Theosis - Being and Becoming Diety

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship."

C.S. Lewis

At the Heart of all mysticism is Union with the Divine. This partaking or participating in the Divine can be called Theosis.

Theosis is a Greek word with the literal meaning of “being Divine.” The evolutionary course that leads to Theosis is then termed ‘Theofication,’ which is then simply another name for Self-Realization. Theofication is the process of unfolding and actualizing the Divine aspects of one’s Aware-Self until the Immortal Being is fully expressed. Thus Theosis equates with Being while Theofication relates to Becoming the every-present action of being Divine.

Here is how this concept is variously expressed:

Soror XNC: As the Human Being awakens through a state of conscious Becoming, the Divine Conscience is roused, calling the experience-bodies into alignment with the core of hypostasis.

Alice Bailey: The imagination is released into creative activity when the initiate acts as if he were the Soul in its full expression.

Hindu Greeting:  Namaste! (Meaning – I bow down before you, to that place in you where the Divine Nature of the entire Universe dwells.)

Paramhansa Yogananda (The Essence of Self-Realization): Self-Realization is the Knowing in all parts of body, mind, and soul that you are now in possession of the Kingdom of God, that you do not have to pray that it come to you, that God’s omnipresence is your omnipresence, and that all that you need to do is improve your knowing.

Shri Ksaya Vrddhi Vinirmukta Devi:  The evolutionary step of Self-Realization is referred to in all of the great religions.

Siva Yogaswami:  He who sparkles in your eyes, who lights the heavens and hides the souls of all creatures is God, your Self.

Swami Swahananda:  We call the divinity of existence Brahman. Brahman is the word for the unity of existence. Atman is the word we use for the divinity of the soul, the essential nature of man.

Early Christian Proverb:  God became man, so that man might become God.

Biblical (II Peter 1): He has given us all the things that we need through them you will be able to share the divine nature.

Biblical (John 14:12): I tell you most solemnly, whoever believes in me will perform the same works as I do myself; he will perform even greater works.

St. Basil The Great: The highest of all things desired is to become God.

St. Thomas Aquinas: The only-begotten Son of God wanting us to be partakers of his divinity, assumed our human nature so that, having become man, he might make men gods.

St. Irenaeus: We are not made gods from the beginning; first we are mere humans, then we become gods.

St. Maximus: Let us become the image of the one whole God, bearing nothing earthly in ourselves, so that we may consort with God and become gods, receiving from God our existence as gods.

Annie Besant (Esoteric Christianity): Man is not to be compelled, he is to be free. He is not a slave, but a God in the making.

Manly P. Hall (The Lost Keys of Freemasonry): Man is a god in the making. And as the mystic myths of Egypt state on the potter's wheel he is being molded. When his light shines out to lift and preserve all things, he receives the triple crown of godhood.

Rudolf Steiner (Curative Education): In me is God. I am in God.

Jon Frimmin:  Theosis has eschatological implications which are seldom addressed. Christ is returning and his parousia (literally presence, but usually mistranslated as "coming") will be bodily. But his body has changed. We are his body. If then, they say to you, “Look, he is in the desert," do not go there; “Look, he is in some hiding place”, do not believe it; because the presence (parousia) of the Son of Man will be like a shining (astrape) in the east and illuminating (phanetai) far into the west.

© Copyright The LIFE Movement 2011