MYSTICISM IS NOT A PHILOSOPHY.

Mysticism is not a philosophy. It is a personal, individual experience of a Reality beyond human consciousness, logic, reason or intuition.

This is why those who have experienced it have such an ineradicable conviction of the phenomenon’s existence.

They have experienced a powerfully non biological, creative, joy of giving, knowledge, a oneness of all embracing existence of everything, even matter, that is completely beyond mankind, on a level beyond all human consciousness, measurement or interference.

Philosophy on the other hand is all supposition, mind stuff like logic and reason for instance; ideological like socialism, communism or religions, none of which even have successful human experiences to support their mythomania.

All Is Well.

Mysticexperiences.net

A “MYSTIC SUMMIT”!

A “MYSTIC SUMMIT”! February 1-6

“Including 40 scholars, teachers, contemporary mystics”

A follower of this web site sent me this notification in January. She asked me what I thought. This is my edited reply:

“Very depressing. They think mystics are here to help mankind. That was not in any of my experiencs of Reality.

“In my experiences, mankind is a seething obstruction to Reality of lust, anger, greed, attachments and ego.

“True mystics, from my experiences and awareness of the historical phenomena of mysticism, are deliberately withdrawn from this world as part of the mystic processing that takes them far beyond human existence. I am.

“Furthermore, mysticism is caught, not taught, cannot be evangelised or prosyletised nor can it be used as a palliative for the human condition. Experience of it is guarded by an impregnable security system – the actual experience of Reality itself. Even the religions don’t have that. It’s baffling science, too.

“As the Christian book says, “Many are called, few are chosen”. So if as it seems, these people have not experienced the mystic experience of Reality (MER) enough to even lift them out of this worldly activity they’re advertising, they’re just stumbling. They’re not mystics yet. Their qualifications and reasons for any mystic identity are doubtful, to say the least …

“The best I can say for these people is they may be sincere but they are sincerely wrong. Their present state of existence cannot help humanity, not even real Seekers.

“Anyway, so far as the human condition is concerned, Reality is in charge, not us.

“Thanks for telling me about this though – sad as it makes me …

Big social distance hugs,
Keith.

Mysticexperiences.net

SPIRITUAL RESISTANCE?

Academia.edu sent me a doctoral paper on resistance to MER, the mystical experience of Reality. I didn’t know such an impossible thing existed and that it apparently has a such a name in psychology.

I deleted the paper as irrelevant to the focus of this website. But it is fascinating for its glimpses into the kind of analysis scholars are bringing to the subject, though I think they have it wrong when they call it ‘resistance’. Why?

Because any real, spiritual resistance is the teaching of MER Itself. MER teaches not to discuss the personal, individual experience with anything other than Reality Itself. Those who do will get imprisoned in the very life entanglements MER is there to abolish.

Human history is littered with the remnants of those imprisoned, tortured, killed, defamed, had their work burned, were banished or what one ‘universal’ church presumptuously calls “excommunicated” from practicing only that church’s ‘truth’, or wiped out like the Templars and ‘heathens’. Another still promises violent punishment for rejection of their ‘peaceful’ faith. Look what happened to the biblical Jesus. Molinos too, despite Papal support, and Guyon, though who has heard of these blessed individuals nowadays?

True mystics keep their experiences to themselves, don’t evangelise, teach, preach, prosyletise or explain. Marsha Sinetar found this out in her attempt to study the MER phenomena for her book, ‘Ordinary People As Monks And Mystics’. She could only get 300 very reluctant participants. Even they only seemed to respond to her specific questions rather than offer very much personal about their MERs. (Even though the good lady gave warm support to my early website she was reluctant to get into the subject personally too …).

So the obfuscating phrase “spiritual resistance” is a human phrase meaning resistance to human interest, not MER interest. (There we go again – egoistic human arrogance assuming humans are the underlying value against which all experiences, ie.consciousness, must be appraised. Such hubris).

