Part 1- Moving into Mystical Consciousness

‘Only The Mystics Will Survive ‘

Theme 1:                Listen to the Spirit

A movement into Mystical Consciousness

Aum bhur bhuvah svah  

Tat savitur varenyam 

Bhargo devasya dhimahi 

Dhiyo yo nah pracodayat 

“We meditate on the transcendental glory of Savitur (God)

 

Who creates everything.
 
May He stimulate and illumine our minds. ”

 Om Shanti , Shanti, Shanti

The Gayatri Mantra (an ancient chant or prayer from the Hindu Vedas)

This is One of many translations

Welcome to this the first in a series of 6 Blog Posts that explore the topic of Mystics. One definition of a Mystic ( which appeared in the previous, introductory, Blog) is defined as  a person   ‘Inspiring a sense of mystery and wonder’.  The brief chant of the Gayatri Mantra  above, which can be heard in Ashrams all over India, is a translation of what is perhaps the oldest recorded Mantra known.  It is recorded from the Rig Veda, the ancient scriptures of Hinduism. It conveys the awe and wonder of the Deity and the purpose of any relationship we have with this Mystery we call God ( Savitur ).

Our theme  in this 1^st Blog is ‘  Listen to the Spirit - A movement into Mystical Consciousness’.   Now ‘Only the Mystics will survive’  is a statement for our current  world situation.  It is statement that has been made by several modern  Christian theologians  e.g. Karl Rahner, Matthew Fox, Raymundo Pannikar  and many more. But it implies certain questions and these are ; what is it we need to survive and how come only those who are mystics ? 

Now these are questions which members of the International Satsang Association , whose Teacher is Sister Ishpriya, have been reflecting on for over 20 years.  One  of the central threads that run though Ishpriya’s teaching, and the spirituality of the Satsang,  is the urgent need for everybody  ’ to remain awake, with open and listening hearts and remain ready to ‘read the signs of the times’   But what are we  staying awake for and what are we listening for and how can we develop this ‘listening’ heart?  Ishpriya reminds  us that deep listening is an attitude we all need to develop. However, all too often,    ‘We hear what we are listening for’. So she encouraged  each of us to be open to ‘listening to the Spirit’.

So to return to the question,  What is it that Only the Mystics will survive? She reviewed the many dramatic and recent changes in our  human understanding of the Cosmos and of Planet Earth. We had now 'moved off the Planet'  . This was a Quantum Leap. As a species we had looked back , from space, at our World, our Home and this was a big change in our collective and individual consciousness. There was now no going back to old understandings. This  faced us and also some of the formal Faith Traditions with many new challenges.

The first  challenge was and is our  need to acknowledge and recognise the challenge and risk facing our human family and the  world.  Will we survive the global change – the greed and destruction facing our Planet and necessary the  quantum leap is our awareness and consciousness ?  Physically the quantum leap has happened. We, as a species, have left this planet and looked back. We have 'left our house and walked out into the garden of space'. We are watching creation unfold as science discovers more about our cosmos , its make-up, its beginnings and its unfolding evolution. Whether we have recognised or accepted the emotional, psychological and spiritual aspects of this Quantum Leap is debatable.

However, even the fact that  the physical  leap has taken place challenges  much of our  traditional and fundamental Theology and thus our  understanding of God the Reality This is not a new challenge, the spiritual masters of all traditions have advised us to learn to discern the unreal from the Real.  This is succinctly put in the following translation of an ancient Hindu Mantra :      

Om .. O Lord

Lead me from the unreal to the Real.

Lead me from darkness to Light.

Lead me from death to Immortality.

