#like when a christian mystic in 8th century ireland accidentally stumbles into what is essentially buddhism

[handweavers]

something that has interested me for years is the ways in which mysticism within religions allows for a kind of heretical or non-orthodox thought, and particularly within the context of christianity i find a lot of that heretical mysticism stumbles into the same epiphanies and ontologies that are found within south/east/asian religions as well as among contemporary medieval mystics studying kabbalah and sufi thought. i'm particularly fond of when christian mystics would stumble into nondualist belief, and how often nondualism is positioned as deeply unorthodox when it's possible to find mystics across time and space and culture who have arrived to similar conclusions, and the degree of spiritual and almost scientific honesty expressed by them within that belief. how much of their words still ring true, even with all we know now about the universe, because of their willingness to face the unknowable and the immense and sit with it simply because they understand it is sometimes all we can do