What is Mysticism?

Defining Mysticism in terms of Experience, Theory and Practice.

00:00 • 1 - Experience
- Mystical Experience:
Historical and Contemporary
- In language of Psychology:
Ego Death
Unitive Consciousness
Peak Experience / Flow state
- In the Language of Theology:
Prophecy, Theosis, Unio Mystica
Dvekut, Gnosis, Fana, Baqa,
Samadhi, Moksha, Satori, Nirvana
04:20 • 2 - Theory
- Mythology:
Death, Rebirth and Immortality
Apotheosis
- Theology/Theosophy:
Pan(en)theism
- Philosophy/Metaphysics:
Monism
Non-Dualism
08:44 • 3 - Practice
The Mystics Ethical Imperative

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Agree or disagree my presentation of Mysticism? Lmk in the comments, (particularly if you disagree).

I'd also love to know what you'd like to cover next.

Thank you Wordsworth and Blake for the beautiful poetry.

#ProjectUnity

If you’d like to stalk me

[SeekersofUnity]

Fancy this definition? Did i miss something out? What aspect should we dive into next?

[senderbransome]

This is the best definition of mysticism I've come across

[theama-institute]

Thank you for your video! I had my first mystical experience when I was young and then had them regularly from 19 years old on. I have had literally thousands of more subtle versions and probably a dozen very dramatic ones. In some ways I think they are over-emphasized in the context of spiritual transformation. In the beginning they are like lucid moments and which ones sense of reality is altered and expanded - and that’s really important in order to make space and loosen ego attachments. But in my 20 years of experience both personally and as a spiritual teacher I have observed that the mystical experiences aren’t useful in the long term unless they are accompanied by psychological healing and integration as well as increased mental and emotional focus. And in fact I’ve seen them be a destructive force in someone’s life when they can’t be integrated into ones current sense reality.

So, I actually do not encourage my students to seek out these experiences. I have found that with proper meditation technique and training these experiences are bound to appear in subtle forms rather than dramatic ones. I have observed that the subtle exposure to expanded realities and experiences of God are much more easily integrated and therefore usually more useful to a holistic mystical development.

I think it’s sort of comically ironic that experiences that dislodge the ego‘s normal sense of self most dramatically then tend to cause the most frantic egoic compensations. People are often so disoriented by dramatic mystical experiences that they spend years trying to make sense of them with the only tool they have easy access to - the ego. It is exactly for this reason that I don’t teach my students techniques that encourage the dramatic forms. I find the subtle versions much more efficient over the long-term because they effectively alter consciousness without causing a defensive reaction from the ego.

[kathleenhensley]

From a chapter of a book I am working on:
Icarus (I have a picture of Icarus hanging here in my study. )
"My soul, I knew would never rest until it had found the answers or was found out by them. I felt myself float and soaring on wings of gold, rose far beyond the earth, far beyond..."
***
One night I fell into a deep trance and again I encountered something which I
could not explain; a glowing light and a flight that took me into the
light.I burned with a supernatural light which could not be quenched.
A fire as one would find at the center of some great star. I became
fire, became light and like a bursting dandelion shed the light
into the darkness and made it light. I returned to my senses
shaking and drenched in my own sweat. Within my soul now, behind
closed eye lids, I saw lights flowing a fire burned in my backbone
which I could not understand, and in my body, there were centers of
painful delight. I felt I knew the meaning of my life, or, at least,
the first great chord in the symphony called life.
***
--I seem stuck right now. I think it is something more I need to learn or understand. I suffer from terrible uncertainty... self doubt? you mentioned the impulse to fall in love with God so profoundly that the love will become a torment, at times. Eh, I know. For me, it is the holy grail.

[ThePathOfEudaimonia]

This video has finally put into words so eloquently how I've been experiencing, thinking about and acting within this existence for so many years.

I am in the right place here.

Thank you, Zevi!

[stevenwilgus]

Once a person understands that one has taken a single step toward Spiritual Enlightenment, it matters little which path is taken, the Source shines-lighting the path. That is my understanding of The Bowl Of Saki for today:

He who thinks against his own desire is his own enemy.

Bowl of Saki, January 25, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

[SebbaFree]

Excellent channel. Please keep making more videos

[aditya-rtzb]

I am not much knowledgeable, but i think mysticism can't ne attributed to only monists or pantheists, i think dualists (like dvaita vedanta, jains) also had mysticism in it