AN UNANSWERED CORRESPONDENCE

CORRESPONDENT:

“It sounds as though you have reached a plateau of tranquility where life’s many vagaries are neatly pigeonholed away. Well done you!

“For myself I am still riding life’s dodgems but enjoying the experience very greatly.”

COMMENT:

“Life’s many vagaries” have not been “pigeonholed away”. There is nothing to pigeon hole as any thoughtful examination of one’s personal attachments will attest.

Human vagaries are artificial, mind stuff, unreal, harmless unless taken seriously like Nazism was, for instance, by the young men mostly in their twenties, mostly educated and professionals, who managed Nazi atrocities from Himmler’s headquarters in Albrecht Strasse for instance.

Anyway, history shows human empires only last 250 years before slumping into material, moral and religious decadence if Sir John Glubb is to be believed in his essay, THE FATE OF EMPIRES and SEARCH FOR SURVIVAL.

But the Reality of the mystical experience of Reality is known even from human records to be at least 12,000 years old. According to the Reality of the mystic experience of Reality (MER), Reality created everything, everything known and unknown. Reality created history. Accordingly, Reality is far more reliable, trustworthy, and loving than anything human by comparison.

Mind stuff is easily dismissed personally (not so easily socially!). It is seen to be non existent upon close and persistent examination unless one is attached to it.

According to the mystic experience, there is much more to being human than the myths upon which transient human life exists, much more to existence than being merely human.

As for, “I am still riding life’s dodgems but enjoying the experience very greatly” – is that a sad admission of a lost soul’s commitment to a lifetime of nothing but empty pleasure, hedonism?

Mysticexperiences.net

SCIENCE CAN’T EXPLAIN MYSTICISM SO SHOULDN’T BOTHER?

We review an article by Dr Chris Fields, Physicist, multidisciplinary scientist, author, in IAI News – changing how the world thinks, Issue 86, 2nd March 2020

His article begs the question, Are Dr Fields’ views an example of the conclusion science has come to about the source of all human experience in general and, from our point of view, mysticism in particular? Is he saying science can’t explain MER so shouldn’t bother?

DR FIELDS: “The ‘hard problem of consciousness’ (HPC) as originally stated by David Chalmers in The Conscious Mind (1996) is the problem of explaining how experience is possible. How is any experience, anywhere in the universe, possible? From the perspective of the HPC, a single experience of a flash of light is as mysterious as a full human experience of a summer’s day or the most profound mystical experience of the most enlightened monk.” (Our italics).

Dr Fields says there are three responses to the hard problem that reflect different ideas about experience. He asks if the hard problem of consciousness can be solved by either approach:

“The possibility of experience (i.e. consciousness) is derived or emergent from something else … it could be fundamental rather than derived (man made) with only some having it sometimes; all entities have it in different kinds.

He says assuming response #1 we could take either of two tactics. One is to define consciousness as some other property but this does not explain how experience is possible. He says it “dodges the HPC instead of solving it. In short, the hard problem of consciousness seems unsolvable using response #1. It can be dodged, but not solved.”

In response #2 the problem is to explain how or why some systems have experiences but others do not. What is the basis for explaining this? What facts could possibly be relevant?

(So far no one has discovered a single common qualification for having the mystical experience of Reality, (MER). (Our italics).

Dr Fields says without such “independent criteria” the question is unsolvable. “If a system is conscious, it is conscious by its very nature, not for some other reason.”

He says response #3 says that all entities – everything that exists – has experiences. “There is no reason why or how. They just have them. End of story.

“The hard problem of consciousness (MER?) is therefore either unsolvable or unstatable. Knowing this, how should we respond? In my view, we should quit worrying about it. It is irrelevant to any possible science of consciousness.”

Mysticexperiences.net

TO LIVE A GOOD AND MEANINGFUL LIFE

Q: How can I live a good and meaningful life?

A: What do you mean, “a good and meaningful life”?

Q: I was hoping you’d tell me.

A: Well, you can relax because no one knows. If they say they do it’s all surmise. Even the Stoics left it to circumstances.

