The Mystical Experiences of the Grandeur of the Human Heart

A mystic is person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain either union with or absorption in the Universal Spirit or God, or spiritual apprehension of the truths beyond the understanding. In the Vedic and Upanishadic traditions are enumerated many techniques leading one to experience the mystical. I happened accidentally to discover a fascinating parallel, and was wonderstruck at the uncanny similarity of their experiences as postulated by Wordsworth and the Vedic seers, but with one slight difference, that it is only in the latter sense that Wordsworth is a mystic, and he is first and last a Nature mystic.

In his boyhood Wordsworth responded to Nature through the senses of the eye and ear. But Wordsworth often transcends the conscious world and actually enters the mystic domain. And he achieves this mystical breakthrough by sublimated feeling or sublimated vision. In the mystical state his body is neutralized, he loses body-consciousness and becomes all Spirit (ahamâtmâ - I am pure Spirit and not the body). And it is in this state (Samâdhi - Sanskrit for 'solution', as also superconsciousness) that he beholds the Spirit and pervades the Universe.

we are laid asleep

In body, and become a living soul;

While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy

We see into the life of things. (Tintern Abbey).

This supersensuous sublime state is a state of "wise passiveness", a very meaningful word, denoting Consciousness (the awareness of a 'Drashtâ' - the seer, experiencer, not the doer). This state emerges when the body becomes inactive and the soul alone remains active. But if the "meddling intellect" (Buddhi) intrudes, this power of mystical perception is immediately lost. (The Tables Turned; "Expostulation and Reply"). The mystical awareness is the awareness of the all-pervading Universal Spirit.

It is (Shrishtiswaroopa, the impelling force of all manifestation).

A motion and a Spirit, that impels

All living things, and all objects of all thought

And rolls through all things. (Tintern Abbey).