He found it harder and harder to talk these days about his inner experiences. Partly because the world seems largely to have moved on from the days when most believed in something in addition to that which they could see all around them. Science and the self assurance of the materialistic modern world derides such concepts as gnosis, and puts inner experience down to chemicals and neuronal connections.

Failing thus to admit to the possibility that neuronal activity and its chemistry is a conduit rather than an originator.

A far greater obstacle for him was his embarrassment over the language and attitudes of the conventionally religious. And an absolute determination to distance himself from the saccharine sweet, cloying awfulness of “the religious”. Not for him the hand on the heart talking of “we Christians” with the unsaid implication “you heathens”. Or “we” anything else come to that matter.

For him, it just wasn’t like that.

Why did he need to talk anyway?

Materialists would consider him an outdated and deluded simpleton. And if so convinced, why should he need to shout it from the rooves?

His answer was twofold.

In earlier days he was a mere seeker. A reader of the experiences of others. Desirous of sitting at the feet of some all wise sage who would reveal to him the secrets of the universe and beyond. And as such, writing was a way of self exploration. Or indeed exploration. Trying on different caps to see if they fitted. As it happens, it was the Christian mystics who first sang loudest in his ear. Followed a close second by the Sufis. And once you listened to them, you realised that Buddhists, Hindus and all manner of others were saying exactly the same thing, but in a style and culture you were not accustomed to and hence found less easy to align with. He did not find beauty in the translations of the Buddhist sutras he had read; so much dull repetition. But in Eckhart or Rumi his soul flew.

Simply, it has to be said, because of the beauty and clarity of their thoughts and the language in which they expressed them. “One person who has mastered life is better than a thousand persons who have mastered only the contents of books” and thus it has proved for him. Meister Eckhart and so many others pointed in the right direction, but he discovered that the path still had to be trodden. Not just read about.

The other reason for his insistent scribbling was that it reinforced his experiences. Settled them in. Expanded them, amplified them. He wrote for himself therefore but the closer he got to the central mystery, the more he felt a need to distinguish himself from the sebaceous, fulsome pap so often served up by the unctuous and oily.

And the second or third hand nonsense served up by those out to make a quick buck.

How rude that sounds. Arrogant too no doubt. But the fact is that his own experiences were a far, far world away from the Victorian Kitsch so very often regurgitated by the religious establishment.

Self awareness and a retreat deep within has shown him something majestic at work. And it wasn’t wet or weedy or simpering. It just was. Big and overpowering and astounding once you answered its call. Not week and limpid, wringing its hands in a corner pronouncing itself sinful and unworthy. And it certainly makes no call to be “worshipped”.

But why be negative and talk about what it is not? Why not talk of what it is?

It just is. He felt no separation from it and himself. It was him and he was it. Or perhaps he was a part of it, a part of a majestic whole. In terms of qualia and human consciousness, contact brought warmth and certitude and well being. A conviction of eternity, a realisation that human pretension on this small planet in the middle of nowhere could be safely ignored.

Yes, yes, cruelty and horror and greed and vileness. It is everywhere rife on this rocky outcrop. But it has ever been thus and perhaps aways will be. He must teach himself to let it go. Recognise that the actions of the unaware are unlikely to change any time soon. Accept that the belief in reincarnation is of serious intent. How many lifetimes will it take? How many worms and dogs and pigs and snakes must you become before you see through the nonsense of life as it is conventionally led. How often will you be born a serf or emperor, a Titan or a humble crofter. Today Buckingham Palace, tomorrow Grenfell Towers.

Well, perhaps he was being figurative about re-incarnation but it no longer felt quite so far fetched as it once had.

What was it like then? It was like a trip without the drugs. Heroin without the poppies. And all brought about by a simple and prolonged daily retreat into silent contemplation.

But above all it was good and life affirming and reassuring. A safe haven. A realisation of just what “is”. And indeed what is not.

Perhaps, he thought, the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins expressed best where the mystic ends up. Even if the poor fellow himself never made it before crossing the bar.

Illustration: Repentant Mary Magdalene, Gerard Seghers 1591 to 1651