The Pageless Book

Photo Above by Justin Henry. Photo Below by Wendy.

“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in your reading have been like the blast of triumph out of Shakespeare, Seneca, Moses, John and Paul.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803 - 1882.

What exactly makes a text holy? Some would tell you it is the inherent truth of the text, the authority endowed upon the book’s author by a divine source, and the traditions surrounding the text. That is basically that person’s way of telling you which books he or she believes you should accept as holy. Seeing as each person’s interpretation of the truth, acceptance of authority, and version of tradition is a matter of opinion and personal taste, we cannot use these as objective means of deciding which writings are holy. Or can we?

Consider the possibility that holiness is not endowed upon the text by the writer, but instead by the reader. What if that which makes a book sacred is the divinity within the person who reads it? How would that change religion and spirituality? We would become more tolerant and open minded towards other religions and traditions. As individuals, our relationship with the text would be much different; we would be more willing to question our own point of view and accept another’s point of view as equally valid. Would we be so bold as to become prophets ourselves and write our own holy texts? Well, as you’ve probably already surmised, I am quite comfortable with the idea that we each could be prophets if we choose.

I can understand if the idea of prophecy rubs some of my readers the wrong way. It is, after all, the prophets that declare their own writings as the final true word of God. No one wants to be seen as being a raving zealot or, worse yet, dangerously insane. Let me see if I can ease your concerns. Prayer is a commonly accepted practice, used to purposely communicate your thoughts and feelings to the Divine Source. Meditation is a commonly accepted practice of silencing the mind, the result of which opens the heart and mind to listen for answers from that same Divine Source. Billions of people, all over the world and from all religions, use both means of communing with the Divine every day. The difference between them and so-called prophets is that the prophets have the sense to write down what they hear and then become famous for teaching the wisdom of the text - or rather, the wisdom inherent in the reader.

There is a down side to all this, though; you would be forced to think for yourself. Not everyone is reassured by their own judgment in what is true for them. These people would rather be told what to think rather then think for themselves. Doubt, for some, is a downward spiral rather then a purifier of faith. They see it as such, because doubt forces them to question the pillars which they believe their faith is dependent on. Like a child who believes that the trees hold up the sky, every question of doubt in one of these false pillars of faith seem to threaten to bring eternal night. This is truly sad, because you cannot have free will without doubt, and without free will, faith within holy writings is meaningless.

To write your own Bible is to reclaim that free will and reclaim your right to commune with the divine as you see fit. Religion was never meant to be a static list of beliefs and creeds, but rather an on-going conversation between man and the Divine. I look forward to reading some of your own conversations with the Divine and continuing to share my conversations with you.
Originally Posted October 5th, 2007.

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written by John \\ tags: Bible, Holy Text, Mysticism, Prophecy, Religion, Spirituality

Photo Above by Ngader. Photo Below by Aldo Cauchi Savona. Final Photo by Robert Jagger.

The nature of the Divine is probably the most debated issue in human history. This question has been the subject of more books, wars, and conversation than any other issue. Debate of what God is and what the Divine represents has divided families, nations, and humanity as a whole since the dawn of time. Only ignorance or arrogance would lead someone to believe that their understanding can somehow end the debate; I’d like to think that I’m neither ignorant or arrogant…

The Gated Emptiness offers a few passages on the nature of God spoken in the first person, as if the Divine itself was trying to explain its nature to us. I’ve come to adapt this perspective on the Divine as my own. To me, it seems the most logical explanation of the nature of God - but then again, I’m bias.

The passage reads:
There is nothing that separates you and me; we are one and we are falling to gather continuously.

The idea that God is one with everything and every one is not new - Eastern religions have been saying this for centuries. Yet there is this strange turn of phrase at the end of the passage - “falling to gather continuously” - which is in itself a paradox, as well contradicting our unity with God. My first impulse upon seeing this phrase is to read “together” rather than “to gather,” if only because is seems to be nothing more than an extraneous pun. But it isn’t a mere pun.

Falling together with God would indicate that there wasn’t a choice to be had regarding our oneness with God. Gathering with the Divine would suggest that it was a choice. Yet how the passage is phrased would seem to argue that both scenarios are somehow intertwine. We are one with God, but choosing to recognize that oneness over our own individuality is our choice. It is as if we are fish aspiring to be one with the ocean.

The Gated Emptiness continues:
This is my nature. I am so simple you can’t conceive of me, and I am there. You see me not, you feel me not, and you hear me not. I would blind you, numb you and deafen you if would perceive me completely, so I give you pieces. Your wine shall be my blood, your bread shall be my flesh, and your incense shall be my bone. I am the only ecstasy.

Ever wonder why Jesus compares the Kingdom of Heaven to a mustard seed? Here is my take on that parable; he is indicating the size of Heaven in relationship to the size of God. If our earth is a mustard seed compared to the Kingdom of Heaven (or even just the expanse of the universe), what does that say about our relationship with God? It’s all very figurative, of course; size is merely a human means of relating to a thing and may not actually matter on a spiritual level. However, it does allow us to understand the magnitude of God in relationship to our own existence. It is more than the human mind can handle.

