For thousands of years mystics of every tradition and culture have asserted, with impressive unanimity and consensus, fundamental insights regarding the nature and existence of the universe and ourselves. Very simply, what these mystics say is:
1) We are not who/what we think we are and
2) Reality is not what it appears to be.
So common and widespread have the insights of the mystics become that they now go by the name of the Perennial Philosophy (PP). So what does the Perennial Philosophy state? Simply put, the PP can be thought of as having three strands, namely:
- The world, the universe and everything in existence is the manifestation/expression of an underlying Reality/Energy. This Reality/Energy is the source, substance and real nature of everything in existence and IT alone IS.
- Because we are not separate from the world, the universe and everything in existence, this Reality lies at the heart of every individual and is accessible to us as our own deepest Self (“Self” with a capital “S” denotes the presence of this Reality within ourselves as opposed to the “self” – lower case “s” – which denotes our limited and impermanent “ego”). We are all manifestations and expressions of this Reality.
- Life finds its ultimate value, meaning and purpose in the conscious and permanent Realisation of our unity and identity with this underlying Reality. This Realisation goes by many names such as Self-Realisation, God-Realisation, Enlightenment, Liberation, Satori, Gnosis. This Realisation is really the recognition of what we have always been, are and will be.
Although the insights of mystics can be realised through certain practices that serve to change one’s level of consciousness (and hence perception and identity), it is also the case that these states of high-level mystical experience can occur spontaneously. Such is the case with the short collection of mystical experiences that follow. Although brief, hopefully these short but impressive examples will give an idea of what Reality, devoid of the distorting lens of our conditioning, actually “tastes” like.
The first example is that of Richard Maurice Bucke. Richard Maurice Bucke was born on March 18, 1837 at Methwold, Norfolk, England. He was the son of Rev. Horatio Walpole Bucke (Church of England) and his wife Clarissa Andrews. He was a direct descendent of Sir Robert Walpole. At the age of 35 ("at the beginning of his 36th year" - spring of 1872) he had an illuminating, mystical experience. He described the experience himself in the third person:
“It was in the early spring at the beginning of his thirty-sixth year. He and two friends had spent the evening reading Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Browning, and especially Whitman. They parted at midnight, and he had a long drive in a hansom. ...His mind, deeply under the influence of the ideas, images, and emotions called up by reading and talk of the evening, was calm and peaceful. He was in a state of quiet, almost passive enjoyment. All at once, without warning of any kind, he found himself wrapped around as it were by a flame-coloured cloud...he knew that the light was within himself. Directly afterwards came upon him a sense of exaltation, of immense joyousness accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination quite impossible to describe... he saw and knew that the cosmos is not dead matter but a living Presence, that the soul of man is immortal, that the universe is so ordered that without any peradventure all things work together for the good of each and all, that the foundation principle of the world is what we call love and that the happiness of every one in the long run is absolutely certain.” (Emphasis added)
Such was Buck’s sense of identity with the universe that he labelled his experience ‘Cosmic Consciousness’. Experiences such as this are more common than you would think. These experiences can happen anywhere and at anytime. Bucke’s experience was unsought and completely spontaneous. The next example is that of a woman named Rose-Neil as recounted in a book by novelist and biographer Nona Coxhead called The Relevance of Bliss:
“… I had always found gardening a relaxing activity and on this particular day I felt in a very contemplative frame of mind. I remember that I gradually became intensely aware of my surroundings – the sound of the birds singing, the rustling of leaves, the breeze on my skin and the scent of the grass and flowers.
"I had a sudden impulse to lie face down on the grass and as I did so, an energy seemed to flow through me as if I had become part of the earth underneath me. The boundary between my physical self and my surroundings seemed to dissolve and my feeling of separation vanished. In a strange way I felt blended into a total unity with the earth between my fingers and touching my face, and I was overwhelmed by a force which seemed to penetrate every fibre of my being.
