Bromby’s Mystical Journey

People, especially those with a passion for ideas find something alluring about the mystical. This allure comes from the feeling that life is to complex and the universe too intricate and mysterious to understand and that the rational capability of our minds can only take us too far. Somehow we feel we are inherently flawed and our ‘stupid minds’ (to quote Ed Wood) can never truly understand reality.

Instead we turn to the murky world of the mystic, it beckons us like a spectral finger from beyond the smoky veil of the unknown. Beyond this veil we are prone to suspend our rational mind as laws of objective reality no longer apply. We become faithful creatures rather than rational creatures. We look east to the ancient religions and new age mystics because in this world the grinning unshaven dude in filthy robes isn’t ridiculed, he is revered. His strange & almost childish musings are not refuted because they are unproven, but are actually accepted precisely because they cannot be proven.

Bromby throughout his adolescence being very interested in ideas, was especially interested in the biggest questions that lurked beyond that curtain of the knowable. As a result Bromby explored religion. Starting with Christianity and moving through eastern mysticism and even the ideas of Islam.

Let’s start with the west’s favourite mystic, Jesus. Honestly I’m not too crazy about this guy. Even the secular folks in the west seem to revere him as a great mind and a great heart even if they don’t buy into his divinity. In a nutshell, he preaches pure selflessness, meekness, poverty and self sacrifice to the good of others as the ultimate virtues.

Next is the hugely popular Bhudda. I really liked this guy because I found his insights into the human condition to be truly enlightened. However central to his world view is the idea that life is about avoiding suffering. This makes a lot of sense, but his solution is to detach yourself from that which causes suffering. Free your mind of want, because the pain of losing what you desire or not achieving it is too great. Don’t love someone because losing them will cause suffering. Frankly this is a cowardly view of reality. That’s why the most enlightened Bhuddist monks escape from reality and live in seclusion. I don’t mean to sound simplistic, but that’s a waste of a life. The greatest rewards are achieved by passing through the temporary state of suffering rather than avoiding it. Don’t be a chicken – life can be rough but sometimes you just gotta go for it.

The other big one is Islam which literally means ‘to submit’; specifically to submit or surrender your own will to the will of god. Islam literally means the ultimate surrender of the self and the ego.

All of the mystics come to the same conclusion – the subordination of the ego, the will and ultimately the self. Even those who are not mystics proclaim that selfishness of people is the greatest evil that is destroying the world. Ultimately this creates a population that is easy to lead because they are utterly convinced that any attempts to think for themselves will end in ruin. Any true answers about anything important must come from outside of ourselves because we are tainted by selfishness and can't be trusted. The true answers come from somewhere (or someone) outside ourselves, the more murky and nebulous the source of information, the better.

Today a new hugely popular mystic has emerged in Eckhart Tolle, author of the bestselling “A New Earth”. He presents the same mystical teachings, but repackages them and presents them to a whole new audience. Different messenger, same message. Rather than a freaky looking mystic from the east its a hobbit-like German fellow with a tiny goatee. Somehow the more benign and harmless looking folks are best suited to deliver this ancient, but devious message: The ego is the cause of all human misery and suffering.

Bromby is going to posit this statement – discuss amongst yourselves.

Perhaps it is not the ego that is the cause of human misery but the feeling helpless of guilt and duplicity created by trying to fight that which is part of our rational nature. Just because we have an ego and we value ourselves does not mean we are anti-social. Valuing other people is also in our rational nature, but it needn’t come at the expense of valuing one’s self.

-Bromby