Article: Do Mystics become God?

DO MYSTICS BECOME GOD?

Quite a number of mystics throughout history and in various cultures have claimed, as a result of their experiences, to be divine. They claim not only a closeness or nearness to the Transcendent, but to BE the Transcendent. But many commentators and theologians balk at this idea – especially those whose background is one of dualism – where the Divine or the Creator is eternally separate and distinct from that which is created. For dualists, such Unity as claimed by these mystics is impossible. The theological position of duality is that God is essentially and eternally the ‘Transcendent Other’. Therefore any claims by mystics to have attained Divinity or Oneness or Unity with God or the Transcendent appear blasphemous. Critics point to the clear limitations, fallibility and errors of those who make such claims of Oneness and so these claims are treated not only as mistaken but even as egotistical and arrogant delusions. Nevertheless, the idea of Oneness and Unity with the Divine is by no means an isolated phenomenon and some outstanding mystics from various cultures and throughout time have made these claims, so we need to explore this in a little more detail.

Non-dualistic mystics provide various theological and philosophical sets of ideas to explain their thinking and usually these are couched in the prevailing religious theology of their culture. Sometimes, because of the risk of persecution or of being attacked as heretics, the theology that these mystics express had to be contained within the overriding external religious orthodoxy of the day and in seeking to contain their ideas within these limits there sometimes emerge contradictions and paradoxes, because ultimately, these dualistic systems cannot contain non-dualistic ideas. Meister Eckhart within Christianity is a prime example of this.

Instead of trying to explain this thought within one of these orthodox doctrinal systems, such as Christianity, I will instead adopt my own terms in an attempt to explain mystical claims to Divinity. The two terms that I am going to use are Essence alternatively called Expansion, and in contrast, Expression alternatively known as Contraction. Essence is the word that is used to describe the Transcendent – the Formless Divine - the Source. Once again, mystics use various words to describe this concept – The Abyss, the Silent Desert, Absolute and so on. Each of them is trying to encapsulate or describe something that is beyond language and concept, and each label has its advantages and drawbacks. But for the purpose of this essay, I will use the term Essence. Essence is Expansive to the point of Infinity and Eternity, so to move to Essence is to be Expansive or to move in a process of or direction of Expansion. The opposite direction to this is one of Contraction – to contract from Formless Infinity to finite form in space and time – in other words to be expressed or to be an expression. This contraction is sometimes also described as a delimitation.

In non-dualist thought, there is only Essence: there is no outside of Essence – such an idea is meaningless because Essence has no bounds in space or time. Creation then, if we borrow that term for a moment, is not something that is made or brought into being somewhere outside of Essence, or separate or distinct from Essence. In the non-dualist approach that I am adopting, ‘creation’ is a delimitation or contraction of Essence into finite time and space. This immediately concurs with those mystics who declare Oneness or Unity with Essence. In this scheme, the word ‘creation’ tends not to be used – rather there is a contraction, a delimitation and expression of Essence in time and space. Thus Unmanifest Essence becomes manifest in all that exists and all that exists is a manifestation of Essence, each individual existent manifesting the Divine according to its own capacity and domain. In becoming manifest - in contracting and delimiting to expression, Essence per se – Essence-as-Essence – does not cease to exist. Essence and expression exist simultaneously and in parallel. This is a theological position known as panentheism. The more common term ‘pantheism’ says that everything is divine – in contrast, panentheism says that everything is Divine AND simultaneously and in parallel with expression, Formless Transcendent Essence also remains.

This means that everyone and everything - the entire universe and any parallel universes are simultaneously Essence and expression. In terms of reality, both are real – the universe and its contents are not insubstantial phantasms – they are real – but they are also secondary, transient and temporary. They have as it were, a borrowed existence, because their expressed existence is solely dependent upon the continued delimitation and contraction of Essence. Because of this secondary transience and dependence, it can be said of all expressed existents that they are not Ultimately or Absolutely or Finally Real. This Ultimate and Final Reality (with a capital ‘R’) is Essence. So Essence is Real and expressions are real, (with a small ‘r’) as opposed to Real or being just a phantasm. Here we see another concurrence with the perception of some mystics – Essence is One whereas Expressions are many or manifold.

It is important for us to remember then that the universe and everything within it has a real, substantial quality, but that it is a reality that is secondary because it is derived from Essence and it is a reality that is transient, temporary, finite and limited. This limitation or delimitation of Essence is important. We may say for example, that a tree is a delimited, contracted manifest expression of Essence – the Essence of the tree is indeed Essence per se – the Pure Divine Spirit if you like - but the expression in the form of a tree is one of contracted delimited temporary finiteness. It is indeed a manifestation of Essence – but within finite bounds and limits – it displays aspects, facets and qualities that can only point to Attributeless, Formless Infinite, Unmanifest Essence. However, if we were to worship a tree (or any other expression such as an animal or person) as though it is Divine, or Essence is to fall into a mistake. Essence is the Essence of all things but no one thing is Essence because of it’s contracted delimitation. Those who want a physical demonstration of the existence of Essence will find it in the manifestation of the universe because there is nothing else over and above this that can be given in the material domain. Essence is manifest in expression and expression can only point to That which cannot be encapsulated by form and which remains forever Unmanifest.

