(November 8, 2016 at 4:49 pm)Crossless1 Wrote:(November 8, 2016 at 4:36 pm)ParagonLost Wrote: I practice Theistic Mysticism, I see and imagine Jesus as imagery and he is incarnate in my mind and experience. You might see this as communication not meant to be literary taken or a stylistic device. The experience is so strong that one walks away taking it literally and not for granted. Not unless of course you are aware that's it's not literal. (Some people don't know the difference or make a distinction.)
In Theistic mysticism God is not creation, he is the opposite. He is not created , this is why Christians believe there is no infinite regress, ergo; who created God.
This is why experience is so important it has the power to convert. And i don't mean convert your religion, I mean just change your mind about experience and what you used to think it was is now radically different. There's different kinds of mysticism and you can be creative and see which one works for you.
You see and imagine Jesus. Interesting. What does your image of him look like? By chance, does it resemble a figure in a Renaissance painting? Did you pick his face out of some news footage of Palestinian protesters? Does he resemble Judd Hirsch? I like to imagine Jesus looking like Lenny Bruce. What does it even mean to "see and imagine" Jesus, since we don't know what the guy actually looked like (one of those unimportant and uninteresting things the Gospel writers didn't bother to mention)?
I buy the idea that meditation and prayer can lead to altered states of consciousness that can feel intrinsically valuable to the practitioner. But it still sounds to me like you're illegitimately shoe-horning Jesus into your experiences, rather than "Jesus" being the driver of the experiences and their contents.
Because i imagine Jesus, I use the word optics for this kind of experience. Something that is perceptible by the sense of sight or perceptible by the mind. The mind is very complicated and so is consciousness, Don't ever let anyone define your experience of the world at least that's what i say. When i was younger I would imagine Jesus because iv'e seen pictures of him in art and the Renaissance. But i now realize its my mind trying to picture him. So my mind has convinced itself that whatever I imagine is not the real physical phenotype of Jesus. That's not important to me in any case but what is, is this.
In Christianity since Jesus is God we have to understand what that means. " I and the Father are one" as we all have heard in John's Gospel. What does this mean based off experience alone? In Christian mysticism, It's not that Jesus is above everyone else but were on a equal playing field with God. All Children of God, including Jesus. So the destination is to become Like Christ, which is called the transforming union. We can all become sons of God, John 1:12.
So through experience you can grow and become close to God. And John's main message of who God is , is that God is love. As said in the gospel, and the only way to know that is to experience God. Now the trick is you don't have to define it as God. This is what i meant by standards in my initial post. You can just call it Love except for the fact when you experience something like this you will realize it is strong in nature so divine in theological language.
