Mystery- Mystics and the WOW Factor!

‘Only the Mystics will survive’

In the past 50 years or so, the advances made by science,
cosmology and technology allied to the explosion of
information technology have increased our knowledge and
understanding of the Cosmos. It has also encouraged people
to think for themselves and to question existing structures of
power. Consequently, all the Religious Traditions, and particularly those in the West,
are being challenged. This has led to an exodus from many Religions and/or a
growth in fundamentalism. It seems that the latter is gaining ground in our modern
world, with a consequential growth in intolerance, violence and prejudice. History
has shown that in the longer term truth and awareness will prevail.

Historically the failure of the Faith Traditions to accept and/or respond to new ideas
has always had a negative effect. In the West, we have seen how Christianity, in all
its forms ,has tried to hold on to outmoded and outdated theology, Arguably, it has
focused more on Christendom than on Christianity.

Christendom is that branch of Christianity that branch of Christianity that grew out of
the ‘ takeover’ of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine. His decision to
make Christianity the official religion of the Empire led to the Church conforming to
the will and wishes of the establishment. It led to a hierarchical structure with the
Pope like the Emperor, the Cardinals like the Senate and the ordinary people were
the plebeian classes. Yet, Christ came to bring about a ‘kingdom’. Not a kingdom as
we might recognise, but a kingdom whose values were very much different and
opposed to the norm. Arguably, Christianity has never been given a chance and the
values of Christ’s kingdom, love, compassion, mercy, tolerance, mutual respect etc
have not flourished.

The same could be said of many of the other great Faith Traditions. One can only
speculate how Mohammed , Peace be upon him, might feel about the present state
of Islam. He was renowned for his tolerance and protection of Jews and Christians.
He advocated peace and yet some of those who profess to follow the teachings he
received from Allah ( God) seemingly struggle to bring peace ( Salaam) into this
world.

None of this has helped and it has played a part in the decline of formal religion.
One possible outcome could be that they (the formal traditions) may die out. And be
replaced by structures and communities that are open to the call of the mystery
within and thus answer humanities deepest need of finding meaning in and for and
towards life.
However, spirituality , which pre-dates religions by tens of millennium, has more in
common with science and cosmology. Quantum Physicists and Spiritual Masters
are aware of the inter-connectedness of everything in the cosmos. Both are aware
of the great mystery that underpins our cosmos. Both are open to change and
challenge. In fact, it could be argued that , only those who open to the challenge of
change and in touch with a sense of this Mystery ( the mystics) will survive.

Over many years , Sister Ishpriya has encouraged and challenged Satsang
Members to remain awake to the mystery. To ‘stay awake’ ! because only by
staying awake can we be aware of and ready to respond to life. These reflections
are part of my response to that challenge. They are influenced and informed by
many years of her teachings and particularly some Pravachans given by Sister
Ishpriya at a Summer Satsang held at Die Quelle, Austria, in August 2008. In these
she focused on the twin themes of ; ‘Mystics are Ordinary People’ and
‘Revelation’. The following reflections are both informed and influenced by these
twin themes.

In her first Pravachan( Conference Talks), Ishpriya reminded us that our task was
‘to relax and come home to one’s self’ So much of modern life is based on
consumerism and the all too familiar hustle and bustle. Thus, for many, modern life
leads to a loss of freedom of choice. We can become caught up in the proverbial
rat-race. She stressed that it was ‘a loss of freedom and not independence’,
because we all live in an inter-dependent world. More important than this ‘loss of
freedom’ was the danger of losing our autonomy. This was because it is our
autonomy that is our uniqueness. Each being is unique. Each being brings that
uniqueness to our world and each of us will never be born again. We have our
unique opportunity and responsibility to play our part in co-creation. The question
and challenge for us all , is expressed by this simple but complex question ; How
can one get back in touch with that sense of uniqueness?

I spent some time reflecting on this question and realised that I could do so by
focusing on my sense o relationship with ‘self’ and with the Self or Source of all life.
The Source that I most often experience is ‘Presence’. Others may call this, God,
Allah, Sat Guru Mystery etc. This sense of ‘Presence’ is central to Celtic Spirituality,
the spirituality of my culture and thus my roots.

We live in a fast changing world. A world that is desperate for meaning. Many great
thinkers, such as Viktor Frankl (the renowned Austrian Jewish Psychotherapist),
have warned us about the dangers of a life without meaning. Frankl, in the late
1940’s predicted a ‘Neurotic Triad’ in the West. He suggested that the lack of
meaning would lead people into one of three errors. These were addiction,
aggression or depression. I see these regularly in my professional work and we
know that the World Health Authority predicts that by 2020, depression will be the
world’s biggest disease.
Yet, many people are urgently and eagerly searching for meaning and in doing so
seek the spiritual and not the religious. For many, Religions, with their patriarchal,
hierarchical and dogmatic approaches, are a ‘turn-off’. They neither attract nor
appeal to people’s real search for meaning. So people seek meaning and sense in
other areas. Unfortunately, they often do so in areas that are unhealthy, unhelpful
and addictive, hence the crisis of the neurotic triad that is sweeping Western
societies. This neurotic triad was predicted by Viktor Frankl, the father of Existential
Therapy, in the mid 20th century. Frankl, a survivor of the Nazi Concentration
Camps, an episode of madness and prejudice, recognised that people need and
seek meaning. It is the failure to find meaning in life that leads people to become
neurotic. He predicted that by the end of the 20th Century, the western world would
struggle with , depression, addiction and aggression – a neurotic triad. Arguably,
when one looks at our modern world, it seems that Frankl was very accurate.

