SPONTANEOUS AWAKENING EXPERIENCES: BEYOND RELIGION AND SPIRITUAL PRACTICE

By: Steve Taylor, M. Sc., PGCE Leeds, United Kingdom

This academic paper appears to describe the experience of my spontaneous, unrelated religious or spiritual experiences of what I call MER, (Mystical Experience of Reality) every year for over 15 years.

I thought you might be intrigued by this investigation into and conclusion about the phenomenon. The abstract of the paper follows. The full paper is available in pdf., free of charge, from Academia.edu as well as on the author’s website.

ABSTRACT

“‘Awakening experiences’ have been misunderstood to some degree by their long association with religious and spiritual traditions and practices. The research reported here –161 reports of awakening experiences –suggests that most of them occurred outside the context of spiritual or religious traditions. Neither were they induced by spiritual practices such as meditation or prayer. Most occurred ‘spontaneously.'”

Mysticexperieces.net

March 2020

ACADEMIA POURING OUT CONJECTURE ON MYSTICISM

Academia.edu tells me the web page has found 25,450 papers on comparative mysticism written by academics in leading universities around the world.

I’ve downloaded and read three. If these are anything to go by, academia is merely pouring out papers on mysticism that are cannibalised from other works, some famous, some obscure, some historical, some newer – with conjecture and commentary thrown in using jargon presumably aimed at other academics who will be deciding the authors’ academic reputations/careers. (Is Dr David Chalmers’ plea for science and academia to jettison jargon falling on barren ground?).

Not all the conjecture and commentary is new or originally expressed, either. Nevertheless, the impression is given of a wider and growing scientific/academic acceptance of the phenomena and its main attributes. I don’t know if this is a good or relevant thing or not. My experience is that Reality, having given existence all it needs, isn’t much distracted by human wants.

None of the three papers I read claim any actual experience of the mystical experience of Reality, (MER).

Based on my multiple annual experiences of MER over 15 years or so I conjecture that those who have had MER are receivers of an outer, non biological ineffable experience, and are not mere generators of MER based on their human wishes, experiences, brains, minds, consciousnesses, or souls as some of these works suggest.

Where did and do these wild assertive imaginings come from?

Mysticexperiences.net

OLD FASHIONED UNIVERSITY HYPERINTELLECTUALISING OF GOD VS. AN EVOLUTIONARY REBOOTING?

“… the hyperintellectualisation and rationalisation of ‘God’ appears to be ignoring the fundamental experiential aspect that MER and other forms of religious experience has revealed to us. Simply put, too many philosophers try to box in Reality to formulaic arguments.”

– An excerpt from an email from a long time follower of mysticexperiences.net who is taking a Masters degree course.

So while this traditional view of the existence of a “God” still prevails in some of the ivory towers of academia the 2013 poll by UPI/Harris showed that only three-quarters of U.S. adults, for instance, said they believed in God – down from 82 percent in 2005, 2007 and 2009.

More rcent Pew Research found most people in Western Europe say they believe in God but add that believing in God did not necessarily mean belief in the God of the Bible.

Even though all 15 countries surveyed by Pew in 2018 were traditionally “Christian”. Fewer respondents said they believed in God “as described in the Bible” than said they believe in “some other higher power or spiritual force.”

A quick Google search finds many major polls with even more evidence of a general abandonment of the traditional concept of a “God”.

There’s a 6,000 case history archive of experiential “mystical” cases Wales University took over from Oxford University under a Templeton fund. It might change a few minds. Here is an excerpt from the University’s ‘Journal For The Study of Mystical Experience’ :

“Despite long standing theoretical and methodological objections, scholarly research into so-called ‘religious experience’ continues to flourish.’ (Note the challenging, “so-called ‘religious experience’ …”).

See pages 190 and 197 in the new 416-page book, “Mystical Experience of Reality” for more about Wales University’s work in the field.

More than 50 universities around the world responded to a questionnaire about mysticism by philosopher and author Ron Krumpos. Universities now include intrapersonal psychology, metaphysics, spirituality, and mysticism in their philosophy departments. The University of Notre Dame is said to be a leader in this development.

The list of academic and popular literature on the subject takes up many pages of Google’s Play Books eBooks’ research app. alone.

When Dr David Chalmers, the leading physicist, mentions “the hard problem” facing science, is he referring to the ineffable gap between the dead-end experimentation of science into the whys and wherefores of Reality versus the perennial experiential nature of knowing Reality, i.e., mysticism – and ignoring the religions altogether?

Can we conclude from even these glimpse of evidence, that science and academia are now taking a much more seriously updated view of Reality than some laggard universities might suggest?

What really interests me most in this vigorously renewed approach to the subject of human evolution and the message of the mystics is whether Reality, through modern mysticism, is now beginning to reveal something new, something not just beyond the second hand approach of religions, or the cautious materialistic experimentation of science, or even the current trendy individualistic, human spirituality currently being adopted, but an evolutionary rebooting of humanity?

Certainly my MERs reveal a newer, very different Reality, a newer priority in human evolution than the traditional “hyperinterlectualisations” and “formulaic arguments” of Reality still being used by some universities …

Mysticexperiences.net

HUMAN CLUTTER VERSUS ULTIMATE REALITY

A Follower who feels he is a mystic has sent me emails on how Ultimate Reality is made up by humans. He quotes biblical references that make him sound religious.

