Beyond mysticism
Feb. 24th, 2004 01:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaneramosYesterday, on a hunch, I analyzed my poetic output over the past 10 years. The results enlightened ideas and impressions I have wanted to pull together for a long time, some of which I have touched upon in this journal previously. The statement started to coalesce in my morning pages today, and then I wrote this personal essay. It is the most coherent and important expression of personal belief I have made in years. I hope some of you will see it through to the end, and I look forward to your responses.
~~~~~~~~~
In late 1995, my marriage suffered its final throes as I struggled through the most acute depression of my life. While clinging to long-cherished values and beliefs and enduring emotional chastisement from people I loved and respected, I came to terms with my own identity, including my sexuality and other aspects of self-expression. During that period my religious experience went through a startling metamorphosis.
My old church taught that we could each have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I had a series of religious visions which verged on, but fell short of, being visual, tactile and auditory. I believed they were real.
That autumn I slept alone in the basement while my wife calculated how to excise me from her life. I had received a profound and denigrating rebuke from my pastor. I had concluded that homosexuality was morally acceptable, but had no role models and nowhere to turn for support. I felt utterly dejected and isolated.
Each night while I lay there, Jesus would come, sit by my pillow, caress and comfort me. I didn't hear any specific words, but his company eased my loneliness and despair. He started to become the gentle lover I craved. I even eroticized this, without actually masturbating over the fantasy. Any attempt to hide this sexual undercurrent from God would have been ridiculous, and yet I felt Jesus start lifting the crumbling shroud of shame that covered these feelings. In those days I began losing my sense of God the Judge, and perceived only the Healer, Brother and Lover.
I knew that without sexual self-acceptance, I would not recover from that profound depression, but my wife rejected this unconditionally, and I refused to contemplate abandoning our marriage. On one occasion I prayed fervently to God the Father for guidance: "What should I do?"
The answer came to me clearly: "You don't have to do anything. There is nothing wrong with you. Just wait patiently."
In ensuing years as I recovered from that paralyzing depression, I realized I had had a mystical experience. Mysticism is defined as a naked, unimpeded experience with deity, which transcends dogma and generally defies description. Threads of mysticism have traced through the history of all the world's major religions, from Islamic Sufism to shamanistic spirit journeys. It has played an important role in Christianity, but Western Orthodoxy has continually sought to suppress it because mysticism embodies new inspiration, which transcends accepted dogma, and frees the individual from external authority.
This recalls a previous conversation with my pastor during that fateful autumn.
"I want you to go home and pray to God for guidance," he said.
"I have been doing that every day," I replied. "God told me I am okay, that I don't have to do anything but be patient and wait."
"That is of the devil," he said.
Organized religion does not tolerate mysticism.
But my mystical experiences originated even earlier in the habitual life of devotion that my religious culture encouraged. With daily regularity I would spend time reading the Bible, praying and writing meditations. My sexual and artistic urges sublimated as intimacy with God.
On September 21, 1994, I left my office for lunch and went to sit by the manmade stream which wound through a sterile urban park in Mississauga. Water has always affected me profoundly, and there I wrote my first poem in many years.
It is still one of my best, and anticipated my writing style to this day. In almost a decade since then I have written 662 poems. Many have been mystical in nature. Recently I analyzed this volume of poetic output and the results were revelatory.
My mystical experiences often manifest as poetry, like the Thirteenth-Century Sufi poet, Jelaluddin Rumi. My tone and style resembled Rumi's years before I heard of him or read his writings. This expression is most active during times of emotional disturbance. In fact it acts as a form of self-healing, therapy or quest for truth.
In the years following the crisis of 1995, I thoroughly reviewed of my beliefs. At the end of 2001 I reached the conclusion, with regret, that God does not exist. My study of mysticism had led me, ironically, to believe that the perception of deity was a delusion. Readings and experiences convinced me that human consciousness is an organic product of the physical universe, rather than a spiritual creation or outgrowth of any higher power or supernatural intelligence.
