Christianity = bhedabheda?

>But just from a purely orthodox system I think it’s interesting to work towards proving that the “real” (orthodox) position is far different than how most people conceive of it, which can help in changing the way it’s viewed in general
What are actionable ways you are going to do this in your life?

Hmm I see, definitely interesting and outright dismissal of Gnosticism in understanding Christianity is totally unreasonable to me, but I’m interested maybe more specifically in understanding orthodox (Catholic and Eastern Orthodox) positions as they stand on their own since Christians and their tradition tend not to be convinced or consider anything related to Gnosticism. Pretty much I’d completely agree with you I just like the idea of pulling the rug out from underneath the Christian tradition, so to speak, by showing how by adhering to their strict orthodoxy alone actually flips the understanding to something completely different and revolutionary, which is what I hope will continue happening into the future after Vatican II especially

I am dumb and a hypocrite and whatnot but I’d maybe like to go into academia in the future but also find and proclaim whatever I’ve got to whoever I can I guess. You could definitely pathologize me since I was raised in a Catholic tradition I significantly disagree with, and you could say it’s just me trying to defend my private heresies against some Freudian subconscious whatever forces that I face on a regular basis, trying to overcome cognitive dissonance, etc. but whatever who cares about my bullshit life man I’d like to see wide-scale pressure on Catholics worldwide to change their views, which the Church of today is pressuring Catholics to do (they’re slowly but surely having to reconcile their brought-up faith with the “antipope” tendencies of Francis and recent popes after Vatican II)

The Romanian Traditionalist Michel Valsan (who himself became a Sufi Muslim) argued that metaphysical core of Christianity was in agreement with Advaita Vedanta in this series of letters to Philippe Guiberteau, a Catholic translator of Dante.

gornahoor.net/library/Doctrine_Multiple_States_Being_Christianity.pdf

>“Let us immediately address the quodammodo. Saint Bernard does not say absolutely that things are not, but ‘in a certain way’. Monism is excluded. Conversely, he does not limit himself to saying that God is the Being (Esse, and not Ens) of Himself and of everything, which would be who ipsius est, and omnium esse, he specifies: Being itself (his “Being”), which suum ipsius est, and omnium esse. Let us insist again. Saint Bernard does not say that God is the Being of Himself (genitive) and of everything, which would be qui sui ipsius est, et omnium esse but that He is the very Being (nominative) of Himself and of all. In other words, Suum qualifies Esse as both the Esse of God (Ipsius) and of everything (Omnium). There is nothing, to our knowledge, in the whole of the certainly Orthodox Catholic tradition, which comes so close, even in expression, to the Vedantic doctrine of the Supreme Self (Paramatma).

I am becoming inclined to understand it's like AKC quoting Eckhart: "fusion without confusion" – "distinction without difference (beddhabeddha)".

However it may be, what is the most important is living a penitent life to purify ourselves from what 'is not' ("we are not" as St. Catherine of Siena puts). It is like what St. Augustine says something (approximately) like this: "God undresses us of what it is not and dresses us with what is" [my transl.], which has been my petition recently.

Yes pretty much. "Christianity" if we even admit that such a thing has existence, does instead not only constitute a general set of highly individualisable traditions etc. Can be accommodated to whatever metaphysics in the general sense, of course not exactly vedantic no two traditions can be comparatively exact, however, from my study of Christianity particularly Orthodoxy with this seemingly unnecessary stress of the "Father" being this ground, which is more or less "morelike" the "Essence" I think it'd be reasonable to suggest that the Trinity is really just Father (Brahman) Jesus (Ishvara ≈ Siva) and the Holy Spirit (Shakti) with slight variations between, Mary is supposed to be a form of Shakti of some sort, the saints all are all I guess like Dharmapala or Psychopomps which are really just anthropomorphisations of Bardos of some kind, the theology is panentheistic, and the Essences and Energies are not Absolutely distinct, but virtually so, there is also no such thing as Polytheism, it's creatio ex deo not nihilo.
Don't care what people say against my observations here, I would never try to popularise such comparisons either, and I'm not trying to syncretise anything, and the retards who say shit like bbbut there is an Absolute distinction between Abrahamism and Non-Abrahamism on the Metaphysical level are sentimental retards, I've talked to some people who hold this, but then say well Sufism is valid! Did they forget that this is an abrahamic tradition? Sick of the Hindu "Dharmic" larper vs. Christian shit, low iq rubbish, I literally see telegram groups for example run by so-called Hare Krishnas who just post 1000s of posts talking about how much they hate christcucks and wish it's extinction — that sort of mentality is definitely demonic possession, they are only larping as religious.

