The Geometry of Enlightenment: Why Mystics Across Cultures Describe Similar States

Series: Comparative Mysticism | Part: 1 of 10

Here's a puzzle that has troubled scholars of religion for over a century: Why do mystics separated by oceans, millennia, and mutually incomprehensible theological frameworks report remarkably similar experiences?

A Buddhist monk in 12th-century Japan sits in zazen for decades and describes the dissolution of self into vast emptiness. A Christian mystic in 14th-century Germany enters deep prayer and reports union with God that transcends all subject-object distinction. A Sufi poet in 13th-century Persia writes of annihilation in the Beloved. A contemporary neuroscience subject takes psilocybin in a laboratory at Johns Hopkins and describes ego death, boundlessness, and unity with everything.

Different languages. Different metaphysical frameworks. Different practices. Nearly identical phenomenology.

This is the convergence problem in comparative mysticism—and it's not going away. Every attempt to reduce mystical experience to cultural construction runs into the stubborn fact that practitioners across traditions navigate to the same experiential territory. Every attempt to claim universal validity for mystical experience runs into the equally stubborn fact that traditions differ profoundly in doctrine, practice, and interpretation.

What if both sides are missing something? What if mystical states aren't primarily about belief content or cultural narrative, but about geometric configurations in coherence space that different traditions have learned to access through different means?

This isn't metaphor. It's the working hypothesis of a growing number of researchers connecting contemplative traditions to coherence geometry, predictive processing, and the mathematics of self-organizing systems. The claim: mystical experiences represent specific, stable configurations in the state-space of human consciousness—and these configurations have geometric properties that can be characterized, measured, and compared across traditions.

In other words, there's a geometry of enlightenment. And once you see it, the convergence stops being mysterious.

The Traditional Answers Don't Work

The perennialist position—popular from William James through Aldous Huxley to contemporary figures like Huston Smith—claims that all mystical experiences access the same underlying reality, which different traditions then interpret through their particular cultural lenses. There's a common core. A philosophia perennis. The mystics all climb different sides of the same mountain.

The problem: this can't account for genuine differences in phenomenology. Buddhists don't just interpret their experience differently from Christians—they report different experiential structures. The no-self realization of anatta is not simply the experience of union with God described differently. Theistic mysticism involves relationship, however paradoxical. Non-theistic mysticism involves the absence of relational structure entirely.

The constructivist position—dominant in contemporary religious studies following Steven Katz—goes the opposite direction. Mystical experiences are constructed by expectations, training, and cultural context. There is no common core. A Christian has Christian experiences because Christianity constructs the very possibility space of experience. A Buddhist has Buddhist experiences for the same reason. The experiences are as different as the traditions that produce them.

The problem: this can't account for genuine convergence. Why do practitioners across wildly different traditions report dissolution of the sense of separate self? Why do they converge on descriptions involving boundlessness, timelessness, peace, and paradoxical apprehension of unity? If experience were entirely constructed by cultural context, we shouldn't see consistent phenomenological overlaps across incompatible frameworks.

Both positions are stuck because they're asking the wrong question. The question isn't "do mystics access the same reality or different culturally-constructed realities?" The question is: What are the stable configurations in human state-space that contemplative practices navigate toward, and why do different practices converge on similar geometric targets?

This is where coherence geometry enters.

Mystical States as Geometric Configurations

In the language of coherence geometry—the mathematical framework connecting information theory, statistical mechanics, and the self-organizing dynamics of biological systems—a state isn't a static snapshot but a configuration in state-space defined by particular geometric properties.

Three properties show up consistently across mystical phenomenology regardless of tradition:

1. Low curvature. Mystical states are described as profoundly peaceful, stable, and self-sustaining. In geometric terms, these are low-curvature regions of state-space—configurations where the system settles into stable attractors requiring minimal corrective energy. The subjective correlate of low curvature is the feeling of ease, rightness, and homecoming that mystics across traditions report. It doesn't feel like you've constructed something fragile. It feels like you've discovered something that was already there—which makes sense if you've navigated to a natural attractor in the system's geometry.

2. Expanded dimensionality. Ordinary waking consciousness operates in what we might call a compressed subspace—you identify with a particular body, a particular perspective, a particular narrative self moving through time. Mystical states consistently involve the relaxation of these constraints. Boundaries blur. The sense of being located in a particular body attenuates. Time becomes less structured. Perspective shifts from local to global. In geometric terms, the system is accessing higher-dimensional configurations that are normally unavailable—moving from a low-dimensional attractor (the habitual sense of bounded self) into expanded regions of state-space.

