In 1950, when I was 12, something happened to me. I found that the me I thought I was was not the me I am. The world circumscribed by my conventional physical senses was augmented, enhanced by a wider vision and experience of boundless harmonious openness. I described the experience this way in a previous book.
“No one else was at home that day. Sitting quietly on the living room sofa, I was suddenly transported to a vantage point where I could see the globe of Earth. I remember a moment of fear that I would not be able to breathe in ‘outer space.’ Something reassured me and I breathed calmly and quietly. I looked ‘down’ to see my body. I had no body other than the cosmos itself.
The earth was beautiful. A soft golden light bathed it through and through and surrounded it with a golden glow. I sensed, felt, and heard the harmony of its music. I saw and knew with deep certainty that all on earth is interrelated and harmoniously connecting. All is one flow. Separation is an illusion.
I do not know how long the experience lasted. At some point, I was sitting on the sofa once again. I told no one. I knew from listening to adult conversations that no one spoke of such things.”
Two worlds. The conventional world (often called “normal” by its inhabitants) of humans going about their separate ways with tenuous connections with others and even less connection with the non-human (such as plants, animals, mountains, ocean, birds, the sun, the earth); the visionary world of clear open spaciousness where one is always already at home, where life-and-death are interflowing partners, where all paradox both simultaneously exists and is dissolved.
During my life, I have lived in both worlds, sometimes one more than the other, but generally with a felt sense of simultaneity. Both as a psychologist and as a member of this Navel Tribe called human, I have observed that many, if not most, folk appear to live strongly in the conventional world and either not at all or infrequently in the visionary reality. When we live only in the conventional world where the decision has been made that only matter matters, we live in exile.
I am not the only one who thinks so. The stories we tell each other and ourselves create the world in which we live. I wish to tell some stories, stories of exile and return. Through the stories, perhaps we can more clearly see the ways in which we exile ourselves and open to being at home again.
“No one else was at home that day. Sitting quietly on the living room sofa, I was suddenly transported to a vantage point where I could see the globe of Earth. I remember a moment of fear that I would not be able to breathe in ‘outer space.’ Something reassured me and I breathed calmly and quietly. I looked ‘down’ to see my body. I had no body other than the cosmos itself.
The earth was beautiful. A soft golden light bathed it through and through and surrounded it with a golden glow. I sensed, felt, and heard the harmony of its music. I saw and knew with deep certainty that all on earth is interrelated and harmoniously connecting. All is one flow. Separation is an illusion.
I do not know how long the experience lasted. At some point, I was sitting on the sofa once again. I told no one. I knew from listening to adult conversations that no one spoke of such things.”
Two worlds. The conventional world (often called “normal” by its inhabitants) of humans going about their separate ways with tenuous connections with others and even less connection with the non-human (such as plants, animals, mountains, ocean, birds, the sun, the earth); the visionary world of clear open spaciousness where one is always already at home, where life-and-death are interflowing partners, where all paradox both simultaneously exists and is dissolved.
During my life, I have lived in both worlds, sometimes one more than the other, but generally with a felt sense of simultaneity. Both as a psychologist and as a member of this Navel Tribe called human, I have observed that many, if not most, folk appear to live strongly in the conventional world and either not at all or infrequently in the visionary reality. When we live only in the conventional world where the decision has been made that only matter matters, we live in exile.
I am not the only one who thinks so. The stories we tell each other and ourselves create the world in which we live. I wish to tell some stories, stories of exile and return. Through the stories, perhaps we can more clearly see the ways in which we exile ourselves and open to being at home again.
See? No comments. No one willing or able to respond to a direct report. I tell of mine from time to time. "Moving right along". That's the usual non response. I was older than you. Bill Wilson created AA based on his response to his inner life (first inner drunkenness as well as outer and then hope found in his inner spaces). He met a companion and got started and AA was the result. My whole life is my result. Yours is yours. There are many stories like this. On the other hand the many stories can be gathered together and seem normal but they are not. I promise you if you go to the ordinary churches or to the great many AA meetings in any large US cityscape you will find another cut of person. And you will be one among many not quite like you. This is, I have come to believe as it should be at this stage of the whole human thing. Love you George.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Christopher. I love your heart, your mind, your soul, your capability of expression. I always learn from you.
ReplyDeleteThis is wonderful, George. My own personal story of seeing beyond the "Normal" world goes like this. At age five, or thereabouts, I contemplated something I had heard in church. "Forever and ever". I started thinking back in time to understand what this meant. My own memory did not take me very far, but I knew of the days of "cowboys and Indians", days of knights in shining armor, caveman times and the reign of dinosaurs. As I kept thinking about what happened before that, time suddenly stopped. Birds mid flight, the arc of trees in the breeze, time stood still. I had no idea what it meant. Tried to share it with friends who laughed until I stopped talking about it. But at that moment of No-Time, I was home. Your writings often take me back to that time of No-Time. That space of No-Space. Looking forward to this book unfolding, dear friend.
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