A Paper on Mormon Doctrine and Kundalini Yoga (Part 1): Introduction and the Root Chakra

The Baptisms and the Chakras: A Comparison of 2 Nephi 31:13 and Kundalini Yoga (Part 1 of 7)

The thirteenth verse of 2 Nephi 31 reads as follows:

"Wherefore, my beloved brethren, I know that if ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ, by baptism--yea, by following your Lord and your Savior down into the water, according to his word, behold, then shall ye receive the Holy Ghost; yea, then cometh the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost; and then can ye speak with the tongue of angels, and shout praises unto the Holy One of Israel." [1]

This verse is doctrinally significant for several reasons. On the one hand, it offers a basic “to-do list” for salvation, effectively saying that if one does this and this, she can do that and thus gain salvation. However, this verse contains a hidden significance, one that can only come about with deep investigation. I specifically mean that it offers not only a “to-do list,” but also a roadmap of both the road to exaltation and the structure of the eternities. And this has everything to do with bodies and temples.

Scripture repeatedly asserts that human bodies are “temples of God.” What does this mean, especially when considering the many things Latter-day Saints have learned about temples through revelation? For instance, is the body a “site” for sacred ordinances? Is it, like the temple, a microcosmic representation of the universe and the soul’s progression toward God? Though it may sound odd, many spiritual thinkers both outside the Church and within it have claimed exactly these things about the human body. For instance, the Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg (with whose doctrines Mormons share not a little in common) declared that the human body is a microcosm of heaven, and that the parts of the body exist in an exact correspondent relationship with parts of the spiritual world. Moreover, Apostle Jeffrey R. Holland says in his talk “Personal Purity” that “ physical intimacy [that is, the bodily act par excellence] is not only a symbolic union between a husband and a wife—the very uniting of their souls—but it is also symbolic of a shared relationship between them and their Father in Heaven.”[2] Finally, the spiritual practice of Kundalini Yoga teaches that human bodies contain a series of “chakras” (centers of energy) along the spine, which also exist in a correspondent relationship to spiritual realities.

I mention all of this because the elemental imagery in the above verse symbolically resonates with precisely these chakras in Kundalini Yoga, and as such 2 Nephi 31:13 not only offers a site for comparative study between religions, but also allows us to let these traditions illuminate each other. Namely, the baptisms of water, fire, and the (Holy) Spirit (which in Greek is “pneuma,” a word synonymous with air), correspond to the second, third, and fourth chakras, respectively. Moreover, the “tongue of angels” mentioned immediately afterward reminds one of the fifth chakra, specifically associated with the throat, the mouth, and speech in general. If one is to regard the conceptual framework of Kundalini Yoga as valuable (which many do [explain who]), this comparison suggests that the above verse portrays not just a list of spiritual concepts, but rather describes a progression to God in various stages.

For the rest of this paper, I will follow that progression step-by-step, from one chakra to the next, all the while explaining the significance of comparing the conceptual frameworks of Kundalini Yoga and Mormon thought. I will utilize the writings of commentators in this process, specifically relying on the writings of Carl Jung, James Hillman, and Mormon author Felice Austen to explain the symbolic and comparative implications of the chakras. In doing so, I hope to show how the doctrine of a foreign spiritual tradition can enlighten Mormonism’s own doctrines, even revealing things in our own system of thought that most pass over.

Muladhara (The Root Chakra)

Though the muladhara chakra, as the chakra corresponding to the earth, doesn’t appear per se in 2 Nephi 31:13, that doesn’t stop earth symbolism from popping up quite often throughout the Book of Mormon’s text. Especially relevant is the symbolism of dust. I quote here from several passages in the work:

“Awake! and arise from the dust, and hear the words of a trembling parent…”[3]

“And it shall be as if the fruit of thy loins had cried unto them from the dust; for I know their faith. And they shall cry from the dust…”[4]

“But the book shall be delivered unto a man, and he shall deliver the words of the book, which are the words of those who have slumbered in the dust…”[5]

“I speak unto you as the voice of one crying from the dust: Farewell until that great day shall come.”[6]

“And they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state, even less than the dust of the earth.”[7]

“And they did humble themselves even to the dust, subjecting themselves to the yoke of bondage…”[8]

“…those saints who have gone before me, who have possessed this land, shall cry, yea, even from the dust will they cry unto the Lord…”[9]

“Did I not declare my words unto you, which were written by this man, like as one crying form the dead, yea, even as one speaking out of the dust?”[10]

Evidently images of earth such as these are very important to the text, since several of these verses (specifically those in Nephi’s and Moroni’s farewells) come in places crucial to the Book of Mormon’s rhetorical purposes. One might also find earth imagery in Alma 32’s declaration that the Word is a divine seed which can be planted in one’s heart, as if I as a living, thinking, and feeling person am a type of soil. Finally, one could tie all of these threads together by recalling the Book of Mormon’s origin story, one which Joseph Smith poetically paraphrased in the following quotation:

"Let us take the Book of Mormon, which a man took and hid in his field, securing it by his faith, to spring up in the last days, or in due time; let us behold it coming forth out of the ground, which indeed accounted the least of all seeds, but behold it branching forth, yea, even towering with lofty branches and God-like majesty, until it, like the mustard seed, becomes the greatest of all herbs. And it is truth, and it has sprouted to come forth out of the earth, and righteousness begins to look down from heaven, and God is sending down His powers, gifts, and angels to lodge in the branches thereof." [11]

In other words, the Book of Mormon itself was planted in the earth, and it could only “grow” enough to be fruitful by being interred in the ground for so long.

