Author: mysticexperiences.net

Keith is a "pratyeka" mystic according to buddhism because his mystical experiences of Reality (MER), were spontanious. (He is not a buddhist or member of any religion). He had MERs every year from the age of 15 to 35 years of age. Pratyeka mystics don't teach, preach, evangelise, or prosletise what they know. However, when Keith recognises those who are chosen and driven to seek Ultimate Reality he does reach out to them, cautiously, to help them stop floundering and recognise themselves, know what is happening to them. Then his incllnation is to remove himelf unless called upon. Keith writes a Blog, mysticexperiences.net. His 416 page book and ebook, MYSTIC EXPERIENCE OF REALITY was published in December, 2019. Nothing has been done to promote it, on the grounds it will reach its prepared readership on its own. All Is Well.

BE REALISTIC ABOUT MYSTICISM!

The following essay is excerpted from Ron Krumpos’ free PDF book, “The greatest accomplishment in life  – five traditions of mysticism – Mystical approaches to life”.  

From the first sentence you might find this is a seminal work of mystic experience for all Seekers, scientists and scholars who are drawn to the phenomenon of the mystic experience of Reality 

Ron has degrees in philosophy from Northwestern University, Lucknow University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a follower of this Blog.

Although he doesn’t want to discuss his mystic experiences he has had many what he calls “epiphanies” whereby he experienced “brief absorption in universal reality with no sense of separateness”, (see his book’s ‘Be Realistic’, third paragraph).

He doesn’t have a blog. He finds it much easier to comment on other people’s blogs There have been hundreds of such comments in the past few years.

The book’s 120 quotations by mystics highlight common views.

Since 2012 there have been more than 70,000 downloads of his book: 34,194 from his website and the rest from over 32 other sites.

The book’s profound essays are as a result of Ron talking with mystics in 12 countries and reading 180 books…100 now in the primary bibliography. Many people were consulted, including the directors of a Buddhist Center and of the Eastern Orthodox theological institute at two major universities, a Vedanta Society swami, the director of an Islamic Center, the director of a Reform theological college, the abbot of a Theravada temple, a Cistercian monk, a Hindu abbess, a Sufi shaykha, and a professor at a university for Judaism, plus 10 professors who each teach courses on comparative mysticism. Their suggestions led to many revisions. Their time, comments and advice were freely given. This is why his book is free. Here is the excerpted essay:

BE REALiSTIC, by Ron Krumpos.

Mystical experiences will not resolve all your emotional, mental and physical problems. While seeking, those personal concerns may block or, at least, slow your progress on the path. It will only while absorbed in them. What happens afterwards depends upon you.

Mysticism is not about you. It is about the ground of existence, the very nature of being itself. If you are just concerned with your own achievement, with escaping your troubles and judge advancement solely in relation to yourself, true divine awareness will elude you. While you cannot transcend your surface self, you cannot reach the absolute and ultimate. You will remain entwined in the temporary and relative. You create your own limitations, even if you prefer not to acknowledge it. “You” is insignificant; beyond you is essential.

Most of my book’s essays have a similar message: Forget about your self. The affective “I” of ego, psychological “me” of individuality, and material “my” of your manifest being must be absent to experience divine Reality. Why crave love, or lament past loves, when divine Love surrounds you? How can you find divine Truth while occupied with everyday fictions and fantasies? You want what you want when you want it…yet are seldom able to specify exactly what you want. What we most long for, wholeness, is beyond our ability to explain.

When we study what we emotionally feel, mentally conceive or physically perceive in this life, we begin to realize that much of it is based on our own assumptions rather than demonstrable facts. We rarely can, by ourselves, truly prove most of what we believe has already been proven to be true. As Oscar Wilde once said, “when you ‘assume’ you make an ass out of you and me.” What we each imagine to be correct is frequently confused with fact. It is not that people are stupid or naive, it just that we are “too busy” (too lazy?) to confirm our beliefs. Ignorance is not bliss…it breeds lethargy.

Knowing what is in this life may be limited by our expectations, our defenses and lack of attention. What we presuppose to be true, protecting ourselves in case it is not, and preoccupation with other matters, cloud our perceptions. We may feel someone loves us, yet think they possibly are using us, or saying and doing what will trap us. Unconditional love cannot be realized on those terms. The best things in life* must be accepted for what they are, even at the risk they are not. Absorption in divine essence, mystical union, is such.

