The Mystical Experience, or the Way to Transformative Union

Abstract

Mysticism is a way of knowing, but one based solely on experience. It is basically knowledge through love. Although religions have visible differences, mysticism is only one. The yogi and the Kabbalah worshiper, the Sufi, the hesychast and the Western mystical, all go through the same route, have the same behaviour and follow the same purpose. In contrast to other ways of knowing, the mystical way is one of direct experience. Knowledge is not achieved through a focus on the object, but by transforming the subject itself. Not by a protrusion, but by deepening itself. The mysterious path leads inexorably inwards. It is an ascending road passing through asceticism, unceasing prayer (the prayer of the heart) and progressing enlightening, to reach eventually, through ecstasy and revelation, the uniting purpose (Unio Mystica). Although secret and based on initiation, sometimes mysticism attracted massive groups of people, having a strong impact on the social level. Thus, in the last century Romania, there occurred two phenomena mainly due to the Eastern mysticism, respectively to hesychastic teaching and experience. These were the revival movement of religious life within the Romanian Orthodox Church, called the “Army of God”, and the movement initiated by intellectuals from the group “Burning Bush”.