>Learn at first concentration without effort; transform work into play; make every yoke that you have accepted easy and every burden that you carry light!

>“My yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew xi, 30)

Yet these people have not advanced past the very first stage of the spiritual life, stuck in the appearances of things, I am positive that these people are possessed.

>I literally see telegram groups for example run by so-called Hare Krishnas who just post 1000s of posts talking about how much they hate christcucks and wish it's extinction
Why would Hare Krishnas hate Christians? Aren't they basically hippies?

To be honest it sounds like you're just trying to make the religion you were born into more relevant/meaningful than it is. I did that too for a long time and I recommend you just make peace with it and move on with your life.

You can have all these problems with the Catholic church and speak against it without creating some new pseud-Vedantic Christianity in the process.

Very very interesting, I’ll put more reading into the quotes mentioned here, and also very interesting that the Vatican under John Paul II pretty much confirmed Meister Eckhart can be a considered “a good and orthodox theologian”

I don't know what these people are, I think more less the "blood and soil" retard types, but they are quick also to endorse "Aryan" traditions, are you really telling me you haven't seen those sort of things online? there are tons of pagan larpers like that, who pretend they are so metaphysical etc. And muh "dharmic" I'll give you an example of a group:

Death to Abhrahmic Religions .
Embrace paganism and Sanatan Dharma .

Surf through Kaliyuga !!!
t.me/Expose_christianity

Lol from their description:

>Death to Abhrahmic Religions .
Embrace paganism and Sanatan Dharma .

Essentialy metaphysically inept /pol/tards, entertaining but these people have issues.

Theologizing is a waste of time.

Regarding Eckhart I like this passage from Christopher Dawson:

>n Eckhart the Dionysian current, reinforced by further neo-Platonic elements derived from Proclus and the Arabs, reaches its extreme development and seems to pass the utmost bounds of orthodoxy and to bring the medieval theological development to a conclusion not far removed from the pure monism of the Vedanta. Nevertheless, as Denifle pointed out long ago, Eckhart is not an oriental pantheist nor a modern idealist; he is a medieval Dominican and a scholastic, and in order to understand his views it is necessary to put them in their historical context and relate them to the intellectual milieu in which they originated. Thus when Eckhart asserts that God is all, that creatures are sheer nothing and that it is a fallacy to speak of God as good, he is merely expressing in paradoxical and unguarded language the commonplaces of the Dionysian theology which are to be found in a more balanced but no less complete form in the standard works of Ulrich of Strasburg and of St. Thomas Aquinas himself. But whatever may be thought of Eckhart, there can be no question as to the fundamental and entire orthodoxy of his disciples, John Tauler, Henry Suso, Henry of Nordlingen, and John Ruysbroeck, through whom the mystical metaphysics of Pseudo-Dionysius and Eckhart became one of the great sources of spiritual life and inspiration for the later medieval Church. The Friends of God, as they were called, gained adherents among every class throughout the Rhineland and Lower Germany. They included not only learned Dominican theologians, like Tauler, and nuns like the members of the Dominican communities at Toss and Unterlinden, but also secular priests, like Henry of Nordlingen, knights of the Teutonic Order such as Nicholas von Laufen, the Strasburg banker Rulman Merswin, and even peasants and uneducated lay people. Thus the via negativa of the medieval mystic, which seems to the outsider to lead to a pantheistic nihilism that leaves no room for any social or moral activity, actually inspired one of the great popular religious movements of the Middle Ages.

Makes sense yea, I am against trying to do that to Christianity and often times I get very discouraged by the walls that parts of the Christian tradition seem to throw up against me but that’s why I’m trying to stress only the thoughts of individuals who are considered orthodox. I do think there is much more to the tradition but it’s crazy how little Christians tend to know about their own history, not like I’m some expert but peering over the edge I can see a lot more I think

>To be honest it sounds like you're just trying to make the religion you were born into more relevant/meaningful than it is.
A religion is always as relevant and as meaningful as (you) can make it, this is a midwit take, but yeah I agree, he should just keep these personal metaphysical opinions to himself, I have many insights myself, but I have not ever thought of invalidating Christianity or any other religion for that matter via some Apologetic, I couldn't care less my path is an "individual" one not, to be some Modern Neo-Paul.

There is no absorption into God or the Absolute in Christianity. There is nothing like moksha in Christianity. Salvation is not the same thing as moksha.
You are a disingenuous faggot.