What could be a possible way out of this crisis? Well perhaps the
answer is as old as the hills and one that sits at and in the heart
of people. There a line from an old song that says ‘what the
World needs now is love, sweet love’.

Yes this is true. Our experience tells and shows us that love
does bring meaning. But the love that is needed is not the weak,
sentimental, mushy sort of love beloved of romantics, advertisers
and the media. No, what is needed is ‘the love of the spirit’. That love
can be found in you and in me. This is a genuine love that is rooted in
compassion and in a sense of our common humanity, our inter-connectedness. This
is the type of love that can be found in the teachings of the mystics.

But who are the Mystics? They are, as previously suggested, ordinary people doing
and extra-ordinary thing. What is this extra-ordinary thing? It is the ability to stay
awake to ,and be aware of ,the wonder of creation within and around us all. The
mistake we so often make, and certainly one I have made in the past, is to think that
mystics are so unusual, rare and special. No, mystics can be found in the highways
and by-ways of everyday life; in supermarkets, schools, the workplace etc. They do
not go around with great big M Plates stuck on their back, like the L plate of a
Learner Driver !

When I was a child, I used to get a comic strip. It had a

regular article called ‘Spot the Difference’ .This
consisted of two seemingly similar pictures but with
small differences. As a child, I often found it difficult to spot the differences.
However, with careful attention and awareness it soon became much easier. The
more I practiced and experiences, the easier it became! This is the same with ‘Spot
the Mystic.’ They are men and women who are awake to and aware of the ‘signs of
the times’. They are open to the on-going revelation of the Mystery and are more
discerning in their choices.
What are these ordinary men and women awake and aware of? The answer is the
WOW factor of the on-going creation. For myself, an error that my religion and
upbringing led me into (I was brought up as an Irish Catholic) was that the only
revelation of the Source (God) was to be found in Scripture and not just any
scripture but just Christian Scripture. But over many years this increasingly made
less and less sense to me. It belied my own experiences, from childhood, of a sense
of God’s Presence (Revelation) in my own life. Thus as Ishpriya spoke of the on-
going revelation of creation, my heart sang and it made sense to me.

The Earth is almost 5 billion years old and human-like creatures several million
years old. Spirituality is at least 70, 000 years old, with stronger
evidence for its existence over the past 25 to 35 thousand years.
Formal Religions are a mere 5000 years old, the oldest being
Hinduism. . So what were the Creator and Creation revealing
during all this time and certainly during the 70,000 years of
spirituality? What does the Creator and creation continue to
reveal? How do I respond to these important and challenging
questions. My instinctive and felt sense response is as follows: I
feel is that the Mystery has been creating and revealing itself all this
time and continues to do so.

There is plenty of evidence for this, not just scientific but in the felt sense and
experience of people throughout time. We have the wonderful discoveries of the
mystics and scientists. These all point to a continuous revelation of the Mystery and
creation. There is the WOW factor of recent discoveries in the Cosmos and micro-
cosmos. All point to the immense complexity of nature, of the cosmos and of human
beings. Just consider the past 80 or so years. We have had quantum and nuclear
physics, DNA, the Space Age and our increasing understanding of the complexity
and inter-dependence of the myriad of creatures and plants on this planet, Mother
Earth. Consider our advances at Astro-Physics and at Micro-physics. For me, these
are just more and more WOW factors.

Now, the main religions do have their Scriptures or Holy Books. The Western
monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, ( the three people of the
Book) see these as God’s revelation, and so to some extent they are. But if I was to
stop there and consider these as the totality of revelation, then I would have to deny
the heritage of the other scriptures from the Eastern Traditions. I would also have to
deny the revelation of science and cosmology and the revelation that comes to me
( as it does to all of us) in our day-to-day experiences of life, nature, the environment
and the cosmos. We are co-creators in this cosmos. As Teilhard de Chardin
reminds us ‘ Our duty as men and women, is to proceed as if the limits of our
ability did not exist. We are collaborators in creation’ For me, as a Celt, this is
intuitively in touch with the ethos and mores of Celtic Culture.
No, such a narrow and one-sided view of reality does not make sense to me. It is
like looking at one dimensional ( 1 D) drawing. In a 1 D drawing , it will only appear
as a ‘dot’ but in 3-D it becomes more a reality, a shape that I can really recognise.
For me, the other 2 dimensions are also revelation and these two dimensions are
my knowledge and experience of my Outer and Inner life. This is not just true for
me but is true for all humanity. The lives and experiences of all, scientists,
cosmologists, evolutionists, priests, pastors, Imans, mystics and ordinary men and
women, help provide the ‘remaining dots’ that make the reality of revelation.

