Mystical Experience: Opposites at Once

Brought to you by the English Butcher, in honor of mystical experience, radioactivity and the kitchen: mystical lids from Cookville…both 8Cm and 9Cm (Cm=the symbol for “curium”, from the periodic table of chemical elements, a silver-white, radioactive element named for Marie and Pierre Curie, due to their research into radioactivity during the 20th century. OK, OK. Cm is also the symbol/abbreviation for centimeter. But hey, how conducive to a mystical experience is that?) As for Cookville: where else would you expect to find mystical lids possessing powers to transport you to the experience of opposites whenever you want? I always knew the kitchen was a portal to…uh…somewhere!

Actually,

Living Islam, there is no such thing as a mystical experience. Though we hear about it often, the whole notion of mystics/mysticism is a misnomer; an attempt at naming the unnameable-like describing what a rose smells like or the taste of honey. Those saints known as mystics have arrived: they’ve fought the battle (jihad) with the self (nafs) and attained nearness to the One. Guided, by His mercy they have received His gift: unveiling the real, the present.

Islam is the natural way back to Reality: opening the spiritual door and embarking on a path of self-awareness, insight, discrimination, discerning truth (haqq) from falsehood (batil), inspiration (ilham), seeing with the inner eye (basirah) of the heart and the goal is one: to purify the self (nafs) from its veils to that Reality.