From Intellect to Intuition

Twenty-Four Books of Esoteric Philosophy they belong to that lower world of phantoms from which we are to be liberated by the insight of the vision...." 36Mysticism and Logic, pp. 8, 9, 10, 11.1 But the mystical way is a preparation for the way of knowledge and where the mystic stops in adoration of the vision and in yearning after the Beloved, the seeker after true knowledge takes up the task and carries the work forward. Dr. Bennett of Yale says, at the close of his book on Mysticism, "The mystic at the end of his preparation is simply waiting for an apparition and an event which he is careful not to define too particularly; he is waiting, too, with the full consciousness that his own effort has now carried him as far as it can go and that it needs to be completed by some touch from without." 37A Philosophical Study of Mysticism, 192.2 This thought confines the whole idea within the realm of sensuous perception, but there is something more. There is direct knowledge. There is an understanding of the laws governing this new realm of being. There is submission to a new procedure and to those steps and passwords which lead to the door and procure its opening. It is here that meditation plays its part and the mind steps in to fulfil its new function of revelation. Through meditation, the union for which the mystic yearns, and which he senses, and of which he has brief and fleeting experience, becomes definite and is known past all controversy, being recoverable at will.

Father Joseph MarĂŠchal in his notable book points out that: "...the symbol vanishes, imagery fades, space disappears, multiplicity is reduced, reasoning is silent, the feeling of extension gathers itself together and then breaks down; intellectual activity is entirely concentrated in its intensity; it seizes without intermediary, with the sovereign certitude of intuition, Being, God....

"The human mind, then, is a faculty in quest of its intuition — that is to say of assimilation of Being, Being pure and simple, sovereignly one, without restriction, without distinction of essence and existence, of possible and real." (Italics by A. A. B.) 38Studies in The Psychology of the Mystics, pp. 33, 101.3 To take the Mind and bend it to its new task as a revealer of the divine is now the objective of the convinced mystic. To do this with success and with happiness, he will need a clear vision of his goal and a lucid understanding of the results eventually to be demonstrated. He will need a keen formulation of the assets with which he approaches his endeavor, and an equally keen appreciation of his lacks and defects. A view, as balanced as may be, of himself and of his circumstances, should be gained. Paralleling this, however, there should be also an equally balanced view of the goal and an understanding of the wonder of the realizations and gifts which will be his, when his interest has been transferred from the things that now engross his attention, and his emotions, to the more esoteric values and standards.

We have touched upon the point that meditation is a process whereby the mind is reoriented to Reality, and, rightly used, can lead a man into another kingdom in nature, into another state of consciousness and Being and into another dimension. The goal of achievement has shifted into higher realms of thought and realization. What are the definite results of this reorientation?

It might be stated first of all that meditation is the science which enables us to arrive at direct experience of God. That in which we live and move and have our being is no longer the object of aspiration, or a symbol to us of a divine possibility. We know God as the Eternal Cause and the source of all that is, including ourselves. We recognize the Whole. We become one with God by becoming one with our own immortal soul, and when that tremendous event takes place we find that the consciousness of the individual soul is the consciousness of the whole, and that separativeness and Copyright Š1998 LUCIS TRUST