Contact With Baha'is and the Baha'i Faith

[smaneck]

When I get the time - I have to hand in an essay today!

At least you know how to cite your sources. I wish my students did.

 

[smaneck]

That was not what I said in the criticism of Mohammed. I was pointing that he didn’t know that the Bible was put together by the Catholic Church’s Teaching Office.

And he would have cared, why?

Infact Mohammed told Christians to refer to their Book/Injil but later retracted it by informing his followers that it was corrupted.

Chapter, verse please. Muhammad never told his followers that the Gospel was corrupted. He accused the Jews of “corrupting the Word of God” but that was a reference to how they were using the Torah, not the Gospel.

 

[Vouthon]

I guess my problem with Eckhart is that his Eucharistic mysticism seems to veer dangerously close to monism. I have a similar problem with Ibn Arabi.

I prefer the bridal mysticism of the Franciscans myself.

That is often a criticism of Eckhart, then and now. Like certain Sufi Muslim mystics and mystical theologians, he tended to express the experience of the unio mystica at its most monistic sounding, while not quite reaching actual Hindu pantheism. However Eckhart did not literally teach that man unites with the unknowable Essence of God. Nor did he teach identity with God. He was speaking of how one felt during the unio mystica when the lines between Lover and Beloved become indistinct from the perspective of the person experiencing it, even while they remain different from God in essence, they become so pure that they are in a sense God by grace - their will’s being so one with the will of God - and employed the traditional dogma of theosis or deification to that effect to explain how one felt when divinised, perfectly reflecting God like a mirror. He also used Augustinian exemplarism. Its difficult to explain but using platonic philosophy it claims that we all existed as perfect ideas in the mind of God before our soul’s creation, and that God knew us in Himself before he actually created us. Such mysticism is thus an attempt to “breakthrough” our “coming to be” in time and return to that primordial state of oneness with God in eternity through grace while not obviously losing our distinct identity from God as a creature.

Eckhart’s followers - Blessed Henry Suso, Johannes Tauler and Blessed Ruusbroec - taught the same doctrine but with more moderate language and were never condemned as herertical but rather honoured as true mystics.

However some canonised Catholic saints went possibly even further than Eckhart in their assertions and were never declared heretical, obviously.

If Eckhart disturbs you, then St. Catherine of Genoa would perhaps give you a heart attack as in:

“…The pure and clear love can desire nothing of God, however good it may be, that could be called participation, for it wants God himself…I will not be content until I am locked and enclosed within that divine heart in which all created forms lose themselves and, so lost, remain divine…My I is God, and I know of no other I than this my God…In this way God so transforms the soul into Himself, its God, that it sees nothing but God…The more the soul is purified, so much the more it annihilates self till at last it becomes quire pure and rests in God…Thus purified the soul rests in God without any alloy of self; my very being is God…Everything that has being has it from God’s highest essence through participation; but the pure and clear love cannot be content with seeing that it has acquired God through participation, nor with his being in it as a creature…My being is God, not through participation only, but through true transformation and through annihilation of my own being…So in God is my me, my I, my strength, my bliss, my desire. But this ‘I’ that I often call so - I do it because I cannot speak otherwise, but in truth I no longer know what the I is, or the Mine, or desire, or good, or bliss. I can no longer turn my eyes on anything, wherever it be, in heaven or on earth…I do not want a love that would be for or in God. I cannot bear to see this word for, this word in, for to me they indicate a thing that would be between me and God…Faith seems to me wholly lost…for it seems to me that I have and hold in certainty that which I believed and hoped in former times. I no longer see union, for I know nothing more and can see nothing more than Him alone without me. I do not know where the I is, nor do I seek it, nor do I wish to know or be cognizant of it. I am so plunged and submerged in the source of his infinite love, as if I were quite under water in the sea and could not touch, see, feel anything on any side except water…Everything to do with self passes away. It [the soul] neither sees, speaks, nor knows loss or pain of its own…God became man in order to make me God; therefore I want to be changed completely into pure God…”

***- Saint Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510), Catholic mystic ***

She is known actually as “Mistress of Theologians”.

