/lit/ - Literature

fresh from the Spanish General

>>15040732
Very based, nice to see Osuna get a mention

The "church" (regardless of whether catholic or orthodox) is NOT Christianity, just a man-made cult.

>>15040692
Mysticism isn't something you practice or learn, it will either happen to you or it won't. It's up to God ultimately.
I guess it's neat to read about other people's experiences but without a firm foundation in the Gospel it can lead to false expectations and confusion.
I made the mistake of approaching Christianity via mysticism and it didn't really bear fruit.
The more I stick to the basics, however, the more I am guided by God and educated in the faith.
Don't try to turn Christianity into Buddhism, trying to gain some nirvana/gnosis really misses the point.

>>15040797
Sure but to be fair they compiled scripture, laid down the foundation of the faith (made trinity a dogma) and preserved the basics for centuries...fought tons of heretics (arius, etc) despite their innovations. So we can respect them in what they did right. They are still christian bros .

>>15040797
No.

>>15040692
Catherine is my favorite. That painting is incredible.

One should not seek mysticism. To do so is spiritual delusion --- prelest, larping. The core of the mystical life lies in prayer and humilty, this is orthodox christian belief said by all spiritual directors. The rest is spiritual delusion that will distract you from God.

So christian mysticism is prayer and humilty, nothing else. To `practice` and seek mysticism is to have the wrong intentions.

>>15040831
Become Reformed.

>>15040952
Of course.

>>15040692
>centring prayer

Could you eleborate on what that is?

>>15040831
>the church killed heretics/Gnostics
>modern gnosis seekers should be glad they did
Are you sure that makes sense?

bump for any Christian mystical poetry

>>15040831
>I made the mistake of approaching Christianity via mysticism and it didn't really bear fruit.
>The more I stick to the basics, however, the more I am guided by God and educated in the faith.
>Don't try to turn Christianity into Buddhism, trying to gain some nirvana/gnosis really misses the point.


This has also been my experience

However I believe it is important for Christians to understand the broader 'point' of the path, even if we're powerless to walk it on our own beyond the basics.

Entering a state of contemplation should be desirable for all Christians so they can allow God to shape and develop them

>>15040994
Not what was said at all.


>>15041014
angelus silesius

>>15040692
>Christian Mysticism
No such thing.

>>15041038
Of course there is. Go read the vision of Ezekiel...

>>15040692
>>15040831
>>15040900

Y'all want to know about christian mysticism huh?

>be me
>come back to the faith last year
>join a college fellowship
>they offer rides to church on Sunday (not now of course)
>didn't know that they were Pentecostals
>have been going to their church for a couple months now

At this point I am only an observer and a recorder of what they do. I have come down fairly decisively as a (soft) cessationist, but since it wouldn't do me any good to argue with them and since I also get free rides to that church (where they have bagels) I've continued to attend it.

The following are some of the things that have been done there that I would qualify as mysticism:


One morning we were all instructed to reach out to God and if there was a "word" on our hearts we should speak it out. Most of them were things like "peace" or "trust".

On three occasions now the same woman has spoken some babbling nonsense in the middle of a service, which is apparently supposed to be speaking in tongues but from my readings and general experience with the faith it seems like sign gifts have ceased for the time being, so I'm fairly sure what she is experiencing isn't really the gift of tongues. Of course there are interpretations afterwards about what the tongues meant. After the service I can usually find an almost verbatim passage in the scriptures that mirrors that interpretation, so I guess what they're doing is okay, but it makes no sense to interpret things you can just teach right from the scriptures, and Paul echos that it 1 Corinthians.

We were instructed to lay hands on those who had issues with sin and pray for them. I guess they think that they are the same as apostles and that laying hands on people will do something, but to me it seems like a moses-and-his-staff situation where we really shouldn't put any stock into the physical laying of hands and rather in our prayers. Its also rather presumptive that we should assume we can do things that only apostles are depicted doing in the scriptures, as if we have their authority.

At a retreat with a lot of other churches we were encouraged to pray out loud and there were a ton of people praying out loud in tongues, which is pretty against what 1 Corinthians says you should do with tongues in a worship setting.


Overall I'd say they're well meaning and spreading the gospel, so I won't make any fuss about it to them (See Mark 9). So far its been pretty tame, no violently convulsing on the floor or miracle healers.

>>15040952
Based.

>>15041119
Pentecostals call "Holy Spirit" just being moved by a communal state of exhaltation. Just what you feel in a football match.

>>15041119
Bruh
Charismatics lol

>>15041119
Burger Christianity is its own punishment really

Being a chantard and a Christian are mutually exclusive.
You can be one but not both.

>>15041037
>>15040831
>fought tons of heretics (arius, etc) despite their innovations. So we can respect them
I'm not sure how to interpret that then. They weren't heretics until the church killed them all. Arianism existed before the councils even formed the Catholic church.

>>15041119
america was a mistake

>>15041150
Depends what boards you browse

>>15041142
>>15041144
>>15041149
>>15041342

They also believe that everyone has their own personal "prayer language". Basically they took Paul's praying in tongues from 1 Corinthians and extrapolated it to the extreme.

