Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, or how I came to experience Primal Union with Creation

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Bluefirephoenix

I concur with st. John's experience. It's becoming more frequent and more intense. It's still hard coming back but not as painful.

soarin12

Quote from: Bluefirephoenix on October 25, 2014, 04:43:17
I concur with st. John's experience. It's becoming more frequent and more intense. It's still hard coming back but not as painful.

In reading St. John's mystical writings it's obvious that what I experience is the same as what he did, however mine didn't become more frequent.  I know why too. I had an issue I never grew out of. (I was even told by Spirit to get rid of it)  I was never given more of this love energy than I was mature enough to handle and put to good use.  And so for me, that was about once a year. I don't mean to sound like you have to be perfect and somehow 'deserve' every experience.  Far from it.  Some of my most treasured memories are when it came to me when I was heartbroken and seemingly spiritually impoverished.  Fortunately now ( I'm an old lady of 43 lol!) I'm starting to get a handle on the issue that was with me for years, and I have seen an interesting evolution to my experiences just in this past year.  Now in about half of my projections, I'm giving the love energy (instead of receiving it like in my yearly experiences)  There will be a person that I'm supposed to give it too, and I can flip my 'love beam' on like a switch.  I can control it's intensity.  If I let it get too intense I'll end up back in the physical, so I have to take some care with it.  I've always wanted to be a spiritual helper, so we'll see where this goes!

Stillwater, if you research and find info. on similar experiences had by people of other cultures etc., I'd be very interested!!  :)

Stillwater

QuoteStillwater, if you research and find info. on similar experiences had by people of other cultures etc., I'd be very interested!!  Smiley

For sure!

So far I am seeing instances of things that sound similar in Catholocism, Daoism, Qigong, the Upanishads (granted, literally everything under the sun happens in the Upanishads to the yogis, which isn't necessarily a disqualifier though), and in a few Native American tribes, even. It really sounds like this is a universal part of the human experience, and maybe even something that was "normal" in some cultures past. I am gathering a huge pile of charts and models in these texts that describe parts of what I went through amazingly closely. I am pursuing this phenomenon through reading in all of my free hours- many things that I read in the past, but now see with fresh eyes, and much that is new to me. I will expound on these accounts when I have a free moment soon!

I think gathering more information on this is great- if I am going to explain exactly how I think this miraculous gift can be reached out to though, I want to take some time to let it digest first. So far I am coping fairly well I think, thankfully. Maybe 2 months from now I may let it happen again slowly, if all feels right. It feels like a month has passed already, but it has been much less.

It seems to me like an entirely new branch of spirituality I have never heard professed here, which is odd, because in many of these cases, it seems like the swiftest passage to interacting with the pure loving state of the greater realities, and experiencing other states of being, as many here strive to. A person's sincere desire for such union may be a factor in its occurrence. I am finding the original Buddhist Tantric sects have very similar views to this- they believe that through loving expression of the joy of the sensual world of physicality, a person can be filled with so much love and compassion that they achieve the Buddhist concept of Enlightenment. Whether you believe in enlightenment or not (I am not sure I do), it is worth noting that there is this ancient practice the focuses intensely on the body and the physical world, rather than looking at it as an encumberance, as most of the others do!

"The Gardener is but a dream of the Garden."

-Unattributed Zen monastic

Bluefirephoenix

It would interest me too Stillwater. can you post it? You also need to examine shamanic writings as there are some accounts in there as well. In fact the healing abilities that stem from this develpment are more prevelent in cultures that still practice shamanism.  There are some accounts that involve aboriginal cultures that still practice shamanism that have described these experiences.

Soarin.  There is considerable fear that you have to go through.  The voices against the divine unity are shadows.  Heavenly Father zapped them a couple times to show me how to get rid of them. There have been times and actually is my current struggle where the energy flow scares me. It's very powerful and sometimes gets intimidating. I had to go through a struggle with this recently.  Understanding and then believing that he loves us and that this isn't going to hurt us is part of overcoming that fear. Accepting that love is key. I can see where people would mistaken these shadows for demonic attacks. In accounts of the saints you see that feature quite a bit. It's a very typical shadowform type of encounter. Once you can identify the forms then it's easier to determine which direction you need to go. It won't hurt to ask for help. The Father wants this for us his children. Its what we're meant for. And you can experience heaven while living here. ... at least as much as one can while in the physical.


soarin12

Quote from: Bluefirephoenix on October 27, 2014, 05:08:22


Soarin.  There is considerable fear that you have to go through.  The voices against the divine unity are shadows.  Heavenly Father zapped them a couple times to show me how to get rid of them. There have been times and actually is my current struggle where the energy flow scares me. It's very powerful and sometimes gets intimidating. I had to go through a struggle with this recently.  Understanding and then believing that he loves us and that this isn't going to hurt us is part of overcoming that fear. Accepting that love is key. I can see where people would mistaken these shadows for demonic attacks. In accounts of the saints you see that feature quite a bit. It's a very typical shadowform type of encounter. Once you can identify the forms then it's easier to determine which direction you need to go. It won't hurt to ask for help. The Father wants this for us his children. Its what we're meant for. And you can experience heaven while living here. ... at least as much as one can while in the physical.



