Mysticism at a Distance

Always looking to serve you better, I'm currently enjoying a 30+ session class on Mysticism in the Western Tradition (meaning among Jews, Christians and Muslims). 

My hope has been to better understand the many ways people have tried to directly encounter God which, as you'll know if you've followed this blog, is a major concern of many of us.

Only nine sessions in, here's been my biggest surprise so far: Most mysticism, even among the most famous practitioners, does not get you an encounter with God.  It might get you a profoundly spiritual experience or a deep insight.  But God is still too far distant.

So I've learned a tiny bit about Kabbalah and about how popular certain numbering systems have been (much like this bestseller of a few years back called The Bible Code in which the Bible was interpreted not on the basis of what its authors were trying to say but by way of esoteric numbering systems which treated the words of the Bible as a code which needed to be broken).  I've learned about the idea of seven heavens.  (Coming from the use of the plural "heavens" in passages like "the heavens display your handiwork.")  Each heaven, evidently, takes 500 years to achieve, so it will be 3,500 years of effort before you get to the one closest to God.

If nothing else, this teaches me that people will work very hard to get even a small sense of closeness to God.  What are you hoping for on those lines?  Do you have a sense that there's a greater connection to God out there than you've yet experienced?  Do you think about that very often?  What about the mystical life appeals to you?