Angelus Silesius
>God never does withdraw; His works come to no halt;
If you don't feel His force, yourself must be at fault.
>By the will art thou lost, by the will art thou found, by the will art thou free, captive, and bound.
>Naught is there mightier than God;
Yet hath He not the might to turn
My Will from willing what it will,
My yearning as it needs must yearn?
>God, whose boundless love and joy
Are present everywhere;
He cannot come to visit you
Unless you are not there.
>Friend let this be enough. If thou wouldst go on reading. Go thyself and become the writing and the meaning

>>15040831
>>15040900
Christians choose to be retarded slaves of archons and spiritually disabled
You refuse to make the sacrifice of ego death and be purified and reborn in according to what god intended you refuse to be reborn in highest moral god .
You only know god in thought which doesnt mean anything no better then an atheist, you dont live with reality of god as your being but choose to stay in deluded matrix illusion of small bubble self.
>Endless death through history by christians confirms this its an illness
Christcucks choose to be slaves and never do any work to evolve past that
Nonduality is the final destination

>>15041686
Prove to me that an Archon didn't make you say those things! A stupid looking archon has the look of a spooky long monkey-faced man. Archon, spook, egregore, unclean spirit, ect.

>>15041686
To accept yourself as god and deny your psyche is not a sacrifice, it's precisely the coronation of the ego as divinity. To sacrifice yourself you first must recognize the reality of your personal self, otherwise there would be nothing to sacrifice. Non-dualism is cope for those who are spiritually dead and are somewhat intellectual. They hold the believe that by ABSTRACTION and abstraction alone they will become divine. it's easy life: they are not bound to anything other than their own abstractions. they have become their own gods. They DO NOT WANT TO BE SAVED, they want to become God.

You fell for satans trick of offering divinity.

st. isaac the syrian
>Make peace with yourself, and both heaven and earth will make peace with you.
>There is love like a small lamp, which goes out when the oil is consumed; or like a stream which dries up when it doesn't rain. But there is a love that is like a mighty spring gushing up out of the earth; it keeps flowing forever, and is inexhaustible.
>Humility collects the soul into a single point by the power of silence. A truly humble man has no desire to be known or admired by others, but wishes to plunge from himself into himself, to become nothing, as if he had never been born. When he is completely hidden to himself in himself, he is completely with God
>Dispassion doesn't mean to no longer feel the passions, but to no longer accept them.
>This life was given to you for repentance, do not waste it in vain pursuits.
>Silence is the mystery of the world to come
>Thus I say that this is the torment of Gehenna: bitter regret. But love inebriates the souls of the sons of Heaven by its delectability.
>God is not One who requites evil, but who sets evil right. Paradise is the love of God, wherein is the enjoyment of all blessedness. The person who lives in love reaps the fruit of life from God, and while yet in this world, even now breathes the air of the resurrection. In love did God bring the world into existence; in love is God going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of the One who has performed all these things; in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised.
>If zeal had been appropriate for putting humanity right, why did God the Word clothe himself in the body, using gentleness and humility in order to bring the world back to his Father?
>God’s mercifulness is far more extensive than we can conceive, God’s grace is greater than what we ask for. When we find love, we partake of heavenly bread and are made strong without labor and toil. The heavenly bread is Christ, who came down from heaven and gave life to the world. This is the nourishment of angels. The person who has found love eats and drinks Christ every day and every hour and is thereby made immortal. …When we hear Jesus say, “Ye shall eat and drink at the table of my kingdom,” what do we suppose we shall eat, if not love? Love, rather than food and drink, is sufficient to nourish a person. This is the wine “which maketh glad the heart.” Blessed is the one who partakes of this wine! Licentious people have drunk this wine and become chaste; sinners have drunk it and have forgotten the pathways of stumbling; drunkards have drunk this wine and become fasters; the rich have drunk it and desired poverty, the poor have drunk it and been enriched with hope; the sick have drunk it and become strong; the unlearned have taken it and become wise.

>>15042058
No retard ,read nonduality
There is no self that can accept itself as god, it is a state of no self only what remains is that which is pure prior to corruption only that material resembling god in every way.

You can find it by removing all layers of corruption.
YOU choose to remain a sinner to remain separate from life it self that is the only evil that exists a choice to be separated from god. There is only one eternal self.

How do you i explain it to you if you have not high enough consciousness / spiritual insight to experience the truth instead of just reading words?

You're a drop of water and the ocean is the creator but there is no duality there.

>>15042260
you were already BTFOd in the other thread. Don't make me copy and paste posts from there

Recommend some gnostic works

How do I pray bros? What do I do? How often? Where?

>>15042297

The Gospel of John.

>>15042304
begin by asking God for his grace. He wont deny if you ask with sincerity.

>>15042304
>what do I do
Just talk like you're talking to God
>How often
There are some days when I don't pray at all, but I should, and there are days where I'm so stressed and tired I feel like I have to pray every couple minutes just to have the strength to get by.
>where
Anywhere, but its easier when its quiet.

>>15042058
You posted this word for word in the other thread and someone already explained why it was wrong, you are not even criticizing actual non-dualism but just the unreal phantasm of it which you have constructed in your mind and which you believe it to be

St Issac
>Blessed is God who uses corporeal objects continually to draw us close in a symbolic way to a knowledge of God’s invisible nature. O name of Jesus, key to all gifts, open up for me the great door to your treasure-house, that I may enter and praise you with the praise that comes from the heart. O my Hope, pour into my heart the inebriation that consists in the hope of you. O Jesus Christ, the resurrection and light of all worlds, place upon my soul’s head the crown of knowledge of you; open before me all of a sudden the door of mercies, cause the rays of your grace to shine out in my heart. O Christ, who are covered with light as though with a garment, who for my sake stood naked in front of Pilate, clothe me with that might which you caused to overshadow the saints, whereby they conquered this world of struggle. May your Divinity, Lord, take pleasure in me, and lead me above the world to be with you. I give praise to your holy Nature, Lord, for you have made my nature a sanctuary for your hiddenness and a tabernacle for your holy mysteries, a place where you can dwell, and a holy temple for your Divinity.