If scientists, scholars, Muggles, and those of their ilk can’t get over their inbuilt prejudicial, bigoted idea humans are the centre of all cosmic reality then they’re doomed to eternal defeat of their own purposes.

After all human endeavour to understand MER is done, experience of Reality is still the only key to Reality. ‘Resistance’ is unthinkable, impossible. Surrender is more like it.

All Is Well.

Mysticexperiences.net

QUESTION: How Do You Know Your Mystical Experiences Of Reality Are True?

QUESTION: How do you know your mystical experiences of Reality are true?

ANSWER: Because of the ineffable but undeniable, implacable, benign power that revealed my true existence as an eternal non human being since the beginning of all things, Its revelation of my inclusion of belonging then, now and forever. It was literally stunning to feel so accepted, loved, freed. This was my destiny, my reality. I was and am always Reality and Reality was and is always me.

I never wondered about any of this. I had no idea of the existence of such an experience. It was entirely unthought of, beyond anything I had ever experienced, or ever expected anyone to experience, totally spontanious, assuring.

Q: How could you live as a human after that!

A: With lasting difficulty. I kept these experiences to myself for 60 years. I had them several times a year from about 15 years of age into my 30’s.

Q: You never wanted to shout them from the housetops as the saying goes?

A: Never.

Q: Why not?

A: I never understood them.

Q: So what made you ‘come out’ when you did.

A: I came across a book of yoga that seemed to hint at my experiences. I began to wonder if the phenomena might be known after all. The book, by Paul Brunton, didn’t make me feel any urge to take it further though.

Some time later, in my fifties I came across an older couple at a house of a group of friends who spoke with familiarity about what I thought were my exclusive experiences. I was astounded.

The couple subsequently introduced me to what has been called a little known school of Sufism that teaches millions of its world wide adherents what only I thought I knew – my experiences.

That eventually lead to my “coming out” to the then Master of the School. Later, after preparation, I was finally initiated.

The School impressed me by inviting its adherents to stay in its growing new town in India for free for three months every year in modern western style accommodation in the cool season. We were never asked for money, even told not to send postage for the Master’s replies to any letters he encouraged us to write to him about our progress. He said, “adequate funds are provided.”

It was here I first learned about mystics. Much later, from outside the School, I came across the Buddhist reference to pratyeka buddhas, which leads me to believe that’s what I am, but not a buddha. A pratyeka buddha has personal experiences of Reality like me, and does not teach, preach, evangelise or prosyletise from these experiences either.

Q: Quite a journey. Why are you here do you think?

A: I think mystics like me could be part of some purpose of developing consciousness. I’m not sure yet.

Q: Human consciousness?

A: No, not human consciousness! Ultimate consciousness, of which human consciousness could be a part on some level.

Q: You’re not curious?

A: No, I’m not curious. I’m content. I’m in good hands. All Is Well.

Q: Can other ordinary humans have these mystical experiences?

A: If they “hunger and thirst” for Reality as the Christian bible suggests, then they are already called. I was just one of those that didn’t hunger and thirst, but “That which you seek seeks you” the Sufi Master told us. People who do hunger and thirst are in good hands too. “Seek and ye shall find”, also from the Christian bible, is another truism that rings as authentic to me. Again I didn’t seek, but once found, I knew Reality.

As I say, whatever your way, All Is Well. “There are no failures” I’m told.

Mysticexperiences.net

IN REVIEW: The Fifth Dimension – An Exploration of the Spiritual Realm by Dr John Hick

In this excerpt from his excellently illuminating book, The Fifth Dimension – An Exploration of the Spiritual Realm, Dr Hick acknowledges a general, but mistaken, public attitude to the mystical experience of Reality, namely:

Excerpt: “Experience of the natural environment is forced upon us, as we noted earlier, whereas experience of any supra-natural environment seems to be optional.”

No! There was nothing “optional” about my spontaneous MER experiences.

This spontenaity is not generally mentioned in the academic literature on the subject. It is commonly assumed it is experienced after much scholarly reading, the presence of a guru, or a strong adherement to religious doctrines. It is not.

