The rhetoric of spirituality is constructed from a priori statements.
Logic cannot reach to the transcendental autocrat, Bhakti Siddhanta says.
The imago dei stands on its own, as does any other quality of the Deity.
It is not an inference. It is a fact, Bhakti Vedanta says.
Talk of God is more poetry than philosophy.
It is a description of a pre-established state of affairs.
The soul of any individual person exists in that realm and can perceive it.
Atoms that cover the soul or ideas that do likewise are of limited help.
The spiritualist may fashion metaphors from matter to analogize.
But that only gives the impression that religion is an ascending process.
In truth we cannot climb up a ladder to God.
God comes down to us as He is.
The picture of God, the “vision” if you will, awakens the soul.
From then on the soul must battle against body and mind to assert itself.
Ultimately aesthetics carries the day.
God’s body is beautiful and is the essence of beauty.
The spiritual world is a real place and we are essentially part of it.
That is an a priori statement and has its proof in direct experience.
These truths are self evident, the US Constitution says.
Just as a nation is founded on independent facts, so is spirituality.
But of course that’s an analogy and is of limited usefulness.
Direct contact of the soul with God does the trick.
This is accomplished by direct contact with a soul surrendered to God.
Any sincere aspirant will sympathetically vibrate with that pure one.
The pure devotee of God reflects the imago dei.
That person has no purpose other than serving the Original Person.
Association with a pure devotee is the doorway to God.
Coexistent with that person is a method of worship.
The person and the activity of the person come as a unit.
His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada is such a person.
He comes to us packaged together with the worship of God’s Name.
To chant names of God is a priori to be in the spiritual world.
That statement stands on its own.
Experience, not logic, is its proof.
It is a fact.