“What if such an encounter is misinterpreted, just a fiction of our imagination or is a sign of insanity?” If we think any of those things, we will probably end that experience. In so doing, we may have blocked the flow of divine Love, Truth and Reality. Isn’t the risk worth that reward? You bought a lottery ticket knowing that your chances of winning were minuscule. How about spending a little of your immediate self to reach the eternal? “Someone has to win.”

“What if it is not mystical consciousness?” Then you only lost a few moments of your life. We often waste hours or days in activities which got us nowhere. Have you ever thought about opportunities you had missed because you were unwilling to take a chance? Some may have led to nothing; others could have brought great happiness or other benefits. Most of our life has some risk. Crossing the street is much more dangerous than most projected or imagined threats.

We frequently choose to keep what we have and know – even if we concede that it might not be very much – rather than gamble on getting something unknown, although it could be greater than anything which we have ever had. Some people are “afraid of their own shadow.” Actually, most of us are frightened of too much light. When carefully examining our assumptions, especially those we have long accepted to be true, we might find that some were based on inaccurate or incomplete information. That requires a shift in belief; some may call it a paradigm shift. It can be uncomfortable.

You might prefer that your established beliefs remain as they are. If so, then give up mysticism. Mystics had to revise their personal beliefs often during the quest. Mystical absorptions, as steps toward enlightenment, are usually momentary or, only rarely, for hours. The greatest achievement in life is when those experiences transform your being. They may be brief flashes of insight which highlight a spiritual life, but are a constant source of energy for divine living.

Being realistic requires facing the truth. Being in the Real is to know the True. It is the greatest degree of existence here and now.

*The best things in life – this life or the eternal – are not free.

mysticexperiences.net

Upanishads, Vedanta, Bhagavad Ghita flawed?

From the perspective of my mystic experiences of Reality, (MER), The Upanishads, Vedanta, Bhagavad Ghita are flawed.

One way or another, they do acknowledge MER as seminal to their moral and ethical teachings in a roundabout way but only sometimes and never go into any detail.

They also seem to suggest books and learning from ‘the ancients’ of India can take you into MER.

True mystics will tell you MER is caught, not taught.

Sometimes you get an acknowledgement that some human beings were and already are in that state, but without any attempt at explaining the nature and likelihood of this phenomenon.

They also claim all religions are based on the findings of these ‘ancients’. They’re not!

Religions and the Upanishads, Vedanta, Bhagavad Ghita are humanised shadows of the real thing – Reality.

Reality as revealed in the MERs is the existent foundation of all things, then, now and forever.

Another flaw is the apparent necessity of the Upanishads, Vedanta, and Bhagavad Ghita to goad us into at least faith, hope and belief as a substitute for the real thing –  MER.

They lace their message with promises of ecstatic bliss and worldly satisfactions. So do most religions, with notable exceptions I’ll leave to your personally experienced satisfaction of discovery on your particular path.

You cannot be goaded into MERs by worldly promises. Even drugs don’t give you the MER experience, not from the scary, unlikely mental experiences imbibers and scientists describe, not if my spontaneous experiences are true.

MER comes from a Reality way outside any such inducements. It is benign, anaesthetically suffusing, loving beyond human experience – not traumatic, goading or beyond our receptive abilities.

The other flaw in these works is their assumption that whatever the ‘ancients’ experienced is always for the betterment of humanity. If this was true there’s a long way for humanity to go before it tackles its historic circular repetition of its same old, same old history. 

We are getting somewhere materially, technically, and are living longer, more healthily, are better clothed, housed, fed, watered, and ‘educated’, though some still aren’t, but we are not developed in the fullness of our real state of spirituality – yet spirituality is the very heart of all known and unknown existence, including us, if what the MERs reveal are true.

Clearly, Reality’s revelation of what lies beyond human experience has something else in mind for humans than anything even human exploration of the cosmos, science fiction or religions and modern or derived philosophies, including The Upanishads, Vedanta, Bhagavad Ghita, can dream of … 

All Is Well.

mysticexperiences.net  All posts can be freely reposted.

SELF EXAMINATION?

SOMETIMES

A poem by Thomas S. Jones, Jr.

‘Across the fields of yesterday
He sometimes comes to me,
A little lad just back from play —
The lad I used to be.

‘And yet he smiles so wistfully
Once he has crept within,
I wonder if he hopes to see
The man I might have been.’

