“CONTEMPORARY VIEWS” OF MYSTICISM

Taken with permission from Ron Krumpos’ book, The Greatest Achievement In Life. This free ebook has been downloaded over 70,000 times and is being republished as a printed book.

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

Many contemporary mystics are laypeople who seldom speak about religion, although most are quite religious. Mysticism, for them, is considered a mode of being, not a question of their faith.

These people are not trying to convince you or asking you to agree with what they say. They are merely attempting to explain their own direct awareness. They have no desire to describe their mystical experiences. Application to living is far more important. It is all-embracing discernment.

Almost every person feels that their life is lacking in some way, although they are seldom able to define it. There always seems to be something missing. True mystics feel wholeness often. It is not a temporary absorption in divine union. Rather, it is identifying with the divine essence everywhere. Living, for them, usually expands beyond their own immediate sentiments, thoughts and sensing.

“Just let it be.” Many mystics today have said that, in various ways. We frequently do try to control our lives. To some extent that is possible. Much of what happens, however, is beyond our control. Acceptance is a positive spin on surrender. We must accept what is, or actively change it to something better. Mark Twain said “the worst things in my life never happened,” yet caused needless worry. Conversely, the best things in life often occur without any planning or expectations. Dealing with what is should be our priority. We must live in the present, rather than dwell on the past or the future.

Existence is not just a mental exercise, despite what some Eastern schools of mysticism may seem to imply. There are emotional and physical factors of equal importance, which might be stressed too much in the West. For mystics, mind and body, and their emotive interaction, are less significant than the spiritual essence underlying them. A mind without spirit would be lethargic; a body without spirit would be ailing; lacking spirit in both can actually cause physical death. Life is not only becoming, it is being here and now.

Rebirth is conceived as being born in another body, after death in this life. For “born again” Christians, it is reaffirmation of their faith while still alive. Contemporary mystics sometimes speak of being born again. After absorption in oneness, they view existence from a broader perspective. The universal essence, which had engulfed them, is later felt as background to everything they experience. Living has greater purpose*, even if they cannot explain it in words. Realizing eternal life is present currently, they do not fear death.

Religions today usually concentrate on earthly being, within the confines of space and time. They seldom mention either mysticism or eternity. Many books about Judaism, Christianity and Islam omit their mystical tradition. Much current literature by Buddhists only touch on the Dharmakaya or Nirvana. The mystical quest for unity is still a vital part of Hindu movements, but most people in modern India are now more concerned with secular interests.

Many mystics disassociate themselves from orthodox beliefs and practices, which is resented by many of their religion’s members. Some reinterpret the scriptures and prophesies of their faith, which upsets some of its leaders. The priorities of mystical traditions are frequently at odds with the mainstream of their institutional faith. They concentrate on the eternal here and now, partially manifested in space and time, yet also transcendent to each and both.

“What about eternal life?” Most people who even consider it may regard it as after passing on. It can, however, be realized both consciously and presently. What we call this life might be just like watching and performing in a play on stage. The concluded acts we call the past. The following acts, termed the future, have yet to be presented. For true mystics, here…now…this moment is Reality. It is not merely an intermission. It is truly boundless and endless.

Many of these essays use symbolic terms, as did most quotations of mystics. “How do they relate to everyday living?” If you looked at a movie film (not digital), frame by frame, you would not grasp the meaning of the complete picture. When you look at this life, hour by hour, day by day, you cannot see it in its whole context. Even if you could review one mortal life in its entirety, its greater spiritual significance would be missing. Life is all of existence.

“How can one person possibly relate to all of existence, let alone to the spiritual essence which underlies it?” That is what mystics are conscious of, sometimes momentarily and, rarely, throughout every day. “Can you believe in a personal God and be a mystic?” Most of them do. “Can you be an atheist and a mystic?” A few are. God is the supreme concept of that essence which is God beyond God.

“God is a concept and not a reality?” God is as real as you want God to be. The divine essence is Reality, even if you do not believe in God. It is another mystical paradox. “Why can’t it be simple?” It is simple…it simply is. It is our minds which add the complexity.

*Their feeling, thinking and actions become for the soul, the whole and all, not for “I, me” and “my.” Their sense of being reaches beyond limited personal concerns.

