The mystical path

A Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity discussion topic

Copyright 2009 by K. Ferlic,   All Rights Reserved

Mysticism is the belief and practice that truths about the unknown and unseen elements of Creation may be directly apprehended by intuition and/or meditation. Mysticism as typically defined is characterized as a belief that through love, in particular, a spiritual love, a man or woman can achieve a direct and immediate consciousness of God, Divine Truth or whatever you may call it, without the use of reason or any of the ordinary senses. The mystic is one who obtains such understanding and experience through love.

The question which can be asked is, "Exactly what is this love that the mystic uses to access the Divine?" If it were readily available, we would not be creating mystics a dime a dozen? But we don’t. The question becomes, "What exactly is this love that allows us to experience that direct and immediate consciousness of the Source of Creation?"

The love of the mystic

The answer is quite surprising. We cannot give what we do not have. The love that is require is simply to sufficiently love oneself as the beautiful creation that we are. It is to give to our true needs which allows for the growth, unfoldment and maturity of what lies within our heart, our creative spirit, for it is a creative life energy which desires to be expressed in the world. Then give that love to another. Create the space and become a creative shape shifter to give that other what they truly need and not what our mind wants to give and to create the safe and secure space for their creative spirit to freely unfold - without any expectation of return.

To truly love is to give exactly what the situation calls to give unconditionally no matter what it is and leave the result to destiny. What is often called for to give is nothing that mind is capable of understanding or able to identify. It must come totally from one’s intuitive guidance and body wisdom completely outside of mind and totally from the heart. We cannot give what we do not have. Unless we do the inner work first and learn to truly love and give unconditionally to our true needs and become the creation that we are and each and every level of our being, we cannot give such love to another. In understanding our true needs we will not seek to take from the other what only we can give ourselves. We need to learn what comes from within and what comes from without as to our true needs. Without this understanding, we will never give the freedom and safe space that is required for the other to find and access their truth.

The mystical path

The mystical path is an inherent path in our life. If followed, it allows us to access truths about the unknown and unseen elements of Creation directly apprehended by the experiences we have on that path. The mystical path is about surrender. It is to be out of mind and follow a feeling. It is to follow the feeling which give us life. As we love ourselves sufficient to nourish at every level of our being our true needs, not what mind wants, we find an infinite reservoir of life and are full of life. We are so full of life we can only give that life away.

Although the mystical path was always a big influence in the author’s life, discovery and understanding the mystical path was actually an unexpected observation made in studying creativity, our creative power and creative ability, Creation/creation and the basic process of how we create. It was unexpected since, from the author’s enculturation and the teachings of the world in which he grew up, creativity and mysticism were totally unrelated. Mysticism was seen to lie in the realm of religion and spirituality. Creativity seemed to lie in the arts and sciences and had nothing to do with religion and spirituality. However, as our inherent creativity was explored, it became clear the concept of inherent creativity was more profound than anything reported in the literature or otherwise.

It was observed in the exploration of our inherent creativity, we each individually are part of several larger creative processes that governs our lives. It was observed unless we become aware of these larger process, there will always seem to be an unseen influence acting as a deep undercurrent on what we are trying to create. The two primary process of which we need to be aware are reflected in two stories we can tell about our life.

Each of our lives are like the honey bee. If we ask a honey bee what its life is all about, the view of the bee is "I gather nectar from the flowers to make honey for the hive and to be able to live." However, there is a deeper view. The bee gathers nectar as stated but unseen by the bee, it also fertilizes the flowers. Fertilizing the flowers allows for fruit of the flower to be produced. The story as told from the view of the honey bee and the mind tells as what mind thinks the life of the honey bee is about. The real story of the honey bee and what really happens is what the life of the honey bee causes to happen because it has lived its life. We each have two paths we can take in life. The two paths give rise to the two stories of our life

One path is our our enculturated path. It is the path our society wants us to follow and determined by our mind. It is the path typically seen on our resume and is often synonymous with the professional path we take in life. However, it is more than the resume or the professional path. It is more than just relating our work experience for we add all the different aspects of our life. It is what we would capture if we draw a life map or simply tell the story of our life. The enculturated path give rise to the story our mind tells about our life. This story is very much biased by what mind thinks and believes.

