Q: What is spiritual experience? Is spiritual experience God?
To concentrate
And truly be in the present,
One with God,
Is to transcend
Time and space.
SB
* *
Man/woman is a universe of many levels. In this age, we are just beginning to experience and explore the complexity of consciousness and spiritual experience.
What is thought? What is consciousness? How is thought and consciousness different, or similar, to spiritual experience? Is spiritual experience the same as religious experience?
Historically, other cultures have studied what we are beginning to call consciousness and spiritual experience. Some of these cultures have hundreds of words to describe the complexity of this experience. Today, we have a few (i.e., states and stations).
One of the limitations of this inquiry is that it is impossible to describe in written or verbal communication the intricacies of a multi-level experience. We can talk about it, write about it, but it is not the same. A spiritual experience occurs on many levels simultaneously in our body and consciousness.
An example, poets and songsters have been trying for eons to describe the complexity of romantic love. At best, their words and songs are an approximation of this sublime and multifaceted experience. Further, overtime, this experience changes, grows, and becomes deeper.
Similarly, with spiritual experience while words can get you close they are not the same. Once you have tasted of authentic spiritual experience, you realize words may take you to the door, but cannot get you inside the room.
To further confuse matters, different religions and paths, use different words to describe, what is believed to be the same or similar experience (i.e., peace of God, Unity, and Nirvana). Experience must be experienced within the context of a specific path or system. Conversely, it is specified by spiritual teachers that the closer the traveler gets to the Source, regardless of path, the more similar becomes the unifying experience.
Spiritual experiences are distinguished from emotional or physical experiences by the level of spiritual energy involved. These experiences are not similar to other human experiences and involve a different part of our consciousness. Also, these experiences are given or provided so you can learn something and move forward along the path.
In the beginning of a mystic’s training, there is a period, where the student is provided with experience that opens the door and awakens the soul. This experience is akin to feeling one with all living things and is a unifying experience. In part, it is a foretaste of things to come, displays the direction to travel, and helps place the student on the path.
Some think this is the end product and are content, because it is a sublime experience, to try and repeat this over and over. It is a beginning and there are numerous other experiences along the way.
Spiritual experience is not God. It is experience of the essence from which we all came, through a part of this essence that is the center (heart) of our soul. Remember, that which enters the physical (universe) is different than that which exists outside the universe. God is greater than the creation.
The following is an old example to explain this. While it is possible to know a great deal about a potter by examining a bowl, we cannot know the potter in entirety. We may hold the bowl and feel its texture, examine it under different lights, and over time feel artistically one with it and the potter. However, no matter how many aspects of the potter we experience through his creation, the potter is greater and more complex than this one work. In time, the potter can go on to create all sorts of things which may be totally different. Each of these creations, all have aspects of the potter in them, but under examination do not explain all that is required to make the piece. For example, where did the idea of design and choice of color come from? How did the artist learn his craft? Over time, what were the factors that influenced him? You can not get all of this from one bowl or studying the artist’s life. Always, the potter remains different and greater, more complex, than the bowl.
* *
Do not seek to be like me.
Seek to be yourself and discover who you are.
If you can learn from me
That is a good thing.
However something finer
Would be to learn from your self
And your own Higher Capacity.
SB
_________
Also by Dr. Bitkoff, A Commuter’s Guide to Enlightenment, Llewellyn, 2008 and Journey of Light: Trilogy, Authorhouse, 2004. These books are available on Amazon.Com or from publisher.
To contact author go to: www.stewartbitkoff.com or e-mail: goldpath@ptd.net.
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