Mysticism is not a thing apart from humanity—it is its flowering. I say this not only as someone who has long felt himself to be on a mystical journey, but as someone who recognizes that being human—feeling, dreaming, wondering, stumbling—is itself the ground from which mysticism arises.
Recently, I encountered a remarkable work titled Mysticism and Experience: Twenty-First-Century Approaches edited by Alex S. Kohav. It’s not a “how-to” guide to transcendence, nor a new-age rehash of the mystical buffet. It’s a deep and scholarly anthology that dares to ask the hardest questions:
What actually counts as mystical experience?
Is there a transcendent reality beyond language?
Why do different cultures describe the same ineffable states in such divergent terms?
It’s a book that fuses the intuitive with the intellectual. And that dual fusion speaks directly to me—a mystic, yes, but always human first.
One of the key insights from this collection is that mysticism need not be relegated to mountaintops or monasteries. It is not about escape from reality but a deeper plunge into it. Several essays explore how mystical states arise in everyday human contexts:
through trauma and healing
via psychedelic catalysts (echoing the insights of Rick Strassman)
even through mathematical intuition—where logic collapses into awe
These themes remind me of what my guru Paramahansa Yogananda once said:
“The body and the mind are only dreams! Behold your Self—the real you—as infinite Spirit!”
But even as he declared our body a dream, Yogananda honored it as the vehicle of realization. This paradox—illusion and instrument—is the heart of mystical humanity.
Another recent book, Mysticism: The Experience of Ecstasy by philosopher Simon Critchley, offers a complementary vision. Critchley speaks of mysticism not as doctrine but as a deeply personal rupture—an encounter with beauty, with stillness, with love. He writes of art and poetry as mystical mediums, accessible to secular minds yet drenched in the sacred.
Critchley’s mystical vision isn’t anchored in temples or texts—it’s anchored in feeling. That, too, resonates with me. As Ramana Maharshi taught:
“You are awareness. Awareness is another name for you. Since you are awareness, there is no need to attain or cultivate it.”
Mysticism is not a destination—it is the scent of the real self, already present.
What both of these works clarify—and what my own inner knowing affirms—is that mysticism is not the property of any tradition. It is a human inheritance, expressed differently in the Vedas, the Upanishads, Christian ecstatics, and Sufi poets. And sometimes, even more purely, in silence, in music, in tears.
Even Lahiri Mahasaya, a highly realized yogi, lived the life of a householder. He showed that mystical consciousness can blossom in ordinary roles—husband, father, worker—just as much as in renunciation. We are not required to stop being human in order to touch the divine. We are asked only to see the divine more clearly through our humanity.
When I say I am a mystic, I do not mean I levitate at dawn or have visions on demand. I mean I recognize a deeper reality peeking through the veil—especially in suffering, in beauty, in stillness, in the strange quiet between thoughts.
That’s why I align so strongly with Mysticism and Experience. It invites a living mysticism: interdisciplinary, modern, respectful of both neuroscience and ineffability. It validates those of us who know there is more—but who insist on staying human while we seek it.
Mysticism isn’t for the chosen few. It’s the natural inheritance of the deeply awake.
Let me end with a reminder from Sri Yukteswar Giri:
“Attachment is blinding; it lends an imaginary halo of attractiveness to the object of desire.”
True mysticism is the release of that halo—and the ability to see what truly is.
Dear reader:
You, too, are already on the path. If you’ve felt glimpses of something
beyond language—through love, art, nature, dreams, or loss—you’re not
alone. You’re not imagining it. You’re remembering.
Consider exploring the Mysticism and Experience anthology (see link above) or diving into Critchley’s new work. And more importantly—listen to your own direct knowing. The divine is whispering through your humanity.
🧘♂️ Don’t wait for permission. Breathe deeper. Walk softer. Ask the unaskable. The mystic is already alive inside you.
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