This apparent confusion made me think of stories how “The Devil”, (or what nowadays I see is called, “The Negative Principle”), insinuates into and pollutes the truth of Reality’s existence…

This is how the correspondence developed:

ME: My experiences direct me and my Blog to serious Seekers, mystics, scientists and academics who are examining the phenomena of spiritual awakening to Ultimate Reality, not to people just wanting to be better humans.

Consequently, I avoid anything that identifies with mere human experience which, in my view, is not worth studying, including mythomanic human constructs such as religions. I avoid expressions of merely human experiences like “super hero” or “alter ego” (words that the Follower used).

I realise this might be provocative, even challenging to present day humans, so when a Master advised me to ignore social media when distributing the Blog I did so immediately. The consequent dissipation of such spiritually fatuous social media distractions has been dramatically purifying …

FOLLOWER: But you are still a human, right?

Not for long, just temporarily. As a mystic my experiences of Reality indicate I am in progress. I have duties and responsibilities as a human while I’m here but they are spiritually insignificant attachments that will disappear with the mind and body as the human experience dies and evolves into pure Ultimate Reality.

FOLLOWER: Mystics must embody the human experience too, or it seems they have excluded a part of the Whole, the One. They say that Jesus was fully divine AND fully human, not either-or (hypostatic union). He was fully both, as are you and me.

ME: The Jesus Conference of international metaphysicians, scientists, academics, theologians, religionists have frequently met and published their findings, studies and experiments. They have arrived at the conclusion the biblical Jesus left only a dozen or so words attributable to him, and no spiritual teachings, only human morality and ethics.

Bishop Spong, an attendee, says the spiritual is more important than the religious.

FOLLOWER: God or Ultimate Reality incarnates itself as human, as us, in all of our broken and suffering humanity.

ME: No. My experiences of Reality delivered no evidence of any God or gods or any religious teachings whatsoever. Humans seem to have little or no significance in the infinitely, ineffable, bigger picture of Ultimate Reality. I could be wrong about my use of the word, “little”.

FOLLOWER: … we are both human AND divine, we are both a part and the One, simultaneously. We can’t ignore or dismiss this embodied manifestation, it seems to me, or we’ve missed a critical part of the totality, the very expression of Reality on Earth and in this particular finite embodied body-mind.

ME: Reality is not an expression of anything. It IS absolutely all things in Itself, unique, of which humans are merely a part; in my experiences of Ultimate Reality.

FOLLOWER: I would go so far as to say, as Eckhart does, that God or Ultimate Reality doesn’t exist apart from our embodied nature in any manifest way.

ME: Eckhart is wrong about Ultimate Reality but right about “God”, if my experiences mean anything. God is a human construct. Reality is not. Reality is not God in the general, cultural accepted sense. Reality is outside humanity. Reality is enough. It cannot be taught or learned, only caught, experienced. The experience of Ultimate Reality is the beginning of all wisdom.

FOLLOWER: If we did not exist, Reality would not exist, it would only be unmanifest formless potential.

ME: No! Absolutely not. I would be astonished to hear an experienced mystic say that.

Reality is not manmade, in my experiences. It’s the other way round. Humans could not exist without Reality, nothing can. Reality is enough, It existed long before and will after humanity’s existence. It is beyond infinite, beyond even mere alpha or omega …

FOLLOWER: … Reality finds actuality, in my view. This body is Reality’s actualized form.

ME: No; nowhere near the case, in my experience. Reality is ineffable – completely beyond human understanding or imagination.

FOLLOWER: When we know our divinity fully we also know our humanity fully. We realize the Anthropos (fully “Human One”, or “Son of Man”).

ME: No. When we eventually know Reality fully then humanity ceases, is fufilled.

I agreed when the Follower said we disagree! However, my experiences are of Reality, not human “ideas” or experiences as the Follower suggests. I am guided not to clutter my experiences of Ultimate Reality with temporary human distractions, what one Sufi school calls “manmukh”.

Ultimate Reality is very pure, perhaps what the bible meant when it said, “I am a jealous God”, (Exodus 20:5; Dueteronomy 5:9; 2Corinthians 6:15; 2Corinthians 11.2).

FOLLOWER: I think the reason that we speak and write such “ideas” about our “experiences” is that Reality wants to express itself, it wants to guide humans to it, to knowing it as it is, and it does so through us. I agree that none of these “ideas” is pure Ultimate Reality as it is in itself, as it is experienced directly, but this is rather all a pointer, a symbol, a metaphor, a relative truth that points to that Reality.

ME: I don’t think you can reduce Reality to being a penitent. My experience is that Reality doesn’t need our help. I was made helpless when Reality called. Aren’t all mystics?

Reality does it’s own work. Human attachments and ego get in the way. Just look at the human practice of “spirituality”, its history. (“The Negative Principle” at work again?). Some ancient, we could say perennial, mystery schools have millions of followers but keep themselves safely hidden from human effects, the spiritual tourists, the curious and spiritually uncalled, those unprepared by Reality. Reality happens when we’re utterly still.

FOLLOWER: All that we say is human “ideas.” Every word, yours and mine.

ME: Not if you’re a mystic.

FOLLOWER: Why have a blog if you don’t want to clutter the experience with such human distractions?

