| Hola Dharma Overground,
Firstly, thanks to Dharma Dan and his outstanding book. I just finished it, and I've also looked over this site for the answers I'm looking for. After gaining some confidence in this community, and being unable to confidently diagnose these experiences for myself, I offer them to you. I've written the experiences in bold in case you want to skip straight to them. However, I think it might be useful to gain a small bit of background on my past.
At the age of 7 I was diagnosed with ADHD and forced to take Ritalin and other stimulants. Trauma followed me closely from that age, with abuse and violence from parent figures and community, through the death of an intimate partner during my teens, and severe depression up until 23 years old. I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder, PTSD, and slews of anxiety and depression disorders during that time. Desperation of exhausting all conventional approaches is what lead me to the teachings of the Buddha at 23 years of age. Let me be clear that I was absolutely fucking miserable, intensely frustrated with humanity and suicidal for 90% of the first 23 years of my life. It seems this might not be all that uncommon an occurrence for those who come to practices for enlightenment. Now that you have the bare minimum gist, let's move onto what happened.
Eventually, after being unable to fully understand the Buddha's teachings, experiencing persistent suffering, and being unable to kick an addiction to opiates; I experimented with hallucinogens after reading that it helped many people with depression, anxiety, and addiction issues. My marijuana supplier (bless his fucking heart) gifted me some hallucinogens when I mentioned I was having problems kicking opiates.
So, here are the experiences that happened. I am going to omit all possibly drug-induced states except the first one. Tell me, what were these? Can we relate them to the states and stages identified in MCTB?
1) At 23, when I read the Buddha's teachings, I began experimenting with meditation, even though I had no idea what I was doing, or what the teachings actually meant. I barely even had a hint of what they meant, yet I just KNEW they were truth. I could feel it. So meditations stuck to about once a month or less, until the hallucinogenic experience at 26 that I am about to explain. Then it quickly became daily meditation. Using a hallucinogenic substance (only my 3rd or 4th time using one), I entered a state that shines in my memory to this day. I only mention it so that I may follow this with what I experienced the following months without the use of hallucinogenic substances.
I was just sitting Native American style on the ground after the peak of the substance was long gone, yet still an afterglow remained. I wasn't experiencing visuals or anything, as it was 6 hours past initial dosing, and it wasn't a really long-acting compound like LSD.
I was focused at the center of my visual field, and "feeling" around in my mind. Suddenly I happened upon intense pleasure that I felt I had full control over. I had never, ever felt this good in my entire life. I didn't even know it was possible to feel this good, and it completely destroyed my previous 25 years understanding of "pleasure". The concept that I communicated to my buddy while it happened was of taking a mental shovel and scooping out massive amounts of pleasure, as much and as strong as I wanted.
My jaw dropped, my eyes gushed tears, blasts of blissful energy boomed through my skull down my spine, all my hairs stood on end, and it felt like a prolonged orgasm of every part of my being that I could indulge in as much as I wanted. It was like being wrapped in the most longed for loving and healing hug. However, I began to feel bad that my friend couldn't replicate what I was doing, and eventually let the state go. Fortunately, this one experience lead to many, many, many similar experiences in daily life. Following this are some very interesting and enthralling experiences. I will skip the smaller ones, but suffice it to say, to this day I enjoy blissful blasts of energy down my skull through to the bottom of my spine that radiate throughout my body, turning all my hairs on end. This happens during many moments in daily life, and it is what I live for at this point. I feel so alive and life is so beautiful during these moments. It happens during obviously important moments, usually moments of intense aliveness, beauty and purpose (LIKE RIGHT NOW.)
I was able to kick opiates, and simply switched over to marijuana with the assistance of a medical prescription for it. Eventually I switched from that to a mild herbal pain reliever called Kratom. It has many desirable benefits and doesn't get in the way of my daily life, while being legal, mild in effect, easy to procure, affordable and useful. I'm working on kicking this as well, but for now it is my last vice that I use about twice a day. Think of it as coffee's mildly opiatesque cousin, and you have a good idea of what it's like. I went from over 8 pharmaceutical medications at once when I was in my teens and early 20's, to one simple and mild herb that blows all them out of the water, and yet is barely noticeable in daily life.
2) About 8 months later, while reading Eckhart Tolle's book (and on NO drugs) "The Power of Now"; the most beautiful and treasured experience of my life happened. He was describing how to feel the "inner body" (which I equate to "subtle body"), and I was discovering that I was slightly familiar with this. I could feel this tingling in my legs for many years before I read this, and was feeling them while I read the book, and so I began to expand my awareness of this "tingling" to the rest of my "inner body". He gives a brief introduction, and then explains how it works and what it means. Then he instructs the reader, while reading and simultaneously feeling for this inner body, to feel the entire inner body as "one complete unified field." Before explaining further, I should mention that I interpret ecstasy as pleasurable "bodily" vibrations/tingles, and bliss as a slightly different, more "divine" feeling of vibration/tingle/electricity that enters from the head and booms down the spine. I can only tell you how this felt and how I interpreted this experience to the best of my ability. Here goes...
What happened at the very moment I read "one complete unified field", is the reason why I will never, ever give up my spiritual evolution. My entire "inner body" began tingling and vibrating at an exponentially increasing rate of ecstasy. To my surprise, the depth of pleasure exceeded what I thought possible, and I fell deeper and deeper into the most beautiful ecstasy I have ever felt in all my life. It exceeded every drug (including MDMA and LSD together), every high, every ANYTHING I had ever experienced by many fold. But this was only the beginning.
Then my crown opened up, and blasts of energy boomed down my crown and spine, where it radiated out to my "body" and "merged" with the ecstasy vibrations/energy. They began feeding each other, and grew and grew in intensity, into something I simply cannot describe in words. Tears streamed down my face (as they are as I write this and remember how it felt) as this "ecstatic bliss" grew and grew. Then, it was as if my awareness somehow also "opened", and these knowings, some kind of beautiful epiphanies that transcended words began flowering. First there was one, and then, SOMEHOW, that one broke into two epihpanies, then four, then eight, and they came faster and faster. I couldn't understand how I was able to be aware of so many knowings at once. The knowings/epiphanies then began to feed the ecstatic bliss, and they merged as well. The only thing that came into my awareness other than what I have just described is this thought:
"I'm sorry. I didn't know."
Which of course caused more tears to stream down my face. It grew and grew AND GREW. Shortly after, it ended. When I got up, I had the most amazing and beautiful afterglow. I could read the thoughts of others, I healed a friends severe backache with a simple touch of my right hand, I felt super light and strong, and I "just knew" so much about daily life and others. It was like someone temporarily removed all the obstructions of reality. It eventually faded by the next day, I so badly wanted that feeling to come back, and I tried to reproduce it many times, to no avail. However, I continued to be able to read people like a book. To my surprise, I seemed to know more about the current mood and thoughts of others than they were aware of themselves. I usually had to use an immense load of logic and observation to show them that why were indeed thinking and feeling what I was perceiving. Because of the fact that it was more detrimental than useful to share this with others, I stopped sharing these observations.
I've had many otherworldly experiences since then, but this is the seemingly most important.
The only thing I'm certain of, is that that experience was very important. Tell me, what was this?
I really have had no one to talk to about these things. I am on my own with this journey. I've never had a teacher or peer about these things, so please be gentle if I appear to have any misunderstandings.
Thank you so much for this site, for Dan, for all of you, and for reading. |