mystical experiences

A friend posted a question about what a person might consider a mystical experience.

I tend to think of such experiences in differing ways. Spontaneous or erupting type experiences are those that I'm unprepared for, that shock my senses to a sudden sense of expanded sensory life. In those moments everything gets bigger, stronger, more smelly, more textural, more acute and my experience of the temporal transforms or changes such that my internal log of linear time stops.

My most recent event of this kind was two years ago when I flew in to Maui for the first time. I wasn't prepared for the way the mountains floated with clouds much like a fine Japanese painting. I had an immediate sense of being in the presence of the goddess of NEEDING to go to Haliakula (sp?) and perform a ritual. This unexpected feeling stayed with me over the 10 days I was on the island and prompted me into the collection of objects including such things as black rocks, seashells, rare bits of coral, handfuls of flowers, frankensence (sp?) and a watercolor painting I did myself. I traveled to the goddess and stood on her heights and burned incense while these tokens rested close to me. I'm not a ritual type person so this was quite extraordinary for me.

I've done a lot of altered state of consciousness work over the course of my life and most of that work is through a mechanical means of entering such states. The most profound of these experiences was done using simple holotropic breath work which caused a transcendent experience which dealt primarily with an experience of Mary Magdalene and the sense of levitation.

However, the pivotal moments of my life are not augmented with altered body chemistries or the sudden experience of great beauty. Often I have a more subtle sense of 'wakening' where I am suddenly certain of an action I must take - often an action that surprises those around me as it isn't supported by a process of arrival. In these transitional moments I become aware of a new direction - the most notable recent occurances of this process was the moment I decided to return to college. One day I wasn't thinking about it at all and the next day I was taking an assessment test. When my mother asked me what was going on - I had to think a long time about what I was responding to - my sense was/is that I am compelled to this path - it is a cosmic prompt or if you are religious, I'm on a mission from God. Once engaged I become like a juggernaut striding forward, through, around, over, or surrendered to the obstacles littering my path. It's over there, is the vague sense I have of where I'm going although I have a larger sense that something I do may be useful to many or many many, even though that smacks of narcissism. Since I don't exactly know what that might be, I can't claim it either :)

All I can say is that such motivations become progressively more freeing. Since I am a writer this has emerged over the past six months or so with an attitude of going for it - I don't really care what the university expects or what teachers expect or what they assign - I write for posterity in some way. I'm supposed to go after what nudges me - that is my sense of the mystical presence in this.

A different type of mystical experience also needs to be mentioned. Sex. When two or more humans intentionally engage in orgasmic processes that include deep breath work the arc goes toward the third level or divine orgasmic experience where corporeal experience is transformed into divine engagement. The sense of the experience is that each person is touching the face of god, communing with god. This fundamental creation experience is what I feel is meant by the word intimacy and it is almost unachievable due to most people having so many issues with sexuality in our culture.