Does a mystic know God? We usually think a mystic is a person who unites or merges or at-ones with God or Ultimate Reality, and comes to know these intimately. But this is perhaps not quite accurate. Maybe the mystic is not the ego, not the personal identity, not the psychological self, not the particular [...]
Thinking of God as a male human(s) out in the universe somewhere seems to be a primitive, magical, supernatural, and archaic conception of the Divine, literalizing the pronouns of "He" and "Him," and in the Christian tradition of "Father" and "Son." I've written about this specifically at least once before, but it's worth discussing more.
There are stories, legends, mythologies, folklore, traditions, histories, scriptures, and texts from all around the world which tell us of humans who have reached the stature of the gods. They have, in essence, become "a god." Some recognizable examples are people such as Jesus, Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha), and Muhammad. The process that these went through has been called theosis, deification, divinization, realization, awakening, and enlightenment. What does it mean to become or be "a god"?
Eternal life is not eternal if it doesn't exist right now, because that which is eternal has no beginning or end. We either have eternal life now, or we don't have it. Because you are reading this now, you can be sure you have it, even if you don't know it for yourself.
Many mystical paths in the world's spiritual traditions claim to lead one to a conscious merging, union, and a direct identification with Deity, the Sacred, Reality, the Universe, the Transcendent, with a first-hand experience of being God.
Whenever someone has been graced to perceive the Ultimate, the Highest, the One, it is because their consciousness has been transfigured into that of God's consciousness, such that they look out through God's eyes onto God.
Although it may sound blasphemous to some, even most of Christianity agrees that the end goal for humanity is theosis, deification, or divinization, which means to "become God."
The only God that we can find and perceive and know directly as such, I believe, is the one that can be found in the very center and heart of our own Self and Being and Consciousness. That is where God is. That is where God lives. That is God, in humanity.
The poem was an anthem to Emerson's belief that to 'know thyself' meant knowing the God which Emerson felt existed within each person.
The word contemplation usually brings to mind someone thinking deeply about something. Perhaps similar to pondering something, or meditating upon a thought or subject. But this modern meaning is not what the word used to mean.