Most people move through this life not fully awake. No, they are not sleep walking. They are living without making full use of their emotions, mind and body. We must wake up to move on from this life - with all its limitations - to the divine life, which is limitless. That moving on can be here and now.
Emotionally, many persons have difficulty suppressing their anger or disappointment, yet are unable to completely convey love or joy. Mentally, most people use less than 20% of their brain’s capability, except in a crisis; much of their mind remains dormant. Physically, they seldom develop the full capacity of their bodies. Insufficient exercise, poor nutrition or inadequate medical care prevent them from attaining their physical peak. Few live with their whole being.
Wake up!, here, means to realize your full potential. The three apparent aspects of our being - emotional, mental and physical - can be complemented and enhanced by the spiritual. For some people, “spiritual” is a vague concept with no real meaning. To “have spirit,” however, is a term we recognize as a person who is vibrant, “alive” and dynamic. How can that describe any mystic, let alone a saint? Forget common conceptions. Many of them were highly spirited, very involved in life and forcefully expressed their opinions.
Their propensity for speaking out often got mystics and saints in trouble with prevailing, orthodox religious authorities. Anyone who has courage to give up their self, by discarding ego and abandoning individuality, is a person who has great inner strength. They speak Truth as it is, not the little “truths” their historical standards usually accepted. They feel unconditional Love without constraint, not with the circumspect conditions of their immediate culture. They live in the Reality that is, not in what their personal situation would more readily permit. They look beyond limited, everyday appearances.
Awake means to become alert, aware or cognizant. Perpetual mystics were alert to the distinctions between loving “someone” and divine Love, aware of differences between transient “truths” and absolute Truth, and cognizant of disparities between the apparent and the Real. With regard to the ground of being, they were seldom asleep...as most people are. They often felt that their institutional religion “imprisoned” them, its faithful and itself with a long list of dogmas, doctrines, prohibitions, and rules, and let them know it.
Examine the personal lives of some of the prominent mystics and you will find many quite colorful characters. Hui-neng of Buddhism, George Fox of Christianity, Sri Ramakrishna of Hinduism, Mansur al-Hallaj of Islam, and the Bal Shem Tov of Judaism were some of the most outspoken proponents of the mystical path. They cared little about convention and sometimes outraged leaders of their orthodox faith. George Fox, the Quaker founder, was imprisoned often; Hallaj was brutally executed. Some of the others suffered condemnation or banishment. Their mundane life was not easy.
Mystics usually were - and today are - practical, highly intelligent people dedicated to their faith. Judaism’s Abraham Isaac Kook, Islam’s Sir Muhammad Iqbal, Hinduism’s Sri Aurobindo Ghose, Christianity’s Thomas Merton, and Buddhism’s 14th Dalai Lama were both esteemed within and respected outside their religion. Although few of them spoke of it, some world leaders and business luminaries were mystics. Many mystics were common persons who lived with little fanfare. Generalities do not apply, past or present.
There have been, and still are, many outstanding female mystics. Christianity: Julian of Norwich, Bridget of Sweden, Catherine