Mysticexperiences.net

BELIEVE IN ‘GOD’?

QUESTION: Why shouldn’t I believe in God?

ANSWER: My more than 30 years of multiple annual spontaneous mystic experiences of Reality convince me your ‘God’ is too small.

Your religiously created ‘God’ is man made. Individual spirituality existed long before religions, if my experiences are to be believed.

(Religions only happened 10,000 years ago according to the Cambridge psychologist Nicolas Humphrey).

But if you get some sort of payoff in believing in your ‘God’ then don’t let anyone stop you, including me.

Q: Why are you so against what you call the ‘God’ of religions’?

A: Because the religions teach that their ‘God’s acceptance of you is contingent on your acceptance of religions’ rules. To me, this is an unforgivably monstrous, potentially spiritually crippling lie.

Reality is real. It does not lay down expectations. It does not condemn, demand worship or obedience, punish, or reward. It doesn’t care whether you believe in It or not because Reality believes in you.

Reality recreates everything known and unknown. It is satisfied with its evolving creation. It is in charge without your ‘help’ or understanding. That is the actual historical mystic experience.

You are satisfactory to Reality in all things because you are of Reality Itself. It accepts your existence unconditionally, joyously, axiomatically. You were in Reality at the beginning as you will be at any end, whether fully realised as yet or not.

Religions on the other hand are the personification of spiritual ignorance for saying otherwise because they have not recognised or accepted the historical mystic experience of the Reality which is the very ground of all existence, including us.

Q: Phew.

(Long pause in silence).

Q: Then what happens to morality and ethics without religion?

A: Morality and ethics came with human birth before religions, as you will understand if you see the startling BBC film series that followed babies from their birth to adulthood. (The Humanists agree I think but I don’t know anything about Humanism or how they arrive at this conclusion).

So far as the morality and ethics of religions are concerned you only have to read their bibles to see the endlessly disgusting preaching of the foulest perverted human behaviour in war or peace. Hardly moral or ethical teachings!

Though people say the New Testament is different it displays the disciples as being more interested on which side of the throne in heaven they’ll be seated. It reports betrayal, denial, fantastic feats, impossible career promises to followers, even geographical error.

Q: Then how do people find the truth?

A: By actually experiencing what real mystics experience.

Q: But I thought you said you can’t do that?

A: True. In my experience and reading, the mystic experience of Reality, MER, is caught not taught, as I have been saying ad infinitum.

Q: So are you saying, leave everything to this Reality of yours?

A: Yes. But if you really are called incurably to ‘hunger and thirst’ for truth then the best solution I know is ‘to know yourself’ by listening intently in the silence.

Absorb, submit – beware of phenomena, ignore the distractions of human attachments; anything mental or physical.

True spiritual tradition says ‘the rest will follow as the night the day’. Try it. Like most things spiritual, results come unobtrusively like an anaesthetic. But the process needs special patience and submission.

(“That which you seek seeks you” is a traditional spiritual lesson of comfort).

Just beware religions leading you astray. There’s no such thing as a Christian or any other kind of mystic Reality, just Reality.

All Is Well.

All posts may be republished freely.

IS ‘REALITY’ JUST ANOTHER NAME FOR ‘GOD’?

NO!

The true experience of Reality is defined by markers common to all such true experiences throughout history. But revealing them here could encourage pretenders so I won’t.

Sufficient to say the traditional tribal, cultural ‘God’ of war, threats, bullying, misogyny, land theft, exclusion, plagues, disasters, coercion, fantasy, deceit, anger, favouritism, anthropomorphism and religions, are no part of the mystical experience of Reality, (MER) which so ensnared our culturally limited, undeveloped ancestors. Is this why religion all over the world is now dying?

MER is the very antithesis of such ‘godlike attributes’.

There are many names throughout history for phenomenal experiences, including the word ‘God’. Not all of them are true mystical experiences of Reality.

I was brought up to believe in a God before my experiences began. I expected, and was bewildered, disappointed, when there was no ‘God’ of any description in any of those experiences, then or after.

I am beginning to think the make up of the Reality I experienced throughout 15 years of my life from the age of 15 is made up of the same elements found in the cosmos, including humans.

