Brother David Steindl-Rast on Panentheism

topic posted Fri, December 14, 2007 - 3:53 AM by 
This interview can be downloaded for free until the end of this month!
www.shiftinaction.com/discove...l_shifts

Here's an excerpt:


Right, in theism the emphasis is very strongly on the doctrine, while in panentheisms, or in the religiosity that is emerging today, the emphasis is on the experience. And when we experience the ultimate…this is something that if you have the time and the right setting you can discuss with any human beings, and find very positive response. We experience this ultimate reality, on the one hand, as the great mystery from which we come and to which to we go and in which we are totally imbedded, the mystery, the no-thing beyond all forms and things is the formless, the no-thing that is a greater reality to us then all things. Meaning could be a word for it, the formless, the void, the great mystery that surrounds us. This is a basic human experience. But we also experience the ultimate as closer to each one of us then we are to ourselves. As Augustine says, "God is closer to me then I am to myself." The innermost reality of my own being is unfathomable to me, a Divine within me, and that is an aspect of the Divine that is coming forward very strongly in the experience of many people today, and I see this as a very positive aspect.
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