Signs of Mysticism - Part 3

‘Only The Mystics Will Survive ‘

Theme 3 : –    The Signs of Mysticism.

The Perennial Questions

Where the philosopher 

guesses and argues, 

the mystic lives and looks;
and speaks, consequently,

the disconcerting language 

of first-hand experience, 

not the neat dialectic of the schools.

Hence whilst the Absolute 

of the metaphysicians
 remains a diagram 

—impersonal an dunattainable—

the Absolute of the mystics 

is lovable, attainable, alive.” 

Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism                                             

  

                                                                                              

This is the third reflection in this series on Only the Mystics Will Survive. It continues the journey with Sister Ishpriya which started with Listen to the Spirit- A movement into Mystical Consciousness , then looked at our Face to Face Encounter with God  and  now begins to explore the signs of mysticism that exist in everyday life for every person. But first a simple quote from Sr. Ishpriya which sets this reflection in its context.

‘We need to remember that mystical moments happen every day’

Sister Ishpriya

Before we begin to focus on Signs of Mysticism it is important to return to some aspects of Part 2.  Part 2 focused on the natural balance of Chaos and Conservation in Creation. This impacted at all levels and certainly on humans and their Institutions. It focused on the tendency of people, when change occurs ,to give way to their fears and to try to cling on like limpets to old and familiar ways. This explains the growth in fundamentalism – not only in Faith Traditions but in Politics, Education and many Institutions. The ensuing struggle leads to a rise in intolerance and a tendency to adopt rigid thinking.

In the old days, when the Christian Church had real power, it had a simple way of dealing with ‘maverick’ thinkers. It either declared their ideas ‘heresy’  or used its self- acclaimed power to excommunicate them. There is nothing new in all this and today, many fundamental people in all the Faith Traditions are trying to do the same. The result is they can often 'project' their fear of change and chaos onto the other and in so doing demonise the other.

 However, Christians need to hold on to the fact that Jesus the Christ was a maverick preacher. In addition many of the great prophets and founders of other Faith Traditions were radical thinkers e.g Mohammed the Prophet ( Peace be upon him) , Guru Nanak the founder of Sikhism and of course Gautama the Buddha.   Most advances in human understanding, knowledge and wisdom have come from and through radical thinkers.  This reinforces the need for each and every person to face the challenge of facing their fears and core beliefs and seeking and reclaiming their inherent mystical spirit. Consequently, we need to be on the alert for signs of mysticism in our life. So now to return to Ishpriya and her reflections.

The Tree of Puzzles

Ishpriya opened with an intriguing question when she asked ‘What does the experience of the Mystery do?’   Ishpriya answered this rhetorical question by suggesting that it could help if we ‘looked  at some ‘signs’ of being a mystic’.   She made it plain that the signs she intended to briefly explore did not constitute a definitive list .  However, these were signs to be found for and in  all of us.  So she suggested that we relax, listen deeply and then reflect on how these could apply to,  or be experienced by,  each of us  .  She then began to outline and reflect  on some of the signs of Mysticism.

Some Signs of Mysticism

The first of these was sense of harmony at certain moments. These moments of  harmony resulted in a sense of union, wholeness or completion.  Experiences like this begin in childhood.  It is an experience that can be likened to and summarised as ‘ a sense of being at home with my source’ . These experiences   both demand  and require that we wake up and  ‘get rid of our sense of separateness’    She quoted the great Christian Mystic, Lady Juliana of Norwich  concerning our failure to realise just how inter-connected we were with the Mystery and all creation. Juliana said,  ‘ Between God and me there is no between’ . She then reminded us of a famous  Hindu saying ‘God is  closer to me than myself ‘ .

 Both of these quotations, one from a Western and the other from an Eastern Faith Tradition,  speak of a sense of oneness, union and completion between human beings and the Mystery or Source.  They tell of a relationship of oneness.

Hide and Seek with God

This reminds me of the story by Anthony De Mello – an Indian Jesuit from his book One Minute Wisdom

 The master became a legend in his lifetime. 

