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394-096_B.mp3
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--see how important it becomes then for the mystic to see if there are any avenues open to him y
which in the normal pursuit of his life, his activities, he can aid and abet the aware of the
presence within him. Now, when he raises this kind of question, naturally, the thing that he
seizes upon is something which to him has the quality, the moral quality of his inner experience.
So he naturally would think in terms of good deeds, of activity on his part which, because of its
means and its ends, would seem to be in line with his sense of God that is within him.
Anything, then, that seems to him to be contrary behavior, he's sure that that will not lead him to
enlarge the area of the awareness of God in him. So that when we study these individuals, men
and women, we find that wherever the mystic gives an ethical context to the presence of God in
him, then any ethical behavior on his part would tend to make more acute his awareness of the
presence. So that out of that comes a whole [INAUDIBLE] series of categories having to do with
good works, with good deeds.
If I can multiply good works, then the degree to which I do that, I enlarge the area within me.
And yet, we're back at the old central problem. And yet, there cannot be-- or can there be-- any
necessitous relationship between the good works, the good deed, and this presence. I think there's
this sort of problem that with which Jesus deals. When a man came to him and he said, good
master, what may I do? And very quickly, and almost spontaneously, Jesus said, why call me
good? There is none good, save God. That being-- the moral activity, the moral behavior, may
not be regarded as an indication of the presence, the active presence.
And yet it is at the same time, paradoxically, the most apparent and the most logical test. If good
works do not have any bearing on the enlarging of the sense of the presence, what on earth does?
If I-- or am I-- am I trapped by the fact that because I cannot know the mind of God, then
therefore my only creative task is to wait, to be quiet? Which is the logic of the whole
[INAUDIBLE] movement.
So the dilemma is, how may I act so that in my action there will be a corresponding
manifestation of an increase within me of a sense of the presence of God? Now, if the action in
itself is valid, then its validity will guarantee a certain result in my own character and in my own
life. But we are never-- we are never quite sure. Because the temptation is that if I'm dependent
upon good deeds, good action, as the vehicle by which the living presence of God moves through
all the corridors of my awareness-- if I'm dependent upon that-- then this dependence becomes
the test that I'm right, that I'm right.
And always, you see, the experience of the mystic as the experience of religion is a private,
personal, intimate experience. It is in a sense as if you and you alone existed in all the universe at
this moment. The only thing that I can think of that's comparable to it is-- have you ever tried to
answer the question of a little child? You answer the question, and you see the bewilderment in
the child's face, and you know that you're off-target. Then you try again, and you're still offtarget. And then you try to put the answer in the context that will make the answer available to
the child.
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And then, if you're lucky, there comes a moment in this exchange when the child says, I see.
Now, when the child says that, you do not exist any longer. It is as if the child and the answer do
this, independent of you, independent of everything. It is so private, so primary, so absolutely
solitary and individual that it carries its own witness. It carries its own witness.
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Now, that is all right if you are never challenged. But the thing that the mystic-- how to say this.
The hound of hell that's always on the mystics, whatever it is, heels or something, is the same
that's true with all [INAUDIBLE], I guess. And that is that the inability to prove that your
experience is valid, of what does proof consist?
How do you go about to prove that any position that you take is right? How do you go about it?
Any nibble from anybody? What do you say? Yes.
[INAUDIBLE] unless they want to. Unless they experience [INAUDIBLE]
If the experience is valid, shouldn't one be able to communicate it in terms of proof?
If it's demonstrated somewhat. But you can't prove it [INAUDIBLE] words necessarily
[INAUDIBLE].
That's the question. That's the question. To give a ridiculous illustration of it, how do you prove
that you're sane? Everything you say in proof, except it makes the case for the [INAUDIBLE].
Why then are we never relieved of the necessity for trying to prove it? Why? Yes.
[INAUDIBLE] we're not quite sure in ourselves. We have to explain it to ourselves.
Yes, [INAUDIBLE]. I look at my watch, and I see by my watch it's quarter of three. I register
that, quarter of whatever it is. Quarter of five, my goodness. Now if I look at my watch for
myself, I will know, but as soon as I do this, you ask what time is it, and what must I do? Look
again. Because now the knowledge is with reference to and other than self.
Why is it that we cannot ever escape the necessity for trying to prove the validity of our
experience? You suggest that because we-- because of a lack of certainty in ourselves. Any other
reaction? Yes.
Perhaps we need the exercise of trying to approve, and in the process, we clarify [INAUDIBLE]
we put upon ourselves. There's a resistance to the proof [INAUDIBLE].
Are you saying then that any challenge simply makes you re-examine the grounds of your
position?
I believe it does.
Any other nibble on this?
Yeah. I don't know if a true mystic would care much about communicating it.
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Maybe. But it would seem to me that he recognizes a necessity for being understood, not by
everybody, not by everybody. But there are those to whom it is very important that the validity
of his experience be accepted not only by him, but by them. Maybe, just maybe. Yes, you.
