CHAPTER SIX
ME, REALITY AND THE DIVINE
I have been using Ken Wilber’s quadrant model to analyse the experiences of the mystic in comparison to schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder and particularly the characteristics of mania. I have looked at the four quadrants and illustrated some of the stages or levels that are found in each quadrant and how they relate to these themes. But I want to return now to quadrant 1 for a moment. This is the quadrant that reflects our individual interior meanings and values at various levels of development. This is our phenomenological world.
6.1 OUR SELF
An important question for us to ask is: ‘Just what is it that moves through these levels and stages in quadrant 1?’ We are not talking about physiological structures here such as aspects or components of the brain: that is in quadrant 2. Neither are we talking about the collective: neither objective measurable structures in society nor our culture with its shared meanings and values. Rather, quadrant 1 represents a more abstract notion called the mind. It is important that the mind is not confused with concrete, physiological aspects of ourselves: the mind is an abstract concept whereas the brain is a concrete, physiological one. The brain can be ill, damaged and so on, but as Thomas Szasz argues, there is no such thing as mental illness. This is because the abstract mind cannot be physically ill or damaged. Unfortunately we inevitably use mixed metaphors in describing the mind, such that we may talk about mental structures, or psychic structures, but there is no concrete physiological structure in the mind as such. Perhaps a better term is ‘mental organisation’, or ‘self mental complex’. Other terms might include our ‘organised self-system’, or our ‘ego’. As we have already seen, each of the four quadrants do not exist in isolation: rather, there is an inter-relationship. Thus the mind is not isolated or separate from the brain and body, or from society and culture. Nevertheless, we cannot perform a brain scan and locate a physiological ‘organised self-system’, ‘ego’ or ‘self mental complex’. For shorthand, in this chapter, I am going to refer to this abstract self-system as the ‘ego’, though this may not entail all the definitions and descriptions given to it by Sigmund Freud and his followers, who popularised this term in the west. It is this abstract ‘organised self-system complex’ or ‘ego’ that moves through the levels or stages in quadrant 1.
Is this then who ‘I’ am? The answer is no, ‘I’ am not the ‘ego’ or ‘organised self-system complex’. ‘I’ am not my body, not my mind and neither am I my ego. In the west, we are familiar with the idea of us having, as part of our nature, a ‘soul’ or ‘spirit’. Am ‘I’ my ‘soul or ‘spirit’ then? No I am not. Some of us may think of ourselves as continuing in existence after death as some disembodied, essential ’I’, a disembodied ‘ego’. Note that if we think in this way we are giving the abstract ego a concrete existence: we don’t think of it like that but rather think in terms of an eternal ‘soul or ‘spirit’. In Christianity and in Islam this disembodied ‘ego/soul’ is eventually reintegrated into a new, glorious physical resurrection body ready to face the Final Judgement e.t.c.. Even if we do not believe in these religions, we may think in terms of our disembodied ‘ego/soul’ meeting up with friends and relatives who have gone before us, being welcomed and reassured by them. In other, eastern religions, this disembodied ‘ego/soul’ may go through many earthly rebirths, being reincarnated in various forms. But even if this were so, that some ‘ego/soul’, some ‘spirit/self’ continued after our physical death, who would it be? What is it that would be thinking, valuing, witnessing and giving meaning to what it encountered? What would be the ‘I’ of the ‘I/spirit/self/ego’? Would there be a soul of the soul?
Mystics and sages past and present who have reached the end of knowledge suggest that the ‘Self’ (capital letter ‘S’ because this is the Absolute, it is as far as we can go) or the ‘I’ is Consciousness. But it is important that Consciousness is defined in the correct way. Consciousness is not the locus of attention, concentration or mental focus. Consciousness, like other aspects of ourselves, is multi-layered. We are reasonably familiar with what have become everyday terms like conscious, sub-conscious and unconscious. Qualities such as attention and mental focus may be part or aspects of some of these terms, but we are interested in Consciousness, (with a capital ‘C’) or what Wilber calls ‘Consciousness-as-Such’: the Essence of Consciousness. Consciousness is Passive, Boundless and Timeless, unlike attention and mental focus or concentration which is active and selective. We will return to this in a moment.
6.2 PROJECTIONS OF FORM ON THE FORMLESS
What about the Divine? How do we understand God? Just as we may mistakenly project our abstract ‘organised self-system complex’ or ‘ego’ into some disembodied spirit state and call it our ‘soul’, ‘I’ or ‘real self’, so too, these days, if we believe in an external deity, we tend to project human characteristics on to such a deity and ‘spiritualise’ them to form an objectively existing ‘deity-out-there-with-characteristics’. This is made up two processes, firstly, ‘anthropomorphication’ – that is, projecting human-like qualities onto the Divine, and secondly, ‘reification’ – that is, projecting abstract qualities in such a way that we consider that they have concrete existence ‘out there’ and may in turn influence us. It is by these processes that we might find ourselves thinking of God as some old, grey-bearded man-in-the-sky, or as a stern Judge looking down on us and taking account of all that we do, or as a compassionate, merciful father ready to heal and forgive, or as an empowering Amazonian –like warrior queen, or a tender, nurturing mother and so on.
However, it is important for us to remember what these forms of the Divine really are: abstract, mental projections that do not exist in concrete, material reality. Many mystics agree that the Divine is greater than such forms and limitations, that the Divine transcends such forms, concepts and ideas. Mystics across various cultures, such as Meister Eckhart (German, Christian Dominican Friar), Shankara (Hindu), Ibn al-Arabi and Rumi (Sufi, Islam) came to experience the Stillness, Emptiness, Silence and Formlessness of the Divine, Transcending all form, concept, language and understanding. Even when we read these words, we are such creatures of form that we may still think of God as a Disembodied Identity, a Spirit-with-Qualities, existing in a location in time and space, a Location and Seat of all Wisdom, Knowledge and Love. But these mystics describe the Absolute as without attributes or qualities, beyond language.
What then do the mystics say of our abstract mental projections such that we think of the Divine as some old, grey-bearded man-in-the-sky, or as a stern Judge looking down on us and taking account of all that we do, or as a compassionate, merciful father ready to heal and forgive, or as an empowering Amazonian –like warrior queen, or a tender, nurturing mother and so on? Are these forms to be discarded? Well, typically, the answer is yes and no. We are such creatures of form, living as we do in a world of material forms, conceptual forms and linguistic forms, that it is hard for us to relate to the Divine as this Transcendent Formless Silence. If we wish to encounter the Divine-as-Essence, we must ultimately abandon form to be united with the Formless, but in our early steps on such a journey, mystics argue that it may be useful to think of the Divine in terms of such forms. But if we adopt such forms of the Divine, we have to continually remind ourselves that a) these metaphorical forms both reveal and veil the Divine, b) they limit the Divine and that c) these forms are not objectively or concretely real forms, rather they are more or less useful metaphors to assist us in our spiritual discoveries. Some mystics argue that the Divine manifests to us in our imagination by the use of such metaphorical forms. In this way the Divine meets us where we are, with appropriate imagery and language to assist us on our unique, individual spiritual path. Thus the imagination, according to Ibn al-Arabi, serves as a peninsula or Isthmus between the physical and the spiritual or Divine. Such forms are useful at the moment they are given, but may be superseded later by other, contradictory or paradoxical forms, giving other insights into different aspects or facets of the Divine. Such forms, being presented as relevant to the individual, are invariably coloured by that individual’s context in history and location. (Quadrants 3 & 4). Indeed, Arabi suggests that the Divine never repeats such imagery because the Divine is Infinite. This ever-changing presentation of forms of the Divine is called ‘Theomorphism’. The insistence that one form and one form only is ‘correct’ is what religious persons call orthodoxy, with its opposites of heresy and apostacy. It is this insistence of conformity to one form or another that leads to crusades, Holy Wars, intolerance and religious hatred. Religious traditions and institutions are usually the custodians of orthodoxy.
