136 actas del ii congreso internacional de literatura mística and compared with the ever-increasing polarization of Western Christendom and the rest of the religious world. 1.4 limitations There are inherent limitations in constructing a description of the meanings and essences of mystical experience. First and foremost, the discussion addresses the direct and unmediated experience of the psycho-spiritual, which includes noetic reality that is not ordinarily perceived in that it is: (a) manifest, yet concealed; (b) immanent, yet transcendent; and (c) known in human experience, yet indefinable and ineffable, (i.e., beyond human language). Moreover, the discussion requires an awareness of the very nature of experience, which also presents difficulties due to the impotence of human language. This leads to the second limitation, terminology. In addition to the researcher’s reliance on translation for the Arabic, Pali, Sanskrit, and Tibetan texts, the Greek terminology also poses difficulties in that English translations often inadequately express meanings and nuances, and many words can only be translated contextually. For example, hesychia, which is translated as stillness, rest, quiet, silence and/or focus, can, depending on the text, refer to: (a) the departure from the world of the senses; (b) the solitary or eremitical life; (c) the practice of inner prayer that transcends images, concepts, and language; (d) the search for union with God through the ‘Jesus Prayer’; (e) the psychosomatic techniques used in conjunction with the ‘Jesus Prayer’; and/or (f) the theology of Gregory Palamas (Thayer, 1963; Ware, 1973; 1993). Unfortunately, this example is not an isolated occurrence, and, in fact, might even be considered the norm, which necessitates copious explanation in the presentation of the theory and practice of each tradition (Peters, 1970). This leads to the final limitation, which relates to the restrictions on the length of this work and the researcher’s orientalist tendency to verbosity. 1.5 delimitations The following delimitations are established. The study does not: 1. Propose to investigate the validity claims of any particular religious psycho-spiritual therapeutic methodology;
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