The Role of Mysticism in Understanding the Divine

Peter: 00:00:00

Views, interpretations and opinions expressed are not advice nor official positions presented on behalf of any organization or institution. They are for informational and entertainment purposes only.

This episode's topics include discussion of a boundless God, the role of mysticism in spiritual pursuit, weaponizing religion, and scriptural interpretation. Now join Ryan and Peter for the Tracking Wisdom podcast. One of my big criticisms of what I would call superficial theology is that defining God in.

In the colloquial way that, that people tend to is oxymoronic because God is infinite. So if God is infinite, then by definition it's not God bounded.

You know, and I'm not sure this is really our big thesis, right, is what is that the essence of the various faiths. I mean, we agreed already that there is an essential truth in all the faiths, but that's been obscured. It's interpretation of teaching.

So, you know, God is a father. Oh well, that's an elderly person, right? I mean, it's a person with a white beard. Why? Because he's elderly. Why? Why is he elderly? Because he's wise.

You know, all this stuff, which clearly is metaphor. I mean, it's very, very trivial to interpret, to say, oh well, wisdom and caretaking is parental and elderly and clearly a metaphor.

Ryan: 00:01:39

The, I think, source of confusion in many people is being bound. So God is boundless and abstractly, I think we all can agree on that, and yet we describe and think about God within the bounds of the earthly realm.

And it's really difficult, I think, to get out of the thought that this universe and this earth and this space and the mechanisms that dictate cause and effect in relation are the only existence. And again, I think abstractly people say, of course, you know, heaven.

But then trying to articulate that in a way that isn't contradictory or oxymoronic, I think is difficult.

Peter: 00:02:31

I think my current position is that it's really not honest to talk about God when without a mystic approach.

And what I mean by that is that there is a. I don't know what it's called, a discipline or a school of thought or a style called mysticism, which is part of every organized religion, but usually fringe. In fact, I think almost by definition it's. It's fringe, right? It's not canonical.

But I think that is really the only way you get close to the truth of your religion is if you have some connection to the mysticism, which is what it sounds like. It's mysterious. It's.

It's the pursuit of the mysterious, indescribable, indefinable thing, which, you know, I feel like we're agreeing that the divine is that, you know, if, if you've written it down in a scripture, you, that does not define God because that's oxymoronic. You, you cannot define God. You can experience God. And, and that's what mysticism is. Mysticism is experiential religion.

And, and so I think that a lot of people, I would guess most people who think about religion, and I'm 10 talking to you nuns, are not aware that mysticism exists and that mysticism is part of whatever, whatever faith you care to mention.

And you know, if there's hypocrisy, it's because of this choice of scripture and structure and teaching over experience over that mysticism, which is the direct experience of the divine.

Ryan: 00:04:24

It's interesting that, you know, you mentioned you can experience God.

You know, you put emphasis on that and the Bible and I go back to that because that's essentially the scriptural understanding that I, that I've, that I have any exposure to is a book of people experiencing God and documenting their experience, but then is taken out of that, that this is, this is what God is. And just because one person experienced God in a certain way doesn't mean that that is the definition of God.

Peter: 00:04:57

That's supposed to be subjective, right? I mean, maybe God is not subjective, but the experience is subjective. And you can't point to others, someone else's experience and say that what God.

Ryan: 00:05:09

Is, that is how you didn't experience it. Exactly. And then the second thing, and this is a frustration I have with Christianity for sure, probably organized religion in general.

iterature that is essentially: 2000

And ever since then, God, like anything else, fired is heretical. And that's ridiculous. Why would we ever think that God would stop speaking to us?

And why would we want to discount and discard the insight that can be gleaned in a modern context?

Peter: 00:05:59

So, yeah, which brings me. So which brings us back to interpretation, which I want to address more. But before that I just want to touch on.

And I know that you did not, this was a casual comment that you made about if your practice brings you joy, then that's good for you. However, this is the caveat I want to put that right is if your Practice brings you joy but creates problems for other people. There's an issue.

And again, for the nuns, I think this is a huge issue because especially in current times, there is so much practice that people choose that interferes with. I mean, basically it's. My practice is to interfere with other people. There's that whole brand of, of Christianity.

I mean, you know, and it's not Christianity obviously is not the only one. I mean, probably the most notorious are Christianity and Islam as being used as excuses for interfering with other people.

Ryan: 00:07:04

Sure. Weaponized.

Peter: 00:07:06

Right. Weaponized religion. So I just wanted to touch on that because you, you know, you did make that off ad comment.

Ryan: 00:07:12

Yeah, no, and I think that that has merit, of course. So I think that in part the, the base of that concern is in people being inclined to be adversarial.