Ancient and modern eastern literature agrees with me. It stresses MER cannot be achieved by learning. It’s “caught, not taught”. Did the biblical Jesus hint at this in his reference to the wind? The Dr Puri who wrote a book about Guru Nanak, (pub. SANT MAT), claimed it is spontanious too. The buddhists recognise this spontenaity, they call it pratyeka. Otherwise I haven’t come across any scholarly works that even mention the word “spontaneous”. But such scholarly works are mostly anthropomorphic anyway. They give the impression they believe the sun and moon only exist to revolve around the earth exclusively for humans ,,.

Dr Hick set out to show there is more than just matter, the physical existence of things, that there is also non matter – a “fifth dimension” not known by science, experiment, religion, philosophy, physics, the senses, logic or reason, only through experience of It: “the spiritual realm”.

All Is Well.

John Harwood Hick (20 January 1922 – 9 February 2012) was a philosopher of religion and theologian born in England who taught in the United States for the larger part of his career. In philosophical theology, he made contributions in the areas of theodicy, eschatology, and Christology, and in the philosophy of religion he contributed to the areas of epistemology of religion and religious pluralism. (Google).

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.

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

SPONTANEOUS AWAKENING EXPERIENCES: BEYOND RELIGION AND SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

By: Steve Taylor, M. Sc., PGCE Leeds, United Kingdom

This academic paper appears to describe the experience of my spontaneous, unrelated religious or spiritual experiences of what I call MER, (Mystical Experience of Reality) every year for over 15 years.

I thought you might be intrigued by this investigation into and conclusion about the phenomenon. The abstract of the paper follows. The full paper is available in pdf., free of charge, from Academia.edu as well as on the author’s website.

ABSTRACT

“‘Awakening experiences’ have been misunderstood to some degree by their long association with religious and spiritual traditions and practices. The research reported here –161 reports of awakening experiences –suggests that most of them occurred outside the context of spiritual or religious traditions. Neither were they induced by spiritual practices such as meditation or prayer. Most occurred ‘spontaneously.'”

Mysticexperieces.net

March 2020

ACADEMIA POURING OUT CONJECTURE ON MYSTICISM

Academia.edu tells me the web page has found 25,450 papers on comparative mysticism written by academics in leading universities around the world.

I’ve downloaded and read three. If these are anything to go by, academia is merely pouring out papers on mysticism that are cannibalised from other works, some famous, some obscure, some historical, some newer – with conjecture and commentary thrown in using jargon presumably aimed at other academics who will be deciding the authors’ academic reputations/careers. (Is Dr David Chalmers’ plea for science and academia to jettison jargon falling on barren ground?).

Not all the conjecture and commentary is new or originally expressed, either. Nevertheless, the impression is given of a wider and growing scientific/academic acceptance of the phenomena and its main attributes. I don’t know if this is a good or relevant thing or not. My experience is that Reality, having given existence all it needs, isn’t much distracted by human wants.

None of the three papers I read claim any actual experience of the mystical experience of Reality, (MER).

Based on my multiple annual experiences of MER over 15 years or so I conjecture that those who have had MER are receivers of an outer, non biological ineffable experience, and are not mere generators of MER based on their human wishes, experiences, brains, minds, consciousnesses, or souls as some of these works suggest.

Where did and do these wild assertive imaginings come from?

Mysticexperiences.net

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

HUMAN CLUTTER VERSUS ULTIMATE REALITY

A Follower who feels he is a mystic has sent me emails on how Ultimate Reality is made up by humans. He quotes biblical references that make him sound religious.

This apparent confusion made me think of stories how “The Devil”, (or what nowadays I see is called, “The Negative Principle”), insinuates into and pollutes the truth of Reality’s existence…

This is how the correspondence developed:

ME: My experiences direct me and my Blog to serious Seekers, mystics, scientists and academics who are examining the phenomena of spiritual awakening to Ultimate Reality, not to people just wanting to be better humans.

