The Mystic and the Fundamentalist
God speaking to discontent man:
“I never turned aside,” he said.
“I never walked away.
It was you who built the temple,
It was you who covered up my face.”
Leonard Cohen, Lover, Lover, Lover
On the surface it may seem that the ideas that concern a religious fundamentalist and a spiritual mystic are basically the same, that they simply see them from slightly different points of view. It has come to me tonight that this is absolutely not the case. When a fundamentalist looks into his Book and says, “I love God,” and when a mystic looks into her soul and says, “I love God,” they are not talking about the same thing at all. Their frame of reference is completely different. Their motivation, goals, and entire paradigm are diametrically opposite each other.
I believe that there is a Call from the Infinite to the Soul of each Individual, a call to wake up and be the Light that we truly are. I believe that both the fundamentalist and mystic hear this call. They both hear and they both respond. That is as far as the similarities go. I also believe that there is in all of us a fear, a resistance, a lizard brain that wants nothing to do with that Call. There is a part of us that will invest everything to avoid having to face up the the Mysterious reality of that Call. We drink, take drugs, make love, work, watch television, invent diseases and mental conditions, invent religions, all to avoid having to look the Mystery in the face. The Mystery that there is Call, the Mystery that there is an Us to hear that call, and the unknowable Mystery that there is a Revelation that can respond to that call.
The fundamentalist view of the world is based on this fear. It is dedicated to the pursuit of covering the Call, hiding it, and making sure everyone else does the same. The thing that makes this so difficult to see in the fundamentalist paradigm is that it openly acknowledges that there is a Call, there is a Revelation. Or I should say, there was. All fundamentalist religious movements discuss that there was once a miraculous occurrence. God revealed the true beauty of the Mystery to all. All saw it and knew that it was god. Somewhere along the line things went askew. Somehow, we all fell from the grace of that perfect time. We are all broken and we all need to get back to the garden. There is a key word here: back. It has to be about the past (or the future, but usually the past). It can’t be about the present, because as soon as you are in the present, you are face to face with the Mystery again. So, there is a book, or a Book, which has the entire revelation written down. It’s all there, the entire Mystery explained and codified. It’s a done deal, there is no more Revelation to be revealed, nothing to seek. We are off the hook! Just kick back, be nice in the meantime, and then wait for Paradise to come to us.
The mystic hears the same call, feels the same fear, tries the same tactics to hide, like Adam and Eve hiding from God. Eventually, though, the mystic realizes that they still hear the Call, still feel the pull through all the stuff they’ve managed to pile up. And once they relax their battle against the Call and pay even a little attention to the Call, they realize that the Revelation is a living thing. It is moving, not into the future, but moving within them in the moment. It cannot be ignored because it is them. The Revelation cannot be written down because it is in the very act of writing. The Revelation cannot be contained in anything because it is the container. The Revelation simply is. It can be responded to.
The fundamentalist looks to the past where the Revelation was once revealed, a very long time ago. And they also look into some unthinkable eternal future, where it will be like it once was long, long ago. The mystic looks into the present, into the eyes of all those beautiful, hideous people around them, into their own hearts, into the very heart of the Abyss, into the Mystery, and finds there no dogma, no books, no exclusions or restrictions. The fundamentalist wants to sit still and pretend there is no mystery, wants to hide from the Call of their souls. The mystic can only follow the impossible Mystery.
Even though they both use much of the same terminology the primary meanings they attribute to those words are essentially different. This is really my material point, and realizing this is what motivated me to investigate this deeper in the first place. I have allowed myself to become engaged in a number of conversations where I played the mystic and my conversational partner played the fundamentalist. As I look back it is obvious why we always came to an impasse. It was because we were using the same exact words to refer to realities that were completely different. Each person’s understanding of the meanings of these words were based on world views whose roots were so distinct. It was as if we were each on opposite sides of a mirror. Enter Alice. Or as Paul Simon said, “One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor.”
The reason all of this is so important is that the two paradigms compel each to lead a particular kind of life. One life is about shutting down, being static and rigid. It is about being eternally safe and secure. The other is about opening up, being flexible and scared. Taking risks.