Quotes about Mystics

And now, advice for beginning mystics. Be sober, be intelligent, be educated, rely on the tangible reality as long as you can. Remember that the act of writing is a tiny part of a bigger something. Defend the value of the spiritual experience and if somebody tells you it's an old fashioned notion, laugh loudly and serenely.

Most mystics do not want to read religious wisdom; they want to be it. A postcard of a beautiful lake is not a beautiful lake, and Sufis may be defined as those who dance in the lake.

You know, all mystics - Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion - are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare.

Every thirst gets satisfied except
that of these fish, the mystics,

who swim a vast ocean of grace
still somehow longing for it!

I do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; I seek the things they sought.

The misconception about enlightenment stems from, or is at least compounded by, the fact that most of the world's recognized experts on the subject of enlightenment are not enlightened.  Some are great mystics, some are great scholars, some are both, and most are neither, but exceedingly few are awake.

Notice [in Quantum Questions] I was not saying that modern physics itself supports or proves a mystical worldview.  I was saying the physicists themselves were mystics, and not that their discipline was a mystical or somehow spiritual endeavor resulting in a religious worldview.  In other words, I disagreed entirely with books such as The Tao of Physics and The Dancing Wu Li Masters, which claimed that modern physics supported or even proved Eastern mysticism.  This is a colossal error.  Physics is a limited, finite, relative, and partial endeavor, dealing with a very limited aspect of reality.  It does not, for example, deal with biological, psychological, economic, literary, or historical truths; whereas mysticism deals with all of that, which the Whole.  To say physics proves mysticism is like saying the tale proves the dog.

Scientists willing to risk their reputations on higher dimensions soon found themselves ridiculed by the scientific community. Higher-dimensional space became the last refuge for mystics, cranks, and charlatans.

The great and rare mystics of the past (from Buddha to Christ, from al-Hallaj to Lady Tsogyal, from Hui-neng to Hildegard) were, in fact, ahead of their time, and are still ahead of ours. In other words, they are not figures of the past. They are figures of the future.