Mystical Experiences of Reality
A discussion and illustration of the phenomena by a contemporary mystic.
Dr. Carroll is a cosmologist and physics professor specializing in dark energy and general relativity. He is a research professor in the Department of Physics at the California Institute of Technology. (Wikipedia)
Q: What is the context of humanity in relation to Reality?
A: Anthropomorphism has no exclusive context in Reality. So to what can you compare Reality?
In my experiences of Reality It did not try to justify Itself by comparing Itself to anything because Reality is everything.
It did not make any comparison to humanity or the world in any way. The experiences were pure, unrelated existence showing Reality is enough in Itself, incomparable. It cannot be defined by comparison.
Q: So what is the proof of Reality?
A: The only proof of Reality is in experiencing It.
Q: But where does the human race fit into all this?
A: My feeling is Reality does not give the human race any consideration whatsoever. Reality only reveals Itself to individuals – mystics.
Q: You mean individuals who only become mystics after they’ve had what you call the mystical experience of Reality, MER?
A: Yes. My feeling is the collective, totalitarianism, communism, ideologies, nations, socialism, liberalism, etc are primitive constructs that will whither as Reality continues its evolutionary function with individuals. Being merely human is not what it’s all about.
I feel myself thinking the human race will be discarded eventually, presumably when humanity has finally matured into Reality.
A: The question makes me shudder.
A: Wherever people gather in the name of mysticism/spirituality/religion, there in the midst is Satan. Same with all such books not based on spiritual experience.
(There are some Seekers who are so well read in the mystic phenomenon, who have searched and studied so deeply and profoundly through ancient and modern texts, written books about it, lectured on it widely, travelled with such learned focus, experienced all manner of mental and physical regimes to achieve spiritual experience of Reality that they have become deeply empathetic followers, as near to the realisation of Reality any human can be without actually having the mystical experience of Reality).
However, the spiritual experiences of Reality given to me were not compelled by human sources or expectation. They were caught, not taught. Everything else is distraction.
So far as I understand these experiences of Reality, humans, like dung beetles or as yet undiscovered species deep in the seas, or in the far cosmos, are an as yet unconsciously developing part of Realty, a Reality so large it is beyond present human development to understand.
We are awakening.
The awakening comes from Reality which is infinite, not from the mind, books or mete experimentation, logic or reason, which are all temporary anyway.
So your question about the books to be read about mysticism is like asking your God or gods to name their favourite books.
Reality is way beyond all such concepts. The arising human religious concepts of God and gods is just that, merely human, existentially irrelevant, what one teacher with millions of followers calls “mind stuff”. (Interestingly, George Fox, the founder of Quakerism also abjured what he called “notionalism”).
A: If you “hunger and thirst” after what the Christian bible calls “righteousness”, are a Seeker, you have no choice in the matter. You have to Seek. That’s your destiny. What you Seek Seeks you. You are caught. You are in process. You can interfere all you like but you’ll find it best to get on with human life by being constantly alert for the promptings of Reality. Everything else is a far lesser perspective of existence.
Experience is the beginning and end of all existence. To spiritual experience the mind is a distraction. So are books.
‘Be still and know that I am’ (Reality), is a profound tip. I got it from a book! Probably the only life changing ‘spell’ ever worth printing and parsing*.
*Parsing: Studying, analysing, dissecting. Try it: Be still and know Reality.
All Is Well.
Below is an excerpt from the current special issue of the Journal for the Study of Religious Experience (JSRE) on Religion, Culture, and Extraordinary Experience
Introduction to this issue by guest editor: Gregory Shushan, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Wales Trinity Saint David
“Despite longstanding theoretical and methodological objections, scholarly research into so-called ‘religious experience’ continues to flourish. This issue of the Journal for the Study of Religious Experience is dedicated to exploring the relationships between religion, culture, and unusual experiences which are commonly viewed in religious, spiritual, or mystical terms within their own local contexts. Examples of such experiences include (but are not limited to) unitive, visionary, transcendent, numinous, mediumistic, near-death, and out-of-body, as well as other kinds of deathbed phenomena, supernatural healings, and divine revelations, voices, and precognitions.