I say I reached this with regret because it left me confused and aimless, like a ship without an anchor. Apart from the existence of God, the universe and life seemed to have no inherent meaning or value. What did it matter if I lived or died? Why should people treat one another, other living things or the earth with respect? Gradually I came to terms with these questions and found partial answers for them.
Consciousness has evolved from the fabric of the cosmos as an adaptation for physical survival. This is its purpose. We can make the best of it, or not. We should base our values on this purpose, intelligently.
I said that the perception of deity is a delusion. This statement would seem to discount my own previous mystical experiences. To qualify, religion can be a beneficial delusion. Jesus by my pillow was the presence of some deep, self-preserving instinct telling myself whatever I needed to believe in order to survive my acute despair at that time. I chose to live, and that was good.
Psychiatrists nowadays would describe all the great mystics of history as mentally ill. Many would also say that mental illness is not a blotch to be carelessly excised from the periphery of society; by no means. In fact, madness is a reaction to the dysfunctions of society. We should pay attention to crazy people. They can lead us forward into higher intelligence.
I believe my own depression and mysticism were part of an insane journey toward the greater happiness and integrity I feel today. The adventure remains incomplete. I still look to poetry, symbolism and art to guide me forward. To what extent I will achieve my goal is uncertain, but goals are not really part of the question. The whole point is in the process. Perhaps one measure of success is the degree to which I can influence others to experience greater integrity within themselves. Crazy as they are, mystics have often been regarded as the wise ones who can teach higher consciousness.
I no longer regard myself as a serious mystic, more as a naturalist writer and artist, but my motive is still the same.
~~~~~~~~~
In late 1995, my marriage suffered its final throes as I struggled through the most acute depression of my life. While clinging to long-cherished values and beliefs and enduring emotional chastisement from people I loved and respected, I came to terms with my own identity, including my sexuality and other aspects of self-expression. During that period my religious experience went through a startling metamorphosis.
My old church taught that we could each have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I had a series of religious visions which verged on, but fell short of, being visual, tactile and auditory. I believed they were real.
That autumn I slept alone in the basement while my wife calculated how to excise me from her life. I had received a profound and denigrating rebuke from my pastor. I had concluded that homosexuality was morally acceptable, but had no role models and nowhere to turn for support. I felt utterly dejected and isolated.
Each night while I lay there, Jesus would come, sit by my pillow, caress and comfort me. I didn't hear any specific words, but his company eased my loneliness and despair. He started to become the gentle lover I craved. I even eroticized this, without actually masturbating over the fantasy. Any attempt to hide this sexual undercurrent from God would have been ridiculous, and yet I felt Jesus start lifting the crumbling shroud of shame that covered these feelings. In those days I began losing my sense of God the Judge, and perceived only the Healer, Brother and Lover.
I knew that without sexual self-acceptance, I would not recover from that profound depression, but my wife rejected this unconditionally, and I refused to contemplate abandoning our marriage. On one occasion I prayed fervently to God the Father for guidance: "What should I do?"
The answer came to me clearly: "You don't have to do anything. There is nothing wrong with you. Just wait patiently."
In ensuing years as I recovered from that paralyzing depression, I realized I had had a mystical experience. Mysticism is defined as a naked, unimpeded experience with deity, which transcends dogma and generally defies description. Threads of mysticism have traced through the history of all the world's major religions, from Islamic Sufism to shamanistic spirit journeys. It has played an important role in Christianity, but Western Orthodoxy has continually sought to suppress it because mysticism embodies new inspiration, which transcends accepted dogma, and frees the individual from external authority.
This recalls a previous conversation with my pastor during that fateful autumn.
"I want you to go home and pray to God for guidance," he said.
"I have been doing that every day," I replied. "God told me I am okay, that I don't have to do anything but be patient and wait."
"That is of the devil," he said.
Organized religion does not tolerate mysticism.
