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Mystic (Renunciate, Anchorite, Hermit)
Perhaps no archetype is more coveted by my students, or
more misunderstood than the Mystic. Many want to believe that they
have mystical inclinations, yet underestimate how arduous
the genuine mystical path is. When they find out, they're usually happy
to let someone else have this role. The lives of the world's
great mystics often included extraordinary states of consciousness
such as prolonged ecstatic trance, and preternatural abilities
of precognition or bilocation. Yet they also contained sometimes
great physical as well as spiritual suffering, hard work,
and mundane activities that made up much of their days. If you truly want
to name this archetype as part of your sacred consortium,
ask yourself if you are ready to pay the price in blood, sweat, and
tears. If mystical consciousness is something you engage
in once a day during meditation, or on a weekend retreat or a yoga
workshop, you may be a spiritual seeker, but not a Mystic.
The shadow Mystic manifests as an egocentric concern for
one's own spiritual progress to the exclsuion of others, and an
attendant sense of self-importance at having achieved
"higher" states of consciousness. It may also emerge in behavior that
takes advantage of admirers or students in base economic,
emotional, or sexual ways. Since genuine enlightenment manifests as
the desire to be of service, this is a pretty good indication
that you haven't arrived yet.
Films: Catherine Mouchet in Thér_se; Richard Dreyfuss
in Close Encounters of the Third Kind; Emily Watson in Breaking the
Waves.
Drama: Agnes of God by John Pielmeyer.
Fiction: Lying Awake by Marc Salzman.
Religion/Myth: All the great traditions have produced
mystics, of which the following are a small representative sample: Teresa
of
vila, Meister Eckhart, William Law, Hildegarde of Bingen
(Christianity); Ba'al Shem Tov, Moses ben Nahman, Abraham Abulafia
(Judaism); Rabi'a, Ibn al-'Arabi, Mansur al-Hallaj (Islam);
Sri Ramakrishna, Anandamayi Ma, Ramana Maharshi (Hinduism);
Bodhidharma, Milarepa, Bankei, Pema Chödron (Buddhism);
Chuang-tzu, Wang-pi (Taoism); Padrinho Sebastio, Credo Mutwa
(shamanism).
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