We’re told these elements include water, oxygen gas, O2, and most organic compounds, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, proteins, nucleic acids and thousands of others science doesn’t have a reason for them being there …

Nevertheless, the Reality mystics experience is not human. Reality may have all these ingredients but they are on a completely different, commanding, creative level to our as yet undeveloped selves.

Reality is in charge, according to my revelations. Reality is beyond our limited free will. It is benign, asks for nothing, not even worship or prayers. In my experience Reality is only interested in individuals. It is loving beyond human experience or description. And we are of it. The experience of Reality is an experience of total joy and trust beyond description. That’s the very basic mystic experience of Reality.

The word ‘God’ in any language describes a false, human fantasy, ‘God’ is not the Reality in which we really live – whether we know it yet or not.

All Is Well.

All posts from mysticexperiences.net may be reused freely.

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.

NO COMFORT IN GOD?

An author friend protested when I wrote (https://mysticexperiences.net/2021/09/15/is-reality-god/) I found no ‘God’ or gods in my MERs (mystical experiences of Reality).

He asserted God (the Christian ‘God’ in his case) gives people comfort.

No it doesn’t. The comfort humans seek is a remedy for the consequences of their mythomanic expectations – (“excessive or abnormal propensity for lying and exaggerating“, (Google).

The “lying and exaggerating” is about a concept of a ‘God’ for which there is no evidence or experience.

Seeking comfort in such an artificial construct is a purely human, non spiritual mental activity, that might at best only self hypnotise people into ego satisfying distortions of the consequences of the human behaviour that brought on their need for comfort in the first place, ie: lust, anger, greed, attachments, ignorance of self, and ego.

The word comfort is unnecessary in the greater spiritual Reality in which all things known and unknown exist.

This is not to say there is no comfort to be had from this superior Reality. There is immense human comfort in actually experiencing It. But that comfort is merely a mental human reaction after the fact of this transcendent experience which is all the real, lasting comfort humans can ever attain.

Reality’s existence gives us all we need to survive and thrive. Its involvement is constant whether we believe in it or not.

(“Letting go” is an often heard expression among Seekers in various stages of their spiritual paths. Is this where true comfort lies while still in our temporary human states?).

In the meantime, the common human concept of religious comfort is a dead end.

All Is Well.

Please feel free to reblog this post, or any posts found on mysticexperiences.net

IS REALITY GOD?

QUESTION: Is Reality God?

ANSWER: A definite NO! ‘God’ is largely man made in man’s image. Reality isn’t.

But, yes, in human terms bits of Reality have been called all kinds of ‘God’ or ‘gods’, and other names and attributes by humans for billions of years in every culture. The name has been abused and used, to kill and ill-treat millions.

But those humans of all times and cultures who were given as much of the experience of Reality as they could bear at the time – the mystics – were for some reason yet unknown shown more of the nature of Reality’s existence than eighty percent of their population at the time, (assuming the Pareto* principle applies here).

Unfortunately many of those mystics translated the revelation into spiritually shallow, human terms. This lead to emotional, spirituallly empty, merely morally and ethically driven religions that have little immediately evident divine content whatsoever.

But my understanding is that despite these human distortions Reality is the same but ever changing and unchanging.

Reality remains the beginning and end of all things. The Jesus of the Christian bible seems to suggest as much when he talks of being part of the alpha and omega of ‘God’.

All that has changed in human understanding historically is the extra extent Reality has revealed Itself from time to time to individuals, (note: not to religions or ideologies!).

For instance, one of the aspects of the ‘God’ of the Christian bible is what a vicious, warlike, tribal, revenge-seeking, manipulative, political, all mighty earthly power ‘God’ is. I can testify otherwise from personal experience.

The negative qualities described above were obviously human. Like all such human straying from Reality such delusions have been falling under the weight of their own irrelevance ever since.

But I, and presumably all mystics from my reading of latest human history, know Reality is us, and we are Reality. Perhaps this is why the ancients mistakenly described what they knew of Reality as having human form.

In fact, Reality isn’t even biological, if my experiences are anything to go by. (Neither are we biological eventually).