Lovely, thanks for sharing, gives me a lot more to look into

>individuals who are considered orthodox
I hope you realize that these people don't have profound, special truths. You quote them as if they have such authority, but it's all baseless.

Yes there is. Jesus is an example.

>A religion is always as relevant and as meaningful as (you) can make it
Anything can be meaningful in such a way. Baseball has meaning to it because people make it so. I just want to point out these this Christian metaphysical stuff is a waste of time. I think this litigious attitude only corrodes the mind over time.

Yes, but that’s exactly my point I’d say, I think “reabsorption” taken by itself is naive and traditions like Tantra sought to move beyond that. The more bhedabheda approach, the tantric one, and I argue, the Christian one, is to see how God Himself is involved in a process of movement and we are called to tie ourselves to that movement, Love, etc. calling to mind Aquinas’s Pure Act and there’s stuff Catherine of Siena said about becoming put to flame with God, becoming emptied of oneself to become a pure flame of God, or John of the Cross talking about how one can become divinized, become God, etc. and being transformed but at the same time remaining just as distinct from God as he was before the transformation

>yes you are correct Christianity is not annihilationistic if that is what you mean???
Or that the persons of the Trinity to do not dissolve in Gnosis beyond-being, but this is not true and you have only the slightest understanding based on exoteric dogmas, christian theology that I have looked at, particularly Orthodox, hold that the "Essence" transcends all the Trinity itself, as this itself is cataphatic just read St. Dionysius the Aereopagite.
No need for namecalling, indeed you are the disingenuous faggot.

>Again, ascending yet higher, we maintain that it is neither soul nor intellect; nor has it imagination, opinion reason or understanding; nor can it be expressed or conceived, since it is neither number nor order; nor greatness nor smallness; nor equality nor inequality; nor similarity nor dissimilarity; neither is it standing, nor moving, nor at rest; neither has it power nor is power, nor is light; neither does it live nor is it life; neither is it essence, nor eternity nor time; nor is it subject to intelligible contact; nor is it science nor truth, nor kingship nor wisdom; neither one nor oneness, nor godhead nor goodness; nor is it spirit according to our understanding, nor filiation, nor paternity; nor anything else known to us or to any other beings of the things that are or the things that are not; neither does anything that is know it as it is; nor does it know existing things according to existing knowledge; neither can the reason attain to it, nor name it, nor know it; neither is it darkness nor light, nor the false nor the true; nor can any affirmation or negation be applied to it, for although we may affirm or deny the things below it, we can neither affirm nor deny it, inasmuch as the all-perfect and unique Cause of all things transcends all affirmation, and the simple pre-eminence of Its absolute nature is outside of every negation- free from every limitation and beyond them all.
— St. Dionysius the Areopagite, Mystical Theology, Chap V

Notice the very specific wording here in describing the pre-eminent cause.
>Neither filiation not Paternity.

What I’d define as “authority” or “orthodoxy” isn’t taken as meaning that I respect them as being some infallible divinely inspired individuals or whatever, I don’t think anything at all is infallible, but I’ve peaked my interest in these individuals because through some channel or other they’re either explicitly accepted as part of Church orthodoxy as it either currently does or has historically defined itself as

>do that to Christianity
You are confused when was this about actively Doing anything to Christianity this is about solitary metaphysical realisation not larping as an apologist, unless you want to become a theologian or contribute to christian theology or something.

You literally awaken to see oneself as God or the Absolute in Dharmic traditions. Robert Charles Zaehner called this Satanic. Your traditions are not compatible with the Dharma.
In fact, I believe this is an advanced and deceptive means of yours to convert others.
I have never seen a Christian say you can become one with Jesus or that one can become identical to Jesus in terms of sacredness.
Do you *become* OR *awaken* to your *true nature* as the Absolute, that is *God* or *Christ*. Yes or no?

I am the Universe. I am God. To you, saying such things is prideful, but to my sensei, it is the first step on the path.

>I am
>I am
yikes

Look up Sri Ramana Maharshi's self-enquiry method.

>I have never seen a Christian say you can become one with Jesus or that one can become identical to Jesus in terms of sacredness.
This is what theosis is.

You are completely deluded if you identify your self with the Self. An apophaticist wouldn't say "I" or "I am", for him only God is and there is no "I" as in one's self.

Even hindus (like AKC) denounce this identification of one's self with the Self as satanic. For they sustain: there is no identification between self and Self, only the Self is.

Zaehner is completely correct on this.

