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What is your view of the socalled Mystical path within religions?

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
What is your view of mystical paths within the religions?
If your view is that it is wrong or false, can you explain why you view it as such?

If your view is that it is good to practice mystical paths, can you explain a little about your understanding of those mystical paths?

or maybe you are neutral?

Edit: the OP does not speak of one specific mystical path, but all of those paths who are seen as mystical
 
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Brinne

Active Member
I think they’re super interesting, and very helpful to some.

However I also think they’re dangerous to some. In that, people sometimes get wrapped up in the esoteric and try and pursue it (incorrectly) by themselves without being instructed properly by someone who’s qualified. At least so it goes in most traditions.
 

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
I think they’re super interesting, and very helpful to some.

However I also think they’re dangerous to some. In that, people sometimes get wrapped up in the esoteric and try and pursue it (incorrectly) by themselves without being instructed properly by someone who’s qualified. At least so it goes in most traditions.
It is true that on the mystical spiritual path, one does need a teacher/guide who has gone the path first
 

Lain

Well-Known Member
What is your view of mystical paths within the religions?
If your view is that it is wrong or false, can you explain why you view it as such?

If your view is that it is good to practice mystical paths, can you explain a little about your understanding of those mystical paths?

or maybe you are neutral?

Edit: the OP does not speak of one specific mystical path, but all of those paths who are seen as mystical

It is my opinion that God desires every human person to go along this way to Him and be fully divinized, even near completely during this life, but finds few who are willing to go through the immense suffering of doing so. My understanding of it is that through God's work a person becomes increasingly like God and purified of death in all sorts of ways in themselves, their soul being made pure can now even to a large degree (although still only in part) see God, for the Lord Jesus says "blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God." It is also taught in the Psalter I think:

"Who shall ascend into the mountain of the Lord: or who shall stand in his holy place? The innocent in hands, and clean of heart, who hath not taken his soul in vain, nor sworn deceitfully to his neighbour. He shall receive a blessing from the Lord, and mercy from God his Saviour."

This process is what one comes to and is called partaking in the divine nature by the Apostle St. Peter in his Epistle. The Saints go to it by asceticism and following in the infinitely broad path which is the commandments of the Gospel, for it says somewhere "Lord Your commandments are exceedingly broad," as many of them are positive commands of love which are perpetually grown into.

That is my view on it at a basic level.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
There are those like St. Francis of Assisi who I count as one who followed the inner path while at the same time honoring and teaching the church's doctrine. I count St. Catherine as another in Catholicism.

Some Islamic sufi orders work inside Islam. In Judaism we have the Kaballah. The boundary between esoteric and exoteric is not as pronounced in the dharmic religions. And of course, as you pointed out @Conscious thoughts , the teacher has to have a certain attainment.

To me, it's not important whether or not the spiritual path is walked in a religion or outside of religion. What counts to me is the connection between teacher and student. Especially, the student has to believe and act upon the belief that the teacher is a true teacher but that's a topic for another thread.
 

Aupmanyav

Be your own guru
What is your view of mystical paths within the religions?
If your view is that it is wrong or false, can you explain why you view it as such?
I do not love mysteries. They may include falsehood since they are mysteries. I want things to be straight-forward. So, not my way and I would not advise it for anyone. I have seen many go mad after adopting 'mystic paths' in my life, it is quite common here in India (tantra, kundalini, etc.).
 

mangalavara

सो ऽहम्
Premium Member
Through the mystical path I think all religions will merge into one

That reminds me of some of the poetry of Hafez. In one poem he writes, 'Whether we are drunk or sober, each of us is making / For the street of the Friend. The temple, the synagogue, / The church, and the mosque are all houses of love' (The Angels 33). Knowing how inclusive this sounds, I think Hafez might have believed religions merge through the mystical path. He writes in another poem, 'We know the one given the chief seat / In the Gathering is the sadhu in the street' (The Angels 55). This is an interesting statement. If the terminology in the first half of that statement is a reference to God as the 'Owner of the Day of Reckoning,' then Hafez apparently believed that even a Hindu holy man is God. In what sense though? I don't know.

By the way, @Conscious thoughts, I wonder if you are familiar with the poetry of Hafez. :)

Works Cited​

The Angels Knocking on the Tavern Door: Thirty Poems of Hafez. Translated by Robert Bly and Leonard Lewisohn, Harper, 2008.
 

ajay0

Well-Known Member
What is your view of mystical paths within the religions?
If your view is that it is wrong or false, can you explain why you view it as such?

If your view is that it is good to practice mystical paths, can you explain a little about your understanding of those mystical paths?

or maybe you are neutral?

