Christian Mystics

[ButterflyWoman]

http://www.centersoflight.org/

Really interesting website, with a lot of material that may be of interest. From their front page:

At our Centers of Light it is always a "soul thing" because we know that we are all souls with bodies, not bodies with souls. Our connection with our souls, our missions on earth as souls, and our experiences of God within our souls is most important to us.

We are mystics which means we are all about experience. We seek, find, and develop the deepest experiences of soul, light, and God. These experiences grow peace in our hearts and we work to bring this peace out into the world.

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Cool find OW. I've read a small amount of related material myself. You can find your god, regardless of who it is! "mysticism is fun that way"

[Timotheus]

[CFTraveler]

Considering that a good portion of modern christianity tries to convince people to not meditate and to only seek salvation from a hierarchy that is sociopolitical, I find that a branch of christianity that teaches that meditation is a good thing, well, is a good thing. (I need to get me a picture of Martha Stewart).
Most people do not know how to meditate because it's not part of their priorities, and they are actively discouraged from doing so.
Perhaps if more people try it they may find the 'God within' and rely less on instruction.
But while we have forces telling them not to seek the inner path, I think having organizations teaching them that it's ok is a good thing, judgement or not.

[Timotheus]

[star]

Good teachers can be guides who have already been down the path. The thing is, even people with well developed spirituality are still people. Sometimes they charge for services rendered.

Also, many techniques and ways of living do result in the end goal. "Your personal end goal" (Tai Chi, Chi Kung, Hoshin, ect..)
Its just that its seen much more often on the flip side of the coin. In the faster paths to learning, martial application is what I mean.Partaking in forum discussions can end up being a much slower learning proccess, especially if you have no teachers and have to rely on trial and error, your own research, and weeding out BS..

Also, my opinion, being that everyone needs to search out a personal truth.. So you'll not vibe with every teaching you come across, it is funny how so many teaching criss cross, and how so many of the teachings are similiar. Its important to keep an open mind though. Unfortunatly, even psychopaths can develop abilities of the metaphysical nature, so you have to be smart, and a bit selective - take what you read and hear with a grain of salt - but don't discount too much either. (It really can be a headache.)

Honestly, there are people even here I'd like to chat with, they don't have the time to answer all of my questions or do all the training I'd like to partake with them though.

[Timotheus]

[ButterflyWoman]

i do suppose that christians do indeed meditate. they pray, they meditate and they contemplate.

Only a handful of them. The majority of people who call themselves Christian don't even really go to church regularly, let alone meditate or practice contemplative prayer. Not only is it not taught, it's a lot of work. Most people aren't really spiritually inclined. Religious, maybe, but spiritual? Not really.

And that is absolutely not a slight against Christians. I come from a (moderate, Protestant, mainstream) Christian background and still consider myself to be a Christ follower, though I'm very unorthodox and I lean more toward "interfaith from a mostly Christian perspective". I say what I do about the majority of Christians because of years and years spent in Christian churches of a wide variety of denominations. In all those years, not ONE person told me about contemplative prayer. I suspect because nobody knew what it was, despite it being well established in the writings of Christian mystics through the centuries.

I've been interested in Christian mysticism for a very long time (since I figured out what it was and that I bear all the signs of a natural mystic), and so I've done a lot of reading on the topic. I was really interested to see a deliberately and distinctively mystical Christian movement such as this one. (I don't really consider most Pentecostalism to be mystical; despite all the speaking in tongues and holy hands to heaven and laying on of hands and whatnot, they're still very legalistic, rules-bound, and mostly fear-driven).

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I was reading about christian mystics the other day, I'll share some of the info with you for informational purposes, later.

[ButterflyWoman]

The quote in my signature is from one of the great Medieval Christian mystics, in fact. I'll quote it here in case I decide to change it at some point (because it'll change on ALL my posts):

All will be well
And all will be well
And all manner of thing will be well.
- Julian of Norwich

I'm also a fan of St Teresa of Avila (who disliked stupid people and would only accept intelligent women into her newly formed order, saying, "Heaven preserve us from stupid nuns!"), John of the Cross (aka Juan de la Cruz), who wrote an amazing treatise on "the dark night of the soul", and Hildegarde of Bingen, who was quite intimately acquainted with the person of Sophia as Holy Spirit, and wrote about it.

Oh, and my patron saint is St Gregory the Great (aka Pope Gregory the First). Not that I chose him, mind you. He was chosen for me. I had no idea what he was about before I became aware of him as a spiritual presence in my experience. He was actually quite the scholar and was said to have an angel as a guide (what we would think of as a "spirit guide"). Gregory was one of the great mystics, too....