Yes, I can see how there could be fear.  I personally haven't had fear in mine, but as I said above I believe that was due to the way I was introduced to them.  My first, although just as powerful as the others, was only seconds long (actual experience) with several minutes of afterglow.  That gave me a chance to get used to the idea without freaking! lol.  The next time I knew what was coming and the love and ecstasy  overshadowed the intensity of the flow.  I kinda feel sorry for you guys who got lambasted your first time  :-D but I guess the Source new you could handle it!   I was in my 20's when they started and I was kind of a messed up kid at the time.  God gave me exactly the love I needed without pushing me past what I could bear and scaring me.  I absolutely agree -God wants this for his children and it's what we are meant for!  :)

Kzaal

Man I would really read that stuff on Daoism if you write it here.
I'd even read the stuff on Buddhism!
The partial becomes complete; the crooked, straight; the empty,
full; the worn out, new. He whose (desires) are few gets them; he
whose (desires) are many goes astray.

Condiments

Thank you for that fascinating and inspirational story Stillwater. I wonder if your experience relates to what I've read as "Kundalini", though I don't know much about it other than the profound effects it has on the individual experiencing it. I've only been exploring this material for a matter of two years before which I would describe myself as firmly agnostic.

My initial involuntary "spiritual experience" I had was after I had graduated college. I was out on my deck reading some Carl Jung, when I all the sudden everything came into ultra focus. It was like flipping the switch from SD to HD, and my thoughts were swept away in the warm evening summer breeze. The closest words to describe it were as if a great "presence" had merged with me. For the next two hours I experienced the most contented peace I've ever felt, a warmness coursed through my body. It was no where near as intense as the effects you described but it was enough to freak me out enough that I swore off intellectual pursuit for a few months. Nothing in my experience, being raised as a catholic, had prepared me for that. To me, those feelings were strictly within the never-land realm of monks and the deranged. I know afterward I had become intensely interested in more spiritual matters.

About six months ago the presence returned again. I was driving home from work when I started to feel strange, all fuzzy and tingly in my skull. This time there was a great deal more inner sensation. It felt as if something was pouring warm liquid into the top of my skull and it was draining through me like tendrils of energy. It bounced around my body, and most powerfully in my spine. I was similarly contented and my  feeling of self had diminished in relation to my surroundings. I remember eating a piece of bread, and having the intuition that the surrounding environment was experiencing that exquisite act of consumption through me. Do you guys have any idea of what that was?

It was shortly thereafter that I discovered this place and followed in my oobe pursuits. I understand why you don't want to post much of the information as to how you got to where you are. I look back at my past and see how all these little steps lead to where I am now. Taking shortcuts would mean to lack the context of understanding. My only issue is....I kind of feel stuck. I've only been partially successfully in my oobe and lucid dream pursuits in the past 5 months(got really close to exit, and had a lucid dream for like a second haha), but I often feel like I go in circles. There is just so much information regarding spirituality that its hard to know how to proceed. The people and friends around me aren't really interested or have no reference point with what I'm pursuing. It starts to feel somewhat lonely...

Is there any advice you can give me to point me in the right direction?

Stillwater

QuoteMan I would really read that stuff on Daoism if you write it here.
I'd even read the stuff on Buddhism!

When I get the chance around work and research (and still feeling a bit strange), I will definitely try to do these instances justice.

For now Kzaal... with respect to the Daoist perspective on it, look into the concept of the "Microcosmic Orbit"; this happened to be the route a lot of the sensations took before they branched off- a circuit up the back and down the torso on a centerline loop; and the posture she is taking was pretty accurate for the effect on the spinal posture it had in my case too (although laying down of course). There is a whole branch of Daoist literature I am seeing that is concerned with converting "Jing" (sexual force) sourced as "Yin" (female creative essence) into spinal "Qi" (spiritual essence); the normal pattern for both women and men in Daoism is Jing expulsion; the Daoists believe that this other process is the root of powerful transformative forces in an individual, and I have run into experiences being described that sound very much like those being discussed in this thread in that context.

"The Gardener is but a dream of the Garden."

-Unattributed Zen monastic

Stillwater

QuoteI understand why you don't want to post much of the information as to how you got to where you are. I look back at my past and see how all these little steps lead to where I am now. Taking shortcuts would mean to lack the context of understanding.

Yeah, I think you get it. An actual theoretical process for engaging this experience from zero doesn't exist probably. Rushing to the method itself would probably have almost no effect at all for a person who wasn't already ready; those at risk would probably be those who could get there, but who might have difficulty detaching themselves from the joy of it all.

