Vic Shayne
3 min readApr 13, 2023

--

I cannot speak for the mystic, because it just seems like another label, perhaps even a self-aggrandizing label, and labels do not interest me.

Egoistic perception is the illusion, I agree. I am not sure of the way you stated that recognition of reality is for those who withdraw from the mass hallucination. You'd have to explain what you mean by mass hallucination, because all of what the egoic self experiences is a hallucination of sorts. I am referring specifically to the Merriam Webster definition: "an unfounded or mistaken impression or notion" when I use the word regarding the egoic self, or the conditioned mind.

You say that mysticism is vulnerable to skepticism about first-hand encounters. I would say that everything that has been said, or claimed, is open to skepticism, especially by anyone who cannot relate to what is being said. And there is also skepticism on the part of a person who is intelligent and well-versed enough to sense an error, attempted manipulation, lie, or conflation of some fact.

Consider the most loaded of all concepts, God.

People claim to know, hear, and follow God because they have "experienced" God. People have murdered other people by the millions out of their belief that God has commanded them to act in his name. What are they really experiencing? Who knows? It seems rather obvious to me that God is an invention of the egoic self to offer security and a sense of identity in the least. It's an anthropomorphized version of consciousness fashioned out of the human senses, inclinations, and emotions. So skepticism about God abounds. Rightly so, I suppose. But I have no interest in debating God, psychic powers, visitations by Jesus or angels, or my own realizations.

I think I opened a can of worms here and have left an incomplete discussion, but hopefully enough to say that people are often wont to confuse beliefs with experiences and realizations. When we are discussing matters that exist within the world of ideas, memories, feelings, senses, forms, expressions, and phenomena then everything is up for discussion and debate, and skepticism is often the thing that riles up the discussion.

To your last point: "No matter how real something seems firsthand, we might be mistaken in interpreting its meaning..." Yes, I agree, but in my case I have no impetus to try to prove myself to anyone, because I am not living for their approval or understanding. I began my life living a secondhand existence based on other people's ideas of what I am and do not care to jump back into this abyss. What is the point? It is the sense of self that needs to prove itself and its worth to others. It's folly. Beyond this, we have the troubling term "real" to deal with.

All of these discussions seem to greatly complicate a very simple conveyance that seems not only difficult to convey but also to understand, which is this:

Beneath all thought, action, desire, memory, phenomenon, expression, and form is a void or capacity out of which it arises. But instead of identifying as this capacity we human beings are wont, and conditioned, to identify as that which arises out of the capacity. And this is the cause of most of our personal and universal suffering. When the mind is completely clear it can realize this because all of what arises out of the void becomes known as an illusion of sorts.

Now, whether someone cares to explore any of what I wrote in the previous paragraph for himself is another matter. And so is the matter of who cares to do such a thing, who is driven to do it. When one is not driven to find out what this stateless state is then he has ceaseless questions and skepticism about it, which is fine, because it is not for him. As I said in another thread, he remains on the outside looking in.

--

--

Vic Shayne
Vic Shayne

Written by Vic Shayne

NY Times bestselling author writing about reality beyond thought, consciousness, and the self to uncover what is fundamental. https://shorturl.at/mrAS6

Responses (1)