Mysticism is neither a faith nor a belief, nor is it a principle or a dogma. . . . [B]eing a mysic means having a certain temperament, a certain outlook on life. . . . No one can be a mystic and call himself a Christian mystic, a Jewish mystic, or a Muslim mystic. For what is mysticism? Mysticism is something that erases from one’s mind all idea of separateness, and if a person claims to be this mystic or that mystic they are not a mystic; they are playing with a name.
People think a mystic means a dreamer, an unpractical person who has no knowledge of worldly affairs. But such a mystic I would call half a mystic. A mystic in the full sense of the word must have balance; thet must be as wise in worldly matters as in spiritual things. . . . It is not necessary to be unconscious of the world while being conscious of God. With our two eyes we see one vision; so we should see both God and the world as a clear vision at the same time. It is difficult, but not impossible.
Mysticism is an outlook on life. Things which seem real to an average person are unreal in the eyes of the mystic; and the things that seem unreal in the eyes of the average person are real in the eyes of the mystic.
. . . God is not abstract for the mystic; to the mystic God is a reality . . . the stepping-stone to self-realization. God is the gate, the door, the entrance to the heavens. God, for the mystic, is a key with which to open the secret of life, the abode from whence the mystic comes and to which they return and where they find their deepest and truest self to be at home.
See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
INAYAT KHAN
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Inayat Khan
• Inayat Khan and the Heart of Sufism
• Inayat Khan: “There Must Be Balance”
• Inayat Khan on the Art of Selflessness
• Inayat Khan and the Fountain of Happiness Within
• The Alchemy of Happiness
• A Light That Will Always Shine
• A Living Light
• A Perpetual Fire Within
• One Wisdom
• Awakening and Turning
THE SUFI PATH
• Sufism: Way of Love, Tradition of Enlightenment, and Antidote to Fanaticism
• The Sufi Way
• Doris Lessing on the Sufi Way
• Sufism: A Living Twenty-First Century Tradition
• Sufism: A Call to Awaken
• “Joined at the Heart”: Robert Thompson on Christianity and Sufism
• Clarity, Hope, and Courage
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Doris Lessing
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Kabir Helminski
• Bismillah
• As the Last Walls Dissolve . . . Everything Is Possible
LLEWELLYN VAUGHAN-LEE
• Held in the Presence of God
• The Act of Surrender
• The Journey Home
THE DIVINE PRESENCE
• “Everything Is Saturated With the Sacred”
• The Most Sacred and Simple Mystery of All
• The Source Is Within You
• Michael Morwood on the Divine Presence
• Prayer and the Experience of God in an Ever-Unfolding Universe
• Prayer of the Week – October 28, 2013
• Neil Douglas-Klotz: Quote of the Day – December 29, 2011
• Cultivating Stillness
• Thoughts on Transformation | II | III
• Jesus: Mystic and Prophet
Recommended Off-site Link:
Inayat Khan and Universal Sufism – Filip Holm (Let’s Talk Religion, December 8, 2024).
Image: Artist unknown.
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