Therefore while Reality is certainly all powerful, It is also fundamentally caring, benign, guarding, guiding, advising, rescuing, forgiving, profoundly joyful, powered by acceptance of all things everywhere at all times – what humans who have experienced Reality partially call, inadequately, love. Reality’s love is ineffable, indescribable, reducing all who experience it into Itself, in utterly humble gratitude and submission. No one who has had any experience of Reality is ever the same again.

And by some way strange to human ways, Reality is only interested in individual growth, ie: you. Reality has named you, Reality claims you as Itself … Spiritual gregariousness, (one size fits all), is an oxymoron, nothing to do with Reality, and always fails.

We know now, if the ongoing mystic experience is to be believed, that Reality’s love is acceptance, not like human love which is emotional, lustful, angry, greedy, attached to the exclusion of one thing or the other, and ego driven. None of these merely human ‘attributes’ exist in Reality.

So to answer the question, is Reality God? I’ll repeat my first answer with another definite NO! ‘God’ is largely man made in man’s image. Reality isn’t.

All Is Well.

* “The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of the causes.” Wikipedia.

Mysticexperiences.net

Evidence of a prehistoric, even pre-time existence of Reality? A perspective.

Ron Krumpos, who follows this Blog, author of “The Greatest Achievement In Life” with 70,000 ebook downloads, wrote to Keith and said: “I thought you might enjoy this little article:

“Einstein’s answer to a New York rabbi clears things up a bit. The rabbi cabled him in 1929 to ask him if he believed in God. Einstein replied, “I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings”.

It’s clear what Spinoza’s God is not. He isn’t the God of the Bible, the personal God of Spinoza’s own Jewish tradition, or of Christianity, the one whose job description includes closely monitoring human affairs and miraculously intervening in them. What he is isn’t so clear.

Spinoza used the provocative formulation Deus sive natura—“God, or nature”—but he actually regarded nature as just the visible, comprehensible aspect of God’s infinite, incomprehensible being. One consequence is that everything that happens in nature, and everything that nature’s lawful order dishes out to us personally, is necessary—the way the conclusion of a logical or mathematical demonstration is necessary.

Everything is determined, not by God’s will—He doesn’t have one—but by our being, with everything else, an integral part of God’s being. Nothing happens by chance. And there are no miracles. Asking God for one, asking that He suspend natural law for our benefit, is asking God to trip up God.

But once we recognize this inexorable order as God’s only providence, we arrive at a serene acceptance of the world, combined with a virtuous immunity to its petty distractions and snares, thus partaking of the true freedom which belongs to God.” (My italics).

Ron added, “If you substitute Reality for God, that just about summarizes my beliefs too”.

Yes, I agree with Spinoza, Einstein and Ron. That just about says it all.

But what really strikes me is that Spinoza and Einstein’s lives were separated by about 300 years. Ron’s and my lives were separated from Einstein’s by about 100 years and all of us were separated from the oldest recorded Hinduism on the subject, Vashishtha, by12,000 years ago and Jesus’s life by over 2,000 years. Such evidence of human consciousness of the eternal existence of Reality abounds throughout the ages.

All of which goes to show how Reality has existed in many parts of the world at least well beyond humanity’s limited consciousness and was there at the beginning of all things and is what drives everything still, including us.

Interestingly, mystics are the only witnesses who have experienced this great truth from way beyond our currently primitive stage of evolutionary consciousness.

Mysticexperiences.net

SEEKING MEANING By Anthony Garner, zenothestoic.com

Deep in meditative trance a voice, my own perhaps, told me that I sought a god and had always done so.

The surprise was that I was surprised. Perhaps it was a sort of “coming out”. If that voice spoke the truth, and I have little reason to doubt it, then small wonder that a commercial life was an anathema to my soul.

I sat listening to the rain, pattering somewhere in my consciousness. There was a door or a barrier somewhere. Perhaps I was the wrong side of the tracks. Just the other side lay the infinite.

Do I anthropomorphize? No but I seek communication, communion if you will. At one stage I was in an empty theater, a Shakespearean image if ever there was one.

