Evelyn Underhill
'There is no place in my soul, no corner of my character, where God is not.'.
Underhill and her Life
Evelyn suggested that 'Mysticism' was one of the most abused worfs in the English language. It is associated with the occult, transcendentalism, and all sorts of metaphysical obscurity. She sought to restore the term to its old meaning, the one where it is expressed as the tendency of the human spirit to achieve complete harmony with the universal order. Put more succinctly the tendency towards mystic union.
This is a life experience, one that is only achievable in our embodiment. It is not intellectual speculation nor is it. She suggested that the mystical consciousness lies in a land beyond prejudice and beyond societal norms. Our jounrney is a journey towards the 'Changeless One'. Mostly it is never self. Her five stages of the Mysticial Journey ends with Union and total absorption into the Divine.
Underhill and her Sayings
'Mysticism is the art of union with reality'.
Where the philosopher guesses and argues, the Mystic lives and looks; and speaks the disconcerting language of first hand experience.
The business and method of Mysticism is love