GoodbyeDave
Well-Known Member
The term mystical experience has been used in may ways, and one can distinguish at least 2:
1. Numinous experiences, where one becomes aware of an overwhelming presence.
A good example is Blaise Pascal's description: "From about half past ten at night until about half past midnight, FIRE. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and of the learned.Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace."
Another would be in the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna is revealed to Arjuna: "If a thousand sins were to rise in the heavens at the same time, the blaze of their light would resemble the splendor of that supreme spirit."
Such experiences are obviously found in all religions, and interpreted according to the theology of the religion in question.
2. Transcendent experiences, where there is a sense of unity, serenity, and the transcendence of the everyday self, time, and space.
St Teresa compared her sense of it to rain falling on the river, where one could not longer distinguish the water from the rain from the water from the river. The exact same image had earlier been used by a Hindu mystic! The experience of nature mystics obviously belongs here, as well.
Many do not consider this phenomenon religious. In Christianity, St Teresa did but John of Ruysbroeck considered it a psychological phenomenon open to anyone, as do the Zen masters. Ramanuja explained it as being simply the achievement of the full potential of the embodied soul. But however you explain it, it too is obviously found in all religions.
As for my religion, it too has both phenomena. Apuleius described a numinous experience and Plotinus a transcendent one. Personally, I've had neither, and I'm inclined to the non-religious explanation of transcendence.
1. Numinous experiences, where one becomes aware of an overwhelming presence.
A good example is Blaise Pascal's description: "From about half past ten at night until about half past midnight, FIRE. God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and of the learned.Certitude. Certitude. Feeling. Joy. Peace."
Another would be in the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna is revealed to Arjuna: "If a thousand sins were to rise in the heavens at the same time, the blaze of their light would resemble the splendor of that supreme spirit."
Such experiences are obviously found in all religions, and interpreted according to the theology of the religion in question.
2. Transcendent experiences, where there is a sense of unity, serenity, and the transcendence of the everyday self, time, and space.
St Teresa compared her sense of it to rain falling on the river, where one could not longer distinguish the water from the rain from the water from the river. The exact same image had earlier been used by a Hindu mystic! The experience of nature mystics obviously belongs here, as well.
Many do not consider this phenomenon religious. In Christianity, St Teresa did but John of Ruysbroeck considered it a psychological phenomenon open to anyone, as do the Zen masters. Ramanuja explained it as being simply the achievement of the full potential of the embodied soul. But however you explain it, it too is obviously found in all religions.
As for my religion, it too has both phenomena. Apuleius described a numinous experience and Plotinus a transcendent one. Personally, I've had neither, and I'm inclined to the non-religious explanation of transcendence.