For me at least, it likely had heavily to do with life experiences, attitudes, bodily health, a storing of several kinds of tensions that were released all at once, and a powerful love for the physical world, its inhabitants, and the underlying sensuality of our existence here. I don't expect you can get there in a day. But you might be able to get there in 3 months, and I think this is an easier path potentially to subtle realities than the projection path that is mostly followed here.

There is definitely that Jungian "Metanoia" trait to this all.


QuoteIs there any advice you can give me to point me in the right direction?


Advice I could give for getting into that primed state... would sound off the wall probably.

You would be asking yourself... is this a New Age manifesto?

When I read a lot of literature about chakras, etc... (leaving my views on what these may or may not be asside), it is clear to me that I didn't fully get most of it until now, despite having felt many "chakra sensations" in the past. This is sort of the attitude you would have to look at this stuff with... you won't get it until you are already there. That sounds like a cop-out, but so much of this happens by accident...


Ok here it goes:

-Listen to music, and don't listen to the singer, but imagine you are the singer. Feel the person's emotions, feel the joy and the suffering behind what they sing, and feel it in your body as powerful waves. You must do this with no distractions at all, with meditative focus. You and they are the same, and you are sharing their life experiences that they are expressing. I don't mean this figuratively, I mean it literally. That might be hard to do, but it will help get you to this place relatively fast. The point is empathy, and empathy is both developed and experienced by having yourself experience what the other person or creature is feeling in the most direct way possible. By an accident of biology, humans are designed to experience empathy through voices (and consequently musical intervals) most easily. If you question it... consider, what is more emotional, a text chat or a phone conversation?

-When you walk outside, you must stop your thoughts completely almost. There are trees, and wind, and clouds, and sky. They are magnificent things, and they envelop you and intoxicate you with their primal physicality if you invite them in.

-Change your relationship with your sexuality. Most people feel sexuality toward human adults, and sexual mental images, and this is very healthy and not at all detrimental. But there is a new way to experience this sexual energy... try experiencing it instead as bodily sensuality. Let this energy that is normally only felt for objects of sexual desire instead be transduced into feelings of joy at being immersed in the natural world, and a joy that you feel in your nerves and skin. If you can learn to experience the joy of seeing trees and clouds as a bodily excitement, this is another major step.

-Another extension of this is the transduction of sexual energy into love and compassion. Just as you can direct it into sensual joy for the physical world, that overflowing kind of energy can be re-directed into a kind of warmth you feel for others, and you badly want what is best for all other people and creatures at all times.

-Another strange way of building this vital force is athletic pursuit. For me, I think a kind of physical vitality and liveliness I developed as a result of running everyday for an hour. Remember I am a person who is highly sensual, so you can imagine how much energy and tension is built up in such a situation.

-Meditative pursuits- if you haven't already gotten there, learn the feeling of staying in trance for 2-3 hours, and being contented there. The above will help with this, and this will especially help with the above, conversely. Feel the joy of breathing in, and the joy of tension leaving your body as you exhale. This state is so relaxing and rewarding to experience on its own, you can comfortably spend hours in it, and it feels like time well-spent if you do it "correctly".

-Set your sights to the apex. You love yourself for what you are, but you constantly strive to become better, for the love of both yourself, and for those around you you can better love and serve. You do not accept failure or set-back- you defy them, and keep climbing. You know that every being has worth and value, and as such a being, you have an unquenchable longing to know the infinite and the creator, whatever that turns out to be for you, in your world view. You are a Christian? Then you can easily know this as Christ/ Father/Holy Spirit. Contemporary Spiritualist? Source. Hindu? Krishna / Brahman-Atman. Modern Secular-Humanist? The loving spirit of ethics and the grandeur of physical creation. It doesn't matter what you ascribe to, pretty much each worldview has a name for it, and you don't need to be a religious person to experience it, or to develop a deeper relationship with it.


------------

I am comfortable sharing this much, and if you take that stuff to heart, you might find your way to where I wandered by sheer accident. Also, some of it might seem like quackery, or some breed of queer mysticism. I am not sure if I saw such a list of things as a child, if I would have given it much value other than some sort of zealous fanaticism. And yet I feel there is great transformative power in all of this if you are open to it. In the future I will expound on principles like these and others, and explain more closely how they fit into the whole; and I will also describe the physical exercises that may be relevant, if I am convinced it is the best way to serve people on this path; probably all as some sort of free ebook, but that is for well into the future.

I hope that helps!!!
"The Gardener is but a dream of the Garden."

-Unattributed Zen monastic

Condiments

Quote from: Stillwater on October 27, 2014, 21:16:11
Advice I could give for getting into that primed state... would sound off the wall probably.

You would be asking yourself... is this a New Age manifesto?

When I read a lot of literature about chakras, etc... (leaving my views on what these may or may not be asside), it is clear to me that I didn't fully get most of it until now, despite having felt many "chakra sensations" in the past. This is sort of the attitude you would have to look at this stuff with... you won't get it until you are already there. That sounds like a cop-out, but so much of this happens by accident...

