The New Mysticism

[Guitar's Cry]

Yup.
But seriously, i can't see how anyone can have a mystical experience, as in seeing the fullness of reality, while still encased within the confines of a pre-programmed mental construct.

What is a mystical experience, though? Is it seeing the fullness of reality?

I've had mystical experiences--or what I personally consider to be mystical. A poignant example was watching the sunset over the ocean. My emotional response triggered a mental picture of meaning. There was fullness! There was a connectedness to all this absurdity!

I felt connected. And I was connected in the only way I could be. I am a mind, and can only perceive things as my mind allows, but this mind can be aware of its place and role in everything. I was an intricate part of that sunset. I beheld it, and made it come alive.

 

[michel]

How can you not view the world through the lens of your own mind? I think it's being aware that you are viewing it through the lens of your own mind.

The closest one can get to being awake, is to feel the process of awakening.

I *think* and hope that I can. One of the most iluminating ideas of understand this came from something I learned in College (and I can't for the life of me rember in what context).

It is the understanding of "Frames of reference"- and I believe that understanding that principle is essential to understanding what is around us. In simple terms, one example I can give is that of how I use judgement on others.......

As far as I am concerned I Know, and I am certain that I know. When I view others' behaviour, I cannot know what they know, and therefore am totally unable to judge them.

It may sound as if I am big-headed (believing that I understand more than others), but although I have been accused of that before, to me, it is a red herring. I know what I know through my own self discovery - yes, through intuition. I am - theoretically - no better and no worse than others; I am just different.

In practice, that actually comes out as my being very much "stricter" on myself - it is as though "I know better" and therefore I am not allowed to make mistakes that others make....because I know that, for me, it would be wrong. For others; I haven't a clue, and I have no right to judge.

I hope that this is what this thread is about; as winnie the Pooh would have said, "I am a Bear of very little brain........."

 

[doppelganger]

Hence the "epiphany," right? That moment when all the connections just seem to magically fit together...

Right. That appears to me to mean nothing to people who haven't had that magic point where they experience the transendence of form and come back. But to those who have, it seems like you can phrase it a million different ways and they always understand. You know what I mean?

So you're saying that the goal of the mystic has always been to acheive understanding--not reuniting, though that may have been due to the use of a different symbol--of the relationship between the inner and outer worlds?

Right. That's right there in the Tao te Ching, the Buddhist "middle path," the Christian "state of grace." I seem at times to be a creature, I seem at times to be every created thing, and I seem at times to be the creator. But all that phenomenology occurs in the relationships between symobls, so they are all simultaneously correct, even if the process of thought prohibits me from perceiving more than one at any given point in time. They are complementary.

The difference between the old and the new is the symbols that they seek the understanding of: "God," and "Universe"?

Maybe.

Ah! The mystic has the new understanding, so has necessarily formed a new symbol for that understanding--a form for the form (his throne).

The "His" part is the key and appears to be the vital lesson E-Prime. One's throne is only big enough for oneperson, though that person can appear to be composed of many, many people as perspective changes.

This throne seperates him further then, from the substance, but closer in a way to the reality of it (though he can always come down from the throne. Is this why mystics were always on mountains with loincloths? Seperated from everything, but still a part?).

The mystic awakening represents to me the seat where he can change back and forth between perspectives - be all the different things he wants to be - because even though he can still see only one perspective at a time, he remains aware that the form he sees is a function of the perspective through which he perceives it.

Much like getting a new pair of glasses, huh? They are an added barrier between the eyes and what they perceive, but clarify the perception.

Sort of like a pair of glasses with a button on the side that allows you to change the prescription or the tint whenever you want.

Would a puzzle work better? Epistemology takes apart the reality we know through questioning the very foundations of knowledge. Once there, the hard work is done. Reality will re-form the puzzle for us once we realize a few key concepts.