In the meantime we know collectivism doesn’t work, neither do Socialism or Communism on the evidence despite what young students are told to think. However sincere, religions haven’t got it, science by definition can’t get it, and morality and ethics are historically human cultural accretions of their place and times – moveable feasts, irrelevant in Reality.

Q: Don’t you have a personal creed, a philosophy, rules?

A: So far as the world is concerned, I try to be legal, decent (do no physical or mental harm), and honest. That seems to keep me safe from humans.

Q: Is that all your Reality demands from you?

A: It’s not just my Reality! It’s not anybody’s exclusive Reality!

The Reality that is all things, the Reality I have experienced, makes no demands. It never takes, only gives. It is everything and everything is It.

Why do you ask about rules for life anyway?

Q: In the past you have referred to those who “thirst and hunger”. I think I’m one of them … it’s a constant demand I can’t meet.

A: What do you think it is?

Q: I don’t know. I’ve been mentally restless since childhood and it’s been getting worse. I thought someone like you might know.

A: I think you know what this hunger and thirst is.

Q: Well, for a reason to exist I guess? What are we doing here? Am I supposed to be doing something? It persists, it dominates my mind, drives me mad sometimes, angry. It interferes with my job, my family, friends and future. I feel as if I’m looking for something but I don’t know what. I’ve tried to tell people but always stop. Sometimes I think I’m mad. What am I supposed to do?

A: You sound like a Seeker. You’re called.

Q: (Questioner jolts and presses his hands into his eyes, holds his breath, shakes uncontrollably).

OH!

A: (Later). You are a Seeker. The mystic experience is that Seekers are created by Reality and that Reality then supplies the answers. Nothing else can. You are called.

Q: (Whispers). Can you help me?

A: If that’s what your passionate restlessness is, you already have help. You don’t have to do anything. Let go of everything. Just be still, be absolutely silent, go into the Silence you’ll find in being silent, resist all human attachments. As you rid yourself of these weeds you will fill with Reality. Your restless seeking will be satisfied. This is the remedy from the experience of the mystics.

(Later). Ignore the early tendencies to use human sense to understand what’s happening to you. Those are the remnants of your old attachments. They only grew by default in the first place because of the absence of your true self.

Reality does not need nor accept your help. Humans are not in charge of this process. Human, worldly experience has no place now. You are on your way. Reality is remorseless but benign, unendingly accepting. Reality never fails. It is utterly reliable over anything else you will ever know.

Forget about leading “a good and meaningful life”. In Reality, the truly good and meaningful life will become axiomatic, automatic, without you even noticing or taking heed if you do. All else is mind stuff, merely human, not for you any more.

Mysticexperiences.net

NEARLY FIVE STARS!

When an edited version of UK Blog follower Anthony Garner’s review of the 413-page paperback “Mystic Experience of Reality” by the publisher of this Blog appeared on AmazonBooks.com the book was immediately given five out of five stars.

Unfortunately when Amazon realised it had been submitted by BookLocker.com, the book’s publisher, the rating was withdrawn because Amazon only accepts reviews directly. Stars are not given by Amazon.

So now Anthony’s generous review is published as a description of the book, and the notice that the book has not yet been reviewed remains.

Unfortunately another enthusiastic review has been submitted by a Vancouver, BC., Canada, writer and will likely receive the same fate because it was sent to Keith who sent it to BookLocker.com who sent it on to Amazon!

So if you want to review the book I hope you will send your thoughts about it directly to “Mystic Experience of Reality” at Amazon.com

In the meantime, since the book’s publication, Academia.edu reports nearly 500 mentions of Keith’s name in academic papers from universities in the US, Asia, Middle East, and Europe. Note: all these Hancocks don’t necessarily mean Keith. But most of the mentions are specifically on spirituality, religion, transpersonal psychology, the cognitive sciences, consciousness, transcendence, etc.

