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MYSTICISM AND INDIAN SPIRITUALITY
Karel Werner
Although the term mysticism is of Western origin, it has been used in the context of Indian spiritual tradition both by European and Indian authors, sometimes without any attempt to define it. This is perhaps because there is a certain broad consensus about its meaning among scholars concerned with religious studies which overcomes the ambiguity of the term as it is frequently exhibited in its popular usage. I have tried elsewhere1 to trace the beginnings of mysticism in Europe and summarise its historical development. Its origin clearly points to the mystery cults in the twilight of Greek history and goes back perhaps to even earlier times in Indo-European antiquity. Later, mysticism developed in ancient Greece in close connection with some philosophical teachings and still later it was influenced also by Judaic experience and by mystical teachings from the East, particularly from India.
Christian mysticism combined all these trends with the mystical dimension of Christ's mission and developed its specific terminology stemming from Christian theological doctrines, but it never lost its strongly neo-Platonic flavour which it acquired through pseudo-Dionisios Areopagita (cca 500 A.D.). In view of all this one has to conclude that European mysticism has nothing specifically European in its origin, which only illustrates the universality of the phenomenon of mysticism.
In its subsequent historical development European mysticism appears to have proceeded along three interconnected and interwoven yet distinguishable lines. First there is what can be described as the direct experience, communion or union SP-31
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