Had a "mystic experience" 2 days ago. I became one with the cosmos. Beyond words

[[Hy...]]

This experience has changed my life, and will be something I can never forget. In my case, I am certain it was induced by derealization due to my withdrawals, but I have come to find many people have had nearly identical experiences sometimes spontaneously. It felt like I gained complete insight into the nature of life, how the universe functions, what everyone's role is. Basically, every "big question" about existance felt answered through direct apprehension. This shook me to my core, and I am grateful for the experience, but find I am left slightly disturbed by it, at least trying to integrate it into my life.

 

I was trying to watch a movie. Things looked very distorted due to my intense d/r (something I'm used to by now). However, I had a strange thought: I realized most things we know about reality are man-made. What we call a computer is only a computer because we decided to call it that. Money only has vvalue because we agree it has value. Beauty is only beauty because we find it appealing. I looked at Tom Hanks (the movie was "the Ladykillers") and his face looked distorted. This is where it gets really weird.

 

I saw his nose, heard his voice, the english language. Yet I seemed to realize the sounds themselves lacked intrinsic meaning, they only have meaning by consensus, because we agree that certain sounds mean certain things. So I just started to hear the sounds coming out of his mouth with a raw awareness. Thoughts and concepts escaped me, the seemed literally unreal (after all, thoughts are something we seem to impose on reality to make sense of it and to compare things).

 

BOOM

 

I was just aware of raw reality, no judgements, no impositions, no thoughts, just awareness. Because of this, it is beyond the ability of words to describe. Words are alien to this "raw reality" I became emerged in. The concept of "me" evaporated. The concept of "you" evaporated. Yet I am doing my best to describe it with words. It seems this sort of experience has been around forever, the Tao Te Ching begins with the words "The Tao that can be named is not the eternal Tao". I'm pretty sure this is exactly why.

 

Looking at my body, it was impossible to distinguish it from the surroundings. Space collapsed. Time collapsed. I had feelings of profound compassion, joy and sorrow all at once. Just raw feelings. Even looking at a hateful, angry face in the movie, I could only feel deep compassion. I remember a dog died in the movie, and it felt like I was experiencing my own death. At the same time everyone's joy was also my own joy. Everyone was a part of this "cosmic consciousness" and this cosmic consciousness was all that existed. I was as good as dead, but didn't care, because there seemed to be no "me" to die.

 

Watching shapes in flux, hearing sound in flux, was indescribably beautiful in their raw form, untainted by notions or concepts. I was swept up in this state of cosmic oneness for 1 hour, I know only because when it ended, I closed my computer and one hour had elapsed on the movie. I have no actual memories of the movie, just of the beautiful flow of forms and colors.

 

At the same time, it felt like direct insights came to me, just raw knowledge: we are all reality, we just don't realize it, and that is all that exists (this is what disturbed me the most after I came out of it). I saw life as a flow of both pleasure, sometimes the most extreme bliss (which is where, I felt, people got the idea of heaven from) and extreme sorrow (where the idea of hell comes from), and this one consciousness we are all a part of cycles through bliss and sorrow, with no beginning, no end. It was completely free of concepts and thoughts, oddly. For example, there felt like there was no such thing as free will or non-free will (whatever that would be called). Every ingle thought, every single viewpoint we had is wrong, and attempt to describe reality, when reality itself is actually completely void of intrinsic meaning.

 

As I left the state, it felt extremely sacred and deeply spiritual, and I am not a religious person, nor spiritual in the traditional sense. When I wrote down my insights in this state, I kept writing "this is sacred, this is worthy of worship". I understood where religion came from, what it means, and one of the "insights" was everyone is exactly where they need to be right now, doing exactly what they need to do, and in the end everything is fair, because we are all part of this never-ending flux that cycles through bliss and sorrow. It felt like I had the choice to remain in this state or return to my sense of self. I almost didn't want to leave, but I returned, with the feeling that death is something of an illusion. I had the notion that when we die, we just lose our sense of self, memories, etc, but return to this ongoing, neverending flux of consciousness until we decide to have individuality again.

 

I realize how crazy all that sounds. Yet it was by far the most "real" feeling experience I ever had. It was as though a veil had been pulled away from my eyes and I saw things as they truly were. I am a skeptic by nature, but always keep an open mind, yet this had a profound influence on me.

