The Path of the Mystic
The mystic is someone who feels a calling to answer life’s big questions. A mystic always wants to know more. A mystic is never really satisfied, until he or she is stretched in the area of intuitive wisdom and awareness. A mystic lives for the quest, for the satisfaction of knowing that the mystery of life can never be solved. There is always more to know, more experiences to have, more of life to express.
A mystic takes the road less traveled; in fact, a mystic is likely to try and find the road not yet traveled so that he or she can create a new way, to cut a path forward, to make the way easier for others.
The connection to Source feels more natural to the mystic than the life of the world. Mystics spend part of everyday strengthening this connection, for without it they feel lost.
Many of us feel an inclination toward the mystical life, but are often too caught up and seduced by the attractions of the world to fully embody this path. Many artists are on a path similar to mystics. In fact, many artists are also mystics. The two paths complement each other on many levels. Both are more connected to their inner lives than they are to the world. Both are intensely curious about the mysteries of life. Both feel called to express either the mystical or artistic aspects of human life or both.
Mystics are gifted with a high level of intuition. They are typically empathic and feel other’s suffering deeply. They need solitude to recharge and quiet time for self-reflection. This does not equip them with tools to function in the world the way the average person does. Because of this, both the artist and the mystic are outsiders—they don’t fit into the status quo or conform well into society. They typically feel more at home on the fringe.
The life of the mystic is about transcendence and seeing beyond the ordinary world of everyday appearances. Mystics are looking to regain a sense of unity with all that is. They are ever aware that there is something missing in life and they spend their lives seeking this reconnection with the greatness that life is.
Never satisfied with the ordinary, mystics are willing to do whatever it takes to find this place of unity, including spending long stretches of time alone. Reducing the external stimuli allows for an immersion in the vast expanse of inner worlds, which brings about a renewed perspective of the world. It is a constant state of death and rebirth, as one lets go of identifying with the small self in exchange for a connection with a larger presence.
The yearning for freedom from ordinary human limitations is what drives the mystic forward through the toughest challenges and past the most impossible obstacles. This sense of freedom, rather than being a longing for something unknown, instead, for the mystic, feels more akin to a memory of a state of being–a return to something rather than an arrival—freedom being the natural human state.
To be in the world and yet not of it, is the ultimate state of being spoken about by our great spiritual teachers. Not abandoning what is, but embracing it fully without feeling infringed upon by it in any way. The mystical life is the discovery of the space between breaths, the infinitesimal gap in time where everything stops, the place between the seen and the unseen. It is this place that creation emanates from and gives birth to the expression of what is. It is in this place that freedom is found.
For the mystic, nothing less than this freedom will do.
