“Mysticism is the art of union with Reality.”
Evelyn Underhill
“When the doors of perception are cleansed, all that appears to man is what is, infinite.”
William Blake
The mystical path can be seen as an organic and human path to transcendence, an enlightened perception of things and people. But this vision is achieved as much through the purification of the doors of perception as through the feeling of absolute and unconditional unity.
The true mystic is often mocked and ostracized because of their difference and their transcendence of the world. Throughout history, they have been misunderstood, scorned, even persecuted. For by their very existence, they profoundly challenge common perceptions. They live in a reality entirely different from that of ordinary mortals, in a reality amplified by new dimensions, heights, and depths. The everyday becomes intense, the mundane magical, the routine miraculous.
But in reality, he is only rejecting the narrow, superficial world of the ego; he is only rejecting the artificiality and falsehood of the world. He prefers the vastness and magnificence of nature and the divine. This reality, unknown to those who lead a life connected solely to appearances and the senses, is far vaster and more magnificent.
The illusions of the world, cleansed of the domination of the senses, increasingly give way to the transcendental personality. Far surpassing nature and the carnal realm in which he is a default resident, he decodes his environment through the new mystical language, more in tune with his celestial origins. He no longer seeks earthly compensations such as drugs, alcohol, or sex to achieve a partial and momentary sense of unity. He feels and experiences this sense of unity perpetually and unconditionally, solely through his vision and consciousness.
It is nourished no longer solely by telluric forces, but by a new influx of vitality, by a new, ever-expanding and profound understanding of the mysterious world in which it exists. Everything becomes an appearance of the divine, be it beauty or ugliness, grandeur or the grotesque, creation or destruction, truth or falsehood. It merges with reality, while retaining its specificity and distinction. It experiences absolute unity while maintaining its individuality. It is at the crossroads of these paradoxes of totality and singularity that it exists. Without forcing, without expressing any power, without imposing or seeking to convert. It simply is.
It is no longer about doing, appearing, or having. It is pure existence.
But this state of being does not develop easily. It is the culmination of a long path of purification and awareness. It is a gradual process of unveiling and revelation.