Keeping Your Spirituality Alive
You had a mystical experience — now keep it going!
A few weeks ago, I had a mystical experience. It was a deepening of experiences I’d had previously, and it was characterized by feelings of joy, of being loved and held by the universe, and absence of emotional pain. Essentially, I saw a version of reality come together for me like a holographic 3D puzzle. I’d gathered the pieces of the puzzle previously in other experiences during meditation, but I couldn’t see the whole. It was like the puzzle pieces were floating unassembled in space in front of my eyes for years, and suddenly they assembled themselves! I saw the loving Consciousness that created souls and material reality as a means of seeing, knowing, and loving itself more fully. I felt the love.
Now, a few weeks later, I understand the implications of the experience better, and I see how to keep it alive. It’s still relatively new to me, so I offer these thoughts tentatively, lovingly hoping they may help you grow as you read them.
The first realization: Awakening seldom comes or continues without meditation, visualization, or some daily inner deepening practice that helps you revisit your mystical experience. Some awaken spontaneously, and others take medicinal substances, such as peyote, ayahuasca, LSD, and mushrooms to awaken. But in the end, meditation and visualization help the mind to live in the awakened state. Different forms help at different times. For example, in the early stages, simple breath meditation may be enough. Later, mindfulness meditation to gain insights into the mind and emotions may help. And finally, active imagination (visualizations) in meditation bring new understanding of reality. I may describe these things in more detail in another article. For now, just know that you meditation and visualization can help you see into deeper reality and maintain that awareness.
Another realization: To quote author and podcaster Sue Frederick, “ You have to feel it to heal it!” Your emotions won’t simply disappear because you meditate. That’s called “spiritual bypassing,” and it doesn’t work. It produces a pastor or a guru with issues, a therapist who unconsciously inflicts their own pain upon clients, an unhealed healer who can do much harm. The fact is, emotions are powerful, especially if they grew out of trauma (CPTSD), PTSD, or personality disorders. If you bypass them via education or meditation, you may feel temporary peace, but those emotions will eventually surface powerfully and in unexpected ways.
I know because I did that. I stuffed my emotions to accommodate my working life, and I used meditation as my opiate — for 40+ years! Then in retirement, the unhealed emotions burst forth as full blown CPTSD and attachment issues stemming from a difficult childhood and ongoing struggles in adulthood.
Thankfully, a dear friend who struggles with her own issues helped me recognize mine and we have journeyed together, healing each other through the love of friendship as we go. I began therapy and a therapeutic group, and slowly my emotions began healing. Love is the common denominator in healing. My friend, my therapist, and my group, as well as other friends and loved ones, have loved me all the way to healing, and I do the same for them — love them back unconditionally. Growth is always a group effort, not something we can claim individually, even though we may be the main driver.
As my emotions healed, they absorbed less of my thought and attention. I started feeling better and living more normally. Meditation and spirituality moved more into the foreground, as I hiked daily and began to experience and deliberately cultivate a love of nature and sense of oneness with it. I began to see once again that every atom and molecule of the universe and all the beings and material in it are imbued with the love of the Consciousness that created them. It doesn’t mean every act of those beings is loving, but the intention behind them, the Source and Soul that created them is loving — and I feel it!
I also began using guided meditation and visualization as ways of unlocking and discovering guidance from the love of the universe and learning to live in it. I started to feel held and loved by all of it. I learned through visualization to feel nourishing earth energy surging up through me, healing loving cosmic energy from the heavens and Source pouring over me and through me like a shower, and pouring out of my heart and breath as love to the rest of the world. I also did journeying visions and encountered a guide who helped me heal, and I grew in intuition, seeing many synchronicities and signs as I go. I listened to spiritual podcasts and read books encouraging my expanding awareness and feeding my mind spiritually.
Eventually, unexpectedly, an awakening came. It was gradual and increasingly joyful, and somewhat euphoric. I still felt like myself, both in ego and emotions, but my soul was in control, not my emotions. It was as though I was flying high above them and could see them happening below, but I was no longer overwhelmed by them or even bothered by them. I just felt them passing through like clouds on a generally sunny day, or like thoughts that come and go during meditation.
But after a few days, the awakening started slowly dissipating, and I realized if I wanted to retain that mindset, I’d have to cultivate it, to give the flywheel a nudge to keep it spinning. This is the part we often are not told about awakening — that it comes spontaneously and can be life-changing, but it will eventually become mainly just a memory if we don’t cultivate it to keep it alive.
So I make sure now that I meditate and hike in nature every day. And when doing both, I begin by contemplating the love that I feel for Source, Souls, Nature, and Earth, and I feel the love they have for me.
In meditation, I start by feeling Loving Consciousness, feeling the love of other souls, feeling the love of the material universe, feeling earth and cosmic energy flowing in me, and then I return it as love from my heart and breath. I also think about the souls I love and who love me and wish them well from my heart. That includes those who have harmed or abandoned me because the pain I felt from them in this life propels me away from the pain and toward awakening. And in the soul realm, there is no pain but only the pure love of souls between us.
In the forest when I start my hike, I greet the trees and plants, water and sky aloud, telling them how glad I am to be among my friends who love me and whom I love in return. As I walk, I look around, breathe the oxygen the plants lovingly give, and give them back the carbon dioxide of my breath — a loving exchange that enables us each to live and grow.
Once you have an awakening, cultivating these visions, thoughts, and feelings is not difficult because they are richly present in memory, and they come back to you with full joy as you contemplate them. It’s not “cheating” to keep awakening alive this way; it’s essential to staying conscious. You have to feel and practice the love every day.
As I continue on in this mystical experience, I realize that egolessness and emotionlessness may be myths, at least, at my level of experience. I still have an ego that helps me function in life, and I still have normal emotions. I even have and clearly see the same old distortions in my thinking that always characterized my personality.
But on the whole the ego, thoughts, and emotions don’t control me strongly as they once did. I still have moments of anger, bits of fear or doubt or longing, the beginnings of rumination and obsession, still feel indignation at injustices, and still laugh at many things in life. The difference is the negative thoughts and feelings don’t last long and I see them with much greater awareness and distance so they don’t overwhelm me like they once did. They are more like a moment when I am thrown off balance by stepping or tripping on rock on the trail. It’s a moment of awkwardness, and then I move on.
I’m still learning where this new sense of ego and emotions will lead me. My personality is much the same but with less feeling of being immersed in life beyond my control. I don’t know yet how that may change my personality or how I will deal with past long-term difficulties. Some things seem better already, and I suspect other issues may take time to resolve. The essential thing is that I feel loved and loving, which contributes to a sense of optimism that everything is getting better.
In closing, it seems like the key to everything in life is to work at maintaining love and balance. I try to practice these things to remain in the love of the universe and souls and to cultivate my own love in return. But I also try to stay balanced and not become a religious fanatic or any other kind of fanatic. My aim is simply to enjoy all the beauty and growth life has to offer as I balance in this wonderfully loving place, suspended between heaven and earth.