 

[smaneck]

And one more comment about the word “false.” The ONLY religion I would ever call false is if there’s an Antichrist and he starts one like in the Book of Revelation. That is the only religion I personally would EVER call false

You do realize that the term “Antichrist” appears nowhere in the Book of Revelation? It is found only in John’s epistles were it refers to gnostics who did not want to associate the Divine Christ with the human Jesus.

 

[smaneck]

That is often a criticism of Eckhart, then and now. Like certain Sufi Muslim mystics and mystical theologians, he tended to express the experience of the unio mystica at its most monistic sounding, while not quite reaching actual Hindu pantheism. However Eckhart did not literally teach that man unites with the unknowable Essence of God. Nor did he teach identity with God. He was speaking of how one felt during the unio mystica when the lines between Lover and Beloved become indistinct from the perspective of the person experiencing it, even while they remain different from God in essence, they become so pure that they are in a sense God by grace - their will’s being so one with the will of God - and employed the traditional dogma of theosis or deification to that effect to explain how one felt when divinised, perfectly reflecting God like a mirror.

That I can agree with. In Islam they speak of the annihilation (fana) of the self in order to abide (baqa) in God, a reference to the Qur’anic verse, “All things perish (fana) and yet abides (baqa) the Face of God.” However Eckart’s mysticism seems to go beyond that.By associating his mysticism to the Eucharist isn’t he implying that our very substance (and not merely our wills) are transformed into God? The love mysticism you describe above strikes me as more like the Bridal Mysticism of the Franciscans (and of course St. Bernard.) Of course, when it comes to the actual throes of the mystical experience I admit that trying to distinguish unity of will from unity of essence becomes well-nigh impossible.

He also used Augustinian exemplarism. Its difficult to explain but using platonic philosophy it claims that we all existed as perfect ideas in the mind of God before our soul’s creation, and that God knew us in Himself before he actually created us.

Actually that idea exists in Islam, and through it in the Baha’i Faith as well. The Qur’an places the Sinai event where the Covenant is given outside of time in the pre-existence:

“And (remember) when thy Lord brought forth from the Children of Adam, from their reins, their seed, and made them testify of themselves, (saying): Am I not your Lord? They said: Yea, verily. We testify. (That was) lest ye should say at the Day of Resurrection: Lo! of this we were unaware; Or you should say: Only our fathers associated others (with Allah) before, and we were an offspring after them: Wilt Thou then destroy us for what the vain doers did?"
This event that establishes the primordial Covenant is known in Islam as the Day of Alast, named after the question God asks, “Am I not your Lord?” alastu bi‑rabbikam
Annemarie Shimmel (a good Roman Catholic, btw) describes the significance of this event in Islamic mysticism:

The idea of this primordial covenant (mithaq) between God and humanity has impressed the religious conscience of the Muslims, and especially the Muslim mystics, more than any other idea. Here is the starting point for their understanding of free will and predestination, of election and acceptance, of God’s eternal power and man’s loving response and promise. The goal of the mystic is to return to the experience of the ‘Day of Alastu,’ when only God existed, before He led future creatures out of the abyss of not‑being and endowed them with life, love, and understanding so that they might face Him again at the end of time."

Baha’u’llah alludes to this in His mystical poem, the “Mathavi Mubara”

Once someone posted this question to a mystic knower:
You, who’ve grasped the mysteries of God
You, by bounty’s wine intoxicate,
Do you recall the day of “Am I not?”
He said: I do recall that sound, those words
As if it were but yesterday, no less
It lingers in my ears, His call
That sweet soul‑vivifying voice of His

But in the next passage Baha’u’llah takes this traditional trope much further:

Another mystic knower, who had climbed beyond
Had bored the mystic pearls divine, replied:
That day of God has never ended nor
Has fallen short we’re living in that day!
His day’s unending, not pursued by night‑
That we’re alive in such a day’s not strange
Had Time’s Soul ceased its yearning for this day
then Heaven’s court and throne would fall to dust
For through God’s power this eternal day
was made unending by His Majesty."

