HOW THIS AIM IS ACHIEVED
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Shams-i-Tabriz that being now devoid of all distinctions and free of the chains that bind it to the earth, it becomes so completely identified with the Over-Self that no distinction becomes possible. The individual then, torn from the anchor of corporeal selfhood, oblivious of the world and its problems, plunges into the Infinite, like a raindrop falling into the sea.� Mystical experience should not be viewed in isolation for any group of people, nor from the point of view of any particular faith, but rather, as a phenomenon of a universal character about the nature of which we are still in the dark. There is no fundamental difference between the pattern of the genuine mystical state experienced three thousand years ago, during the Vedic periods and that of today. It sounds paradoxical but it is true that, instead of an advancement in keeping with the improvement in the general intellectual level of mankind there has been regression in this direction, and in spite of the fact that the thirst for it continues unabated, the number of those who in recent times secured the supreme blessing of a mystical contact with the Divine has dwindled from that which prevailed during ancient or even medieval times. If the mystical experience betokens in reality a face-to-face encounter with Divinity or direct contact with universal consciousness, can there be anything more interesting and more important from the point of view of human aspirations than this for the attention and study of the human mind? That the quest has not been taken up in a serious way is a clear indication of the fact that either the phenomenon is not considered genuine by those competent to judge or for certain reasons no importance is attached to it. Whatever the reason, viewed in the light of the facts mentioned in this volume, mystical experience of the right kind presents a problem which far exceeds in importance most other problems that engage the attention and consume the labour of countless painstaking investigators today. Because of its association with religion and the fact that the majority of those who earnestly strove for it in the past did so under the belief that the disciplines