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mysticism

in general a spiritual quest for hidden truth or wisdom the goal of which is union with thedivine or sacred (the transcendent realm) Forms of mysticism are found in all major worldreligions by analogy in the shamanic and other ecstatic practices of nonliterate culturesand in secular experience

In the 20th century mysticism (the treasure hidden in the centres of our souls) hasundergone a renewal of interest and understanding and even a mood of expectancysimilar to that which marked its role in previous eras Such a mood stems in part from thefeeling of alienation that many persons experience in the modern world Put down as areligion of the elite mysticism (or the mystical faculty of perceiving transcendental reality)is said by many to belong to all men though few use it The British author Aldous Huxleyhas stated that a totally unmystical world would be a world totally blind and insane andthe Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore has noted that Man has a feeling that he is trulyrepresented in something which exceeds himself

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Introduction Nature and significance Relation of mystical experience to other kinds of experience Definitions of mysticism and mystical experience Differences between mysticism and similar phenomena Basic patterns Introvertive mysticism Other definitions and experiences of mysticism Universal types of mystical experience Intellectual and contemplative forms Devotional forms Ecstatic and erotic forms Goal of mystical experience and mysticism Experience of the divine or sacred Union with the divine or sacred Experience of the universal Experience of oneness with people Mystical relationship between man and the sacred Nature of the relationship Awe and mystery Means and modes of the relationship Semantics and symbolism in mystical experience Union of opposites Emptiness and fullness Symbolism of divine messengers Symbolism of love and marriage

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mysticism

Nature and significance

The goal of mysticism is union with the divine or sacred The path to that union is usuallydeveloped by following four stages purgation (of bodily desires) purification (of the will)illumination (of the mind) and unification (of ones will or being with the divine) If theobject of mans existence is to be a Man that is to re-establish the harmony whichoriginally belonged between him and the divinized state before the separation took placewhich disturbed the equilibrium (The Life and Doctrine of Paracelsus) mysticism willalways be a part of the way of return to the source of being a way of counteracting theexperience of alienation Mysticism has always held--and parapsychology also seems tosuggest--that the discovery of a nonphysical element in mans personality is of utmostsignificance in his quest for equilibrium in a world of apparent chaos

Mysticisms apparent denial or self-negating is part of a psychological process or strategythat does not really deny the person In spite of its lunatic fringe the maturer forms ofmysticism satisfy the claims of rationality ecstasy and righteousness

There is obviously something nonmental alogical paradoxical and unpredictable aboutthe mystical phenomenon but it is not therefore irrational or antirational or religionwithout thought Rather as Zen (Buddhist intuitive sect) masters say it is knowledge ofthe most adequate kind only it cannot be expressed in words If there is a mystery aboutmystical experience it is something it shares with life and consciousness Mysticism aform of living in depth indicates that man a meeting ground of various levels of reality ismore than one-dimensional Despite the interaction and correspondence betweenlevels--What is below is like what is above what is above is like what is below (TabulaSmaragdina Emerald Tablet a work on alchemy attributed to HermesTrismegistus)--they are not to be equated or confused At once a praxis (technique) and agnosis (esoteric knowledge) mysticism consists of a way or discipline

The relationship of the religion of faith to mysticism (personal religion raised to thehighest power) is ambiguous a mixture of respect and misgivings Though mysticismmay be associated with religion it need not be The mystic often represents a type thatthe religious institution (eg church) does not and cannot produce and does not knowwhat to do with if and when one appears As William Ralph Inge an English theologiancommented institutionalism and mysticism have been uneasy bedfellows Althoughmysticism has been the core of Hinduism and Buddhism it has been little more than aminor strand--and frequently a disturbing element--in Judaism Christianity and IslamAs the 15th- to 16th-century Italian political philosopher Niccolograve Machiavelli had noted ofthe 13th-century Christian monastic leaders St Francis and St Dominic they had savedreligion but destroyed the church

The founders of religion may have been incipient or advanced mystics but the innercompulsions of their experience have proved less amenable to dogmas creeds andinstitutional restrictions which are bound to be outward and majority oriented There arereligions of authority and the religion of the spirit Thus there is a paradox if the mysticminority is distrusted or maltreated religious life loses its sap on the other hand thesepeculiar people do not easily fit into society with the requirements of a prescriptivecommunity composed of less sensitive seekers of safety and religious routine Though nodeeply religious person can be without a touch of mysticism and no mystic can be in thedeepest sense other than religious the dialogue between mystics and conventionalreligionists has been far from happy From both sides there is a constant need forrestatement and revaluation a greater tolerance a union of free mens worship Though itvalidates religion mysticism also tends to escape the fetters of organized religion

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Relation of mystical experience to other kinds of experience

Mysticism shares a common world with magic theurgy (power of persuading thesupernatural) prayer worship religion metaphysics (transcendent levels of reality) andeven science It may not be always easy to distinguish mysticism from these but itsapproach and emphasis are different Though there is an element of magic psychism andthe occult in much of what passes for mysticism it is not to be equated with a science ofthe unseen or with voices and visions Powers of the occult (or siddhis) are viewed as realbut they can also be dangerous and are not of interest to genuine mystics who havewarned against their likely misuse

Prayer and worship may form part of mysticism but they are viewed as means and not asessence also they are usually continuations of sensory experience whereas mysticism isa pure unitary consciousness or a union with God As for science it is analytic anddiscursive and expresses its findings in precise and abstract formulas mysticismhowever like poetry depends more on paradoxes and an unusual use of languagePhilosophies may lead to or follow from mysticism but they are not the same Naturemysticism is another prominent variant to which poets and artists are particularly proneThis has often been described or dismissed as pantheism (the divine in all) though it isperhaps other than a simple assertion of identity

Emotionalism and purified emotion are quite different Emotionalism a kind ofunsuccessful ecstasy may arise from unpurged elements in the being it could also be aconcession or inability to hold the flow or touch from above The natural state of man andeven more that of the true mystic is serene and not agitated not at the mercy of whatthe medieval mystical book The Cloud of Unknowing calls monkey tricks of the soul Bestill and still and know Mysticism among the many forms of experience confirms theclaims of religion and is viewed as providing a foretaste of the life after death

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Introduction Nature and significance Relation of mystical experience to other kinds of experience Definitions of mysticism and mystical experience Differences between mysticism and similar phenomena Basic patterns Introvertive mysticism Other definitions and experiences of mysticism Universal types of mystical experience Intellectual and contemplative forms Devotional forms Ecstatic and erotic forms Goal of mystical experience and mysticism Experience of the divine or sacred Union with the divine or sacred Experience of the universal Experience of oneness with people Mystical relationship between man and the sacred Nature of the relationship Awe and mystery Means and modes of the relationship Semantics and symbolism in mystical experience Union of opposites Emptiness and fullness Symbolism of divine messengers Symbolism of love and marriage Symbolism of the journey Psychological aspects of mysticism Awareness




mysticism

Definitions of mysticism and mystical experience

Differences between mysticism and similar phenomena

To define is to limit and no single definition will cover every aspect of mysticism Somehave objected to the word itself and believed that enlightenment or illumination mightbe better Though they meet mysticism has to be distinguished from prophetic religionsas well as from shamanism (a belief system built around psychic transformations)Working through chosen individuals--not necessarily saints and chosen for no other reasonthan Gods will--prophetic religions emphasize action to a far greater extent than mostforms of mysticism with its penchant for inwardness and the beyond Though in ecstasythe barriers seem to disappear in prophetism God and man are rarely identifiedShamanism a technique of ecstasy generally found in Siberia and Central Asia but withparallels in primitive society provides a sort of correspondence with the purgative stage ofmysticism (in which physical needs are negated) The closeness to paranormal (orsupernatural) phenomena seems more pronounced however in shamanism Both theshaman and the mystic as communicants with a world beyond normal experience revealan identity of goal if not of practice and content

Basic patterns

Paradigmatic pronouncements in regard to mysticism pose problems of their own Theclassic Indian formula--that thou art tat tvam asi (Chandogya Upanisad 69)--ishedged in with the profoundest ambiguity The difficulty reappears in the thought of themedieval Christian mystic Meister Eckehart who had the church raising questions for suchunguarded statements as The knower and the known are one God and I we are one inknowledge and There is no distinction between us

Mysticism may be defined as the belief in a third kind of knowledge the other two beingsense knowledge and knowledge by inference Adolf Lasson has written

The essence of Mysticism is the assertion of an intuition which transcends thetemporal categories of the understanding Rationalism cannot conduct usto the essence of things we therefore need intellectual vision

This same view was held by the 3rd-century-AD Greek philosopher Plotinus But thepattern misses the other dominant quality of mystical experience--love or union throughlove The medieval theistic view of mysticism (as of religious life) was that it was astretching out of the soul into God through the urge of love an experimental knowledge ofGod through unifying love Its other name was joy and the endeavour of the mystic tograsp the divine essence or ultimate reality helped him to enjoy the blessedness of actualcommunion with the highest This was considered both a science and an art As a science(ie intuitive knowledge or the science of ultimates) mysticism is viewed as being ableto help in the overcoming of creatureliness and also as being able to maintain thetendency to stress up to an extreme and exaggerated point the non-rational aspect ofreligion

Reality a kingdom of values is viewed not as a faceless infinite an impersonal somethingor somewhat If not an ego it is a being and most mystics would call it God Mysticismarises when man tries to bring the urge toward a communion with God--a Beingconceived as the supreme and ultimate reality according to the British scholar WilliamRalph Inge--toward a higher consciousness and being in relation with the other contentsof his mind and total personality when he tries to realize the presence of the living God inthe soul and in nature or more generally in the attempt to realize (in thought andfeeling) the immanence of the temporal in the eternal A 19th-century scholar Otto

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Pfleiderer indicated that religious mysticism is the immediate feeling of unity of the selfwith God it is nothing therefore but the fundamental feeling of religion the religious lifeat its very heart and centre Against such exclusive concentration the British writerRichard Nettleship suggests a corrective element that of wholeness and symbolismMysticism is the consciousness that everything that we experience is an element andonly an element in fact ie that in being what it is it is symbolic of something else




Introduction Nature and significance Relation of mystical experience to other kinds of experience Definitions of mysticism and mystical experience Differences between mysticism and similar phenomena Basic patterns Introvertive mysticism Other definitions and experiences of mysticism Universal types of mystical experience Intellectual and contemplative forms Devotional forms Ecstatic and erotic forms Goal of mystical experience and mysticism Experience of the divine or sacred Union with the divine or sacred Experience of the universal Experience of oneness with people Mystical relationship between man and the sacred Nature of the relationship Awe and mystery Means and modes of the relationship Semantics and symbolism in mystical experience Union of opposites Emptiness and fullness Symbolism of divine messengers Symbolism of love and marriage Symbolism of the journey Psychological aspects of mysticism Awareness Role of identification Systematic exposition of mystical experience Attempts of mystics to record the nature of their experiences The value and meaning of mystical experience Problems of communication and understanding Mysticism as a social factor Bibliography

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mysticism

Introvertive mysticism

Certain forms of mysticism however would seem to strive toward a naked encounter withthe Whole or All without and beyond symbols Of this kind of direct apprehension of theabsolute introvertive mysticism offers examples from different times and traditionsInstead of looking out the gaze turns inward toward the unchanging the undifferentiatedOne without a second The process by which this state is attained is by a blotting out orsuppression of all physical sensations--indeed of the entire empirical content ofconsciousness Cittavrttinirodha (the holding or stopping of the mind stuff) was how the2nd-century-BC Indian mystic Patantildejali described it The model of introvertive mysticismcomes from the Mandukya Upanisad

The Fourth [aspect of self] say the wise is not the knowledge of thesenses nor is it relative knowledge nor yet inferential knowledge Beyond thesenses beyond the understanding beyond all expression is The Fourth It ispure unitary consciousness wherein [all] awareness of the world and ofmultiplicity is completely obliterated It is ineffable peace It is the supremegood It is One without a second It is the Self (From The Upanishads Breathof the Eternal trans by Swami Prabhavananda and Frederick Manchester)

Other definitions and experiences of mysticism

Such undifferentiated unity or union between the individual and the supreme self isunacceptable to certain traditions and temperaments The Jewish philosopher MartinBuber emphasized an I-Thou relationship All real living is meeting and one Thoucannot become It But even his own unforgettable experience of union he would explainas illusory With a wider range a British scholar RC Zaehner has tried to establishdifferent kinds or types of mysticism of isolation the separation of spirit and mattereternity from time pantheistic or pan-enhenic in which the soul is the universe--allcreaturely existence is one the theistic in which the soul feels identified with God andthe beatific with its hope of deification when the perishable puts on the imperishable

Definitions of mysticism include a bewildering variety ranging from the biological throughthe psychological to the theological The origin of the word and certain of its featuresstrongly suggest the possibility that mysticism is the science of a hidden life But there isalso a growing belief among 20th-century scholars that the people of the hidden shouldnot remain hidden too long and should come out in the open befitting an era of opendevelopment and open realization Some 20th-century scientists among themphysicists biologists and paleontologists have shown a marked mystical bias A biologistLudwig von Bertalanffy has confessed to peak experiences of a great unity andliberation from ego boundary In moments of scientific discovery I have an intuitiveinsight into a grand design He finds no necessary opposition between the rational way ofthinking and intuitive experience culminating in what the mystics have tried to expressBoth have their place and may coexist Earlier there had been a sharp dichotomy betweenscientific and mystical knowledge The logic of levels may never be amenable to analysisor intellectual understanding but that is not to deny the role of reason

Attitudes toward mysticism since the middle of the 20th century have been considerablymodified by an awareness of subliminal consciousness extrasensory perceptions andabove all an evolutionary perspective The Roman Catholic paleontologist Teilhard deChardin asked if in an expanding universe mysticism would not burst the limits of narrowcults and religious rigidity and move toward an ecumenical future In a larger viewmysticism has not so much to be defined as renewed and redefined

