Quotes about Mysticism

Both Catholics and Protestants have failed our people by mystifying the very notion of mysticism. The word itself has become relegated to a "misty" and distant realm that implies it is only available to very few and something not to be trusted, much less attractive or desirable. For me, the word "mysticism" simply means experiential knowledge of spiritual things, as opposed to book knowledge, secondhand knowledge, or even church knowledge.

We are in God and God whom we do not see is in us.

Our experiences of God matter—those sacred moments that defy the very rational capabilities we are so keen to rely on.

Sex is the mysticism of materialism and the only possible religion in a materialistic society.

In my tradition, one must wait until one has learned a lot of Bible and Talmud and the Prophets to handle mysticism. This isn't instant coffee. There is no instant mysticism.

The life of the spirit is not our life, but the life of God within us.

In the end, we know God as unknown.

John was not a logician, but a seer; not a reasoner, but a mystic; he does not argue, but assert; he arrives at conclusions with one bound, as by direct intuition.

My spiritual goal is to one day walk into God and disappear.

Suzuki also frequently quotes a sentence of Eckhart's: "The eye wherein I see God is the same eye wherein God sees me" (Suzuki, Mysticism: East and West, p. 50) as an exact expression of what Zen means by Prajna.

The New Age operates on the epistemology of ecstasy.

An undefined "mysticism with nobody there" is not enough. It does not fill the hunger in the human heart for connection with a personal God who knows and loves us.