“The contributions here are grounded variously in historical research and ethnographic and sociological fieldwork, though are all characterized by sound theory and method. It is especially gratifying that many are of an interdisciplinary nature.
“The kinds of questions underlying this issue include:
“In what ways do people negotiate, interpret, and integrate extraordinary experiences into their beliefs systems?
“Can such experiences account for the origins of religious beliefs?
“Are extraordinary experiences ‘all in the brain’? In what ways does culture influence experience?
“Do extraordinary experiences challenge or support cultural-linguistic constructivist assumptions concerning religious phenomena?
“What are the implications of extraordinary experiences for debates surrounding terminology in the Study of Religions (e.g., ‘religion’, ‘religious experience’)?”
*The Religious Experience Research Centre houses an archive with over 6,000 accounts of first-hand experiences of people from across the world who had a spiritual or religious experience.
Founded by Sir Alister Hardy in 1969 at Manchester College, Oxford, the RERC moved to Lampeter in July 2000. The Centre’s aim is to study contemporary accounts of religious or spiritual experiences. In addition to fits archive of accounts the RERC houses a specialist collection of books and journals.
The Journal for the Study of Religious Experience (JSRE) is promoted by the Centre (RERC). It publishes original papers promoting theoretical, methodological and ethnographical developments in the research on spiritual or religious experience.
More and more every day modern science is coming to terms with what on the outset was an uncomfortable reality. That is that the observer (you and I) play not just an important role in reality or in our universal experience but actually that we are the deciding factor at the centre of it all. I think for the most part modern science has tried to stay an arm’s length away from any of the organised or generally accepted world religions and this is not necessarily a bad thing, while many of the world’s religions seem hellbent on destroying each other and have become so inflexible because of dogma. There is, however, one notable exception the Buddha Dharma. The Buddha Dharma is without a doubt the most peaceful, humanistic, and scientific of all organised religions. Please note that I personally do not subscribe to the fact that Buddhism is a religion, and…
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ANSWER: No. My experiences of Reality several times a year from about 15 years of age to my late thirties gave me no indication that I had a human purpose. Later I did begin to wonder if my purpose is simply to experience this mystical phenomena and its consequences.
Since then the experiences have affected all my consciousness of being a human self in process in a greater Reality of which all humans are part. They continue to do so.
Dr. Richard Bucke speculated in his book, “Cosmic Consciousness” and Dr. Marsha Sinetar in her book, “Ordinary people as mystics and monks” that those who experience MER, (Mystical Experiences of Reality) are a new human species. I have no idea.
So no, I didn’t get any suggestion I was to find my personal purpose for existence and fulfill it. Reality found me and has been processing me ever since – whether I like it or not … (laughs).
QUESTION: Do you mind?
ANSWER: It has never occurred to me that I have any will in the matter.
QUESTION: So you don’t mind, you wouldn’t resist this process, say no to it?
ANSWER: No, I don’t mind. I would never go back to whatever I was, or resist the process. I am Reality as Reality is me. We’re one. I am that. I’ll be glad when my human experience is over.
QUESTION: Would you say you are unique?
ANSWER: No, I don’t think so. Sir Alister Hardy compiled 6000 cases histories like mine when at Oxford University. The archive is now at Wales University under a Templeton grant. There is also much modern and very ancient history attesting to the MER phenomena.
QUESTION: What do you think it is all about?
ANSWER: I have no definitive answer, but the thought arises that those who have MER are emerging as if from a chrysalis from humanity into the next stage of Ultimate Reality.
A: Alright.
Q: Here’s the poem, with the question:
Few here of their kind,
Orphaned souls
No parents find
Entombed in man’s mortality
And man’s defaulting mind,
Neither human, nor sublime:
Lost, yet Divine.
Nanaimo, 2011.
Q: What does “ … man’s defaulting mind” mean?
A: Spiritually, mankind’s mind just ticks over, never gets used except in the more or less autonomous function of default in the absence of any spiritual input.
Actually, a lot of low IQ minds could be said to run in even less than even the fully autonomous functions that control the body’s inner and outer physical functions never mind the more spiritual/conscious features awaiting awakening.
