From WILLIAM EDELEN
Toward the Mystery
“The true mystic has insight into depths of truth that are unplumbed by the discursive intellect.” -William James
There is a system of thought that has been coming to me lately from many sources. It is known as Theosophy. Those holding this world view believe that truth about God and the world is revealed primarily through mystical insight, and that every religious tradition has this kernel of truth within it. Whether Christian, Hindu, Taoist, Buddhist or the American Indian, the mystical experience is the same. It was the experience of Lao Tzu, the old master of Taoism, Buddha, the Roman Catholic Meister Eckhart, and the Protestant Boehme. The words of Jesus “to have seen me is to have seen God,” and again, “I and the father are one” is pure mysticism.
Many letters, emails, have asked me to say more about Mysticism.
Here are some general observations for this is the “spine” that holds Theosophy together.
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
and a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
and Eternity in an hour.”
In the mystic eye, the many things of the universe, including you and me, are all God and divine. As a Zen Master put it: “to watch a child pouring milk into a glass is to see God pouring God into God”…or as the Roman Catholic Meister Eckhart said: “the eye by which I see God is the same eye by which God sees me. My eye and Gods eye are one and the same.” And again: “seeking God is like riding on an ox looking for an ox to ride.”
The bridge from dogma to reliance only on inner experience is a difficult one for many to cross. Dogma becomes believed. It is hypostatized, as many protestants hypostatize the bible, making it a supreme authority regardless of its hundreds of contradictions and thousands of illegitimate and contradictory interpretations.
“The Kingdom of God is within you” said Jesus. “Be a lamp unto yourselves”said Buddha. ” “I am nourished only by the mother-spirit” (the Tao), wrote the mystic Lao Tzu. Carl Jung made the observation that “the creative mystic has always been a thorn in the side of the dogmatic and creedal church, but it is to the mystic that we owe all that is best in religion and humanity.”
“Man has need of a mystical supplement of the soul, and he must acquire it before it is too late… to awaken this supplement of the soul.” -Louis De Broglie, Nobel prize, Physics, from his “The Mechanism Demands a Mysticism.”
(This is the first of my series on this subject.)
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the small, three letter word “god” was used 14 times in this story.
A bit much eh?
“beware people who define the world as they see it, as truth.”
As a person with some shards of spiritual life left to me I choose to label the vast area of ignorance that folks refer to as God, or god, as the Universe. Betrays my brief experience in Unitarian-Univeralist seminary. This topic is very much ignored and very much ill served in print (or pixels).
herb
the thing I enjoyed about this post is that it reinforces that everything is everything.There is no separation anymore and in reality there never was.What is is and always was.Clearing
your mind and absorbing the eternal silent you is our choice and for me the only choice.
Free your mind and your butt will follow.
Hey Tim,
That last sentence is a t-shirt for sure…
Timeless, bite-sized pieces.
Thanks for the post, and thank you William Edelen for your service.
Wonderful post, William. I so agree that we need to step outside of the confines of one “religion” vs another. All roads lead to the same place, essentially. The key is to stay in the now moment and to change only that which we can – ourselves.
“The key is to stay in the now moment and to change only that which we can – ourselves.”
I think I understand your sincere statement here. I am also being sincere in saying that this sentiment is exactly wrong. I am in total agreement up to the word ourselves. The premier confusion of the age is just this – hyper-individualism. As social beings we can hardly avoid influencing those around us, especially by example. I prefer to see inner work as directed toward creating a better fit with the reality of those around me. Compassion for all living things is beyond religion, it is just basic common sense if common sense is to serve the survival of our species and millions of species already gone or on the edge. So in a sense I agree. Not only can we not directly change others, it is grossly impolite to try. Change, however, just happens. The wise will allow positive change to overtake them and aver the destructive. This is a responsibility not to ourselves, but to others.
The sociopath is so highly adapted to this time that they need not worry about any of this and embrace wholly the individualist creed, the better to prey upon the normals.
ybera