 

In my research, I found these experiences are mediated by the temporal lobe. This appears, on the surface then, that there is a mundane explination. But if I think deeper, I see consciousness and the ohysical brain are indeed tied. Any change of consciousness is accompanied by a change in brain state (when we decide to move, certain neurons fire), and any change in the brain corresponds to a change in consciousness (like taking drugs of any sort, they are physical chemicals which change the way our brain functions and induce a difference in consciouss). So just because these experiences can be created with certain drugs or reproduced in a lab (you can google "God helmet"), do not not neccessarily detract from the authenticity of the experience.

 

If someone enjoys a nice meal, and we find a way to recreate that experience in a lab using machines to stimulate the right neurons, does that detract from the enjoyment of a good meal or the existance of a nice meal? of course not.

 

That is why this is so unsettling and profound. It really is something that cannot be proven or disproven even by science, IMO.

 

I hope you found this interesting. Another take-away point I would ask you to think about is this: do your thoughts have any true intrinsic meaning? What one person sees as beautiful, another will see as ugly. I wonder if experiencing reality free from such judgements may be the way to experience it closer to how it actually is. Free from all judgements and viewpoints. The hard part is communicating this, because to do so we have to use words and concepts etc.

 

I'd love to hear feedback, or from anyone who had a similar experience. This was without a doubt the most profound event in my entire life. In my research I also found many people experience this as an NDE (read about a guy in a motorcycle accident having nearly the exact same experience I did). They also occur spontaneously, about 50% of people seem to have these experiences at some point in their lives.

 

Thanks everyone, hopefully you found this interesting, it certainly was for me (though a bit unsettling)

 

 

[[me...]]

Here's a link to your other thread about your awakening:

 

http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=108715.msg1405204#msg1405204

 

There's a great discussion going on there......

 

 

[[Ch...]]

Hi HS,

 

Thank you for writing so poignantly about your experience. It was beautiful and makes perfect sense to me. I, too, have had one of these episodes, two actually ...

One was towards the end of my taper and the other was in my first year benzo free.

It was much like you describe and was beyond anything I've ever experienced before. I couldn't even begin to describe it, except to say that for me it felt as if all the stars and planets were in perfect alignment and I was One with the Universe. Everything made perfect sense to me and it felt like every nerve, every neurotransmitter was firing perfectly.

I'm almost five years off now and in a difficult and protracted withdrawal. I was on benzos for almost 40 years.

I want to thank you for sharing your experience and touching my life. See, I'm in a really bad wave right now and feeling despondent and scared.

I was even considering reinstating today on the poisons that have destroyed my life, but I read your words and was reminded that something very beautiful happened to me twice and just might happen again.

 

Chinook 

[[Hy...]]

Hi HS,

 

Thank you for writing so poignantly about your experience. It was beautiful and makes perfect sense to me. I, too, have had one of these episodes, two actually ...

One was towards the end of my taper and the other was in my first year benzo free.

It was much like you describe and was beyond anything I've ever experienced before. I couldn't even begin to describe it, except to say that for me it felt as if all the stars and planets were in perfect alignment and I was One with the Universe. Everything made perfect sense to me and it felt like every nerve, every neurotransmitter was firing perfectly.

I'm almost five years off now and in a difficult and protracted withdrawal. I was on benzos for almost 40 years.

I want to thank you for sharing your experience and touching my life. See, I'm in a really bad wave right now and feeling despondent and scared.

I was even considering reinstating today on the poisons that have destroyed my life, but I read your words and was reminded that something very beautiful happened to me twice and just might happen again.

 

Chinook 

 

hang in there, you've got this! You have conquered the benzos, now you are just healing! Keep that in mind, I'm very glad this post helped you. I was a bit hesitant to share this experience, I know some would say this is just insanity, but there is tons of research on these experiences and they all share the same characteristics of "oneness", and space and time collapse, seen as illusions. The experience may well be valid, as science is showing time and space may be an illusion (look up the Holographic Principle). The expderience seems the same for everyone, but since it can't be put into words, when we try to do it, it comes out with "flavors" of our personality. So my insights are just beliefs and views trying to point towards reality, but they can never explain it. Reality is complete freeedom, freedom from judgementss and views and impositions.