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mysticism

Universal types of mystical experience

Intellectual and contemplative forms

Mystical experience which is centred in a seeking for unity admits of wide variations butfalls into recognizable types mild and extreme extrovertive and introvertive and theisticand nontheistic Another well-known typology--corresponding to the faculties of thinkingwilling and feeling--employs the Indian formula the respective ways of knowledge(jntildeana) works (karma) and devotion (bhakti) Claims have been made on behalf of eachthough maturer mystics have tried to accord to each its place and also to arrive at asynthesis as in the Bhagavadgita (Hindu sacred scripture) Depending on the powers ofdiscrimination the intellectual or the contemplative type tries to reach the Highest theOne or the Godhead behind God In its approach toward the supreme identity it tends tobe chary of multiplicity to deny the world that it may find reality Plotinus wasashamed of being in the body In the 17th century Spinozas nondenominationalconcept of intellectual love of God revealed a sense of aloofness or isolation reminiscent ofthe ancient Hindus

Man however does not live by thought alone to live is to work and faith without worksis dead The mystic injunction is that works should be done in a spirit of nonattachmentwith the ego sense (I the doer) taken away In a larger sense not merely the doing ofreligious chores but all activity is offered to the Supreme All life according to manymystics turns into a sacrament All life is yoga (meditation practice)

Devotional forms

For the emotional type of person there is the mysticism of love and devotion A theisticattitude or devotional mysticism depends upon mutual attraction In the words of a Sufipoet I sought Him for thirty years I thought that it was I who desired Him but no itwas He who desired me The path of devotion includes the rituals of prayer worship andadoration which--if done with sincerity inwardness and understanding--can bring someof the most rewarding treasures of the religious life including ecstasy (or samadhi) Thereis a paradox and a danger here the paradox of avoiding the loss of personality thedanger of self-indulgence

Ecstatic and erotic forms

Also in an unpurified medium the experiences may and do give rise to erotic feelings afact observed and duly warned against by the wiser spirits and the Fathers of the Church(Zen Buddhism avoids both the overly personal and erotic suggestions) Sometimes thedistinction between eros (Greek erotic love) or kama (Sanskrit sexual love) andagape (Greek a higher love) or prema (Sanskrit higher love) can be thin In theIndian tradition the Vaisnava (devotional) and Tantric (sexual) experiments were in theirapparently different ways bold and honest attempts at sublimation though the majorityof these experiments turned out to be failures and disasters

The same fate is likely to overtake the craze for psychedelic drugs and pharmacologicalaids to visionary experience--practices that are by no means new A yogic writerPatantildejali speaks of the use of ausadhi (a medicinal herb) as a means to yogic experienceand the Vedas (Hindu scriptures) and Tantras (Hindu occultic writings) refer to wine aspart of worship and the initiatory rites The Greek Mysteries (religions of salvation)sometimes used sedatives and stimulants Primarily meant to remove ethical social andmental inhibitions and to open up the subconscious no less than the subliminal thesetechniques as a rule were frowned upon even though those who took the help of suchartificial aids had undergone prior training and discipline

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A whole new life-style and vocabulary have developed around medicinal mysticism in the20th century Peyote mescaline hashish marijuana Cannabis indica LSD and othersimilar products have become familiar to much of the worlds population The visionsinduced by such aids at best resemble the extrovertive type and cannot be easily equatedwith genuine mystical experience According to taste temperament and tradition theexperience--a parody of creative spontaneity--may come from unexpected sources In anycase utilizing such medicinal aids rarely achieves union with Self or God and nopermanent change of personality (in the mystical sense) has been known to occur









mysticism

Goal of mystical experience and mysticism

Experience of the divine or sacred

The goal of mysticism is ghostly a state or condition in which the soul is oned withGod according to the Western medieval work The Cloud of Unknowing This one-ing isbecause all men according to mystics are called to their origin Self-realization isbasically one in intent with the injunctions of the Greek Mysteries Know thyself Thisknowing union or communion with the divine and the sacred is of the essence of theascent of man As the only answer to the problem of identity mystics look upon it as thefinal end the summum bonum At the journeys end waits the knowledge by identity Thedirect intuitive perception is more akin to revealed religion than to science andphilosophy though it is of itself a science and philosophies spring from as well as lead toit

Union with the divine or sacred

In the movement toward the goal there are naturally stages and processes markeddifferently in different traditions The discipline of prayer purification and contemplationculminates in the highest wordless union with the divine and the ultimate As the processunfolds itself along the mystic way an alteration of personality--a conversion if notreintegration--occurs The unregenerate old man (in Christianity) is replaced by the newbeing The twice born (in Hinduism) becomes more than a metaphor or sacrosanct socialarrangement There is a change of level and mind One of the aims or methods ofmysticism is to make possible this change and conversion a shift from the profane to thesacred from here to there Lead me from the unreal to the real from darkness tolight from death to immortality (Brhadaranyaka Upanisad) Before the transition or thegreat passage is completed however the individual or pilgrim feels successively orsimultaneously his oneness with nature with people and with things--an extension ofawareness or expanded selfhood to which no limits can be assigned Cosmicconsciousness is thus a stage in a progressive self-discovery




Introduction Nature and significance Relation of mystical experience to other kinds of experience Definitions of mysticism and mystical experience Differences between mysticism and similar phenomena Basic patterns Introvertive mysticism Other definitions and experiences of mysticism Universal types of mystical experience Intellectual and contemplative forms Devotional forms Ecstatic and erotic forms Goal of mystical experience and mysticism

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mysticism

Experience of the universal

The nature of the goal however introduces a paradox Like every other aim and activitymysticism operates in a historical context Yet sooner or later it also tends to reveal atimeless stance The mystic is both in and out of time The eternal now is a kind of releasefrom the temporal order Such a release may lead to a shift from the local to theuniversal to a growing sense of unity of all experience Though not a declared orconscious aim this result could be looked upon as a not unworthy goal as well as apragmatic standard

To cure man of a provincialism of the spirit from which more people suffer than eitherknow or admit it is one of the goals of a mysticism that has come of age The true mysticis a cosmopolitan In mans many-sided growth toward the real a sane and maturemysticism leads to an ecumenical insight and obligation Local colour particulars anduniqueness will not cease but in the perspective of the future and of wholeness theuniversal alone will have survival value

Experience of oneness with people

The apotheosized (divinized) field of consciousness is mysticisms ultimate goal and gift tothe life of an evolving humanity It alone is fitted to mediate between the anguish ofexistence and the serenity of essence between samsara (cycle of birth and rebirth) andNirvana (the State of Bliss) According to an American Roman Catholic mystic ThomasMerton The spiritual anguish of man has no cure but mysticism

Though the mystic goal may seem to be tied to a transcendent reality this does not meana sundering of all relations and responsibilities On the contrary it is the guarantee of aset of altered relationships and a rehabilitation of what may be called the higher reasonIntuitions that sink into private fancy and morbidity have a short life to live As for themystics yonder it is not spatially or posthumously remote but rather refers to adifferent order of reality and consciousness The healthier forms of mysticism do notabjure action or the claims of love It is an ancient maxim that one becomes what oneloves This is how the psychic birth repeats itself in the mystic soul as stated forexample by Meister Eckehart a medieval German mystic It is more worthy of God thathe should be born spiritually of every virgin or of every good soul than that he shouldhave been born physically of Mary

The mystic is not always amorous of the beyond leaving an unredeemed world to its ownways Not escape but rather victory is mysticisms inner urge and promise The moresober among the mystics do not merely withdraw they also return to the base andattempt the ancient alchemy the transformation of men A solitary salvation does notsatisfy either head or heart




Introduction Nature and significance Relation of mystical experience to other kinds of experience Definitions of mysticism and mystical experience

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mysticism

Mystical relationship between man and the sacred

Nature of the relationship

Within man is the soul of the holy said Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th century This istrue of society too As the French sociologist Eacutemile Durkheim saw it the sacred is but apersonified society Mysticism one might say is the art and science of the holyTheologically it is but the experience of the Holy Ghost the realization of the Spiritof Holiness As the opposite of the profane and as a distinct and irreducible quality of thereligious and mystical life the sacred has always existed It is indeed a mark of the realand when the German theologian Rudolf Otto isolated the sacred as a quite distinctivecategory of mystical apprehension he had no lack of evidence The emphasis howeverwas not unanimously accepted Some like Inge thought the sacred might as well beelicited from such ultimate values as truth goodness and beauty

According to the respective world view the interpretation or emphasis varies but theuniversal core remains unaffected The sacred is in its own way a coherent system thoughnot rational The dualists no less than the theists insist on the unqualified and irreducibleotherness the unbridgeable gulf even when one speaks of union or communion It isthe distance that preserves the sacred

Christian mystics who often speak of union with God generally do not imply identitywith the divine since this might lead to heresy The 16th-century Spanish mystic StTeresa of Avila could write with impunity It is plain enough what unity is--two distinctthings becoming one But most others could not be so plain and had to use specialstrategy to cover up traces of possible deviation from what was permissible Even if therehad been a semblance of interpenetration between man and the divine there could be nosubstantial identity Each of these wrote the medieval Dutch mystic Jan vanRuysbroeck keeps its own nature There is here a great distinction for the creaturenever becomes God nor does God ever become the creature The same doctrine ispreached in the Middle Ages by the mystic Heinrich Suso

In this merging of itself in God the spirit passes away and yet not wholly for itreceives indeed some attribute of God but it does not become God by natureIt is still something that has been created out of nothing and continues to bethis everlastingly

Identification of man with the divine according to many the heart of mysticism raisesproblems from other points of view as well Pantheism which asserts that all is God (orNature) and God (or Nature) is all is looked upon as a false doctrine in many religionsTo John Calvins leading question--The Devil also must be God substantially--theunsuspecting Spanish theologian and physician Michael Servetus had answered smilinglyDo you doubt it The opinion cost him his life The Hindus Upanisads however insist onthis identity in passage after passage Closely looked at this may not be simple pantheismbut an identity in difference a paradox present in even Vedanta (a Hindu monisticsystem) Islam has been fiercely critical of these claims of oneness and the medievalmystic al-Hallaj had to pay with his life (922) for making the unorthodox announcement ofhis identity with the divine Ana al-haqq (I am the Truth) He was not the only one tospeak in this manner The more moderate Mahmud Shabestari had reported an experience(c 1320)

In God there is no duality In that presence I and we and you do notexist I and you and we and He become one Since in the unity there isno distinction the Quest and the Way and the Seeker become one

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But Muslim theologians as a rule tended to dismiss those who boasted of union with theDeity as merely babblers In the Jewish tradition it is generally considered improperand indecorous for any man to give a personal account of his own mystical experience

Awe and mystery

Behind these and other interpretations the reality of the sacred--and its persistentambiguity--appears to be too true to be denied or ignored Awe may or may not be thebest part of man but without it a necessary dimension is left out of the image of man thedimension of what Otto called the mysterium tremendum et fascinans (the mystery thatrepels and attracts) The mystics are loath to leave this dimension out and directly orindirectly insist on its inclusion The reason was suggested in the 5th-4th centuries BC bythe Greek philosopher Plato who maintained that the divine was the head and root ofman The mystics is the eye the third eye with which the world beholds itself and knowsitself divine Though the vision is partial and passes away there could be an ideal state ofunbroken awareness of the Real Presence an epiphany (manifestation)

According to the mystical point of view the rational content of religion is not enough it isnot of the essence of religion The sense of the holy the mark of mans encounter withthe other is usually invested with an ethical aura or undertone This is how most peopleunderstand it But this lowers its potency considerably There is clearly an overplus belowgood and evil and beyond good and evil The numinous (spiritual) is not altogether free ofthe ominous Thus though the holy may be discussed it cannot be well defined It canhowever be experienced and evoked as part of that wordless mystery that man mustface--even if he is not able to explain satisfactorily--in his journey toward the real Thismay happen early or late in his mystical journey and the notion of evolution may not beapplied to it uniformly

The holy is not always and altogether a pleasant experience Often shrouded in a fear thatis more than fear it is an inward dread and shuddering The holy as awe-inspiring can befound in the Indian pantheon in such figures as Rudra and Kali the dark and wrathfulfaces of the divine in which--in a collapse of finitude--majesty and unapproachability areinexplicably blended The feeling of being consumed in the presence of the divine is aprofound expression of mans relation to the holy As for the ultimate mystical identitywith the Supreme Self God or the Unknowable that also confirms the nonrational andsuprarational nature of the experience in which ego logic and grammar are shatteredalike A frightful and traumatic adventure not unlike the Greek Mystery rites it can eruptat every crisis break through an insulated universe A clergyman cited by WilliamStarbuck an American psychologist of religion spoke of having experienced

a [silent] presence [in the night] all the more felt because it was not seen Icould not any more have doubted that He was there than that I was Indeed Ifelt myself to be if possible the less real of the two

Diminution apart the holy generally gives rise to a sense of energy and urgency whichmay take different forms At a higher level the consuming fire of love reported by mysticscould be an extension or refinement of the same energy for Love is nothing else thanquenched Wrath The nothing else may be an exaggeration but such paradoxes of thereligious life--eg the unity of opposites--meet man at every turn The void in Buddhismlike the nothing in Western mysticism may be a numinous ideogram of the wholly other