For your interest, the version of Anthony’s review, that appears edited on the Amazon web page promoting the book is as follows:

“There are certain activities or states of mind which trigger in me what Abraham Maslow calls “peak experiences”. Reading Keith Hancock’s book, “Mystical Experience of Reality” does just that. Phrases in Keith’s book take me to treasured places. When reading Keith’s words, I feel a deep calling to that state of disembodied serenity. So much of what Keith says, so much of what he describes and the way he tells it rings true to me, speaks of the experiences I have felt. Keith had a series of mystic experiences and in this book he describes both his own mystic experiences and quotes extensively from the writing of others on the subject. – Anthony Garner, zenothestoic.com”

The book is also available as an ebook. It is also published in the UK, and is available through bookshops worldwide. It has already sold in Australia, UK, and Canada.

Mysticexperiences.net

SOCIAL UNREST – A MYSTIC VIEW

A lot of the unrest among all classes of underperformers in all races and cultures comes from the mistaken belief we’re all equal when manifestly we’re not.

What needs to be supplied in practical abundance is equality of opportunity for all to see. A real application of this principle of equality of opportunity for all, regardless of race, culture or religion will soon spread the obvious realisation we are not all capable of equality.

At present, when found to be practically untrue this myth of equality enrages the ego, hubris, envy and greed. Then logic and reason are discarded for anarchy, violation of logic and reason, and violence.

This is a historical state of human affairs. It’s not new. We can only wait for Darwin’s evolutionary processes to dispense with this lust, anger, greed, attachments and ego, as the mystics say is already happening, or use now available DNA surgery to rid ourselves of our primitive stages quicker than Nature is allowing!

Such social eruptions as epitomised by the failures of mankind’s attempts to correct the situation have only resulted in the failures of Ananias and Sephira of the Bible and the liberalism, socialism and communism of our day – all of which eventually fell or are falling under the weight of their own evil.

The human hierarchy adjusts itself according to its seminal individual merits, not anything racial, cultural or collective – as we saw and still see in various stages in the old USSR, China, Vietnam, Cuba, and Venezuela. All is well.

In the meantime, is the answer simply to observe and endure, control our outrage and collect enough passports to keep out of the worst – as the developed families of the middle and far east have done for generations – while democracy and capitalism, perhaps tweaked, continue to pour out our grasping wants with our necessary needs?

Mysticexperiences.net

THINGS THAT ‘NEED’ TO BE DONE.

Despite most minds insisting on doing everything that ‘needs’ doing, not everything does.

On the contrary, simplification to the barest of necessities is the essence of the Mystical Experience of Reality, (MER). Even ordinary lives are enhanced by simplicity.

Being enthralled by being human is not what life is about. Mystics don’t have bucket lists. Nor are their minds on default.

Humans dream up ‘things’ that ‘need’ to be done, keep them busy, entertained, that on examination aren’t necessary to human existence, contentment or even happiness. They’re mind stuff; disappointments, clutter, distractions and blockages.

Sadly, they operate on such mythomanic self destructive behaviour 99.00%-recurring of the short time they’re human while the bliss of human self fulfillment is in the other direction – not entrapping themselves with such habitual, invasive behaviour.

So while most humans automatically copy what other humans are doing, bear in mind this Blog is addressed to those others – mystics, seekers, academics and scientists burrowing into what they call, “the hard question” of scientific experiment versus mystic experience. Their minds are independent, ready and open to simplification and focus on the profundities of existence.

Therefore, some of what appears here, including this post, will not ‘speak to the condition’ of everyone, as Quakers might say, while others will find their lives simplified, their “cups running over” with increasing fulfillment, their “hunger and thirst” quenched.

As we are not all equal so some won’t achieve their fulfillment in MER because they are addicted to busyness, distractions, self indulgences – “doing everything that needs to be done”.

mysticexperiences.net

ALL IS WELL but …

Once you begin not taking human behaviour seriously you’ll be amazed how it wont make any discernible difference to human reality but will make you feel lighter than air.

If the old saying is true that angels are lighter than air because they have no worries, is this because they have the mystic insight that All Is Well?

Does that mean once you get that mystic insight too you get your halo? (LOL).

Or is there anything else from which you still need to be detached?

Sadly, that’d be like taking a delicately floating silk scarf from thorns without damaging it, oh soooo patiently …

mysticexperiences.net

ULTIMATE REALITY

The program Ultimate Reality, a popular and successful program by and about scientists has been publicly available on YouTube for many years. A neurosurgeon asks famous world scientists from physicists to theologians, neuroscientists, philosophers, psychology professors and academicians and so on for specific answers about Ultimate Reality.

