ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to explore theistic mysticism as exemplified by the Spanish Carmelites St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross on the one hand and some of the bhakti poet-mystics on the other. The investigations will be undertaken particularly with a view to the attitudes shown to ‘this world’, namely the material world of our day-to-day activities with all its limitations and frustrations, and the ‘other world’ or the realm of the divine which the mystic claims to encounter directly in personal spiritual experience.