>>15042276
Do it.

>>15042276
>>15042417
Seconded; do it.

John of Ruysbroeck
>"When love has carried us above all things ... we receive in peace the Incomprehensible Light, enfolding us and penetrating us. What is this Light, if it be not a contemplation of the Infinite, and an intuition of Eternity? We behold that which we are, and we are that which we behold; because our being, without losing anything of its own personality, is united with the Divine Truth." ~ John of Ruysbroeck
>"When love has carried us above all things into the Divine Dark, there we are transformed by the Eternal Word Who is the image of the Father; and as the air is penetrated by the sun, thus we receive in peace the Incomprehensible Light, enfolding us, and penetrating us." ~ John of Ruysbroeck
>"The love of Jesus is at once avid and generous. All that He has, all that He is, He gives; all that we are, all that we have, He takes." ~ John of Ruysbroeck
>"Knowledge of ourselves teaches us whence we come, where we are and whither we are going. We come from God and we are in exile; and it is because our potency of affection lends towards God that we are aware of this state of exile." ~ John of Ruysbroeck
>"Contemplation places us in a purity and radiance which is far above our understanding." ~ John of Ruysbroeck
>"God creates the world anew in each moment." ~ John of Ruysbroeck
>"The measure of your holiness is proportionate to the goodness of your will." ~ John of Ruysbroeck
>"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, onefold, empty of ourselves, and free from images, lifted up by love into the simple bareness of our intelligence." ~ John of Ruysbroeck
>The image of God is found essentially and personally in all mankind. Each possesses it whole … In this way we are all one, intimately united in our eternal image.
>Our work is the love of God. Our satisfaction lies in submission to the Divine Embrace
>God being a common good, and His boundless love being common to all, He gives His grace...to all men, Pagan and Jew, good or evil...Thus God is a common light and a common splendour, enlightening heaven and earth, and every man, each according to his need and worth
>All our ways end in superessential Being
>Even as God is common to all, the sun shines upon all trees
>In Eternity all creatures are God in God
>My words are strange, but those who love will understand.
>Unity is this: that a man feel himself to be gathered together with all his powers in the unity of his heart. Unity brings inward peace and restfulness of heart. Unity of heart is a bond which draws together body and soul, heart and senses, and all the outward and inward powers and encloses them in the union of love
>God in the depths of us receives God who comes to us: it is God contemplating God.

>The image of God is found essentially and personally in all mankind. Each possesses it whole, entire and undivided, and all together not more than one alone. In this way we are all one, intimately united in our eternal image, which is the image of God and the source in us of all our life.
>God is more interior to us than we are to ourselves.
His acting in us is nearer and more inward than our own actions.
God works in us from inside outwards;
creatures work on us from the outside.
>God's transcending nature must be understood as oneness and simplicity,
unscalable height and unfathomable depth,
incomprehensible breadth and infinite length,
dark silence and ferocious energy.
>If we would taste God, and feel in ourselves Eternal Life above all things, We must go forth into God with a faith that is far above our reason, And there dwell, simple, idle, without image, Lifted up by love into the Unwalled Bareness of our intelligence. For when we go out from ourselves in love, and die to all observances in ignorance and darkness, Then we are made complete, And transfigured by the Eternal Word, Image of the Father. And in this emptiness of spirit we receive the Incomprehensible Light, Which enfolds and penetrates us as air is penetrated by the light of the sun; And this Light is nought else but a fathomless gazing and seeing. What we are, that we gaze at; and what we gaze at, that we are. For our thought, our life, our being, are lifted up in simplicity, And united with the Truth, that is God. Therefore in this simple gazing we are one life and one spirit with God
—And this I call the seeing life.
>When we soar up above ourselves, And become, in our upward striving towards God, So simple, that the naked Love in the Heights can lay hold on us, There where Love cherishes Love, above all activity and all virtue (That is to say, in our Origin, wherefrom we are spiritually born)— Then we cease, and we and all that is our own die into God. And in this death we become hidden Sons of God, and find in ourselves a new life, And that is Eternal Life. And of these Sons, St. Paul says: ‘Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.’ In our approach to God we must bear with us ourselves and all that we do, As a perpetual sacrifice to God; And in the Presence of God we must leave ourselves and all our works, And, dying in love, soar up above all created things into the Superessential Kingdom of God.
And of this the Spirit of God speaks in the Book of Hidden Things, saying: ‘Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord.’
>How great is the difference between The hidden child and the secret friend! For the friend makes only loving, Living but measured ascents toward God. But the child presses on to lose its own life upon the summits, in that simplicity which knoweth not itself.

>>15042276
you mean you got spiritually and metaphysically btfoed by nondualist and kept seething like good goy?