3. Dissolved boundaries. Perhaps the most consistent feature across traditions: mystical experience involves the weakening or complete dissolution of subject-object distinction. The boundary between self and world, between observer and observed, between inside and outside becomes permeable or disappears entirely. This isn't just a belief change or reinterpretation—it's a phenomenological reconfiguration of how experience is structured. In terms of predictive processing (the brain as a hierarchy of prediction-generating models), this represents the attenuation of the high-level generative model that maintains the boundary between self and non-self—what researchers call the Default Mode Network (DMN).

These aren't poetic metaphors. They're measurable features of brain states associated with contemplative practice and mystical experience. Neuroimaging studies consistently show DMN deactivation during meditation and psychedelic states. EEG studies show increased global integration and decreased modularity—the brain's specialized networks communicating more with each other and less within their specialized domains. The geometry changes. And the phenomenology changes with it.

Here's the key insight: these geometric features aren't specific to any tradition. They're features of human neurocognitive architecture. Any practice that reliably drives the system toward low curvature, expanded dimensionality, and dissolved boundaries will produce similar phenomenology—regardless of the metaphysical framework within which the practice is situated.

This is why convergence happens. Not because all traditions access the same metaphysical reality (though they may). Not because all mystical experiences are culturally constructed (though culture certainly shapes them). But because different practices navigate toward similar geometric configurations in the shared state-space of human consciousness.

Different Routes, Same Attractor

Think of it this way: if you want to reach the summit of a mountain, there are many paths. Some are steep and direct. Some wind gradually through valleys. Some require technical climbing. Some are accessible to anyone with determination. The paths are genuinely different—different skills, different challenges, different experiences along the way.

But the summit is the summit. It has particular features—thin air, expansive view, certain geological properties—that are the same regardless of which path you took to get there. You can argue about which path is best, most authentic, most efficient. You can develop sophisticated theories about why your path leads to the true summit and other paths lead to inferior peaks. But if the paths converge—if practitioners from different routes report the same phenomenological features—then you're probably talking about the same geometric configuration in state-space.

Buddhism approaches through analysis and attention—systematic deconstruction of the sense of self through precise observation of experience. Vipassana cuts the self into smaller and smaller pieces until nothing remains. Zen sits with the question until the questioner disappears. Dzogchen recognizes the nature of mind that was never constructed in the first place.

Christianity approaches through surrender and union—giving up the separate will to participate in divine life. Contemplative prayer quiets the discursive mind. Apophatic theology strips away all concepts. The mystic dissolves into God through love, not analysis.

Sufism approaches through remembrance and annihilation—dhikr (repetitive invocation) that wears away the ego like water wearing away stone. The lover dissolves into the Beloved. Fana (annihilation) precedes baqa (subsistence in God). The path is ecstatic, not analytical.

Hindu and yogic traditions offer multiple routes—jnana (knowledge), bhakti (devotion), karma (action), raja (meditation). Advaita Vedanta recognizes non-dual awareness as what you already are. Tantric practices transform energy rather than suppress it. All converge on moksha—liberation from the illusion of separate selfhood.

Different traditions. Different practices. Different narratives about what's happening. But look at the geometric properties they're navigating toward:

• Attenuation of the self-model (ego dissolution)
• Expansion beyond ordinary boundaries (unity, boundlessness)
• Stable, peaceful, self-sustaining configuration (liberation, salvation, enlightenment)
• Shift from constructed subject-object structure to non-dual awareness

These are geometric targets. And the fact that different practices converge on them suggests something profound: they're stable attractors in human state-space. Not arbitrary cultural constructions. Not supernatural realities accessible only through the correct doctrine. Natural configurations that consciousness can access when the right conditions are met.

The Role of Practice

Here's where this gets practical. If mystical states are geometric configurations, then contemplative practices are technologies for navigating state-space. They're systematic methods for moving from the default attractor of ordinary consciousness (bounded self, subject-object structure, habitual concerns) toward other attractors characterized by different geometric properties.

Different practices work through different mechanisms:

Concentration practices (focused attention on a single object—breath, mantra, visual image) reduce noise and dimensionality. By constraining attention to a narrow domain, they allow the system to settle into simpler, more stable configurations. The subjective feeling is calm, focus, and eventually jhana states—highly concentrated absorptions that feel blissful and unified because they're low-curvature attractors.

Deconstructive practices (analytical meditation, self-inquiry, vipassana) systematically dismantle the self-model. By observing the moment-to-moment construction of experience, practitioners see through the illusion of a persistent, unchanging self. The self-model loses its grip. What remains isn't nothing—it's the ongoing process of experience without the overlay of a separate experiencer.

Devotional practices (prayer, bhakti, guru yoga) work through relational coupling. By orienting toward a source of coherence (God, guru, deity), the practitioner entrains with a stable attractor outside their individual system. The separate self dissolves not through analysis but through surrender—giving up individual control to participate in larger coherence.