"I felt as if I had suddenly come alive for the first time – as if awakening from a long deep sleep into a real world. I remember feeling that a veil had been lifted from my eyes and everything came into focus, although my head was still on the grass. Whatever else I believed, I realised that I was surrounded by an incredible loving energy, and that everything both living and non-living, is bound inextricably with a kind of consciousness which I cannot describe in words.” (Emphasis added)
Also from Nona Coxhead’s book is the experience of Muz Murray, who had been an agnostic but who, as a result of his experience, made a pilgrimage to India to study with Sufi masters.
“One evening in Cyprus, in 1964, I was sitting looking at the sea, in an afterglow of sunset, having just finished a meal in an old Greek eatery on the shore. I was feeling very tranquil and relaxed when I began to feel a strange pressure in my brain. It was as if some deliciously loving hand had crept numbingly under my skull and was pressing another brain softly into mine. I felt a thrilling liquidity of being and an indescribable sensation as if the whole universe were being poured into me, or rather, more as if the whole universe welling out of me from some deep centre. My “soul” thrilled and swelled and kept expanding until I found myself among and within the stars and planets. I understood that I was the whole universe!…
"The vision vanished as wave upon wave of extraordinary revelation swept through me, too fast for my conscious mind to record other than the joy and wonder of it. In those moments of eternity I lived and understood the esoteric saying “as above-so below.” Every single cell in my “expanded body” – wherever the body was during that bodiless experience – seemed to record and intuit everything which occurred, retaining it like the negative film emulsion in a camera. I was shown that every cell had its own consciousness which was mine. And it seemed that the whole of humanity was in the same condition: each “individual” believing in his or her separate mind, but in reality still subject to a single controlling consciousness – that of Absolute Consciousness Itself.” (Emphasis added)
And one final example from Miss Coxhead’s book:
Clair Myers Owens, who described herself as ‘a privileged American housewife’…refers to a ‘golden light’ in the experience quoted next, which took place while she was sitting at her desk … she did have forewarnings, in the form of ‘small ecstasies,’ before she encountered what she calls ‘the most frightening, beautiful, important experience of my life’…
“One morning I was writing at my desk in the quiet writing room of our quiet house in Connecticut. Suddenly everything within my sight vanished right away. No longer did I see my body, the furniture in the room, the white rain slating across the windows. No longer was I aware of where I was, the day or the hour. Time and space ceased to exist.
Suddenly the entire room was filled with a great golden light, the whole world was filled with nothing but light. There was nothing anywhere except this effulgent light and my own small kernel of self. The ordinary “I” ceased to exist. Nothing of me remained but a mere nugget of consciousness. It felt as if some force was invading me without my volition, as if all immanent good latent within me began to pour forth in a stream, to form a moving circle with the universal principle. Myself began to dissolve into the light that was like a great all pervasive fog. It was a mystical moment of union with the mysterious infinite, with all things, all people.
It was a grand purgation, I was washed clean and pure like a sea shell by might tides of the sea. All my personal problems fell away out of sight. My ego had drowned in boundless being. Irrefutable intimations of immortality came welling up. I felt myself becoming an indestructible part of indestructible eternity. All fear vanished – especially fear of death. I felt death would be the beginning of a new more beautiful life…”
The last example I want to look at is that of Allen Smith, a scientific researcher trained in medicine and anesthesiology, in which he earned an M.D. degree. He had received a national award for his research just before the experience and was one of the most promising young researchers in his field. His experience occurred in Oakland, California when Dr. Smith was 38 years old and sitting quietly at home.
“My Cosmic Consciousness event occurred unexpectedly while I was alone one evening and was watching a particularly beautiful sunset. I was sitting in an easy chair placed next to floor-to-ceiling windows that faced northwest. The sun was above the horizon and was partially veiled by scattered clouds, so that it was not uncomfortably bright… The Cosmic Consciousness experience began with some mild tingling in the perineal area, the region between the genitals and anus. The feeling was unusual, but was neither particularly pleasant nor unpleasant. After the initial few minutes, I either ceased to notice the tingling or did not remember it. I then noticed that the level of light in the room as well as that of the sky outside seemed to be increasing slowly. The light seemed to be coming from everywhere, not only from the waning sun. In fact, the sun itself did not give off a strong glare. The light gave the air a bright thickened quality that slightly obscured perception rather than sharpened it. It soon became extremely bright, but the light was not in the least unpleasant.
