Hi All,
Thank you to Jeffery for inviting me to this forum
Welcome, Mike, and thanks for posting your case history here. I will move it into the case history section eventually, but for now we can keep it in the general section.
Let me begin by giving you my background and how I came to the position that led me to joining this forum. I'm a 52 year old Welshman who has lived in Australia (17 years) and Japan (12 years). I now teach English, but have been trained in both youth work and law. I have been an atheist all my life and was raised in a non-believing family.
Interesting thing is coming from a religious background does not seem to contribute to the likelihood of having a mystical experience. In fact my father was an atheist. I was not sure either way, until I had my first mystical experience, then I began to study religion in search of descriptions of mystical experiences, and prescriptions for having them.
My first 'spiritual' experience (for want of a better word) happened in Australia about 15 years ago. I had no previous experience of anything 'spiritual', had never done any kind of meditation, and new next to nothing about anything of the major religions or their contemplative practices. The language and concepts I use now to describe the experience were unknown to me at the time and only came into my lexicon with further research.
It was early evening in Perth, Western Australia. My girlfriend was working the evening shift at a bar so I was home alone. I was sat on the floor with my back leaning against the sofa watching the evening news. George Bush was describing an incident in Saudi Arabia where a US jet had accidentally dropped its bombs onto some New Zealand soldiers and killed them. Being ex-infantry myself I could use my experience and empathy to imagine what it must have been like for them. As I did so, there was an audible 'click' (quite loud) inside my head and the next second all the labels of the objects in the room 'whooshed' into the TV and disappeared. 'Table', 'cup', plant', 'sofa' etc. disappeared as did concepts and intellectualisations. 'Near', 'far', 'warm', 'time', 'space' etc. joined the labels and had vanished. The 'objects' still remained, but their labels were replaced by a uniqueness and realness that was quite pure, sharp and crystalline in appearance. In fact, the room took on an atmosphere that was like being bathed in moonlight.
Spontaneous mystical experiences are not common, but they are reported, and they tend to transform the individual into someone who wishes to repeat the experience frequently. Consequently they tend to take of a contemplative life.
The feeling of empathy that you experienced was most probably the trigger. In Buddhism you might know that it is one of the divine abodes.
The click is a bit unique to your experience, but the qualitative experience of "uniqueness and realness that was quite pure, sharp and crystalline ," is common to the experience.
Although I had obviously never experienced anything like this before, I found that there was a simpleness to the experience that made me spontaneously think, "This is it! This is it!". It was at the same time the most novel and earth-shattering experience and also the most obvious and real. Another phrase that entered my head was, "No mind!" which is quite incredible as this phrase became an important one in my later research and experience (Zen).
Yes, the stilling of the mind in no-mind is quite a profound experience.
This 'more real than real' phase probably lasted only a few minutes but as 'time' had lost its day to day meaning, it might as well have been an eternity.
The experience of it being 'more real than real' is also common to the mystical experience.
What occurred next was a warm pleasant feeling in the base of my spine. Something seemed to be telling me intuitively to sit up straight and make my spine erect. As I did so it felt like a fountain of warm, liquid love started coursing up my spine.
Not all mystical experiences come with the kundalini experience as you described, but enough mystics have this experience for it to be classified under its own heading.
I had done ecstasy (the drug) a few years before and so knew the feeling of bliss and ecstasy, but this was something profoundly different.
Yes, I have said this before, that, while I had taken a lot of psychedelics, I found the mystical experience is way beyond what I experienced taking drugs.
I spontaneously started saying, "Thank you! Thank you!" but to the universe and not any separate and divine godlike figure.
A sense of thankfulness to the infinite is a common reaction by the subject who has a mystical experience, because these experiences are just so ineffable.
A tree directly outside my window was visible and was emitting an aura of colours I had never seen before and also seemed to know exactly what I was going thru.
Seeing energy, and auras is reported by many mystics, but not all mystics have this experience.
The universe, and everything in it, was completely benign and loving. I really felt like if this experience continued I would evaporate in an explosion of Light and Love.
In my experience it can, but I did not die from it, so chances are you would not either.
At this point I actually started focusing my energy towards coming out of the experience (long story, but I had a young son and wanted to see him again - really thought I would disappear from this reality!).
Yes, the mystical experience can actually be quite terrifying, because it takes us right to the edge of death, and even oblivion. But, in my experience we come back to tell about it.
My focusing on coming out of it when I wanted to seemed to work.
Yes, it stops when we want it to, but if we take the ride all of the way, then enlightened.
As I did so I also experienced an amazing bit of synchronicity. I felt a kind of apprehension when the ecstasy abated. I had heard that seeing 'God' was too much for the human being and they would die and, in a more worldly way, I thought this could be the start of something like a brain enuryism or schizophrenia, so I started to worry a little.
I have an hypothesis that this fear is sewn into the population by the priesthood, who really cannot afford to have people going around saying that they had seen God. It is just bad for the business of religion.
Anyway, i went into my bedroom to change in order to go and tell my girlfriend about what had just happened and there was a book about yoga on her side of the bed. Intuitively i picked it up and started to read it. The last chapter was about the philosophy of yoga and there was quite a bit about mind expansion and uniting with the universe etc. This immediately put my mind at ease as it described, in parts, almost exactly what just happened to me. When I eventually got to the bar where my girlfriend worked she said I looked completely different and had a 'glow' about me.
Yes, I have heard that people who have had a mystical experience appear to have a glow. I cannot report that though.
The next day I went to the local library to research what the hell had just happened to me. The first thing was 'mystical experience' and many of the personal accountants I read were very similar (especially the ineffability to describe it), but what particularly resonated were Zen (satori) and Kundalini. That was the start of my journey on the 'path'. I have had many other such experiences since then, but this one was the most profound.
Thank you for bearing with me -I hope it wasn't too boring! I
welcome any questions.
Mike
Thanks, Mike. I look forward to reading some of your other accounts of mystical experiences when you find it useful to tell us.
