Mysticism in English Literature | Page 2

an
intuitive or experienced conviction of unity, of oneness, of alikeness in
all things. From this source springs all mystical thought, and the mystic,
of whatever age or country, would say in the words of Krishna--
There is true knowledge. Learn thou it is this: To see one changeless
Life in all the Lives, And in the Separate, One Inseparable. The
Bhagavad-Gîtâ, Book 18.
This fundamental belief in unity leads naturally to the further belief that
all things about us are but forms or manifestations of the one divine life,
and that these phenomena are fleeting and impermanent, although the
spirit which informs them is immortal and endures. In other words, it
leads to the belief that "the Ideal is the only Real."
Further, if unity lies at the root of things, man must have some share of
the nature of God, for he is a spark of the Divine. Consequently, man is
capable of knowing God through this godlike part of his own nature,
that is, through his soul or spirit. For the mystic believes that as the
intellect is given us to apprehend material things, so the spirit is given
us to apprehend spiritual things, and that to disregard the spirit in
spiritual matters, and to trust to reason is as foolish as if a carpenter,
about to begin a piece of work, were deliberately to reject his keenest
and sharpest tool. The methods of mental and spiritual knowledge are
entirely different. For we know a thing mentally by looking at it from
outside, by comparing it with other things, by analysing and defining it,
whereas we can know a thing spiritually only by becoming it. We must
be the thing itself, and not merely talk about it or look at it. We must be
in love if we are to know what love is; we must be musicians if we are
to know what music is; we must be godlike if we are to know what God
is. For, in Porphyry's words: "Like is known only by like, and the
condition of all knowledge is that the subject should become like to the
object." So that to the mystic, whether he be philosopher, poet, artist, or
priest, the aim of life is to become like God, and thus to attain to union
with the Divine. Hence, for him, life is a continual advance, a ceaseless

aspiration; and reality or truth is to the seeker after it a vista ever
expanding and charged with ever deeper meaning. John Smith, the
Cambridge Platonist, has summed up the mystic position and desire in
one brief sentence, when he says, "Such as men themselves are, such
will God Himself seem to them to be." For, as it takes two to
communicate the truth, one to speak and one to hear, so our knowledge
of God is precisely and accurately limited by our capacity to receive
Him. "Simple people," says Eckhart, "conceive that we are to see God
as if He stood on that side and we on this. It is not so: God and I are
one in the act of my perceiving Him."
This sense of unity leads to another belief, though it is one not always
consistently or definitely stated by all mystics. It is implied by Plato
when he says, "All knowledge is recollection." This is the belief in
pre-existence or persistent life, the belief that our souls are immortal,
and no more came into existence when we were born than they will
cease to exist when our bodies disintegrate. The idea is familiar in
Wordsworth's Ode on the Intimations of Immortality.
Finally, the mystic holds these views because he has lived through an
experience which has forced him to this attitude of mind. This is his
distinguishing mark, this is what differentiates him alike from the
theologian, the logician, the rationalist philosopher, and the man of
science, for he bases his belief, not on revelation, logic, reason, or
demonstrated facts, but on feeling, on intuitive inner knowledge.
He has felt, he has seen, and he is therefore convinced; but his
experience does not convince any one else. The mystic is somewhat in
the position of a man who, in a world of blind men, has suddenly been
granted sight, and who, gazing at the sunrise, and overwhelmed by the
glory of it, tries, however falteringly, to convey to his fellows what he
sees. They, naturally, would be sceptical about it, and would be
inclined to say that he is talking foolishly and incoherently. But the
simile is not altogether parallel. There is this difference. The mystic is
not alone; all through the ages we have the testimony of men and
women to whom this vision has been granted, and the record of what
they have seen is amazingly