If you want life to get easier, mysticism may disappoint you. If you want it to become much more interesting, you are looking in the right place.

In the practice of pragmatic apophatic mysticism, as in other mystical traditions, one makes a profound surrender. But it does not have to be surrender to a God, nor to an atheism. It is rather surrendering to an experiential process. The process does not involve claims or denials, beliefs or disbeliefs, or any assurance that either truth or self-deception can be verified. The apophatic mystic realizes herself to be a participant in a mystical process and through her surrender to it she is able to intimately engage and enjoy its dynamics.

Looking at the various mystical traditions we find analogues of this surrendering process in almost all of them. In the atheism of Georges Bataille we find his condemnation of “project.” In the deism of Martin Luther we have “faith, not works.” The agnostic approach of Zhuangzi aims at “categorical surrender.” Surrender allows us to fall into a psycho-physical disposition which puts us in touch with an astonishing dynamic, one that is naturally found in the ground of our being. We learn how to let our psyche liberate itself.

It sounds naïve, but summoning this deliverance is a knack which can be learned. It is demonstrable and is almost always reliable: At every moment you have a natural ability to decide how well you want to feel about being in this world.