Christian mysticism sees growth in spirituality as involving an ever deepening, personal relationship with God. The mystic, whose longing for a total bond with the Beloved, is not seeking nothingness, nor to “find the God within.” His Lover is also a Person, albeit one Divine. Since true contemplation is a gift of grace from God Himself, the mystic remains fully (and, perhaps, anxiously) aware that his own accomplishments and efforts cannot attain this union.

The true mystic will never be understood, and those honored as saints were likely, then and now, to be remembered more for what they accomplished (or for what their intercession is thought to obtain for their devotees!) than for their mysterious and often troubling focus on the divine. Total unity goes beyond the senses and the intellect, and the greatest of poets is rendered silent by the inability to fully share the inexpressible.

The human need for satisfaction of the mind and emotions is ever part of our nature, yet the mystic is dealing with pure spirit, unfathomable intellect, perfection beyond human grasp. He will see the emptiness of the world and the limits of our own perceptions. Thus, the lover"s longing, which in itself is a sheer gift of grace, meets with silence. Unchanging, eternal, perfect love surely is the ultimate delight, but the mystic, hampered by the clouded vision of mankind, has both total dedication and the unrequited longing that cannot be satisfied in this world.

Where the thought of meditation or prayer brings to mind actions of the mind, body (as in observing quiet), senses, and intellect, the way of the mystic is based on submission of the will. His journey begins with a renunciation of sin, that will, in time, lead to a certain darkness. The mystic sees the Scriptures, the teachings of Christ Church and the writings of Her mystics, and so forth as divine revelation - and, since they spring from a perfect source, will intuitively realize that there can be no surer path to happiness. His own heightened vision of divine love (of which he usually is unaware) will leave him troubled, because the reality of evil and indifference taps the human sense of futility and emptiness in this world.

The mystic, of course, is totally unaware of his “stage of development”. The growing detachment, so essential to the eventual mystic union, will leave his senses and mind with further emptiness. The will, which alone can choose and love, is assuredly turned to God, yet there is much more to human nature - and that part remains unsatisfied, until the level of detachment is one attained by few. This is a process for a lifetime.

The mystic, who will begin with the self knowledge from which humility is born, but eventually reaches the uncharted paths of that heightened vision that only the divine can inspire, will have continuously advancing awareness of his own nothingness. This “nothingness” is real - and by no means negative, even if it might appear so. If humans are created in the image and likeness of God (that is, with a memory, intellect, and will, and an immortal soul), and Christ Himself could assume human nature, clearly humanity is a great treasure in itself. However, when one has had a glimpse of the Perfect, the limits of human nature are clear to him.

This void naturally is to be filled with that share in God that we call divine grace. Still, when one burns with a love that cannot be fully consummated except in a life beyond this one, the lover naturally will endure trials and the fire of longing that only those who truly love can know.

With submission of the will being the key element of mystic union (and one against which we all shall struggle!), abandonment is transformed, in the mystic"s vision, from a frightful struggle to a loving union. The mystic"s heightened awareness, so incomprehensible to the rest of us, leads to a knowledge that nothing will satisfy him except God. He will have the pain of being unable to take pleasure in the worldly, but his will shall consider these well sacrificed in light of the ecstasy of eternity.

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US Yoga Academy