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WISDOM AND MER

The gift of mysticism?

Are the fruits of MER (Mystical Experience of Reality), not so much the analytical thinking, logic and reason of the rational human animal, the plodding, careful integrity of the scientific truth seeker that takes us through the practicalities, the physical aspects of life? Or is it the experience of Reality that is MER?

Is MER the evolutionary unveiling of a much truer, non-human perception of our existence?

Is it a profound insightfulness, intuitive empiricism, a dissolution of our materialism, an engulfment by the joy, love and true everlasting self of true wisdom, the complete knowing of the Reality in which all things really exist and have their true being?

Is our destiny nothing so mundane as the stars and planets? Are we more than that?

Are we emerging?

Is this what the historical phenomenon of mysticism is all about: that All Is Well?

Mysticexperiences.net

MYSTICS AND CONSCIOUSNESS

 

Non mystics take their consciousness from the society or culture in which they find themselves.

Largely by default they absorb and are taught the commonality of their experience of existence by the entertainment industry, plays, films, books, TV, taboos, fads, fashions, trends, religions, cultures, societal norms, ideologies, politics and suchlike – all impermanences, mostly mythomanic.

This is the extent of their consciousness. Gurus call it “sleep walking”. This lower defaulting consciousness defines the limits of most humans. They are not mystics.

Mystics are given the big C Consciousness of the Reality of cosmic existence. This Blog calls the experience the Mystic Experience of Reality (MER), in which all things ever known and unknown, including matter and spirit have always and will always exist.

Some modern physicists are suggesting Consciousness is evolutionary human “emergence”. Elsewhere in this Blog I have likened the process to the chrysalis effect.

Whatever, that experience is what makes mystics fundamentally different. It’s probably why Drs Burke then Sinetar suggested mystics are a separate human species. Some of today’s physicists suggest this Consciousness could be the cosmos’s fundamental nature from which everything emanates (what older generations reduced to a diminutive worldly humanoid they called God?).

Whatever, this experience is why mystics ignore the unrelenting impermanence of human consciousness. To them and true Seekers mere human consciousness is a hindrance to evolutionary fulfillment.

There is not much of value at the level of ordinary human consciousness unless you want to stop evolution, just remain in comfortable stasis with the perennial struggle to be a better human being.

(Ironically, being a better human being is axiomatically, automatically achieved as a by-product of capital C Consciousness, MER).

Ignatius Loyola who despite founding the Jesuits was brave for his times by admitting mystic reality is nevertheless “the better part” of human fulfillment.

Mysticexperiences.net

PHENOMENA II

 

The kind of phenomena an earlier post introduced was about the kind of phenomena that tries to convince Seekers they have reached the ultimate mystical experience of Reality. This kind of phenomena, however convincingly powerful is a distraction on the path to what has been called enlightenment.

The real Mystical Experience of Reality has attributes that everyone on that path experiences. These attributes do not vary from person to person. They are the essential conditions of MER throughout the history of mankind, in all cultures, climates and personal circumstances. They are the signs of the true path. If any one of them are absent the experiences are not true MER. Such experiences are to be ignored as mere phenomena.

Such phenomena are autonomous, of the human senses, mind stuff, emotions, brain memory and activity. They are not MER. They are in fact non spiritual – just indiscriminate clutter, distractions to the true, focused, called Seeker.

MER is not subject to human phenomena.

Mysticexperiences.net

HOW TO DEAL WITH PHENOMENA

 

If you have realised that through no fault or effort of your own you are a Seeker in the grip of a passion to know the truth you may have experienced phenomena that come with the condition.

This can be sphincter-movingly frightening or at least alarming and disruptive. They can awaken you from sleep or appear in your pensive or meditational states and cause thunder in your heart, or calm indifference if like me you have been alerted to the possibilities of such disruptions and how to deal with them.

