Mysticism is striving towards a form of unity. Gradually he separates himself from his environment and perceives his real limitations and powers. Above all this pre-Copernican world is personal. If religion is a distinction between scared and profane, then the deepest forms of religion are those which attempt to make the sacred personal. As I understand Sufism, philosophical Daoism, Chan and the rest, the goal of mysticism is to enter an undifferentiated world.
Religious practice consists of acts of worship, rituals and devotional behaviour.
The experience dimension is concerned with the sense of contact, however fleeting, with a supernatural agency. The knowledge dimension refers to the possession of information regarding a religion's tenets. It is obvious from this means of categorising religiousness that the mystic is someone for whom the experience dimension is paramount. Traditional' religion concentrates on the knowledge and practice dimensions, with the belief dimension being a precondition. For the Sufi, however, the Koran holds an esoteric meaning which reveals the means of approach to the Ultimate.