To consider the only source of revelation to be a series of writings, at the most 5000
years old, make little sense. Science tells us that the Cosmos is almost 15 billion
years old, born out of ‘The Big Bang’ from a mass no bigger than a golf ball - WOW!
We need to use the gift of our intuitive powers and be guided by this quote from
Albert Einstein ‘The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind a
faithful servant. We have created a society that honours t he servant and not
the gift’

We live on Mother Earth, the Blue Planet, a planet set

in a very small solar system in the massive ocean of the
cosmos. It is reported that one of the U S Astronauts, on
looking back from space at the Earth, our Blue Planet,
remarked : ‘ It looks like a baby wrapped in a blue
blanket’ If only we could all see it like this and, as adults,
begin to look after the baby.

Our ‘baby’ Earth, is part of our solar system, This is

almost 5 billion years old. The Big Bang Theory suggests
that our cosmos is almost 15 billion years old. It is vast and consists of multi-verses,
countless universes with millions of stars, each with their own solar system. So as I
sit here and look up at the skies, I am struck by the words of scripture ‘When I see
the heavens, the moon and the stars …. ‘

So the ‘Outer Life’ that I experience, gives me a further dimension into the revelation
of the Mystery. Then there is the Inner Life. This is that inner place of silence and
stillness that transcends my emotions and intellect and gives me an awareness of
the Source. This awareness is what St Paul called ‘the eye of the heart’. This is the
other dimension of revelation. When I combine the Outer and Inner dimensions then
the words of Scripture really come alive ‘Lord, I thank you for the wonder of my
being’. Thus I become more awake and aware to the continuing revelation of the
Mystery. This revelation wakes us up to the mystic in ourselves.
Ishpriya went on to use two famous men to illustrate this awakening, this WOW
factor that changes people at there very depth. How this WOW factor can catch us,
bring us alive and fill us with a zest, passion and drive for life and all creation. In
addition, this awakening can so often happen when external circumstances in life
would seemingly be very bad. Both of these men appeared at a critical turning point
in Western civilisation. It was around the time of the Reformation. The Church, who
ruled Western society, was corrupt, over centralised and dogmatic. It did little to
feed and nourish the majority. It was at this time, the 16th century that the ‘reformers’
broke through.

One of these was a mystic John of the Cross. He was a disillusioned Carmelite who
was noticed and mentored by Teresa of Avila, a renowned reformer. John, like
many people who remain awake, was very aware of the faults and failings of the
institutionalised Church. This was a Church that virtually ruled the whole of Europe.
A Church that was corrupt and very much removed from the ‘Kingdom values’ of
Jesus the Christ. Like most Mystics, John probably realised how far the Church was
from these Kingdom values.

What we do know is this. , John was imprisoned by his own Order. He was tortured,
both physically and psychologically and almost died. He languished in prison for
many months. It was during this time he had an ‘inner awakening’ a WOW
experience. Despite being at very low ebb the flame of the Spirit ignited in John (a
Big Bang experience) and the rest of his story is well known. He went on to become
an influential figure, a Father of the Church and a canonised saint.

The other great figure as Galileo. Galileo was a man of science , a

dangerous profession in a world governed by formal religion. He
became interested in the skies and in astronomy. He managed to
obtain a simple telescope. He looked through his telescope at the
sky and began to see and ‘dimly’ understand the wonder of the
Universe. He too had a WOW experience. But once again it went
against the ‘wisdom of the day’ and he was tortured and condemned. Despite this,
he had an inner conviction and experience of the wonder. He went on to greatness
and became the father of Astronomy.

His experience and courage was to guide and inspire generations of astronomers
He continues to inspire the modern physicists and cosmologists who daily explore
and scan our great cosmos.

Both men were derided and condemned by the leaders of the day. But both were
proved to be right. And both went on to greatness. Both men had a WOW!
experience. They had an experience of the Mystery of Creation. Both men were in
fact mystics. We need to remember that we are all mystics, because mystics are
ordinary men and women. However, we very often fail to open ourselves to the
intuitive, the mystery and the mystical gift within.
What can all this tell me? What lessons can I gain from the lives and experiences of
these two great figures of history. Well, I’m neither a John of the Cross nor a
Galileo. However, history and personal experience shows; that very often the
‘perceived wisdom of the day’ is wrong. There are countless examples of this
‘truth’. The history of our species, the long journey and story of mankind suggests
that each generation builds upon the experiences and knowledge of the previous
generation. These experiences and this growth in knowledge form part of the on-
going revelation.

Genuine revelation , which is a 3 D experience, is revealed to us day by day. The

mystics are those who are wide awake to the changes and the signs of our times.
We live in challenging times and this quote from St John of the Cross seems
appropriate.

“In tribulation immediately draw near to God with confidence, and you will
receive strength, enlightenment, and instruction.”

So, we all need to remain awake. Because it is only in remaining awake that I can
be sure of living a reflective and revealing life . So I wish a happy revelation and a
happy WOW factor to all who read this.
Peter Creagh