ME: Good point. I resisted the uncalled for, long delayed promptings to start a blog on my experiences for a long time, then, giving in to what seemed the inevitable, the penny dropped and I began. It’s been an eye opener, a serendipity of spiritual profusion and validation. Truly, All Is Well.

So I was determined not to tell readers what to think, as the religions do, but lay out my Mystical Experiences of Reality for those who were already seeking, who to some extent understood as much as what was said as unsaid, whose discrimination was already under Reality’s will. Only consciousness can understand consciousness, (as Deepak Chopra has obviously experienced, and expressed publicly, (though he was referring to the limits of science).

My determination was somewhat achieved eventually by “unqualifying” social media followers as well as those whose hunger and thirst are still deeply entangled at a non spiritual level.

Some find the process of the Blog helpful, easily assimilated, natural – others difficult. Few seem to give up its personal challenges once committed to having it sent regularly to their email.

However, I wouldn’t presume to put a value on the work. Suffice it to say the spiritual processing I get as a result of publishing it has been beyond understanding, immensely humbling, benign and ineffably loving. I could not have been changed, or shown what I have been shown, without Reality. Sharing the Blog is simply obeying and communicating what I know of the Reality I have been shown, come what may …

Here are just some of the conclusions I have drawn from my experiences. They have already been published in the Blog.

Mysticexperiences.net

SUMMARY Of BLOG’S CONCLUSIONS SO FAR

This Blog is a summation of a lifetime’s experiences and personal development as the result of multiple, spontaneous yearly experiences of Ultimate Reality.

After four years of writing about these experiences on the web page, mysticexperiences.net, I can summarise my conclusions as follows:

There is an Ultimate Reality over all existence, over everything known and unknown.
Humans exist as part of it.
Nothing exists outside it.
It is outside general current human experience.
It is not biological
It only manifests to individuals, for reasons yet unknown.
It is not created or influenced by humans.
Humans have no control of it whatsoever.
Nothing human affects that Ultimate Reality.
With human individuals it is benign, accepting, nurturing, gives ineffable joy.
It is indifferent to human constructs such as family, culture, or social organisations national or otherwise.
Human evolution could be absorbing into this Ultimate Reality, eventually making these temporary human bodies and minds extinct for something ethereal. Is this what human beings are all about?

mysticexperiences.net

MYSTICAL EXPERIENCES OF REALITY: VOLUNTARY OR NOT?

Long-time follower of this Blog, Ron Krumpos, starts the debate.

Ron has degrees in philosophy from Northwestern University, Lucknow University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

His book, The Greatest Achievement In Life, is a comprehensive account of mysticism as experienced today. Ron interviewed 10 mystics from around the world to write it. It is a free reprintable pdf book with more than 70,000 downloads so far.

Ron: Keith, you said about MER, “It’s caught, not taught.” In religious terms what is ‘caught’ is grace. Divine grace is spiritual assistance not specifically earned by its recipient. Most mystics believe that divine grace is offered at all times

Keith: Grace is “A state of sanctification by God” according to Word Web dictionary. But that’s just an historically religious statement that gives the words “sanctification” and “God” old cultural meanings that have nothing to do with my experiences of Reality every year from the age of about 14 years to my late thirties.

Is there any empirical or experiential evidence that the experience is offered at all times? It’s not an option.

If MER (Mystical Experience of Reality) is an evolutionary factor could this suggest we will all become this Ultimate Reality finally anyway, grace or no grace? (Is that what the biblical Jesus meant when he said, I and my Father (God) are one?).

Ron: … in all places and to all beings, the sentiments, thoughts and actions of the ego self, and individual isolation, block its entry.

Keith: “… sentiments, thoughts and actions of the ego self, and individual isolation, block its entry” is unlikely if my experience is to be trusted.

The phenomena is spontaneous and does not need or accept invitations or permissions. The idea that anything could “block its entry” seems self contrary.

I certainly didn’t want to block my special experiences, nor could I have resisted such an engulfment even if I’d known how … The ineffable joy, oneness with all things then, now and forever, the knowledge, understanding, and humility, all given without any taking is truly ineffable. I was my true self. I tried desperately, bitterly to resist being gently deposited back into my humanity when each episode ended. There was never any question of choice in any of it.

Ron: “God’s grace is the beginning, middle and the end. When you pray for God’s grace, you are like someone standing neck deep in water and yet crying for water.” Ramana Maharshi.

Keith: The implication of this quote seems to be that everyone can experience the phenomenon of their own volition if they just pay attention. This is not my personal experience. My experiences were spontaneous, as I’ve said.

Ron: “God continually showers the fullness of his grace on every being in the universe, but we consent to receive it to a greater or lesser extent.” Simone Weil.

Keith: By the same logic a tulip could consent to rain or refuse it. It seems unlikely MER has ever been or could be left in the care of humans any more than to plants.

The hard question here is, can we do anything personally about emerging into what the mystics tell us we truly are?

On the evidence of the biblical Jesus’s attempts to evangelise the mystical experience of Reality, and other such failed attempts of historical note, plus my own anecdotal witness, I’d have to say No.

Mysticalexperiences.net

WHY THIS BLOG?

Q: What does Mysticexperiences.net bring to this age’s understanding of mysticism?

