How do I Become a Mystic?

How does one become a mystic? What does it mean to be contemplative?

If you're like me, you're hungry to grow spiritually. To grow closer to that divine union so many sages and saints talk about.

Want to know how to get there?

In this video, I'll share 4 steps - and one big misconception to watch out for!

This is part 2 to our Seeker’s Guide to Mysticism! Be sure to subscribe to catch part 3 next week. :)

Transcript

How does one become a Mystic Kelly Deutsch

How does one become a mystic? What does it mean to be contemplative? Many people use those terms interchangeably, mystic and contemplative. We'll talk more about them later. But if you've landed here, you're probably hungry for spiritual growth and you've come to the right place.

Kelly Deutsch

I'm Kelly Deutsch, the founder of Spiritual Wanderlust. I've been exploring interior life for 20 years, studying the Mystics psychology theology, but also practicing it daily for these past two decades. I spent most of my life thinking I'd be a nun.

Kelly Deutsch

I entered the convent and went to Italy, studied more theology and philosophy, but the divine had other plans. I now share some of these tidbits and treasures that I found along the way to help you on your journey to wholeness and divine intimacy.

Kelly Deutsch

So how do we get there? How do we find wholeness, how do we find divine intimacy? How do you become a mystic? Today, I'm going to share with you four different steps to getting there, but I want to start with a huge caveat, OK?

Kelly Deutsch

Massive asterisk across the screen. You cannot achieve mysticism. This is a gift that can only be received. So what I'm going to share here is how we prepare ourselves for it. We don't cause it, but we prepare ourselves to receive it.

Kelly Deutsch

I shared in another video that mysticism and contemplation are a lot like surfing. We can't cause the wave, but we can prepare for it. You know, we practice how we get on top of our board and build our leg muscles or proprioception so that we can balance on top of the water.

Kelly Deutsch

We spend time out on the water. We make space for that to just sit out there and float. But whether or not the wave comes, how big it is, how often it comes, is not up to us. So here we go to learn how to surf with the understanding that we don't cause the waves.

Kelly Deutsch

OK, so here are four steps toward becoming a mystic, a contemplative and preparing ourselves for this divine wave. Number one, find your practice and practice it. What are we practicing being receptive, accepting reality as it is making space for the holy every day?

Kelly Deutsch

It doesn't have to be meditation. You can go for a walk. You can sip your coffee. You can just breathe. There are so many practices you can try, Locascio, Davina, you can try a mantra. one of my favorites is just simple silence.

Kelly Deutsch

first thing in the morning when I wake up just lying in my bed for 15 minutes and stillness and silence before the world begins to just be present. It doesn't have to be complicated. And if you're not sure where to get started, we'll have some other videos on contemplative practices and you can try some.

Kelly Deutsch

But really, the best place to start is where you already feel most grounded and most connected to the divine. Start there. Find your practice. second, find your community. Find others who can inspire you, encourage and exemplify what you're after.

Kelly Deutsch

It makes this so much easier when you have others who are trying to live the same thing. I mean, any lifestyle becomes easier when you have others living it to, whether it's for good or ill. You know, if you're living in L.A. and you're surrounded by people who are obsessed with how they look, you know, with appearances

Kelly Deutsch

in the flashy culture down there. Or maybe you're surrounded by people who are committed to doing anti-racism work. Whatever it is, we absorb what we think is normal in our environment. So it's a lot easier to surround yourself with others who are trying to live the same way you are so that it's in the air that you

Kelly Deutsch

breathe. Now, it's not an absolute necessity, but my gosh, does it make it a lot easier? So find like minded people that can support you and that you can support in return. Third, find your guide. Find somebody who's one to two steps ahead of you and that could be a wise friend, a spiritual director or, if need

Kelly Deutsch

, be even a contemplative teacher that you've never met. You know it might be Thomas Merton or Rumi or Richard Raw. John of the Cross says the virtuous soul that is alone and without a master is like a lone burning coal.

Kelly Deutsch

It'll grow colder rather than hotter. And I'm pretty sure if you're here, you're hungry to grow hotter, to find somebody that you can. Learn from who can help you avoid the pit in the road or when you fall in the pit helps pull you back out.

