The great and rare mystics of the past. . . were, in fact, ahead of their time, and are still ahead of ours. In other words, they most definitely are not figures of the past. They are figures of the future.
I do not think reading the mystics would hurt you myself: you say you must avoid books which deal with 'feelings' - but the mystics don't deal with feelings but with love which is a very different thing. You have too many 'feelings,' but not nearly enough love.
Transformation of any kind always exacts a holy tussle. The newborn butterfly struggles to open its wings so it can conjure up the strength to fly. So, too, with artists, inventors, mystics, and entrepreneurs.
I despise mystics, they fancy themselves so deep, when they aren't even superficial.
The discovery of the Square was a great event to the primitive mystics of the Nile. Very early it became an emblem of truth, justice, and righteousness, and it remains to this day through unaccountable ages have passed.
What has to be given up is not the I, as most mystics suppose: this I is indispensable for any relationship, including the highest, which always presupposes an I and You.
The mystics will tell you death is perfectly safe. A violent act will beget a violent act; it is simply a law.
Find the god in your own heart and you will understand by direct intuition what all the great teachers, real mystics, true philosophers and inspired people have been trying to tell you by the tortuous method of using words.
A religion without mystics is a philosophy.
One of the keystones of romantic love - and also of the ecstatic religion practiced by mystics - is the powerful desire to become one with the beloved.
The medieval mystics say the true image and the true real met once and for all on the cross: once and for all: and yet they still meet daily.
Mystics always hope that science will some day overtake them.
Religions are founded by what mystics say when they come back; but what the mystics say is not the same as what happened to them.
And now, advice for beginning mystics. Be sober, be intelligent, be educated, rely on the tangible reality as long as you can. Remember that the act of writing is a tiny part of a bigger something. Defend the value of the spiritual experience and if somebody tells you it's an old fashioned notion, laugh loudly and serenely.
This is the process of Self realization about which Eastern mystics have written. It is the process of salvation to which much Western theology has devoted itself. This is a day-to-day, hour-to-hour, moment-to-moment act of supreme consciousness. It is a choosing and a re-choosing every instant. It is ongoing creation. Conscious creation. Creation with a purpose. It is using the tools of creation we have discussed, and using them with awareness and sublime intention.
Many are the thyrsus-bearers, but few are the mystics.
Our destiny is to be so intimately united with God that, as the mystics say, we not only see God's face but also see with God's face.
Lovers and mystics are familiar with this sense of grandeur, this taste of joy - in abandoning oneself to the will of others.
In the post-Christian world, all Christians will be mystics.