The other path is our mystical path. It is related to what we have really been doing in and with our life that transcends what our mind understands based on the enculturation we have received and what we have been told about life and how Creation works. For most, this mystical path acts as an undercurrent to our life and seemingly pulls us along a predetermined path. This inner deeper meaning to our lives cannot be seen unless we become a detached witness, stand back from our life, and look very carefully beyond the outer meaning that our mind thinks it knows what our life is about. It bubbles up into our enculturated path and tries to break through but more often than not we continue along our enculturate path seeing what bubbles up as an aberration in our life.

It is called a mystical path because it tends to be rather mysterious and arising as an unseen influence in our life. The mystical path will away have a feeling of being in the unknown. It will take us past the limits and boundaries of our mind. It will ask us to things our mind would prefer not to do. We cannot expect money from the mystical path as with a professional path in life. However, one can find a deep inner satisfaction in life unobtainable on any other path. We can expect synchronicity in life and we need to learn to "read" the synchronicity which comes our way.

The mystical path is reflective of the intention for our life and the experiences we incarnated to have. There is something we are here to do but our mind does not necessarily see it. Rather, mind will do everything and anything to remain in control and think it knows what our life is all about. Here lies the issue of mind: Mind looks to live the way it thinks we need to live rather than surrendering to become the deeper meaning to our life. Mind only knows the past. Mind if finite. It will characterize what it sees based on what we think and believe. The freedom of the heart characteristic of the mystical path is usually frightening to most. The freedom which we ultimately seek is frightening to the mind. Mind does not know how to deal with true freedom. Mind is afraid it will lose control and/or die.

Mind acts based on what it thinks and believes based on the experiences it has had in the past. We need to change what we think and believe about ourselves and life to live what role we incarnated to play. Accessing and living the deeper meaning to our life is the mystical path available to each of us. It is not a spiritual or religious path and cannot be accessed by what we think is spiritual, religious or any spiritual or religious practice for whatever we think is spiritual or religious is of the mind.

The two paths to our life simply reflect the two views of creation - the view from the mind and what we think and the view from the heart and what we feel. The path of the mind or the path of enculturation is to do what our mind thinks our life is about and mind determines what we do and experience in life. The path of the heart or the mystical path addresses the reason we are here. We, of course, have the options of surrendering to what is asks of us by the mystical path or we can simply live our life based on what mind thinks we need to do.

The question is do we stay in the story mind tells or do we allow ourselves to transcend what our mind knows and understand to see the deeper meaning to our live. In essence these two paths lie on a spectrum. At one end is we totally live according to what mind thinks. At the other end is we totally living according to this deeper meaning to our life. We each need to spend some time in each to be able to discern one from the other. The challenge is to learn to dance between the two views to both live and survive in the world and yet achieve this deeper meaning to our life. The problem we all faces is that our mind tried to control our life rather than allowing us to surrender to the deeper meaning of our life or even share control in a dance.

The doorway to the mystical path is feeling. It is only access through feeling and it starts with feeling of learning to nourish our true needs at each and every level of our being. Feeling takes us into the realm of intimacy with the body and what the body feels for the body is an antenna and energy detector. Feeling also takes us to address how and why we shut down our ability to feel the depth and breadth of Creation and place our creative spirit in a cage of our own making.

We know this path through a particular type and kind of feeling. We need to understand, each intention we hold gives rise to flow of energy and a particular feeling. Each creation we experience has a particular flow of energy and a particular feeling. The feeling which gives us life and makes us feel alive with life is the unfoldment of the intention for our life and it is feeling which allows us to align with the mystical path for our life. However, to do this we need to be both open to feeling at each and every level of our being and have calibrated our internal compass in order to follow the feeling when we recognize it.

There are two key feelings we can follow to access and live the mystical path. One is the feeling of what gives life, a fullness of life and a desire to engage life and leads to the intention for our life and an inner satisfaction which never runs dry. The other is a feeling of fullness of being that, if followed, can lead to an experience of the expansion of our being and an experience of infinity of our being or the Source of Creation depending on our perspective. To move from the path of the mind to the path of the heart to access these feelings a gentle phoenix is available if we are willing to do the inner work.