 Peace Peace Peace

 In Western Theology  we have faced similar changes and challenges in our past. When we thought the world was a flat plate, then  our theology had a simple model that suggested God was in the heavens above and hell was below. Then, after many attempts to either deny or suppress the truth, scientists discovered and proved that  our world was a globe and thus was  not the centre of our Universe. This led to a change in our concept of God and we had to reconfigure our view of God, our world and our species. The next challenge was evolution, still today many try to deny this. However, for the many it has led to an entirely new and awesome view of creation and thus our view of the ‘One who created all this ! ‘

Exploring the Vastness of Space

 In the recent past with giant strides and advances into the macro- space of the cosmos   and the nano-space of the interior and small, we have a much better view and understanding of the vastness of space and the diversity of flora, fauna and species.  We now have the concept of an ever-expanding Cosmos. All these advances in knowledge challenge our concept of God. It requires us to re-think the nature of The Source or Mystery  and our relationship with God who is this Source , by whatever name we call it.  Ishpriya,  emphasises , along with so many Integral and Spiritual Teachers , that it is Only the Mystics  who could survive this challenge and thus   chart a  safe course through these changes.  It is important  to acknowledge that we all have the capacity to be mystics.  Mysticism is not an exclusive call or gift for the few.

But how could we begin to accept this truth, that we all have a mystical capacity?. We can all  too easily take the comfortable and mistakenly 'safe'  way out and claim that only ' special and holy people' had this capacity. Ishpriya suggested we needed to pause and challenge ourselves and that the lines in Psalm  8, from  the Hebrew Scriptures  could be  of assistance.It is an example of a spiritual response to the wonders of the heavens.

The wonder of the heavens

Lord, our Lord,   
how great  is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory  in the heavens.
 When I consider your heavens, 
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, 
which you have set in place,'Who am I 
that you should create & care about me?'

Reflecting on these words could help us to both  create and convey awe and wonder at Creation and the Cosmos. She further suggested  that this 'awe' was, and is,  a  typical example of a mystical experience.  We have reached a stage where we need to recognise and accept that Our theology is influenced by our Cosmology. This affects all cultures, civilisations and everybody  on our planet.  Mystics are people who are ‘wide awake’, discerning and willing to accept responsibility to respond to the challenge and change. This is ultimately what lies behind each of us having the courage and awareness that enables us to read the signs of our times .

To see the world
in a grain of sand

We live in a world  and a Universe of such great beauty, complexity  and wonder. Everything is inter-connected and shares the seeds of DNA. The English poet Blake , like many others through time, have seen the inter-connected beauty. Blake wrote about this in his poem  Augeries of Innocence. Below are the first and last verse which capture something of the wonder of Creation and the power and light of the Mystery.

To see a world in a grain of sand,

And Heaven in a wild flower,

Hold infinity in the palm  of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

God appears, and God is light,

To those poor souls who dwell in night;

But does a human form display

To those who dwell in realms of day

Like a boat in stormy seas

In facing this challenge we begin to both recognise and acknowledge the quantum leap that faces us at the emotional, intellectual and spiritual levels. These are stormy times for both our Planet and our Human Family. Ishpriya used an analogy to vividly highlight these times. She likened our planet to  a small boat in the vast seas of the Cosmos. We are all in this small boat as we sail through the  stormy seas of great change  and only the Mystics can help chart a safe  course for the crew and passengers. In addition, when a boat is in peril and in danger of sinking, it requires all on board to begin 'bailing out' !

The problems we face are serious and require people of wisdom and discernment. Many in Authority in all of our institutions either lack wisdom or else frantically cling to old ways or old dogmas. In doing so they merely increase the chaos and polarise debate. It is not a case of either we cling rigidly to the old ways or we completely change, life seldom is that simple. As in the natural world, ' there can be no change without conservation'. Wisdom requires we reflect on the issues and choose the  perennial richness and truth from the Universal Wisdom of the past and the changes required to steer a new and safe course.

The preceding reflections focused on the challenges and choices facing us all as we enter a vital stage where a  great quantum leap in consciousness is taking place . We live in times of great change. All around us we both see and are increasingly becoming more aware of great  climatic, intellectual, emotional and financial changes . These both  require and demand our focused attention. We are being challenged  to accept the  responsibility  to develop our mystical awareness of the Reality we call God.  Ishpriya ended this theme by posing some questions to guide our reflections. Readers may find the following questions helpful :

What is it that causes me to get that sense of awe?


How wide awake, discerning and responsive am I to the challenges that face our human family ?


Where do or could I feel uncomfortable in all this?
Postscript
Our understanding of who or what ‘God’ by whatever name we call it; is extremely important in our efforts to make sense of ourselves, our environment, creation and the cosmos. This then effects how we relate to ourselves, others and our environment.