All the world’s a stage,nall the men and women merely players;

Was the god I sought the director of such theater I wondered? I thought perhaps he might be. Was there anyone there in that emptiness? Who had built, designed and ran that theater. The answer was always on the tip of my tongue. Like a half forgotten memory, which needed just a little prodding to be brought back into the camera of my mind.

Are we a simulation perhaps, are we the men in Plato’s cave. All seemed possible. God was never quite found, or was he?

“Are we what you are seeking?” I seemed to hear. Yes, you will do I replied. Talk to me, show yourselves.

Were those voices the Omega Point? I rather fancied they were. You see, a technological god will do me just fine.

Anything omniscient, wise, beneficent. Omnipotent would be quite handy too. Something vastly bigger that what we normally perceive in our messed up world of concretized struggle.

Is my god that of Abraham or Mohamed? The question seemed irrelevant. Was I god I wondered, or, more properly put, was I an offshoot of some universal consciousness of which we are all a part.

The joy of meditation is the freedom from convention and thought. I feel, therefor I am. To misquote Descartes.

Out of meditation I still listen for those voices. In the wind, in quiet incantations in a temple, in silence and the panoply of a starry night.

But I am an eclectic sort of fellow and can see beauty everywhere, even in the little maths I am able to grasp. In the wonder of fractals seen in the design of a tree, its roots and leaves. In the bang which we are told kicked us all off and in the whimper they say is our ending.

Were I young again and could choose a different path, it might have been that of the physicist. There is a stark, ethereal beauty there too, a search for meaning of not such a different order.

If there is a god, he hides in the cracks, in letters written in lemon juice between the lines on a page. Perhaps the physicist will discover him silently existing at the center of an ultimate singularity, or wrapped in some exotic field of yet unthought of energy. In a dimension we do not yet know of. A life form divorced from what we conceive of as the physical universe.

Many a physicalist will sneer these days at a such a search. Materialism is the fashion and the universe can only be explained in terms of what it does, not what it means. It was not always thus and there are still physicists who dream with greater ambition, people who are prepared to ask why and not content themselves merely to count and calculate.

At my age I must remain a mere dreamer; the time for doing seems long gone. But where would we be without such dreams? The world will not be bettered by science alone. No “for profit” titan will create a heaven for all, merely a glory for one.

There is a place still for the hermit, sitting in silence and listening for quiet voices in the gentle winds. There is purpose in listening, even in a world where all seems driven by material ambition.

There is meaning to be found by looking with serene detachment and contemplating what is and what might yet be.

zenothestoic.com

Publisher’s note: Anthony is a Follower of mysticexperiences.net

MYSTICISM A FORM OF KNOWLEDGE NOT FELT BY THE RATIONAL MIND?

I can think of no better definition of mysticism than that I found in a comment by Anna Nimm on a website called Materialism, Mysticism and Art

I think of mysticism as direct knowledge of god, whether a personal or a pantheistic god synonymous with nature or a Dionysian life force. And it’s a form of union that is ecstatic, it transports one both beyond the self and also beyond concepts and words; it is a form of knowledge felt by the heart and body (or soul) rather than by the rational mind.

From “Mysticism – experience over intellect”, Follower Anthony Garner’s WELTANSCHUANG blog.

OLD FASHIONED UNIVERSITY HYPERINTELLECTUALISING OF GOD VS. AN EVOLUTIONARY REBOOTING?

“… the hyperintellectualisation and rationalisation of ‘God’ appears to be ignoring the fundamental experiential aspect that MER and other forms of religious experience has revealed to us. Simply put, too many philosophers try to box in Reality to formulaic arguments.”

– An excerpt from an email from a long time follower of mysticexperiences.net who is taking a Masters degree course.

So while this traditional view of the existence of a “God” still prevails in some of the ivory towers of academia the 2013 poll by UPI/Harris showed that only three-quarters of U.S. adults, for instance, said they believed in God – down from 82 percent in 2005, 2007 and 2009.

More rcent Pew Research found most people in Western Europe say they believe in God but add that believing in God did not necessarily mean belief in the God of the Bible.

Even though all 15 countries surveyed by Pew in 2018 were traditionally “Christian”. Fewer respondents said they believed in God “as described in the Bible” than said they believe in “some other higher power or spiritual force.”

A quick Google search finds many major polls with even more evidence of a general abandonment of the traditional concept of a “God”.

