Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
sounds decent
I label myself as mystic. I'm not sure of every little thing that it implies, but that I'm following my feelings.
I can't imagine that they're all that different.
I did want to contribute though 
Bravo :clap I live momentarily like this but I'm personally having problems sustaining the commitment.
Greetings Rolling_Stone. Let me propose that in this modern age there need be no mystical detachment at all, and on the contrary there can be more meaningful involvement in life and the right here and right now. The mystical experience, if that is what we are going to call it, can provide a centeredness of spirit that can focus the involvement. And hopefully, through purity of heart we can avoid the 'sentimental fluff and pretentiousness.'
Your entire post seems reasonable. The being that you are will come through anyway and that is the key way one's message is shared (imo).
Greetings. Agreed that it is basically meaningless to apply labels and it seems that it might be best to not apply mystic or other labels to oneself; let 'others' apply labels as they deem fitting. The reason is that there are just too many interpretations in minds and also some come with attached 'baggage' to a given label. For example, for me to apply 'mystic' to myself the definition must include as a key that which is the aim - direct experience of reunion with God (Brahman, Tao, Source, Infinite, Ground, other) or said differently, of God's reunion. The method of seeking is not as key to the definition. This is the key in my understanding of the sages throughout time that have been called mystics; they have had that direct experience and live in that union. As people surface in the modern time that meet this 'condition' - a being who is living in oneness with God - I think inwardly with the 'label' the New Being as has been defined in other threads.
Hehe. Thanks Rojse, but I had surmised that much already. Thanks for the heads up though.
This idea also merges with what I mentioned in the OP that everyone of us alive is "mystical" to an extent. In this way the modern mystic is not different from the average person, aside from the possibility that they have looked into themselves a bit more deeply than their fellow human animals.
I look at it in much more fundamental terms; "revelation" cannot be verified by others because it is wrapped in the peculiar coding of the observer's viewpoint and not directly transferable save only by muddy metaphor. Realization should be, imho, transferable so that others with differing viewpoints can independently verify what is "realized" or made real. I could be wrong, but to me that is an important difference.
You have such an interesting, poetic, way of elucidating your ideas that I fine quite wonderful. Yes, I agree with your multiple imagery as well. Very nice.
Well, you nailed it as usual Dopp. I am also on record as saying "claim your birthright" and "accept your inheritance". I heartily agree that we are co-creators and to express it rather simply, if we are truly "made in the image of God" then it is reasonalbe to assume that we too would be co-creators. What is often overlooked is that by realizing you are in fact a co-creator, it adds a considerable level of responsibiilty to ones actions. Very well put and I agree entirely although we perceive symbols in slightly different contexts, then again, that shouldn't be much of a surprise, lol.doppelgänger;972924 said:
I feel similarly, He_who-gathers-no_moss, I am highly mystical but also from a "western-centric" vantage point, hence my term, "modern mystic". Try as I might, my very first inner experiences were certainly a "revelation" but I now see them through the lens of my "old age" and am compelled to think that the current "me" is what precipitated the experiences of my youth. I also suspect that that future "intervention" is still going on with my current outlook.
I do sense what you mean. The simple fact is there are no other suitable, polite, label to attach to "our" experience. I did settle on "Dis-integrated Neo-Gnostic" awhile back and still rather like it since it is open to interpretation.
You are not blathering in the slightest, my dear. I understand fairly clearly what you are meaning, and yes, revelation CAN be "fobbed off" and ignored as some heady dream encounter whereas, to my thinking at least, realization by its very nature is not so easily ignored, as it should follow a logical pattern whereas "revelations" don't seem to need to follow logic.
Interestingly, I thought of the term "godhood" for many years but grew to realize that that would put some off and give egotistically bound people a very wrong idea, so I simplified things a lot and currently use the term, "creaturehood" instead. I originally came across this term in a book by Jane Roberts called "The God of Jane". I loved it, not to mention the fact that "creaturehood" is far less pretentious while at the same time remains quite unlimited in its scope.
