The God of the Mystic

Excerpted from Kabir Helminski's Huffington Post article (reflecting on the ideas of Christopher Hitchens):

"The God of the mystic is not necessarily the God of sectarian religion. The mystical conception of Divinity goes beyond the narrow sectarian conceptions of God that rule in some religious circles. The Divine Creative Power, from a mystical perspective, is that which has created human nature in its own image, imbuing all human beings, not just religious believers, with a capacity to act selflessly and generously, to follow impulses other than one's own self-interest, and that this tendency is innate, or latent, in the human condition itself.

Therefore, human virtue, whether it is rationalized by religious belief or not, is essentially inspired by the Divine Compassion inherent in existence. Mercy and Compassion are intrinsic to the universe and thus they are experienced in the interior spiritual life of every human being unless they are obscured by some other pathology or conditioning….

Furthermore, it is spiritual practice and the contemplative dimension of experience that perfects this inner possibility. The spiritual journey is a journey in which the individual human being overcomes all the fragmenting and dispersing tendencies of the human ego, all the contradictory impulses that weaken the soul. The spiritual project is a movement toward inner coherence around a deep center which is the spiritual heart, and this heart is the portal to the Infinite. And the dimensionless point inherent in every human being (whatever their professed beliefs), is the point of access for courage, wisdom, selfless service, and love. If one admits this, one admits that there is a spiritual reality that somehow is intrinsic to our human nature."

Read the rest of the article here.