From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Wed Apr 14 2004 - 22:48:25 BST
Dear David B.,
You wrote 3 Apr 2004 16:42:32 -0700:
'I just doubt that we have the same idea about what constitutes a mystical
experience. ... mystical experience ... utterly dissolves the self. ...
That's where I'd like you to go into some detail about the experience
itself.'
Mystical experience for me as for you is experience of unity, unity with
whatever may seem disconnected. The experience can only be expressed in
metaphors of which Quaker parlance is very rich: Source, Seed, Light. In a
culture that stressed the experience of sin and disconnectedness with God
early Quakers testified to their experience of directly experiencing God, of
being 'in the Light', resulting in the possibility to 'live in the life and
power that takes away sin'. Nowadays verbal expressions resulting from such
an experience -at least among the Quakers with whom I worship- will not
usually be directed at negating 'sin', but injustice and war (disconnected
people) or ecological disaster (people disconnected from nature).
'Who or what guides?' Well, 'God', if that metaphor has some positive
connotations for you. Every Quaker has his own way of referring to it in
metaphors (and is free to do so). Quite a few avoid the word 'God'. My
favourite description (expressed in this discussion list before) is 'that
which connects everyone and everything'. In the end the question is just as
meaningless as asking about Dynamic Quality: 'who or what provokes changes'.
'What kinds of things are said [in a Quaker meeting for worship]?' Lots of
different things, but usually personal, centering on experience or on (new)
meaning found in something. Bible quotes, poems, news items, anything can
come in. Discussion or other too direct comments on something someone else
said are not done. Additions or continuing a line of thought are quite
common however.
Quaker religious experience, both in meetings for worship and outside (after
enough practice inside), runs up and down the whole gamut from full
dissolving of ego to getting a good, new idea that cannot easily be
experienced as an outcome of one identified with before.
I hesitate to describe that experience, because it cannot be fully described
and gets new meaning, gives new direction in every situation. It can best be
known by its fruits, by the 'guidance' it gives for one's life, both in big
and in small issues.
The goal of Indian mysticism which Pirsig describes in chapter 3 of 'Lila'
('the Great Spirit reveal[ing] itself to him and tak[ing] over his life') is
mirrored in the opening advices from 'Quaker faith and practice' which I
partly quoted before here: 'Take heed .. to the promptings of love and truth
in your hearts. Trust them as the leadings of God whose Light shows us our
darkness and brings us to new life. Bring the whole of your life under the
ordering of the spirit of Christ. Are you open to the healing power of God's
love?'
The outcome is the same as for American Indians (as Pirsig describes in
chapter 9 of 'Lila'). What Quakers call 'living in the Light' is the same as
what Pirsig described with:
'American Indians are exceptionally skilled at holding to the ever-changing
center of things. That is the real reason they speak and act without
ornamentation. It violates their mystic unity. This moving and acting and
talking in accord with the Great Spirit and almost nothing else has been the
ancient center of their lives.'
Substitute 'Great Spirit' with 'Divine Guidance' or any other favourite
metaphor of a Quaker and you get a perfect summary of 'Quaker faith and
practice'.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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