The Day of Alast then becomes, not something which happened before time began, but something that is happening even now and is most especially present with Baha’u’llah’s Manifestation.

Eckhart’s followers - Blessed Henry Suso, Johannes Tauler and Blessed Ruusbroec - taught the same doctrine but with more moderate language and were never condemned as herertical but rather honoured as true mystics.

I read Tauler’s Imitation of Christ years ago, but I really couldn’t relate to it.

If Eckhart disturbs you, then St. Catherine of Genoa would perhaps give you a heart attack as in:

Actually, I have less problem with that because it is rooted in the love relationship of bridal mysticism. My problem with Eckhart is that his ideas seem to be rooted in the metaphysics of the transsubstantiation and I don’t see how that could not be heretical.

warmest, Susan

 

[Vouthon]

I read Tauler’s Imitation of Christ years ago, but I really couldn’t relate to it.

I think your confusing Johannes Tauler, with Thomas A Kempis who wrote the “Imitation of Christ”? This latter work is not metaphysical mysticism but rather devotional mysticism of a simple, humanistic kind centered on such events as the passion of Christ. Many ordinary people couldn’t relate to some of the metaphysical mysticism even when it was preached to them, because it often used scholastic speech. And so The Devotio Moderna used a simpler language to express mysticism.

Johannes Tauler wrote no works. Like Eckhart, he preached sermons which he wrote beforehand.

This is Tauler who used the exact same Eucharistic mysticism as his Master Eckhart:

"…How can reason possibly grasp that immensity beyond all being where the precious food of the Eucharist is, in some marvellous way, made one with us, drawing us wholly to itself and changing us into itself? It is a union more intimate than any that the human mind can conceive, totally unlike any other change, a union more compatible than a tiny drop of water losing itself in the wine-vat and becoming one with the wine, or that of the rays of the sun made one with the sun’s splendour; or the soul with the body, the two together making one person, one being. In this union the soul is lifted above the infirmity of its natural state, its own insufficiency, and there it is purified, transfigured and raised above its own powers, its human operations, its very self. Both being and activities are penetrated through and through by God, formed and transformed in a divine manner, the soul’s new birth is accomplished in truth, and the spirit, losing all its native incompatibility, flows into divine union.

It is something like fire working on wood; the heat draws out all the moisture, the greenness and the heaviness. It grows warm, begins to glow, becomes more like the fire itself. As the wood slowly takes on the likeness of fire, the dissimilarity between the two grows less until finally, in a rapid movement, the fire takes from the wood its own substance; the wood becomes fire and loses at the same time its separateness and inequality, since it has become fire. No longer merely like fire, it has become one substance with the fire. Likeness is lost in union.

In the same way this food of love draws the soul above distinction or difference, beyond resemblance to divine unity. This is what happens to the transfigured spirit. When the divine heat of love has drawn out all the moisture, heaviness, unfitness, then this holy food plunges such a one into the life of God. As Our Lord himself said to St Augustine, “I am the food of the strong: believe and feast on me. You will not change me into yourself; rather you will be changed into me.”…"

***- Johannes Tauler (c.1300-1361), Catholic mystic & Dominican priest ***

 

[smaneck]

I think your confusing Johannes Tauler, with Thomas A Kempis who wrote the “Imitation of Christ”?:

Ah, you are right as usual.

 

[Vouthon]

Ah, you are right as usual.

I should note that Devotional Mysticism isn’t generally my cup of tea, although it serves an important role. It gave many uneducated people access to a form of mysticism they could relate too directly.

Its important to recognise that the umbrella of mysticism incorporates a wide range from metaphysical and speculative to bridal to devotional. I myself prefer the metaphysical and speculative but it isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. I know *A Kempis *is popular with many Catholic laity. I wish the metaphysical mystics were as popular though

They once were but they aren’t studied like they used to be in the Middle Ages and Reformation era.

