“All we can say for sure is that a mystery comes through us, seeking its own fullest incarnation, and that whenever we serve the mystery within us, we experience a linkage to the mystery outside. When we stand in conscious relationship to the mystery, we are more deeply alive.” James Hollis Swamplands of the Soul.
I encountered this quote many years ago, wrote it down without really comprehending its power and meaning. However it resonated; I began a morning affirmation: “To explore my relationship with the Mystery”, I began to examine the journey of my life in context of mystery. I kept track in a journal dedicated to recording moments of awe and wonder, remarkable synchronicities, and other mystical experiences.
Recently a friend of mine completed a soul collage, a practice to facilitate inner exploration and and told me her title was “Engaging the Mystery”. I felt drawn back to the original quote like a moth drawn to light. What does it mean to serve the mystery within us? How do we experience a linkage to the mystery outside? Does it result in feeling more deeply alive?
Defining Mystery
This is obviously a contradiction of terms, as if we could define the mystery. It would no longer be mystery. However, the mystery will at times represent different things, depending upon where we are on our personal journey. Eminent Jungian analyst and author James Hollis in his book Creating a Life basically indicates that when atheism and agnosticism no longer served him, he reluctantly concluded that it was all “a blooming mystery.” In my case it is the name I have given to the limited sense of transcendence I still sense. Once I had traversed various stages in my spiritual journey – God as the father figure, the universe as a benevolent source of supply, God as the lover, God as the arbiter of my conscious evolution, and various combinations of each, I came to the realization I could only see it as a mystery. I believe in something but have no idea what. I love the observation by Buddhist teacher and author Steven Mitchell, “as soon as we say God is anything we are a billion light years away.”
Serving The Mystery Within
I sense I began serving the mystery within without even seeing it that way. I began to meditate in 1994. I recall I started more as a stress reduction modality. A renowned Buddhist teacher Jon Kabot-Zyn extolled the benefits in terms of stress reduction, boosting the immune system and emotional stability. It was the first commitment I made to what I now consider a spiritual practice. In hindsight I suspect it was a catalyst for everything that happened afterwards. Perhaps sitting to meditate was akin to the obelisk in 2001 A Space Odyssey sending out a signal that I was ready to engage the mystery.
Now I believe there are two primary requirements for serving the mystery. First the intentional. We start to explore possibilities that work for us. I think each of us must develop our own lexicon of practices. Mine include: meditation, contemplation, walking in beauty and nature, listening to sacred music, soulful literature and poetry, engaging with the arts. My sacred texts include both the Spiritual and the psychological.
The second requirement is to pay attention to that which approaches us from within. This includes dreams, feelings, visions our own mystic experiences, energy, and emotions. Mystic experiences are hard to define as they are experiential and perhaps meaningful only to us. For example, last year I walked into Durham Cathedral in the UK where they were engaged in a choral service. In that moment, tears, laughter, confusion and mystery combined into a moment I can’t explain. I believe that this combination of intention and attention create a field of possibility for the mystery to engage with us in the external reality.
Experiencing The Mystery Outside
This is so personal, and mostly experienced through inexplicable stories. So conclusions are difficult to draw. My own experience suggests that the mystery can open to us in the outer world in a variety of ways – psychic experiences, increased synchronicities, an activated intuition, signs, somatic experience through the body, divination tools and oracles. All we can do is pay close attention, and do our best to interpret the meaning of such things. (Hollis refers to synchronicity as the manifestation of energies moving through the invisible world and entering the visible world as seeming coincidence.”)
Here are some examples from my own and other people’s lives.
⁃ I had a psychic love affair. Impossible to explain or even understand, but it resulted in a total change of my worldview and a pursuit of spiritual inquiry, which has never ceased.
⁃ A friend of mine woke one day with the thought “I need to see Trevor”. It appeared improbable as simultaneously I was at the airport checking for my flighty to the sun of Mexico. Except only my flight was delayed to the next day. Somewhat reluctantly I retraced my steps home and spontaneously walked to Granville Island. I decided to pop into his part-time office and see if he was free for lunch. He got his wish after all.
⁃ Another friend, after a life threatening accident, began to explore her inner world. She later fulfilled her dream to become the lead guitarist for a major group. While performing recently she began to suffer from the “imposter syndrome”. She began to explore the underlying cause. Within a few days she received numerous spontaneous endorsements of her ability as well as a guitar manufacturer giving her two guitars as a an appreciation for her talent.
⁃ I was with a friend one evening and we drew Tarot cards. From a well shuffled deck of 74 cards we both drew the same card – the odds of this are .00018! The card read, “By love the dead are made living.” It meant nothing to either of us. The next day I got the sad news a friend of mine had died unexpectedly from a heart attack.
⁃ I am attending a retreat at Unity Village in Missouri. On the final day, a fellow retreatant handed me a cassette tape and stated, “God told me to give you this.” I threw it in my bag. Three days later I suffered a spiritual/emotional crisis and heard the still small voice in my head suggest I listen to it. It introduced me to the cosmic 2×4. I could go on and on. To me these are all ways the mystery inside engage in the mystery outside.
⁃ I am preparing an article for a newsletter I have interviewed a candidate and am struggling to find a coherent thread. My throat closes up; I think ”it is hard to swallow”, I laugh and move on to another story. My throat spontaneously opens again
It seems the mystery has a sense of humour!
In Conscious Relationship With The Mystery We Are More Deeply Alive
I think I feel more alive when I feel hope. Sometimes I think Homo Sapiens is a failed experiment but experiencing the mystery in these ways help me to believe that somewhere there may be something that makes sense of this mess. In addition experiencing meaning in my own life creates a sense of vitality and joy that invigorates me. Finally at 79 I still feel so alive and loving of my life. I cannot claim there is cause and effect. I have witnessed too many bad things happen to good people yet I do believe we can increase our sense of well being through engaging with this mystery both spiritually and psychologically.
This feels significant to me. James Hollis suggests that facing death it is important that we had a linkage with a larger order of meaning, some connection with the mystery that courses through history and animates the individual soul. Perhaps this is one way we can achieve this connection.
SoulClarity 