The taboo of speaking of spiritual experience, be gone!
Hello Friends,
In recent days I have been lead to trust that it is useful and good to share some of the spiritual experiences that have happened to me. The basis of this insight is that it seems right for this sort of information to become normalized, such that when people experience something unusual there is a place of reference to be found in another's experience. I just read Bernadette Roberts book The Experience of No-Self, and took much solace in the account of her path to God. She describes things that I have touched upon in experience, things that left me gutted and empty for months at at time. To read her account given from a place of mature and matter of fact completion is bolstering beyond words.
When I first started experiencing things out of the ordinary I was at a complete loss of where to turn, then, once I started to find information and learn of those that had gone before me, things got much easier.
In no way do I believe that these experiences set me apart from others, nor is it true that everyone's spiritual path contains big experiences. To this Adyashanti explains that people fall into one of two basic types of 'hook-ups' on their journey to God or awakening. One hook-up is the mystic. Mystics tend to have big experiences, lots of fireworks, and wild stories. This is my hook-up. The other hook up is the contemplative. Contemplatives do not have sensational experiences, their path is steady and quiet, and less "sexy". (My words).
The danger to a mystic is getting lost in the experiences, getting addicted to them, always seeking more, and in doing so loosing sight of their true desire - to know God or Truth. The danger to the contemplative is to wish they were of the mystic hook up. We cannot influence the way we are hooked up, however there is a continuum between the two basic orientations, and mystics will encounter periods of quiet, and contemplatives can have big experiences. I am of the mystic hook-up, and as such that is where I write from. It is what I know so far, and what use am I to you if I write from where I am not?
Early on, when things were starting to bubble in me I found myself googling totally wacky sentences such as "he saw light come out of my head" and "little oatmeal packets of light filled up my body" and "a flaming skull was flung out of my spine and up into the sky".
All that these internet searches yielded were pages of fanciful speculation of a sort of hopeful, ego identified nature. I couldn't find anyone talking about it as plain fact, and this is how I had experienced these things myself. I have a hunch that I just didn't know the right search words then.
The events alluded to above are not the stories for today, but if I remain in this vein of laying down tracks I will likely relate them in the future. My point in mentioning that time of my life is to convey how at sea I felt, things were happening to me, and very quickly, and I could not find anyone who understood what I was talking about.
Eventually I did. I was given Adyashanti's name, and from the moment I opened one of his books an enormous wave of relaxation washed over me. 'Ok', I thought, 'here is a man who is speaking from the places I have only had a taste of, he is abiding there.' I knew it, and I took an immense sigh of relief knowing I had found a trustworthy guide.
My hope is that by telling my stories, even though I have in no way awakened or gone through an entire spiritual journey, that some people will relate, and be able to find grounding in what is happening to them.
There is an entrenched taboo against discussing spiritual experience in everyday life. This is lessening, and thank goodness because more and more people are starting to have shifts of consciousness, and how can it be good that we go about confused and on our own rather than open and sharing? This gives us strength.
I once had a teacher tell me that these experiences were akin to sex, and best not discussed in public. (Ha!) I'm sure any young readers will scoff at this idea and find it archaic, as the youth of today are light years ahead of my generation in how they discuss and relate to sexuality and their bodies. Sex and sexuality are best not talked about? I think not.
And so, the time has come for spiritual experiences to be discussed out in the open as well and without fear of offending the more traditional population. More and more people are experiencing aspects of awakening, and the more freely shared information and understanding out there, the better. Surely the taboo against speaking openly is deeply rooted in the centuries of witch hunts and Spanish Inquisition (It was not just women persecuted, ask Jesus, St John of the Cross and Mister Eckart to name just a few).
To all of the hushed taboo and centuries of fear I say: For the love of God, Speak!!
Th following experience happened two years ago while at a silent meditation retreat with Adyashanti. May it's telling lend a hand to anyone who can use it.
On one of the first days of the retreat Adyashanti instructed us to identify the deepest experience of being we had touched upon in our life. Once found he said to ask yourself what was being shown that made it so impactful. (This is a very useful and revealing as a stand alone exercise, I suggest you try it.)
Then, once you have identified your deepest experience of being, and intuited what made it so powerful, take that and let each breath be a devotion to that.
Adyashanti is a funny man, and the way he said this was delightful. Basically he said look, now you know the deepest and most important thing you have been shown here in your life, what the heck are you doing? Shouldn't every moment be a lived devotion to that? What else are you here for?
First of all I thought he had a great point, and second I trust him completely, so that evening after most of the people had left the meditation hall (a gorgeous room in an old Catholic monastery on the Hudson River) I followed his instructions.
To my surprise when I contemplated my deepest experience of being I found a devotion to God, that is, a miles deep movement in me to give myself completely to the service of God, and to leave nothing of myself intact. That is, to give everything.
