Here's my take on it. The world of spirit is the fifth dimension. It is confined neither to three dimensional space, not to time, but is "above" the four dimensions. We might say the fifth dimension is "eternal," different to space and time. In popular religion (in the west at least) when folk think about "after death" they tend to think about "living forever." This thinking entered the zeitgeist most likely because of the wording of the King James Bible that speaks of "everlasting life." The implication is a life that goes on, and on, and on, and on. In others words, still about time, just a very, very long time. So, when you die, you go on and on, just in anther "place." Place, too, is about three dimensional thinking. So, the popular understanding of "eternal" is living for ever in another place. It does not include the fifth dimension, which is something different altogether from places and times and objects. Alan Watts, thinking about the transfiguration at death (in 1947) speaks of "an eternal present, not an everlasting future."
Fifth dimensional thinking is found in Plato, where Plato speaks of the Forms. The Forms are eternal realities above and beyond the world of space and time. Everything is space and time is an imperfect copy, a reflection of an eternal reality. Human beings came from this reality and will return to it. This Platonic thinking has been very powerful. It comes often with a very negative view of the world. The human task is to move away from and beyond the world of sense and feeling, and to return to the fifth dimension. The four dimensions are imperfect, dross. Neoplatonic thinking synthesized with early Christian theology to produce a very negative view of the body (including sexuality). The body most to be feared was the female body—ever a challenge to the higher male body. In severe asceticism the body is best mistreated (starved, beaten, bloodied, abused) for that which matters is the spirit, which will one day break free of the body to return to Spirit.
In different guises and with different details, this thinking can be found in both west and east.
There has been another, minority, tradition that has wanted to affirm the world of four dimensions, without losing the idea of a fifth dimension. (Atheism, of course, has no time for the fifth dimension, for the world of four dimensions is all there is to reality.)
Pantheism is one attempt to affirm the fifth dimension in the world of four dimensions. There is "god," but god is all things. The chair I'm sitting on is god, the iPad I'm writing on is god, the air I'm breathing is god. Because all is god and god is all, all is good. All is affirmed. Nothing is despised.
Pantheism is ultimately hopeful, but not quite satisfying for fifth dimension thinking! If god is the same as all, and all is the same as god then there is no fifth dimension. God, too, is enclosed in the world of four dimensions.
Panentheism is perhaps more helpful. All is in god and god is in all. God is in the chair I'm sitting on. God is in the iPad I'm writing on etc. but God is not the same as my chair. Panentheism tries to hold on to the transcendence of god (the fifth dimension) while affirming the immanence of god in all things. If god is in all things then all things are good. Panentheism, like pantheism, is ultimately hopeful, despises nothing, but leaves room for transcendence, for the fifth dimension. (This was, I think, more the way of the ancient Celtic Christians, though they too could often look on the world disdainfully.)
If I accept something like panentheism, where does this lead me?
First, to wonderment. Everything has hidden within it god, the ultimately real. Everything is special for everything is in god.
Second, to an affirmation of all life: all people, animals, nature. Nothing is rejected or despised.
Third, to watch for the experience of the fifth dimension. For though often hidden within the four dimensions, every nowand then the fifth dimension seems to break into and transfigure the four dimensions. It often lasts but a moment, but its effects last longer: an exquisite night, a day or two of wonderment. There are no guarantees than any of us will experience the fifth dimension. Certain kinds of prayer, meditation and mindfulness can prepare the way, open the possibility, yet with no certainty. The experience of the fifth dimension is purely grace.
+Ab. Andy
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