In addition to this, it is important for us to recognise that our delimited expression is never fully transcended until the end of the universe. This is true of the mystic also, no matter how transcendent their experience: the Divine Essence of the mystic is still expressed in a physical, temporal body of flesh and bone. It is an easy imbalance for the mystic to fall into having experienced such transcendent heights - to forget or minimise their delimited expression as a physical body in exchange for a heady, egotistical, ‘superior’, detached, transcendent attitude. This in turn can lead to an exploitation of any followers or disciples of the mystic, especially where the mystic assumes an omniscient role as Divine presence on earth, encouraging and expecting total obedience and submission from disciple/followers. Once this idea of the mystic as ‘Divine Presence’ is accepted by disciple/followers, then other logical, but false conclusions follow, especially the erroneous idea that to disobey the mystic is to disobey God – with all the potential power abuse that may follow.

What non-dualistic mystics do have is a direct, immediate experience and insight into the truth of their Essence and the Essence of all things. Thus they have a perception of the One-ness of all that exists and an insight into their own True Nature. As heady and ecstatic and blissful as this may be, they still remain a manifest temporal physical expression. If they were meditating in the middle of the road and were hit by a truck, they would die. If they never ate or drank – they would die. As a physical expression, as a human being, a mind and an ego – a subjective sense of their own individual selfhood – also emerges and develops. These too are transient and temporary. They emerge from biological processes.

The word ‘ego’ is Latin for ‘I’. It refers to a cluster of processes in the brain that are subjectively experienced as cognitive and perceptual processes which appear to be at our core of subjective experience serving as an executive in order to maintain psychological or mental balance. The ego is our subjective sense of our expressive self-as-object, a subjective sense of us as bounded-self existent. The ego is an emergent, subjective sense emerging from biological activity in the brain and body. The concept of ‘ego’ contains the important idea of a self that is perceived as separate from or differentiated from others, or other selves. ‘Ego’ contains within its definition the idea of a boundary, of a bordered ‘I’. This subjective emergence of ‘ego’ is also evident from the fact that we have a ‘dream ego’ – a subjective bounded sense of the self that we have during sleep but which is not quite the same as that which we have when awake. For example, when asleep, we might be able to fly or walk through walls. This dream ego, like the contents of the dream itself, is a downgraded version of our wakeful subjective experience. It is downgraded because when we are asleep, some of our physiological activity, our brain activity and so on, is minimised or reduced. This minimisation of certain biological functions has the effect of downgrading our subjective experience. For example, we may dream in colour, but it may be one dominant colour, say the intense blue of the sky and sea, or the vivid green of a field of grass. In deep sleep, our physiological or biological functions are reduced even further, such that there is no emergent subjective sense of self: no ‘ego’, no dream ego and no dream landscape. Yet we as Essence are still present. However, it is with this ‘ego’ or subjective sense of bordered, bounded ‘I’ that we tend to identify. Identification is another cognitive emergent from biological activity: sometimes it is a conscious process, sometimes not, whereby a person labels, classifies and defines who and what they are. Thus ‘I am a….[man, office clerk, weakling,…’]. The fact that the ‘ego’, ‘self’ or ‘I’ is an emergent quality or phenomenon is also indicated by the fact that the ‘ego’, ‘self’ or ‘I’ does not necessarily remain in the same place. Often, ego is felt to be in the head, or sometimes in the heart or chest. But in moments of severe stress, it may appear to move into the stomach or even to a place outside of the body altogether such that one seems to stand outside of one’s own body. We commonly talk of some people having a ‘big ego’ by which we usually mean that they have an over-inflated subjective sense of their own self-importance or value in comparison to others.

This bounded self-sense, this focal point or locus of control and agency may feel threatened. For example, death threatens to bring about its non-existence: death and the post-death state is not a situation whereby disembodied egos continue to exist or where egos are later reunited with resurrected bodies continuing the existence of this core self. Rather, at death the ego is lost, as a droplet of ocean spray is lost when falls back again into the ocean and merges with it. Another threat to the ego may arise from severe stress which may cause the emergence of the ‘ego’ to breakdown or fragment as these emergent psychic structures are put under intolerable pressure or internal conflict. The results of this may be depression, anger, aggression, fear, defensiveness, transference, projection, madness, insanity, suicide and so on. Loss of ‘ego’ is loss of coherence, loss of identity, loss of self-governance and functioning and loss of touch with reality (with a small ‘r’).