One can find all of this imagery and more implicit in the muladhara chakra’s symbolic associations. This chakra—commonly called the “Root Chakra”—is the lowermost of its siblings, and it is located around the area of the buttocks. As the chakra of the earth, it symbolizes the terminating point of the uppermost chakra’s “presence” or emanation of itself; the ultimate, universal “Self” or Brahman of Hinduism corresponds to that uppermost chakra as it exists in itself, though this Self also dwells in lower chakras. Though I shall explain more on this point in its own section, I will equate this “Crown Chakra” with pure intelligence or being as it is in itself, and as such insist that my true self “lives” there. As for the muladhara or Root Chakra, however, it corresponds less to my true self as to my physical body or, less literally, to the “natural man” who is to be tamed. Carl Jung explains this point well when he says: “Muladhara is characterized as being the sign of the earth….Then the name muladhara, meaning the root support, also shows that we are in the region of the roots of our existence, which would be our personal bodily existence on this earth.” [12]

As the “root support” of my bodily existence, that which grounds me, supports me, and lets me stand up with a confidence in my own footing, the muladhara chakra not only represents my physical body but also, less literally, the condition that roots me to this world and its realities. As such it has both positive and negative aspects. On the one hand, the Root Chakra represents embodiment and the blessings it brings in the plan of salvation, but with such groundedness can come worldliness—the sin of being not only in the world, but also of it. Carl Jung expresses a similar sentiment when he says that the muladhara chakra “is a place where mankind is a victim of impulses, instincts, unconsciousness, of participation mystique [a state of unconscious identification with an outside entity], where we are in dark and unconscious place. We are a hapless victim of circumstances, our reason can do very little.” [13] A person thus trapped in the Root Chakra would drift along helplessly with the world, satisfying every hunger and living out every instinct, fantasy or passion—the image par excellence of the Book of Mormon’s “natural man.”[14]

However, the Root Chakra need not be a source of evil; it is only so when it serves as an end in itself, an idol to the light shining from the higher chakras resonating within it. Let us, then, go along with this elemental symbolism by imagining that our intelligences—which were “also in the beginning with the Father”[15]—are seeds of divine light that can only grow into their fullness by rooting themselves in the earth’s (or the muladhara chakra’s)  matter and solidity. The divinity which exists in us as latent potential can here become actualized; the earth would thus be the matrix which allows intelligences to grow and blossom into “trees (of life).” One should also not overlook the feminine symbolism inherent in this idea. As Mormon scripture indicates, the earth is the “mother of men.”[16] We can take this as more than poetic flourish if we remember that the classical imagination saw the earth—as what receives seeds and allows them to grow—as a correspondence of the womb, which receives the man’s “seed” and allows it to grow. The earth would then be our mother in a very real sense, for it/she nourishes our intelligences with the matter[17] that lets them grow into the fullness of their being. Nor would this necessarily rule out this mother’s personal nature, as several religious traditions speak of ways in which the earth—less as the physical planet than as our current level of existence—can “emanate” from a personal being.[18]

As a final note to my comments on this topic, could we perhaps take Joseph Smith’s above comments on the Book of Mormon as a suggestion that it also germinated in the earth’s womb, that it too grew from a kind of seed-like intelligence? Maybe then we could read phrases like the “great things the Father hath laid up for you, from the foundation for the world” [19] less as a comment on literal treasures than as evidence that the intelligence of truth, knowledge, revelation, etc. can also germinate in the earth’s womb, to come forth (read: be born) at a later time. Thus, when Paul says that “the whole creation has been groaning in labor until the now—and not only the creation, but we ourselves also, having the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan in ourselves, eagerly longing for sonship, the redemption of the body,”[20] we can suppose that the earth has been continually “groaning in labor” with “the things the Father hath laid up” for us, until the time when she rests, when the labor is done. Going along with the Pauline comparison, I hypothesize that this time will be in the earth’s exalted state, when the record of all things will be “read upon the house tops,” [21] when the earth will become as translucent as glass to the glory that shines through her.[22]

But notice that I am not saying this mother is identical with the muladhara chakra; instead, I suggest that she merely dwells there. This has considerable precedent in Kundalini Yoga itself, for the word “kundalini” refers to “a microcosm or representation of the primordial Energy, or Shakti [the Hindu name for the Divine’s feminine principle, especially when personified].”[23] According to the conceptual framework intrinsic to Kundalini Yoga, Kundalini as the bodily incarnation of Shakti dwells in the muladhara chakra, coiled like a serpent at the base of the spine, and the various exercises of this yogic school exist entirely to raise Kundalini up the various chakras in the spine until she rejoins her divine “husband” Shiva in the upper chakras. [24] Such an idea recurs in other spiritual traditions as well; in many Gnostic systems, it is said that Sophia (the feminine principle of God) was cut off from God the Father and “trapped ” in the world’s matter.[25] Though such ideas may strike the Latter-day Saint as odd, we may glean from them important truths, namely the observation that if we are a “bride” to a divine “bridegroom,”[26] the act of ascension to God is essentially one of reuniting a separated divine couple.

Moreover, if Kundalini Yoga is correct in its conviction that Shakti or Kundalini should be raised from muladhara to the higher chakras, then such spirituality would necessarily involve removing the identification of divinity with matter, for one can only free a God trapped in the earth if one can tell the two apart. Perhaps this is the true meaning of the commandment warning against idolatry: that idols imprison Kundalini in physicality, preventing the divine mother from giving birth to the treasures hidden in our unenlightened, opaque perception of the world. Maybe when Nephi and Moroni “cry from the dust,” the dust from which their cries resound is really the obfuscation of our idolatry, our unwillingness to “see through” the matter of the world to the divinity, intelligence, and seeds of light latent within it.

[1] 2 Nephi 31:13

[2] Jeffrey R. Holland, “Personal Purity”

[3] 2 Nephi 1:14

[4] 2 Nephi 3:19-20

[5] 2 Nephi 27:9

[6] 2 Nephi 33:13

[7] Mosiah 4:2

[8] Mosiah 21:13

[9] Mormon 8:23

[10] Moroni 10:27

[11] Smith, Joseph. Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, Chapter 11

[12] Jung, C. G. The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga: Notes of the Seminar given in 1932 by C.G. Jung. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999, 23-24

[13] Ibid 15

[14]Mosiah 3:19

[15] D&C 93:23

[16] Moses 7:48

[17] The word “matter” is actually  a cognate of words meaning “mother,” such as “maternal,” “matriarch,” etc.

[18] See Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, by Henry Corbin.

[19] Ether 4:14

[20] Romans 8:22-23 (Translation from For Zion: A Mormon Theology of Hope)

[21] 2 Nephi 27:11

[22] D&C 130:7

[23] Feuerstein, Georg. Yoga: The Technology of Ecstasy. Wellinborough 1990., 264

[24] Jung, C. G.. Op. cit., xxv.