The next part of this series is Theme 2 :- Face to Face :- A Direct Experience of the Mystery.

The second installment  of these Blog Posts will appear shortly. Meanwhile, if you are interested in the Spirituality of the Satsang then visit the following websites :

www.international-satsang.org

www.satsang-companionship.org.uk    
This has  a resources page with many pdf downloads

ONLY THE MYSTICS WILL SURVIVE - Outline

ONLY THE MYSTICS WILL SURVIVE

“The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me;

my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”

Meister Eckhart (13^th Century Christian Mystic)
,

These are some notes and reflections based  on two main sources.  The first ,and primary source, is  a series of talks delivered by Ishpriya Mataji,(the Spiritual Guide and Founder of the International SatsangAssociation) at a John Main Conference   held in Dublin, Ireland. The second is personal reflection and lived experience. The Conference talks were recorded and, along with some of  these notes, were used to support a series  of Satsang Meeting  (in Wolverhampton, UK). These  meetings focused on the crisis currently facing most formal Religious Traditions in this post-modern era.

Many leading figures of the modern mystical movement contend that only those who face the challenges and questions that arise out of our modern era will survive.  We are currently undergoing major shifts in our consciousness and  a massive growth in our scientific, cosmological and theological awareness and knowledge. This faces us with many challenges and opportunities. The Faith Traditions can help but  very often, in their struggle to maintain and retain their influence, they  merely give formal and  ready packaged theological answers to the questions. Very often these answers address questions which seekers are neither seeking nor  asking.

But first let us look at the word ‘ Mystic’. The following  dictionary definitions of  MYSTIC are ..

‘ Of or relating to mysticism or mystics.’

‘Inspiring a sense of mystery and wonder’.

‘A person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the Absolute’

These definitions give some sense of the essence of mysticism and mystics. They also indicate the root connection with the word mystery.  Spiritual sages, saints and prophets throughout time and from different traditions, all indicate that there is a MYSTERY behind Creation. It is this Mystery that has enthralled , and still enthralls, mystics in all cultures and Faith Traditions.

Ishpriya’s Conference Talks were delivered in six separate sessions. Over the next few weeks, our Satsang Blog will present  a series of Blog Posts which reflect on each of these talks. They will also include quotations and readings from a variety of Mystics to support the theme or topic being addressed. The following are the six themes :

Theme 1:      Listen to the Spirit: A movement into Mystical Consciousness.

Theme  2 –   Face to Face :- A Direct Experience of the Mystery

Theme  3 : –    The Signs of Mysticism.

Theme 4 : –    Our Common and Universal Spiritual  Inheritance.

Theme  5     Responses to Question Part One  - 
                     Developing a Mystical Consciousness

Theme  6 :- Responses to Question Part 2

                    Developing a Mystical Consciousness – The Importance of Meditation

In the time since we used these Conference talks  we have focused on many aspects of the Spiritual Journey and looked at a variety of Sadhana Practices ( Spiritual Practices) that assist us in developing both our awareness of, and relationship with, the Mystery we call God. We all have a 'mystical part' and each of us has experienced  times of being mystic. These Blog Posts will expand on previous notes and posts on this blog and on our Satsang Website.

The first of these Blog Posts will appear shortly.  Finally, when all 6 have been posted a pdf copy will be placed on the Resources  Documents Page of the website. Meanwhile, if you are interested in the Spirituality of the Satsang then visit the following websites :

www.international-satsang.org

www.satsang-companionship.org.uk

SILENCE & STILLNESS on the JOURNEY

REFLECTIONS ON OUR SATSANG MEETING

HELD ON SATURDAY 12th January 2013

SATSANG - Seeking Together - Helping to Create

A Planetary Vision and a Universal Heart of Compassion

Our local Satsang Meetings provide us with the opportunity to share, with other Spiritual Seekers, about  our Journey back to the Source or Mystery that lies behind Creation.  

On Saturday 12th January we met in Satsang at the Friends Meeting House in Wolverhampton for our first meeting of the new year.

