The strange thing about this castle is that it is our soul. It is so small as to be invisible, and yet large enough for God to live there. And some reptiles too.
I am not sure whether I have used this picture before. It may well be, for I know I have written about this topic before, about the inner castle keep. I think it may have been in this anime (History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi) that I first saw it, or at least that it first made a lasting impression on me, that we can have a huge castle inside, even as small as we are. It also ties in with the A and B influences of Boris Mouravieff, one of the weirdest thinkers to ever graze the fringe of the Christian religion, from what I hear. I picked up that particular notion of his through the One Cosmos blog a few years ago, though I am not sure if it was before or after I saw this anime.
Basically A influences are all the things in life that fits right in with our life as smart apes, while B influences are the things that fits with our life as eternal spirits. There is by and large very little overlap between these two world views, and yet most of us usually lives in them both to some degree. Or perhaps just around half of us, if Mouravieff is right, as he is quoted as thinking that approximately half the human populace has no spiritual side whatsoever, and cannot understand or relate to such things no matter what is done or said (though they can pretend to for worldly gain if they live in a religious society).
On the other extreme, you have people like St Teresa of Avila, whom I did not know about until a couple days ago. I mean, I knew she was a Catholic saint. That was not much of a recommendation for most of my life: I grew up in Norway, which was almost pure Lutheran Protestant before it became post-Christian as it mostly is with my generation and later. We were led to believe that Catholicism was a kind of “paganism lite”, with the saints playing much the same role as minor deities of the pantheons formerly worshiped in Europe. Kind of like Christmas was dressed onto the existing midwinter holiday, I suppose. Paganism with a Christian face.
Of late, I have come to see this in a different light. I have taken some pretty long detours, admittedly: My understanding of Catholic saints is now similar to how I see Buddhist bodhisattvas. Not identical, but quite similar. But there are also other elements, like the Taoist notion of the Immortals. I think “eternals” is a better concept though, because while I would be happy to achieve immortality through not dying, it is possible to become an Eternal even if you die. As Jesus Christ said about the Patriarchs: They all live before God. And the saints likewise, if not more so, are still alive in the theosphere even if their bodies are long gone. Â If you for some reason happen to wander into that realm, you may meet them in a more intimate way than your neighbors or coworkers.
This just recently happened to me. Amazon.com sent me a mail recommending a number of books, most of them old-fashioned spiritual books (and one manga tankubon…) based on my buying history. One of the books was “The Interior Castle” by St Teresa of Avila. Given that I have thought (and written) about this topic several times, and given that the book is freely available (though not from Amazon) – its copyright expired long ago – Â I started reading it.
I soon ran into a problem. The problem was that I was so overwhelmed by joy that I could not continue reading. The brightness of her words, the way she verified things that made sense but that I had feared might not be Christian. It was a bit like a court case where the crown witness is led in and suddenly you start thinking that you might win after all.
St Teresa, where have you been all my life?
This is probably going to sound weird even to people who respect me, if there are any left. But I seriously had to restrain myself to not squeal loudly and hug random objects from the pure pleasure of the reading. Â It was a pleasure that was in a certain meaning “sensual” in that it filled my body, but it was not sexual. I may not look like it, but I do know sexual pleasure, just take my word for it. This was not it. But it was a certain kind of ecstasy from within. If those who fall in love feel as strongly as I did (and they probably do) then I can understand why they behave the way they do.
Be that as it may, St Teresa is awesome, or I am badly misguided.
The interior castle she describes is made of a single enormous diamond or other clear crystal, at the center of which God dwells in a very bright light. (Yes, that is eerily similar to Happy Science’s notion of the Buddha-nature within, which is customarily described as a diamond and shining with a bright, warm light. I believe this notion comes to them from Buddha, whereas it almost certainly did not come to St Teresa from that quarter. Perhaps it just happens to be a very good description.)
Unfortunately, the castle is easily covered by dark cloth (it is not very big until you enter into it). It is also surrounded by reptiles. She keeps using this expression over and over during her first chapters, which are the only ones I have read after several days. Reptiles, snakes, venomous reptiles. They even follow you into the castle, where they are numerous in the outer mansions, and it is almost impossible not to be bitten by them.
Tell me about it!
Even though, and even after, I have rejoiced in the pure joy of the spiritual teaching, these critters are still biting at my heels. But that is life, I guess. The B influences yearn against the A influences, and the A influences against the B influences. They oppose each other, so that we may not do what we want.
OK. If things stop happening fast and furious, I will read St. Teresa. Is Teresa of Avila the one whose ecstasy was depicted in a famous sculpture as being stricken with arrows while having an orgasmic look on her face? I believe she is the one. The first time I saw a photo of this sculpture was in one of my humanities classes in college. This was where I learned that in art spiritual things are made more spiritual by depicting them in terms of the flesh, and bodily things are made more flesh-based by using spiritual descriptors.