My eldest son gave up all further attempts at meditation after his first encounter with the giant eye that regarded him with a calm but powerful examination. Regrettably, on still seeing his frightened apprehension when he told me about it long afterwards I broke into bent-over explosions of laughter, the tears running down my face. It felt good to be so alive in every fibre of my being as I shook with uncontrollable mirth. Mystics have a reputation for anarchical appreciation of the tragi-comic nature of the human condition.

But seriously, the Eye revealed my son was obviously not ready so I did not pursue the subject.

My experiences of phenomena

Compared to some of the phenomena I have read or been told about, my experiences were mild and nowadays less frequent. I am beginning to suspect they happen whenever I approach any aspect of MER’s diverse human or non human nature with an extra intensity or concentration, whether emotional or intellectual, of my own volition or not.

My experiences of phenomena include, among other less urgently dramatic examples, elderly, apparently mentally disturbed males or females, even couples, rushing anxiously into my space and being equally ruthlessly stopped in some instances by tall white, characterless apparitions behind them that make them suddenly disappear. The question still arises in me about whether the phenomena disappeared into my space or were stopped in time.

Later on, the phenomena of strangers appearing right in my face disappear in the disruptively awakening nano second I become aware of them. None of them are threatening. Some are as astonished as I am, even bewildered or, in one case, tearfully turning his back to hide his very agitated and unwanted nakedness.

So my phenomena are relatively benign. Other people have far more dramatic, frightening phenomena that threaten them. Mine   never threaten me, despite their alarming suddenness.

I was taught that whatever stage I got to I was never to stop my seeking for the ultimate truth of existence, no matter how overwhelmed I was with the certainty, majesty, power, or benign attributes and assurances I have reached my ultimate goal. I was to assure myself I had not. I was to be respectful, but carry on; the phenomena would disappear. They would have no effect on me.

I have not experienced phenomena of that level, and hopefully never will. I’m hoping I have by passed them somehow. They seem totally irrelevant to my experiences of Reality (MER).

My experiences were devoid of personality, mine or anyone else’s, devoid of any matter, materiality, human taint, prior experience, expectation or emotion.

The journey continues. The fruits are abundant though not always immediately evident.

If you are a Seeker I hope this is helpful. All is well.

Mysticexperiences.net

WHY THIS BLOG?

Q: What does Mysticexperiences.net bring to this age’s understanding of mysticism?

A: The Blog started as an aid to help me understand my experiences of what I thereby discovered were Mystical Experiences of Reality.

My exploratory writing alone was hugely validating, So were all the helpful Comments  Likes, Followers and emails the Blog prompted from around the world from Seekers, writers, professionals, academics – from over 70 countries.

Q: So it worked?

A:  Yes. It still is working.

After hiding my experiences for nearly 60 years, by starting this web site, I discovered I am a mystic and that the subject is studied in universities around the world with vigour and enthusiasm by physicists, theologians, philosophers, psychologists and students.

I learned that Oxford University alone archived 6,000 case studies. This archive is now growing and being studied and added to under a Templeton Foundation grant at Wales University.

One of the Blog’s Followers, a Philosophy Master, questioned universities on a technical question about mysticism and got personal correspondence from published professors in 58 universities.

As a result, I learned I was not alone, nor mad … So I could have “come out” of hiding as a mystic years ago with no one raising an eyebrow; at least in learned circles.  Among my friends, not so much …

Friends’ reactions have ranged from politely ignoring the subject to one sideways muttered suggestion my MERs were psychotic. Others have become Followers of the Blog.

Also, I was warned by a Sufi school I was eventually initiated into that my friends, colleagues, acquaintances, that even my reading matter and lifestyle would change dramatically. They did, almost without me noticing. I am now a friendly recluse.

I feel uncomfortable with most humans, particularly with the unrealised ones (see prophecy 15 below …).  However, I do seem to have developed empathy, tolerance and patience with Seekers. I avoid the merely curious.

I also feel the web page joins the challenge of updating the limited understanding of previous generations. And it is meeting the questions by Seekers bewildered by their unbidden, unremitting passion to know the truth of existence.

