i am a bit apprehensive about posting this, but here goes...

[pondini]

i was an atheist, who turned agnostic only after carefully considering that 'something' had to have created the universe. and i was a very scientifically-minded person, filled with skepticism that often caused me to be less than tolerable to all things mystical or theological.

sometime around early 2009 i was searching the net for an acronym of some company or software name and accidentally stumbled upon a wikipedia article about DMT -a highly potent psychedelic drug. i was so amazed by the effects outlined in the article that i immediately read Rick Strassman's DMT: The Spirit Molecule. oddly enough, it was quantum physics with it's multiple dimensions and startling discoveries, such as the double-slit experiment, that created just enough objectivity (open-minded skepticism) to allow me to read The Spirit Molecule with an open mind. as it turned out, that book was a fork in the road for me. it chronicled the first government approved studies with psychotropics since the twenty-year moratorium imposed after Timothy Leary's reckless antics with LSD in the 60s. it explained how DMT trips were nearly identical to meditative states and mystical experiences, as well as profound out-of-body experiences witnessed during momentary death or while in extreme pain and/or stress -many times happening to mothers during child birth. next i read a hefty book on buddhism, followed by books on out-of-body experiences, near-death-experiences, lucid dreaming, and a litany of scientific material regarding quantum theory.

during all my research it became clear to me that all these events were either the same thing, or just different flavors of the same thing. all these accounts also declared that during the events, time and space were dilated, or, time and space did not exist! as if that isn't hard enough to grasp, they also conclude that reality itself is just an illusion, or a hologram, by which we all share the experience of physical reality. this is the same thing Einstein discovered while trying to prove his 'unified field theory' -that all physical matter, specifically, and reality, in general, stem from a non-physical field. this is also what the budda was trying to say 2500 years ago.

during all this research i had experienced a few lucid dreams, and with the aid of some OBE manuals and some of the TMI recordings, i had almost gotten fully Out-Of-Body a few times. it is pretty amazing when you find out for yourself that these types of things are actually real. they change the way you perceive existence, well, at least they did for me. those
early days were really neat for me.

while reading about buddhism i realized something that i feel christianity failed to truly teach me: the importance of thinking, speaking and acting in a way that is kind and compassionate; not because it is the right thing to do, but because those actions originated from sincere intent within me. that last sentence creates a conundrum for those of us who are
human, and flawed -how can you think, say and do nice things all the time, when they might not jibe with your true feelings and intent? as you can see, i had my work cut out for me. i had a lot of things to consider.

so that is where my mind was at in late 2009 when i took a few hits off of a joint with my niece's boyfriend, Avi. smoking pot is something i did very infrequently back then, and even less now. i might have a hit once in a while now, but i use it selectively. so the buzz was kicking-in and i decided to put Dark Side Of The Moon on. Avi left the room for a bit and the song On The Run started playing; it is the song with the weird synthesizer loop that phases and morphs throughout the tune. at that moment it sounded a lot like the TMI tracks or the binural-beat recordings i had been listening
to, however, it worked extremely quick and although i felt the 'tug' that meditation often creates when it starts ramping up, i totally blacked out.

a few moment/minutes (?) later, when i regained consciousness, i heard my niece and her boyfriend in the other room arguing about why i was saying such whacky things. they seemed pretty concerned -i wasn't. i looked around my room and it looked somehow different and peculiar, not uncommon for a stoned person, but this was different. i saw through it all at once, i understood everything to be a type of simulation, someone's, or some thing's conception of what a physical reality might be like. normally, we all think we know what we know, but this was the first time i have ever been certain of anything in my life.

i started shouting 'it's all fake!', referring to reality. i also thought that i might just be stoned out of my gourd and i might feel differently tomorrow, but that thought was very brief. i shouted 'and i'm not going to feel any different about it tomorrow!' my mom came into my room and said 'what is going on here???' her concern was understandable as it is pretty outlandish to hear someone say 'the universe is fake' with such conviction. i live in one end of the house, and my mom and my brother -my caregivers, since i broke my neck in 1995- live in the other end, and they were familiar with my theories that the universe might be an illusion, so i'm sure that served as a cushion while dealing with me in that state.

she asked again 'what is going on? why are you saying these things? did you take something?' i told her about the pot and said something like 'but that is not the reason. i can see through this whole illusion right now'. i was in bed and she pulled up a chair and sat next to me, waiting for me to come down. that is when i sensed 6 or 7 'beings' above my house. one by
one, my mind instantly held the full understanding of some of the world's big problems. imagine spontaneously knowing literally everything there is to know about world hunger. knowing all those affected by it, all the effort and motivations behind those seeking to solve it, all the efforts, motivations, fear and greed behind those who seek to perpetuate it, and
understanding the relationship between all the players involved, as well as the details of those relationships hidden within them. everything! that happened 6 or 7 times in a row, each time containing all the details of certain world problems. it was like a big data transfer in one quick burst. i knew that the data came from the beings above my house, not from my own mind.

