About mystics

[Thomas]

It's repeated so often its regarded as given that mystics operate 'outside' or 'beyond' the doctrinal horizons of their respective traditions.

I don't think so. I think that assumption can be challenged on three points.

The first is — show me a mystic who claims as much.
The second is — those who make the claim usually do so with a vested interest to imply that they don't need to belong to any tradition, and often have a limited understanding of the traditions they presume to criticise.
The third is — mystics express themselves within the context of their respective traditions, they employ religious terminology, and religious iconography, not to declare its limitations, but rather assert its universality.

Actually, just as I was about to close, the irrefutable argument occurred:
If a mystic 'transcends' the tradition, then he or she also transcends the founder of the tradition ... so a Christian mystic is greater than Christ, a Sufi is greater than the Prophet, a Buddhist mystic (is there such a thing) is greater than the Buddha ...

Mysticism in context
In general terms, to qualify as a mystic usually implies one has had an immediate and conscious experience of the transcendent, and this experience is expressed in the language of the senses. Thus the mystic speaks of visions, voices, knowings or showings.

This is quite a modern notion of the mystical, one that was unknown before the 17th century. In reality it's closer to spiritism, and indeed the term mysticism was used pejoratively, implying a subjective fantasia, rather than authentic union with the divine.

Prior to this, in the Christian Tradition at least, union with the divine was always spoken of in negative or apophatic terms, and it was understood that this order of union transcends the senses and therefore transcends that which is now commonly referred to as mystical.

Both St Paul and St John define Christian gnosis as transcending the 'gnosis so-called' that is founded in the sensible and mental faculties. Clement and Origen, the first masters of the catechetical school at Alexandria, followed them. Soon the Christian apophatic tradition was considered the mystical tradition of the Church — Gregory of Nyssa (4th century), Augustine (5th), pseudoDionysius (6th and perhaps its foremost spokesperson), Maximus the Confessor (7th), Eriugena (9th) ...
Meanwhile the classics of Christian spirituality, such as The Cloud of Unknowing, or the Revelations of Julian of Norwich, or the Imitation of Thomas Kempis, all speak of a non-experiential union with the Divine ... on to the contemporary writings of a Teilhard de Chardin or a Thomas Merton.

In a wider context, mysticism indicates an experience at the formal level, or someone whose spirituality is framed or shaped within the world of forms. Their language of forms is inescapably defined by the traditions from which they spring.

In conclusion — three things:
The first is that the Mysteries, spoken of in Scripture and Tradition, refer not to the 'mystical', the magical or the unknown, but to Revelation, so the Mysteries are known, not some secret unknown.
The second is that every liturgical Christian is a 'mystic' by virtue of his or her participation in the Liturgy — the Liturgical actions are the Rites of the Mysteries. In the ancient and orthodox traditions this is still the case. In the later (post-Reformation) traditions this is contingent upon the degree to which the Liturgy has been rationalised to remove those very aspects and elements that render them 'real' in any meaningful sense.
Lastly, the real challenge is the metaphysician who often seems to employ a language and a lexicon that indeed appear to transcend the bounds of a given tradition ... Eriugena is my favourite, and perhaps most complete example, but Augustine is another, Aquinas another, Meister Eckhart another (Eckhart, in my book, is not a mystic, he's way, way more than that).

Islam claims Rumi as its own ... and I'm sure all the traditions have their equivalent voices, and I'm equally sure that they all regard them as standing firmly within.

God bless,

Thomas

 

[radarmark]

It's repeated so often its regarded as given that mystics operate 'outside' or 'beyond' the doctrinal horizons of their respective traditions.

I don't think so. I think that assumption can be challenged on three points.

The first is — show me a mystic who claims as much.

If by tradition, you mean “religious tradition” try any of the English or New England Romantic Transcendentalists. While they were (for the most part) within the Christian Tradition, their mysticism was totally nature-oriented. Ditto for all Taoists and Buddhists (since they do not have a theology). Lastly, look at George or Matthew Fox who claim all traditions are reflections of a spirit within.

The second is — those who make the claim usually do so with a vested interest to imply that they don't need to belong to any tradition, and often have a limited understanding of the traditions they presume to criticise.

