I still find it absolutely hilarious that YHWH itself is Fire in the Tanakh (Old Testament). Christians completely overlook this, even though Paul goes ahead and quotes Leviticus/Deuteronomy's statements about it.
God-as-fire, is in fact something that does attract me a lot and of course, Zoroastrianism means a great deal to me as well.
In Islam, it didn't take outside influence to notice what it said about Jannah and Jahannam. When you take the text as it is and meditate on it, as well as contemplate what Prophet Muhammad and the Twelve (or, eleven recorded so far) Imams have said about it, it's impossible for me to take dogma over what the tradition itself proclaims symbolically and metaphysically.
Everything has a dual nature, the outward form is necessary. The dogma attached to the more conventional Western "Heaven and Hell" is necessary for social and moral structure.
However outside that dogma it's not hard to see how glaringly obvious that these are alchemical metaphors, metaphysical realities on another and warnings/anticipations on the other.
They serve many roles.
Fire is God's role as purifier, destroyer and renewer. "Gardens beneath which rivers flow" is another symbol of purification but also peace and tranquility.
All of these are God.
Concepts such as burnt offerings in the Tanakh have a greater purpose and Orthodox Jews know this very well.
At the same time, these are also formulas for us to use ourselves. It's no wonder that Taoism, Hinduism, Islam and Christianity have all at various points been big proponents at alchemy and it's practice.
In many ways (in relation to this particular subject), Surah 56 may be the most important Surah in the entire Qur'an. At the same time it outlines what later in the west became known as Phenomenology (of which I adhere to somewhat).
What I see everywhere in different scriptures and sacred texts is that often different "realities" are overlapping at once. I don't mean realities as in realms or dimensions but rather parallel aspects of a congruent whole of which illustrate a central idea under many guises.
The reality of Duality is perhaps the most well-known example. Male/female, existence/nonexistence, sun/moon, dark/light, night/day, etc.
The point is that there are things that universally manifest themselves on so many levels through nature and unseen realms.
This relates to the Apocalypse for instance, in one sense, how it has a psychological level, it has a political level, it has a cosmic aspect (literal planet destruction or universe implosion etc) and it has a Dramaturgical level (relating to the soul itself experiencing the merging with the divine through the expression of universal symbols). Etc etc etc.
There is a lot there but essentially what I'm saying is that these things have a long shelf-life and are not merely psychological (materialistically) or mythological. I think psychology in the 20th century took a massive nosedive when it failed to recognize that psychological and cognitive states are themselves just metaphors and expressions of metaphysical realities.
The problem relates further with science too but really when it comes to things of that nature too (such as psychology, science/cosmology, etc) we should be perceiving them as not things of themselves which define other things but rather lower emanations of greater ideas. It's a shame that materialist science just inverted the tree of life, in a way.
It's fun and all to entertain a purely dogmatic materialist view, inasmuch as it is fun to entertain a purely dogmatic evangelical view but both are as shortsighted as each other
I understand the contention within Science to sever ties to religiousity but science itself is an expression of philosophy, and philosophy itself is heavily spiritual (even materialist philosophy is spiritual, only that it deals with a soul trapped from it's divine nature trying to work out why things are the way they are, being eternally trapped in a tiny paradigm that will only get smaller as science closes-off itself).
Science just becomes ideology when it throws out metaphysics but as we all know, physics itself is doomed and trapped without having metaphysics to make sense of it. etc etc etc.
How did I get to that again? lol.
So yeah, eSoteric religion is the way to go because it is authentic religion that understands what it is saying and is not closed off to rationality. The practice of mysticism however makes a good balance if one was to go down a wholly rational approach.
Rationality and mysticism both have their limits, which is why they need to balance each other.
We certainly have the ability to experience a whole large array of potential divine experiences in this life but it does ultimately come down to how salvation itself is the path out. Gnosis and the path of Law (Dharma/Tao/Sharia etc) is the two things which bring us towards the eventual unification with the Absolute. That is perhaps why both Buddhism and Islam in particular promote a middle/straight way/path, which is in the middle of both potential extremes.
In Islam, God is so personal that it is completely impersonal in every sense (and with it's antagonism towards anthropomorphism). This impersonality is so impersonal that it is total freedom in every single aspect when realized for how profound it really is.
In Christianity, God is stuck to form and appearance. The God is Christianity is too personal that it becomes an emotional belief. There are of course outliers but the problems that arise from this are the reason for Nietzsche’s statement “God is dead”.
The notion of “Everything that can be said has already been said” just resurfaced in my mind. One Biblical allusion that reminds me of this is “There is nothing new under the sun” (from Ecclesiastes).
Whilst it can seen fatalistic and Nihilistic, there is further meaning there.
Especially when we consider cyclical time and the notion of metaphysical archetypes it becomes hard to not see that history mirrors itself, everything reflects multiple other things. This is as much mystical as it is a physical phenomena.
In some way the Buddhist doctrine of Pratītyasamutpāda can be felt here too by virtue of nothing in physical existence having an identity due to itself, all things relate to what came before, what came after and what it itself exists within. One immediate metaphor that comes to mind is a web or spiderweb (intriguingly enough the Hindus thought about this in the Mandaka Upanishad).
Another thing this brings to mind is from the following ayat: “and Allah controls all things“