The word ‘self’ (with a small ’s’) is closely related to ‘ego’. If ‘ego’ refers to our subjective sense of our differentiation of us as individual existent, then ‘self’ refers to the body/ego or body/mind if you like. If ‘ego’ is an interior subjective quality, emerging from processes in our empirical body, then ‘self’ covers both these aspects of subjective experience and the physical body. Thus it is slightly wider in concept than ‘ego’, because whereas ‘ego’ refers to a cluster of subjective cognitive and perceptual processes, ‘self’ includes the idea of our physical body as well. So when we say that this is our self, we refer to our particular separate, individual existent as a body-mind organism, which tends, correctly, to be perceived as finite, because one day, our body will die and with it our cognitive processes and our ego. Once again, we have the idea of boundary or border: if the ‘ego’ is a subjective psychological bounding, then with the ‘self’ the body also forms a boundary and border between us as existent and other existents. In the same way as the ‘ego’ then, the ‘self’, that is, the body/mind organism, may constitute the separate self-sense with which we tend to solely identify. We define, classify, label and identify ourselves as this particular body/mind organism. The ‘self’ is perceived as a cluster of subjective cognitive and perceptual processes including an ‘executive’ or ‘governor’ which serve to maintain psychological balance and which arise from the brain which is located in and bounded by a physical body which is itself located in time and space and which possesses various attributes. The word ‘self’ then covers both our subjective sense of being a differentiated existent and our objective, physical, bounded body with its processes of brain and nervous system and so on. When we talk about the ‘self’ or ‘my self’, then we are talking about this subjective/objective existent. We cannot avoid mixing abstract and concrete terms altogether. The ego is an abstract emergent phenomenon, a focussed sense of individual selfhood derived and emerging from a subjective web of meaning, coherence and subjective experience which themselves emerge from objective biological processes. The ‘self’ covers both abstract and concrete elements or dimensions.

At the end of all things and for us as individual expressions and manifestations of Essence, ‘ego and ‘self’ will disappear. In Essence as Essence there is no multiplicity or duality –there is only Essence. Essence does not have an ‘ego’ or sense of individual self that muses and ponders with itself for all eternity. Such ideas are mere projections of our own delimited condition. Neither is there a disembodied self that continues to exist, no soul that roams the ethereal regions. Like the droplet of ocean spray returning to the ocean, any sense of a differentiated self is lost and absorbed in the one whole. The droplet does not exist as a bounded object once it has fallen into the ocean again. This is why, when a mystic encounters or experiences Union with Essence, they do not suddenly become omniscient. Such a mystic does not come to a point where they know all things that are happening in the world, or the secret, hidden things of people’s hearts, or what will happen in the future. Though Essence is indeed omniscient, this omniscience does not take the form of bounded discrete bits of conceptual knowledge embraced, focussed and centred in some sort of Divine Mind and Transcendent ego. This is not what the omniscience of Essence is like at all, if indeed any attribute can be given to Essence at all.

There is a transcendent experience that some mystics attest to, that gets beneath the self and ego, or beyond self and ego if you like, whereby a person experiences immediately something of the Unity and Bliss that is Essence. This experience is usually fairly transient – a glimpse that nevertheless speaks volumes. Such mystics have a direct, immediate experience and insight into the Truth of their Essence, into the very Ground of their being and into the Essence of all things, since Essence is One. They have a glimpse of this, a taste of this experience even as they remain contracted expressions of Essence. Such an experience usually goes on to inform any philosophy or theology that the mystic develops in attempts to explain both the experience and the universe. Because the mystic always returns to contracted ways of being – ways that are suited to their contracted expression as a finite body/mind organism in time and space. They return to a more usual way of being because this is, as it were, their specific gravity - their natural place to be. To remain in an ego-less state is to be unable to function in this material world. As we have seen, loss of ‘ego’ is a loss of coherence, a loss of identity, a loss of self-governance and functioning and a loss of touch with reality.

The perception of the One-ness of all that exists and the insight into their own True Nature is not then some sort of deification of the mystic. The mystic, whilst they remain alive as a physical body, are a delimited, contracted expression of Essence, as is everything else. The mystic may have obtained some enlightenment, they may have come the realise and understand the True Nature of the Self, but they nevertheless remain delimited contracted expressions in space and time, subject to all the temporality, finiteness, weaknesses and so on of the contracted experience.

The dichotomy of Expansive Essence over and against contracted, delimited expression can almost be summarised as a spiritual/material dichotomy, although this is not strictly correct. Thus the mystic may indeed gain great spiritual insight – Real Knowledge, yet they remain in and have to function in the real material world as well. The mystic walks in two worlds, or two realms – they cannot be entirely ‘spiritual’ or else they would not be able to eat, drink, work and live. Yet it is true to say that that all existents are in Essence spiritual – they are delimited expressions of the one Essence or Spirit. Remembering that both of these exist in parallel and that neither can be ignored is the key to beginning to obtain the right balance. No one transcends this delimited contraction until the end of all things, when all contracted existents expand and return to their Source – to One True Essence. Given these limitations of contracted existence, I find that it is also correct to agree with those mystics who declared that they had experienced that their True Nature and transcendent Essence were one and the same.