The current issue probes the following:

IS ULTIMATE REALITY LIMITED TO THE PHYSICAL WORLD?

MER answers: No, it’s not.

The mystic experience is that Reality is everything known and unknown, understood or not understood, in charge, benign, helpful, understanding, accepting, caring, directing and nurturing with no beginning or end and we are part of It.

There is a strong divide among scientists and academics on this question. Simply put, some believe human experience is all there is. They are wrong. The experiences of the mystics throughout history show that.

So scientists and academics are currently much caught up in the new buzz word, consciousness – human awareness of what really exists.

This creates a chasm between such scientists and mystics that leading young physicist Dr David Chalmers might be including in his introduction to the subject when he says this abyss is the “hard question” physics faces today. His suggestion has caused a re-emergence of the hubbub between the materialists versus the perennialists.

The perennialists lean towards the mystic experience, especially in the ancient experiences of the east. They say it is so pervasive a human experience, of human consciousness (?), it cannot be ignored. (One published academic wrote to Keith recently admitting to his own personal experiences with the mystic experience which he could not write about because of the academic constraints of his university).

So it’s a stand off with no easy compromise because the mystic experience is by definition ineffable, which according to WordWeb is ” an adjective defying expression or description … indefinable, indescribable, undescribable, unspeakable, untellable, unutterable, inexpressible, unexpressible, too sacred to be uttered … unnameable, unsayable …”

So where will this impasse go? As a mystic my intuition is Reality will assert itself as it sees fit. It will continue ignoring mere human curiosity – scientific, academic or otherwise …

ULTIMATE REALITY: Will the universe ever end?

MER: The stage of primitive evolution humanity presently occupies is vividly illuminated by this question because the answer is that the universes are mere inhabitants in a Reality beyond any such thing as what humans call ‘infinity’.

The human brain, or human consciousness, is not developed enough to comprehend this yet. In present human experience everything is finite. But nothing is finite to a mystic. ‘Infinity’ is just another human supposition.

ULTIMATE REALITY: What, if anything, exists after death?

MER: Nothing! That is, nothing that would match human understanding at this stage.

However, despite no body, brain or ‘mind’, humans after ‘death’ are as infinite as the Reality itself of which it is part. So humans after ‘death’ will share a humanly unknown joy, belongingness, ultimate acceptance, and knowledge of all existence. They will not want to revert to any other state.

ULTIMATE REALITY: Why are religions so pervasive across diverse human cultures?

MER: Religions are a human construct built on supposition, not on the mystic experience of Reality.

MER is caught, not taught. Nowadays, religions are reduced to morality and ethics, empty faith, hope and belief in the absence of this mystical experience except for dead-end study of it. You can’t get the experience of Reality by studying it. That, as one notable but generally unheard of Sufi master said, “is like eating the menu, not the food…” Reality is real. Religions are barely recognisable imitations, false.

Also, there is a difference in being called to a religion and in being called by Reality.

The call to a religion is a personal, human need, usually emotional and powered by lust, anger, greed, attachments (or lack of them), ego or hubris. The call by Reality on the other hand has nothing to do with being human. It calls, you go! Whoever or whatever you are. Just like that!

For different approaches to the subject, here is ULTIMATE REALITY’S YouTube URL

mysticexperiences.net

DISCERNMENT

Explaining A Mystic.

Me: Thank you for your introduction to the current affairs essayist. I’m not much interested in worldy affairs. There is much more afoot than being merely human.

Questioner: GONADS! You are SUPER interested in what Trump’s doing, and Boris too… or at least that’s the picture you paint. And the whole Covid melodrama! And what about your sport of choice: sailing!

Me: Confusing I know, but my interest in human affairs is very shallow because with 99% of the people who do manage to get into my life or be in it uninvited, I’ve got used to using such expected conversations of the day to make myself invisible. I have no defining passion for humans. There is nothing of Real value to study in human existence for people like me.