(This poem is in the public domain).

Thomas S. Jones, Jr. (1882 – 1932) was an American writer and editor. Born in New York, he was a graduate of Cornell University and worked for several years at the New York Times. Some of his poems were set to music.

I don’t think this poem applies to mystics. They have no choice about life after experiencing Reality.

As for Seekers, they are on their way and have no choice about the direction of their lives either.

As for those as yet uninvited by the Mystical Experience of Reality (MER), it seems to me the poem would be a good place to begin a deeply honest review of life, without ego or personality or any other such human traps. Infinitely profound integrity is what real spirituality is all about.

Ignoring needs and wants, just being content with where you find your true self, whether it met or meets your ambitions is enough.

Then, when the real facts of where life has brought you is achieved, consider the possibility that’s just where you’re meant to be for now.

To avoid contamination of the purity of such self examination, there’s no need to compare or share this very personal process with anyone else, in my experience.

Mysticexperiences.net

All mysticexperiences.net posts may be reblogged.

MYSTIC EXPERIENCE NOT “ECSTATIC”

The word ‘ecstacy’ has been used to dismiss the mystic experience of reality, MER, as merely human.

If my multiple, spontaneous experiences of  MER are anything to go by, the word ‘ecstacy’ is the wrong word to describe the kind of joy that comes with MER.

Ecstacy implies excitement. On the contrary, my MERs were calm, joyful infusions of becoming myself, of all things being me as my body and mind disappeared and only a bodiless observer left – nothing remaining of my humanity whatsoever.

I was more profoundly where I belong than human experience can ever fully explain.

And even that doesn’t describe the joy of the revelation and transformation MER brings.

All Is Well.

Please feel free to reblog posts from mysticexperiences.net

MEDITATION WITHOUT ‘GOD’.

The mystical experience of Reality (MER) shows us if you take ‘God’ seriously you are failing. 

You have chosen the artificial road most followed by humans. This brings with it the all too evident consequences worldliness inflicts on your life in particular and on humanity generally …

The earth is an uncountable billions of years old and humans have only been here 4,2 billion or so years. Humans are just passing through to greater things than being merely human. The stewardship of creation has not been left in the hands of such an as yet unevolved species.

Reality is the ultimate truth and Reality creates and adjusts as It sees fit without human interference.

Whatever ‘God’s’ effect was meant to be has passed its shelf life. All the concept of a ‘God’ produces now is just human morality and ethics, not the post human existential spirituality that is Reality. 

I came from a God culture and when my multiple annual MERs were inflicted upon me through no fault or qualification of my own I naturally expected and looked for ‘God’ in my experiences. 

To my great discomfort at the time I never found it. Nor did I see any trace of gods, or humans. In fact I remember in one particularly profound experience how bitterly disappointed I was. I was still me. I was definitely not in any ‘heaven’ and definitely not with any biological or humanly mythomanic ‘God’.

I was however awed, humbled, and powerfully reduced to pure spirit with a dissolving, infusing joy. Being returned to ‘my’ human condition was always a lastingly unwelcome, traumatic experience.

‘God’ on the other hand is a human construct. It is not real. It is artificial. Its influence is temporary and needs constant maintenance.

So even if called as a Seeker you take ‘God’ or anything human, even yourself, into your meditations, you are failing.

In my experiences Reality demands that we go into the Silence alone and unnamed, naked from all thought – to submit and finally awaken. 

All Is Well.

Please feel free to reblog any mysticexperiences.net posts.

RECOMMENDED BOOKS

Although I avoid evangelising or prosylitising mysticism, not even recommending or commenting on those who do, or their books and courses, I’m reminded I did recommend some of the following works when I started this Blog.

So I thought I’d bring them to your attention again, (with four additions, including obscure but very pure expositions of the mystical experience of Reality, (MER) by the medievalist nun Guyon and the medievalist priest, Molinos; Ron Krumpos’ interviews with leading mystics round the world; and Marsha Sinetar’s research into the experiences of 300 reluctant experiencers of MER.

I’ve also added my reason for recommending books on mysticism despite my former reluctance:

‘Paths Beyond Ego’ edited by Dr Roger Marsh and a colleague. This book is a wonderfully comprehenive collection of papers on mysticism by a whole host of eminent scholars and mystics from Buddhism, Hinduism, even Shamanism, including Ken Wilbur, Charles Tart,  Sri Aurobindo, William James, Ram Dass (!?), Aldous Huxley, the Dalai Lama, etc.  Even the effects of drugs are studied.