It was said that God once sought his advice: “I want to play a game of hide-and-seek with humankind.  I’ve asked my angels what the best place is to hide in.  Some say the depth of the ocean.  Others say the top of the highest mountain.  Others still the far side of the moon or a distant star. 

What do you suggest?”

Said the Master, “Hide in the human heart.  That is the last place they will think of!”

 Each of us could pause and respond to the following question :- What is our chosen or favourite ending to the game of Hide and Seek we too can play with God ?  

It can help if we use immediacy and respond to the question quickly and write down our response. This can often lead to intriguing, surprising and challenging responses. This question is not designed to imply that we deliberately avoid the Oneness, that is the Mystery – although it is a common and shared universal response. No, it is to encourage us to face our fears about being too intimate with God the Mystery.

The Jewish Scriptures have this wonderful phrase  ‘ It is terrible ( awesome) to fall into the hands of the living God’  As in many human relationships, we can all struggle with the issues and dilemma of the intimacy and its ‘dangers’ or ‘anxieties’ regarding its restriction on our sense of independence.

 Permanence – Non- permanence      The second of these signs required us to look at our experiences of permanence. She reminded us that we needed to avoid the mistake of ‘looking  for the permanent amongst the non-permanent’.  We all too often place our trust and energy in the wrong places. We are on a journey back to the Source and if we cling onto earthly and ego-centred things they can so often turn to dust in our hands.

 Students of either Hinduism or Buddhism will readily recognise the importance of the teaching about permanence and non-permanence. Certainly this is a central teaching of Buddhism, where the Buddha taught that ‘ all is Dukka( suffering)’ and that seeing life and ‘things’ as permanent was essentially a poison. Although we can intellectually accept that nothing in life is ‘permanent’ the truth is we can so easily live our life as if it is permanent. He Buddha was wise when he suggested that we could all benefit from reflecting on our own death.

 Then  there is the experience of relaxing into  loving others    This is that the experience and result of true love is one that  enables us to bond with others but NOT try to possess them.

This is not an easy thing because love takes us out of the ego and encourages us to think of the other and not just our own selfish needs or wants.

 In my work as a Relationship Therapist I often am guided by and also use this lovely quote on love by Kahil Gibran – author of  The Prophet.

Love never possesses

Love possesses not

nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love.

 And think not

you can direct the course of love,

if it finds you worthy,

it directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself."

A further sign was  a  keen awareness of  the inter-dependence of all things .

Both the Mystics and modern science have revealed both the wonder of the on-going creation and the inter-connectedness of all things. Everything has come out of star dust and our understanding of DNA etc reveals that we share more than we realise with everything in creation. As humans we are all  Inter-related and come from a common source. This challenges and reduces to insignificance all the ‘barriers’ we erect of culture, creed , ethnicity and even gender. This returns us to the wisdom and truth of the Triple Commitment of the Satsang . In addition, I am reminded of the famous quote from Hinduism ‘ He who sees only the diversity and not the underlying Unity, wanders on from death to death’  

Ishpriya reflected on how Buddhism   recognises the underlying unity and calls this ability compassion ( karuna). She pointed to the Buddhist example of the Buddhi Satva (  this is one who has achieved enlightenment but remains to help others on their way). This was an excellent example of this sense of inter-connectedness and oneness with all.    

This sense of Oneness at the Heart of Creation is  at the heart of spirituality and every major Faith Tradition. In Hinduism it is seen as the central concept and pillar of the Vedas  and particularly the Upanishads and that wonderful Scripture the Bhagavad Gita ( The Song of the Lord) Throughout these scriptures the underlying theme of Unit y at the heart of Diversity is propounded. A famous quote from the Kena Upanishad outlines this clearly.

 Who sees all beings in his own Self, and his own Self in all beings, loses all fears

 This clearly shows that having the courage to face ones fears will lead to a state of awareness where we see the underlying unity of the self in all beings. This is the real state of inter-connectedness humanity requires if it is to survive, live in harmony with self, others and the environment and safely navigate the quantum leap of change in consciousness.

