The conscious aging movement has made enormous contributions to understanding the psychological and spiritual tasks – and gifts! – of aging. One relatively undeveloped area, however, has been the mystical experience of aging, an area that has become central to my own life and work.1 Here are some personal thoughts on the mystical dimensions of aging.
We need to begin this discussion by distinguishing between spirituality and mysticism. I define spirituality as the personal beliefs we create about ultimate issues such as the meaning and purpose of life, death, and the divine order. Our spiritual beliefs arise from our religious background, personal religious explorations, and unique experiences. To put it differently, a congregation of 300 believers will have one religion but 300 different personal interpretations of it. Mysticism, on the other hand, refers to the direct and unmediated experience of the divine. Mystical experiences consist of moments when the sacred dimension leaks – or breaks – into human experience in ways that forever change us. Such experiences include full-fledged Mystical Experiences, Near Death Experiences, Out-of-Body Experiences, Enlightenment, and a variety of other forms of non-ordinary awareness (e.g., the experience “flow” found in athletics or dance, the moment of a loved one’s birth or passing, the awe response before a great natural wonders or inspired religious architecture, religious conversions, and psychedelic expansions of consciousness). Major Mystical Experiences are generally considered gifts of grace that cannot be intentionally evoked or controlled.
There is a second kind of mystical experience that we might call Mystical Consciousness. It is a learned skill that involves quieting the mind, heightening awareness, and tuning into the ambient divine Presence. In this awakened state, we experience the same mental, emotional and mystical alterations of consciousness found in major Mystical Experiences but to a much lessor degree. The value of mystical consciousness, however, is that we can intentionally enter mystical states and examine their nature and teachings.
What might the mystical experience of aging involve? Aging represents a natural transformation of self and consciousness. To the perceptive elder, it is like experiencing enlightenment in slow motion. The events and process of aging – changing bodies, fading identities, and losses of all shapes and sizes – steadily dissolve all the social constructs that previously defined us. One day, looking at our latest photograph, we no longer recognize our self. Whether we like it or not, we end up surrendering virtually everything we were. While we can hang onto past identities and achievements, these memories grow stale for they no longer represent who we really are. But this procession of losses, as the mystics tell us, constitutes the quintessential pre-requisite for enlightenment. What’s left when the ego’s filters of identity, time and story dissolve is consciousness itself, which the mystics also tell us is the consciousness of the divine. We are victims of mistaken identity. We replaced the divine Self, our truest self, with the self-idea and came to believe that consciousness was simply an epiphenomenon of the brain.
But a new kind of aging has begun. Our remarkable new longevity and growing interest in conscious aging have created a new developmental stage in the human life cycle. We’re living decades longer! With this gift of time, we have the opportunity to tune into the previously overlooked mystical dimensions of age. As Mystical Consciousness erases the dualistic filters of thought, we discover that consciousness is not just in us, we are in it and it is the omnipresent consciousness of God. We live in a sea of consciousness! Then, if we are willing to descend into the unfathomable depths of inner space, we open yet another deeper experience of the divine Self, an infinite consciousness that begins to rise as a tidal force of love suffusing and transforming the structures of ego and personality. Like the metaphor of “one river, many wells,” we each have a channel directly into the aquifer of Spirit, and it changes us. We begin to experience the radical new possibilities of the Divine Human. Religions have long prophesized the coming or return of a divine savior – I believe that savior is us.
As I dwell in this sea of divine consciousness, I change. No longer wanting or needing a persona, I discover that I am consciousness itself. Ecstasy then erupts as I merge consciousness with physical being, and the divine Presence floods my psyche. I dissolve in that Presence and discover that its love is infinite, extends everywhere, and touches everyone, so that when I love, I touch the whole universe. In this process, a new kind of life emerges, a divine life, and the world changes before my eyes. These mystical realizations transcend religion and spirituality, transform self and consciousness, and bring new gifts to a world sorely in need of love. They can transform our aging if we are informed, perceptive and willing.
by John C. Robinson, Ph.D., D.Min.
Notes
- The works supporting this blog entry include: The Three Secrets of Aging: A Radical Guide; Bedtime Stories for Elders: What Fairy Tales Can Teach Us About the New Aging; What Aging Men Want: The Odyssey as a Parable of Male Aging; and The Divine Human (In Press). You can learn more about my work at www.johnrobinson.org.
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