Mystical experiences (original) (raw)

| | July 8th, 2006 11:20 am - Mystical experiencesFrom Fete de la Musique:I ended the day sitting on the banks of the Seine, the Eiffel tower slightly to my right. On the houseboat anchored before me, a group of percussionists were jamming with digideroo. The air smelled of cannabis. I bought a can of chilled beer from a guy selling them from the gangway of the boat. There was a light rain but we were sheltered by the leaves of trees above us. **In the lights of the touring boats that went up and down the Seine, each raindrop stood out against the night sky. I felt the aliveness of every particle of matter, the primordial vibration.**From I have seen the burning bush.:I have seen the burning bush: last summer in the south of France, when I was walking back from the beach to the villa, climbing gently through a field of grape vines under a sweet summer sun, there was a moment when every leaf and fruit pulsated with green life, every molecule hummed with a primordial vibration. Of course, they hum like this all the time, but in that particular moment I was calm and receptive enough to have noticed it.From Nausea is divine:Now, the reason I understood nausea is that I have these experiences all the time. The experience of normally inanimate things coming shockingly alive around you. I feel the universe trying to communicate to me too, every particle of matter vibrating. Walking in the woods in the golden light of late afternoon, seeing sunlight reflected off the shivering leaves of trees does this to me usually.I feel the universe trying to communicate to me, but I take this communication seriously. That is, I think there is a message, and I "listen" attentively. It is a mystical experience of unity; it is the universe saying, "Yes!". What else it is saying cannot really be put into words. And as Wittgenstein says: 'whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent.'From On the This-ness of barking dogs:Afterwards, I lie down and look up into the clouds of leaves, and am hypnotized by their subtle fluttering, and their intense jade luminosity as the sun shines through them. I know they are using sunlight to make organic molecules essentially out of water and air, and in the process slaking me with pure oxygen. Every available surface around me is covered with grass, leaf and bark, through which birds and insects fly and scurry. Plunged into this biomass, cradled by it, I remember that my body also is a natural process; that blood runs in my arteries just as sap runs through the trees, and that I have very limited control over both processes.From there it's just a little step to understanding that my thoughts, as well, are products of nature. They come and go, largely without my conscious control. This is not easy to convey in words and I only write about it to encourage you to go to the woods and experience it yourself. But basically the "I" both disappears and intensifies. **There is the land, the trees, the sunlight, there is the body lying there, breathing, the dog rolling on his back in the tall grasses, gnawing on a thick stick, there are thoughts forming and dissipating. And all this is me.**From Every day I am astonished simply to exist:The here and now is the dynamic membrane of the universe expanding outward at the speed of light. This membrane encloses the past in its inaccessible archival core, like a living outer layer of green wood enclosing deadwood in a tree. The past is simply the accumulation of temporal layers, the husks of dead universes building up moment after moment. We are carried along, inevitably, vertiginously propelled toward the future.From What is happiness?:the sound of galoshes stuck in mud; the scent of lavender and basil; playing a piano trio with my best friends; being jumped on by my dog in the morning; steam from boiling pasta; garlic sizzling in olive oil; the feeling of holding a yoga posture; in a cap and goggles doing laps in a pool; watering the lemon tree on my windowsill; talking with a friend late into the night; cold beer with fried dumplings(Leave a comment) | | 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