A COMPARISON OF SPIRITUAL TRADITIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE UNIVERSALITY OF MYSTICISM Slavomír Gálik - Sabína Gáliková Tolnaiová Received September 10 2014 - Revised October 27 2014 - Accepted November 10 2014 ABSTRACT In this article, the authors study similarities in mysticism of Western Christian tradition and selected Eastern spiritual traditions based on comparative analysis of prayer degrees (“mansions” in The Interior Castle) in Teresa of Avila and Yogic psychical centres (the so-called “chakras”) that are known also in other Eastern spiritual traditions (Taoism and Buddhism). The authors note that especially higher degrees – from the fourth to the seventh – show formal similarities, while the seventh degree also reveals similarities in contents. They speak of importance of revealing these similarities in the perspective of understanding of human being, his further spiritual development, and also interreligious dialogue. Key words Mysticism, symbol, mansions in Teresa’s Interior Castle, kundalini, chakra 1 Introduction Religion is primarily a spiritual, not institutional phenomenon. Each and every religion is based on certain spiritual and mystical tradition that is the source of its spiritual vitality. If we then want to understand a given religion, we have to know especially its spiritual tradition, the very core of this religion. These spiritual traditions can be taken as subjects of comparative analysis through which we can study universality of the phenomenon of mysticism. In this paper we would like to compare Western Christian tradition, represented by saint Teresa of Avila, with the selected Eastern traditions. We would like to pay special attention to morphological similarities in mystical journey in Teresa’s work The Interior Castle with spiritual traditions such as Yoga, Buddhism and Taoism. Speaking more concretely, we want to investigate and see if Teresa’s Spirituality Studies 1 (1) Spring 2015 97 (1)
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