In her latest book Ordinary Mysticism: Your Life as Sacred Ground, Mirabai Starr seeks to demystify mysticism and invites us to make it a part of our everyday spiritual lives. Which may have you wondering: What is a mystic? Mirabai defines it in a number of tantalizing ways:
- A mystic is someone who skips over the intermediaries (ordained clergy, prescribed prayers, rigid belief systems) and goes straight to God.
- To be an ordinary mystic is to lead with love, to prioritize compassion, to regard the world with a sincere desire to see the goodness in others.
- (Become a mystic) and the ordinary world becomes more luminous, imbued with flashes of beauty and moments of meaning.
The best part of being an everyday mystic? There’s no training or travel required. No guru or religious figure to follow. And you can do it right here, right now, from the place where you now sit or stand. As Mirabai explains, the expectations are minimal:
I want you to want to be exactly who you are: a true human person doing their best to show up for this fleeting life with a measure of grace, with kindness and a sense of humor, with curiosity and a willingness to not have all the answers, with reverence for life. You do not need to chant all night in a temple in the Himalayas. You don’t have to be the newest incarnation of Mary Magdalene. It is not necessary to read or write spiritual books.
Becoming a mystic involves looking at the world with fresh eyes.
Mirabai tells us that “living as a mystic does not mean you conform to a preconceived notion of purity and perfection.” You live your life as you always do and may still “make bad choices sometimes, lose your temper with people you love, get caught in painful thought patterns you believe you should be free of.”
But with the help of meditation or prayer, you begin looking at life with fresh eyes for the new, the unexpected, the sacred. Mirabai calls it “the lens of love.” Through gratitude and forgiveness, you “cultivate a contemplative gaze … a gaze of wonder.” You begin to “pay attention to the landscape. To the ways it changes and the ways it stays the same.” She explains:
The more you make yourself available for mystical moments, the more they come flowing into the open field of your everyday life … you begin to taste the sacred in the most mundane: folding laundry, walking out the front door and heading to the car, choosing a loaf of bread at the market.
6 Keys to Being an Everyday Mystic
What does being a mystic look like in everyday life? Fortunately, in Ordinary Mysticism, Mirabai provides valuable pointers on how you can easily move into a mystical headspace. Her exact words appear in quotes, I’ve added additional language based on her thinking.
- Create sacred spaces. “Populate them with whatever feels holy to you, whatever inspires you, centers you, uplifts you. It can be ever-changing.” Mirabai mixes up her spiritual traditions, a Buddha statue here, a rosary or piece of cherished artwork there. Her home is like “a chapel, with little shrines in every room.”
- Invent rituals. Rituals can be whatever you want them to be. Mirabai lights candles and incense, listens to music, writes prayers. She says that in her morning meditations, “I am as likely to read from a collection of political poetry as to contemplate the Bhagavad Gita.”
- Start loving your life. “To be an ordinary mystic is to bow at the feet of your everyday existence, with its disappointments and dramas, its peaceful mornings and luminous nights, and to honor yourself just as you are.” It may not be easy but “a mystic finds the magic in the midst of the nitty-gritty.”
- Pour your attention into the present moment. “Be present, but not hypervigilant. Soften your focus so that you glimpse the vast sky behind the passing clouds. Be willing to see things as they are, and yourself as you are.” When you sharpen your attention, “the world opens and spills its most important secrets.”
- Find a quiet corner. Solitude can “peel away the layers of distractions” and “help quiet the mind. A quieter mind is more likely to encounter what is real and true.” Take a cat nap. Meditate. Stretch or do a yoga. Take a walk out in nature and don’t check your phone.
- Practice random acts of wonder. Mirabai quotes the Jewish philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel who said, “Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement … to get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”
The mystical journey awaits you.
Mirabai reminds us that “The enlightenment journey is just that: a journey. We unfold and grow as we go.” That journey begins with taking the first step—and continues by taking the next step. The path to spiritual riches lies right in front of you. “You do not need to look beyond what is already in your life to uncover a brimming basket of mystical inspiration.”
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