A Taste of Enlightenment that I experienced...

[Gypsyblue]

This really happened. I was hiking on one of my favorite trails and praying that the judgmental angry critical voice "inside" would stop once and for all.

I heard a male voice just behind me say: "Sit down if you would like a taste of enlightenment".

I sat down on an old tree stump off of the trail and immediately went into an altered state: my mind stopped and I felt myself expand into oneness with everything. I felt waves of LOVE and ACCEPTANCE envelop me.

For about 20 minutes all paradox was reconciled: I was both God and Man...both universal and individual.

I experienced that "yes" I am an individual and "yes" I am also God and everything there is. Without using words, I thought it might be nice to know how rocks experience things and in an instant I blended into the rock walls of a cliff a few miles away from where my body was sitting.

The experience I had was of blending into the rocks and the earth while at the same time being an individual with an individual identity.

I felt no fear. Only love and wonder.

In my body, powerful energy started racing up and down my back. Kundalini? I guess so. But no words formed in my mind and I had no judgements about what was happening.

I felt only love for everything and felt myself being loved, and felt bliss and oneness with God and all of nature, the universe and the cosmos.

After a while my "mind" had a conventional thought and used the words: "What is happening to me?" I believe that was the moment of ego and body identification returning.

I felt myself returning to normal consciousness and thinking with words started to resume again. But the energy racing up and down my spine continued as did the love I felt supporting me and the love I felt towards every thing.

I got up and started walking back down the trail to my car, which was several miles away. I had to stop every few feet and SHAKE! The energy was still moving up and down my back and was making me tremble, but in a comforting and good way. It was like having the chills but I wasn't uncomfortable or cold. I felt held and supported and loved.

After a while, I passed a woman who was hiking up the trail and I felt such love towards her. I must have looked like I was high as a kite because she smiled broadly at me but she also had a quizzical look when she looked at me.

After an hour or so I made it back to my car and drove home...still trembling and still feeling deeply loved and supported by the Supreme, who I KNEW was my own highest Self as well as the Ultimate Self of all of us and every thing.

The experience left me with no fear of death. No fear of God. No fear of judgement or punishment. Just totally loved and accepted as I am.

I also experienced the heart as being the center of our bodies and saw my body as being star shaped. Five points radiating out from heart: head, two arms and two legs. And I saw my body as energy with energy seeming to run all throughout my body along countless channels, and that my body was being held in manifestation and prevented from dissolving back into un-differenciated energy by the love of God.

To me, this was an enlightenment experience but also a near-death experience of the after life, although I did not experience the presence of any other beings - there was only "me" and God. I didn't meet my dad or my grandmother or "see" any others who have passed on.

I would welcome any comments or insights about this experience. Thanks!

[Annie]

That's amazing, I think this is one of those experiences of light as Roberta calls them, where God or your spirit guides or whoever is there with you, making the presence of the spiritual world known. It's really cool that you actually heard a voice...this is pretty rare I think! Thank you for sharing with us.

[Carol and Mikey]

Thank you for sharing! It's experiences like this that make people realize truly what it is all about! Love it! Hopefully others can "see" through your experience as well!

[knight1985]

Gypsy tht was wonderful...in todays world, we hardly have time to stop a second and think about us...me...god..oneness....its amazing...i am waiting for that moment to hit me. although i am in deep depression.

[Richard]

Gypsy, thank you for sharing your experience with us, if we all could experience what you did what a better world we would have!

[Roberta Grimes]

Dear GypsyBlue, what happened to you is the rarest and most wonderful human experience - it is the pinnacle experience that people can have while still in bodies. I'm jealous ;-)! It has been referred to in various ways, but perhaps it is most commonly referred to as an experience of enlightenment. Apparently it is the same experience which caused the Buddha to sit in wonder and say, "I am awake!" and then transform his life; and Gary Renard, who has been visited by upper-level beings who help him write his books, was given a similar enlightenment experience and he says that it was much more wonderful than all his visits by exalted beings put together. Congratulations, dear friend! You have been especially blessed. Thank you so much for sharing your story, and for helping others here on their spiritual journeys!