Introduction Nature and significance Relation of mystical experience to other kinds of experience Definitions of mysticism and mystical experience Differences between mysticism and similar phenomena Basic patterns Introvertive mysticism Other definitions and experiences of mysticism Universal types of mystical experience Intellectual and contemplative forms Devotional forms Ecstatic and erotic forms




mysticism

Means and modes of the relationship

As means to meet the divine some mystics have taken recourse to fasting breathcontrol meditation ecstasy simplification autosuggestion and monoideism (absorptionin a single idea) Rituals in some cases provide contact An old method is the vianegativa (negative way) the emptier your mind the more susceptible are you to theworking of the presence In other words the impediments have to be removed Amongother indirect--but no less effective--means would be the shock therapy of theblood-curdling images that one notes in Tibetan iconography and symbology which havetheir links with the archaic and the chthonian (infernal) On more negotiable levels worksof art--as far apart as Sung (Chinese) paintings Gothic cathedrals medieval templearchitecture in India the Egyptian Sphinx music such as the Missa Solemnis or Sanskrit(Hindu) hymns--are accredited conductors of the numinous Darkness solitude silenceand emptiness are sometimes enough for the sensitive soul and the doors of perceptionopen to a wider world beyond A wide stretch of land or cranes flying against a cloudy skywere enough to throw the 19th-century Indian saint Ramakrishna into transport Butalways it is less the object than something seen through the object a bodiless presencethat forms the essence Without symbols in which the holy is embodied the experience ofthe holy vanishes

Though it creates a sense of awe and exaltation the idea of the holy also produces amood of dependence leading to action aimed at appeasing the deity or the powers behindthe universe At first the policy of appeasement may have been inspired by fear and hopeof reward But since the deity is not ultimately malevolent it could also evolve into anidea of grace Mystical theology both in the East and in the West has sometimes beendivided over the issue whether the union with the divine is the result of ones unaidedeffort or supernatural grace

The approaches to the divine or sacred are various rather than uniform Moving throughphysical intellectual devotional and symbolic rituals and disciplines it moves toward theultimate goal the annihilation of the self unio mystica (mystical union) in WesternChristianity moksa (salvation) in Hinduism Nirvana (the State of Bliss) in Buddhismand fana (the snuffing out of self) in Islam Though the words differ the experiencesare perhaps allied if not the same In a Sufi (Islamic mystical) poem the divine voicespeaks exultantly

Annihilate yourself gloriously and joyously in Me and in Me you shall findyourself so long as you do not realize your nothingness you will never reachthe heights of immortality

The description could as well be applied to the Buddhist sunyata (void) and theself-negating of the Christian mystics

The ultimate has been as a rule thought of as something other and apart even if inmysticism what is sought is union or unity Hierophany (manifestation of the holy) impliesa choice and a distinction between that which manifests the sacred and that which doesnot Also though a hierophany may represent a historic event that does not minimize itslarger validity (and in any culture there may be local as well as general hierophanies) ahierarchy is not unlikely On occasions the sacred may manifest itself in somethingprofane Ideally to a mystic the integrated quality of the cosmos is itself a hierophanyFrom this follows the possibility of consecrating the whole of life so that by sacramentaltransformation at any moment the flash of a trembling glance may be inserted into thegreat time and project the man amphibian (having dual life) into eternity Deificationwithout doubt one of the goals of the mystical life and a fundamental concept of orthodoxChristendom is part of the dialectics of the sacred The alchemic undertone in the

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man-God idea has never wholly been extinguished But as part of the continuingparadox one should also mention a resistance to the sacred Depending on theambivalence of the response to the sacred which at once repels and attracts theresistance is ultimately a flight from reality

Semantics and symbolism in mystical experience

Union of opposites

Mystical experience is flanked with a communication hazard a polar identity Thelinguistic liberties and extravagances are part of the logical impossibility of having todescribe one order of experience in terms of another Hence the rhetoric of mysticism islargely one of symbols and paradoxes The most striking of the strategies as the medievalChristian scholar Nicholas of Cusa put it is coincidentia oppositorum (union ofopposites) Since the opposites coincide without ceasing to be themselves this alsobecomes an acceptable definition of God or the nature of the Ground God saidHeracleitus is day and night summer and winter war and peace and satiety andhunger--all opposites A 5th- to 6th-century-AD Christian mystical writer called Dionysiusthe Areopagite advised people to

strip off all questions in order that we may attain a naked knowledge of thatUnknowing and that we may begin to see the superessential Darkness which ishidden by the light that is in existent things

This use of language or view of things is obviously not normal

Old myths and archetypes are full of examples of such dichotomy The Zoroastriantradition has Ormazd (the Good Lord) and Ahriman (the Lie) the Gnostic myth speaks ofChrist and Satan as brothers and the same idea is found in the Vedas where the suras(good spirits) and asuras (bad spirits) are shown to be cousins In a different contextthere is the androgyne (man-woman) the ardhanarisvara in Indian myth As for theHindu jivanmukta the liberated individual he is liberated from duality This is also part ofwhat the Lord Krsna (Krishna) said when he asked the hero Arjuna to rise above thethree gunas (modes) The Tantras refer to the union of Siva (a Hindu god) and Sakti(Sivas consort) in ones own body and consciousness and provide appropriate practices tothis end The Chinese had their Yang and Yin (opposites) the Tibetans their Yab and Yum(opposites) and Buddhism its samsara and Nirvana as aspects of the Same InPrajntildeaparamita a Mahayana (northern Buddhist) text the Illumined Ones are supposed toengage in a laughter in which all distinctions cease to exist




Introduction Nature and significance Relation of mystical experience to other kinds of experience Definitions of mysticism and mystical experience Differences between mysticism and similar phenomena Basic patterns Introvertive mysticism Other definitions and experiences of mysticism Universal types of mystical experience Intellectual and contemplative forms Devotional forms Ecstatic and erotic forms Goal of mystical experience and mysticism Experience of the divine or sacred Union with the divine or sacred Experience of the universal Experience of oneness with people Mystical relationship between man and the sacred Nature of the relationship Awe and mystery Means and modes of the relationship




mysticism

Emptiness and fullness

Mystical experience permits complementary and apparently contradictory methods ofexpression via affirmativa (affirmative way or fullness) as well as via negativa(negative way or emptiness) For fullness and freedom both are needed This is becausethe reality affirmed contains its own opposite In fact the apparent negations--neti-neti(not this not that) of the Upanisads the sunyata (void) of the Buddhists or theDarkness beyond Light of Dionysius--perform a double function They state a condition ofbeing as well as its utter freedom from every determination As Dionysius explains itWhile God possesses all the attributes of the universe being the universal Cause yet in astricter sense He does not possess them since He transcends them all The negativeway a way of turning the back upon the finite is part of an old positive verified insightat once the last freedom and as far as many men are concerned perhaps a lost freedom

Symbolism of divine messengers

Experiences relating to these realities could not at any time have been common orwidespread and must have come mainly through consecrated channels yogis (Hindumeditation practitioners) gurus (Hindu teachers) prophets mystics saints and spiritualmasters of the inner life This channelling through human agents has given rise to a hostof divine messengers a hierarchy of angels intermediaries and incarnations singly or insuccession This manner of approaching or receiving the divine or holy is the justificationof avatars (incarnations of God) and the man-God in various religions God was mademan in order that man might be made God

The mystical experience is a renovation of life at its root that is of the forgottenlanguage of symbols and symbolism The mystic participates in two worlds at once theprofane and the sacred Rituals and ceremonies become the means of integration with ahigher reality and consciousness But symbols cannot be deliberately manufactured nordo they make an arbitrary system Being for ever communicating its essence is thesource of their abundance potency and unity Even a nontheistic mysticism such asBuddhism has deployed symbols freely of which perhaps the most well-known is theformula om mani padme hum (the jewel in the lotus)

Symbols point beyond themselves participate in that to which they point open up levelsof reality that are otherwise closed to man unlock dimensions and elements of the soulthat correspond to reality and cannot be produced intentionally or invented Symbols maybe inner or outer To some nature symbolism comes easily




Introduction Nature and significance Relation of mystical experience to other kinds of experience Definitions of mysticism and mystical experience Differences between mysticism and similar phenomena Basic patterns Introvertive mysticism Other definitions and experiences of mysticism

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mysticism

Symbolism of love and marriage

A far more risky but inescapable mode of symbolism than pantheism has been the use ofthe analogy of human love and marriage Not all the mystics have been deniers orchampions of repression The soul it may be added is always feminine The Christianmystics St Bernard and St John of the Cross the Islamic Sufi poets and the HinduDravidian and Vaisnava saints could teach lovers Not only the church but the faithful areviewed to be among Christs brides and speak the language of love O that you wouldkiss me with the kisses of your mouth The speaker is the bride thirsting for God StBernard has shown that through carnal mercenary filial and nuptial love the life of manmoves toward the mystery of grace and union

The hermeneutics (critical interpretation) of the Bridegroom-Word is that the soulsreturn is her conversion to the Word to be reformed through Him and to be conformed toHim In the West the roots of the tradition go back to the Song of Solomon in the Biblenot perhaps the best of models The Hindu lilas (love plays) of Radha and Krsna havebeen freely misunderstood in spite of the repeated disclaimer that the events describedare not facts but symbols The charge of immorality has been loudest against the Tantraswhich had made a subtle bold and strict experiment in sublimation whose inner sensemay fail to be intelligible even to those who are attracted by it That the marriage symbolshould find a readier response among the brides of Christ is only to be expected In TheInterior Castle St Teresa has been fairly outspoken He has bound Himself to her asfirmly as two human beings are joined in wedlock and will never separate Himself fromher But this was not a monopoly of nuns The medieval theologian Richard ofSaint-Victor has described as well as explained the steep stairway of love made up ofbetrothal marriage wedlock and fruitfulness In a slightly different set of symbols StJohn of the Cross states that after the soul has driven away from itself all that is contraryto the divine will it is transformed in God by love

Symbolism of the journey

Another prominent mystical symbol is the way quest or pilgrimage Having lost theparadise of his soul man as the 16th-century physician and alchemist Paracelsus says isa wanderer ever A Christian monk St Bonaventure has written about the minds journeyto God and an English mystic Walter Hilton has described the Christian journey thus

Right as a true pilgrim going to Jerusalem leaveth behind him his house andland wife and child and maketh himself poor and bare from all that he haththat he may go lightly without letting right so if thou wilt be a ghostlypilgrim thou shalt make thyself naked from all that thou wouldst be atJerusalem and at none other place but there (From The Ladder ofPerfection)

According to the Sufis the pilgrim is the perceptive or intuitional sense of man Aided byattraction devotion and elevation the journey leads by way of many a wine shop (divinelove) to the tavern (illumination) the journey to God in God In his Conference of theBirds the 12th-century Persian Sufi Attar refers to the seven valleys en route to thekings hidden palace the valleys of quest love knowledge detachment unityamazement and finally annihilation Others have gone further and spoken ofannihilation of annihilation In the symbolic universe denudation may be viewed as away of fullness

Men are called to the journey inward or upward because of a homing instinct Eckehart putthe matter simply earth cannot escape the sky All men are called to their origin which

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implies Gods need of man A mutual attraction the tendency toward the Divine cannot bestifled indefinitely since it returns after every banishment For some paradise is notenough it is too localized and perhaps perishable They strain toward eternity a leapbeyond history into the incommunicable forever A white radiance to some to others it isa ring of pure and bright light The Veda speaks of the kalahahamsa (the swan oftime) winging back to the sky and nest eternity

Essentially a way of return ricorso the final aim of mysticism is transfiguration But

by what alchemy shall this lead of mortality be turned into that gold of divineBeing But if they are not in their essence contraries If they aremanifestations of one Reality identical in substance Then indeed a divinetransmutation becomes conceivable (From Sri Aurobindo The Life Divine)

This is a clue to the Vedas those hymns to the mystic fire and the inner sense of sacrificeburning forever on the altar Mind Hence the abundance of solar and fire images birdsof fire the fire of the sun and the isles of fire The symbol systems of the world religionsand mysticisms are profound illuminations of the human-divine mystery Be it the cave ofthe heart or the lotus of the heart the dwelling place of that which is the Essence of theuniverse the third eye or the eye of wisdom--the symbols all refer back to the wisdomentering the aspiring soul on its way toward progressive self-understanding I saw myLord with the Eye of the Heart I said Who art Thou and he answered thouThroughout the ages man homo symbolicus has been but exploring the endless miracleof being Mystical experience is a living encyclopaedia of equations and correspondencespointer readings that partly reveal and partly conceal




Introduction Nature and significance Relation of mystical experience to other kinds of experience Definitions of mysticism and mystical experience Differences between mysticism and similar phenomena Basic patterns Introvertive mysticism Other definitions and experiences of mysticism Universal types of mystical experience Intellectual and contemplative forms Devotional forms Ecstatic and erotic forms Goal of mystical experience and mysticism Experience of the divine or sacred Union with the divine or sacred Experience of the universal Experience of oneness with people Mystical relationship between man and the sacred Nature of the relationship Awe and mystery Means and modes of the relationship Semantics and symbolism in mystical experience Union of opposites Emptiness and fullness Symbolism of divine messengers Symbolism of love and marriage Symbolism of the journey Psychological aspects of mysticism Awareness Role of identification Systematic exposition of mystical experience Attempts of mystics to record the nature of their experiences



Encyclopaeligdia Britannica

mysticism

in general a spiritual quest for hidden truth or wisdom the goal of which is union with the divineor sacred (the transcendent realm) Forms of mysticism are found in all major world religions byanalogy in the shamanic and other ecstatic practices of nonliterate cultures and in secularexperience

In the 20th century mysticism (the treasure hidden in the centres of our souls) has undergone arenewal of interest and understanding and even a mood of expectancy similar to that whichmarked its role in previous eras Such a mood stems in part from the feeling of alienation thatmany persons experience in the modern world Put down as a religion of the elite mysticism (orthe mystical faculty of perceiving transcendental reality) is said by many to belong to all menthough few use it The British author Aldous Huxley has stated that a totally unmystical worldwould be a world totally blind and insane and the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore has notedthat Man has a feeling that he is truly represented in something which exceeds himself


