The Origin
Of
Our Belief In God
by Erik Langkjer
Part I: El and Baal, the Shepherd and the Hunter
25. Christian mysticism
The Christian mysticism was an experience of divine love. By his Semitic name Abba the ascetic from the desert of Egypt reveals the Semitic origin of his ideology [1]. And his ideology was a bridal mysticism typical to both Origen and Macarios:
"As the bride goes to rest with her groom, so will he come to rest … Sometimes they become without body (asômatos) like angels so that they are not reckoned at one with a body. Sometimes they are like those making themselves joyful by intoxicating drink and are drunk in the spirit with the divine and spiritual drunkenness of spiritual mysteries"[2]. "…and gives you true prayer, true love, true faith, and true joy, which is when the Lord himself becomes everything inside you. For one will go to bow one's knees and the heart will be filled with divine energy, and the soul will frolic with the Lord as the bride takes delight in her bridegroom"[3]. "…and those who are burned up by the heavenly Eros of the spirit, and by holy desire, and by the Eros of God´s love…[4]. This bridal mysticism is already felt in the so-called Odes of Solomon, a Christian collection of psalms from 2nd cent. A.C.: "I long for my beloved, my soul loves him, and where he has his rest I will also be dwelling" (3,5).
It is very obvious that this kind of mysticism has taken its vocabulary from the Song of Songs. Christian mysticism is also more positive to the great god-created nature than the kind of mysticism seeking Nirvana/the great void. The gazelles and hinds are a picture of the women returning to the state of nature, building their huts of branches and leafy twigs. "I beseech you, daughters of Jerusalem, by the gazelles.." 2,7. The inner mood of these gazelle and hind metaphors becomes clear to us when we remember that these animals were the inhabitants of wild nature, the forests, the mountains outside the civilised zone (O.Keel [5]). It is the voice and moods of nature, a scent or breeze coming from the deep, quiet thickets of the forests. Symbols of Paradise and mysticism of nature are mixed together. Paradise is reflected in the grace of nature in spring: the kids of the gazelle grazing among lotus (4,5 shoshannim is by Keel trans. into lotus). When the lips of the beloved are compared to lotus flowers (plural), it is not so much the form and colour of the flower we have to call to our mind as the mystical paradise flower (a red lotus does not exist). Like in India, the lotus of thousand petals, it is a mystical symbol.
In Egypt, the king of the world beyond, Osiris, is pictured as enthroned, looking into a gigantic lotus flower[6]. The motif is also well known from Syria. The picture shows a god, probably the Highgod El, sitting in the gate of the sun looking into the mystical flower. He is approached by a younger god or man with an raised snake in his hand, and perhaps also an uraeus on his forehead.[7] The mystical flower can also be placed at the top of the scull, exactly where, in India, the highest chakra represented by the lotus w 1000 petals is situated. The picture below is Melqart, the god of Tyre, travelling over the sea with the torches of the morning and evening star in his hands and with a flower on top of his head.[8] The man seeking the flower on top of Mt.Argaios is a symbol of man seeking the highest vision, the vision of God, but threatened by the snake (1.Mo 3,1) The flower, when it opens, is a revelation of intense beauty, even in the micro-parts of the world, and it creates an ecstatic impression of the beauty given by God when nature wakens to life in spring.
[1] Quispel p.117
[2] Makarios/Symeon, Reden und Briefe I,1973,ed.H.Berthold,p.158,20ff.
[3] ibd.,p.50,30ff.
[4] ibd.,p.174,25f.
[5] Deine Blicke sind Tauben. Zur Metaphorik des Hohen Liedes,1984,pp.84f.
[6] Keel, fig.88,p.170.
[7] Stele found in Ugarit 1936 and publ. by C.F.A.Schaeffer,SYRIA 18,1937,t.17
[8] Cabinet des Medailles Paris, thin plate of gold from 2nd-3rd cent A.C. Gazette archéologique vol. 1,pl II,1
Disclaimer:
Some material presented will contain links, quotes, ideologies, etc., the contents of which should be understood to first, in their whole, reflect the views or opinions of their editors, and second, are used in my personal research as "fair use" sources only, and not espousement one way or the other. Researching for 'truth' leads one all over the place...a piece here, a piece there. As a researcher, I hunt, gather and disassemble resources, trying to put all the pieces into a coherent and logical whole. I encourage you to do the same. And please remember, these pages are only my effort to collect all the pieces I can find and see if they properly fit into the 'reality aggregate'.
Personal Position:
I've come to realize that 'truth' boils down to what we 'believe' the facts we've gathered point to. We only 'know' what we've 'experienced' firsthand. Everything else - what we read, what we watch, what we hear - is what someone else's gathered facts point to and 'they' 'believe' is 'truth', so that 'truth' seems to change in direct proportion to newly gathered facts divided by applied plausibility. Though I believe there is 'truth', until someone representing the celestial realm visibly appears and presents the heavenly records of Facts And Lies In The Order They Happened, I can't know for sure exactly what "the whole truth' on any given subject is, and what applies to me applies to everyone. Until then I'll continue to ask, "what does The Urantia Book say on the subject?"