Martin Luther’s favourite mystics were Johannes Tauler and the Theologica Germanica. Yes, even he read them whereas most Catholic Christians today probably don’t.

 

[Vouthon]

I want to add, that it is women bridal mystics from whom the male Rhineland mystics gained their “Eucharistic” mysticism. A case in point is Hadewijch of Antwerp, whose writings were read by Meister Eckhart, Johannes Tauler and Blessed Ruusbroec:

“…With that he came in the form and clothing of a Man, as he was on the day when he gave us his Body for the first time; looking like a Human Being and a Man, wonderful, and beautiful, and with glorious face, he came to me as humbly as anyone who wholly belongs to another. Then he gave himself to me in the shape of the Sacrament, in its outward form, as the custom is; and then he gave me to drink from the chalice, in form and taste, as the custom is. After that he came himself to me, took me entirely in his arms, and pressed me to him, and all my members felt his in full felicity, in accordance with the desire of my heart and my humanity. So I was outwardly satisfied and fully transported. … Then] I saw him completely come to naught and so fade and all at once dissolve that I could no longer recognize or perceive him outside me, and I could no longer distinguish him within me. Then it was to me as if we were one without difference. It was thus: outwardly, to see, taste, and feel as one can outwardly taste, see, and feel in the reception of the outward Sacrament. So can the Beloved, with the loved one, each wholly receive the other in full satisfaction of the sight, the hearing, and the passing away of the one in the other. After that I remained in a passing away in my Beloved, so that I wholly melted in him and nothing any longer remained to me of myself, and I was changed and taken up in spirit, and there it was shown to me concerning the hours…”

***- Hadewijch of Antwerp (13th centry), Dutch Catholic woman mystic ***

Do you know that Eckhart also preached bridal mysticism? This is largely forgotten by those who paint him as a pseudo-pantheist. I will quote an example of it for you when I get the chance. Tauler also employed bridal imagery and Suso and Ruusbroec are often called both “speculative” and “bridal mystics” since there writings exhibit both simultaenously.

A little more on Hadewijch:

“…As soon as Love thus touches the soul,
She eats its flesh and drinks its blood.
Love that thus dissolves the loved soul
Sweetly leads them both
To the indivisible kiss –
That same kiss which fully unites
The three Persons in one sole Being…”

***- Hadewijch of Antwerp (13th centry), Dutch Catholic woman mystic ***

“…The Eucharist was an integral aspect of female mystics’ lives. One in particular for whom the Eucharist was important is Hadewijch of Antwerp. Hadewijch’s union with God is not physical, but the spiritual consummation is experienced as if it physically happened. She experiences union and fruition, which is the joy that comes from union with God, extremely vividly, and this leads her to write about it in terms of sexual encounters and hunger…Hadewijch writes about a divine desire that cannot be fulfilled by material pleasures. According to Duclow, she is literally eating God and thus uniting herself with God fully. That is an experience that, in this life, cannot be found anywhere else but in the Eucharist. Through eating the host, she can be with God. This is an erotic experience for Hadewijch, as she takes God into her body and the two beings meld together in union…For Hadewijch, union with God is a goal to be reached and can be found in the Eucharist. We too can find this union in the Eucharist, as the bread and the wine become one with our physical bodies when we devour it, and we are able to connect with God on a spiritual level. Union with God is supposed to be a sublime experience, and through the Eucharist, at least according to Hadewijch, this is a possibility. We may not have visions or levitate the host, but we can still communicate with God and connect with God through the experience of the Eucharist. In this way, we can find our own version of the union that Hadewijch speaks of in her writings…”

 

[MartinJordan]

And he would have cared, why?

Chapter, verse please. Muhammad never told his followers that the Gospel was corrupted. He accused the Jews of “corrupting the Word of God” but that was a reference to how they were using the Torah, not the Gospel.

I stand corrected. This is what I’ve been told by hearsay. After checking some sources it found there is no such statement in the Quran. Thanks for the headsup.

