Are you familiar with the Buddhist doctrine of the Trikaya, or the three body doctrine? This is very much an attempt to parallel that. In fact, the hypostatic union is along similar lines to explain these different modes of being, or "stations". Trikaya - WikipediaThe physical station is phenomenal; it is composed of elements, and necessarily everything that is composed is subject to decomposition. It is not possible that a composition should not be disintegrated.
The second is the station of the rational soul, which is the human reality. This also is phenomenal, and the Holy Manifestations share it with all mankind.
The third station is that of the divine appearance and heavenly splendor: it is the Word of God, the Eternal Bounty, the Holy Spirit. It has neither beginning nor end, for these things are related to the world of contingencies and not to the divine world. For God the end is the same thing as the beginning.”
Some Answered Questions, pp. 151-152
I was talking in my last post about this radical dualism of the Baha'i. If God is God, and that means God is Infinite in Being, that means there is nothing that can possibly be outside God. If there was, then there is somewhere God is not. If God is not somewhere, then God cannot be Infinite. God cannot be omnipresent if things exist outside God. This is problem a strict dualistic idea of God cannot reconcile. The only way to reconcile it would be to remove Infinity from God and make God a god, a being, an entity out there somewhere.I do not believe any human has a divine nature; we have a physical nature (body) and a human nature (soul). Only God has God’s nature.
The Mormons do this, by placing God in outer space relatively near the planet Kolob in the constellation Beetlejuice. The "Throne of God" is seen as a literal object in space somewhere, and not seen as a metaphor for majesty. I am assuming the Baha'i' don't resort to that sort of fantasy and literalism in order to deal with these sorts of problems of terms one runs into a strict dualistic system of thought when dealing with the nature of the Infinite Being of God? Then how do you deal with something existing "outside" of Infinity? How does God remain Infinite?
Which is exactly what Alan Watts rightly complained about. This notion of coming down from heaven with the message of Truth fully intact, that baby Jesus turned clay birds into real birds, that baby Buddha had lotus blossoms spring up in his footfalls, and all of that, while great mythologies to inspire the imagination, also makes them non-human. Something no one can relate to. "Follow me", as Jesus said, becomes empty words and promises. We can never hope to be "like him", because he is a god-like creature of our mythologies that is unlike us.I do not believe that I kicked Jesus upstairs; I think that Jesus came down from upstairs, since His soul was preexistent in the spiritual realm before His body was born on earth.
I like instead this image, "And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." If Christ is the Manifestation of God, and we are being transformed into his image......................
But yet, I did. I just don't mythologize it with all these trappings of god-like beings from other worlds. I understand this in a very different light, one which I find is actually far more beautiful and hopeful then reifying them into these sort of terms.In that pre-existence His soul was given the ability and capacity to receive direct revelations from God. No ordinary human has that ability and that is what differentiates us from Them.
It is actual Jesus' belief too, as well as other authors of the NT. Referring to "Christ in you the hope of Glory", the Spirit in you, and so forth. It is also a Hindu belief. It is also a Buddhist belief (just subbing "Buddha Nature" for God). And so forth.I do not believe that God is in anyone, not even in Jesus. That is a Christian belief.
And thus God ceases to be Infinite and Omnipresent, reduced to a deity like the gods of Olympus.Again, ordinary humans can potentially reflect God’s attributes, Manifestations of God perfectly reflect God’s attributes and manifest God to humanity, but both are forever separate from God.
Again, then God is not Infinite, but finite, like us, only bigger and more powerful, like Super-Superman. Right?
There is a wall between us and God in the sense that there is a point beyond which there is no passing...
This is the problem we run into when we anthropomorphize Divinity. It creates an image of God that looks just like us, only a lot bigger, like the gods of Olympus. I'm not sure how this problem can be gotten around, without being forced to make God into a god.
Yet Jesus expressly prayed that we all would be united with God as he was. I for one most certainly have experienced this Unity with God. But it doesn't make "me", this human vessel, Divinity. As I said, it is this dual nature of all of us that we can look at the flesh and see its finiteness, yet in touching the Eternal within us, as is in all the world, we realize that we are not separate from God in the least. Not one part of us.I do not believe we can ever be united with the divine because that implies that we can be on the same level with God, a “partner” with God.
The only thing that creates "separation" is perception. Our awareness of who we are. This is something the great mystics of all ages come to realize when they pass beyond that veil of illusion, your "tree" you can't move past. The reality is however, we can. I have. And if lowly 'ole me can, we all can. I would be saddened for someone to make a diety out of me in their myths, as it would make me seem impossibly beyond them. And I certainly am not.
With the eyes of Spirit, God is not beyond our Knowing. This spirit to Spirit is called Gnosis. I've said this before, that the incomprehensibleness of God, is approaching God with the eyes of reason, the eyes of mind. The eye of Spirit however, can see. I saw, and see. But I do not comprehend with my mind, as that is not the right set of eyes with which to see God.Baha’is believe that God is forever separate from His Creation and that differs from Christian belief, since Christians believe that the Holy Spirit lives inside of them and that they are God’s Children who have a relationship with God, like being part of a God’s family. How do you think anyone can have a “relationship” with an entity that is incomprehensible, exalted beyond all that can either be recounted or perceived?
This betrays a lack of understanding of the nature of Divinity. There are no "two Gods". There is only God, and nothing is outside God, including us.“And now concerning thy reference to the existence of two Gods. Beware, beware, lest thou be led to join partners with the Lord, thy God. He is, and hath from everlasting been, one and alone, without peer or equal, eternal in the past, eternal in the future, detached from all things, ever-abiding, unchangeable, and self-subsisting. He hath assigned no associate unto Himself in His Kingdom, no counsellor to counsel Him, none to compare unto Him, none to rival His glory.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 192