I find it hard to believe that you believe mystics are critical of traditions (their own or others’). I find no criticism in Ramakrishna, Vivekananda, Yoginanda, Gandhiji, Ueshiba, just to name a few (fact is, I cannot really remember one who does). For these five (and most others that I know of that practice within their tradition, the emphasis is always on the experience independent of the context of tradition. And Matthew Fox (or Meister Eckhart, who was very nearly excommunicated) certainly have a vast understanding of their Catholic Faith.

The third is — mystics express themselves within the context of their respective traditions, they employ religious terminology, and religious iconography, not to declare its limitations, but rather assert its universality.

See point one. What is the ”tradition” of an atheist mystic or a deist mystic or a shamanistic mystic? What of those mystics (Plotinus, James, Huxley, Whitehead, Jung, Hartshorne, Jones, Schuoun, Wilber) who are centered in the philosophical aspects. Universlity means all can come to the table. If the tradition rejects that it simply is not inclusive enough.

Actually, just as I was about to close, the irrefutable argument occurred:
If a mystic 'transcends' the tradition, then he or she also transcends the founder of the tradition ... so a Christian mystic is greater than Christ, a Sufi is greater than the Prophet, a Buddhist mystic (is there such a thing) is greater than the Buddha ...

Ah, now I see the problem. Mystical and religious experiences are not the same thing. Religious experience has a content or significance to a faith or cultural or belief system or worldview relating to G!d or G!ds and (often) ethics. But it is rooted in common experiences limited to conscious activity (sense experience, mental activity, authority). Mystical experience has at its root experience beyond sensory experience or mental images. It is a numinous experience of “realities or states of affairs that are of a kind not accessible by way of sense perception, somatosensory modalities, or standard introspection”. Numinous experiences contrast with religious experiences that involve, for example, feelings but no alleged acquaintance with non-sensory realities or states of affairs. Hence, they need not be religious at all. Certainly Buddhist, Taoist, Unitarian-Universalist, and General Friends fall outside of a “Religious tradition” (no G!d as you would define at all, just a spirit). The mystic transcends the exoteric tradition, not the inner tradition. They reach beyond faith or culture or beliefs.

Small point of correction. Existing Buddhist masters (who go beyond) are the Buddah--how is this greater? Ueshiba or the present Boddhisattva of Compassion have both (in different ways) transcended the written teachings of Gautama.

Mysticism in context
In general terms, to qualify as a mystic usually implies one has had an immediate and conscious experience of the transcendent, and this experience is expressed in the language of the senses. Thus the mystic speaks of visions, voices, knowings or showings.

No, see my definition above, quite the opposite, in fact.

This is quite a modern notion of the mystical, one that was unknown before the 17th century. In reality it's closer to spiritism, and indeed the term mysticism was used pejoratively, implying a subjective fantasia, rather than authentic union with the divine.

Not quite true, for the classics (Greece and Rome) is was a hidden teaching (we do not even know what the Orphic Mysteries were). In Neoplatonism is became wordless contemplation (and in this sense survives in Christianity). The modern use came from the cleric Jean de Gershon—“experimental knowledge of God through embrace of unitive love.”

Prior to this, in the Christian Tradition at least, union with the divine was always spoken of in negative or apophatic terms, and it was understood that this order of union transcends the senses and therefore transcends that which is now commonly referred to as mystical.

See, by my definition (which I can track back quite perfectly through the Transcendentalists to James and Hartshorne to Huxley to Underhill to Otto to Schweitzer to Forman) mysticism is precisely this, without the necessary connexion to G!d (see notional definition above).

Both St Paul and St John define Christian gnosis as transcending the 'gnosis so-called' that is founded in the sensible and mental faculties. Clement and Origen, the first masters of the catechetical school at Alexandria, followed them. Soon the Christian apophatic tradition was considered the mystical tradition of the Church — Gregory of Nyssa (4th century), Augustine (5th), pseudoDionysius (6th and perhaps its foremost spokesperson), Maximus the Confessor (7th), Eriugena (9th) ...

I believe you are confusing mystics with Gnostics. I believe that all the above are mystics.

Meanwhile the classics of Christian spirituality, such as The Cloud of Unknowing, or the Revelations of Julian of Norwich, or the Imitation of Thomas Kempis, all speak of a non-experiential union with the Divine ... on to the contemporary writings of a Teilhard de Chardin or a Thomas Merton.

In a wider context, mysticism indicates an experience at the formal level, or someone whose spirituality is framed or shaped within the world of forms. Their language of forms is inescapably defined by the traditions from which they spring.

