Tuesday 21 June 2005

Pic of the day: Shouldn't that be "Ooommmm"? It is never too early to begin...

Mysticism without myths

(This is the fourth in a series about a possible coming upgrade of the human mode of thought. You may want to read it from the start.)

What images do you see in your mind when you hear the word "mysticism"? What kind of person do you think a "mystic" is? Chances are that if you are not a mystic yourself, your guess is wide off the mark. The common use of the word mysticism is "something obscure", often deliberately so, some convoluted philosophy and preferably of a quasi-religious nature. But at heart, mysticism is a thinking without artificial walls in the mind. An experience of oneness in all things. An assumption that all true facts should fit together regardless of where you learn them.

It is true that mysticism has won its name mostly in religion and similar philosophies. The unity experienced by the mystic is of course most profound and awe-inspiring when it is experienced as unity with the Divine or at least the Cosmos. Unity with your washing machine is generally not a similar life-changing experience. Unity with your spouse falls somewhere in between and was probably the original inspirations for such works as the Kama Sutra, which has lately seen a renaissance in the USA because of the intimacy starvation in that culture.

While mysticism tends to go with meditation and yoga and such, these are just tools of the mind. The basic skill of the mystic is to see all things as connected. This comes in very handy at school, when you can use what you learned in maths and apply it directly in physics or chemistry or economy, without having to learn it again. In that respect, we are probably all mystics to some extent. Indeed, it is not an all-or-nothing approach. While most of us have glimpses of it, and some live in it all the time, it seems that you can increase it gradually if you have first experienced it at all.

***

You may think that mysticism is a more primitive form of thinking. After all, if you perceive all things as being one, perhaps it is because you lack the capability to differentiate between things? Perhaps it is some kind of brain damage, you may think, or mental illness. But if you read the works of some mystics, you will notice that they come across as very healthy indeed. Also their verbal skills seem to be, if anything, above average. It is not that they don't see the trees; but they also see the forest, at the same time. Furthermore, a number of scientific geniuses have been mystics, openly or judging from their writing: Blaise Pascal and Isaac Newton both considered their science less important than their inner life. Conversely, religious mystics sometimes dabbled in science. Norway's perhaps most famous Christian mystic, Hans Nielsen Hauge, caused a noticeable economic growth in the country by teaching his followers to build local industry and follow sound economic principles.

Why, then, is it so common to have walls in our minds? Well, it comes in handy more often than you might think. For instance, you may have an erotic relationship at work which you don't want your spouse to know. By having two separate realities in your brain, you can switch between them. Now you see your love, now you don't. This has obvious evolutionary advantages, sad as it may sound.

Or you may be a student, in which case you can gain popularity among your peers by deriding your teacher. But if you do that while the teacher is listening, bad things are likely to happen to you and your grades. By switching between two different modes of operation, depending on whether the teacher is there or not, you can get the best of both worlds.

Or as a preacher and local politician, you extol family values for glory and profit. This would come to a sticky end if people knew that you did very dubious things with your young daughter. But through the marvels of hypocrisy, you can have it all: The adoration of your flock, the influence in local democracy, and the pleasures of the dark. It is hard for even God to bid over such a combo.

But to the mystic, hypocrisy is an impediment at best, increasing to outright pain as he proceeds toward unity. The walls must come down so the light can shine through everything. All the pieces must fit together. Duplicity and simplicity exclude each other, as well they should.

***

An interesting facet of mysticism is that it surpasses differences in race, religion and time. Reading the words of mystics who lived thousands of years ago on another continent, they are eerily similar to what a modern mystic would say today. It is as if the lack of walls go beyond the inside of each brain and also extends to the mystic's relation to others. The uncompromising honesty in reporting exactly what they experience means that each new mystic can hook right into the world of other mystics. Perhaps this is why a Tibetan Lama honestly believes that he is a reincarnation of his predecessor and can continue his work as if after a long vacation. But even if you are not a Tibetan or even a Buddhist, some of what they say are likely to make sense on an intuitive level. Conversely, Hindu mystics often enjoy Jewish or Christian mysticism – Mahatma Gandhi studied the New Testament as well as the corresponding Hindu work, Bhagavad Gita.

If mysticism facilitates the deeper flow of thought between people, and if modern life increasingly consists of thinking thoughts together with others ... it would seem that being a mystic, at least to some degree, would confer a new advantage in our time. And if mystics generally operate in a shared reality, then there would be what we call a "network benefit" or "Network Effect": The more people who are in on it, the greater the benefit for EACH of them. (Think telephone ... not very interesting back when only 1000 people had it, but hard to avoid now that almost everyone has.) Furthermore, a rule of thumb called "Metcalfe's Law" says that the benefit grows with the square of the number of "users". Not the square root, but the square. Yeah, that means that if you increase the number by ten, the benefit rises hundredfold. This is cool when it comes to Wikipedia and Ebay, but if the same were to apply to mystics and the exchange of thoughts – it would be awesome. Again, Biblical proportions. Cats and dogs living together. Mass hysteria.

So, is mysticism the new mode of thought that is set to replace the current pattern of the human mind? I doubt it. I think mysticism, or more neutrally "the open field of the mind", is a kind of precursor for the next wave. I don't think we know what will be. It is likely to look to us a miracle, something so new and so awesome that it goes beyond magic and well into the miraculous if not divine. And yet, once we grasp it, completely within the laws of nature.

But I may be wrong... you see, you hear these funny voices, in the Tower of Song.