Look for Yourself

(4-Minute Read) – One of the main themes in my novel On The Fifth Night is mysticism – looking for yourself – knowing truths about reality that are unknowable intellectually.

The vast majority of us experience these fleeting tastes of something more to reality. They may come in moments of intimacy, or being in awe of nature, or in reverence for the sublime mystery of life.

We are all practical mystics. It’s innate to our evolved consciousness to identify and appreciate beauty and majesty, to sense energetic connection undergirding the obvious physical dimensions of the world. All we have to do is look for ourselves.

Bella, the teacher

Bella, the wise teacher in On The Fifth Night is asked, “What does mysticism mean in the real world?”

She says nothing. She slowly picks up a book and starts reading:

“‘No-Eyes’ fixed his attention on the fact that he was obliged to take a walk. For him, the primary awareness of his existence was his own movement along the road; a movement which he intended to accomplish as efficiently and comfortably as he could. He did not want to know what might be on either side of the hedges. He ignored the caress of the wind until it threatened to remove his hat, and trudged along, steadily, diligently, avoiding the muddy pools, but oblivious of the light they reflected.

‘Eyes’, the practical mystic, took the same walk. For him it was a perpetual revelation of beauty and wonder. The sunlight inebriated him, the winds delighted him and the very effort of the journey was a joy. Magic presences thronged the roadside or cried salutations to him from the hidden fields. The rich world through which he moved lay in the foreground of his awareness, and it gave up new secrets to him at every step.

‘No-Eyes’, when told of the adventures of ‘Eyes’, refused to believe that both had gone by the same road. He thought that his companion had been floating about in the air, or was beset by agreeable hallucinations. No one could persuade him to the contrary unless he could be persuaded to look for himself.”

Then, just as slowly, she puts the book down, smiles warmly and says, “Look for yourself.”

The words she reads come from “Practical Mysticism” by Evelyn Underhill.

Extending into eternal life

But as vital as Bella is in the story, the protagonist’s journey from left-brain, engineering-type to mystical meditator, depends on more than her teaching. Much more… it depends on life.

Mark’s story starts the day he punches his wife in the face, and then reconciles with her in the course of a few hours the same evening. His ex-wife is there too. They reminisce, looking at old failures in a new, healing way. He’s delighted, of course. Who wouldn’t be? But he’s unsettled too.

You see… ex-wife Greta has been dead for six years. And Anne is gushing inexplicable forgiveness and mystical wisdom only hours after the most violent fight of their tempestuous marriage.

The doctor says that the whole evening was a psychotic break from the trauma of the fight.

“Your experience of being with your wife after the incident is a delusion. In fact, she was rushed to hospital, where she died. Her body has been at the coroner’s office since then. You were brought here, and you’ve been unconscious in the adjoining room for nearly twenty-four hours.”

He thinks Mark’s punch killed Anne. He holds him under observation in a grubby Johannesburg state hospital until a cocksure police inspector arrests him for suspicion of murder.

So begins Mark’s ascent into a world of mystical experiences, accompanied by the frightening possibility that he might be psychotic. Teachers and guides, spirits and oracles, from this world and the next, help him ramble along to lucidity…

…Until his turn comes to die.

And he finds death to be an extrapolation of the mysticism he has tasted. The peace at his centre at those fleeting moments of connection, now goes on for ever. He discovers that the good doctor’s diagnosis was wrong. The line between this world and the next is blurred, and death is a delusion.

You can purchase the third edition of On The Fifth Night in e-book or paperback from Amazon Here.