~~mysticism within reading response
Sep. 10th, 2002 05:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
reenkawrote a longish response to a post in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
illuminations about what were people's experiences with spirituality and/or mysticism like while reading. and since i find the topic fascinating (any analysis of reading, really), ....
~~
hm. this is dependent on what a `mystical/spiritual experience' would entail, methinks.
personally, i have overwhelming higher-brain-type awed feelings, a lot. like, it doesn't take much for me. i can get those angels (metaphorically) singing in my head, looking at clouds, and trees, and realizing something about human nature-- and of course, often enough, reading.
but you said you wanted details.
if i like a piece, if i bond with it deeply, if it really means something to me, it usually makes me tear up, and shiver, and go, "Yes".
i'm not sure what it's "supposed" to be like. are mystical "revelations" supposed to hit you with some sort of Higher Knowledge, or a Union with the Universe, or what? both knowledge and unions are easy to come by. you just sort of sit still and really look and really listen and you can hear the background hum of things.
usually, in reading, it's more of a finding of myself, of a realization of the fullness of the beauty of life & the complexities of human nature. it's sort of more, "yes, that's the way it is, after all."
reading rilke's prose or poetry, or kahlil gibran's, for example, i get this warm sense of understanding-- not only that i, somehow, am being understood-- but like, i'm understanding myself, and understanding them, and seeing how they had conceived my own conceptions before me, thus understanding me without ever knowing me. reading loren eiseley's non-fiction, my breath gets caught in my throat, and i'm just overwhelmed because i remember (again) how beautiful everything is, and how mysterious life is. i suppose it's that, after all, that is the mystical experience within reading.
seeing the Mystery, enclosed in words.
but it's hard to encapsulate it and describe it. it's an effervescent feeling, non-verbal, shivery. it's a sort of resolution, a lifting of weight. suddenly, the veil is lifted, and it's just startlingly obvious how beautiful the physical universe is (with eiseley, anyway) and how perfectly we (as human beings) fit inside it.
another way to have a mystical experience, i suppose, is that Sense of Wonder, in reading science fiction. it's a strange sub-flavor of mysticism or spirituality, if it is one. i think it is. you get the sense of being able to encompass these huge distances, of being able to walk among the stars, to see different planets and all the amazing, never-seen-by-human-eyes phenomena that are surely plentiful in deep space.
the world expands. you're no longer trapped in your day, your town, your country, your world, your century.
you realize you're just on this one little planet, out of countless others. you are a tiny speck, in a huge galaxy, which is only one of countless other galaxies, and unmentionable, unimaginable possibilities exist for all the different things that could be found -- out there.
everything seems larger. seems to fit together, all of a sudden. i think thinking about astrophysics does this too~:)
but it's even better when you actually place the human beings in this tapestry, in this new landscape. you paint this picture of infinity and then you actually put a person's eye-view somewhere right in the midst of it.
vernor vinge, nancy kress, arthur c clarke write like that (off the top of my head). it's like, even more mystical to me, to apply these rigorous rules and a rationalistic method to things that would otherwise inspire wordless awe. to just sort of bring us up to that level. you get the feeling like the mind can truly encompass it, like there are limitless things for humans to be, that after all, evolution isn't over and who knows who we might become. the sort of wonderment of realizing that we have no clue as to the reaches of our own minds, as unexplored as outer space. not in a touchy-feely abstract sort of way, but in a concrete, and this is what is possible, descriptive sort of way.
--and this is what is possible to understand, and this is what is possible to see, and this is what is possible for humanity to become-- science fiction tries to say.
it is this sense, of both understanding & the realization of the barely-begun journey to understanding-- like, you understand this one thing, and that allows you to realize there are so many after it, that you've barely begun to touch. those together are what make up my own vision of a 'mystical experience'. that, combined with the physical sensation, the concrete experience of it all coalescing in your mind, of suddenly being able to -touch- beauty. just, your imagination gets that leg-up, and you're on the next step up now, and it's a startlingly wider vista all of a sudden.
um. anyway.
yeah. so i suppose it's two types, for me anyway. communication, or bonding, emotional resonance with the words, or wonderment, and the sense that there are new pathways to follow beyond your present understanding, and the words are just pointing you in a new direction, and you're not even sure where it leads, but the sense of a -space- to explore there, is palpable.