Q: You use the word “Divine” when you have said that you never experienced God in your mystical experiences of Reality.
A: This is poetic licence. The word is a primitive, outdated identification of humans’ growing consciousness of an existence beyond current human knowing, except for glimpses of it by mystics.
“Divine” and “God” are two inadequately minuscule concepts crammed with spiritually inexperienced artificial meanings like “faith”, “hope” and “trust”. These empty words are akin to self hypnosis and on that delusional level might bring some relief in human concerns, that’s all; (“Fake it until you make it”).
Reality is reliable, steadfast and benign by its nature and we are a part of It. Nothing man made lasts or is anything like the totality of Reality. Reality is the only thing. The reason I used the word divine is because of its lingering archaic power in the present primitive state of human development. And because it portentously rhymes with the sonnet’s the word “sublime”.
A: The proposition might defy human commonsense, but then so does mysticism, so it could be true. If the suggestion is true would it also explain the two part mystic experience of being everything, including the experience of being temporarily human − wave AND particle?
A: No, because I write and rewrite conscientiously to make sure the posts only come directly from my experiences, with the utmost integrity and absence of contamination from others’ experiments, experiences, ideologies or mythomanias.
The experience of Reality demands absolutely nothing less, and I obey to my fullest capability.
I also attempt within my skills to manipulate readers into their own experience of the subject because personal experience rather than secondhand reportage is the way of Reality.
However, other reports and opinions on spiritual experience, particularly from established scientists in the field are posted separately under their names, sometimes with my comments from my spiritual experiences.
https://zenothestoic.com/2018/06/30/doors-perception/
A clear understanding of the two true paths.
But in my view Science will wither on the vine eventually as the mystic way reveals itself in full in the fullness of time – if the human race survives that long …
Mysticexperiences.net 2019
Go to Closertotruth.com then choose ARE ENLIGHTENMENT & TRANSCENDENCE ALTERED STATES?
Then choose Dr. Roger Walsh.
WARNING: Those without experience of a mind under enough disciplined control to unburden themselves of themselves will not discern the spiritual fruit hanging in full view in these two seminal interviews.
Roger Walsh MD., PhD is an Australian professor of Psychiatry, Philosophy and Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine, in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, within UCI’s College of Medicine.
Mysticexperiences.net 2019.
Dr Lloyd is a professor of mechanical engineering and physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He refers to himself as a “quantum mechanic”. (Wikipedia)
No. In MER there is no such thing as “sin”, no need for “salvation”.
“Salvation” and “sin” are human concepts, unknown and unneeded in Reality.
Religions taught it was a “sin” to act or think against their their teachings. The consequences of restoring personal “salvation” were dire and in many places still are.
There is nothing in the human notion of salvation that has anything “spiritual” or “divine” about it.
Belief, faith and hope were required to get over the fact the religions simply hadn’t experienced MER as their founders probably had. So to fill this knowledge gap the religions created Belief, Faith and Hope (“Fake it until you make it”), and the need for salvation, as the sand upon which they built their religions.
Those who experience MER don’t need the human mythomania of “belief”, “faith”, “hope”, “sin” or “salvation”. They KNOW Reality.
“Salvation” is a particularly contrary notion in the experiences of Reality where total acceptance of everything, including humans at any stage of their evolutionary development is fundamental to all existence.
Such powerful, inclusive love is beyond ordinary human experience. Reality’s acceptance/love is the very opposite of the notion of any need for “salvation”. We are loved beyond any human conception of love.
In any human struggle with Reality, Reality has already won.
Human constructs rise then fall under the weight of their own primitive lust, anger, greed, attachments, ego (and hubris). But Reality always asserts Its evolutionary process. Reality always wins.
All is well.
No-one knows. The Mystic Experience of Reality (MER) is spontaneous if my experiences of MER and the teachings of some gurus and mystic texts throughout the ages are anything to go by.
Mystics don’t exhibit any human attribute, mentally or physically that would qualify them for the experience(s) of the phenomenon; not age, gender, culture, epoch, education, religions, cults, faith, belief or hope or any other human experiences. MER shows no signs of being human.