Nothing about this sounds to "New Age-ish" to me, though that may be because I'm now one within the fold without realizing it. Its like you said though, so much of this experience sounds like "fluff" until you actually experience it. I myself am experiencing what is typically associated with "chakras", and I didn't know a wit about them before I started experiencing symptoms. My first few meditation sessions and I had wonderful sensations spread across my brow and the crown of my skull. I thought it was just awesome side-effects of the practice until I started to feel more all across my body. Even now as I'm typing this I feel my legs buzzing/humming, a tense tingling in my brow, and a fuzziness across my hands. Despite all this development, I can't say I know much. The path of "enlightenment" as some like call it, feels less like a confident stride and more a bumbling through the dark with my pants on my head. Am I getting somewhere? It feels like it, but I don't know.

QuoteOk here it goes:

-Listen to music, and don't listen to the singer, but imagine you are the singer. Feel the person's emotions, feel the joy and the suffering behind what they sing, and feel it in your body as powerful waves. You must do this with no distractions at all, with meditative focus. You and they are the same, and you are sharing their life experiences that they are expressing. I don't mean this figuratively, I mean it literally. That might be hard to do, but it will help get you to this place relatively fast. The point is empathy, and empathy is both developed and experienced by having yourself experience what the other person or creature is feeling in the most direct way possible. By an accident of biology, humans are designed to experience empathy through voices (and consequently musical intervals) most easily. If you question it... consider, what is more emotional, a text chat or a phone conversation?

This is a very good point. This is a very good meditation to try for empathy given the emotional power of music. I have been feeling shifting energy movements throughout my body lately whenever I've been listening to tender music, and it drives to me tears often and easily. This didn't use to happen so often. I feel like emotional reserves are pouring out after being stone-walled by me for so long. This would be a good way to channel this energy in a positive way.

Quote-When you walk outside, you must stop your thoughts completely almost. There are trees, and wind, and clouds, and sky. They are magnificent things, and they envelop you and intoxicate you with their primal physicality if you invite them in.

I've been working on this and I'm having some trouble with the "stop all thoughts part". I often get into the these trances on walks, but its often broken by some barreling thought train. But man...when you do hit that sweet spot. Its likes seeing the world through a child's eyes for the first time. Its breath-taking...you wonder how you've never seen it that way before?

Quote-Change your relationship with your sexuality. Most people feel sexuality toward human adults, and sexual mental images, and this is very healthy and not at all detrimental. But there is a new way to experience this sexual energy... try experiencing it instead as bodily sensuality. Let this energy that is normally only felt for objects of sexual desire instead be transduced into feelings of joy at being immersed in the natural world, and a joy that you feel in your nerves and skin. If you can learn to experience the joy of seeing trees and clouds as a bodily excitement, this is another major step.

-Another extension of this is the transduction of sexual energy into love and compassion. Just as you can direct it into sensual joy for the physical world, that overflowing kind of energy can be re-directed into a kind of warmth you feel for others, and you badly want what is best for all other people and creatures at all times.

This is another good point. One great thing I've read about human sexuality, is how easily we externalize our deep desires onto a object. We often describe those attractive as "hot", as if they were a living fire warming us by their very presence. What we fail to realize is that all that person has done is awoken an image deep within, their "hotness" a mere catalyst that stokes the pyre within. The faces and personalities may change, but its always the same heat that moves within ourselves. Realizing this frees others from the image we tend to impress upon them, and allows us to enjoy them for who they are. And it seems like you've gone a step further and applied this energy towards the moving world itself. That is quite beautiful, and I could see how it would be progenitor of your experience.

Quote-Another strange way of building this vital force is athletic pursuit. For me, I think a kind of physical vitality and liveliness I developed as a result of running everyday for an hour. Remember I am a person who is highly sensual, so you can imagine how much energy and tension is built up in such a situation.

-Meditative pursuits- if you haven't already gotten there, learn the feeling of staying in trance for 2-3 hours, and being contented there. The above will help with this, and this will especially help with the above, conversely. Feel the joy of breathing in, and the joy of tension leaving your body as you exhale. This state is so relaxing and rewarding to experience on its own, you can comfortably spend hours in it, and it feels like time well-spent if you do it "correctly".

This is something I'm definitely working on. I'm at a healthy weight but I'm pretty lazy when it comes to working out. As for meditation, I'm working myself to a consistent 15-20 minutes a day. I'm no where NEAR 2-3 hours of trance but that sounds simply joyful. Attention is such a fickle beast.

Quote-Set your sights to the apex. You love yourself for what you are, but you constantly strive to become better, for the love of both yourself, and for those around you you can better love and serve. You do not accept failure or set-back- you defy them, and keep climbing. You know that every being has worth and value, and as such a being, you have an unquenchable longing to know the infinite and the creator, whatever that turns out to be for you, in your world view. You are a Christian? Then you can easily know this as Christ/ Father/Holy Spirit. Contemporary Spiritualist? Source. Hindu? Krishna / Brahman-Atman. Modern Secular-Humanist? The loving spirit of ethics and the grandeur of physical creation. It doesn't matter what you ascribe to, pretty much each worldview has a name for it, and you don't need to be a religious person to experience it, or to develop a deeper relationship with it.

