I am not sure who are these mystics and what do they mean by such blanket statements. Did the possibility of disease and ageing vanish? Did anger, irritability, lust, greed for food, attachment to a way of life or to a kind of dress, habits, selfishness, egoism vanish? Did their thinking develop into inspiration, revelation, intuition? Did their speech and language change? Did their grow in sweetness and love towards all creatures? Did they start using the material objects more consciously? Did they discover God in their heart and see the Divine everywhere and in everything? Could they develop the faculty of knowing the future accurately, perceiving Truth of everything without error? Did they develop the eye of Beauty and the power of transmitting thoughts and peace to all who come into contact with them. Did some new faculties develop in them? Did they completely get rid of ego and desires including the desire for Moksha? All these are part of the package of transformation.
One doesn’t take to spiritual life to escape from problems? But one doesn’t need to be a mystic to do that. Anybody who cuts himself off from the world at large and escapes into solitude will find free from half the problems. If to this one can add moderation of desires then one will easily discover a basic ground of peace be free from most of the problems. In fact if one wants to be truly free from problems then one is seeking the path of escape or Nirvana. The reason one takes to spiritual life is to find God or Truth or the ultimate Reality. And one is ready to undergo any difficulties and problems one may find on the way. Besides having found God one is busy helping all creatures and work selflessly for their good, often even taking their problems upon themselves as we see in the life of Swami Vivekananda, Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
Transformation goes still further. Having found God one starts working towards a radical change of nature from human to the Divine. It is a far more difficult, painstaking, exacting labour than most mystics are even ready to undertake. It is not something undertaken for one’s own sake but as part of the Divine Work for earth. Its end result is a collective change, the creation of a new species or a new race of divinised beings leading a divine life in a divine body. Mysticism on the other hand is limited to a personal experience of the Divine Reality in some aspect or the other. Naturally this Divine Contact fills the person with peace and joy and one often feels supported and helped in the problems of life. This is common experience in this yoga as well. But while most mystics would stop here, the Integral Yoga takes up the challenge of transformation of human nature into a divine supernature. Mystics do not know about it because they are happy with their personal liberation.
Affectionately,
Alok Da
