A famous quote from St. Augustine's Confessions, newly translated.
Tag: fire
A Mystical Perspective on the Climate Emergency
What are we to do in our precarious climate situation today? It's easy to feel powerless, helpless. Perhaps we should surrender to that, and fall into a Grace larger than ourselves.
A Mystical Commentary on “The Bells” in HBO’s Game of Thrones: The World is on Fire and Humanity is Dying!
Many people don't like the way that HBO's television drama Game of Thrones is turning out. Is there a deeper moral here?
The Spiritual Fire of Thy Kingdom Come and Coming
Does being spiritual mean being perfectly at peace, or does it inflame the soul to change the world? Perhaps both-and.
A Psychological and Mystical Interpretation of the Myth of Adam & Eve and the Garden of Eden
I think the story of Adam & Eve is a mythological allegory describing humanity's "fall" of consciousness into the dualities of self-awareness, subject/object relationships, and the opposites of existence. This is symbolized in the partaking of the "tree" of knowledge of good and evil, i.e. dualities.
Richard Bucke’s “First Vision” Account
Richard Maurice Bucke (1837-1902) was a Canadian psychiatrist. He is best known for his 1901 book Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind, in which he explored higher forms of consciousness as they have been expressed throughout human history. In 1872 Bucke had a mystical experience of his own, which he later recorded.
Annie Dillard's "First Vision" Account
Annie Dillard (b. 1945) is an American author of fiction and non-fiction. She won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-fiction in 1975 for her work Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. This nonfiction book was written in the first-person detailing Dillard's exploration around her home in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains and her close observation of nature and life.
Armella Nicolas’s “First Vision” Account
Armella Nicolas (1606-1671) was a serving-maid who lived in France in the 17th century, who came to be held in high veneration in the Catholic church. She could not read or write, but told friends of her spiritual experiences, including one sister Jeanne de la Nativite, who wrote down her experiences. The following is one of her recorded experiences.
Joseph Smith’s “Sinking” Into the Darkest Abyss to Commune with God
"The highest form of meditation is not an activity that is undertaken by the mind. It is a relaxing, falling back or sinking of the mind into its source or essence of pure awareness, from which it has arisen."
Exodus 3 BHT, Moses Meets God as a Fire in His Self
An addition to the BHT, my translation of Exodus 3, one of the signature chapters of the Old Testament and Torah, where Moses first encounters God in a burning bush, which I perceive was a mystical vision of God within Moses' very own mind and heart (cf. Psalm 104:4; Isaiah 33:14).