Week 5 Terms

Beauty, Judaism

"The reason we were created by God is to delight in God and get pleasure from the divine light because this is the greatest pleasure and delight of all pleasures." This is according Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (1707-1746, Italy, Holland) our human raison d'être (reason for existing):

Julian of Norwich

An English woman, who lived from 1342-1416 (unknown whether nun or lay), who while ill and on her death bed in May 1372 had 16 visions of Jesus bleeding and in which she felt God revealed to her that He/She ("Mother") the all-encompassing Divine Love that nurtures us at all times, as does a womb for a baby or clothes to our body. She said that this gives us "more light and solace in heavenly joy" when in sorrow to draw us out and experience the loving face of the Lord. The book of meditations Revelations of Divine Love is her testimony of these experiences.

Fana'

Arabic word used in Sufism to speak of the experience or state of the ego being annihilated in the Greater Reality, i.e. Unitive Consciousness.

Baqa'

Arabic word used in Sufism, denoting feeling a deep connection and devotion to God, and the "I" is transformed to embody spiritual perfections, yet the I-Thou or I-This distinction remains: servant and Lord, lover and Beloved, devotee and the Beauteous One, yet the relationship is very intimate and poetry describing such a state is often similar to romantic love songs.

Psychedelic Drugs

Author, philosopher Aldous Huxley and psychology professor Timothy Leary, who experimented with LSD and hallucinogenic mushrooms for many years, said that the drugs are not the source of spiritual experiences but allow the channels of the mind to tap alternative dimensions of consciousness without the impediments we normally put on it in everyday life. On the other hand, Lame Deer, Lakota/Sioux medicine man and activist, who used peyote in the Native American Church for some years, finally concluded that spiritual experiences are best when they come from one's "own juices" rather than facilitated by such drugs. Early Hindu scriptures speak of Soma, a name of a god and his [mushroom?] juice, to facilitate the experience of the divine.

Gnostic

Greek word for knowledge, referring to a transcendent insight into the fundamental truths of our existence, gained through special spiritual experience, empowering spiritual liberation. Most forms of Buddhism seek this and an early form of Christianity—and somewhat with the later Christian Science—saw Jesus primarily in terms of the absolute, spiritual Truth that shall set the knower free from the evil cage of our flesh bodies and material existence. Samkhya, a nontheistic Hindu philosophy perhaps 2,500 years old, see the world as Purusa (pure consciousness) trapped and bounded to Prakṛti (matter) and only by being able to discern the difference between the two can our consciousness be liberated.

Moses

He goes to a fire on a hill, finds a bush burning yet not being consumed, and an angel of the Lord speaks out of it saying "I am"--the God of his forefathers--commissions you to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let the Hebrews go and worship Me freely.

Believing and Seeing

The materialist view says that "seeing is believing"—one must directly experience the supernatural to believe it is true. An alternative view is "believing is seeing"—just taking the "leap of faith" (alá Kierkegaard & William James) opens up new vistas of experience.

Muhammad

While meditating in a cave on a mountain, an angel comes and tells him to iqra! (proclaim, read, recite) the words of God unto the people, proclaiming faith in one God, prayer, doing good deeds and charity, being honest and upright.

Siddhartha Gautama

While meditating under a fig tree, he is tested by a demon to give into his carnal passions and egotistical desires but resists and eventually sees the nature of the universe from end-to-end, the reason why there is suffering and rebirth/re-death, and what we can do about this, becoming the enlightened one. Although he discovered the truth of existence on his own, old legends speak of a god Brahma encouraging him to share what he learned with others.

Teresa of Avila

While this eventual Catholic saint of the 16th century frequently spoke of meeting and speaking with Jesus and union with God, she always prefaced anything she wrote in humility: 'I write these things commanded by my confessor...should they be of help to my sisters.' In this way she never made her mystical and sensory religious experiences about claiming any authority equal to or challenging her Church.