That then opens a giant can of worms

MJ

 

[Vouthon]

The love mysticism you describe above strikes me as more like the Bridal Mysticism of the Franciscans (and of course St. Bernard.) Of course, when it comes to the actual throes of the mystical experience I admit that trying to distinguish unity of will from unity of essence becomes well-nigh impossible.

You are not wrong about it being akin to the love mysticism of the Cistercians and Franciscans. Eckhart himself at times referenced St. Bernard as one of his authorities. He particularly liked this passage, which so beautifully explains the union of wills that you mention and which was a staple of medieval Catholic mysticism:

“…There is a point of rapture where the human spirit forgets itself . . . and passes wholly into God. Such a process is to lose yourself, as it were, like one who has no existence, and to have no self-consciousness whatever, and to be emptied of yourself and almost annihilated. As a little drop of water, blended with a large quantity of wine, seems utterly to pass away from itself and assumes the flavour and colour of wine, and as iron when glowing with fire loses its original or proper form and becomes just like the fire; and as the air, drenched in the light of the sun, is so changed into the same shining brightness that it seems to be not so much the recipient of the brightness as the actual brightness itself: so all human sensibility in the saints must then, in some ineffable manner, melt and pass out of itself, and be lent into the Will of God…To lose yourself, as if you no longer existed, to cease completely to experience yourself, to reduce yourself to nothing is not a human sentiment but a divine experience…How will God be all in all if something human survives in man?To experience this state is to be deified…”

- Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), Catholic mystic, Cistercian abbot & Doctor of the Church

Meister Eckhart’s disciple Blessed Henry Suso echoed Bernard of Clairvaux in what I think you would agree is an example of fully orthodox “will mysticism”:

“…One surrenders oneself in happiness or suffering, in action or inaction in such a way that one loses oneself completely and utterly, withdrawing from oneself irreversibly and becoming one in unity with Christ, so that one always acts at his urging and receives all things and views all things in this unity. And this…becomes the same form as Christ about whom the scripture by Paul says, “I live, no longer I, Christ lives in me”…Without a doubt it happens that, when the good and loyal servant is led into the joy of his Lord, he becomes drunk from the limitless overabundance of God’s house. What happens to a drunken man happens to him, though it cannot really be described, that he so forgets his self that he is not at all his self and consequently has got rid of his self completely and lost himself entirely in God, becoming one spirit in all ways with him, just as a small drop of water does which has been dropped into a large amount of wine. Just as the drop of water loses itself, drawing the taste and colour of the wine to and into itself, so it happens that those who are in full possession of blessedness lose all human desires in an inexpressible manner, and they ebb away from themselves and are immersed completely in the divine will. Otherwise, if something of the individual were to remain of which he or she were not completely emptied, scripture could not be true in stating that God shall become all things in all things. Certainly one’s being remains, but in a different form, in a different resplendence, and in a different power. This is all the result of total detachment from self…”

- Blessed Henry Suso (1295-1366), Catholic mystic & Dominican priest

I will agree that the language of some Catholic mystics (not just Eckhart) seem to go beyond mere union of wills. Blessed Ruusbroec describes a union of “indistinction” with God. By that he does not mean that we unite with the Essence, it is simply a more potent way of expressing our union with the “Incomprehensible Light” as he calls it (akin to Palamas’ divine energies in Eastern Catholic mysticism) where we are caught up into the very life of the Holy Trinity, in a union that can be described in some manner as like the transformation of the Eucharistic host but in no way does Ruusbroec, and I would add his Master Eckhart likewise, teach that it is identical too Eucharistic transubstantiation.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

260 The ultimate end of the whole divine economy is the entry of God’s creatures into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity.100 But even now we are called to be a dwelling for the Most Holy Trinity: “If a man loves me”, says the Lord, “he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and make our home with him”:101

O my God, Trinity whom I adore, help me forget myself entirely so to establish myself in you, unmovable and peaceful as if my soul were already in eternity. May nothing be able to trouble my peace or make me leave you, O my unchanging God, but may each minute bring me more deeply into your mystery! Grant my soul peace. Make it your heaven, your beloved dwelling and the place of your rest. May I never abandon you there, but may I be there, whole and entire, completely vigilant in my faith, entirely adoring, and wholly given over to your creative action.102

Jesus Himself said that the unity that he has with the Father will be granted to us in a lesser way by means of grace. We will literally be caught up into the very Triune Life of the Holy Trinity and become god by participation.

