A main point is that the focus on "peak experiences," tends to actually exclude a great deal of the people who we think of as "mystics" from the definition because they never wrote about such experiences. — Count Timothy von Icarus
In Buddhism, we distinguish between spiritual experiences and spiritual realizations. Spiritual experiences are usually more vivid and intense than realizations because they are generally accompanied by physiological and psychological changes. Realizations, on the other hand, may be felt, but the experience is less pronounced. Realization is about acquiring insight. Therefore, while realizations arise out of our spiritual experiences, they are not identical to them. Spiritual realizations are considered vastly more important because they cannot fluctuate. — Letting Go of Spiritual Experience, Traleg Kyabgon Rinpoche
Often, after waking up to myself from the body, that is, externalizing myself in relation to all other things, while entering into myself, I behold a beauty of wondrous quality, and believe then that I am most to be identified with my better part, that I enjoy the best quality of life, and have become united with the divine and situated within it, actualizing myself at that level, and situating myself above all else in the intelligible world. — Plotinus, Ennead 5.36
Are there other ways in which perennialist thinking tries to "flatten everything out"? — Janus
But I still think there's a very sound case for the universality of some forms of mystical insight. — Wayfarer
Are the attendant insights ever context-independent though? — Janus
But then, it was also constantly informed by the presence of actual teachers and exemplars of the faith, who provided a living dimension to the tradition which is generally absent in modern academic philosophy. — Wayfarer
A main point is that the focus on "peak experiences," tends to actually exclude a great deal of the people who we think of as "mystics" from the definition because they never wrote about such experiences. For example, the most famous "Beatific Vision" and "Platonic Ascent" in St. Augustine's work takes place in the Book IX of the Confessions. Yet it isn't a meditative trance but rather a conversation with his mother shortly before her death. (Book IX). Likewise, St. Bonaventure's "The Mind's Journey Into God," is cast into the mold of St. Francis' vision of the Seraphim, but that's just the mold for a heavily intellectualized ascent where the prose and ideas, not some actual singular experience, are the focus. — Count Timothy von Icarus
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