each time i received these data transfers i instantly understood the solution to that particular issue. the answer was Love! if someone would have told me 'Love can fix any problem that we have' an hour earlier, i would have just considered it cliche hippie-talk, but i now knew it as fact and understood exactly why it was fact. i don't recall if i said the word Love out loud or not, but when that word came to me i was hit in my heart/chest by so much love that it physically hurt, while also being the most euphoric sensation i have ever felt. the love came from the beings, it was like i was getting rewarded for getting the answer correct. the best metaphor i can give is a four inch fire hose of pure genuine love blasting me in the heart, and i wasn't sure how much more i could handle. tears poured out of my eyes, i couldn't help it.

like i said, this happened 6 or 7 times in a row, each time i understood a different painful problem faced by mankind, realized the answer is 'Love', and was blasted by the fire hose to the point of tears. by this time my mom was holding my hand, i looked over at her and knew she was my guardian angel. i was confused because i always thought guardian angels existed in some sort of spirit form, not as physical people. apparently this is not always the case.

with that roller coaster of sensations and emotions behind me it was even more clear that this life is just an illusion or a sub-reality of the larger 'real' one. with that, i considered the game exposed, the jig was up and i thought 'ok, i've solved the puzzle, now i can leave here!' and i was excited to leave! i expected my room and all of physical reality to dissolve away, delivering me to my real domain, but obviously nothing like that happened.

there were a few other components to this event that were pretty peculiar, but i think i'll keep them to myself.

then, as now, i had zero religious beliefs, yet i had this very spiritual experience. because it was such an eye-opener for me i began to ask certain people that i knew to be very religious if there was some event or stark turning-point in their lives that made them 'believe' -i was fishing around to see if any of them had a similar experience, but either they had not, or they chose not to talk of it. i now believe that religion, although flawed by its dogmas, has most-likely provided many more of these types of mystical experiences to its followers (due to its large number of followers) than has agnosticism, OBEs, NDEs and drug related states that act as conduits to the larger reality (when used by the right people with a conducive mindset). in my opinion, religion does not have a monopoly over mystical experiences, they just have a lot more members who are willing to open themselves up to the possibility of something beyond this life/reality -something bigger than themselves. i believe this is the key, in conjunction with the desire to improve one's self, that facilitates
transcendental events. i used to despise religion until my experience, now i see it as a productive mechanism -although limited- in spiritual evolution.


a few notes:
i have no recollection of what happened during the time i blacked-out, but Avi finally told me (after prying it out of him a month later) that he came into the room and i was staring up at the ceiling, i told him i was looking down at my body from up above. i also have no recollection of what the 'world problems' were that i fully understood at the time.

lastly, my mom is pretty religious, and later when i asked her about her thoughts on what happened she told me she thought i was going to be 'raptured up' lol:)

[AstralBeginnings]

Wow man, what a great read.

I personally hate religion.  I believe nobody should have their path TOLD to them through anyone elses experiences.  Religion is not a belief in God its a belief in what the "book" tells you.  I believe that you should make your own religion through personal experiences, and reading what you wrote tells me you just had that experience.  Thanks for sharing.

[Stookie_]

Interesting read. Thanks for sharing pondini!

[pondini]

thanks for the kind replies, fellas:)

i'm glad you found it interesting. to me, it was a very important experience and i was worried about being ridiculed.

[KilltheInfected]