Details of, our meetings  and other information on the Satsang, its spirituality and its ethos,  can be accessed via our local Website Our theme for the  meeting on Saturday  was :-

Silence and Stillness  on the Journey.

The following notes are meant to convey something of the spirit and events of our meeting

SHARING 

All Spiritual Seekers are aware that there is a Mystery or Source behind Creation. It is this Mystery that has drawn, and continues to draw,  seekers throughout time and from all Spiritual Traditions, Cultures and Faiths. This is the Mystery to which we are inherently attracted. This Mystery is well known to sages, saints, mystics and scientists. The opening sentence some of the following quotation from Einstein introduced our time together. Einstein, reflecting on the mysterious has this to say ...

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead — his eyes are closed. 

The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.”       

+Albert Einstein

The  Prophets, Sages and Mystics throughout the ages have advised Seekers that it is in Stillness and Silence that we can meet the Mystery we call God by many names.  One of our modern prophets was +Dom Heldar Camara  often referred to as ' The Archbishop to the Poor'  He was a Christian Teacher and Leader in South America and is widely recognised as a modern mystic. Camara wrote  widely on guidelines that could assist us to access the Mystery.  The following extract from his writings preceded our short Video Clip that explored the Mystery and our Theme on Stillness and Silence.

How poor you will remain until you discover

that you do not see best with open eyes.

How naive you will remain until you discover

that when your lips are closed,

there are silences richer than a torrent of words.

How clumsy you will remain until you understand

that joined hands can do far more than restless hands

which may inflict the unintended wound.

Heldar Camara

SILENCE & PRAYER 

There are many ways of accessing Silence and Stillness and many ways of meditation. The two important things to realise are ; first that no one way is any better than another and second, we must not confuse the PRACTICE e.g Meditation Practice , with the actual real experience of Meditation which is ultimately 'gift'. With this in mind we began to look at one form of Silent Prayer which is called Centering Prayer.  This form of Silent Prayer has been taught and championed by +Father Thomas Keating  a Trappist Christian Monk. 

We viewed two video clips. In the first Thomas Keating outlined the 4 main stages or steps in Centering Prayer. Now Centering Prayer is rooted in Christianity but its essential stages can readily be adapted by adherents of other Faith Traditions. It centres around the person finding a ' Sacred Word or Phrase' . In essence it is a form of Silent Prayer that encourages the practitioner to focus into the centre of their being , to what the Hindu Sages refer to as ' The Cave of the Heart'.  There we can meet the Unknown Mystery and as will happen, if thoughts and emotions distract, we return to a Sacred Word in order to retain our focus.

A  set of GUIDELINES FOR CENTERING PRAYER   are available to download from the Resources Page of our Website.

The 2nd Video clip was a conversation between  Fr Keating and +Ken Wilber with the title Spiritual not Religious    This was a wide ranging discussion from two Spiritual Masters or Teachers. Father Keating is a Christian Trappist Monk with more than 50 years experience of the Contemplative Life  and Ken Wilber is a renowned psychologist, philosopher and Integral Spiritual Teacher. 

Their sharing focused on the paradox of the Mystery and how we can only catch 'glimses' of this unknowable Source, we so readily refer to as 'God'. Keating  emphasised the struggle that we humans have to reject our 'false self' or ego and find our true self. He challenged the notion of 'sin' as so often portrayed in fundamental branches of religion. He suggested that what we called sin was merely times when we 'failed to reach the mark'.  This 'missing the mark' was an all too familiar human experience. This was caused by the fact that we all live  life with false and distorted self-images and thus fail to realise or recognise who we really are.

Our task was to enter the door of silence and stillness in order to find our true center. Over time, periods of silent prayer could assist us  in releasing the false images and feelings caused by  experiences and traumas in our past. In Christian terms, Thomas Keating  seems to me to be focusing on St Paul's advise that we try to seek our center and begin to see the Mystery with 'the eye of our heart'.  For me this seems somewhat similar to the Hindu concept of 'The Cave of the Heart' 

 Ken Wilber highlighted the various levels of spirituality and focused on recent research that indicated the difficulty. These levels' or 'Altitudes' range from Lawless - a very primitive stage, through Faith level, then a Rational Level and finally the Mystical Levels. These could be roughly equated to our levels of psychological development, from  'Its all about ME!' through some concern for others, then a Faith where ' Only my God is Right'  through more rational levels until we reached the Mystical Level and began to both recognise the inter - connectedness of  all and realise that there were no definite answers. Wilber also focused on how difficult it was to move Adults up through the stages and how much easier it was to change when we are younger.  This is connected with the urgent need in all our Faith Traditions for people to develop an Adult Faith. We will return to this in a later Blog.

