S p i r i t ua l i t y S t u d i e s 2 - 2 Fa l l 2 0 1 6 4 7 Květoslav Minařík Therefore, the image of mysticism, as a life in a circle of idealistic thoughts which internally carry a person away through the world of non-concretised ideas, is not valid. Those who already dwell in this “world of psyche” are, in the best case, dreamers and, in the worst case, mentally ill people who suffer from delusional ideas. Precisely due to these two undesirable outcomes of the inner living, it is necessary to avoid the wandering of mind, into which the true spiritual or mystical effort turns so easily, if it is based exclusively on the concentration of mind. It is necessary to avoid it by consciously keeping oneself internally on the ground of reality. When this way of thinking joins the analysing concentration of the conscious thinking, one will enter the path of transformation of the entire being; only this path is the true mystical path. Mysticism is, though, not like a practical school education. It does not have the tradition of pedagogy, methodology and school education in general. Therefore, everyone interprets its teaching in their own way and according to the imperative of his or her inborn relationship to the outer world, his or her inclinations and images of the human happiness. Internally directed by this, everyone, who strives for success in the practical mysticism, comes dangerously close to going astray in the form of losing the ability to see everything realistically and think about everything rationally. A result of this is a transparent valuelessness of their thinking, concepts and reflections. It is thus possible to establish an assumption that only an attitude, which is realistic towards life and the world and enriched with the concentration of mind which later precisely analyses everything, is a reliable mystical path which will bring delightful results to everyone; not only in an abstract, but also in a concrete, sense. There have been enough lunatics who were confusing the uninformed people that it is just them – these lunatics – who are the true examples of the practising mystics. However, how did they become these lunatics? – By, instead of devoting themselves to the concentration of mind by which they would attenuate its automatic activity as well as perception, they were, on the contrary, increasing this activity. They devoted themselves to thinking which was, after finishing concentration, bringing them a new kind of thoughts than those with which they were dealing before, in the period of the animal way of living. However, from the perspective of the heights of the mystical development, it is exactly the same, whether the uncontrolled and automatically active mind deals with the objects of sensory cravings or with speculations about the superworldly life and about a moral or immoral thinking and behaviour. The only thing that always decides, is whether a person brings the striving for mastering of the mind to its goal, namely to the destruction of the entire inner activity; of course, the reflexive and automatic activity, because, only in this way a person penetrates, by their perception, beyond the functional sphere of thinking and develops in him or her self an ability to discern the source of motives and to develop also the so-called direct perception, by which they penetrate beyond the curtain of illusion, which is created by the uncontrolled thinking. However, people are internally weak and lack courage. When their effort for concentration of the mind arrives as far as to the natural reaction of their being which is defying the domination of will, or, when they discern that, by the destruction of the automatic thinking, they have arrived at the edge of a seeming abyss of inner inactivity which was brought about by the will, they run away from their original efforts and, since then, resort only to the processes of thinking of a new kind, which does not seem to have the signs of the thinking of an animal. By this, they enter the path of a valueless and purposeless thinking which will obstruct their way to successes on the path of the practical mysticism, and then, due to the fact that their thoughts are of a new kind, they conclude from it that they have achieved progress on their mystical path, although they have already gone astray. Every student of mysticism should avoid this going astray by continuing to destroy the automatic thinking, even though they can, by that, often come to a supposition that “over there”, further down this path of the destruction of the inner activity, there is just a dark abyss. The “non-thinking”, which is a result of an intentional stopping and destroying of the inner activity, are the mystical depths, only in which the wisdom is born, because, wisdom is not a result of a mind which precisely speculates, but a result of the sensory discernments, purified from the mixing in of prejudice and preconceptions for, or against, something. The mystical going astray commonly sneaks in to the mystical efforts softly and imperceptibly. The transition from a systematic stopping of the processes of thinking, by means of which the depths of the true mystical state will arise, to the purposeless thinking of a new kind – to the thinking of valueless mystical speculators – is gradual. Perhaps only an outer observer can see the, in this way, “turning aside” mystic – how the, possibly until now rationally thinking, person – a seeming mystic – becomes a speculator with abstract or even valueless contents of thinking. Therefore, there is no other option than, for every student of mysticism, to be atten-
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