Energy practices (pranayama, kundalini yoga, tantric techniques) work directly with somatic coherence. By modulating breath, posture, and attention, they shift the autonomic state of the nervous system—moving from sympathetic (fight-flight) to parasympathetic (rest-digest) to states beyond that binary entirely. Mystical states correlate strongly with specific autonomic signatures.

Psychedelic practices (sacramental use of psilocybin, ayahuasca, LSD) work through direct neurochemical intervention. By disrupting the normal functioning of the DMN and increasing global connectivity in the brain, they temporarily destabilize the default self-model and allow access to configurations that would otherwise require years of practice. (We'll explore this in depth later in the series.)

Different mechanisms. Different time-scales. Different challenges. But all are methods for moving the system through state-space toward configurations characterized by low curvature, expanded dimensionality, and dissolved boundaries.

This is why contemplative practice works. Not because it earns supernatural favor or constructs culturally-approved experiences. Because it's coherence technology—systematic manipulation of the variables that determine which configurations in state-space the system occupies.

The Coherence Perspective

Let's bring this back to AToM—the coherence framework that this entire publication is built around. In AToM terms, meaning = coherence / tension. Meaning arises when systems maintain integrated organization over time despite constraint and perturbation.

Mystical states are high-coherence configurations. They're characterized by:

• Low internal tension (the peaceful, easeful quality universally reported)
• High integration (the unity and wholeness that replace ordinary fragmentation)
• Stable self-maintenance (the sense that these states, once accessed, feel more natural than ordinary consciousness)

In ordinary consciousness, you experience yourself as a separate agent navigating a world of objects. This configuration involves significant tension—you're constantly maintaining boundaries, predicting threats, managing relationships between self and other. It's a high-curvature region of state-space. It requires constant energy to maintain. It's fragile.

Mystical consciousness involves the dissolution of that structure. Not into chaos—into a different kind of order. An order characterized by less separation, more integration, lower tension. The boundaries that created fragmentation relax. What remains is coherent but not bounded in the same way.

This is why mystics across traditions describe these states as more real than ordinary consciousness. They're not deluded. They're accessing configurations that are geometrically simpler—fewer constraints, less curvature, more integration. From within those states, ordinary consciousness looks like an arbitrary, exhausting, and ultimately unnecessary complication.

And here's the thing: they might be right.

Why This Matters

Understanding mystical states through coherence geometry does several things:

First, it solves the convergence problem without collapsing into either naive perennialism or rigid constructivism. Convergence happens because different practices navigate toward similar geometric targets in shared state-space. Difference happens because traditions interpret, contextualize, and integrate those experiences through distinct frameworks. Both convergence and difference are real.

Second, it makes contemplative practice less mysterious and more accessible. You're not trying to access supernatural realms or conform to cultural expectations. You're learning to navigate state-space—to move your nervous system from habitual high-tension configurations toward stable low-tension attractors. This is learnable. It's trainable. It's technology.

Third, it opens research questions that can actually be answered. What are the measurable geometric properties of different contemplative states? How do different practices move systems through state-space? What are the mechanisms—attentional, somatic, pharmacological—that enable these transitions? How do individual differences in neurobiology affect which practices work for which people?

Fourth, it grounds the validity of mystical experience without requiring theological commitments. If you're skeptical about supernatural claims but take phenomenology seriously, coherence geometry gives you a framework. These states aren't culturally constructed delusions. They're real configurations in state-space with measurable properties and reliable practices for accessing them.

Fifth, and perhaps most importantly, it suggests that mystical states aren't rare, special, or reserved for saints. They're natural attractors in human state-space. Which means they're available. Not easily. Not without practice. But available as a possibility for any nervous system with the right training and conditions.

Enlightenment might not be what most traditions claim it is. But that doesn't mean it's not real. It means it's geometric.

This is Part 1 of the Comparative Mysticism series, exploring the convergent geometry of mystical states across contemplative traditions.

Next: Mystical States as Geometric Configurations: Low Curvature, Expanded Dimensionality, Dissolved Boundaries

Further Reading

• Josipovic, Z. (2014). "Neural correlates of nondual awareness in meditation." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1307, 9-18.
• Millière, R. (2017). "Looking for the self: phenomenology, neurophysiology and philosophical significance of drug-induced ego dissolution." Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 11, 245.
• Lutz, A., Dunne, J. D., & Davidson, R. J. (2007). "Meditation and the neuroscience of consciousness." Cambridge Handbook of Consciousness, 499-555.
• Carhart-Harris, R. L., et al. (2014). "The entropic brain: a theory of conscious states informed by neuroimaging research with psychedelic drugs." Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 20.
• Yaden, D. B., et al. (2017). "The varieties of self-transcendent experience." Review of General Psychology, 21(2), 143-160.