Why I am a Mystic
What is mysticism for someone who enjoys living in the world, loves Nature, and experiences God in all things?
“Mysticism [is] the art of union with Reality [and], above all else, a Science of Love.” — Evelyn Underhill
I am a mystic, by nature and not by choice. I have chosen to spend many long decades in exploring what I am not: I am not simply reducible to my roles, even those, like fatherhood, which are the most honorable and fulfilling ones. Nor am I reducible to my relationships, as much as I find my bliss in deep friendship and romantic love. I am brought back in a thoroughly knowing way to what I have always been, beyond role, beyond relationship, to the Reality of who I am at heart— I am love created in love, and to love I long to return.
I am a mystic, happily ensnared in the ultimate longing for and reality of a resplendent and redolent Love that both echoes in my heart and draws me into the unknown as an act of joy beyond courage.
What does this Reality for which a mystic strives actually mean? Evelyn Underhill, a spiritual genius and teacher, defines mysticism in Practical Mysticism simply as the “art of union with reality” and “the Science of Love”. She, along with the Christian mystic, Lillian Dewaters, points to a human life of realities within realities within realities that operate as dreams from which one wakes. Dramas and fantasies are exposed as illusions. One is brought closer to a truth which is at once uncomfortable and liberating. The Reality with a capital “R”, of which Ms. Underhill speaks, is one of ultimacy, the deepest, most embracing, and truest of all realities.
This Reality varies from mystic tradition to mystic tradition. Kabbalah, the Jewish form of mysticism seems to emphasize merit, splendor, and power in its practice. I spent a year and half of intensive study and practice there, but found it to be missing the grace of the divine, which takes me up when my own merit fails. I spent several years within the Buddhist mystic tradition called Mahayana, but found, ironically (given its central critique of conceptualization), tbat Buddhist tenets appeared too remote and conceptual to me. For what truly is “nothingness” and why should one aspire to it? I am a being who lives and loves in the world and who seeks to learn and experience, not simply grasp the aridity of all endeavor. I do not seek to retreat from fanciful illusions, but rather advance into them and let them show me what they are!
I have limited experience of the Hindu mysticism called Sikhism, but I found myself resonating with its founder, to the extent that I borrowed a quote from its founder, Guru Narak, to express the nature of God in a recent essay. I still marvel and am inspired by the Islamic Sufi mystic poet Rumi, and find myself transported into deeper and truer reality by his art. How could one not be inspired by words of wisdom and passion such as these:
The minute I heard my first love story,
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.
Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.
or this:
If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead,
don’t try to explain the miracle.
Kiss me on the lips.
The mystic traditions that profoundly move me, rightfully, I believe, locate LOVE as the medium and destination, the alpha and omega, of mystical Reality. For is not love the very essence of Being and the very driver of becoming? Was it not love that created the universe, born of a desire to give, share, and express in its deepest sense? Does not the embodiment of love surpass all abstract concepts and overflow as a divine human spiritual inheritance, giving rise to both stardust and the very purpose and energy of Life called Spirit?
As I experience it, mysticism is a lover seeking Love in its truest and most ultimate sense.
Christian mysticism, to which I am most centrally drawn, makes Love itself the very essence of God. In the Gospel of John; “God is love” and further that “God so loved the world” as to provide a Son (in the form of the Christ figure called Jesus) to demonstrate and evoke the eternal love in all.
What does this look like? It means seeing everything and everyone as a child of the Love which is God. It means absorbing this Love in Nature herself and listening to one’s heart. It means arranging priorities based in depth and importance, rather than expedience and urgency. It means doing and being who you truly are even among the most mundane compromises we make everyday, just to get by in the world.
How do you attempt to embody Love in a world that often sees fit to forget, oppress, or suppress it? Are you a mystic at heart? Please share.
Nice essay, Zeus.
Yep!