(continued…)

 

[Vouthon]

Consider these excerpts from Ruusbroec:

"…If above all things we would taste God, and feel eternal life in ourselves, we must go forth into God with our feeling, above reason and there we must abide, unified, empty of ourselves, and free from mental images, lifted up by love into the open bareness of our mind, for when we transcend all things in love and die to all rational observations in a dark state of unknowing, then we are wrought and transformed through the working of the Eternal Word, who is an image of the Father.

In the empty being of our spirit we receive the Incomprehensible Light, which enwraps us and penetrates us, as the air is penetrated by the light of the sun. And this Light is nothing else than a fathomless staring and seeing. What we are, that we behold; and what we behold, that we are: for our thought, our life, and our very being are uplifted in oneness, and made one with the Truth which is God. In this simple act of seeing we are therefore one life and one spirit with God.

This is what I call a contemplative life.

When we cleave to God in love we are practicing what is called the better part, but when we gaze at our superessential being in the way just described we possess God utterly. With this contemplation, there is bound up an exercise which is wayless, that is to say, a noughting of life; for, where we go forth out of ourselves into darkness and the abysmal Waylessness, there shines perpetually the simple ray of the Splendour of God, in which we are grounded, and which draws us out of ourselves into the superessence, and into the immersion of love.

…The Spirit of God now speaks within our own spirit in its hidden immersion: ‘Go out, into a state of eternal contemplation and blissful enjoyment after God’s own manner.’ All the richness which is in God by nature is something which we lovingly possess in God –and God in us– through the infinite love which is the Holy Spirit. … There the spirit is caught up in the embrace of the Holy Trinity and eternally abides within the superessential Unity in a state of rest and blissful enjoyment. In this same Unity, considered now as regards its fruitfulness, the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, while all creatures are in them both…To comprehend and understand God as he is in himself, above and beyond all likenesses, is to be God with God, without intermediary…

There are still three other points, which are higher still, and which establish a man and make him able to enjoy and to feel God continually, if it be His good will to have it so.

The first of these points is to rest in Him Whom one enjoys; that is, where love is overcome by the lover, and love is taken possession of by the lover, in bare Essential Love. There love has fallen in love with the lover, and each is all to the other, in possession and in rest.

From this there follows the second: and this is called a falling asleep in God; that is, when the spirit immerses itself, and knows not how, nor where, nor in what it is.

And therefrom follows the last point that can be put into words, that is, when the spirit beholds a Darkness into which it cannot enter with the reason. And there it feels itself dead and lost to itself, and one with God without difference and without distinction…"

***- Blessed Jan Van Ruusbroec (1293-1381), Flemish Catholic mystic & Augustinian priest, “The Sparkling Stone” ***

This is representative of the Catholic approach to theosis. It is a distinctly Trinitarian experience, even when expressed at its most apophatic and monistic sense as with Ruusbroec’s source for some of his specultive mysticism Eckhart, and consists in sharing in the very unity of the Triune Persons through participation and grace, fufilled in this life where we are called to become a house for the Most Blessed Trinity and more fully consummated after our deaths in the state of heaven when, in latin understanding, we will have perfect sight in the Beatific Vision and in the words of Ruusbroec, “In this simple act of seeing we are therefore one life and one spirit with God.”

Ruusbroec and Eckhart both make it clear in parts of their writings that there is no change in substance, even though they might employ extreme language. Consider this very traditional teaching from Eckhart:

“…A good man ought so to conform his will to the divine will that he should will whatever God wills…An empty spirit is one that is confused by nothing, attached to nothing, has not attached its best to no fixed way of acting, and has no concern whatever in anything for its own gain, for it is sunk deep down into God’s dearest will and has forsaken its own. A man can never perform any work, however humble, without it gaining strength and power from this…”

He was in no way negligent of the “union of wills”. He used language that seemed to go beyond it, however he always qualified it in parts of his writings as not meaning a union in essence with God.

