What Is Mysticism?

The greatest ambition of the mystic is to passionately seek God. Rather than rely on the mediated doctrines and rituals of external, or exoteric, religious experience, the mystic wants a direct unmediated experience with the divine.
Typically popular misconception betrays mysticism as irrational and delusional. We imagine the intense prayer and contemplation of the isolated permit or the passion of the Sufi. Arguably the rationalistic scientific worldview which demands verification for all things, would see the passionate pursuit of an unverifiable divinity seen as an act of avoiding life. To some extent all religion seeks a knowledge beyond the empirical and so face the same charge. However much of human experience cannot be verified how can one empirical in measure the phrase “I love you”? Or can wonder nine the very real emotional appeal of art simply because it cannot be measured? In the mystic would claim that such reductionism tragically cuts out much of the human experience arguing that is all her relationship with the divine is holistic, a suprarational experience that is closer to reality.
Although visionaries and ecstatic is our part of the mystic tradition, the popular image of an emotionally unstable permit in a state of constant ecstasy is far from the truth. The pursuit of a passionate personal relationship with the divine was practised by people of all levels of intelligence society and emotional health. Some mystic literature demonstrates exceptional intellectual rigour, just as art can also demonstrate exceptional skill. Just as art can be appreciated by skilled artisan or a person barely able to hold a paintbrush, the genius of Beethoven and the majesty of Bach can be appreciated by people of various levels of technical proficiency. In the same way, esoteric traditions have been practised by people of varying ability.
Throughout history the relationship between the exoteric practice of the church synagogue or mosque has been both synergistic and at times tense. Arguably mysticism and organised religion have existed in a state of mutual dependence. Each form of religious expression has grown in response to the other. For, some of the most influential religious literature is a product of the fervent search for a fervent, intimate love for the inexpressible divinity. With the re-popularization of the works of Sufi Mohammad Jalal al-Din al-Balkhi al-Rumi, the West has been reacquainted with the fusion of intense eroticism that expresses the fusion of a love for the divine with a passion between lovers. Nevertheless mystic mystical literature gets within the historical framework of the exoteric religious tradition of the time. Also, although mysticism is a personal experience it flourished in the community's Halachic observers Christian monasteries and Sufi fellowships.
To many in the West the esoteric traditions of the Abraham in religions have been largely forgotten. People identify mysticism with the video key sitting in the lotus position or the meditating Buddhist monk. Judaism Christianity and is lamb are seen as active external community focused traditions of ritual prayer religious law and morality. Yet it would be remiss not to remember that Eastern traditions also have strongly developed principles of law ritual and morality.
Religion is a way of life organised around experiences and convictions concerning an ultimate power. The community life of exoteric religious practice includes shared ritual myth doctrine codes of morality and sacred books that mediate the power of religious experience in indirect and nonthreatening ways. The believer is our sable to experience God at a distance so as to not be destroyed by it. In contrast, mysticism is an individual and very personal search for direct unmediated contact with the divine. Through the term of mysticism derives from the Greek Mister or one who has been initiated into a cult being granted access to the status in law unavailable to the uninitiated however deterministic is usually apply to the individual suggesting access to a realm of knowledge not available to others or able to be fully expressed. For although pray is the practice of human communication with the divine mystic creator often transcends speech either through ecstatic utterance or prayers of silence. This intense contemplation meditation and silent prayer transcends the common community prayer petition praise confession the out bowel or him practised in a church synagogue or mosque
According to your Joachim Wach, “ religious experience is the response of the whole person to what is perceived as ultimate, characterised by a peculiar intensity, and issuing inappropriate action.” That is, the believer's response derives from a conviction in the religious experience and is not a self generating fantasy. The religious experience is not merely a matter of ideas of will or emotions that involves the whole person including his or her body. The religious experience is subjective and being perceived as ultimate transcends all goes beyond normal experience, with an intensity and a perceived reality that may not be able to be explained by the believer but the believer knows a certain that he experienced it. Unlike an intense emotional response to beautiful music the religious experience has the power to organise the believer's life. Arts may elicit a powerful emotional response but rarely will a change a person's life.
Mysticism presupposes a dimension of being the is greater and true than what is perceived by the five senses. It presumes an innate capacity within humans to gain this reality and at this access can be instructed by those who have already obtained experience