Deliverance is not for me in renunciation. I feel the embrace of freedom in a thousand bonds of delight.
— Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali
In the chaos that prevails around us the most authentic hope comes from mystics whose poetry and philosophy combines the virtuous message of formal religion with the transcendental values of love and harmony. The mystical path is an uncovering of the highest form of love, an awakening to our own capacity to love and be loved. For centuries mystics have demonstrated the transformative potential of divine love. Love draws us back to love, love uncovers love, love makes us whole and love takes us home. This is the deepest secret of being human, the bond of love that is at the core of our being.
God reveals himself only to those who are internally pure. Mysticism shows us the path by which we can access the light of our soul — the beautiful light with which we came into the world. In this quest we make an inner relationship with spark of our divine nature — the spirit that is within each of us. Through this relationship we come to know our true self and get nourished by the deeper impulses of our soul.
The mystical path takes us into the centre of the heart where this mystery of love resides. The heart encases the soul and is the only sanctuary in which we can take safe refuge. It alone can provide us an authentic vision. It also guards our moral compass. This love is normally experienced as longing, a deep desire for God, the beloved, divine truth, or simply an unexplained ache in the heart. Mystics are lovers who are drawn towards a love in which there is no you or me, but only the oneness of love itself.
The mystical journey may begin with making a relationship with one’s inner impulses, but at a much higher level, the mystic is drawn on a deeper journey toward love’s greatest secret: that within our heart we are one with the divine. The fire of mystical love is a burning which destroys all sense of a separate self, until nothing is left but love itself. While the spiritual seeker is drawn to the light of this fire, the mystic is the moth consumed by its flames. In the words of the Christian mystic Hadewijch of Antwerp:
“Those who were two, at first,
are made one by the pain of love.”
If the mystic — usually only after struggling hard against his ego, suspended between awe and hope and suffering from longing and separation — is finally touched by God who now resides in his heart, he is overwhelmed by his greatness and bounty.
It is a path travelled by a relative few at any one time. Yet, it is the path that has given us many of our greatest minds, enriching the world with their inventions, scientific discoveries, beautiful works of art, music and books, but most importantly, their personal approach to life.
The message of Meister Eckhart sums up the path of a mystic: “The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”