6.3 SELF AND DIVINE ARE ONE
Ultimately, such mystics suggest that the Divine is Consciousness: Absolute Formless Awareness in the Bliss of Perfect Stillness in the Eternal Now, without boundary – Total Unity. As I have said, this is perhaps difficult for us to grasp, since we always think in terms of form and objects. Our existence is couched in terms of labelling, boundaries and forms. We label something as ‘x’ therefore other things are ‘not x’, it is ‘this’, therefore it is not ‘that’. The Divine however is ‘not this and not that’. The distinction between subject and object is transcended. This leads these mystics to a further conclusion, a conclusion not just logically thought through, but Immediately Experienced: The Divine and the Self are One: Atman is Brahman. There is no difference and no separation or distinction – the Absolute and ‘I’ are the same in Essence. One metaphor used to describe this is that of the ocean and the spray from a wave. If the Absolute Divine is the Ocean, then the individual is like a droplet of Ocean spray: for a moment it has a separate existence yet it is always of the same Essence as the Ocean itself. Death is like the return of the droplet back into the Ocean again. It does not then exist in the Ocean as a separate droplet: its individual, separate identity is lost in and merges with the Ocean completely, as it is of the same Essence. The ‘ego’, the ‘mental organisation’, or ‘self mental complex’ or ‘organised self-system’, is lost and perfectly merged in Total Unity with the Divine Essence.
6.4 LOSS OR DISSOLVING OF EGO
This loss of ‘ego’, the loss of sense of ourselves as a separate, distinct entity is an important factor:
For the mystic, the ‘ego’ has to be transcended or surrendered in order to experience Immediate Unity with the Divine in mystical experience. This is part of the process of renunciation.
For those experiencing a phase of madness, of schizophrenia, mania or depression however, the organisation of the mind, the ‘organised self-system’, the ‘mental or psychic structures’, the ‘ego’, may ‘breakdown’ involuntarily. The term ‘mental breakdown’ is as bad as ‘mental illness’ – it is a mixed concrete and abstract metaphor, but I am sure that you get the gist of what I mean.
Of course the psychiatrist and psychologist may now be ready to have a field day. Both the mystic and the ‘mentally ill’ may display a fragmentation or loss of ‘ego’. Worse than this, the mystic has a delusion and thinks he is God! Surely such a person has lost touch with reality, they are suffering from hallucinations or illusions. To go to quadrant 3 – how many people think like this? Dennis Waite in his book ‘The book of One’ has spent time exploring the web for blogs and groups that adhere to the sort of mystical theology I have just begun to outline and he considered that in the whole world, there only seemed to be a few thousand members of such internet groups. Surely such people are misguided, they are in such a minority.
6.5 CONTRACTION AND IGNORANCE
What do the mystics say about this? If we are in Essence Divine, then why don’t we seem to know it? Those who do know it in experience are Self- Realised, Enlightened and so on. The details differ slightly from mystical system to mystical system, but essentially, only the Absolute Divine exists as Being, Consciousness, Bliss. But there is a contraction of the Divine to movement and to form: the One Divine is manifest or expressed in many forms. All that exists is a delimited manifestation in form of the Formless Absolute. In Essence, all is Divine, but in expression, it is delimited form, having no existence in and of itself. In this contraction to form, Ignorance arises. Thus, though in Essence, we, like everything and everyone else is Divine, in expression we are Ignorant of our True Nature. We misperceive ourselves and the Nature of Reality: we think of temporary material forms as being Real, we think of ourselves as essentially a mind housed in a material body and so on. In our Ignorance, we fall for an Illusion and misperceive the nature of Reality. When someone says to a spiritually minded person, ‘Get into the real world!’, they usually mean stop daydreaming and drifting off in abstraction and get into this practical, physical, material world. In this practical, material world, death becomes a tragedy, because it is the apparent end of life and the possible dissolving of the ‘ego’, (unless one believes in the eternal soul. For the mystic however, the Reality is that that which is all around us – the universe and the material world – is an Illusion: it is not finally real, it has no existence in and of itself, but is rather a delimited expression and manifestation of the Divine. Wealth, power, pleasure and so on are Illusory: just as we wake up from a dream and the apparent realities of the contents of the dream are sublated by waking consciousness, so too, this material, physical reality is a dream-like Illusion which itself will be sublated by Reality. Much of what we perceive as reality are in fact projections or constructions of our mind – categorising, dividing, separating, labelling, conceptualising and so on. We impose such structures onto existents.
Ibn al Arabi talks in terms of real/not real: it is not that existents are just Illusions or dream-like vapours: things exist as delimited contracted expressions of the Divine Essence. They do not have existence in and of their own right – that belongs to the Divine alone. Rather, they are given existence and continued subsistence by the Absolute Essence as a contracted, delimited expression or manifestation of the Unknowable. The One becomes many. Therefore, they are real, but not Real. They exist but have no existence in and of themselves, they have apparent separate existence and form but in Essence, they are One. For the mystic then, conventional thinking, (Ignorant thinking) is turned upside down: God is the Only True Reality, the rest is transient Illusion, only God exists.
Of course, this has tremendous implications for psychiatry and psychology when their practitioners start to talk in terms of a person ‘losing touch with reality’ and this being a sign of madness. What they mean of course is that such a person is losing touch with the majority conventional (Ignorant, unenlightened, unrealised) view of reality. As was said in Chapter One, such a statement needs a robust definition of what reality actually is.
6.6 DEPTH
We have also looked earlier at the concept of ‘depth’ in quadrant 1. At the deepest level, we have the sort of theology outlined above: theomorphic panentheism. The Formless, Empty Divine manifests in all forms, in paradoxical and even contradictory metaphorical forms (diversity), the Absolute is Immanent, that is, the Divine is the Essence of all that is, and yet is also Transcendent, cutting across all boundaries and formulations, (Unity). As creatures of form, this may be hard for us to grasp or maintain, especially because in Ignorance, we are used to the idea of God being separate and distinct from us. So, as a result, many sages argue that it is a useful stepping stone along the spiritual path to make use of (metaphorical) forms of the Divine, be they Christian, Hindu, Islamic, Judaic or whatever. The contradictions between the forms of the Divine in these systems of religion merely illustrate their limited, finite view of the Unlimited Infinite. Even so, the person on the spiritual path may find it easier to worship a form, to have a concept of the Divine in mind as they seek communion with the Absolute. Mystics regard this ‘formulation’ of the Divine as an individual’s ‘personal Lord’. It is the personal form that an individual uses in their relationship with the Divine. There are as many ‘personal Lords’ as there are people. Even two Christians, ‘converted’ at the same time and attending the same meetings will have different individual views of Christ and the Father. In effect then, Ibn al-Arabi suggests, we worship our own beliefs. These forms of the Divine are purely metaphorical, they are personal constructs of the Absolute. They are at best a combination of the Divine suggesting relevant forms of the Absolute to our imagination in order for us to gain in understanding and knowledge, together with projections on our part as we try to formulate the Unknowable. This path is not as deep as the path of the Formless, Attributeless Divine.
