experience stories format
Mystical Experiencer: Female in late forties
Current location: U.S.A.
Age at time of experience: 45
I was performing yoga asanas with affirmations and negations. I had a Christ consciousness experience, a complete merger with source that lasted about 2 weeks. I was love itself. Everything was pure love, one field of love.
I was guided by a live teacher, and a Swami on the other side. I was deliberate in my efforts to attain enlightenment and have a long standing meditation practice.
Mystical Experiencer: Male in late sixties
Current location: Ireland
Age at time of experience: 31
I was driving at average speed when I felt enveloped in a presence and surrounded by absolute love. I felt I was being almost lifted out of the car and had a fantastic feeling of lightness. I felt enlightened and felt I transcended everything around me.
It could have been one minute or ten, I really lost track of time!! I thought afterward I may have tripped into the 'present' completely for a brief period.
I have had about five of these experiences though none in the last seven years.
Mystical Experiencer: Female in early forties
Current location: Iran
Age at time of experience: 32
What I experienced is just awareness and that the whole life of man can be a part of it. It didn’t come as a sudden happening. It started to develop and gave me the ability to feel the true nature of being.
Reality is not what others think, we just sense a little bit of it. It is not so easy to explain, however, I have tried to help. Mystical experiences are all beyond sense and feeling.
Mystical Experiencer: Male in late sixties
Current location: U.S.A.
Age at time of experience: 28
I was meditating using a mantra, then automatically I was going through inner space at an increasing rate. I got scared and opened my eyes. I had never had such an experience. It was so clear that I wish I wouldn't have opened my eyes and let go absolutely. It woke me up to the fact there is something out there we are all going to eventually.
Mystical Experiencer: Male in mid-eighties.
Current location: Australia
Age at time of experience: 25
I would describe the experience by saying that I was placed in the hand of god. Read 23 psalm:
“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.”
I felt a belonging to everything and a great feeling of love.
Mystical Experiencer: Male in early nineties
Current location: U.K.
Age at time of experience: 65
I had spent ten years exploring the Subtle level of consciousness (in Ken Wilber's terms) and had had a number of mystical experiences in that realm, some of them quite vivid. I asked my therapist (who was a transpersonal psychologist of long experience) what my next step should be. He said that it was to move into the Causal level of consciousness. I asked him how that could be achieved, and he answered – "you just do it". I was a bit puzzled by this, but he did not explain any further.
The next day in my meditation I just set myself to move on, and the result astonished me. Instead of the quite florid and exciting experiences I had been having at the Subtle level, there was a complete openness, an absence of any problems or any content of any kind. There was nothing to hold on to, nothing to be done, nothing to be achieved. I realised that there were no words at this level, no descriptions or labels at all. Later I was able to say – "Everything is One" – but at that moment there was no such form of words. Now I would say that it was not an experience, but a realisation. There was nothing to experience and nothing to be done. I would describe it as an opening.
Mystical Experiencer: Female in early sixties
Current location: Australia
Age at time of experience: 62
I have had several experiences where I clearly heard sounds such as the flute, buzzing bees, drums, other sounds from nature. These were very clear and although they seemed to be in the room with me, they also seemed to be coming from a distance. These happened over a one or two year period.
However, the mystical experience that was the most powerful for me, was recently at age 62, when I had the health issue of a frozen shoulder. I was in much pain (had not taken pain killers) and was in a state of what felt like an alteration of consciousness, similar to the state before being fully awake after a night's sleep. Suddenly, a golden light appeared near my heart followed by what seemed like a full body orgasm that was non-sexual. Like waves of bliss.
Unfortunately, out of fear that something drastic was going to happen, I stopped the experience and resumed my normal consciousness. At first, I thought I may have imagined or dreamed it, but no, it felt very real. A truly wonderful experience.
Mystical Experiencer: Male in mid-twenties
Current location: U.S.A.
Age at time of experience: 24
My most significant mystical experience occurred at the Western Wall in Jerusalem. On that trip, which was one provided by Birth Right (a free trip to Israel for Jews ages 18-26 who have never been before), we did perform religious ceremonies. All of us on the trip were touring the Wall and were split into two groups: men and women. While touring the recently excavated underground area I began to experience deja vu. This is a relatively common experience for me as I do have a habit of dreaming about things before they happen.