[25]Von Franz, Marie Louise. The Golden Ass of Apuleius: The Liberation of the Feminine in Man. Rev. Ed., 1st Shambhala ed. Boston: Shambhala, 1992.,104.

[26] See, for instance, Matthew 9:15

Peter Breaks Through: The Mystical in "Peter Pan"

Since before I can remember, J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan story has both captured my imagination and touched my heart. As to why this is, I'm not sure. It might be because the first stuffed animal I bonded with was a version of the crocodile from Disney's rendition of the story. It might also be because of my Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis, and because other "aspies" have taken to saying that they are from the "wrong planet," as if we too came from the sky.

But the more I reflect and observe, the more I realize Peter Pan's significance for us all. In fact, Peter Pan is a spiritual archetype deeply embedded in our souls. We know him by other names, yes--the Greek god Hermes, the Little Prince, or even the Doctor from Doctor Who (particularly 11)--but his bursting life, his simultaneous innocence and cheek, and his eternality have always "broken through" to our collective consciousness in one form or another. We see it in myth: Icarus and Phaethon trying to reach and break through the utmost limits of the sky. He, surprisingly, also breaks through in history: think of Michael Jackson and his dance steps that seem never to touch the ground, of Mozart and his soaring melodies. But notice that in each of these cases, Peter ends in tragedy. Icarus plunges into the sea (much as the pilot and author Antoine de St. Exupery did just a year after penning The Little Prince) and Phaethon burns up; The Doctor can't stop dying and regenerating; Michael Jackson, Mozart, and countless other young prodigies die young and tragically.

 Jungian psychology has a name for this archetype: the "puer aeternus" or "eternal child," "puer" for short. Writing on the puer and the above topic, the master psychologist James Hillman writes:

"[The puer] must be weak on earth, because it is not at home on earth. The beginnings of things are Einfalle; they fall in one one from above as gifts of  the puer, or sprout up from the ground as daktyls, as flowers. But there is difficulty at the begining; the child is in danger, easily gives up. The horizontal world, the space-time continuum, which we call 'reality,' is not its world. So the new dies easily because it is not born in the Diesseits, and this death confirms it in eternity. Death does no matter because the puer gives the feeling that it can come again another time, make another start. Mortality points to immortality; danger only heightens the unreality of 'reality' and intensifies the vertical connection." -"Senex and Puer:  An Aspect of the Historical and Psychological Present," James Hillman

Peter flies because he is not at home on earth; he knows that if he were to try walking, he would have to hobble. For the glow of his fairy dust is really the light of eternity shining through. Peter Pan is eternity as it manifests in time--like its status beyond history, Peter seems unconcerned with schedules and deadlines, delaying his return to Wendy's house by as much as a generation. And of course he never grows old--time seems not to leave a mark on him, and the innocent naivete of childhood persists through his life as though the cruelties of history did not exist. 

We can see Peter in anyone who seems ill-adapted to life, but who harbors a well of talent that seems unbounded. We all know the type: the socially awkward math genius, the chess savant, the neurotic musician or painter. Even I--as someone with high-functioning autism--suspect his role in my life and that diagnosis. These people may be unable to deal with society's demands, but you can bet your life that society would not be able to survive without the regular influx of fairy dust that Peter provides. The puer's wounds--whether it be the Doctor's regeneration energy or Christ's blood (Christ, as the Son, being a kind of eternal child)--sustain and nourish the world. If we didn't have Mozart's symphonies, Turing's computer, or Kurt Cobain's Nirvana (nirvana as, of course, the puer's escape from the wheel of history), the world would be a sadder, lonelier place.

But where does Peter, the puer, call home? If he longs for nirvana--an escape from history, complication, attachment--where can he finally put his feet up, stop fidgeting, and relax? Of course, the answer is Neverland. Neverland is the land that refuses to be pinned down or mapped, that place where you can "never land." To put it differently, Neverland is the place beyond place, or better, the place hiding between places. Perhaps the philosopher Henry Corbin puts it best when he describes the Sufi concept of the Na-koja-Abad, translated as--interestingly enough--"the land of No-where":

"The word Na-koja-Abad does not designate something like unextended being, in the dimensionless state. The Persian word abad certainly signifies a city, a cultivated and peopled land, thus something extended....Topographically, he [Sohravardi] states precisely that this region begins 'on the convex surface' of the Ninth Sphere, the Sphere of Spheres, or the Sphere that includes the whole of the cosmos. This means that it begins at the exact moment when one leaves the supreme Sphere, which defines all possible orientation in the world (or on this side of the world), the 'Sphere' to which the celestial cardinal points refer. [Mormons reading this; notice connections to Abraham 3's discussion of Kolob and other "planets"] Thus the name Na-koja-Abad; a place outside of place, a 'place' that is not contained in a place, in a topos, that permits a response, with a gesture of the hand, to the question 'where?'" -"Mundus Imaginalis," Henry Corbin

(Devoted readers of my blog will perhaps notice a connection to Swedenborg's description of heaven, which Henry Corbin was not hesitant to point out. Swedenborg's heaven, too, is a "never-land"--a place that exists beyond all place, one that cannot exist within the confines of earthly (or astronomical) maps or charts. I think that the same archetypal power influencing Swedenborg and J. M. Barrie persisted even in the creators of the 1954 musical version of Peter Pan; Swedenborg's heaven is also "a place where dreams are born," "where time is never planned" and one that your heart can reach if it "thinks of lovely things.")

Peter is at home beyond all space and time, and so distance and duration threaten him. The knots of indirection, discipline, and patience upset him. He wants freedom, direct flight, soaring transcendence of limitation. But of course the world doesn't work like that. Is Peter doomed to die young whenever he pops up in the world? Must he always return, like the Little Prince, to his star? Though events seem to suggest that he must, I think there is another way. Peter should neither flee back to Neverland or become a "grownup;" there is a third option, and I want to discuss it for the rest of this post.

Peter Pan longs for a mother. For some reason, though he disdains the idea of grownups, he feels that something is missing from his life, and that something is precisely the care and comfort that a mother provides. And while not a mother, the Little Prince's flower also provides a feminine presence that proves indispensable to a puer. You see, the puer is caught in a dichotomy between boy and man, Peter Pan and Captain Hook. He never stops to consider that this dichotomy--as exclusively masculine--ignores a third position that embraces and contains both perspectives. This perspective is that of the mother--the symbolically feminine receptivity that is neither flighty child nor workaholic grownup, but the link between them. 

