IN REVIEW: The Fifth Dimension – An Exploration of the Spiritual Realm by Dr John Hick

In this excerpt from his excellently illuminating book, The Fifth Dimension – An Exploration of the Spiritual Realm, Dr Hick acknowledges a general, but mistaken, public attitude to the mystical experience of Reality, namely:

Excerpt: “Experience of the natural environment is forced upon us, as we noted earlier, whereas experience of any supra-natural environment seems to be optional.”

No! There was nothing “optional” about my spontaneous MER experiences.

This spontenaity is not generally mentioned in the academic literature on the subject. It is commonly assumed it is experienced after much scholarly reading, the presence of a guru, or a strong adherement to religious doctrines. It is not.

Ancient and modern eastern literature agrees with me. It stresses MER cannot be achieved by learning. It’s “caught, not taught”. Did the biblical Jesus hint at this in his reference to the wind? The Dr Puri who wrote a book about Guru Nanak, (pub. SANT MAT), claimed it is spontanious too. The buddhists recognise this spontenaity, they call it pratyeka. Otherwise I haven’t come across any scholarly works that even mention the word “spontaneous”. But such scholarly works are mostly anthropomorphic anyway. They give the impression they believe the sun and moon only exist to revolve around the earth exclusively for humans ,,.

Dr Hick set out to show there is more than just matter, the physical existence of things, that there is also non matter – a “fifth dimension” not known by science, experiment, religion, philosophy, physics, the senses, logic or reason, only through experience of It: “the spiritual realm”.

All Is Well.

John Harwood Hick (20 January 1922 – 9 February 2012) was a philosopher of religion and theologian born in England who taught in the United States for the larger part of his career. In philosophical theology, he made contributions in the areas of theodicy, eschatology, and Christology, and in the philosophy of religion he contributed to the areas of epistemology of religion and religious pluralism. (Google).

Mysticexperiences.net

HSIN HSIN MING

‘Faith in mind’, is a poem attributed to the Third Chinese Chán (Zen) Patriarch Jianzhi Sengcan.

It is shared here by Anthony Garner, zenothestoic.com. (Anthony is a follower of mysticexperiences.net).

The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.

When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind. When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

The Way is perfect like vast space where nothing is lacking and nothing in excess. Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject that we do not see the true nature of things.

Live neither in the entanglements of outer things, nor in inner feelings of emptiness. Be serene in the oneness of things and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.

When you try to stop activity by passivity your very effort fills you with activity. As long as you remain in one extreme or the other you will never know Oneness.

Those who do not live in the single Way fail in both activity and passivity, assertion and denial. To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; To assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality.

The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth. Stop talking and thinking, and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

To return to the root is to find meaning, but to pursue appearances is to miss the source. At the moment of inner enlightenment there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness. The changes that appear to occur in the empty world we call real only because of our ignorance.

Do not search for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions. do not remain in the dualistic state. Avoid such pursuits carefully. If there is even a trace of this and that, of right and wrong, the mind-essence will be lost in confusion.

Although all dualities come from the One, do not be attached even to this One. When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way, nothing in the world can offend. And when a thing can no longer offend, it ceases to exist in the old way. When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist. When thought objects vanish, the thinking-subject vanishes: As when the mind vanishes, objects vanish.

Things are objects because of the subject (mind): the mind (subject) is such because of things (object). Understand the relativity of these two and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness. In this Emptiness the two are indistinguishable and each contains in itself the whole world.

If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion. To live in the Great Way is neither easy nor difficult. But those with limited views are fearful and irresolute: the faster they hurry, the slower they go.

And clinging (attachment) cannot be limited: Even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray. Just let things be in their own way and there will be neither coming nor going. Obey the nature of things (your own nature) and you will walk freely and undisturbed. When the thought is in bondage the truth is hidden for everything is murky and unclear. And the burdensome practice of judging brings annoyance and weariness. What benefit can be derived from distinctions and separations? If you wish to move in the One Way do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas. Indeed, to accept them fully is identical with enlightenment.

The wise man strives to no goals but the foolish man fetters himself. There is one Dharma, not many. Distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant. To seek Mind with the (discriminating) mind is the greatest of all mistakes. Rest and unrest derive from illusion; with enlightenment there is no liking and disliking. All dualities come from ignorant inference. They are like dreams or flowers in air – foolish to try to grasp them.