EGADS! I stand corrected. Forgive my sullying of your handle as it were.
I do agree but sometimes it IS helpful to narrow things down a tad for the "home audience" to digest in nice, easy to swallow, spoonfuls.
I understand, I guess what I am trying to flesh out here is the idea that concepts or symbols are shared on quite subtle levels and are highly graphical, almost like "living" dreamlets or "mini movies" that contain different "tracks" like in a song, that register with each of our physical senses... even smell...
exactly. It is my suspicion that trying to elucidate the visions of revelation is for the most part, a fool's effort as the only way to do it for the most part is via metaphor, analogy and other tricks of speech.
You see, this is where I get stuck actually, I am not so sure it is actually "revelation" per se, but to try a Doppelganger... if I understand him adequately... I perceive that it is just glimpsing a symbol library that sits just below our "conscious" symbol library through which we construct or co-create "reality". It only seems like so-called "revelations" where in fact, and again, this is only my perception, those "revelations" represent "bursts of awareness" beyond our normal and cozy confines. Since we are not used to perceiving this underlying layer we almost always will attach greater significance to it that is perhaps necessary and here I am thinking of religious revelations that get dressed up in somewhat ridiculous and arbitrary pre-exisitng religious symbolism.
Then again, revelations certainly seem to be very real but I would suggest that they are merely the medium, no pun intended and that the inexperienced conscious minds that "burst" through their self-created limitations can become overloaded on the direct data they receive. I would assert, for example, that people who have visions of angels, demons, gods and devils are projecting their latent expectations onto the raw experience. It is my thinking that they cannot handle consciously the fact that reality is far richer than they can imagine and so the conscious mind hallucinates the drastic imagery simply to understand it. Does that make sense to you (or anyone)?
Hi YmirGf. I don't think all labels are meaningless. Any one person might find a particular label more or less meaningful. On the other hand I ascribe to the idea is that all meaning is contingent. Personally I consider labels given to psychological qualities are in fact meaningless though someone else might find them meaningful. I find them meaningless because psychological qualities can only be defined in terms of further psychological qualities ad infinitum, leading an infinite regress of meaning.
Revelation had an anterior quality to realization. Realization implies second person awareness in a personal context, revelation a third person awareness (because the observer attributes the knowledge to God).
Admittedly yes, but is there, in fact, any guarantee of the individual successfully recreating that "higher continuum" in their physical experience? Would you agree that there are varying degrees of success in this form of endeavor? Would you be inclined to call the birth of given religions "success stories" or perhaps "general distortions" of this process, or perhaps something else entirely?
I am learning to read you more carefully Willamena. At first I bridled when I saw the use of the word "sacred" then when I realized fully the context you've implied. I have to say that I agree. At my stage there are no differences as everything is "sacred" but because it has been a part of my understanding for so long it has become rather "ordinary" now. The behavior of reality is funny that way in that the observer eventually gets used to the ALL. I do knit-pick on the idea of it being semantics however. Though I might sound clinical and cold, "revelation" and "realization" are essentially perspectives or perceptions about reality.
doppelgänger;973210 said:
doppelgänger;973210 said:
)YmirGF said:
)YmirGF said:
YmirGF said:
YmirGF said:
That is one interpretation; another is that "the ordinary" is composed of a set of symbols, and "the sacred" is composed of another set of symbols, but they are both sets of symbols that can be expressed to another given the right word-tools. And this harkens back to something you said earlier, about people not realizing a "fuller" reality, one that you acknowledge. I disagree: that objectifies reality and suggests that there is something more for them to experience, when in fact, the way I see it, reality is what we each fully experience.
That is not unexpected Willamena. Reality is indeed what we each fully experience however it would be somewhat arrogant and misleading to think that we grasp the totality of what reality is. There is always something beyond our expereince in physical terms, let alone in non-physical terms. All I am trying to get people to understand is that reality is far larger a construct that they presently perceive.
See, you've twisted it again. Your concluding idea is 180° from the starting idea. Reality just isn't that complicated.