Maybe. The puzzle is both the complete picture we see and a pile of pieces that may not actually belong together at all. In fact, it's a big pile of pieces from millions of puzzles and we are picking out those pieces that capture our attention and making pretty pictures with them. And when we see the pretty order we have made, it seems very difficult to recognize any other explanation than that they "belong" together or were somehow "determined." But from another perspective, we see a non-causal, non-deterministic universe composed of the very process of puzzle assembly. Nietzsche, as a mystic, intuited this before "Quantum Mechanics." That thread about how inner phenomenology actually reverses cause and effect that effects actually cause causes from the perspective of inner phenomenology, is a primer on what would become "Quantum Mechanics."

But he only seems to be the author of The Illuminatus Trilogy, right?

E-Prime in action. :bow:

The habit of writing with the verb form "to be" seems to me right now to be a very difficult one to be fully cognizant of.

 

[doppelganger]

I hope that this is what this thread is about; as winnie the Pooh would have said, "I am a Bear of very little brain........."

That's what I perceive this thread is about. I think W.T. Pooh was one of the Great Philosophers:

If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.

 

[Halcyon]

What is a mystical experience, though? Is it seeing the fullness of reality?

I've had mystical experiences--or what I personally consider to be mystical. A poignant example was watching the sunset over the ocean. My emotional response triggered a mental picture of meaning. There was fullness! There was a connectedness to all this absurdity!

I felt connected. And I was connected in the only way I could be. I am a mind, and can only perceive things as my mind allows, but this mind can be aware of its place and role in everything. I was an intricate part of that sunset. I beheld it, and made it come alive.

And it's not my intention to play down how mystical that experience was.

All i'm saying is that, from my POV, we cannot experience the fullness because everything is processed first through the software of our mind. Any information is deconstructed and then reconstructed in a dumbed down form that conforms to our preconceived mental understanding. Things will be lost to us, perhaps even rejected during processing.
Hence why mystical experiences are always different for different people, yet there is only one reality.

Like you say, we can see the place of our minds within the greater scheme of things, but i doubt very much the totality. And i'd disgree with dopp's OP on this point - i don't think it's possible to intuit the quantum nature of reality in any complete sense, because we're limited by our perception filters.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

And it's not my intention to play down how mystical that experience was.

I understand. This thread (and this forum) is an exercise in mysticism. We're all trying to experience POVs (though, some refuse and attempt to throw theirs on others ) and "shift paradigms" in one way or another.

All i'm saying is that, from my POV, we cannot experience the fullness because everything is processed first through the software of our mind. Any information is deconstructed and then reconstructed in a dumbed down form that conforms to our preconceived mental understanding. Things will be lost to us, perhaps even rejected during processing.
Hence why mystical experiences are always different for different people, yet there is only one reality.

Like you say, we can see the place of our minds within the greater scheme of things, but i doubt very much the totality. And i'd disgree with dopp's OP on this point - i don't think it's possible to intuit the quantum nature of reality in any complete sense, because we're limited by our perception filters.

I think you're right. There seems to be no tatality. There also seems to be totality. But there is both. An electron seems to be a wave. An electron seems to be a particle. An electron is both.

I remember as a child gazing out my window at rain falling through the oak trees. I was enamoured by the oak leaves dripping with rain! I lost this sense of childhood wonder later in life. Why? I think perhaps it might be due to how, as adults, we view things. As a child, there are less boundaries in the forms of deadlines, aggregations, distinctions, dichotomies, etc. That oak leaf dripping with rain was a part of me, not an "oak" "leaf" "dripping" "with" "rain".

So even if totality is only a mental construct born of not having adult distinctions, it is still a totality. I remember either Sunstone or Doppleganger posting something that said the mystic must become the child again. I'm beginning to see how that is accurate.

Is that what you meant by totality, Halcyon?

 

[Guitar's Cry]

Right. That appears to me to mean nothing to people who haven't had that magic point where they experience the transendence of form and come back. But to those who have, it seems like you can phrase it a million different ways and they always understand. You know what I mean?