This can all be further symbolized by the most distinctive part of feminine anatomy: the womb. The womb as a vessel both receives life and gives it; it acts as a bridge between the opposite polarities of boy and grownup, Peter Pan and Mr. Darling, stickler and pick-up-sticks. Instead of bitterly holding secrets in (grownup) or spilling them out to whomever will hear (puer), it bridges between openness and secrecy through an alternation of flow and containment. Peter might long for a mother, and surely a mother's love would give him this peace that lies beyond duality to an extent, but there is another way for him to access feminine receptivity: Peter must be wounded.

For the puer, wound=womb. The pain and suffering that one might delay until a tragedy at the end of life then comes early on, and stays with him as a a scar--a reminder of his vulnerability, this opening as an invitation toward inwardness and containment. Thus being wounded, Peter Pan would become like Christ, whose wounds enabled him to succor his spiritual children, or the Little Prince, whose injury by snake bite enabled him to reunite with his beloved rose. Peter Pan's wound would then be a mother for him, enabling him to deal with the stresses of life without having to sacrifice his vivacity and eternal spirit.

For that is the secret: grownup and boy are united in the feminine principle. Luce Irigaray was surely touching on this principle when she referred to the female sex as "the sex which is not one"--comfortable with multiplicity and unresolved duality. This means connecting the vertical and the horizontal (Christ's cross), eternity and time, nirvana and samsara, Neverland and Terra Firma. We might remind ourselves of the Doctor and his two hearts--he who is himself two, capable of compassionate duplicity, of being both human and alien, old man and boy, here and there (we might also recall the Tardis as a feminine being, both as referred to and in its internal similarity to a womb). For like the Doctor, Christ, the Little Prince, or even Odysseus and his wound, every instance of Peter Pan's breakthrough must temper itself with receptivity and containment, seeing the kiss in the thimble. He must learn to have his hurts mother him, to stop running from danger but to embrace the salt and blood of life as a teacher and a nurturer. He then, in a way, grows up, but not irrevocably; he maintains the life and dexterity of the puer while also having the earthiness and sustainability of the old man or "senex."

But above all we must remember Peter's necessity. Even if he never learns to grow up, none of us should ever forget the value of his breakthroughs, his infusions of fairy dust into the dirt and sweat of life. Without him as a guide, we are lost even more irrevocably than we have ever been. For Peter is always there at the window--to Neverland, to Asteroid B612, to eternity--and we will always need him.

Bigger on the Inside: The Mystical in Doctor Who

My name is Christian Swenson, and I am a Whovian. This claim--that I am a member of a fandom celebrating the 52-year-old television show called Doctor Who--is not something I'm at all ashamed to admit here. I have watched Doctor Who for just about as long as I've maintained this blog, so I'm actually much more ashamed to say that in those 5 1/2 years, I haven't touched on the show here at all. I intend to change that.

Doctor Who tells the story of an alien simply named "The Doctor," who travels through time and space in his spaceship/time machine called the Tardis, which, though outwardly a 1960s British Police telephone box, is inwardly vaster than you can imagine. He is a member of an alien race called the Time Lords and understands himself to be its sole remaining member for much of the recent series. When he gets close to dying, his body undergoes a process called "regeneration," by which it renews itself into the form of a completely new person with a completely new personality, though his underlying identity and memories remain the same. On his voyages throughout the cosmos, he does his utmost to preserve peace, freedom, and well-being among the many denizens of the universe, and in doing so he becomes something of a savior figure.

Though you may find my religious verbiage there a bit surprising, know that I'm just getting started. As a matter of fact, Doctor Who is chock-full of spiritual and mystical themes, and though many might imagine it to be a bastion of secularism, I know better. Despite what the show's creators may have intended (Douglas Adams being among them at one point), the archetypes of spirituality have "shone through the cracks" of the show, to the point where Doctor Who is a veritable religious mythos all of its own.

This is far from shallow philosophizing. I went to a panel at a local Comic-Con-esque convention last January with some stars from Doctor Who, and I was surprised to see how many fans got up to say that the show had actually changed their lives. With an emotional passion surprising for a mere "television show," they got up to say that the values, stories, and themes from Doctor Who had given them a framework by which to guide and govern their own lives. They also said that the show had given them comfort when life was at its bleakest, and one young woman actually said that it had "saved her life."

Does that sound like just another sci-fi show, a potentially trivial waste of time? Is Doctor Who just an entertaining way to spend an hour of television programming, or is it something more? I think it is. During the time when the Doctor graces our screens, I believe they are actually bigger on the inside--televisions become Tardises. And that is the Doctor's magic: he knows the secret of the Time Lords' craft, and he understands better than anyone alive that anything at all can be inwardly vaster than it appears. When the Doctor shows us this understanding, our hearts swell (and double), and we too become Tardises. It is no accident that when the Doctor's Tardis became temporarily incarnate in a human body, she explained how surprised she was that people were all "so much bigger on the inside!"

The Doctor sees the inner immensity of all things--when he notices the beauty in a gigantic insect or some other apparently disgusting monster, he is just remembering that his time machine is hardly what it appears to be from the outside. When an old, embittered man says that a woman is "nobody important" and the Doctor cheekily remarks "you know, in 900 years of time and space, I've never met somebody who wasn't important before," he is again repeating that secret Time Lord way of seeing the universe, where nothing is insignificant, because they are all inwardly vast.

Could it be that when these young fans tearfully thank a Matt Smith or a Billie Piper for Doctor Who's saving power, they are expressing gratitude for the Doctor's revelation that they are more than mere lumps of expendable flesh, that they too are bigger on the inside? And not just them--with a mere flick of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, everything becomes a TARDIS: my friend, my lover, my book, that tree, a memory, or a thought all reveal themselves as a hidden world, one that opens up to the entirety of space and time.

