2 posts tagged “mysticism”
On my other blog, I posted a response to this question that someone asked me.
I loved "The Matrix". When I first saw it, I thought the way it dealt with the un-realness of our visible world was insightful, especially since at that time I was becoming familiar with Kabbalah and its' possible connections to early Christian mysticism. Sparks of life from the One, shattered and now trapped in earthen material as the One "contracted" Himself to make such a thing as space, where such a thing as matter could exist where previously only He existed.
I thought the Matrix was a fun way of playing with the idea of a reality different than what we see (particularly since one could be so much more capable in this pseudo world if he understood). Looking past the ugliness of the "real" world in Matrix, the movie could be used to illustrate to me my understanding of the distinct world of matter vs. the distinct world of spirit. Partly because of Jewish mystical thought (or so I thought), I began to view the idea of these two worlds as a false dichotomy, and to see a continuum of real and hyper-real, that I now recognize as a Platonic Idealism.
Today, though I feel more acutely my naivety than I used to, I've come to believe that all we see is is real (not well understood, but real), and all we don't see is real (and even less understood). That neither is "more" real than the other. That if there is a continuum, the gradations are only layers of clothing, as it were, concealing the Uncreated Light of the Divine Energies, the manifestations of God*.
The best illustrations are the Light of Tabor seen by the apostles during the "Transfiguration", and the fire of the burning bush that Moses saw. St. Maximus the Confessor sees in Moses' life the model for us all. Having turned his back on satan, having killed off all ties to his previous lifestyle, he went further - living an ascetic life in the desert, and figuratively shepherding every passion until all were directed toward God, to the point that finally he saw the fire within the bush. Not that it was an unreal or even unnatural phenomenon, but that he actually beheld the Energies of God as uncreated light, as the fire inherent within the bush - which after all is an extension of God. How in fact can there be a material world distinct from the One Who fills the universe, "Who are everywhere and fillest all things" as we say.
Just a thought.