The mystical path is a process governed by the intention for our life. This mystical path, although similar for each of us, is unique to each of us. Our mystical path is our own individual process. The mystical process of which I am a part is not the same one in which you are a part. They are coordinated and integrated where appropriate and when necessary, but they are each are essentially independent of each other. As such, what I need to understand about how I create my reality will be conceptually that same as what you need to know. But, practically, within the details, what I need to do will be different than you. This may be difficult to understand but it is nevertheless true. This is why it is so hard to find predictability between individuals.

The illusive nature of the mystical path

In many ways looking at the mystical path for our life is like piecing together the pieces of a jig saw puzzle. The pieces of the puzzle are scattered throughout our life in the experiences we are drawn to have. They do not come to us in sequence that we recognize and we need to look to fit the pieces together as they come to us. They form a weave and a pattern but we must be aware of its existence and look to see it. To see it we must detach from what we experience, expect and desire to stand back and look at the pieces.

What is interesting about the mystical path discussed here is and how it works is that the author never arrived at an understanding of the mystical path intellectually. In fact, the dance between the mystical path and the enculturated path was clearly indicated in the soul retrieval he elected to undergo at the time he started the exploration of our inherent creativity. However, his mind could not see it for what it was. Rather, the seed for understanding came through an awareness after reading a story within a story (and probably coupled with years of nonconscious preparation).

The story was a book about a man’s spiritual quest in Turkey. In the story the man was on a spiritual quest visiting a particular teacher. When the man arrived, the teacher was helping a lady living in residence who could be said to have been disturbed by the experiences she had in life. Part of her therapy, if it can be called therapy, was to unravel a ball of string which in essence was a big knot. As described by the book, the ball of string seemed to mesmerize the lady. As the man told of his quest he would described the appearance of this lady from time to time as she crossed his path. What was interesting about her story was that when she had completed unraveling the ball of string, she returned to a state of normalcy. The question was of course, "Did unraveling the ball of string in deep contemplation heal her condition or was it a synchronicity relative to he healing?" It was after reading this story within the story, this author understood the mystical path. But it still took some time for the author to understand how the mystical path was interweaving our lives and the need to bring the mystical path and enculturated path into alignment. The goal being to either make the paths one and the same or entwine them tightly like two strands of DNA but in an ever converging spiral toward oneness.

As described in the paragraph above, probably the best way to understand the mystical path is to read the life or story of someone who came into alignment with their mystical path simply by learning to following it in life in some way. This does not mean the story teller intellectually understood what they were following, but they nevertheless found someway to follow it. For example, in following the mystical path, the author did two things.

One was the author followed a particular feeling from as early as he can remember. It was a feeling which he initially called "fun" as a child. It was to look to do in life that which gave him a particular feeling he called "fun." However, later in life he discovered the feeling to be in a fullness of being, a fullness of life, or a feeling of growing and expansion of his being. It was a feeling of growing beyond himself.

The second thing the author did was state very clear questions to Creation as to what he would like to know. Although not initially realized he came to find he possessed an inherent desire to "pull the string" and understand "why?"- why this as opposed to something else. Of course there is it corresponding cousin, "how?"- how does it work. Some would say he simply never lost his childlike inquisitiveness to discover and explore himself and the Creation he was experiencing.

Throughout his life beginning as early as about age ten he asked a series of what he thought were rhetorical questions of the Universe at different times in he life. Surprising they were all answered. In time he was no longer was surprised but expected answers. In hind sight, the questions where the intention for his life and his mystical path breaking through to get what it needed to fulfill what he came to do. On this point it needs to be emphasized, the power of our deeply held intentions and desires about life cannot be underestimated and there is an intention and/or a deep desire that is governing our life. Deeply held intention will not necessary unfold in the way we expect nor will they unfold when we expect. However, they will unfold when the correct environment is created for them to unfold and can be supported to some degree in one way or another by the environment.

As for the feeling which guides us to our mystical path, it has been described various ways above. However, there are probably as many ways to describe it as individuals. It is a unique feeling within each of us which gives us life, causes us to feel alive, gives us a passion for life or to engage life or causes us to desire to create life or recreate the life we live. In addition to these ways of describing it, it has also been described by the following: fullness of being; a fullness of life; a blossoming or flowering of our being; a feeling of expansion; a feeling of moving toward an experience of, if not into, the infinity of our being; a feeling of freedom; being in wonderment and "Ah" at creation; and an inner satisfaction within our being which never runs dry no matter what is happening in our world.