How many of us haven't seen "a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower?" Surely everyone knows the thrill of looking deeply into something or someone, and then seeing them open up to the vastness of eternity. When this "opening" happens, the police box is merely swinging ajar its doors--Blake's "grain of sand" is a Tardis, and through it you can visit anything and everything in creation.

And who says Tardises can't have more Tardises within them--depth within depth, worlds within worlds? Suddenly I am reminded of a passage from C. S. Lewis's last entry in the Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle, in which all the Narnians we knew and loved passed from "the Shadowlands" to a more "internal," yet much vaster and richer Narnia. Speaking with her friend Mr. Tumnus from a garden at the top of a hill, the girl-turned-young-woman Lucy Pevensie says:

"'I see,' she said at last, thoughtfully. 'I see now. This garden is like the Stable. It is far bigger inside than it was outside.' 'Of course, Daughter of Eve,' said the Faun. 'The further up and the further in you go, the bigger everything gets. The inside is larger than the outside."Lucy looked hard at the garden and saw that it was not really a garden at all, but a whole world, with its own rivers and woods and sea and mountains. but they were not strange: she knew them all.'I see,' she said. 'This is still Narnia, and more real and more beautiful than the Narnia down below, just as it was more real and more beautiful than the Narnia outside the Stable door! I see...world within world, Narnia within Narnia...''Yes,' said Mr. Tumnus, 'like an onion: except that as you go in and in, each circle is larger than the last.'"

When I open the doors to the Tardises in my friend or my 'companion," I can go forever "further up and further in" to him or her. An angry facial expression can become an intimation of volcanoes or an ancient battle, and a kind word can awaken the long dead or open up Forrest Gump's box of chocolates. Anything can suggest anything; like unto like, forever and ever (see this post for a more lengthy and rigorous discussion of this topic).

And of course, let's not forget the Doctor himself! He comes from another world, irrupting into this one like a flash of lightning in "an oncoming storm." Yes, he looks human, but he isn't; he is a being of fire and light hidden in human flesh, which fire breaks forth to issue him forth from one way of being to another. We can never speak his name, for surely it would burn our tongues if we tried. He goes from here to there and there to here without effort. He is simultaneously boyish and unspeakably old; he is a door between worlds.

What does all this mean? The Doctor always comes in the nick of time, but that is, of course, because he is himself a "nick" in time! He is a tiny hole in the established way of things, one by which the "everlasting burnings" of  eternity can break through and transform us. For he not only regenerates himself--he regenerates the world. That's his job--to transmute the world into gold, to heal us of our ills, to save us all from our own monsters.

I know of many Doctors in the world--Christ, of course, but also anyone who seems not to jibe with the times, but whose foolishness changes the world for good. My favorite is actually Joseph Smith--like Lucy Pevensie discovering a world in a backroom wardrobe, or Amy Pond finding a Tardis in her backyard, Joseph Smith had the privilege and great responsibility of discovering a window to eternity in the backwoods of his hometown. What is this Tardis, you might ask? Well, it's pretty easy to find: The Book of Mormon is also square, blue, and bigger on the inside!

What an odd synchronicity! And I don't think it's accidental--blue is the color of depth, of great distance incarnate in the small and near at hand. The Book of Mormon and the Tardis both come to us "out of the blue," as they are windows onto the "great blue yonder" of eternity, the great expanse of the firmament that links earth and heaven. Heaven on earth; eternity in time; the bigger inside in the smaller outside. Who knows--maybe the Doctor is hidden somewhere in that blue box of a book!

So let us remember the Doctor's secret. As we go throughout our days, let us put on his "brainy-specs" or his eccentric 3D glasses, so that we may see the depth in things.  Don't be afraid to stand up for the tiny--as a Whovian, you should know better than anyone that it is inwardly huge (blessed are the tiny, for they are bigger on the inside!). And finally, see what's hidden in plain sight; look past perception filters; don't blink. If you look carefully, attentively, with the care of a Doctor, you'll find more than just the outside of things--you'll find a Tardis.

My Upcoming Experiment

Hello, all! Ever since about a year ago, I've had a secret ambition. As you know if you read my blog, the great eighteenth-century visionary Emanuel Swedenborg taught that the Bible is deeply symbolic, and that one could follow even the tiniest details back to a spiritual reality it symbolized. He published lengthy works explaining these interpretations (what he called "correspondences"), but I've thought: why hasn't anyone tried to do this with the Book of Mormon? If I'm to stick to my beliefs that both Joseph Smith's and Swedenborg's claims are true, then the Book of Mormon would have to fall into Swedenborg's system of symbolic interpretation. So, I've decided to test that idea, with the hypothesis that the Book of Mormon will reveal deeper and more profound truths if I interpret it with Swedenborg's hermeneutic lens.

Invaluable in this project will be the book Dictionary of Correspondences: The Key to Biblical Interpretation, published as a reference guide to all the symbolic relationships explained in Swedenborg's large corpus.

I expect this project to take up a medium-to-large amount of posts, and I'll probably make a post exploring the symbolic meanings of each book in the Book of Mormon (I'll probably squish Enos, Omni, Jarom, and the Words of Mormon together, along with similar things for other very short books). So, expect this project to be a major presence on my blog in the coming weeks and months.

A few caveats before I finish here: first, asserting the Book of Mormon's symbolic meaning doesn't rule out its literal meaning. According to Swedenborgian theology, every piece of scripture has at least three distinct meanings: its celestial meaning (corresponding to the Celestial Kingdom of heaven, a term familiar to any Latter-Day Saint), its spiritual meaning, and its literal meaning. The celestial and spiritual meanings exist in the literal meaning like a spirit in a body, and so it's important to remember that these deeper levels of meaning in scripture are vitally connected to the literal meaning. In fact, you might say that they need each other.

Also, please be wary of getting too attached to this interpretation. As I mentioned in my post Tips on Reading the Book of Mormon Effectively, any interpretation of the Book of Mormon will hinder your testimony if you grasp it too tightly, and this one is no exception. While it might potentially open new vistas of spiritual understanding, any way of understanding truth can get in the way of that truth if it becomes too "opaque," too complete in itself. So keep that in mind.

Also, if you're curious about Swedenborg's interpretation of the Bible, check out my post A Swedenborgian Testimony of the Book of Mormon, in which I compare it to the Book of Mormon's interpretation of its own symbols (in the context of Lehi's dream), and find them to be eerily similar.

