Mystical Experiencer: Female in early sixties
Current Location: Canada
Age at time of experience: 38
I heard an inner voice asking me to sit up and meditate which I did. I found myself standing before an infinite presence. Please note that I was not experiencing myself as infinite (although I have had glimpses of this)…quite the contrary. Relative to this presence, I experienced myself as infinitely small. Prior to this, I had had ongoing experiences of inner voice speaking to me but it had always been like the whisper of my own thoughts…a simple distinction between thinking a thought and receiving a thought. Of course, such subtlety was a good basis for me to doubt much of what I heard…at the very best I didn't reject or accept anything I heard…just allowed it to be until time could verify the information one way or another.
This time (and only this time) it was very different. The presence spoke to me in a deep, very loud, booming voice (all within me…I did not perceive the experience as outside of myself). I understood that this was so that there could be no doubt in my mind that I was being spoken to and who it was that was speaking. I understood that I was standing before God. When I say presence, there was no shape or form to this presence…just something that I felt. I don't remember everything that was said. I was told how much I am loved and the expressed joy that I had returned to (Him)*.
The words were not what was important…I was being told that which I needed to hear at that point in my personal spiritual journey. What was important, was what I was learning from the contrast between my experience of the infinite and unconditional love that I was receiving from the presence and my own limited ability as a human being to emulate that love…i.e., the boundaries within my heart due to the painful experiences I had had throughout my life. This was the initiation of a very long inner journey that didn't have a clear ending (in some ways I am still living out/incorporating/transforming according to the changes that were initiated during that time 22 years later) but it seems I was in a very unusual altered state of consciousness for a three-year period before I started the slow progressive journey back to 'normal'.
*Although I experienced this presence as male, I hesitate to use male pronouns because I know that my experience was that which I needed at that time of my life. God, as I understand it, is not just masculine but encompasses the feminine as well.