A: The Blog started as an aid to help me understand my experiences of what I thereby discovered were Mystical Experiences of Reality.

My exploratory writing alone was hugely validating, So were all the helpful Comments Likes, Followers and emails the Blog prompted from around the world from Seekers, writers, professionals, academics – from over 70 countries.

Q: So it worked?

A: Yes. It still is working.

After hiding my experiences for nearly 60 years, by starting this web site, I discovered I am a mystic and that the subject is studied in universities around the world with vigour and enthusiasm by physicists, theologians, philosophers, psychologists and students.

I learned that Oxford University alone archived 6,000 case studies. This archive is now growing and being studied and added to under a Templeton Foundation grant at Wales University.

One of the Blog’s Followers, a Philosophy Master, questioned universities on a technical question about mysticism and got personal correspondence from published professors in 58 universities.

As a result, I learned I was not alone, nor mad … So I could have “come out” of hiding as a mystic years ago with no one raising an eyebrow; at least in learned circles. Among my friends, not so much …

Friends’ reactions have ranged from politely ignoring the subject to one sideways muttered suggestion my MERs were psychotic. Others have become Followers of the Blog.

Also, I was warned by a Sufi school I was eventually initiated into that my friends, colleagues, acquaintances, that even my reading matter and lifestyle would change dramatically. They did, almost without me noticing. I am now a friendly recluse.

I feel uncomfortable with most humans, particularly with the unrealised ones (see prophecy 15 below …). However, I do seem to have developed empathy, tolerance and patience with Seekers. I avoid the merely curious.

I also feel the web page joins the challenge of updating the limited understanding of previous generations. And it is meeting the questions by Seekers bewildered by their unbidden, unremitting passion to know the truth of existence.

Little do some Seekers know )they seek the Reality experienced by the mystics, or that Reality planted their passion in them and is drawing them to Itself. Seekers are different to the commonality of humans; emerging.

Their destiny is assured and more immediate than most, bearing in mind the focus they need to respond to their calling.

Bearing all this in mind, here is what I know so far:

Reality contains everything known and unknown. Nothing exists outside It, including humans;
It is not human;
The experience of Reality is caught, not taught.
It is knowable by direct individual experience within the parameters of the individual’s development. (Eg: as humanity developed it reached the ability to go from seeing in black and white to the qualia of seeing colour; so mystics seem to be chosen in like manner, without obvious qualifications;
It is Consciousness emerging;
It is benign, totally accepting (ie: inexpressibly loving);
It is constantly creating and developing;
It does not allow anything to interfere in Its purpose, (including humans);
It is everything in Reality; it provides, guards, guides, nourishes, replenishes, aids, observes, asserts its purpose;
It is all powerful; destroys, rebuilds, recreates;
Reality’s form is non material; non human, though everything shares Its ingredients as It shares ours. We are It;
It has given humans all they need and rarely if ever reacts to human wants;
It gives, never wants;
Reality is only interested in individuals;
Humans are at a very primitive, early stage of existence;
Prophecies can arise from the mystical experience, but such prophecies rarely get their timing right, (ie: “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” …).
However modern mystics can prophesy that religions, ideologies, lust, anger, greed, nations, isolated and isolating cultures, tribes, families, dependencies, attachments to anything but the development of the individual, are withering and dying in the timely fashion Reality has of asserting Itself. Human ego will also disappear as a disposable appendage. It will be tamed and anyway doomed to permanent death with the disposable brain and body.
If some eastern schools of mysticism are to be believed, Reality develops Itself, absorbing everything into It, including humans, to become pure spirit like Itself. I certainly was not human in my experiences. I resisted desperately every time I was returned from my experiences into being human again. Now, I hope with all my body, mind and strength that being with Reality is my destiny after death.
All who experience Reality will come to know ineffably that All Is Well. We’re under better stewardship than we can provide.

Mysticexperiences.net

MER A SCIENTIFIC “QUALIA” AFTER ALL?

Has Dr David Chalmers discovered that “Qualia”, Consciousness, and “Strong Emergence”, are radical, newly discovered, fundamental, absolutely non-human elements of the cosmos? Is he describing the Mystic Experience of Reality (MER)?

It sounds like it to this mystic.

Qualia – Wikipedia: “In philosophy and certain models of psychology, qualia (/ˈkwɑːliə/ or /ˈkweɪliə/; singular form: quale) are defined to be individual instances of subjective, conscious experience.”

Emergence: “the process of becoming visible after being concealed, the process of coming into existence or prominence.”

See David Chalmers’ interviews on Closer To Truth:

The first interview has attracted 445 comments, including some asinine remarks sadly expected in social media nowadays. Other comments contain seriously interesting perspectives.

Is Dr Chalmers introducing a new era of scientific thought, that the Mystical Experience of Reality (MER), is after all, “qualia”, “Strong non-human Emergence”, Consciousness?

Bearing in mind the scientific community uses the word ‘ineffable’ to describe MER, (“too great or extreme to be expressed or described in words”), is Dr. Chalmers’ now suggesting an historical, scientific leap forward in human evolution, a birthing?

If so, is the modern mystical experience the same experience the ancients called “God” that became smothered in religion, ideologised, politicised with human misunderstanding and spiritual disappointment, unfulfillment?

Has the paradigm of the human condition shifted?

