RE: Have you had experiences you'd describe as sacred, mystical and/or religious?
August 20, 2014 at 8:17 am
(This post was last modified: August 20, 2014 at 8:33 am by Whateverist.)
So I answered yes, I am quite certain that I have. It was spread out over many events. They were all very positive and I was appreciative to experience them. I experienced some of 4, 5 and 6 during these experiences.
Especially during physical activities I had the sense of merging with something greater, during dance and yoga especially. But I also had the insight (felt as a visceral truth at the time) that the wisdom of the body did not depend on the thoughts in my head. There was a sense of refraining from interfering with that wisdom. So I experienced the skateboarding, basketball, yoga, badminton, racketball, dancing and spelunking not as activities I was directing with my thoughts, but as activities I was willing to delegate to that in me which knew more. That led to experiences which included elements of items 4, 5 and 6.
The experiences I was having made sense to me at the time in terms of this general sense that there was more to me than my deliberative mind. I would have many insights or realizations about many things but to grab one and try to clarify required stepping outside the stream of insight. So, as with the physical activity, I decided there was no need to solidify these realizations into words or to even hold them in my conscious mind. I acquired confidence that the realizations I was having were showing themselves to me but then returning to abide where they had always been. I realized that I could attempt to capture and tag each one but that would take me outside the flow of actually experiencing what was relevant in the moment. To stay there I had to let everything pass, stay empty, and have faith that that in me which sees/knows more would continue to show me what was needed in each moment. I abandoned certainty for faith. I don't call the totality of myself "god" but I can see how someone raised in such a tradition might.
I voted for 13, that the experience has made a change in me more as a disposition of openness toward the totality of myself, which I have decided to abide with in gratitude rather than to subdue and control. (No regrets.) This gives me a lot of empathy for others and the complexity of finding our ways.
Especially during physical activities I had the sense of merging with something greater, during dance and yoga especially. But I also had the insight (felt as a visceral truth at the time) that the wisdom of the body did not depend on the thoughts in my head. There was a sense of refraining from interfering with that wisdom. So I experienced the skateboarding, basketball, yoga, badminton, racketball, dancing and spelunking not as activities I was directing with my thoughts, but as activities I was willing to delegate to that in me which knew more. That led to experiences which included elements of items 4, 5 and 6.
The experiences I was having made sense to me at the time in terms of this general sense that there was more to me than my deliberative mind. I would have many insights or realizations about many things but to grab one and try to clarify required stepping outside the stream of insight. So, as with the physical activity, I decided there was no need to solidify these realizations into words or to even hold them in my conscious mind. I acquired confidence that the realizations I was having were showing themselves to me but then returning to abide where they had always been. I realized that I could attempt to capture and tag each one but that would take me outside the flow of actually experiencing what was relevant in the moment. To stay there I had to let everything pass, stay empty, and have faith that that in me which sees/knows more would continue to show me what was needed in each moment. I abandoned certainty for faith. I don't call the totality of myself "god" but I can see how someone raised in such a tradition might.
I voted for 13, that the experience has made a change in me more as a disposition of openness toward the totality of myself, which I have decided to abide with in gratitude rather than to subdue and control. (No regrets.) This gives me a lot of empathy for others and the complexity of finding our ways.