An example of the unfolding mystical path

Since probably the best way to understand the mystical path is to read the life or story of someone who came into alignment with their mystical path simply by learning to following it in life in some way, it only makes sense to provided such a story. What is provided here is the best story known by the author - namely, his own story. The details of life events which pointed to a mystical are not covered here. They are addressed in the topic most appropriate for that life event or are hyperlinked, as appropriate.

When viewed from the perspective that mysticism is the belief and practice that truths about the unknown and unseen elements of Creation may be directly apprehended by intuition and/or meditation it can be said the author has always been a mystic. From the earliest age he was aware of knowing certain things. His first mystical experience was at age three. But, he never fully understood what he experienced until almost fifty years later several years after his experience of the Ultimate Accident. His second mystical experience which gave insights into his life was at age four. But, here again he never realize it for what is was. Quite simply, he never had a context to understand those experiences for what they really represented. It was only when he had the necessary minimum set of requisite experience did he see them for what they were and gleaned from the information they carried.

The mystical path is really about the author’s relationship with the unseen creative powers/Creative Powers of Creation. If we look at the profession path as his relationship with the social, political and economic powers of the physical world, the mystical path is about his relations with the analogous aspects in the unseen world. In this regard we all have a mystical path to our life. We can write a description of our mystical path much like a resume just as we write a resume about our professional life experiences. We can discuss our experiences with the unseen Creative Powers of Creation on the mystical path much the way we discuss the types and kinds of employment we have in the seen world. However, as with the author, most of us are unaware that we have this mystical path to our life that parallels our profession path and/or the external description we give to our life.

If we wish, we could talk about what experience caused us to want to develop a relationship with the unseen world just as we can talk about those experiences that caused us to pursue any given profession. Those experiences for the author are reflected in the discussion on the subconscious journey into creativity. Similarly we could talk about our education and the types and kinds of experiences we had to become a knowledgeable practician in any give spiritual view, religious traditions or other organized approach to access the creative power of the unseen realms.

What is interesting about the mystical path is that just as many of us dreamed of becoming a certain type and kind of professional in life or doing something special, most of us had similar mystical dreams. Yet, we do not really recognize them for what they are. Often we confused them with what is expected of us by our family and society or we just considered them childish dreams. Probably at some time in our life, most of wanted to have and dreamed of having some magical powers especially to make our fears go away.

As we grew older we seemed to find and come to believe we have no such magical powers. So many look to something like God or some external authority to make their life safe. Yet, in reality, there is a magic we can access and there is a way to make or fears go away just as we dreamed of doing as children. But we were never taught we have such ability and power let alone be taught how to use them. It is much like the eaglet in the discussion “The human conditions as seen from the creativity perspective.” The eaglet keeps asking the chicken who doesn’t know how to fly, “When are you going to teach me to fly?” The mystical path is really about us learning how to access and use the unseen powers within ourselves and the unseen powers of Creation external to us.

If you had asked the author before the Ultimate Accident if he was a mystic and had a mystical side to his life, he would have said no. For the author before the Ultimate Accident, mystics were individuals who have deep religious experiences and religion was not something that really excited him. Within his enculaturation, a mystic was someone who grew into mystic or becomes a mystic after a long period of study, practice, instruction, devotion to a spiritual and religious tradition. Although he was excited about understanding or comprehending what people referred to as God and the Creative Powers of the Universe, the author did not see that having anything to do with being a mystic. In fact, even well into adulthood, he never saw spiritual and religious traditions having anything to do with understanding and accessing the Creative Powers of the Universe. The religious and spiritual traditions seemed to be directed toward finding favor with their concept of God. Then, and only then, in gaining God’s good favor, they created the possibility to access get God to create what they desired. The author perceived mysticism as a result of a spiritual or religious practice. No consideration was give to mysticism involving an active relationship with the unseen Creative Powers through our internal guidance. As he commented to a psychologist friend at age thirty-five, he never saw any separate of God from the physical world. The more he learned from science, the more he understood God. Yet he did not association such understanding and such a statement with mysticism.