There’s a 6,000 case history archive of experiential “mystical” cases Wales University took over from Oxford University under a Templeton fund. It might change a few minds. Here is an excerpt from the University’s ‘Journal For The Study of Mystical Experience’ :

“Despite long standing theoretical and methodological objections, scholarly research into so-called ‘religious experience’ continues to flourish.’ (Note the challenging, “so-called ‘religious experience’ …”).

See pages 190 and 197 in the new 416-page book, “Mystical Experience of Reality” for more about Wales University’s work in the field.

More than 50 universities around the world responded to a questionnaire about mysticism by philosopher and author Ron Krumpos. Universities now include intrapersonal psychology, metaphysics, spirituality, and mysticism in their philosophy departments. The University of Notre Dame is said to be a leader in this development.

The list of academic and popular literature on the subject takes up many pages of Google’s Play Books eBooks’ research app. alone.

When Dr David Chalmers, the leading physicist, mentions “the hard problem” facing science, is he referring to the ineffable gap between the dead-end experimentation of science into the whys and wherefores of Reality versus the perennial experiential nature of knowing Reality, i.e., mysticism – and ignoring the religions altogether?

Can we conclude from even these glimpse of evidence, that science and academia are now taking a much more seriously updated view of Reality than some laggard universities might suggest?

What really interests me most in this vigorously renewed approach to the subject of human evolution and the message of the mystics is whether Reality, through modern mysticism, is now beginning to reveal something new, something not just beyond the second hand approach of religions, or the cautious materialistic experimentation of science, or even the current trendy individualistic, human spirituality currently being adopted, but an evolutionary rebooting of humanity?

Certainly my MERs reveal a newer, very different Reality, a newer priority in human evolution than the traditional “hyperinterlectualisations” and “formulaic arguments” of Reality still being used by some universities …

Mysticexperiences.net

MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES OF REALITY: VOLUNTARY OR NOT?

Long-time follower of this Blog, Ron Krumpos, starts the debate.

Ron has degrees in philosophy from Northwestern University, Lucknow University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

His book, The Greatest Achievement In Life, is a comprehensive account of mysticism as experienced today. Ron interviewed 10 mystics from around the world to write it. It is a free reprintable pdf book with more than 70,000 downloads so far.

Ron: Keith, you said about MER, “It’s caught, not taught.” In religious terms what is ‘caught’ is grace. Divine grace is spiritual assistance not specifically earned by its recipient. Most mystics believe that divine grace is offered at all times

Keith: Grace is “A state of sanctification by God” according to Word Web dictionary. But that’s just an historically religious statement that gives the words “sanctification” and “God” old cultural meanings that have nothing to do with my experiences of Reality every year from the age of about 14 years to my late thirties.

Is there any empirical or experiential evidence that the experience is offered at all times? It’s not an option.

If MER (Mystical Experience of Reality) is an evolutionary factor could this suggest we will all become this Ultimate Reality finally anyway, grace or no grace? (Is that what the biblical Jesus meant when he said, I and my Father (God) are one?).

Ron: … in all places and to all beings, the sentiments, thoughts and actions of the ego self, and individual isolation, block its entry.

Keith: “… sentiments, thoughts and actions of the ego self, and individual isolation, block its entry” is unlikely if my experience is to be trusted.

The phenomena is spontaneous and does not need or accept invitations or permissions. The idea that anything could “block its entry” seems self contrary.

I certainly didn’t want to block my special experiences, nor could I have resisted such an engulfment even if I’d known how … The ineffable joy, oneness with all things then, now and forever, the knowledge, understanding, and humility, all given without any taking is truly ineffable. I was my true self. I tried desperately, bitterly to resist being gently deposited back into my humanity when each episode ended. There was never any question of choice in any of it.

Ron: “God’s grace is the beginning, middle and the end. When you pray for God’s grace, you are like someone standing neck deep in water and yet crying for water.” Ramana Maharshi.

Keith: The implication of this quote seems to be that everyone can experience the phenomenon of their own volition if they just pay attention. This is not my personal experience. My experiences were spontaneous, as I’ve said.