Born Again

a dramatic religious experience that somehow changes the course of one's life. It is attributed to Jesus in the Biblical Gospel of John (3:1-8) that a Jewish leader named Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, wishing to meet the miracle-worker, and Jesus told him that it is not enough to be born of the flesh from our parents but that we must be born again from the Spirit: a birth from faith that is/gives eternal life. The song "Amazing Grace" describes this as: "I once was lost, but now I'm found; was blind but now I see." It is regenerative, endowing one with a fuller, deeper life of meaning and purpose.

Commissioning experience

a supernatural encounter that calls a person to special service to God [or service to truth or removal of suffering]. Richter says: "the Buddha could have no such experience, simply because...the Void" cannot "call" anyone. However, we know that ancient stories of the enlightenment of the Buddha do tell of the god Brahma encouraging him to not leave humanity in their miserable state but help alleviate some of the suffering through sharing his insights. Remember: Buddhism is traditionally transtheistic, not atheistic.

"sick soul":

feeling of alienation and loneliness, being separated from God and in need of forgiveness. In Christian terms, this may mean dwelling and writhing in anguish (i.e. guilt) at one's own wretched evil, corrupt nature (i.e. sinfulness) rather than rejoicing in gratitude in God's sanctifying grace. Soren Kierkegaard used such terminology in his existential Christian writings and William James popularized this term in Varieties of Religious Experience.

dark night of the soul

phrase by Spanish mystic and friar St. John of the Cross (1542-1591), denoting on one hand a feeling that God has forsaken you, but on the other hand signifying that one is on the horizon of beholding the overwhelming brightness of God's presence—a light that is so intense that it can be blinding, hence in a way also dark.

"healthy soul":

term popularized by William James, signifying feeling that one is whole and happy, at peace and accepted, in the presence of Ultimate Being or the transmundane.

Ecstasy/Ecstatic

thrown outside of oneself in blissful presence and absorption in the sacred.

Atman=Brahman

The Upanishads scripture of Hinduism teach that our soul is a microcosm of the macrocosm or that our individual, truest identity is that of the universe itself and its spiritual foundation. The soul is the same the Ultimate. It is the great liberating experience that you are "one with the One."

Perennial Philosophy

The concept or ideal that the experience of nearness or union with Ultimate Being is universal and in common with most all religions and spiritualities, hence religion is fundamentally one.

Beauty, Baha'i

The effulgent radiance of God's infinite perfections, names, truth, and attributes shining resplendent in the mirrors of God's Manifestation and manifestations, encountered in the human heart.

Mysticism

The feeling of nearness or union to--what one understands to be--the Ultimate, although this is often not a sensory kind of way. This also includes the practices used to cultivate such a feeling.

Tarrying

A Pentecostal Christian term—and inter-religious concept—of waiting in supplication, ardent desire, eager anticipation, and focused hope that God(s) will transform you through an intense religious experience (and endow you with spiritual gifts). The Christian practice may entail praying and singing hymns continuously throughout the day and night for such a blessing. Muslim Sufis would pray, meditate, and fast for forty days (called chilla or arba'īn) as a first step towards self-transformation, a practice that is part of their initiation into a religious fraternity. The Native American "vision quest" may have similar elements as does the Zen practice of sitting (and walking) meditation for many hours at a time. Baha'u'llah writes of this "Valley of Search": "Only when the lamp of search, of earnest striving, of passionate devotion, of fervid love, of rapture, and ecstasy is kindled within the seeker's heart and the breeze of His loving-kindness is wafted upon his soul...will...the light of knowledge and certitude envelop his being. ...Then will the manifold favors and outpouring grace of the holy and everlasting Spirit confer such a new life upon the seeker that he will find himself endowed with a new eye, a new ear, a new heart, and a new mind."

"still, small voice"

A phrase from 1 Kings 19:12, Bible, that is understood in terms of a gentle stirring of religious inspiration, impulse, intuition, or conscience to dedicate oneself with devotion to religious purposes and follow God's guidance; often experienced by "average people" who have no claims to being prophets or starting their own religion.