Similarly, if you asked him what mysticism was, he would have responded that is has to do with being deeply immersed in religious practice. His concept and understand of mysticism was that is was something obtained/experienced within a spiritual or religious tradition. His early exposure to these concepts was that someone like a tribal shaman or medicine man and what they practiced had nothing to do with mysticism or spirituality. In fact, to his early mind, it was impossible to have a mystical experiences outside of a spiritual or religious traditions. So any experiences he had of a mystical nature was, in one way or another, dismissed and not seen for what they really were . Nor was the information these experienced provided fully captured for later use.

The author always believed the about the mystic and mysticism until he stumbled into the Source of Creation through the Ultimate Accident. Then he began to see things entirely different. The world he know and understood was turned upside down. He saw that we are all born mystics and, at one time lived, in the most creative state of being. The most creative state of being was imprinted as a feeling on our being and living in that state of being could be recovered. However, we lose the ability to live in this state of being early in life. We lose the ability to be in this state of being not because we do anything wrong as people suggest. Rather, its loss is inherent to the creative process when one is not aware of the process. Its loss is a result of the way we create the experience of Creation. We regain that ability when we become a conscious creator.

His experience of the Source of Creation caused a remembrance. Exactly what he remembered changed his life. It caused him to remember several things. One was the oneness of all that exists and that there is no separation between what humanity calls physical and spiritual. A second was what he came to do. He remembered there was an intention for his life. A third was he remembered exactly who and what he was. However, the total remembrance did not occur instantaneously. The awareness of oneness was immediate, profoundly immediate. He was simply in “ah” at what he experienced at the source/Source. The other awareness grew into being and revealed itself in a clear form about nine months later. It appeared as the awareness of the depth and breadth of our creativity and the need to access and release that unlimited creativity.

As a mystic, throughout his life he had a ways of accessing his intuitive powers to obtain information other wise unavailable to him but they were techniques he never pursued or developed. In fact, as he moved from childhood, he used them less and less. Rather, he believe what he was taught about the world and looked externally for whatever he was seeking. He rarely questioned for himself until age about eight or nine and was never taught how to look within to access information Even later in life when he learned such things as meditation, he was never taught to look within for information. Looking within for information arose in his conscious journey into exploring creativity.

Although it is now understood that author is inherently a mystic, it was not always the case. Until the author experienced the Ultimate Accident, the mystical side of the author tended to remain simply a strong and profound undercurrent in his life. Usually he was unaware of the existence of the mystical path and the influence on his life. He had access to another way of thinking about being in the world but, he never fully embraced what the mystical path was offering.

For some individuals such a statement about being unaware is not the characteristics of a mystic. However, when we understand how we create our experiences and create the reality of those experiences  we will come to see how unawareness on the part of a creator is essential to how we create an experience of Creation.

To say the author was unaware is not really correct. In hindsight, what is clear is the author’s life was much like a time capsule. The time capsule was not set to go off until a certain point in his life. This point was actually revealed in his second mystical experience of conscious memory. It appeared the early mystical path only surfaced to provide course corrections to keep him on track for what he needed to experience and accomplish in this life. It is to be noted that when he remained focused on his internal compass course corrections occurred in his life relatively quickly and magically.

In reflecting on the mystical path as it appeared early in life and through out his professional path, he had mystical experiences throughout his life. Many of the experiences were reflected in his subconscious journey into exploring creativity. Yet, he had few events that he could say really made him consciously realize he had a mystical side to his life. There were several that made him realize something was unusual. There were those few events that did create a consciousness awareness that something mystical or out of the ordinary was happening. When the mystical path revealed itself as mystical, it was usually in synchronicity in his life and through an internal pull to do certain things that often the ego had difficulty justifying such as his incessant questioning.

There are events which occurred that he consciously recognized as being out of the ordinary for his thinking. They were events that can be characterized as stretching the bounds of what his mind would call ordinary. It was not that they were too unusual or too out of the ordinary. Rather they left an “after taste” so to speak within his being in which there was a puzzlement and questions something to the effect, “Now where did that come from - is there something else at play here?” His awareness was sufficiently awake to see when something was out of the ordinary.