6.6 DEEPER REALITY AND ‘OBJECTIVE’ REALITY
One aspect that emerges then from these Immediate mystical experiences is the concept of a Deeper Reality. Thus, religious or spiritual rituals and ceremonies are described as shadows of a Deeper Reality for example. The implication is that the experience of God-Immediacy is, whilst we remain physical beings, a deeper or the Deepest Level of Reality. God-Immediacy carries with it a sense of Reality with a capital ‘R’: a Final, Absolute Reality. The experience of God-Immediacy then, is Deep, Clear, Vivid and Meaningful. Even so, I have had these experiences at different times such that the qualities that are sensed as Real are in fact contradictory and mutually exclusive from experience to experience. For example, in one instance, the experience arose from a perception of the Christian doctrine of the sovereignty of God: that God, as Big-Person-in-the-Sky, is in complete and absolute control of all events and circumstances, moulding and shaping the thoughts and hearts of both believers and sinners, ordering all to God’s glory and purpose. This concept appeared so Clear and Real, so Immediate and True that it elevated my mood and outlook and energised my whole being. I was in no doubt that God was in complete control of the universe in this way. Yet later experiences point to a view where God is Not Big-Person-in-the-Sky and does not intervene and shape the affairs of the universe in this way at all. Despite the strong sense of Reality and Clarity, it seems that the relationship of the content of this experience to ‘objective’ or material reality is indirect or even completely divorced from that ‘objective’ or material reality. This confirms in my own experience the views of Ibn al-Arabi and Shankara in terms of the use of metaphorical imagery.
6.7 ULTIMATE OR FINAL REALITY
6.8 LIMITATIONS CONCERNING ‘OBJECTIVE’ INFORMATION
In this approach, the Deeper levels of consciousness are not the place to explore the material universe. Deeper levels have a perspective on the material universe and may give some insight into it. Though things appear Lucid and Real because they are unmediated by the action ‘logos’ mode and ‘self system’ or ‘ego’ conceptualisations, they may not be as they appear. For example, the Divine may manifest as an Inner Wise Guide, but such guides do not necessarily make accurate predictions about the material world. Why is this?
The great danger is to think of the Divine as ‘Person-out-there’, ‘Mind-out-there’ or worse still ‘Ego-out-there’. The assumption arising as a result of this is that as we approach the Divine in Unity, we merge with a focussed, omniscient Mind and therefore because of that Union, should share in such focussed omniscience. But in my own experiences, I was continually told not to think of the Absolute in this way, and in fact, this misconception is one of the greatest problems that I have had to overcome. Two illustrations help the point: the first arising from my own experience is that of the droplet of ocean spray returning to the ocean – the ocean is diffuse and the droplet, in merging again with the ocean, ceases to exist as a separate identity – it does not remain as a separate droplet somehow bounded within the ocean. The second is from another teacher, who compared this union to being like a river flowing into the sea. In the same way, the river eventually loses its identity as it merges seamlessly with the ocean into which it flows.
Enlightenment or Self-realisation, or Union with the Divine then does not consist of merging with an omniscient, focussed ‘Mind’ or ‘Ego-in-the-sky’. Those who have had mystical or Gnostic experiences do not suddenly become proficient nuclear physicists, world-class musicians or capable of speaking all the languages on earth. Neither does it mean that the mystic becomes an omnipotent powerful ‘other’. He does not become a miracle worker, transcending the principles of nature, or develop immortality of body or any such thing. Rather, it means that the person identifies with forms less and less – such forms are recognised as finally unreal, or real with a small ‘r’: transient and temporary. Forms of the Divine are seen as merely metaphors, personal constructs and projections of form onto the Formless which, though useful for a time, have to be transcended. It means that ultimately, the idea of the mystic being a separate self, a thinking, feeling independent existent: an ‘ego’ or ‘sou’l housed in a physical body also has to be transcended and abandoned, in favour of seeing everything is an expression of Essence that will finally return to Essence. The ‘ego’, the focussed ‘self-system’ of mind/body/emotions/memory and so on, has to be surrendered – the ‘ego’ is dissolved or transcended into the Diffuse Expansive Boundless Stillness.
This dissolution, surrender or abandonment of ‘ego’ or ‘self’ (with a small ‘s’) is also an important factor in madness. Whereas with the mystic/Gnostic the ‘ego is surrendered as part of a spiritual discipline or path, for others, it may be something that happens as a result of stress, overwork, or, in the corresponding quadrant 2, chemical imbalance e.t.c in the brain, such that the abstract structures of the mind begin to collapse or function incorrectly. The results of these structures – the constructs of the mind in thought, memory, imagination, emotions, desires, values we have already come across in Chapter four with George Kelly’s Repertory Grid. We construct the universe and ourselves (ego) in this way.
The sort of Reality that I am describing is outlined in two diagrams below (Figures 7 and 8). It is impossible to concentrate these themes into a simple diagram, but the advantage of such a map is that it does give us an overview on one page of the dynamics and interplays that we are talking about. Such figures are intended to make general points and cannot be pressed too far.
Figure 7
Two schemes of Reality (Fig. 7 & 
Figure 8.
6.9 A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY
My own personal mystical encounters insist that my experience of such metaphorical forms of the Divine are a part of a spiritual journey and that journey is about aspects of who I am: a journey to Absolute God-as-Spirit because I am That. In a sense, I do not journey anywhere, because I am already That. It is not a discovery about the material world, politics, science, mathematics or psychology. The whole narrative is about my True Nature, Who I really am. It uses metaphorical form: images, ideas and concepts drawn from the material world and language, in this case the English language, as descriptors. If it did not do this, nothing could be conveyed or communicated. By definition, it has to use the material world to declare the Ineffable. Because it uses material and anthropomorphic descriptors, it is therefore an easy trap to fall into to think that the encounters are describing the real, objective material world and God as a separate ‘Big-Person-in-the-Sky’. But the whole journey, its language, form and style, is a metaphor for Who I am: the Absolute.
6.10 IS THE UNIVERSE CONSCIOUS?
How far does down does consciousness go? Is the universe itself conscious? Mythical and magical stages of thinking sometimes suggest that it is and New Agers, in returning to magical and mythical levels of thinking may also claim that the universe is conscious. Thus there are ideas in Christianity such as ‘everything works together for good to those who love God’, or if Jesus were to be silenced, then ‘even these stones would declare the glory of God’, or ‘the whole of creation groaning and waiting for the redemption of the sons of God’, and the trees of the field ‘clapping their hands’ at the revealing of the glory of God. This idea of consciousness going all the way down is also present in the more modern theory of Carl Jung, in his idea of synchronicity. In part these ideas arise from a particular perception of the Essential Unity of the universe, but does the universe have consciousness? This is where our definition of Consciousness is important. As we have already declared, Consciousness is not the locus of attention, concentration or mental focus. We are interested in Consciousness, (with a capital ‘C’) or what Wilber calls ‘Consciousness-as-Such’: the Essence or Ground of Consciousness. Consciousness is Diffuse, Passive, Boundless and Timeless, unlike attention, mental focus or concentration which is focussed, active and selective. Two illustrations may help: Imagine a play being performed in a theatre – the stage is set, the scenery has been painted and constructed, the actors perform and deliver their lines as written by the author. The orchestra plays the musical compositions as conducted. The prompt sits at the front of the stage ready to remind actors of any forgotten lines. The director has rehearsed and guided the actors. The audience listens and watches the performance. If this is a metaphor for the world or universe, where is Consciousness? Consciousness is the light that illumines the theatre.
Or again, take a look at the illustration below. What do you see?