Consequently, I avoid anything that identifies with mere human experience which, in my view, is not worth studying, including mythomanic human constructs such as religions. I avoid expressions of merely human experiences like “super hero” or “alter ego” (words that the Follower used).

I realise this might be provocative, even challenging to present day humans, so when a Master advised me to ignore social media when distributing the Blog I did so immediately. The consequent dissipation of such spiritually fatuous social media distractions has been dramatically purifying …

FOLLOWER: But you are still a human, right?

Not for long, just temporarily. As a mystic my experiences of Reality indicate I am in progress. I have duties and responsibilities as a human while I’m here but they are spiritually insignificant attachments that will disappear with the mind and body as the human experience dies and evolves into pure Ultimate Reality.

FOLLOWER: Mystics must embody the human experience too, or it seems they have excluded a part of the Whole, the One. They say that Jesus was fully divine AND fully human, not either-or (hypostatic union). He was fully both, as are you and me.

ME: The Jesus Conference of international metaphysicians, scientists, academics, theologians, religionists have frequently met and published their findings, studies and experiments. They have arrived at the conclusion the biblical Jesus left only a dozen or so words attributable to him, and no spiritual teachings, only human morality and ethics.

Bishop Spong, an attendee, says the spiritual is more important than the religious.

FOLLOWER: God or Ultimate Reality incarnates itself as human, as us, in all of our broken and suffering humanity.

ME: No. My experiences of Reality delivered no evidence of any God or gods or any religious teachings whatsoever. Humans seem to have little or no significance in the infinitely, ineffable, bigger picture of Ultimate Reality. I could be wrong about my use of the word, “little”.

FOLLOWER: … we are both human AND divine, we are both a part and the One, simultaneously. We can’t ignore or dismiss this embodied manifestation, it seems to me, or we’ve missed a critical part of the totality, the very expression of Reality on Earth and in this particular finite embodied body-mind.

ME: Reality is not an expression of anything. It IS absolutely all things in Itself, unique, of which humans are merely a part; in my experiences of Ultimate Reality.

FOLLOWER: I would go so far as to say, as Eckhart does, that God or Ultimate Reality doesn’t exist apart from our embodied nature in any manifest way.

ME: Eckhart is wrong about Ultimate Reality but right about “God”, if my experiences mean anything. God is a human construct. Reality is not. Reality is not God in the general, cultural accepted sense. Reality is outside humanity. Reality is enough. It cannot be taught or learned, only caught, experienced. The experience of Ultimate Reality is the beginning of all wisdom.

FOLLOWER: If we did not exist, Reality would not exist, it would only be unmanifest formless potential.

ME: No! Absolutely not. I would be astonished to hear an experienced mystic say that.

Reality is not manmade, in my experiences. It’s the other way round. Humans could not exist without Reality, nothing can. Reality is enough, It existed long before and will after humanity’s existence. It is beyond infinite, beyond even mere alpha or omega …

FOLLOWER: … Reality finds actuality, in my view. This body is Reality’s actualized form.

ME: No; nowhere near the case, in my experience. Reality is ineffable – completely beyond human understanding or imagination.

FOLLOWER: When we know our divinity fully we also know our humanity fully. We realize the Anthropos (fully “Human One”, or “Son of Man”).

ME: No. When we eventually know Reality fully then humanity ceases, is fufilled.

I agreed when the Follower said we disagree! However, my experiences are of Reality, not human “ideas” or experiences as the Follower suggests. I am guided not to clutter my experiences of Ultimate Reality with temporary human distractions, what one Sufi school calls “manmukh”.

Ultimate Reality is very pure, perhaps what the bible meant when it said, “I am a jealous God”, (Exodus 20:5; Dueteronomy 5:9; 2Corinthians 6:15; 2Corinthians 11.2).

FOLLOWER: I think the reason that we speak and write such “ideas” about our “experiences” is that Reality wants to express itself, it wants to guide humans to it, to knowing it as it is, and it does so through us. I agree that none of these “ideas” is pure Ultimate Reality as it is in itself, as it is experienced directly, but this is rather all a pointer, a symbol, a metaphor, a relative truth that points to that Reality.