Ron: “God continually showers the fullness of his grace on every being in the universe, but we consent to receive it to a greater or lesser extent.” Simone Weil.

Keith: By the same logic a tulip could consent to rain or refuse it. It seems unlikely MER has ever been or could be left in the care of humans any more than to plants.

The hard question here is, can we do anything personally about emerging into what the mystics tell us we truly are?

On the evidence of the biblical Jesus’s attempts to evangelise the mystical experience of Reality, and other such failed attempts of historical note, plus my own anecdotal witness, I’d have to say No.

Mysticalexperiences.net

MYSTICAL JOURNEY’S END?

“Things here are but signs that show to the wise how the Supreme God is known; the enlightened sage reading the sign may enter the holy place and make the vision real.

“This Term, attained only by those that have over-passed all, is the All-Transcending.

“There is thus a converse in virtue of which the essential man outgrows Being, becomes identical with the Transcendent of Being.

“He that knows himself to be one with This, has in himself the likeness of the Supreme; if from that heightened self he can pass higher still—image to archetype— he has won the term of all his journeying.”

– Plotinus, “The Enneads” in the Chapter entitled: “The Flight of the Alone”

Mysticexperiences.net

EASY DOES IT – bad teachers?

Easy Does It

This essay so agrees with my prejudices on the subject of spontaneous mystical experiences of Reality (MER) I just have to draw your attention to it.

My only caveat is the constant use of the word ‘God’. My experiences taught me there’s no such thing if this is a reference to the god of human religions.

I prefer the phrase “Ultimate Reality” or “Reality” with a capital R.

The human word GOD is too small to come anywhere near to describing the Reality mystics experience. The word is tainted with insistent human values and dangerously limited spiritual experience.

Apart from that, this article is an essential foray into real spiritual meaning, in my experience.

Marc replied:

Thank you, Keith, for visiting our site and for reblogging the piece of spiritual writing published on this page.

I have read the caveat you noted down at your website, and I have no problems with it, to wit:

My only caveat is the constant use of the word ‘God’. My experiences taught me there’s no such thing if this is a reference to the god of human religions.

My use of the term “God” is a only a matter of familiar linguistic convenience and grammatical facilitation, to enable the communication of my message to others (readers in this case). In no way does my use of the word refer to the typical “god” (or “God”) of any human religion. You are right in that regard.

The truly ineffable is beyond the label and definition of words or word constructs. It is, also, beyond mental conceptualization and comprehension by the intellectual functionality of the human mind. One can readily substitute the word “God” in the article with, say, your preferred use of “Ultimate Reality” or “Reality” with a capital R. I would not have any problem with that.

Permitting me to make light of the matter, let me say that from a mystic’s perspective, I suppose it might boil down to adopting and using a favored “pet name” for the utterly transcendent Reality. Joel Goldsmith had his: the “Infinite Invisible.” Mystics, philosophers and theologians from various cultures and traditions down through the ages have resorted to fanciful expressions such as the Absolute, the First Cause, the Prime Mover, Spirit, Brahman, Purusha, the Self, the unutterable Nameless One or “Yahweh” in the Hebraic tradition for which the Jews had to concoct the name “Adonai” just so that they could have a representative name to legitimately pronounce (seems crazy and ridiculous but there was a reason behind the seeming madness), the Tao, Nirvana, Allah, and so on and so forth; and, of course, the much ballyhooed yet still in vogue everyman’s term in the English-speaking world — God.

It would seem that not even scientists can be spared from the tendency of customarily providing some reverential, awe-inspiring nomenclature for a phenomenon beyond the immediate purview of scientific reasoning and observation. Thus, we have terms such as the “Big Bang” (why not the Big Fart?), the “Zero Point Field,” the “Singularity,” the Higgs boson “God-Particle,” Consciousness, etc. all denoting “something that’s there but not quite out there.”

Aware of this very human foible, I exercised enough prudence to raise the potential issue or problematic matter at the very beginning of this site’s substantive discourse on the subject of contemporary mysticism. It sets the tone for the discussion and for the entire site as well.

By the way, my private “pet name” for God would be “The Truly Ineffable.” It reminds me of the divine paradox that “there is this thing that is not a thing at all” — a No-Thing.