>>15042596
More john of r., A flemish Christian Mystic
>And we learn this truth from His sight: That all we taste, in comparison with that which remains out of our reach, Is no more than a single drop of water compared with the whole sea.... We hunger for God’s Infinity, which we cannot devour, And we aspire to His Eternity, which we cannot attain.... In this storm of love, our activity is above reason and is in no wise. Love desires that which is impossible to her; And reason teaches that love is within her rights, but can neither counsel nor persuade her.
>The indrawing attraction drags us out of ourselves, And calls us to be melted away and naughted in the Unity. And in this indrawing attraction we feel that God wills that we should be His, And for this we must abnegate ourselves and let our beatitude be accomplished in Him. But when He attracts us by flowing out towards us, He gives us over to ourselves and makes us free, And sets us in Time.
>God contemplates Himself and all things in an Eternal Now that has neither beginning nor end.
>God loves without limit and this puts a loving person most securely at peace.
>In the deeps of his ground he knows and feels nothing, in soul or body, but a singular radiance with sensible well-being and all pervading savour
>This possession is a simple and abysmal tasting of all good and of eternal life; and in this tasting we are swallowed up above reason and without reason, in the deep Quiet of the Godhead, which is never moved...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.
>God is a flowing and ebbing sea which ceaselessly flows out into all his beloved according to their needs and merits and which flows back with all those upon whom he has bestowed his gifts in heaven and on earth, together with all they possess or are capable of.
>This is that Wayless Being which all fervent interior spirits have chosen above all things, that dark stillness in which all lovers lose their way. If we could prepare ourselves through virtue in the ways I have shown, we would at once strip ourselves of our bodies and flow into the wild waves of the Sea, from which no creature could ever draw us back.
>This brightness is so great that the loving contemplative, in his ground wherein he rests, sees and feels nothing but an incomprehensible Light; and through that Simple Nudity which enfolds all things, he finds himself and feels himself to be that same Light by which he sees and nothing else. . . . Blessed are the eyes which are thus seeing, for they possess eternal life.

in a nondualistic world there`s no nondualist guy, theres no BTFOing, there no BTFOed x or y person. there is only being and non being. you non dualists refute yourselves.

John of r., A high level Christian Mystic
>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 to understand God above all similitudes, as He is in Himself, is to be God with God, without intermediary, and without any otherness that can become a hindrance or an intermediary. Whosoever wishes to understand this must have died to himself, and must live in God, and must turn his gaze to the eternal light in the ground of his spirit, where the Hidden Truth reveals Itself without means.
>Compassion is a wound in the heart whence flows a common love to all mankind and which cannot be healed so long as any suffering lives in man.
>As long as we dwell in the shadow, we cannot see the sun itself; but Now we see through a glass darkly, says St. Paul. Yet the shadow is so enlightened by the sunshine that we can perceive the distinctions between all the virtues and all the truth which is profitable to our mortal state. But if we would become one with the brightness of the Sun, we must follow love, and go out of ourselves into the Wayless, and then the Sun will draw us with our blinded eyes into Its own brightness, in which we shall possess unity with God. . . . In his outpouring, He wills to he wholly ours: and then He teaches us to live in the riches of the virtues. In His indrawing touch all our powers forsake us, and then we sit under His shadow, and His fruit is sweet to our taste, for the Fruit of God is the Son of God, Whom the Father brings forth in our spirit. This Fruit is so infinitely sweet to our taste that we can neither swallow It nor assimilate It, but It rather absorbs us into Itself and assimilates us with Itself.
>This contemplation establishes us in purity and in limpidity above all our understanding, for it is a special enrichment and a heavenly crown, and in addition, an eternal reward for all virtues and for all lives. And no one can arrive at this by means of science or subtlety, nor by any practice, but only he whom God wishes to unite with His Spirit and to illumine with Himself may contemplate God, and nobody else. The hidden divine nature is eternally active, contemplating and loving with respect to each person, and always enjoying the embrace with each person, in unity of essence.

>>15042751
You're refuted by Maya , its only illusion of being btfoed even it is real to you and u have indeed been btfoed it is still illusion which conceals nonduality.
If you went beyond maya you would understand.
Im glad to help anon because ultimately im helping myself no need to thank myself.

>In this embrace, in the essential unity of God, are all inner spirits one with God in loving transport, and they are the selfsame one that the essence itself is in itself. And in this sublime unity of the divine nature, the heavenly Father is the origin and the beginning of every work that is done in heaven and on earth
>Now, if the spirit is to contemplate God with God, without intermediary, in this divine light, three things are necessary for a person.
The first is that he must be well-ordered from without in all virtues and unhindered within, just as empty of all outward works as though he were not working. For if he is busy within by any work of virtue, then he is assailed by images. As long as that is going on in him, he cannot contemplate.
Secondly, he must cleave to God within by devoted intention and love, just like a kindled, blazing fire that can no longer be extinguished. During the time that he feels himself to be in this state, he can contemplate.
Thirdly, he must have lost himself in a waylessness and in a darkness in which all contemplatives wander around in enjoyment and can no longer find themselves in a creaturely way. In the abyss of this darkness in which the loving spirit has died to itself, there begin the revelation of God and eternal life. For in this darkness there shines and is born an incomprehensible light which is the Son of God, in whom one contemplates eternal life. And in this light one becomes seeing.
>And this divine light is granted in the simple being of the spirit, where the spirit receives the brightness –which is God Himself- above all gifts and above all creaturely activity, in the empty void of the spirit in which it has lost itself through enjoyable love and receives the brightness of God without intermediary. And without cease, it becomes the very brightness which it receives.
>See, this hidden brightness in which one contemplates everything that one desires according to the way of emptiness of spirit, this brightness is so great that the loving contemplative neither sees nor feels anything in his ground in which he rests except an incomprehensible light. And according to the simple bareness which encompasses all things, he finds and feels himself to be that very light by which he sees, and nothing else.
>When we have thus become seeing, then we can contemplate, in joy, the eternal coming of our Bridegroom, which is the second point about which we are going to speak. Now, what is the coming of our Bridegroom which is eternal ? It is a new birth an a new enlightenment without cease. For the ground out of which the brightness shines, and which is the brightness itself, is living and fruitful. And therefore, the revelation of the eternal light is renewed without cease in the hiddenness of the spirit.
>
>

