Died at mass

Many and perhaps most forms of Christianity would reject this. Even so, there are some expressions within Christianity, Judaism and Islam that certainly allude to what I was trying to express in poetic form.

One thing that is interesting is that the path of direct encounter with God is treated with great distrust within many religious traditions. Perhaps it is because Primary Religious Experience (PRE) is unencumbered, and does not require a formal belief structure, a priesthood, or prescribed rites to realise. And here again is where I have difficulty with "hard" beliefs: The belief is primary; while PRE is relegated to a secondary or tertiary role at best. The mystics across traditions, (William Blake, Meister Eckhart, Rumi, Attar, Hafiz, Kabir, Sri Ramakrishna, et cetera) speak with a very similiar emotional palate. Their words illuminate not as lessons but catalytically from within the reader who hears them. The Presence which is experienced as the veils part is of singular importance. Even St. Thomas Aquinas acknowledged as much saying: "I can do no more; such things have been revealed to me that all I have written seems as straw, and I now await the end of my life."

Or to put it another way; to be drawn to God is to be drawn past any form that could inhibit the return from exile that is individual life. (Not that I am complaining: I love life, and I love what wells up and expresses through life.) The return of the prodigal, is passing back from this life to the eternal, the other side of the event horizon that surrounds the Divine singularity. If you read (or re-read The Cloud of Unknowing), it is pretty unmistakable, (to me at least.)

The problem that I see with this is that without the 'hard' beliefs (i.e., dogma) one has no safeguard or standard by which to judge the DRE other than emotion and/or intuition. The writings of the mystics (see especially the Desert Fathers on this) are replete with examples of people being deceived by false DREs. Of course, you can say "I'll take my chances" to avoid submitting to a hard belief of some sort, but I'd see this as dangerous and potentially soul-destroying.

My experience is that inevitably DRE strips me of my presuppositions. It is certainly possible and tempting to create a rational "envelope" around DRE while not in the midst of the experience. It is here that the risks of delusion exist. It is also possible to become a DRE junkie, and that also is a risk. If I become enamoured with ecstatic states for their own sake, this is a problem. (I know that from personal experience.)

The key to avoidance of these traps is a willingness to allow the longing for God to be the astrolabe of the soul, (with acknowledgements to Rumi for that observation.) It is also important to remain active with people and community, to be anchored in the physical world while following the callings of the spirit. I use such rational intelligence as I have to probe the ego for delusionary attachment and I remain engaged in critical thinking. In the world of ideas I must have no sacred cows.

In my view as an Orthodox Christian, the Eastern Church strikes a good balance between these two aspects of belief: one of our fathers has said, "he who is a theologian prays truly, and he who prays truly is a theologian." Another has said, "theology without prayer is the theology of demons." In other words, both the rational and the mystical aspects of faith must be kept in balance.

And both must evolve. No place is a point to stop the journey. If ever a form becomes so attractive or repellent that I stop, it has become an idol. An idol is any form before which homage is placed to the point that the longing for God is either projected upon that form or falls into the psychic noise floor. To use a Sufi analogy, if a lover becomes so transfixed by a veil upon his Beloved that he fails to part that veil he is unfaithful. Veils can take many forms that are either intensely attractive or produce fear to inhibit further progress. It is essential to pass through both, to be neither transfixed by beauty or paralyzed by fear. This seems to be generically true without regard to the specific tradition and community a person is a part of. (Note: Attar's [i]Conference of the Birds[/i] is a brilliant exposition of this, and worthy of a read. His observations are valid without regard to the tradition one is a part of.)

'It is certainly possible and tempting to create a rational "envelope" around DRE while not in the midst of the experience. It is here that the risks of delusion exist.'

In fact, I'd say the exact opposite. With no rational, kataphatic backup, the pure apophatic experience is just that, an experience without content. As such, unless one works on the (to me false) assumption that whatever one is going to meet in a DRE is from God, then there is no way to judge the DRE. Even Satan can appear as an angel of light.

My statement is concerned with the desire to create a rational structure around what is essentially non-rational. One of the things that is a cause of concern to me is that the same state can lead to very different rational structures, and that disagreement about the structure often exists where what was experienced was the same. We can each eat a fine truffle, while the words we use to describe that experience may vary substantially. For something as inconsequential as a truffle, this may not be of great importance, but where it results in religious strife it is of great importance.

This brings up another observation that I am making as I type this: The associations that evolve internally and relate to a memory of an event distort an event via personal historical context. Re-experience of states may help clear away some of the personal baggage, and especially if a very similar or identical state occurs outside of a familiar context. (i.e. If the experience of the Eucharist evokes states of awe and reverence and the same states of awe and reverence are evoked through listening to a Mahler symphony, or seeing a Hubble photo, or gazing into the eyes of a newborn; does this not speak of the underlying common ground that is not limited to one tradition, rite, society, or culture?) It is on the surface that diverse forms manifest which may collide in violent disagreement due to the mistake of vesting the form with a value in itself. This is the danger of idolatry, of making form primary and experience secondary. Where experience is primary, people of many traditions can meet without rancour in a common state.

This is not to say that I oppose the diversity that is evident in the sacred and not so sacred forms that are expressed. On the contrary, the richness that is made manifest eludes to the eternal even while it is unable to contain or fully express that richness.