No, the mystical experience is beyond the world of frames or shapes or forms or language. It is direct conscious experience of the root of consciousness itself.

In conclusion — three things:
The first is that the Mysteries, spoken of in Scripture and Tradition, refer not to the 'mystical', the magical or the unknown, but to Revelation, so the Mysteries are known, not some secret unknown.

It is not some ancient, Orphic form of “mystical” that we use nowdays (and philosophy has not used that since Plotinus). Rather it is a personal experience of revelation and redemption (I use these words in the broader since of Rosenzweig, not the dogma). The Oriental, Orthodox, and Catholic mystics are mystics. So are those of other Religious and non-Religious bent.

The second is that every liturgical Christian is a 'mystic' by virtue of his or her participation in the Liturgy — the Liturgical actions are the Rites of the Mysteries. In the ancient and orthodox traditions this is still the case. In the later (post-Reformation) traditions this is contingent upon the degree to which the Liturgy has been rationalised to remove those very aspects and elements that render them 'real' in any meaningful sense.

No, a liturgical Christian may be mystical. The closer to the trunk, as you say, the more likely. There are thousands of liturgical Christians who never went beyond. Could not did not want to (it is hard to live the life of Saint John of the Cross or Bishop Basil of Kineshma).

Lastly, the real challenge is the metaphysician who often seems to employ a language and a lexicon that indeed appear to transcend the bounds of a given tradition ... Eriugena is my favourite, and perhaps most complete example, but Augustine is another, Aquinas another, Meister Eckhart another (Eckhart, in my book, is not a mystic, he's way, way more than that).

Islam claims Rumi as its own ... and I'm sure all the traditions have their equivalent voices, and I'm equally sure that they all regard them as standing firmly within.

Because they are within the tradition (and I disagree with you on Eckhart) does not mean they do not reach out beyond that tradition. All traditions cannot simultaneously be right (logically, at least). Yet they are. The Religions may differ and squabble and fight and even war; but the religion does not.

 

[Lunitik]

Mystics are interested in what the religious founders have experienced, not what the traditions say about them - this is the primary difference. No mystic confines himself to a particular belief system, he knows that the exoteric has developed to hide the esoteric from the masses, and understands why this is so. For the mystic, the religious founders are fellow mystics, not someone to be worshiped but someone to be understood. Having tunnel vision for a particular tradition blinds you to the truth, thus you have to venture to all the founders to see the situation rightly. It will look like they maintain a particular tradition because of the terms they use, but this is not the case. It simply shows the environment this school has grown in, how can you express anything when no one understands you? You have to use the language of those around you, but if you venture more deeply you begin to see that they use the words quite differently.

Traditions come about through disciples, they emphasize disciplines. The founder is utterly spontaneous, he flows with existence, but when the mystic dies his disciples are at a loss. They try to teach a structure around the founders words, but it is impossible. It will always miss because they haven't rightly understood him, this is why mystics are generally against the tradition, they are interested in the center, not the circumference that has risen up around it. Traditions mean you are stuck in the past, the mystic knows truth is herenow not therethen. You have to start somewhere though, and the initiate is familiar with the exoteric, so the mystic will use it to assist what he is trying to show you.

 

[Lunitik]

Osho is such a mystic that is against the traditions, however.

Seven Pillars House of Wisdom is an organization dedicated to transcending the traditions also, yet they are not against the branches of truth. Baha'u'llah is another that has tried to bring truth back together, there are many trying to accomplish this - trying to show all discuss the same truth.

Jesus himself is a mystic though, he has tried to transcend the tradition of Moses, so it is difficult to understand a Christian holding to tradition. He has shown the basis of all law: love.

 

[radarmark]

Okay, there are two ways to continue this (at least). One is that we can quote mystics to each other all day long. But my mystics will not be your mystics and verse-visa. The second way is to take it into an academic discussion.

Here are the problems: approach one would allow me to clain Guenon, Schuoun, Wilber, etc. These are probabily the mystics you want to disallow. Approach two gives us clear sailing back to the definition of mysticism by James (pretty clear and the basic definition used in academia since 1910 or so).

So if you want to continue this discussion, let me know which approach you would like to take.

 

[Lunitik]

Okay, there are two ways to continue this (at least). One is that we can quote mystics to each other all day long. But my mystics will not be your mystics and verse-visa. The second way is to take it into an academic discussion.