So, fun times ahead! I'm excited to hear what you all think.

Like Unto Like

In my last post I talked about (among other topics) that there is a kind of space "between" all things. I pointed out that two things can only conceivably interact with each other if they have something in common between them, if they are in some way the same. The matrix that acts as the commonality between all things--the ground for all interaction between people, objects, and ideas that are separate--is this "between space," what I before called "The Island" in an homage to Lost.

However, there is more to be said on this topic. For instance, I think it's important to talk about exactly why it is that two things need a common medium or "matrix" in order for them to come into relation with each other at all. The key to this question lies in a simple observation: that in order for me to know about another thing at all (let alone interact with it in a concrete way), some evidence of that thing must present itself to me. This evidence means that I and that thing have at least "crossed paths," for the very fact that I am aware of it means that we both exist in a realm of being in which I can at least encounter the "traces" of that other thing. If I and that thing didn't have a common "space," I would not be able to conceive of this object, let alone know about it or interact with it.

At a very fundamental level, things like "space" and "time" are examples of the kind of matrix in which I can be situated together with an object. In other words, I share in common with essentially anything or anyone I have encountered the facts that we a) exist in space, and b) exist in time. This commonality I have with things makes it possible for me to encounter and perceive them--it is precisely because I share "space" and "time" in common with these things that we can come into awareness of each other at all.

But notice something here: you never see space and time. Though you may see objects that occupy a space and occur at a time, I can only infer the actual existence of space and time from these objects, and never from direct perception. But of course this makes sense--because I can only come to perceive things in space and time, I can never perceive space and time themselves. This is much like you never actually see light--you only ever see objects illuminated by light. Like light, space and time are the means by which I see--and thus they are "too close" for me to discern by themselves.

But if it is true that space and time--two qualities I have in common with all things in the universe--are examples of media through which I see other things, is it true for other commonalities? For instance, is it true for colors or shapes or tones? I would say that it is. In other words, I never actually see "yellow"--though it may seem counter-intuitive, I only ever see things that are yellow. Though I may see a banana, a lemon, or a glass of orange juice, the most I can say is that they share something in common; if my sight actually were directed to the color "yellow," then yellow would be a thing. But yellow isn't a thing--it's a "form" of things, (to use a Platonic or Wittgensteinian term; they both apply here) a way in which things can be similar to each other. And just like the other "forms" of space and time, though I never actually see yellow, yellow gives me the ability to see things that are (i.e. exemplify) yellow.

Thus, the forms of space, time, colors, sounds, and shapes are all means by which I see, and as such I never actually see them in themselves. But I would also say that redness, hardness, and quietness are matrices, media, or "between-spaces" in which I am situated with their relevant objects, and by which I can come into contact with them. A form such as this lays out a "stage" on which interactions between objects can take place. Thus, I can encounter colored objects on a "colored" stage, a loud sound on a "loud" stage, etc.

Though it sounds odd, the fact that I exist in a medium, matrix, or "between-space" of "greenness" means that I, along with a green object, also share in that greenness.  But this should be obvious--when I look at a frog, there is green in me, in range of my vision. When this happens, there is a green spot in my vision, and as such I share "green-ness" in common with that frog. In fact, I would say that all perception is like this: in order for me to see something, I must share the matrix, the "stage" of the object's form with it--we must both exist in a common medium that embraces all things which share that form.

To put it even more simply, you could say that each form (whether it be space, time, a color, or something more weird, like "squareness") exists equally in all things that exemplify that form. Blue exists in all things that are blue, squareness exists in all things that are square, etc. But one might also point out that two or more things in a representative relationship (like a picture and its object) also share a form--the form of whatever is in common between what the picture and what is pictured (Wittgenstein called this the "form of representation" in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus). Thus, whenever something is a picture of another thing, and by extension whenever something resembles another thing, there is a form, a between-space, a matrix that embraces and exemplifies itself in both of them. In the case of human perception, what I experience through vision, what you experience through vision, and what we both see all share this kind of form, and thus what is "common" between each of the three phenomena comes to show itself.

I am not alone in this idea. The eighteenth-century thinker Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe's Theory of Colors points out:

"The eye owes its existence to light. From an auxiliary, sensory apparatus, animal and neutral, light has called forth, produced for itself, an organ like unto itself; light has called forth, produced for itself, an organ like unto itself; thus the eye was formed by light, of light and for light, so that the inner light might come in contact with the outer light. At this very point we are reminded of the ancient Ionian School, which never ceased to repeat, giving it capital importance, that like is only known by like."

I think that the phrase "like is only known by like" is essential here. I can only ever come into contact with something if I am somehow the same as that thing, if we both "spring" from the same matrix or medium. With regard to color, this means that I must already exist on a "stage" corresponding to color in order to see it at all. So too with space, time, roundness, etc.--in order for me to see spatial, temporal, or round things, I must exist also in the between-space that shares exemplifies qualities. But an interesting consequence emerges from this--even if I am not, say, a dog, a child, or a woman, my ability to come into contact with those things means that I must share something very fundamental in common with them. In other words, since I exist in a between-space with another person, we both spring from the same matrix; we are connected at the very depths of our being. Though I might look different from, say, Regina Spektor, the fact remains that our beings spring from the same depths--we are both exemplifications of deeply fundamental forms.

This brings me back to a point I made in my "The Fire Between Two" post from last month: the fact that I am different from a woman makes my encounter with her a revelation of eternity. Our differences make it so that, in order for us to become intimate, we must descend clear down to the level where the differences spring. In other words, the more marked the difference, the more profound the revelation that comes when I find the medium that exists between us. And to reiterate a point I made in that post, this is why it is so important to defend the role of difference (sexual or otherwise) in our experience of sacredness.

But another consequence emerges from this: if I exist in a medium, matrix, or between-space toghether with all things, then in a very meaningful sense I am connected to all things in my depths. To connect with all things doesn't need a "stepping-over" of boundaries--as D&C 88:67 states, when I am single to the glory shining from within me and from behind the world of my day-to-day life, I "comprehend all things." This takes a willingness to see past the appearances of the world, to go past "seeing" entirely by connecting to the matrices, forms, and between-spaces that exemplify themselves in the things we encounter through sense. By doing this we can truly experience existence as "all in all"--all things contain all things, and I can see anything in anything when I look to the "between" that exemplifies itself in the things of my life (see this link to portions of the Avatamsaka Sutra, a lengthy but supernally beautiful Buddhist scripture that's based on just this idea).

