Tag: spirit

KNOCKING ON THE PEARLY GATES

On all the key issues in spirituality:

the equality of men and women/

the harmony of body and soul/

the holiness of being/the goodness of humans/

the compatibility of mysticism and prophecy

Meister Eckhart exceeded the Aristotelian Thomas Aquinas

and so Eckhart was definitely not a Neo-Platonist

as he is often portrayed – he sought the unity of opposites –

the unity of Heaven and Earth.

 

But Newtonian physics separated all things –

and thinking of matter composed of     hard     separate     atoms

impacted our view of self – the individual against community

and our view of Spirit – as somehow opposed to material science

and our view of nature – as a product to be exploited for gain –

the result has been massive alienation

from self/God/nature.

 

The Jewish world of Jesus thought of all things

as created/hierarchical/anthropocentric/

governed by fixed laws with a fixed beginning and fixed end.

But modern evolutionary physics sees reality

as a dynamic interplay of chance/law/interconnection –

Aristotle’s fixed reality of matter and form

has been deconstructed by relativity and quantum mechanics

into a never-ending/interconnected/flow

of energy and information.

 

The creative union of God and matter

is not a metaphysical doctrine as much as a

pragmatic explanation of the universe –

the religious paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

had an innate tendency/power to see God

not apart from the physical world

but in it/through it/as it.

 

The Kingdom/Queendom/Kindom/Presence of God

is within us and all around us

so we do not have to die

to get to the Pearly Gates

(owned, conspirists claim, by Bill Gates –

therefore the “Gates of Heaven”)

we only have to be fully alive with God

in this present spiritual/material world.

LIVING CHRIST/LIVING BUDDHA

A cosmic Christology is the only adequate one.

If Christ is “first-born from the dead”

the resurrection is not only for humanity

but the whole Creation.

 

Christ’s resurrection renews the whole universe –

“in Christ all things are made new” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

including other world religions.

 

After all – to reverse engineer things –

Zoroastrian/Persian thought definitely influenced

the writers of the Book of Daniel

and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

In the last century before Christ, the Essenes

who had roots in Zoroastrianism

expected a World Savior.

God the Holy Spirit influenced Zoroastrians and Essenes

even before Christ appeared.

 

For Plato/Plotinus/Meister Eckhart/Ralph Waldo Emerson

Spirit transcends/includes/gives rise to mind/body.

Similarly, in Buddhism, Spirit (Dharmakaya)

gives rise to mind (Sambogyakaya)

which gives rise to body/form/Nature (Mismanakaya).

 

We can therefore help the Living Christ and the Living Buddha

continue their compassionate work by realizing our body

is first of all a member of the Mystical Body of Christ

but also the body of Buddha.

Therefore, if you are Buddhist, you should love your body

as if it were the Buddha

and if you are Christian, you should love your body

as if it were Jesus the Christ

because Christ is living in you/over you/thru you/as you.

 

“The mystery of Christ within you

is your hope of glory!” (Colossians 1:27).

 

“My deepest me is God!”

– Saint Catherine of Genoa

 

“I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.”

– Saint Paul in Galatians 2:20

 

ONE COSMIC FAMILY

According to Heidegger’s

approach to Being

God is not a concept

not a transcendent 

Creator-God

but an activity in the world

a Self-Giving Presence.

All mystics agree

there is no magical/mythical Being 

who transcends the world

but there is Infinite Consciousness 

in the world.

According to Augustine

the wicked try to flee from God

but God is everywhere

God never abandons the wicked.

In particular

God, Infinite Consciousness

is meant to Be

“I Am” in the Church

the Beloved Community

born of Spirit, born of people

a Sacrament of Divine Liberation.

Although the anti-Paul 

author of Timothy I and II

wrote that women 

were to be silent, silenced in church

St. Thecla, second century celibate-ascetic

and Church-Leader

was more popular than the Virgin. 

Dualistic, black-and-white thinking

separating soul (good) from body (bad)

always made men uncomfortable

with women’s bodies and sexuality

but feminist theologians now

have reappropriated Wisdom

as Co-Creator at work in human bodies

to create right relationships

and they see God desires

daily intimacy, daily communion

with God’s Beloved People

and daily intimacy with Beloved God

and Beloved Community

is the foundation of spiritual life.

Christians and Buddhists

mindlessly practicing rituals 

find little joy because

humans are meant to be

evolution becoming aware of itself,

Infinite Consciousness 

becoming mindful.

Like Hindu, Buddhist and Taoist mystics

scientists now see the universe

as a unified web.

Like a spider’s web 

shimmering in the sun after rain

God has caught scientists 

in God’s web of life.

No longer pure observers

they now see everything

not as objects or idols

but as icons

of God’s Infinite Consciousness.

They now can see

Brother Sun and Sister Moon 

and all things as 

One Cosmic Family.