June 9, 2009
My intention for starting this blog and writing my book is to get people thinking “outside the box,” as the saying goes.
I see so many people pining for meaning in their lives and yet surrendering to mediocrity, often because they don’t know where to look for answers.
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March 28, 2009
Initially I felt a golden liquid light flowing into me—a light that felt as solid and real as a steel girder. I then felt lifted out of my body, pulled by an unseen force higher and higher, until my consciousness was above the room, above the world.
All at once, I understood on a level deeper than I knew I was capable of, that there was no separation between myself and every living and non-living thing of this world and all worlds.
I was an integral component of all the thoughts that were being thought or had been thought forever—backward and forward in time. And there was no such thing as the concept of time.
Pure love, ecstasy and light poured into me. I was submerged in its essence.
The colors of my tangible world seemed dull and grey compared to the colors of the bliss I was experiencing: vibrant, alive and breathing.
I knew that within this ecstasy was a connection to the Divine—to God or whatever term one needs to use. The feeling was all-encompassing. I suddenly understood the meaning of the word ecstasy, which seems to have become misconstrued in our human language.
I realized in a very deep way that God is, as the Sufi say “Love, Lover and Beloved.” And I was.
And I am…
March 24, 2009
What is the meaning of my life?
Is there really such a thing as God?
If you find yourself asking these questions, you’re not alone. I’ve wondered the same things all my life. In 2003, I found the answers; not by looking for them but through a mystical experience that sought me.
According to merriam-webster, the term mysticism means “the experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality.” It refers to an incident of connection to God, the Divine Source, the Most High or whatever term one feels comfortable calling It, accompanied by a feeling of inner peace and unimaginable bliss. It’s as if the experience itself has been orchestrated by a higher intelligence, something separate, yet inextricably entwined with one’s deepest sense of Being.
From a psychological standpoint, in “Body Mind Spirit,” K. Ramakrishna Rao describes it thus:
“Religious experience, the mystic experience, the peak experience, and all paranormal experiences may have one thing in common. They are the encounters with consciousness as such, pure consciousness in which there is no subject-object distinction … but a transformational process that often results in remarkable behavioral changes and beliefs and sometimes translates itself into informational content.”
How can I explain it so that you too, can know? I can’t, but I can give you a taste:
Have you ever felt the wonder of gazing at the stars on a warm summer night and thought about all the people over eons of time who might also have witnessed them?
Have you considered that the concept of time may be nothing but illusion or had the feeling that you’ve been here before?
Have you relished the sensation of freedom when taking off your shoes and socks and burrowing your bare feet into powdery, warm sand?
Have you known a sense of smallness as you stood at the base of a mighty glacier and questioned what a responsibility it would be to be a glacier? Or pondered what the glacier knew that you didn’t?
Have you ever strained your ears to hear the messages these things have been trying to tell you?
These are the flavors of mystical experience.
Have you appreciated the tiny eyelashes of a newborn baby or felt the fragile hand of an elderly person with its paper-thin skin, blue veins rising just below the surface? Knowing your grip could easily crush that frail hand, your instinct instantly acts to protect something so tender and vulnerable.
Have you ever fallen so deeply into art where you are no longer conscious of where your identity ends and the identity of the artist and the work itself begins?
These moments are the first steps on the path to mystical experience.
November 2, 2010
Since I started this blog, I’ve received emails from people with many different viewpoints—which I love, by the way, keep them coming. I consider each one. And although I may not always agree with you, that doesn’t make either of us wrong. It helps me define all over again, Who I Am. And you inspire me!
If you believe that Mick Jagger is God or that aliens are talking to you or that your religion—or lack of—is your salvation, and it’s made you a better person because of it—fantastic! If you’ve had a mystical experience while cleaning up dog poop in your backyard and it’s changed your life permanently and for the better—who am I to judge you?
What works for one person may not work for someone else. And as long as it affects your life in a positive way without hurting anyone, I figure it’s all good. I believe there are as many ways to enlightenment as there are people. We all have different needs and different life experiences we bring to the table.
My friend’s grandma, who was sharp as a tack well into her 100’s, said it best: “It doesn’t matter how you get up the mountain—by car, by foot, by bike or plane. It only matters that you get there.”
And the higher you climb that mountain, the more you’ll see things you couldn’t have seen from the ground, because at ground level, all you can see are the trees, the grass, and maybe the road upon which you’re standing. When you climb higher, there’s a very good chance that you may notice other roads previously obscured by the trees and vegetation at the bottom. You may even encounter animals that only live at higher altitudes. And you will be a better person for it because you will have seen things you never dreamed existed.
So very much like my spiritual journey.
The purpose of this blog is to present my readers with new ways of thinking about things that are important, because my mystical experience did that for me. In HUGE ways. And yet, what I speak are my truths. They may not be yours and that’s okay too.
Hopefully I will post something here at some point, that nudges your consciousness awake—even if just a little—whether it be through my words or someone else’s.
That’s my goal anyway.
We all have something to learn from one another.