my interpretation something you should automatically accept? Well, no, and it wasn’t one I automatically accepted either. One comes to a point where one finds God (and one allows God to find) not very easily, at least in my case. It can be a long, winding, circuitous path, ultimately affirmed by a kind of direct awareness which is impossible to relate.
O- You presume that “union” was all along the idea behind it all. This presumption ignores the Israelite tradition up to Jesus and it’s intricacies, which might be problematic to this “union-with-God” perspective. Is Thomas representative of Jewish thought?
Let me explain. Suppose you are a listener of Jesus back in the 1st century. You have been educated as any 1st century Palestinian Jew. What will it mean, (you think), when Jesus is called the “Messiah”? Why did it provoke the Temple authorities so the rumors of the day? In that tradition, as it was known in their day, the Messianic hope was not one that sought “union” with God etc. Call them “carnal”, but one cannot deny the jewishness of Jesus. If one accepts that inheritance, then Jesus is understood in a totally different light, and his sayings as well. I understand that the picture that emerges is a failed picture and thus a new meaning is found to the story. This is tradition and occurs in ancient controversies over the role, if any, of Hesiod, and Homer as educators of the youth in Greece. Rather than discarding their teachings, those sentimentally attached, in my opinion, try to salvage what they can by looking for a hidden meaning which inserts into the ancient a modern message. I just disagree with the disregard for what the author’s intention might have been, as well as the inherent self-righteousness in that the new message is a superior understanding of what is. Call me a conservative, but can you put new wine in old skins?
One last thing before we proceed. I am not defending a literal view over a metaphorical view etc. it is not some either or controversy, settled in either extreme. Instead I fully defend that the Scriptures are both. At times literal, at times symbolic and it does not take much to dicern how and when. A strict literalist view is wrong, but so is a strict symbolic one.

— I think it’s interesting, though, to go beyond the Biblical literature, and here naturally is where a literalist would have a problem. But the sheer amount of life/death/rebirth motifs found throughout mythology from the ages is no less than stunning. At some point, one has to wonder just what is going on.
O- I actually welcome going beyond scripture. Perhaps we can use other arts than merely interpretation of scripture to discriminate the truth from error. So many cultures, so diverse and yet seemingly with the same recurring motif, how can we hope to explain it?!
Two paths.
First one assume that the similarity comes from an unconscious and yet objective experience into the Divine. That God reveals himself differently to different people, but it is still the same God, or that God is One and the same but that while the similarities reveal what is true about Him, what is diverse reflect our limited understanding and the powerful influence of culture in our appreciation of that public experience that is God.
The second path is more skeptical. That voice, not a very popular one, but notheless, possible, says that underlying the similarity in religious tradition is a biological tract and part of what makes us human. This point is thoroughly examined in the book “The Creation of the Sacred” (can’t remember the author but I think it is Burkert). It is an echo of Ludwig Freuerbach, who reversed the order of creation from God then man to Man then God. It is then in man that the answer will be found, in his existential condition, rather in some beyond or some interpretation of what is beyond.

— Couple this idea with a belief in pantheism, throw in the sheer beauty of Christ’s message (the Sermon on the Mount, if nothing else), and the stretching of mysticism across Christianity becomes more justified all the time.
O- I am interested in this. Please, give me your mystical rendition of the Sermon on the Mount. Use Luke’s variant of it to make truly a challenge.

— At some point, for me, along the circuitous path previously mentioned, the idea began to resonate. This was no ivory tower discovery. This was prayer and meditation, along with philosophy and history. I have no interest really in arguing my path. I am merely suggesting that there is a point of view that marries all of these ideas together and that point of view is, essentially, Christian mysticism.
O- How can I argue with that? I commend your achievement, but I must only say that my comment in all of this is that what you’ve achieved is not that dramatic. It is like an opinion. You feel that you have achieved a union with God. How could I investigate the truth of such claims? It is enough that they be true to you, even if they are false in the eyes of every one else. Are you happy by the development? If so, then what more can one want?