Dr. David John Chalmers is a world renowned, rising young figure in the world of science. He is a philosopher at New York University and the Australian National University, Professor of Philosophy and co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness at NYU, and also a Professor of Philosophy at ANU.

Mysticexperiences.net

NINE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE – Lonerwolf.com

The following is an excerpt from Lonerwolf.com:

By: Mateo Sol

There is one particular state of consciousness that can change your life forever.

This moment can only be described as “ecstatic” in that you experience your connection to life expand significantly. In this moment you feel that life is full of beauty and sacredness, but this feeling and phenomenon is somehow objective and outside of your individual self.

Theologian Rudolf Otto called this experience “numinosum.” But in this article we’ll refer to it as the mystical experience.

All throughout history, the mystical experience has been referred to as a “religious” or spiritual experience, where the few mystics that recorded their experiences reported it as a rapturous and undifferentiated sense of joyful unity with all of existence.

The Candle in the Dark

The best way to describe a mystical experience might be with an allegory. The ancient Hindu tradition of Advaita Vedanta has an interesting one:

Imagine that you are in a completely dark room. You’ve been told that in this room lives a very large snake. As you sit in the room, you can see its silhouette and you feel great fear as you contemplate the potential for it to bite you at any moment. But one day there is a flash of light which illuminates the room and you see that what looked like a snake is in reality a rope.

Although the flash of light was momentary, it gave you a glimpse of the truth. All of a sudden your long-held fear vanished entirely, and your experience in the room was never the same ever again.

This is what a mystical experience feels like: it is like a flash of truth that releases you from your limited sense of self and gives you a taste of a reality that somehow feels more real.

9 Characteristics of the Mystical Experience

Every person’s mystical experience varies in length and intensity. Have you had a mystical experience? Here are a few defining characteristics:

1. Conscious Unity

The boundaries of where you perceive your individual consciousness and identity (ego) to begin and end vanish. Instead you’re left with a boundless and infinite union with all that is around you.

2. There Is No Time or Space

With a lack of a definable identity or spatial recognition, your sense of time feels infinite. You go from perceiving time from moment-to-moment as a static individual, to perceiving it as a stream of eternal present moments.

READ MORE

Mysticalexperiences.net 2018

THE TREND FROM RELIGIONS TO ‘INDIVIDUAL SPIRITUALITY’*

Is this seemingly spontaneous trend leaping out of the religious frying pan into the ‘human-spirit’ fire …?

Is it missing the phenomena of the mystic experience of Reality (MER) that drives human evolution?

Perhaps mysticism being hidden behind the secret password of ‘direct experience’ makes such oversight inevitable …

So perhaps the only solace in this current trend is its emphasis on the individual. Perhaps it’s the inevitable human flight from failed collectivism which is the antithesis of ultimately real human evolution.

Aren’t Ananias and Sapphira of the bible and today’s massively failed national attempts at collectivism a warning wreckage?

Individualism is the essence of my mystical experiences of Ultimate Reality.

So perhaps the current trend away from religions to individuality is significant enough, for now – a step along the way.

*See ‘Spiritual but not religious’ on Wikipedia for a comprehensive study of the trend.

Mysticexperiences.net

THE SECRET PASSWORD TO MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE

The most secret password in the known Universe is needed to reveal the mystical experience of Reality (MER).

This password is: “EXPERIENCE”.

That’s the good news. The bad news is:

The password is caught, not taught, not given nor bought. You can’t achieve this state of being, this state of Reality beyond the merely human, without it being caught). And no cryptologist in the world can crack the code!

Why is the experience of Reality hidden?

Presumably because most humans don’t have the attributes that qualify them to receive it yet. Or perhaps they’re unaware of this unrealised power they have? Maybe humans can’t be trusted with this Apple? Or their current state of development is too primitive for them to understand, or have any use to developed Reality yet?

The good news:

Mystics aver every human has a profound yearning for the infinite joy and acceptance that is the core of the mystic experience of reality (MER). It expresses itself strongly or weakly but irresistibly like a plant growing through concrete … It can be recognised when it surfaces in Seekers and Mystics. Otherwise it lies dormant or unrecognised, unacknowledged, never sleeping!

If you Google ‘Mysticism’ the historical and current references from all over the world seem to never end, that’s how pervasive this fundamental aspect of the human condition is, compared to human science, history, psychology, religion, medicine, literature or ideologies, isms and politics – all extinguishable as the Reality of the mystic experience never is, guarded as it is by the most secret password in the known Universe …

Mysticexperiences.net

SIGNS THAT YOU ARE A MYSTIC

By Desikachari “Desika” Nadadur PhD.

Dr. Nadadur is originally from India, and lives in the Greater Seattle Area in the State of Washington, U.S.A., with his wife and two children.

Academic Training:

Bachelor of Technology (B.Tech.) in Electronics and Communications Engineering, NBKRIST, Sri Venkateswara University, A.P., India
Master of Science (M.S.) in Electrical Engineering, Gonzaga University, Spokane, WA, U.S.A.
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Electrical Engineering with Dissertation in Image Processing and Computer Vision from University of Washington, Seattle, WA, U.S.A.

Email: desika.nadadur@outlook.com

This is a profound work by Dr. Nadadur, giving much fuel for Seekers’ everywhere at any stage.