The goal of mysticism is union with the divine or sacred The path to that union is usuallydeveloped by following four stages purgation (of bodily desires) purification (of the will)illumination (of the mind) and unification (of ones will or being with the divine) If the objectof mans existence is to be a Man that is to re-establish the harmony which originally belongedbetween him and the divinized state before the separation took place which disturbed theequilibrium (The Life and Doctrine of Paracelsus) mysticism will always be a part of the way ofreturn to the source of being a way of counteracting the experience of alienation Mysticism hasalways held--and parapsychology also seems to suggest--that the discovery of a nonphysicalelement in mans personality is of utmost significance in his quest for equilibrium in a world ofapparent chaos

Mysticisms apparent denial or self-negating is part of a psychological process or strategy thatdoes not really deny the person In spite of its lunatic fringe the maturer forms of mysticismsatisfy the claims of rationality ecstasy and righteousness


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There is obviously something nonmental alogical paradoxical and unpredictable about themystical phenomenon but it is not therefore irrational or antirational or religion withoutthought Rather as Zen (Buddhist intuitive sect) masters say it is knowledge of the mostadequate kind only it cannot be expressed in words If there is a mystery about mysticalexperience it is something it shares with life and consciousness Mysticism a form of living indepth indicates that man a meeting ground of various levels of reality is more thanone-dimensional Despite the interaction and correspondence between levels--What is below islike what is above what is above is like what is below (Tabula Smaragdina Emerald Tablet awork on alchemy attributed to Hermes Trismegistus)--they are not to be equated or confused Atonce a praxis (technique) and a gnosis (esoteric knowledge) mysticism consists of a way ordiscipline

The relationship of the religion of faith to mysticism (personal religion raised to the highestpower) is ambiguous a mixture of respect and misgivings Though mysticism may be associatedwith religion it need not be The mystic often represents a type that the religious institution (egchurch) does not and cannot produce and does not know what to do with if and when one appearsAs William Ralph Inge an English theologian commented institutionalism and mysticism havebeen uneasy bedfellows Although mysticism has been the core of Hinduism and Buddhism ithas been little more than a minor strand--and frequently a disturbing element--in JudaismChristianity and Islam As the 15th- to 16th-century Italian political philosopher NiccolograveMachiavelli had noted of the 13th-century Christian monastic leaders St Francis and St Dominicthey had saved religion but destroyed the church

The founders of religion may have been incipient or advanced mystics but the inner compulsionsof their experience have proved less amenable to dogmas creeds and institutional restrictionswhich are bound to be outward and majority oriented There are religions of authority and thereligion of the spirit Thus there is a paradox if the mystic minority is distrusted or maltreatedreligious life loses its sap on the other hand these peculiar people do not easily fit into societywith the requirements of a prescriptive community composed of less sensitive seekers of safetyand religious routine Though no deeply religious person can be without a touch of mysticismand no mystic can be in the deepest sense other than religious the dialogue between mystics andconventional religionists has been far from happy From both sides there is a constant need forrestatement and revaluation a greater tolerance a union of free mens worship Though itvalidates religion mysticism also tends to escape the fetters of organized religion


Mysticism shares a common world with magic theurgy (power of persuading the supernatural)prayer worship religion metaphysics (transcendent levels of reality) and even science It maynot be always easy to distinguish mysticism from these but its approach and emphasis aredifferent Though there is an element of magic psychism and the occult in much of what passesfor mysticism it is not to be equated with a science of the unseen or with voices and visionsPowers of the occult (or siddhis) are viewed as real but they can also be dangerous and are not ofinterest to genuine mystics who have warned against their likely misuse

Prayer and worship may form part of mysticism but they are viewed as means and not asessence also they are usually continuations of sensory experience whereas mysticism is a pure



unitary consciousness or a union with God As for science it is analytic and discursive andexpresses its findings in precise and abstract formulas mysticism however like poetry dependsmore on paradoxes and an unusual use of language Philosophies may lead to or follow frommysticism but they are not the same Nature mysticism is another prominent variant to whichpoets and artists are particularly prone This has often been described or dismissed as pantheism(the divine in all) though it is perhaps other than a simple assertion of identity

Emotionalism and purified emotion are quite different Emotionalism a kind of unsuccessfulecstasy may arise from unpurged elements in the being it could also be a concession or inabilityto hold the flow or touch from above The natural state of man and even more that of the truemystic is serene and not agitated not at the mercy of what the medieval mystical book The Cloudof Unknowing calls monkey tricks of the soul Be still and still and know Mysticismamong the many forms of experience confirms the claims of religion and is viewed as providinga foretaste of the life after death



To define is to limit and no single definition will cover every aspect of mysticism Some haveobjected to the word itself and believed that enlightenment or illumination might be betterThough they meet mysticism has to be distinguished from prophetic religions as well as fromshamanism (a belief system built around psychic transformations) Working through chosenindividuals--not necessarily saints and chosen for no other reason than Gods will--propheticreligions emphasize action to a far greater extent than most forms of mysticism with its penchantfor inwardness and the beyond Though in ecstasy the barriers seem to disappear in prophetismGod and man are rarely identified Shamanism a technique of ecstasy generally found in Siberiaand Central Asia but with parallels in primitive society provides a sort of correspondence withthe purgative stage of mysticism (in which physical needs are negated) The closeness toparanormal (or supernatural) phenomena seems more pronounced however in shamanism Boththe shaman and the mystic as communicants with a world beyond normal experience reveal anidentity of goal if not of practice and content

Basic patterns

Paradigmatic pronouncements in regard to mysticism pose problems of their own The classicIndian formula--that thou art tat tvam asi (Chandogya Upanisad 69)--is hedged in with theprofoundest ambiguity The difficulty reappears in the thought of the medieval Christian mysticMeister Eckehart who had the church raising questions for such unguarded statements as Theknower and the known are one God and I we are one in knowledge and There is no distinctionbetween us

Mysticism may be defined as the belief in a third kind of knowledge the other two being senseknowledge and knowledge by inference Adolf Lasson has written

The essence of Mysticism is the assertion of an intuition which transcends the temporal categoriesof the understanding Rationalism cannot conduct us to the essence of things we thereforeneed intellectual vision



This same view was held by the 3rd-century-AD Greek philosopher Plotinus But the patternmisses the other dominant quality of mystical experience--love or union through love Themedieval theistic view of mysticism (as of religious life) was that it was a stretching out of thesoul into God through the urge of love an experimental knowledge of God through unifyinglove Its other name was joy and the endeavour of the mystic to grasp the divine essence orultimate reality helped him to enjoy the blessedness of actual communion with the highest Thiswas considered both a science and an art As a science (ie intuitive knowledge or the scienceof ultimates) mysticism is viewed as being able to help in the overcoming of creaturelinessand also as being able to maintain the tendency to stress up to an extreme and exaggerated pointthe non-rational aspect of religion

Reality a kingdom of values is viewed not as a faceless infinite an impersonal something orsomewhat If not an ego it is a being and most mystics would call it God Mysticism arises whenman tries to bring the urge toward a communion with God--a Being conceived as the supremeand ultimate reality according to the British scholar William Ralph Inge--toward a higherconsciousness and being in relation with the other contents of his mind and total personalitywhen he tries to realize the presence of the living God in the soul and in nature or moregenerally in the attempt to realize (in thought and feeling) the immanence of the temporal in theeternal A 19th-century scholar Otto Pfleiderer indicated that religious mysticism is theimmediate feeling of unity of the self with God it is nothing therefore but the fundamentalfeeling of religion the religious life at its very heart and centre Against such exclusiveconcentration the British writer Richard Nettleship suggests a corrective element that ofwholeness and symbolism Mysticism is the consciousness that everything that we experience isan element and only an element in fact ie that in being what it is it is symbolic of somethingelse


Certain forms of mysticism however would seem to strive toward a naked encounter with theWhole or All without and beyond symbols Of this kind of direct apprehension of the absoluteintrovertive mysticism offers examples from different times and traditions Instead of looking outthe gaze turns inward toward the unchanging the undifferentiated One without a second Theprocess by which this state is attained is by a blotting out or suppression of all physicalsensations--indeed of the entire empirical content of consciousness Cittavrttinirodha (theholding or stopping of the mind stuff) was how the 2nd-century-BC Indian mystic Patantildejalidescribed it The model of introvertive mysticism comes from the Mandukya Upanisad

The Fourth [aspect of self] say the wise is not the knowledge of the senses nor is it relativeknowledge nor yet inferential knowledge Beyond the senses beyond the understanding beyondall expression is The Fourth It is pure unitary consciousness wherein [all] awareness of the worldand of multiplicity is completely obliterated It is ineffable peace It is the supreme good It is Onewithout a second It is the Self (From The Upanishads Breath of the Eternal trans by SwamiPrabhavananda and Frederick Manchester)


Such undifferentiated unity or union between the individual and the supreme self is unacceptableto certain traditions and temperaments The Jewish philosopher Martin Buber emphasized an



I-Thou relationship All real living is meeting and one Thou cannot become It But even hisown unforgettable experience of union he would explain as illusory With a wider range aBritish scholar RC Zaehner has tried to establish different kinds or types of mysticism ofisolation the separation of spirit and matter eternity from time pantheistic or pan-enhenic inwhich the soul is the universe--all creaturely existence is one the theistic in which the soul feelsidentified with God and the beatific with its hope of deification when the perishable puts on theimperishable

Definitions of mysticism include a bewildering variety ranging from the biological through thepsychological to the theological The origin of the word and certain of its features stronglysuggest the possibility that mysticism is the science of a hidden life But there is also a growingbelief among 20th-century scholars that the people of the hidden should not remain hidden toolong and should come out in the open befitting an era of open development and openrealization Some 20th-century scientists among them physicists biologists and paleontologistshave shown a marked mystical bias A biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy has confessed to peakexperiences of a great unity and liberation from ego boundary In moments of scientificdiscovery I have an intuitive insight into a grand design He finds no necessary oppositionbetween the rational way of thinking and intuitive experience culminating in what the mysticshave tried to express Both have their place and may coexist Earlier there had been a sharpdichotomy between scientific and mystical knowledge The logic of levels may never beamenable to analysis or intellectual understanding but that is not to deny the role of reason

Attitudes toward mysticism since the middle of the 20th century have been considerably modifiedby an awareness of subliminal consciousness extrasensory perceptions and above all anevolutionary perspective The Roman Catholic paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin asked if in anexpanding universe mysticism would not burst the limits of narrow cults and religious rigidityand move toward an ecumenical future In a larger view mysticism has not so much to be definedas renewed and redefined



Mystical experience which is centred in a seeking for unity admits of wide variations but fallsinto recognizable types mild and extreme extrovertive and introvertive and theistic andnontheistic Another well-known typology--corresponding to the faculties of thinking willingand feeling--employs the Indian formula the respective ways of knowledge (jntildeana) works(karma) and devotion (bhakti) Claims have been made on behalf of each though maturermystics have tried to accord to each its place and also to arrive at a synthesis as in theBhagavadgita (Hindu sacred scripture) Depending on the powers of discrimination theintellectual or the contemplative type tries to reach the Highest the One or the Godhead behindGod In its approach toward the supreme identity it tends to be chary of multiplicity to deny theworld that it may find reality Plotinus was ashamed of being in the body In the 17th centurySpinozas nondenominational concept of intellectual love of God revealed a sense of aloofness orisolation reminiscent of the ancient Hindus

Man however does not live by thought alone to live is to work and faith without works is deadThe mystic injunction is that works should be done in a spirit of nonattachment with the ego



sense (I the doer) taken away In a larger sense not merely the doing of religious chores but allactivity is offered to the Supreme All life according to many mystics turns into a sacramentAll life is yoga (meditation practice)

Devotional forms

For the emotional type of person there is the mysticism of love and devotion A theistic attitudeor devotional mysticism depends upon mutual attraction In the words of a Sufi poet I soughtHim for thirty years I thought that it was I who desired Him but no it was He who desired meThe path of devotion includes the rituals of prayer worship and adoration which--if done withsincerity inwardness and understanding--can bring some of the most rewarding treasures of thereligious life including ecstasy (or samadhi) There is a paradox and a danger here the paradoxof avoiding the loss of personality the danger of self-indulgence


Also in an unpurified medium the experiences may and do give rise to erotic feelings a factobserved and duly warned against by the wiser spirits and the Fathers of the Church (ZenBuddhism avoids both the overly personal and erotic suggestions) Sometimes the distinctionbetween eros (Greek erotic love) or kama (Sanskrit sexual love) and agape (Greek a higherlove) or prema (Sanskrit higher love) can be thin In the Indian tradition the Vaisnava(devotional) and Tantric (sexual) experiments were in their apparently different ways bold andhonest attempts at sublimation though the majority of these experiments turned out to be failuresand disasters

The same fate is likely to overtake the craze for psychedelic drugs and pharmacological aids tovisionary experience--practices that are by no means new A yogic writer Patantildejali speaks of theuse of ausadhi (a medicinal herb) as a means to yogic experience and the Vedas (Hinduscriptures) and Tantras (Hindu occultic writings) refer to wine as part of worship and theinitiatory rites The Greek Mysteries (religions of salvation) sometimes used sedatives andstimulants Primarily meant to remove ethical social and mental inhibitions and to open up thesubconscious no less than the subliminal these techniques as a rule were frowned upon eventhough those who took the help of such artificial aids had undergone prior training and discipline

A whole new life-style and vocabulary have developed around medicinal mysticism in the 20thcentury Peyote mescaline hashish marijuana Cannabis indica LSD and other similar productshave become familiar to much of the worlds population The visions induced by such aids at bestresemble the extrovertive type and cannot be easily equated with genuine mystical experienceAccording to taste temperament and tradition the experience--a parody of creativespontaneity--may come from unexpected sources In any case utilizing such medicinal aids rarelyachieves union with Self or God and no permanent change of personality (in the mystical sense)has been known to occur