Quote:
Why did Jesus have to die? To provide us with this example? A parable might have done the trick.
— I’m not entirely sure it wasn’t a parable.
O- Quite a statement Jerry. I’ll be thinking about it for a while before I hazard a response.

— And vice-verse. “The Kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth and men see it not” (The Gospel of Thomas). There’s your apocalyptic message.
O- Again, does Thomas represent Jesus mind set better than the others? Did it mean that for Ignatious and Polycarp? Or Paul and Peter? Why is the Kingdom also likened to a mustard seed. The Kigdom of God is the kingdom of David. Why then do people not see it? Because it has been brought low, but it is not gone. Just because the people suffer does not mean that their God has been overcome but that their God has allowed their humbling. This is Biblical, though I cannot say if it is true. The Kingdom does not come, does not descend, and does not need to because it was never destroyed, it never stop being. Says the Lord: “Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever”.
In Jesus thriumphal entry the crowd shouts:”Hosanna!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”
“Blessed is the kingdom of our father David!”
That makes sense in view of what God said to David and recorded in scripture.
I don’t want you to think that I am partial to a literal understanding, but that I understand what has been written better in that light rather than in some interpretation that what is meant all along is a mystical union of God and man. It does not follow the myth as told in the old testatment and seems to me as a later development, a later creation, which has taken the most sublime sayings and inserted within them their own agenda. I could be wrong, but based on a reading into the Books of the Bible and some like the Apocraphia and then reading the writings of the martyrs, which is what I have done, I have found that it makes a lot of sense to read such sayings of Jesus as reflective of a jewish tradition and less of a mystical tradition in which man becomes God.

— Again, I think you’re confusing the metaphor with the real. The virgin birth, for example, is another motif prominent throughout mythology. I’m not suggesting anything with respect to the historicity of these things. I’m only suggesting that the meaning behind them might go beyond the literal.
O- Don’t all things possess that extra meaning for the mind that seeks it? Does not mean that the meaning is real but within the mind that sees it. The Virgin Birth was used by Caesar, and Emperor, so what does that say about Jesus being just like us? It places Jesus less in our sphere and more in Caesar’s.

— Well one needs to be careful not to anthropomorphize. I’m not saying we can become a divine ruler sitting on a throne surveying all of Creation. We are manifestations of God and, in union with the divine, we can experience God, even be at one with God. We can, in a sense, be God. There are moments when man can be at one with the divine and the idea of separation falls away. “Loved one in the other fused as one.”
O- So what is this “God”? He is not a divine ruler, so what is He or should we say “It”? Right now I am drawing a “nada”: “We are manifestations of “Nada” and, in union with the divine, we can experience “Nada”, even be at one with “Nada”. We can, in a sense, be “Nada”.

I’m not sure I even care for the term mysticism any longer. It carries with it the same baggage as does “God”, Christian", “Allah”, “Muslim”, …

It’s almost paradoxical that we experience that ‘something’ beyond the apparent manifest and we want to express what we have experienced, but all we have is language which is useful in describing that which is manifest, but falls miserably short in any expression of the experience of all that is. And so we search for metaphors to illuminate, but end up clouding the experience with more words about words.

We assume our words give us the power to assign attributes to that which is behind manifest. God is this, God is that. We cite this or that collection of even more words (holy scripture) as “proof” that we can know God. But at the bottom of it all, one is left with an indescribable experience and the ‘knowing’ of God is both personal and private. I may ‘know’ for myself, but for no other, and in that I must remain silent lest I fall victim to the first Commandment: “Thou shalt have no other Gods before me.”

Our words about God, of God, are idolatry. Poor imitations of what they purport to describe. I suppose it is inevitable that we should do this, since language is the pervasive environment, but we should recognize and accept the limitations of our words. For me, I will call that which is, the ineffable, and if asked about what is God, I have to answer, “I don’t know.”

If this is mysticism, then so be it. But I really prefer silence. Of course if there is discussion of how shall we live? Those are experiences of which I can speak freely - and do - too much of the time.

