Define Spiritual Experience?
TurquoiseB asks the question. I wonder how long this question has been asked and debated. Ten thousand years maybe? Probably more. Groups on the internet have been debating it ever since the advent of cyberspace and groups. However. What does the word spiritual mean? To me it simply means profound, wondrous and illuminating. All experience is that to me. The only experience which is not spiritual is dreamless sleep, but given that dreamless sleep is not an actual experience then that makes every experience as being spiritual for me at least. All we ever have is experience, no matter where it takes place, transcendent or imminent; in Time or in Eternity. I have no care or interest as to what others define it as. Also defining something limits it and segregates. Needless to say some experiences are far more common than others; and some folks may call some experiences (such as washing nappies and bathing the baby) as mundane by virtue of which. And yes indeed some experiences are more breath taking and mind-blowing than others. But they are all a part of the spectrum of as to what exists to be experienced by the observer of the observed. As one of those odd-balls who throughout all life since the age of three has had spontaneous `mystical and psychic' experiences, and documented them for the record to be shared with anyone who may be interested; and also never having belonged to any religion or belief system and never following any man or any book, then hindsight of fifty years of writing books on it and communicating it has left me bereft of ever wanting to talk to people again about such things, for it is just not worth the effort and the time involved. And it was even they who asked on to write about in the first place would you believe. Everybody is right; except you the writer (me in this case) so you (me) is the only one who is wrong. So why bother. Life taught me without any problems so let it teach them. And if it does not teach them (or they refuse to learn which is more the case) then tough luck. As to the perennial questions such as What am I; From whence do I come and why, (and which the deepest transcendent mystical experiences address) then let them get on with it. Go for a pint of beer in the garden alone and forget the bloody lot of their silly arguing. Listen to the birds, for they make better `music' than the white noise of silly nauseating human bickering, and bang bang you are dead type nonsense. They are each AT where they are each AT. But life goes on. As for invoking or forcing such mystical and transcendent experiences by way of rituals, drugs, meditation or whatever else then it is not for me to say because I have never done any of that; these things just come. However, many folks claim that they do. So be it in which case, although I see very little evidence of it by way of what they say. But I don't care either way whether they do or whether they don't. Dick Richardson http://www.psychognosis.net/ <http://www.psychognosis.net/> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Psychognosis_Archive/ <http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Psychognosis_Archive/> http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/The-Darsinian-Inheritance-File/ <http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/The-Darsinian-Inheritance-File/>