At all of our Satsang Meetings there is time for personal reflection , silence and sharing but this sharing is only for those who attend. It was  wide ranging and informed by the two video clips and by our unique spiritual experiences.


SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

Walk the Walk ' We then had a Practice of time of Silent Prayer and the opportunity to enter the silence and stillness by whatever door each of us used, whether that be Centering Prayer or another method. To enter our time of silence , and also to end it, we used the following poem by that great Hindu Mystic - +Rabindranath Tagore 

silent footsteps

  

                       HAVE you not heard his silent, steps?

He comes, comes, ever comes.

Every moment and every age, every day and every night

he comes, comes, ever comes,

Many a song have I sung in many a mood of mind,

but all their notes have always proclaimed,

"He comes, comes, ever comes."

In the fragrant days of sunny April through the forest path

He comes, comes, ever comes.

In the rainy gloom of July nights 

on the thundering chariot of clouds

He comes, comes, ever comes.

In sorrow after sorrow. 
It is his steps that press upon my heart, 
and it is the golden touch of his feet 

that makes my joy to shine.

In silent steps

"He comes, comes, ever comes."

  

Gitanjali: Spiritual Poems of Rabindranath Tagore

As always, we ended our meeting with a time of Sacred Circled  Dancing led by Angela Creagh. This centred on a theme of Sacred and Vital Light.

OUR NEXT MEETING IS A DAY OF REFLECTION  
on Saturday 9th March 2013  10.30 - 4.30 in Wolverhampton

Further details will be published shortly and also on our website 
www.satsang-companionship.org.uk 

ADVANCE NOTICE

Over the next few weeks a series of Blog Posts will explore the whole area of Mysticism. These will be informed by the Teachings of +Ishpriya Mataji - the founder and Spiritual Guide of the International Satsang Association.    THey will be based mainly around her talks on ONLY THE MYSTICS WILL SURVIVE.

Religion and Our Evolutionary Journey

"The finger pointing at the Moon is not the Moon"

The Great Flaring Forth

Welcome to a  New Year, welcome to 2013 - as we continue the great evolutionary journey of the Cosmos and Human Family.  A great exciting and unfolding Journey of mystery engaging with and relating to the Mystery at the heart of creation..

This is a journey that began almost 14 Billion years ago  with what Cosmologists call the Big Bang or the Great Flaring Forth. From this initial event the great unfolding of our Cosmic Journey began. We do not know what caused this Big Bang or Flaring Forth, its origins are shrouded in mystery.  However, thanks to the efforts of our scientists, cosmologists and mystics we are beginning to  both learn and understand a lot more about the origins of this great evolutionary journey.

Mother Earth

About 5 Billion years ago the star we call ' The Sun' came into being and around it evolved our planetary system and from that event our  wonderful Blue Planet was born.

Over the ensuing billions of years, life was created and began to evolve into the wonderful and intricate diversity that inhabits our marvellous  planet. This is planet that sustains and nourishes a wide diversity of life, including our human species. Truly Earth is our Mother!.

Now, as previously stated, the origins of all this is still a mystery. However, for those of us who believe in the Spirit, we attribute  the origins of all this to  a Mystery or Source  and this we often call God.   Now it is important to both recognise and acknowledge that this  Mystery or Source  has been present throughout the 14 billion years of known evolution. In the Christian Tradition this is clearly stated in the opening verses of John's Gospel ( see John 1 : 1-5 )

Slowly over the billions of years creation evolved and several million years ago the ancestors of our present human family first walked the earth. Our species Homo Sapiens Sapiens  came about around 250,000 years ago and the ancestors of the majority of us arose on the continent we call Africa.  From there, we began our great human journey. This was a journey that has taken us from Africa to all corners of our Planet and, in the last century to the Moon.

