Spiritual Experiences and a Timeless Reality

Until an individual has an actual spiritual experience, it is a matter of discussion or debate. Once that person actually has such an experience, there is no longer any debate or lack of certainty. Spiritual experiences carry with them their own undeniable truth. These experiences may come through meditation, through a vision quest, through a dream experience, in fact, any way that allows the spiritual consciousness to break through the surface layer of the outer personality, the body-life-mind complex and put the individual directly in touch with a deeper reality.

The psychic being is a portion of the divine consciousness, which transcends time and the experience of a particular lifetime. Thus, it is possible that a spiritual experience that happened in another lifetime could come forward under various circumstances, particularly when certain markers occur that trigger the psychic memory..

Spiritual experiences have nothing to do with one’s outer existence, one’s daily activities, habits, ambitions, desires, feelings or sensations. People who have these experiences find that they are unable to truly describe the experience primarily because our language is not suited to describing something that exceeds our normal form of perception.

Spiritual experiences carry such a significance for those who have them, that they are considered to be highlights of their lives. People describe them in many cases as ‘life changing’ experiences. One individual reported having a near-death experience that led to an experience of the Divine in the world, after which he left his college studies behind, changed his entire planned future, and took up the practice of yoga thereafter. Another experience was related from an individual who entered something of a trance state, experienced what he later called an alternative reality, and he reached a boundary where he suddenly felt like he would die if he continued. He shrank back into his body. Later, as he explored what had occurred and compared it to other experiences he read about, he recognised that the death he feared was the death of the ego-personality as it met the timeless reality of a deep state of samadhi. Because he was still wedded to the ego-personality he could not face the reality that confronted him. It became clear to him that to achieve the deeper states of samadhi, fear had to be overcome, and the border he had seen had to be crossed. Many individuals report seeing a spiritual guide or teacher during the dream state who provided a teaching or even just a reminder. One such case involved an individual who saw the Dalai Lama during a meditation or possibly in a state of sleep that crept up during the meditation. He saw the Dalai Lama who looked at him, folded his hands in ‘namaskar’ and continued on. When he awoke thereafter he suddenly knew that the Dalai Lama had called him for a reason. He researched and found that the Dalai Lama would be having a lecture program soon and he determined to attend that lecture. There are innumerable cases that act as signs, guideposts or way-points along the spiritual path.

One point that is incontrovertible, namely, that all outer details, all thoughts, emotions, feelings, etc. have absolutely no significance for the individual undergoing a spiritual experience. At no time does any individual, in describing their experience, dwell on outer factors, other than possibly setting the background that led up to the experience. It is also true that these experiences are not concerned about anyone’s status, class, education, training or income. Many legends exist of people who have such an experience who have no outer background. Their lives are changed and from whatever starting point, they move into a future separate from their past.

The Mother writes: “At the time when you live such moments of your life, you do not care at all about remembering that you were Mr. X, such a person, living at such a place and in such an epoch; it is not the memory of your civic status that remains. On the contrary, you lose all consciousness of these petty external things, accessories and perishables, so that you may be wholly in the flare of the soul revelation or of the divine contact. When you remember such instants of your past lives, the memory is so intense that it seems to be still very close, still living, and much more living than most of the ordinary memories of our present life. At times, in dreams, when you come into contact with certain planes of consciousness, you may have memories of such intensity, such vibrant colour, so to say, even more intense than the colours and things of the physical world. For these are the moments of true consciousness, and everything then puts on an extraordinary brilliance, everything is vibrant, everything is imbued with a quality that escapes the ordinary eye.”

reference: Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, The Psychic Being — Soul: Its Nature, Mission and Evolution, Section 4 The Afterlife and Rebirth, pp. 153-154