Mysticism assumes the linear mind cannot comprehend the nature of reality, and therefore life is considered a mystical experience. The mystic says that Truth resides beyond the linear mind, and there are limitations to human knowledge.
The average rationalist says that the intellect holds truths. Rationalism is an approach to life based on reason and evidence. It encourages the rejection of any authority that cannot be proved by individual experience.
Rationality Precedes Mysticism
A dedication to self-growth reveals barriers that need to be transcended – one of these barriers is the intellect. Excessive rationality isn’t healthy, in the same way as excessive ‘fluffiness’ from faux spirituality. If someone is ‘always in the head’, meaning overly intellectual, they block the realisation of non-linear reality and evolving consciousness.
Mysticism is a step beyond the rational, linear mind. Linear reality is seen as illusory when you experience non-duality, and it’s corresponding non-linear paradigm.
One of the vast issues in the spiritual community is people having their ‘heads in the clouds’. These people may have had a spiritual experience but have not integrated rationality to bring this into everyday life. It can be pretty dangerous and usually causes more harm than good.
The scientific community and its materialist world-view will never grasp the fundamentals of nature until it transcends that level of excessive rationality. It seems, with the ‘discovery’ of quantum physics and it’s sister sciences, that we are moving in the right direction.
Rational Mysticism
Modern ways of living are not favourable to the mystic because culture values material wealth over spiritual development. The modern mystic cannot live how the ancient mystic lived. They are not revered as they once were in society, and it is difficult to dedicate ones life to spiritual growth without ‘making a living’ somehow.
Rational mysticism is the merging of the scientific and reasoned with the non-linear and mystical.
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