Practical Mysticism | Page 4

are, but with images,
notions, aspects of things. The verb "to be," which he uses so lightly,
does not truly apply to any of the objects amongst which the practical
man supposes himself to dwell. For him the hare of Reality is always
ready-jugged: he conceives not the living lovely, wild, swift-moving
creature which has been sacrificed in order that he may be fed on the
deplorable dish which he calls "things as they really are." So complete,
indeed, is the separation of his consciousness from the facts of being,
that he feels no sense of loss. He is happy enough "understanding,"
garnishing, assimilating the carcass from which the principle of life and
growth has been ejected, and whereof only the most digestible portions
have been retained. He is not "mystical."
But sometimes it is suggested to him that his knowledge is not quite so
thorough as he supposed. Philosophers in particular have a way of
pointing out its clumsy and superficial character; of demonstrating the
fact that he habitually mistakes his own private sensations for qualities
inherent in the mysterious objects of the external world. From those
few qualities of colour, size, texture, and the rest, which his mind has
been able to register and classify, he makes a label which registers the
sum of his own experiences. This he knows, with this he "unites"; for it

is his own creature. It is neat, flat, unchanging, with edges well defined:
a thing one can trust. He forgets the existence of other conscious
creatures, provided with their own standards of reality. Yet the sea as
the fish feels it, the borage as the bee sees it, the intricate sounds of the
hedgerow as heard by the rabbit, the impact of light on the eager face of
the primrose, the landscape as known in its vastness to the wood-louse
and ant--all these experiences, denied to him for ever, have just as
much claim to the attribute of Being as his own partial and subjective
interpretations of things.
Because mystery is horrible to us, we have agreed for the most part to
live in a world of labels; to make of them the current coin of experience,
and ignore their merely symbolic character, the infinite gradation of
values which they misrepresent. We simply do not attempt to unite with
Reality. But now and then that symbolic character is suddenly brought
home to us. Some great emotion, some devastating visitation of beauty,
love, or pain, lifts us to another level of consciousness; and we are
aware for a moment of the difference between the neat collection of
discrete objects and experiences which we call the world, and the
height, the depth, the breadth of that living, growing, changing Fact, of
which thought, life, and energy are parts, and in which we "live and
move and have our being." Then we realise that our whole life is
enmeshed in great and living forces; terrible because unknown. Even
the power which lurks in every coal-scuttle, shines in the electric lamp,
pants in the motor-omnibus, declares itself in the ineffable wonders of
reproduction and growth, is supersensual. We do but perceive its results.
The more sacred plane of life and energy which seems to be manifested
in the forces we call "spiritual" and "emotional"--in love, anguish,
ecstasy, adoration--is hidden from us too. Symptoms, appearances, are
all that our intellects can discern: sudden irresistible inroads from it, all
that our hearts can apprehend. The material for an intenser life, a wider,
sharper consciousness, a more profound understanding of our own
existence, lies at our gates. But we are separated from it, we cannot
assimilate it; except in abnormal moments, we hardly know that it is.
We now begin to attach at least a fragmentary meaning to the statement
that "mysticism is the art of union with Reality." We see that the claim
of such a poet as Whitman to be a mystic lies in the fact that he has

achieved a passionate communion with deeper levels of life than those
with which we usually deal--has thrust past the current notion to the
Fact: that the claim of such a saint as Teresa is bound up with her
declaration that she has achieved union with the Divine Essence itself.
The visionary is a mystic when his vision mediates to him an actuality
beyond the reach of the senses. The philosopher is a mystic when he
passes beyond thought to the pure apprehension of truth. The active
man is a mystic when he knows his actions to be a part of a greater
activity. Blake, Plotinus, Joan of Arc, and John of the Cross-- there is a
link which binds all these together: but if he is to make use of it, the
inquirer must find that link for himself. All