JT

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You,ll have to excuse me then , I thought when you said " somebody " you were reffering to someone other than yourself , if what you meant was its about time you shed some light on christian mystiscism , that you will attempt to put it in a nutshell , then ok

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Jerry wrote:

his was no ivory tower discovery. This was prayer and meditation, along with philosophy and history. I have no interest really in arguing my path. I am merely suggesting that there is a point of view that marries all of these ideas together and that point of view is, essentially, Christian mysticism.

I would define it as a facet of man made Christianity or “Christendom” rather than Christian mysticism.

No problem. I see what you meant now. Yes, it was my intention to summarize the general idea myself. (Sorry for the wise-ass reply).

I’d be interested, then, in your definition of Christian mysticism.

And I would reiterate that I am not here to push Christian mysticism as the one, correct interpretation. It is but one way to somehow attempt to make sense, and experience something of, God. I would refer you to the quote from Andrew Harvey which I have led off this thread with.

I cannot deny that I believe what I believe. That I believe it makes it, to my way of thinking, “correct.” Else I would not believe it. Does this of necessity make other approaches “incorrect”? I don’t know. Obviously some of that idea is part and parcel with one’s belief about something. It is quite unavoidable and I won’t waste your time by trying to deny it.

I will say this however. I do feel as though other approaches can be just as valid as mine. I have the experience of mine to recommend it to my own self, but I am aware that that experience is non-transferable by language. It is for this reason that I see one’s relationship to God as a completely unique and very personal thing. Outside of forums such as these where these kinds of ideas get bandied about for fun and intrigue, and private conversations with a very small, select group of people that I know quite well, one hears nary a peep from Jerry about how one should approach God. This is quite a different approach, I would say, than one in which people are preaching and actively attempting to effect conversion. I’m not saying that’s a wrong approach (that would be ironic), I’m merely differentiating mine from what you have said you “accuse religions of doing.”

Keeping what has been said in historical context, which I think you are getting at here, is important. But one has to make a determination somewhere along the line as to whether or not the words were written just for the specific times, or whether one can take a wider, broader view and either postulate that the words are appropriate for other times and meant to be so, or at the least the words and deeds and stories can be used as lessons to be applied towards different circumstances in different times.

There is no denying that doing so raises a host of interpretive issues. This is a problem that I do not deny. It is for this reason that one needs, in my view, to carefully compile information from many sources, scripture and otherwise, including wisdom down through the ages from the kings and philosophers and warriors and thinkers and poets, to meditation and prayer and listening with the heart, so to ultimately be able to cobble together a worldview that resonates.

Understood. And I do not think I disagree.

Put me down for the first path.

I’m not sure how you mean to use the word “mystical” here and so I’m not sure I am understanding your question. The Sermon on the Mount is, if one was looking to summarize what Jesus had to teach and could take just one thing from the NT, a beautifully succinct lesson to point to.

No, it is not “like” an opinion. It is an opinion. And I am claiming nothing more. You can’t, in fact, investigate the truth of such claims. I have said before I am not here to defend a position, merely to put forth a possible one, and I have done so especially for those around here without a real idea as to what Christian Mysticism really means but instead take the conventional approaches to Christ as being the only approaches available.

The problem I have always had with respect to reading literally, is that the answer to one major question – maybe the question – is sorely in want. What purpose man? What purpose life? If not union with God, if not co-creation of some sort, then what, omar? This was the question that originally steered me towards other avenues. This gaping hole gnaws at one incessantly, does it not? Where is the answer? Asking the question gets us started down a completely new path and it has occurred to me that the question is left unanswered precisely so that we may go in search of its answer. And this search, by necessity, puts us on a road quite beyond the maps left to us by what can be discerned with literal interpretations.

Could be Nada. Could be Todos. Abraham Heschel used the word “ineffable”, a word tentative is fond of and for good reason I think. I can’t do better than that. We can catch glimpses and we can see God sometimes if we’re paying attention. Through time, I have learned that I can see God in such things as you, me, the love I feel for my son, the eyes of a close friend, the waves of the ocean, and the way twilight makes me feel.