Gain and loss, right and wrong, such thoughts must finally be abolished at once. If the eye never sleeps, all dreams will naturally cease. If the mind makes no discriminations, the ten thousand things are as they are, of single essence. To understand the mystery of this One-essence is to be released from all entanglements. When all things are seen equally the timeless Self-essence is reached, No comparisons or analogies are possible in this causeless, relationless state. Consider movement stationary and the stationary in motion, both movement and rest disappear. When such dualities cease to exist Oneness itself cannot exist. To this ultimate finality no law or description applies.

For the unified mind in accord with the way all self-centered striving ceases. Doubts and irresolutions vanish and life in true faith is possible. With a single stroke we are freed from bondage: Nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing. All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind’s power. Here thought, feeling, knowledge and imagination are of no value. In this world of suchness there is neither self nor other-than-self.

To come directly into harmony with this reality just say when doubt rises “not two”. In this “not two” nothing is separate, nothing is excluded. No matter when or where, enlightenment means entering this truth. And this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time and space: In it a single thought is ten thousand years.

Emptiness here, emptiness there, but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes. Infinitely large and infinitely small; no difference, for definitions have vanished and no boundaries are seen. So too with Being and non-Being. Don’t waste time in doubts and arguments That have nothing to do with this. One thing, all things, move among and intermingle without distinction. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection. To live in this faith is the road to non-duality, because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.

Words! The Way is beyond language, for in it there is no yesterday no tomorrow no today.

MER NOTE: Some schools caution that mind is the enemy of realising Reality.

Mysticexperiences.net

FEMINISM, SIN, ETC.

Q: What is your view of sin?

A: Simple. There is no such thing.

Q: And feminism?

A: There is no such thing. Reality is devoid of all human attributes including gender, male or female. Sin is just a secular disciplinary device dreamed up by religions.

Q: Then why do we take sin, evil, or male and female distinctions so seriously?

A: They are collateral damage from the perennial struggle between the human mind and Reality. Anything human is artificial, mind stuff, not real. The human mind asserts itself by way of ego, lust, anger, greed, attachments and ego because it’s in the vacuum of not knowing Reality, despite mystic warnings throughout history. History is full of warnings that once Reality is ignored Reality reasserts itself, with dire consequences. I can’t vouch for that being true. It was not in my experiences.

Reality on the other hand does seem to ignore the human v. Reality struggle except for popping out mystics now and again. I don’t get the impression Reality is too worried! It’s message to me was unbelievable but undeniable : ALL IS WELL!

Reality is quintessentially existential acceptance, what humanity would inadequately call love, divine love. This acceptance is powerfully life changing as those who have experienced it will attest. Sin, evil, male/female, ego, all suchlike, are dismissed as mere human distinctions. They will be ejected as detritus, eventually disappear along with the human body and brain into the pureness of our destiny, Reality. …

Q: Can we do anything about what you suggest is a spiritual war?

A: There’s no historical evidence we can do anything about it successfully, is there? Eventually the basic trouble-making mythomania that we are all equal will be rejected, replaced by the unquenchable rule of equality of opportunity. Then our present divisive distinctions of culture, languages, countries, might slowly evaporate into peace and contentment, except of course for the occasional historic uprisings of our undeveloped ego driven youth. Such ideological mind eruptions inevitably fall under the weight of their own evil and Reality prevails, as always …

DNA engineering might be of some help in this. It is already being used discreetly. Apparently, agression is one of the things it is adressing already. It might eventually reduce or eliminate other unhelpful human traits – if humans can calmly agree what those are. We’ll see.

In the meantime All Is Well. Reality is in charge, as ever and always, thank goodness. We should be so lucky.

Mysticexperiences.net

DRUGS 2 – an update

This was my original post on the subject of drugs.

The following is an update:

I see the sole purpose of current academic/scientific enquiry into the use or effect of drugs to induce MER merely as a human, ‘what’s in it for me?’ initiative, human curiosity, not a spiritual aspiration.

MER is not about humanity. It is more than that. My experience is humankind is not permanent whereas Reality is and MER selects some people to take them there.

MER will not exist in the next phase of Reality after its introductory work here. All MER does is raise selected individuals’ awareness, consciousness, of Reality. There is no evidence the artificiality of drugs will address this natural process.

Moreover, while MER comes with a lifetime of guidance, teaching and explanation, drugs don’t.