The goal of mysticism is ghostly a state or condition in which the soul is oned with Godaccording to the Western medieval work The Cloud of Unknowing This one-ing is because all



men according to mystics are called to their origin Self-realization is basically one in intent withthe injunctions of the Greek Mysteries Know thyself This knowing union or communionwith the divine and the sacred is of the essence of the ascent of man As the only answer to theproblem of identity mystics look upon it as the final end the summum bonum At the journeysend waits the knowledge by identity The direct intuitive perception is more akin to revealedreligion than to science and philosophy though it is of itself a science and philosophies springfrom as well as lead to it


In the movement toward the goal there are naturally stages and processes marked differently indifferent traditions The discipline of prayer purification and contemplation culminates in thehighest wordless union with the divine and the ultimate As the process unfolds itself along themystic way an alteration of personality--a conversion if not reintegration--occurs Theunregenerate old man (in Christianity) is replaced by the new being The twice born (inHinduism) becomes more than a metaphor or sacrosanct social arrangement There is a change oflevel and mind One of the aims or methods of mysticism is to make possible this change andconversion a shift from the profane to the sacred from here to there Lead me from theunreal to the real from darkness to light from death to immortality (Brhadaranyaka Upanisad)Before the transition or the great passage is completed however the individual or pilgrimfeels successively or simultaneously his oneness with nature with people and with things--anextension of awareness or expanded selfhood to which no limits can be assigned Cosmicconsciousness is thus a stage in a progressive self-discovery


The nature of the goal however introduces a paradox Like every other aim and activitymysticism operates in a historical context Yet sooner or later it also tends to reveal a timelessstance The mystic is both in and out of time The eternal now is a kind of release from thetemporal order Such a release may lead to a shift from the local to the universal to a growingsense of unity of all experience Though not a declared or conscious aim this result could belooked upon as a not unworthy goal as well as a pragmatic standard

To cure man of a provincialism of the spirit from which more people suffer than either know oradmit it is one of the goals of a mysticism that has come of age The true mystic is acosmopolitan In mans many-sided growth toward the real a sane and mature mysticism leads toan ecumenical insight and obligation Local colour particulars and uniqueness will not ceasebut in the perspective of the future and of wholeness the universal alone will have survivalvalue


The apotheosized (divinized) field of consciousness is mysticisms ultimate goal and gift to thelife of an evolving humanity It alone is fitted to mediate between the anguish of existence and theserenity of essence between samsara (cycle of birth and rebirth) and Nirvana (the State ofBliss) According to an American Roman Catholic mystic Thomas Merton The spiritualanguish of man has no cure but mysticism

Though the mystic goal may seem to be tied to a transcendent reality this does not mean a



sundering of all relations and responsibilities On the contrary it is the guarantee of a set ofaltered relationships and a rehabilitation of what may be called the higher reason Intuitions thatsink into private fancy and morbidity have a short life to live As for the mystics yonder it isnot spatially or posthumously remote but rather refers to a different order of reality andconsciousness The healthier forms of mysticism do not abjure action or the claims of love It isan ancient maxim that one becomes what one loves This is how the psychic birth repeats itself inthe mystic soul as stated for example by Meister Eckehart a medieval German mystic It ismore worthy of God that he should be born spiritually of every virgin or of every good soul thanthat he should have been born physically of Mary

The mystic is not always amorous of the beyond leaving an unredeemed world to its own waysNot escape but rather victory is mysticisms inner urge and promise The more sober among themystics do not merely withdraw they also return to the base and attempt the ancient alchemy thetransformation of men A solitary salvation does not satisfy either head or heart



Within man is the soul of the holy said Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th century This is true ofsociety too As the French sociologist Eacutemile Durkheim saw it the sacred is but a personifiedsociety Mysticism one might say is the art and science of the holy Theologically it is but theexperience of the Holy Ghost the realization of the Spirit of Holiness As the opposite of theprofane and as a distinct and irreducible quality of the religious and mystical life the sacred hasalways existed It is indeed a mark of the real and when the German theologian Rudolf Ottoisolated the sacred as a quite distinctive category of mystical apprehension he had no lack ofevidence The emphasis however was not unanimously accepted Some like Inge thought thesacred might as well be elicited from such ultimate values as truth goodness and beauty

According to the respective world view the interpretation or emphasis varies but the universalcore remains unaffected The sacred is in its own way a coherent system though not rational Thedualists no less than the theists insist on the unqualified and irreducible otherness theunbridgeable gulf even when one speaks of union or communion It is the distance that preservesthe sacred

Christian mystics who often speak of union with God generally do not imply identity with thedivine since this might lead to heresy The 16th-century Spanish mystic St Teresa of Avila couldwrite with impunity It is plain enough what unity is--two distinct things becoming one Butmost others could not be so plain and had to use special strategy to cover up traces of possibledeviation from what was permissible Even if there had been a semblance of interpenetrationbetween man and the divine there could be no substantial identity Each of these wrote themedieval Dutch mystic Jan van Ruysbroeck keeps its own nature There is here a greatdistinction for the creature never becomes God nor does God ever become the creature Thesame doctrine is preached in the Middle Ages by the mystic Heinrich Suso

In this merging of itself in God the spirit passes away and yet not wholly for it receives indeedsome attribute of God but it does not become God by nature It is still something that has beencreated out of nothing and continues to be this everlastingly



Identification of man with the divine according to many the heart of mysticism raises problemsfrom other points of view as well Pantheism which asserts that all is God (or Nature) and God(or Nature) is all is looked upon as a false doctrine in many religions To John Calvins leadingquestion--The Devil also must be God substantially--the unsuspecting Spanish theologian andphysician Michael Servetus had answered smilingly Do you doubt it The opinion cost him hislife The Hindus Upanisads however insist on this identity in passage after passage Closelylooked at this may not be simple pantheism but an identity in difference a paradox present ineven Vedanta (a Hindu monistic system) Islam has been fiercely critical of these claims ofoneness and the medieval mystic al-Hallaj had to pay with his life (922) for making theunorthodox announcement of his identity with the divine Ana al-haqq (I am the Truth) Hewas not the only one to speak in this manner The more moderate Mahmud Shabestari hadreported an experience (c 1320)

In God there is no duality In that presence I and we and you do not exist I and you andwe and He become one Since in the unity there is no distinction the Quest and the Way andthe Seeker become one

But Muslim theologians as a rule tended to dismiss those who boasted of union with the Deityas merely babblers In the Jewish tradition it is generally considered improper and indecorousfor any man to give a personal account of his own mystical experience

Awe and mystery

Behind these and other interpretations the reality of the sacred--and its persistentambiguity--appears to be too true to be denied or ignored Awe may or may not be the best part ofman but without it a necessary dimension is left out of the image of man the dimension of whatOtto called the mysterium tremendum et fascinans (the mystery that repels and attracts) Themystics are loath to leave this dimension out and directly or indirectly insist on its inclusion Thereason was suggested in the 5th-4th centuries BC by the Greek philosopher Plato whomaintained that the divine was the head and root of man The mystics is the eye the third eyewith which the world beholds itself and knows itself divine Though the vision is partial andpasses away there could be an ideal state of unbroken awareness of the Real Presence anepiphany (manifestation)

According to the mystical point of view the rational content of religion is not enough it is not ofthe essence of religion The sense of the holy the mark of mans encounter with the other isusually invested with an ethical aura or undertone This is how most people understand it But thislowers its potency considerably There is clearly an overplus below good and evil and beyondgood and evil The numinous (spiritual) is not altogether free of the ominous Thus though theholy may be discussed it cannot be well defined It can however be experienced and evoked aspart of that wordless mystery that man must face--even if he is not able to explainsatisfactorily--in his journey toward the real This may happen early or late in his mysticaljourney and the notion of evolution may not be applied to it uniformly

The holy is not always and altogether a pleasant experience Often shrouded in a fear that is morethan fear it is an inward dread and shuddering The holy as awe-inspiring can be found in theIndian pantheon in such figures as Rudra and Kali the dark and wrathful faces of the divine inwhich--in a collapse of finitude--majesty and unapproachability are inexplicably blended The



feeling of being consumed in the presence of the divine is a profound expression of mans relationto the holy As for the ultimate mystical identity with the Supreme Self God or theUnknowable that also confirms the nonrational and suprarational nature of the experience inwhich ego logic and grammar are shattered alike A frightful and traumatic adventure not unlikethe Greek Mystery rites it can erupt at every crisis break through an insulated universe Aclergyman cited by William Starbuck an American psychologist of religion spoke of havingexperienced

a [silent] presence [in the night] all the more felt because it was not seen I could not any morehave doubted that He was there than that I was Indeed I felt myself to be if possible the lessreal of the two

Diminution apart the holy generally gives rise to a sense of energy and urgency which may takedifferent forms At a higher level the consuming fire of love reported by mystics could be anextension or refinement of the same energy for Love is nothing else than quenched Wrath Thenothing else may be an exaggeration but such paradoxes of the religious life--eg the unity ofopposites--meet man at every turn The void in Buddhism like the nothing in Western mysticismmay be a numinous ideogram of the wholly other


As means to meet the divine some mystics have taken recourse to fasting breath controlmeditation ecstasy simplification autosuggestion and monoideism (absorption in a single idea)Rituals in some cases provide contact An old method is the via negativa (negative way) theemptier your mind the more susceptible are you to the working of the presence In other wordsthe impediments have to be removed Among other indirect--but no less effective--means wouldbe the shock therapy of the blood-curdling images that one notes in Tibetan iconography andsymbology which have their links with the archaic and the chthonian (infernal) On morenegotiable levels works of art--as far apart as Sung (Chinese) paintings Gothic cathedralsmedieval temple architecture in India the Egyptian Sphinx music such as the Missa Solemnis orSanskrit (Hindu) hymns--are accredited conductors of the numinous Darkness solitude silenceand emptiness are sometimes enough for the sensitive soul and the doors of perception open to awider world beyond A wide stretch of land or cranes flying against a cloudy sky were enough tothrow the 19th-century Indian saint Ramakrishna into transport But always it is less the objectthan something seen through the object a bodiless presence that forms the essence Withoutsymbols in which the holy is embodied the experience of the holy vanishes

Though it creates a sense of awe and exaltation the idea of the holy also produces a mood ofdependence leading to action aimed at appeasing the deity or the powers behind the universe Atfirst the policy of appeasement may have been inspired by fear and hope of reward But sincethe deity is not ultimately malevolent it could also evolve into an idea of grace Mysticaltheology both in the East and in the West has sometimes been divided over the issue whether theunion with the divine is the result of ones unaided effort or supernatural grace

The approaches to the divine or sacred are various rather than uniform Moving through physicalintellectual devotional and symbolic rituals and disciplines it moves toward the ultimate goalthe annihilation of the self unio mystica (mystical union) in Western Christianity moksa(salvation) in Hinduism Nirvana (the State of Bliss) in Buddhism and fana (the snuffing out



of self) in Islam Though the words differ the experiences are perhaps allied if not the same Ina Sufi (Islamic mystical) poem the divine voice speaks exultantly

Annihilate yourself gloriously and joyously in Me and in Me you shall find yourself so long asyou do not realize your nothingness you will never reach the heights of immortality

The description could as well be applied to the Buddhist sunyata (void) and the self-negating ofthe Christian mystics

The ultimate has been as a rule thought of as something other and apart even if in mysticismwhat is sought is union or unity Hierophany (manifestation of the holy) implies a choice and adistinction between that which manifests the sacred and that which does not Also though ahierophany may represent a historic event that does not minimize its larger validity (and in anyculture there may be local as well as general hierophanies) a hierarchy is not unlikely Onoccasions the sacred may manifest itself in something profane Ideally to a mystic theintegrated quality of the cosmos is itself a hierophany From this follows the possibility ofconsecrating the whole of life so that by sacramental transformation at any moment the flashof a trembling glance may be inserted into the great time and project the man amphibian (havingdual life) into eternity Deification without doubt one of the goals of the mystical life and afundamental concept of orthodox Christendom is part of the dialectics of the sacred Thealchemic undertone in the man-God idea has never wholly been extinguished But as part of thecontinuing paradox one should also mention a resistance to the sacred Depending on theambivalence of the response to the sacred which at once repels and attracts the resistance isultimately a flight from reality


Union of opposites

Mystical experience is flanked with a communication hazard a polar identity The linguisticliberties and extravagances are part of the logical impossibility of having to describe one order ofexperience in terms of another Hence the rhetoric of mysticism is largely one of symbols andparadoxes The most striking of the strategies as the medieval Christian scholar Nicholas of Cusaput it is coincidentia oppositorum (union of opposites) Since the opposites coincide withoutceasing to be themselves this also becomes an acceptable definition of God or the nature of theGround God said Heracleitus is day and night summer and winter war and peace and satietyand hunger--all opposites A 5th- to 6th-century-AD Christian mystical writer called Dionysiusthe Areopagite advised people to

strip off all questions in order that we may attain a naked knowledge of that Unknowing and thatwe may begin to see the superessential Darkness which is hidden by the light that is in existentthings


Old myths and archetypes are full of examples of such dichotomy The Zoroastrian tradition hasOrmazd (the Good Lord) and Ahriman (the Lie) the Gnostic myth speaks of Christ and Satan asbrothers and the same idea is found in the Vedas where the suras (good spirits) and asuras(bad spirits) are shown to be cousins In a different context there is the androgyne



(man-woman) the ardhanarisvara in Indian myth As for the Hindu jivanmukta the liberatedindividual he is liberated from duality This is also part of what the Lord Krsna (Krishna) saidwhen he asked the hero Arjuna to rise above the three gunas (modes) The Tantras refer to theunion of Siva (a Hindu god) and Sakti (Sivas consort) in ones own body and consciousness andprovide appropriate practices to this end The Chinese had their Yang and Yin (opposites) theTibetans their Yab and Yum (opposites) and Buddhism its samsara and Nirvana as aspects of theSame In Prajntildeaparamita a Mahayana (northern Buddhist) text the Illumined Ones are supposedto engage in a laughter in which all distinctions cease to exist