[[be...]]

chinook, 5 years out and still in withdrawal? kinda has me wondering if it's all worth it.

[[Ch...]]

chinook, 5 years out and still in withdrawal? kinda has me wondering if it's all worth it.

 

To tell you the truth I don't know if this is protracted w/d or permanent damage. It's hard for me to accept that it's w/d too. I was on benzos for 40 years and there's also a history of alcohol, barbiturate and other drug use too not to mention many c/ts.

I think there was a "point of no return" and I crossed over that line way too late to recover from this.

This latest flare-up of symptoms may have been triggered by antibiotics, don't know. Two weeks ago I started a 10 day course of amoxicillin and that's when I started to go into the tank.

I've taken this antibiotic before and never had a problem with it but maybe it's turned on me.

 

[[Hy...]]

chinook, 5 years out and still in withdrawal? kinda has me wondering if it's all worth it.

 

To tell you the truth I don't know if this is protracted w/d or permanent damage. It's hard for me to accept that it's w/d too. I was on benzos for 40 years and there's also a history of alcohol, barbiturate and other drug use too not to mention many c/ts.

I think there was a "point of no return" and I crossed over that line way too late to recover from this.

This latest flare-up of symptoms may have been triggered by antibiotics, don't know. Two weeks ago I started a 10 day course of amoxicillin and that's when I started to go into the tank.

I've taken this antibiotic before and never had a problem with it but maybe it's turned on me.

 

I doubt there is damage, even if their is, brain plasticity is absolutely amazing. Google "the boy with no brain". He had perhaps 5% the brain mass a normal person has yet had an IQ of 126 and I *think* he even got a doctorate.

[[vi...]]

I have had a strange experience with some similar features to those of you guys, which I will refer to in a minute.

 

Chinook....you will recover, same principle as everyone else. Many of us have had other substances and long term benzo use, and eventually heal. It will just tAke longer for some Han others.

I was ok with codeine for ages, then it turned on me at the 2 year mark. Others have this experience, but the revving should calm down for you.

 

Well before benzos, and whilst totally drug-free, 15 years ago, I was in counselling. The lady did a guided meditation, and I had done loads before. Somehow everything went weird, I just felt like the world was honey. Bliss. A warm low buzz. A deep deep calm. Her words became muzzy in the background. Unfortunately she had to stop and I had to leave and "come back". It was only 5 minutes total.

The rest of that day, my body was Ina state that was different to anything felt before.

Incredibly rested is the best I can do, though that does not describe it.

 

Since then, naturally I have tried it get it back, but as others have suggested above, maybe it just "comes". I was told that this was the deep state that meditators aspire to. Dunno. Dunno how or whether it bears a relationship to NDEs.

 

But it was spiritual. And after that, I have become knowledgable about NDEs and there is an amazing book written recently by a neurologist called Eben Alexander, which itself contains links to further amazing stuff. Unfortunately it is called "Proof of  Heaven", which could put some people off. But definitely worth a read. It does not proselytize and is mostly factual, thankfully. That is what I want. I did not like the Moorjani writings because it seems like a lot of what she writes is "her interpretation and conclusions and beliefs about life which arose afterwards". Other NDE accounts are more compelling, for me.

 

 

Love to you all

Viking

[[jj...]]

Well this is delightfully surprising thread to find here at BBs.

 

I've had many of these experiences. They started when I was in my teens and have occurred off and on since then, sometimes waking and sometimes dreaming. If you find yourself having this sort of experience when dreaming, remember to ask for a "guide". You might be pleasantly surprised by who shows up to take on that role.

 

Anyway, I think everyone has them but quickly become terrified and "forget". Or we have been conditioned to forget so we are more easily controlled. I'm not sure and it really doesn't matter I suppose. The thing is that you can fairly easily learn to keep the experience at the back of your mind, so even something as horrible as benzo w/d becomes nothing more than rough waves on an infinite sea of peace and well-being.

 

So peace be with you my friend, or as you know, it already and always has been.

 

jj

[Guest [to...]]

There could be infinitely many realities going on congruently (right word?) To us, But we aren't experiencing them because they are "composed" entirely of those spectrums of absolute  Existence which are beyond the human 5 senses. I guess that's to say we live in a sort of "multi-verse" but not in the way I'm used to hearing it from pop-culture string theory types.

