Tag: mystic

Unity Consciousness in Spiritual Experience

If you are spiritual you cannot ignore the flesh

you cannot pretend we don’t need the body

to live/breathe/move/see/hear/think/contemplate God

without the body and its senses there would be no spirituality

contemplation allows us to connect scriptures to life

to see how the God who liberated the Israelites

from slavery

wants to liberate us 

from slavery

to addictions/codependency/consumerism/victimhood

however, “Shame and aggression are central

in the human psyche, particularly men –

and these are the universal ‘original wounds’

not ‘original sins’ – and they are hard to shake”

– Otto Rank

but prayer heals

and translates religion/doctrines/dogma

into vital spirituality

and we pray in the first person

subject-to-subject

our soul to God’s soul

we say, “Lord, I am sad/joyful” 

not “Lord, he/she/it is sad/joyful”

Carl Jung’s personal myth of meaning

which he also found expressed in the Western Mystics

was the myth that God needs us 

to become more and more conscious

so that God can become conscious of the whole

which is what the Spirit is leading us to

the core of spiritual experience 

is the same in all religions:

unity consciousness

which is not a phantasmagoric mystical experience

but rather a life-changing sense 

of the unity of all things –

no more separation

we are all one

with God/others/ourselves

the whole Creation.

The Fifth Awakening

Awakenings occur when society’s old institutions break down:

the First Awakening (1730-1760) in North America

ended European forms of religion

and ushered in Protestant Evangelicalism

the Second Awakening (1800-1830) 

ended Calvinist dominance of theology

the Third Awakening (1890 – 1920) had two parts:

the social gospel and Pentecostalism

the Fourth Awakening (1962-1965)

was the Second Vatican Council

the Fifth Great Awakening has been happening 

since the 1970s thru the new science

which does not prove or disprove the existence of God 

nor does it contradict the basic beliefs of our faith

what the believer looks for in science is not proof

but a more accurate understanding of reality

The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra showed how 

outstanding scientists shocked by 

relativity and quantum theory

turned to Eastern mysticism to understand reality

and Carl Jung’s belief that all humans 

are communally connected and interdependent 

led to his theory of the Collective Unconscious

which fit well with the quantum universe

and Jesus, like mystics everywhere, was a unitive thinker 

who talked about his unity with the poor: 

“To the extent you took care of one of these 

sisters and brothers of mine, even the least of them, 

you did it to me”

– Matthew 25: 31-46

to love Christ is to take care of the most needy –

that is why ministers of the gospel, as Henri Nouwen put it 

must be “wounded healers” 

or they cannot enter authentically into the suffering

of a dislocated world/

a rootless generation/

a dying person

unless they have experienced the awakening of suffering 

in their own heart.

DEMYTHOLOGIZING: KILLING GOD SOFTLY

“Matter is just a minor pollutant in a universe

made of light” – Ilya Prigogine

 

“For the rest of my life, I want to reflect

on what light is” – Albert Einstein

 

but artists/philosophers/scientists say

their best ideas emerged spontaneously

out of their unconscious

out of archetypes

residing deeply in the collective unconscious

in the dark –

it is the dark which paradoxically gives light

 

the drug-user/druggie/droog

swims in the same water

as the mystic –

the water of universal archetypes –

of mythology –

arch-types are the same all over the world

in their essential form

though interpreted differently

in different cultures

 

biblical scholars kowtowing to our scientific age

tried to demythologize the Holy Bible

and get to the facts

but anthropologists hrecognize

beginning and ending stories in all cultures

that is, myths

and myths are far more important to a culture

and convey far deeper truths

than mere facts –

facts are superficial –

deeper universal truth can only be found

thru myths

 

demythologizing kills God and religion

because myths are more important –

meaning is more important

to peoples’ hearts –

than science

and facts.

THE TWO TREES IN EDEN

The two trees in Eden 

are metaphors for two minds:

dualistic and unitive.

The Tree of Knowledge 

splits everything into either/or

(God forbids us to eat from this Tree).

The Tree of Life

symbolizes unitive contemplation

and promises access to eternity.

Separation of things by the Church

into sacred (Church)

and secular (world)

meant the Church treated the world

with contemptus mundi.

The Church thought it had everything

to teach the world

and nothing

to learn from it.

Scripture and tradition 

not philosophy or science

are indeed the final norms

for revealing what is truly human.

The philosophy of non-being

in Heidegger, Sartre, Dostoevsky and Berdyaev

viewed religiously

simply speak 

to the transitoriness of all things

and to the power of the demonic

in souls and history.

But atheism 

is not religion’s worst enemy – 

indifference is.

In the New Age

there is passion

because God is only within/immanent.

But to conservative religion 

God is only without/transcendent.

First find the Inner Authority

of your True Self in God

then balance/integrate it 

with the Outer Authority

of Scripture and Tradition.

Balance/integrate God totally within

with God totally without

and voilà 

you have stable yet creative religion.

Totalitarian regimes 

dominate with Outer Authority

 and hate the passion of artists

who break people out of slavery

by waking them up 

to imperial ideology.

Totalitarians rule by power and money

but human reality is constituted

by meaning not matter.

Meaning not money 

is the foundational reality.

It is a spiritual universe.

John of the Cross

put it all together

as a mystic, theologian, and spiritual explorer

who discovered Treasure Island:

that in Christ are buried all treasures

of wisdom and meaning.

Mindfulness of Christ brings

joy, peace, and happiness.

In distress consciously breathe in 

the peace of Christ

and consciously breathe out

the healing of Christ.

Catherine of Siena heard Jesus say

“I want people to meditate

on the greatness of my mercy

before contemplating their shortcomings.

Self-knowledge of sin

must be tempered by and subordinated to

knowledge of God-alive-in-you.”