However, a logical reason for what happened in the "out of the ordinary" experience could be provided by his formal education and/ by the indoctrination he received by the society in which he was raised. Quite simply, ordinary people did not have mystical experiences. Mystical experiences were for mystics and mystics were some how different than ordinary people. They lived separate and away from society. So even when he experienced the Ultimate Accident it was not see as a mystical experience. Actually it was initially seen as something quite normal only with the added realization of the profound oneness/Oneness of Creation. It was in awareness of that oneness/Oneness that shattered his preconceived ideas of creation/Creation and unfolded into and understanding. It was the profoundness of the experience that took root within his consciousness. His incessant questioning caused the profoundness he felt within his being to take a form in which his mind could understand, comprehend, and eventually communicate.

Similarly, many of the mystical experiences that he did have his mind did not classify as mystical events. At the time of their occurrence, his enculturated ego was very successful at “keeping a lid” on most of the mystical path. Either his mind would discard them a being irrelevant or it found some logical way to explain their occurrence and/or dismiss them accordingly. His mind usually found a way to funnel the experience into some understanding he was taught. They were not seen for what they really were. Yet, in hindsight and viewed from within the creativity perspective, much of this was by design for there were certain experiences that needed to be had to do what he come to do and fulfill the intention for his life.

The events that really carried insights about the mystical path were not seen for what they really were until after the Ultimate Accident. In hindsight is it interesting how much information was available to him but he was unable to properly understand it. Not because it was not there. He was just not taught how to access it and become aware of it. In many ways it is like the two stories of “The Eaglet” and “The Lion Cub” found in the discussion “The Human Condition.” Additionally he had an insufficient awareness to access it himself. Not that he couldn’t do so. Rather, there was nothing in his life to cause him to go within and access it. There was nothing or no one to really call forth the depth and breadth of his creative spirit. It took an experience of compassion for another’s freedom to awaken his awareness.

Yet, this is true for each of us. There is information available to us but we are unable to properly understand it. Not because it is not there. It is just we are not taught how to access it and become aware of it. We each are the “The Eaglet” and “The Lion Cub” found in the discussion “The Human Condition.” Similarly, we don’t’ have a sufficient awareness to access it ourselves. Not that we couldn’t do so. Rather, there is nothing in our life to cause us to go within and access it. There was nothing or no one to really call forth the depth and breadth of our creative spirit.

The mystical events that did bring his conscious awareness to the mystical path were of two essential types. One type were of events were he had some form of knowing. He knew that he knew something but did not know how he knew. He just knew.

The other type of mystical events were what can best be called interventions. These were events where someone intervened in his life and essentially “broke the rule or conventional way of doing things.” The reason the individual gave appeared logical. But really the individual had no justification other than a personal preference of an individual. This second group caused him to realize there was something unseen happening in his life but he didn’t know exactly what it was.

Since so much of this early mystical path was unconscious and followed an unawareness, there is really not too much to say about the mystical path until he experienced the Ultimate Accident and the remembrance as to what he was here to do. After the Ultimate Accident, the mystical path shifted to become the dominate path and lead second half of the journey into creativity. The first half of the journey into creativity was based on the understanding obtain in on Profession Path. The second half of the journey was the surfacing of the mystical path. In time mystical path merged it into the Professional path. As such it makes no sense trying to describe the early mystical path other than relaying some of the key events that have an influence on the origins of the Releasing Your Unlimited creativity or its applications. Those events are addressed in the discussions on the origins of this material and are hyperlinked when appropriate in related discussion. Some of them you may have already accessed through the hyperlinks provided in other discussions. A mystical path time line is provided to show where these events occurred in the author’s life.

The Next Step
The Others

An Alternative step 
The recovery of a creative spirit - a soul retrieval

Index of topics related to the origins of the Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity Technology and applications
The pieces of the puzzle

Origins and Occasions
for the Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity Technology and it applications
Index of origins and occasion topics

Related topics
The Password Protected Area provides access to all currently posted (click for current loading) Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity related discussion files and applications.

Top

RYUC Home   Why free?    Contact     Links     Programs/services      Contributions