THE MYSTICAL LIFE is divided classically into the stages of purgation, illumination, and union. This is in fact a very simplified account of the soul's progress to the full encounter with God. Purgation ends only when eternal union has been attained; in this world there was one alone who attained this union fully, the Incarnate Christ. Illumination is to be seen not merely as a single blinding experience of God's radiance, but rather as a repeated awareness of God's love during the taxing round of purgation which leads the mystic on to the final unitive experience.
Such minor illuminations have been very much a part of my own life. They came to me even as a small child, and made me aware early of the redemptive value of suffering. It was particularly when I had been brought low through some outer circumstance, nearly always following a minor fall from grace, that I was most aware of God's love, and could progress once more in greater assurance of divine presence. There does, however, come in the lives of many aspirants an illumination of very much greater magnitude than this. Such an experience is a landmark, and it forms the foundation of further understanding and aspiration. Such an illumination came to me in early adolescence.
Up to that time, I was becoming more and more obsessed with the idea of finitude. I could glimpse in my mind's eye the end of all space, for it seemed to me that the whole universe was finite, that there was a definite end to it. Was there anything outside the universe, or was the universe the total reality? If I envisaged the latter possibility, I would have a sensation of intolerable enclosedness, a "cosmic claustrophobia". But if there was more to reality than merely the form of the universe, what was its nature and meaning? To be sure there was no person who could enlighten me, and the type of religious thought, superficial as it was, that I encountered could not envisage God in other than limited personal terms. Already I had experienced an ecstatic state when I contemplated the excellence and completeness of geometry. Even simple forms, like the triangle and the circle, had enclosed within them immutable laws of nature. I saw God in the very excellence of the form, and in the point of intersection of concurrent lines within the form.
When I was sixteen years of age, I was preparing for the final matriculation examination at the end of the year. I was considered an outstanding pupil, and I usually came first in the class. This was due, not so much to my mental abilities as to my obsessional attention to detail. Furthermore, my very security on earth depended on my excellent examination results, for my vulnerability was so extreme that a "bad" result, such as coming third or fourth in the class, would have been a major disaster. In a preparatory examination written some four months before the final test, I had done rather disappointingly in a mathematics paper. I had passed, but not very well. I returned home that day in a rather dispirited state of mind, and after supper repaired to bed. There I listened to my radio.
The overture to Weber's opera "Oberon" was announced, and I listened in pleasant anticipation, for although it was not a special favourite of mine I knew and liked the music very much. After a minute or so I suddenly became aware of an alteration in my perception. The music became blurred and indistinct, and at the same time the bedroom was bathed in a light of iridescent radiance so that its outlines and furniture could no longer be delineated. I was filled with a menacing fear that lasted for a mere instant, but then, as soon as I submitted to the experience, the fear disappeared and its place was taken by a sense of uplift and peace that I had never previously known.
I knew that the essential part of myself, the true-self or soul, was raised far above the physical body, which I could no longer see or sense; for all physical sensation had been obliterated by a new type of sensory knowledge that came not from any bodily organs, but from the soul itself I was borne aloft by a power that surpassed my understanding. It had no limitation but was all-pervading. Its thrust was irresistible and its action beneficent. It was the full measure of love, for with it were all things, and in it life found its consummation. Though formless and beyond description, it showed itself in a harmony of silence which was the very origin of all vibration and music. It was indeed a celestial music, not of sequence but of eternity. The dark stillness of this eternal power was also the incomparable radiance of light, a light so intense that it illuminated the source of life and cast its heavenly rays on the meaning and communion of life. The uncreated light was the primary energy of the power of eternity, and the heavenly music of eloquent silence was its emanation into the soul.
I was no longer in the universe at all, but in the realm of eternal life which is neither past nor future but only the ever-living present. I had been lifted to a height above all measurable heights. I was able, in this situation, to perceive the entire created world, for I was outside it. I "saw" and "heard" with the "eyes" and "ears" of the soul which also "felt" the loving impact of the supreme power that embraced and raised me. In the language of science the nearest description would be one of sensing with an inner, hidden organ of perception that included all five senses, each and all functioning in a magnified, transformed awareness. Furthermore, the information obtained was integrated by an inner organ of intelligence into a coherent system of supersensual purpose and meaning.
In my situation beyond creation I could divine the onward flow of life in the cosmos. I was aware of the perpetual cycle of life: countless generations of creatures lived, suffered, died, and were reborn. This cycle continued until the creature attained fullness of being. It was not simply an unending round of life, death, and rebirth, but rather one that had, as its end, the perfect union of creature with Creator. This ascending spiral of life, death, and rebirth was seen to be the destiny of all living things in their progress towards completion. The struggle and termination of each life were comparable, in relation to divine reality, to the tearful resistance of little children who are put to bed by their parents, and who awake fresh the next day to advance on new adventures: I was filled with an irresistible sense of humour and delight when I realised that the pain borne by the creature was trivial in comparison with the glory that was to be revealed in him and in the whole world at the end of the human struggle. The entire created universe was shown to me symbolically as a gigantic sphere whose movement was discernible as a minute turn of a wheel, but this movement encompassed countless generations of human beings over a vast timescale.