Thank God for this thread. I was surfing the philosophy board and realized there is nothing I have to sday or want to know regarding mere thought. For me it’s always been about revelation - inexpressible joys and anguish that come with the realization the universe consists of consciousness and not of matter. To me this is what the Christ teaches - whether he be Jesus or ones inner Christ - ones inner, higher self.

The problem I have, as do many, with the notion that all there is is the now and there her - is that I live in a western dynamic society and not in a mountaincave, or even on the land, cropping my own food. If that were so, I’d be perfectly happy. But I am raised as an artist, a film and tv director, and I love my craft. But the setting in which I have to perform it is oppressing, tyrannical - it demands of me that I am - that I go with this flow, this near-insanity of veryday life. The past ten years have been a struggle to release myself from the sense of obligation and still make enough money to live a life. And God has always been close to me, I keep Him close.

The awe of the father and the dear love for the mother - the connectedness with the son within - they all have become a given to me - but I can’t escape the torment here as I was born in the west with a conscience and a sense of purpose. I have tried to get away, but was drawn back.
What am I getting at? I want to present the idea that the Christ - in the modern world - is a dynamic type, who needs to cultivate warrior qualities in order to surive and work within western society.
I believe that the second coming of Christ is not only the birth of the Self within a human - the realease of ego-consciousness - bt also a geo-political movement of Christs being born within the ego consciousness of the western world. And I believe this coming is imminent. I see the ego-world stretching itself to such an extent that it almost snaps, crushes under it’s own weight. When this happens, we as humanity will not just need the wisdom love and good will of individuals, but orgainized Christs. So; Christs - organize!
What am I shoutin for - it’s not as if I need to tell them.

Hi JM. Glad you like the thread.

With respect to this idea of the insanity of everyday life and sense of obligation, it’s really a question of motivation, isn’t it? We’re creative beings first and foremost. If one is working to feed the ego-self then one is working for the wrong reasons it seems to me. If, on the other hand, one is working to feed the true self, the creative being that resides within, then I think the motivation is in the right place. Inside each of us is an artist. We can’t all be painters or poets but we all have a means by which we create. In my business I create marketing avenues for companies, but much more than this I have created valuable relationships with coworkers and clients that go well beyond monetary considerations. This kind of thing remains unavailable to us in your mountain cave, or on the land “cropping (your) own food,” and so I am wondering if it’s not a more worthwhile way to live after all.

In other words, your “ego” world doesn’t have to be an ego world, does it? I’m wondering if it’s only an ego world if that happens to be the way it’s approached.

Hi Jerry

As I understand it, Christian mysticism is the spirituality of the direct experience of God. This is an experience of “knowing” that transcends belief. It contains love and joy but not the emotions we are accustomed to that normally define them… It attempts to allow the New Man to replace the Old Man.

Christian Mysticism strives for the creation of the New Man in us by allowing the Christ to enter into the place of the infant soul dominated by our corrupt egotism as illustrated by previous quotes. The creation of the New Man allows for the relationship described in John 10:

Allowing the Christ to replace our inner corruption paves the way for the same relationship described above by John.

Notice that Jesus doesn’t say that YOU and the Father are on but that I and the Father are one. We need to establish “I.” You in this case is the "old man"and “I” is the New Man. This distinction is often overlooked.We assume our existence as the Old Man to be the same as the New Man strictly from wishful thinking. It doesn’t work that way. It is as naive as assuming we are millionaires through wishful thinking.

The idea of God as ineffable is accurate. But I believe to be misleading in regards Christian Mysticism. Considering God as ineffable makes it easy to fall into the trap of star gazing into la la land and believing we are something we are not. God is ineffable so we just try and be guided by our instincts and emotions inspired by the ineffable. It is forgotten that all this is impossible for the Old Man. Have you noticed that the Gospels do not speak of communication with the ineffable Father. The concern is for the Son to make it possible.

Union with Christ establishing our soul is the goal of Christian Mysticism. It is not WE but CHRIST in us that allows for our inner unity “to be.”

Hello Jerry:
I will like to tell you that I admire your honesty and it is not without sympathy that I send my reply.

