What is mysticism? According to the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, mysticism is a “quest for a hidden truth
or wisdom.” The Fontana Dictionary of Modern
Thought, defines it thus: “Mysticism is the direct
experience of the divine as real and near, blotting
out all sense of time and producing intense joy.”
Some people mistakenly think that mysticism is the
answer to the search for truth. In fact, mysticism, to
be more exact, is a sort of escapism. It seeks a refuge
rather than the truth.
According to the mystics, the final state produced
by mystical exercises is inner joy or spiritual bliss.
The subject of the present volume is the search for
truth. So far as this subject is concerned, mysticism
is quite irrelevant to it.
1. The search for truth, by its very nature, is
entirely an intellectual exercise. Its findings too
are intellectual in nature. It is succesful when the
seeker finds rational answers to the questions he
poses about the universe and his own existence.
The search for truth is not a vague matter. It
begins from the conscious mind and also
culminates there.
The case of mysticism is quite different.
Mysticism, essentially based on intuition, is not
really a conscious intellectual process. As such,
the mystical experience is more an act of spiritual
intoxication than an effort to apprehend the truth
in intellectual terms. A drug user undergoes an
experience of inner pleasure which is too
vaguely and unconsciously felt to be explained
in comprehensible language. Similarly, what a
mystic experiences is a type of unconscious
ecstasy, which does not amount to a consciously
sought after or properly assessable discovery. On
the contrary, the search for truth is an intellectual
exercise from beginning to end.
2. Mysticism, as popularly conceived, makes the
basic assumption that the physical, material, and
social needs of man act as obstacles to his
spiritual progress. Therefore, mysticism teaches
him to reduce his physical needs to the barest
minimum; to renounce worldly and social
relations; and if possible to retire to the
mountains or jungles. In this way, he will
supposedly be able to purify his soul. Thus, by
giving up the world and by certain exercises in
self-abnegation, a mystic expects to awaken his
spirituality.
The educated community, however, does not
find this concept of mysticism acceptable. A
seeker aims at a rational explanation of the world
and endeavours to discover a definite principle
by which he may successfully plan his present
life. Mysticism, on the contrary, teaches man to
abandon the world itself; to depart from the
world without uncovering its mystery.
Obviously such a scheme amounts only to an
aggravation of the problem rather than a
solution to it.
3. The mystics can broadly be divided into two
groups. Those who believe in God and those
who do not. Non-believers in God assert that
there is a hidden treasure in the centres of our
souls. The task of the mystic is to discover this
hidden treasure. But this is only a supposition.
None of them has ever been able to define this
hidden treasure or to explain it in
understandable terms. Tagore has thus
expressed this claim made by the mystics:
“Man has a feeling that he is truly
represented in something which exceeds
himself.”
But this is only a subjective statement
unsupported by logical proofs. That is why, in
spite of its great popularity, no school of this
mystical thought has so far produced any
objective criterion by which one may rationally
ascertain that the existence of such a hidden
treasure within the human soul is a reality, and
not an illusion. On the other hand, no welldefined
law, or step-by-step practical
programme, has been introduced by any
individual or group that might help the common
man reach his spiritual destination consciously
and independently.
Moreover, mysticism makes the claim that the
natural quest of man is its own fulfillment. It
does not require any external effort to arrive at
the perceived goal. In other words, it is like
assuming that the feeling of thirst or hunger in
man contains its own satisfaction. A thirsty or
hungry person is not to trouble himself to search
for water or food in the outer world.
4. Those (of this school of thought) who believe in
God interpret this hidden treasure in terms of
God. To them the inner contemplation of a
mystic is directed towards God.
This concept too is rationally inexplicable, for, if
such mystic exercises are a means to discover
God, then, there should be genuine proof that
God Himself has shown this way to find Him.
But there is no evidence that this path has been
prescribed by God. On the other hand, there is a
clear indication that this course separates the
life of isolation. This makes it plain that God
cannot enjoin such a path to realization as would
mean nullifying the very purpose of creation.
5. The mystics hold that although the mystical
experience may be a great discovery for them, it
is, however, a mysterious, and unexplainable
realization which can be felt at the sensory level,
but which cannot be fully articulated. According
to a mystic: “It is knowledge of the most
adequate kind, only it cannot be expressed in
words.” (EB/12:786)
This aspect of the mystical experience proves it
to be a totally subjective discipline. And
something as subjective as this can, in no degree,
be a scientific answer to the human search for
truth. Those who have attempted to describe the
mystic experience have chosen different ways of
doing so. One is the narrative method, that is,
describing their point of view in terms only of
claims, without any supporting arguments.
Another method is to make use of metaphors.
That is, attempt to describe something by means
of supposed analogies. From the point of view of
scientific reasoning, both the methods are
inadaquate, being quite lacking in any credibility
in rational terms, and are therefore invalid.
--Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
( Ref - Search For Truth )
