148 actas del ii congreso internacional de literatura mística invariant structure demonstrates the fundamental and relational character of the essences in the underlying notions of: (a) self-concept and ontological separation; (b) reality and spiritual cognition; (c) purification; (d) perfection; (e) unitive experience; (f) knowledge and discernment; (g) enlightenment of worldview; (h) meaning, purpose, and self-actualization; and (i) solidarity, mutual responsibility, and tolerance. The invariants themselves are co-determined by the affordances and/or effectivities, (i.e., the properties in the experience that present possibilities for action based upon potentiality that can be perceived directly through the examination of any variants). This direct perception of ‘wisdom in differences’ (Ford, 2011), involves an unmediated process of noticing, perceiving, and encoding specific aspects and/or elements from the experience. One of the pivotal examples of this pattern of invariance can be evidenced throughout the synthesis in the recurring theme of the ‘true self ’, which is closely linked and identified in Buddhism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam with the spiritual organ of cognition. This theme, which is central to the Buddhist, Eastern Orthodox, Hindu, and Islamic understanding of the path of spiritual ascendancy and mystical experience, is particularly relevant to the concept of spiritual reality. The ‘path’ is said to lead to psychogenesis, (i.e., development within the soul of the dialogical method of explication of the architecture of the psychic system commonly called ‘self ’, which is identified with the supersensory organ of spiritual cognition. The in-depth knowledge of the structure of the ‘self ’ serves to advance personal development across a wide spectrum of lived experiences), based on the enrichment of the critical elements of selfstructure. The traditions examined suggest that this culminates in the discovery by the ‘self ’ of a new method of knowledge, and results in true self-analysis. Accordingly, the practice of contemplative prayer, which consists of the systematic focusing and re-focusing of attention on the pre-reflective components of the lived experience of the organ of spiritual cognition, is central to this method of knowledge. In Buddhism, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam, the aspirant is said to acquire, through phenomenological, eidetic, and transcendental reductions of, and by, the organ of spiritual cognition, the direct perception of the archetype of true ‘self-
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