Taking The Mystical Turn

The miracle of meditation is the discovery of an unbroken, perfect trust that lives beneath every moment of experience. When this trust reveals itself, we open into a depth of spiritual vulnerability and receptivity that brings us into direct communion with the creative source of the universe. We are drawn into a silence prior to existence itself. In this unimaginable state of perfect release, nothing has yet begun and the entire unfolding of creation is still waiting to be born.

It is important to understand that only a rare, karmically ripened soul finds that this eternal resting place leads to a complete merging with the divine source of creation and the true end of their spiritual journey. For most of us, even when we touch these depths with genuine sincerity, we discover that unfinished karma still calls us forward. We have not yet exhausted the subtle currents that shape our becoming.

And so, rather than concluding our path, the taste of eternity becomes the beginning of another phase of awakening. It opens into a journey through mystical worlds of being and the discovery of realms where the deeper architecture of the soul is revealed and the work of transformation accelerates with astonishing intensity. In these higher dimensions, we encounter the forces and intelligences that guide our evolution, and our growth into divine union unfolds with a momentum we could never create on our own.

In a particularly profound chapter of An Exposition of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the great Indian realizer Swami Krishnananda describes how, at the highest levels of samyama (the concentrated union of meditation, contemplation, and absorption) the yogi can enter subtle realms of being and exhaust the karma of many lifetimes at once. These mystical practices and their extraordinary attainments occupy the entire fourth book of the Yoga Sutras, a section so expansive and otherworldly that it is often dismissed by modern readers as symbolic or metaphorical. Yet for Swami Krishnananda, and for most of India’s saints and sages, these teachings are not optional or fantastical. They reveal a crucial and unavoidable dimension of the awakening process: the soul’s journey through higher worlds where karmic residues are purified and the deeper potentials of consciousness are awakened.

I was trained for twenty years while living in a spiritual community grounded in the teachings of Advaita Vedanta. Within that context, any attention given to mystical experiences was regarded as a distraction from the inherent freedom available in every moment. The emphasis was always on detachment, surrender, and resting in the ever-present reality of pure awareness. When that community came to an end, I felt myself drawn, in spite of my conditioned instincts, into a vast exploration of subtle realms of being and profound mystical realizations. I moved cautiously, wary of becoming enchanted by the glittering wonders of spirit, but I could not ignore the unmistakable call that was pulling me forward.

One of my deepest questions during this time was how to engage in these new practices without falling into the trap of spiritual materialism. For more than two decades my path had been built on the conviction that meditation is only about letting go and that any desire for attainment corrupts the purity of practice. So I worried that my mystical explorations were somehow tainted by a subtle hope for specific outcomes. I searched for a way to understand this new phase of my journey without betraying the essence of surrender. And then, just a few weeks ago, the clarity I had been seeking finally appeared.

Meditation is indeed a practice of detachment and nonengagement. The simple act of releasing all mental activity brings us into direct contact with the reality of our soul and the subtle realms of spirit in which it dwells. Sometimes we may feel content to rest in that spacious, silent depth, allowing our soul to reveal whatever it wishes, while we remain quietly receptive and profoundly still. But it is also possible, and perhaps more likely, that something deeper begins to stir. A quiet inner tug draws us toward something more.

At a certain point, we feel called to let our purely meditative practice evolve into a mystical practice by engaging with what we discover. Engagement is the key to the mystical turn. When meditation becomes mystical, we begin to participate in the subtle realities that arise. We listen, respond, attune, and commune. We open a living dialogue with the intelligences that exist beyond the material world. Our relationship with spirit becomes active, reciprocal, and alive.

What surprised me about this discovery was that it was, in truth, a rediscovery. As soon as I saw that engagement is the heart of mystical practice, I realized I had written about this very dynamic, albeit a bit cautiously, in my book Embrace All That You Are over ten years ago. The seed of the mystical turn was already there; I simply hadn’t yet recognized how fully it would blossom. Of course, all of us on the spiritual path know that spirit often gives us subtle precursive revelations, glimpses that appear long before we fully understand them. These early intuitions act like signposts from our future self, quietly indicating the direction in which we are being drawn.

Here is an excerpt from Embrace All that You Are. Reading it now, I can’t help but wonder if I sent this insight back to myself then to plant a seed that would create the inner space for the realizations emerging today. When I hold the passage below as a message from my future self to my past self, I can actually feel the shift into the mystical turn happening in this very moment. It is as if the two ends of my own spiritual journey are touching, revealing the continuity of guidance that has been present all along.

I’m asking you to experiment with a second surrender that happens after you’ve let go, after you’ve adopted a stance of no problem. At that point you will feel yourself being lifted, being taken. Maybe you'll experience it as dreaminess or maybe as a sense of confusion or simply a sense of spiritual upliftment. However it appears, however the energy of awakening begins to move you, the second surrender of meditation is to allow yourself to be moved, to avoid the temptation of reaching out and pulling yourself back to the ground. Most of us need to have a very keen, present mind. The instinctive reflex of reaching out and holding on as soon as we feel ourselves being moved is so deeply habitual it happens sometimes with lightning quickness. But if we can be present and still and aware and if we can allow a deep sense of love for the divine to fill us, we can overcome the temptation to hold on, and we can give ourselves to the movement of spirit that is taking us.

Can you feel a spiritual loop closing in your own journey, calling you into a mystical turn?