— The problem I have always had with respect to reading literally, is that the answer to one major question – maybe the question – is sorely in want. What purpose man?
O- I don’t know. But I guess whatever the person who asks the question thinks it should be.

— What purpose life?
O- God knows. But I guess that too would be answered eventually by the person who asks the question. Questions, it seems, by the time they become formulated and the “?” added, already have their answer made. By then, they are almost rose-cheeked, because unlike other, some might say easier questions around which could be asked and have not been answered, this one lacks no answer. It lacks if anything a unanimous answer. we might as well ask: “what is beautiful?”

— If not union with God, if not co-creation of some sort, then what, omar?
O- I don’t know but I guess whatever that particular person who ask the question thinks it should be. In your view this union is as good a purpose as any I could come up with.
But here is the thing Jerry, most of the answers for this questions answer nothing, but simply defer the question.
What is the purpose of man? Well, what is the purpose of God?
Sometimes this concept of “God” serves as a sedative under which we become at peace. The answer is not really an answer but because it is God, we can now feel at rest and satisfied that this concept we have added, this element of God, makes the purpose of man, of life, clear. Union with God is your goal and purpose, but I could still ask, like an obnoxious child, What is the purpose for this union with God? Creation? What is the purpose of that Creation? It never needs to end, we simply tired and fall at the ankles of “God”.
But in the end, whatever we find as purpose will include what we come to find worthy of our time. Creation important for you? Then that will find it’s way to your proposition of a purpose. As sublime and spiritual as it could be, the purpose of life, and of man, is perhaps, perhaps, enjoyment, pleasure. Cynical, maybe, but that is what I find in almost all propositions, all narrations, a happy ending.

— This was the question that originally steered me towards other avenues. This gaping hole gnaws at one incessantly, does it not? Where is the answer?
O- From a metaphysical discomfort, this hole that gnaws, we flow towards a metaphysical comfort, a sedative like Opium, that plugs the hole and gives those jaws somethings to chew on for a while. along the way, one more day is purchased of meaning.

— Asking the question gets us started down a completely new path and it has occurred to me that the question is left unanswered precisely so that we may go in search of its answer.
O- Unanswered to whom? You? Sounded like earlier you had a pretty good idea, but maybe I was wrong.

— Could be Nada. Could be Todos. Abraham Heschel used the word “ineffable”, a word tentative is fond of and for good reason I think. I can’t do better than that. We can catch glimpses and we can see God sometimes if we’re paying attention. Through time, I have learned that I can see God in such things as you, me, the love I feel for my son, the eyes of a close friend, the waves of the ocean, and the way twilight makes me feel.
O- What makes you so sure that perhaps all you see is just that: Me, You, a friend, a wave in the ocean, the twilight? What is found in you, me, the love for your son, the eyes of a close friend, the waves of the ocean and the way that the twilight makes you feel? What is common to all of these? There lies your God…

Hi Nick. What, based on what you have said in your last post above, makes your definition of Christian mysticism not a “man made” one? How are not various interpretations of mysticism (indeed of Christ himself) not man made? And where, exactly, does mine in so far as I have revealed it here, miss the mark, do you think?

Thanks omar. Now you’ve gone and given me something to live up to…

And perhaps we ought to ask “what is beautiful.” Beauty is certainly in existence. But why? And what conclusions can we draw from its existence? Far from being rhetorical, fun questions for philosophy forums, I think there is something deeper and more meaningful to the inquiries. It is this potential depth and meaning that pushes one forward, that impels one helplessly towards the source. Perhaps this is what drove the famous mystics throughout history. Life has to mean something, and the answer must be with God.

But this train of thought presupposes an ultimate purpose. Maybe the purpose of life is life. What is the meaning of a rose? It just is. The universe is Creativity. In its essence, that is all it is. Not as a means to an end, but as an end in and of itself.

