Monsieur Mystère et Madame Mysticisme
I woke up today wondering about mysticism. I did not actually focus onto le mysticisme until ten minutes into my caffeine...I had been reading a book about Paris before going to sleep, so my dreams were heavily tinged with Gallicisms and shrugs. And cheeses. (How drab is our universe of cheese compared to that of France! and does the eleventh dimension in String Theory cosmology actually account for it?)
Why is our image or stereotype of Mysticism so uniform?
Our lives are - by definition! - mundane and uniform. Why do our stereotypes of Mysticism, of all things super and phenom, possess such cookie-cutter equivalences?
Why is everyone in solitude? Why do some experience the stigmata and bleed during Holy Week? Why do they tend to belonging to cloistered orders given to vows of silence?
We would answer: the world is the enemy of the Holy. Only by such radical withdrawal may the individual mystic remain focused on the Holy.
But this sounds too much like child's play, does it not? Superstitiously and magically, we fear that we might be contaminated by the words, the actions, the spirit and the feelings of the world, so we withdraw from the cities to the desert and immure ourselves away, far away from the madding crowd.
However, have we forgotten the religious geniuses who withdrew from the world, then came back to tell us about how things really are? They did not stay away forever. They immersed themselves in the most important matter of all: freeing Mankind from the iron grip of Sin, of Dukha, of Jahiliya.
The new understanding of mysticism should now be more like Mrs. Peel and Steed, The Avengers: Chapeau Melon et Bottes de Cuir (bowler hat and leather boots) as it is known in France. That is to say, laugh away the old obsessions of our race and time, free the spirit, and realize mysticism is not limited to the desert and the anchorite cell; it only needs that we free ourselves from the illusion of the World and thus, from the World's grasping hands and fingernails painted with the polish of suffering. There are as many ways to the Holy as there are People... times the speed of light... squared.
Everything now is a symbolic-cubicle built around us since we leapt into the world. Take it down. Find the proper habitation for a people created by God.
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2 comments:
I would make voice on this point:
"We would answer: the world is the enemy of the Holy. Only by such radical withdrawal may the individual mystic remain focused on the Holy.
But this sounds too much like child's play, does it not? Superstitiously and magically, we fear that we might be contaminated by the words, the actions, the spirit and the feelings of the world"
that the "contamination" of the world, is indeed without Holiness, unless there is holiness in suffering. So, time away is indeed a way to come to terms with it all. But then you must bring Holiness to the world (like the Buddha, like Moses, etc). There is no Holiness in the world unless we make it so. God is not going to step in on our behalf if we are lax. God is echoed and revealed through our own Holy actions. Hence the reason, why I believe, the potential for God is within us.
For if God is in the sky and not within us, what is the real point? But if God can be within us...that is something else, something mysterious, something wonderful, like fresh water fountains.
Why is it so easy to do ill, and so hard to do good? It's almost as if the world / God / The Chief Upstairs, does not want goodness to be...
Also: "There are as many ways to the Holy as there are People... times the speed of light... squared."
But it all involves peace of some sort, or helpfulness. So, in a sense, there is one artery and many capillaries.
Ben
I think you are exactly right.
I myself stop at the point where you write "... the potential for God is within us." I know exactly what you mean, but I cannot express it properly, so I no longer say or write it anymore.
Being silent, it remains valid and real, just as an unheard song is real music.
The reason I try to shut up is that the greatest insights are those that people come to themselves.
I remember my very first class in Philosophy, Father Kennedy guided us along Western Phil, and we were always anticipating the next philosopher. Finishing Plato, we would anticipate Aristotle, imperfectly, yes, but we were already alert to Plato's deficiencies and getting on the same wave length as Aristotle.
No one needs my insights, but they could always use some sort of "help"... my philosophy I try to make like: your car is in the shop and I'm giving you a lift to the corner repair shop to pick it up. Then I let you off; I don't follow you around and try to drive your car!
(That is what repulses me from most philosophy and religion: they are trying to drive your car for you... and trying to get your money for doing so.)
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