Mystical experience permits complementary and apparently contradictory methods of expressionvia affirmativa (affirmative way or fullness) as well as via negativa (negative way oremptiness) For fullness and freedom both are needed This is because the reality affirmedcontains its own opposite In fact the apparent negations--neti-neti (not this not that) of theUpanisads the sunyata (void) of the Buddhists or the Darkness beyond Light ofDionysius--perform a double function They state a condition of being as well as its utter freedomfrom every determination As Dionysius explains it While God possesses all the attributes of theuniverse being the universal Cause yet in a stricter sense He does not possess them since Hetranscends them all The negative way a way of turning the back upon the finite is part of anold positive verified insight at once the last freedom and as far as many men are concernedperhaps a lost freedom


Experiences relating to these realities could not at any time have been common or widespread andmust have come mainly through consecrated channels yogis (Hindu meditation practitioners)gurus (Hindu teachers) prophets mystics saints and spiritual masters of the inner life Thischannelling through human agents has given rise to a host of divine messengers a hierarchy ofangels intermediaries and incarnations singly or in succession This manner of approaching orreceiving the divine or holy is the justification of avatars (incarnations of God) and the man-Godin various religions God was made man in order that man might be made God

The mystical experience is a renovation of life at its root that is of the forgotten language ofsymbols and symbolism The mystic participates in two worlds at once the profane and thesacred Rituals and ceremonies become the means of integration with a higher reality andconsciousness But symbols cannot be deliberately manufactured nor do they make an arbitrarysystem Being for ever communicating its essence is the source of their abundance potencyand unity Even a nontheistic mysticism such as Buddhism has deployed symbols freely ofwhich perhaps the most well-known is the formula om mani padme hum (the jewel in thelotus)

Symbols point beyond themselves participate in that to which they point open up levels ofreality that are otherwise closed to man unlock dimensions and elements of the soul thatcorrespond to reality and cannot be produced intentionally or invented Symbols may be inner orouter To some nature symbolism comes easily




A far more risky but inescapable mode of symbolism than pantheism has been the use of theanalogy of human love and marriage Not all the mystics have been deniers or champions ofrepression The soul it may be added is always feminine The Christian mystics St Bernard andSt John of the Cross the Islamic Sufi poets and the Hindu Dravidian and Vaisnava saints couldteach lovers Not only the church but the faithful are viewed to be among Christs brides andspeak the language of love O that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth Thespeaker is the bride thirsting for God St Bernard has shown that through carnal mercenaryfilial and nuptial love the life of man moves toward the mystery of grace and union

The hermeneutics (critical interpretation) of the Bridegroom-Word is that the souls return isher conversion to the Word to be reformed through Him and to be conformed to Him In theWest the roots of the tradition go back to the Song of Solomon in the Bible not perhaps the bestof models The Hindu lilas (love plays) of Radha and Krsna have been freely misunderstood inspite of the repeated disclaimer that the events described are not facts but symbols The charge ofimmorality has been loudest against the Tantras which had made a subtle bold and strictexperiment in sublimation whose inner sense may fail to be intelligible even to those who areattracted by it That the marriage symbol should find a readier response among the brides ofChrist is only to be expected In The Interior Castle St Teresa has been fairly outspoken He hasbound Himself to her as firmly as two human beings are joined in wedlock and will neverseparate Himself from her But this was not a monopoly of nuns The medieval theologianRichard of Saint-Victor has described as well as explained the steep stairway of love made upof betrothal marriage wedlock and fruitfulness In a slightly different set of symbols St John ofthe Cross states that after the soul has driven away from itself all that is contrary to the divinewill it is transformed in God by love


Another prominent mystical symbol is the way quest or pilgrimage Having lost the paradise ofhis soul man as the 16th-century physician and alchemist Paracelsus says is a wanderer ever AChristian monk St Bonaventure has written about the minds journey to God and an Englishmystic Walter Hilton has described the Christian journey thus

Right as a true pilgrim going to Jerusalem leaveth behind him his house and land wife and childand maketh himself poor and bare from all that he hath that he may go lightly without lettingright so if thou wilt be a ghostly pilgrim thou shalt make thyself naked from all that thouwouldst be at Jerusalem and at none other place but there (From The Ladder of Perfection)

According to the Sufis the pilgrim is the perceptive or intuitional sense of man Aided byattraction devotion and elevation the journey leads by way of many a wine shop (divine love)to the tavern (illumination) the journey to God in God In his Conference of the Birds the12th-century Persian Sufi Attar refers to the seven valleys en route to the kings hidden palacethe valleys of quest love knowledge detachment unity amazement and finally annihilationOthers have gone further and spoken of annihilation of annihilation In the symbolic universedenudation may be viewed as a way of fullness

Men are called to the journey inward or upward because of a homing instinct Eckehart put thematter simply earth cannot escape the sky All men are called to their origin which implies Godsneed of man A mutual attraction the tendency toward the Divine cannot be stifled indefinitely



since it returns after every banishment For some paradise is not enough it is too localized andperhaps perishable They strain toward eternity a leap beyond history into the incommunicableforever A white radiance to some to others it is a ring of pure and bright light The Vedaspeaks of the kalahahamsa (the swan of time) winging back to the sky and nest eternity


by what alchemy shall this lead of mortality be turned into that gold of divine Being But if theyare not in their essence contraries If they are manifestations of one Reality identical insubstance Then indeed a divine transmutation becomes conceivable (From Sri Aurobindo TheLife Divine)

This is a clue to the Vedas those hymns to the mystic fire and the inner sense of sacrificeburning forever on the altar Mind Hence the abundance of solar and fire images birds of firethe fire of the sun and the isles of fire The symbol systems of the world religions and mysticismsare profound illuminations of the human-divine mystery Be it the cave of the heart or the lotus ofthe heart the dwelling place of that which is the Essence of the universe the third eye or theeye of wisdom--the symbols all refer back to the wisdom entering the aspiring soul on its waytoward progressive self-understanding I saw my Lord with the Eye of the Heart I said Who artThou and he answered thou Throughout the ages man homo symbolicus has been butexploring the endless miracle of being Mystical experience is a living encyclopaedia of equationsand correspondences pointer readings that partly reveal and partly conceal

Psychological aspects of mysticism

Awareness

Mysticism has been accused of passing off psychological states for metaphysical statements Butthe psychological base has never been questioned seriously It would however be proper to callit autology (the science of self) If the word psychology is to be retained it must be in the originalsense of the word now discarded The contrast between the old and the new has been wellexpressed by the Russian philosopher PD Ouspensky

Never in history has psychology stood at so low a level lost all touch with its origin and meaningperhaps the oldest science and unfortunately in its most essential features a forgotten sciencethe science of [mans] possible evolution

Mysticism is that science in which the psychology of man mingles with the psychology of GodThe major change or orientation is from the level of the profane to the sacred an awareness of thedivine in man and outside The source and goal of such a psychology was revealed in the18th-century Methodist leader John Wesleys dying words The best of all is this that God iswith us

A mark of the mystic life is the great access of energy and enlarged awareness so much so thatthe man who obtains the vision becomes as it were another being Mansions of the mind maqam(Arabic place) and bhumi (Sanskrit land) open up to the gaze of the initiate a wayfarer ofthe worlds This means a renewal or conversion until one knows that the earth alone is not mansteacher The mystic begins to draw his sustenance from supersensuous sources He has drunk theInfinite like a giants wine and a hidden bliss knowledge and power begin to sweep through the



gates of his senses

Role of identification

The state of energizing is facilitated by controlled attention It is customary to fix the mind onsome object or idea some focus of contemplation According to the Indian formula to worshipGod one must become like him (devam bhutva devam yajet) Exercises physical no less thanmental including methods of worship and prayer have been developed to this end until onebecomes what one contemplates The ranges and creative aspects of the mind are part of thepsychology of the mystics and one of the oldest traditions of mankind The old Indian psychologydivided consciousness into three provinces waking state (jagrat) dream state (svapna) and sleepstate (susupti) and added a fourth (turiya) which is the consciousness of mans pureself-existence or being The fourfold scale represents the degrees of the ladder of being by whichman climbs back to the source the absolute divine The change from here to there is not anuneventful process There come dry periods deviations violent alterations and temptations Ifthere are raptures and blue heavens there are python agonies and absolute abandonmentshowling deserts and dark nights of the soul to go through Tears of joy horripilation (bristlingof the hair) stigmata (bodily marks or pains) and parapsychological phenomena have beenknown to develop

The earlier phases of a naturalistic psychology had no qualms in relegating most of theseexperiences to the scrap heap of obsolete and archaic vanities disorders and morbidities--in aword hallucination One reason for such overall denigration was that complacent aliens to themystical life did not care to distinguish between abnormal and supernormal phenomena To themall were the same at best some kind of religious sport An American Quaker philosopher RufusJones has noted that psychology as 20th-century man knows it is empirical and possesses noladder by which it can transcend the empirical order

According to mystics most men live in a prison the walls thick with ego the senses andrestricting interests But some prisoners develop a passion to scale the walls and move toward anunwalled horizon an adventure of ideas if nothing more Thus the hypothesis that there might becherubs and seraphs (angels of knowledge and of love) who call and guide men in the upwardway is difficult to ignore But if the distinction between love and knowledge is at all valid theachievements of men would seem to be the products of love since as Aristotle maintained theintellect by itself moves nothing Without the driving and drawing that we feel in the heartmysticism would lack power and might sink into quiescence as has sometimes happened To willwhat the Supreme wills is the supreme secret the primum mobile Nothing burns in hell butself-will (Theologia Germanica ch 34) The mystic approaches this knowledge and mobilityeven when he is compelled to withdraw from society for long or short periods But withdrawalwithout return is not complete As scientists of the psyche the mystics insisted on the primacy ofthe inner factors Modern psychoanalysis claims to have made available to mans knowledge areasof darkness beneath the conscious levels However revealing these evidences of the ape and thetiger psychoanalysis is debarred from understanding the superconscious and it is viewed bymystics as being less than correct in its reading of the irrational in man The inescapablepessimism of the psychoanalytic conclusion stands in contrast to the possibilities ofself-development and sublimation to which mystics have always pointed



Among other discoveries on the mystical way is that of ambivalence or the alternate ways oflooking at the world temporal as against eternal The double vision characterizes the saint whoselife forms a point of intersection between time and timelessness Mystical psychology assumes atranscendental faculty in the hiddenness beyond the threshold It is committed to a breakthroughand could never have sustained itself without constant verification In many ways a guardedsecret meant for the competent few the experiment has hazards and could upset any but the mostdisciplined The rousing of energy the infusion of grace and confrontation of the levels of realitycreate tensions and difficulties Hence the insistence on moderation and balance on all handsThe higher the love the greater the pain a voice had consoled a 13th-century German mysticMechthild von Magdeburg Believe me children wrote a 14th-century German mystic JohannTauler one who would know much about these matters would often have to keep to his bed forhis bodily frame could not support this

These upheavals of mystic ill health are part of a developing consciousness that has to movethrough and adjust to habits of inertia and resistance in the system and to an inability to supportthe emerging powers and their demands A little imbalance now and then should take no one bysurprise The possibility of ranges of consciousness without thinking is one of the basic premisesof yogic or mystical psychology It constitutes a confutation of the formula of the 17th-centuryFrench philosopher Reneacute Descartes cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am) Being can existwithout cogito (or ratio reason) in a direct awareness of things that is the function of intuitionprajntildea

Systematic exposition of mystical experience

Attempts of mystics to record the nature of their experiences

The theory or interpretation of mysticism is not mysticism Generally there are two sides to thetheory philosophical and practical There may be another confessional and justificatory Thoughsome mystics have been content to record what happened others have worked out manuals ofpraxis (techniques) or sadhana As a rule mystical method experience and exegesis cannot besharply set apart from one another However ineffable raids on the inarticulate and expositions ofthe same have not ceased The expositions have formed part of a particular framework of culturetradition and temperament The 8th- to 9th-century-AD Indian philosopher Sankara and the16th-century Spanish mystic St John of the Cross are not likely to talk in the same tone or accentHowever universal in intent all expositions tend to be localized

The study of comparative mysticism as well as the spirit of the age make it possible and perhapsmandatory for modern man to move toward an open and untethered mysticism the ocean oftomorrow Indications of this change in attitude and emphasis are not wanting especially in the20th-century writings of the Indian mystic philosopher Sri Aurobindo and Teilhard de Chardinwho represent something totally new but allied RC Zaehner has explained that both thoughunknown to each other

not only accepted the theory of evolution but enthusiastically acclaimed it indeed were almostobsessed with it Both were profoundly influenced by Bergson both were deeply dissatisfied withorganized religion and both were vitally concerned not only with individual salvation orliberation but also with the collective salvation of mankind



The value and meaning of mystical experience

Among the attempts to explain the value and meaning of mystical experience a few features maybe indicated Claimed to be a guarantee for order and reconciliation mysticism does not takeaway mystery from the world nor is it essentially irrational Though in their penchant for thebeyond or God-intoxication some mystics have inclined to reject the world the maturer varietyhas not divided the world of spirit and matter but has tried to mediate between spirit and matterwith the help of emanations correspondences and a hierarchy of the real As a giver of lifemysticism is meant to fulfill and not to destroy Thus it need not be world negating

Pointing to a scale of senses and levels of mind mysticism provides an escape from a life ofuninspired existence It magnifies man and gives him a hope and destiny to fulfill With itsabiding sense of the more mysticism may be called the religion of man or the religion ofmaturity It offers not irrational developments or inducements but the working out of inherentpotentials Evolution according to mystics is not yet ended

