Mysticism III

Mysticism has a meaning which goes to the roots of the word mystic and mysterious. In greek, it means something that is to conceal, or in other words something that is hidden. In a more broader sense it can be used as the secret meaning of life, which is unseen. Almost all religions are related to mysticism. Mysticism can be used as an exploration of life to have a deeper experience.
For example, dreams are important to research in mysticism because according to Carl Gustav Jung, they are the communication of the outer -mystic- world with us. It has many secret meanings embedded inside, which may lead to transformation of the soul.
This issue of transformation is very much related to mysticism because in the end all the mystic experiences are to transform the soul. Writer and anthropologist Carlos Castaneda describes this by dividing the worlds of reality into two, Tonal and Nagual. Tonal is the physical world, and Nagual is the other world which is infinite and much more powerful than the physical world. He makes an allegory by saying that if Tonal is an island, Nagual is the ocean that surrounds it. But we, as human beings living in the center of the Tonal island and isolated us selves from the ocean that we don't even know that it exists.
Carl Gustav Jung makes so much experiments about this issue of mysticism and going into the path of the "unknown". He, first of all goes into the ancient myths. He says everyone has his/her  own myth. And also myths are our inherited consciousness which takes us to discover our each individual mystery of life.
This issue of discovery is like turning an ordinary metal into golden. Like doing Alchemy. So in other words, going into the mystery of life, one can turn into the pure golden nature of the soul.
Jung uses dreams and symbols a lot to reach the unconscious psyche. Also that way he can reach to the archetypal images and associations. He says there are unconscious identification with animals. Animals are also very important symbols according to the ancient texts. For example the Eagle is a symbol of intermediary between the physical world and the outer world according to many civilizations like Ancient Rome and Ancient Egypt.