 

I've also felt  compassion you speak of....reading about your experience really intrigues me that I'm so not alone.....i didn't feel the compassion right away, during the episode (as I've said, for me it was all terrifying and started me on Kpin) but i felt it months later, after i was being treated with benzos and began "healing". It was then that i started integrating my sense of Oneness into my life. Realizing and in fact, FEELING, that all of us, including innanimate objects, are all different aspects of the One, caused an intense feeling of compassion that i can't describe. I couldn't hate anymore, even someone as sick as a murderer i would have the same deep  compassion for. For about a year I was actually selfless and cared as much about others as myself, knowing that helping others was in essence myself. I volunteered at a nursing home, spending allot of time with one woman there who was mentally very active but physically disabled and needed a friend. I bought groceries and prayed with her (because she was a babtist). During these times i also wouldnt pull weeds, kill mosquitoes, etc, because it seemed deeply wrong at the Absolute level-i litterally loved everything, felt the love deeply, and would harm or disrupt nothing.

 

I have since changed, many years ago this left me. I still have compassion for others in a normal way, but i don't feel it all the same, its been reduced to an intellectual knowing that can't be felt. I have become fragmented again. I don't see murders as part of the one. I kill mosquitoes and pull weeds

If i want. Im not sure if the Kpin erased this feeling, or if you simply lose it over time.

 

I miss it.

[[me...]]

There could be infinitely many realities going on congruently (right word?) To us, But we aren't experiencing them because they are "composed" entirely of those spectrums of absolute  Existence which are beyond the human 5 senses. I guess that's to say we live in a sort of "multi-verse" but not in the way I'm used to hearing it from pop-culture string theory types.

 

I've also felt  compassion you speak of....reading about your experience really intrigues me that I'm so not alone.....i didn't feel the compassion right away, during the episode (as I've said, for me it was all terrifying and started me on Kpin) but i felt it months later, after i was being treated with benzos and began "healing". It was then that i started integrating my sense of Oneness into my life. Realizing and in fact, FEELING, that all of us, including innanimate objects, are all different aspects of the One, caused an intense feeling of compassion that i can't describe. I couldn't hate anymore, even someone as sick as a murderer i would have the same deep  compassion for. For about a year I was actually selfless and cared as much about others as myself, knowing that helping others was in essence myself. I volunteered at a nursing home, spending allot of time with one woman there who was mentally very active but physically disabled and needed a friend. I bought groceries and prayed with her (because she was a babtist). During these times i also wouldnt pull weeds, kill mosquitoes, etc, because it seemed deeply wrong at the Absolute level-i litterally loved everything, felt the love deeply, and would harm or disrupt nothing.

 

I have since changed, many years ago this left me. I still have compassion for others in a normal way, but i don't feel it all the same, its been reduced to an intellectual knowing that can't be felt. I have become fragmented again. I don't see murders as part of the one. I kill mosquitoes and pull weeds

If i want. Im not sure if the Kpin erased this feeling, or if you simply lose it over time.

 

I miss it.

 

 

Hi torbjorn and all,

 

This experience of total oneness, that there is ONLY the one (or only god) and that absolutely everyone and everything is an equal expression of it, is a very exalted spiritual state. I've experienced it for short periods of time, but it hasn't stuck with me so far.  Many spiritual people I know are seeking this state of consciousness, but the trick is that it can't be created by the ego/self. When experienced it can be very frightening because one's ego/self disappears during the experience.  Adyashanti talks a lot about this in his teachings.  Here's a short video by him called "listening to your oneness:"

 

[[ea...]]

You're not crazy at all. In fact you sound superbly sane. Thank you for posting this. A nice change from the usual doom and gloom here.

Do you watch the show Cosmos? It often kind of mirrors your experience. We are minute...the Universe is infinite.

eastcoast

[Guest [to...]]

This thread illustrates why I frown upon the modern culture (at least in the US) of political correctness and socially-structured social interactions.  Because look how many of us have had, to some extent, this mind-blowing experience (and probably others; for example, I also had a fluke out-of-body experience one time, when I was in between wake and sleep, which was neither positive nor negative, but I wrote it off as "just a dream" even though it was definitely a different type of experience, and I never tell anyone about it.) 