Thanks again for appreciating the post, Keith.

Cheers.

QUESTIONER: “DID YOU SEE GOD?”

FOLLOWER: Did you see God?

ANSWER: I wouldn’t call it God.

In my present state of development plus what I was given in my various instances of MERs (Mystical Experiences of Reality), I’m at the conclusion there seems to be a Process into which I have been drawn, rather than “God”.

At the beginning I was disappointed not to find God as I had hoped. Instead, I found this Process, which is nowhere near as limited as the human word “God”, implies.

QUESTIONER: So MER is not GOD?

ANSWER: My MERs showed no human attributes in the Process I experienced if that’s what you mean.

Nor does the Process exist just for or engage with the human condition. It does not issue human moralities, ethics, rules of behaviour, laws, taboos, ideologies, threats or talk of vengeance or favouritism. There is no coerciveness, heaven or hell.

The Process is benign, caring of all creation, guarding, guiding, aiding and comforting. It is a constant, a seemingly natural state of unending contentment, peace, tranquility, humility, gratitude, awe and joy.

My own sense of personality, character, body, mind, intelligence, intellect, seeing, smelling, hearing or tasting, did not exist in my MERs, nor did I miss them, expect them or need them.

The experience is fulfilling beyond all ordinary human experience, imagining or knowledge. It seems to be the alpha and omega of everything, all knowing, with what humans would call ultimate virtue, an existential fundament of being that just is, and is a given that can be taken for granted, does not need to be named. In Reality there are no names: everything just is and all is well.

As each of my experiences dissolved me back into my humanity I felt a keenness of loss, outcries of alarm, a profound, wrenching desperation of catastrophic bereavement. I scrabbled against it in futility. I felt marooned, a feeling that taints my human existence to this very second.

I was never given to believe humanity or individuals can invoke or influence this Process of Reality, either. In fact, being human might be the reason so many humans have not yet had the experience.

I came away with the impression human bodies and brains die, but their spiritual ingredients become absorbed, added into this non-material Process of Reality beyond infinity that never dies.

After MER, humans have no need of the anthropmorphic falsehoods of faith, hope or belief – after MER they KNOW. They are one with the Process, no longer needing gods or “God”.

Q: None of this sounds Christian or Islamic.

A: When you’re spiritually ready, dig deeply and sensitively enough and you’ll find the reality of existence and meaning buried inside the clutter of human veils in yourself, in all individuals, in Christianity, Islam, Buddhism or Hinduism.

After that you won’t use the word “God” ever again. You might even wonder if the “God” you’ve been worshiping is in fact the “Devil” obscuring you from Reality.

Mysticexperiences.net

SPIRITUAL METAMORPHOSIS?

By David Robertson

I was an atheist for most of my life until about five or six years ago. And I was very anxiety ridden, filled with constant concerns for what I wanted to do in the future. I worked endlessly to try and fulfill these goals that I thought I wanted, and was terrified of the prospect of not being able to achieve them. This stopped me from realising the beauty of just simply living life in a more present way. It didn’t make me happy, it didn’t make me a better person, I was just too busy working towards some non-existent future. This is a story for another time, but I slowly became more interested in spirituality and gradually developed a strong belief in a loving God and that the universe was divine (including myself). As a result, a concern for death and the future became less of a factor.

I started to trust in the divine more and more, and countless opportunities started appearing for me. I also realised my early goals weren’t what I wanted in life. A trust in God gave me the courage to simply jump into the unknown, and I just knew in my heart that things would work out for the best. And in the end, it has. I traveled around India and Nepal without planning much; ended up doing jobs that I quite loved; discovered and pursued a passion for writing that was always hidden a little bit below the surface; found myself teaching English in China; and of course, I found the love of my life. For me, the results of trusting in God and the universe speaks for itself.

I wrote this piece today because my partner is going through quite a stressful time, most of it to do with our future plans over the next year and whether she can achieve them. She asked me at one point, “how can you not be so worried about all of this?” So I guess this post is in part an answer to her question, and I hope she finds something of value in it that can ease her suffering, even if it’s just a little bit.

Read David Robertson’s Trust: Surrendering Yourself to God and the Universe in full.

Mysticexperiences.net