The following review by mysticexperiences.net is made up of point by point comments on each of Dr. Nadadur’s signs that you are a mystic:

You are a mystic, if

1. You ask the questions, “Who am I? Where do I come from? What is reality? What is my purpose? What is this universe?” and so on in trying to understand yourself and the world you perceive.

Not me. My experiences every year for about 20 years were unbidden, spontaneous. Thereafter I never asked questions, just got answers …

2. You think that there is more to life than meets the physical eye.

There is more than life itself.

3. You notice and feel a guiding hand in your life.

Somewhat.

4. You experience and recognize serendipitous events in your life.

Somewhat.

5. You are able to increasingly manifest your desires with minimal effort.

The Reality that directed my experiences directs my life with or without ‘me’.

6. Your desires are increasingly becoming aligned with higher good of all (rather) than being ego-centric.

No to becoming aligned with anything but Reality. That is not a choice. Neither is ego-centricity. Free will is available to all creatures of the material world within the bounds of their design and attributes. However, free will is not a spiritual option.

7. You highly value your intuition and inner guidance.

No, they are two fruits of Reality for which I am gratefully humble. As such, they are beyond value.

8. You start to realize that your inner world of thoughts and emotions gives rise to your physical reality, and that sets you on a path to self-exploration and eventual self-realization.

No. Reality set me on Its path. Mere self does not exist there.

9. You start to see divine in yourself, in everything and everyone.

Everything lives in and has its being in Reality. It is a developing experience.

10.You value your consciousness and inner peace as the greatest wealth you have and you work diligently to expand it.

No. It’s a gift that develops and expands of its own volition. Ordinarily, I don’t think humans would be entrusted with this consciousness.

11.You value personal experience over belief systems.

Yes.

12.You start to realize that your body and mind are the temple of the divine, and you care for them as you would care for a newborn child.

No. Reality cares for me. I try to listen but Reality does not need my help. (LOL).

13. Abundance of all kinds effortlessly flows into your life and sometimes you don’t even realize it.

True, though Wants got in the way for far too long in my case.

14.You get mystical dreams and dream visitations by sages, saints and angels.

No. Phenomena is a distraction.

15. You feel a strong connection to everything around you.

Everything is me and I am That. It fits quietly and naturally into my passing life without demands or threats; giving never demanding.

16. You are more present in the now than worrying about the future or feeling guilty about the past. You may plan for a future goal, but not attached to the results, but work diligently on the now-task.

Detachment is a gift of Reality.

17. You are comfortable with—maybe even excited about—the uncertainty of not knowing what the next moment will bring.

No. Never think about that.

18. You start to notice that the sense of control you felt you wielded over your life and situations is slowly eroding, and is being replaced by a sense that a higher power is actually in control and that you are in for an exciting ride.

Correct.

19. You are drawn to mystics and spiritually oriented people and their stories, books, and so on.

Cautiously.

20. You have psychic abilities or are interested in cultivating them.

Maybe, but why? Sounds like a human thing, a spiritual distraction … Human verities are culturally malleable – a distraction.

21. You have out of body and astral projection experiences either involuntarily or voluntarily.

One unexpected experience at the beginning; an aural message I didn’t understand at the time that said, ALL IS WELL. I also planned and induced an alarmingly successful Kundalini experience on myself. I won’t be doing that again …

Other than that just some phenomena in meditation that is easily dealt with as I was taught.

22. You prefer internal rituals to external showings.

No, no rituals.

23. Your heart jumps for joy and you shed tears of joy, when you see a beautiful scenery, a child and anyone or anything that touches your heart.

Any sudden, serendipitious awareness of the presence of Reality can overwhelm me physically and emotionally.

24. You see anyone sad or in trouble, you show deep compassion and try to alleviate their suffering.

Yes, with frustration. All human pain seems self induced one way or another. Humans are at a very primitive stage.

25. You are independent and defy convention, but you are not arrogant.

Independent and unconventional yes. But impatient with the nonconscious. I try to avoid them.

26. You see all as your equals, and not different from you.

Potentially spiritually equal yes, but not equal as humans. Clearly, we are not born as equals though everyone should be given equality of opportunity as individuals. Only individuals matter to Reality, in my observations.

27. You are mistreated by someone, you don’t blame or complain, but you introspect and see what thoughts, feelings and energy that you are projecting that made the other person behave in that manner.

No. Avoiding negative people and situations is spiritually important.

28. Conscious living is your life’s purpose and you love to help anybody who wants to live consciously.

Yes. But people who want to live consciously are already on their way. “That which they seek seeks them” as the mystic tradition attests … but interfere cautiously, even if asked. Beware the untamed egos of the unconscious. They’ll maul you … Be humble, leg it (LOL).

29. Self-Surrender and Self-Awareness are your goals, too.

They are fruits of the experience of Reality. They arrive axiomatically, unnoticed.

30. You practice being aware of and surrendering to the Higher (deeper) Self/Divine Self (or whatever name you choose to give it) within you, every moment.

No need to try. It happens of itself. All is well.

31. You truly believe in the kingdom of heaven being within and know the divine as the formless omnipresence and omniscience.

Mystics don’t have to believe. They know. They don’t need enticing with anthropological myths like “the kingdom of heaven” either. Also, Reality is greater than “omnipresence” or “omniscience”. Reality is not a human warlord.