Here are the problems: approach one would allow me to clain Guenon, Schuoun, Wilber, etc. These are probabily the mystics you want to disallow. Approach two gives us clear sailing back to the definition of mysticism by James (pretty clear and the basic definition used in academia since 1910 or so).

So if you want to continue this discussion, let me know which approach you would like to take.

Let us take to a discussion of mystics, because how can any mystics point at a different culmination? If we take it to an academic discussion, we will miss utterly because mysticism is utterly diametrical to scholarship. Academics will look at the periphery and draw conclusions, they cannot delve deeper because they function solely in the mind.

The mystic functions from the heart, from his divine center. The best definition of a mystic is one who is in a love affair with the whole, that oneness is the mystery and that is pure love. He simply builds his capacity to love until he explodes and is no more there, he has dissolved utterly into existence.

This is why mysticism cannot be rationalized with doctrine, you cannot learn love and there is no need to try. We are born with love as an intrinsic quality, we merely have to nurture it, build our capacity to love. Knowledge kills love because it brings us to the mind, society kills love because it emphasizes security and conformism. We are expressions of love, and our destiny is to discover the one who has expressed it.

 

[Lunitik]

As an example, do you know that Science spends a lot of time manipulating love? Probably not, because his word for it is very dry, he calls it electricity. This exists in every cell, we call it the electron, this is what mind makes of love. This is the left hemispheres understanding, but the right, the creative hemisphere has many ideals about it - still in practice it is more like dependence. Of course, electricity has a sound, the aum is that attempting to be expressed. It is also in every atom of the air we breath, and now becomes both taste and smell. Sight sees it as light, and indeed it is our life force. Our sensory input is merely electricity perceived in different ways, but string theory is basically correct, it is a type of vibration for the sense of touch. The mystic builds this, calling it prana or chi or many other things, until it comes to a peak, then truth is realized.

This is the pure love and overwhelming bliss the mystic experiences, and those who attain will seem to radiate electricity. We say some people have electric personalities but it is an empty statement when compared to the presence of these people. Meditation is how this energy is grown, but at the peak it is always expressed in all its ways, and normal perception is no more restricted, all becomes available. It is the peak of human potential, the heights of our possibility. The mystery is how this energy has brought about consciousness, intelligence, and yet it is so. It means every atom of everything we see must contain some intelligence because there are electrons in everything.

Can you tune into that? It is possible... and it is the highest, all are the senses deciphering it.

 

[radarmark]

Perhaps. But some really smart cookies have been mystics. Shankara, probably the foremost philosopher and logician of Hindu culture was also the driving force behind Vedanta. Patanjali was no academic slouch either (the fact is some believe that his only personal contribution to the Sutra were the philosophical links and verbiage).

William James, Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Underhill, AN Whitehead, and Hartshorne (all academics who did philosophy) were also all mystics.

That being said, it is true that pure mysticism is 180 degrees out from pure intellect. The mystic seeks what cannot be conceptualized; the intellect cannot function at those heights.

Is the core love? Only if you mean a rather broad definition thereof. "Unitive Love" may be the core of Christian mysticism, but is it really the core of all mystical experience? I tend to agree with you (it is my experience that the beyond is a unity of love), but I have not talked to or read all mystics, so am not willing to define it as such.

Now numinous experiences, those not accessible to intellect, sense perception, normal introspection, or any other somasensory modality are what the mystic seeks and gets to. I believe that is what is meant as beyond or moksha or nibana. It is pure "conscious" experience (something a lot of psychologists and neurologists are investigating now). Experience without experiencer or experienced.

And I believe (due to how I crept up on it) that it is "greater vehicle" and "sudden school" describable (Heart and Platform Sutras and Taoism do really, really well in saying what little can be said about it). That is probably why the James-Process Theologies are so copasetic with Zen.

 

[Lunitik]

Man is conscious, intelligent, and aware, yet he has decided it is unique to him. Where has it arisen from? This is the mystery.

 

[Lunitik]

Perhaps. But some really smart cookies have been mystics. Shankara, probably the formost philosopher and logician of Hindu culture was also the driving force behind Vedanta. Patanjali was no academic slouch either (the fact is some believe that his only personal contribution to the Sutra were the philosophical links and verbiage).

You can say Shankara has presenting things in a rational way, but you cannot say he is a philosopher, nor a logician. His logic is fundamentally flawed unless you accept certain premises to start with. Patanjali has brought us yoga techniques, he is not for mind at all, his whole method is about taking emphasis away from it. The positions are to quiet the mind, you will concentrate on the pose and forget about it, there will be no thought arising.