um. well, that's all so far~:)
illuminations about what were people's experiences with spirituality and/or mysticism like while reading. and since i find the topic fascinating (any analysis of reading, really), ....~~
hm. this is dependent on what a `mystical/spiritual experience' would entail, methinks.
personally, i have overwhelming higher-brain-type awed feelings, a lot. like, it doesn't take much for me. i can get those angels (metaphorically) singing in my head, looking at clouds, and trees, and realizing something about human nature-- and of course, often enough, reading.
but you said you wanted details.
if i like a piece, if i bond with it deeply, if it really means something to me, it usually makes me tear up, and shiver, and go, "Yes".
i'm not sure what it's "supposed" to be like. are mystical "revelations" supposed to hit you with some sort of Higher Knowledge, or a Union with the Universe, or what? both knowledge and unions are easy to come by. you just sort of sit still and really look and really listen and you can hear the background hum of things.
usually, in reading, it's more of a finding of myself, of a realization of the fullness of the beauty of life & the complexities of human nature. it's sort of more, "yes, that's the way it is, after all."
reading rilke's prose or poetry, or kahlil gibran's, for example, i get this warm sense of understanding-- not only that i, somehow, am being understood-- but like, i'm understanding myself, and understanding them, and seeing how they had conceived my own conceptions before me, thus understanding me without ever knowing me. reading loren eiseley's non-fiction, my breath gets caught in my throat, and i'm just overwhelmed because i remember (again) how beautiful everything is, and how mysterious life is. i suppose it's that, after all, that is the mystical experience within reading.
seeing the Mystery, enclosed in words.
but it's hard to encapsulate it and describe it. it's an effervescent feeling, non-verbal, shivery. it's a sort of resolution, a lifting of weight. suddenly, the veil is lifted, and it's just startlingly obvious how beautiful the physical universe is (with eiseley, anyway) and how perfectly we (as human beings) fit inside it.
another way to have a mystical experience, i suppose, is that Sense of Wonder, in reading science fiction. it's a strange sub-flavor of mysticism or spirituality, if it is one. i think it is. you get the sense of being able to encompass these huge distances, of being able to walk among the stars, to see different planets and all the amazing, never-seen-by-human-eyes phenomena that are surely plentiful in deep space.
the world expands. you're no longer trapped in your day, your town, your country, your world, your century.
you realize you're just on this one little planet, out of countless others. you are a tiny speck, in a huge galaxy, which is only one of countless other galaxies, and unmentionable, unimaginable possibilities exist for all the different things that could be found -- out there.
everything seems larger. seems to fit together, all of a sudden. i think thinking about astrophysics does this too~:)
but it's even better when you actually place the human beings in this tapestry, in this new landscape. you paint this picture of infinity and then you actually put a person's eye-view somewhere right in the midst of it.
vernor vinge, nancy kress, arthur c clarke write like that (off the top of my head). it's like, even more mystical to me, to apply these rigorous rules and a rationalistic method to things that would otherwise inspire wordless awe. to just sort of bring us up to that level. you get the feeling like the mind can truly encompass it, like there are limitless things for humans to be, that after all, evolution isn't over and who knows who we might become. the sort of wonderment of realizing that we have no clue as to the reaches of our own minds, as unexplored as outer space. not in a touchy-feely abstract sort of way, but in a concrete, and this is what is possible, descriptive sort of way.
--and this is what is possible to understand, and this is what is possible to see, and this is what is possible for humanity to become-- science fiction tries to say.
it is this sense, of both understanding & the realization of the barely-begun journey to understanding-- like, you understand this one thing, and that allows you to realize there are so many after it, that you've barely begun to touch. those together are what make up my own vision of a 'mystical experience'. that, combined with the physical sensation, the concrete experience of it all coalescing in your mind, of suddenly being able to -touch- beauty. just, your imagination gets that leg-up, and you're on the next step up now, and it's a startlingly wider vista all of a sudden.
um. anyway.
yeah. so i suppose it's two types, for me anyway. communication, or bonding, emotional resonance with the words, or wonderment, and the sense that there are new pathways to follow beyond your present understanding, and the words are just pointing you in a new direction, and you're not even sure where it leads, but the sense of a -space- to explore there, is palpable.
um. well, that's all so far~:)
