For Atheist Mystics

[Orbit]

When I was a Christian, I was a very liberal, nondogmatic mystic with a New-Age God concept. I had several mystical experiences, which centered on union with God. I still think those experiences are valid and valuable. I also had one mind blowing experience that was not theistic at all that had to do with pure perception of consciousness and a trip through the universe. So, I'm now, and have always been a mystic at heart. I did not then, and do not now, have any use for dogma of any kind.

Here is the crossroads: I am now an atheist with pantheist leanings who finds Eastern mysticism appealing. I do non-theistic meditation, which is one way to reach mystic states. So in that sense, my basic spiritual makeup is unaltered: I'm still chasing mystic states. It has been recently pointed out to me that the "God" concept and related religious symbols and imageries are just that--imagery to be transcended; convenient shorthand for the indescribable; masks of the ineffable.

As I incorporate those ideas into my practice, I wonder if I can leave the God-baggage behind and truly be free of, or rather transcend theism in my efforts at mystical union.

So, I throw this open to the wisdom of the boards: Have you had a mystical experience? How do you incorporate that into your post-Christian worldview? General thoughts?

 

[YmirGF]

Well, I certainly fit this bill, as given. I have moved away from any notions of god that human animals can easily relate to. Dang... just got called away...

 

[YmirGF]

So, I throw this open to the wisdom of the boards

I don't profess to have anything approaching wisdom, but if you like what I say, I might give you a cookie.

Have you had a mystical experience?

I'm at the stage, and have been for a very long time, where I no longer see distinctions between the mystical and the non-mystical. It's all just experience. In essence, the "ohhhh, ahhhh" stage doesn't last forever. To answer you question more directly, yes, I have had literally hundreds of "mystical" experiences.

How do you incorporate that into your post-Christian worldview? General thoughts?

I winnowed through all my beliefs and tossed out those that were no longer necessary or were in conflict with my present view of reality. It's much harder than it sounds and it is not for the faint of heart. Doing so requires an almost brutal honesty and you may very well force yourself to abandon ideas that you have cherished for a very long time.

With that caveat, the process can also be quite hilarious and dare I say, cathartic. The process itself could very well accelerate the frequency of mystical experiences and add new depth since you have taken off layers the clothing said experiences were formerly wrapped within.

This is the thread were I originally broached this topic.
http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/prayers-meditations/23653-mind-child.html#post278377

 

[Yerda]

What is a mystical experience?

 

[YmirGF]

What is a mystical experience?

What isn't?

 

[Yerda]

What isn't?

Play nice with the novice.

From your other post I can see that you've moved past the distinction. I haven't been able to make one yet. How do you think the OP intended the reader to handle the word mystical?

 

[YmirGF]

Play nice with the novice.

From your other post I can see that you've moved past the distinction. I haven't been able to make one yet. How do you think the OP intended the reader to handle the word mystical?

It is to be assume that they are talking about relatively extraordinary experiences that may be have several different explanations. The main difference between so-called mystical experience and say a psychotic episode or a dramatic episode of bipolar disorder is that the experiences will have a generally positive effect on the individual.

The thing to keep in mind is that the average human animal can only explain their experience from their own understanding, hence you will get fairly wide variations reported. That said, the experiences are usually non-dual in nature or at the very least have non-dual elements. What I mean by that is that the normal perspective of subject and object is eroded to varying degrees precipitating a unified view of reality. It's a bit hard to describe.

The way I am reading the OP is that if one has a preexisting fixation on religious elements, there can be a bleed-through of those latent beliefs that merge into the mystical experience. Experiences of this sort will include all kinds of religious figures or god as the central focal point. It's sort of like Close Encounters of the Third Kind in your brain, as it were, and can be highly dramatic visitation events. It is very difficult to see through these type of experiences because they hit a very deep emotional resonance within the observer. What the observer does not generally understand is that they are creating the event via their latent belief structures. Again, it's pretty difficult to articulate. Slowly, one begins to understand this creation process and that is where understanding really begins to grow. It is at that stage that the reliance on these old ideas become less and less necessary.

 

[Yerda]

What I mean by that is that the normal perspective of subject and object is eroded to varying degrees precipitating a unified view of reality. It's a bit hard to describe.