I should continue, the Christian Trinity is really One and Three, One in the sense that there is One essence, which is the "divine nature" and Three in how we have understood the "Hypostatic relations" by revelation here on earth, every "determination" is not necesserily a limitation as the Hypostatic Relations themselves is simply a Tri-personal personal deity which derives from an impersonal Godhead, but indeed, i would even argue that Christianity is not merely "Tri-personal" but even arguably infinite-personal, but the selective revelation is Tri-personal in the same way you may have the differentiation in some tantric sects like Kashmir Shaivism which further continue on talk about Three Goddesses like Para, Parapara and Apara, in essence these religions are Monopolytheistic,
And Palamas did not Mean Absolute distinction but Virtual.
That simple, and understand i am in no way implying syncretism or something of a counter-traditional nature in that sense, I will not effect such a thing.

Someone else told me this about theosis:

>You are making an (understandable) mistake because of your lack of understanding the doctrine of theosis/divinization. We do not believe that we can become ontologically equal to God. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: "The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature": "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God." "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God." "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."

You become ontologically equal to the Absolute or God in (most) Dharmic traditions.

>Sick of the Hindu "Dharmic" larper vs. Christian
Be honest, are you not the very user who attacks "abrahamism" in multiple threads etc? If you are, you are blaming others for what you do.

>*awaken* to your *true nature* as the Absolute, that is *God* or *Christ*. Yes or no?
This is the natural conclusion of the theology, to my understanding, you enter Union with God. What can such a thing mean? You realise your true nature as God, this is implicit, or do you think that there is a Human conditioned divinity, and a God conditioned divinity, so when the Christian tradition asserts that we contain this divinity, what else can it mean?

>they’re either explicitly accepted as part of Church orthodoxy as it either currently does or has historically defined itself as
So they're incidentally orthodox. Big whoop. It sounds like you're trying to use the Church's own orthodox guys against the Church's dogma/beliefs you find to be inauthentic or hypocritical. This it litigious nonsense, bro. I just can't stand seeing someone waste their life on this. Consider the sunk cost fallacy. Cut your loses and move on. I guarantee you will feel better. There is a catharsis in realizing that you wasted so much time for nothing because now you're aware and you can move on.

Attached: II 1.jpg (2100x1400, 1.97M)

Your Christian interpretation doesn't work here. The point is that with the dissipation of the individual self (the "I"), one sees their true Self ("Brahman", the "Absolute").

The point is that one can have an absorptive state seeing oneself as ontologically equivalent to God in moksha. This is not the meaning of theosis.

Why are you trying to draw parallels between traditions that don't work?

That is a very unorthodox interpretation. I gave the standard interpretation here:

All the perennialists thought christianity was fundamentally the same as hindu and other traditions, yet you disagree. Do you happen to be the one who gets annoyed at Guenonians?

Do you talk to any ordained priests?

I do not talk to priests but I do attend the liturgy on a daily basis etc. Why?

>You literally awaken to see oneself as God or the Absolute in Dharmic traditions. Robert Charles Zaehner called this Satanic.
RC Zaehner worked as a secret agent of the unholy Angloid-Zionist global cabal, which is the very incarnation of Mammon, thereby calling into question anything he says on spiritual matters.

In any case, what Zaehner calls Satanic is affirmed by Jesus himself in John 10:31-39 when Jesus references Psalm 82:6 which says "I said, ‘You are “gods"; you are all sons of the Most High."

>31 Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, 32 but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”
>33 “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
>34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’? 35 If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside— 36 what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? 37 Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. 38 But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” >39 Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.

biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John 10:31-39&version=NIV

I think what's interesting about this is that to some, the Christian theosis/divinization is less profound and limiting when compared to the type of union typically noticed in Dharmic traditions. But I would like to argue that we can challenge ourselves to see in Christianity a nuance that goes beyond the Dharmic position (even though within the tantric currents, developments upon Advaita, etc. the same insight and nuance I'm arguing for with Christianity is gained). With Christianity people tend far too often to excessively emphasize the degree to which man must strive toward God. To me, this is just a reiteration of the ancient Jewish conception of God which is supposed to have been overcome in Christianity. I think that the insight should equally emphasize that God in Christianity is also a reality which extends Itself towards us; calling to mind Aquinas's Actus Purus, Chesterton's conception of the Christian God, etc. What should be emphasized in the Christian tradition is God as Love, which sublates the absolute distinction in God of Unity and Manyness, of something and other, which gets into more of a tantric or Mahayana, Kashmir Shaivist, Vajrayana idea of participation and union, where it's conceived of dynamically. Also all of this gets summed up in Pseudo-Dionysius explicitly talking about the overcoming of One vs. Many in God and also Hegel's dialectical understanding of God