I only riffled through this book when it arrived and shelved it in one of my less used book cases unread because it was soiled throughout by the assumption humanity is the prime reason for Reality’s existence.

Today the book fell out before me in a tidying up effort I was making. As it was coffee time I sipped my coffee and the book’s contents then realised this book is a monumental modern contribution to the growing acceptance by humans of the mystic phenomena in all its historic forms, despite the book’s anthropomorphism.

The fact the book has been selling since its publication in 1905 is at least proof of some significance as a successful worldly tome on the subject of mysticism despite its limited human blemish.

Here is the list:

“The Greatest Achievement in Life” by Ron Krumpos who is a follower of this Blog. Ron writes of living in conscious oneness of the ultimate reality, found in Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Kabbalah, Sufism, and comparative mysticism.

This lengthy free ebook has been downloaded more than 70,000 times.

It summarizes many similarities among the mystical traditions and outlines different mystical approaches to life.

Interestingly, it states science has only addressed five per cent of ultimate reality.

The book was impressively inspired by the author’s meetings with 19 leading mystics in 12 countries, religious leaders/scholars of the five faiths and 10 professors who teach comparative mysticism across the U.S.A. Their suggestions led to many revisions prior to posting the book on the Internet.

Dr. Marsha Sinetar’s book, “Ordinary People as Monks and Mystics. This is a seminal book that should be on your library shelves, as I think you will agree.

Read my earlier review of Sinetar’s book.

The book is a remarkably readable, non scientifically jargonised account of her research and interviews with reluctant real experiencers of aspects of the mystical experience of MER and MER’s personal effects and unsocial behavioural consequences.

The Guyon and Molinos papers are unerringly to the point, short and absolutely pure, what I would even call divine if I was religious …

That Guyon and Molinos were so personally driven to risk giving such public witness of their MER experiences in those days is astonishing.

They were members of the Roman Catholic church. This church was the only supposed spiritual source available in the West in those days. It was ruthlessly intrusive, coercive, torturously, even violently deadly in its policing of everyone’s life, Taliban-like, the absolute antithesis of the MER that Guyon and Molinos experienced and wanted to share.

The following ‘classics’ are recommended too: Williams James’ “The Varieties of Religious Experience”, Aldous Huxley’s “The Perennial Philosophy”, Evelyn Underwood’s edition of “The Cloud of Unknowing”, Dr.Richard Maurice Bucke’s “Cosmic Consciousness” and the downloadable books by afore mentioned nun Guyon and priest Molinos, medieval writers who were persecuted by the Church for their temerity …

These books contain a lot of human dross but bits and pieces may or may not “speak to your condition” as the Quakers would say. I think parts or all of them could call loudly to you at various stages of your spiritual development. For that reason I recommend them and this whole list of books, as keepers to be part of any library you may have!

As a bonus I would add Matthew Arnold’s poem, “The Buried Life”. You can find this in full with a Search on this Blog. I discovered this poem early on my path. It was the beginning of my realisation my MERs were not uniquely mine!

Posts from mysticexperiences.net may be reblogged if you wish.

THE BEATITUDES?

Question:  I know you are skeptical of spiritual reading matter but is there any one thing you could recommend to a Seeker from personal experience?

Answer:  Well, no, because my mystical experiences of Reality (MER) were spontaneous. So I believe such revelations are, like mine, not human; they are caught not taught.

MER is not a thought, a philosophy, an ideology, religion or social construct. Reality is all that has and always will exist. It is not imaginary. Only It can develop all existence – and without human input!

It is the keystone, bedrock of all existence everywhere, on earth and off it, throughout the cosmos and beyond, beyond even mind, beyond even remembrance or forecast.

I’ve not come across any actual evidence, human or otherwise, to refute the experience of Reality.

Q: What kind of ‘actual evidence’ would you like?

A: The actual first hand experience of MER, as opposed to literature-learned, or taught, hearsay descriptions! This would be the only acceptable evidence of personal experience of MER, Reality’s existence.

The existence of Reality is hard to ‘prove’ because It is safeguarded by being ineffable, except to those individuals who experience the phenomena!

Q: So what is the lesson of Reality to humanity, if any?

