Metaphysics and Mysticism - Term Paper Example

?Running Head: METAPHYSICS AND MYSTICISM Metaphysics and Mysticism Metaphysics and Mysticism Outline This paper would discuss and evaluate the topic regarding Mysticism and how it relates to Metaphysics analytically. In philosophical domains and arena, there is found controversy that if there is some relation between metaphysics and mysticism or both are different domains which do not exercise impact on each other. Thesis Statement Mysticism and metaphysics have strong relations with each other. Both these disciplines supplement each others and have close affiliations and interpretive association with each other. Organization of the Paper The paper will be developed on the foundations of one argument to another. Various sections would analyze both the positions and stances. All relevant detailed philosophies and theories would also be considered. The main stance of the paper is a defense of the mysticism argument, not a critic of it. Analysis of the Controversial Views regarding Correlation between Metaphysics and Mysticism Every man and woman that has the desire to understand and know beyond the accepted limitations of physical reality is attracted to the unknown, and by this attraction, be pushed to learn what many do not and wish not. Everything that exists, whether inanimate or not, is connected with an energy binding all things together; to understand this, is to understand the basic principles of Metaphysics. Metaphysics encircles everything that we can perceive through our five senses. Metaphysical belief pushes beyond what is taught in the church or in the Bible, even. It allows one to go outside and sit with the rest of everything that has been created without the hands of man, that is still pure, and be able to feel what it's like to be the grass and the soil. Metaphysics is a way of life to many, and it is taught without teachers. These pages will contain a very brief introduction and explanation of metaphysics and several of its branches of ideas and philosophies. Some scholars believe that Aristotle's "Metaphysics" is only the follow-up or sequel to his extremely well renowned "Physics"; Meaning that Aristotle did not pioneer the spirituality that is now an important part in today's Metaphysics. "All men by nature, desire to know. An indication of this is the delight in our senses; for even apart from their usefulness, they are loved for themselves; and above all others, the sense of sight (Aristotle, 1977)." The first line of Aristotle's "Metaphysics" immediately shows his recognition that the typical five senses perceived by every capable human, are used only in the idea that they are the only way to perceive. Aristotle also states that "All men desire to know." (Aristotle, 1977), allowing the argument that his thoughts were going toward that of which we cannot know from the five senses that we are born aware of. The argument as to Aristotle's beliefs in the subject can go either way because of an extremely important factor. So one may interpret Aristotle's work as one wishes, it was still his ideas that laid down the essential framework to get the Metaphysical idea moving. Discussion In order for anybody to be able to understand the following ideas and theories, one should take time to put themselves in an open-minded and relaxed state. Once you have entered this state, you will be able to comprehend and understand to the fullest of your capabilities. Relaxation is the ultimate medium for learning, and by being in control of your stress, you can be relaxed whenever you feel the need to, allowing quicker learning and easier understanding. Now things are going to get a little complicated and may begin to get confusing. First of all, there are three divisions of the mind; the conscious, subconscious, and superconscious. (Furse, 1977) These three divisions of the mind control the way we perceive and interact with others, ourselves, and our environment in general. We use these states of consciousness, sometimes entirely unaware of it, for different purposes and for different environments that our mind (not the brain) perceives. Occasionally you will have an idea that makes no sense, or you will suddenly think of something like a word that stands out in your mind and you have no clue why you are thinking about it, but you look around and notice that it was on a poster. That is usually when the subconscious mind has noticed something that the conscious mind has not. Working completely independent and hidden from the rest is the superconscious mind. The ability to harness the power given to one after self-realization and personal enlightenment allows perception of all the sense to be dramatically heightened and for communication to be achieved on a higher level, without any sort of physical action. The conscious mind uses the self-image or "the ego" as the way it perceives its own physical and mental state (Bridges, 1970). For example, the ego may perceive the physical appearance of oneself as excessively overweight, when in reality they are in perfect physical condition. Distortions of the ego's self-image can lead to eating disorders such as bulimia and anemia. All of our active thinking takes place within the conscious mind and is typically filtered through the ego (Clark, 1965). This state is very set in its understanding and perception, and can get confused when trying to realize the other parts of the mind. The ego can stop one from achieving the self-realization and personal harmony that many followers of the metaphysical ways wish to achieve. In order this harmony and understanding, you must free yourself of most of the beliefs that bind you, and open your mind to everything. Such is hard to accomplish with forces working against you. The ego being one of those forces, tries to block out the thoughts that we receive while in the subconscious state, or even the thoughts that the subconscious is sending while in the conscious state. After the ego has been erased, which takes an incredible amount of time and discipline, will you then be able to achieve full self-realization. Metaphysics has two common areas that are often treated