For myself, I know humanity and its concerns are not the be-all and end-all of existence. Everything about humanity is suspiciously artificial, especially compared to Reality,. I doubt even the human perception of a cosmos exists in the formlessness of Reality, or if there is anything physical, material, to which Reality gives much attention. Drugs will certainly be redundant like much of everything else that disappears when humans graduate into Reality.

The real, natural purpose of MER seems to be to draw individuals into Itself. It’s teaching and guidance remain for life, with or without the individual’s awareness or cooperation. Some of the resultant human ‘fruits’ or benefits are immediate, some eventual; but all are destined to become redundant along with humanity itself. Such ‘fruits’ are only human and not needed or taken into Ultimate Reality. Even the process of MER becomes redundant when humanity ultimately. The real, lasting fruits of Reality are an absorbtion of consciousness into UltimateReality Itself, “in which we live and have our being”, (as Acts 17:28 reports verifiably to a mystic).

Drugs are limited to their affect on the human mind and are how such drugs are affected. But even mind itself is irrelevant in Reality. Reality is formless, more than human.

MER is only the portal in my experience to get to the next phase of Reality where it and the body are not required any more in the process of the mind’s experiences/consciousness/soul is harvested. Our future is not human, drugs or no drugs, apples and snakes or no apples and snakes …

For some as yet perhaps deliberately unknown reason MER comes only to individual humans. But drugs bypass this process. Where does drug artificiality fit in with the Reality of mystic experience, our real destiny?

Nothing in my MERs convince me drugs are a natural, lasting portal even to a level of Reality 101.

All Is Well.

Mysticexperiences.net

“SHAKING THE WORLD AWAKE”: AN INTERFAITH MULTIPLE CASE STUDY OF SPIRITUALLY ADVANCED SOCIAL CHANGE AGENTS

by Katherine Elizabeth Coder, Miami University

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Transpersonal Psychology Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Palo Alto, California.

Review: This paper appears to present Reality as a “spiritually advanced social change agent”. My reading of the Abstract is that it’s suggesting “spiritually advanced social change agents (will) enable positive and healthy transformation” into selves. I presume this means as selves “in (an) increasingly integral epoch.” Ie: a world collective? That is, spirituality being politicised?

Nothing in my multiple yearly experiences of the Mystical Experience of Reality (MER) over 15 years suggests anything of the kind. This smacks of human politics, leftwing politics in particular.

This is at variance with the mystical experience of Reality, (MER).

Humans are in an individual process of development into Reality, not into a “socially engaged spirituality”. Reality is not socially engaged. Reality is going about its own ineffable business, not ours. This individual development is only by Reality, from outside the human condition. Reality’s development is not concocted by human brains or minds.

Is this development into Reality what leading physicist Dr. David Chalmers (‘Facing up to the hard problem of consciousness’) has described as “the hard question” that currently – and possibly infinitely – baffles scientific or political method?

There is an abyss of consciousness between the repeatable experimental methods of science and the individual but similar, at least 12,000 year old culturally non specific experiences of mystics.

Fortunately, if this paper is anything to go by, humans have not been trusted individually or collectively to have any say whatsoever in this process by Reality! Reality is enough.

The following is the Abstract that comes with the paper. The full paper is available as a free PDF download at Academia.edu.

Abstract: “This dissertation is a qualitative study of socially engaged spirituality as practiced by spiritually advanced social change agents. The research question was “What is characteristic of social change agents identified as spiritually advanced?” This research came on the heels of the burgeoning movement of socially engaged spirituality and its many applications within an increasingly integral epoch.

As a growing phenomenon, socially engaged spirituality is discussed in lay and scholarly theoretical literature but little studied empirically. While advanced levels of spiritual development are theorized and proven to be beneficial to individuals, the combined study of advanced levels of spiritual development within socially engaged spirituality is evenless studied.

This phenomenon was investigated by conducting multiple case studies of 3 exemplar-networks from Buddhist, Christian, and Native American faith traditions. Two female exemplars and 1 male exemplar participated who ranged in ages from 37 to 79 years old and whooriginated from 3 different nations.

The data collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews, documents, and direct and participant observation were analyzed using a synthesis of case study and constructivist grounded theory. Cross case analysis determined the qualities of the phenomenon of spiritually advanced social change agency.

Results included 3 individual case narratives, a cross case report highlighting the major characteristics of spiritually advanced socialchange agency, and a theoretical model of its emergent dynamic. The findings suggested that spiritually advanced social change agents enabled positive and healthy transformation of self.”

