States of Altered Consciousness - Assignment Example

Midterm Exam Part Question Mystical experience, its main characteristics, and manifestation The mystical experienceThese are experiences felt beyond the realms of normal consciousness, rarely called states of altered consciousness. Such states can involve overwhelming awareness of space, physical reality and time. Mystical experience often challenge physical description, and may best be solely hinted at. These experiences share common characteristics and are universal, despite the religion and culture in which they occur. Such experiences are always spiritual, though they may not be; they are not limited to priests or monks. However, all individual religious experiences are entrenched in mystical states of consciousness, yet all mystical experiences are partially religious. Although mystical experiences occur commonly, they happen unbidden to someone perhaps once or severally in a lifetime. Mystical experiences are for example, those of oneness with nature and the deeper self, the mystic is always a tragic form, torn by the tensions between the soul and the body, between the spiritual and physical. He is beleaguered by his bodily chains that limit him to this meager realism; he is drawn to the elusive, he longs for the inspiring, for the best. He desires to free himself, to rise further. The world surrounding him is a dark, awful place, his spirit sores and soars, attempting to flee its worldly prison. William James identified four Mystical characteristics; Ineffability, where mystical states are more similar to states of feeling than intelligence, slightly shaded with fine nuances that are hard to express in their import and splendor to another. As a result, much mystical writing is filled with symbolism and paradoxes1. Noetic quality experiences are conditions of insight, knowledge, revelation, awareness, and illumination beyond the grab of the intelligence. There is knowledge of unity with the totality, of immorality of the soul, of immense truths. Space and time are exceeded. Transiency, mystical experiences fleet in linear time, even though they tend to be eternal. It is rare to maintain a mystical state for long hours. For instance, Eastern adepts are capable of sustaining prolonged stages of Samadhi, a mystical condition of one-pointed meditation; and some allegedly are able to maintain the highest states of nirvana. Passivity, the personal feels held by a greater power and swept up. This can be accompanied by a feeling of division from bodily consciousness, trance, or phenomena like automatists, healing powers, voices, and visions. Such examples are viewed in Eastern thought as conditions of pseudo-enlightenment. Religious mysticism makes schools and accumulates traditions, much less common than people think. For example, in Christianity, mysticism is usually self-indulgent and ascetic in nature; in the Vedanta institution it is monistic, in the Sankhya institution it is dualistic. Since mystical experiences vary to a large degree, the mystical feeling of union, emancipation, and enlargement has no specific rational content on its own. Therefore, the non-mystic is ever gratified to confer a greater authority to the experience or to the mystic. Mystical consciousness simplifies the way in which truth is procured more significantly. The truth or validity-revealing character of a mystical experience as with other knowledge does not depend on the validity of the integrated theories such as those determined by the culture within which the experience is felt. The validity of the integrated speculation is relative to the know-how led to them earlier and the experiences which are made possible by themselves. It must be likely for the experience smash through the theories inclusive of the incorporated theories and make people to remake them. More positively, mysticism might help to liberate traditions from most of its deforming influences. Part II. Question 6 The life and works of St. Theresa of Avila In mid-life, St. Teresa underwent a deep conversion experience, saddened by an image of the injured Christ and reading of the St. Augustine confessions, moved her ultimately to progress steadfastly in a single direction. The overdue resolution of her effort to integrate closeness with God and her autonomous selfhood, demonstrated by her wanting her way, desiring God but so much besides, enabled her to confer between self-centered and generativity impulses, as it reduced these impulses and made Teresa more responsive and attentive to God and to human beings. Her hallmark life from this point onwards in her middle adulthood increased continuously. She started and carried out the Carmel reform, founding over many renewed convents in Spain and she became a creative spiritual writer. Further, even though she wrote about her life when in middle adulthood, we can glimpse her resolution of the dispute despair and integrity: her project of self-literature shows that she perceived Coherence, a pattern, meaningfulness, throughout her life. St. Teresa was also very aware of her personal human limitations and of the activity and presence of grace, God’s unmerited and free gift of himself, manifested in her life. St Teresa’s writings have been classics of Christian mysticism. Her words are less theoretical and abstract than her friend, and no less noteworthy for the brilliancy of their ability to express with both rigor and warmth some flavor of this extraordinary experience; uniting with God. St. Theresa’s autobiography may well be the best way to know her work and to realize the great mystical literature of Christianity. Her autobiography describes her education and early life, the crisis and conflicts she underwent, leading to her determination to fully dedicate her into prayers. Teresa of Avila wrote her popular books that continue to help in spiritual development, an impressive act, considering that she lived in the 16th century. A Christian mystic, the awareness that she passed on in her writings was very highly esteemed, in that she became the first woman to be given a “doctor” title by the Catholic Church. Political ad religious leaders sought her advice whenever need arose. Her ideas transformed religious life, especially on the emphasis on equality of all order members, and her teachings on nurturing spiritual life based on prayer, revolutionize life to date. Other popular works she printed and still circulate include: “The way of perfection,” and “The interior castle.” The extra ordinary facet of her life rotates around her commitment to attempting to learn better ways communicate to God and see him in her life, which laid a foundation for her prayer life. Christian witnesses attended her church hoping to see her rise off the ground in joy, and she devotes some of the books to define differences between various states of rapture and joy. She also highlights various ways in which people may hear God’s voice; some relate to spirits, which may interest the reader, as they are claimed to be in existence in the contemporary life2. St. Theresa Avila is more than a mystic. Indeed, her works are well known in the cloister and act as nourishment to many people who are more advanced on perfection way, and who, with lack of her help, would still be learners in the life of prayer. But they have as well entered the homes of multitudes living on the globe and have brought assurance, consolation, strength, and hope to souls who, in practical sense, are ignorant of the life of contemplation. As she devoted herself, with the most wonderful tenacity and persistence, to the inspirational task given to man, that is, the effort to guide other people towards perfection, she thrived so well in this duty that she is appreciated everywhere as an extremely gifted teacher, who has discovered, more possibly than those who came before her, the extent and nature of the gifts which God has laid in the lives of those who love him. Work Cited Underhill, Evelyn. Mystics of the Church. New York: lightning Source Incorporated, 2003. Print. Read More