Top 221 Mysticism Quotes & Sayings

The sensual mysticism of entire vertical being.

Sex is the mysticism of materialism.

The school of awareness is the school of mysticism. Mysticism is the experience of eternity, of that which lies beyond the physical phenomenal experience.

Mysticism is the art of union with Reality.

The three values which men had held for centuries and which have now collapsed are: mysticism, collectivism, altruism. Mysticism — as a cultural power — died at the time of the Renaissance. Collectivism — as a political ideal — died in World War II. As to altruism — it has never been alive. It is the poison of death in the blood of Western civilization, and men survived it only to the extent to which they neither believed nor practiced it.

Mysticism has often been misunderstood as the attempt to escape this simple, phenomenal world to a more pure existence in heaven beyond. This is not mysticism, but Gnosticism. Biblical mysticism is the attempt to exit 'this world' to an alternative reality that pervades the old order. Its goal is to jettison the mind-set that says 'greed is good,' selfishness is normal,' and 'killing is necessary.' Mysticism in biblical terms is not escapism, as so many have caricatured it, but a fight for ethics and social change.

Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science.

Mysticism joins and unites; reason divides and separates. People crave belonging more than understanding. Hence the prominent role of mysticism, and the limited role of reason in human affairs.

Mysticism is not this or that particular cup on the table; it is the water poured into all of them.

Everything we do is art, philosophy, mysticism, cultural commentary.

In mysticism we deal with dreaming and the fields of perception.

What does mysticism really mean? It means the way to attain knowledge. It's close to philosophy, except in philosophy you go horizontally while in mysticism you go vertically.

Mysticism is the mistake of an accidental and individual symbol for an universal one.

I'll tell you what: I believe mysticism is a very serious endeavor. One must be equipped for it.

I would like to do a role that has something to do with mysticism or even a supernatural one.

Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science but man needs both.

Mysticism is just tomorrow's science dreamed today.

The whole planet reeks of mysticism without revelation.

Where I grew up, there was a mysticism and creativity to everything. Everyone made things with their hands.

The East is unfamiliar with those confessions, memoirs, and autobiographies so beloved in the West. There is a clear difference in tonality. One's gaze never lingers on the suffering humanity of Christ, but penetrates behind the kenotic veil. To the West's mysticism of the Cross and its veneration of the Sacred Heart corresponds the eastern mysticism of the sealed tomb, from which eternal life eternal wells up.

In mysticism, there's more of a sense of adventure, of camaraderie.

Wit is the appearance, the external flash of imagination. Thus its divinity, and the witty character of mysticism.

Rational thinking which is free from assumptions ends therefore in mysticism. To relate oneself in the spirit of reverence for life to the multiform manifestations of the will-to-live which together constitute the world is ethical mysticism. All profound world-view is mysticism, the essence of which is just this: that out of my unsophisticated and naïve existence in the world there comes, as a result of thought about self and the world, spiritual self-devotion to the mysterious infinite Will which is continuously manifested in the universe.

Mysticism, poor mysticism! When it is underestimated and oversimplified, it comes down from its original sphere and stands beside religion.

In my tradition, one must wait until one has learned a lot of Bible and Talmud and the Prophets to handle mysticism. This isn't instant coffee. There is no instant mysticism.

Of course, mysticism is very hard to isolate because, given the kind of consciousness that I was sort of instructed in as religious consciousness; that borders on mysticism so closely that it's hard to know whether you qualify or not, or whether mysticism is artificially isolated when it is treated as a separate thing from experience. Obviously, mysticism can be a form of madness, but then consciousness can be a form of madness.

Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics.

Catholicism is not ritualism; it may in the future be fighting some sort of superstitious and idolatrous exaggeration of ritual. Catholicism is not asceticism; it has again and again in the past repressed fanatical and cruel exaggerations of asceticism. Catholicism is not mere mysticism; it is even now defending human reason against the mere mysticism of the Pragmatists.

Major Trends [is] the canonical modern work on the nature and history of Jewish mysticism. For a sophisticated understanding, not only of the dynamics of Jewish mysticism, but of the exquisite complexities of Jewish history and tradition, Major Trends is a major port of entry through which one must pass.

Mysticism is an eclectic mixture of various forms of self-discovery that's primarily experimental.

Mystics understand the roots of the Tao but not its branches; scientists understand its branches but not its roots. Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science; but man needs both.

Poetry is the mysticism of mankind.

Without mysticism man can achieve nothing great.

Man without mysticism is a monster.

I love mysticism - it's such fun.

My religion is nature. That’s what arouses those feelings of wonder and mysticism and gratitude in me.

Is it conceivable that mysticism is a mark of inadequate art?

Mysticism is for all, not just for a few special people.

I took the batteries out my mysticism / ?And put them in my thinking cap

Mysticism is the passionate longing of the soul for God.

Mysticism is in fact the only criticism people cannot level against my theory.

When I play sports, when I dance, when I teach mysticism, I cannot explain, even to myself, how I do what I do.

The journey of consciousness, of mysticism, is to come to know yourself and your own motivations.

Pseudo-mysticism seeks to evade reality; authentic mysticism wants to live it.

Mysticism, poor mysticism! When it is oversimplified and underestimated, it comes down from its original sphere and stands beside religion.

What I don't like today is, to put it coarsely, the phony Hasidism, the phony mysticism. Many students say, "Teach me mysticism." It's a joke.

Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science

Mysticism is the acceptance that everything cannot be logically explained.

I started studying mythology, just on my own. Joseph Campbell, mysticism.

The Middle Ages were an era of mysticism, ruled by blind faith and blind obedience to the dogma that faith is superior to reason. The Renaissance was specifically the rebirth of reason, the liberation of man's mind, the triumph of rationality over mysticism - a faltering, incomplete, but impassioned triumph that led to the birth of science, of individualism, of freedom.

The challenge to Asia is to discard the dry, meatless bone of mysticism and fatalism.

Moralism is always the cheap substitute for mysticism.

The business and method of mysticism is love.

There is a kind of mysticism to writing.

Sex is the mysticism of materialism and the only possible religion in a materialistic society.

Religion is nothing but institutionalized mysticism. The catch is, mysticism does not lend itself to institutionalization. The moment we attempt to organize mysticism, we destroy its essence. Religion, then, is mysticism in which the mystical has been killed. Or, at least diminished.

I teach Zen, tantric mysticism, jnana yoga, bhakti yoga, Tibetan mysticism, occultism and psychic development. I also teach poetry and literature, film and many other different things.

I was raised in a heavily Catholic family. Early and consistent encounters with mysticism.

Honor is the mysticism of legality

When science starts to be interpretive it is more unscientific even than mysticism.