A: As Reality only addresses itself to individuals, the only lesson that humans can take from It’s existence is that the individual’s real meaning and development primarily comes exclusively from Reality, not religions, communism, socialism, communalism, fascism or other such ideologies, not even human logic or reason. These have rightly been called the enemies of mankind’s evolution – mere human ‘mind stuff’, clutter.

Q:  So getting back to my original question – nothing to recommend then as reading matter for the spiritually inexperienced or uninvited? (Laughs).

A: No. But I must say, the Beatitudes as reported in the Christian bible by Matthew and Luke are obviously the observant work of someone who knew of the existence of Reality. Hard to tell if this is the author’s actual experience though.

The mistake of the author of the Beatitudes was in thinking these eight blessings or graces, can be realised by human effort. No they can’t, not in my experience.

Only individuls prepared by Reality will be able to receive the Beatitudes in the fullness of their experiential meaning. They are not accessible to any collective social, political, religious groups or idealogical associations. Only to individuals.

Evidently however, the Beatitudes’ biblical authors thought otherwise. They understandably but mistakenly thought the Beatitudes were supposed to be taught to humans. They can’t. Individual experience is the only key to personal transformation. Only Reality has this key and It is impervious to worship or idolotry.

However, those who have experienced MER are automatically, axiomatically graced by an experiential understanding of the Beatitudes, (despite their archaic 17th century King James era translation) – each according to the level they have reached in their spiritual development.

It should be added that the Beatitudes are only a narrow selection of MER’s fullness.

They are wasted on the uncalled – those stuck at the level of merely wanting to be better humans. The called already have the Beatitudes or are getting them in other forms, and more.

Actual spiritual experience of the Reality of existence wins over mere human faith, hope or belief. There is no spiritual value in Fake it Until You Make It either!

However, to answer your question, I do think reading and studying the Beatitudes might at least provide the called with a serendipitous validation of their spiritual state of development, a refreshing interlude along their Way.

All Is Well.

All mysticexperiences.net posts may be reblogged.

ARE MYSTICS THE ONLY ONES TO SURVIVE DEATH?

Consciousness exists whether humans exist or not.

For this reason true mystics who have experienced this Consciousness are absorbed into It. They really have no need of ‘identity’ other than the ultimately immaterial ones imposed on them by human conditioning from birth.

(I can’t tell you what a relief it is not to take this well intentioned stumbling manifestation of Consciousness that humanity labelled Keith Michael Hancock, seriously! It is a relaxingly uncluttered state of affairs I have been granted for which I am humbly delighted … !).

True mystics have become or are still becoming Consciousness. Their human identity is almost totally obliterated as they develop.

Little remains for mystics to enable themselves to identify themselves wholeheartedly with the human condition.

Some of them welcome the facility of small talk to ease into this unusual dichotomy. This enables them to avoid mystic subjects that are meaningless to those who have not experienced them anyway, because they are unbelieveable, illogical, unreasonable, ineffable without having experienced them.

Is the existence of a non biological, omniscient, independent cosmic Consciousness why, when we die, all our humaness, (body and brain and all they have experienced) are absorbed back into this Consciousness?

Then the question arises – do all humans go through this final process into Consciousness, or only mystics?

All Is Well.

mysticexperiences.net

All posts may be freely republished.

‘ALL IS WELL’ v. ‘WOKE’?

The late British Lord Sacks was an Orthodox rabbi, philosopher, theologian, author, peer and public figure. As the spiritual head of the United Synagogue, the largest synagogue body in the UK, he was the Chief Rabbi of the Orthodox synagogues.

His YouTube reflections on two important books about the demise of western civilisation, even civilisation itself, caught my attention.

He said something to the effect the basic rights of humankind were born of religions.

They were not. Religions only came after MERs.

His Lordship seemed to acknowledge this when he added the rights were revealed by what he called ‘God’.

He was still wrong because they weren’t issued by any mere ‘God’, not if my MERs are anything to go by.

The basic rights of all existence everywhere, known and as yet unknown, including humanity, come from the Reality historically experienced by true mystics.

I think his lordship would have agreed with the way I would put this, as follows, as a result of my mystic experiences of Reality (MER) – that the individual’s evolutionary path arises out of and is still guided by the Reality that created and nurtures all things. The human ‘God’ is too small to do this.