>See, all creaturely activity and all practice of virtues must fail here, for here what God works is nothing but Himself in the highest nobility of the spirit. And here there is nothing but an eternal contemplation and gazing at the light with the light and in the light. And the coming of the Bridegroom is so rapid that He is always coming and is indwelling with fathomless richness, and that He is coming anew personally, without crease, with such new brightness just as though He had never come before. For His coming consists in an eternal now, without time, which is always received with new lust and in new joy.
>See, the bliss and the joy which this Bridegroom brings in His coming are fathomless and incommensurable, for He Himself is that bliss and joy. And therefore, the eyes with which the spirit contemplates and gazes upon its Bridegroom are so widely dilated that they will never again be closed. For the gazing and contemplation of the spirit remain eternally fixed on the hidden revelation of God, and the comprehension of the spirit is so widely dilated for the coming of the Bridegroom that the spirit itself has become the wideness which it apprehends. And so God is apprehended and seen with God ; in this all our blessedness resides.
>In this return in love in the divine ground every divine way and activity and all the attributes of the persons are swallowed up in the rich compass of the essential unity. All the divine means and all conditions, and all living images which are reflected in the mirror of truth, lapse in the onefold and ineffable waylessness beyond reason. Here there is nothing but eternal rest in the fruitive embrace of outpouring love.
>And there you must accept that the Persons yield and lose themselves whirling in essential love, that is, in enjoyable unity; nevertheless, they always remain according to their personal properties In the working of the Trinity. You may thus understand that the divine nature is eternally at rest and without mode according to the simplicity of its essence. It is why all that God has chosen and enfolded with eternal personal love, he has possessed essentially, enjoyably in unity, with essential love.
>For the divine Persons embrace mutually in eternal complacency With an infinite and active love in unity. This activity is constantly renewed in the living life of the Trinity. There is continuous new birth-giving in new knowledge, new complacency and new breathing forth of the Spirit in a new embrace with a new torrent of eternal love. All the elect, angels and men from the last to the first are embraced in this complacency. It is in this complacency that heaven and earth are suspended, existence, life activity and maintenance of all creatures.

>And this is without time, that is to say, without before or after in an eternal present, for in the embrace in unity all things have been consummated. And in the out-flowing of love all things are being achieved. And in the living fruitful nature all things have the potentiality to occur, for in the living fruitful nature the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son, and the Holy Spirit in them both. For it is a living and fruitful unity which is the source And the fount of all life.
>And for this reason all creatures are there without themselves as in their eternal origin, one essence and one life with God. But in the bursting-out of the Persons with distinction, so the Son is from the Father and the Holy Spirit from them both. There God has created and ordered all creatures in their own essence.
>There, the Father with the Son and all the beloved are enfolded and embraced in the bond of love, that is to say, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. It is this same unity, which is fruitful according to the bursting-out of the Persons and in the return, an eternal bond of love, which can nevermore be united. And all those who know themselves to be bound therein must remain eternally blissful. They are all rich in virtues and enlightened in contemplation and simple where they rest enjoyably, for in their turning-in, the love of God reveals itself as flowing out with all good and drawing in into unity and is superessential and without mode (method or system) in an eternal repose. And so they are united to God, by intermediary, without intermediary, and also without difference.
>These same interior, enlightened persons Have the love of God before them in their inward vision Whenever they want, as drawing or calling in towards unity. For they see and feel that the Father with the Son by means of the Holy Spirit stand embraced with all the elect and are brought back with eternal love into the unity of their nature. This unity is constantly drawing or calling in all that has been born out of it naturally or by grace. And therefore these enlightened people are lifted up with free mind above reason to a bare vision devoid of images (The imageless place of spirit vision). There lives the eternal invitation of God’s unity, and with imageless naked understanding they go beyond all works and all practices and all things to the summit of their spirit. There their naked understanding is penetrated with eternal clarity as the air is penetrated by the light of the sun. The bare elevated will is transformed and penetrated with fathomless love just as iron is penetrated by the fire. And the bare elevated memory finds itself caught and established In a fathomless absence of images. Thus the created image is united threefold wise above reason to its eternal image, Which is the source of its being and of its life.
>
>

>And though the union is without intermediary, The manifold works that God does In heaven and earth are, however, Hidden from the spirit. For though God gives Himself as He is with a clear distinction, He gives Himself in the soul’s essence, Where the soul’s powers are unified Above reason And undergo God’s transformation In simplicity. In this place all is full And overflowing, for the spirit feels itself As one truth and one richness And one unity with God.
>Hereafter follows the “unity without difference,” For the love of God Is not only to be considered as flowing out With all good and drawing in into unity, But it is also above all distinction In essential enjoyment according to The bare essence of the Divinity. And for this reason enlightened people Have found within themselves An essential inward gazing Above reason and without reason, And an enjoyable inclination Surpassing all modes (methods or systems) And all essence, Sinking away from themselves Into a modeless abyss of fathomless beatitude, Where the Trinity of the divine Persons Possess their nature in essential unity.
>See, here the beatitude is so simple And so without mode that therein all essential gazing, Inclination and distinction of creatures Pass away. For all spirits thus raised up melt away and are annihilated by reason of enjoyment in God’s essence which is the superessence of all essence. There they fall away from themselves and are lost in a bottomless unknowing. There all clarity is turned back to darkness, there where the three Persons give way to the essential unity and without distinction enjoy essential beatitude.
>Christ prayed that He should be in us, and we in Him. This we find in many passages in the Gospel. And this is the union that is without intermediary, for the love of God is not only out-flowing, but it is also drawing into unity. And those who feel and experience this become interior, enlightened men. There the faculties are raised above all practices to the bareness of their very essence. There the faculties become simplified above reason in their essence and because of this they are filled and overflowing. For in this simplicity the spirit finds itself united with God without intermediary. And this union, together with the exercise, which is proper to it, will endure eternally, as I have already said.
>

bump for more specificity
mystics, writers; their works, books

i'd like some christian mystical poetry

I'm stuck at my parents' house during the quarantine, and they still have almost all of my old undergrad books from when I got my Great Texts degree.

