Do you believe in the mystical experience?

Question

By mystical experience, I mean through meditation or prayer, you become one with God, or the Divine, or the World Soul, or however you see it after. I don't believe the experience itself makes these limitations, but when we discribe it later we have to put finite words on the experience.

I also am not talking about normal bedtime prayers. I mean an extreme feeling of Unity with everything.

Do you? Have you experienced this? If so, what was your experience in brief?


Please state your religion or spirituality below your answer.

Answer 1

You describe it pretty well! This is only a believe for some people who have no conscious memory of experiencing it. Mystical experiences are very real and to the ones who did experience the full impact of them belief turns to doubtless certainty. It has everything to do with realizing the full truth about what we are. Hence people who experienced the full consequence of it, unity with all that is, are known as self realized.

Because the full truth is indescribable and can only be interpreted, not fully told, there are numerous ways that experiences are being reported that can be regarded as mystical. I will briefly mention three of my own experiences. I've had more, but these can be regarded as milestones.

All mystical experiences are a result of turning to the core of what we really are, the silence within. And since some drugs enhance our capability to connect to our inner silence chances to experience them are indeed enhanced on certain drugs, as someone remarked. But the very fact that they were experienced after taking a drug greatly reduce their credibility of course.

The first experience I'll mention was on LSD-25. It was 1970, the time that psychedelic drugs were very popular. I had experienced its effects a few times earlier but was not really impressed. I had read much about the possibility to experience the death of ego on LSD but classified my former experiences as little more than fun. So when one night someone offered me a trip I decided to not involve myself in all kinds of activities but to seek a quiet place and focus on the full impact of the experience. The first effects were much stronger than the previous times and after a while I got the impression that it would work: I would "die" on this trip, and I was fully at peace with it. After about an hour I was experiencing all the effects that I had seen described by others. I felt very good about it and focused even more on the essence of the inner silence I was experiencing. And then it happened. Suddenly everything around me collapsed. The room I was in, the people around me, my own body, everything crumbled into an explosion of light. I know that it's a contradiction, but it was soundless and yet there was a sound associated with it. Though the essence of everything was deeply silent it was as if a giant gong had been hit. And for a moment, all the filaments of light reassembled into a round image. A giant green circle with a sign on it that I later recognized as the "Om" sign in Hindu literature. By the way, this does not at all mean that Hinduism is the "correct religion," it only means that representations of truth can be found in Vedic literature. I knew I had succeeded. This was stopping the (description of the) world, stopping time, and the death of ego. This was the utter spiritual, divine experience and it was pure extacy! But although I literally saw everything in a new light from the next morning on, although I felt to wordlessly understand everything, although I created a hilarious morning in my usually dull work place, affecting everyone around me without having to do anything for it, (also known as the effect of the Buddha Field) my ego consciousness slowly returned and I eventually dismissed the whole thing as one of my psychedelic experiences. In reality it was much more than that, but I knew that the mere fact that it happened on LSD took away much of its credibility, even to myself. Yet it had a great impact on my life, in hidden ways.

The second example I want to share briefly was when, many years later, I lived with a woman called Martine, who was utterly crazy at first glance, but mainly appeared to be so because she lived the full consequence of self realization, in her own way. She had the dilated pupils associated with psychedelic trips, Enlightened Buddhist monks, as well as people in the midst of a psychotic period. She could literally read my mind and did so continuously, including the parts I used to hide from myself. The tiniest twist in my thoughts would indicate this and appeared very funny to her, resulting in the "senseless crazy giggle" that would characterize her. In reality she was much more aware than most people and indifferent to the impression she made on others. She spread the Buddha Field around her and it greatly enhanced my own meditation results as well as my own telepathic abilities. At last we would hardly ever speak a word to each other but only communicate telepathically. Yet the obvious fact that she was a schizophrenic devaluated much of the experience, like the fact that the firstly described experience was on acid.