Consciousness is like the white background that runs through the whole illustration. If we think of Consciousness as active, as the locus of attention, then we are asking different questions: We are asking ‘Does the universe have intention, or awareness? Is there intelligent activity inherent in the universe? Or is the universe blindly following natural ‘laws’ of physics? When we say that the Divine is the Essence of all that is, we do not mean in this active focussed sense of ‘Big-Mind-in-the-sky’.
Perhaps the idea of the process of contraction may help. The Absolute-as-Essence has all the potential within itself to be expressed as all that is and more, in an infinite variety of non repeatable forms, including intelligence and consciousness (with a small ‘c’). The Divine is often portrayed by mystics as having Knowledge, Will and Purpose, but even these are emergent, contracted attributes from the Essential Diffuse Formless Absolute that is perfectly Still in the Eternal Now. Therefore these ‘attributes’ too form an early part of the process of contraction. As already indicated, the process of contraction; of expression of the Formless to form, involves restriction, constraint and limitation. The One Formless Divine undergoes a Self-Delimitation into the many-ness of form, in time and space. In Essence the Formless remains, undivided and undiluted, but in expression to form there is delimitation with the arising of a corresponding Ignorance. If there is any kind of fall from an Original Perfect State, then this is it. Thus, in contracting to material existence; in being formed in time and space; the Diffuse, Formless, Timeless, Spaceless Divine Essence is expressed in a delimited way that involves a loss or veiling of Self-awareness and the emergence of Ignorance.
6.11 REAL AND NOT REAL
There is a difference between mystics when it comes to the balance between the material world and the Ultimate Reality of the Divine. Some completely reverse the conventional view. For them, only the Absolute is Real – the rest is an Illusion, a construct of the mind. Others use the terms ‘Real’ and ‘real’ or ‘not real’ to describe an Absolute, Final, Ground of Eternal Reality is in comparison to a qualified reality – a reality that is derived and sustained by the Divine in time and space but which has no existence of it’s own; a reality that will Ultimately return to and be absorbed back to it’s Essence, the One Absolute Reality.
Some mystics equate non-existence with being unmanifest. They emphasise the need of our input and receptiveness in any situation by asking the question: ‘If I am not there in the forest when a tree falls, does the falling tree make a sound?’. The sound is dependent upon a receptor, in this case me as observer/brain. If there is no receptor – the sound is not manifest. Thus it is, they argue, that the observer/brain evokes or manifests the universe, and each organism is the universe experiencing itself in endless variety.
6.12 RELATIVISM
The forms and concepts of the Absolute that we construct, such as benevolent Father, or Righteous Judge, are only relatively true with regard to the Absolute. There is no one form that is able to define the Ineffable, Diffuse, Formless God, yet all forms have a relative truth. What we have here is subjective relativism: where we make the statement ‘This is true for….’ For example, ‘This is true for me’, or ‘This is true for me at this time’, or ‘This was true for him as he saw it’. (Incidentally, even subjective relativism is subjectively relative). The result of this is that there are an infinite number of paths to God, because all approaches and forms of the Infinite Divine Absolute Spirit are delimited and relatively true in an infinite and absolute sense. The illusionary delimiting forms of the Absolute Divine Spirit, the metaphors and allegories held by an individual as pointers to the Unknowable Essence, make up that individual’s Personal Lord. The individual’s Personal Lord, then, is made up of that individual’s own constructed delimited metaphorical and allegorical forms of the Formless and Unknowable. As we have seen, there are as many Personal Lords as there are people and when a person worships their Personal Lord, they are worshipping their own forms of belief. But such forms enable us to relate to the Formless: it is difficult for us in most circumstances to worship Silent Attributeless Emptiness. The emphasis then of ‘Personal Lord’ is on the construct of congruent, personally meaningful (metaphorical) forms of the Divine, which resonate with the individual concerned. Gnosticism is a tradition that encouraged such diversity of form and which encouraged creative and novel use of metaphor and analogy.
In addition to form being relative to the Absolute, that is, subjective relativism, most spiritual traditions agree that there are levels of spiritual growth and development – there are, as we have already seen, differing depths. What this means for this discussion is that perspectives change as one moves into different, deeper modes of Enlightenment or Realization – different views or perspectives are obtained by going deeper into the territory. In other words, the views of the Divine and therefore the personally constructed forms of the Divine used by the spiritually ignorant are different from those forms used by those who attain spiritual awakening. This seems unfashionably elitist in these days of ‘equality’, but as far as I can tell, all spiritual traditions use this idea. What we have then is subjective perspectivism. If subjective relativism is ‘True for…’, then subjective perspectivism is ‘True from….’, for example, ‘This is true from where I am standing’ or ‘It may be true from where you are over there, but not from where I am standing’.
Here is an illustration. Three people are out walking to the summit of a hill and become separated. But they have mobile phones and manage to communicate with each other. The first walker says, ‘I am facing the sun and there is a beautiful lake on my right’. The second walker says ‘I am facing the sun too, but you are wrong, the lake is on the left’. The third walker, further down the path says ‘What lake?’. Who is right? Well of course they all are from their own perspective, but none of them has the full picture – so they are right and not right.
This is how it is for mystics: their definition of who they are changes such that they no longer identify themselves as a physical body, or a mind housed in a body, or a soul, and so on. These self-identifications are at different depths and with these changes of self-identification there arise different perspectives. In one experience a person may see themselves ‘caught up’ as a spirit into the presence of the Divine – they remain distinct and separate and such person describes the Divine as being outside – an ‘object’. The material world is perceived differently in this perspective than from the usual one. Others may have a similar experience but also be ‘filled with the Spirit of God’, giving not only a sense of empowerment, but also closeness and intimacy with the Divine, which remains nevertheless separate from the ‘I’. Once again, this perspective is different from the other two. A person may be filled and ‘caught up’ with the Divine and be deeply aware of some projected or manifested attribute of the contracted Divine, such as Love, Acceptance, Mercy, Compassion and so on. This delimited facet of the Absolute may seem to fill the person, or creation and thus, the perspective is different again. Yet others may be united with the Divine, they become the Divine and see things from that perspective – they may become Love and Compassion, or deeper still, they be become Empty, Timeless, Spaceless, Silent and Formless. In this perspective, they may say things like ‘I am the universe’ or ‘no one is born, no one dies’ or ‘the universe does not exist’. The degree of depth of experience affects a person’s perspective, such that what is Real and what is ‘not real’ changes, until all that is Real is the Boundless Absolute Alone.
6.13 THE DOMINANT REALITY
The usual waking mode of active ‘logos’ is the most dominant mode that we find ourselves in. By dominant I mean it is the one that we are most aware of and spend most time in. We spend less time in the ‘mythos’ mode, less time in sleep and even less time in a dream mode and very often on waking, most people do not remember their dreams or only remember them occasionally or in fragments because the waking active ‘logos’ mode largely sublates the dream content. Waking consciousness then, especially in the rational, active mode, becomes the ‘norm’ and the referent by which other modes are assessed such that other modes may be dismissed altogether as completely irrelevant: dreams mean little or nothing and are just the random idling of the mind, and spiritual experience is just an illusion based upon physiological changes of brain function. Spirituality and the Divine is thought of as an illusion, or worse, a delusion. The material perspective is the dominant perspective because of the Ignorance that arises from contraction which veils the spiritual from view. We identify ourselves as a person bounded in a physical body that exists in space and time, and thus think and act accordingly. For the mystic in deeper experience, the normal waking rational mode is itself like a dream and is sublated by the deeper experience of Reality.
