Mountains, Metaphors and Mysticism

[Eol007]

Hi Rick,

Please find a warm welcome to the forum.

Thank you for the most thought provoking post as your introduction.
One thinks you have more than a little more to relate and share... which I am sure will be valued by many here!

Kind wishes,


Stephen []

[Champollion FRC]

Thank you Stephen,
It is my hope that the visitors and members will read this post and use it as a catalyst for creative expression. I welcome everyone's thoughts, and look forward to reading original poems and stories on the topic of Mountains, Metaphors and Mysticism. Happy trails!

[Champollion FRC]

Tell me a story, Heinrich, asked the young Dalai Lama. Tell me a story about climbing mountains.
- That's one way to fall asleep. Those stories bore even me, answered Heinrich.
- Then, tell me what you love about it.
- The absolute simplicity, said Heinrich. When you're climbing, your mind is clear ... freed of all confusions. You have focus. And suddenly the light becomes sharper ... sounds are richer and you are filled with the deep powerful presence of life. I've only felt that way one other time.
- When?, asked the young Dalai Lama.
- In your presence, Ku-Dun.  
[From Seven Years in Tibet, a film by Mandalay Entertainment from Walt Disney Productions. A Brad Pitt Film.]

[Champollion FRC]

Welcome to Mountains, Metaphors and Mysticism[]

It has been said that some metaphors convey the essence of a religious or spiritual experience so well that they have been used by people throughout the world and in different cultures.
For example, take the metaphor of a sacred peak. Such mountains have been used as a cosmic axis for centuries—Mount Sinai, The Mount of Olives, Mount Olympus, Mount Meru, Hamey Peak, Mount Kailas. During the Second World War, a French mystic and writer, Rene Daumal, drew on this symbolism and wrote Mount Analogue, an allegorical novel of a supreme mountain where people may awake from the slumber of their usual state of mind and ascend to higher levels of consiousness:
"In the mythic tradition, the Mountain is the bond between Earth and Sky. Its solitary summit reaches the sphere of eternity, and its base spreads out in manifold foothills into the world of mortals. It is the way by which man can raise himself to the divine and by which the divine can reveal itself to man. . . . For a mountain to play the role of Mount Analogue, the ultimate symbolic mountain, its summit must be inaccessible, but its base accessible to human beings as nature has made them. It must be unique, and it must exist geographically." http://www.learningplaceonline.com/spirit/...h/metaphors.htm

Dream Symbolism
Climbing a mountain may symbolize achievements or tasks to be performed. Looking from a mountain may symbolize your life under review, without the conscious emotional involvement. A mountain may represent obstacles in your life.

Finally the psychologist Abraham Maslow states that transcendent experiences occur universally. He says that there are certain characteristics which are constant to what he has termed "peak-experiences," a term which encompasses the spectrum of mystical states of consciousness. He prefers the term "peak-experience" because he wishes to secularize the experience, feeling it is necessary to define the experience as one that is natural and available without an organized religious context.
Maslow feels mystical experience will become incorporated into our everyday language, part of our culture. He feels that peak-experiences can be therapeutic, as they tend to increase free will, self-determination, creativity, and empathy. Maslow believes that we should study and cultivate peak-experience, so that we can teach those in our culture to those who "have never had them or who repress or suppress them"