I have had evenings where it was obvious to me that everything is one. Thinginess was difficult to hold on to. I was pretty alarmed but I was expecting to find some things alarming if you know what I mean.

Is this similar to a mystical experience?

 

[YmirGF]

I have had evenings where it was obvious to me that everything is one. Thinginess was difficult to hold on to. I was pretty alarmed but I was expecting to find some things alarming if you know what I mean.

Is this similar to a mystical experience?

I sort of get the drift, but I would rather have a bit more information to work on.

 

[Yerda]

I sort of get the drift, but I would rather have a bit more information to work on.

I find it almost completely impossible to think about let alone speak of coherently.

 

[TurkeyOnRye]

What is a mystical experience?

Better than defining a mystical experience, how does one create it? I'm no expert, but basically you just choose a desired state and then follow your imagination. Sometimes it's as simple as it sounds. Other times, not so much.

However, the trouble is that when one's history of mystical experiences is limited, the scope of one's imagination may be rather limited.

 

[Sunstone]

When I was a Christian, I was a very liberal, nondogmatic mystic with a New-Age God concept. I had several mystical experiences, which centered on union with God. I still think those experiences are valid and valuable. I also had one mind blowing experience that was not theistic at all that had to do with pure perception of consciousness and a trip through the universe. So, I'm now, and have always been a mystic at heart. I did not then, and do not now, have any use for dogma of any kind.

Here is the crossroads: I am now an atheist with pantheist leanings who finds Eastern mysticism appealing. I do non-theistic meditation, which is one way to reach mystic states. So in that sense, my basic spiritual makeup is unaltered: I'm still chasing mystic states. It has been recently pointed out to me that the "God" concept and related religious symbols and imageries are just that--imagery to be transcended; convenient shorthand for the indescribable; masks of the ineffable.

As I incorporate those ideas into my practice, I wonder if I can leave the God-baggage behind and truly be free of, or rather transcend theism in my efforts at mystical union.

So, I throw this open to the wisdom of the boards: Have you had a mystical experience? How do you incorporate that into your post-Christian worldview? General thoughts?

You might want to read, Waking Up, by Sam Harris. I've been reading it, and it is pretty much an intelligently written primer on the subject you've raised here.

 

[Vouthon]

Better than defining a mystical experience, how does one create it? I'm no expert, but basically you just choose a desired state and then follow your imagination. Sometimes it's as simple as it sounds. Other times, not so much.

However, the trouble is that when one's history of mystical experiences is limited, the scope of one's imagination may be rather limited.

Hmm...I'm not so sure if I would go with the theory that you choose a mystical state through desire (which is kind of antithetical to many forms of mysticism, particularly apophatic and Buddhist variations where the emphasis is more on detachment and abnegation) and moreover I would contest the utility of the "imagination" as a means to achieving this end.

While some forms of contemplation/mysticism ultimately do make use of the imagination and senses to prepare themselves for a mystical experience, the experience itself is not related to or dependent on 'thought' or the 'rational' thinking state of the mind, of which the 'imagination' is the pinnacle if you like. Mystical states are more intuitive, primal even. One of the favoured images of describing it is like the baby intuitively reaching out to unite with the mother's breast, after all. The infant does not use rational thought processes and while there is 'desire', it is not actively motivated but rather born thoughtlessly of something much more intuitive and innate ie the baby doesn't think, "I want milk", he or she simply is drawn by an intuitive, thoughtless 'pull' towards the breast and lacks a sense of self awareness distinct from the object of its 'desire' (the breast!).

 

[Vouthon]

What is a mystical experience?

Ineffability, the incapacity of an individual to adequately express in words what they have 'experienced', is one of the hallmarks of a 'mystical experience' ie

"...You and I do not meet on one branch or in one place. You make your way along one path and I along another. Your questions arise from human thinking, and I respond from a knowledge that is far beyond all human comprehension. You must give up human understanding if you want to reach the goal, because the truth is known by not knowing...His eyes are opened. He becomes fully aware...for all things are here one in the One...No one can explain this to another just with words. One knows it by experiencing it..."