I get the impression that the most fundamental form--that which is between all of us and all things--is what we call the Kingdom of God, the Celestial Kingdom, or what have you. Unlike those who would have you believe it exists on some planet next to some star or other, I suggest that this Kingdom exists very close at hand. It is all around us and within us; it shines through our world, our minds, and our bodies, and yet the darkness in them doesn't comprehend it. To see it you must learn to see without seeing, to know things by the glimmers of an obscure light that shines through them. And of course, it shows up most clearly when we love, for love reveals the invisible fullness between us and all things.

And when we learn to see this Kingdom and its glory, we realize that this world is but the barest reflection of the fullness contained therein. We then begin to suspect that the whole chain of beings and worlds is nothing more than a series of double-facing mirrors; I am a reflection of something higher, and that higher thing is a reflection of something still higher. But in this endless chain of reflection and re-reflection, what is unchanging is not what we see, but what we are. Behind the endless ladder of worlds, we may perhaps discern the unchanging presence of the "between," for after everything else, it is the form of a single Kingdom and its indwelling love that shows itself through the kaleidoscope of images in our world (and all others).

The Island Between: A "Lost" Parable

Over the last few weeks or so, I've begun to re-watch the television series

Lost, on which there are already a few posts on this blog. I still don't think that there is another TV show that rivals its capacity for pure spiritual and philosophical insight, and I recently got a comparaitive insight about the show that I thought I'd share.

The bulk of Lost takes place on an island, convenently labeled and referred to as simply "the Island." This actually quite large landmass has remained essentially undiscovered, and with the exception of a small group of scientists, no one has been able to deliberately find it. To go there, one must be brought there. Whether they are the survivors of Oceanic flight 815, the crew of the Black Rock, or the French Science team, practically everyone who arrives there get thrown into its mess of jungles, ruins, and hatches without their asking for it. But the Island is more than a mess--as character John Locke noted very early in the series, "this place is different, special." It has a healing effect (both literal and figurative) upon those who land on it, and it is largely a result of the Island's graces that the characters in the series--those who were once "lost" in the tangle of their own lives--become found.

At this point, we could compare the Island to the Christian principle of grace--it comes without our asking for it, and when we let it work on us, it begins to heal us and our relationships. And as becomes increasingly clear throughout the series, the grace of the Island comes from the bright light at its center, and one might even say that the Island is just an "incarnation in rock" of what emanates from that light. In fact, one might even suggest that the whole series is nothing more than a slow manifestation of that light--a slow "opening of our eyes" to the luminescent power that reaches out to and binds together the various characters in the series. As such, it is fitting that the last scene of the series is a door opening to a bright light--what was there all along, but needed time and suffering to become clear.

But there is more to this principle than meets the eye. I would urge the reader to remember the core storytelling mechanic of the show: the flashes, back, forward, or sideways, that parallel the main storyline on the Island. Far from being a mere stunt to keep the viewer interested, I would argue that these flashes are a manifestation in cinematics of what the show and its Island are all about. Notice that each of these flashes show the intersection of two storylines--one on the Island, and one off. The Island is thus the intersection--the common ground, the "mandorla"--between not only the past, the present, and the future, but also between life and death and between the lives of the various people that come to it. 

To speak metaphorically, the Island is between all of us and between all things. Whenever the circles in the Venn diagram of two things interact--whether through love, through empathy, or what have you--the Island is becoming present. This place is merely another name for the "between-space" of all things, that which shares equally in the past  and future, the living and the dead, between cultures and genders and personality types. As such, to "crash" on this Island is to be forcefully made aware of the commonality between me and another. Such a crash might occur on a bus, when all of a sudden realize that everyone sitting there is a unique human being with his or her own pains, joys, and losses. It might also happen when someone else shares a few kind words with you, ones which changed the entire course of your day, week, or year. Moroever, such a crash might occur when you--under very unlikely circumstances--meet a peson who later becomes a dear friend or even a signficant other. 

To crash on the Island is to crash into togetherness, into belonging, into love. The Island and its light become increasingly manifest when we share and don't hide from genuinely loving discourse and action--when we "live together, so that we don't die alone." And as you find the common ground between you increasing numbers of people. points of view, and things, you become that much more comfortable there. And as we embed ourselves  in its strange and yet somehow familiar way of life, we begin to see that it is all light--a light that reaches out to us, changes us, and brings us together.

I belive that this "between-space" is very real. While it may not be an Island, I feel that it is both a comfort and the only way certain intellectual problems can be resolved. After all, how can one moment give way to another if there isn't some continuity between them? Or how could I ever communicate to you if there wan't some kind of medium between us? Indeed, how could any two things ever interact if the "between" weren't there, embracing and bringing together all things? This "between," which I figuratively call the Island, is invisible to us, and yet it is the only way by which things can be seen at all. It is the "too close to see," "the light which shines in the darkness, but which the darkness comprehends not." Thus, I belive that this between is the essence of love, of peace, and even of divinity.

This between is an unseen presence in our lives, that which "comes before" our ability to see and experience. And as such I think that it is the key to many mysteries of faith. To give an example, I believe that the reason the Book of Mormon has scanty historical evidence is because it didn't take place in history. On the contrary, the Book of Mormon took place in the "time between time" and "the place between places," that which I have here called the Island. How else could the Book of Moromon integrate elements from both the nineteenth century and the ancient near east (and if certain scholars are to be belived, then also the seventeeth century)? It is a paradox that makes sense only when you consider that it takes place in no one time but in the matrix from which all times are born. Indeed, I think that the way the Book of Mormon lends itself to "likening" is a testament to this point, for it not only speaks of events in some far-flung corner of the world, but of your life and its day-to-day concerns. If I am right, then how fitting it is that the Book of Mormon came through a Urim and Thummim, a lens through which all things can be manifest, past, present, and future!

