“Theologians may quarrel, but the mystics of the world speak the same language.” — Meister Eckart
The reason I’m writing this article is because I want to be very clear that I don’t mean to offend anyone by writing heresies about their favorite religious figures. I’m writing from the perspective of my own mystical experience, and I don’t presume to represent any organized religion. This piece has more quotes than usual, which I’m using to illustrate the point that the mystics of all these traditions are saying the same thing - feel free to skip them if it gets repetitive.
I write about these things because I enjoy it, and because I know that the mystical experience is reproducible. I hope to help point out the way to anyone who is interesting in realizing their own Enlightenment; Enlightenment is something everyone already has, it is not an achievement. And although it is hiding in plain sight, it is somewhat difficult to recognize.
I know that if we lived on a planet full of mystics, there would be no threat of murder, rape, or nuclear annihilation. I know someday we will get there.
The Mystical Experience
The mystics of the world speak the same language because they’ve experienced the same experience. This experience is the ultimate experience in that it is the last experience someone can have, the experience wherein subject and object merge. Once this happens, who is left to experience?
The ultimate experience cures the mystic of his case of mistaken identity, his identification with the conceptual mind. This does not necessarily mean that the conceptual mind ceases to exist.
“The Buddha himself said, “I still use conceptual thinking, but I’m not formed by it.” — Tenzin Palmo
Indeed, conceptual mind becomes vastly richer when it enters into a partnership with One Mind.
“When the limited mind enters blessed companionship with limitless Mind, indescribable freedom dawns.” — Song of Tilopa
Time
Conceptual thought, and psychological time, are two sides of the same coin, and this coin is what keeps us out of Paradise. Conceptual thoughts, more often than not, are about the past and present, and they keep us chained up in psychological time, locked out of the eternal Now. The following quotes come from two different traditions, but they express the same eternal truth.
“There exists only the present instant, a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence. People who dwell in God dwell in the eternal Now.” — Meister Eckart
“Don’t get caught in the past, because the past is gone. Don’t get upset about the future, because the future is not yet here. There is only one moment for you to be alive, and that is the present moment. Go back to the present moment and live this moment deeply, and you’ll be free.” — Buddha
“Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? … So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.” — Jesus
“You do not need to fabricate at all. Once you utterly let be, involvement in thoughts of past, present and future subside. By letting be, you are no longer involved in the thoughts of the three times. When utterly letting be, wakefulness is vividly present.”
― Tulku Urgyen
Conceptual Thought
Even when we fiercely hold our attention in the present moment, conceptual thought may still block our entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven.
“The blessed light of the Divinity will illume the heart only when the heart is completely empty of everything and so free from all form. Indeed, this light reveals itself to the pure intellect in the measure to which the intellect is purged of all concepts.” — St. Heyschios the Priest
“Every religion is the product of the conceptual mind attempting to describe the mystery.” — Ram Dass
“But it can happen that a phrase intended to indicate a state beyond concepts just becomes another concept in itself, in the same way that if you ask a person their name and they reply that they have no name, you will then perhaps mistakenly call them 'No name'.” — Namkhai Norbu
Silence and Stillness
What is necessary, if we are to glimpse Eden, is to drop all identification with conceptual thought, not eliminate thoughts completely; conceptual thought can be quite useful, but identifying with our conceptual mind is pathological. When we stop identifying with conceptual thoughts, they tend to effortlessly slow and eventually they will stop all on their own, at least long enough for you to get a glimpse of Paradise.
“Attentiveness is the heart’s stillness, unbroken by thought.”— St. Hesychios the Priest
“When during prayer no conceptual image of anything worldly disturbs your intellect, then know that you are within the realm of dispassion.” — St. Maximos the Confessor
“This silence, this moment, every moment, if it’s genuinely inside you, brings what you need. There’s nothing to believe. Only when I stopped believing in myself did I come into this beauty. Sit quietly, and listen for a voice that will say, ‘Be more silent.’ Die and be quiet. Quietness is the surest sign that you’ve died. Your old life was a frantic running from silence. Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.” — Rumi
The Mirror of Awareness
Once we remember that we are not our conceptual mind, but rather the universal Awareness in which all phenomena occur, all sense of subject and object dissolve: Reality becomes like a mirror. When we look out into the world, we are looking at ourselves.
“This nature of the mirror is not something visible, and the only way we can conceive of it is through the images reflected in the mirror.” — Namkhai Norbu
“We are the mirror, as well as the face in it. We are tasting the taste of eternity this minute.” — Rumi
“Let your model for stillness be the man who holds a mirror into which he looks.” — St Heyschios the Priest
The following is an excerpt from a Thomas Merton teaching on Realization. I highly recommend checking out the full video.
“One of the most widespread errors of our time is a superficial personalism which identifies the person with the external self, the empirical ego, and devotes itself solemnly to the cultivation of this ego. But this is the cult of a pure illusion, the illusion of what is popularly imagined to be personality, or worse still dynamic and successful personality. When this error is taken over into religion, it leads to the worst kind of nonsense, a cult of psychologism and self-expression, our reality, our true self is hidden in what appears to us to be nothingness and void. What we are not seems to be real, while what we are, seems to be unreal. We can rise above this unreality and uncover our hidden identity.”