- Blessed Henry Suso (c. 1296-1366), German Catholic mystic & Dominican priest

If the very idea of an ineffable experience is 'confusing' then great! You are on the right track because one of the most important changes a mystical experience can bring to your life is to trip up your rational, normal train of thought and open a person up to an entirely new way of seeing themselves and the world in which they live. At first the 'revelation' can cause the individual great pain and uncertainty, a period often known as a 'dark night of the soul' but ultimately it brings about a peace that passes all understanding.

 

[Orbit]

Play nice with the novice.

From your other post I can see that you've moved past the distinction. I haven't been able to make one yet. How do you think the OP intended the reader to handle the word mystical?

Direct unmediated experience of the ground of being.

 

[Vouthon]

When I was a Christian, I was a very liberal, nondogmatic mystic with a New-Age God concept.

The 'New Age' is in my book a barrier to a proper understanding of 'mysticism'. In the popular mind-set and largely due to the new age movement, 'mysticism' has become wrongly associated with a whole range of bizarre and spurious so-called 'paranormal' and supernatural experiences and entities - such as prophetic powers, miracles, tarot cards and so on - that are so far removed from what the word 'mysticism' technically, traditionally and accurately means.

As I incorporate those ideas into my practice, I wonder if I can leave the God-baggage behind and truly be free of, or rather transcend theism in my efforts at mystical union.

While I am personally a theist and a Catholic, the mystical state is entirely free of conceptual content or ideas. Theism and atheism are human categories that have nothing to do with the actual experience of a mystical state. Theists and atheists both interpret their mystical experiences, after actually having them, according to the frameworks of their own belief systems. The beliefs in themselves are, however, utterly irrelevant to mysticism itself and also harmless as means of getting there - indeed a distinct religious or philosophical system of concepts and practices has typically been the normal means through which to arrive at a mystical state of awareness.

Also, one of the most important parts of the mystical experience is that it leads to existential crises that challenge previously held convictions, many of which have to be stripped back and abandoned as the person "journeys" to wherever they are going. For theists, this often means having to give up every concept they have traditionally had of God and for some it may mean abandoning 'God' as an idea altogether. For some atheists the reverse has happened and it has lead them to abandoning the idea of their not being a 'God'. It is incredibly different for each person in my POV. The main thing though is that you will change and have to detach yourself from previously conceived notions, whatever they may in fact be.

I will quote from two prominent mystics of my own tradition, which although theistic touches upon experiences common to all mystical traditions:

"...On achieving their desired end
Human powers cease to function,
And the soul sees that what it thought was right
Was wrong. A new exchange occurs
At that point where all light disappears;
A new and unsought state is needed:
The soul has what it did not love,
And is stripped of all it possessed, no matter how dear.

It is within and sees no exit;
It no longer knows how to think of itself
Or to speak of the wondrous change.
It ventures forth
Onto a sea without a shore
And gazes on Beauty without colour or hue.

There is no other action at those heights;
What the questing soul once was it has ceased to be.
Neither heat nor fiery love
Nor suffering has place here.
This is not light as the soul has imagined it.
All it had sought it must now forget,
And pass on to a new world,
Beyond its powers of perception.

Until you reach this point, and the self is annihilated,
Everything you think is true is really false.
You do not yet have in you pure charity
While you can think of 'yourself'
And the 'victory' you are 'striving' for.

Oh, the futility of seeking to convey
With images and feelings
That which surpasses all measure!
The futility of seeking
To make infinite powers ours!..."

- Blessed Jacopone da Todi (1230 - 1306), Catholic mystic & Franciscan poet

"...Then and there the person is left so completely to himself that he loses all notion of God and gets into such a disstressful state that he cannot remember whether things had ever gone right for him, so as not to know any more if he were ever on the right path, whether he has a God or not, nor does he know if God does or does not exist, or if he is alive or dead and whether he is the same person; and he suffers such incredible pain that this whole wide world is too confining for him. A very strange sorrow comes over him that makes him think that the whole world in its expanse oppresses him. He neither has any feeling for nor knowledge of God..."

- Johannes Tauler (c.1300-1361), Catholic mystic & Dominican

 

[Vouthon]

Direct unmediated experience of the ground of being.