“Why do we love Lewis Carroll with his ‘’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe, all mimsy were the borogroves, and the mome raths outgrabe….’? Why is it that all those old English songs are full of ‘Fal-de-riddle-eye-do’ and ‘Hey-nonny-nonny’ and all those babbling choruses? Why is it that when we get ‘hep’ with jazz we just go ‘Boody-boody-boop-de-boo’ and so on, and enjoy ourselves swinging with it? It is this participation in the essential glorious nonsense that is at the heart of the world, not necessarily going anywhere….the true meaning of life is no meaning…its purpose is no purpose…its sense is non-sense.” --Alan Watts, “The Tao of Philosophy”

It only remains as to how we fit in, what part we are to play, how we are to create. How to answer these questions without union with God? Impossible.

Well I was referring to the idea that it was left unanswered in scripture. Christ, the son of God, had the opportunity to tell us what our meaning was, what our purpose was, why there was something rather than nothing. And on these points he was silent. Why? I would suggest that it is our searching for these answers that allows us to fully see the place we have in the universe…it is the seeking of union with God that enables us to see, in a way no scripture reading could convey, our particular role in the unfolding of Creativity.

And I agree. But we can find God inward as well. This is the idea of mysticism. And once one finds God inward, then one sees the outward manifestations as well. They are, really, everywhere.

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He was,nt silent as far as I can tell , enough was said to explain these things , just that most people dont agree on the meaning of them by the looks of it

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Hi Jerry.

I don’t believe my definition is man made since it begins on the assumption of a quality of higher consciousness that we are dependent upon and must surrender to for the spiritual quest we are attracted to. The necessity of re-birth, the change of a person’s being, from the level of earth to the level of heaven. was emphasized by Jesus so in that sense was not man made. As a man I must accept or reject it but its origin is not man made.

You write of marrying many different ideas from different points of view but all on the same level of fallen man together. IMO this must produce just an additional summary on the same level.

Christianity theoretically begins with a conscious source from a higher level of existence and Jesus in this case. Its purpose is to make clear man’s fallen condition and what can be done about it for the benefit of the individual and Mankind

However, as conscious awareness begins to be replaced by secular concerns, it becomes interpreted to suit these concerns. These interpretations taken as a whole are Christendom. From this perspective, the awareness of our nothingness and need to receive is replaced by what we should do and often the associated belief that we are already sons of God.

I could be wrong but get the impression that you do not appreciate the reality of man’s nothingness essential to accept the conscious origin of Christianity and the experience of Christian Mysticism.

Just to be clear, my relating to God and the path that enabled me to see that my relating was something of an imperative for me, are two different things. Interpretations of philosophy, theology, science, anything you can name, are by necessity man made. There is no escaping this. Now, one can put some or all of these things together and come up with a worldview that points a certain way, say towards Christian Mysticism, and attempt as I am doing here to relate that point of view. But the union with God, if there is one, is divinely done so, I would say. One likes to think the path to get there is also, if not divinely made, at least divinely-inspired, I don’t know. But it is something of an intellectual, man-made process based on interpreting the things I have mentioned, to get there. The union, on the other hand, is something else entirely.

Keep in mind that I am relating my own personal experience and my own interpretation of Christian mysticism. I cannot do otherwise. My interpreting and relating in this forum, my definition of Christian mysticism, these things are man-made, as are yours. Our respective relationships with divinity, on the other hand, well, that’s another story.

Well I don’t accept the total annihilation of the self, no. First off, I think it impossible but secondly I’m not even sure it’s desirable. The distinction between created and Creator - in unity with God – is, as the great, 14th century mystic John Ruysbroeck wrote, “the highest and finest distinction that we are able to feel.”

Well I don’t accept the total annihilation of the self, no. First off, I think it impossible but secondly I’m not even sure it’s desirable. The distinction between created and Creator - in unity with God – is, as the great, 14th century mystic John Ruysbroeck wrote, “the highest and finest distinction that we are able to feel.”

“I Am” suggests your existence as both "I"and your self. Why annihalate the real?

Annihilation only refers to what is not real: the substance of our artificially created selves. It takes a long time even to distinguish here so the question is of no direct importance. I’m speaking theoreically that this distinction exists…

Meister Eckhart was a Christian mystic. Read how he explains how the artificial drops off.

But this is just theoretical for us since we are encased in the artificial that can easily create this illusion.