Mysticism (from the Greek μυστικός, mystikos) is the pursuit of communion with, identity with, or conscious awareness of an ultimate reality, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition or insight.

In “Mysticism without Bounds” (MwB2011), we want to explore the inter-disciplinarity as a way of naming the phenomenon of crossing-over boundaries that mysticism makes possible and concrete. Certain common grounds do exist among the various forms of consciousness, scattered among the world's religions and theologies, sciences, philosophies, and various art forms.

• In fact, differing religious and theological traditions have described this fundamental mystical experience in different ways. However, at the core of all the major religions and theologies, there exists a current of mystical teachings which, when compared to one another, exhibit a startling degree of cross-cultural agreement.

• Sciences and mysticism  appear  antithetical,  but we find in mysticism a type of spirituality which has close epistemological parallels to science. Studies in several areas of science address the same issues that concern the mystics, and while quantum physics, for instance, does not "prove" mystical teachings, the fundamental reality which it describes is not at all incompatible with the fundamental reality testified to by the mystics.

• Various  philosophical fields  such  as  ontology  (which is concerned with the nature of reality), epistemology (which deals with the nature, acquisition and limitations of knowledge) and phenomenology (which insists on the first-person, experiential stance that mystics try to achieve) would appear to relate to various aspects of mystical experience, although they have not yet been correlated in a systematic way.

• Many  art forms  not only can be ways for mystics to communicate what they are trying to teach, but they have also helped shape the minds and imaginations of the mystics. Poetry, music, dance, visual arts and rituals have emerged as fascinating ways to connect the undifferentiated states of oneness, non-duality, and the differentiated states of diversity and multiplicity.

The discovery of such  points of  convergence among religions,  sciences, arts, and philosophies on ‘mysticism’ is intellectually very exciting; and it holds out the possibility of creating a ‘new worldview’ in which these disciplines would be seen as distinct yet complementary ways of exploring the same underlying reality.

This new world view can create an awareness of the essential unity of humanity, and work for the welfare of all, irrespective of social, political and religious differences.