dyanaprajna2011
Dharmapala
Absolutely.
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Do you think a mystical experience has any value?
- Thread starter roger1440
- Start date
Absolutely.
Can it change a person's outlook on life? I find it hard to imagine how it cannot, but I do recognize there are factors why people would tuck it away into some box instead, calling it a bad spot of cheese, or "just the brain", or something. But if they don't do that with it then it can radically affect their lives in the following ways.
By definition it is an altered state of consciousness. These have the effect of blowing the roof off of reality as they normal perceive it. The world as they perceive and experience it takes on a new reality that they're confronted with, opening up new depths of understanding and lived experience within themselves. It changes their 'normal' reality in effect by putting a new skylight in the ceiling of their home, so to speak. That light casts a new way of looking at all those same objects in that old familiar room, which then, depending on the person, compels them to maybe look at the world above that current ceiling at what lays on the other side of the skylight.
This can lead to a process of development in the individual, and transform all aspects of their lives; psychologically, emotionally, physically, relationally, culturally, and spiritually.
What I just described above is the result of what are call peak experiences which tend to occur randomly, yet have profound impacts on people's lives (what many call the mystical experience). Mystical experience itself may also be part of controlled, deliberate practice in which the practitioner enters into these spaces for the purpose of just that, to see beyond the current constructs in our minds we call reality. Specifically this is a type of meditation called Insight Meditation, where such experiences described in the bullet points of unity, timelessness, etc, are exposed as part of a growth, or developmental process.
Can this change one's outlook on life, is really better asked as can it permanently change ones experience of themselves and the world? My answer is a definitive yes.
ratikala
Istha gosthi
dear roger ,
can it ? , .....as far as I am concerned , how can it not ?
having experienced all of these feelings as a child , they colour your conception of all things , allthough the experiences came momentarily , and because they came of their own accord , one is left wondering what they were and where they came from . and because they were so beautifull one wants to find them again to identify them , to live there allways , in which case one looses the taste for mundane pleasures or sees them for what they are , mundane , without colour , without intencity .
and no It canot be described not in its full glory , but to a person who has seen it you need say very little , you need not speak their language or share their culture , this is a universal and silent language of infinate beauty .:namaste
can it ? , .....as far as I am concerned , how can it not ?
having experienced all of these feelings as a child , they colour your conception of all things , allthough the experiences came momentarily , and because they came of their own accord , one is left wondering what they were and where they came from . and because they were so beautifull one wants to find them again to identify them , to live there allways , in which case one looses the taste for mundane pleasures or sees them for what they are , mundane , without colour , without intencity .
and no It canot be described not in its full glory , but to a person who has seen it you need say very little , you need not speak their language or share their culture , this is a universal and silent language of infinate beauty .:namaste
This has been my own experience, though I will add that my own mystical experience brought me back into the heart/likeness/awareness of who I was when I was much younger (when I had a much better internal sense of what I was about)- though a much more fulfilled version- a matured- 'nicely aged' version. It exploded away- demolished- years of baggage and personal derailment. I look around now at what's left of the debris that surrounds me and it's like I got here in a daze. Like I stepped out of a spell that had overcast me for many years- and when I finally came out of it- out from under all of the illusions of reality management I was under- I emerged with a whole new clarity of vision. It's been almost ten years since then- and I'm only now in the final haul of the physical cleanup.
That said, the aftermath of reality deconstruction could, I imagine, make some people crazy. Neither is reality reconstruction for everyone. It can be very messy and very difficult. For some of us though, it is the most valuable process we could, and will ever undergo. I could not have continued on as I was before. It was killing me.
Last edited:
I gave up everything that I 'knew' in order that I might know the unknown. If you're not aware that you're having a mystical experience-you're not having one.:no:
assyrianpride
Member
i think it might or might not have value; it could be a symptom of mental illness or drug use or it might also be religious. but the circumstances will have to determine whether or not it is religious. if it is, it must be determined if it is from god or the devil
I would say: a sense of having glimpsed a deeper reality rather than "having encountered the ultimate reality". I suspect that there is no ultimate reality, ie., that there's always another layer, no matter how deeply you
Put another way, we humans generally walk around with a pretty thick cow patty covering our eyes most of the time. When something wipes it away for a moment (usually after a good rain storm) things look a lot different.
For one thing, you realize it actually is a cow patty (and you thought it was a pair of binoculars.
Thank God it was only cow patty. That's not so obnoxious.
But what makes one feel that there was another layer, if the patty was gone?
Those kinds of determinations 'must' only be made by people who (are determined to) insist on certain kind of paradigms (in this case, those paradigms that include the literal god/devil influence/war for human souls). Insistence on, or the clinging to a certain paradigm ( any particular paradigm) is the very thing that will stop a(that) paradigm (their current paradigm) from collapsing (ie, the mystical experience found in between- or beyond/outside of/apart from paradigm constructs).
It's just the nature of the thing.
Last edited:
Agreed. Have a frubal cookie.Those kinds of determinations 'must' only be made by people who (are determined to) insist on certain kind of paradigms (in this case, those paradigms that include the literal god/devil influence/war for human souls). Insistence on, or the clinging to a certain paradigm ( any particular paradigm) is the very thing that will stop a(that) paradigm (their current paradigm) from collapsing (ie, the mystical experience found in between- or beyond/outside of/apart from paradigm constructs).
roger1440
I do stuff
Those kinds of determinations 'must' only be made by people who (are determined to) insist on certain kind of paradigms (in this case, those paradigms that include the literal god/devil influence/war for human souls). Insistence on, or the clinging to a certain paradigm ( any particular paradigm) is the very thing that will stop a(that) paradigm (their current paradigm) from collapsing (ie, the mystical experience found in between- or beyond/outside of/apart from paradigm constructs).
St. John Of the Cross wrote something like,"One must remove themself of all created things." This may not be an exact quote.
So many constructs, none the less of which include religion and god beliefs.
Nibbana is beyond concepts.
roger1440
I do stuff
That is exacted what St. John of the Cross meant. LOL
YmirGF
Bodhisattva in Recovery
Unity perhaps, but "totality" is a bit of an over-reach - a common projection arising from comparing the "unified" view to that of ordinary perception.
It's more about being within an eternal present.
Though inaccurate, it is a common enough assumption, yes.
Highly subjective, but ultimately inaccurate. It is a very common assertion from the newbies, for sure. They do say the darndest things.
Key word is definitely "adequately" and it is for that reason that one should take people's thoughts on the matter with a few boxes of salt.
To answer the question, with a caution, yes, I think mystical experience has inherent value for the recipient - providing they don't stop and begin to gather dust. By their very nature, the myriad of mystical experiences will practically compel the recipient to attempt to broadcast their experience - in some way. Often, it is best to let many years pass before opening ones mouth, as to do so at the onset, could have unexpected consequences.
What I mean by that is that when the novice feels the need to express this wonderful, profound thing they have discovered, they are, more often than not, unable to clearly express themselves and will all too often bolster their comments with religious dogma. If they would let the experience continue and hopefully deepen, they would quickly understand that very few could follow their thinking. Eventually they will hit a stage, wherein the "new" states have become the normative state. It is at this point that the voyager can begin to express their experience in more meaningful ways. Just my 2 cents...