Recently I discovered that someone I work with in the hospital is a Kabbalahist. We had a brief discussion around spirituality outside work one evening, after she overheard me talking to another colleague about religion. I quickly realised that this person was very spiritually advanced and she mentioned that she could leave her body at will anywhere, anytime and travel throughout any domain. She also said that she received a message to invite me to her house. That night I had a vision in bed. A door with multiple windows, all with a different perspectives of the other side and then a spinning decagon, floating in a brilliant pink and gold light, each side with Hebrew letter on. I immediately understood this is as there are many ways of looking, and that it was safe to open myself up to someone coming from the Kabbalah tradition. Yesterday I visited her house. She is clearly an enlightened person. Most discernible in the way she just sat back and simply smiled as my two year old made chaos of her house, telling me to relax and not worry about it. She had also bought toys and made vegan food for me and my son.
We spoke at length about many things. I explained the issues with organised Buddhism, I went through the jhanas and the immaterial realms, the fruits of attainment and most of my mystical experiences. Although having Buddhas in her house as well as numerous symbols from all religious and mystical traditions, she was not aware of the jhanas and the GWV philosophies. However, whilst talking to her response and was consistently 'yeah, yes and yup' throughout and continual nodding. She instinctively knew everything we discuss on this forum as the complete and normal truth of reality. I learnt that in Kabbalah there are four planes, the physical, astral, causal and mental. These are our physical, fine material, non material and Nibbana. She also mentioned that above the physical there are around twenty individual planes in all, matching up with the suttas. She also showed me something called the tree of life which seemed to incorporate the chakras, but also a lot more. She also noted that all mystical traditions are talking about the same thing and that OOBE's are an unavoidable necessity on the path to 'the light' as she called it. Leaving the body almost is path. She appears to have mastered the four jhanas as she knew them in an instant when I talked about them and she has attained all of the fruit mentioned by the Buddha, I am almost certain she read my mind and she said that she can see beings, talk to beings and that she can travel anywhere she wants in the universe. I also got the impression that she no longer practices deep meditation, just little top ups here and there. She also mentioned that one will go though multiple 'breakdowns' on the path and we spoke sometime about spiritual crisis as well as psychosis (as we both work in the field). She also told me that the spinning decagon that I saw was called a Murkabah(?), which they know as a 'chariot' and it is mathematical and metaphysical means by which one travels out of body. I also shared a reoccurring vision of mine where I routinely see a tree line in my field of vision, and one time rising up out of the tree line I saw a golden city in the distance. She was like 'oh yeah that's the holy temple, its in the upper regions of the physical heavens, you have to go through a forest to get there, but you need guidance so you can get back, I've been there many times, there's a lot of people there practising and studying the path' I almost cried at this point, as this vision of the golden city has followed me in mind for along time. Another important thing I took away from this is that I worked with this woman for 6 months and had no idea. It just goes to show that you never know ones attainment and respect should be shown to all at all times.