In particular, they still have my copy of St. Catherine of Siena's Dialogue. I'm probably going to start reading it soon.

>Christ’s prayer is fulfilled in those united to God in this threefold manner. With God they will ebb and flow, and will always be in repose, Iin possessing and enjoying (Him). They will go out and in and find nourishment both within and without. They are drunk with love And have passed away into God in a dark luminosity.
> Contemplation is a knowing that is unconditioned,
For ever dwelling above the Reason.
Never can it sink down into the Reason,
And above it can the Reason never climb.
The shining forth of That which is Unconditioned is as a fair mirror.
Wherein shines the Eternal Light of God.
It has no attributes,
And here all the works of Reason fail.
It is not God, But it is the Light whereby we see Him.
Those who walk in the Divine Light of it
Discover in themselves the Unwalled.
That which Unconditioned,
Is above the Reason, not without it:
It beholds all things without amazement.
Amazement is far beneath it:
The contemplative life is without amazement. That which is Unconditioned, it knows not what;
For it is above all, and is neither This nor That.
>There is a distinction and differentiation,
According to our reason,
Between God and the Godhead,
Between action and rest.
The fruitful nature of the Persons (Trinity)
Ever worketh in a living differentiation.
But the simple Being of God,
According to the nature thereof,
Is an eternal Rest of God
And of all created things
>He shows Himself to the soul in the living mirror of her intelligence;
Not as He is in His nature,
But in images and similitudes,
And in the degree in which the illuminated reason can grasp and understand Him.
And the wise reason, enlightened of God, sees clearly
And without error in images of the understanding
All that she has heard of God,
Of faith, of truth, according to her longing.
But that image which is God Himself,
Although it is held before her, she cannot comprehend;
For the eyes of her understanding
Must fail before that Incomparable Light.

>The Love of God is a consuming Fire,
Which draws us out of ourselves
And swallows us up in unity with God,
Where we are satisfied and overflowing,
And with Him, beyond ourselves,
Eternally fulfilled.
>As much as is iron, so much is fire;
And as much as is fire, so much is iron;
Yet the iron doth not become fire,
Nor the fire iron,
But each retains its substance and nature.
So likewise the spirit of man doth not become God,
But is deified,
And knows itself breadth, length, height and depth:
And as far as God is God,
So far the loving spirit is made one with Him
In love.
>AND thus the Fourth Mode is a state of emptiness,
made one with God in bare love and in Divine Light,
free and empty of all the observances of love,
above actions, and enduring a pure and simple love,
which consumes and annihilates in itself the spirit of a man,
so that he forgets himself, and knows neither himself nor God,
nor any creature, nor aught else but Love alone,
which he tastes and feels and possesses in simple emptiness.
He feels himself one Breadth with Love, Which is measureless, comprehending all things,
and Itself for ever remaining incomprehensible.
He sees himself made one with the eternal Length,
which is immovable, without beginning or ending,
going before and following after all created things
>Here the reason
no less than all separate acts
Must give way,
For our powers become simple in Love;
They are silent
And bowed down in the Presence of the Father.
And this revelation of the Father
Lifts the soul above the reason
Into the Imageless Nudity.
There the soul is simple, pure, spotless,
Empty of all things;
And it is in this state of perfect emptiness
That the Father manifests His Divine radiance.
To this radiance neither reason nor sense,
Observation nor distinction,
Can attain.
All this must stay below;
For the measureless radiance
Blinds the eyes of the reason,
They cannot bear the Incomprehensible Light.
But above the reason,
In the most secret part of the understanding,
The simple eye is ever open.
It contemplates and gazes at the Light
With a pure sight that is lit by the Light itself:
Eye to eye,
Mirror to mirror,
Image to image.
This threefold act makes us like God,
And unites us to Him;
For the sight of the simple eye is a living mirror,
Which God has made for His image,
And whereon He has impressed it.

>The Will of God, which is free - indeed freedom itself - takes from us the spirit of fear and makes us free, disengaged from and emptied of self, and of every fear that might oppress us in time or eternity.
>When In the inmost Being the Soul follows the Divine drawing and gives itself up freely to the Spirit of God, it tastes infinite happiness impossible to comprehend, in which the whole being dissolves, caught and embraced between immense Love and unending Happiness, under the regard of Love Himself
>To die to sin, to be emptied of self and detached from all that pleases or displeases, leads to the Kingdom of God; heart and desire must close to things of earth to open to God and things eternal, if we desire to taste and see that the Lord is sweet
>If we would God discern,
The world we must despise,
His love and hate must learn,
See all things with His eyes.
And we must self forgo
If God we would attain,
His grace must in us grow
And ease us from all pain.
So shall we sing His praise
And be at one with Him,
In peace our voices raise
In the celestial hymn,
That with quadruple harmony
And all mellifluous melody,
In Heaven resounds eternally.
>Finally, and beyond all else, ravished out of self into the Glory of God, without limit, incomprehensible, immense, we are to enjoy Him for ever and ever
>The interior life must be filled with grace and charity, without dissimulation, of direct intention, rich in virtue, the memory exempt from cares and solicitude, freed and detatched, entirely delivered of every image; the heart set free, open and up lifted above the Heavens; the intelligence empty and stripped of all consideration but God.
>Such is the citadel of loving Souls where all pure intellects are united, in one simple Purity. This is the habitation of God in us, where none can operate but God alone; its Purity is eternal, there is neither time nor space, past nor future, always present and ready to be revealed to those pure intelligences raised to it.

