Mind taken for joyride by cosmos, please help.

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OldManWick, modified 3 Years ago at 1/20/21 7:32 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/20/21 7:32 AM

Mind taken for joyride by cosmos, please help.

Posts: 2 Join Date: 6/28/20 Recent Posts
Hi everyone, I'm new here, a novice meditator. I was hoping someone would be able to diagnose an experience I had.

I present this as a reasonably well-grounded professional observer in fields that demand solid evidence. Since my 20s I've always tried to meditate with the direction of zen manuals but have never really had the discipline until recently; I'll be 50 shortly. My practice has improved somewhat as of late so perhaps the years have brought the discipline. I try to sit daily and am making some slow progress. Like many others here, I found this online community through Daniel Ingram's book.

A couple of years ago, I was minding my own business getting ready for bed when out of nowhere my mind just up and expanded to encompass all of creation -- there really is no other way to put it. I wasn't asking for it, I wasn't sitting, it just happened. It was a visceral, immediate expansion of my consciousness, shocking but not shocking, collossal, titanically intimate. Then just as immediately it evolved into this "Oh, right," moment. Like it was something I'd forgotten. It WAS something I'd forgotten. I was aware in the moment of having forgotten it. I believe I said, "Wow," as it happened. My sense of self seemed to spread out and merge with everything, it was all around me, I was all of it. It was very much outside of my control, like I'd fallen into a powerful river I hadn't noticed and then been dumped gently into the sea, where I became the sea while realizing that I and the sea and the river were the same body of water. I also remember the overall impression of being hugged, mentally or perhaps spiritually, by someone who loved me. I felt safe and warm and happy, and would have stayed there forever. The astronaut Edgar Mitchell's description of his own orbital epiphany during the Apollo moon missions sounds very familiar -- "overwhelmed with the sensation of physically and mentally extending out into the cosmos."

I still have trouble putting it into words that do it justice. The moment didn't last long, maybe 10 to 15 seconds, though my sense of time may have been distorted.

I felt really peaceful and cool for a couple of days and then I started a job with a firm full of uptight crazy people that made me hate the world and I forgot all about unity for a while. I quit gloriously and started my own competing firm. Now I am trying to make my way back. There have been many minor tremors over the years both before and since, but that was the Big One. Can anyone tell me what happened?

Thanks everyone. Looking forward to exploring all of this with all of you.
George S, modified 3 Years ago at 1/20/21 8:49 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/20/21 8:47 AM

RE: Mind taken for joyride by cosmos, please help.

Posts: 2722 Join Date: 2/26/19 Recent Posts
Sounds like a mind-blowing experience, thanks for sharing. I've noticed myself after similar (less dramatic) experiences that the universe has a funny way of pulling me back into my "old life".
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Chris M, modified 3 Years ago at 1/20/21 8:57 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/20/21 8:57 AM

RE: Mind taken for joyride by cosmos, please help.

Posts: 5116 Join Date: 1/26/13 Recent Posts
 Then just as immediately it evolved into this "Oh, right," moment. Like it was something I'd forgotten. It WAS something I'd forgotten. I was aware in the moment of having forgotten it. I believe I said, "Wow," as it happened. My sense of self seemed to spread out and merge with everything, it was all around me, I was all of it. It was very much outside of my control, like I'd fallen into a powerful river I hadn't noticed and then been dumped gently into the sea, where I became the sea while realizing that I and the sea and the river were the same body of water. I also remember the overall impression of being hugged, mentally or perhaps spiritually, by someone who loved me. I felt safe and warm and happy, and would have stayed there forever.

I'll say to you what my kids sometimes say to me "Hi, Old Man!"

This description of yours points to you having had a classic experience of the non-dual. I remember my first one, too. I'll never forget it. I was sitting in a window seat on a plane, watching the clouds go by beneath, and then IT just showed up.
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Pepe ·, modified 3 Years ago at 1/20/21 10:58 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/20/21 10:58 AM

RE: Mind taken for joyride by cosmos, please help.

Posts: 713 Join Date: 9/26/18 Recent Posts
Hi, welcome to DhO!

If you're strictly interested in non-dual teachings, you may want to check Awakening to Reality group in Facebook (over 600 members). 