Little do some Seekers know )they seek the Reality experienced by the mystics, or that Reality planted their passion in them and is drawing them to Itself. Seekers are different to the commonality of humans; emerging.

Their destiny is assured and more immediate than most, bearing in mind the focus they need to respond to their calling.

Bearing all this in mind, here is what I know so far:

  1. Reality contains everything known and unknown. Nothing exists outside It, including humans;
  2. It is not human;
  3. The experience of Reality is caught, not taught.
  4. It is knowable by direct individual experience within the parameters of the individual’s development. (Eg: as humanity developed it reached the ability to go from seeing in black and white to the qualia of seeing colour; so mystics seem to be chosen in like manner, without obvious qualifications;
  5. It is Consciousness emerging;
  6. It is benign, totally accepting (ie: inexpressibly loving);
  7. It is constantly creating and developing;
  8. It does not allow anything to interfere in Its purpose, (including humans);
  9. It is everything in Reality; it provides, guards, guides, nourishes, replenishes, aids, observes, asserts its purpose;
  10. It is all powerful; destroys, rebuilds, recreates;
  11. Reality’s form is non material; non human, though everything shares Its ingredients as It shares ours. We are It;
  12. It has given humans all they need and rarely if ever reacts to human wants;
  13. It gives, never wants;
  14. Reality is only interested in individuals;
  15. Humans are at a very primitive, early stage of existence;
  16. Prophecies can arise from the mystical experience, but such prophecies rarely get their timing right, (ie: “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” …).
  17. However modern mystics can prophesy that religions, ideologies, lust, anger, greed, nations, isolated and isolating cultures, tribes, families, dependencies, attachments to anything but the development of the individual, are withering and dying in the timely fashion Reality has of asserting Itself.  Human ego will also disappear as a disposable appendage. It will be tamed and anyway doomed to permanent death with the disposable brain and body.
  18. If some eastern schools of mysticism are to be believed, Reality develops Itself, absorbing everything into It, including humans, to become pure spirit like Itself. I certainly was not human in my experiences. I resisted desperately every time I was returned from my experiences into being human again. Now, I hope with all my body, mind and strength that being with Reality is my destiny after death.
  19. All who experience Reality will come to know ineffably that All Is Well. We’re under better stewardship than we can provide.

Mysticexperiences.net

MER A SCIENTIFIC “QUALIA” AFTER ALL?

Has Dr David Chalmers discovered that “Qualia”, Consciousness, and “Strong Emergence”, are radical, newly discovered, fundamental, absolutely non-human elements of the cosmos?  Is he describing the Mystic Experience of Reality (MER)?

It sounds like it to this mystic.

Qualia – Wikipedia: “In philosophy and certain models of psychology, qualia (/ˈkwɑːliə/ or /ˈkweɪliə/; singular form: quale) are defined to be individual instances of subjective, conscious experience.”

Emergence: “the process of becoming visible after being concealed, the process of coming into existence or prominence.”

See David Chalmers’ interviews on Closer To Truth:

The first interview has attracted 445 comments, including some asinine remarks sadly expected in social media nowadays. Other comments contain seriously interesting perspectives.

Is Dr Chalmers introducing a new era of scientific thought, that the Mystical Experience of Reality (MER), is after all, “qualia”, “Strong non-human Emergence”, Consciousness?

Bearing in mind the scientific community uses the word ‘ineffable’ to describe MER, (“too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words”), is Dr. Chalmers’ now suggesting an historical, scientific leap forward in human evolution, a birthing?

If so, is the modern mystical experience the same experience the ancients called “God” that became smothered in religion, ideologised, politicised with human misunderstanding and spiritual disappointment, unfulfillment?

Has the paradigm of the human condition shifted?

Dr. David John Chalmers is a world renowned, rising young figure in the world of science. He is a philosopher at New York University and the Australian National University,  Professor of Philosophy and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at NYU, and also a Professor of Philosophy at ANU.