Yet we didn't know about each other until now.  Many of us thought we were the only one, no one else would understand because it's so hard to articulate in words, and perhaps were even afraid to talk about it when it was happening to us (I know that I feared being labeled as a schizophrenic by the average person, when it comes to my ideas on reality.)

 

But here so many of us are...just on this one forum that isn't even dedicated to mystical experiences at all.

I admit I don't know how something like this just "comes up" in conversation, but I wish we could in general, in life at large, talk more deeply with people beyond our inner circle and learn how similar we really are.  Perhaps people do and I just don't know because of my own introverted nature.  All I can say is I'm thankful to be alive -- born and raised -- during the internet age!

 

I hope that as I get off of klonopin, that I'll be having more interesting experiences again.  I wish I hadn't only saw the "dark" side of this when I was going through it; I wish I'd have been capable of embracing it, and followed the path it was leading me on, instead of killing it with sedatives (but enough about that, let's keep this thread away from benzo regrets.)

 

Thanks to all for pasting links and talking about your experiences too!

[Guest [to...]]

 

Hi torbjorn and all,

 

This experience of total oneness, that there is ONLY the one (or only god) and that absolutely everyone and everything is an equal expression of it, is a very exalted spiritual state. I've experienced it for short periods of time, but it hasn't stuck with me so far.  Many spiritual people I know are seeking this state of consciousness, but the trick is that it can't be created by the ego/self. When experienced it can be very frightening because one's ego/self disappears during the experience.  Adyashanti talks a lot about this in his teachings.  Here's a short video by him called "listening to your oneness:"

 

 

It's a bit of a strange dilemma; you strive to reach the state, but then once you reach the state, nothing matters.  That's why it was so negative to me.  Everything being One is both wonderful and awful.  If there's only One, everything essentially is an illusion.

The only way I've understood it, is, that the One Consciousness IS all that exists (don't ask me where it came from! lol), and it fragments itself into little sub-realities -- i.e., realities that contain only limited information about the Whole (in our case as humans, this = all of the ideas and notions of existence that come out of information gained through our human senses, and nothing which we can't sense with our human bodies/mind.....things which may, or may not, actually Exist and be apprehendable to another hypothetical, non-human Mind in a separate reality.)  Since each of these potentially infinite partial realities would be incapable of apprehending every aspect of the One Reality, insofar as they can only obtain limited information, they can actually come to UNDERSTAND the One, in such a way that the One cannot understand itself.  They understand the one in pieces (for us, = the human illusions, what we perceive both internally and externally, what is personal to us as well as what we all are experiencing collectively such as space, and time, and many other things.) 

There could be infinitely many of these partial realities, and some of them could be mutually exclusive to each other or they could intersect (meaning, there could be an alternate reality of beings coexisting with me, right now, but I am incapable with my human mind to sense their qualities, so I don't know about them, = mutually exclusive case.  On the other hand, the notion of "space" is an illusion that I create using the notion of solid matter and relative position, and there may be realities among me where this notion doesn't exist, but all of us humans experience it as a natural event, = intersecting case.) 

And so it goes.  The One gets to know itself through these sub-realities, but only through these pieces.  That's the bit that bugs me.  The pure ONE Consciousness can't apprehend itself (the way I see it), in its entirety, because it has nothing to compare itself to, to hold itself against.  It just IS.  But then, if it can't be aware of itself wholely, then it also....ISN'T???

 

I used to say, "zero and infinity are two sides of the same coin" because of the above contradiction.  Maybe someone else can make sense of it better than I did. 

All I can say is that I wasn't, and probably am still not, psychologically capable of really living in and embracing that reality.  I've never taken my ideas on this experience beyond where they were 5 - 8 years ago, until, potentially, now.

 

I've compartmentalized this aspect of my mind's notion on reality, as a sort of "intellectual fact" ....I can sort of look at it "intellectually" without feeling it, and that doesn't throw my sense of identity away.  With Klonopin (and perhaps my mind's own devices, over time)  I've learned to keep it simply as an idea that I know I had, a past memory of an event that I know I didn't think all of the way through, and something that I can convieniently, at will, put away in my mind's "bookshelf" now.  I couldn't do that when I was in the midst of it, just as much as I can't willingly go back into it.