WIlliam James, Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Underhill, AN Whitehead, and Hartshorne (all academics who did philosophy) were also all mystics.

I am unaware of any of these, since all mysticism can be traced to the East, I have gone to the source rather than looked at the results.

That being said, it is true that pure mysticism is 180 degrees out from pure intellect. The mystic seeks what cannot be conceptualized; the intellect cannot function at those heights.

Agreed.

Is the core love? Only if you mean a rather broad definition thereof. "Unitive Love" may be the core of Christian mysticism, but is it really the core of all mystical experience? I tend to agree with you (it is my experience that the beyond is a unity of love), but I have not tlked to or read all mystics, so am not willing to define it as such.

Of course, what you mean by Unitive Love or Divine Love is what I mean also. It is that merging, that realization of oneness. What we call love is not love at all, it is a familiarity and lack of hate, often becoming dependency. Infatuation is perhaps the closest word we have to what is intended by most people when they say love.

Now, a satori is not a total merging, nothing which is temporary can be accepted. When it is your normal experience, only then are you finished and yet still you can go deeper. Nothing that is transitory is real, the real is the permanent. Samadhi is the most popular term, along with nirvana and moksha for certain lines of thought - although, like heaven, many project these to something after death, despite Buddha saying paranirvana is that which follows death, the final loss of individuality and relativity, while his whole basis is that nirvana can happen now.

Now numinous experiences, those not accessible to intellect, sense perception, normal introspection, or any other somasensory modality are what the mystic seeks and gets to. I believe that is what is meant as beyond or moksha or nirbana. It is pure "conscious" experience (something a lot of psychologists and neurologists are investigating now). Experience without experiencer or experienced.

It is because the experiencer and experienced are no more two, only the experience is there now - but then it arises, if the tree falls and no one hears, did it happen? Well, the witness sees all. What you do not understand is that all is consciousness, although mind is not in the experience - you will experience as a blacking out almost, and I find it difficult to believe I was stood in one spot for 6 hours and no one I live with pondered why, so I might hazard a guess and say I disappeared also. Certainly, the glimpse that is recalled had no me in it.

And I believe (due to how I crept up on it) that it is "greater vehicle" and "sudden school" describable (Heart and Platform Sutras and Taoism do really, really well in saying what little can be said about it). That is probably why the James-Process Theologies are so copasetic with Zen.

The Tantra school and its mahamudra also comes quite close.

I am curious how you can include Zen and theology in the same sentence though, then I am more familiar with the mystic form, not the monastery form.

 

[Thomas]

Hi Radarmark —

If by tradition, you mean “religious tradition” try any of the English or New England Romantic Transcendentalists...

Fair point. I should have been more definite, in arguing that mystics who are seen to belong to a given tradition, do not transcend them.

Too easily it becomes the idea that Eckhart transcends Catholicism, therefore so can I. But he does not, nor would he agree with that notion.

Schuon and Guénon were absolutely insistent that there is no access to the Transcendent outside of tradition. Schuon went west, to America, and got himself embroiled in all manner of scandal. Guénon went east, settled in Cairo, and lived the life of an anonymous Muslim, I think that says something about the two men, and it's evident in their writings.

(The Perennialist critique of Christianity, by the way, withers under the examination of the likes of someone like Jean Borella (Catholic) or Philip Sherrard (Orthodox), both of whom nevertheless hold Guénon and Schuon in the highest regard.

I thoink contemporary 'mysticism' is an offshoot of the Romance Movement in Europe arose as a response to the dehumanising aspects of industrialism (and led to the emergence of Spiritualism, the reinvention of Wicca, and on to the New Age). Its a naturalistic, romantic and sentimental approach from man up, as it were.

... their mysticism was totally nature-oriented.

Quite. By the same token it works within the confines of the rational intellect (as intellect is currently understood) and is a response to the wonder of nature. The Great Mystics are, in my mind, the ones who respond to Revelation. But there is a beyond mysticism that the traditions point to — pure Intellection.

I find it hard to believe that you believe mystics are critical of traditions (their own or others’).

I'm not. If I gave that impression, it's my error. I think the opposite. what I was challenging was the opinion, voiced by many, that the mystic 'outgrows' his or her tradition.

... the emphasis is always on the experience independent of the context of tradition...