And so, trusting Adyashanti, I began to meditate with the breath, and let each breath be a complete giving of myself to God. I found this effortless and increasingly rapturous, until I wanted nothing more than to be taken completely and have nothing left of myself. The glory of God was enormous and ecstatic, and I wanted to be taken completely into his service forever.
This went on for some time, likely half an hour. Never before had I realized so consciously the true desire of my life, and once known it flooded forth in a torrent.
Abruptly and with no warning two things happened simultaneously, and put such a screeching halt to the rapture of devotion that I felt the impact as a physical shock. I was suddenly skewered with a log of light, running rigidly from about 2 feet above my head to my perineum. This was not a celestial, gentle beam of light, this was a thick and solid log of light, about 9 inches in diameter, rammed through me like a human ready for the cook fire. I could not move, and the crown of my head felt like a speculum had been pushed into it and was being cranked open past the point of comfort.
At the same time a Being, about the size of my body, rushed in from beyond and came to a perfect stop about 2 inches in front of me. I could feel it's entire Being directly in front of my body, an absolute LOOKING penetrating me. It was a Being composed entirely of LOOKING, not the concept of looking, but the pure essence of LOOKING. There was zero judgment in the looking, only pure looking and a seeing of everything. The Being was composed of a thousand high beams shinning through every part of me equally. There was no emotion in this Being, in fact none of the experience had any sweetness or friendliness to it. It was raw and straight up.
I continued to sit in meditation. Adyshanti once told me that when fantastic things happen, be matter of fact about them, and then go back to what I was doing before. So I tried that. I acknowledged that the log of light was there, and the LOOKING was right in front of me, and then I turned back to my breath and attempted to give it to God.
Zero. Nothing. The devotion and giving myself to God was completely gone. No rapture. Nothing. I felt that I had been gouged out, and left dry and discarded.
Finding nothing there, and no way to re-ignite the experience of before, I turned my attention back to the log of light and the LOOKING.
These things did not change, and I sat there for a long time with my eyes closed, attempting to meditate, but mostly wondering what in the world to do next. Eventually I decided to open my eyes and see if the Being was visible. I couldn't come up with any other options as everything was staying so intensely the same and unmoving. I opened my eyes and the Being seemed to vanish as I did so. Instead, in its place, absolutely everywhere I looked was an utter UNKNOWN. Every object, and every atom in every object, was composed exclusively of UNKNOWN. Everywhere was the same.
It was not scary, though the log of light was still rammed and stretching uncomfortably through my body. It was not scary, but nothing happened. I had the distinct impression that I was sitting on the brink of the void, the Godhead, the abyss, and was being invited to enter. There was no push, just an open invitation.
It is a little strange to say now, and I have not plumbed the understanding of what I am about to relate, but I decided not to enter because I did not know who that Being of LOOKING was.
My actual thought at the time was 'I can't just go into any ole being's abyss of unknown. That would be dumb." I just could not tell if it was God's abyss, and I could not, out of integrity, dive in without knowing who's dang abyss it was anyway.
This Being of Looking gave no reassurance at all, it just was LOOKING without waver.
And so, after awhile I got up and climbed the four flights of stairs to the top floor of the monastery and went to bed in the little room next to my roommates. That night I was a disaster, sleep was fitful and punctuated by waves of fear verging on horror.
The next few days were very hard. I went through the motions of the retreat, but my heart was not in it. For one thing the log of light stayed in me for about two days, and while that may sound great it was not a pleasant feeling. Added to that I felt emptied out and tossed on the ground. I was rudderless, and intensely questioning whether devotion was a disgusting act against God, an egocentric trick used by spiritual seekers (myself included) to feel good about themselves.
It took a full six months to get on a somewhat even keel again, and two years to start to have a somewhat integrated understanding of what happened that night.
Over the next few days of retreat I distilled out part of the transmission of the experience, and it is one that sounds trite and obvious when spoken or on paper, but the knowing of it is another thing entirely.
What I saw on the edge of the abyss was that this was the way to God. The only way. Not only that, but as God is there, in the abyss, it follows that we cannot bring a single concept to God. When we are to meet him, it will be without a single concept. What I didn't know then, but have since seen, is that we cannot bring our self to God either because our self is a concept. The self cannot approach God. Concept cannot meet concept, there is a buffer between concepts, a force field of sorts that prevents Knowing. When we will meet it will be without concept and without self, beyond One.
This may sound lovely and exciting, but believe me in reality it is one helluva shocker. I spent the next six months or so distraught, I felt that my faith had been stripped from me and even made dirty. How dare I devote myself to my own concept of God, for that is not God. And yet, the movement to devotion began to reassemble.
That fall I went to another silent meditation retreat with Adyashanti and stood up and asked him about the experience. His pointers towards devotion gave me months of contemplation.
And now, I sign off today on this 'cliff hanger'. It is not intentional, and I intend to keep writing. My smile to you.
I write this for someone may need it today, and be helped.
Let us be so tender and kind with each other and ourselves, and when we cannot, may we be so tender and kind with that. It is as it should be.
I wish you so much love today,
Evangeline