Mysticexperiences.net

What’s in a Name? Labeling the Mystic

“What is a mystic anyway, besides an eccentric weirdo who fits in nowhere and in no place, someone who is seen by most Christians as too esoteric for the faith, and by the New Age movement as a dinosaur of a bygone era–the age of Pieces, anyone?–best left buried?….”

Indigo Onyx

“I’m a Mystic,” I told them. They’d known me for years but I’d never come clean about it before, because I knew they wouldn’t like it very much.

“You’re a what?” Alice asked. “Is that like a witch?” Her eyes got all big as if she thought I was about to cast a spell on her.

“Isn’t that a sin?” Kendra said from across the table in a low whisper.

I took a deep breath and tried to explain myself…

cf5a8d2416ee41db05ecc8d5ec4c654fPinterest 

What is a mystic anyway, besides an eccentric weirdo who fits in nowhere and in no place, someone who is seen by most Christians as too esoteric for the faith, and by the New Age movement as a dinosaur of a bygone era–the age of Pieces, anyone?–best left buried?

Merriam-Webster defines mystic as:

Of or relating to mysteries or esoteric rites

Relating to mysticism or mystics

Mysterious

Obscure

View original post 872 more words

TO A MYSTIC, NOTHING IS “MYSTICAL”

 

Mankind has a limited view of mysticism.

The common, vulgari understanding of the word “mysticism” implies an unattainable “mystery”, or “myth”, whereas in fact a mystic has experienced something that has always existed and always will exist. It is no mystery or myth. Hundreds of university departments around the world are studying and delivering courses on the subject.

Everything known and unknown already exists, is developing, is yet to be fully discovered, is not created by us – or any other species.

Scientists can’t invent this Reality. It exists in and of itself. Scientists and mystics just “discover” its attributes – the scientists by experiment, the mystics by experience.

Mystics experience a Reality that scientists merely “discover” piece by piece by scientific experimentation and comparative observation yet it is still not commonly or fully known and probably can’t be  because ordinary humans are not presently evolved enough to be able to know. But this doesn’t mean Reality is forever “mystical”, “mysterious” unknown or individually unattainable.

To understand the human condition it is important to know the  Reality in which we exist is true. This Reality just is and we are that. We humans arise out of Reality. We are made of Reality. Everything known and unknown is Reality. Earth itself is part of this greater Reality that is much bigger than anything conceived by humans or their “Gods” or gods …  Reality is not just about humans. It’s about everything, undeniable but indescribable.

As part of the process of Reality our physical earth fits us because we came from it physically. We are made of the same stuff. We come from the elements of the earth, are custom tailored by the earth. The earth is likewise customised to fit us. It’s the same with us and the greater Reality; we are compatible, synchronised; ever changing to match the exigencies of the greater Reality of the never ending, ever transitioning characteristics of the material and nonmaterial (spiritual?) cosmos of which everything is a part.

In this continuing process our minds appeared. The mind developed as a consequence of earth and humans being part of this creative, manipulative effect of the greater, non human environment of Reality.

So, the word “mysticism” is just a very limited human word. It’s not big enough nowadays to describe even the little we now understand. The growing acceptance of the existence of mystical experience of reality (MER) has made our old understanding of mysticism obsolete. The word still has lingering, wrongful connotations of occultism, spiritism, primitive ignorance, magic, religions, ecstasies, superstitions, mythomanias and cultural/political mischiefs, etc. In Reality however, where all things are perfect and all is well, there are no names – everything just is, and we are that! Mystics don’t need names. Nothing is “mystical” – it’s all Reality.

Mankind’s limited view of the mystic experience of Reality is not new. As the biblical Jesus discovered at the temple, even there at that part of the early human attempt to grasp what human existence is all about, religion and monetisation were already vulgarising the evidence.

Mysticexperiences.net

MER NOT MAN MADE

Coping with MER.

Q: You say the Mystical Experience of Reality, MER, is not man made?

A:  Yes. Reality is not specifically human. It’s everything there is, like an enveloping sea of being of which all things everywhere, known and unknown, are merely a part, including humans.

Humans are just temporary manifestations of Reality. Humans don’t create Reality, Reality creates humans; (In fact creates all manifestations, by particular environmental process).

