Mystical trends are found in all the great world religions. And the
descriptions of mystical experiences given by the mystics show a remarkable
similarity across all cultural boundaries. It is in the mystic’s attempt to provide
a religious or philosophic interpretation of the mystical experience that his
cultural background reveals itself.
In Western mysticism—that is, within Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—
the mystic emphasizes that his meeting is with a personal God. Although God
is present both in nature and in the human soul, he is also far above and
beyond the world. In Eastern mysticism—that is, Hinduism, Buddhism, and
Chinese religion—it is more usual to emphasize that the mystic experiences a
total fusion with God or the “cosmic spirit.”
“I am the cosmic spirit,” the mystic can exclaim, or “I am God.” For God
is not only present in the world; he has nowhere else to be.
In India, especially, there have been strong mystical movements since
long before the time of Plato. Swami Vivekenanda, an Indian who was
instrumental in bringing Hinduism to the west, once said, “Just as certain
world religions say that people who do not believe in a personal God outside
themselves are atheists, we say that a person who does not believe in himself
is an atheist. Not believing in the splendor of one’s own soul is what we call
atheism.”
A mystical experience can also have ethical significance. A former
president of India, Sarvepalli Radhak-rishnan, said once, “Love thy neighbor
as thyself because you ore your neighbor. It is an illusion that makes you think
that your neighbor is someone other than yourself.”
People of our own time who do not adhere to a particular religion also
tell of mystical experiences. They have suddenly experienced something they
have called “cosmic consciousness” or an “oceanic feeling.” They have felt
themselves wrenched out of Time and have experienced the world “from the
perspective of eternity.”
Sophie sat up in bed. She had to feel whether she still had a body. As she read
more and more about Plato and the mystics, she had begun to feel as though she were
floating around in the room, out of the window and far off above the town. From there
she had looked down on all the people in the square, and had floated on and on over
the globe that was her home, over the North Sea and Europe, down over the Sahara
and across the African savanna.
The whole world had become almost like a living person, and it felt as if that
person were Sophie herself. The world is me, she thought. The great big universe that
she had often felt to be unfathomable and terrifying—was her own “I.” Now, too, the
universe was enormous and majestic, but now it was herself who was so big.
The extraordinary feeling was fleeting, but Sophie was sure she would never
forget it. It felt as if something inside her had burst through her forehead and become
merged with everything else, the way a drop of color can tint a whole jug of water.
When it was all over, it was like waking up with a headache after a wonderful
dream. Sophie registered with a touch of disillusionment that she had a body which
was trying to sit up in bed. Lying on her stomach reading the pages from Alberto
Knox had given her a backache. But she had experienced something unforgettable.
Eventually she pulled herself together and stood up. The first thing she did was
to punch holes in the pages and file them in her ring binder together with the other
lessons. Then she .went into the garden.
The birds were singing as if the world had just been born. The pale green of the