Active Mysticism

Education is an indispensable aspect of the Way of Love, or mysticism. It is both a refreshing joy and necessity to learn about the Enlightenment Traditions of the past.

It triggers our own creativity and positive feelings to read of the Tradition. But reading alone, even admiring, the beauties of the Way will not, in itself, transform you. Instead, we all need to read and learn with the fullest and most honest intention to imitate the fine writers. For it is one thing to admire the great beauty of Sufi poetry, for example, famous for its profound beauty, and quite another actually to imitate the Love that it advocates. Reading, admiring, even imitating style, is not enough. For we must cultivate the intention of heart-transformation. In studying mysticism or mystical poetry, we should do so with the full intention of dissolving the ego or human identity into fuller identification with the interior Beloved. For if we do not, all our timenergy might be poured into an exercise that is merely intellectual.
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