I tend to disagree, but we'd have to discuss specific cases.

And Matthew Fox (or Meister Eckhart, who was very nearly excommunicated) certainly have a vast understanding of their Catholic Faith.

Interesting. I think Matthew Fox perhaps invited condemnation upon himself. It's not so much that he presents an alternative, optimistic vision ('Creation Spirituality) but rather paints a very bleak and negative of the Church, as if those aspects were missing.

As for Eckhart, being censured is not uncommon — Aquinas was, for many years — and the case against him has foundered on the politics of the bishop who brought the charge, and the incompetence of Pope John XXII, who was himself later charged with heresy.

The point remains however that Eckhart saw himself as thoroughly orthodox. While he was preaching, he was also combating the 'Free Spirit' idealism that no doubt he would see in Matthew Fox.

What is the ”tradition” of an atheist mystic or a deist mystic or a shamanistic mystic? What of those mystics (Plotinus, James, Huxley, Whitehead, Jung, Hartshorne, Jones, Schuoun, Wilber) who are centered in the philosophical aspects.

It depends upon how one defines a mystic. I see some of those as philosophers. Schuon would call himself a Moslem, an esoterist and a shaykh. I don't accept the current definition of mystic (any more than would Schuon or Guénon), but rather the term as understood in the Western philosophical tradition in which it arose and from which it passed into Christianity.

Universlity means all can come to the table.

But not that every opinion counts.

Ah, now I see the problem. Mystical and religious experiences are not the same thing.

Quite. Authentic mysticism is a sensible experience of the religious.

Religious experience has a content or significance to a faith or cultural or belief system or worldview relating to G!d or G!ds and (often) ethics. But it is rooted in common experiences limited to conscious activity (sense experience, mental activity, authority).

Well Christianity most definitely isn't. I would say it's the other way round. Religious experience (in Christian terms) is divine union. The mystical states are the sensible response. The mystical state is a conscious activity. Divine union transcends the consciousness.

The mystic transcends the exoteric tradition, not the inner tradition. They reach beyond faith or culture or beliefs.

The inner tradition is not beyond faith/belief, but I can accept cultural forms.

Not quite true, for the classics (Greece and Rome) is was a hidden teaching (we do not even know what the Orphic Mysteries were). In Neoplatonism is became wordless contemplation (and in this sense survives in Christianity). The modern use came from the cleric Jean de Gershon—“experimental knowledge of God through embrace of unitive love.”

The Mysteries were the initiation into a hidden teaching, and that was how the term entered into Christianity. "Now to him that is able to establish you, according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret from eternity" (Romans 16:25).

Today we call it mystagogy.

What we do no of the rites revolves around the idea of 'divine eros' in which the initiate is transported out of him/herself, or rather engulfed in some overpowerring experience.

It's interesting that the Christian gnostics introduced a term very rarely used in the lexicon — agape — which was not the same as eros at all.

See, by my definition (which I can track back quite perfectly through the Transcendentalists to James and Hartshorne to Huxley to Underhill to Otto to Schweitzer to Forman) mysticism is precisely this, without the necessary connexion to G!d (see notional definition above).

I hold a different definition.

No, the mystical experience is beyond the world of frames or shapes or forms or language. It is direct conscious experience of the root of consciousness itself.

But it is still 'an experience'. There is a deeper level yet, which Eckhart was all about.

Rather it is a personal experience of revelation and redemption

I agree. It's subjective, a subjective state.

No, a liturgical Christian may be mystical.

It really doesn't depend on the person, that is part of the Mystery of the Gift.mThe Gift is given to all, equally. What they make of personalises it experientially.

Because they are within the tradition (and I disagree with you on Eckhart)

Well the evidence is against you.

All traditions cannot simultaneously be right (logically, at least). Yet they are. The Religions may differ and squabble and fight and even war; but the religion does not.

OK.

But my point still stands, it is not proven that the mystic by their experience transcends the tradition.

God bless,

Thomas

 

[Thomas]

Mystics are interested in what the religious founders have experienced, not what the traditions say about them

There's no access other than the tradition — it's the tradition that gives rise to the text, and transmits the mysteries.

No mystic confines himself to a particular belief system

And yet all the most startling ones do.

You assume the system can be exhausted. I don't think so, I think that probably shows an incomplete understanding of the tradition. It's certainly the case with your understanding of Christianity.

he knows that the exoteric has developed to hide the esoteric from the masses, and understands why this is so.