[knight1985]

Grrr...lucky fellow..

[Roberta Grimes]

Grrr...lucky fellow..

Dear Knight, our wonderful friend GypsyBlue made his own luck. He didn't turn inward or give in to depression, but instead he opened himself in love to others and sought his own spiritual growth - probably over many years! Experiences of enlightenment usually are the culmination of a lot of seeking and opening oneself to Spirit.

[Andrew]

Thank you very much for sharing, GypsyBlue! It would indeed be wonderful if we were all able to have these types of experiences. I think though that, if we are willing, and if it will help us in the long run, then we can have this type of experience. Most people, especially in the western world, seem to close themselves off to major spiritually enlightening experiences though.

Given how you were able to open yourself up to God like this, I think it is likely that you are a rather advanced being. After all, you are dabbling in afterlife philosophies and research that most people in the western world don't even try to understand.

[papajohn]

That's what I'm talking about!!! Gypsy. That "OMG" moment that you were allowed to partake in. Awesome!!! You seem to me as someone who is wide open to the infinite as your prior posts suggest. I hope this spiritual experience helps you deal with your physical ailments as I'm sure it will. Thank you for sharing this story with us. I too Am Jealous:)

[Gypsyblue]

I feel that my experience was to prepare me for "death" so I could make the transition without fear. On this level we're experiencing on earth, I don't see myself as being a free being...this was just a taste. I was diagnosed with incurable stage 4B (final stage) Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma a couple of years ago and have been battling cancer ever since. Almost made the transition earlier this year when I contracted pneumonia and spent a week in the hospital. I'm currently in remission from the cancer for the second time and after two six month cycles with chemo, I'm not currently doing chemotherapy until or unless the cancer recurs again, but I'm still getting infusions of Rituxan and Gamma globulin monthly. It's scary - but not as scary as it would be if I hadn't had this experience and the other comforting spiritual experiences I've had.

[knight1985]

Gypsy the best thing i liked about your experience was, that, you recieved it, rather than asking for it..:-) maybe it was on the back of your mind, but then as you stated you recieved it. My question to you is this though, after this wonderful experience, did you have any other such experiences? Maybe not so profound but something reinforcing your belief?

[Gypsyblue]

Knight, some folks say not to discuss such experiences. They say it causes a certain grasping and clinging to the experience and a desire to relive it again and to have more of the same experiences again, among other things.

Yes, I have had similar experiences in my life - both before and after. But I have never had a straight up, clear experience of the afterlife as it has been described in NDE literature. Some words that have stuck in my mind are the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, who I have studied a little with and who I greatly admire.

He said that in order to be free and to experience Enlightenment or Nirvana, that all notions must be left behind and relinquished - even Buddhist notions.

I take that to mean that if you expect the ideas about the afterlife that you hold now to be exactly what you will experience in the hereafter when that moment of transition comes, you might miss it - because it won't be exactly like that.

[Roberta Grimes]

Knight, some folks say not to discuss such experiences. They say it causes a certain grasping and clinging to the experience and a desire to relive it again and to have more of the same experiences again, among other things.

Yes, I have had similar experiences in my life - both before and after. But I have never had a straight up, clear experience of the afterlife as it has been described in NDE literature. Some words that have stuck in my mind are the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, who I have studied a little with and who I greatly admire.

He said that in order to be free and to experience Enlightenment or Nirvana, that all notions must be left behind and relinquished - even Buddhist notions.

I take that to mean that if you expect the ideas about the afterlife that you hold now to be exactly what you will experience in the hereafter when that moment of transition comes, you might miss it - because it won't be exactly like that.

I agree perfectly, dear GypsyBlue! It seems important to share what we know about the afterlife in order to prepare people and ease their fears, but it's important that people then forget the details and simply open their minds and hearts to God's love. If we die with too precise an idea in our minds of what is going to happen next, then we risk detouring into a mind-created illusion - a hollow heaven, as Bob Monroe called them. Exactly right!