Mysticism pursues direct, immediate knowledge of God rather than ethical improvement. In Hinduism, union with Brahman is already given but must be consciously realized through salvific gnosis (jñāna) by removing the veil of ignorance (māya) that the world is illusory. The ascetic achieves this through meditative contemplation, recognizing that man is essentially identical to God. Christianity, particularly Eastern Orthodox mysticism, opposes this ontological identity. It postulates an eternal ontological difference between man and God, emphasizing personal transfiguration through divine uncreated energies. God sustains creation as an organic whole through His will, without being present with His being in creation.
The paper argues that modern science, particularly materialism, has wrongly reduced human consciousness to an illusion and humans to unimportant parts of a cold universe. It contends that materialism is an obsolete dogma and that prevailing interpretations of brain research are biased by anti-spiritual prejudices. The author calls for a paradigm shift toward idealistic theories, proposing that consciousness is not a by-product of matter but its master. The goal is to re-establish the notion of an immaterial spirit, compatible with religious ideas, as a valid foundation for understanding the self and our place in the cosmos.