I believe the only reason(s) the east has more successful (at uniting the soul with God) mystics than the west is that in the west there is on the one hand an emphasis on knowledge (and jnana yoga is incredibly difficult, much moreso than bhakti and karma yoga or a synthesis thereof) and on the other hand due to abrahamic religion there is an emphasis on widely-approved-prophet--revealed scripture instead of on personal revelation that still rare but not just a few "chosen" people can have (often leading to scripture revealed to a select few, like the upanishads or the dhammapada, but this scripture is taught to prepare a way for personal action towards enlightenment not to create orthodoxy or orthopraxis so much). and when people like st. teresa of Avila or the Baal Shem tov had mystical experiences and attained siddhis, they were faced with a society that didnt treat them as the start of a respected guru lineage based on their personal experience with conquering the ego but that demanded compliance with orthodoxy. so you had levitating nuns who were still expected to adhere to orthodoxy, and wonder working rebbes who were expected to teach torah more than anything else! but this idea of mine is very half baked like most or all of my ideas...

@georgia mainline Catholicism usually tried to suppress mysticism / people having revelations, since it takes away from the central authority of the Church when random people can get direct messages from God.

@georgia the orient isn't inherently more interesting, their xenophobia was just effective at keeping christians out of their libraries so they could burn them down.

basically, western thought is very sola scriptura whether orthodoxy or orthopraxis while the vedas themselves say in their upanishads that rituals and scripture only take you so far, only yoga can lead you beyond death

@kaia and yet some of those revelations would become very important, like the sacred heart traditions

@kaia @georgia the west has the best and most methodical mysticism, CERN does nothing else

@lain @kaia "God particle" sure guys

@georgia have you read Guénon? he writes about east vs west and doctrine vs revelation

@lain @georgia @kaia but all it amounts to are science youtubers and hardcover books with titles in sans-serif

@genmaicha ive memed about him but never actually read him, my understanding of him is quite superficial so I didnt know that

@georgia I recommend "Crisis of the Modern World" which is far less chudded than it sounds.

He has many other essays about various topics that may be of interest, but "Crisis" sums up the more fundamental points of his worldview.

@genmaicha @georgia Crisis of the Modern World is the only writing of his I've read but it was quite good