6.14 THE SPONTANEOUS EXPERIENCE
So far I have looked at the ‘Logos’ and ‘mythos’ modes of consciousness, and we have seen that the non-usual ‘mythos’ mode of perception, together with access to deeper levels, can be cultivated by various disciplines and procedures such as meditation, devotion, renunciation, self-discipline and so on. However, mystical experiences are by no means limited to those who dedicate themselves to such disciplines and approaches: we have also seen that they may arise spontaneously. Such spontaneous experiences are often ‘triggered’ by some event or other…this may be a period of intense personal conflict, listening to music, being overworked or tired, gazing at a beautiful landscape e.t.c. In this case, the ‘ego’ is shifted from it’s usual place by this experience – one might feel as though one is taken out of the body or caught up to the Divine. The sense of ‘ego self’ may partly or fully collapse, such structures being inadequate for the experience. Such spontaneous Immediate experiences of the Divine may evoke Bliss and Peace, or, being unplanned, they may evoke a sense of deep unsettlement, disorientation, fear or panic, as the self-sense disintegrates. It is very easy to see why such a disturbance and experience might be considered to be an episode of madness. Not only has the sense of what is ‘real’ altered, but the person, their sense of who they are, has fragmented, even if only temporarily.
6.15 REALITY AND DIFFERENT WORLDS
My mystical encounters describe the spiritual and the material as the extreme poles of two different worlds. The spiritual world is Expansive, Diffuse, Formless, Boundless, Undifferentiated, Silent Emptiness. The other world is the material. This comes from the Sanskrit root ‘matr’ from which we get the words ‘matter’ and ‘metre’, and means to measure. The material world is the measurable world – a world on which we impose a grid of measurement, (Kelly’s Repertory Grid is a formal expression of an implicit process), a grid of separation and boundaries, via language, concept, symbol and so on. ‘Material’ is often used as synonym for ‘physical’ – from the Greek ‘physis’ (nature) and Indo-European ‘bheu’ (to become). As such, ‘material’ does not contain the idea of a basic ‘stuff’ from which the universe is made. Ignorance arises from the Absolute contracting to material form, such that human beings mistakenly identify themselves solely as material beings – separate measurable forms of ‘stuff’ bounded by space and time. The mystical experiences I have had declare that these two worlds are not reconcilable – in terms of world-views and perspectives at least. As I have already said, the spiritual world does not present us with an ideal political solution, an ideal structure of society or this kind of thing. The Absolute Formless transcends morals, space and time – aspects and qualities that are unique to contracted material measurable form. There is a very real sense in which the spiritually minded person is in a different place to the materially minded person. The mystic can be described as walking in two worlds – the material and the spiritual: the Real (Diffuse, Expansive, Formless, Ineffable) world and the real (focussed, qualified, illusory, measurable) world. However, since the Absolute is the Essence all that exists, these realms or worlds are not wholly separate, but rather, there is a seamless gradation or crossover of the Expansive Diffuse Formless Spiritual into the contracted focussed measurable material. In addition, the contents of Ineffable mystical spiritual experience may spill over and pervade the measurable material world-view (and vice-versa). Thus, those who have an experience of mysticism may find their values concerning what is important, meaningful and real, significantly and permanently altered even when they return to the usual material world-view and active, rational mode of knowing. This is a similar experience to falling into a dreamful sleep and the contents of the dream being affected by significant events that occurred during our previous waking hours.
6.16 ‘TRUTH’ IN SPECIFIC WORLDS
The two extreme poles of contracted measurable material and Expansive, Formless Spiritual are true in their own world and their own right and the crossover effect: the infiltration of one world upon another, helps to give us insights and a more holistic way of functioning. Ultimately, the mystic does walk in two worlds because all is One: the spiritual world does not negate the material and the material does not negate the spiritual. The Mystic avails himself of both worlds, (which in Reality is One) just as a therapist and their client may avail themselves of dream work and may synthesise them with waking reality. But ultimately, these worlds cannot be reduced to one or the other – the Absolute is not just all that is measurable.
Dream awareness and dream logic does not allow us to function in the material world: I cannot levitate as I please in the material world like I may in the dream world. The non-material Absolute, is contracted to material measurable form and is immediately divided, not in terms of Nature or Essence, but in terms of expression into (apparently) separate forms: thus God is partially divided against God, just as one leaf is separate from another leaf yet both are of the same tree. Formless Spirit cannot be fully reconciled with material form. What is true of the Absolute God-as-Spirit Essence, is not true for contracted material expressions. The Absolute Transcends morals, but humans do not, for example. The very nature of these realms then necessitates only a limited crossover.
6.17 LEARNING TO BE WORLD SPECIFIC
What questions then are specific to the spiritual world? Questions about the Self and the Absolute: ‘You are seeing aspects of where and who you are….you are God contracted in space and time’. Questions about the pathway to God: ‘a journey to God that transcends material things.’… a journey in which material matters encroach upon a Golden Path to God.
6.18 CONTRADICTIONS AND PARADOX WITHIN A WORLD
So far we have seen that each of the two worlds: the measurable and the Formless, the ‘logos’ and ‘mythos’ has its own ‘truthfulness’, its own area of application of information: the spiritual world is not centred on how to maintain a car engine for example. We have also considered contradictions within a world: all forms of the Formless are metaphors illustrating aspects and facets of the Whole, but never the Whole Itself, because no mind can encompass God. I want to give an example of this now from my own mystical experiences. A number of these were experienced at a time when I was involved in Fundamentalist Christianity and some were experienced at a later stage when the Christian world-view had been transcended. For example I have already referred to my experiencing clear views of God’s sovereignty only to later find such a view dismissed.
Here is a description of such an experience in my Christian phase:
‘The first Sunday of September 1975, was unlike any other. I entered the morning prayer-meeting of our church anniversary service very much with these concerns of the dryness and legalism of our church and pastor on my mind. I had given the pastor a book to read which seemed to express my feelings perhaps better than I could, in the hope that in some way he might perceive the problem. But as he prayed, I sensed immediately a difference in his approach: for the first time it seemed, he talked about the presence of the Holy Spirit and the need for his blessing. My heart and mind soared. There was such a sense of elevation and release that when we came out of the vestry I felt as if I could barely contain it and that it was as if I was walking about six inches off the floor. We entered the service and began to sing the opening hymn: one of the traditional ones. As I sang the words I had such a perception of the power and awesomeness of God which the words were describing, together with His Mercy and Gentleness that I could scarcely physically stand under the weight of the perception of these qualities of the Divine, which were almost overwhelming me. After the hymn, we sat down and the pastor then led in prayer and this perception of the attributes of God continued with such a weight that I felt completely melted, humbled and an awe. I KNEW, in an immediate and direct way the power of God to bring an instant revival and awakening. In the mere click of fingers, the power of the Holy Spirit could be poured out to hill the hearts and minds of all around such that they would perceive and be filled with the Love of God. This experience lasted for about twenty minutes, but the after effects lasted much longer: I joyfully began increased study, prayer and diligence; old habits that I felt God disapproved of fell away for months, yet before, I could not shake them with all my efforts; bitterness and animosity that had grown towards the pastor fell away; and the sense of a need for Christians to unite in love filled my mind and heart.