For a long time I suffered from pretty low confidence, and was in denial about it. I tried to maintain an "image" of me being a smoother more socially adept person then I really was, which gave my critical mind a field day when I failed to measure up. It didn't help my group of high school friends were a bunch of jerks, but most are at that age. Learning to accept myself after all that as been a difficult journey despite many loving friends over the years. Its not their fault, outwardly I project the image of calm stillness, but my innate sensitivity to things allows me to be easily emotionally entangled. Its sometimes hard for me to even watch characters in movies in embarrassing situations because how much emphasize with them. Funny how I never made that same room for myself haha.

I've come a long way though and at least for now feel like it'll keep improving. Thank for the help and time. I'm glad you've found some measure of great peace in this world.

Stillwater

QuoteDespite all this development, I can't say I know much. The path of "enlightenment" as some like call it, feels less like a confident stride and more a bumbling through the dark with my pants on my head. Am I getting somewhere? It feels like it, but I don't know.

I know the feeling. I have come so far, but there is so much in front of me. I want to help others, but I don't know that I actually know enough not to mislead them. I am certainly no authority.


QuoteI've been working on this and I'm having some trouble with the "stop all thoughts part". I often get into the these trances on walks, but its often broken by some barreling thought train. But man...when you do hit that sweet spot. Its likes seeing the world through a child's eyes for the first time. Its breath-taking...you wonder how you've never seen it that way before?

For me, it comes very easily. It is less something I have to try (so the "stop thoughs completely, almost" might be a bit confusing), and more something that just happens. If you play a musical instrument, I am sure you will get the next bit: the only instrument I ever learned to play somewhat well was the piano. And part of playing well is to play without effort. It is about doing something until it becomes unconscious memory, and your body just knows what to do with minimal input from your conscious mind. It just sort of falls out of your fingers because they know what to do. I think that state of mind is about being there so often, and for such a large part of your day, that it becomes a default state.


QuoteAs for meditation, I'm working myself to a consistent 15-20 minutes a day. I'm no where NEAR 2-3 hours of trance but that sounds simply joyful. Attention is such a fickle beast.

Oh, it doesn't have to be 2-3 hours a day, or even 2-3 hours a week. Eventually, the meditative state is something that spills over into your life, and you find less need to actually sit down for it. The concept here though is that when you can get to the point where 3 hours of sitting (or lying down) is exhilerating rather than boring, you are probably already there.

QuoteFor a long time I suffered from pretty low confidence, and was in denial about it. I tried to maintain an "image" of me being a smoother more socially adept person then I really was, which gave my critical mind a field day when I failed to measure up.

It might please you to note then that I am as socially awkward as they come. Being socially accepted is a matter of understanding certain social conventions, and then learning to respect the social conventions of the group you would like to be accepted into. I guess I would say that I don't have so much concern for how I am perceived- to me how I feel is more important than how I am seen (and that is nice, because it allows a person to be fairly uninhibited); to any observer, I am probably fairly bizzare in my mannerisms! A funny walk... maintains eye-contact way too long...hangs out with homeless people(they are some of the only people who will connect with a stranger on a profoundly personal level)...I guess I must look like a hipster on anti-depressants, lol. You have to learn not to try to impress others by knowing the right secret handshakes. You might be surprised how much the outward traits of being dis-interested in all of that will still be noticed, and how many people will still connect well with you. Very few people are their true self in public. They don't want to make a scene, and they want to be accepted by those around them. When you actually are (your actual, un-modified self)... some people will be disgusted, and some people will connect to it instantly. And impressing the sort of people who demand a rigid set of pre-determined qualities in the people they interact with isn't worth your time or your worry.

I think you get it though. Not loving yourself will only hold you back, because you will feel unworthy. It isn't about narcissism, it is about being comfortable with yourself.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdxrstnZo4E

"The Mole is an animal that digs tunnels underground. In search of the sun, it sometimes comes to the surface. When it sees the Sun, it is blinded."

:lol: :lol: :lol:
"The Gardener is but a dream of the Garden."

-Unattributed Zen monastic

Newoldsoul

What a cantastic beautiful experience and thank you for sharing it with us!

Szaxx

The mindset of ' what's in it for me' is the completely opposite direction.
If you look at all things in the correct mindset you'll see more with your mind than the eye's can ever show.
It does sound new agey but imagine a world full of this mindset.
As I have mentioned a few times, a wasp will do what a wasp does.
Most see them and instantly go for the kill.
If you watch them chew at rotting wood to make a nest you are on the right path.

The typical physical world mindset still sees the world as flat.
I'm sure those who have had the experience in the OP will agree.
The eternal flame lights the dark and doesn't create shadows. That'll mean something to those that know.
There's far more where the eye can't see.
Close your eyes and open your mind.