Lord Sacks goes on to warn us of the ‘new’ trends in society that challenge our basic human rights. He claims they are challenges to our fundamental (ie. spiritual), roots. He says these trends are far more dangerous than climate change or environment challenges.

But my experience tells me we will surely survive the ‘modern’ versions of what human-made history continues to throw at us by way of ‘wokeness’, religions, idealogies etc. in all their modern guises – none of which ever endure. ‘Obvious danger obviates danger’ is still as true today as when I reported it in a newspaper editorial in my early twenties …

Sadly, Lord Sacks and the two world leading best selling authors* he was reviewing represent the peak of human thought. One of the authors is an atheist, one a defender of Christiany, and Sacks of course was a leading religious Jew. Yet they feel they and their world are under threat of being abandoned to barbarity.

Barbarity, domestic and foreign, is hateful while it lasts, but it does inevitably fall under the weight of its own evil. Reality prevails.

All Is Well.

* Yuvel Noah Kararti, ‘Sapiens’, and Douglas Murray, ‘The Strange Death Of Europe’.

Mysticexperiences.net

All mysticexperiences.net posts may be reblogged.

RASH WORLD.

‘For know, rash world, that in this star crost world Reality drives us all to find our chiefest good in what we can, and not in what we would.’ *

‘What we would’ is cosmically wrong because it ignores what Reality has in mind for all existence, including us.

Ideologies, religions, fashionable fads and thoughts, human logic and reasoning are ‘What we would’ rather than Reality. They are mental constructs, myths and imagination, not the real thing. They are what produces and maintains human chaos – including the painful warlike kind – as well as anarchy, anger, attachment and ego.

‘What we can’ is, for instance, the secret heart of Zen, ‘going with the flow (of Reality)’.

Mystics will also present you with the possibility of ‘going into the Silence’ for all the answers you’ll ever need.

The idea we can do anything otherwise is a cosmic joke and never very funny throughout human history …

Some identify our wilfulness as an evil that bedevils humans and humanity.

The good news is, Reality is apparently unperturbed by human chaos. It always prevails eventually.

(From when I was assured ‘All Is Well’ in one of my Mystical Experiences of Reality – MERs – I can only pass on that Reality’s time to get things done is not our time, and our time is not Reality’s …).

*With apologies to George Bernard Shaw, Irish born British author, playwright and political activist, 26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950, who used the words ‘Fate’, not Reality and ‘rash youth’ not rash world …

Mysticexperiences.net

DEATH OF LUST, ANGER, GREED, ATTACHMENTS AND EGO …

Lust, anger, greed, attachments and ego can be seen as the negative attributes that separate humans from Reality, the “veils” between people and, for instance, the ‘God’ of the Christian bible.

These veils have been lifted from mystics of all ages and – wait for it – are being lifted from older humans!  

Have you noticed that as humans get older, whether they’re religious or spiritually aware or not, these ‘veils’ are lifting? 

Are these signs most seniors are in the process of shedding their humanity to becoming pure mystical spirits of existence after human death – becoming one in everything known and unknown in what mystics have already experienced? 

Is this an indication we discard the body and brain for our true selves after death as the mystic experience suggests? Are we in evolutionary process whether we like it or not?  

Is this further demonstration Reality rules; unto and even after death?

Mysticexperiences.net

All posts may be republished.

REAL LOVE.

“Dante teaches us that making this world better has its place, but there is an entirely better world of true communion with God …” 

Father Raymond J. de Souza, priest, theologian, philosopher, scholar. (fatherdesouza.com) wrote this in a recent newspaper review of Dante’s famous search for reality in the poem, The Divine Comedy.

This poem is the core, the very essence of the Mystic Experience of Reality (MER), if my own MERs are anything to go by …

This love is not the human love of lust, anger, greed, and ego. Reality’s love is beyond description but undeniable, the basis of all existence. It is real and everlasting.

Father de Souza says Dante is writing about, ”… divine love at the heart of reality, not the emptiness of random chance.”

I thought it appropriate to bring Dante’s 700 year old exposition of the MER experience to those seekers still struggling with their attachments, lured by the cluttering conditioning of their human lives.

For the full effect of Father de Souza’s review go to:

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/raymond-j-de-souza-700-years-after-his-death-dante-is-as-relevant-as-ever

Mysticexperiences.net

PROFOUND NOTHINGNESS

After reading his Blog’s “About” section by Old Chinaman*, I wrote him a Comment, as follows:

“One of my last mystic experiences after 15 years of them every year was of observing the human ‘me’s’ back as it stood unperturbed at the edge of a profound nothingness. All was well.