Here is the same incident described in another account:
During the course of the prayer meeting, the pastor prayed as usual, but I noticed a change in his words and attitude. Suddenly this man had shaken off some of his legalistic tone and seemed to embracing the Holy Spirit. It was as if I was being transported upwards out of the room. My heart and mind lifted as I was filled with the perception that God had changed this man. I was filled with a perception of the power of God over men’s hearts and minds. It was like the floodgates of heaven were opened and a torrent of blessing was poured into my soul. I walked out of the prayer meeting as if my feet were six inches off the floor…I was filled with optimism, expectancy, energy and joy. The service that morning was as many had been before it in form: the pastor briefly opened in prayer and we then sang a hymn. Alas I cannot remember what the hymn was, but it was a typical school anthem type hymn of praise. All I can remember now is that I sang the words of that hymn as I had done many times before, but now, again, it was as if a door in my mind had opened and I perceived clearly and plainly the depth and reality of the words of praise and descriptions of the character of God. These qualities of God, His Power, His Omnipotence, His Love, His Eternity, were so immediately Real, Deep and Powerful, so Clear to my mind that I groaned under the weight of the perception of them and could barely physically stand under the glory of what they described. I could barely sing because of my strong emotions, and tears filled my eyes. It was as if God was pouring out not just a shower of blessing but also a flood of power into my soul. At the end of the hymn I all but collapsed into my chair and the minister then lead us in prayer. He was a university-educated man, a qualified teacher, and by no means ineloquent. Even so, the prayer was like many that had been uttered before it, yet this time, my perception of the meaning of the words was so great that I was groaning under the weight of them. Words like Immortal, Sovereign, Merciful, Eternal, Lord, Love, Pardon, Ransomed, Healed, Forgiven, were so Rich and Deep, and I felt their meaning keenly in my heart and mind. I was hardly conscious of anything else. I felt their application to the Church and to me. I KNEW I was saved from the just deserts of hell, and that my heavenly Father who seemed very near and loving to me, loved me without question. After the prayer, the experience subsided, the immediate experience lasting about fifteen minutes. I don’t think I have ever felt so clear headed and balanced as I did then. The immediate perception was of God’s Almighty Power: that at any time, as it pleased Him, He could pour out such a torrent of blessing and turn people’s hearts no matter how indifferent or rebellious they were to Him. A revival and awakening could occur in the time it takes to snap one’s fingers and the Holy Spirit could pour out his blessing on one or a thousand with irresistible power, and this no matter how dark or oppressive the circumstances seemed. Though powerful, this experience was in no way frightening. It was coupled with such a sublime sense of God’s Supportive and Protective Love that my heart opened and rejoiced in this experience. At no time was I afraid. I should point out also that there was no self-exaltation or pride in this experience. Rather there was an experience of lowliness, of humbleness and unworthiness. This was a gift of God to me, an unworthy and undeserving servant.
Compare this with a later experience outside of Christianity:
Etheria flew down the corridor towards the room with the Water of Life. In the shadows at the end of the corridor, just beyond the bathing room, I realised that there was a locked door. I tried my key, which fitted the lock, and before I knew it, I was in a vast, cathedral-like room. Pews were laid out on a black and white tile floor. The vaulted roof was resplendent in gold and blue. There were ornate gold carvings everywhere, and at the front of the room, covering the ceiling and made of black stone, there was a huge eagle with wings outstretched. Etheria flew around the room. In the place where one would expect the altar to be, there was a stone table. From each corner of the table there rose a column and these supported a polished stone slab and dome. Between the four pillars was a glass globe, blue in colour, in which specks of light were swirling around. I became aware of a pulsating humming sound, like the sound of an electrical generator or vast electrical power. I asked Etheria what this was and she told me that it was the Hub of the Universe. I felt impelled to touch the globe, and this overcame my apprehension about getting an electrical shock or being hurt in some way. To my surprise, my hand went through the globe into the blue energy, and in a moment, I had entered it completely. I became the energy, and expanded out being the specks of light that infused the whole Cosmos. I began to lose my centre of being and feel that I was in all places at once. I heard Etheria say ‘As God fills the Universe, so God’s energy fills the Universe as the source of all life.’. Then, the light seemed to dissipate and I found myself standing by the globe again. Etheria began flying in front of me and said ‘Come!’. I grabbed her ankles and together we flew out of the Treasure Room, high into the sky, until the Golden City appeared as a small dot below us. Up we went, beyond the Earth, the Solar System, the galaxy, to the outer reaches of the Universe. ‘All this is God’s Treasure’ said Etheria. Twice now I had felt as if I had expanded in space, but now the notion of time came to me. Did God transcend time? Etheria brought us back to earth, not in the Treasure Room, but in a park in the middle of the Golden City. The lawns were laid out formally, and there were benches to sit on. The paths converged to a clock tower, and I found myself sitting on one of the benches in the warm sunshine. On both of the occasions of my expansion I had remained acutely in the present moment. As I sat on the bench in front of the clock tower, I wondered if God transcended time. I became aware as I sat in the warm sunshine that Etheria had now gone. Then, almost immediately I found myself taken up to a new place that words cannot describe. I felt as if I was caught up in space, yet it was not the same as the edge of the universe where I had just been. This was a place, a location, and yet no location. I heard a man’s voice saying ‘God exists in the eternal present. God does not stand outside of time, or above time. God does not look down at time like a measure or ruler where some things are in the past and others yet to come, somehow standing above both past and present. This idea is a mistake. God rests in the eternal present, continually enjoying the Bliss of the immediate Now. God is in a position of eternal, Self-sufficient rest. There is no need for God to move or act, and there is nothing that exists which exists outside of God. Rather, God enjoys the Now for ever. However, God chose to contract, to enfold downward into manifold forms and time came into being.’
Although there are similarities in these accounts, there are also differences and contradictions. When a systematic Christian theology is compared to the systematised theological implications and statements of later mystical encounters, these differences become more obvious. Compare the two following systems for example:
1) Human beings are affected in the totality of their being by a principle of disobedience and selfishness such that they cannot earn favour with a Just and Pure God and are helpless and doomed to God’s Judgement. Pure and Holy Commands and laws given by God only serve to compound the problem because this principle of disobedience present in all of us uses such commands and laws to create yet more disobedience. But before the foundation of the universe, God chose to save some from their deserved punishment: a remnant elected to salvation. This is accomplished by the giving, work and sacrifice of the God-man, Jesus Christ, whom God sends to be a sacrificial offering in order to atone for the transgressions and failures of this limited group of the elect. Thus Justice is satisfied because the God-man acts as substitute and takes on the punishment that the transgressions and failures of the elect demand. Mercy and Love is also satisfied because this deliverance is a free gift of God and the elect are saved. Those whom God has elected to salvation cannot resist the free favour that God bestows and all of them will be effectively delivered: not one of them being lost. Those who are delivered will persevere in their state of grace for all eternity. The rest of humanity receives the fair wages that their transgressions have earned: an eternity of judgement and loss for offending an infinitely pure God. At the end of the age, the present universe will be rolled up like a scroll and destroyed; and a new heaven and earth will be established. The dead will be resurrected to an eternal physical existence either in a state of grace or judgement.
