Death On The Mountain

People who live in nature experience the consequences of their actions immediately and on a personal level. For those who live in an artificial world neither of these necessarily occur.

For example, when you go hiking in a remote region red flags regarding the weather, or the decision-making level of your companions, or your history of having hiked in similar geography, or your own physical condition may each lead to disastrous results if you do not heed their warnings. And deadly consequences can arise from downplaying any of these factors.

Is any less true in regard to the direct experience of God? Does not one’s context, or level of contemplative experience of one’s companions, or the particulars of your having directly experienced God in the past, or of one’s own physical and psychological ability to consistently die to oneself - a psycho-spiritual equivalent to physical conditioning - have immediate consequences? Dismissing any of these, when warning signs arise, can result in both physical and spiritually fatal consequences, no less than what any alpinist may experience. And why would it not?

Contemplative experience is unique in Christianity. It is no less a physical engagement than is hiking or climbing a mountain. And the consequences of not heeding the red flags that are raised by one's spiritual geography are no less immediate or personal.