I wouldn't say I'm trying to go against Church dogma, there are surprising things to be found even within the Catechism of the Church. Theologians of Vatican II recognized that the Church needed an overhaul in the sense of looking back to its own roots and taking its theology to its greater logical conclusions. This is a process of development that is currently happening and has been since the 60s; Francis, who many American conservative Catholics dislike, is not some new liberal phenomenon but rather the consequence of a movement that has a history within Church orthodoxy

To be a Sharer or Partaker of something something like a God, is not like becoming s Sharer or Partaker of food, or to possess or to acquire, something which is divinised in its true sense cannot be a mere possession or acquisition of something, as we understand it in the created sense, where someone may give to you a gift, unless you are to imply that there is some sort of emnation or gradation of this divinity, which is instantiated in a particular individual, God is not some energy which can given in "parts" there are no Parts in God.
I think I mean the same thing as you, you do realise your True nature, I say that we all possess this, because nothing can be given by God in this most fundamental sense, it is all there and is all eternal, and ignorance veils it, we can only become partakers or sharers in something we already have.
That's my interpretation, feel free to deconstruct it, as I do think I am veering from the Orthodox interpretation maybe.

Or at veering from your point of view, nothing is given to us or external to us when it comes to God, God is internally given, what do we even mean by external and internal when we speak in relation to God?

It's about movement, becoming, action, intention, divine Eros, self-overcoming, sublation, overcoming of division, inherent in God Himself. This is not the typical Traditionalist reading of Christianity that tries to see it through the lens of Vedanta or Buddhism but a new one that's more Hegelian in nature, like Teilhard de Chardin focusing on God working through evolution, Love as the inner force of all things, Christ as cosmic telos, the whole notion is that the Christian God is precisely this union-in-disunion that systems like Kashmir Shaivism and tantra were getting at. They too emphasized the Word (vac), divine Eros, trinitarian thinking, the tie between the binder and the bound, all in a profound attempt to overcome the limitations of a naive reading of Advaita Vedanta which stops short at identity (think of Schelling's "night in which all sheep are black" vs. Hegel's Absolute of becoming which he himself identified as having an origin in Aquinas's actus purus, which he thought was one of the highest philosophical notions)

Proof? Did you notice a wording pattern or something?

I'm aware of Vatican II, but I think you're missing my larger point about wasting your time on something that won't amount to anything real. Why do you have so much at stake with the Church? This obsessive behavior is not healthy.

Again, it sounds like you're trying to reframe Christianity to be more meaningful/significant than it is.

You're right that I shouldn't cause myself anxiety over it, it's just of big interest to me because I see a lot of potential in it. In the past I really didn't care much about Christianity and had undergone the whole Traditionalist conversion but I've seen how it's broader than that; I'm very much interested in religion and philosophy but don't want to define my views as being negative in relation to Christianity

>It's about movement, becoming, action, intention, divine Eros, self-overcoming, sublation, overcoming of division, inherent in God Himself
No!!!
>It's about immobility, being, non-action, realisation, Eros, again Realisation, sublation yes, indifferentiation, God inherentm.
Anyway "-it's about" is just a point of view, while I see where you are coming from we disagree, this is a matter of point of view, becoming and action etc. "evolution" I think these things are illusory, in their selective meaning.

Missing his point completely, esoterism and metaphysics subsumes exoterism and theological particularism.
Trust Me!

It will always be less profound to those who understand less about it, I'm not trying to read anything "into" Christianity but just saying like guys look at your own tradition and merely pointing out parallels and drawing lines within the tradition for it to make more sense of itself. The same thing happens with Hindus, I have no idea of course since I don't know many Hindus at all but I'd say that the majority of them haven't read the Upanishads or understand them or consider nuances like tantra, so I'd challenge them to do the same with their own tradition, to look into it and see that there's more to it than bhakti dualistic devotion to Krishna as a mere "personality", etc.

>You become ontologically equal to the Absolute or God in (most) Dharmic traditions.
The notion of a literal becoming (transformation) of the non-Absolute into the Absolute is actually an exception in Hinduism and is only found in a few smaller traditions that are ironically dualist like Shaiva Siddhanta, whereby the soul is transformed into a state of being qualitatively the same but numerically different from Shiva. In most Hindu traditions including Advaita Vedanta they teach that the contingent awakens to the presence of the uncreated Absolute within itself as its true 'beingness' or true self, where there is no real transformation of the non-Absolute into the Absolute, but rather a realization of something that has always been actualized from the very beginning, even when people are not aware of it.