{"id":25638,"date":"2025-08-11T08:31:56","date_gmt":"2025-08-11T12:31:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=25638"},"modified":"2025-08-11T08:36:28","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T12:36:28","slug":"25638","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=25638","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Sara Groves - Something Changed Lyrics\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/UXLVp_oqitY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Mystical Conversion<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard Rohr describes the apostle Paul\u2019s transforming encounter with the risen Christ, which changed Paul from a vengeful zealot into a universal mystic.&nbsp;<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul is probably one of the most misunderstood and disliked teachers in Christianity. I think this is largely because we have tried to understand a nondual mystic with our simplistic, dualistic minds.\u202f&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It starts with Paul\u2019s amazing conversion experience, described three times in the Book of Acts (chapters 9, 22, and 26). Scholars assume that Luke wrote Acts around 85 CE, about twenty years after Paul\u2019s ministry. Paul\u2019s own account is in his Letter to the Galatians 1:11\u201312: \u201cThe gospel which I preach \u2026 came through a revelation of Jesus Christ.\u201d Paul never doubts this revelation. The Christ whom he met was not identical to the historical Jesus; it was the risen Christ, the Christ who remains with us now as the Universal Christ.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Galatians, Paul describes his pre-conversion life as an orthodox Jew, a Pharisee with status in the Judean governmental board called the Sanhedrin. The temple police delegated him to go out and squelch this new sect of Judaism called \u201cThe Way\u201d\u2014not yet named Christianity. Saul (Paul\u2019s Hebrew name) was breathing threats to slaughter Jesus\u2019 disciples (see Acts 9:1\u20132). He says, \u201cI tried to destroy it. And I advanced beyond my contemporaries in my own nation. I was more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers than anybody else\u201d (Galatians 1:13\u201314). At that point, Paul was a dualistic thinker, dividing the world into entirely good and entirely bad people.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Acts account of Paul\u2019s conversion continues: \u201cSuddenly, while traveling to Damascus, just before he reached the city, there came a light from heaven all around him. He fell to the ground, and he heard a voice saying, \u2018Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?\u2019 He asked, \u2018Who are you, Lord?\u2019 The voice answered, \u2018I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting\u2019\u201d (Acts 9:3\u20135).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul must have wondered: \u201cWhy does he say\u202f\u2018persecuting&nbsp;<em>me<\/em>\u2019\u202fwhen I\u2019m persecuting these other people?\u201d This choice of words is pivotal. Paul gradually comes to his understanding of the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12\u201313) as an organic, ontological union between Christ and those whom Christ loves\u2014which Paul eventually realizes is everyone and every thing. This is why Paul becomes \u201cthe apostle to the nations\u201d (or \u201cgentiles\u201d).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This enlightening experience taught Paul\u202fnondual consciousness, the same mystical mind that allowed Jesus to say things like \u201cWhatever you do to these least ones, you do to me\u201d (Matthew 25:40). Until grace achieves the same victory in our minds and hearts, we cannot really comprehend most of Jesus and Paul\u2019s teachings\u2014in any practical way. It will remain distant theological dogma. Before conversion, we tend to think of God as \u201cout there.\u201d After transformation, as Teresa of \u00c1vila wrote, \u201cThe soul \u2026 never doubts: God was in her; she was in God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Meeting the Risen Christ<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Father Richard explores how Paul\u2019s mystical encounter with the risen Christ led him to embrace paradoxical thinking.<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Meeting the Risen Christ on the road to Damascus changed everything for Paul. He experienced the great paradox that the crucified Jesus was in fact alive! And he, Paul, a \u201csinner,\u201d was in fact chosen and beloved. This pushed Paul from the usual either\/or dualistic thinking to both\/and mystical thinking.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The truth in paradoxical language lies neither in the affirmation nor in the denial of either side, but precisely in the resolution of the tug-of-war between the two. The human mind usually works on the logical principle of contradiction, according to which something cannot be both true and false at the same time. Yet that is exactly what higher truths invariably undo (for example, God is both one and three; Jesus is both human and divine; bread and wine are both matter and Spirit). Unfortunately, since the Reformation and the Enlightenment, educated Western people like myself have lost touch with paradoxical, mystical, contemplative thinking. We\u2019ve wasted at least five centuries taking sides\u2014which is so evident in our culture today!&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not only was Paul\u2019s way of thinking changed by his mystical experience, his way of being in the world was also transformed. Suddenly this persecutor\u2014and possibly murderer\u2014of Christians is Christ\u2019s \u201cchosen vessel,\u201d sent \u201cto carry my name before the gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel\u201d (Acts 9:15). This dissolves the strict line between good and bad, between in-group \u201cJews\u201d and out-group \u201cgentiles.\u201d The paradox has been overcome in Paul\u2019s very person. He now knows that he is both sinner and saint, and we too must trust the same. These two seeming contradictions don\u2019t cancel one another. Once the conflict has been overcome in ourselves, we realize we are each a living paradox and so is everyone else. We begin to see life in a truly spiritual way.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps this is why Paul loves to teach dialectically. He presents two seemingly opposing ideas, such as weakness and strength, flesh and spirit, law and grace, faith and works, Jew and Greek, male and female. Dualistic thinking usually takes one side, dismisses the other, and stops there. Paul doesn\u2019t do that. He forces us onto the horns of the dilemma and invites us to wrestle with the paradox. If we stay with him in the full struggle, we\u2019ll realize that he eventually brings reconciliation on a higher level, beyond the essential struggle where almost all of us start. [1]&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Paul is the first clear successor to Jesus as a nondual teacher. He creates the mystical foundations for Christianity. It\u2019s a mystery of participation in Christ. It\u2019s not something that we achieve by performance. It\u2019s something that&nbsp;<em>we\u2019re already participating in<\/em>, and often we just don\u2019t know it. We are all already flowing in this Christ consciousness, this Trinitarian flow of life and love moving in and around and through everything; we just don\u2019t realize it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mystical Conversion Father Richard Rohr describes the apostle Paul\u2019s transforming encounter with the risen Christ, which changed Paul from a vengeful zealot into a universal mystic.&nbsp;&nbsp; Paul is probably one of the most misunderstood and disliked teachers in Christianity. I think this is largely because we have tried to understand a nondual mystic with our [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25638"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25638"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25641,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25638\/revisions\/25641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}