~Gail Bird Allen
-
Urantia Book, 44:0.11 - The Celestial Artisans
Never in your long ascendancy will you lose the power to recognize your associates of former existences. Always, as you ascend inward in the scale of life, will you retain the ability to recognize and fraternize with the fellow beings of your previous and lower levels of experience. Each new translation or resurrection will add one more group of spirit beings to your vision range without in the least depriving you of the ability to recognize your friends and fellows of former estates.
-
Princess Bride 1987 Wallace Shawn (Vizzini) and Mandy Patinkin (Inigo Montoya)
Vizzini: HE DIDN'T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. -
Urantia Book, 117:4.14 - The Finite God
And here is mystery: The more closely man approaches God through love, the greater the reality -- actuality -- of that man. The more man withdraws from God, the more nearly he approaches nonreality -- cessation of existence. When man consecrates his will to the doing of the Father's will, when man gives God all that he has, then does God make that man more than he is.
-
Urantia Book, 167:7.4 - The Talk About Angels
"And do you not remember that I said to you once before that, if you had your spiritual eyes anointed, you would then see the heavens opened and behold the angels of God ascending and descending? It is by the ministry of the angels that one world may be kept in touch with other worlds, for have I not repeatedly told you that I have other sheep not of this fold?"
-
Urantia Book, Foreword - 0:12.12 - The Trinities
But we know that there dwells within the human mind a fragment of God, and that there sojourns with the human soul the Spirit of Truth; and we further know that these spirit forces conspire to enable material man to grasp the reality of spiritual values and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. But even more certainly we know that these spirits of the Divine Presence are able to assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience—God-consciousness.
-
Urantia Book, 1:4.3 - The Mystery Of God
When you are through down here, when your course has been run in temporary form on earth, when your trial trip in the flesh is finished, when the dust that composes the mortal tabernacle "returns to the earth whence it came"; then, it is revealed, the indwelling "Spirit shall return to God who gave it." There sojourns within each moral being of this planet a fragment of God, a part and parcel of divinity. It is not yet yours by right of possession, but it is designedly intended to be one with you if you survive the mortal existence.
-
Urantia Book, 1:4.1 - The Mystery Of God
And the greatest of all the unfathomable mysteries of God is the phenomenon of the divine indwelling of mortal minds. The manner in which the Universal Father sojourns with the creatures of time is the most profound of all universe mysteries; the divine presence in the mind of man is the mystery of mysteries.
-
Urantia Book, 1:4.6 - The Mystery Of God
To every spirit being and to every mortal creature in every sphere and on every world of the universe of universes, the Universal Father reveals all of his gracious and divine self that can be discerned or comprehended by such spirit beings and by such mortal creatures. God is no respecter of persons, either spiritual or material. The divine presence which any child of the universe enjoys at any given moment is limited only by the capacity of such a creature to receive and to discern the spirit actualities of the supermaterial world.
-
Urantia Book, 11:0.1 - The Eternal Isle Of Paradise
Paradise is the eternal center of the universe of universes and the abiding place of the Universal Father, the Eternal Son, the Infinite Spirit, and their divine co-ordinates and associates. This central Isle is the most gigantic organized body of cosmic reality in all the master universe. Paradise is a material sphere as well as a spiritual abode. All of the intelligent creation of the Universal Father is domiciled on material abodes; hence must the absolute controlling center also be material, literal. And again it should be reiterated that spirit things and spiritual beings are real.
-
Urantia Book, 50:6.4 - Planetary Culture
Culture presupposes quality of mind; culture cannot be enhanced unless mind is elevated. Superior intellect will seek a noble culture and find some way to attain such a goal. Inferior minds will spurn the highest culture even when presented to them ready-made.
-
Urantia Book, 54:1.6 - True And False Liberty
True liberty is the associate of genuine self-respect; false liberty is the consort of self-admiration. True liberty is the fruit of self-control; false liberty, the assumption of self-assertion. Self-control leads to altruistic service; self-admiration tends towards the exploitation of others for the selfish aggrandizement of such a mistaken individual as is willing to sacrifice righteous attainment for the sake of possessing unjust power over his fellow beings.
-
Urantia Book, 54:1.9 - True And False Liberty
How dare the self-willed creature encroach upon the rights of his fellows in the name of personal liberty when the Supreme Rulers of the universe stand back in merciful respect for these prerogatives of will and potentials of personality! No being, in the exercise of his supposed personal liberty, has a right to deprive any other being of those privileges of existence conferred by the Creators and duly respected by all their loyal associates, subordinates, and subjects.
-
Urantia Book, 54:1.8 - True And False Liberty
There is no error greater than that species of self-deception which leads intelligent beings to crave the exercise of power over other beings for the purpose of depriving these persons of their natural liberties. The golden rule of human fairness cries out against all such fraud, unfairness, selfishness, and unrighteousness.