Monday, January 19, 2015
On Reading Mystical Poetry
A common mistake that many people make when they read mystical poetry is that the "lover" refers to an actual human lover. Mystics frequently employ the language of love to describe their experiences. The lover is simply the invisible "Beloved Within," for these encounters often have a definite erotic tone, even though sexual activity as such is not involved. The sweet energies are indeed not sexual, but rather the natural bodily energies sublimated (transformed) into spiritual energy and the result can be somewhat erotic in tone, but they are not essentially sexual.
The picture above is Bernini's famous statue of St. Teresa in ecstasy, as the angel plunges his lance into her heart. Indeed, for some, the opening of the heart chakra is the greatest rapture of all.
I once had a friend who made a collage for me on ecstasy which included many depictions of couples making love in erotic poses. She had misinterpreted the kind of ecstasy my poems were describing, though she meant well.
The early Indian poet Mirabai (1498-1565?) wrote many poems on the theme of the unseen beloved:
Here is My Dress
Here is my dress. With him
my sari is forgiveness.
Rama’s name is its gold hem.
The vermillion dot on my forehead is Rama.
His holy word is my nose diamond.
I wake to him in my braceleted arms.
He is also wrapped around my wrists
as glassy red bangles.
I put my clothes on after we leave the bed.
-Mirabai (1498-1573 ce) South Asia
(The Shambhala Anthology of Women’s Spiritual Poetry, edited by Aliki Barnstone).
Another error of interpretation is a misunderstanding of the meaning of the "annihilation into the beloved," the traditional end of the mystic journey. Some think this means that one gives up one's power and thus implies that women, in particular, are in fact being urged to surrender their true identity and instead being reduced to a subordinate role in a human relationship.
Quite the opposite is true. The "mystic marriage" is one in which the human partner relinquishes the "small self" in order to discover and unite with the "larger self," and thus arrives at a higher state of awareness, as the blissful currents of the cosmos flow in. One thus in effect discovers and experiences an aspect of being which was previously hidden from consciousness. I cannot imagine a more empowering encounter than this. We then know the meaning of "unconditional love," the ultimate unfolding of the true self.
Kundalini itself is a prime example of this stage of the mystical journey, one that opens us to bodily bliss and a profound sense of union with the divine. After such awakening, one surrenders self doubt and becomes free to become whole and integrated at a new level of consciousness, as lover and beloved become one. We are now embraced by " one who has no name/ in a place that does not exist."
