Doctrines and religions are manmade and have the tendency to try and pin down the object of their devotion, evoking the idea that there is a right and wrong. I tend towards the more poetical, which are mostly mystical traditions, because the mystical embraces the paradox of thorns and love, which is the title I gave my Substack page. Mystical poetry often arises from a very particular interior state, one thatâs not sought after, but stumbled intoâthen expressed because it must be, like a pressure breaking open. If youâre not in that space or not drawn to write from it, then aspiring to it might feel false or ornamental.
Thereâs also something to be said for quiet understandingâto hold the insights of mysticism with seriousness, even sobriety, rather than trying to re-enchant them with words. That too is its own kind of poetry, something in the spirit of Julian, or the Cloud, or even Rumi. In contrast, I also find deep wisdom in Advaita Vedanta, which often avoids poetic flourish. Itâs razor-sharp, ontological, metaphysical, aiming at vidyÄ (knowledge) that cuts through illusion. Even its beauty is austere, stripped of ornament.
I feel that Christian theology takes itself too seriously and puts Jesus on a pedestal, making him a God to be praised rather than an exemplary man to be followed, and theology often serves those who want to give power to the church. The Gospel story is moving as a tragedy of humanity that kills its best, and it continues the prophetic line of the OT prophets, all of whom are said to have suffered, and contradicts a power-oriented theology that followed.
Simone Weil said that Christâs suffering on the cross is meaningful not because he is God but because it is a supreme act of attention, compassion, and solidarity with human suffering. In the same way, Dorothy Day and Tolstoy both focused on Jesus as the exemplar, not the object of worshipâemphasizing his teachings on poverty, nonviolence, and the kingdom of God as something to enact, not just adore. âThy kingdom come!â
Theology often tends to flatten the revolutionary power of the Gospel. Jesus as a wandering healer, table-turner, and advocate for the oppressedâthis figure is dangerous, subversive, and deeply human. Jesus as an omnipotent God can be used to justify empire, hierarchy, and submission. The tragic arc of Jesusâs lifeâbetrayal, execution, abandonmentâbecomes less about divine destiny and more about the human cost of radical love and truth-telling.
A friend said, âItâs my observation that people usually gravitate toward relatively small boxes of thought. Christians can only view and understand the Bible from their particular sectâs teachings. Many scientists can only view discoveries from a Darwinian perspective. Partisan politicians can only see things from their current positions and cast alternative thought as Hitleresque. Even in relationships, when one in the couple says or does something, the other often can only interpret what their partner said or did based on what they would have meant had they said or did the same thing. I donât know whatâs deep down in a person, but in practical application, anecdotally anyway, it seems most people lean toward a pack mentality.â
That is true, but only because they believe that holding on to something, possessing something, is what makes them free. They donât see the freedom that is already there, it has to be something more. âTo Have or to Be!â was a book that greatly influenced me in the 1980s from the psycho-analyst Erich Fromm. Frommâs distinction between the having mode and the being mode really cuts to the heart of modern alienation, doesnât it? And itâs so important in the context of spiritual distortion and institutional religion because that whole frameworkâpossessing salvation, possessing truth, even possessing Godâis the very thing Fromm critiques.
I am also a fan of Iain McGilchristâs âThe Matter With Things,â and it is in this context that I see the left-brain hemisphere active. In the having mode, people relate to the world by owning, controlling, and accumulatingâwhether itâs material goods, beliefs, or even other people. This mode is, as Fromm puts it, inherently fearful and defensive because what is âhadâ can always be lost.
The right hemisphere is geared more to the being mode, which is grounded in presence, aliveness, and relatedness. It is holistic, relational, and open-ended. It apprehends meaning as something living, dynamic, and never fully graspable. I find that bringing the two (Fromm and McGilchrist) together gives us an incredibly rich synthesisâFrommâs modes of having and being interwoven with McGilchristâs hemispheric theory. It clicks intuitively and poetically, and it also offers a neuropsychological grounding for what mystics and philosophers have been hinting at for centuries.
Where the left hemisphere (and the having mode) demands exclusivityâmy truth, my God, my salvationâthe right hemisphere (and the being mode) fosters participation: we are in this, of this, moving with it. Where the left seeks to possess God, the right becomes permeable to the sacred. In that sense, it is much closer to mystical receptivity, as in Eckhartâs âbreakthroughâ into the Godhead, or the Buddhist experience of no-self.
From a psychological angle, the having mode aligns with egoic fearâthe fear of loss, death, and meaninglessness. The being mode aligns with acceptance, trust, and depth of perceptionâqualities we often associate with grace or what poets call âsoulâ.
My friend also said, âI feel guidance in my life. In retrospect, I can see it. And so now I notice it along the way and try not to resist too strongly. I make my choices and along with it mistakes, but I still see guidance. So I believe in a spiritual, personal force that is trying to gently nudge me on better paths than I might have taken on my own. I call that God. Whether he acts overtly, directly, or through other spiritual beings, or whether we are designed to be connected with that spiritual guidance like a radio transmission we can turn the volume up or down on, I donât know.â*
I can relate to that. I have often felt the need to show gratitude, not just at mealtimes or when we get something we have wanted, and despite the usual gripes I have at seventy, I know that gratitude is appropriate for my life. John OâDonohue wrote, âWhen you are compassionate with yourself, you trust in your soul, which you let guide your life. Your soul knows the geography of your destiny better than do.â I understand this as saying that there is a link with eternity within us which he calls âsoulâ and we might alternatively perceive as a guardian angel, a daimon, or just a good spirit.
My friend went on to say: âAt this point in time, I believe the material world was created by the non-material (spiritual if you will) world, but I canât see, as I look around me, how the purpose for our creation could have been primarily for our human benefit, primarily. Thatâs not to say we arenât cared for. But it seems to make more sense to me that we were created for the purpose and benefit of our creators.â
I have read that there are three Levels of Reality in Advaita VedÄnta that resonate with me:
Absolute Reality (PÄramÄrthika Satya)
This is the level of Brahman: eternal, changeless, non-dual consciousness. It alone is truly real.
Empirical or Conventional Reality (VyÄvahÄrika Satya)
This is the world of everyday experience, of birth and death, cause and effect, time and space. It is provisionally real, like the waking state in contrast to the dream and essentially, what our brains interpret from the senses, but not truly real.
Illusory or Apparent Reality (PrÄtibhÄsika Satya)
This includes dreams, mirages, hallucinations, and errors like mistaking a rope for a snake. These are even less real than empirical reality.
To give this some modern consideration, our left hemisphere tries to âunderstandâ ultimate reality by making it an object. Our right hemisphere is more at home with the paradox that ultimate reality is both immanent and transcendent, both silence and sound, both form and formless. From this perspective, a poet would not try to decorate truthâthey are closer to truth than systematised thought ever could be. The left hemisphere can name Maya, but the right can see through it.
In The Matter With Things, McGilchrist draws directly from mystical and non-dual traditions and suggests that the right hemisphere perceives the world as relational, living, and full of implicit meaningâwhich is remarkably similar to the Advaitic insight that all forms are expressions of the formless.
The river calls itself water,
forgets the shape it took to get here.
The flame bows to the wood
even as it consumes it.
You, walking through this worldâ
are not in it,
you are it,
dreaming yourself
as other.