Essay about Knowing God Mysticism in Christianity and...

Knowing God: Mysticism in Christianity and Other Religions Mysticism, mystic experiences, and encounters with the divine are important—and even integral—to many religions throughout the world. Mysticism, defined as experiencing the divine, should have a special importance in Christianity. Christianity posits a God who is transcendent, yet immanent, and as Christians we believe we can have a relationship with the Deity. Because of this we should have a unique conception of mystical experiences as significant to our spiritual lives. I will begin by giving an overview of mysticism in other religious traditions—Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto, Islam, and Judaism—and then concentrate on the role that mysticism and experience should have in†¦show more content†¦One cannot achieve unity with divine, nor have an experience of the divine that is in anyway unusual, simply because the individual and the deity are one and the same; all experiences in life are experiences with the divine because there is no distinction between divine and non-divine. It is because of this that the divine is transcendent, subsuming all things into its being. Islam Orthodox Islam emphasizes the absolute transcendence of God, but there is a sect of Islam called Sufism, which has placed a major emphasis on mystical experiences. To quote John Esposito: The Sufi path is a way of purification, a discipline of mind and body whose goal is to directly experience the ultimate reality. Sufis seek to experience God directly, utilizing poverty, fasting, silence, celibacy, recitation of the Most Beautiful names of Allah, music, dance, and veneration of the saints. Sufism is a combination of worldly renunciation and meditation with undying devotional love of God. Geoffrey Parrinder says that the chief characteristic of Sufism is the loss of will to find the eternal self in God. The word used for this is fana, the obliteration of the soul in God, which has three stages—obliteration ofShow MoreRelatedChristian Mysticism Essay1219 Words   |  5 PagesMysticism is a word we find in many books that relate to religious experiences. Mysticism is interpreted as searching for spiritual truth and wisdom through the unification with the Divine. Many Christians today believe that the words associated with mysticism like meditation and mystic are not coherently related with Christianity, but more with many Eastern religions. 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