Stillwater

QuoteAs I have mentioned a few times, a wasp will do what a wasp does.
Most see them and instantly go for the kill.
If you watch them chew at rotting wood to make a nest you are on the right path.


Reminds me of the opening chapter of "Their Eyes Were Watching God":

Janie was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sister-calyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation. Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp and languid.

Insects are amazing for sure. One nice thing about being a kid is that your face is a lot closer to the ground, and these dramas play out for you so much more easily.
"The Gardener is but a dream of the Garden."

-Unattributed Zen monastic

Aaron330

Man, I think this thread just changed my life.

As I've said before I came out of a very strong evangelical Christian background, son of a Pastor, lived most of my life in church services, became a worship leader at age 16 and went to college and got my degree in Worship Arts to do it full time. I've always had such a desire to know God and to be One with him(it). I frequently spent hours in my room worshiping this God who was just too big for words, too marvelous to comprehend. It was almost a daily occurrence for me to cry while driving in the car to some worship song that came on. I was so in Love with the Creator that my whole life revolved around it. I even had quite a powerful healing gift that I would even use when out on the streets to heal people that were ill. We called it "words of knowledge" in the Christian realm, when you get an impression someone has low back pain or cancer or whatever. I've seen hundreds, maybe thousands of real, genuine physical healing. I've been instantly healed myself of a torn rotator cuff. I always knew God was real and felt a burning desire every day of my life to become even closer with God.

I eventually stopped believing in hell, much to the worry of my family. Then eventually stopped believing in the idea that Jesus "died for my sins" because the God I knew was not a barbarian who required a blood sacrifice to forgive people. Then I eventually lost my spirituality altogether, as coming to the realization that everything I'd ever believed as Christian was wrong. The Bible stories, the stories of Jesus, belief about heaven, etc all wrong. I embraced science and evolution fully, which is often very hostile to all religion/spirituality, which made me slowly become cynical towards my old beliefs.

The baby went out with the bath water and i lost my spirituality altogether. I lost all the beauty, passion, and wonder of the Divine. It hurt so much to lose everything that was so central to my being from the time I was born. I became a closet atheist for months, and went into a deep depression over losing my faith. I then became more of a New-Ager who essentially believed that God is just the sum of all consciousness. But My love for God still burns deep within, waiting to be reawakened. I've just needed to know that God is real and personal in some sense, and I've gotten that image very strongly in the past 8 months on this forum board. However, God is something I want to Experience for myself.

Reading the experiences on this thread, and the beautiful descriptions of everyone's experience with the Divine have filled my heart with that Love and Wonder again. I sat here with tears in my eyes, reading every word of these comments. I too had a deep love for the Christian mystics of the dark ages, and have read many of their books: St. Teresa of Avila's "Interior Castle", St. John of the Cross' "Long dark night of the soul", Michael Molinos' "The Spiritual Guide", Jeanne Guyon's "Experiencing the Depth's of Jesus Christ" and many more.

Thank you to all who've shared on this thread. I am glad this thread has been stickied. People need to read about these experiences. I want this experience for myself so badly. I've been doing an hour of Kundalini Awakening/Chakra meditation 3-5 nights a week for a month now. Thanks to this thread, something deeply important and eternally valuable has been re-awakened in me.

Since Soarin posted some lyrics, I'll do the same. I played this song after reading this thread, and spent about 30 minutes overwhelmed by tears of joy and love. Used to be my favorite to sing and play with my guitar :)

"It's always like Spring time with You, making all things New
Your Light is breaking through the dark
This Love it is sweeter than wine, bringing joy, bringing life
Your hope is Rising like the Dawn

This is what you do
This is what you do
You make me come alive"
It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep; because my dreams are bursting at the seams.

soarin12

Quote from: Aaron330 on November 13, 2014, 23:32:27
Man, I think this thread just changed my life.

As I've said before I came out of a very strong evangelical Christian background, son of a Pastor, lived most of my life in church services, became a worship leader at age 16 and went to college and got my degree in Worship Arts to do it full time. I've always had such a desire to know God and to be One with him(it). I frequently spent hours in my room worshiping this God who was just too big for words, too marvelous to comprehend. It was almost a daily occurrence for me to cry while driving in the car to some worship song that came on. I was so in Love with the Creator that my whole life revolved around it. I even had quite a powerful healing gift that I would even use when out on the streets to heal people that were ill. We called it "words of knowledge" in the Christian realm, when you get an impression someone has low back pain or cancer or whatever. I've seen hundreds, maybe thousands of real, genuine physical healing. I've been instantly healed myself of a torn rotator cuff. I always knew God was real and felt a burning desire every day of my life to become even closer with God.

