Two more Christian Maps

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Not two, not one, modified 3 Years ago at 3/6/21 12:07 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 3/6/21 12:07 AM

Two more Christian Maps

Posts: 1047 Join Date: 7/13/17 Recent Posts
 The Carmelite maps of progress in insight have had discussion on this board; however, I just ran across two others I didn't know about.  Both seem very consistent with Buddhist or Hindu paths of purification.  So I thought I would share them for the benefit of any mappy types out there.

2. Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite in the 5th Century, proposed Katharsis (or purification), then Theoria (or illumination - mature or acquired contemplation), then Theosis (or union indwelling/vision/union with God.)

3. Augsutine had seven stages.  Three preliminary stages concerned the 'vegetive, senstive, and rational levels of human life' (I would see these body, senses, and mind), virtue or purification, tranquility, illumination with the divine light, and then an indwelling or unitive mystical stage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_contemplation#Models


 
 
Hector L, modified 3 Years ago at 3/6/21 1:33 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 3/6/21 1:33 AM

RE: Two more Christian Maps

Posts: 141 Join Date: 5/9/20 Recent Posts
As a charismatic Christian I remember we would speak in tongues and feel all kinds of emotions
but there wasn't really any map, once you're saved you're saved and there wasn't anything else to do really.
But I don't think they have monastaries so there's probably no contemplative traditions for the newer
​​​​​​​variants of Christianity, if you know of them would be curious to read up on it.
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 3/6/21 4:42 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 3/6/21 4:40 AM

RE: Two more Christian Maps

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
Digression, but there are some similarities with Augustine on time and impermanence as well:

St. Augustine, Confessions

CHAP. XIV. -- NEITHER TIME PAST NOR FUTURE, BUT THE PRESENT ONLY, REALLY IS.
17. At no time, therefore, had You not made anything, because You made time itself. And no times are co-eternal with You, because You remain for ever; but should these continue, they would not be times. For what is time? Who can easily and briefly explain it? Who even in thought can comprehend it, even to the pronouncing of a word concerning it? But what in speaking do we refer to more familiarly and knowingly than time? And certainly we understand when we speak of it; we understand also when we hear it spoken of by another. What, then, is time? If no one asks me, I know; if I wish to explain to him who asks, I know not. Yet I say with confidence, that I know that if nothing passed away, there would not be past time; and if nothing were coming, there would not be future time; and if nothing were, there would not be present time. Those two times, therefore, past and future, how are they, when even the past now is not; and the future is not as yet? But should the present be always present, and should it not pass into time past, time truly it could not be, but eternity. If, then, time present -- if it be time -- only comes into existence because it passes into time past, how do we say that even this is, whose cause of being is that it shall not be -- namely, so that we cannot truly say that time is, unless because it tends not to be?
...
CHAP. XXVIII. -- TIME IN THE HUMAN MIND, WHICH EXPECTS, CONSIDERS, AND REMEMBERS.
37. But how is that future diminished or consumed which as yet is not? Or how does the past, which is no longer, increase, unless three things are done in the mind that enacts this there? For the mind expects, and considers, and remembers, that that which it expects, through that which it considers, may pass into that which it remembers. Who, therefore, denies that future things as yet are not? There is already in the mind the expectation of things future. And who denies that past things are now no longer? But, however, there is still in the mind the memory of things past. And who denies that time present wants space, because it passes away in a moment? But yet our consideration endures, through which that which may be present may proceed to become absent. Future time, which is not, is not therefore long; but a "long future" is "a long expectation of the future." Nor is time past, which is now no longer, long; but a long past is "a long memory of the past."
Derek2, modified 3 Years ago at 3/6/21 7:36 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 3/6/21 7:36 AM

RE: Two more Christian Maps

Posts: 234 Join Date: 9/21/16 Recent Posts
there's probably no contemplative traditions for the newer ​​​​​​​variants of Christianity, if you know of them would be curious to read up on it.

The closest I know of to a charismatic contemplative tradition is "soaking prayer." I became aware of soaking prayer in the decade 2000-2009, but I believe it emerged spontaneously from the Toronto Blessing of the 1990s, which was very definitely charismatic.

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