BY SWARTZ DAVID MALAIPERUMAN, M.A. (MADRAS)

B.D., Ph. D. (CHICAGO)

From the very earliest times there has prevailed in the human race a secret, obscure or even impulsive longing to attain the more abundant life. Humanity yearned for happiness, freedom from tension, relaxation from the trials and tribulations of this world. Habit and routine, though necessary for social stability, inevitably produce a deadening effect upon the individual who therefore seeks to escape from the monotony of life. Therefore humanity has sought thrill in drugs, esoteric ceremonials and cults, frenzied dancing, meditation, human fellowship, the love of the sexes, religious worship and rapport with Nature. In all these experiences one seeks the stimulus to which one responds in a way that lifts one out of oneself to the contemplation and enjoyment of something greater and higher. There is a hinterland of mystery which challenges mankind. When one reacts with love or strong emotion to this area of experience, one may be said to be mystical. The most noteworthy feature of mystical experience is the sense of wholeness. Numerous are the ways and expressions of the mystic vision of the whole. We are interested in the best types of mystical experience such as aesthetic experience, the mysticism of human fellowship, of romantic love, mystical worship and prophetic experience.

Values cannot be counted as eternally secure in another realm, nor can they be bifurcated into means and ends. They do not consist of emotional satisfactions or tertiary qualities. Values inhere in a system of inter-related activities, in the causal connections of enjoyments established by operation. They consist of connections of mutual support, enhancement and meaning between appreciable activities. Integration in life is a basic fact. In the higher levels of comradeship, friendship, love, art, and worship, these inter-relations function even more intricately. The God of the mystics implies the growth of meaningful relationship. It is not merely the sense of wholeness that ‘reveals God.’ Rather it is the joyous appreciation of growing inter-relationship that yields Supreme Value.

Mystical experience opens up a wide vista of growing connections that yield joy, peace and harmony. The whole life is touched by something beyond itself which is conducive to the emergence of wider relations and perspectives. One then realises his kinship with the whole universe, with human beings and Nature. In some cases, there is unrestrained appreciation of the increasing inter-relationship between various things and events of the past and present, combined with those pertaining to the future. These are significantly illumined, as, for instance, in the case of the great Hebrew prophets. There emerges a new correlation and synthesis of socio-religious experience bringing coherence to life and solution of problems. Away from the constraints of tradition and free from distorting loyalties, and accessible to wider ranges of experience, the mystics come out with radical originality. This experience promotes ethical sensitivity and a social attitude toward the universe. The vision and ardour of the great mystics has been employed in the practical reconstruction of life and society. Mohammed pointed the way towards the world-wide brotherhood of Islam, rejecting the social order split by the warring tribes of Arabia; Buddha arose from his meditation to reject the orthodoxy of Brahmanical priesthood and laid the foundation for the Sangha; Jesus rejected the social order of a chosen people to herald the Kingdom of God. The msytics of the fourteenth century and their disciples paved the way for the Reformation, with the growing emphasis on the inwardness of religion.

The unity of life which is the intellectual assumption of science becomes the "consuming conviction of the sage." The exuberance of joy bursts forth into new song and the mystic invites others to share in the values accruing out of the experience. Christ, Buddha and Ramakrishna shared their experiences with disciples in order to promulgate their gospel which carried a great moral force. In sharing such experiences they had to use the language of poetry, metaphor or allegory.

History comes to a focal point in the life and experience of the great mystics and prophets. The sense of wider relationship brings home to the mystic one’s deeper roots in history and in Nature. In the great turning points of history men have arisen who were willing to sacrifice their lives in the service of a cause or loyalty infinitely more integral and worthy, men of vision who unflinchingly followed the ever beckoning ‘pillar of fire,’ men who came out in the open and proclaimed, "Not I, but God lives in me," "Thus saith the Lord." These were they who in an awful moment of solitude rejected a world of narrow relations and enrolled themselves in the long succession of those who have sought to build the ‘City of God.’ They were the great transformers of humanity. Shattered hopes, broken down unity, frustration and disillusionment were resolved to unity and optimism, through the integral experiences of the mystico-prophets.

Mystical experience is conducive to the integration and unifying of personality. Release from strain and tension stimulates dynamic energy which comes to those that are responsive. "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength." Gandhiji is one of the best examples of those mystics gifted with the capacity for heightening personal energy and stimulating it to the highest psycho-physiological level. Prayer, meditation and fasting are means of attaining spiritual strength. In the Yoga technique, for instance, the energy of the body is reduced, the muscles have but a limited supply, and the autonomous cranial division requires very little energy to maintain its organic functions; this diminished supply is utilised on a higher level. Besides the heightening of personal energy, mystical experience helps to resolve inner conflict and integrate the personality on a higher level, tones up one’s thought and feeling, deepens one’s sense of value and invigorates one with meaningful connections.

In the light of growing inter-relationship, as well as the vision of possibilities, things are viewed from a wider perspective which makes possible the transmutation of pain and suffering. The Hebrew prophet, Ezekiel, transformed the suffering of Israel during those days of stress and gave them new hope and courage.

Amidst the discrepancy between the increasing complexity of present day civilisation and the capacity of the human organism to cope with the times, there is the dearth of just those values which the mystics have heralded time and again–joy, peace, strength, harmony, transmutation of pain–with the conviction of belonging to a greater whole.

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