Chapter XXII (part 25)

I sensed the enormous heavy body— my body —all its motions, shudderings, waverings and vibrations, fire, pressure of steam and weight of engines were inside of me , the unmerciful and unyielding propelling screw which pushed and pushed me forward, never for a moment releasing me , the rudder which determined all my motion—all this was myself: also two sailors. . . . and the black snake of smoke coming in clouds out of the funnel . . . all. It was an instant of unusual freedom, joy and expansion. A second—and the spell of charm disappeared. It passed like a dream when one tries to remember it. But the sensation was so powerful, so bright, and so unusual that I was afraid to move and waited for it to recur. But it did not return, and a moment later I could not say that it had been—could not say whether it was a reality or merely the thought that, looking at the waves, it might be so. Two years afterwards the yellowish waves of the Finnish gulf and a green sky gave me a taste of the same sensation, but this time it was dissipated almost before it appeared. The examples given in this chapter do not by any means exhaust the mystical experience of humanity. p. 305 But what do we infer from them? First of all, unity of experience . In mystical sensations all men feel definitely something in common, having a similar meaning and connection one with another. The mystics of many ages and many peoples speak the same language and use the same words. This is the first and most important thing that speaks for the reality of the mystical experience. Next is the complete harmony of data regarding such experience with the theoretically deduced conditions of the world causes ; the sensation of the unity of all , so characteristic of mysticism; a new sensation of time, the sense of infinity; joy or horror; knowledge of the whole in the part; infinite life and infinite consciousness. All these are real sensed facts in the mystical experience. And these facts are theoretically correct . They are such as they should be according to the conclusions of THE MATHEMATICS OF THE INFINITE AND OF THE HIGHER LOGIC. This is all that is possible to say about them. Footnotes 271:1 Vedânta is the end of the Vedas , the abridgment and commentaries on the Vedas. P. Ouspensky . 280:1 Abridged quotation from "Select Works of Plotinus," transl. by Thomas Taylor. Bohn's Library, pp. lxxiii and lxxiiv. 280:2 All the ensuing quotations are from the books of Prof. William James, and of Dr. R. M. Bucke. 281:1 See quotation from Van Manen's book, Chap. xi. p. 125. 286:1 The author of "Superconsciousness," M. V. Lodizhensky, told me that in the summer of 1910 he was in "Yasnaya Poliana," the residence of L. Tolstoy, and he conversed with him about the mystics and "The Love of the Good." Tolstoy was at first very skeptical about them, but when Mr. Lodizhensky read to him the quotation, given here, about the circle, Tolstoy became very enthusiastic, and ran into another room and got a letter in which a triangle was drawn. It appeared that he had independently almost grasped the thought of Avva Dorotheus, and had written to some one that God was the apex of a triangle: men the points within the angles; approaching to one another they approach to God, approaching God, they do the same toward one another. Several days afterward Tolstoy rode over to Mr.