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Towards
Atman hardback book
FORWARD
True mysticism,(the reason for the poems that follow,) can be defined
as a classical or scholarly understanding in contrast with its degenerated and much abused use today, of any loose connection
with the occult.
I do not mean to say that areas within paganism are completely devoid of divine awareness. Quite the contrary,
since I feel that man's closeness to the earth, brings him closer to the source of his life, providing his ritual approach
does not drown out his natural intuitive senses, where all meditative inclinations are lost. I think of the American Indian
who through ritual, had a keen sense of the divine in all living things, including himself.
To make this
difference of true mysticism more explicit, one might suggest a rather obvious comparison, say between the Christian mystic
St John of the cross and the contemporary figure of 'Mystic Meg'! Or witchcraft, Druid symbolism in contrast with the enlightened
minds of J Krishnamurti or shri Ramana Maharshi.
If we draw on the insights of Vedanta/Advaita/ upanishads or even the
many mystical utterances of Jesus, we may eventually arrive at the understanding, in knowledge and in experiential terms,
that only one thing, or rather no thing, actually 'is' or 'exists'.
This discovery
certainly corrects the vision and would seem to turn it upside down, or in Lao Tzu terms, turn it the other way around, as
Alan Watts would so precisely and accurately put it.
Major religions
have been the cradle of mystical truths though they have often fought against it in their own particular midst. The Sufis
were persecuted and murdered in history by mainstream Muslims and Christians did similar things to their mystics. - A monk
in the 16th century was put to death for insisting that all things are one! Much as Jesus himself did, being executed for
blasphemy. Jesus, not declaring
a new theology but simply what he felt. For me, personally, Jesus is the embodiment of
true mysticism. His cosmic consciousness enobles him to the title of cosmic empathiser.
Alas! As many
writers have said, now and in the past, Christianity as a monotheistic religion has been a disaster, a classical example of
the folly of following the teacher and not the teaching.
Little more needs to be said on this save to say that such deep
wisdom and truth is available to the world, yet mindless fundamentalism still reigns, opposite high liturgical practices.
The mess speaks
for itself. I think of Jesus's words, "you search the scriptures daily for you think you have life in them".
Scripture is as much idolatry as any other kind when it becomes biblical worship. Monotheistic religions always draw
on divine transcendence while ignoring immanence. What might be detected from time to time in the body of poems here written,
in simple settings, is the seed of sage teaching and of true mysticism. The negation of all idolatry, both tangible and intangible,
and certainly including biblical idolatry. It may also point to the various spiritual paths that lead us on to self
and no-self enquiry, for it is there and only there, that the sacred ground of all might be encountered.Alan Watts is correct
to say with his wonderful book title, and I commend it to all, "The book on the taboo against knowing who and what you are",
a taboo that we are unaware of or that we tacitly conspire to ignore.
R.K.Austin
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