Mysticexperiences.net

SEEKING MEANING By Anthony Garner, zenothestoic.com

Deep in meditative trance a voice, my own perhaps, told me that I sought a god and had always done so.

The surprise was that I was surprised. Perhaps it was a sort of “coming out”. If that voice spoke the truth, and I have little reason to doubt it, then small wonder that a commercial life was an anathema to my soul.

I sat listening to the rain, pattering somewhere in my consciousness. There was a door or a barrier somewhere. Perhaps I was the wrong side of the tracks. Just the other side lay the infinite.

Do I anthropomorphize? No but I seek communication, communion if you will. At one stage I was in an empty theater, a Shakespearean image if ever there was one.

All the world’s a stage,nall the men and women merely players;

Was the god I sought the director of such theater I wondered? I thought perhaps he might be. Was there anyone there in that emptiness? Who had built, designed and ran that theater. The answer was always on the tip of my tongue. Like a half forgotten memory, which needed just a little prodding to be brought back into the camera of my mind.

Are we a simulation perhaps, are we the men in Plato’s cave. All seemed possible. God was never quite found, or was he?

“Are we what you are seeking?” I seemed to hear. Yes, you will do I replied. Talk to me, show yourselves.

Were those voices the Omega Point? I rather fancied they were. You see, a technological god will do me just fine.

Anything omniscient, wise, beneficent. Omnipotent would be quite handy too. Something vastly bigger that what we normally perceive in our messed up world of concretized struggle.

Is my god that of Abraham or Mohamed? The question seemed irrelevant. Was I god I wondered, or, more properly put, was I an offshoot of some universal consciousness of which we are all a part.

The joy of meditation is the freedom from convention and thought. I feel, therefor I am. To misquote Descartes.

Out of meditation I still listen for those voices. In the wind, in quiet incantations in a temple, in silence and the panoply of a starry night.

But I am an eclectic sort of fellow and can see beauty everywhere, even in the little maths I am able to grasp. In the wonder of fractals seen in the design of a tree, its roots and leaves. In the bang which we are told kicked us all off and in the whimper they say is our ending.

Were I young again and could choose a different path, it might have been that of the physicist. There is a stark, ethereal beauty there too, a search for meaning of not such a different order.

If there is a god, he hides in the cracks, in letters written in lemon juice between the lines on a page. Perhaps the physicist will discover him silently existing at the center of an ultimate singularity, or wrapped in some exotic field of yet unthought of energy. In a dimension we do not yet know of. A life form divorced from what we conceive of as the physical universe.

Many a physicalist will sneer these days at a such a search. Materialism is the fashion and the universe can only be explained in terms of what it does, not what it means. It was not always thus and there are still physicists who dream with greater ambition, people who are prepared to ask why and not content themselves merely to count and calculate.

At my age I must remain a mere dreamer; the time for doing seems long gone. But where would we be without such dreams? The world will not be bettered by science alone. No “for profit” titan will create a heaven for all, merely a glory for one.

There is a place still for the hermit, sitting in silence and listening for quiet voices in the gentle winds. There is purpose in listening, even in a world where all seems driven by material ambition.

There is meaning to be found by looking with serene detachment and contemplating what is and what might yet be.

zenothestoic.com

Publisher’s note: Anthony is a Follower of mysticexperiences.net

NOT A BUDDHA

QUESTION: So, you are a buddha?

ANSWER: Certainly not. Why?

Q: I read your old post that said you are a Pratyekabuddha?

A: Ah yes. What I said was:

“A pratyekabuddha or paccekabuddha (Sanskrit and Pali, respectively), literally “a lone buddha”, “a buddha on their own” or “a private buddha”, is the so called “silent buddha” who does not try to share his realization with the world.

“Pratyekabuddhas are said to achieve enlightenment on their own, without the use of teachers or guides, by “dependent origination”.
Traditionally, Paccekabuddhas give moral teachings but not enlightenment.

“I believe this describes my state.

“See Wikipedia for more on the subject”.

Uncannily, this gives my present state of consciousness a name. But a better description would be pratyekamystic. Nevertheless, I am not a buddha, nor even a buddhist. I have of course read about Guatama’s enlightenment and buddhism in its various forms – East Indian, Tibetan, Japanese, Chinese, but nothing ever sparked stirrings of spiritual recognition.

