Eastern Mysticism

Across the Universe
This Beatles song was written out of a 1968 trip to India and their experience with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Transcendental Meditation.

I think this artist captures the spirit and experience this song points to:
Words are flying out like
endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
are drifting thorough my open mind
Possessing and caressing me


Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world

Thoughts meander like a
restless wind inside a letter box
they tumble blindly as
they make their way across the universe



Words are valued for their experiential value, not for their meaning. The man in the rocking chair is experiencing the Universe around him in its life and death and colors and senses. The Universe is what it is. “Nothing’s gonna change my world.” He isn’t, that’s for sure. He is going to sit in his chair and contemplate. His “thoughts meander. . .and tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe.”

Notice what happens to the man as the song progresses – he fades into his surroundings and becomes a tree. In the end, his perspective is restored, and in the end the only thing that has changed is the different pictures (perspectives) on his wall.

This is a picture of Eastern Mysticism. The religions of the East contain many and varied philosophies from Hinduism, Hare Krishna, and TM to the essentially atheistic Buddhism and Confucianism. But all these share a sensibility that is very different from the Abrahamic faiths that we have thus far discussed.

In Eastern Mysticism essentially God and the Universe are One. In fact, in Buddhism there really is no god. There is only the Universe. In Hinduism there are a pantheon of gods but nothing like a One God.

Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law when an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush. . . “God called to him out of the bush, Moses! Moses! And Moses said, ‘Here I am.’

Then God said, ‘Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. . .I am the God of you father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.”


We forget how radical and awesome a notion this is the One God of the Universe would declare himself, reveal himself, and speak, speak!, to a human being. You’re darned right Moses hid his face!

This story and experience would never fit in the religions of the East. Oh, the looking at the burning bush part, sure. But there would be no speaking God coming out of it. In mysticism, the Universe “speaks” for itself. And what the Universe says is more experience than doctrine. There are many roads that lead to enlightenment, not just one. So ideas are not important. Technique and experience are the thing.

What technique and what experience? Spiritual gurus like the Marishi Mahesh Yogi emphasized chanting a mantra, a seemingly meaningless phrase in Sanskrit given to the novice by their master. The novice chants it over and over again for long periods in quiet and solitude with the goal of going beyond mere meaning to oneness with the universe. The word om is the most significant word in a mantra. It has no literal meaning but some have suggested it means yes, perfection, ultimate reality. When you achieve that then the worries of past and future fade away and you become completely in tune with the present.

Remember words are used primarily to jolt you out of the rational and mundane to a new level of consciousness. In Zen Buddhism you have the koan, a brain teaser like “If a tree falls in the forest but there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?” Or, “What’s the sound of one hand clapping?” These puzzles are intended to drive you to silent contemplation beyond rationality.

This is what was and is attractive in Eastern Mysticism to many Westerners. The Beatles helped popularize a trend that was already happening, many young Christian or agnostic men and women in the West journeyed to the East or to one of the meditation centers that were popping up in the States to experience a new kind of spirituality very different from the suit and tie religion of their fathers. Dallas Willard points out that the flight to Eastern religions among western youth was the flight from a dry orthodoxy to an experiential spirituality. Christianity had become unsure of itself, at best holding onto “the form of godliness” with none of the power. At a time when the hippie generation hungered for experience, Christianity had lost touch with the burning bush and Pentecostal fire.

If there is a common ground between Christianity and Eastern religions it is the value that words point to experience. It is the belief that the Universe is bigger than we are and that it can be experienced in meditation of simple things. That’s the common ground. What is uncommon between our worlds is a world unto itself.


As you may gather, eastern mysticism is very concerned with enlightenment. But what does it say about the great suffering and moral problems of the world around us?

Suffering is merely a part of the Universe, the yin and yang of experience. There is no strictly right and wrong, good and evil. They are two sides of the same coin. Everything is cyclical, coming and going across the universe. Strictly speaking, suffering is an illusion. If you are suffering you just need to get more in tune with the universe. Many practitioners of eastern religions hold a high view of morality, but it really doesn’t follow logically from their philosophies. What is the motivation to do good rather than evil? You hear a lot about karma. But karma is not a duty to do good. Karma is what happens to you regardless of your behavior. It tends toward fatal resignation. “Nothing’s gonna change my world.”

I want to listen to another song that is more of a critique of the eastern way. The song is called “Enlightenment” and its by Van Morrison. Morrison has experimented a lot with religion and philosophy and eastern mysticism was one of the paths he explored before settling into his Christian faith.

Chop that wood
Carry water
What's the sound of one hand clapping
Enlightenment, don't know what it is

Every second, every minute
It keeps changing to something different
Enlightenment, don't know what it is
Enlightenment, don't know what it is
It says it's non attachment
Non attachment. non attachment

I'm in the here and now, and I'm meditating
And still I'm suffering but that's my problem
Enlightenment, don't know what it is

Wake up

Enlightenment says the world is nothing
Nothing but a dream, everything's an illusion
And nothing is real


Morrison doesn’t mince words. Enlightenment? The definition keeps changing. Suffering? I guess that’s my problem. Everything is an illusion. Nothing is real. I’m meditating. Like the monks, I’m chopping wood and carrying water. But, enlightenment, I still don’t know what it is. You can hear Morrison’s judgment – Wake up!


It’s interesting that Eastern religions speak well of Jesus. They hail him as guru and an enlightened soul. But what would Jesus say to them? Take me as I am.

“Believe in God. Believe also in me. . .I am the way, the truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you know the Father.”
Jesus rejects the many ways and says I am the way. He won’t allow the characterization of himself as merely a guru or teacher or prophet. He is either a liar or lunatic – or he is who he claimed to be, God.

In his book, Siddhartha, Herman Hesse journeys into eastern mysticism and describes his vision of “all the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was the world . . .the great song of a thousand voices consisted of one word: OM – perfection.”

In the book of Revelation, the many palaces of the kingdom are the setting for thousands upon thousands of voices that sing of the perfection of the One – the Lamb of God who sits on the throne.