How is Mysticism Different from Religion?

Illuminating the Mystical

Bodhi

Jun 01, 2025

What use are the scriptures to anyone who knows not the source from whom they come…-

The Upanishads

What’s a Mystic?

I use the terms “mystical” and “mysticism” quite a bit and sometimes people ask me what these words actually mean?

One dictionary definition of a mystic is as follows:

A person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain unity with or absorption into the Deity or the absolute, or who believes in the spiritual apprehension of truths that are beyond the intellect.

That’s OK, and who am I to argue with the dictionary, but it doesn’t quite capture what I mean when I use the word.

It seems our word mystic derives from the Greek mystikos, which means relating to the hidden or secret mysteries.

The Divine secrets were once considered too sacred, too powerful, even too dangerous for most of humanity to have access to, and therefore they were hidden away in what we now call Mystery Schools. I believe there are a few explanations for this that are beyond the scope of this post, but perhaps I’ll say more in a footnote.1

It seems as far back as we have records there were always two sides to the Divine stories: the exoteric, or public-facing interpretations, and the esoteric, or hidden meanings.

The exoteric versions would be what you learned in school about Greek and Roman mythology. Or our ideas that ancient people worshipped the sun because they were too ignorant to understand it as a giant gaseous ball of fire that somehow leads our solar system through a tour of the Milky Way.

But the Greek and Roman myths that appear to be simple stories about quarrelling gods actually held deeply encoded secrets around consciousness and spiritual development. They represent the soul’s descent into matter and it’s eventual return to Divine awareness. Stories such as the Labors of Hercules map the stages of spiritual purification and mastery over our lower nature. These ancient “gods” were personifications of universal forces and levels of consciousness.

And solar worship held many meanings as well, including the understanding that there’s an advanced spiritual being that ensouls the sun, just as we might think of Gaia within the Earth. The solar deities of old also represented the cyclical principle of divine consciousness descending into matter and returning to Source. The Logos of the ancient world is the life force that streams endlessly from our physical sun and the Divine illumination that gives us understanding.

I even asked my favorite mystic the other day if the sun was conscious and if it was indeed the Logos of old, and they (my mystic friend and Sun) then had a conversation in real time.

(The answer to both questions was “yes”.)

I too once received my own mystical message directly from Sun, taking place during a cliffside breakfast overlooking the vastness of the Pacific. It caught my attention overhead, its effervescent blaze hanging in the cool Pacific air. And suddenly it spoke to me so clearly:

“You have all forgotten. You’ve lost the sense of just how powerful you are.”

I could feel the words deep in my heart.

The Contrast

And we compare all of the above with religion. With the stories we grew up with about the old bearded man on the throne. And it’s the stories, or collection of stories, that our religions actually worship.

The Holy Book. Perfect and inerrant, fossilized in time.

Religion at the early stages of consciousness is about following the rules and using spiritual principles to accomplish things.

“God give me this, God give me that.”2

With religion we need our best life now because it’s the only life we’ve got.

Whereas mysticism is rich with it’s expansive viewpoints on reincarnation, the earth school, and the cosmic spiritual progression. As I’ve shared before, the knowledge I now have of 20+ past lives takes most of the pressure off. I’ve already had all the best jobs on Earth (and my idea of a cool job might be different than yours.) And I don’t care what my bank account (or treasure chest) looked like 500 or 1000 years ago.

And I can also begin to apply this approach as I hold this current life, and future lives, in mind.

What does this mean?

If things go sideways for me at some point in the coming years and maybe something doesn’t work out in favor of my preferences…can I view that situation in the context of my ongoing spiritual development that will continue on forever as I expand in my Divine conscious awareness?

No matter what happens in our physical lives it can always work in favor of our ultimate spiritual expansion.

Mysticism isn’t something for Sunday mornings. It becomes about all of life. It becomes about understanding everything in life as a Divine expression. Finding the harmony of life and dancing within it.

And it’s all encompassing.

Literally every field of study can be revisited through a mystical lens: music, agriculture, art, construction, medicine, healing, architecture, textiles, mathematics, science, food, governance, finance, acoustics, exercise, dance, and almost anything else we can think of.

Once we wake up to it, all of life is mystical.

Mysticism is alive, moment to moment of every day. It is synchronicity and perspective and the recognition that the sacred permeates EVERYTHING.

It is love made manifest in powerful action.

It’s why we’re here.

The Holy Book or the Fire?

And so this is the choice we have. This is the gift we’ve been given, here and now in 2025, this greatest gift of awareness that these things exist.

What will we do with them?

I’ll close with a brief story occasionally told by Anthony De Mello, a brilliant teacher of life. It’s a story about the lost art of making fire…

After many years of labour an inventor discovered the art of making fire. He took his tools to the snow-clad northern regions and initiated a village into the art – and the advantages – of making fire. The people became so absorbed in this novelty that it did not occur to them to thank the inventor who one day quietly slipped away. Being one of those rare human beings endowed with greatness, he had no desire to be remembered or revered; all he sought was the satisfaction of knowing that someone had benefited from his discovery.
The next village he went to was just as eager to learn as the first. But the local priests, jealous of the stranger’s hold on the people, had him assassinated. To allay any suspicion of the crime, they had a portrait of him 'the Great Inventor' enthroned upon the main altar of the church; and a liturgy designed so that his name would be revered and his memory kept alive. The greatest care was taken that not a single rubric of the liturgy was altered or omitted.
The High Priest himself undertook the task of compiling a 'Life of the Inventor'. This became the Holy book in which his loving kindness was offered as an example for all to emulate, his glorious deeds were eulogized, his superhuman nature made an article of faith. The priests saw to it that the book was handed down to future generations, while they authoritatively interpreted the meaning of his words and the significance of his holy life and death.
Caught up as they were in these religious tasks, the people of this tribe completely forgot the art of making fire.

No longer lost to the church or hidden away in Mystery Schools, the mystical fire of the Divine is now becoming visible to all humanity; burning brighter every day.

Illuminating the Source of our Reality.

This is a special time.

Use it wisely.