Bet none of ye have read this classic

>The air is pure and serene, lit by a light Divine, and by it we shall discover, fix, and contemplate the eternal Truth, with purified and illuminated eyes. There, too, all things are transformed, are one only Truth, one only image in the mirror of the Wisdom of God; and God created us that we might find, know, and possess this image in our essence and the Purity of our intelligence. Contemplating, applying our minds to this in the Divine Light, with simple and spiritual eyes, we attain to contemplative life.
>But yet another thing is necessary, Purity of spirit; for an intelligence in repose without images, an intuition in the light of God, and a spirit elevated in Purity to the Face of God, these three qualities united constitute the true contemplative life, where none can err; for the pure spirit expands ceaselessly and follows rapidly in purified love, the enlightened intelligence towards its Cause.
>Then are we ravished out of self by purified Love, even to the Face of God, freed and emptied of every event and illusion. This is the contemplative life of highest price.
>Next follows the seventh step, the noblest and most elevated that it is possible to realize in the life of time or eternity. It is attained when, above all knowledge and science, we find within us a limitless ignorance; when, passing beyond every name given to God or creatures we expire and pass to an eternal Unnamable where we are lost; when, further than any practice of Virtue, we contemplate and discover within us everlasting Repose, or immeasurable Beatitude where none can act; when we contemplate above all blessed Spirits an essential Beatitude where all are one, melted, lost, in their Superessence in the bosom of a darkness defying all determination or knowledge.

Last John of Ruysbroeck quotes
>if every Earthly pleasure were melted into a single experience and bestowed upon one man,
it would be as nothing when measured by the joy of which I write for here it is God who passes into the depths of us in all His purity,
and the soul is not only filled but overflowing.
This experience is that light that makes manifest to the soul the terrible desolation of such as live divorced from love;
it melts the man utterly; he is no longer master of his joy.
Such possession produces intoxication, the state of the spirit in which its bliss transcends the uttermost bounds of anticipation or desire.
Sometimes the ecstasy pours forth in song, sometimes in tears:
at one moment it finds expression in movement, at others in the intense stillness of burning, voiceless feeling.
Some men knowing this bliss wonder if others feel God as they do; some are assured that no living creature has ever had such experiences as theirs;
there are those who wonder that the world is not set aflame by this joy; and there are others who marvel at its nature, asking whence it comes, and what it is.
The body itself can know no greater pleasure upon earth than to participate in it;
and there are moments when the soul feels that it must shiver to fragments in the poignancy of this experience.
>You should watch the wise bee and do as it does. It dwells in unity, in the congregation of its fellows, and goes forth, not in the storm, but in calm and still weather, in the sunshine, towards all those flowers in which sweetness may be found. It does not rest on any flower, neither on any beauty nor on any sweetness; but it draws from them honey and wax, that is to say, sweetness and light-giving matter, and brings both to the unity of the hive, that therewith it may produce fruits, and be greatly profitable. Christ, the Eternal Sun, shining into the open heart, causes that heart to grow and to bloom, and it overflows with all the inward powers with joy and sweetness.So the wise man will do like the bee, and he will fly forth with attention and with reason and with discretion, towards all those gifts and towards all that sweetness which he has ever experienced, and towards all the good which God has ever done to him. And in the light of love and with inward observation, he will taste of the multitude of consolations and good things; and will not rest upon any flower of the gifts of God, but, laden with gratitude and praise, will fly back into the unity, wherein he wishes to rest and to dwell eternally with God.
>The inward stirring and touching of God makes us hungry and yearning; for the Spirit of God hunts our spirit: and the more it touches it, the greater our hunger and our craving. And this is the life of love in its highest working, above reason and above understanding; for reason can here neither give nor take away from love, for our love is touched by the Divine love. And as I understand it, here there can never more be separation from God.

bump

>The paradox is thus that there is no Self that precedes Spirit’s “self-alienation”: the very process of alienation creates/generates the “Self” from which Spirit is alienated and to which it then returns. (Hegel here turns around the standard notion that a failed version of X presupposes this X as its norm (measure): X is created, its space is outlined, only through repetitive failures to reach it.) Spirit’s self-alienation is the same as, fully coincides with, its alienation from its Other (nature), because it constitutes itself through its “return to itself” from its immersion in natural Otherness. In other words, Spirit’s return to itself creates the very dimension to which it returns. (This holds for all “returns to origins”: when, from 19th century onwards, new nation-states were constituting themselves in Central and Eastern Europe, their discovery and return to “old ethnic roots” generated these roots.)

>What this means is that the “negation of the negation,” the ”return to oneself” from alienation, does not occur where it seems to. In the “negation of the negation,” Spirit’s negativity is not relativized, subsumed under an encompassing positivity; it is, on the contrary, the “simple negation” which remains attached to the presupposed positivity it negated, the presupposed Otherness from which it alienates itself. It follows that the “negation of the negation” is nothing but the negation of the substantial character of this Otherness itself, the full acceptance of the abyss of Spirit’s self-relating, which retroactively posits all its presuppositions. In other words, once we are in negativity, we never quit it and regain the lost innocence of origins. It is only in “negation of the negation” that the origins are truly lost, that their very loss is lost, that they are deprived of the substantial status of that which was lost.

>Spirit heals its wound not by directly healing it, but by getting rid of the very full and sane body into which the wound was cut. It is in this precise sense that, according to Hegel, “the wounds of the Spirit heal, and leave no scars behind.”[1] Hegel’s point is not that Spirit heals its wounds so perfectly that, in a magic gesture of retroactive sublation, even their scars disappear. The point is rather that, in the course of dialectical process, a shift of perspective occurs which makes the wound itself appear as its opposite – the wound itself is its own healing when perceived from another standpoint.