     I too share a similar story of my own spiritual awakening if you will.  In the old days, I was religious, brain washed to follow the church and bible blindly with out question.  I skateboarded then, still do.  But I guess that introduced me to friends who smoked pot.  I smoked for a while and it opened my mind to other possibilities, also introduced me to psychedelics.  That introduced me to dimethyltryptamine(which I still haven't smoked yet) and the very same book, the Spirit Molecule.  This didn't carry too much significance for me just yet.
     I was heavily injured with a broken tail bone, herniated l5, winged scapula, torn super spinatus(shoulder impingement) and all over tension.  I had forgotten how to relax, how to let go.  Life was hell every day, I wanted to be anywhere but my body.  My roommate gave me a dvd and suggested I check it out, it was a dvd on meditation.  So I watched it and followed along for the duration and by the end of it, I felt a little glimpse of relaxation, like I could breathe again.  It gave me space to live, it gave me hope.  It gave me relief that praying or religion never did.  I kept meditating, then one day...
     For nearly an hour I sat in my room breathing, quieting my thoughts and letting go.  And suddenly I started vibrating on the inside, like deep with in me I could hear this buzzing.  It grew louder, I couldn't just hear it, now I could feel it pulsing through my entire body.  It consumed me and suddenly the most beautiful thing that I've ever experienced happen...
     No longer was I in my room, I was in a womb!  I was a little baby with tiny baby fingers, it was dark in there but cozy.  Liquid all around.  The heart of this mother pulsed unconditional waves of love to me, every heartbeat.  I had to do NOTHING but sit there and be loved for what felt like eternity.  I was complete, I was whole and most importantly I was home.  After this experience, I snapped back into my room and my entire body felt STILLNESS.  I mean complete utter stillness like water that is ever calm, yet never stagnant.  Any thought that would come could be felt echoing through my entire being.  I could sit like that forever.   I wanted to cry because the experience was so beautiful.  This was my revelation of love.  Since then I have had a few "o.b.e.s" where I flew through my apartment and through the neighbors apartment.  Had a run in with some dark shadow beings that wanted to grab me and pull me in for whatever reason, partly my fault.  I met Mark Twain in a lucid dream, he gave me sound advice for some upcoming challenge.  Thing is, I've never seen a picture of Mark Twain before, I told my brother I saw him in my dream(I just knew it was him somehow, like I knew his presence.) and he asked me what he looked like.  I said he looked like Albert Einstein, cause he did and that was my only reference.  He googled Mark Twain and he looked EXACTLY like he did in my dream.  Now I know to love, and now I am free to live.  Good luck on your journey!

[Homesick]

Welcome... to the real world Neo

[pondini]

KTI, it sounds like you reached 'the void'. i am happy for you -these type of things can change your life. i made it there once, but very briefly because my dogs started barking and i couldn't maintain concentration.  i see a few similarities in our experiences; i perceived myself as being pushed through a barrier and ejected into the cosmic womb. i know, sounds insane. when i arrived in the black void i was viewing myself, from a distance, as a small banana-shaped fetus-like thing. i wasn't there very long at all, and i don't recall feeling a lot of love, but i do remember feeling extremely comfortable there.

were there sexual overtones to the first stages of your experience?
did it feel like the room was being pressurized, causing your eyes and ear drums to feel like they were being sucked inward?

[Selea]

each time i received these data transfers i instantly understood the solution to that particular issue. the answer was Love! if someone would have told me 'Love can fix any problem that we have' an hour earlier, i would have just considered it cliche hippie-talk, but i now knew it as fact and understood exactly why it was fact. i don't recall if i said the word Love out loud or not, but when that word came to me i was hit in my heart/chest by so much love that it physically hurt, while also being the most euphoric sensation i have ever felt. the love came from the beings, it was like i was getting rewarded for getting the answer correct. the best metaphor i can give is a four inch fire hose of pure genuine love blasting me in the heart, and i wasn't sure how much more i could handle. tears poured out of my eyes, i couldn't help it.

I know, these experiences are really strong, especially the first times. We call them the "kiss of the angel". The HGA is associated with the Anatta chakra (the heart chakra), so the ecstaties associated to Him are of the nature of love (and by and by the love experienced have less the nature of emotion in the literal term, but are more "stronger" in other aspects).

Knowledge and Conversation (the full experience of this) brings intimacy with the Angel and as a result you experience what it is called "The Trance of the Beatific Vision". It happens only once (because after you "bypass" it) and it can last also many months.

by this time my mom was holding my hand, i looked over at her and knew she was my guardian angel. i was confused because i always thought guardian angels existed in some sort of spirit form, not as physical people. apparently this is not always the case.

She was not *your* Angel. You saw the Angel of your mom (i.e. you saw your mom as she really is). It frequently happens in these cases; you see the divinity in others.

i now believe that religion, although flawed by its dogmas, has most-likely provided many more of these types of mystical experiences to its followers (due to its large number of followers) than has agnosticism, OBEs, NDEs and drug related states that act as conduits to the larger reality (when used by the right people with a conducive mindset). in my opinion, religion does not have a monopoly over mystical experiences, they just have a lot more members who are willing to open themselves up to the possibility of something beyond this life/reality -something bigger than themselves. i believe this is the key, in conjunction with the desire to improve one's self, that facilitates transcendental events. i used to despise religion until my experience, now i see it as a productive mechanism -although limited- in spiritual evolution.

Religion has little to do with these things, in itself. Sometimes a "glimpse" can happen spontaneously (and there's always a motive why it happens, and you should research why for yourself), but then it is a matter of love for your Angel. You can do whatever discipline mechanically, it will serve very little, if not as a mean to arise that love. Everybody has the key in him/herself to reach the Angel, and it is said that "for every step one takes towards one's Holy Guardian Angel, He takes two towards his client".

