“On the feast of St. Nicholas [in 1273, Aquinas] was celebrating Mass when he received a revelation that so affected him that he wrote and dictated no more, leaving his great work the Summa Theologiae unfinished. To Brother Reginald’s (his secretary and friend) expostulations he replied, “The end of my labors has come. All that I have written appears to be as so much straw after the things that have been revealed to me.” When later asked by Reginald to return to writing, Aquinas said, “I can write no more. I have seen things that make my writings like straw.””
My guy took 4 tabbaronis.
I really don’t understand why most people don’t care too much about it
Hello, I have some questions about the Beatific Vision. According to Newadvent, the supernatural character of heaven and the beatific vision is that, >In heaven the just will see God by direct intuition, clearly and distinctly. Here on earth we have no immediate perception of God; we see Him but indirectly in the mirror of creation.
I'm a bit confused however. Are we to believe that Jesus is not fully God when the Apostles could see Him? This is obviously not the case. But then why do the apostles not experience a beatific vision of sorts? Is the sight of Jesus on earth not clear or distinct enough? And what of the Eucharist? Are we to suppose that the vision and receiving of the Eucharist on this earth is somehow imperfect, too obscure and vague?
Newadvent says God is reflected imperfectly in creation, >The blessed see God, not merely according to the measure of His likeness imperfectly reflected in creation, but they see Him as He is, after the manner of His own Being
Does this mean that seeing Jesus on this earth as the apostles did is somehow seeing God in an imperfect state? Or was the vision of Jesus walking the earth somehow obstructed by our own limited human nature? If this is true then what are the differences between the vision of God in heaven and the vision of God made man on earth?
Sorry if there are too many questions.
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07170a.htm#III
Why didn't Adam and Eve have the beatific vision? How does this work, and why didn't God give them the beatific vision? Will we have the Beatific Vision in our resurrected state, but why didn't Adam and Eve? Could you direct me to some resources to better understand this?
Anyone?
Thought people on here might find this interesting. It was the weirdest shit that happened to me in my life. For about a week I slept about two hours a night and my mind was constantly racing with ideas, spiraling in great leaps from one revelation to another. I wasn't involved in any religious practice or anything I was just kind of isolated and posting a ton on social media.
It felt like being on LSD, with the same sort of body high, and the same experience of pulling together unnoticed strands and motifs from one's life and seeing that they align in a coherent narrative, seeing patterns and structures of higher and higher significance until eventually reaching God, the universe, life and death, etc.
However I hadn't taken anything, and none of the revelations appear to be delusional or bizarre, even now that I'm essentially entirely back to normal (although of course not being delusional does not mean that they are necessarily correct, because intelligent sober humans can still be wrong about many things).
On the fifth day of this or so I was worried it was never going to end, and I figured I was probably just having a manic episode, so I called up doctors and they said I seemed far too lucid to be manic and nothing seemed wrong with me. After that point I remembered the term "Kundalini Awakening" and found this site and realized it described my experience very closely. I realized that the only way for it to end was to "go with it", and at that point I experienced what felt like a "guiding presence" beckoning me to take certain actions, without my conscious mind understanding why. This led to a process of me play-acting certain things out which resolved major psychological baggage I had never previously fully addressed. After the last bit of psychological baggage was resolved I went to bed and throughout the next day my mind wound down to basically being normal.
There is way too much that happened to really go into and tell the whole story from front to back so we can do this AMA style if people are interested in hearing more. Crazy experience I never expected to happen to me but life always finds a way of surprising you.
This is a passage by the Great Church Father St. Augustine of Hippo giving a good teaching and understanding of the Catholic doctrine on the beatific vision. It clarifies a common misconception on this teaching--that is the misconception that it teaches the saints comprehend God.