That is just plain disturbing. How common is it to have that kind of experience? Because when I was 13 years and 10 months old to the day, I had a dream in which my entrails were pierced by a spear, and my body was gripped by spasms of intense pleasure that I would describe as an orgasm, except the orgasms I have had later have unfailingly been followed by ejaculation of semen as is the way of the male, but this was not. Rather it left my dreaming self filled with a strange power and conviction of immortality. Unfortunately for my power and immortality, it was just a dream from which I woke up.
I find it very very VERY very unlikely that I am St Teresa’s sister soul*, given the chasm in enlightenment between us, but there certainly seems to be some kind of predestination here, given my current spiritual infatuation with her writing.
That probably also means that you won’t derive the same pleasure from reading her that I do. But who knows, she seems to be very popular.
*According to Happy Science, sister souls or brother souls are different personalities that arise from the same spirit as it incarnates at different times. I have no personal experience of this, so I can’t vouch for it being true. I’ll be sure to tell you if I start having more memories from St Teresa’s life, but don’t hold your breath!
Yep, just checked and she’s the one!
http://tinyurl.com/33qnl3s
This isn’t the best photograph of the work that I’ve ever seen due to its angle, but you get the idea.
She is possibly the first person I ever heard described as a Christian mystic. When it was explained to me what a Christian mystic was, citing some of her works, I thought, “Well, yes! That’s it! I understand that! (Although I may not be able to put it into words! Ha!)”
And “due to its angle”/”angel”! Ha again!
My brain is very tired, and these things are striking me as entertaining. That probably proves the low level of my mental function at present; even compared to my normal low level of mental function it is very bad.
Hmmm . . . not aware of ever having, in waking or dreaming, any sort of arousal from piercing (other than the gender-specific interaction in sex, of course, for certain values of “piercing”), either in imagery or real life . . .
I have felt an almost physical “struck by lightning” sort of feeling when something that’s been nebulous in my mind suddenly becomes clear, and it’s a wonderful thing. Way different from a sexual “wonderful thing”, though. I totally loved this statue because of the arrows of God piercing her heart and her reaction to it. It’s something that people who’ve felt similar things to the “ecstasy” of being tuned in, however briefly, to a really clear reception of God . . . sort of like an old-fashioned radio with a tuner knob, but it hardly ever works at 100%. You can usually get some of its signal, with varying degrees of static/interference, but there are those brief moments when things are crystal clear . . . only to be followed by static and interference and downright poor reception on bad days.
I have not derived pleasure from pain, my own or others’, either, before or later. So the dream did not make much sense to me, nor was it in any way a precursor of the actual sexual dreams I have had later.
The feeling of intense joy that an intellectual feels at a sudden understanding, or an artist at a sudden inspiration, is probably closer to how you feel when “tuning in” to God. It is a joy that is purely of the mind, yet so great that it flows over into the body as a kind of ecstasy. These are to us in the Realm of Light a kind of indirect reception of God, as the Truth and as the Creator. But in the Realm of Angels, God is felt as Love, a more direct experience. This is how the saints receive God, and you too, I suspect. Not that I expect you to be canonized anytime soon! No offense intended.
And the sister-soul thing . . . that is just something I don’t know about. If reincarnation exists, well and good, and I’m sure God will have set up the particulars of the system. So much of the world believes it that it shouldn’t be rejected outright, but I certainly don’t remember any past lives. I’m doing well to remember the current one. I suspect this is getting into the differentiation between “spirit” and “soul” that we’ve discussed before and sometimes I have to ask you to explain it all again . . .
A soul sister is created if your spirit comes down to Earth in different lifetimes to do its thing. Each time, a new soul is created. The soul is where your memories go, and it is shaped by your body (or rather body image, I guess, since it is in the realm of mind, not physical). A soul that has had the same spirit is a soul sister or soul brother. In the Bible the only known example is John the Baptist, who shared from before birth the same spirit as Elijah, to the point where Jesus even referred to him as Elijah on two occasions. Despite this, on the mountain of Transfiguration, it was Elijah and not St John who met Jesus together with Moses. So Elijah was still a separate soul or person, despite his spirit having powered John for some 30 years.
Aaah! Sister soul, not soul sister! I blame Train and their radio hit “Hey Soul Sister”, one of the most beautiful melodies ever to be ruined by drugged fratboy lyrics. If you have not heard of it, you owe it to yourself to listen to one of the many instrumental versions and avoid the original.
Oh, way too late to avoid the original, although I don’t detest it as much as you seem to. I just listen, I don’t put much stock in the lyrics of most modern music. When I do hear music with good, non-sappy lyrics I tend to perk up and pay attention, but if I only listened to such music I’d remain in silence much of the time.
As it happens, I do remain in silence much of the time, well if you don’t count the singing from inside me. I guess that is why I find it remarkable that I have suddenly taken a liking to Christmas songs.