One of the more interesting features of Integral Christianity is the way it highlights the common experience of the mystics. Regardless of their religious background or doctrinal convictions, when Christian mystics describe their experiences during contemplation and meditation, they are eerily similar in nature. Mysticism may be the only place where all Christians can go to find lasting unity.
One of the more challenging features of Integral Christianity is that it points out that the experiences of Christian mystics are also similar to those described by mystics from other religions. For example, Christianity and Buddhism are very different religions, with different beliefs, goals, and practices, yet the mystics from both report similar experiences in their deepest moments of contemplation.
Many of these mystics believe they are tapping into a singular divine reality that transcends the particularities of any one religion. When I asked a Christian mystic what his experiences had taught him, he said, “Mysticism certainly challenges the belief that Christians have exclusive access to God.”
What do you think about the shared experience of the mystics? What, if anything, do they tell us about the accessibility of God?
Telling Stories, Asking Questions, Learning Lessons
Wade,
I had a great discussion in my soph. bible class at ACU about the Wesleyan Quad. and it was so refreshing to hear my students not only acknowledge experience but champion it as well.
I’ve been wanting to explore mysticism more – You have any reading recommendations?
Casey-I like “Open Mind, Open Heart” by Thomas Keating. I’ve practiced centering prayer on and off for years now. I’ve never been as consistent as I need to be to make real progress.
I have an interest in mysticism. It is at once fascinating, alluring, but also foreign to me. If more people from my heritage and who I know had experience or experiences with it, that would make it easier to get started with a practice. I’ll sample a book on it once in a while. It is evidently something better lived than read about.
Interesting piece. Are any of you familiar with Joachim di Fiore who centuries ago predicted we had passed through the Ages of the Father and of the Son and were now entering the Age of the Spirit? How about Meister Eckhart? Castaneda’s The Power of Silence where he describes the descent of the Spirit?
I recommend Jung’s autobio, Memories, Dreams, Reflections for an introduction to Jung’s ideas, which would suit anyone interested in getting a picture of the psyche and the Unconscious as the link to Higher Power. You will come to understand your own dream life as a dialogue with that Power.
Direct experience is what monks, nuns, and mystics have had over the centuries rather than dried-out orthodoxy substituting for real faith and knowledge of the Spirit.
Roy–thanks for the comment. I’m familiar with a few of the names above but not all. I love your last line. That’s the part of mysticism that intrigues me, but alas I’m more comfortable reading about it than actually cultivating a practice.
I just started reading yesterday Arthur Zajonc’s Meditation as Contemplative Inquiry and am part way through Naked Spirituality by Brian McLaren. Have not read that one by Jung. Maybe time to go back to him.
I’d be interested to hear what you think of Naked Spirituality. It’s been a few years since I’ve read a McLaren book. He lost me a few years ago.
Another book on my shelf that I really enjoyed was “Teachings of the Christian Mystics” edited by Andrew Harvey.
Thank you for a good article. Christian Mysticism is looking upon a broader horizon across all the experiences that are limited and unpleasant we can see the dazzling light of a new dawn where everything is unified. Our motions within and without resolve themselves in the simplicity of the whole experience, when we focus on simple unity and have become acquainted with God’s pure consciousness that is apparently outside and within ourselves. This consciousness is witnessed inside, when we know that reality is more than what is observed outside with the senses. Letting go of what is little, we enter into a larger concept of life where there is nothing to fear because we realize that conflict is the result of seeing only in part, not the whole picture.
Read almost anything by Thomas Merton or Thich Nhat Hahn. Then spend time sitting and walking.