Compare the above world-view with that below:
2) The fact that God exists is known primarily by the direct experience of God’s Immediacy, an experience that is then expressed in terms partly determined by the culture, tradition and historical location of that person. However, not every person experiences this Immediacy because when God-as-Spirit contracted in space and time to form the universe, Ignorance came into being. Thus it is that some people rest satisfied in empty things such as material wealth. Those who pursue negative or dark virtues do so as a result of this ignorance and further compound it. Nevertheless, God is in all things, including the Dark Virtues and Ignorance. God is Real, and Unique. God is Imperishable, and Indestructible. God is not an object, but Spirit. God is also described as Energy and again as Light or Clear Light Emptiness. All things are an expression of God, be they living or dead, light or dark, truth or lie. God is all things by contraction and therefore unifies all things. God is Unity. Nothing can exist without God. The Energy of God fills the universe as the source of all life. God is Sufficient in and of God’s own Being and is always the same, unchanging. God is transcendent of the human mind, concepts, language and ideas, and transcendent of time and morals, existing above all polarity in a position of Absolute, Eternal self-sufficient Rest in the Eternal Now. As God contracts to various manifestations, attributes and qualities of God can be seen. The very description of God in terms of characteristics capable of description and naming is a contraction in itself, because God is Formless Absolute Spirit. God may be manifest in masculine or feminine form, or in mythical symbols or animals and becomes expressed in moral dimensions. Thus God is described as moral or virtuous and God’s Names are Beauty, Love, Compassion, Balance and Purity. Such Light Virtues arise out of Unity, whereas the Dark Virtues arise out of contraction and the separateness and Ignorance that result from contraction. In contracting from the Absolute, God is the Author of suffering. God is also expressed in the emotional dimension as being passionate and sensuous.
In the beginning there was only God-as-Spirit unmoving, formless and changeless in the Eternal Now. There was no material at all. Then, in an act of contraction itself, God-as-Spirit chose to contract further, into material form. Thus God-as-Spirit is like a vast Ocean and God’s separate contracted forms like the ocean spray. These contracted forms of God make up the whole Cosmos. The Cosmos is God and is the product of God contracting, or enfolding and subsequently unfolding or expanding in an evolutionary process. God’s Energy is the very Hub of the Universe. In this contraction, God is not fragmented, or distributed by measure. The total Essence of God-as-Spirit, without diffusion or division fills the universe in all its parts, the whole of God in every place, present at the same moment in all. The universe is preserved and remains in existence by God’s pleasure in continual contraction.
There is no realm of spirit beings or spiritual principalities. Neither do the spirits or souls of dead persons continue to exist in a disembodied spiritual community. Rather at death, God returns or expands to God-as-Spirit.
Human beings are fallible, and a pinnacle of natural processes of evolution. They are an expression of contracted God. They are agents in a moral dimension. They are compound individuals of matter (physical), emotion, sexuality, mind and spirit. They are evolving back to God-as-Spirit. Because of contraction they are ignorant of and separated from the Immediacy of God-as-Spirit. Some people rest satisfied in this ignorance, resting on and identifying solely with the comparative emptiness and trinkets of the material world. Some further their ignorance of God-Immediacy by pursuing materialism and dark virtues. Because humans are agents acting in relation to the universe, they operate in a moral dimension. But God does not issue commands or laws. Rather, people act in the intrinsic moral dimensions of light and dark virtues. Extrinsic laws and codes are necessary for society because of those who follow the Dark Virtues, but when it comes to approaching God-Immediacy, extrinsic laws are considered inferior to the intrinsic Virtuous Path followed by Pilgrims. Since all mankind is evolving towards God-as-Spirit, humans are on a journey and therefore known as Pilgrims.
The Virtuous Path consists of Love, Beauty, Truth, Compassion, Wisdom, Peace, and Respect, which lead to Unity. Failure to lead a life of virtue may lead to a sense of Guilt and separateness. The dark virtues are Deceit, Pain, Betrayal, Secrecy, Ugliness, Hatred, Anger, Imbalance, Lack of Mercy, Foolishness, Contempt, War and Lies. Pursuing these virtues leads away from Immediacy to Ignorance, sorrow, destruction, division, separateness and isolation.
The journey of each Pilgrim is unique and each person travels alone with God-as-Spirit ready to manifest to them as their Faithful Companion, Who prepares them to enter the Golden City.
At death God returns to God-as-Spirit, yet God remains contracted in the physical remains, because the whole universe is one God. At death, all things become new in that all earthly and human institutions cease. Thus there is no marriage, or law courts, or society of disembodied spirits in an afterlife. Rather, God returns to God-as-Spirit in the Transcendent Unity of Clear Light Emptiness, Resting in the Bliss of the Eternal Now. The Universe and time itself will cease when God chooses to cease contraction. At the end of time, all things will return to God-as-Spirit in Transcendence.
These are two quite different, sometimes contradictory and mutually exclusive systems of theology, yet both form the content of the apparently Real and Clear mystical experiences of one person. They are personal constructs, a reasonably coherent interrelated system of metaphors forming a Personal Lord and Divinity. In the material, measurable, categorised world we are quite used to such contradictions, even with specialised knowledge. Scientist in exploring the nature of light find that it seems to behave like a wave and also like a particle. Light cannot be reduced to one or the other, yet seems to have the qualities of both, so they have invented a new word to describe the nature of light: wavicle. This kind of thing reveals our ignorance, our lack of full understanding but we are quite used to this ambiguity. In the global warming debate, some argue that global warming is being caused by excessive amounts of industrial pollution. Others argue that it is a natural part of cyclical movements and changes on the planet over a long period of time. At this time we are ignorant as to the true cause. There is much about our material measurable conceptual world that we do not fully understand, but we form some sort of theory or schema concerning these events in order for us to make predictions and function effectively. Some issues, like the nature of light do not really affect most of us – we note the ambiguity but get on with cutting the lawn and doing the shopping. Other issues do affect us because we need to make a decision or prediction. We use our schema and if it works, it does not matter too much if it is ultimately right or not – if it works we are able to function. Thus for years it was believed that the sun revolved around the earth and this approach was useful enough to predict seasons and times in order to plant crops. I am arguing that contradiction within the material measurable world is exceptionally common and that we are used to it and in many ways function alongside it until a clearer understanding comes along. Such contradictions reveal our ignorance and misunderstanding.
Now it is exactly the same in the Spiritual Formless world. A mystic enters the cathedral in which the Hub of the Universe is situated. Around the Energy that is God-as-Spirit, there is a structure: a religious building. God-Immediacy is essentially an ineffable experience: it cannot be described, but almost immediately, our mind does create structure and form in order to attempt to describe it, communicate it and order the experience so that we can orientate ourselves. The immediate surroundings of the Hub of the Universe are the structures that we all create in this way: supporting columns of theories supporting a view of Transcendent God, religious and spiritual ideas that are polished, refined and set in stone, black and white dogmas and doctrines on which we stand, ornate rituals and ceremonies and other constructs concerning the Absolute. These structures are almost inevitable: they serve to structure, orientate us and allow us to function in the light of our spiritual experience. They are evidenced in the multiplicity of extrinsic religious faith systems world-wide. What makes these contradictions more unusual is the sense of Reality, Clarity and resultant Assurance or Certainty that accompanies the experience of God-Immediacy – even contradictory ones. It appears to be true that the Veil of Ignorance has been lifted momentarily to varying degrees in different experiences of God-Immediacy, but almost immediately we try and grasp with our mind what we have experienced. We translate our experience into language, form and concept. But the Transcendent cannot be grasped by the mind any more than a stone can understand a human being. God can only be seen when we transcend the mind and especially the active, rational, analytical ‘logos’ mode. To see God, we must let go of this mode of the mind: all thought and organised structure by which we understand the measurable world must be surrendered. All our thought and logic cannot encompass God’s Immediacy. In some ways the situation is the same as the material measurable world: we do not know fully. However great our knowledge and understanding, however deep our insights, they cannot encompass God and the experience of God-Immediacy is Ineffable, such that in the area of our mind we still remain in considerable ignorance and such ignorance gives rise to contradictions. The mystic’s attainments and knowledge in spirituality can be compared to an anthill next to Mount Everest. Even though the experience is Deep and Real compared with our perception of the material world, it is still wholly inadequate when it comes to encompassing the Absolute. Our mind imposes form on the Formless, anthropomorphic qualities on the Divine, language on the Indescribable, boundaries on the Boundless. It is part of our human nature that we do this and we seem to need to do this. What we must remember is that the forms that we use are metaphorical, inadequate, culturally and historically determined in part and partial in their scope, such that each Pilgrim truly comes along their own unique path. No wonder then that there are contradictions and paradoxes!