with great discrimination as to the amount of truth held within these areas. Occultism and Mysticism are these two areas, and they are much different in ideas and practices, but both follow the same guidelines as to the way their knowledge is gained. Read the following explanations and try to decide which one sounds the most reasonable. These ideas are simply ways of interpreting some of the questions and confusion that are commonly associated with life. As with any good theory, Metaphysics is open for interpretation by anyone to fit their needs. Mysticism and Metaphysics Relation The term "mysticism" has come to mean two distinct things in the Occident--a theory of reality and a doctrine regarding the way in which the human individual may gain union with reality. In the first sense mysticism is the theory that there is one all-inclusive real being, but that this being can have no further description. The falsification involved in epithets like finite, infinite, good, holy, spirit and loving arises from what they deny, since every descriptive asserted carries with it the denial of its opposite. Thus, that which is "good," as we conceive goodness cannot be not-good in the same sense; whereas the One cannot be assigned a quality, distinct from its being, to which our human distinction of good and not-good applies. (Danto, 1976) If the theoretical mystic were simply one who makes a thoroughgoing principle of being wary of the traps set by our "concepts," he would have a great deal of company in modern times. Bergson would join him on that ground, assigning all conceptual knowledge to the intellect, which has to be content with aspects of things, while the full-rounded truth, at least regarding everything that has life and "inwardness," can be had only through intuition, which can "coincide" with that inwardness. He would be joined also by a great group of thinkers and non-thinkers who, on various grounds, simply doubt that our minds were given us to know metaphysical reality at all. Dewey and James would unite here with Kant and Spencer and many of the "average man," for whom thought is a kind of adjustment, and truth a matter of getting a working hypothesis regarding the environment with which we actually deal--ergo, essentially "relative." These would agree with "logical positivism," and all with the mystic, that the question whether reality is "mental" or "non-mental is "nonsense," because there is no way to decide between them. The real eludes our judgments about its nature; but this is another way of saying that it makes no difference to us what it is and that we may as well ignore it entirely. But the mystic is a better logician than all these. He has, in fact, made a fundamental logical discovery--that there is an important middle course between yes and no. If you ask the mystic whether there is a God, yes or no, he ought not to answer without knowing what you mean by "God"; at which point he should say, "No, not that God." He is not a theist. On the other hand, he is not an atheist; for he believes "that God is." He stoutly affirms "that" God exists while denying that he knows "what" God is. He throws himself open to the rebuke that if you have no idea what God is, your affirmation that he is becomes wholly meaningless; or, in other words, if you mean anything at all when you say, "God is," you must have some notion of God. The mystic replies that his affirmation is of the utmost significance for (1) it saves him from despair regarding the reality of the world and therefore the seriousness of life; and (2) it keeps him in active search for that grasp of God's nature which no concept can contain. There must be, he maintains, some other way of apprehending God than by concepts. Kant, Metaphysics and Mysticism Relation The mystic has the better of the argument, and his final answer reminds us strongly of Kant's proposal that reason in metaphysics should be used to "regulate," not to "construct." It directs our thinking processes without offering us solutions. It commands activity without promising any goal. But it is at this point that the theoretical mystic ought to turn into the practical mystic, who has a way of gaining union with God other than by concepts. Indeed, it is only in the Occident that these two sides of mysticism fall apart. In the Orient, speculative mysticism as we find it in the Vedanta, Taoism, and Mahayana Buddhism of the Nagarjuni School, is a way of salvation. The theory is a mere auxiliary, explaining why the devotee carries on his peculiar way of finding God. Now, practical mysticism continues to exist only because men in considerable numbers have come to believe that there is a mode of experience which can properly be called "an experience of God" or "an experience of union with God," and that this mode of experience is (1) of the utmost practical importance and (2) attainable by following the right discipline. Heroic leaders have found "the Way." Their instructions may guide their followers to a similar success. Here the mystic falls into war with the entire recent trend of modernity, since the trend of our time, looking at the mystic's person and his accomplishments is to judge (1) that, far from being important, the mystic's achievement only makes him queer, subjective, and out of gear, and (2) that he has no way of distinguishing his "experiences" from various types of auto suggestive exhilaration. One should be nearer the historic truth, as well as more liberal, to regard mysticism first as an experience, and let its metaphysics come as a resultant, an inference, a presupposition. There is a minimum of theory without which mysticism cannot develop even as an experience--perhaps this: that God is one, and that it is possible to be one with him. Historically the mystics are those who have carried the common art of worship to the degree of virtuosoship, they are those who have won eminent experimental knowledge of the way to God. The mystic in his immediate and initial intent is he who advances and admits God in an instant action called adoration or worship; and mysticism must be comprehended and learnt by way of this objective. If this is a factual rule of