This little book, written during the last months of peace,
goes to press in the first weeks of the great war. Many will feel
that in such a time of conflict and horror, when only the most
ignorant, disloyal, or apathetic can hope for quietness of mind, a
book which deals with that which is called the "contemplative"
attitude to existence is wholly out of place. So obvious, indeed,
is this point of view, that I had at first thought of postponing
its publication. On the one hand, it seems as though the dreams of
a spiritual renaissance, which promised so fairly but a little time
ago, had perished in the sudden explosion of brute force. On the
other hand, the thoughts of the English race are now turned, and
rightly, towards the most concrete forms of action--struggle and
endurance, practical sacrifices, difficult and long-continued
effort--rather than towards the passive attitude of self-surrender
which is all that the practice of mysticism seems, at first sight,
to demand. Moreover, that deep conviction of the dependence of all
human worth upon eternal values, the immanence of the Divine Spirit
within the human soul, which lies at the root of a mystical concept
of life, is hard indeed to reconcile with much of the human history
now being poured red-hot from the cauldron of war. For all these
reasons, we are likely during the present crisis to witness a
revolt from those superficially mystical notions which threatened
to become too popular during the immediate past.
Yet, the title deliberately chosen for this book--that of
"Practical" Mysticism--means nothing if the attitude and the
discipline which it recommends be adapted to fair weather alone: if
the principles for which it stands break down when subjected to the
pressure of events, and cannot be reconciled with the sterner
duties of the national life. To accept this position is to reduce
mysticism to the status of a spiritual plaything. On the contrary,
if the experiences on which it is based have indeed the
transcendent value for humanity which the mystics claim for
them--if they reveal to us a world of higher truth and greater
reality than the world of concrete happenings in which we seem to
be immersed--then that value is increased rather than lessened when
confronted by the overwhelming disharmonies and sufferings of the
present time. It is significant that many of these experiences are
reported to us from periods of war and distress: that the stronger
the forces of destruction appeared, the more intense grew the
spiritual vision which opposed them. We learn from these records
that the mystical consciousness has the power of lifting those who
possess it to a plane of reality which no struggle, no cruelty, can
disturb: of conferring a certitude which no catastrophe can wreck.
Yet it does not wrap its initiates in a selfish and otherworldly
calm, isolate them from the pain and effort of the common life.
Rather, it gives them renewed vitality; administering to the human
spirit not--as some suppose--a soothing draught, but the most
powerful of stimulants. Stayed upon eternal realities, that spirit
will be far better able to endure and profit by the stern
discipline which the race is now called to undergo, than those who
are wholly at the mercy of events; better able to discern the real
from the illusory issues, and to pronounce judgment on the new
problems, new difficulties, new fields of activity now disclosed.
Perhaps it is worth while to remind ourselves that the two women
who have left the deepest mark upon the military history of France
and England--Joan of Arc and Florence Nightingale--both acted under
mystical compulsion. So, too, did one of the noblest of modern
soldiers, General Gordon. Their national value was directly
connected with their deep spiritual consciousness: their intensely
practical energies were the flowers of a contemplative
life.
We are often told, that in the critical periods of history it
is the national soul which counts: that "where there is no vision,
the people perish." No nation is truly defeated which retains its
spiritual self-possession. No nation is truly victorious which does
not emerge with soul unstained. If this be so, it becomes a part of
true patriotism to keep the spiritual life, both of the individual
citizen and of the social group, active and vigorous; its vision of
realities unsullied by the entangled interests and passions of the
time. This is a task in which all may do their part. The spiritual
life is not a special career, involving abstraction from the world
of things. It is a part of every man's life; and until he has
realised it he is not a complete human being, has not entered into
possession of all his powers. It is therefore the function of a
practical mysticism to increase, not diminish, the total
efficiency, the wisdom and steadfastness, of those who try to
practise it. It will help them to enter, more completely than ever
before, into the life of the group to which they belong. It will
teach them to see the world in a truer proportion, discerning
eternal beauty beyond and beneath apparent ruthlessness. It will
educate them in a charity free from all taint of sentimentalism; it
will confer on them an unconquerable hope; and assure them that
still, even in the hour of greatest desolation, "There lives the
dearest freshness deep down things." As a contribution, then, to
these purposes, this little book is now published. It is addressed
neither to the learned nor to the devout, who are already in
possession of a wide literature dealing from many points of view
with the experiences and philosophy of the mystics. Such readers
are warned that they will find here nothing but the re-statement of
elementary and familiar propositions, and invitations to a
discipline immemorially old. Far from presuming to instruct those
to whom first-hand information is both accessible and palatable, I
write only for the larger class which, repelled by the formidable
appearance of more elaborate works on the subject, would yet like
to know what is meant by mysticism, and what it has to offer to the
average man: how it helps to solve his problems, how it harmonises
with the duties and ideals of his active life. For this reason, I
presuppose in my readers no knowledge whatever of the subject,
either upon the philosophic, religious, or historical side. Nor,
since I wish my appeal to be general, do I urge the special claim
of any one theological system, any one metaphysical school. I have
merely attempted to put the view of the universe and man's place in
it which is common to all mystics in plain and untechnical
language: and to suggest the practical conditions under which
ordinary persons may participate in their experience. Therefore the
abnormal states of consciousness which sometimes appear in
connection with mystical genius are not discussed: my business
being confined to the description of a faculty which all men
possess in a greater or less degree.
