Rudolph Bauer, Ph.D. author, Elizabeth Ebaugh, Editor
The Greek word phanes means the apparition or appearance of divinity.
The Greek word phaino means to show, manifest or display or to appear. (Apparition, manifestation, to show) Phanino means to bring to light or to bring into appearance. Phaneros means to show or display, to manifest.
Phenomenology as method comes from this word. The experience of appearance… the unfolding of multidimensional appearance…the articulation of appearance. As knowledge, the path of Dzogchen is the path of awareness within appearance and appearance within awareness. The path of phenomenology is the articulation of appearance within experience.
Theophany means the apparition of divinity within and through appearance, divinity manifesting through phenomena. Theophany is the apparition of God, Deus.
Awareness as you and I know it is multidimensional. This wonderful awareness may be considered a theophany. We often think about this theophany in its vertical or ascendant horizon. As the geometry of ascendance, of manifestation, of the pure awareness which is unbound openness of dark luminosity arising and manifesting, as the cosmic light and vortexes of the archetypical dimension of the of the deities, devas and dakinis. And then the elements become flesh…arising out of the void. The light as elements configure and create the powers of consciousness and then they manifest as the earth element, the element of flesh.
But this vertical presentation is only an imagined geometry and the theophany is also horizontal. And so one enters the theophanic dimension directly through what is in front of you, behind you, within you, and above you. The relational world is theophanic.
Of course this theophanic discourse is the manifestation of love, pure love, cosmic love personified.
The singularity of love, of the beloved , is the singularity of eachness or suchness. The cosmic within the personal. In the theophanic love, all love is cosmic; cosmic compassion and personal. In our poor society eros has become sexuality and a kind of discharge mechanics. But within Greek philosophy and Dzogchen and Mahamudra as well as certain Sufi and Christian alchemical philosophies, love is eros. And of course love masters us and love is the theophanic manifestation. You and I are theophanic manifestations of pure love.
Love, Eros is God…and God is Eros. Ubi charitas et amor dues ibi est
It is not love that the lover falls in love with, but the divinity made manifest by love.
As Danti describes in his first sight of Beatrice, who is cosmic and personal. For the Dzogchen Shavite as well as the Sufism of Ilb Arabi, love is cosmic personal, love is always theophanic.
Wherever you love there is God.
True spirituality is an anima experience…Psyche. Of course the love of Yeshe Togyal and Padmasambhava is a theophanic description. And the oneness of the couple Samantabhadra and Samatabhadri is indicative of the oneness of the masculine and feminine in one person and the theophanic experience of love between two.
The practice of the inner heart essence is a path of love, a theophanic path of nondual oneness, of luminous flesh.
Space makes place for the manifestation of the anima… space makes place for the anima mundi. The Dakini is the anima expression of primordial awareness in her many forms. As source, as apparition, as vortextual, as human being and as the earth itself. The earth is the Dakini.
Although patriarchical in institutionalization, the path of awareness is anima, gnosis, direct perception and is feminine. Direct perception is gnosis and gnosis is love itself.
There was this amazing and secret group that crossed the boundaries of Sufism and Christian Medievals called Fedei D’Amore, the servants of love. And this wonderful group went through Spain, Andalusian Spain, into Italy. Dante was a member. A Sufi named Ruzbehan Baqli of Shrirac D1209 wrote a treatise, The Jasmine of The Fedli D’Amore. Marssiloficino wrote De Amore, and Shakepeare in Love Labors Lost writes a defense of the Fedei D’Amore. The Sufi Ibn Arabi in 1201 falls in love with a young woman named Nizam Ayn Al-Shams, meaning harmony, the eye of the sun and of beauty. She reveals the theosophanic religion of love.
If one reads the texts of Dzogchen and the Mahamudra siddhas one sees over and over again the vast emphasis on human love and the mysterious conjuncio as the direct manifestation of nondual oneness.