Q:  So this must make a big impact on those who experience this non-human phenomenon (as you have called it elsewhere). So what difference does MER make to those humans who experience it?

A:   MER changes the whole perception of all existence, including human existence and therefore the experiencer’s experience of his/her individual existence.

MER alienates the individual from the non-conscious human condition as he/she becomes conscious of this superior, all pervading Reality of existence.

MER changes everything – friendships, family relations, reading matter, entertainment, work, attitudes to commonly accepted human taboos, moralities, ethics, and patriotisms, religions and spirituality. It fosters discretion, discrimination, balance, solitude, awareness, creative and critical thinking.

It is not materially curious or easily enthused, avoids social gatherings, crowds, noise. It does no harm. The ways of the mystic develop into waitfulness, watchfulness, consciousness, the experience of wonder, joy, acceptance, peace and complete belonging in the fullness of Reality – Cosmic Consciousness.

Q:  This is definitely not a description of any common human condition. (Laughs).

A:  No.

Q:  In fact it’s almost total alienation from the human condition.

A:  Yes, like rebirthing out of the physical, mental, even religious and spiritual states.

Q:  Isn’t this alienation difficult, living like this with humans on a day to day basis?

A:  Oh very. Quite stressful. Dr Burke and Dr Sinetar suggest the people of MER are so different they’re a new species. The leading US physicist Mikio Kaku says the whole human race is barely born in cosmic terms. (For myself, I’d say humans are presently at a very primitive stage of development – at the consciousness level of a toilet seat …).

Q: (Bursts out laughing).  Really!  So how do you cope living with humans then?

A:  I’ve adopted a coping mechanism – I behave legally, decently and honestly. It makes my condition invisible to most humans, even some Seekers.

Q: Is that difficult?

A:  Not if your mind is habitually taken somewhere more consequential than being merely human … I am freer than most of what harasses the human condition: lust, anger, greed, attachments and ego. (Though not completely yet …). (Smiles).

Mysticexperiences.net

BACKWARDS TO OUR TRUE EXISTENCE?

 

The following is posted for Seekers as a valuable seminal thread to be pulled at and unravelled as an important step on the path.

Nothing in this spiritual serendipity should be hurried as mere narrative. Each phrase is laden with direction. Therefore each phrase should be taken on its own. It should be spiritually digested with reverence to attain its full effect before moving onto the next phrase.

To help identify the phrases, they have been separated and underlined to show how to recognise and stabilise contemplation/meditation one phrase at a time.

Each phrase could take you a year or more of contemplation – or become an immediate blinding light of knowing. (Each of us is programmed to our own individual needs, in my experience of the mystical experiences of Reality, MERs) :

“The Universe is a projection of Consciousness,

“an Evolution from Pure Universal Consciousness to individual consciousness

“to ego, to the intellect and mind, to the senses and finally to the physical body.

“Meditation is an Involution, a return journey from the gross, manifest world to subtler and subtler levels until you arrive back Home in Pure Consciousness.

“The good news, therefore, is that in your essence, you’re already Enlightened, perfect in every way.

“Unfortunately, the bad news is that you’ve forgotten it and live these less-than-perfect lives.

“Meditation reconnects you with your essence, your perfection.”

An excerpt from “A Brief History of Meditation: From Before the Big Bang to Now” by Roger Gabriel (Raghavanand), published in the March newsletter of the Chopra Center, chopra.com.

Mysticexperiences.net

Can You Achieve MER on Your Own?

 

Dr. Paul Brunton tells us how he came to what he calls “spiritual consciousness”, in his book, THE SECRET PATH – a modern technique of Self Discovery:

“My confidence stands serene that I can make good my thesis against all comers, but only if they are prepared to undertake the same psychological experiments which I undertook. The thoughts I now give out did not come to me after long argument; they came after long experience. Whoever, therefore, would understand them aright, must be willing to invite the same experience, and this will come readily enough if he is to keep on finding truth as he is on his other and more mundane affairs.”

