What is a Mystic?

“mystical experience is always there, inviting us on a journey of ultimate discovery” – Wayne Teasdall, The Mystic Heart

We are all mystics. Each one of us has the capability of seeing the wider perspective on life, and allowing it to influence our thoughts, beliefs, and actions. It is possible for every one of us to see our minds as open as the sky, and as clear; to see our hearts as complicated as the dense forest; and to recognize that the individual soul is not individual at all. It is possible for every person to come to know patience, forbearance, compassion, and forgiveness – not as virtues, but as natural, normal human responses to the surrounding world. And it is possible to see that the surrounding world does not just move around us, but it moves through.

The mystic is not, however, simply expansive. The mystic is inquisitive, eager to know, a believer in investigation and the (mystical) ability of the human mind to take things apart and put them back together. Mysticism does not arrive from the surrender of intelligence, but from its embrace. The mystic life is one of discernment, mindfulness, honesty, and curiosity. Mystics are scholars as well as wise women; scientists as well as psychics. Your own mysticism waits just beyond the willingness to admit that you, too, want to know… And that you can.

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If I am not on a road, where am I?

Once upon a time, there was a man upon a road. He walked this road variously with encouragement, enthusiasm, but also with anger and weariness. He walked this road quickly some days, with a jaunty step, and other days sluggishly. Forever, it seemed, he was on this road. And then one day, he met the Buddha, sitting by the side of the road.

After paying his respects, he looked at the Buddha and said: “I’m confused. You are the enlightened being, but you are here. Look how much road there is still before me. I thought certainly to find you at the end.”

The Buddha smiled as he always has, and said: “But you are not on a road. Do you not see that? To be on a road is to be always in motion. That is not for you; that is not for any man. To be on a road, there is no time for sitting, no time for contemplation. And what is man but a maker of contemplation? What is his greatest gift? His ability to stare inward. How do you do that on a road, when you are always looking forward?”

The man was confounded. “But if I am not on a road, where am I?”

The Buddha nodded and did not stop smiling: “You are in a house, as all people are. When you have thought you were moving forward, you only were moving from room to room. I am in this room, where your contemplation lies; but this room is adjacent many others. Each room holds an idea, one you were always meant to live with.” The Buddha winked. “They are your roommates. Sometimes, they are as furniture, and sometimes they are as people – lovers and friends or family members. But each is only in one room, and each is only the expression of an idea you are meant to learn.”

“That’s very confusing,” said the man.

“No, it is not,” reminded the Buddha.

Said the man, “Well, when do I get to leave the house?”

“Only when you die,” said the Buddha. “But your life is lived passing from room to room, visiting rooms again and again. That is contemplation, the life of man. To know, know again, and then know again once more. Return to each of the ideas, each time a little different, and you will learn to love your life. You will grow less restless, not more.”

And with this, the man woke to find himself at home, no road ahead at all.

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