From: Mark Steven Heyman (markheyman@infoproconsulting.com)
Date: Mon Dec 27 2004 - 05:07:05 GMT
Hi dmb, sam, chin, et al,
On 26 Dec 2004 at 19:46, David Buchanan wrote:
msh asked:
That is, what's the difference between a "Mystic" and me?
dmb says:
Well I'm not sure, but it seems that there is a tendency to confuse
the surface beauty of things with more penetrating visions. You've
managed to escape the cliches with your portrait of seeing and
knowing and touching some of nature's beauty and form, but maybe
that's just because you have some imagination and you're not really
going beyond the surface of things after all. I really don't know.
But it seems to me that there is no doubt among people who have had
the kind of experience that philosophical mysticism describes. One
might not understand it or know what to do with it, but they have no
doubt that something has definately happened to them.
msh says:
So conviction is the key? I'm not trying to be difficult here; I'm
really very interested in this subject, and I appreciate the time you
and Sam and others are taking with this. I'm trying to understand
how one might differentiate the Brujos from the Mansons. Clearly
their say-so isn't enough, is it?
dmb continued:
"When the doors of perception are cleansed, everything will appear to
man as it truely is; infinite"
"To see the world in just one grain of sand"
One of the ways you can tell that you're dealing with the
pronouncements of a mystic instead of the plattitudes of Hallmark is
that the former are weird and disconcerting while the latter are
conventional and comforting.
"The kingdom is heaven is as a mustard seed."
"In my father's house are many mansions."
msh says:
Ok. Well, weird and disconcerting can certainly apply to Charles
Manson. And yesterday's mystic saying becomes tomorrow's Hallmark
platitude. In fact, to me, the quotes you offer above--Huxley,
Blake, Jesus--aren't much better than Hallmark, probably because they
are so, so familiar. Much less conventional and comforting, and
just as enlightening, are words such as the following, from a little
known but great American poet (mystic?):
The Black Angel
Where are the people as beautiful as poems,
As calm as mirrors,
With their oceanic longings --
The idler whom reflection loved,
The woman with the iridescent brow?
For I would bring them flowers.
I think of that friend too much moved by music
Who turned to games
And made a game of boredom,
Of that one too much moved by faces
Who turned his face to the wall, and of that marvelous liar
Who turned at last to truth.
They are the past of what was always future.
They speak in tongues,
Silently, about nothing.
They are like old streetcars buried at sea,
In the wrong element, with no place to go . . . .
I will not meet her eye,
Although I shall, but here's a butterfly,
And a white flower,
An the moon rising on my nail.
This is the presence of things present,
Where flying woefully is like closing sweetly,
And there is nothing else.
As usual, thanks to any and all for thoughtful feedback.
Mark Steven Heyman (msh)
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