This gift of discernment can upset former friends because I’m reclusive, have drifted out of their lives. I find them irritatingly, wearily superfluous. I increasingly see this discernment focusing me powerfully so as to protect my first hand experiences of a Reality far beyond the human condition.

There are very few people near to me now compared to the hundred or so deliberately pruned out of my existence.

Current human affairs are more and more of a curiosity to me, an entertainment, a shallow archeological peculiarity, a recreation, a time consuming hobby easily discarded.

You’re practically the only one left to experience my small talk when challenged, something I was only gifted with suddenly in my forties – presumbably to make my life with humans less miserable.

This small talk ability worked then but has become much less needed. So resist stirring it up. LOL.

Questioner: That’s a great explanation. I get it.

The apparent contradiction was confusing before. That clears it up.

Thank you.

mysticexperiences.net

Mystical Experience of Reality

The first review of this Blog’s book, MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES OF REALITY.

Weltanschauung

There are certain activities or states of mind which trigger in me what Abraham Maslow calls “peak experiences”. Reading Keith Hancock’s Mystical Experience of Reality does just that.

I have been sitting in our beautiful cottage garden in the spring sunshine. The birds have been singing and all is well. Phrases in Keith’s book take me to treasured places and I really care little if this seems a mere flight of fancy.

I am in Narnia running ever on into greater and higher levels of Eden, alongside the lion, the children and all the talking animals. I am leaving Middle Earth with the elves, from the harbor at Grey Havens, travelling with them to their mythical and otherworldly origins. I am subliming with Ian M Banks to a transcendent realm outside of physical reality.

It is odd how merely reading about such states or places can often bring on feelings…

View original post 646 more words

THE SILENCE.

In my view this paper is not just an examination of a powerful poem about the mystical experience, it is also a valuable summary of science and academia’s current interest in the historical and contemporary experience of the Silence of the mystical experience of mysticism (MER).

The full text is available through Academia.net

Silence as Cognition in San Juan de la Cruz’ Coplas del Mismo Hechas Sobre Una Alta Extasis de Contemplación

By Michael Mcglynn, Professor at National University, Taiwan.

SUMMARY

“This essay is an expansive (non-reductive) treatment of one poem of the Early Modern Spanish mystic San Juan de SILENCE AND INEFFABILITY AS COGNITION IN SAN JUAN DE LA CRUZ’ “COPLAS DEL MISMO HECHAS SOBRE UN ÉXTASIS DE ALTA CONTEMPLACIÓN”

FORWARD

“This essay is an expansive (non-reductive) treatment of one poem of the Early Modern Spanish mystic San Juan de la Cruz, namely, Coplas del Mismo Hechas sobre un Éxtasis de Alta Contemplación.

“The refrain of this poem is a claim to transcend all knowledge through an ineffable experience. As disciplinary walls tumble. this ineffable experience bears re-evaluation with evidence from experts in pertinent fields, such as cognitive science. A case is made that Juan’s claim to know by unknowing is a feature of ordinary cognition, though perhaps his experience was an extreme case. As a corollary conclusion, it is observed that twentieth-century approaches to texts are quickly giving way to approaches that match the ‘holistic’, networked culture that characterizes contemporary society from Toledo to Taipei.

INTRODUCTION

“The sixteenth-century Spanish Carmelite priest Juan de la Cruz is famous for his poetry about the mystical union. The refrain of Juan de la Cruz’ 1578 poem about the mystical union, Coplas del Mismo Hechas sobre un Éxtasis de Alta Contemplación, expresses the ineffability of the mystical union with these words: y quédeme no sabiendo, / toda ciencia trascendiendo (2-3: ‘I remained unknowing while transcending all knowledge’).

“This ‘unknowing’, or ineffability, is a common trope in both European and World mystical traditions. The experience of transcendent divinity, whether one believes in divinity or not, is by definition beyond expression. As a poetic trope, the ineffability of such experience is not uncommon, even in secular poetry. San Juan’s more unique claim is that he came into practical knowledge directly by means of this ineffable experience.