Do you? I think that's rather an elitist opinion, frankly. The exoteric renders the esoteric accessible to 'the masses' as you call them.

Traditions come about through disciples, they emphasize disciplines. The founder is utterly spontaneous, he flows with existence, but when the mystic dies his disciples are at a loss.

Traditions stand by the correct transmission of the truth. What's happened to Christianity in this free-for-all age is a shining example of how people seek to rationalise things to themselves.

Traditions mean you are stuck in the past

D'you think so? I can see how you might see it that way. Tradition means you drink from the pure and living source.

God bless

Thomas

 

[Lunitik]

The mystical state is a conscious activity. Divine union transcends the consciousness.

Utterly false, and offensive!

Why are you insistent that what your tradition experiences is higher than all others? Where have John and Jesus gotten their occult knowledge from in the first place? You will insist it is from God, but there is nothing unique about any of it, all the mystic schools have been familiar with them.

Peter was a Mithraic priest before joining Jesus, this is one such mystery school that shared this knowledge, and indeed much of what Christians believe today and many of their practices can be traced to this school.

You are biased toward Jesus, but every religious founder and many other mystics have climbed to his heights and even excelled beyond him - as he in fact says many will. It is absurd to be so blind to other traditions, so ignorant as to think any of this is new to Christianity or impossible outside it. I have said before, but I will say again, Jesus wasn't even the only occult show off in his city during his life.

Jesus was a great Master, but like every master that has ever lived, he has transcended his own tradition - less we forget he was killed for seeming to rebel against it, what other prophet has been killed for his teaching? Jesus was a mystic, he has realized divine unity and has tried to teach it. The tradition becomes irrelevant to the mystic, he is true to his experience only.

 

[Thomas]

Man is conscious, intelligent, and aware, yet he has decided it is unique to him. Where has it arisen from? This is the mystery.

Not the Christian one.

Man is conscious, intelligent, and aware, he knows his consciousness, intelligence and awareness is unique to him, but he knows there is consciousness, intelligence and awareness as such ... being ... in which he participates, and which transcends his individual state ... and even 'being' has its limitations.

The mystic today is totally founded in this individual state, that's what the modern world is looking for — experience — due to sociopolitical reduction of man to a consumer unit, as I have expressed elsewhere.

The metaphysician, Eckhart for example, goes beyond it ... but Eckhart does not transcend the doctrine of Christianity, his teaching is founded in it, he illuminates it. He would be the first to disabuse anyone of that notion of passing beyond it.

The mystical state is not, ultimately, where it's at. Never moreso than today, when to be a mystic all one needs to claim is a subjective experience, as if that determines the Absolute.

God bless,

Thomas

 

[Lunitik]

There's no access other than the tradition — it's the tradition that gives rise to the text, and transmits the mysteries.

False, I have never been part of any tradition, and I have experience divine union. The mystery is not plural, the mystery is oneness. You go on saying that the tradition gives a higher understanding, it is utterly false. It is only by going to every tradition that you get a clear picture of truth, only then can you see what is from man and what is divine.

And yet all the most startling ones do.

Like who?

Jesus has not held to a tradition.
Krishna has not held to a tradition
Buddha has not held to to a tradition
Lao Tzu has not held to a tradition

No startling mystic has upheld the tradition, he has been a school unto himself.

You assume the system can be exhausted. I don't think so, I think that probably shows an incomplete understanding of the tradition. It's certainly the case with your understanding of Christianity.

Do you believe in evil? Do you believe in demons?

This fight against evil is the limitation of Christianity, there is no such thing. Evil is a lack of love, will you fight the darkness or simply turn on a light?

Do you? I think that's rather an elitist opinion, frankly. The exoteric renders the esoteric accessible to 'the masses' as you call them.

This is utterly false, even Jesus has masked his words in parables so the masses had no access to his meaning. Much of what is in the Bible is taken as factual when it is naught but a symbol, a pointer at something of spiritual significance. It is because the masses do not understand, they are looking at the periphery, they are hearing with physical ears and not spiritual ones. You cannot teach spiritual ears and eyes, it arises out of your experience of union.

Traditions stand by the correct transmission of the truth. What's happened to Christianity in this free-for-all age is a shining example of how people seek to rationalise things to themselves.

