Mystical Experiencer: Male in late teens
Current location: U.S.A.
Age at time of experience: 16
I recall sitting at my desk in my room, it was late at night; perhaps around 1 am. I was, at the time, contemplating the words of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj and the compatibility of his view with those of several British philosophers. The experience was not, as some might describe it, a sudden or overwhelming experience. It was simply a realization, the grasping of a largely ineffable truth. There are no words at all which could accurately describe what was felt and what the experience was like.
I had this mystical experience and the conclusion was thrust forcefully upon my mind that: (1) everything which exists is unified into one grand being and that (2) that singular being is one universal consciousness which binds together all individual or personal consciousness into itself. There is no means by which I may describe the sort of unity I understood everything to be found within. It was as though I saw the universe as a plurality of beings while, simultaneously, grasping it as a singular entity whose composition was simple. In other words, I concurrently saw there to exist diversity and difference in the world as well as saw there to exist no such diversity and differentiation.
The image came to my mind of a dot or colored point whose size was endlessly shrinking. The moment of importance to me was that in impossible time in which the size of the point reached zero or nothingness. It was this idea of the transition from a potential infinity, otherwise called an ‘infinite regress’, to an actual or transcendent infinity.
The experience came and passed away. Despite its having passed away, I have never lost the belief in the two conclusions mentioned above. Those propositions were burned into my mind and the fabric of my soul. I will never and would never cease to believe in them. The justification of my belief, one which not everyone will accept, is found within this experience I am describing. Just as a feeling of pain may communicate to a person some message; namely, that they ought to stop whatever is causing the pain. So too did my experience communicate to me the aforesaid conclusions. Doubtless the analogy is a poor one, but it is the best I can come up with.