The mystical life is not for those who are well adjusted and other oriented In Ramakrishnashomely phrase at some point or other one has to take the plunge A change so radical calls for akind of attention other than what most people seem prepared to give To make it his supremebusiness one must have a call to holy living He who seeks the divine must consecrate himself toGod and to God only

Problems of communication and understanding

The problem of communication of tidings from another country is obvious Transvaluation ofvalues is not easy to accept adjust to or express The dialogue between mystical and otherpursuits is an unsolved problem After he had undergone a spiritual experience the 13th-centuryChristian philosopher St Thomas Aquinas is reported to have said I have seen that which makesall that I have written and taught look small to me My writing days are over This from theauthor of the voluminous Summa theologica (Summary of Theology) is not without itsimportance

Even if it is difficult to describe visions and dangerous to systematize the direction in whichmysticism points is clear relational transcendence The 20th-century crises and the mass mediasuggest the possibility of a mysticism brought up to date that will serve the Creative Intentionthat past ages have called God Whether it comes through symbols systems paradigmaticexamples or extreme situations there will probably always be some response to the call of thereal

Mysticism as a social factor

Mystical experience is no doubt solo the experience of a singular person But more than a flightof the alone to the Alone it could also be a redemption of solitude no less than of society In themystic experience as Jakob Boumlhme said the world is not destroyed but remade At times aprotest against heteronomy (ie external authority and ecclesiastical machinery) mysticism hasexpressed itself in diverse backgrounds and flourished during dark periods of history

Because of its other-worldly bias the belief still persists that the solitary mystic absorbed in avertical relation with God or reality owes no social responsibility Altogether an outsider he has



deliberately undergone a civil death This is not an ideal or wholly accurate picture A Mysticwho is not of supreme service to the Society is not a Mystic at all (from preface to RD RanadeMysticism in Maharashtra) According to Zen Buddhism the great contemplative--even whensitting quietly doing nothing--has been a man of action perhaps the only kind of action thatleaves no bitter residue behind The less extravagant forms of mysticism represent attitudes andprinciples of charity detachment and dedication which should guide the relation of theindividual to the group The mystics have fought the inner battle and won creating themselvesand their world

Mysticism proves the individuals capacity to rise above the conditioning factors of naturenurture and society and to transform collective life though this has not been generallyrecognized With a hidden and potent force mystics have tried as best as circumstancespermitted to mend the universal ill As in the classic resolve of the bodhisattva (buddha-to-be)they have looked forward to universal enlightenment If the attempt by mystics to create a neworder or a better society has failed the incapacity or defection of the majority may be the reasonfor the failure

Revolution is a word too often profaned The change suggested is mainly if not wholly fromwithout In such contrived salvation by compulsion the inner core is hardly touched But it is aneternal law that there can be no compulsion in the realm of the spirit It is essentially a world offree creative choices (Rufus Jones Some Exponents of Mystical Religion) Mystics insist on achange of consciousness a slower and more difficult process and also on a scrupulous equationbetween ends and means Impatience deviations and subterfuges in this respect can be costlyironic and instructive According to mystics the individuals who will most help the future ofhumanity will be those who recognize the unfinished and ultimate revolution--the evolution ofconsciousness--as the destiny and therefore the great need of all men as of society

Holiness does not mean a retreat from or a rejection of the world To be a mystic or a seer is notthe same thing as being a spectator on the fence As the Swedish secretary-general of the UnitedNations Dag Hammarskjoumlld proved with his life in the modern era the road to holinessnecessarily passes through the world of action Many with a mystical frame of mind look beyondwhat mystics call quasi-revolutions to a great life--an entire civilization the civilization ofconsciousness The need of synthesis places its stake on the future and the All

The outcome of the world the gates of the future the entry into the super-human--these are notthrown open to a few of the privileged nor to one chosen people to the exclusion of all othersThey will open only to an advance of all together (From Teilhard de Chardin The Phenomenonof Man)

According to mystics here may be the outline of a revolution whose message has reached but afew The hope of a Kingdom of Heaven within man and a City of God without remains one ofmysticisms gifts to what many mystics view as an evolving humanity (SGh)

copy 1999-2000 Britannicacom and Encyclopaeligdia Britannica Inc




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Introduction Nature and significance Relation of mystical experience to other kinds of experience Definitions of mysticism and mystical experience Differences between mysticism and similar phenomena Basic patterns Introvertive mysticism Other definitions and experiences of mysticism Universal types of mystical experience Intellectual and contemplative forms Devotional forms Ecstatic and erotic forms Goal of mystical experience and mysticism Experience of the divine or sacred Union with the divine or sacred Experience of the universal Experience of oneness with people Mystical relationship between man and the sacred Nature of the relationship Awe and mystery Means and modes of the relationship Semantics and symbolism in mystical experience Union of opposites Emptiness and fullness Symbolism of divine messengers Symbolism of love and marriage Symbolism of the journey

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mysticism

in general a spiritual quest for hidden truth or wisdom the goal of which is union with thedivine or sacred (the transcendent realm) Forms of mysticism are found in all majorreligions by analogy in the shamanic and other ecstatic practices of nonliterate culturesand in secular experience

The following article is a brief treatment of mysticism Articles providing fuller treatmentappear in the Macropaedia For the types goals and nature of the mystical experience seeReligious Experience The experience of mysticism for treatment of mysticism in specificreligions see Buddhism The Buddha and Christianity etc

Although mysticism is often set over against theology and is said to be more authentic ormore subjective or more impassioned the two forms of religious thought have in factexisted side by side frequently in the same individual But this is not the same as sayingthat a reduction of the mystical experience to its theological implications does it justiceOn the contrary the mystical theologians have been most explicit in their insistence thatno theological systematization can capture or explain the unique experience of mysticalpurgation illumination and union

More perhaps than any other religious system Hinduism is naturally predisposed tomystical interpretation As the highest ideal of Hindu religious practice ascetic moksha (release) has received most attention not only from Western students but from Hindumasters as well At least in part Yoga represents the rise within traditional Hinduism of aspecial mystical technique that was intended to make possible for the select few a level ofmystical insight originally predicated of the many The techniques of Yoga were combinedwith traditional Hindu doctrines about the absorption of the individual soul in the All Otherforms of Hindu mysticism are more personal relating the devotee to a particular deity ofthe Hindu pantheon (eg Krishna or Shiva) while still others stress the passivity of faithas trust and surrender to the grace and power of the Ultimate Reality

Common to the various sects of Buddhist thought is an emphasis upon meditation andcontemplation as means of moving toward Nirvana (Extinction) but each of the Buddhisttraditions sets its own distinctive interpretation on that goal Of special interest in anydiscussion of Buddhist mysticism are Vajrayana and Zen Practitioners of Vajrayana orTantric Buddhism in Tibet combine Yogic discipline with an absolutistic philosophy andhighly symbolic language to cultivate mystical ecstasy Japanese Zen on the other handbecause of its practical emphasis and matter-of-fact language is often interpreted as thedirect antithesis of the mystical strain in Buddhism but its cultivation of prajntildea (supremeintuition) over against the partial knowledge attained through ordinary means displays itsaffinities for mystical thought

The Sufi mysticism of Islam like Zen Buddhism arose in response to the practicalreligious needs of those for whom conventional answers were inadequate and it caughtup some of the tendencies toward mystical experience that had been indigenous in Islamfrom the beginning Sufi mysticism like numerous other varieties including Christian hasoften expressed itself in the metaphors of intoxication and of the love between bride andbridegroom--language that has not been easy to reconcile with the stress of the Quranupon the sovereignty and transcendence of Allah At the same time mysticism made thereality of the divine more accessible to those who found the wholly other god of theQuran too austere and distant

The foundations for Jewish mysticism were laid in the visions of the biblical prophets andthe apocalyptic imagery of postbiblical Judaism The most characteristic and profoundtheme of mystical Judaism is the Kabbala which reached its climax in the Sefer ha-zoharnear the end of the 13th century This Book of Splendour described the power and inner

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life of God and set forth the principles and commandments by means of which the truebeliever could regain the devequt (adherence to God) that had been destroyed by thefall of man from pristine purity Upon this zoharic wisdom subsequent Jewish mysticismcontinued to build The Hasidic form in particular (see Hasidism) had far-reaching effectsupon the piety and practice of the common people in the form it took in the thought ofMartin Buber it shaped both Christian and secular thought as well

In contrast to the systematized esoteric traditions that characterize Eastern mysticism themystical aspects of Christianity have been manifested most clearly in a recurring patternof movements Gnosticism an early Christian heretical movement that stressed theintrinsic evil of matter appears to represent the survival of Jewish mysticism withZoroastrian and other Oriental overtones In the religion of Paul and JohnChrist-mysticism frequently spontaneous and unsought is fundamental The DesertFathers of the 3rd and 4th centuries established an eremitic tradition of consciouspreparation and practice for mystical enlightenment Augustines account of the divineLight of being drew upon Neoplatonic themes and imagery that would figure strongly inthe literature of subsequent mystics perhaps culminating in Meister Eckehart (died 1329)who emphasized the reality of the ideal world in which all things are eternally present aselements in the being of God Mysticism flourished in the 14th century both within theChurch and in numerous heresies a dichotomy that was to characterize several laterperiods In general Protestant mystics explicitly recognize--what is implied in Catholicteaching--that the divine Light or Spark is a universal principle

The history of Western philosophy since the Middle Ages includes a form of thought bestcharacterized as cosmic mysticism perhaps most brilliantly expounded as a philosophicalsystem by Benedictus de Spinoza and in literature by Johann Wolfgang von GoetheAccording to this view in a universe that often seemed to be absurd and threatening mancould find meaning by identifying himself with its structures and purposes and bycultivating attitudes of reverence and commitment During the modern period the relationbetween mystical vision and literary inspiration as exemplified in works from the ancientepics to the poetry of William Blake Steacutephane Mallarmeacute and others became a majorissue in aesthetics


mysticism



mysticism


Awareness

Mysticism has been accused of passing off psychological states for metaphysicalstatements But the psychological base has never been questioned seriously It wouldhowever be proper to call it autology (the science of self) If the word psychology is to beretained it must be in the original sense of the word now discarded The contrast betweenthe old and the new has been well expressed by the Russian philosopher PD Ouspensky

Never in history has psychology stood at so low a level lost all touch with itsorigin and meaning perhaps the oldest science and unfortunately in its mostessential features a forgotten science the science of [mans] possibleevolution

Mysticism is that science in which the psychology of man mingles with the psychology ofGod The major change or orientation is from the level of the profane to the sacred anawareness of the divine in man and outside The source and goal of such a psychologywas revealed in the 18th-century Methodist leader John Wesleys dying words The bestof all is this that God is with us

A mark of the mystic life is the great access of energy and enlarged awareness so muchso that the man who obtains the vision becomes as it were another being Mansions ofthe mind maqam (Arabic place) and bhumi (Sanskrit land) open up to the gaze ofthe initiate a wayfarer of the worlds This means a renewal or conversion until one knowsthat the earth alone is not mans teacher The mystic begins to draw his sustenance fromsupersensuous sources He has drunk the Infinite like a giants wine and a hidden blissknowledge and power begin to sweep through the gates of his senses


The state of energizing is facilitated by controlled attention It is customary to fix the mindon some object or idea some focus of contemplation According to the Indian formula toworship God one must become like him (devam bhutva devam yajet) Exercises physicalno less than mental including methods of worship and prayer have been developed tothis end until one becomes what one contemplates The ranges and creative aspects ofthe mind are part of the psychology of the mystics and one of the oldest traditions ofmankind The old Indian psychology divided consciousness into three provinces wakingstate (jagrat) dream state (svapna) and sleep state (susupti) and added a fourth(turiya) which is the consciousness of mans pure self-existence or being The fourfoldscale represents the degrees of the ladder of being by which man climbs back to thesource the absolute divine The change from here to there is not an uneventfulprocess There come dry periods deviations violent alterations and temptations If thereare raptures and blue heavens there are python agonies and absolute abandonmentshowling deserts and dark nights of the soul to go through Tears of joy horripilation(bristling of the hair) stigmata (bodily marks or pains) and parapsychological phenomenahave been known to develop

The earlier phases of a naturalistic psychology had no qualms in relegating most of theseexperiences to the scrap heap of obsolete and archaic vanities disorders andmorbidities--in a word hallucination One reason for such overall denigration was thatcomplacent aliens to the mystical life did not care to distinguish between abnormal andsupernormal phenomena To them all were the same at best some kind of religious sportAn American Quaker philosopher Rufus Jones has noted that psychology as20th-century man knows it is empirical and possesses no ladder by which it can

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transcend the empirical order

According to mystics most men live in a prison the walls thick with ego the senses andrestricting interests But some prisoners develop a passion to scale the walls and movetoward an unwalled horizon an adventure of ideas if nothing more Thus the hypothesisthat there might be cherubs and seraphs (angels of knowledge and of love) who call andguide men in the upward way is difficult to ignore But if the distinction between love andknowledge is at all valid the achievements of men would seem to be the products of lovesince as Aristotle maintained the intellect by itself moves nothing Without the drivingand drawing that we feel in the heart mysticism would lack power and might sink intoquiescence as has sometimes happened To will what the Supreme wills is the supremesecret the primum mobile Nothing burns in hell but self-will (Theologia Germanica ch34) The mystic approaches this knowledge and mobility even when he is compelled towithdraw from society for long or short periods But withdrawal without return is notcomplete As scientists of the psyche the mystics insisted on the primacy of the innerfactors Modern psychoanalysis claims to have made available to mans knowledge areasof darkness beneath the conscious levels However revealing these evidences of the apeand the tiger psychoanalysis is debarred from understanding the superconscious and it isviewed by mystics as being less than correct in its reading of the irrational in man Theinescapable pessimism of the psychoanalytic conclusion stands in contrast to thepossibilities of self-development and sublimation to which mystics have always pointed

