Page 7 of 9 | Original Research
Furthermore, the aforementioned research illustrates the problem concerning the very nature of subjectivity, objectivity, and consciousness. Therefore naïve reductionism, which would trivialise the ontological status of mystical states, is to be avoided:
- We are only now embarking upon a scientific investigation of some of the most powerful experiences humans can attain. Thus, we should maintain an attitude of humility, rather than presume that our understanding of neurophysiology can give us an intrinsic knowledge of the relationship between ‘reality’ and consciousness. (D’Aquili & Newberg 1999:120)
The value of empirical studies in brain and consciousness
research is clearly inestimable. However, the participants in the experiments described above are practitioners of
meditation, and normally comprise a small percentage of the
population. For a vast majority of people, the mystical reality is elusive. Why is this so? Are we no longer developmentally adequate to this disclosure? Have our mystical faculties become atrophied? This may well be the case, particularly in our technologically dominated Western society, with social media demanding almost 24-hour attention. However, it is my contention that the potential for mysticism is innate; for this potential to flower it is necessary to relinquish the view that sense perceptions are the sole criteria for knowledge of the universe. In order to move from the exterior to the interior, from the peripheral and marginal to that which is central and essential, there has to be a pacification of the senses. The mind has to become free from its reactive patterns and emotional fog so that the deep structures of consciousness may become the locus of mystical disclosure. This may well call for a path of purification and transformation of consciousness in order
to effect what could be called a divine ‘osmosis’.
Evelyn Underhill ([1914] 1986:52), the well-known mystic and
theoretician of mysticism, writing at the end of World War II,
describes the beginning of the mystical process in a succinct
and direct manner: ‘The education of the mystical sense begins in self-simplification. The feeling, willing, seeing self is to move from the various and the analytic to the simple and the synthetic’. Progress and growth, including exterior and interior purification in order to set aside attachment to what is transitory, form a conceptual dynamic in the mystical way. By way of a preliminary observation, it can be said that mystical techniques, particularly meditation, may help harness the mind as it progresses through the various gradients in the journey towards mystical integration. Of course, objections can be levelled against any form of ascesis and following rigid and artificial schemes. A ‘method-less method’ or ‘techniqueless technique’ sets aside all psychological and physical strictures and promotes living truly in the present moment and the perpetual flux of reality. There is certainly merit in such an approach, whilst at the same time, the value of ascesis cannot be denied, provided it does not become an end in itself. A further point to bear in mind is the fact that emotions such as ‘love, beauty, wonder [and] grief’ may be the catalyst for the ‘simplifying act’ (Underhill [1914]
1986:54). No one technique or ‘non-technique’ can be seen to be the definitive means by which the individual enters into
the emptiness of unconditional awareness. Bearing in mind the aforementioned caveat, the following section will offer a few reflections on the way of silence.
The way of silence
As noted above, the varieties of mysticism have been
described as diverse ways of ‘tasting the silence’ (Kruger
2006:9). One illustration of this ‘way’ or ‘path’ has been
expressed as follows: ‘Spirit is Itself, knows Itself, enjoys
Itself. But it does so through and in a relative “other”: not any “other” outside itself, but inside Itself’ (Kruger 2006:75). Therefore, the ‘mystical way is the way back to Spirit, of the droplet back to the ocean, realizing that It
was never left’ (Kruger 2006:76). External confusion and
distraction constantly impact negatively on the human person. Therefore, silence and solitude are essential in order to effect unification and integration in the depths of the
personality. They are generative of psychological integration
and personal wholeness. Although at face value, a passive
quality, silence is nevertheless the fountainhead of a
fundamental dynamism. Silence is only possible where there is a void, an inner emptiness. Lacout (1985:13) describes the
stages of silence in terms of the progress of the individual
in love, ‘[s]ilence and love go hand in hand. The quality of
the one indicates the quality of the other’. An inner state of
equilibrium and peace can be maintained even in the midst of external noise and activity. Such a silence, vivid and
intense, is both exterior and interior, existing through and
within the ceaseless round of human activity, and results in
a new poise, and the cultivation of the interior ‘ground’ of
one’s being. This includes living in pure spontaneity of love
and utter poverty; a ‘fasting mind’ or ‘no-mind’ results not
in vacuity, but rather in ‘full emptiness’. Thus, the ascesis of silence does not necessarily mean material separation from
external things, but a solitude of spirit, which facilitates a
mystical modality of life.[1]
Silence of the mind brings total peace:
- Silence is the complete cessation of all mental activities leading to the total dissipation of the unconscious layer. Consequently, there is a state of pure consciousness, a peace that is boundless, ineffable, transcendental and bubbling with infinite potentialities. The state of pure consciousness is everything. It is the energy that becomes the whole existence […] The whole of the mystical or spiritual science is based on silencing the mind […] From silence is born the whole existence. In silence it exists and to silence it will go back […] The harmony of existence is due to an ineffable silence. (Paramananda 2011:88–89)
http://www.hts.org.za | doi:10.4102/hts.v71i3.3023
- ↑ A modern mystic, Dag Hammarskjold (1964:16), former Secretary-General of the United Nations, in his well-known work, Markings, speaks of the process of accepting silence: ‘When all becomes silent around you, and you recoil in terror – see that your work has become a flight from suffering and responsibility, your unselfishness a thinly disguised masochism; hear, throbbing within you, the spiteful cruel heart of the steppe wolf – do not then anaesthetize yourself by once again calling up the shouts and horns of the hunt, but gaze steadfastly at the vision until you have plumbed its depth’; (cf. 1964:108): ‘the “mystical experience”. Always: here and now – in that freedom which is one with distance in that stillness which is born of silence […] a freedom in the midst of action, a stillness in the midst of other human beings’. See also, Iyer (2014) for an evaluation of silence from the pen of a contemporary travel journalist.