"Beginners new to this blog should check out this article:https://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2007/03/thusnesss-six-stages-of-experience.html 

"After reading the article above, do also read 'Awakening to Reality: A Guide to the Nature of Mind' - as a guide, practice manual, and commentary to the above 7 stages"  https://app.box.com/s/157eqgiosuw6xqvs00ibdkmc0r3mu8jg 

"Lastly if you are wondering whether a topic has been discussed before, or just want to read through past discussions, check out the Historical Log of this group which is updated frequently. To search in the historical log, press Ctrl + F and type in your search keyword. (e.g. 'anatta' or 'awareness')".

- Log 1: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nTwMYJJfcgTwvvHmcYFpDThYDhh1IpZXVwkCD4_d0mA/edit?usp=sharing 

- Log 2: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FwgrB6CdEFmxASrnPcYTzgqrBDULwiloDtqI2AYazHk/edit?usp=sharing 


Also, there's a small collection of PDFs on the topic.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/20/21 3:11 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/20/21 3:11 PM

RE: Mind taken for joyride by cosmos, please help.

Posts: 319 Join Date: 7/16/20 Recent Posts
Could this be an A&P event?

Anyway, sounds like a cool experience. I myself have had my fair share of super weird shit happening and currently find myself a little bit attached to those sort of things.. Working on it emoticon

Welcome to DhO emoticon 
Derek2, modified 3 Years ago at 1/20/21 9:07 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/20/21 9:07 PM

RE: Mind taken for joyride by cosmos, please help.

Posts: 231 Join Date: 9/21/16 Recent Posts
OldManWick:
Can anyone tell me what happened?


That was very similar to the awakening I had in 2011. It seems amazing and unaccountable at the time, but it’s just an opening to what are essentially regressive states of consciousness.
Tim Farrington, modified 3 Years ago at 1/21/21 6:56 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/21/21 6:56 AM

RE: Mind taken for joyride by cosmos, please help.

Posts: 2464 Join Date: 6/13/11 Recent Posts
Welcome to DhO, Old Man! 

What a great glorious gift of an experience. I can relate to that sense of "Oh, yeah, right, this is how it's always been, I just forgot." It does feel like a clearing of the vision that allows us to see things as they always are, and it is a very few experiences like that that have kept me on the path. All of practice, in a way, is trying to "not forget" anymore, lol, to remember in every moment of our lives what always is, as glimpsed in such moments. Which opens into everything, a lifetime's work. 

"Titanic intimacy"!!!! Beautiful. You've got a touch of the poet, there.

Again, welcome, and thank you for sharing. Hearing about your experience is its own kind of remembering, for me, and I am truly grateful. I hope you will find a place in our spiritual community here that will support you in the work of integrating your mind's cosmic joyride. And may the ride continue to be joyous, over every terrain. (All vehicles are eventually upgraded through practice to four-wheel-drive ATVs, lol. The fine points of driving over the cliffs comes with practice as well.)
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OldManWick, modified 3 Years ago at 1/22/21 7:11 AM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/22/21 7:11 AM

RE: Mind taken for joyride by cosmos, please help.

Posts: 2 Join Date: 6/28/20 Recent Posts
Hi everyone, thanks for the welcome and for helping me put a name to the moment: an experience of non-duality. There is apparently a lot going on here, reality-wise, and it's good to have that rock-solid certainty that death is not a sheer cliff in the dark but just another step on stairs that can be hard to see. When I manage to reproduce the event, I'll certainly report in. I suppose I'll just sit and wait. Again, all of you, thank you all for the help.
Emil Jensen, modified 3 Years ago at 1/22/21 3:38 PM
Created 3 Years ago at 1/22/21 3:38 PM

RE: Mind taken for joyride by cosmos, please help.

Posts: 319 Join Date: 7/16/20 Recent Posts
If I cautiously may mention...

I myself am learning all the time to not get caught up in any one experience. It seems perhaps you are a little caught up in this experience..?

But you know.. its gone. Never coming back. Maybe something kinda like it will show up down the road, but then that will also go away.

Just sayin' as it probably would make for a tough goin' to be chasing something which was nothing anyway, will never stay, will never satisfy.
I felt really peaceful and cool for a couple of days and then I started a job with a firm full of uptight crazy people that made me hate the world and I forgot all about unity for a while. I quit gloriously and started my own competing firm. Now I am trying to make my way back.
You see? Even an amazing experince like the one you had can dump us right back into hate and longing for something better.

As Tim reminded me the other day: MAKYO!

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