Perhaps the best criteria for testing our spiritual experiences are the simple sayings of Amos or Micah or Jesus. Let justice roll down like waters. Do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God. Love your enemies. — Ron Cole-Turner
The most common definition of mysticism is simply this: “experiencing God.” Of course, the word “God” can be problematic for a number of reasons, so even as far back as Evelyn Underhill (writing over a century ago), various alternatives to this basic understanding can be found: Underhill herself described mysticism as “the art of union with Reality” and also spoke of the Divine as “the Absolute.” In our day, concepts like “nonduality” or “ecstatic union” or “union with the Divine” can also help us to grasp the mystery of mysticism.
These are all helpful doorways into contemplative spirituality, but they also are problematic on at least one level: they tend to be teleological rather than foundational. In other words, divine union represents the end-point of mystical spirituality, rather than the starting-point. Even this language is problematic, since mysticism is not a process with a goal: it is an invitation into a timeless present, an eternal reality available here and now (Ram Dass: “Be here now”).
Nevertheless, to walk the contemplative path means not only to stand on the summit of Mount Carmel or Mount Tabor, but to do the unglamorous hard work of climbing the mountain. And theologian Ron Cole-Turner reminds us what that looks like.
Let justice roll down like waters,
and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. — Amos 5:24
What does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God? — Micah 6:8
I say to you, Love your enemies… — Jesus (Matthew 5:44)
What if, at the end of the day, contemplative spirituality was not about how ecstatic our experience of God / Spirit / Reality / the Divine, or how heightened our consciousness became, or how much insight we received into the beauty of love, the nature of being, or the truth behind all experience — but it was simply a matter of learning to be a greater co-creator of justice, kindness, mercy, fairness, humility and love? And that all the “cool bits” of mysticism and contemplative practice were given to us, simply so that we might be strengthened to climb the mountain more steadily and decisively? I’ll leave this question for you to ponder in the silence of your own heart — with the Spirit as your guide. But if I’m reading Professor Cole-Turner correctly, he’s telling us this is the question we ought to be asking. And I suspect most of the great mystics and contemplatives of the Christian (or any) tradition would agree.
Quotation source: Ron Cole-Turner, Psychedelics and Christian Faith: Exploring an Unexpected Pathway to Healing and Spirituality, Kindle Location 1863.