Peter: 00:07:27

Well, so there's a couple aspects to it. I think we really should set aside specific time. Time for this. But you know, I don't want to say that the.

Even the majority of people who are caught up in these, in these practices are weaponizing because there's clearly a leadership and that's who's responsible. And unfortunately, there's a large majority of the population that sure.

Chooses not to be critical, but also a segment that is completely incapable of being critical of their faith. And so they're really, they're perpetrating these wrongs, but they're not guilty. You know, to some extent they're not responsible.

I mean, they're only responsible to. That they've turned over their agency. Right. But that's the best some people can do.

Ryan: 00:08:30

Yeah.

I think that that ends up being a big problem for a lot of people and in a lot of spaces is the, the commitment and the logistics of actually doing research like understanding, you know, introspection and all those things take.

Peter: 00:08:46

A lot of time to, to bring in, you know, kind of our, our formerly taboo subject of the craziness. I mean that, that is the cause of all the. A lot of current craziness is people incapable of rational. Not rationalization. They rationalize everything.

Incapable of intellectual activity that's reasoned.

Ryan: 00:09:08

That's reasoned. In contrast to what they passionately believe.

Peter: 00:09:12

Right.

Ryan: 00:09:12

Because this is where I found people who I really respect for their intelligence and their ability to rationally analyze and in all other spaces.

Peter: 00:09:24

Right, right.

Ryan: 00:09:25

And then literally are just like drawn right back right into that what's happening and throw rationality out the window.

Peter: 00:09:36

So the last thing that I have is, you know, the idea of interpreting scripture and the, the two comments that I have to offer on that. Well, so there's a lot I want to say about Buddhism around that.

But something that I've learned in the past couple of years is the Jewish tradition around this. And I should say it's Reformed Judaism. So we're in a Reform synagogue.

But the position towards Scripture in specifically what I've learned from our Reformed rabbi. Reformed rabbi. I think this is the position of the Reformed. Judy, Reform Judaism is that you're faithful to the Torah, like Torah is the scripture.

And I don't know if you know this, but in Jewish practice, the Torah follows the calendar. Basically, there's a scriptural cycle and it begins at the beginning of the Torah.

And anywhere you go in the world to a Jewish congregation, that's what they're doing on that day. So you can. Yeah. Which I think is amazing and fascinating. Really cool. So that's the kind of the constraint.

But the converse of that in Reformed tradition is that our responsibility is twofold. It's one, to rely on the Torah and to follow it in this cycle, but two is to bring our interpretation to it.

And the Talmud is a bunch of historical, scholarly interpretations written, and it's basically annotated Torah. But in Reform, it doesn't end there. It's not like you were saying, right. Like, oh, up until this point there was like responsible interpretation.

And then after that, anything after that is heresy.

So what I like about the Reform sector, I don't know what you call it, Reform Judaism, is that it carries this responsibility of it is our responsibility to think about and discuss and interpret and reinterpret and reapply this scripture that we. That is our heritage. So I think that's just a really cool approach.

Now in in Buddhism, I think we mentioned before, or I mentioned before that Buddhism was a strictly oral tradition for hundreds of years. And then it became. It became written down. And one thing that's interesting to me is that the main body of scripture is called the sutras.

But sutra means it's cognate to suturing. It means bound together. Sutras are the bound text. Which is weird that it's referred to as the sutra because it didn't start as the sutra.

Right, Right. So why isn't it not called the recitation or something like that? Because that's so always called that.

Well, it's no longer referred to as anything but the sutra.

Ryan: 00:12:35

Right.

Peter: 00:12:35

You know, but one thing that I like, some of the valuable pieces of Buddhism, as I understand it, are that it's attributed to the Buddha himself that he said, don't believe anything because I said it. Apply it, and if it works for you, then know that it's true. That's very paraphrased. But everything's paraphrased, right?

And then additionally, there's a teaching that there are Dharma seals, there are characteristics of true teaching. If you come across a sutra, if you come across scripture or teaching, you need to look for these three characteristics.

And if it has the three Dharma seals, then you can trust it. And if it doesn't, then it's not true Dharma.

So I think that's also very interesting, so that it seems that the historical Buddha was very aware of the pitfalls of organized religion, which is completely fascinating to me and just really delightful. And that's, you know, one of the huge things. It's like, oh, this is my thing. Like, oh, this guy. This. You know, this is.

This is the way I want to follow, because it's laid out here. It's very honest. I'm gonna have to look up the three Dharma seals. But one of them is.

I think it's emptiness, impermanence, and I can't remember the other one. But as far as interpreting. Interpreting scriptures, which I think is another huge topic, like, that's. That's a whole podcast right there, right?

How are. How are scriptures interpreted? What are the different scriptures that there are. You know, what are the scriptures of the main religions?

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