A mystic is person who seeks by contemplation and self-surrender to obtain either union with or absorption in the Universal Spirit or God, or spiritual apprehension of the truths beyond the understanding. In the Vedic and Upanishadic traditions are enumerated many techniques leading one to experience the mystical. I happened accidentally to discover a fascinating parallel, and was wonderstruck at the uncanny similarity of their experiences as postulated by Wordsworth and the Vedic seers, but with one slight difference, that it is only in the latter sense that Wordsworth is a mystic, and he is first and last a Nature mystic.

In his boyhood Wordsworth responded to Nature through the senses of the eye and ear. But Wordsworth often transcends the conscious world and actually enters the mystic domain. And he achieves this mystical breakthrough by sublimated feeling or sublimated vision. In the mystical state his body is neutralized, he loses body-consciousness and becomes all Spirit (ahamātmā - I am pure Spirit and not the body). And it is in this state (Samādhi ? Sanskrit for ?solution?, as also superconsciousness) that he beholds the Spirit and pervades the Universe.

we are laid asleep

In body, and become a living soul;

While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy

We see into the life of things. (Tintern Abbey).

This supersensuous sublime state is a state of ?wise passiveness?, a very meaningful word, denoting Consciousness (the awareness of a ?Drashtā? ? the seer, experiencer, not the doer). This state emerges when the body becomes inactive and the soul alone remains active. But if the ?meddling intellect? (Buddhi) intrudes, this power of mystical perception is immediately lost. (The Tables Turned; ?Expostulation and Reply?). The mystical awareness is the awareness of the all-pervading Universal Spirit.

It is (Shrishtiswaroopa, the impelling force of all manifestation).

A motion and a Spirit, that impels

All living things, and all objects of all thought

And rolls through all things. (Tintern Abbey).

In The Prelude Book I Wordsworth again refers to the (Sarvagna - all knowing)

Wisdom and Spirit of the Universe

Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought!

The equivalent of transcendent to thought is found in the word, Shabdabrahmātivartatey.

Wordsworth found that when his mind was freed from preoccupation with disturbing objects, petty cares, little enmities and low desires, he could then reach a condition of equilibrium, which is ?a happy stillness of the mind?. He believed this condition could be deliberately induced by a kind of relaxation of the will (Dhyana - contemplation) and by stilling the busy intellect and striving desires. It is a purifying process, an emptying of all that is worrying, self-assertive and self-seeking. When our feeling and thought thus purified become exalted, our vision becomes clear enough to experience the central peace subsisting at the heart of ceaseless agitation. It reveals unity in what to our everyday sight appears to be diversity, harmony where ordinarily we hear hot discord, and joy instead of sorrow.

The slight difference of the approach that I talked about is in the sense that Wordsworth came to realize the Eternal Spirit, the giver of life to the Universe...through an intertwining of the passions of his Soul with Nature, and that Nature has fostered him by purifying his feeling and thought through beauty and form and making him recognize the magnificent opulence of the human heart.

No doubt, however, that the mystical experience is of divine origin and import, and contributes largely to the grandeur and sublimity of Wordsworth?s Nature poetry.

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