Meditation leads to inner silence, inner silence reveals the truth and the truth sets us free. It can take a long time before meditation starts yielding results and even then the results may turn out different than expected. It does not always need to take a real long time of practicing to get results though. I mean, it does not always take hours or even minutes to get deeply into the experience of it. This is particularly true for those who have been seeking for a very long time. Experiencing inner silence is cumulative. It builds up gradually and eventually everything is lived from the silence within, and everything becomes meditation. One day, now almost 11 years ago, I had been watching a video tape of a lecture of Marie-Louise de la Rosière. She put great emphasis on the simplicity of it all. Realizing self is not "becoming" or changing, for it is what we are, what we've always been and what we will always be. Hence we are good as we are; it's not about becoming "better." I switched off the VCR and went into meditation, repeating her words within: "I have always been. I will always be..." All of a sudden, while only seconds had passed since I started, I experienced an enormous spell of dizziness. The world was spinning around and for a brief moment it disappeared. The next moment everything was back to normal, but I had become aware once more. And I went: "Yes but... I KNOW this! I've ALWAYS known this!" In this brief moment all the puzzle pieces of my life fell together and I became aware of.... Well, everything, in the moment itself. But our little minds are not designed to bring back the full impact of "everything," LOL! In the moment itself we are timeless and unlimited, but what we bring back to the every day world HAS to be limited. So I found such things like why I was called Robert Willem, (this is because I am The Double, as if that would explain anything to you. - But it does to me!) why all kinds of events in my life went the way they went, and about a thing that's about to happen to mankind as a whole as well as within each one of us, a unique event that I would later describe as the Singularity. A vision that many visionaries have seen, before and after, and that is nowadays known within circles of Light Workers as the coming Ascension of the planet Earth and everything upon it. The following few weeks I walked around in a state of Enlightenment, performing little miracles. And I indeed realized to be One with God, One with the Father within, One with all that is.

Six years ago I founded a Yahoo! Group (still a "Club" in those days) as a platform to share our experiences with the simple facts about self realization. The group is called "Ultimate Simplicity." For a while it indeed was a discussion platform, although lately it's not very active any more and at this moment I am the main poster in it. And I don't really post a lot these days, but the group has gone through all kinds of stages and any new development is possible. At least it is a nice archive on all sorts of things related to self realization and spirituality. Whoever wants to find out more about it is invited to visit the group. The message board is open to the public and there's no need to become a member, unless you would like to post anything yourself or receive regular updates by e-mail.

I have a Christian (Dutch Reformed) background but I have left all doctrines way behind me in the process of becoming a self made mystic.

Answer 2

If one does deep meditation or what is called centering prayer one can get to a point of contemplation. This is the place where your body and mind is still and you are just in the stillness and deep silence of God. Sometimes when you are there God opens the door so that you can be aware of His presence within your soul. He is there all the time, but most of the time we are busy with the world and not aware of Him.

My first experience was at a Benedictine monastery in the spring of 1978. It was my first time to a monastery and my first time meditating. Suddenly it was as if I were not in my body and I was suspended in the air with God and the feeling of unity and deep peace was so wonderful that I did not want to leave. Then someone tapped me on the shoulder and I came out of it and back into the earthly moment. Later when I got back home I walked into my apartment and everything seems so empty. It meant nothing to me anymore. I could give it all up to be back in that moment in time. I think of that summer as my honeymoon with God. His presense came to me off and on throughout the summer. Once I was thinking about giving up everything for God but how could I give up all of the decorations of Christmas. Then I looked outside and I saw rainbows in raindrops for the first time. Then I knew that He can give me everything that I need and even Christmas lights more beautiful than any man-made.

I am an Episcopalian and a Benedictine oblate.

Answer 3

yes I have had them.
ive always been very affected by the beauty of the world..
and sometimes it affects you back i guess. I remeber crying while looking at he clouds as a kid.
ive done drugs but drugs dont realy have a stick to shake at the real deal sorry.
i guess this is where i am supposed to go into details
but in this molment i am finding it kinda hard.
its rather like talking about a dream to put it in words makes it smaller.
i guess i can say..
sitting with my friends everything seemed brighter .. lost all sense of time.,,, *** started crying.
at a concert, felt like i was expanding outwards or some how was the city, or was everywhere at once...
or lesses degrees. talking about it , as i said, is hard.
weird thing is that at the time i dont notice i am having a mystical experience. hah!
all i can say is its an amazing thing. BUT it doesent make all your problems go away.
in fact i had a string of these experices about 2 years agoa and have been since then been trying to get over the freaking out that I did , subsequently.
like feeling---am i going mad?
so ,, but i dont think that is the case.i have still had probelms and issues or whatever, even with these "experiacnes, though meditation seems to be helping with that, though it has not been long and is hard to say.
anyways, yes they are real . maybe it is a product of evoloution ..
like we are changing along withthe rest of the cosmos. i dunno. hope this helps,best of luck!
my religion is --
self created. i believe in life. i read a lot about science and geometry and believe the universe is infinite. everything else follows out of that idea.

Answer 4

I'm Jewish. During Shabbat services, there is a short time set aside for silent prayer. I once achieved a sense of knowing God during this time. It was very brief, but it was also beautiful.

Answer 5

I have felt the presence of God,but become one with God, NO

Answer 6

i have felt the touch of the Holy Spirit; when i pray, i can feel the Lord's presence around me and within me, guiding me and giving me assurance...

Answer 7

yes, in college when experimenting with drugs. good times.

Answer 8

No I don't