Re: Unraveling the supernatural.
Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2011 4:01 pm
Thanks DWill. Let me elaborate further on my grandfathers Yahweh study. He was under the impression that the names Yahweh and Yahshua are to be used and not the more corrupted forms of Jehovah and Jesus. And he went through the reasons for concluding on that.DWill wrote:That was super, tat. One comment I have just incidentally, is that it seems somehow more genuine to me for your grandfather to call his god Yahweh. I have kind of a problem with the name 'God' and sense that Christians don't like it when we call God Yahweh instead. But why should it bother them?
Forgive me freethinkers and anti-mystical atheists browsing through the thread because I'm about to write something that may burn your eyes for a moment. My grandfather looked me dead in the eye and said Yahweh means "I am that I am" and Yahshua means "Yahweh Saves", or rather "Yahweh is Salvation". And then we went through texts talking about God saying "I give you my name" and everything emphasizing the aspect of the names of God the father and son. He said, "Yahshua - Stephen". WTF did that mean I wondered? I didn't make sense at the time. Not until years later when I penetrated the tetragramaton down to it's bare mythological meaning. The father here is replacing what had been previously the purpose of the goddess myths, "I am" was formerly Isis and Neith and the like. With the patriarchal take over of the previously matriarchal myths the father now took on the representation of mere existence as the totality - "all that ever was, is, or shall ever be.." You have the realm of existence on one hand - infinite and eternal and grounded in deep wonder and mystery - and then we come to the son of existence, the human form, which is ultimately one with the father as it were. "I give you my name..." The myths began to open up to me in ways I never previously understood. "Yahshua - Stephen". "I am that I am is Salvation" But salvation from what? I began to understand that it's a type of salvation from the ignorance of not recognizing who and what we all actually are. We are the universe itself, we are the realm of existence experiencing itself from the perspective of a living creature. There's something in the way of a valid human experience being expressed here in the mythology and like Tulip I took off thinking that major reformation is in order that should sweep across the whole of Christianity. It was an extreme mystical time in my life, but a time of completely atheistic, pantheistic based mysticism if you can follow what I mean by that.
But the more I studied the more I began to realize that the only reason I was detecting these deeper pantheist concepts in the Christian mythos is because it was largely thrown together in Alexandria Egypt with a strong Antioch - Alexandrian connection throughout. Bits of eastern enlightment tossed in with western Judaized views, some of with a strong esotric purpose and some of it totally exoteric. I eventually realized that the notion of any large scale reformation of Christianity is ultimately futile. Sure a case can be made that there are certain things described in the mythos which can be re-interpreted and changed around to suite a modern understanding, but people are set in their ways and any suggestion of change is immediately the realm of anti-christ accusation and negative response. So why bother?
What I did was take a personal interpretation out of it that suites my own world view. God is existence and I am one with that God. It may or may not be a mind, I don't know in any absolute terms. But what ever the realm of existence is or is not, I am that, plain and simple. I get up in the morning and set my eyes on a river stone talisman that I engraved with the tetragramaton written from top to bottom which forms the human image when written that way - as the kabbalists portray it ( www.Yhwh.com). And it's a way of grounding myself in the understanding that I and the whole are one regardless of the appearence of space, distance between objects, and separateness... That's one of my own personal mystical practices which is oriented towards a completely natural based pantheistic form of mystical thinking. I mean this should not come as all too surprising considering the screen name I've chosen, which is simply the exact same type of understanding given in a sanskrit form.
This forum is rather hostile towards mystics and I know this and I have been a part of the hostility at times. But only towards the mysticism of "supernaturalism". As for natural based mystics I have no real problem, I am of that fold. Mysticism to me is very simple. It only has to do with an interest and focus on the mystery underlying existence itself with respect to one's own person existence. It doesn't have to refer to anything unnatural or supernatural. But at the same time I'm willing to admit that this entire worldview I've developed over the years is nothing more than the fact that I was raised a theist brought up to think in supernatural terms and simply kicked the supernatural out of the mix and continued on with a natural form of mystical thinking instead. And those brought up differently who may not suffer from any internal urge towards some type of mystical thinking simply can not understand why an atheist would bother to think in these terms. The psychological aspect of it is interesting to analyze and I was hoping that Johnson may take issue with my posts and offer some advice. I've followed many of his posts about death and near death experiences and the problems with pop culture mystics and such, and I largely enjoy what he has to say about all of it and do agree with a lot of it. I've just sort of thrown my own experiences and stories on the chopping block here for analytical scrutiny...