If I'm going to be honest, I have to say that I think at least some of Lost is inspired. While surely some parts of it surely were just fodder to make suspense or to garner viewers, there is a frequent kernel of spiritual truth and good that shows itself throughout its episodes, one which testifies to our souls of something good and wonderful between us all.

The Fire Between Two

On this blog I've often written about my problem of separateness--the way I've always felt like the separation between self and other is oppressive, alienating, and lonely. I felt somehow despairing that you are not me and that I am not you, for I wanted it it all to be "one body" (2 Nephi 2:11). However, I recently realized that the premises of this problem rested upon unclear thinking on my part: because I didn't ever say what I meant by "separateness," the issue's unclear borders were allowed to swell to monstrous proportions. "Separateness" can actually mean several things. For instance, when I say "I am separate from you," this signifies that I am either a) different from you, or b) cur off from/opposed to you. What I didn't see in all my fretting over the issue is that difference does not equal opposition--I can be different from you without being opposed to or cut off from you. This naturally means that, though I may be separate from you in the way of difference, I can still be close to and intimate with you.

I ultimately realized that I conflated "sameness" with intimacy, whereas the two concepts could not be further opposed. If I must eliminate the difference between me and you to feel a sense of intimacy, then I long not for the co-presence of "two," but the creation of a "one." But a "one" can never be intimate with itself--intimacy needs two for it to be what it is. One, I have realized, is lonely. Only two provides any sense of belonging.
And yet, there is a sense in which the two are one. If you take "oneness" to refer to the state of intimacy, closeness, and love itself, the two can be one without ceasing to be two. However, this effort toward the irreduction of the two is difficult work. As Mormon theologian Adam S. Miller writes in his essay "Love, Truth, and the Meaning of Marriage" (buy the book):

"The maintenance of this fragile Two in its difference is arduous. The constant temptation is for one of the two positions to subsume the difference of the other under its own preferences and thus heal the breach. This is precisely what happens in any kind of chauvinism, male of female."

Especially in the case of sexual difference mentioned in this passage, we have a powerful lust to eliminate difference and to incorporate the other into our oneness. I certainly felt this, and I was extremely frustrated with how insatiable this desire seems to be. But this desire is in principle insatiable. As post-Jungian psychologist James Hillman writes in his essay "Pothos: The Nostalgia of the Puer Aeternus" (buy the book):

"Whether the other be [old to young], female to male, mother to child, death to life--in whatever form the other is constellated from moment to moment--it is beyond reach. The other is an unattainable image, or rather an image that is only attainable through the imagination."

Don't think for a minute that an insatiable desire is a bad thing. Desire is life--when I feel desire the most mindfully and with the most presence, I feel the most alive--and to kill desire is death. When I respect desire I respect the tension between the two, and any attempt to satisfy that desire is an attempt to subsume the two under the one. Whether with breath, food, sleep, or other things, we will never be free of this longing, but we can cease being its enemy. I have learned that desire is better thought of as a friend--you don't force it away by either purging or pandering to the desire, but you let it swell like a raging fire within you. This fire can be uncomfortable, but when befriended it can teach you more about life, death, and intimacy than anything else.

Addictions of any sort happen because a person lacks respect for this flame or for the tension between the un-reduced two.  If I mindlessly reach for a cigarette or click on one pornography website after another, I am seeking after a satisfaction for my desires that perpetually recedes. What the addict doesn't realize is that desire is its satisfaction--the tension between the two is a veritable reward of its own.

A major way in which the tension between the two reveals itself is in issues of gender. I am a man, and I will never know what it's like to be a woman. Similarly, any woman will never know what it is like to be a man. This irreducible difference creates a tension between the sexes, one which many of us seek to resolve by treating of the sexes from within a single paradigm. The problem with this, however, is that any attempt to bring everyone to an experiential "common playing field" removes the beauty and wonder of difference. Feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray perhaps puts it best in her book In the Beginning, She Was (buy the book):

"Our culture is based on a sharing of the same between those who have become the same. Sameness can take the form of material needs but also of cultural or spiritual needs at all levels. In such a culture, we are called to become all alike, on earth and in heaven. There must no longer be master or slave, rich or poor, white or black, and finally no longer man or woman....Within such a world, the intervals between things and between persons are already planned and subject to calculation. There is no longer any between-us that is free, available, still silent still alive. The subjects move on the chessboard of a closed whole. Humans make up a kind of puzzle, as is the case for the totality of the pieces of the logos. There is no longer the possibility for a real creation in human relationships, either horizontally or vertically. The spaces-between are already determined. Each one believes to be moving--as when a word occupies another place and apparently modifies the whole combination of words. In reality, the whole remains the same. Which produces an entropy in the system, an exasperation, necessary conflicts to simulate a possible evolution and, finally, a need to destroy the whole."

I am different from you--I cannot reduce your life, emotions, and knowledge to my own. We are "separate and distinct," and as such I cannot say that "I am you" or that "you are me." However, in order for us to be able to hold a meaningful relationship--to communicate feelings, to learn and grow from each other--there must be a medium or matrix in which we are both situated, a "between-place" that allows us to be intimate. This medium--this relational space that underlies all difference--is spirit (as explained here). As such, we only grow to know spirit through our encounters with one who is different from us, as the space this difference opens reveals eternity.

This window to eternity--one which only opens in the tension between the two--is what we experience as desire. Yes, the Spirit of God burns like a fire, but what most don't realize is that all fire hides this spirit. Whether my desire is satiable, insatiable, permissible or impermissible, when I keep that fire burning I can gaze into the fire of heaven. But as soon as I move to satisfy or purge that desire, the fire goes out, and the window to heaven closes.

As such, it is crucial that some sense of difference remains in our society. If everyone ultimately blends together into a melting pot of homogeneity, all I ever get is more of the same, more of myself, and the heavens close. I think that this is among the major reasons the Church opposes homosexuality as a sin. To engage in the sexual act--the supreme ritual of difference--with one of the same gender perhaps isn't evil, but it precludes that act's innate possibility to reveal eternity through the intimate juxtaposition of the sexes.

Heaven can open right now, if you have eyes to see it. All it takes is for you to respect the integrity of the two. If you don't quench difference and desire by reducing those two into one, you and the other will become the two sides of an opening that leads directly into the fires of eternity.