In fact one of my experiences long after my 15 years of multiple experiences of spontanious MER a year when I was a teen, was that personal guidance was alive and active in my destiny without me realising it. For instance, It expressed firm disapproval of me wandering off focus into Sufism. Practices and religions were irrelevant in my case – Reality was and is enough. It was made deliberately clear to me that Reality is in sole charge. It ignores interpretation or interference.

Sometime in this hidden development I was given the attributes of a pratyekamystic without any knowledge of what was happening, or effort on my part; without buddhism or sufism or anything else …

However, your question did prompt me to research the name. Now I find there is a buddhist tradition that pratyekabuddhas are put into that state to rest. I have no personal MER experience my pratyeka is a state of rest, or rest from what, so can’t say if pratyeka is a state of rest for me or not. I’d say in my case pratyeka is a state of pure focus on Reality, strictly without distractions from personal involvement in any identity, personal or collective, or any lust, anger, greed, attachments and, hopefully, ego, which is said to be the last to go.

Q: No effort?

A: None. In my case, just reading, writing, talking and being still, listening for Reality, is enough. Reality is my passion. I try to let go of anything else. Reality is enough.

Q: But if the pratyeka state is about rest, how long does it go on for?

A: I have no idea. But then as the concept of time is merely human, in my MER experiences ‘time’ is not real, so I don’t suppose I’ll ever be given the answer to such a question, or understand it if I was …

Q: Don’t you ever feel lonely?

A: When I was young and in Reality’s development I felt alienated from humanity. I was prompted to avoid the distractions of friendships, even family, so was comparatively unsocial except in the need to earn a living.

Fortunately non-attachment was a strong fruit from my MER experiences so loneliness became meaningless as I aged. It helped I was also gifted with a love of solitude. My pursuits were solo – sailing, horse riding, reading and writing. The nearest I got to sharing sports was in squash, racquet ball and swimming.

I was also helped with the continuing gift of a 45 year marriage to an extraordinarily compatible character and personality. So far as loneliness is concerned, my understanding wife has assuaged that, her companionship has been enough … (I checked for hidden wings on her back but she assures me what I found are just shoulder blades …). LOL.

Mysticexperiences.net

SCIENCE AND THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY?

Problem: Will Science finally unearth the workings of Reality?

Answer: Not unless it changes its scientific values to the point of extinguishing itself, making what is called Science today extinct.

Question: So no, is the answer by today’s scientific disciplines?

Answer: Yes. Science is just mind stuff, human curiosity, mental masturbation into space, (ie. unproductive self indulgence except for collateral science effects on technology, health care and medications) But there is another answer:

By the time Science gets anywhere near the truth of existence, human existence will have died anyway – human consciousness will likely have developed and left the human mind and body, become converted into the Ultimate Reality experienced by mystics.

Question: So in the long term Science has no future!

Answer: True. As the remnants of humanity disappear into something beyond Scientific thought or proof, only the scientific remnants of Technology will reign briefly then go the same way, or even continue in material relics, minus humanity and humanity’s Science, like lumps of matter sticking out of the sands of existence for other beings to ponder.

Question: … So no more Science, no more humanity as such!

Answer: None.

Question: So what now?

Answer: All Is Well and proceeding in good order by Reality’s standards, not ours … Being human is not the be-all and end-all of existence.

Mysticexperiences.net

I WAS THAT. I DO NOT INTEND TO RETURN By Anthony Garner, zenothestoic.com

Last night was a night of my soul, but not a dark one.

I am aware where true happiness lies and nowhere was that more evident than in the middle of a starlit, cool summer night dreaming in my garden.

I had commented to a friend during the day that my version of life was best summed up by Mathew 6:25-34 in sharp contradistinction to a summary I had read of a book called “Moonshots: Creating a World of Abundance”.

According to that book, it seems that a better world requires that I get up at 4 am every morning, become an “entrepreneur” and run something called a “for profit”.

Instead I lay in the dark and gave thanks that I was as far removed from such a dystopian nightmare as it is possible to get.

It had been a day of intense heat, such as I am not used to and have come to dread. 33% in the shade – nothing for Madrid or Texas no doubt, but enough to induce in me a sense of panic and claustrophobia. Enough to send me off to the beach and take a very unaccustomed John the Baptist.

By evening a coolness had spread, and the middle of the night found me sleeping in the garden. Dozing perhaps, dreaming certainly, meditating.

A sense of calm and gnosis crept over me. I heard a gentle murmuring all around me; I heard night sounds of animals I might have recognized by day, but whose voices were until then a mysterious closed book to me.