My favorite phrasing was Ralph Waldo Emerson's Transparent Eyeball.

"Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball-I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me-I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances-master or servant, is then a trifle, and a disturbance. I am a lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I have something more connate and dear than in the streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature."

Right. That's right there in the Tao te Ching, the Buddhist "middle path," the Christian "state of grace." I seem at times to be a creature, I seem at times to be every created thing, and I seem at times to be the creator. But all that phenomenology occurs in the relationships between symobls, so they are all simultaneously correct, even if the process of thought prohibits me from perceiving more than one at any given point in time. They are complementary.

Like the electrons, right?

We perceive paradoxes in the world, and consider them absurd and illogical. But they only appear to be because of our classification.

The "His" part is the key and appears to be the vital lesson E-Prime. One's throne is only big enough for oneperson, though that person can appear to be composed of many, many people as perspective changes.

Indeed. A simple exercise is trying to write in a gender-neutral way. It becomes either bulky or meaningless.

The mystic awakening represents to me the seat where he can change back and forth between perspectives - be all the different things he wants to be - because even though he can still see only one perspective at a time, he remains aware that the form he sees is a function of the perspective through which he perceives it.

Hence, the paradigm shifting in Chaos Magick (though I don't think Chaos Magicians are necessarily aware of the lesson in it). Mystics need to be social learners as well as introspective. The solitary mystic on top of the mountain is wise, but she needs the company of others or she is trapped in a solitary world.

The habit of writing with the verb form "to be" seems to me right now to be a very difficult one to be fully cognizant of.

Difficult, but very entertaining!

 

[soma]

I feel Christian mysticism is the exceptional finding that there is one God awaiting each one of us, giving us the ability to change our lives for the better. When we understand the true meaning of one God, our concept of god expands and builds a greater awareness of God’s presence within us. Christian Mysticism is a journey towards unity and a new way of living. As we progress on this journey to oneness, we find our lives gradually transformed in a positive way, which includes both the conscious and the unconscious. This balance brings the discovery of a new reality along with a balance between the rational and the irrational, between the intellect and instinct, and between the conscious mind and the unconscious. As we acquire unity, we see that nothing exist in isolation so the nature of our being is unity, a unity of body, mind and spirit. Christian mysticism, wholeness or holiness can be achieved with a watchful mind and the knowledge that everything is united in God, if old fears, doubts and prejudices wear away to make room for new ideas and understanding.
Mysticism is not a new concept, but we must open up to it to make it effective so it can change our lives, making us aware that our bodies are in harmony with God, and His power is within. God flows through every atom of our being fortifying, energizing and renewing, but we are not aware of it. Embracing and identifying with unity, instead of our minds easily opens our being to the influx of new ideas, new thoughts, new people, and the new situations that come into our experience.

 

[Halcyon]

Is that what you meant by totality, Halcyon?

I guess what i mean by totality would go beyond feeling at one with our surroundings on a deeper than usual level, to something greater than an experience - knowing totality as all that is, becoming totality rather than observing totality and our individual place within it.

I imagine it to be something like... you know when you are asleep but not yet dreaming, you're in a state of timeless unconsiousness - if you could somehow become aware of that timeless oblivion, while still lacking conscious thought and the mental construct of an individual self
If you could become the void and as such everything that stems from the void, lose "you" and accept "the all" - stop being the raindrop as you enter the ocean, then there is only the ocean, the drop is still there but its fused into the greater being on such a complete level that its no longer a separate entity, a complete lack of any sort of self.

 

[Guitar's Cry]

I imagine it to be something like... you know when you are asleep but not yet dreaming, you're in a state of timeless unconsiousness - if you could somehow become aware of that timeless oblivion, while still lacking conscious thought and the mental construct of an individual self
If you could become the void and as such everything that stems from the void, lose "you" and accept "the all" - stop being the raindrop as you enter the ocean, then there is only the ocean, the drop is still there but its fused into the greater being on such a complete level that its no longer a separate entity, a complete lack of any sort of self.