I eventually stopped believing in hell, much to the worry of my family. Then eventually stopped believing in the idea that Jesus "died for my sins" because the God I knew was not a barbarian who required a blood sacrifice to forgive people. Then I eventually lost my spirituality altogether, as coming to the realization that everything I'd ever believed as Christian was wrong. The Bible stories, the stories of Jesus, belief about heaven, etc all wrong. I embraced science and evolution fully, which is often very hostile to all religion/spirituality, which made me slowly become cynical towards my old beliefs.

The baby went out with the bath water and i lost my spirituality altogether. I lost all the beauty, passion, and wonder of the Divine. It hurt so much to lose everything that was so central to my being from the time I was born. I became a closet atheist for months, and went into a deep depression over losing my faith. I then became more of a New-Ager who essentially believed that God is just the sum of all consciousness. But My love for God still burns deep within, waiting to be reawakened. I've just needed to know that God is real and personal in some sense, and I've gotten that image very strongly in the past 8 months on this forum board. However, God is something I want to Experience for myself.

Reading the experiences on this thread, and the beautiful descriptions of everyone's experience with the Divine have filled my heart with that Love and Wonder again. I sat here with tears in my eyes, reading every word of these comments. I too had a deep love for the Christian mystics of the dark ages, and have read many of their books: St. Teresa of Avila's "Interior Castle", St. John of the Cross' "Long dark night of the soul", Michael Molinos' "The Spiritual Guide", Jeanne Guyon's "Experiencing the Depth's of Jesus Christ" and many more.

Thank you to all who've shared on this thread. I am glad this thread has been stickied. People need to read about these experiences. I want this experience for myself so badly. I've been doing an hour of Kundalini Awakening/Chakra meditation 3-5 nights a week for a month now. Thanks to this thread, something deeply important and eternally valuable has been re-awakened in me.

Since Soarin posted some lyrics, I'll do the same. I played this song after reading this thread, and spent about 30 minutes overwhelmed by tears of joy and love. Used to be my favorite to sing and play with my guitar :)

"It's always like Spring time with You, making all things New
Your Light is breaking through the dark
This Love it is sweeter than wine, bringing joy, bringing life
Your hope is Rising like the Dawn

This is what you do
This is what you do
You make me come alive"


That's a beautiful story and song, Aaron.  You're a very good writer and with your healing gift and passion for the Divine, I wouldn't be surprised if you ended up a spiritual teacher/healer.  Maybe not one that your dad would approve of, but oh well... :)  Maybe your family will come around!  

Those must have been hard spiritual changes to go through.  I think anyone who is truly driven by the love of God will end up going through that purging of man made dogma.  I know I did.  The world pulls us this way and that, and then we finally (hopefully) learn to just follow what resonates with us in the core of our being.  This all reminds me of another saint.  Thomas Aquinas - who spent years writing 'important' theological documents, and then one day had a mystical experience that he wouldn't write down or talk about.  Afterwards, when his companions urged him to go back to his writings, he said - I just can't.  They seem like straw to me now...  I know how he felt!  :)

Szaxx

Use these emotions to heal the world in meditation.
Expect nothing, just think of the benefits.
If you're on the path and you've enough experience, the result may well take you to the bliss. You have to return, that's the only part you'll not want.
:-D
There's far more where the eye can't see.
Close your eyes and open your mind.

Aaron330

Quote from: soarin12 on November 14, 2014, 01:04:14
That's a beautiful story and song, Aaron.  You're a very good writer and with your healing gift and passion for the Divine, I wouldn't be surprised if you ended up a spiritual teacher/healer.  Maybe not one that your dad would approve of, but oh well... :)  Maybe your family will come around! 

Those must have been hard spiritual changes to go through.  I think anyone who is truly driven by the love of God will end up going through that purging of man made dogma.  I know I did.  The world pulls us this way and that, and then we finally (hopefully) learn to just follow what resonates with us in the core of our being.  This all reminds me of another saint.  Thomas Aquinas - who spent years writing 'important' theological documents, and then one day had a mystical experience that he wouldn't write down or talk about.  Afterwards, when his companions urged him to go back to his writings, he said - I just can't.  They seem like straw to me now...  I know how he felt!  :)

Thank you for the kind words Soarin. I think I very well may find myself on that path at some point in my life, only because I have such a desire to share the same joy and understanding of God that has so radically changed my life with others. But at this point I do feel a lot like Thomas Aquinas. I will be going home to California for Christmas to visit  my family, and they will want to know (as always) what "God has been doing in my life". I won't have any idea of how to communicate any of this to them, and I probably won't for many years. So I'll probably just give them a pat answer :)

Quote from: Szaxx on November 14, 2014, 06:28:59
Use these emotions to heal the world in meditation.
Expect nothing, just think of the benefits.
If you're on the path and you've enough experience, the result may well take you to the bliss. You have to return, that's the only part you'll not want.
:-D

Great advice as always Szaxx, thanks. I hope to find myself in that place of not wanting to return someday soon :)
It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep; because my dreams are bursting at the seams.