Might it be that a person wants to share the experience with others?
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Yes. That's a very important comment. But even there, he wants to share it in a climate of
acceptance, I think. But of course, he may decide that the person has to be ready for accepting it.
Thus, the inquisition, for instance. It's sort of pulverized, and you get everything loose so that
there's a kind of [INAUDIBLE] mass for receiving it. Yes.
I just had a question. Does a true mystic ever really find [INAUDIBLE]. I mean, if you find it,
isn't it [INAUDIBLE]? He's found the ultimate thing to his existence.
No. He is always finding it. Because what he is sure that he is experiencing is the encounter that
is of ultimate significance, which he himself does not presume fully to comprehend. His
movement always is in terms of enlarging the awareness of this in his own life, never feeling that
he has quite made it, quite achieved it. And this, of course, accounts for his vulnerability, and
also for his humility.
Because you see, it doesn't matter how well he comes off when his life is compared with another
person's life, because that is not the basis of his comparison. His comparison is in terms of what
he is experiencing. It's like a man who is congratulated because of something he has done, he has
achieved. And if he's honest, he knows that what he achieved was a poor manifestation of the
thing that he saw. And therefore, when he contemplates what was either his vision or his goal
and then looks at what he's been able to translate, the only response is one of great humility. But
if he compares what he has created with what you have created, then he may get off all right,
because he will select the kind of comparisons that would show him up to advantage yours.
Now, let's just push back to this for a minute, because I'd like to tie it down before we stop. Why
is proof so important? Why? Why do you think it's so important. To the mystic I mean. Yes?
[INAUDIBLE]
No? I suppose the fundamental issue here is, can the mystic's experience ever be empirically
validated? That's really the issue that we're talking about. Can it-- yes?
It might be to himself, though.
Even to himself, can it be? Yes?
If it becomes validated, it's possible that he then [INAUDIBLE].
Yes, that would be one of the results, I should think. He wants-- how to say this. It seems to me,
at any rate, that he wants to find some means external to himself that can be a corrective to him,
where he is a finite creature. How can I find some other than self-reference? Each word's
important. How may I find some other than self-reference that can vanity for me, my inner
experience?
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I think this is the reason why there are disciples. I think this is one of the reasons why small units
of human beings gather around. It seems to me that there must be-- no, no, that's wrong.
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There is a pressing need to look objectively into the face of the truth that I am experiencing. And
because I do not ever seem able to do it does not relieve me of the necessity for always trying to
do it. So you knock at every door, and end up in your own little room. For at last you arrive at a
place in which you able to be assured that the validity of your experience is found in the integrity
of the experience, that the validity of it is in its integrity.
And I think this is why the mystic keeps trying to get the static out. If I may phrase it this way, I
think that there is an every man-- and by man, I mean everybody-- there is an every person that
which waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in every other person. It is also true that
there is that in every person that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in himself. And
the mystic is never quite sure that he's listening right, but he's absolutely sure that he is. And who
is there to deny it?
So the [INAUDIBLE] that the movement-- the trends move in two basic directions, one towards
more and more quietistic contemplation, more and more passivity, more and more withdrawal,
on the one hand. And on the other hand, more and more effort to take every aspect of one's
experience and shake it, open it up, to see if inherent in that is not a yes to what you experience
here. And these are the two paths, and if you were to break down the mystic's experience,
whether in our tradition or some other tradition, into two great categories, these are the two
categories.
One does not get beyond contemplation, pulling in so that all of the levels of his being might be
invaded by this increment, which is the signature of the creator in his life. Any movement out in
the direction of the world becomes a movement that threatens this on the one hand. On the other
hand, the feeling and the urgency to follow all the rules, knowing that whatever he encounters on
the road has something to say to him about what he's experienced, and in most of the mystics, we
get a combination of these.
And in classical language, it becomes a conflict between-- that's inherent in two ways, two
express. One, by their fruits you shall know them, the other, by their roots you should know
them. The contemplating mystic feels it by his roots, and the more activist by the fruit. And
somewhere on the mystic [INAUDIBLE] between these two, the pendulum swings, because the
two basic classifications then are the familiar ones, the introverted and the extroverted mystic,
and we begin at this point tomorrow.
I want to pull certain things together. You remember I made a comment to you that there is a
very horrendous struggle on the part of individuals or persons to have a sense of their own ego.
And then this happens. The individual also feels that he now stands over against all the rest of
the objects, the other things in his world. He becomes a distinct individual without regard to his
own ground. And if he is thoughtful, perhaps there may come a time when it will seem to him
that instead of his being a separate entity, a private personal ego, that he will seem to be in this,
for instancing of himself, the expression of the ground. Now, this is very different.