 

[Guest [to...]]

[...] Every ingle thought, every single viewpoint we had is wrong, and attempt to describe reality, when reality itself is actually completely void of intrinsic meaning.: [...]

 

In context of the points I made in the last post I made to this thread, I myself would flip the first part of this thought and say, that every single viewpoint is CORRECT (and I hold your second point as true, that Reality with capital 'R' is devoid of meaning.)  I just wondered, as a matter of philosophy, if that makes sense to you, or if you still would hold to the idea as you stated here (I understand you may not have had time to read my previous thread about the One; I just mean if you do ever read it, it's explanatory why I would flip the argument, and I'd just wonder if what I said here/there makes sense to you.)

 

Also, I hope you're not still having anxiety over this.  I hope I'm not triggering it by posting things about reality!  If I am, I'll stop.  I just find this stuff really interesting.  I guess you sort of re-awakened my sense of curiosity about this.  I've been living in world, for several years now, where I basically have "forgotten" my prior experience, for all practical purposes.

 

-Tor

 

 

 

[Guest [to...]]

...and any change in the brain corresponds to a change in consciousness (like taking drugs of any sort, they are physical chemicals which change the way our brain functions and induce a difference in consciouss). So just because these experiences can be created with certain drugs or reproduced in a lab (you can google "God helmet"), do not not neccessarily detract from the authenticity of the experience.

 

 

I just also wanted to point out that I feel this point you made is a really good one, and not one to gloss over, as it seems very core to understanding alternative views of reality.  You get it; not everyone makes that jump easily, and I don't understand why (it seems to make sense, to me, even without an oddball experience). 

 

I used to research psychedelic drug experiences a lot, and take note of similarities in the experiences and ask, "why?" (for example, almost all salvia divinorum experiences are the same way existentially, and DXM users frequently observe "shadow people")  Others who were aware of my interests would typically look down on it, saying things like "Why would you care what happened, that guy was tripping, it doesn't matter because it wasn't real,") and I had a hard time explaining my feeling that, it matters every bit as much as the non-drug induced reality, because even if it wasn't "real" to any of us observers, it still HAPPENED to that person, as a subjective experience, and that's the part that actually counts, as it implies that we can experience things other than what our brain does in it's standard state; such states are really no more "subjective" than anything else, and it can be the case, anyway, that ingesting certain drugs may alter the average brain in such a way that it experiences "real" things -- as "trippy" or far-out as they may seem -- that it normally doesn't, simply because it normally can't. 

 

With these people, I would point to the analogy that when I first took my cat outside on a leash -- true story, a cat who had been born indoors and never allowed to be outside -- she flipped out and I had to bring her back in...why? Because the notions of wind, grass, smell of the earth, or whatever it was, was "trippy" to her....yet wind etc existed the entire time, and we all know it.  I guess it's a bad analogy, because it didn't seem to affect anyone.  Maybe I really am schizophrenic, and incapable of making coherent thoughts.  Thus, I think the people who were vaguely aware of my research, just assumed that I cared because I was using drugs myself.

 

(For the record, I've never tried psychedelics, at any point in my life, for the reason that I've never felt comfortable with myself enough to feel safe to do so without having what I know would be a bad trip.)

 

-Tor

[[me...]]

 

Hi torbjorn and all,

 

This experience of total oneness, that there is ONLY the one (or only god) and that absolutely everyone and everything is an equal expression of it, is a very exalted spiritual state. I've experienced it for short periods of time, but it hasn't stuck with me so far.  Many spiritual people I know are seeking this state of consciousness, but the trick is that it can't be created by the ego/self. When experienced it can be very frightening because one's ego/self disappears during the experience.  Adyashanti talks a lot about this in his teachings.  Here's a short video by him called "listening to your oneness:"

 

 

It's a bit of a strange dilemma; you strive to reach the state, but then once you reach the state, nothing matters.  That's why it was so negative to me.  Everything being One is both wonderful and awful.  If there's only One, everything essentially is an illusion.

