' Nature and Need of Mysticism '...

Let it be stated clearly that mysticism is an a-rational type of experience, and in some degree common to all men.

It is an intuitive, self-evident, self-recognized knowledge which comes fitfully to man. It should not be confounded with the instinctive and immediate knowledge possessed by animals and used by them in their adaptations to environment.

The average man seldom pays enough attention to his slight mystical experiences to profit or learn from them. Yet his need for them is evidenced by his incessant seeking for the thrills, sensations, uplifts, and so on, which he organizes for himself in so many ways--the religious way being only one of them. In fact, the failure of religion--in the West, at any rate--to teach true mysticism, and its overlaying of the deeply mystic nature of its teachings with a pseudo-rationalism and an unsound historicity may be the root cause for driving people to seek for things greater than they feel their individual selves to be in the many sensation-giving activities in the world today.

Mysticism is not a by-product of imagination or uncontrolled emotion; it is a range of knowledge and experience natural to man but not yet encompassed by his rational mind. The function of philosophy is to bring these experiences under control and to offer ways of arriving at interpretations and explanations.

Mysticism not so controlled and interpreted is full of pitfalls, one of which is the acceptance of confusion, sentimentality, cloudiness, illusion, and aimlessness as integral qualities of the mystical life--states of mind which go far to justify opponents of mysticism in their estimate of it as foolish and superstitious.

The mystic should recognize his own limitations. He should not refuse the proffered hand of philosophy which will help his understanding and train his intuition. He should recognize that it is essential to know how to interpret the material which reaches him from his higher self, and how to receive it in all its purity.

The belief that the neglect of actual life is the beginning of spiritual life, and that the failure to use clear thought is the beginning of guidance from God, belongs to mysticism in its most rudimentary stages--and has no truth in it.




-- Notebooks Category 1: Overview of the Quest > Chapter 1:
What the Quest Is > # 62 Paul Brunton