Practical Mysticism Chapter 5
Apr. 4th, 2026 08:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rocascearcallThe true self is hidden from us. That is one of the mysteries of mysticism. If we are to achieve gnosis and a true understanding of the divine, we first have to achieve an understanding of ourselves. Very few people actually have that, though many think they do.
We live in a society that places a priority on masks. We connect to a series of labels and define our personalities by them. But these are external fictions not internal realities. We are more than our interests and political affiliations and the little tribes we separate into. If we look inside, past the masks, we risk finding that the things that we have told ourselves we value may not be important at all or may actually be counter to our true selves. That can shatter our sense of identity, though the identity that is broken is a surface level image that isn’t even truly ours. It’s a fantasy constructed by a group mind.
As Underhill points out, beneath that, we find that unease, disharmony, and confusion. The external world has conditioned us for a group-based identity that is forced upon us rather than knowledge of the self as individual, unique, and divine. Breaking through that can be difficult. In the beginning, we lack the skill and the strength to do so, which is part of why we seek training in seminaries and esoteric organizations. It’s like a personal trainer for the spirit.
We re-model ourselves the way that a person may go to a gym and re-model their body, stripping away the extraneous fat that does little for us but make us sick and then work to strengthen the muscles that will help us become aware of our true nature, which is hidden inside the wastes we have accumulated throughout our lives. We break the old habits and desires that have restrained and hidden our higher nature from us.
That hidden nature longs for reunification with the One, with the divine, and it is the work of the mystic to attain that reunification. That higher self stands between the material world and the divine. Underhill states that we are “neither angel nor animal, capable of living towards either Eternity or Time” (43). We can rise beyond the base of physical reality to recover what we have lost and understand and experience our divine nature.
The divine calls to us, but we have to train our spirits and our mines to hear it. That requires a sensitivity that transcends the physical world and the social masks imposed by others. We need to learn to hear with new ears and see with new eyes. As Underhill states, a severance is inevitable if we are to break free from the conflicts of our lives and center ourselves within unification with the divine. We must simplify and purify ourselves with self-discipline and seek the divine not for our selfish benefit, but for its own sake.
This requires something akin to the destruction of the ego that we see in some mystical and magical traditions and an openness, almost an emptiness. The ego loves those masks, and it does not let go of them easily.
We live in a society that places a priority on masks. We connect to a series of labels and define our personalities by them. But these are external fictions not internal realities. We are more than our interests and political affiliations and the little tribes we separate into. If we look inside, past the masks, we risk finding that the things that we have told ourselves we value may not be important at all or may actually be counter to our true selves. That can shatter our sense of identity, though the identity that is broken is a surface level image that isn’t even truly ours. It’s a fantasy constructed by a group mind.
As Underhill points out, beneath that, we find that unease, disharmony, and confusion. The external world has conditioned us for a group-based identity that is forced upon us rather than knowledge of the self as individual, unique, and divine. Breaking through that can be difficult. In the beginning, we lack the skill and the strength to do so, which is part of why we seek training in seminaries and esoteric organizations. It’s like a personal trainer for the spirit.
We re-model ourselves the way that a person may go to a gym and re-model their body, stripping away the extraneous fat that does little for us but make us sick and then work to strengthen the muscles that will help us become aware of our true nature, which is hidden inside the wastes we have accumulated throughout our lives. We break the old habits and desires that have restrained and hidden our higher nature from us.
That hidden nature longs for reunification with the One, with the divine, and it is the work of the mystic to attain that reunification. That higher self stands between the material world and the divine. Underhill states that we are “neither angel nor animal, capable of living towards either Eternity or Time” (43). We can rise beyond the base of physical reality to recover what we have lost and understand and experience our divine nature.
The divine calls to us, but we have to train our spirits and our mines to hear it. That requires a sensitivity that transcends the physical world and the social masks imposed by others. We need to learn to hear with new ears and see with new eyes. As Underhill states, a severance is inevitable if we are to break free from the conflicts of our lives and center ourselves within unification with the divine. We must simplify and purify ourselves with self-discipline and seek the divine not for our selfish benefit, but for its own sake.
This requires something akin to the destruction of the ego that we see in some mystical and magical traditions and an openness, almost an emptiness. The ego loves those masks, and it does not let go of them easily.