Eight characteristics of Satori

D.T. Suzuki (1870-1966)--author, teacher, and Zen master from Japan--wrote that this enlightenment is ineffable and can only be known through direct experience yet we might say has eight characteristics: 1) above and distinct from any process of reasoning or analysis; 2) one perceives the essence of nature; 3) authoritatively final, no arguments can refute, it is knowledge itself; 4) affirmation and acceptance of things as they truly are in their Suchness, without evaluation or denial; 5) sense of moving beyond and melting of the hard shell of the distinct individual self to feel deeply connected with all others and at home in the universe; 6) impersonal tone, like "sudden clash of thunder," rather than romantic terms of "flame of love," "God's embrace," or "glory of divine grace"; 7) sense of exaltation above and with all seeming forms of opposition, contradiction, and dualism; 8) it comes abruptly in an otherwise ordinary moment and is always in the present moment.

subjective (not objective) and internal realities

Events in the person's inner life rather than in the observable world. These cannot be empirically observed in line with the scientific method, yet for the individual is often of greater substance, impact, and meaning than five-sense based experiences. Using a symbolic realism approach, the religious studies scholar does not easily dismiss such experiences as whim or imaginings.

Beauty, Islam

Everything that is true is beautiful; beauty is the shining of Divine truth(s). --Seyyed Hossein Nasr, American professor and philosopher

Near Death Experience

Feeling of being at peace, cosmic unity, out of one's physical body, being in another world surrounded by light; encountering beings of light or religious VIPs, deceased familiars & strangers; sometimes also experiencing a review of one's complete life. This is associated with happening at a time the body being clinically dead yet the person regains consciousness and tells what happened.

Religious experiences

Feelings and emotions, or extremely intense affect and aesthetic, that one connects in some way to the sacred, transmundane, or Ultimate Being. Many religion theorists have believed that this is the heart of religion itself.

Beatific Vision

God graciously empowers a soul (usually at death in the afterlife) to behold the brilliance, glory, and beauty of God's Being as God is. God's grace strengthens us by the "light of glory" so that we can know, love, and see him as he is, without any intermediary, encountering union with God and the happiness and delight of God's own joy. This is a term popularized in the writings of Christian/Catholic theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas (Italy, 1225-1274).

regenerative religious experiences

In this type of religious experience a healing occurs, sanity is restored, an addiction is overcome, or a broken relationship is restored.

Satori:

Japanese word that signifies the goal of Buddhist meditation, beyond merely producing feelings of peace and serenity (as a kind of relaxation technique), but also awakening to reality as it truly is; where the mind is serene like a still, morning lake that reflects like a mirror all that is around it, reflecting what is within and without in its suchness rather than by one's expectations, hopes, or preconditioning.

Maya:

Material cover, trivial pursuits, and worldly concerns that function as veils or "illusion" from perceiving our true reality as atman=brahman.

Orthopathos

Ordering, bringing into harmony, or interpreting one's religious feelings and transmundane encounters in such a way that they are in line with official beliefs and practices of a specific religion (usually the religion to which one is already dedicated).

unitive consciousness or oceanic feeling:

Overcoming of subject-object, or me vs. this/that, distinctions so that all experience/perception is unity and one whole. The experience of being at sea, in the ocean, and fusing with the elements around. Remember: Freud believes this is nothing more than a vestige (or revival) of the lack of subject-object distinction with which early infants perceive the world, yet for many mystics this is an important stage of achievement or itself the supreme goal of life.

Enstasy/Enstatic

Religious experience of being within, self-composed, well-grounded, at home, at one with oneself.

Mansur al-Hallaj (858-922), "ana al-Haqq":

This Persian mystic, poet, and teacher declared "I am the True One" while wrapped in a state of mystical ecstasy, experiencing the obliteration of his ego and union with the Ultimate Being. Eventually, he was executed by the caliph, either accused as a spy or in response to his blasphemous statements.

"interpretive" religious experience

This is where one "sees" religious significance in what otherwise might be an ordinary event or experience, e.g. a "chance" meeting with a friend is interpreted as prearranged by God; or two people on their first date see a rainbow and a cloud in the shape of a ring just know God means for them to be together.

"sensory" religious experience

This type of religious experience is experienced--although profoundly--in terms of the five senses, e.g. a significant dream, near-death-experience, a vision, hearing, tasting, or some touching or tickling bodily sensation (even the nervous-excitement of butterflies).