The over riding emotion was oneness. I wondered at one stage whether my mind was disintegrating along with my no longer young body. Perhaps my end was coming or was it my beginning? Regardless, it was neither harrowing nor joyous, just intensely peaceful. An overwhelming acceptance of what is. A strong grasp of the infinity all around me and the certain knowledge that all was somehow well, dissolved as I felt in the universal.

More properly speaking I was at the foothills of disintegration but such absorption was felt to be a progress, and achievement of some sort and not an ending.

Above all I was where I should be, where I belonged. I was nature, I was that vastness above. I was that haunting animal cry, I was the coolness of the night and its starry blackness.

There is yin and there is yang, it is said. There is no beauty without ugliness, no goodness without sin. Is that true I wonder? And if so can the whole come to be seen as beautiful anyway?

I think maybe the latter. Perhaps it is a question of acceptance, of letting go. And yet if you are yin I do not think you can survive in a world of yang. Not unless you have managed to transcend the physical and become pure spirit.

Where once I was prepared to try out the world portrayed in that book, to imagine that “for profit” and “entrepreneurship” was the way to go, that was all yang to my yin.

Even as a small child, at heart I realized my yingness but for so much of my life pretended I was yang. Instead of “for profit” my reality was the lilly. Instead of entrepreneurship, my soul was in truth a bird which did not wish to gather in barns. I did not wish to sew nor to reap.

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.

And thus in the middle of last night, in the cool and under the canopy of the stars I felt myself; as I am. I looked to the night sky and felt I am that. I heard the night owl cry and that too was me. The quiet susurration of distant waves, the gentle rustle of leaves and branches in a cool night wind. That too was me; I was that.

Do I wax too poetical, do I lose my meaning in a sea of fantasy. No, I think not. I was a part of reality last night and content to exist or not. If there was yin mixed in with yang, I was not seeing it. Or was I seeing a bigger picture altogether – the glory of yin and yang combined in an unblemished whole. I was bathed in a glorious unity and nothing seemed to matter. I did not seem to be body or earthbound, transcendence seemed somehow to have happened.

I do not intend to return.

zenothestoic.com

Another review of MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE OF REALITY

403-page paperback and ebook by Keith

“I am already 3/4 through Mystical Experience Of Reality. I read it at the end of the day before going to sleep. Usually, I am already very tired, which is why I am not finished reading it yet because I want to “absorb” the words.

It is very profound and I truly believe you experienced what you did and are still experiencing. There are so many (countless) phenomenon and wonders in this world, which God Himself only knows the meaning of and which we all will eventually come to understand when we return to Him.

God has endowed you with very special privileges which you have very effectively endeavored to share with us and to which I am very grateful that you did because it just proves all the more to me at how limitless God’s blessings are!”

Mayan Siojo, Vancouver

CORRECTION!

Some time ago I pondered aloud in these pages about whether the natural time had come to stop writing the Blog after several hundred posts. Though persuaded otherwise I was inclined to say yes, stop.

But now with a feeling of finality from publishing a book, I recently put the same question to Reality and as usual awaited a reply. Just as usual, the reply was swift and silent, enveloping me with the reminder my real reason for starting the Blog was the need to steep myself continuously in the revelations I had been given, not by retreating from daily distractions by joining ashrams, monasteries or hermitages that disqualified themselves by their idealogical, anthropological shallowness.

Also, sadly, having been initiated into a wisdom school for some time (where I learned that my experiences of Ultimate Reality did not signify dementia but a unique, what humans call, high ‘spiritual’ calling), I have now come to the realisation there is no further sustenance in that School’s comparatively limited experiences either.

So I shrugged (as it were) and got on with the Blog and was much encouraged by the response until I realised most of the Followers were ‘Muggles’ from social media like LinkedIn, Facebook and suchlike, eager to express their egos and unrealisations – who the older eastern Teachers unkindly dismissed as “Sleepwalkers”.

Coincidentally to my realising this, the Master of my School had advised me to avoid social media as spiritually unproductive. So I decided it was time to severe all such connections.

I like to think the remaining and new Followers of this Blog are what marketing experts would call, ‘qualified’, what I think the Master might agree are in their diverse ways, Seekers or even Experiencers like me. (Such fellow Experiencers quietly seek refuge, solace, from the loneliness of being marooned in humanity).