But my mystical experiences originated even earlier in the habitual life of devotion that my religious culture encouraged. With daily regularity I would spend time reading the Bible, praying and writing meditations. My sexual and artistic urges sublimated as intimacy with God.
On September 21, 1994, I left my office for lunch and went to sit by the manmade stream which wound through a sterile urban park in Mississauga. Water has always affected me profoundly, and there I wrote my first poem in many years.
First day of autumn
You summoned me out to the green bank
there
i bent my neck
beneath the breeze and sigh of your anger
your weeping surrounded me
swallowed in strands of your willows
i felt your pain
the shower of leaves
cleansing my eyes and soul
that ached
passion the river
lapped at my toes
not quite rising as far as my heart
but sharply felt
beneath the surface of ripples
Now i
remember what you
gave me
try to taste
remnants distilled
in droplets of light
that fall on my eyelashes
warm again
in my reflection
of willow strands
It is still one of my best, and anticipated my writing style to this day. In almost a decade since then I have written 662 poems. Many have been mystical in nature. Recently I analyzed this volume of poetic output and the results were revelatory.
- February is by far my most prolific month. In ten Februaries I have written 87 poems. Decembers have been the least productive (19 poems).
- I wrote the most during the two most excruciating years: 1995 when my marriage was disintegrating (149), and 1998, the year my first serious male lover left me and my ex-wife moved away with our daughters (92).
- The summers have been relatively unproductive, with one outstanding exception. If I ignore the early months of 2001, when I did a large series of poetry exercises, my most prolific month was August 1995. That was the specific time when I decided to accept the fact that I was gay. Many of the 27 poems reflect that struggle.
- The volume of new poems has declined since April 2001 (67 in three years), which coincides with the stabilization of my mood. That date was also when I stopped taking antidepressants. I had been on medication since May 1995.
My mystical experiences often manifest as poetry, like the Thirteenth-Century Sufi poet, Jelaluddin Rumi. My tone and style resembled Rumi's years before I heard of him or read his writings. This expression is most active during times of emotional disturbance. In fact it acts as a form of self-healing, therapy or quest for truth.
In the years following the crisis of 1995, I thoroughly reviewed of my beliefs. At the end of 2001 I reached the conclusion, with regret, that God does not exist. My study of mysticism had led me, ironically, to believe that the perception of deity was a delusion. Readings and experiences convinced me that human consciousness is an organic product of the physical universe, rather than a spiritual creation or outgrowth of any higher power or supernatural intelligence.
I say I reached this with regret because it left me confused and aimless, like a ship without an anchor. Apart from the existence of God, the universe and life seemed to have no inherent meaning or value. What did it matter if I lived or died? Why should people treat one another, other living things or the earth with respect? Gradually I came to terms with these questions and found partial answers for them.
Consciousness has evolved from the fabric of the cosmos as an adaptation for physical survival. This is its purpose. We can make the best of it, or not. We should base our values on this purpose, intelligently.
I said that the perception of deity is a delusion. This statement would seem to discount my own previous mystical experiences. To qualify, religion can be a beneficial delusion. Jesus by my pillow was the presence of some deep, self-preserving instinct telling myself whatever I needed to believe in order to survive my acute despair at that time. I chose to live, and that was good.
Psychiatrists nowadays would describe all the great mystics of history as mentally ill. Many would also say that mental illness is not a blotch to be carelessly excised from the periphery of society; by no means. In fact, madness is a reaction to the dysfunctions of society. We should pay attention to crazy people. They can lead us forward into higher intelligence.
I believe my own depression and mysticism were part of an insane journey toward the greater happiness and integrity I feel today. The adventure remains incomplete. I still look to poetry, symbolism and art to guide me forward. To what extent I will achieve my goal is uncertain, but goals are not really part of the question. The whole point is in the process. Perhaps one measure of success is the degree to which I can influence others to experience greater integrity within themselves. Crazy as they are, mystics have often been regarded as the wise ones who can teach higher consciousness.
I no longer regard myself as a serious mystic, more as a naturalist writer and artist, but my motive is still the same.