The reality and importance of this faculty are considered in
the first three chapters. In the fourth and fifth is described the
preliminary training of attention necessary for its use; in the
sixth, the general self-discipline and attitude toward life which
it involves. The seventh, eighth, and ninth chapters treat in an
elementary way of the three great forms of contemplation; and in
the tenth, the practical value of the life in which they have been
actualised is examined. Those kind enough to attempt the perusal of
the book are begged to read the first sections with some attention
before passing to the latter part.
E. U.
September 12, 1914.
Those who are interested in that special attitude towards the
universe which is now loosely called "mystical," find themselves
beset by a multitude of persons who are constantly asking--some
with real fervour, some with curiosity, and some with
disdain--"What is mysticism?"
When referred to the writings of the mystics themselves, and to
other works in which this question appears to be answered, these
people reply that such books are wholly incomprehensible to
them.
On the other hand, the genuine inquirer will find before long
a number of self-appointed apostles who are eager to answer his
question in many strange and inconsistent ways, calculated to
increase rather than resolve the obscurity of his mind. He will
learn that mysticism is a philosophy, an illusion, a kind of
religion, a disease; that it means having visions, performing
conjuring tricks, leading an idle, dreamy, and selfish life,
neglecting one's business, wallowing in vague spiritual emotions,
and being "in tune with the infinite." He will discover that it
emancipates him from all dogmas--sometimes from all morality--and
at the same time that it is very superstitious. One expert tells
him that it is simply "Catholic piety," another that Walt Whitman
was a typical mystic; a third assures him that all mysticism comes
from the East, and supports his statement by an appeal to the mango
trick. At the end of a prolonged course of lectures, sermons,
tea-parties, and talks with earnest persons, the inquirer is still
heard saying--too often in tones of exasperation--"What
is mysticism?"
I dare not pretend to solve a problem which has provided so
much good hunting in the past. It is indeed the object of this
little essay to persuade the practical man to the one satisfactory
course: that of discovering the answer for himself. Yet perhaps it
will give confidence if I confess pears to cover all the ground; or
at least, all that part of the ground which is worth covering. It
will hardly stretch to the mango trick; but it finds room at once
for the visionaries and the philosophers, for Walt Whitman and the
saints.
Here is the definition:--
Mysticism is the art of union with Reality. The mystic is
a person who has attained that union in greater or less degree; or
who aims at and believes in such attainment.
It is not expected that the inquirer will find great comfort
in this sentence when first it meets his eye. The ultimate
question, "What is Reality?"--a question, perhaps, which never
occurred to him before--is already forming in his mind; and he
knows that it will cause him infinite distress. Only a mystic can
answer it: and he, in terms which other mystics alone will
understand. Therefore, for the time being, the practical man may
put it on one side. All that he is asked to consider now is this:
that the word "union" represents not so much a rare and
unimaginable operation, as something which he is doing, in a vague,
imperfect fashion, at every moment of his conscious life; and doing
with intensity and thoroughness in all the more valid moments of
that life. We know a thing only by uniting with it; by assimilating
it; by an interpenetration of it and ourselves. It gives itself to
us, just in so far as we give ourselves to it; and it is because
our outflow towards things is usually so perfunctory and so
languid, that our comprehension of things is so perfunctory and
languid too. The great Sufi who said that "Pilgrimage to the place
of the wise, is to escape the flame of separation" spoke the
literal truth. Wisdom is the fruit of communion; ignorance the
inevitable portion of those who "keep themselves to themselves,"
and stand apart, judging, analysing the things which they have
never truly known.
Because he has surrendered himself to it, "united" with it,
the patriot knows his country, the artist knows the subject of his
art, the lover his beloved, the saint his God, in a manner which is
inconceivable as well as unattainable by the looker-on. Real
knowledge, since it always implies an intuitive sympathy more or
less intense, is far more accurately suggested by the symbols of
touch and taste than by those of hearing and sight. True, analytic
thought follows swiftly upon the contact, the apprehension, the
union: and we, in our muddle-headed way, have persuaded ourselves
that this is the essential part of knowledge--that it is, in fact,
more important to cook the hare than to catch it. But when we get
rid of this illusion and go back to the more primitive activities
through which our mental kitchen gets its supplies, we see that the
distinction between mystic and non-mystic is not merely that
between the rationalist and the dreamer, between intellect and
intuition. The question which divides them is really this: What,
out of the mass of material offered to it, shall consciousness
seize upon--with what aspects of the universe shall it
"unite"?
It is notorious that the operations of the average human
consciousness unite the self, not with things as they really 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.
Therefore it is to a practical mysticism that the practical
man is here invited: to a training of his latent faculties, a
bracing and brightening of his languid consciousness, an
emancipation from the fetters of appearance, a turning of his
attention to new levels of the world. Thus he may become aware of
the universe which the spiritual artist is always trying to
disclose to the race. This amount of mystical perception--this
"ordinary contemplation," as the specialists call it--is possible
to all men: without it, they are not wholly conscious, nor wholly
alive. It is a natural human activity, no more involving the great
powers and sublime experiences of the mystical saints and
philosophers than the ordinary enjoyment of music involves the
special creative powers of the great musician.