“This is a handbook definition of cognition: ‘all the mental processes by which people become aware of and gain knowledge of the world’ (D.A. Statt, The concise dictionary of psychology, London-New York, Routledge, 1990). Juan uses the terms conociemiento, inteligencia and noticia.

READ THE FULL TEXT

mysticexperiences.net

OFFERS TO PROMOTE THE BOOK

My Reply:

No thank you.

I’ve found my new book, MYSTIC EXPERIENCE OF REALITY, pub. BookLocker, is finding its own readers – those who are bewildered by an apparent calling they don’t understand, as well as by scientists and academics who are puzzled by the historical mystic phenomena the book is all about; and others, still secret mystics, who are comforted by the validation the contents offer. They are the ones who have moments of sudden understanding when they come across contents in the book they thought only they had experienced.

The book is not meant for the merely curious who are not called to it by their inner promptings.

I’m also seeing this happen with my blog, mysticexperiences.net.

SPIRITUAL PRACTICE AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Here is an academic study that suggests to me the subject of mysticism is nearing mainstream status. If true this could produce a widely focused transformational understanding of the meaning of human evolution – as some Sufi experiences have predicted for thousands of years.

What do you think?

This excerpt, the author’s Conclusion from the end of his paper, will give you an idea of what I mean:

(Note: As readers will know however, I am not convinced the transformation can be induced by human effort. My spontanious experiences indicate the Mystic Experience of Reality (MER) is caught, not taught).

Spirituality and the Transformation of Consciousness

By Merv Dickinson, PhD

“If, as our spiritual traditions have long maintained and as current studies in transpersonal psychology seem to confirm, it is possible to develop beyond our usual level of ego-consciousness to a state described as self-transcendence, and if such transformational changes as are summarised above typically accompany this transition, then clearly there is value in exploring, from both a personal and a research point of view, whatever practices may in fact facilitate this transition – including those that for so long have comprised the heart of the world’s great spiritual traditions. At the very least, we would do well in this secular post-modern age, when so many of us are distancing ourselves from the apparent absurdities of organised religion, not to throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater, but perchance to rediscover what the spiritual Masters have for so long been trying to tell us.”

READ THE FULL PAPER

mysticexperiences.net

April 2020

LISTENING

Q: Do you listen to yourself?

A: Not myself, no! I do a lot of listening through writing though. Writing shows me the realities of existence.

So listening to others is growingly relegated to unavoidable small talk about unreal things. It’s what the majority of humans practice so I go with it, largely unnoticed.

It’s a skill. Sufis call it ‘the cloak of invisibility’, Christians might say it’s a ‘fruit of the Spirit’.

Mysticexperiences.net April 2020.

PSYCHODELIC DRUGS TO INDUCE MER?

NO! Absolutely not.

Not even as an entheogen! – a psychoactive plant or chemical used to experience the Mystical Experience of Reality (MER), or take for ‘spiritual’ or ‘religious’ uses.

Drugs work on the brain. But the brain does not induce MER. Nothing humans can do can induce MER.

Reality uses the brain to receive MER. The brain is for this purpose a receiver not an originator, if my experiences are to be trusted.

All drugs of any such kind interfere with Reality’s perpetual communication through the brain, whether unobserved, or overtly observed like MER.

Such drugs might have emotional effects. But emotion is a human attribute and plays no part in MER. Emotion does not fulfill our destiny in Reality, whereas MER delivers personal existential, fulfillment – a destiny far beyond being merely human.

Neither can such drugs deliver what traditionally, spontaneously experienced MER’s deliver permanently. On the contrary they are often reported to deliver destructive, crippling brain effects as well as unwanted enhancement of human attributes such as ego and hubris, even fear. Their strange negative effects can linger.

In the old days belief in or teaching of the existence of Shaitan, the Devil, was commonplace. The Devil opposed what humans knew as “God” in those days. The “Devil” spread the “evil” that humans don’t need “God”, that humans are enough in themselves and can enjoy the material things of the earth without “God” because that’s all that exists. In many ways, the same old battle exists today in other words …

In the meantime, the process of MER, known or unknown, is inexorable, with or without our belief in it, or our help.

All Is Well.

Mysticexperiences.net

April 2020