In a mystical experience, the person undergoing it often loses awareness of the subject/object or "I/thou" distinction.
Is this profound realization of "non-duality" in cognition experiential, ontological or both?
In asking this, what I mean to inquire in laymen's terms is whether or not the phenomenon should be understood as a matter of awareness alone (i.e. the individual has lost self-awareness or perception of themselves as a distinct subject but continues to be so in reality) or there is an ontological change actually going on (i.e. the person formerly differentiated becomes undifferentiated, or rather the veil of illusion leading one to perceive a world of dualisms and distinctions is peeled away to expose the true 'non-dual' reality).
And does this (rather academic) and/or question really matter? Is it just a case of ephemeral post-experience doctrinal interpretation that has no bearing on the truth and awesome quality of the actual mystical state itself?
Most Abrahamic mystics, atheist mystics and Dvaita Hindus seem to regard the mystical state as experiential but not necessarily ontological; whereas Advaita Hindus and other non-dualists interpret these spiritual states as being ontological. This is a doctrinal/interpretative difference contingent upon beliefs.
As an example of the former, consider the Catholic mystic Blessed Jan van Ruysbroeck:
Is this profound realization of "non-duality" in cognition experiential, ontological or both?
In asking this, what I mean to inquire in laymen's terms is whether or not the phenomenon should be understood as a matter of awareness alone (i.e. the individual has lost self-awareness or perception of themselves as a distinct subject but continues to be so in reality) or there is an ontological change actually going on (i.e. the person formerly differentiated becomes undifferentiated, or rather the veil of illusion leading one to perceive a world of dualisms and distinctions is peeled away to expose the true 'non-dual' reality).
And does this (rather academic) and/or question really matter? Is it just a case of ephemeral post-experience doctrinal interpretation that has no bearing on the truth and awesome quality of the actual mystical state itself?
Most Abrahamic mystics, atheist mystics and Dvaita Hindus seem to regard the mystical state as experiential but not necessarily ontological; whereas Advaita Hindus and other non-dualists interpret these spiritual states as being ontological. This is a doctrinal/interpretative difference contingent upon beliefs.
As an example of the former, consider the Catholic mystic Blessed Jan van Ruysbroeck:
"...There follows a third kind of experience, namely, that we feel ourselves to be one with God, for by means of our transformation in God we feel ourselves to be swallowed up in the groundless abyss of our eternal blessedness, in which we can never discover any difference between ourselves and God...
This brightness is so great that the loving contemplative, in his ground wherein he rests, sees and feels nothing but an incomprehensible Light; and through that Simple Nudity which enfolds all things, he finds himself and feels himself to be that same Light by which he sees and nothing else. This resplendence is nothing other than an act of gazing and seeing which has no ground: What we are is what we see, and what we see is what we are, for our mind, our life, and our very being are raised up in a state of oneness and united with the truth that is God himself.
We feel no difference between ourselves and God, for we have been breathed forth in his love above and beyond ourselves and all orders of being...and in this loving and being loved we always feel a difference and a duality: this is the nature of eternal love. And there we find distinction and otherness between God and ourselves, and find God as an Incomprehensible One exterior to us. There in the mystical experience all is full and overflowing, for the spirit feels itself to be one truth and one richness and one unity with God. Yet here there is an essential tending forward, and therein is an essential distinction between the being of the soul and the Being of God; and this is the highest and finest distinction which we are able to feel...
In this transcendent state the spirit feels in itself the eternal fire of love; and in this fire of love it finds neither beginning nor end, and it feels itself one with this fire of love. The spirit for ever continues to burn in itself, for its love is eternal; and it feels itself ever more and more to be burnt up in love, for it is drawn and transformed into the Unity of God, where the spirit burns in love. If it observes itself, it finds a distinction and an otherness between itself and God; but where it is burnt up it is undifferentiated and without distinction, and therefore it feels nothing but unity; for the flame of the Love of God consumes and devours all that it can enfold in its Self..."
- Blessed Jan Van Ruysbroeck (1294-1381), Flemish Catholic mystic This brightness is so great that the loving contemplative, in his ground wherein he rests, sees and feels nothing but an incomprehensible Light; and through that Simple Nudity which enfolds all things, he finds himself and feels himself to be that same Light by which he sees and nothing else. This resplendence is nothing other than an act of gazing and seeing which has no ground: What we are is what we see, and what we see is what we are, for our mind, our life, and our very being are raised up in a state of oneness and united with the truth that is God himself.
We feel no difference between ourselves and God, for we have been breathed forth in his love above and beyond ourselves and all orders of being...and in this loving and being loved we always feel a difference and a duality: this is the nature of eternal love. And there we find distinction and otherness between God and ourselves, and find God as an Incomprehensible One exterior to us. There in the mystical experience all is full and overflowing, for the spirit feels itself to be one truth and one richness and one unity with God. Yet here there is an essential tending forward, and therein is an essential distinction between the being of the soul and the Being of God; and this is the highest and finest distinction which we are able to feel...
In this transcendent state the spirit feels in itself the eternal fire of love; and in this fire of love it finds neither beginning nor end, and it feels itself one with this fire of love. The spirit for ever continues to burn in itself, for its love is eternal; and it feels itself ever more and more to be burnt up in love, for it is drawn and transformed into the Unity of God, where the spirit burns in love. If it observes itself, it finds a distinction and an otherness between itself and God; but where it is burnt up it is undifferentiated and without distinction, and therefore it feels nothing but unity; for the flame of the Love of God consumes and devours all that it can enfold in its Self..."
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