"Along with the light came an alteration in mood. I began to feel very good, then still better, then elated. While this was happening, the passage of time seemed to become slower and slower. The brightness, mood-elevation, and time-slowing all progressed together. It is difficult to estimate the time period over which these changes occurred, since the sense of time was itself affected. However, there was a feeling of continuous change, rather than a discrete jump or jumps to a new state. Eventually, the sense of time passing stopped entirely. It is difficult to describe this feeling, but perhaps it would be better to say that there was no time, or no sense of time. Only the present moment existed. My elation proceeded to an ecstatic state, the intensity of which I had never even imagined could be possible. The white light around me merged with the reddish light of the sunset to become one all enveloping, intense undifferentiated light field. Perception of other things faded. Again, the changes seemed to be continuous.
"At this point, I merged with the light and everything, including myself, became one unified whole. There was no separation between myself and the rest of the universe. In fact, to say that there was a universe, a self, or any ‘thing’ would be misleading — it would be an equally correct description to say that there was ‘nothing’ as to say that there was ‘everything’. To say that subject merged with object might be almost adequate as a description of the entrance into Cosmic Consciousness, but during Cosmic Consciousness there was neither ‘subject’ nor ‘object’. All words or discursive thinking had stopped and there was no sense of an ‘observer’ to comment or to categorize what was ‘happening’. In fact, there were no discrete events to ‘happen’ — just a timeless, unitary state of being.
"Cosmic Consciousness is impossible to describe, partly because describing involves words and the state is one in which there were no words. My attempts at description here originated from reflecting on Cosmic Consciousness soon after it had passed and while there was still some ‘taste’ of the event remaining.
"Perhaps the most significant element of Cosmic Consciousness was the absolute knowingness that it involves. This knowingness is a deep understanding that occurs without words. I was certain that the universe was one whole and that it was benign and loving at its ground… The benign nature and ground of being, with which I was united, was God. However, there is little relation between my experience of God as ground of being and the anthropomorphic God of the Bible. That God is separate from the world and has many human characteristics. ‘He’ demonstrates love, anger and vengeance, makes demands, gives rewards, punishes, forgives, etc. God as experienced in Cosmic Consciousness is the very ground or ‘beingness’ of the universe and has no human characteristics in the usual sense of the word. The universe could no more be separate from God than my body could be separate from its cells. Moreover, the only emotion that I would associate with God is love, but it would be more accurate to say that God is love than God is loving. Again, even characterizing God as love and the ground of being is only a metaphor, but it is the best that I can do to describe an indescribable experience.
"The knowingness of Cosmic Consciousness permanently convinced me about the true nature of the universe. However, it did not answer many of the questions that (quite rightly) seem so important to us in our usual state of consciousness. From the perspective of Cosmic Consciousness, questions like, ‘What is the purpose of life?’ or ‘Is there an afterlife?’ are not answered because they are not relevant. That is, during Cosmic Consciousness ontologic questions are fully answered by one’s state of being and verbal questions are not to the point.
"Eventually, the Cosmic Consciousness faded. The time-changes, light, and mood-elevation passed off. When I was able to think again, the sun had set and I estimate that the event must have lasted about twenty minutes. Immediately following return to usual consciousness, I cried uncontrollably for about a half hour. I cried both for joy and for sadness, because I knew that my life would never be the same.”
These experiences can be likened to a wave that briefly submerges beneath the surface of the sea and momentarily realises its unity with the ocean. Common to all these experiences is a dissolving of the boundary between the sense of self and the sense of other. The identification with the self is subsumed within a greater identification with the ALL. These experiences are profound and life changing. It would be a great blunder to dismiss them as nothing more than delusions or hallucinations. It would be an affront to the people quoted here and the thousands of others who have had similar ‘authentic tidings of invisible things’.
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