--- In [email protected], maskedzebra <no_reply@...> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "authfriend" <jstein@> wrote: > > > > --- In [email protected], maskedzebra <no_reply@> wrote: > > > > > > Because in reading Catholic philosopherslike AquinasI find > > > myself intuiting the cosmos as they experienced itI sort of > > > read this off of their writing. > > > > MZ, I have a question for you. > > > > Xeno called attention to the fact that Aquinas late in life > > had some kind of experience that "silenced" him and led him > > to declare, "All that I have written seems like straw to me." > > > > I'm wondering what you think happened to him. (If you've > > already commented on this, forgive me; I did a quick search > > but couldn't find anything.) > > > > And I have a hypothetical: Let's say you cut your spiritual > > teeth on the writings of Aquinas and thorughly internalized > > his views. You never encountered MMY, knew nothing about him > > or TM or the Eastern idea of enlightenment. > > > > One day in 1976, out of the blue, with no warning, you had > > the same experience you had on the mountain with MMY that > > you now refer to as "slipping into Unity Consciousness," > > except that you had no preparation whatsoever and no context > > (and let's say it didn't last very long, a few hours or days). > > > > How would that have affected your take on Aquinas's writings? > > How long would it have taken you to decide that the experience > > wasn't "real" but Aquinas was? > > <snip> > But, you see, authfriend, I ended up doing what is the reverse > of your hypothetical: I embraced Unity Consciousnessthen read > Aquinas and realized that either Aquinas was right about God, > the nature of the human person, and the universe, or else > Maharishi was.
That was pretty much the point of the hypothetical, that it was the reverse of what you've told us of your history. But on the other hand, the hypothetical is also directly parallel to one interpretation of Aquinas's "straw" remark, i.e., that the nature of the experience which generated it was contrary to everything he had written. In other words, I was attempting to put you in Aquinas's shoes, at least the shoes I imagine him to have been in. I was struck, when Xeno made his post, by the reverse parallelism between your history and that of Aquinas (again, as I imagine the latter to have been). BTW, I don't think you took into account one stipulation of my hypothetical, that the experience didn't last very long. This was, again, in the interests of making the hypothetical conform to what we know of Aquinas's experience, that it was transitory, so that he didn't have to fight off the experience itself. Whatever impression it left on him was what remained after he had returned to his ordinary state of consciousness (which was presumably the context of his "straw" remark). You make a case for Aquinas's experience not having shown that what he had written had been fundamentally in error, but was rather so much more glorious that his writings were pathetically inadequate to encompass it. We'll never know, I suppose, but it's fun to speculate. I could make a case (admittedly knowing virtually nothing of Aquinas) that his experience *was* contrary to what he had written, but that over the course of the three months before he died he managed to convince himself in retrospect that he had misinterpreted it and that his original view of God etc. had been correct after all. > Some time just before Aquinas said this (what Xeno has > quoted) three Dominican monks witnessed Aquinas being > levitated in ecstasy, and they heard a voice coming from > the crucifix on the altar: "Thou has written well of me, > Thomas, what reward wilt thou have?" Thomas replied, > "None other than Thyself, Lord." I'm a little skeptical of this account; doesn't it seem incongruous on its face that Christ would have offered Aquinas his choice of "rewards," as if Aquinas might have given any other reply than the one he is said to have given? On the other hand, I amuse myself by speculating that Aquinas's experience later that year was Christ's response to his request: "You want more of Me than what I've already revealed to you? OK, take THIS!" Anyway, I very much appreciate your detailed response. It would be foolish for me to express an opinion on it, since I have no basis, experiential or otherwise, to evaluate it. I was really just interested to know how you would go about responding to the hypothetical, and to learn more about your view of Aquinas. I enjoyed reading about it, and I hope you enjoyed writing it. Oh, come to think of it, I have another question, if you don't mind. I've read what seem like pretty convincing contemporary accounts of heavy-duty Christian-type experiences of Christ/God. Have you read or heard anything along these lines? If so, since you maintain God has withdrawn Himself from the world, what do you think might explain them?