32. You live life as if every moment is a miracle and know that you may not always understand it and you are okay with it.

It never occurs to me to think about it.

33. You know that all paths that originated from the same source will all lead back to it, so you don’t need to fight for or defend your path. You truly believe in “live and let live”.

This sounds anthropomorphic. Reality is not just about humans, if at all …

34. You know/feel that you are the microcosmic representation of the macrocosm—as within, so without.

No.

35. You look at yourself in the mirror, and see a deep mystery staring back at you inviting you to explore. Until now you saw yourself as only a physical organism. Now, you see every cell of your body as a mysterious creation of divine love.

No. If I think about it at all I wonder if humans are an accidental product of some ineffable process.

36. You experience moments of peace, bliss, and self-love that expand to include everything and everyone around you (and, BTW, they all benefit from it).

Peace and bliss yes. But not self love! I love Reality. It never fails, is constant, a non stop blessing.

37. You are naturally attracted to mystical practices such as contemplation and meditation.

This attraction comes without bidding. It seems to be a natural state for mystics.

38. You start to feel a tension within you between long held beliefs and your newly expanding consciousness and realize the falsity of those beliefs and start to let them go.

Yes, that did happen, but long ago.

39. You experience and express more and more self-confidence and courage that results from your inner anchoring in peace and harmony and start to shed the fear-based living.

Perhaps. But this sounds human, doesn’t sound spiritually important.

40. You realize that teachers, experiences and opportunities come to you, as if by magic, for you to learn and grow.

Reality doesn’t need help with my learning and growthl These things were useful along the way but get less and less so.

41. You start to see mystery in everything you study. Spiritual literature that didn’t make sense to you before, suddenly starts to make sense. You start to see the spirit at work in all areas your life and fields of your study and work.

True. But you learn to just focus on and trust Reality, to let go.

If you have one or more of these qualities, you are (or becoming) a mystic.

Mystics are created by the personal, individual mystical experience of Reality (MER) if my experiences are anything to go by.

Mysticexperiences.net 2018

THE INTERNET CHRISTIAN v. “ME”!

That dratted word, “my”.

A Christian on the Internet objects to the use of “my” – as in when I say, “in my experiences” – when I draw on the spontaneous annual mystical experiences of Reality (MER) I had from about 15 to 35 years of age, to make posts on this web site.

He says my use of the word shows ego. Ego, he says, is not found “on the mystical plane”. He asks who am I to offer myself as an authority.

But my use of the pronoun is to say, “this is only my experience”. I use “me” as a qualifier to caution readers as to the identity of the source of my anecdotal, personal experiences. My experiences are the only authority I offer.

Another reason I use the word “we” is because I have to use a human language historically developed to express experience of the material world. But MER cannot be explained or experienced in terms of the material world.

I am trying to share experiences of a spiritual phenomena that cannot be explained by materialism. MER does not exist materially. It has no body or brain, it just is everything and everything is it. It has no need of language or explanation. MER can only be experienced, caught not taught.

So I am just sharing my mystical experiences to help me get as full a comparative understanding of them from others’ experiences, comments, writings, likes and emails – as I now do from among 68 countries including scientific sources around the world I had no idea were taking mysticism so seriously.

For instance, if I had not started this web site I may not have come across the likelihood of being a pratyekabuddha. (Coincidence? I’m not sure).

Apparently a pratyekabuddha, or paccekabuddha, is the so-called “silent buddha” who does not try to share his or her realization with the world.

Pratyekabuddhas are said to achieve enlightenment on their own, without the use of teachers or guides, by “dependent origination”, (spontaneity?).

Traditionally, Paccekabuddhas give moral teachings but not enlightenment. (See unedited descriptions in Wikipedia).

I certainly do not give “moral teachings”, or ethical ones for that matter as they’re man made, not to be found in Reality – according to my experiences.

Nor can I or anyone else so far as I am aware “give” enlightenment. Enlightenment is, as I say above, caught not taught.

Nor do I feel called to be a master, teacher or “authority” on enlightenment or Reality!

Many mystics who felt otherwise and presumably engaged in human affairs because that’s what they thought they were called to do, failed. The material world brought them to very bad ends.

Modern mystics, of which there are said to be many more than there used to be, seem to know better. They keep to themselves.

So the Internet Christian’s misunderstanding I reported in the first sentence above is a reminder to me of the advice I got from a Master with millions of non monetarised followers around the world who few humans even know about.

He cautioned me about posting my experiences to spiritually unqualfied Internet social sites like Facebook etc. So that’s why mysticexperiences.net is not posted to those sites now. Yet the blog grows organically almost daily.

Obviously I shall have to be even more circumspect. Mysticism is clearly only for those who have ears to hear as the ancient saying goes …

Mysticexperiences.net

BECOMING A MYSTIC: Marooned

A Follower asks where he can find an account of my mystic experiences on this Blog. There are hints and affirmations throughout the Blog but no whole, progressive narrative account, so here it is:

I had spontaneous yearly experiences of mystical reunions with Reality from about 15 to 35 years of age. I kept them to myself for nearly 50 years.