We got to an area of the wall that is underground. One of the other people on the trip was putting his hands on the wall and leaning against it. I felt this was a good idea and began to do the same. While I was still completely aware of the physical world I felt my soul transcend it. I began to feel a deep sense of peace and calm as if I had entered a "heavenly realm" where the higher forces of peace and love ruled. I felt a deep sense of cleansing and purging. I felt completely connected to everything in the universe.
We moved on with the tour and my mystical experience continued at the above-ground section of the wall. While leaning against this part I felt part of the same realm I had entered below ground. I felt the need to pray for peace. As is common practice, I wrote wishes and prayers on pieces of paper and stuck them into the wall. But my wishes were for the greater good of humanity and NOT for selfish or egotistical purposes. While up against this part of the wall I found myself composing rhyming verse. I had become dissatisfied with my career path as a musician before that; one of the things that situation made me attempt was writing my own songs and poetry. This peaceful intrusion of rhyming seemed to me a confirmation that I was on a good path with that.
After this the people on the trip with me regrouped and stood in a circle with our arms around one-another. I could feel the connection we all shared at that moment. I left with a deep feeling of peace and a profound sense of cleansing more encompassing than any other experiences I have had during my life, including others (and there are) that were of a mystical nature.
Mystical Experiencer: Female in late fifties
Current location: U.S.A.
Age at time of experience: 36
After taking my morning swim, I would relax in a chair and allow the warm breeze to dry me. I always have had a sense of oneness with nature, but this day was particularly vivid (light, colors, air, birds, lizards, etc.). I don't know if I went inward or outward, as I have had multiple out of body experiences, but there was a complete sense of separation and detachment as well as a sense of belonging and oneness. The realization of overwhelming bliss permeated my existence or lack of existence, I'm not sure.
My thought process that followed was that I could die at that moment and it would be fine because life couldn't be any better than that. My family would find me with what would surely be the most satisfied, peaceful look on my face and it was all good!
Mystical Experiencer: Female in late thirties
Current location: Australia
Age at time of experience: 37
I wrote the following paragraph a short time after my “experience”. I initially looked to quantum physics for understanding which then led me to the term “mystical experience”. I have questioned the authenticity of my experience numerous times as it seems absurd, but the one thing that validates whatever it was that I experienced was my reaction upon regaining my self-awareness. I felt elated and said out loud, “what the heck was that?” Feelings of elation were quickly replaced by concern for my mental wellbeing. In a nutshell, “I” did not exist but was an “essence” (for lack of a better word). Fundamental knowing – beyond current understanding. It was not a sensory experience.
After my initial reaction, I felt immense fear/panic knowing that it is impossible to know instantaneously such fundamental truths yet to be discovered. Distressed, in tears and thinking I was having a mental breakdown, I rang my mother and asked her to come over. The experience has compelled me to search for explanations ever since. I am unable to access any of this “knowledge” but I have intuitive insights and a knowing which I can't explain.
I was sitting at the table outside one evening reading an article on naïve realism. Whilst reading, I remember that my interpretation of the text kept changing. The words remained the same but every time I read back over each paragraph, my interpretation of what I was reading began to change. What I thought I had read and understood a moment before suddenly made no sense. It was as if I was immersed in the text as a participant and then I shifted to observer. At one point I think I became both participant and observer simultaneously. At this point I may surmise that I lost my sense of self and my experience of having a self no longer existed – impossible to describe without first or third person narrative…Everything abolished duality – no comparing, no contrast. When everything is everything, it becomes singular – there is nothing else.
As soon as “I’” became aware, I thought I was losing my mind – I could have thought that I had lost my mind if only there was an “I” in which my mind could exist to become lost. Only in a state of mind where self is recognised could “I” exist. Only “I” could be aware of my mind and if there was no “I” then it follows that there was no mind…I was out of my mind…I was nothing and everything. Nothing and everything was a simultaneous occurrence.
