(from Dorothy): Recently I received this excerpt from a friend. It seems to me to be a beautiful description of certain
states of consciousness in which we seem--for no apparent reason--to move out of "familiar consciousness" into what
I call "transcendental consciousness." It is in those moments that we feel truly connected with "it" (divine consciousness)
and our lives are suddenly filled with wonder and a sense of oneness with a deeper reality. Often such states bring us
into euphoria or bliss, and we sense that this is who we truly are. This state is also sometimes called "mystic
awareness," and we wonder if the mystics exist in this level of consciousness constantly.)
The following appeared originally in "Inside the Music, Conversations with Contemporary Musicians about Spirituality, Creativity and Consciousness" by Ehrlich.He interviews blues/rock vocalist Joan Osborne about her spirituality. She's a refugee, a conscious objector, from the Roman Catholic church. She's a wild woman. When he asks her about her religious experience, she talks about encountering spirituality on a roof top.
I do recall having, not necessarily a religious experience, but ... one night that I remember was in college, it was probably late in 1980. I'd just gone to see some movie and I was walking home alone and got this feeling, almost like a pang of joy. I didn't know what it was connected to; there was no sudden realization of some amazing truth or anything like that, it was just this incredible feeling of elation. And I started walking around in this neighborhood that I live in and I ended up climbing on top of this building and just lying there looking at the stars and just feeling this. It lasted for hours and hours and I don't know why it happened. That's happened to me a few times in my life, where I just get this overwhelming sense of elation and joy. I don't really know what it means or what it's connected to, and I'm not really questioning it or asking why it's happening or anything like that. It's almost like I've stumbled onto this weird corridor of energy and have been caught in it. It really manifests itself in a very physical way. When I'm onstage and I start to get that feeling, I stop thinking about what I'm doing and I stop being so aware of myself, the audience, or of standing in front of people. A lot of times when I'm onstage, I'll get covered in goose bumps. I'll start to feel this pleasure in just breathing, and the singing is suddenly completely effortless. I've had ecstatic experiences like that—well, not ecstatic. I wouldn't say that—but that sort of totally pleasurable thing, as if I were taking drugs or something. It's really a physical thing. I guess it's sort of similar to a sexual response too, because it's very much something I feel in my skin and all up and down my body. That happens a lot—that's more like the garden-variety experience. But then I've had experiences where I'll be looking up at a light that's pointing toward the stage and then suddenly everything around that light will look completely dark and it's almost like there's this tunnel and it's just the light and me, and that's all I'm really aware of, just this incredibly pleasurable moment. But I don't see the Virgin Mary Virgin Mary or anything like that; it's never a specific religious thing. It's really just a kind of physical manifestation and a rush of joyous feeling."
(Image from Hubble Site)
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