6.19 PERSONAL LORD – PERSONAL THEOLOGY
Despite these contradictions and paradoxes, the mystic should be able to extract a reasonably coherent and systematic philosophy or theology from their experiences. The important things to remember is that these forms of belief are limited, metaphorical, and liable to change. They do not form a complete explanation – the mind cannot encompass God – they are not literal and concrete and should not be reified as such – they are transient and not permanent or eternal, but relative to our personality and contexts of our education, geographical and temporal location. They are finite formulations created in some degree of Ignorance of the Formless Unknowable Infinite.
6.20 DIFFERENT SYSTEMS
Relative subjectivism and relative perspectivism arising at different depths of experience mean that different, contradictory, paradoxical systems of theology arise. Such systems are different from person to person, and within a person over time. This means that different people have different perspectives on:
The Nature of God and the spiritual realm.
Hoe God should be approached
The nature of Unity and interconnectedness
How Divine Truth is communicated
The nature of Guidance (if any) from the Divine
The role, if any, of providence, fate and destiny
The nature of the post death state
The nature and usefulness (if any) of Prayer
The importance of sin, guilt or moral failure before the Divine
The need (if any) for Forgiveness.
The value and method of seeking to walk a righteous path
The role, if any, of Ritual and Ceremony
It also means that the individual’s perspective may change on these issues over time.
6.21 SUMMARY CONCLUSIONS
Let us return again to summarise some of the differences between psychosis and mysticism:
The following list gives indications of schizophrenia, (as opposed to mysticism):
The person’s thoughts are not easily understandable ie. what they say doesn’t make sense. They are irrational.
The person has difficulty functioning, or is unable to function, in everyday life: they are stuck in a ‘mythos’ mode of functioning that does not deal with practical issues. They lose touch with material reality and are stuck in a world of fantasy or delusion.
Auditory hallucinations are more common than visual hallucinations.
Episodes are generally prolonged.
Social relationships are impaired due to the person withdrawing socially.
They may respond inappropriately to the needs and concerns of others.
There may be a history of mental health problems in the individual or the family.
The person has usually exhibited mental health problems previously.
The event often has a negative outcome: hallucinations and delusions are considered a disruption to the normal functioning of the person’s consciousness.
The tendency is one of regression and pathology
They may feel alone and isolated
1% of people suffer this disorder
The following list gives indications of mysticism, (as opposed to psychosis):
No evidence of thought disorder or disorganised thinking. Though entering a recptive, ‘mythos’ mode, they are able to return to the active, rational mode of being. There is an integration or synthesis of the ‘logos’ and ‘mythos’ modes.
They enter the ‘mythos’ mode as a mature adult and return to the rational mode.
The experience is trans-rational and paradoxical.
The person is able to continue functioning in daily life after the experience.
Visual hallucinations are more common than auditory hallucinations.
Episodes are generally brief.
There is no impairment to social relationships.
They respond empathically to the needs and concerns of others.
There is often no family history of mental health problems.
There is often no history of mental health problems within the individual.
The event often has a positive outcome, resulting in improvement in the person’s functioning and their growth. It has a healthy effect.
0.1% of people experience this.
The mystic may have a supportive social network
The following list gives indications common both mysticism and psychosis:
Both enter the receptive ‘mythos’ mode
Both appear unmediated or Immediate and Real
Both have biological effects in the brain
Both are non-rational and cannot be construed or remain unconstrued
Both involve a unified perception and loss of boundaries
Both involve a deeper quest for meaning.
Both may give rise to a loss of orientation of the self
Both can be unsettling and disorientating
Both are marginalized by modern western secular society and even health professionals
Both may lead to a heightened sense of perception
Both may arise apparently spontaneously or unexpectedly.
In terms of mysticism and bipolar disorder:
Both may lead to euphoria, ecstasy, elation and joy
Both may lead to preoccupation and withdrawal, even depression.
We can now add some further factors:
As we have seen, both mysticism and psychosis may give rise to a loss of orientation, or even definition of the self. But this occurs for different reasons. In the mystic, the journey to Self-discovery, to understanding one’s True Nature, means a series of changes of identifications and attachments as to who one is. The mystic begins to see that he is not a body, nor a mind, nor a soul/spirit. Eventually, the ego itself is surrendered – that abstract cluster of thoughts/feelings/desires that seem centred in the head or heart, that locus of focussed perception distinguishing self from other, subjective from objective, internal from external is transcended in Union with the Divine. This may be arrived at by a number of paths and disciplines such as self-inquiry, meditation, drugs and so on. For the psychotic, this may be involuntary and frightening, a cause of fear, even terror rather than joy. It is a collapse, or disintegration of the ego, of the self-identity, of the structured cohesive self-system of thoughts feelings and desires that are used to define who the person is. The constructs of the self, an implicit process that Kelly’s theory formally outlines, begin to become distorted or fail to integrate properly. As we have seen this may be due to genetic issues, to stress or mental conflict, the use of drugs causing permanent biological changes and so on. It is not perceived as Unity, but self-disintegration and disintegration of one’s personally construed world.
Another difference that we have seen is the nature of reality. Many professional health carers, as far as the mystic is concerned, fall in Ignorance for the Illusion that material reality is the only reality. The mystic sees a deeper, spiritual reality that does not fall into the testable parameters of material, measurable thinking and concepts. For the mystic, this Diffuse, Boundless, Silent Emptiness of the spiritual dimension is the Essence, the Absolute Reality from which all existents are made manifest. Material reality is temporary, transient and has no existence of it’s own, but rather, has existence because of the Essence. The material rationalist or secular health professional sees this as irrational and illogical: a delusion or illusion that is a sign of illness, because for them, anything not staying in touch with measurable, material reality is a sign of illness. The mystic however cultivates entering this mode and then returns to material reality and is able to function in it in a practical manner, as well as using and applying the insights gained in the non-rational mode. The mystic often reports a sense of bliss or joy, of peace, calm and well-being, often seeing the experience as positive. The psychotic also enters, to some degree a non-rational mode. They may hear non-existent voices created by a physiological dysfunction in the brain. They may then act quite logically and consistently with that voice in the light of what it says. But this experience of voices is involuntary and often unwanted, yet such periods may persist over a long period of time and prevent practical functioning in the material world. The psychotic may display signs of inner conflict, disturbance and distortions of measurable reality such as paranoia – believing that people are talking or whispering about them for example. The experiences of voices or pictures, and misperceptions of material reality are often perceived as negative or destructive, or grotesque, such as mistaking a bundle of newspaper in the street for a dead sheep. Thus, though both mystic and psychotic encounter non-rational modes of being and become detached from material reality, the nature, duration, desirability and characteristics of these experiences are quite different.
6.22 ATTACHMENT, SELF-IDENTIFICATION AND ABSOLUTE
We now have a model of the person and their attachments and self-identifications that looks something like Figure 9 below. Once again, this is only an approximate schematic to give us a general overview.
Figure 9 Attachment, Ego, Self and Absolute