Post by enigma on May 17, 2012 18:45:06 GMT -5
There isn't usually much interest in telling personal stories, but there's a point to be made and nothing else seems to work.
I've talked a bit about my trip into the void, but I don't think I've talked about what came next. The void was not a meditative experience but rather an instant of clarity that happened in the normal waking state in which everything collapsed utterly. There was nowhere to stand, nothing to hang onto, nothing to believe, and worst of all, no hope of ever finding joy again. At least that's how it looked because the entire sham was seen through. When I say we're making it all up, I mean it quite literally. There was simply nothing there to find.
I was horrified. This was a hell like I could never have imagined and I ran. I didn't stop to think about it or try to turn it into some spiritual adventure. I wanted out and I didn't want to ever look back, but. I was wounded that day, and as it turns out, mortally so.
That wound never healed and yet a split occurred. It wasn't really a mind split, though it felt like it at the time. It was a split much like the way Tolle talks about his split, which is why I resonate so well with his experience. The difference is that Tolle had quite enough of the torment of his own thoughts and was willing to simply drop them, but I didn't feel tormented at all until the Earth was pulled out from under me.
The separation that Tolle talks about between the mind, and the one who "can't live with the mind" grew, though not because I had an issue with mind. The gap just widened by itself. For quite some time, there was a palpable sense of two of me. In one of my more horrified moments, Marie looked at me and said "I see so much peace in you right now".
My first thought was that it is a nonsense, but there was also this peace, this growing peace that had nothing at all to do with the turmoil or the oh so serious problem of having nothing to hold onto and nowhere to go, and this is really the point I've been trying to make for weeks.
This peace is not 'the peace we all have a reference for'. It is not in competition with joy/sorrow, which can NEVER be reconciled and does not need to be. This peace is just the other side of any idea about peace, and cannot be crammed into any set of conditions. It can perhaps best be talked about as an absence. In this case, the peace grew as the one who struggled, dissolved. No thought can touch that peace, nor does that peace dictate what though or feeling can or cannot arise. They are not 'connected'. Peace is neither slave to or master of thought. Thought happens, peace IS.
As for dualistic feeling, it does not look the same from within feeling as it does from without. The good/bad labels are not so clearly defined, nor is the point at which a feeling becomes unwelcome. 'Something' is here to experience all of it; to wallow knee deep in the mud and play like children who haven't learned better; to celebrate and to grieve in wonder and horror. This is the nature of innocence.
I've talked a bit about my trip into the void, but I don't think I've talked about what came next. The void was not a meditative experience but rather an instant of clarity that happened in the normal waking state in which everything collapsed utterly. There was nowhere to stand, nothing to hang onto, nothing to believe, and worst of all, no hope of ever finding joy again. At least that's how it looked because the entire sham was seen through. When I say we're making it all up, I mean it quite literally. There was simply nothing there to find.
I was horrified. This was a hell like I could never have imagined and I ran. I didn't stop to think about it or try to turn it into some spiritual adventure. I wanted out and I didn't want to ever look back, but. I was wounded that day, and as it turns out, mortally so.
That wound never healed and yet a split occurred. It wasn't really a mind split, though it felt like it at the time. It was a split much like the way Tolle talks about his split, which is why I resonate so well with his experience. The difference is that Tolle had quite enough of the torment of his own thoughts and was willing to simply drop them, but I didn't feel tormented at all until the Earth was pulled out from under me.
The separation that Tolle talks about between the mind, and the one who "can't live with the mind" grew, though not because I had an issue with mind. The gap just widened by itself. For quite some time, there was a palpable sense of two of me. In one of my more horrified moments, Marie looked at me and said "I see so much peace in you right now".
My first thought was that it is a nonsense, but there was also this peace, this growing peace that had nothing at all to do with the turmoil or the oh so serious problem of having nothing to hold onto and nowhere to go, and this is really the point I've been trying to make for weeks.
This peace is not 'the peace we all have a reference for'. It is not in competition with joy/sorrow, which can NEVER be reconciled and does not need to be. This peace is just the other side of any idea about peace, and cannot be crammed into any set of conditions. It can perhaps best be talked about as an absence. In this case, the peace grew as the one who struggled, dissolved. No thought can touch that peace, nor does that peace dictate what though or feeling can or cannot arise. They are not 'connected'. Peace is neither slave to or master of thought. Thought happens, peace IS.
As for dualistic feeling, it does not look the same from within feeling as it does from without. The good/bad labels are not so clearly defined, nor is the point at which a feeling becomes unwelcome. 'Something' is here to experience all of it; to wallow knee deep in the mud and play like children who haven't learned better; to celebrate and to grieve in wonder and horror. This is the nature of innocence.
