Musings on the “engaged mystic”

The mystics of the world wisdom traditions’ have traditionally been hidden or if visible, lived apart from the world to cultivate their own realization and teach the worthy (and even the unworthy) who come to drink at their well.

They are also the ones to hold the invisible fabric of the world’s transformational energies together in a coherent field that supports the upliftment of those of lesser attainment and of the whole of humanity. In some ways, this is even more important than the visible spiritual teaching.

But now it’s time that the mystics step out of the shadows into active engagement with the social and political, because they are the ones who have the power to harmonize the increasingly-polarized social and political spheres. They are the ones who can truly and deeply perceive the polarities, their ideals, and the distortions of those ideals as they are practiced, and through this understanding do more than find commonalities, but actually uplift the consciousness’ of the stakeholders into the larger possibilities where the polarities just have less meaning and power.

Spirit is primary — not because it’s hip, but because the worlds of form (including the archetypal realms) are precipitated/concretized out of something much more fundamental, which is pure impulse beyond mind and form. The real mystics perceive this directly and can navigate its movements.

The engaged mystic is also the exemplar for the full integration of the spiritual with the material, the unfolding/evolving of the soul with the bodymind in its socio-politcal-ecological context. We don’t have ready models or many exemplars for this, so it is part of humanity’s growing edge and we are working-out how it works as we go along.

What do you think?