Maybe some people that approach religion have this love inside themselves (and for this they approach it, also if they can exchange a thing for another), and for this you can think the two are associated. However, at the same time, many of these same people have a love that is more similar to teenager's love: there's initial passion, but it goes away soon (especially after the first difficulties). The love required is gentle and sustained. On the search for the Angel one's inevitably come to the so-called "Dark Night of the Soul" and that's an hard test on your motivations and aspiration.

At the same time it can also be said that for some of these people approaching religion it has been the dogma of the same religion (or better the dogma of the structure leading the religion) that made that love wane.

So it is impossible to create a rule from this. Every system has advantages and disavantages. What it matters is beyond both.

a few notes:
i have no recollection of what happened during the time i blacked-out

This is usually the case at first. You can also not retain any memory soever of what has occurred, but on "returning" you may be merely aware of a gap on your conscious life, and judge of its contents by observing that your nature has been subtly transfigured.

By and by, on successive occasions you find that the ecstasy develop a quality of peace and intelligibility which adds power, while it informs and fortifies the mental and moral qualities instead of obscuring and upsetting them, till you can unite fully to the Angel, consciously.

P.S.: A thing to beware of is of taking the thing out of proportion (I'm not talking about you personally here, but in general terms). A quote concerning this:
In the same way the Adept almost always begins by torrential lyrics painting out mystical extravagances about "ineffable love", "unimaginable bliss", "inexpressible infinities of illimitable utterness". He usually loses his sense of proportion, of humour, of reality, and of sound judgment. His ego is often inflated to the bursting point, till he would be abjectly ridiculous if he were not so pitifully dangerous to himself and others. He also tends to take his new-found "truths of illumination" for the entire body of truth, and insists that they must be as valid an vital for all men as they happen to be for himself.

It can happen and it has happened in the past, and it's (btw) one of the motives some religions have turned to fanaticism.

P.P.S: Holy Guardian Angel it is just a term of many others. This term it is the one adopted in western magick. In Crowley's words:

THE AUGOEIDES. Lytton calls him Adonai in 'Zanoni,' and I often use this name in the note-books. Abramelin calls him Holy Guardian Angel. I adopt this:

1. Because Abramelin's system is so simple and effective.
2. Because since all theories of the universe are absurd it is better to talk in the language of one which is patently absurd, so as to mortify the metaphysical man.
3. Because a child can understand it.

Theosophists call him the Higher Self, Silent Watcher, or Great Master. The Golden Dawn calls him the Genius. Gnostics say the Logos. Zoroaster talks about uniting all these symbols into the form of a Lion (see Chaldean Oracles.) Anna Kingsford calls him Adonai (Clothed with the Sun). Buddhists call him Adi-Buddha... The Bhagavad-Gita calls him Vishnu (chapter xi.). The Yi King calls him "The Great Person."The Qabalah calls him Jechidah.

We also get metaphysical analysis of His nature, deeper and deeper according to the subtlety of the writer; for this vision - it is all one same phenomenon, variously coloured by our varying [minds] - is, I believe, the first and the last of all Spiritual Experience... the End of the "Path of the Wise" is identity with Him.

[KilltheInfected]

No sexual overtones for the womb/love experience.  But for the first shadow entity thing that grabbed me it was trying to lure me in with this sexual energy, I declined and it grabbed me and started pulling me in.  It was so powerful I couldn't push away.  I had to exit the projection to get away from its menacing grip.

[justinx]

I live in India and I have heard alot of similiar stories like you just mentioned. Most recently one is of a guy who was suffering from cancer but was cured by a white light which got inside his body, and sort of fixed the disease. Here-> http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Vasu_Bhardwaj

The most insightful book I have ever read is by Nisargadatta Maharaj - "I am that" which mentions that this reality world is dream world, and nothing else. Get the book here -> http://www.amazon.com/Am-That-Talks-Nisargadatta-Maharaj/dp/0893860220

Some other authors worth reading are, osho, G.I. gurdieff and J. Krishnamurti.

G.I. gurdieff -

men are born asleep, live in sleep and die in sleep, only imagining that they are awake.

http://glossary.cassiopaea.com/glossary.php?id=913

[predatoo]

how much does it suck when you don't go anywhere.. fully expect to hey. a baby crawled into my head.

[pondini]

I live in India and I have heard alot of similiar stories like you just mentioned. Most recently one is of a guy who was suffering from cancer but was cured by a white light which got inside his body, and sort of fixed the disease. Here-> http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/Vasu_Bhardwaj

check out my first post here...
http://www.astralpulse.com/forums/welcome_to_energy_body_and_the_chakras/kundalini_rising-t31659.0.html;msg258244#msg258244