Kelly Deutsch

Really helpful. And keep in mind that you might need different guides at different stages. It makes me think of Dante, that great Italian character and how he had different guides through hell and purgatory and then heaven. Virgil led him through hell and through purgatory, but Beatrice led him through heaven.

Kelly Deutsch

You might need different guides. Whether you're in deconstruction, you might need another guide to help you with your grief and another guide to help you with reconstruction or finding this contemplative path. No one person can do it all.

Kelly Deutsch

So keep that in mind. If you feel like you've reached the end of your journey with one person, that's OK. You can find somebody else who feels like they're one to two steps ahead of wherever you are on the journey presently.

Kelly Deutsch

So the most important thing is really to find an accessible human being who's been down the road here going down. Number four, do your inner work. I cannot emphasize this enough. Every mystic reiterates this until they are blue in the face.

Kelly Deutsch

OK, contemplation leads to a life of virtue where you want what God wants when your life is transformed into love. And you do this not only through spiritual practice, but through doing your inner work. What do I mean by inner work?

Kelly Deutsch

I mean, pay attention to your triggers and work on resolving them. For example, do you get anxious every time you have to talk to your boss? Do you judge every time you thought you think or you talk about fundamentalists?

Kelly Deutsch

Do you get control every time things feel unstable? Look at those things and start to explore Earth, like what is going on there? Why do I have that pattern? You want to get to know your inner world enough so that you can begin to transform it?

Kelly Deutsch

You can do this in a variety of ways. You can do this through therapy, spiritual direction, twelve step groups, internal family systems so that you can be free of these judgmental tendencies or choose to not be controlling when things are unstable.

Kelly Deutsch

That's how the inner work in the outer work are so intricately tied. We work on our insides in both spiritual practice and this inner work, so that in our daily lives, we can become more loving, welcoming, kinder, more compassionate human beings.

Kelly Deutsch

two sides of the same coin. When you're emotional and psychological maturity, don't keep pace with your spiritual maturity. Your spiritual maturity will be stunted. Now God can still work amazing things in you, but you also might be miserable when we still have all of these wounds and issues that keep tripping us up throughout the day.

Kelly Deutsch

But don't get me wrong, I am not saying at all that you need to work through all of your wounds and issues in order to be a mystic. Because let me tell you, we've all got issues right. There is not one of us that is exempt from having issues from our childhood, from our current families, wherever we

Kelly Deutsch

are, because that's just part of what it means to be human and living in this world that we're in. But I am saying that working on all of this is part of the journey. This is part of the path to contemplation, to mysticism, to divine union.

Kelly Deutsch

And that's the goal of all of this is to prepare ourselves for divine union, for that wave that's coming through that ocean of divine goodness. So those four things are what you have power to control is to find your practice, you know, and make space for that every day.

Kelly Deutsch

Find your community, find a guide and do your inner work. Those four things are wonderful paths in the right direction in that direction toward divine union. Just remember not to confuse the end with the means. You know, it's not about the meditation itself.

Kelly Deutsch

It's not about the inner work itself. Those are helpful paths, but hold them lightly. Just like you, hold divine experiences and profound moments of. Bliss. You hold them all lightly, like you hold a cloud. Don't cling to them because then you got nothing when you hold a cloud and you try to grasp it like your hands are

Kelly Deutsch

empty, so hold them lightly. And if the divine. Sweeps away into another direction, and you don't feel like Lexi or Davina is serving you anymore or something isn't feeding you in your community, attend to that. It doesn't necessarily mean you have to abandon your community as soon as it doesn't meet your need on any given day, but

Kelly Deutsch

it is something to attend to. You know? Examine look at that. Where is this? Where am I being invited? Everything is gift. The Divine Craves Union with you, wants you to know that you are already in union with God.

Kelly Deutsch

Invite you to spend a moment if, like me, you might be experiencing some inner tugs or draw towards silence. And even if you're not, consider spending a moment with me in silence to make space for wherever you're being drawn.

Thank you for joining me.