elucidation, it will bring about some reconsideration of what both the disciplines i.e. psychology and metaphysics have up till now had to articulate of mysticism. (Whitehead, 1938) According to Stace, "Mystics" are persons who say, or of whom it is said, that they have had immediate experience of God--or of the eminent, supreme, or unsurpassable Reality; but the term mystic is also used to denote a person who insists that this Reality is ineffable or can only be characterized in paradoxical or, at least seemingly, contradictory ways. (Stace, 1960). The Unsurpassable must be unsurpassably pervasive, that is to say, ubiquitous. It must be where anything is. Moreover, its existence must be the essential factor in the existence of all lesser realities. Hence to be anywhere is to be in the right place to experience It; to experience anything is to experience an X-related-to-It, thus to experience It. It cannot be merely behind, but must be in, everything; not merely in the reality which appears but in the appearance itself; not merely in the world experienced but in the experience. Thus to claim not to experience God--or Brahman--is no less paradoxical than the contradictory claim. The older cultures that have depreciated rationalistic metaphysics, chiefly those of India, Southeast Asia, and Japan, have had to turn to more rationalistic cultures for much of their science and technology. Perhaps this implies that mysticism alone is not enough. This seems all the more likely when we consider that China has turned to a radically nonmystical philosophy as basis for its striking advances in practical matters. Conclusion The above discussion proves that metaphysics and mysticism are closely associated with each other. In the filed of philosophy, these two notions go hand by hand and supplement each other. It is indeed true that the mystical cultures have been less militaristic, with the temporary and problematic exception of Japan, whose Shintoism is perhaps hard to classify in this regard. For this reason alone we should take seriously the possibility that we have something to learn from these cultures. The challenge of mysticism needs to be taken seriously. Yet it seems to me unlikely that metaphysicians attempting to be rational can be dispensed with. Merely to mediate between religion, however mystical, and science, or between widely different religions, or widely different sciences, such as physics and psychology, we must have such metaphysicians. We can never arrive in science at an unconditional explanation of the form, so-and-so must exist, and therefore so-and-so must follow. In trying to find such an unconditional explanation of things, we would be trying to apply our categories of explanation outside all possible experience; for all conceivable experience is experience of a sequence of events in time, the earlier events in the sequence determining the later. We do not even know what would be meant by a kind of experience which did not fall into this form. The word 'experience' itself would have lost all meaning for us. Of course we may string words together in sentences and talk of some necessarily existing being or timeless reality. But if we say anything positive about such timeless realities, we find ourselves talking in a void. Our words are empty. It no longer matters what we assert or what we deny about this timeless reality, which must lie beyond all possible experience. Anything goes; and there is no way, even in principle, of distinguishing truth from falsity in this kind of discourse; and this is the same as to say that all statements about transcendental realities are without content, empty. The forms of language itself show what this context is, and they are what they are because of it. Underneath all the particular grammars of particular languages, there is a deeper grammar which reflects the universal features of human experience, that is, the position of persons as observers in space and time of a succession of events. For instance, we have to think of our experience as an experience of things, existing in space and persisting as the same things through time with changing qualities. This is part of the unavoidable grammar of our thought, equally part of the unavoidable nature of experience. We cannot think it away. But at the same time we are aware of this limitation on our thought and experience as a limitation; and this is why we are tempted, hopelessly, into metaphysical speculation, trying to break the bonds, as it were, where the bonds are the necessary forms of experience as we know it. All we can do, as philosophers, is to penetrate to this deeper grammar, which reflects the presuppositions of all our thought and experience; and then we shall realize why it is that our knowledge can never be complete, and why we can never have unconditional explanations of the nature of things, as they are in themselves, apart from the conditions of our experience of them. Deductive metaphysics, system-building of the old kind, has never recovered from Kant's criticism, and it ever will. The old idea that a philosopher might deduce by pure reason what must have been the origin of things, and what must be the structure of the universe, at least in outline, seems to me to have been killed stone dead. References Aristotle (Author), John H. McMahon (Translator) (1991) The Metaphysics: Aristotle (Great Books in Philosophy) Prometheus Books Bridges Hal. American Mysticism from William James to Zen. New York: Harper and Row, 1970. Clark Walter Houston. "Mysticism as a basic concept in defining the religious self," in From Religious Experience to a Religious Attitude, A. Godin, ed. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1965, pp. 31-42. Danto Arthur C. Mysticism and Morality. New York: Basic Books, Inc., Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1976. Furse Margaret Lewis. Mysticism: Window on a World View. Nashville: Abingdon, 1977. Stace, W. T. Religion and the Modern Mind (Philadelphia, New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1960), part III. Whitehead, A. N. Modes of Thought (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1938), pp. 140-42. Read More