nature of mysticism

From: Charles <charles_at_...>
Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2013 15:54:02 -0000

I've listened to Greg describing mysticism at a few conventions. My memory is that he said something like this.

There is this world that we know and see. There is the other world that we cannot see, where there are gods and spirits and magic. Mysticism is practice of achieving something that is neither of this world nor of the other world.

(Apologies if I have mis-remembered).

I cannot understand this paradox, which some call the Ultimate and others call the Void. But I can understand that there are people who, through asceticism or austerities, can achieve a limited understanding of this state. And there are other approaches that can also lead to such an understanding. Given that I cannot understand it, I tend to treat it just as I treat the mathematical concept of infinity (and the infinite number of different infinities). Mysticism is there, and can be used in various stories (just as infinity may be used in mathematical equations).

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In Glorantha, since the dawn, there have been only a very few who have achieved a full enlightenment. And they are _not_ all from the East. In the Dragon Pass area, Heort and Harmast both confronted the void and survived (OK, Heort achieved this before the dawn but lived until after the dawn). Obduran the Flyer achieved full draconic enlightenment. I am fairly sure that most (all) of the long term residents of Old Temple have achieved enlightenment. And Arkat too likely achieved enlightenment. Many of these, having achieved enlightenment, have decided to embrace the world rather than joining the void/withdrawing from the world.

This number, to my understanding, is close to and possibly more than the number in the East that have achieved enlightenment since the dawn.

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I think that the Nysalorean (and therefore Lunar) approach is a much more risky path to enlightenment. It seems to advocate early and repeated exposure to the Void, without the discipline built up through asceticism or other slower approaches. Practitioners can achieve enlightenment much more quickly but at the risk of insanity, destruction and/or chaos. I recall that Nysalor tried to communicate to his followers that, when they achieved the first few steps towards enlightenment, they were declaring themselves enlightened, while he saw that they had much more to do.

There are some hints of this at http://moondesignpublications.com/new/daysenerus.html, but I half recall some other more explicit source).

Discuss :)

regards,
Charles