Despite differences in
culture and religion, mystical experiences are universal, and share some
common traits. They are invariably spiritual, yet not necessarily
religious. One need not be a monk or priest in order to have a mystical
experience, which is a state of knowledge, insight, awareness,
revelation or illumination beyond the grasp of the intellect.
In his famous book,
THE VARIETIES OF RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE, the
American psychologist and philosopher William James noted that mystical
experiences are fleeting in linear time, though they seem to be eternal,
e.g., Muhammad's flight of fancy to the Seven Heavens, and R. M. Bucke,
a Canadian doctor who studied mystical experiences, called it cosmic
consciousness, i.e., consciousness of the cosmos and of life and order
of the universe.
It is common knowledge
that, at age 40, Muhammad entered a life of asceticism by withdrawing to
the mountains near Mecca to pray and meditate. Also, we learn he was
awakened one night by an overpowering light, marking the first
revelation to him of the Koran. That night the angel Gabriel appeared in
his dreams as the messenger of Allah to give him that first mystical
experience known as revelation. Muslims attach much mystical
significance to that nocturnal astral journey known as the Night of
Power, and we are told the 6,666 verses of the Koran were composed by
Allah who revealed them to Muhammad, piecemeal by piecemeal, taking just
over 20 years from that first revelation.
That's a mighty long time
and a lot of hard work for a book, believe me, for Muhammad was
sometimes assisted in its unfoldment by God and His angels, and
sometimes by his own clairaudience during his famous trances, which
are quite well documented. For instance, it is common knowledge that
Muhammad's mystical experiences were often torporous, and left him
red-faced and breathless.
Now, passivity is one of
the hallmarks of a mystical experience. The individual feels swept up
and held by a superior power, and this may be accompanied by a sensation
of separation from bodily consciousness, e.g., as in an out-of-body
experience, trance, or such phenomena as prophetic speech, automatisms,
mediumistic hallucinations, healing powers, visions, and
voices. Mystical experiences flood an individual with a sense of
well-being, joy, and optimism.
In the case of Muhammad,
it is documented, the ecstasy often reached such heights as to become
almost unbearable torment and pain.
As I noted at the outset,
mysticism can be either nonreligious or religious. Nonreligious
mysticism derives much of its experience and content from Nature, as
Ziauddin Ahmed keeps reminding us, though many religious mystics have
found their way to God or the Absolute through Nature. What Mr Ahmed
hasn't told us is that Nature mysticism is actually called pantheistic
mysticism, in that God or the divine being is in everything and
everything is divine.
Also, not all transcendent
experiences with Nature are mystical, however, but may simply be
overwhelming joy or ecstasy. I believe that in a mystical experience the
boundaries between subject and object disappear: one becomes one with
Nature as opposed to having a heightened appreciation for it.
Rashid Mughal
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