Can Mysticism Be Popular?

Mysticism is best practiced in solitude away from the eyes and ears of the multitude. This is well understood by all great teachers who urge us to find stillness and look within. Mysticism is about a personal relationship with the Divine. While this relationship leads to awareness of oneness with All that Is, paradoxically it is most easily cultivated away from society.

Once the mystical experience has been realized, it must be constantly reinforced. In all but a few individuals, the experience fades and becomes unfamiliar if the individual allows the practice of quiet meditation to lapse. In other times, most who sought this experience lived monastic lives in which they were permanently isolated from the distractions of secular life.

Contemporary teachers stress that the times demand that mysticism emerge from the monastery. There is a sense of compelling urgency about broadening the scope of mystical experience not for the benefit of the individual, but for the benefit of all - all beings and all things, whether or not sentient or even animate. This is because humanity as a species has achieved the ability to destroy itself and every other form of life on this planet; and at times seems hell-bent on exercising that ability. Salvation, it seems, can come only by bringing a larger proportion of humanity into direct contact with Divine Spirit than has ever been the case in the past. There is a sense that once a certain critical mass of souls has achieved a sense of Oneness, the scale will tip in the direction of survival rather than annihilation.