Sanzo Katori I'm sorry but I feel the need to elaborate to answer your question. When I was 19 I had a glimpse of what I believe was the Self or god. One day I felt a lot of anxiety and depression and a great sense of death riding me the whole morning. My body was vibrating more than it ever had during meditation. It felt like my whole personality and being was being sucked into this infinite void. It kept feeling like oi was going unconscious so I had no choice but to lie down.
I fought not to for at least a half hour in extreme fear until I simply passed out. I remember being in black as simply awareness(though I didn't know it at the time) and getting random sensations from my body. Like it was black, black, black..then the sensation "cold"... Black, black, black..then a sensation of " thirst". And it went on like this for an unknown amount of time with different sensations.
When I came back to my body, everything within my body and out in the world was buzzing with blissful energy. Colors pulsing through me and everything in the world. I was an nihilist/athiest/Buddhist until that day.
No self and Facebook talk and all the books I read on religion fell flat. My worry about my life and DEATH which had sapped every ounce of joy and love from my soul until that day disappeared.
My stomach was a soft ball that my true being resided in and it felt like the deepest sweetest rest that I can never truly put into words. Please understand I do not just mean mentally, my whole and entire being felt like it had finally found its home with a bed to rest in after traveling a desert alone for eons. Somehow though as powerful and separate as this energy felt, it intimately felt like it was myself. It was like I was me experiencing god and being that god simultaneously. Like the same humility love and grace as a human seeing god, but somehow being that power energy and bliss. That is what drew me into your teaching because it is the same way I would have described that day.
I felt like the energy had always been pulling me along and decided our actions in a sense or at least gave direction to them. I didn't have to hold the reigns to my existence any more. This lasted for the rest of the day, and when I awoke the next morning I felt empty and hollowed. Extremely human and extremely fragile. I stayed in depression for a few weeks after losing that. But that day changed my life. Since then its been all meditation and following you as my guidance.
I believe that was the "explosion of bliss and love" you speak about. It HAS been more of a low level constant version of that since then as long as I am consistent enough with my meditation. Sometimes when I am injured or sick, I am more human than energy, but I can say that yes especially when it is more powerfully coursing through my body that I feel without a doubt that I am this energy that is somehow condensed into the experience of this world, my body/mind, and emotions.
I do not understand the mechanism of my experience. I can just feel and see my body as a conduit for sensations and emotions, with thoughts wisping through my head and an underlying current of fluctuating energy that is sometimes colored by my emotions or energies from the world. And this energy sometimes feels separate like it is part of my body and the world being witnessed by me and sometimes I feel like i simply am the energy experiencing the sensations of my body and world. Sometimes the energy is low and I am just watching my empty shell of bones and blood in this world as a human, just never strictly identified as a human.
So I've just been continuing waiting for another explosion, sometimes it feels like I will again and I still get a little afraid since its been so long and it was so powerful of an experience. But either way, I only see darkness inside for now, but I feel the self massaging me and letting me know of her presence through the darkness and I'm just here waiting for her to burst from my inner darkness again and show me her greatness and beauty. She's giving me gifts and trials along the way.
By god I hope any of that makes any sense. And sorry for the length.
ED'S RESPONSE:
It makes complete sense. What you describe is a self-realization experience that needs to be repeated to make it permanent. Each time you experience it, it leaves a deeper trace as an after effect.
But do not struggle to bring that experience of again.
Instead, just relax and love whatever arises in yourself from coldness and darkness, to anger, to love.
AND, LISTEN TO SACRED MUSIC A LOT! Chanting, Muktananda style, Krishna Das, Yogananda.
SANZO TO ME AGAIN:
Sanzo Katori: Thank you so much for validating these experiences for me. I had a strong intuition that this was the case. I will do as you say and not try to force or expect the experience, and continue onward . One of the surprises for me along the way has been the amount of love and bliss given even before it becomes permanent. I really hope more people try it out for themselves, because this existence is laden with suffering in my eyes, and this is the only succor that softens that pain for me.
Sanzo, thank you so much for posting your experience. steve
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