Stillwater

Yes, it was amazing to me too to learn that we have mechanisms for directly interfacing with the greater reality in the form we now are, and in a very immediate and powerful way. And afterward, you feel powerful yourself. There was so much vitality added, and there is still is. It just sort of flows up your back.

I would like others to experience it. It really adds to your life considerably.

I am curious about what you mean when you say Kundalini exercises. I have heard people say this in many contexts, to mean many things. What sort of exercises are you pursuing, if you don't mind me asking?

If it is how I think it is, I don't think it is like something you build up, and one day you are "good enough" that it happens. I think it is sort of like exit techniques in projection... you don't spend your time doing them all day long... you wait for the moment that your are primed for it, and you can do it effortlessly. It is like a combination of state of mind and physiological states...
"The Gardener is but a dream of the Garden."

-Unattributed Zen monastic

Stookie_

I'm a bit late, but that was as amazing experience to read about Stillwater. It's nice to see something a bit more spiritual and "mystical", and seeing an actual example of spiritual growth. It's something I can relate to. :)

Stillwater

"The Gardener is but a dream of the Garden."

-Unattributed Zen monastic

Kzaal

In the past month, I've had multitudes of this manifestation and every time, it always surprise me more than the last time.
I've noticed that to me it happens more often in the middle of my back, but I've had the sensation that it was cyclic.
From the middle of my back, it raised up to my crown chakra and eventually came back around and in my bellybutton and then my coccyx. Then went back to the middle of my back.
It never happened that it was all at the same time and I think that's what differentiate from other manifestations.
It's still a strange sensation to me but is very ecstatic. It's almost always a different location, except my back which seems to be more often.
I think it happened like 10-12 times in the last month, but the touch seem to be less strong than at the beginning which felt 10 times more powerful sometimes.
I haven't been doing as much AP lately except Lucid Dreams which might be the reason, also the fact that I'm facing the blank right now and can't find anything else as to what I should learn while projecting might be the reason why theses manifestations are weaker.
I'm really struggling to find something to do with my life which might also be a reason why my AP is blocked.
I wish I could help people all around me but that doesn't pay the bills and I'm worried that my prosperity is not gonna be what I thought it would.

I'm at that weird stage where my spirit is telling me it's time to go (because I've seen too many signs), the AP keeps pulling me in, my dreams feels as if I've already seen all of them (lived them in all my past lives). As someone who's been through a lot of stuff, I've made a promise to never talk about leaving this earth until I live my life completely (dying of old age). Yet I don't know how to get there because I'm missing resources to get to 80 years+. (money, permanent job, house, etc.)
I wish I could live as a Sage. Meditating everyday, clearing my mind, healing those headaches that are constantly there.
Or I wish I could be enlightened to the state where my physical body vanishes and I end up in the Astral Planes and the Celestial realm.
I'm there, telling myself it doesn't matter if I reincarnate again in the same life because I've went that far and never thought I would end up so far. Yet I would wish for something totally new where I wouldn't lose my memory of this life and my knowledge/wisdom. (Enlightenment)
This is bugging me.

What happens when you are at that stage where you no longer fear reincarnation into the same life?
I'm still struggling to find an answer, is it like everything else, that when you don't mind about something it ends up not happening?
Am I to eventually get out of the cycle of reincarnation (like the Buddha said he did)?
I wouldn't even mind being reincarnated as "teacher of the tao" or as they call it the Xian immortal, who don't need food or water but lives on earth in order to help the people around finding their way.
A long time ago my dream was to go in a buddhist temple and stay there as a monk till the end of my life... But I've got the feeling I already did that in one of my past life. It felt as if it wouldn't help me anymore.

Can anyone help me making things clear out of this?
If you don't want to say it here you can just PM me what you think of all this.
The partial becomes complete; the crooked, straight; the empty,
full; the worn out, new. He whose (desires) are few gets them; he
whose (desires) are many goes astray.

Bluefirephoenix

kzal your going to pop.  I feel like this before something happens that's major.  Don't get scared if it does. Nothing there can hurt you.  Best thing to do is keep doing what your doing and relax focus on getting deeper and it will break through and you'll feel better.

Kzaal

Quote from: Bluefirephoenix on December 06, 2014, 09:04:20
kzal your going to pop.  I feel like this before something happens that's major.  Don't get scared if it does. Nothing there can hurt you.  Best thing to do is keep doing what your doing and relax focus on getting deeper and it will break through and you'll feel better.

Hahahaha lol yeah I know I'm going to pop hahahaha, I've been telling me that for the past 2 months LOL. It's like where the hell am I going rofl. Ahhh to bad yeah I guess you're right I just have to wait lol :roll:
The partial becomes complete; the crooked, straight; the empty,
full; the worn out, new. He whose (desires) are few gets them; he
whose (desires) are many goes astray.

Bluefirephoenix

When it hits it's like a dam cuts loose.  Either that or your just stressed out. Maybe both. It's like a kid goes through a growth spurt. They get cranky before it happens