The tradition is a long term rationalization, it is an accepted rationalization but it does not make it any more correct. A book cannot contain the truth, no words - even spoken - can transmit truth, I have been to many Catholic masses and the priest does not know truth himself. How can one who doesn't know transmit something of truth? I went to a New Thought church on Wednesday, and this reverent is the first Christian I have met who is obviously advancing in the inner world. It is not as powerful as the Kriya practioners I have encountered, but still it was pleasant to discover. Truth is always absolutely correct, and traditions are often too stubborn to accept it.

D'you think so? I can see how you might see it that way. Tradition means you drink from the pure and living source.

How can it be a pure and living source when the Master is dead? There is proof Christianity isn't a pure source, the Councils show that men have decided what is truth, that it is no more divinely inspired but humanly directed. You should be happy that truth is finally experiencing an upsurge, that again Christ can be respected through these people. All I see in Catholic mass is pure impotence, there is no vitality there at all.

 

[Lunitik]

Not the Christian one.

So the Christian mystery is not about the nature of God?

I must really have not understood...

Sometimes I feel you are simply arguing to argue, to try to prove Christianity is higher than any other tradition. I understand it is a huge part of your ego, but the reason people such as Jesus transcend the tradition is because they drop this identification. Now their only identification is with truth, and this is the mystery.

The tradition proclaiming Jesus is the only begotten son of God is the most stark ignorance in the Bible, for even Jesus says the apostles - those who have also attained to the Holy Spirit - are his brothers. He even justifies his own statement by quoting the Old Testament that all are the children of God. There is a certain truth to it, found in the statement all are part of the body of Christ, and in another place saying we can be perfect as the father, and take on the knowledge as Christ has... these are all pointers towards truth, but this is not emphasized, it is not understood by the masses that Jesus is just a man, a normal man that has attained the peak of consciousness, nothing more.

Another is saying Jesus is at the right hand of God, yet he himself states he is one with God. There are so many absurdities in the Bible that clearly come from either the writers ignorance or later edits. It is not just coincidence that Jesus' stories have much in common with the many mystery schools through history, it is a conglomerate of them all and this is admitted in the Bible itself, saying it is all things for all people. There is no problem in it, but what is wrong is to found your own ego in this fable - declared as such by an infallible pope no less!

Go to the peak with the tradition if you like, but ensure you do find it. Then you see yourself Jesus is not unique or special in any way, although he has helped you to find truth. Be grateful, but you will have to drop this identification at some point, why not now? It is contributing to your imprisonment, truth is liberty from all delusion, all identification. Until it is found, you can only deceive yourself that you know, you do not, cannot, because you remain egoistic, and truth is beyond mind.

 

[Lunitik]

Truth is unknowable because the knower is no more there, only the known remains.

Find in yourself the known, it has only been forgotten but never lost.

 

[Lunitik]

The exoteric tradition always hides its own truth, to the point that it becomes forgotten so that it can preserve its own power. These people are utterly about ego, they are greedy and the tradition is their occupation.

Revelations says Jesus will return as a thief in the night, but earlier it is said that those not within the tradition of Jesus but attain to the goal are thieves. It means that the second coming will NOT be Christian, and indeed Jesus was never a Christian either. Christianity is the invention of his disciples, he was simply a holy - whole - man teaching what he has realized.

 

[Bhaktajan II]

The mystical state is not, ultimately, where it's at.

We are all mystics by dint of 'I mystic therfore I am'

The opposite of Mystic is gross materialistic hedonist ---living for the ego and sensual delight in an existential festival--- til death do we part.

I am a mystic, although not for unique feats ---I process 2.600 calories each day and I can prove it with all the waste products.

I can feel with my eyes closed. I can see where I am going too.

My mystic thoughts dwell on the endless un-quantifiable amount of mundane stupifying dullheaded and faux sufferring experienced by fellow souls sorjourning in samsara.

In my heart I have an Alexandria Library's worth of Volumes on the lives of all other persons and I impuslively try to quantify the summation of all their work and experiences etc . . . yet still the equations I use output the same conclusion each time--- samsara.

 

[taijasi]

A master of sarcasm! Now I must slide over, become the passenger ... watch someone else drive for awhile!

Do indeed, enlighten us! I cannot take another breath ... until I have heard some more!

I was a Vaishnava once. Did I mention that? Then I died.
What, you think I'm yanking your chain? No, I don't get into that. Quite Sirius, actually.
But the sarcasm helps to lighten the mood. Do keep the ball rolling ...