So I shall keep the Blog going as a personal practice, keeping it as pure as I can for those who are lead to it, as well as for myself, for my need to keep myself continually soaked in Reality without being diverted by everyday taboos, myths and delusions that ravage humanity so … Reality is enough.

All Is Well.

Mysticexperiences.net

IS THERE A SOUL?

From my multiple spiritual experiences of Reality (MER) I would define Soul as being the Reality experienced in MERs. What souls we have are part of that Reality.

Reality is the total of all things anywhere, It is absolute consciousness so knows everything in existence beyond mere present human mental, ‘spiritual’ or physical experience even though we are a part of Reality. That Reality is our real soul, or consciousness. Reality, Soul, Real Consciousness is our only existence. We are not merely ‘human’.

Most humans are not conscious enough to know we are manifestations of Reality. We are created and nurtured in Reality whether we know it or not. Only some humans (mystics) are made conscious (of some?) of this for some reason as yet unknown.

Science and academia are more aware of the phenomena in our time. In fact, there has been an outburst of intensive research and study on the subject in universities around the world for nearly 30 years. So far, no evidence of the kind traditional science has been using has emerged to satisfy science and academia’s increasingly challenged traditional disciplines.

So if MER is not yet a conscious part of some humans then presumably what such people are left with for now is a basic, undeveloped shadow of Reality some call, ‘the human spirit’?

The amount of Reality absorbed or even understood or exhibited by those who really experience It varies, though most basic definitions of Reality are the same throughout history in every culture from long before the cultures of today.

Some scientists say MER is created by the brain. This is wrong. The brain does not create Reality, Reality creates the brain. Reality transmits Itself through the brain. The brain merely receives Reality which then asserts Itself into individual human consciousness not only as direct experience of Itself but to the language of Reality: intuition and instinct. These transmissions enlarge the mystic’s consciousness of existence throughout life. Thus is real Soul, true personal consciousness, developed in humans.

Today, MER is not as rare as history suggests it has been.

Whether these experiences, intuitions and instincts also exist in animals or matter I was not given to experience. (Reality consciousness might be different in and beyond the two trillion galaxies that contain billions of planets like ours).

Mysticexperiences.net

AN UNANSWERED CORRESPONDENCE

CORRESPONDENT:

“It sounds as though you have reached a plateau of tranquility where life’s many vagaries are neatly pigeonholed away. Well done you!

“For myself I am still riding life’s dodgems but enjoying the experience very greatly.”

COMMENT:

“Life’s many vagaries” have not been “pigeonholed away”. There is nothing to pigeon hole as any thoughtful examination of one’s personal attachments will attest.

Human vagaries are artificial, mind stuff, unreal, harmless unless taken seriously like Nazism was, for instance, by the young men mostly in their twenties, mostly educated and professionals, who managed Nazi atrocities from Himmler’s headquarters in Albrecht Strasse for instance.

Anyway, history shows human empires only last 250 years before slumping into material, moral and religious decadence if Sir John Glubb is to be believed in his essay, THE FATE OF EMPIRES and SEARCH FOR SURVIVAL.

But the Reality of the mystical experience of Reality is known even from human records to be at least 12,000 years old. According to the Reality of the mystic experience of Reality (MER), Reality created everything, everything known and unknown. Reality created history. Accordingly, Reality is far more reliable, trustworthy, and loving than anything human by comparison.

Mind stuff is easily dismissed personally (not so easily socially!). It is seen to be non existent upon close and persistent examination unless one is attached to it.

According to the mystic experience, there is much more to being human than the myths upon which transient human life exists, much more to existence than being merely human.

As for, “I am still riding life’s dodgems but enjoying the experience very greatly” – is that a sad admission of a lost soul’s commitment to a lifetime of nothing but empty pleasure, hedonism?

Mysticexperiences.net

SCIENCE CAN’T EXPLAIN MYSTICISM SO SHOULDN’T BOTHER?

We review an article by Dr Chris Fields, Physicist, multidisciplinary scientist, author, in IAI News – changing how the world thinks, Issue 86, 2nd March 2020

His article begs the question, Are Dr Fields’ views an example of the conclusion science has come to about the source of all human experience in general and, from our point of view, mysticism in particular? Is he saying science can’t explain MER so shouldn’t bother?