"Therefore God is by nature invisible, not only the Father, but the very Trinity itself, the one God. And because he is not only invisible, but also immutable, he thus appears to whom he wills, in whatever form he wills, in such a way that his invisible and immutable nature remains with him intact. Still, the desire of pious people who genuinely yearn to see God and are on fire for this with breathless longing does not, I think, burn to behold him in that form which, although he appears in it as he wills, he himself is not; rather, it longs to see him in that substance which itself is what he is. For the holy man Moses, his faithful servant, showed the flame of this desire for him when he said to God — with whom, as a friend, he was wont to speak face to face — “If I have found grace in thy sight, show me thyself” (Exod 33:13 LXX). What then? Was it not he himself [with whom he spoke]? If it were not he himself, he would not have said to him, “show me thyself,” but, “show me God.” Yet, at the same time, if he had had clear sight of his nature and substance, much less would he have said “show me thyself.” He was, therefore, in that form in which he had willed to appear; he did not appear in that proper nature of his, which Moses yearned to see. That, in fact, is promised to the saints in another life. For this reason, what was said to Moses in reply is true, that no one can see God’s face and live (Exod 33:20): that is, no one, living in this life, can see him as he is. For many have seen; but they saw what the will chose, not what the nature has shaped. And that thing which John says, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2) — that is, we shall see him, not in the way that people used to see him, when he willed, in whatever form he willed, not in his nature, in which, even when he was seen, he remained hidden in himself; but as he is — if this is rightly understood, that is what was requested of God when it was said to him “show me thyself” by the one with whom he used to speak face to face.
Not that anyone ever comprehends the fulne
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Now I don't do that, though. Now I merely go about my day. I hike to the Gardens, where the dogplants sprout up in bizarre shapes from the floor of the dogscape, and reach up to pluck the fetal puppyfruits right off the wagging, energetic branches. I bite into the succulent flesh, the juices dribbling down my chin and dripping down to be reabsorbed by the groundflesh, and revel in the savory taste. I'm thirsty, so I range until I find one of the Mothermounds, and there I suckle at a teatpatch until I've had my fill of milk. Sometimes I see other humans around me, as well-adapted to the dogscape as I am, but I barely acknowledge them, say nothing. What, after all, is there to say? The world is different now - what meaning would our old words have?
I am absolutely shaken. What just happened was what some may call an episode of godly contact inside pure coincidencia.
The message itself was inside this video of Alan Watts and the main message from 1:35:00 to about 1:45:00, although the entire video is important. But those last 10 minutes of the first part of the video, it was like the heavens parted and god talked to me. I am horrified and shaken, i don't know what to make of it. I never experienced such a state of consciousness.
Is this message for anyone else out of the ordinary or do i just have nervous breakdown of some sort?
[TL;DR] You can skip to The Trip below.
Many have described upon smoking or ingesting DMT experiencing 'God's Presence'. Having had taken psychedelics--including DMT--and following varied and profound experiences, I had finally experienced what I can only describe as 'God': a beatific vision, as it were. Having been an agnostic, the experience 'shook my faith' and forced me to 'revaluate my values' (to borrow from Nietzsche).
'God' is a loaded word so I will describe my experience, interpretation, and the synchronicity that occurred thereafter. I ask the community here to consider and help make sense of what happened, or provide general thoughts.
Background
I was agnostic, but considered myself a spiritual person (fairly common). Took inspiration from Hinduism (Bhagavad Gita), Daoism (The Way), Buddhism, etc.
Had a Nietzschean outlook--that we create our own values and meaning in life, that we cannot truly know anything, that our sense of 'truth' is simply 'a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthropomorphisms' (see 'On Truth and Lies in the Extramoral Sense'). Thought I had life roughly figured out.
Skeptical of monotheism but had true belief we are 'all one'. God to me was in all of us. Perhaps I had it half right.
The Trip
I am sucked into an Infinite Abyss and lose all awareness of my body. Nothing. Absolute Nothing but Void.
An authoritative Voice resounds 'You know nothing. You know absolutely nothing.' And I concur, truly understanding, 'I know nothing, I know absolutely nothing.'
I feel Death in the Abyss and accept it fully without resistance. A general feeling of peace submerges me.
As I wholly surrender myself to die in Nothing, another Voice, female, whispers 'No. Live.'
An Infinite Light bursts to fill the Void. I regain awareness of my body. And through this vast, Infinite Light, I see the shape of a woman's head cast down in front of me. Long hair, graceful presence. Slowly she lifts her head to reveal her face, and looks at me.
Then I awaken.
Interpretation and Synchronicity
The trip obliterated my conceptual view of the world, and I had many profound experiences on psychedelics before, as well as ego death. I had no conscious pretext or knowledge to facilitate that trip. Past trips I understood generally as crystallization of past knowledge, or coming to new insights or perspectives of the world with existing knowledge.
I have strong knowledge of various religions and religious practices
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