The Light at the Center: Context and Pretext of Modern Mysticism

by Agehananda Bharati

The Light at the Center, an investigation of mysticism in the tradition of Butler, Underhill and Zaehner, ventures into a totally new sphere because the author combines two allegedly contradictory qualifications - he is a trained mystic, an initiate into a Hindu monastic order, and also an outstanding social scientist. So far no holy man has been able to analyze the society in which he operates, and no social scientist has been a professional mystic. Bharati first defines mysticism, then proceeds to discuss oriental religious movements in America. He claims that the majority of gurus whose actions and words have diffused into the West since the turn of the century are frauds, but that the mystical experience they refer to is often genuine, although inaccessible to empirical measurement. He then appeals for a rational, disciplined approach to mysticism that would embrace all those willing to approach the tradition by the sweat of their brows, and to do away with media-inspired notions of the initiate and the aspirant.

Paperback

First published June 1, 1976

About the author

Swāmī Agehānanda Bhāratī (अगेहानन्द भारती) was the monastic name of Leopold Fischer, professor of Anthropology at Syracuse University for over 30 years. He was an academic Sanskritist, a writer on religious subjects, and a Hindu monk in the Dasanami Sannyasi order.

Reviews

[Nidish · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, I think I'm slowly getting obsessed with the man's reclusive writing. As another review mentioned elsewhere, the author definitely has a dark side to his character, but his writing is very fascinating nonetheless.

As a practicing Hindu, I do agree with many of the more astute observations he makes about Hindu society, which are true to this day. But he sometimes goes a little too far IMO to bring his point across. For instance, he labels all Indian food as being nutritionally inadequate and the spices were added as a substitute for hygienic conditions (to kill the germs etc.). This is as wild a claim as it gets, and most probably complete nonsense, but I can understand where he comes from - a post-Christian west that was looking enthusiastically at everything in the east as being superior.

Coming to the topic of mysticism, the main thesis of the work, he starts with a very technical definition of a mystic (a person who has an self-dissolving experience and consequently labels himself a mystic), taking detours into anthropology and ethnosciences (as a non-member of such fields, I really enjoyed reading these sections), and finally speaking about the situation in India and America in the mystical context. Most of the observations he makes are remarkably accurate - he calls all of religion a consequence of different auto interpretations and ensuing reactions to "zero-experiences" by mystics in different cultural contexts. Claiming to speak from personal experience, the author states that he is convinced that this zero-experience is identical across cultures, but the interpretations of the mystic is always influenced by the contexts.

He speaks very strongly against any notion of pragmatic utility of mystical experience. This is also something I have seen in tradition (exceptions exist), and goes to great lengths to ensure that the book does not read like an advertisement for mysticism (I think it has the potential to turn people with a "western bent" away).

The book contains several open areas - what IS the mystical experience? Is there any truth in the descriptions of occult powers (more than once the author brushes these off in a very "oh yeah, and some people sometimes get powers, lets move on" manner)? He also doesnt say anything conclusive about whether the way Indian culture has developed has a causal relationship to mysticism. With this in mind, a lot of his criticism falls on deaf ears.

All in all, it is definitely an extremely interesting (and, might I say, imporant) read.

I wouldn't recommend this book to anybody but I think this book has to be read by most (if not all) people I know.

Some interesting quotes:
1. "Ethnoscience states that you cannot understand the native or his idiom if you insist on torturing him into your own Procrustean categories. You must take the cultural and linguistic categories supplied by the native, and then find the things that fit into them. You can no longer do what that old ethnographer did: he reportedly took a native interpreter and asked him to ask the chieftain if the latter had an oedipus complex; the chieftain said no, and the researcher wrote a learned piece showing why the natives of X do not have an Oedipus complex..."
2. "Professor Ninian Smart...shows that any Indian system which compromised with theism weakened its philosophical thrust to the degree in which it compromised. More theism correlates with less philosophy; more rigorous speculation correlates with less theism."
3. "There are two audiences with which the swamis and the other eastern mystagogues do not score. They are the professional modern philosophers, and the orientalists... Scientists with experimental proclivities are often more naive, hence more gullible, when it comes to understanding premises."

[Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

fun filled wild ride.