" So that to the mystic, whether he be
philosopher, poet, artist, or priest, the aim of life is to become like
God, and thus to attain to union with the Divine. Hence, for him, life
is a continual advance, a ceaseless aspiration; and reality or truth is
to the seeker after it a vista ever expanding and charged with ever
deeper meaning. John Smith, the Cambridge Platonist, has summed up the
mystic position and desire in one brief sentence, when he says, "Such as
men themselves are, such will God Himself seem to them to be." For, as
it takes two to communicate the truth, one to speak and one to hear, so
our knowledge of God is precisely and accurately limited by our capacity
to receive Him. "Simple people," says Eckhart, "conceive that we are to
see God as if He stood on that side and we on this. It is not so: God
and I are one in the act of my perceiving Him."
This sense of unity leads to another belief, though it is one not always
consistently or definitely stated by all mystics. It is implied by Plato
when he says, "All knowledge is recollection." This is the belief in
pre-existence or persistent life, the belief that our souls are
immortal, and no more came into existence when we were born than they
will cease to exist when our bodies disintegrate.
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