Noel Wilson

Mysticism, mystic experiences, and encounters with the divine are important—and even integral—to many religions throughout the world. Mysticism, defined as experiencing the divine, should have a special importance in Christianity. Christianity posits a God who is transcendent, yet immanent, and as Christians we believe we can have a relationship with the Deity. Because of this we should have a unique conception of mystical experiences as significant to our spiritual lives.

I will begin by giving an overview of mysticism in other religious traditions—Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto, Islam, and Judaism—and then concentrate on the role that mysticism and experience should have in Christianity.

Non-Christian Religions

Buddhism

In Buddhism, one seeks salvation from pain, which is caused by desire; so one seeks a state of absence from desire. This is achieved through meditation and the "Noble Eightfold Way of mental and moral discipline: right views, resolve, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration." It is a timeless state, and is spoken of as "becoming Brahman" and entering into Nirvana. The absence of desire necessitates a certain amount of separation from the world and a constancy of mind that is not found in the normal clamor of daily life.

Hinduism

Hinduism has a pluralism of gods, but in the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred text of Hinduism, Vishnu is proclaimed supreme and the Gita is almost monotheistic in its tone. According to Geoffrey Parrinder, the Bhagavad Gita "teaches union with God, but in the context of love to God and love from God…." Meditation is the chief method of achieving experience of or unity with the deity, as prescribed in the Tantras, which describe Hindu ritual.

Shinto

Regarding Shintoism, J.W.T. Mason states, "the fundamental idea of Shinto remains that man and Kami or divine spirit are the same." As another scholar says, "The same divine blood flows through plants, animals, men and gods." Because of this, Shinto is mystic in the sense of transcendence, not self-consciousness. One cannot achieve unity with divine, nor have an experience of the divine that is in anyway unusual, simply because the individual and the deity are one and the same; all experiences in life are experiences with the divine because there is no distinction between divine and non-divine. It is because of this that the divine is transcendent, subsuming all things into its being.

Islam

Orthodox Islam emphasizes the absolute transcendence of God, but there is a sect of Islam called Sufism, which has placed a major emphasis on mystical experiences. To quote John Esposito: "The Sufi path is a way of purification, a discipline of mind and body whose goal is to directly experience the ultimate reality." Sufis seek to experience God directly, utilizing poverty, fasting, silence, celibacy, recitation of the Most Beautiful names of Allah, music, dance, and veneration of the saints. Sufism is a combination of worldly renunciation and meditation with "undying devotional love of God."

Geoffrey Parrinder says that the chief characteristic of Sufism is the "loss of will to find the eternal self in God." The word used for this is fana, the obliteration of the soul in God, which has three stages—obliteration of characteristics, of pleasures, and of consciousness. "At the heart of Sufism is the belief that one’s self must die, that is, one must undergo annihilation (fana) of the lower, ego-centered self in order to abide or rest (baqa) in God."

Judaism

Experiences of God have also been important in Judaism. Throughout the whole of the Old Testament, or the Jewish Torah, there are stories of Yahweh appearing to people and speaking with them: Yahweh and Moses conversed about the law on Mt. Sinai, Ezekiel had a vision of the "appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord," Elijah experienced God as a still small voice on top of Mt. Horeb. Yahweh is a god who makes himself known to his people. Such visions of God are often terrifying, as was Ezekiel’s, and have a profound effect on the humble mortal who experiences them. The prophet Isaiah’s response to his vision of the Lord on his throne was "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!"

While orthodox Judaism would probably reserve these experiences for the priests and prophets of old, the Jewish tradition of Kabbalism has retained the idea of experiencing God. In Kabbalism, cleansing is necessary, a purification of thought and action in order to meet with the living God. Meditation, and meditation specifically on the Divine Name, is of chief importance in Kabbalah mysticism. According to Gershom Scholem, there are three layers of meditation—mivta, miktav, and mahshav, or articulation, writing, and thought. In Kabbalah mysticism, as opposed to Buddhism and Shinto, union with God does not mean identity with God, rather it means communion with God.

Christianity

The Mystic Tradition

Mysticism has had a long history in the Christian tradition. From Origen, the early church father of Alexandria in the second and third centuries, to Thomas Merton of the twentieth century, Christian mystics have included such well-known names as Augustine of Hippo, Bernard of Clairvaux, Meister Eckhart, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and William Law. These Christian mystics sought personal experiences and revelations of God through prayer, fasting, meditation, self-discipline, and entire devotion to God. This "giving of self" to God can also be found in Scripture: in Paul’s letter to the Galatians he says, "…it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Though Christians seek union with God, it is not identity with God, just as in the Kabbalah mysticism of Judaism. The apostle Peter speaks of escaping the corruption of the world and becoming "participants in the divine nature." One Christian mystic, Maximus the Confessor, taught that human nature could become ‘divine by grace,’ as opposed to Christ, who was divine by nature.

Why is it important?

Mysticism should be an important part of Christianity today because its chief purpose is to experience God. Unlike other religions whose god is not personal, or whose god is so transcendent as to be unapproachable, the center of Christianity is Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God with us. Other religions seek to experience the divine, but they do not have the Christ, who is God in a human form. The entire Bible portrays God as one who desires to be in fellowship with his people, and is heartbroken when they reject him. God is constantly reaching out in love to his people. The supreme example of this is God sending his son, Jesus, to restore us to a right relationship with him. All that is required is our response in turning toward God.

Additionally, the purpose of Christianity is to know Christ more. In his gospel, the apostle John quotes Jesus as saying, "And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." It does not require the extreme ascetic practices of a monk to experience the Lord our God. The Scripture says, "Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart…." Additionally, the apostle John says in his first epistle, "…everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love." God does not require a five-year vow of silence to reveal himself to his people, though there may be value in that. He merely asks for an open and seeking heart, loving others. Knowledge of the living God is available to all God’s children, and should be sought by them all. As the apostle Paul wrote, "I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord."

Louis Dupré says, "Without some share of spiritual experience religion withers away in sterile ritualism, arid moralism, or theological intellectualism." This is the case in Christianity. It is the experience of the Almighty, living God that gives life to the dry bones of intellectual assent, just as the breath of God gave life to the dead bones in Ezekiel’s vision of the Valley of Bones (Eze. 37). Without this experience of God, Christianity is meaningless. Christian mystics have kept alive through the centuries the meaning of knowing God and experiencing him in his fullness, and we would do well to appreciate and appropriate from that heritage.

References

Dupré, Louis, and James A. Wiseman, eds. Light from Light: An Anthology of Christian Mysticism. New York: Paulist Press, 1988.

Esposito, John L. Islam: The Straight Path. New York: Oxford UP, 1988.

Mason, J.W.T. The Meaning of Shinto. Port Washington, NY: Kennikat, 1935.

The New Oxford Annotated Bible. New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford UP, 1991.

Otto, Rudolf. India's Religion of Grace and Christianity Compared and Contrasted. Trans. Frank Hugh Foster. New York: Macmillan, 1930.

Parrinder, Geoffrey. Mysticism in the World's Religions. New York: Oxford UP, 1976.

Renou, Louis, ed. Hinduism. New York: George Braziller, 1961.

Scholem, Gershom G. Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism. New York: Schocken Books, 1941.