They recreated me from a who to a what and gave me a sense of having existed from the beginning of all things to the end of all things; of belonging; and of “everything belonging to me” that others describe as “oneness”; an overwheming liquifying of my matter into pure joy; a profoundly thankful humility; a disappointment in not finding “God” there; a sense of knowing everything; of not existing anywhere but in the experiences; of knowing real reality of existence is the Reality I was experiencing; the frantic helplessness of desolation, of abandonment as each of the experiences ended.

As each of my experiences dissolved me back into my humanity I felt a keenness of loss, outcries of alarm, a profound, wrenching desperation of catastrophic bereavement. I scrabbled against it in futility. I felt marooned, a feeling that taints my human existence to this very second.

I was infused rather than taught or shown or guided. I remember there was nothing to see, hear, smell, physically feel, or think.

In one of my experiences a voice told me quite clearly and emphatically, ALL IS WELL. I was dumbfounded so the message was repeated three times …

The reason I was dumbfounded and deeply disappointed was I thought the message came for someone else. I looked around but there was no one else to see.

I was baffled for years over that message because I had not asked or thought of a question to which that might be the answer.

Another time, I was levitated out of my body. It happened without me noticing. When I did notice it seemed quite natural. I was overjoyed that God was ridding me of my body to take me up. Then I was bitterly betrayed on looking down to see my body still there about 15 feet below.

My conclusion now is there seems to be a Process into which I have been drawn, rather than “God”. This Process is nowhere near as limited as the human word “God” implies. It is benign, caring of all creation, guarding, guiding, aiding and comforting, a constant seemingly natural state of unending contentment, peace, tranquility, humility, gratitude, awe and joy. But it is not about making me a better human, though that, I think I can presume, is automatic, axiomatic. We are all more than merely human.

My sense of personality, character, body, mind, intelligence, intellect, did not exist in my MERs, nor did I miss them, expect them or need them.

I came away with the impression human bodies and brains die, but their spiritual knowingness become absorbed, added into this non-material Process of Reality beyond infinity that never dies. Reality seeks, but does not seek body, brain or mind it seems.

After MER, humans have no need of the anthropmorphic falsehoods of faith, hope or belief – after MER they KNOW. They are one with the Process, no longer needing gods or “God”. The experiences are fulfilling and keep being fulfilling after they’ve gone.

I was never given to believe humanity or individuals can invoke or influence this Process of Reality, either. In fact, being only human might be the reason so many humans have not yet had the experience of MER. Human attachment and egos are two strong deterrents among the many human attributes that come between us and this fulfillment.

The experiences were fulfilling beyond all ordinary human experience, imagining or knowledge. Reality seems to be the alpha and omega of everything, all knowing, a fundamental existential of being that just is, a given that can be taken for granted, does not need to be named. In Reality there are no names: everything just is and all is well. And I was and am that.

Between these experiences I toiled privately at the agony of being partly human despite the experiences’ development and continued effect on me – the continuingly joyous but alienating illumination of Reality and my true nature.

The stress of this growing alienation from “manmukh” – all things human – affected me severely.

The energy of the world, of the human spirit, is not compatible with the development of the spirituality of the ultimate reality of the Mystical Experience of Reality, (MER), in my experiences.

This struggle ruined my life, thankfully …

Now if I’m asked what I have especially taken away from my experiences I would say: Reality is a process. It is in charge. It never fails and is utterly benign …

Neverthless, at times the process got so desperate I developed and finalised the following secret plea to be rescued.

(At the time, I didn’t know how serious the act of writing can be, I just thought I was writing a poem. Later, the answer to this plea came by writing too and is also recorded here):

MAROONED

Divinity’s insouciant servants of the Light

Fly beneath my fears, over my plight,

Indifferent to my day as to my night.

Marooned in the humanity of my time,

Tired by glimpses of the divine,

Save me soon Lord, make me thine.

THE REPLY:

Marooned to solitude is your story;

Its contemplation leads you to my glory.

Love, understanding and compassion

Are the lessons of your life, your grace, your passion.

From the other side of Night,

I am your glory, your rescue Light …

1985.

(Nowadays I wouldn’t use the words “God”, “divine”, “faith”, “Divinity” or “Lord”. And I would call “the light” Reality, such a Light being a unique part of Reality.

(PS: The word “faith” has been bothering me. It signifies lack of real spiritual experience. So as I returned to this poem with my doubt about the rightness of the word the real word arrived. So I have deleted “faith” and as you will see, have inserted the more meaningful word “grace”).

Mysticexperiences.net

MYSTICISM: Defining Mysticism by Carl McColman

Despite reducing mysticism to the anthropormorphic mythomania of the existence of a God, this is a useful introduction to a subject much more profound than religions in general and Christianity in particular.

Mysticexperiences.net

The Value of Sparrows

From The Big Book of Christian Mysticism

For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
(Isaiah 55:8)
What, then, is time? I know well enough what it is, provided that
nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled.
(Augustine)

Some people think mysticism means having powerful spiritual experiences, like seeing Heavenly visions, or hearing supernatural voices, or feeling a sense of communion with God, or undergoing profound shifts in consciousness. Others see it as a spiritual dimension to (and beyond) religion, in which the cultural, ethical, and theological differences between religions are somehow resolved in a trans-verbal state of unity. Still others dismiss it as the fuzzy, illogical, and irrational element that makes religion and spirituality so distasteful to those who prefer to conduct their lives according to science rather than faith…

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