DR FIELDS: “The ‘hard problem of consciousness’ (HPC) as originally stated by David Chalmers in The Conscious Mind (1996) is the problem of explaining how experience is possible. How is any experience, anywhere in the universe, possible? From the perspective of the HPC, a single experience of a flash of light is as mysterious as a full human experience of a summer’s day or the most profound mystical experience of the most enlightened monk.” (Our italics).

Dr Fields says there are three responses to the hard problem that reflect different ideas about experience. He asks if the hard problem of consciousness can be solved by either approach:

“The possibility of experience (i.e. consciousness) is derived or emergent from something else … it could be fundamental rather than derived (man made) with only some having it sometimes; all entities have it in different kinds.

He says assuming response #1 we could take either of two tactics. One is to define consciousness as some other property but this does not explain how experience is possible. He says it “dodges the HPC instead of solving it. In short, the hard problem of consciousness seems unsolvable using response #1. It can be dodged, but not solved.”

In response #2 the problem is to explain how or why some systems have experiences but others do not. What is the basis for explaining this? What facts could possibly be relevant?

(So far no one has discovered a single common qualification for having the mystical experience of Reality, (MER). (Our italics).

Dr Fields says without such “independent criteria” the question is unsolvable. “If a system is conscious, it is conscious by its very nature, not for some other reason.”

He says response #3 says that all entities – everything that exists – has experiences. “There is no reason why or how. They just have them. End of story.

“The hard problem of consciousness (MER?) is therefore either unsolvable or unstatable. Knowing this, how should we respond? In my view, we should quit worrying about it. It is irrelevant to any possible science of consciousness.”

Mysticexperiences.net

TO LIVE A GOOD AND MEANINGFUL LIFE

Q: How can I live a good and meaningful life?

A: What do you mean, “a good and meaningful life”?

Q: I was hoping you’d tell me.

A: Well, you can relax because no one knows. If they say they do it’s all surmise. Even the Stoics left it to circumstances.

In the meantime we know collectivism doesn’t work, neither do Socialism or Communism on the evidence despite what young students are told to think. However sincere, religions haven’t got it, science by definition can’t get it, and morality and ethics are historically human cultural accretions of their place and times – moveable feasts, irrelevant in Reality.

Q: Don’t you have a personal creed, a philosophy, rules?

A: So far as the world is concerned, I try to be legal, decent (do no physical or mental harm), and honest. That seems to keep me safe from humans.

Q: Is that all your Reality demands from you?

A: It’s not just my Reality! It’s not anybody’s exclusive Reality!

The Reality that is all things, the Reality I have experienced, makes no demands. It never takes, only gives. It is everything and everything is It.

Why do you ask about rules for life anyway?

Q: In the past you have referred to those who “thirst and hunger”. I think I’m one of them … it’s a constant demand I can’t meet.

A: What do you think it is?

Q: I don’t know. I’ve been mentally restless since childhood and it’s been getting worse. I thought someone like you might know.

A: I think you know what this hunger and thirst is.

Q: Well, for a reason to exist I guess? What are we doing here? Am I supposed to be doing something? It persists, it dominates my mind, drives me mad sometimes, angry. It interferes with my job, my family, friends and future. I feel as if I’m looking for something but I don’t know what. I’ve tried to tell people but always stop. Sometimes I think I’m mad. What am I supposed to do?

A: You sound like a Seeker. You’re called.

Q: (Questioner jolts and presses his hands into his eyes, holds his breath, shakes uncontrollably).

OH!

A: (Later). You are a Seeker. The mystic experience is that Seekers are created by Reality and that Reality then supplies the answers. Nothing else can. You are called.

Q: (Whispers). Can you help me?

A: If that’s what your passionate restlessness is, you already have help. You don’t have to do anything. Let go of everything. Just be still, be absolutely silent, go into the Silence you’ll find in being silent, resist all human attachments. As you rid yourself of these weeds you will fill with Reality. Your restless seeking will be satisfied. This is the remedy from the experience of the mystics.

(Later). Ignore the early tendencies to use human sense to understand what’s happening to you. Those are the remnants of your old attachments. They only grew by default in the first place because of the absence of your true self.

Reality does not need nor accept your help. Humans are not in charge of this process. Human, worldly experience has no place now. You are on your way. Reality is remorseless but benign, unendingly accepting. Reality never fails. It is utterly reliable over anything else you will ever know.

Forget about leading “a good and meaningful life”. In Reality, the truly good and meaningful life will become axiomatic, automatic, without you even noticing or taking heed if you do. All else is mind stuff, merely human, not for you any more.

Mysticexperiences.net