On being a 'mystic'...

Oh my, I've gone through many stages of faith and development to get to where I am today. For a period of time in my past I even proudly associated myself with the more fundamentalist and literalistic views in my religious tradition of Christianity. As my perspective grew and expanded, I wasn't sure that I could still even relate to my old way of seeing my faith. Thankfully, that has not been the case.

My journey has not been about trading in an old, outdated belief system for a bright, shiny new one. Hardly. Although, to be fair, at one point I thought that was my only option! Far from being threatened by my old paradigm I can appreciate and respect it for what it was, and still is to many others, an important part of my developmental journey, one that could not be skipped.

And yet there is further to go! I have certainly not arrived , only further along on the path, which, again, I am thankful for. Our journeys are all very different and this is just where I am. While I do enjoy helping others take steps forward, I am well aware that we are all at where we are at and that is okay:)

I was reading an interview with Ken Wilber (perhaps my greatest philosophical mentor) from way back in the day, in which he talked about a mystic versus a mythic interpretation of religions. His perspective is likely more nuanced now but I think he paints a good picture of some general distinctions. I do not expect everyone to become a mystic or agree with his conclusions but it will certainly help you understand myself - and others like me - much better. At least, that is the hope. The whole thing's a bit long so I condensed the parts I thought were the most interesting. I'd love to hear what you think!

KW: Exoteric or "outer" religion is mythic religion, religion that is terribly concrete and literal, that really believes, for example, that Moses parted the Red Sea, that Christ was born from a virgin, that the world was created in six days, that manna once literally rained down from heaven, and so on. Exoteric religions the world over consist of those types of beliefs [He gives other examples from Hinduism and Taoism, too]. That's exoteric religion, a series of belief structures that attempt to explain the mysteries of the world in mythic terms rather than direct experiential or evidential terms.

EZ: So exoteric or outer religion is basically a matter of belief, not evidence.

KW: Yes. If you believe all the myths, you are saved; in not, you go to Hell - no discussion. Now you find that type of religion the world over - fundamentalism. I have no quarrel with that; it's just that that type of religion, exoteric religion, has little to do with mystical religion or esoteric religion or experiential religion, which is the type of religion or spirituality that I'm most interested in.

EZ: Esoteric means what?

KW: Inner or hidden. The reason that esoteric or mystical religion is hidden is not that it is a secret or anything, but that it is a matter of direct experience and personal awareness. Esoteric religion asks you to believe nothing on faith or obediently swallow any dogma. Rather, esoteric religion is a set of personal experiments that you conduct scientifically in the laboratory of your own awareness. Like all good science, it is based on direct experience, not mere belief or wish, and it is publicly checked or validated by a peer group of those who have also performed the experiment. The experiment is meditation [or other similar disciplines, like contemplative prayer].

EZ: But meditation is private.

KW: Not really. Not any more so than, say, mathematics...it doesn't mean it is only private knowledge that can't be publicly validated. Just so, meditative knowledge is internal knowledge, but knowledge that can be publicly validated by a community of trained meditators, those who know the internal logic of the contemplative experience. We don't let anybody vote on the truth of the Pythagorean theorem; we let trained mathematicians vote on that truth. Likewise, meditative spirituality makes certain claims to be checked experimentally and experientially by you and anybody else who cares to try the experiment. And after something like six thousand years of this experiment, we are perfectly justified in making certain conclusions, making certain spiritual theorems, as it were. And those spiritual theorems are the core of the perennial wisdom traditions.

EZ: But why is it called "hidden"?

KW: Because if you don't perform the experiment, then you don't know what's going on, you are not allowed to vote, just as if you don't learn mathematics you are not allowed to vote on the truth of the Pythagorean theorem. I mean, you can form opinions about it, but mysticism is not interested in opinions but in knowledge. Esoteric religion or mysticism is hidden to the mind that won't perform the experiment; that's all it means.

EZ: But religions vary so much from each other.

KW: Exoteric religions vary tremendously from each other; but esoteric religions the world over share many similarities. Mysticism or esotericism is, in the broad sense of the word, scientific, as we have seen, and just as you don't have German chemistry versus American chemistry, you don't have Hindu mystical science versus Muslim mystical science. Rather, they are in fundamental agreement as to the nature of the soul, the nature of Spirit, and the nature of their supreme identity, among many other things. This is what scholars mean by "the transcendental unity of the world's religions" – they mean esoteric religions. Of course, their surface structures vary tremendously, but their deep structures are often identical, reflecting the unanimity of the human spirit and its [experientially] disclosed laws.

EZ: This is very important, then: I take it that you do not believe that mythic religions carry any valid spiritual knowledge.

KW: You are free to interpret exoteric religious myths any way you like. You are free to interpret myths as being allegories or metaphors for transcendental truths. Free, for example, to interpret the virgin birth as meaning that Christ operated spontaneously from his true Self, capital S. I happen to believe that. The problem is, mythic believers do not believe that. They believe, as a test of their faith, that Mary really was a biological virgin when she got pregnant. Mythic believers do not interpret their myths allegorically, they interpret them literally and concretely.

EZ: But some followers of mythic religions do in fact interpret their myths allegorically or metaphorically.

KW: Yes, and they are the mystics. In other words, the mystics are the ones who give an esoteric or "hidden" meaning to the myths, and those meanings are discovered in the direct interior and contemplative experience of the soul, not in some outward belief system or symbol or myth. In other words, they aren't mythic believers at all, but contemplative phenomenologists, contemplative mystics, contemplative scientists... Moreover, they, the mystics, are the ones who agree that their religion is basically identical in essence to other mystical religions, that "they call Him many who is really One." Now you will not find a mythic believer, say a fundamentalist Protestant, saying that Buddhism is also a way to perfect salvation. Mythic believers maintain that they have the only way, because they base their religion on outward myths, which are everywhere different, so they don't realize the inner unity hidden in the outer symbols. The mystics do.

I could go on and on but I just wanted to offer a taste of my perspective by someone who can explain it a little bit better! I would, of course, be more than eager to have a good dialogue about all of this with anyone interested, even if we totally disagree:)

"Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” ~ Jesus, Luke 17: 20-21