As these spiritual truths were being revealed to me, I suddenly was aware that my own personality had been transformed. I was no longer a separate, isolated unit. Although I had not lost my identity - indeed, for the first time in my life I had really experienced the identity of a whole person - I was in union with all creation and my identity was added to it, giving of its essence to the created whole. In this state of expanded consciousness, I had transcended private existence. But at the moment of bliss, when union was realised, I felt myself being gradually, but decisively lowered. As this occurred, my personality became dominant once more and rebelled against this descent from the realm of eternal life. Indeed, it tried to raise itself up again to this life, but in vain. I was "told" with firm compassion by Him who is nameless that I had had enough, and that it was now right for me to descend into the world of separation, the earth of form and aspiration, to put into practice the teaching that had been given me.
The silent music of eternity gave way to the strains of the "Oberon" overture. I could establish, through my knowledge of the music, that the entire episode had lasted about three minutes. The radiance of the light of eternity was dulled, and was soon replaced by the glow of the electric light bulb in my bedroom. Once more I was at home in bed in my physical body, full of wonder and mute sadness, yet still surrounded by an aura of vibration. This aura persisted for several days, gradually diminishing in intensity, and with it a faint audible vibration that was a distant echo of the celestial sound I had heard during the brief period of illumination.
Over this period I was aware of the peace that passes understanding. I behaved normally, for my general appearance and actions appeared to arouse no special comment. I mention this simply to refute any suggestion of mental disturbance or physical illness as the basis of the remarkable experience I had undergone. In fact I was even brighter mentally after the period of illumination than I had been before, and was to achieve an outstanding result in the matriculation examination at the end of the year. Knowing only too well how little prepared my parents would be for such a disclosure, I purposely refrained from telling them about it. They would either have dismissed it as a dream, or else been seriously worried that I was ailing physically or mentally. Like the mother of Jesus, I stored all these things in my heart, but an inner wisdom kept me from casting them before the profane gaze of the worldly ones.
Jakob Boehme, after his glorious illumination, is reputed as saying that within the space of a quarter of an hour he had learnt more than he would have had he spent many years in a university. In fact, the knowledge that both he and I had been given could never be acquired in any school on this earth. Even those establishments that aspire to occult training teach only the outer form of reality; its core, which is divine love, is as far from its teachers as from the general mass of humanity. God showed me as much of Himself as I could bear to receive: I knew that He is not someone limited as we are. He transcends all categories and is the reality that lies beyond all form, even the whole universe. We can never know Him except in union, when we can receive His outflowing energies: uncreated light that lightens the soul, the mind, and the universe with meaning and purpose; wisdom that informs the creation of the way to fulfilment; love that gives itself unreservedly that the creation may be filled with life and move to completion. It is by love that God comes to us, and in this respect God is personal as transpersonal. Love can never fail to be personal when it visits a person, for personality can respond only to personal love.
My obsession about finitude was now relieved. The universe, far from being all that is, is simply the form of reality which we experience in the limitation of time and space. But transcending that form is the eternal realm which was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. The world of form is a world of change, of death, and of becoming. It is penetrated and ultimately transfigured by the uncreated light of God in order to enter into the liberty of eternity where there is no change, but only divine union of such an intensity as to transcend all worldly concepts. "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away" (Mark 13:31). The infinite preciousness of man's person was also revealed to me: nothing that is created is destroyed by God because of His love for all His creation. Death of the body is merely a state of transition in the development of a soul-filled person, The way of this development is by a rebirth sequence, with immersion in a world of limitation to cause the soul to grow into the knowledge of love. This knowledge comes only with the experience of self-giving service and sacrifice in a world of limited time and space. This rebirth sequence might be an earthly one or else it might occur in some other milieu elsewhere in the universe. It is not an endless circular movement, but rather an ascending spiral one.
I learned that the power of God and the love that Bows from it are bestowed equally on all creatures. No particular sect, race, colour, or religious group is either favoured or exempted from that love. It comes to all and sundry as grace when they are ready to receive it. The way of grace is salvation, and all are saved in eternity. There is no wrath in the divine nature but only in the disregarded law that governs the world of limitation in which we have to grow to fullness of being. Without this law there can be no growth. If it is transgressed, as is the rule in the world of sin that we all inherit, suffering is the inevitable result. But the final end of pain is joy and redemption for all who will receive it.
This enlightening knowledge came to me with the experience; it was not deduced intellectually afterwards. The blinding import gave the illumination its awe-inspiring authority.
I have often meditated upon this remarkable revelation, but nothing that I have subsequently read or thought has added to its content or in any way modified it. It has remained the most important event in my life. Even now, more than thirty years later, the memory of it is crystal clear.
It did not prevent me, however, from the experience I was about to endure, the dark night of the soul, when all spiritual light was withheld from me for many years.