Edit: the OP does not speak of one specific mystical path, but all of those paths who are seen as mystical

Mysticism as in contemplation , meditation and intuition is an essential part of religion, imho.

Intuition has greater access to knowledge than mere logic alone, and this is very important when there is timely decisionmaking to be made.

I know of mystics and saintly people making correct decisions when it seems illogical at first sight but genius when it is all over.

All authentic religious people have an element of mysticism in them, developed in varying degrees, imo.

However in untrained mystics, the chances for error and superstition is very high.
 

mikkel_the_dane

My own religion
What is your view of mystical paths within the religions?
If your view is that it is wrong or false, can you explain why you view it as such?

If your view is that it is good to practice mystical paths, can you explain a little about your understanding of those mystical paths?

or maybe you are neutral?

Edit: the OP does not speak of one specific mystical path, but all of those paths who are seen as mystical

Let me try to explain it as a skeptic. When I using standard western philosophical analysis try to explain the world in the short possible amount of words I get results like this:
The world is the collection of cases of same, similar and/or different cases of what makes sense or doesn't make sense.
The problem is that sentence depending on how you analyse it, it makes sense or doesn't make sense. So as a skeptic I reach a mystical result in a sense.

But because I am non-spiritual in the religious sense, I get a different meaning out of it.
 

osgart

Nothing my eye, Something for sure
I just stick to the virtues and follow those. Discretion is key; Not to give foolishly.

I have mystical feelings quite a bit. But I don't center my life on feelings. I try to do the right things even when I don't feel it.

I think there is a language of inner self, and the feelings one has; much like music. But to chase after feelings leaves one empty and void of the feelings one is after.

Love, joy, peace, contentment all have associated feelings, but they are not feelings, they are the heart of willingness in response to virtue.

My first rule is to seek to understand, last to debate or contention. Humans are essentially heart, mind, and will.

My second rule is to apply the principles of the meanings to my own life. Without the utmost desire to follow virtues one is just living by subjective preferences and whims. So my first priority is to motivate myself toward virtues.

Lastly it is important to defend virtue.

That is my mystical path. Others I'm sure follow after things I wouldn't spend much time on, and for good reasons.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Mostly neutral, but I think it can easily become a kind of addiction: chasing after pointless 'magical' (spiritual) experiences.
 

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
Mostly neutral, but I think it can easily become a kind of addiction: chasing after pointless 'magical' (spiritual) experiences.
I don't think anyone on a mystical spiritual path seeking the mystical, it is just a part of the teaching, it opens up wisdom. And it is n8t actually very mystical:)
 

Hermit Philosopher

Selflessly here for you
Personally, I disagree with some of what's been said in this thread so far.

I think that mystical experiences are sacred, but that they are available to anyone who is open to receiving them.

I think that mystical experiences are direct and personal and received in the way that is best understood by the receiver and that this [best] way varies individually, but that it does not matter because the purpose of mystical experience is not to found organised collectives of believing followers, but to personally and directly change the receiver himself.

I think that mystical experiences are recognised only by their conceptual content and by the characteristic effects that this concept has on its receivers.

I don't believe that mystical experiences can be passed on to others, but I do believe that living true to one's own mystical experiences can and does change the world.


Humbly
Hermit
 

PureX

Veteran Member
I don't think anyone on a mystical spiritual path seeking the mystical, it is just a part of the teaching, it opens up wisdom. And it is n8t actually very mystical:)
I think there tends to be an aspect of religious mysticism that leans toward 'magical' experiences: speaking in tongues, being bitten by snakes, astral projection, prophesy, communing with spirits, and so on. And people get caught up in these things as ways of escaping the reality of the human condition. The condition of profound unknowing. They think they can somehow join the realm of the divine through these mystical experiences.

I think it's not where we, as human beings, belong. And when we start chasing after it, we only become more lost to our true purpose ... to be ourselves.
 

Spirit of Light

Be who ever you want
I think there tends to be an aspect of religious mysticism that leans toward 'magical' experiences: speaking in tongues, being bitten by snakes, astral projection, prophesy, communing with spirits, and so on. And people get caught up in these things as ways of escaping the reality of the human condition.
I don't know much about those things, but they are not in the esoteric path i know :)
 

SalixIncendium

अग्निविलोवनन्दः
Staff member
Premium Member
What is your view of mystical paths within the religions?
If your view is that it is wrong or false, can you explain why you view it as such?

If your view is that it is good to practice mystical paths, can you explain a little about your understanding of those mystical paths?

or maybe you are neutral?

Edit: the OP does not speak of one specific mystical path, but all of those paths who are seen as mystical

Call me Captain Obvious, but it's practical for mystics to practice mystical paths. It's practical for non-mystics to practice conventional paths.
 
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