Is your mysticism apophatic or cataphatic?

Orbit said:

DIR denizens:
Apophatic theology says God cannot be described or even truly comprehended by humans.
Cataphatic theology says the opposite and assigns specific traits to God.

In seeking union with the divine, which approach do you have in mind? What influenced your decision?
Note: I am using "God" here to mean either God, the Absolute, the Divine, Brahman, the Higher Self, or however you conceptualize what you are seeking mystic union with.

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I only have one experience to go by, and while it was apophatic in that it was seemingly indescribable in the moment and immediately after, I find that leaning on cataphatic symbolism seems to make it easier for my mind to process.
The main focus in my meditative practices right now is focused on a sound, which I can't seem to locate (spiritually not physically lol).

Mostly apophatic - process of elimination - "not this/not that", like peeling an onion and finding Emptiness at the core - a divine emptiness, "the Plenum Void".

Orbit said:

DIR denizens:
Apophatic theology says God cannot be described or even truly comprehended by humans.
Cataphatic theology says the opposite and assigns specific traits to God.

In seeking union with the divine, which approach do you have in mind? What influenced your decision?
Note: I am using "God" here to mean either God, the Absolute, the Divine, Brahman, the Higher Self, or however you conceptualize what you are seeking mystic union with.

Click to expand...

When there is two-way Love, The Apophatic God manifests as a Cataphatic Person in the devotee's heart. This however is very rare. When God does this, how much more God reveals to the devotee is up to Him and Them.

Obviously a devotee only cares about what they need to know, and does not break their head over how universe works or bother to do any thought-acrobats to go beyond thought. They simply bask in His "sunshine"

So, I will say , God does have a Cataphatic aspect, and is known only to the extent God has revealed Himself to this being.

ye yathA mAm prapadyante tAmstathaiva bhajAmyaham. Google this Bhagavad Geeta half-shlok.

ameyAtmA said:

When there is two-way Love, The Apophatic God manifests as a Cataphatic Person in the devotee's heart. This however is very rare. When God does this, how much more God reveals to the devotee is up to Him and Them.

Obviously a devotee only cares about what they need to know, and does not break their head over how universe works or bother to do any thought-acrobats to go beyond thought. They simply bask in His "sunshine"

So, I will say , God does have a Cataphatic aspect, and is known only to the extent God has revealed Himself to this being.

ye yathA mAm prapadyante tAmstathaiva bhajAmyaham. Google this Bhagavad Geeta half-shlok.

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Your answer is so directly true for Theism as a whole. God ultimately impersonal because it is Reality itself (which in Hinduism transcends Maya, as Brahman. In Abrahamic religions, it transcends deity all together and has no singular name, so I can't even say what the Abrahamic God is even 'called'.), in the Abrahamic religions it's expressed with far more sacredness because their traditions result from self-revelation.
In the three Abrahamic religions, God is not the thing that walked around in the garden, God is not the Burning Bush, God is not the blinding light on mount Sinai, God is not the man on the chariot or throne, God is not even Jesus......but God symbolically reveals itself through these images.
Basically, the Abrahamic revelation of Monotheism was that Reality itself is God.
Abrahamism took the opposite approach to Hinduism, as it rejected idols, symbols, deities etc.

I can't say that the mainstream forms of any of those religions (including even Hinduism) really reflect their authentic past but the consistency throughout a very large number of cultures is quite undeniable.

I think you sub it up best with describing that God reveals itself through a Capaphatic aspect

^ When it comes to mysticism, it's just an extension of this. Where we deal with God itself, whether we call it Brahman, YHWH/Jesus, Allah, Tao, Sunyata (etc) it's dissolution into it's pure ecstasy of light and darkness (as it is above both).

When it comes to more conventional Pagan orientated stuff, you're dealing with the 'collective unconscious' and 'archetypes', or more religiously known as the Pleroma. Pagan deities are not identical to the above concepts, they are rather more akin to Atrological memes. I say memes in the sense that they spread wide and influence us from the second we're born, they're directly attached to our fate. In Hindu terms it's Samsara and Karmic attachments.
For this reason, I think Paganism is always gonna be LHP-orientated because it's interested in self-identification firstly and then molding these parallel sequences in Time to the individuals own gain. For this reason, a lot of Occultism tends to work with demons and so forth.

I believe in the revealing God and Creator but I'm also aware of the hidden side - the boundless Infinity. For now it's easier for me to start focusing on creations, words, inspirations, symbols etc. and what they reflect... rather than directly entering the pure stillness and silence.

PearlSeeker said:

I believe in the revealing God and Creator but I'm also aware of the hidden side - the boundless Infinity. For now it's easier for me to start focusing on creations, words, inspirations, symbols etc. and what they reflect... rather than directly entering the pure stillness and silence.

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At a certain stage, those merge together where that Silence is seen and felt in every form, no matter how small or great. I too find approaching that Infinite through form to be the path for me. If anything I might choose to identify with it would be a Christian tantric approach. The transcendent forms are simply gateways to the Divine, and not define what God is, which is what is known beyond the form, or that face that the Divine presents.