 

[Vouthon]

The Day of Alast then becomes, not something which happened before time began, but something that is happening even now and is most especially present with Baha’u’llah’s Manifestation

Absolutely riveting and beautiful words from Baha’u’llah, Susan. Thank you for that profound mystical poetry written in the Sufi style. It does indeed evoke “Augustinian exemplarism”, which is a kind of monotheistic appropriation of Plato’s realm of ideas. I knew of course that the Islamic world was throughly imbued with Platonism and Neo-Platonism through Arab translations, nontheless I do not possess the in-depth knowledge of Exemplarism being so widespread among Muslim thinkers that you do, thank you for that. It will be an interesting point of further study for me.

Is this idea not similar to the Catholic mystical idea of “sacrament of the present moment”?

This doctrine teaches that eternity intersects with time in the present moment, which is the closest approximation between the eternal divine world of God’s fullness and the temporal human sphere. This is expressed by saying that the present moment acts as a kind of sacramental, a visible sign of an invisible grace, the gateway to eternity - indeed to the “Day of Alast”, one could say. We must live in the present then to be fully open to God’s will which acts in the here and now for us, rather than in the past or future. “Eternity is Here”, to quote one mystic.

Angelus Silesius explained this rather well (he too read Eckhart and his writings were approved by the church with an imprimatur) in his short epigramatic poems:

"…Do not compute eternity as light-year after year. One step across that line called Time: Eternity is here. Were I to lose myself in God I’d find again the Ground that held and nurtured me before this earthly round.

Time is of your own making, its clock ticks in your head. The moment you stop thought time too stops dead.

At the end of that which we call history God is who IS: for Him there is no past nor future yet to be

No thought for the hereafter have the wise, for on this very earth they live in paradise.

All heaven’s glory is within and so is hell’s fierce burning. You must yourself decide in which direction you are turning.

Unless you find paradise at your own center, there is not the smallest chance that you may enter.

Three days: Today, Tomorrow and Yesterday, I know, Yet if the past were cancelled within the here and now And then the future hidden, I could regain that Day Which I, before I was, had lived in God’s own way…"

- Angelus Silesius (1624 - 1677), Catholic mystic, priest & poet

The last epigram particular reminds me of the “Day of Alast”

Also “Abandonment to the Divine Providence” or in its modern name, “The Joy of Full Surrender”, written by the 17th century Jesuit mystic Fr Jean Pierre de Caussade. Its about the Sacrament of the Present Moment too.

An excerpt:

“…The soul that does not attach itself solely to the will of God will find neither satisfaction nor sanctification in any other means however excellent by which it may attempt to gain them…There is no spiritual path more secure than that of giving yourself entirely to God…The will of God has nothing but sweetness, grace, and treasures for the surrendered soul…When God lives in the soul, it should surrender itself completely to His providence…When God lives in the soul, it has nothing left of self, but only that which the Spirit imparts to it moment by moment…Let us go, then, let us run and fly to that ocean of love by which we are attracted! What are we waiting for? Let us start at once, let us lose ourselves in God, even in His heart, to become inebriated with the wine of His charity. We shall find in His heart the key of heavenly treasures…There is no passage that we cannot discover, nothing is shut against us, neither the garden, nor the cellar, nor the vineyard…The present moment is like an ambassador who declares the Will of God…”

***- Jean-Pierre de Caussade (1675 - 1751), French Jesuit priest and Catholic mystic ***

The Islamic mystic Rumi also said, “The Sufi is the son of the present moment”. He possessed the exact same understanding.

 

[Vouthon]

Is not the “Day of Alast” also related to my favourite “Hidden Word” of Baha’u’llah:

"…O My Friends!