The only way I've understood it, is, that the One Consciousness IS all that exists (don't ask me where it came from! lol), and it fragments itself into little sub-realities -- i.e., realities that contain only limited information about the Whole (in our case as humans, this = all of the ideas and notions of existence that come out of information gained through our human senses, and nothing which we can't sense with our human bodies/mind.....things which may, or may not, actually Exist and be apprehendable to another hypothetical, non-human Mind in a separate reality.)  Since each of these potentially infinite partial realities would be incapable of apprehending every aspect of the One Reality, insofar as they can only obtain limited information, they can actually come to UNDERSTAND the One, in such a way that the One cannot understand itself.  They understand the one in pieces (for us, = the human illusions, what we perceive both internally and externally, what is personal to us as well as what we all are experiencing collectively such as space, and time, and many other things.) 

There could be infinitely many of these partial realities, and some of them could be mutually exclusive to each other or they could intersect (meaning, there could be an alternate reality of beings coexisting with me, right now, but I am incapable with my human mind to sense their qualities, so I don't know about them, = mutually exclusive case.  On the other hand, the notion of "space" is an illusion that I create using the notion of solid matter and relative position, and there may be realities among me where this notion doesn't exist, but all of us humans experience it as a natural event, = intersecting case.) 

And so it goes.  The One gets to know itself through these sub-realities, but only through these pieces.  That's the bit that bugs me.  The pure ONE Consciousness can't apprehend itself (the way I see it), in its entirety, because it has nothing to compare itself to, to hold itself against.  It just IS.  But then, if it can't be aware of itself wholely, then it also....ISN'T???

 

I used to say, "zero and infinity are two sides of the same coin" because of the above contradiction.  Maybe someone else can make sense of it better than I did.

All I can say is that I wasn't, and probably am still not, psychologically capable of really living in and embracing that reality.  I've never taken my ideas on this experience beyond where they were 5 - 8 years ago, until, potentially, now.

 

I've compartmentalized this aspect of my mind's notion on reality, as a sort of "intellectual fact" ....I can sort of look at it "intellectually" without feeling it, and that doesn't throw my sense of identity away.  With Klonopin (and perhaps my mind's own devices, over time)  I've learned to keep it simply as an idea that I know I had, a past memory of an event that I know I didn't think all of the way through, and something that I can convieniently, at will, put away in my mind's "bookshelf" now.  I couldn't do that when I was in the midst of it, just as much as I can't willingly go back into it.

 

Our minds are so used to duality, to good and bad, right and wrong, desire and aversion, etc, that even (maybe especially) the brightest of us find it almost impossible to intellectually comprehend absolute oneness.  I've found it useful to stop thinking about it so much, and instead to allow myself "grok" it during meditation or contemplation.  I can get a sense of it then, but if something happens that upsets me I go right back into duality mode.  Such as my cat playfully loosening/disconnecting my Ethernet cable a few hours ago.  I didn't see him do it, but finally realized what he'd done and fixed it just now....

 

Here's a quote from Adyashanti:

 

This stillness of awareness is all there is. It's all one. This awareness and life are one thing, one movement, one happening, in this moment -- unfolding without reason, without goal, without direction. The ultimate state is ever present and always now. The only thing that makes it difficult to find that state and remain in that state is people wanting to retain their position in space and time. "I want to know where I'm going. I want to know if I've arrived. I want to know who to love and hate. I want to know. I don't really want to be; I want to know. Isn't enlightenment the ultimate state of knowing?" No. It's the ultimate state of being. The price is knowing.

 

 

[Guest [Mi...]]

hey, hypersensitive. thanks for posting this. it's quite beautiful.

 

gives me hope that something beautiful will happen with my dp/dr. it can get so intense (even though i appear to be out of it).

 

I hope to have more insight into all of this feeling of detachment and at the same time, connectedness.

[Guest [to...]]

 

Our minds are so used to duality, to good and bad, right and wrong, desire and aversion, etc, that even (maybe especially) the brightest of us find it almost impossible to intellectually comprehend absolute oneness.  I've found it useful to stop thinking about it so much, and instead to allow myself "grok" it during meditation or contemplation.  I can get a sense of it then, but if something happens that upsets me I go right back into duality mode.  Such as my cat playfully loosening/disconnecting my Ethernet cable a few hours ago.  I didn't see him do it, but finally realized what he'd done and fixed it just now....