ME: I don’t think you can reduce Reality to being a penitent. My experience is that Reality doesn’t need our help. I was made helpless when Reality called. Aren’t all mystics?

Reality does it’s own work. Human attachments and ego get in the way. Just look at the human practice of “spirituality”, its history. (“The Negative Principle” at work again?). Some ancient, we could say perennial, mystery schools have millions of followers but keep themselves safely hidden from human effects, the spiritual tourists, the curious and spiritually uncalled, those unprepared by Reality. Reality happens when we’re utterly still.

FOLLOWER: All that we say is human “ideas.” Every word, yours and mine.

ME: Not if you’re a mystic.

FOLLOWER: Why have a blog if you don’t want to clutter the experience with such human distractions?

ME: Good point. I resisted the uncalled for, long delayed promptings to start a blog on my experiences for a long time, then, giving in to what seemed the inevitable, the penny dropped and I began. It’s been an eye opener, a serendipity of spiritual profusion and validation. Truly, All Is Well.

So I was determined not to tell readers what to think, as the religions do, but lay out my Mystical Experiences of Reality for those who were already seeking, who to some extent understood as much as what was said as unsaid, whose discrimination was already under Reality’s will. Only consciousness can understand consciousness, (as Deepak Chopra has obviously experienced, and expressed publicly, (though he was referring to the limits of science).

My determination was somewhat achieved eventually by “unqualifying” social media followers as well as those whose hunger and thirst are still deeply entangled at a non spiritual level.

Some find the process of the Blog helpful, easily assimilated, natural – others difficult. Few seem to give up its personal challenges once committed to having it sent regularly to their email.

However, I wouldn’t presume to put a value on the work. Suffice it to say the spiritual processing I get as a result of publishing it has been beyond understanding, immensely humbling, benign and ineffably loving. I could not have been changed, or shown what I have been shown, without Reality. Sharing the Blog is simply obeying and communicating what I know of the Reality I have been shown, come what may …

Here are just some of the conclusions I have drawn from my experiences. They have already been published in the Blog.

Mysticexperiences.net

SUMMARY Of BLOG’S CONCLUSIONS SO FAR

This Blog is a summation of a lifetime’s experiences and personal development as the result of multiple, spontaneous yearly experiences of Ultimate Reality.

After four years of writing about these experiences on the web page, mysticexperiences.net, I can summarise my conclusions as follows:

There is an Ultimate Reality over all existence, over everything known and unknown.
Humans exist as part of it.
Nothing exists outside it.
It is outside general current human experience.
It is not biological
It only manifests to individuals, for reasons yet unknown.
It is not created or influenced by humans.
Humans have no control of it whatsoever.
Nothing human affects that Ultimate Reality.
With human individuals it is benign, accepting, nurturing, gives ineffable joy.
It is indifferent to human constructs such as family, culture, or social organisations national or otherwise.
Human evolution could be absorbing into this Ultimate Reality, eventually making these temporary human bodies and minds extinct for something ethereal. Is this what human beings are all about?

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

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:

Reality contains everything known and unknown. Nothing exists outside It, including humans;
It is not human;
The experience of Reality is caught, not taught.
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;
It is Consciousness emerging;
It is benign, totally accepting (ie: inexpressibly loving);
It is constantly creating and developing;
It does not allow anything to interfere in Its purpose, (including humans);
It is everything in Reality; it provides, guards, guides, nourishes, replenishes, aids, observes, asserts its purpose;
It is all powerful; destroys, rebuilds, recreates;
Reality’s form is non material; non human, though everything shares Its ingredients as It shares ours. We are It;
It has given humans all they need and rarely if ever reacts to human wants;
It gives, never wants;
Reality is only interested in individuals;
Humans are at a very primitive, early stage of existence;
Prophecies can arise from the mystical experience, but such prophecies rarely get their timing right, (ie: “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” …).
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.
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.
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