The Path of the Mystic
A mystic is a person who has direct experience of the sacred, unmediated by conventional religious rituals or intermediaries… Achieving that sacred, or divine, experience requires transcending established belief systems, bypassing the intellect, and dissolving identification with the 'ego' self.
Mirabai Starr
Dear Ones,
For the past 300 years, we have been trapped in a belief system that is a lie! The basic premise of this Newtonian/Cartesian mechanistic paradigm, in which we are enmeshed, is that we are separate objects in a world of objects. This mistake is at the heart of all suffering, war, and divisiveness. It is the foundation of our identity, our story, and it shapes our every action, thought, feeling and way we relate to each other and the world. And we have the power to shift that old view of the world, which gives us the power to alter our actions.
For the past 300 years, we have been trapped in a belief system that is a lie! The basic premise of this Newtonian/Cartesian mechanistic paradigm, in which we are enmeshed, is that we are separate objects in a world of objects. This mistake is at the heart of all suffering, war, and divisiveness. It is the foundation of our identity, our story, and it shapes our every action, thought, feeling and way we relate to each other and the world. And we have the power to shift that old view of the world, which gives us the power to alter our actions.
A mystic is one who connects with ultimate reality by going inward through the practices of meditation and contemplation. Now, at a time when the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has just moved the hands of the Doomsday clock to 100 seconds to midnight, there seems to be a merging of the ancient wisdom of the mystics with the paradigm-changing views of quantum physics. Scientists and mystics agree that everyone and everything is intimately interconnected and inseparable. What does this realization mean to the way we live our everyday lives? What new possibilities open up by trying on this very counterintuitive perspective?
It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light.
Aristotle Onassis
Aristotle Onassis
The first step is to begin to notice how many things we want to change about ourselves and our lives, and how much we are against in our world. What if we, and the world, didn’t need fixing? What if we shifted our view to what’s actually present in the moment and learn to allow things to be as they are, and as they are not? If we gave our energy to focus on what’s working, what we are grateful for, and what brings us alive, what kind of world would we be calling forth?
There is a thing called the Gestalt Paradoxical Theory of Change, which states that “Change occurs when one becomes what one is, not when one tries to be what one is not. Change does not occur through coercion, persuasion, or effort to be something else. When one abandons for the moment, what one would like to become, and instead becomes what one is, the ground and opportunity for change become more apparent.”
The second step of the mystic, after stopping trying to change “what is”, is to cultivate a deepening relationship with inner stillness. By stopping our frantic chasing and opening to receiving the gifts surrounding us, we allow the abundance, beauty and relatedness that has always surrounded us to emerge. This has been my biggest challenge. I tend to fill every moment with terminal busyness. This is why I spend an hour and a half a day meditating. It takes focus, intention, and commitment to quiet the mind and hear the still inner voice that has been guiding us all along.
A mystic is anyone who has a gnawing suspicion that the apparent discord, brokenness, contradiction,
and discontinuities that assault us every day might conceal a hidden unity.
Krista Tippett
and discontinuities that assault us every day might conceal a hidden unity.
Krista Tippett
My teacher, Thomas Hübl, talks about becoming a Cultural Mystic. A Cultural Mystic uses everyday interactions with the world to embrace & transform personal and relational issues, challenges and patterns, in order to gain deeper wisdom and cultivate inner awareness. Rather than taking ourselves out of the world we go deeper into it by transcending the myth of separation through cultivating a deep sense of interrelatedness. In this way, we expand our personal and collective field of compassion, understanding, and relatedness.
To be a cultural mystic is to embrace the inseparable nature of the universe and live from the recognition that we are all part of an indivisible whole. In other words, it is a process of cultivating a direct communion with God or the ultimate reality of oneness. A practicing mystic learns, through meditation, contemplation, prayer and direct experience, to let go of their separate egoic identity or personal narrative and open fully to simply being with what is, as it is.
Healing means that we dedicate our life to where the light meets the shadow.
Where aliveness meets the contraction. Where the potential meets the past.
Working on that edge is a constant revelation and expansion.
Thomas Hübl
Where aliveness meets the contraction. Where the potential meets the past.
Working on that edge is a constant revelation and expansion.
Thomas Hübl
Next month we will be offering a free webinar on the principles of embodied mysticism, and a new course called The Way of the Mystic: An Embodied Approach to Personal & Planetary Healing. We hope you will join us for this program of learning and cultivating the mystic’s path. We need each other! In community, we can give and receive support, get feedback that allows us to see our blind spots and deepen our sense of being related to the sacred other who is mirroring and co-creating the reality in which we live.
With infinite love and boundless gratitude,
Michael, Meriel and the Well of Light Team
Michael, Meriel and the Well of Light Team
As we grow in our consciousness.. there will be more compassion and more love.
And then… the barriers between people.. between religions...
and between nations will begin to fall.
Ram Dass
And then… the barriers between people.. between religions...
and between nations will begin to fall.
Ram Dass
