COMMONALITY AMONGST THE WORLD'S MYSTICS:
If you study the life of past mystics you'll find they share several things in common:
First, they all speak of an induction – or of a need to learn/realize a new level of understanding. They all speak of a fundamental shift in consciousness (be it called awakening, realization, divination, or being born again).
Second they all tell of making a journey into and through a despair process of being “undone” as the precursor to this fundamental shift in consciousness -- be it through experiencing 40 days and nights in the wilderness, starving under the boddhi tree, facing the dark night of the soul, or the hero’s journey. There is a Journey of metamorphosis that all mystics have undergone in some way.
Third, it is an inner journey that must be taken up and navigated alone. This is a hallmark of the mystic’s realization: The reason the journey must be alone is because that which must be faced, seen, and surrendered in order that something new can emerge, is only possible through sustaining the fear and despair process of being alone and meeting the ultimate and fundamental fear of “non-being” and annihilation.
Fourth, they all seem to realize the frustration of being misunderstood by those who have not yet been through the awakening journey -- “those who have ears to hear, let him hear.” A great deal of the mystical writings are devoted almost exclusively to the fact that fundamental spiritual truth cannot be understood by the intellect nor correctly put into words. Forever, the great spiritual teachers have tried through the insufficiency of words to point toward that which can ever and only be experienced and known on a level that is before and beyond the mind. This is something unfathomable to those who have not yet had this breakthrough revelation - and particularly so in our contemporary culture that has become so overly reliant and blinded by the limiting paradigm of the scientific method that forever reduces our understanding of intelligence to that which is sensory, measurable and linear in nature. (...Life isn't (only or always) linear .. In fact it rarely is, except in man-made constructions and habituated uses of the mind.)
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If you study the life of past mystics you'll find they share several things in common:
First, they all speak of an induction – or of a need to learn/realize a new level of understanding. They all speak of a fundamental shift in consciousness (be it called awakening, realization, divination, or being born again).
Second they all tell of making a journey into and through a despair process of being “undone” as the precursor to this fundamental shift in consciousness -- be it through experiencing 40 days and nights in the wilderness, starving under the boddhi tree, facing the dark night of the soul, or the hero’s journey. There is a Journey of metamorphosis that all mystics have undergone in some way.
Third, it is an inner journey that must be taken up and navigated alone. This is a hallmark of the mystic’s realization: The reason the journey must be alone is because that which must be faced, seen, and surrendered in order that something new can emerge, is only possible through sustaining the fear and despair process of being alone and meeting the ultimate and fundamental fear of “non-being” and annihilation.
Fourth, they all seem to realize the frustration of being misunderstood by those who have not yet been through the awakening journey -- “those who have ears to hear, let him hear.” A great deal of the mystical writings are devoted almost exclusively to the fact that fundamental spiritual truth cannot be understood by the intellect nor correctly put into words. Forever, the great spiritual teachers have tried through the insufficiency of words to point toward that which can ever and only be experienced and known on a level that is before and beyond the mind. This is something unfathomable to those who have not yet had this breakthrough revelation - and particularly so in our contemporary culture that has become so overly reliant and blinded by the limiting paradigm of the scientific method that forever reduces our understanding of intelligence to that which is sensory, measurable and linear in nature. (...Life isn't (only or always) linear .. In fact it rarely is, except in man-made constructions and habituated uses of the mind.)
Please join us at this forum
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Unsu...
Re: MYSTICISM
Fri, January 4, 2008 - 9:46 AMMY frustration, even as a 'mystically' inclined person, is the nagging question: WHAT GOOD DOES IT DO? Look at the world! Look the fuck at the world! Being 'aware' seems more like a vanity thing, or a way to get laid. -
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Re: MYSTICISM
Mon, January 14, 2008 - 7:51 PMWe humans aren't very good at it. I'm sure there are enough mystics who have taken the journey to point the way. But look at the world and you can conclude that not enough have and not enough are.
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Re: MYSTICISM
Mon, January 21, 2008 - 9:33 AMwow, you have passion regarding mysticism, the age old expression, we are what we know..... the question for me is the "why" and then
the "how" is for almost pleasures sake.
