Mystics - The Inner Knowing
Mystics have appeared in all civilisations and throughout history. They are people who have experienced visions or been convinced of some knowing that has come to them in an unusual way - via a trance, a dream or a sense of instant knowing or a eureka moment. They have felt the information to be so strong and true that they often give their life to pursuing the path indicated by the information they have received. They frequently report having an overwhelming sense of the interconnectedness of everything. Some renounce all worldly ways as man-made items seem irrelevant to what they have seen as an eternal existence. An inner union and understanding is integral to many religions but often hidden away or not seen as attainable by the ordinary man and so it has become the realm of saints and people who have retreated form worldly engagement - monks, aesthetes and artists. Yet it is there for all to find. Meditation is the road to take to taste the sphere. The creative force is often the way the mass find a touch or taste of this certainty, this form of knowing. The composers, the poets, those immersed in the fine arts ... when they lose themselves in their work - become so immersed in their creations that time stands still - they then reach such realms... and you may get a whiff, a fleeting fillip to the spirit as you hear a beautiful snatch of music playing on the wind or soar with a glimpse, a facet, of an artist's work or find the poet's phrase taps some chord in your make-up; and on you dance.
Today science is starting to realise because of the body of experiences of this order, from mystical to paranormal, throughout history that something must be driving it and so it is slowly being accepted into a field (note the use of that word field, there) for study. It's early days but that study may one day enable people everywhere to step into whatever ancient/eternal source the mystics enter. The right brain, the creative medium, is being researched to this end...but still no-one is certain of its role except to know that activities often associated with that hemisphere can provide and lead to a glimpse of the mystical.
Famous mystics and visionaries can be found in any search and they have frequently foretold man's path long before it has transpired but they are usually reviled in their own time. Paracelsus the great doctor of his day was too unusual for his time and chased out of cities all over Europe for being so "ridiculous" as to connect the filth and rats to illness. He also foresaw (500 years ago) that the medicine of the future would be sound and light. Today we are just beginning to use lasers and sound to heal.
Mystics have always gone to what is said to be higher planes of existence and foretold many things or saved those in their midst - Jesus Christ is too obvious and, for many, too far back in history - but for more recent ones check out Padre Pio, in Rome during WWII, or Brother Andre in Montreal, Aurobindo in India, Mother Theresa, Krishnamurti, Helena Blavatsky, Nicholas Roerich. They are just a few of the ones I've delighted in but there are so many more including the Children of Fatima.
The mystical incident is an experiential thing entirely and frequently beyond the belief of those who have no such experience. But as we see and learn of the thoughts and actions the great mystics have brought us; the wisdom and ability to foretell and foresee and depict our progress (witness Leonardo Da Vinci's work) read Rothko, revel in the inspired thoughts of a Shakespeare; eventually, with so many records piling up in the history books, surely the day will come when we will begin to accept, stop blindly refusing to see the far superior wisdom brought through in this manner...and then maybe more and more people will also start to experience and see the colours in the great poets, hear the message in great music and begin to thrive on the writings of the enlightened souls who have left their footprints on our world.
"Those who are meant to hear will understand. Those who are not meant to understand will not hear." Confucius.
Let us work to enabling so many more to hear and understand, for that is the seed-bed of mankind's evolution towards a finer existence where war, aggression, jealousy, meanness, hatred, poverty are all inconceivable.
Today science is starting to realise because of the body of experiences of this order, from mystical to paranormal, throughout history that something must be driving it and so it is slowly being accepted into a field (note the use of that word field, there) for study. It's early days but that study may one day enable people everywhere to step into whatever ancient/eternal source the mystics enter. The right brain, the creative medium, is being researched to this end...but still no-one is certain of its role except to know that activities often associated with that hemisphere can provide and lead to a glimpse of the mystical.
Famous mystics and visionaries can be found in any search and they have frequently foretold man's path long before it has transpired but they are usually reviled in their own time. Paracelsus the great doctor of his day was too unusual for his time and chased out of cities all over Europe for being so "ridiculous" as to connect the filth and rats to illness. He also foresaw (500 years ago) that the medicine of the future would be sound and light. Today we are just beginning to use lasers and sound to heal.
Mystics have always gone to what is said to be higher planes of existence and foretold many things or saved those in their midst - Jesus Christ is too obvious and, for many, too far back in history - but for more recent ones check out Padre Pio, in Rome during WWII, or Brother Andre in Montreal, Aurobindo in India, Mother Theresa, Krishnamurti, Helena Blavatsky, Nicholas Roerich. They are just a few of the ones I've delighted in but there are so many more including the Children of Fatima.
The mystical incident is an experiential thing entirely and frequently beyond the belief of those who have no such experience. But as we see and learn of the thoughts and actions the great mystics have brought us; the wisdom and ability to foretell and foresee and depict our progress (witness Leonardo Da Vinci's work) read Rothko, revel in the inspired thoughts of a Shakespeare; eventually, with so many records piling up in the history books, surely the day will come when we will begin to accept, stop blindly refusing to see the far superior wisdom brought through in this manner...and then maybe more and more people will also start to experience and see the colours in the great poets, hear the message in great music and begin to thrive on the writings of the enlightened souls who have left their footprints on our world.
"Those who are meant to hear will understand. Those who are not meant to understand will not hear." Confucius.
Let us work to enabling so many more to hear and understand, for that is the seed-bed of mankind's evolution towards a finer existence where war, aggression, jealousy, meanness, hatred, poverty are all inconceivable.
MYSTICS
Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise
From outward things, what'er you may believe.
There is an inmost centre in us all,
Where truth abides in fullness; and around.
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in,
This perfect, clear perception - which is truth,
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh,
Binds it, and makes all error; and to KNOW,
Rather consists in opening out a way
Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape
Than in effecting entry for a light
Supposed to be without.
Robert Browning on Paracelsus
Intimations of Immortality
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting,
The soul that rises with us,
Our Life's Star
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar.
Not in entire forgetfulnes
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of Glory
Do we come,
From God who is our home.
William Wordsworth
The soul that rises with us,
Our Life's Star
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar.
Not in entire forgetfulnes
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of Glory
Do we come,
From God who is our home.
William Wordsworth