Do you think this is a possibility?

 

[Guitar's Cry]

I feel Christian mysticism is the exceptional finding that there is one God awaiting each one of us, giving us the ability to change our lives for the better. When we understand the true meaning of one God, our concept of god expands and builds a greater awareness of God’s presence within us. Christian Mysticism is a journey towards unity and a new way of living. As we progress on this journey to oneness, we find our lives gradually transformed in a positive way, which includes both the conscious and the unconscious. This balance brings the discovery of a new reality along with a balance between the rational and the irrational, between the intellect and instinct, and between the conscious mind and the unconscious. As we acquire unity, we see that nothing exist in isolation so the nature of our being is unity, a unity of body, mind and spirit. Christian mysticism, wholeness or holiness can be achieved with a watchful mind and the knowledge that everything is united in God, if old fears, doubts and prejudices wear away to make room for new ideas and understanding.
Mysticism is not a new concept, but we must open up to it to make it effective so it can change our lives, making us aware that our bodies are in harmony with God, and His power is within. God flows through every atom of our being fortifying, energizing and renewing, but we are not aware of it. Embracing and identifying with unity, instead of our minds easily opens our being to the influx of new ideas, new thoughts, new people, and the new situations that come into our experience.

Do you think that "God" is necessary for the mystic?

This solo mystical journey evolves from location to position, from view to vision onward towards total understanding. It is passed from mind to mind, a flame passed from candle to candle.

Yes! It is both a solitary and social journey. It seems to be a circular one as well. Everyone is their own mystic because they hold the knowledge from childhood. I've heard it said that the wisest of old mystics act and seem childish. I think there is a reason for that. (I am currently exploring the idea of how being a child is the ideal mystical experience.)

 

[Halcyon]

Do you think this is a possibility?

Honestly, i have no idea.
But its a theme which runs through pretty much all mystical speculations, from Zen to Sufism.

However, we do acheive something like this every night, the only difference being the lack of any form of awareness. If awareness could be maintained somehow...

I think its the ultimate mystical goal, what mystics reach after a lifetime of mini-experiences. It's also quite similar to how i imagine death to be.

 

[Willamena]

All i'm saying is that, from my POV, we cannot experience the fullness because everything is processed first through the software of our mind. Any information is deconstructed and then reconstructed in a dumbed down form that conforms to our preconceived mental understanding. Things will be lost to us, perhaps even rejected during processing.

Small clarification, if I may. Information is not "dumbed down"; rather "information" is the "dumbed down form" that we know. That's information. There really is no "smartened up" form of information. The else, the "total", is ...there's no words/ideas/concepts for it, but the use of "information" to describe it can only be metaphorical.

"Information" is ours to garner, ours to hold.

 

[Raymond Sigrist]

"Do you think that "God" is necessary for the mystic?"

Actually some of us find that our mystical disposition deepens when we suspend the idea that there is a God, and also suspend the idea that there is no God.

Meister Eckhart: "I pray God to be rid of God."

 

[Luminakisharblaze]

The process of becoming a true Mystic entails a lifelong path of questing for ultimate truth. It is a search that begins in the soul and only comes to fruition after a very long walk with the Divine. It finally culminates in an "awakening" that is unexplainable except to say that suddenly all the questions are answered. Of course, when I say suddenly, I mean in a shorter span of time than the journey there took. Personally, mine started with the answer to every "why" in a span of three hours, and that was the simple part. It took a year to culminate to its fullness. The understanding of truth that resulted was only able to be processed because of the intricate path that led to this place. The best way to describe how it worked is that I spent every small detail of my life writing a program that I was only partially aware I was writing, then when it finally started compiling, that process of debugging was the year long "awakening". Once the debugging was complete and it was done, I was able to see the programs purpose for being written, as well as the original programmer and system for which it was designed. Any questions?