This brings me to the quote above . This is a shortened version of a famous  Buddhist story about a nun who asks the Master to explain to her about truth. The Master replies ....

Truth has nothing to do with words. Truth can be likened to the bright moon in the sky. Words, in this case, can be likened to a finger. The finger can point to the moon’s location. However, the finger is not the moon. To look at the moon, it is necessary to gaze beyond the finger, right?"

For me, this has an important meaning, a bit like ' Don' t mistake the violin for the music'  Because  very often modern humanity  and particularly Religions can fall prey to this mistake. Let us return to our Evolutionary Journey and particularly to the journey of our species.  First of all the overall Journey.

If the  Mystery or Source  is at the heart of all this creative evolution, then it existed prior to the Big Bang ( See John 1: 1-5)  and has continued to be present throughout time. Consequently, God ( the Mystery or Source) has been present with humanity for millions of years and also for the past 250,000 years of our species. Let us look a bit more closely at this period.

We know that the formal Religions or Faith Traditions  have only been around for about the past 5000 years. These have mainly arisen out of the Patriarchal Societies that sprung up in the past 8 to 10 thousand years. Yet Spirituality and the sense of the Sacred Presence has been around for very much longer. We have evidence that goes back about 70,000 years - 14 times as long as the Faith Traditions. We can surmise that Spirituality probably is an inherent attribute of our human species. Hence, this  which support the concepts of the inherent attraction  of the Mystery and the ever present ' Presence' of Mystery with our human family. The ancient mystics remind us of this with the quote ' I let you find me so that you might seek me'  . This  speaks of a God or Source to whom human beings are inherently attracted to and by. It supposes that there is an inherent mutual attraction between the Mystery and us, as seekers who are mystified. In the Hindu Tradition, the oldest of the formal Faith Traditions, there are many references to this in-built attraction to and search for the Mystery ( or as Hindu's call it the  Absolute Reality ). One of the most famous are these lines from the Hindu Upanishads

   Even as fire without fuel finds peace in its resting-place,

when thoughts become silence the soul finds peace in its own source.

Maitri Upanishad

So for the vast majority of time, our species have had a sense of the Mystery, a sense of the Divine. Spirituality is almost certainly as old an our human family. Therefore, the formal Religions or Faith Traditions are, to but it in the vernacular 'new kids on the block'   Now, this is not meant to imply that Religion has no place, it is merely to place it in both a context and in perspective. Long before the 'birth' of Religion there existed a sense of the sacred and the inherited Universal Wisdom of the ancient aboriginal peoples of the world. Long before we has Scriptures and before we had written languages, we had the oral traditions handed down for over a hundred thousand years. So our species were relating to and with this sense of the sacred before Scriptures existed.  What religion does is to formalise a set of beliefs about and experiences of the Mystery is a specific cultural setting and context. Thus we have a wide variety of religions , each with a view of the Sacred. In essence, religions are ' fingers that point at the moon' , or as Gandhi once remarked ' Religions are different paths up the mountain'

Our knowledge of the Mystery is 'limited'. Our Scriptures, traditions and the experiences of the Mystics, Saints and Sages , of all the Traditions, all help to expand our knowledge of the Mystery. However, they can merely 'point the finger' at the Source or Mystery  of All Life. They are not that Source. Each one of us needs to journey in faith. We each have to set out on our own journey  which ultimately returns us to the Source. Religion can be a great aid and support in this eNdeavour but , if we are not careful, it can also be a hindrance. History is littered with numerous examples of religions clinging to old outmoded theology and thus hindering the Spiritual Pilgrim on the Journey. Like each one of us, Religion and its leaders and followers, need to develop humility .  Humility is a great teacher, it reminds us of how little we really know , how small we are, not only in this vast Cosmos but in relation to the Immense Mystery that lies at the heart of all  creation.  To truly play their part in both guiding and supporting this spiritual journey our religions , along with their adherents, need to reflect on the old saying ' the finger pointing at the moon is not the moon'