That is the ultimate result, yes - although it is often (although not always) preceded by 'union' through an intermediary, such as a set of meditative or prayer practices, mental images or a pantheon of beliefs. Then after direct experience without an intermediary, their usually follows the 'union' (for want of a better word) without distinction which passes beyond the 'unmediated' state itself.

 

[YmirGF]

Also, one of the most important parts of the mystical experience is that it leads to existential crises that challenge previously held convictions, many of which have to be stripped back and abandoned as the person "journeys" to wherever they are going. For theists, this often means having to give up every concept they have traditionally had of God and for some it may mean abandoning 'God' as an idea altogether. For some atheists the reverse has happened and it has lead them to abandoning the idea of their not being a 'God'. It is incredibly different for each person in my POV. The main thing though is that you will change and have to detach yourself from previously conceived notions, whatever they may in fact be.

I could not agree more. Big surprise, eh? Great post, btw.

 

[Windwalker]

While some forms of contemplation/mysticism ultimately do make use of the imagination and senses to prepare themselves for a mystical experience, the experience itself is not related to or dependent on 'thought' or the 'rational' thinking state of the mind, of which the 'imagination' is the pinnacle if you like. Mystical states are more intuitive, primal even. One of the favoured images of describing it is like the baby intuitively reaching out to unite with the mother's breast, after all. The infant does not use rational thought processes and while there is 'desire', it is not actively motivated but rather born thoughtlessly of something much more intuitive and innate ie the baby doesn't think, "I want milk", he or she simply is drawn by an intuitive, thoughtless 'pull' towards the breast and lacks a sense of self awareness distinct from the object of its 'desire' (the breast!).

Taking your analogy of what can be understood in the light of a sort of return to the state of simple being of an infant intuitively reaching out to unite with the mother's breast, you mention the 'preparation' for the mystical experience. I myself put those "subtle" state experiences of illuminations and forms into the general category of mystical experience itself as they are beyond our typical egoic awareness and lead up into the causal states (which you describe) of mysticism in general. I see a slightly different categorization, though we certainly agree together in itself effects.

What I want to get to is that as it is a return to this simple state of being, like that of an infant one with its mother, the path through the subtle state s is comparable to the rise of the infant through the path of differentiation away from its mother into its unique individuality in its egoic state. As the infant awakens to itself through this process, it first moves through a dreamlike, magical world of imagery and wonder. On the return path to Source, from the egoic state of separate self to Unity, it passes through that subtle state again, this time fully self-aware as an individual moving to Unity, as opposes to undifferentiated self awakening to individuality. It's a loop of growth, rather than a linear ladder from Ground to Goal. Ground and Goal are the Same, but not through a path backwards to infancy, but forward to Unity.

My main point I wanted to post however ties in specifically with what you are saying above. It's from that book you recommended to me and was something I read in it a day ago that really captures this state of openness, and placing ourselves within that that the infant to its mother conveys. We do not seek to produce these experiences, we simply open to them. They are our natural state. He says referencing the various means and methods of trying to 'produce' these states, "Techniques imply a certain control and focus on a determined outcome. Contemplative practice is a skill, a discipline that facilitates a process that is out of ones direct control, but it does not have the capacity to determine an outcome."

He then gives the analogy of how a gardener does not grow fruit and the fruit grows itself, but his skill is need to tend to the soil in which it grows, which takes knowledge and skill in preparing it for the natural process to occur. He also speaks of the sailor that he does not produce the wind, but rather masters the vessel which allows the wind to propel it. Then he summarizes, "Gardening and sailing involve skills of receptivity. The skills are necessary but by themselves insufficient. And so it is with contemplative practice and spiritual life generally".

I couldn't agree more. It's important to understand it is not a goal we are reaching towards for something we have yet to attain for ourselves. It's what is already always fully there. It's a return to Source as Summit, through growth, through differentiation, to Unity.

 

[allfoak]

You are not saying that technique is unimportant?

When learning martial arts, those that learn technique only, thinking that they have mastered the art, have not yet mastered themselves.

Those that understand that the learning of the technique is the foundation only, will be able to move on to what it takes to be a master of their own life.