He will seem to himself that the ground of life has become self conscious in him. Now, if this is
his awareness, then he knows that despite the reality of his ego awareness, that it is merely
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contextual, it is merely that which in a sense has illusion in it. For his true reality is not to be
found in his ego consciousness, but his true reality is to be found in the ground out of which he
comes up, which his ego consciousness is a manifestation of.
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Now, when there is not this awareness, then the ego seems to itself to be absolute, to be co-equal,
as it were, with the ground out of which it comes, out of which it springs. Now, it is very
interesting to me that in times in society when the ego is under attack, all kinds of profound
eruptions begin to emerge in individual lives. To illustrate precisely what I mean, during the
period of the Black Death, for instance, when the individual as the individual was almost
completely nullified, neutralized, destroyed, attacked, by the impersonal movement of the
disease. And the individual ego of the people who are the denizens of that period in European
history felt that they were being completely nullified.
And it happened also that the same things were going on in Catholicism that tended to rob the
individual of any point of reference outside of himself that would call attention to the ground out
of which he had come, so that he was destitute, devastated. And out of the very soil of the time,
there was a mystical movement, the Brethren of the Common Life moved in, and what were they
saying? They would say to these people who were dying like flies that you do not need any go
between that will establish your significance in a universal ground, in a timeless ground. You
don't need the priest who has the key that will open up this secret, that will cause a flood of
spirituality and vitality to flow into your life again, to give you your own sense of person a
meaning and a significance.
So these men and women who were part of this spiritual movement went among the people
doing what? Putting the individuals in touch with the spiritual ground of their lives. Now, we are
in such a period in our country. I do not know about the whole Western world. From the tidings
that I pick up, from reading and travel, the same is true. But we are at a time now in our history
when the-- first, the isolation of the particular private ego is being more and more actualized
when it is increasingly impossible for the individual to feel that he is of such worth that the
ground of his life, the spiritual ground of his life, has honored him by coming to self
consciousness in him.
As individuals, we do not count very much, in several ways. I went to the bank to make a
deposit, and in my head, I neglected to put my name on my deposit sheet, but I had my number.
And when I handed it to the young lady and I reached for it, I saw my name wasn't there. She
said, that's all right, your name isn't important. We have your number. That's the consequential
thing.
Now, at such a time, there is a desperate effort to find ways by which we're connected, by which
the consciousness of the individual can be expanded, which is another way of saying, a means by
which the individual ego may once again be made aware of the ground out of which it sprang,
out of which it comes. And all of the mad-- this is not the total explanation, but certainly one of
the very important elements in the explanation is the phenomenon that we now, the so called
drug culture, for instance. This is rooted here.
Some radical effort is being put forth, some radical passage that will lead the individual ego into
this wider area out of which his consciousness arises. And it is a way by which I think the
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collective psyche of modern man is trying to reestablish the ground of unity, out of which the
individual life springs.
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Now, there are all kinds of things that are going on in this regard. About six years ago, or 10-the time, the number of years, isn't important-- but a young friend of mine who's doing his
doctorate in Philosophy of Religion at the Harvard Divinity School, who had observed during the
early days of the experimentation with LSD [INAUDIBLE] that Dr. Leary was involved in
before he became the patron saint of the culture, when they working with prisoners out of the
Concord Reformatory.
What my friend observed was that among many of the men with whom they worked in this
particular, men whose egos had been cut off from the ground, either because of the reaction of
society because of their own behavior, violences, et cetera, but they were stranded, isolated, and
by-- under carefully--
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University of Redlands, Redlands, California
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1970s
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Thurman, Howard
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On Mysticism, Part 6 (University of Redlands Course), 1973
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<a href="http://pid.emory.edu/ark:/25593/rp8k9">MSS 394</a>
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<a href="http://pitts.emory.edu/">Pitts Theology Library, Emory University</a>
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1973-02
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This recording is the fifth lecture in our collection of ten that Howard Thurman gave at the University of Redlands in 1973 on the topic of mysticism. Thurman indicates that this lecture functions as a means to point the listener towards practical approaches to mysticism through lenses of psychology, philosophy, and religious experience. He revolves the content of this lecture around the question: "How may I act so that in my action there will be a corresponding manifestation of an increase within me of a sense of the presence of God?" To which, Thurman responds with dialogue with students in the class pertaining to notions of self-actualization, the task of the mystic, and the exploration of the content of religious identity.
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Description by Dustin Mailman
actualization
awareness
Brethren of the Common Life
center of being
comprehension
Concord Reformatory
consciousness
contemplation
contextuality
dilemma
dualism
ego
externality
good works
ground
Harvard
Hounds of Hell
identity
Incarnation
integrity
interconnectivity
intimate experience
Jesus
LSD
modernity
moral quality
mysticism
nibble
pragmatism
praxis
presence
proof
religious experience
seeing
seeking
Timothy Leary
truth
vulnerability
watch
William James