Among other discoveries on the mystical way is that of ambivalence or the alternate waysof looking at the world temporal as against eternal The double vision characterizes thesaint whose life forms a point of intersection between time and timelessness Mysticalpsychology assumes a transcendental faculty in the hiddenness beyond the threshold Itis committed to a breakthrough and could never have sustained itself without constantverification In many ways a guarded secret meant for the competent few theexperiment has hazards and could upset any but the most disciplined The rousing ofenergy the infusion of grace and confrontation of the levels of reality create tensions anddifficulties Hence the insistence on moderation and balance on all hands The higher thelove the greater the pain a voice had consoled a 13th-century German mystic Mechthildvon Magdeburg Believe me children wrote a 14th-century German mystic JohannTauler one who would know much about these matters would often have to keep to hisbed for his bodily frame could not support this

These upheavals of mystic ill health are part of a developing consciousness that has tomove through and adjust to habits of inertia and resistance in the system and to aninability to support the emerging powers and their demands A little imbalance now andthen should take no one by surprise The possibility of ranges of consciousness withoutthinking is one of the basic premises of yogic or mystical psychology It constitutes aconfutation of the formula of the 17th-century French philosopher Reneacute Descartes cogitoergo sum (I think therefore I am) Being can exist without cogito (or ratio reason) ina direct awareness of things that is the function of intuition prajntildea




Introduction Nature and significance Relation of mystical experience to other kinds of experience Definitions of mysticism and mystical experience Differences between mysticism and similar phenomena Basic patterns Introvertive mysticism Other definitions and experiences of mysticism Universal types of mystical experience Intellectual and contemplative forms Devotional forms Ecstatic and erotic forms Goal of mystical experience and mysticism Experience of the divine or sacred Union with the divine or sacred Experience of the universal




mysticism



The theory or interpretation of mysticism is not mysticism Generally there are two sidesto the theory philosophical and practical There may be another confessional andjustificatory Though some mystics have been content to record what happened othershave worked out manuals of praxis (techniques) or sadhana As a rule mystical methodexperience and exegesis cannot be sharply set apart from one another Howeverineffable raids on the inarticulate and expositions of the same have not ceased Theexpositions have formed part of a particular framework of culture tradition andtemperament The 8th- to 9th-century-AD Indian philosopher Sankara and the16th-century Spanish mystic St John of the Cross are not likely to talk in the same toneor accent However universal in intent all expositions tend to be localized

The study of comparative mysticism as well as the spirit of the age make it possible andperhaps mandatory for modern man to move toward an open and untethered mysticismthe ocean of tomorrow Indications of this change in attitude and emphasis are notwanting especially in the 20th-century writings of the Indian mystic philosopher SriAurobindo and Teilhard de Chardin who represent something totally new but allied RCZaehner has explained that both though unknown to each other

not only accepted the theory of evolution but enthusiastically acclaimed itindeed were almost obsessed with it Both were profoundly influenced byBergson both were deeply dissatisfied with organized religion and both werevitally concerned not only with individual salvation or liberation but alsowith the collective salvation of mankind


Among the attempts to explain the value and meaning of mystical experience a fewfeatures may be indicated Claimed to be a guarantee for order and reconciliationmysticism does not take away mystery from the world nor is it essentially irrationalThough in their penchant for the beyond or God-intoxication some mystics have inclined toreject the world the maturer variety has not divided the world of spirit and matter but hastried to mediate between spirit and matter with the help of emanations correspondencesand a hierarchy of the real As a giver of life mysticism is meant to fulfill and not todestroy Thus it need not be world negating

Pointing to a scale of senses and levels of mind mysticism provides an escape from a lifeof uninspired existence It magnifies man and gives him a hope and destiny to fulfill Withits abiding sense of the more mysticism may be called the religion of man or thereligion of maturity It offers not irrational developments or inducements but the workingout of inherent potentials Evolution according to mystics is not yet ended

The mystical life is not for those who are well adjusted and other oriented InRamakrishnas homely phrase at some point or other one has to take the plunge Achange so radical calls for a kind of attention other than what most people seem preparedto give To make it his supreme business one must have a call to holy living He whoseeks the divine must consecrate himself to God and to God only



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The problem of communication of tidings from another country is obviousTransvaluation of values is not easy to accept adjust to or express The dialoguebetween mystical and other pursuits is an unsolved problem After he had undergone aspiritual experience the 13th-century Christian philosopher St Thomas Aquinas isreported to have said I have seen that which makes all that I have written and taughtlook small to me My writing days are over This from the author of the voluminousSumma theologica (Summary of Theology) is not without its importance

Even if it is difficult to describe visions and dangerous to systematize the direction inwhich mysticism points is clear relational transcendence The 20th-century crises and themass media suggest the possibility of a mysticism brought up to date that will serve theCreative Intention that past ages have called God Whether it comes through symbolssystems paradigmatic examples or extreme situations there will probably always besome response to the call of the real


Mystical experience is no doubt solo the experience of a singular person But more thana flight of the alone to the Alone it could also be a redemption of solitude no less thanof society In the mystic experience as Jakob Boumlhme said the world is not destroyed butremade At times a protest against heteronomy (ie external authority and ecclesiasticalmachinery) mysticism has expressed itself in diverse backgrounds and flourished duringdark periods of history

Because of its other-worldly bias the belief still persists that the solitary mystic absorbedin a vertical relation with God or reality owes no social responsibility Altogether anoutsider he has deliberately undergone a civil death This is not an ideal or whollyaccurate picture A Mystic who is not of supreme service to the Society is not a Mystic atall (from preface to RD Ranade Mysticism in Maharashtra) According to Zen Buddhismthe great contemplative--even when sitting quietly doing nothing--has been a man ofaction perhaps the only kind of action that leaves no bitter residue behind The lessextravagant forms of mysticism represent attitudes and principles of charity detachmentand dedication which should guide the relation of the individual to the group The mysticshave fought the inner battle and won creating themselves and their world

Mysticism proves the individuals capacity to rise above the conditioning factors of naturenurture and society and to transform collective life though this has not been generallyrecognized With a hidden and potent force mystics have tried as best as circumstancespermitted to mend the universal ill As in the classic resolve of the bodhisattva(buddha-to-be) they have looked forward to universal enlightenment If the attempt bymystics to create a new order or a better society has failed the incapacity or defection ofthe majority may be the reason for the failure

Revolution is a word too often profaned The change suggested is mainly if not whollyfrom without In such contrived salvation by compulsion the inner core is hardly touchedBut it is an eternal law that there can be no compulsion in the realm of the spirit It isessentially a world of free creative choices (Rufus Jones Some Exponents of MysticalReligion) Mystics insist on a change of consciousness a slower and more difficult processand also on a scrupulous equation between ends and means Impatience deviations andsubterfuges in this respect can be costly ironic and instructive According to mystics theindividuals who will most help the future of humanity will be those who recognize theunfinished and ultimate revolution--the evolution of consciousness--as the destiny andtherefore the great need of all men as of society

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Holiness does not mean a retreat from or a rejection of the world To be a mystic or a seeris not the same thing as being a spectator on the fence As the Swedish secretary-generalof the United Nations Dag Hammarskjoumlld proved with his life in the modern era the roadto holiness necessarily passes through the world of action Many with a mystical frame ofmind look beyond what mystics call quasi-revolutions to a great life--an entire civilizationthe civilization of consciousness The need of synthesis places its stake on the future andthe All

The outcome of the world the gates of the future the entry into thesuper-human--these are not thrown open to a few of the privileged nor to onechosen people to the exclusion of all others They will open only to an advanceof all together (From Teilhard de Chardin The Phenomenon of Man)

According to mystics here may be the outline of a revolution whose message has reachedbut a few The hope of a Kingdom of Heaven within man and a City of God withoutremains one of mysticisms gifts to what many mystics view as an evolving humanity

(SGh)








mysticismBibliography

Richard M Bucke Cosmic Consciousness A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind (1905many later editions) introduced two important ideas as one ideas that would recur withmodifications in later writings Rufus M Jones Studies in Mystical Religion (1908 reprinted1970) provided a balanced and liberal attitude that emphasized its experiential quality itsvalue as a practical guide and the presence of a mystical brotherhood through thecenturies Evelyn Underhill Mysticism 12th ed rev (1957) has been a pioneer work thoughits insistence on the Mystic Way has been questioned Reynold A Nicholson The Mystics ofIslam (1913 reprinted 1966) is one of the earliest studies in Sufism that still holdsinterest Sri Aurobindo The Synthesis of Yoga (first published serially 1914-21 later in bookform) with much collateral illumination explains the idea of Integral Yoga Henri BergsonLes Deux sources de la morale et de la religion 3rd ed (1932 Eng trans Two Sourcesof Morality and Religion 1935) forms part of a general thesis on creative evolution andparadoxically on the need for mysticism in an age of mechanization Gershom G ScholemMajor Trends in Jewish Mysticism 3rd rev ed (1954) clearly brings out the distinctionthat the concept of union is not an essential of mystical experience as understood in theJewish tradition Aldous Huxley The Perennial Philosophy (1946) is an anthology withsophisticated sometimes cynical commentary with an ascetic bias Jacques de MarquetteIntroduction to Comparative Mysticism (1949) is a fair and straightforward survey inwhich its relevance to modern life and thought is brought out and an awareness ofpossibilities hinted at RC Zaehner Mysticism Sacred and Profane (1957) beginning as acaveat against the use of drugs for transcendental experience goes on to make criticaldistinctions between four types of mysticism DT Suzuki Mysticism Christian and Buddhist(1957) offers a sympathetic study of contrasts as well as some resemblances betweentwo traditions Radhakamal Mukerjee The Theory and Art of Mysticism (1960) is an overallstudy particularly good with regard to the Eastern material Walter T Stace Mysticism andPhilosophy (1960) is balanced and analytic but singles out introvertive mysticism as moregenuine and superior Sidney Spencer Mysticism in World Religion (1963) is a helpfulanthology with a reliable introduction to the field of comparative mysticism Pierre Teilhard deChardin Le Pheacutenomegravene humain (1955 Eng trans The Phenomenon of Man 1959)though its scientific accuracy has been questioned its poetic and impassioned attempt tomediate between religious insights and a hope for man and the future has made it theobject of much attention See also Louis Dupreacute The Deeper Life An Introduction to ChristianMysticism (1981) and Richard Woods Mysterion An Approach to Mystical Spirituality (1981)

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Introduction Nature and significance Relation of mystical experience to other kinds of experience Definitions of mysticism and mystical experience Differences between mysticism and similar phenomena Basic patterns Introvertive mysticism Other definitions and experiences of mysticism Universal types of mystical experience Intellectual and contemplative forms

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mysticism


The goal of mysticism is union with the divine or sacred The path to that union is usuallydeveloped by following four stages purgation (of bodily desires) purification (of the will)illumination (of the mind) and unification (of ones will or being with the divine) If theobject of mans existence is to be a Man that is to re-establish the harmony whichoriginally belonged between him and the divinized state before the separation took placewhich disturbed the equilibrium (The Life and Doctrine of Paracelsus) mysticism willalways be a part of the way of return to the source of being a way of counteracting theexperience of alienation Mysticism has always held--and parapsychology also seems tosuggest--that the discovery of a nonphysical element in mans personality is of utmostsignificance in his quest for equilibrium in a world of apparent chaos

Mysticisms apparent denial or self-negating is part of a psychological process or strategythat does not really deny the person In spite of its lunatic fringe the maturer forms ofmysticism satisfy the claims of rationality ecstasy and righteousness

There is obviously something nonmental alogical paradoxical and unpredictable aboutthe mystical phenomenon but it is not therefore irrational or antirational or religionwithout thought Rather as Zen (Buddhist intuitive sect) masters say it is knowledge ofthe most adequate kind only it cannot be expressed in words If there is a mystery aboutmystical experience it is something it shares with life and consciousness Mysticism aform of living in depth indicates that man a meeting ground of various levels of reality ismore than one-dimensional Despite the interaction and correspondence betweenlevels--What is below is like what is above what is above is like what is below (TabulaSmaragdina Emerald Tablet a work on alchemy attributed to HermesTrismegistus)--they are not to be equated or confused At once a praxis (technique) and agnosis (esoteric knowledge) mysticism consists of a way or discipline

The relationship of the religion of faith to mysticism (personal religion raised to thehighest power) is ambiguous a mixture of respect and misgivings Though mysticismmay be associated with religion it need not be The mystic often represents a type thatthe religious institution (eg church) does not and cannot produce and does not knowwhat to do with if and when one appears As William Ralph Inge an English theologiancommented institutionalism and mysticism have been uneasy bedfellows Althoughmysticism has been the core of Hinduism and Buddhism it has been little more than aminor strand--and frequently a disturbing element--in Judaism Christianity and IslamAs the 15th- to 16th-century Italian political philosopher Niccolograve Machiavelli had noted ofthe 13th-century Christian monastic leaders St Francis and St Dominic they had savedreligion but destroyed the church

The founders of religion may have been incipient or advanced mystics but the innercompulsions of their experience have proved less amenable to dogmas creeds andinstitutional restrictions which are bound to be outward and majority oriented There arereligions of authority and the religion of the spirit Thus there is a paradox if the mysticminority is distrusted or maltreated religious life loses its sap on the other hand thesepeculiar people do not easily fit into society with the requirements of a prescriptivecommunity composed of less sensitive seekers of safety and religious routine Though nodeeply religious person can be without a touch of mysticism and no mystic can be in thedeepest sense other than religious the dialogue between mystics and conventionalreligionists has been far from happy From both sides there is a constant need forrestatement and revaluation a greater tolerance a union of free mens worship Though itvalidates religion mysticism also tends to escape the fetters of organized religion

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mysticism




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mysticism





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Awe and mystery













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Union of opposites












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