Have ye forgotten that true and radiant morn, when in those hallowed and blessed surroundings ye were all gathered in My presence beneath the shade of the tree of life, which is planted in the all-glorious paradise? Awestruck ye listened as I gave utterance to these three most holy words: O friends! Prefer not your will to Mine, never desire that which I have not desired for you, and approach Me not with lifeless hearts, defiled with worldly desires and cravings. Would ye but sanctify your souls, ye would at this present hour recall that place and those surroundings, and the truth of My utterance should be made evident unto all of you…"

***- Baha’u’llah, Hidden Words, 19 ***

Does this not evoke a pre-incarnate time before time even though it uses ‘edenic’ imagery as well?

(BTW check previous page for my other posts in case you skip to this one )

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

Sure you can but if I tell you you can’t believe in Transsubstanitation because it is ludicrous then I am either being ludicrous or a liar because if you are Catholic you do believe in Transsubstantiation whether it is ludicrous or not.

Because someone who is so rude as to suggest I am lying about what I believe is not worth answering.

I believe in the real presence in so far as the promise of Christ is concerned and the interpretation of his church which is the pillar and ground of truth. As Ignatius said it is the same flesh that was crucified for us, as for how this miracle works I don’t seek to explain it scientifically like what some bahais in their vain imaginations have done in concern with the virgin birth. It is a miracle of God promised to his church. Nor do I neccessarily accept the Catholic view of how the substance changes, it is a mystery and I am comfortable with that, I see no visible contradiction like I do with the bahai view.

That is the bahai view you obviously have God and as has been made clear the manifestations are of a different substance than that of God. They are not God, but seem to be natural eminations from him. We must therefore ask some things, Since they are not of the substance of God which is eternal and seem to be caused by God it seems to me they are not eternal and it must be also asked, did these manifesations appear without the consent or knowledge of GOd? Or is God not in control of what God can produce? It seems to me safer to admit that the manifestations are angelic creatures perfectly reflecting the glory of God (though it seems they all go through a stage in their incarnation of having two wills a human and divine will becuase obviously they are ignorant and grow in knowledge). But this contradicts the gospel of JOhn which mentions that hte word is eternal God, that created the universe and everything that began to be made. Bahais have a problem and I thank Arthra for that reference as to the preserved nature of the bible, so unlike muslims you can’t simply say the text of John is corrupted.

But It seems we will get no where, I can try my best to argue in dfence of the sacred mystery, I won’t brow beat you into leaving me alone. But I want to ask a more basic question. Is Jesus your creator? Are you a creature, that is are you created?

Also I don’t believe I ever accused you of lying and if you got that impression please forgive me because that was not my intent.

 

[smaneck]

I want to add, that it is women bridal mystics from whom the male Rhineland mystics gained their “Eucharistic” mysticism.

Heiko Oberman, my mentor in church history, , told me that most of Eckhart’s theology came from his work as confessor to mystic nuns, but he didn’t say they were bridal mystics. He considered Eckhart a mystical theologian but not a mystic himself.

 

[smaneck]

Does this not evoke a pre-incarnate time before time even though it uses ‘edenic’ imagery as well?

(BTW check previous page for my other posts in case you skip to this one )

Indeed. It is always such a joy to dialogue with you, Vouthon!

 

[PRmerger]

At least you know how to cite your sources. I wish my students did.

PRmerger says hi!

She is still waiting for the citation that shows that someone’s excommunication led to his execution.

 

[smaneck]

PRmerger says hi!

She is still waiting for the citation that shows that someone’s excommunication led to his execution.

You think it was just an accident that the Pope excommunicated him (which I have already documented) and that subsequently he was burned (which I documented as well)?

 

[PRmerger]

You think it was just an accident that the Pope excommunicated him (which I have already documented) and that subsequently he was burned (which I documented as well)?

I didn’t see any source that said he was excommunicated. I only saw your source about his execution.

And, as far as it being an accident, I have no idea. That’s why I would like to examine your citations.

I wouldn’t want to commit the fallacy, * post hoc, ergo propter hoc*, you know?