Still, we try to understand the totality of existence through our sciences and reasoning. I’d say we get pretty far in this endeavor. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if the average scientist agreed that the questions we don’t know the answer to still vastly out number the questions for which we do have answers. All we have are merely pieces of the puzzle, and often times the pieces that we have don’t always fit together. It is from this perspective that we should relate to the Divine.

The next passage reads:
I am one in many, many in one, of many, of one and not at all. I am like a voice; you may attempt to describe, but one must hear it for their self. Hear you will, but impressions in the sands of the mind fade so swift that you will dismiss it for an illusion. You will doubt, and I will speak again.

Here, The Gated Emptiness gives us another clue as to the nature of God. The Divine’s existence is “one in many, many in one, of many, of one, and not at all…” It is almost like this passage is saying that polytheism, pantheism, monotheism, and atheism all are valid and are equally incomplete views of the nature of God. Which is, of course, the main message I keep honing in on with my articles on spirituality.

Comparing our understanding of God to a voice of someone we heard once is a fitting metaphor. I attempt here to describe God, but to no avail. I could try to describe my voice as being high bass/low baritone, soft and nasally, but until you hear it for yourself, you can only guess as to what I mean. If you heard my voice only once and were asked to recall how it sounded a week later, you would no doubt have some difficulty.

God is like this, in that our experiences with the Divine are hard to put into words. When we do finally put our experience into words, we begin to remember those words better than the experience itself. Ultimately our description of the experience proves to be untrue as those words were just an approximation. We then begin to doubt we had that experience at all. Yet if we seek that experience again, we will inevitably encounter the Divine again.

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written by John \\ tags: God, Mysticism, Religion, Spirituality, Theology

Photo Above by Ed Schipul. Photo Below by Symphoney Symphoney. Final Photo by Roberto Arias.

I consider myself a mystic. Also, I consider myself a rather rational person who doesn’t subscribe to superstitions. However, it does not surprise me in the least that many people lump mysticism in with superstition. Perhaps you, dear reader, are one of them. Honestly, I’d rather you be critical of mysticism, and religious experience in general, than be a oblivious believer.

Mystics claim to seek, and some to have found, a greater truth than that which we can touch, see, and hear. The content of this greater truth and how it is conveyed vary from culture to culture. However, the insistence upon literal interpretation of the figurative by the culture in which the mystic resides remains constant. It is society, not the mystics themselves, who spin superstition from wisdom, absolutes from poetry, and dogma from good ideas.

I recently asked Paul Sunstone, a fellow blogger and frequent visitor to the Religious Forums, for his thoughts on mysticism without superstition, and he responded:

So far as I know, mysticism can be without any superstition and superstition is not implicit in it. The mystical experience can be described as “an end to subject/object perception” and there is nothing in someone’s experience of an end to subject/object perception that necessarily creates or promotes superstitions.

Having said that, however, I should be careful to point out that I suspect there are some sources of superstition closely associated with mysticism. In my opinion, the first and most common of those is the tendency of people who have had a mystical experience to borrow language and concepts from religion in order to describe their experience. So, for instance, someone living in a culture that routinely ascribes mystical experiences to Dionysus might be heavily inclined to ascribe their own experience to Dionysus. Or someone living in a Christian culture might ascribe their experience to God the Father, Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, or even Satan. Or someone living in second century Rome, when the cult of Isis was gaining popularity, might ascribe their experience to Isis. And so on and so forth.

The mystical experience is beyond all categories and labels. It is only after the actual experience itself that someone might begin labeling and conceptualizing it. If they begin labeling and conceptualizing it immediately, within seconds of the experience, then they have a very strong tendency to borrow “memes” from their culture - especially their religious culture - with which to define, describe or explain it.

While I liked his explanation and could not find anything to disagree with, I quickly realized that what he was saying needed to be expanded upon. Paul’s definition of mysticism as being an end to the subjective/objective duality within an individual’s world view hints at possible avenues for discussion. Most people tend to think of things in rather black and white terms; if something is true once, then it is true until something else contradicts that truth.

For them, there exists a creature of a mythic proportions which remains unto this day the greatest superstition to ever to cloud human judgment - Objective Reality. Experiences are by their very nature subjective. If there was not a subject to the experience, it would not have been experienced. Quantum Physics, Psychology, Sociology, and Neurology have only begun to prove what mystics have long believed - true objective reality does not exist. Superstition, on the other hand, is what happens when we fail to recognize the subjectivity within our own observations.

Another distinction between mysticism and superstition is their motivating emotions. The root emotional cause of superstition is fear of the unknown. By contrast, mysticism gleefully bears a child like curiosity of the unknown, and is motivated primarily by love of truth. How can anyone not love truth?

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written by John \\ tags: Mysticism, Myth, Reality, Reason, Spirituality, Superstition