This leads  to the realisation that my choices effect others.

Our Wonderful Universe

We are part of  the on-going evolutionary journey of creation. Our current knowledge, technology and understanding gives us answers that suggest our Universe is 13.5 billion years plus or minus 2 billion years.  This puts things in perspective. We as a species are, at the most 7 million years and homo sapiens – sapiens ,  modern humanity which is   part of a long line of descendants of Homo Erectus ,is a mere 350 - 500 thousand years. With this in mind we return to Ishpriya’s reflections.

                                                                                            

She suggested we pause and reflect on what is our, around, 85 years   of existing in this body-psyche compared to the 15  billion or so years of this Universe . And yet in this vastness of creation and time-space , each of us are unique, we will never occur again. Consequently, it gives rise to the importance of my choices.

The Joy of Silence

All this should ‘reduce us to silence’.  Bearing in mind all the preceding signs , she moved on to a further sign – a growing sense or need for solitude and silence. This also led to a reluctance to even attempt to describe our experience of the Mystery.  She quoted Theresa of Avila, who in commenting upon her mystical experiences merely said ‘I can’t describe this’.  Theresa also used the ‘butterfly’   as the symbol of mysticism, this is also  used in other Traditions.  Ishpriya then , focusing on all her points suggested that this combination of signs  inevitably leads us to a realisation that :-

‘ Silence is the fullness of all, it is Not the emptiness’ .   

Teresa of Calcutta

The fruit of Silence is prayer

The fruit of Prayer is faith.

The fruit of Faith is love.

The fruit of Love is service.

The fruit of Service is peace.

Silence of the eyes;
Silence of the ears;
Silence of our mouths;
Silence of our minds.
In the silence of the heart

God will speak.

These signs are always full of paradox and this is a comment often made by those mystics who have entered into the Mystery. In fact ‘paradox’ is at the heart of spiritual life and experience.

She then recounted the story of  Swami Chidananda  and Swami  Abishtiktananda , the first a Hindu Master , the second  a Christian  Monk, both renowned humble and holy people . At their infrequent meetings, they would look in silence  at each other and there they could sense  ‘the Joy which mystics have encountered’ . This led to them both laughing with each other. Both had tasted the silence, the unity, the compassion of that Face-to-Face encounter with the Mystery and this led to pure joy, or  the ananda , which is  Sanskrit for  bliss. ‘For God is joy’

Mystics are people who are not at war with anybody, they live in peace, justice and respect for others. They are prophets, who do not  set about forecasting the future, but can ‘read the signs of the times’ . In addition they possess great humility and this leads to great wisdom. Ishpriya reminded us that ,’there is a tendency ( certainly in Christianity)  to be more concerned with the doing than the being’ … and also    ‘Its not what I have done but how I have lived’ .  She reminded us of the richness of Buddhism and its Universal Wisdom and how Zen Buddhists have an approach which starts with the basic ethos that it is a mistake  to try to do something with our life instead of living it. ‘Life is for living’  is a  well known Zen saying.

 Raymundo Pannikar ( a renowned Christian Theologian) suggests that some signs of the mystic are ‘ that  they are people who make ineffective administrators, impossible ecclesiastics, unpredictable leaders and unreliable followers’ .  In short, they are mavericks, at peace with themselves and more  fully focused on the Mystery.

In conclusion, if we can recognise any of the above in us then we have reached  the beginning of wisdom. Ishpriya ended this theme by posing some questions to guide our reflections. Readers may find the following questions helpful :

 How alive have I been minute by minute in my life?

 How do I respond to the idea that mystics are counter-culture and are willing to take responsibility for their choices? 

 Which are and were the mystical moments of my life & do I recognise them? 

What are the experiences in my life that I never have to make an effort to remember? 

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 prepares us to be open to the signs of mysticism in our life. Ultimately, the more we begin to realise and know about the Mystery , we so easily call God, the less we either can or want to say. Ultimately, our mystical journey leads us into silence and solitude.

The next part of this series is Theme 4 :-   Our Common and Universal Heritage.

This  fourth  part  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