"We must not wish anything other than what happens from moment to moment, all the while, however, exercising ourselves in goodness." ~ Catherine of Genoa
"My "me" is God nor do I recognize any other "me" except my God himself." ~ Catherine of Genoa
"Know for a certainty that if men understood how terrible is even one solitary sin, they would rather be cast into a heated furnace, and there remain, living both in soul and body, than to support such a sight. And if the sea were all fire they would cast themselves therein and never leave it, if they were certain of meeting the sin on doing so." ~ Catherine of Genoa
"Love is a divine flame." ~ Catherine of Genoa
"And when I hear it said that God is good and He will pardon us, and then see that men cease not from evil-doing, oh, how it grieves me! The infinite goodness with which God communicates with us, sinners as we are, should constantly make us love and serve Him better; but we, on the contrary, instead of seeing in his goodness an obligation to please Him, convert it into an excuse for sin which will of a certainty lead in the end to our deeper condemnation." ~ Catherine of Genoa
"Now although man is created for the possession of happiness, yet, having deviated from his true end, his nature has become deformed and is entirely repugnant to true beatitude. And on this account we are forced to submit to God this depraved nature of ours which fills our understanding with so many occupations, and causes us to deviate from the true path, in order that he may entirely consume it until nothing remains there but himself; otherwise the soul could never attain stability nor repose, for she was created for no other end." ~ Catherine of Genoa
"When the soul is naughted and transformed, then of herself she neither works nor speaks nor wills, nor feels nor hears nor understands; neither has she of herself the feeling of outward or inward, where she may move. And in all things it is God who rules and guides her, without the meditation of any creature.... And she is so full of peace that thought she pressed her flesh, her nerves, her bones, no other thing come forth from them than peace." ~ Catherine of Genoa
"The one sole thing in myself in which I glory is that I see in myself nothing in which I can glory." ~ Catherine of Genoa
"Oh, what peril attaches to sin willfully committed! For it is so difficult for man to bring himself to penance, and without penitence guilt remains and will ever remain, so long as man retains unchanged the will to sin, or is intent upon committing it." ~ Catherine of Genoa
>In God is my being, my I, my strength, my bliss, my desire. But this I that I often call so...in truth I no longer know what the I is, or the Mine, or desire, or the good, or bliss.
>I am so submerged in the sweet fire of love that I cannot grasp anything except the whole of love, which melts all the marrow of my soul and body.

>>15043571

Stop spamming walls of text you cunt

>>15043174
what icon is that?

>>15043577
But Senpai this is a Christian mysticism thread and I gave some of the very best we have to offer. Why are you so disturbed by these things? They are some of the very best things that you could possibly read in this world.

bump and i do say bump again for some christian mystical poetry

>>15041276
Arius was punched in the face once and then exiled. His death is unclear but might've been at the hand of normal people he proudly mocked or natural causes.

>>15041686
This is the kind of spiritual pride advaita fosters. Very ugly.

>>15043585
Gregory the Illuminator. I am happy to introduce anyone to his cult. I pray in front of that icon every morning and evening that he helps my self and family and the Armenian nation. Read his story - he was imprisoned alone for 13 years in the pit of Khor Virap for a crime committed by his father. He never lost faith, and one day God struck the King Drtad with insanity. No pagan sorcerer, zoroastrian magi, or brahmin healer could save him (all three religions were established at the time) but a princess recieved a vision that Grigor, the assassin's son, was still alive inside the pit after twelve years, sustained by sympathetic people throwing bread down the hole to him. He was fished out, alive, to the astonishment of everybody. And then more astonishingly, he instantly forgave the king who had taken twelve years of his life, prayed to God, and the king was healed. Shortly after, he ordered that his entire court be baptized and the hindu and zoroastrian temples be destroyed, their priests chased out. Now the king is remembered as St Drtad, the first Christian king of any nation.

>>15044664
interesting. i had heard about armenia being the first to convert to christianity but did not know the history behind it. thanks.

sometimes i pray before the theotokos of vladmir --- very beautiful icon

>>15043059
>>15041014

st symeon the new theologian - hymns on divine eros (or hymns on divine love depending on which translation you get)

Should I get a physical KJV?? I have a feeling I'll end up reading my tablet bible 99% of the time either way...

>>15043753
Different guy here

Stop shitting up the thread, if you want people to read something then link to it

>>15044664
What a beautiful story. Long live your great nation!

>>15045357
Definitely, you'll switch.

On topic, there really is no need for any kind of ritual in true religion. If you pray to God He knows what you're doing and will answer you if He sees fit. He's given me more grace in my life than I could have ever expected and I truly love Him.

The only semi-ritualistic thing I would suggest are the things highlighted in the Bible. Since there is no Temple you are freed from 90% of it, but read the Bible "day and night" as it says in Joshua. I read at least one passage in the morning and one before bed if I remember. The only other VERY important ritual is the sabbath. Take Saturday off of work, don't eat leaven during it, don't jerk off, keep it holy. Jerking off might even technically be allowed but I would warn against it as it is listed as unclean. Oh and stay inside. Don't leave your place is one of the rules.

The Bible is really clear about what practices God enjoys and what he doesn't. I hope one day to participate in a real sacrifice to Him to absolve some of my sin but for now charity will do.

>>15043753
I'm reading through it all. Thank you very much for posting it.

>>15043084
What did you end up doing with your degree? Completely genuine question.