Paul Brunton is the pen name of Raphael Hurst, a British theosophist and spiritualist. He is best known as one of the early popularizers of Neo-Hindu spiritualism in western esotericism, notably via his bestselling A Search in Secret India. Died: July 27, 1981, Vevey, Switzerland”
Wikipedia.

THE SECRET PATH was published in 1988 as a second printing by Samuel Weiser Inc., Box 612, York Beach, Maine., USA, 03910, but was first published in London, England, in 1935. This was one of 11 of Brunton’s books on the subject.

See www.paulbrunton.org for the Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation.

Mysticexperiences.net

ARE YOU A WHO OR A WHAT – ACTUAL OR JUST APPARENT?

 

We were discussing my mystical experiences of Reality (MER) in the Mexican sunshine when my friend said:

“So after all that, where are we in this conversation now? I mean, do you know who you are any more?”

I said, “I’m not a Who, I’m a What.”

This is the kind of enigmatic reply you get from gurus (not that I’m a guru) that so exasperated me in the early days. It annoyed my friend too, I could hear his eyeballs click as his eyes rolled. But now I understood why the elucidations of so many gurus were and are so enigmatic.

Why? Because if the gurus give a full explanation all the questioner gets is the guru’s definition. But if the questioner is left to work the answer out from the guru’s deliberately enigmatic clue, the questioner finally owns the answer as a personal experience. Some would say that’s why humans are humans – here to record their experiences. (George Fox, the founder of Quakerism, used to say: “I know what the gospels and the prophets say, but Friend, what sayest thou …? ).

Personal experience is the beginning of wisdom,it is knowing rather than second hand description, like having to work out how to shell the peanut before making the experience of eating the peanut uniquely yours. It’s like seeds sown yourself making you understand the results in all weathers and climates.

This is just a material explanation of the importance of experience. As the true experience of Reality is indescribable but undeniable, you can see how important experience is compared to second hand reportage which is hearsay. It’s the difference between being an “awakened one” or “a sleepwalker”.

A paper menu for instance does not contain the nourishment of the actual experience of the food the menu is describing, however accurately.

From this you will see why Jesus’ disciple who was nicknamed “Doubting Thomas” was an exemplar of truth seeking.

Truth is hidden in experience. That’s why scientists experiment to get at materialistic truths but the mystics don’t have to because their experience has given them a completely different, macro perspective of existence …

My friend laughed, “So are going to tell me what a What is?”

I said, “You’re a friend. I would do you no favours by feeding you my answers. Feed yourself. You already know. The answer also comes with a lot of extras, all for you. Remove your veils…”

Mysticexperiences.net

THE TRUE MEANING OF WISDOM – Deepak Chopra

By Deepak Chopra

“Wisdom has grown scarce for the simple reason that it follows no model. Socrates made the point, and it got him into a great deal of trouble, that wisdom cannot be taught. You can teach data collection, the amassing of facts, and many branches of knowledge, but wisdom stands apart. True wisdom leads to such things as insight, intuition, depth of experience, self-awareness, and humility before mysteries that will never be fully comprehended.

“Because wisdom contradicts the certainty that models try to give us, it has had a hard time in society, as the death of Socrates shows. Society defends its favored and cherished models (which can be mythical, religious, animistic, scientific, and so on) with ferocity; certainty is not to be flouted.

“Wisdom calls for a totally different way of looking at reality. I will argue in the next post for taking the road back to wisdom. It is the only way to fulfill the infinite potential that human beings possess, and on a global scale, it is the only way we will reach desperately needed solutions.”

Deepak Chopra MD, FACP, founder of The Chopra Foundation and co-founder of The Chopra Center for Wellbeing, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation, and is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism.  He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a member of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists.

Chopra is the author of more than 85 books translated into over 43 languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers.

His latest books are The Healing Self co-authored with Rudy Tanzi, Ph.D. and Quantum Healing (Revised and Updated): Exploring the Frontiers of Mind/Body Medicine.