“From the traditions you quote I wonder if this observer was ‘my’ real identity revealed after casting off its human chrysalis? I don’t know if that’s idle conjecture or more enlightenment.”

Old Chinaman replied:

“I’ve been following your blog for a while now and waited for an opportunity to share some notes so to speak.

“The main thing that intrigued me is why did you have to experience your MER so many times, every year from when you were 15 till 35?

“Going through your blog site, I’ve got the impression that you are still facing a similar dilemma as I had many years ago, namely how to reconcile our mystical heart and our critical mind. On your blog home page, you wrote: “This is a BLOG for Seekers and those who have had the mystical experience of Reality (MER) and are humbly, joyfully dedicated to it – bringing their remaining personal humanity to terms with it.”

“… it seems to me that you have reached what Zen Buddhists and non-dualists are trying to achieve with their meditation, the pure awareness of the void/emptiness.

“In The Ultimate Unification Theory, it is symbolized by the second symbol, the Circle with a Centre point – The Source becomes aware of IT-SELF. Yet, you also see your human body, which indicates the question nagging to be answered: “What am I doing here ‘marooned’ in this human body”.

“In the Javanese Mystical Tradition, we believe that we are eternal being inseparable, (be ONE) with The Source/GOD (manunggaling kawula lan gusti) and metaphorically consider our incarnation on this planet as just a short visit for a cup of tea (sangkan paraning dumadi) and we do it many many times through reincarnations.

“When We (Ingsun – the spark of The Source/God) are born, we are dressed with the four elements of this planet. Four represents our physical body (Earth/Solid, Water/Liquids, Air/Gaseous, and Fire/Heat/blood) and three represents our non-physical body (our individual mind, our genetic/ancestral/racial mind and the human/planetary mind or our collective unconsciousness).

“Every time we incarnate, we are wearing those seven elements, and our mission is to refine those elements through our refined thoughts and actions.

“In time, with many incarnations, we are slowly assisting Gaia (planetary consciousness) to evolve. (ngracut busananing manugsa / weaving the human dress/body).

“Best regards,
Bambang / Old China Man”

I replied, (with additional thoughts now added) :

“So far as I know, this is the first analysis of my mystic state. Thank you.

“You seem to have discerned the repetitive theme of my experiences of alienation from the human condition, which I hadn’t paid any attention to..

“I’m now compelled to distinguish this recurring theme as fundamental to those experiences. It seems from what you say that other cultures have already noted this condition as part of the mystic way. This is a welcome serendipity I shall address with interest.

“You also reported the question, “how to reconcile our mystical heart and our critical mind.”

“To me, mind is at the heart of humanity’s problems. It is an impenetrable impediment to reconciliation with Reality. In some traditions it is considered as the heart of all evil. In my experiences however the experience of Reality limits the negative effects of mind,

“You also suggest our mission is to refine elements of being human through our thoughts and actions.

“That is not my experience! Human thoughts and actions are of no consequence to Reality in Its vastly infinite scheme of things. Any ‘progress’ towards human destiny is in being successfully rid of all humaness to merge more fully into spiritual Reality, in my spiritual understanding.

“You particularly asked ‘why did you have to experience your MER so many times, every year from when you were 15 till 35?’

“I have no idea. Perhaps I needed the repetition? The experiences became much more profound, focused, with time …

“I’ve also come to realise the acquisition of infinite awareness and knowledge that Reality brings into creating mystics is continuously at work in mystics’ lives after their awakening. I have experienced much greater understanding and knowledge.

“I also realise now while the actual fundamentals of the experience of Reality are the same in all true mystics the individual lifelong outcomes are not.

“As a result, I have had the thought/intuition that the simple existence of mystics is to influence humans throughout their evolutionary destiny into spirit, not to meddle in the changing world of human affairs, none of which are permanent and will disappear eventually anyway.”

*After High School Old Chinaman attended university in Germany where he attained a degree in electrical engineering. He reports personal mystical experiences. Later, he presented his paper, “The Ultimate Unification Theory” (The unification of Science and Mysticism) at The Fifth International Conference on THINKING at James Cook University, Townsville, Australia.

All posts on mysticexperiences.net may be reblogged.