Here's a quote from Adyashanti:

 

This stillness of awareness is all there is. It's all one. This awareness and life are one thing, one movement, one happening, in this moment -- unfolding without reason, without goal, without direction. The ultimate state is ever present and always now. The only thing that makes it difficult to find that state and remain in that state is people wanting to retain their position in space and time. "I want to know where I'm going. I want to know if I've arrived. I want to know who to love and hate. I want to know. I don't really want to be; I want to know. Isn't enlightenment the ultimate state of knowing?" No. It's the ultimate state of being. The price is knowing.

 

I enjoy the quote, and will think about it more.  At first read, it seems to imply to me the idea that all moments (i.e. every experience, every thought, everything that ever happened to any conscious entity, however many of us there are) coexist.  The quote doesn't say this (now I'm reading into it) but this philosophy seems to allow room to say that there is no "Time" as we know it - all of what has happened, and will happen, is always a part of Existence, somehow; we simply are locked onto this particular sequence of events. 

It's not a very well fleshed-out idea, but one that I did have about time a while back, but I have a hard time articulating it.  Do you think, though, that perhaps everything exists in Time together, or do you interpret the philosophy & the nature of reality in a different manner?

 

(I realized after I typed this that, in questioning time, it also misses the point of the quote, which tells us not to focus on knowing! lol. But I'm still curious what you think about time, if you have a particular idea or your teachings support one over the other.

[[xe...]]

awesome thread. Whatever the reason, w/d, random chance, whatever -- you've had a glimpse of a deeply human experience that many people go to great lengths to try to capture. I've had glimpses of the same idea -- in dreams, once or twice through meditation, and when I was younger, from psychedelic drugs (and when I was younger still, again, from dreams).

 

It's a lot of fun to talk about these things, but I find that raw, experiential, "realness" is pretty much impossible to capture with linguistic traps. You've expressed yourself clearly enough that people who have had similar experiences will relate immediately -- and there is no way to describe such experiences to people who have not had them.

[[ba...]]

hi Hypersensitive ,

wow i remember that movie you saw "the ladykillers" i reemmber seeing that movie 10years ago when me and mom used to get  dvds (and vhs tapes) to rent did you think "mountain girl" from that movie was hot? haha

 

i feel certain feelings similar to this sometimes sometimes i feel a overwhelming strange sensation that " wow i lived this moment before , or i had a dream about this moment at one time" sometimes because of how i feel then i have my doubts about life  i feel like what i saw on tv before this theory from scientist that "The universe is holographic and all of life is an illusion." and "what people know as God is a machine the projects a hologram or the illusion of life."

[[eg...]]

I had a few secs of that once and will never forget it- want it back.

 

Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of fear. She let go of the judgments.

She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.

She let go of the committee of indecision within her.

She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons. Wholly and completely,

without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a

book on how to let go… She didn’t search the scriptures.

She just let go.

She let go of all of the memories that held her back.

She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.

She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go.

She didn’t journal about it.

She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.

She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.

She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.

She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.

She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.

She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.

She didn’t call the prayer line.

She didn’t utter one word. She just let go.

No one was around when it happened.

There was no applause or congratulations.

No one thanked her or praised her.

No one noticed a thing.

Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort. There was no struggle.

It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.

It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be.

A small smile came over her face.

A light breeze blew through her.

And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.

Here’s to giving ourselves the gift of letting go…

The author of this poem is unclear.

[[ba...]]

hello hypersensitive,

 

I read your amazing story, i have some similar feelings sometimes,  i know that i appreciate life alot more now and i take care of myself (except im a smoker)

 

i hope that your health has improved since a month ago when you wrote this,

[[be...]]

i definitely believe we are all beings 'being human' as opposed to 'human beings.' i think we are all fragments of a 'whole' of 'something' from 'somewhere.' and this 'somewhere' is not in time/space. and this applies to all creatures on our planet; our planet being nothing more than a 'school of compressed learning' with heavy instincts for predation and survival. once we accept that our essence or energy survives physical death we can lose a lot of fears and 'lighten our loads.'

[[Ar...]]

I thought helicopters and swat where trying to take me out during day 5 of withdrawals lol. It actually was terrifying due to PTSD. That was a cool story though, wish I had a similar experience. The universe is a whole lot of real estate not to have one connection to IMO

Regards,

Adam