Beyond Ourselves

Followers of all world religious traditions and people in every culture have stories of how they encountered something beyond life in the body.

They describe these experiences as encounters with the Divine.

They are relished as moments of creativity that bubble up within them in unexpected and inexplicable ways.

When they seek to help others with seemingly intractable problems a word of wisdom emerges from an inexplicable source.

The artist reports, “I was just a channel. My work just flowed through me It came from somewhere else!”

The scientist comments, “This was not really my idea. It arose from some inner mysterious depth within”

Similar phenomena have been variously described as insights, visions, prayers, trances, mystical encounters, or near-death experiences. And the way we know that the real thing has come our way is measured by oneness and love.

So my question about these phenomena is “Where do they come from?”

My best read is “From a higher or universal consciousness”

In the past, I would have considered this “woo-woo” stuff, not aligned with my Tribal Evangelical beliefs or even rational categories. I once thought, if you cannot observe and measure and have it replicated by others then the knowledge is spurious.

What I came to learn was that there are other ways of knowing, including intuition, a gut sense, and tapping into awake awareness. In the end, truth percolates through the filters of our experience, sacred writings, and religious traditions. Non-conceptual knowing bubbles up from deep within the heart or one’s core essence. The eternal is within us and consciousness is a part of but not confined to our brains. It does not die when our brain turns to dust.

I have learned from other cultures, especially in Latin America and from Native American peoples, that the barrier between this life and the next is permeable. At the Day of the Dead celebration, Mexicans gather at the gravesite of a departed loved one. All are conscious that the person is actually there with them.

In the ancient Hebraic sacred writings, there are records of visits from the other world, like angels meeting with Abraham. Native Americans routinely call out to their ancestors for wisdom in life and courage to cross to the next life. I am also starting to sense that the departed dead surround, protect, and encourage us even when we are not conscious of them.

I’ve never had any of those “big” mystical experiences seen throughout religious history. When the Angel Gabriel appeared to the prophet Muhammad over the span of many years and revealed the Qur’an or Moses on the mountain received the 10 Commandments, or Theresa of Avila experienced ecstasy, they were hardly typical revelations and certainly not within my wheelhouse. Messages come in all shapes and sizes to receptive individuals throughout the ages. We just have to be open and receptive.

My garden-variety “contact” experiences are more mundane but not necessarily less significant. For instance, when I shovel dirt in my garden dampened by the rain, I am at one with what I am doing. When I experience a close emotional connection with my dogs, I am encountering the divine in them. When I stop to contemplate a powerful line in a poem, I am standing on the threshold of heaven. When I sit silently with a friend in deep sorrow, I am experiencing oneness with him. In those moments of delicious newness, I am there.

Each experience of ordinary mysticism helps me glide through the portals to another world, go inward towards a place with infinite possibilities, instruct my intuitive capacities, enable me to hear the voice of the Spirit, and open my heart to love.

Almost every “mystical” experience taught me that I have a spiritual hunger for Presence or the sacred. I also continually need to be reminded that love resides in the depth of my being.

My old ideas about that “other” world were once crystal clear and fixed in my mind. Ten years of theological studies and graduate degrees left me with an intellectual definition but not a heart connection with things eternal.

Now I’m in the process of dismantling my wall of mental bias with its bricks of ignorance, dogma, and illusion. I cannot say that I have had a sustained direct experience with Ultimate Reality. But I see the ‘other’ world out of the corner of my eye. Each glimse was an open window that brought fresh information to my borderline calcified life.

I recall several of these mystical moments that came to me over the last decades. I hasten to add that I did not seek out these encounters. They came to me from some mysterious place. The source could have been my unconscious mind or some underground river of eternal consciousness. But each one came with an underlying message “Listen to this”.