There are scholars who are so steeped in the study of modern and ancient works on the subject (including the 12,000 year old Visishta for example), they can write dozens of best selling books about MER that can give the honest impression they have experienced MER when they haven’t.
Modern spiritual teachings are also hopelessly wrong when their lack of MER causes them to go off topic by teaching that MER’s objective is to make people better human beings. It isn’t. There are far more important things in Reality than being merely human.
While it is axiomatic, automatic that humans will, in human terms, be better human beings after MER or association with mysticism, even without experiencing it, the Reality of MER has nothing to do with humans especially. It is caught, not taught. It can’t be evangelised or proselytised. You can read the “sacred” texts in vain. If you are not called by MER – you can read the Bible backwards and forwards in any language you like but it won’t reveal its spiritual content. The key to doing that is MER. We can’t work on Reality, Reality works on us. And Reality’s ways are not our ways.
Anyone, apparently, if they experience MER.
It is not a western phenomenon. It’s universal.
Once humans adulterate their natural state they are impeding the spiritually evolutionary process of Reality.
Mysticism is not a religion. Religions are human constructs – ethical and moralistic, not mystical. Religions are incompatible with the personal revelations of the experience of Reality.
Mysticism is a universal experience. Dr Richard Bucke* suggested it is cosmic. Physicists’ jargon is just another way of talking about the Reality MER’s reveal. Google “physicists on mystic studies”.
The mystic is someone who has experienced MER!
Some people confuse the word mystical with the supernatural, “spiritism”, magic, primitive esoteric practices, pagan rituals, witchcraft.
“Mysticism” is a human word that describes the experience of the existence of all things known and unknown. Aptly, the etymological root of the word is the Greek “to conceal” according to Wikipedia.
Google “Hindu mysticism”, “Buddhist mysticism”, “Islamic mysticism”, and “Christian mysticism” to start an avalanche of old and new works about mysticism, bearing in mind the term “mystic anything”, i.e., all the above categegories, are oxymoronic because mysticism doesn’t belong to anything. It is of itself, from before time to after time, before and after human existence. There is no such thing as Hindu mysticism or Christian or any other such mysticism.
Sadly most of these categories also imply mysticism describes a phenomenon that is purely anthropological, human, for and about humans. It isn’t. We are Reality but Reality is not just us.
The experience is for individuals. There is no mystic public message as such. Mystics simply report a phenomenon they have experienced, the main points of which are basically a version of the same in all MERs. The phenomena is impossible to describe, but is always accompanied by a sense of intense joy, total acceptance (i.e: love beyond mere human love that is based on lust, anger, greed, attachment and ego), oneness with all existence, complete understanding. The experience is the beginning of the mystic’s knowingness, wisdom. MER, once experienced, is an ongoing direction of the individual’s process.
Mystics can attempt to spread that experience to humans in the usual human ways – speech, writing, videos, books, blogs. But such messages are only the menu, not the food. Such messages cannot nourish any more than a menu nourishes without the experience of ingesting the food. MER is the real nourishment. It can’t be transferred from books.
Mystics, being part human, makes this likely but relationships have nothing to do with being mystics. Many religions warn against attachments being a distraction from the spiritual. There are consequences.
MER is spontaneous, caught not taught. You can’t gift it. It’s protected from the merely curious or well intentioned by the simple expedient of a password. The password is, “experience” – personal, individual experience of MER..
If you’re not careful, yes. Watch out for monetarised lust, anger, greed, attachments and ego. MER comes to the individual, not groups or followings, attachments like cultures, nations, ideologies, politics, family – nothing human. Reality is enough.
None of these human preoccupations came up in my MERs.
It seems to me from my experiences of MER we are in an infinite process of which being human is just a part.
Not if they can get away with it. Ordinary humans notice though, so I suspect most mystics try to fit in with the present state of the human condition, some more easily than others. Mystics tend to keep to themselves and avoid dissension in what to them can be an overbearingly expectant, challenging, primitive human setting.
*Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind is a 1901 book by the psychiatrist Richard Maurice Bucke, in which the author explores the concept of cosmic consciousness, which he defines as “a higher form of consciousness than that possessed by the ordinary man”. Wikipedia
