a mystical experience of shared knowledge
I recently posted this in a blog. I will try to rewrite it for here.
I had a mystical experience which was, in my valuing, the highest attainment I've ever had. It was quite unusual, and it lasted for several hours. One thing I find is very important is knowing ourselves. And being at peace. It takes a lot, a lot of learning and some knowledge, to know oneself and be at peace.
More than once in my spiritual and philosophical journey, I've had experiences of the breakdown of my former restrictions and constraints. This has been only in a good and spiritually refreshing way; this is not about my moral karma; it is good, but please leave this out of it.
Blazeofglory had a thread that was posted on for a little while called division is illusion: I am you. I have always considered this to perhaps be abstractly or philosophically or metaphorically true, but of course not literally true. Now because of my experience, I am under the impression it is literally true. Phenomena and division are literally illusion.
As I said, I wrote this in my blog, and it has already been criticized rather harshly. Something I'd like to share is that if we are alone, then it's only our own input that we have to integrate knowledge. Then we have to do it all ourselves. Since we have resources, books and books of information, we can learn from these. How well one integrates the knowledge they gain is a key factor. Many times I'll read something and understand it, and be joyful that I've understood a deep concept, and sometimes this has a profound effect on me. Of course, here I am now, and what do I know if any of it has affected me at all?
Now as I'm rewriting this, I'm seeing that I'm not doing such a great job of it. The thing is there are several things if I didn't know, I wouldn't have had or understood this experience at all. One of them is an understanding of how I learn, and then an unadultered experience of the knowledge I've attained. Sometimes I think we don't know things so much as absolutes, but pin them down with spears of possibility. I don't know first principles, e.g., so much as I simply am guided along a continuum of a near infinite quantity of thoughts. As Zarathustra says, don't ask me the reasons for my opinions; I can barely remember my opinions, much less the why's of them. (Perhaps not an exact quote. Shoot me.)
Another problem is that if you're alone, you have a great force to come up against. It's like how do you consider yourself beautiful if everyone hates you? I'm not saying everyone hates me. Nor am I saying...you hate me if you disagree with me. Nor am I saying...a near infinute quantity of other statements. Only what I said. It's just a part of the equation; and surely you understand?
Some ideas are true (or not, perhaps none are). Hm, I can hardly remember where I was going with that, so on and so forth and I'll try to explain the experience...
Like I said, it was experiencing division and phenomena as illusion. It was experiencing "everything," all at once, and wholly integrated. While this had to do with phenomena and the identity of people, also while I was in this state, I could see everything very clearly, I could see detail, I was taking in much more and I was not blocked by anything. That is, everything was coming in unfiltered. (And no, I was not on LSD when I had this experience. Sober as daylight.)
So the highest point was that I had come to a knowledge. This knowledge was integrated into my consciousness, so that it wasn't only "known abstractly," but it was known as reality. This knowledge was partly that phenomena was illusion, but it was also partly full realization of the self. Knowledge of the self- of the true self- that primordial archetype which exists before our lives begin. This is what I was experiencing, and I know it was true, beyond all doubt. Now, as I began to experience this, everything faded away, all of my barriers to understanding, they all faded away.
To explain this-- consider that we walk on the carpet. Walking on the carpet has meaning. This meaning has meaning; we have opened a limitless world of meaning now, and this limitless world has meaning, and it goes on forever. Imagine!
We experience one thing as we always have; the sensation as we always have. But then that experience has meaning, and that meaning has meaning, and so on. This is the path to the experience I had-- and this was truly the most refreshing, truest, thing I've ever known.
-Like I said, I was experiencing my true self, and this is a knowledge that is very, very deeply hidden- it exists before we were born. As I experienced this, I also took in all the other information and understood it, and my experience of the world shifted. Everything that was phenomena faded away- and time and division faded away as well.
Now, the kicker. This was not a solo experience, it was a shared mystical experience. Because the truth is that I am you, and you are me. We are both part of the same world, and if we see things from every perspective, or as the ancient Buddhists say, to see in all ten directions at once, then we no longer perceive self and other.
The shared experience: people were coming to my store window, customers, that is. I saw myself in them. I was experiencing and being myself, my true self. They were too. The whole world was falling away around me, and the division of myself fell away too. This only happened because we both shared the same knowledge-- that inexplicable total integration and understanding of "everything."
I am positing that these people are self-realized. They know that we are in a dream. They have perceived through the dream. They are their true selves, their god forms. And in this, they can only whisper "no pain"... but I share this with them now. I am with them, for you see, there exists reality. What we experience is not reality, but only a dream, a shade pulled over our eyes. When we perceive it, it ceases to exist.
Someone criticized me for being self-deluded, in thinking I was god, in all sorts of other things like this. (Not to mention condensenscion on their part as they said what I was saying was ignorant and self-deluded.) However, I know as fact, that attachment to the phenomena is the illusion, is the insanity. This is just one part of it-- and it's a part that's almost universally accepted in the religions; I believe it's in Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, all of them that I know. This is because it's the knowledge that the mystics always got, and it was universally true. "This life is illusion." Are the words that come out of it; and you may say I say these because they sound good, but if you think this, you are mistaken.
So this mystical experience I had wasn't the ultimate reality. It was just one experience, one which I have not failed to replicate. Today I was out walking and I tested it out and I saw it was true still. I believe God is with me. This mysticism opens up a completely different world, a world of reality, a world of love, and peace. As I was walking, I again saw how people would become their perfect archetypes, and I also felt positive energy throughout my whole body, and I contemplated about how I do not really expend energy or get tired. The energy comes from elsewhere. From my mind, or my spirit, as well as the food I eat. I am only a vessel for God.
There are many parts to this understanding. One is knowledge. One is openness. One is kindness. One is peace. One is love. One is sharing. One is understanding. One is intelligence. One is me. One is you. One is God.
This is one more thing I wrote, in my blog entry, which you may visit if you like.
One part to the experience is understanding what we know: it is not stagnant, but the opposite of this, it is virile reality of unlimited possibility. One part of it is experiencing this unlimited possibility. One part of it is experiencing peace, one part is experiencing good health, and love infused with spirit. We can only experience all these things if we accept love and knowledge, and love ourselves without doubt. One part is experiencing time and phenomena as illusion, when we achieve eternity, and when the world falls away; eternity, perhaps, only metaphorically, and phenomena, perhaps, only metaphorically transcended. The final part is when division is transcended, perhaps the most clinging devil of all, the greatest illusion. But if this veil is perceived as literally illusion, then all falls into place. This experience is shared by many people. Many people believe in this underlying reality, which exists beyond our senses, which are blinded by phenomena.
"Everything we experience; impacts us through our senses; and everything that we sense is infused with meaning. Well, the meaning builds on itself. Is any of it real? We see things, and it appears to be entirely consistent; reality is always there, after we stop believing in it. But how do we know? Well this question gives rise to the interesting place we can go to, where reality is entirely different. When we experience everything like this, when we experience such a reality, the knowledge is immediately in our minds, and this is seen by others; either ignored by someone who doesn't know, or seen and recognized by someone who does. Such a shared mystical experience only requires both people to go to that place-- where the "everything" is realized, where knowledge is integrated, where, perhaps, the self is realized. What, truly, is the obstacle to this? I saw, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that when the illusion is perceived to literally be illusion, the possibilities become endless. Then phenomena is illusion, and all of our false concepts fade away."
Okay, that ends my post here. See you on the other side.
