Mysticism

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Mysticism Symbols

Mysticism is the pursuit of communion with, identity with, or conscious awareness of an ultimate reality, spiritual truth, divinity, or God through direct experience, intuition, or insight. Mysticism generally centers around a practice that intends to nurture that experience of awareness.

Mysticism may be dualistic (maintaining a distinction between the self and the divine) or nondualistic.

The fundamental mystical experience is described in different ways:

• Innate knowledge
• Complete detachment from the world
• Union with God
• Liberation from the cycles of Karma
• A deep intrinsic connection to the world

Enlightenment and Illumination are generic terms that are used to loosely describe the state of mystical attainment regardless of faith.

Mystic traditions generally form sub-currents within larger religious traditions; they are often treated skeptically and held separate due to their emphasis on personal experience over doctrine. Mystics suggest that they are offering clarity of a different kind than that of mainstream religions.

Contents 1 Overview 2 Perspective 2.1 Process 2.2 Various Types of Teaching Techniques 3 Goals 4 Types of Experience 5 External Links 6 Relevant discussion threads on AboveTopSecret.com

Overview

The term "mysticism" is used to refer to practices and beliefs that go beyond the devotional forms of worship of mainstream faith. Mysticism often seeks out inner or esoteric meanings of conventional religious doctrine.

Mystics hold that there is a deeper or more fundamental state of existence beneath the observable, day-to-day world of phenomena, and that the ordinary world is, in fact, superficial or epiphenomenal. Mysticisms often center on the teachings of individuals who are considered to have special insight.

Different faiths have differing relationships to mystical thoughts.

Mysticism may make use of canonical and non-canonical religious texts and will generally develop a philosophical perspective regarding them that is distinct from conventional religious interpretations. As a rule, mysticisms are less concerned with religious differences and more concerned with social or individual development.

Perspective

Process

The universal mystic way is the process by which the mystic arrives at union with the absolute. There are five stages of this process.

• Awakening
  • First stage
  • Stage in which one begins to have some consciousness of absolute or divine reality

• Purgation
  • Second stage
  • Characterized by an awareness of one's own imperfections and finiteness
  • Response to this stage is one of self-discipline and mortification

• Illumination
  • Third stage
  • Reached by artists and visionaries
  • Marked by a consciousness of a transcendent order and a vision of a new heaven and a new earth

• Dark Night of the Soul
  • Fourth stage
  • Reached by great mystics
  • Experienced by few
  • Final and complete purification
  • Marked by confusion, helplessness, stagnation of the will, and a sense of the withdrawal of God's presence
  • Period of final "unselfing" and the surrender to the hidden purposes of the divine will

• Union with the Object of Love, the one Reality, God
  • Final stage
  • The self has been permanently established on a transcendental level and liberated for a new purpose

Various Types of Teaching Techniques

• Aphorisms and poetry
  • Semi-artistic efforts to crystallize some particular description or aspect of the mystical experience in words

• Riddles and metaphysical contradictions
  • Irresolvable tasks or lines of thought designed to direct one away from intellectualism and effort towards direct experience

• Humor and humorous stories
  • Teachings which simultaneously draw one away from serious discussion and highlight metaphysical points

• Parables and metaphors
  • Stories designed to teach a particular but unconventional metaphysical view of reality indirectly or using analogy

Goals

• Individual communion with God
• Becoming aware of the nature of the self through observation
• Discovering the desired afterlife

Types of Experience

• Extrovertive
  • Mystical consciousness of the unity of nature overlaid onto one's sense perception of the world

• Introvertive
  • Any experience that includes sense-perceptual, somatosensory, or introspective content
  • Experience of "nothingness" or "emptiness"

• Theistic
  • Experiences of God

External Links

• Mysticism
• Mysticism and Mystics
• Mysticism Resource Page

Relevant discussion threads on AboveTopSecret.com

• Jewish Mysticism and Kaballah
• The Science of Mysticism and Spirituality