Amazing indeed how true the common things the life of mystics share, from all points on the planet, a template is indeed clearly stamped in all time, the repetitive nature of teachers, leaders, who apply wisdom to knowledge, endearing students into accepting knowledge, and so forth.....
telling the story that teaches through a mystical viewpoint, has purpose, is it because of its universal natural tendancy in success of acceptance that the mystical is applied? yes?
hmmm...
I have just started up a tribe called
mask magic
wishing to invite those who have interest in ritual tribal activity where the mask is an impliment of design
the nature of wearing and making a mask
the experiences
please feel invited,
thanks for this interesting topic,
somthing to think about,
the feel
may the flow be with ease for you
leah.
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Re: MYSTICISM
Wed, January 23, 2008 - 3:58 AMI would surmise, based on what dominic has posted, that someone on a mystical path, who is "just trying to get laid" is likely in the early stages where they are grappling with Ego, and sexuality, and going through the "being undone" process.
I think the journey, is misunderstood.
In many ways, "the world" is going through the "undoing" process. Digging in, digging out the hidden buried icky things we don't want to see or deal with, and figuring out ways to deal with them.
Psychological growth, if you will.
But it sounds like the mystical path, takes that to a greater degree. Looking within, to get things squared away, to function in society is one thing. Looking within to go so deeply through transformation, that other humans don't have a clue where you are coming from, is quite another.
But I wouldn't discount the scientific method too much. When they get into the quantum levels, they are starting to sound alot like mystics. -
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Re: MYSTICISM
Sat, February 2, 2008 - 8:25 AMMichelle, Maybe getting laid is part of what comes about on what you describe as the first form of the mystical path, but I've always thought of the second form being almost antithetical to getting laid. Why are so many of those "what the hell are they talking about" deep mystics celibate?
When it comes to quantum levels, they sound like mystics because they have run off their level of comprehension; they no longer have any paradigms or shared mental models or vocabulary to describe what the physics, which works incredibly well at predicting things by the way, has to say about what the world is really like. So in that sense the "deep, what the hell" mystics and the quantum physicists (I mean the real ones, the ones that take years of work and study, just like the deep mystics take years of work and study, not the fluffy ones you sometimes see posting in places like this) have in common is that they know, have deep faith, that there is something out there, but they are unable to grasp it, see it, categorize it, label it, and communicate it. -
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Re: MYSTICISM
Sun, February 3, 2008 - 6:57 AMhmmm, yes very good point torroid.
Both have shed the accepted paradigms and have passed a point of no return. They are both on an irreversible path toward was they seek.
The mystics, taking that deep journey inward, and losing the mental models would likely see life and sex very differently. I would suppose they would find it more difficult to come across people whom they would even be interested in "getting laid" with. -
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Re: MYSTICISM
Sun, February 3, 2008 - 9:28 AMOK, let's keep pursuing both of these threads ... sex and quantum physics. It's like honey and ketchup.
Most people learning quantum physics, the hard stuff, are actually not asking these kinds of questions, they are being encouraged to just turn the crank and get the answers. (After all, most of them are going to be using quantum physics to build things, which do all sorts of good things like save and make our lives easier, but also happen to make money.) So I suspect that the number of people who are asking this question from the QP side is really, really small. After all, how much money do you have saved away to get a PhD? How good are you at cranking out equations in relativistic quantum field theory (that's the math behind QP). For my account, zero to both.
On the mystic side, I don't think it's a problem of selection, I think it's a problem of interest. But I'm not one, so what do I know? Any truly deep mystics out there that are lurking in this tribe want to comment? -
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Re: MYSTICISM
Wed, February 6, 2008 - 3:22 AMhmm, yes, well, I'd like to keep them going, but since I too am neither ... we're just making things up!
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Re: MYSTICISM
Wed, February 6, 2008 - 5:28 AMAt some level, they are too. It just happens to work sometimes :-)
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Re: MYSTICISM
Sun, February 3, 2008 - 9:50 AM
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