hi guys

i am a mudcatter posting as a guest, because what i am posting is possibly unbelievable.

talk about faith has connected with talk about religion.

i practised a form of meditation which was similar to Tibetan buddhism, although it was an indian practise.

I spent over a dozen years practising meditation, four times a day. I went through a difficult time from 1978 - 82, for various reasons, with my health and a bad marriage.

the marriage had fallen apart the week before. I went to a group meditation, one evening a few days later. this is my experience:

I meditated, eyes closed, until my mind became so still that my sense of observing self withdraws to a point of non- presence.

Suddenly I am in the night sky, space. A huge ball shoots away from me, becoming smaller, until it becomes a small dot in the universe and disappears in space. I have just zoomed from my planet towards a huge light, shooting through the universe. A hole in time, a pause.

I fly through the night sky, emerging from the closest star, the sun. From a huge mass of burning light that is conscious, explosive, vibrant. I zoom through the universe, towards my body which is now collapsed on the floor. Returning, I see myself in a totally detached way, my personality traits, faults and strengths, as if observing a genetic program.

I observe that I will enter that body, that genetic pattern, that I'm going to be that again, then I plunge straight back into that body and personality.

Now I am lying stretched out on the floor.

My body feels saturated in light and is so conscious, and I am so drunk with ecstasy, that I cannot move. My mind is not limited to a point within my skull. My whole body is conscious and my mind is perceiving from my whole body. My body is made up of a sea of atoms/cells, each cell is glowing with golden light.

Each cell is its own conscious entity. Each cell of my body is consciously perceiving. My mind is dwelling in my body, a sea of billions of little minds.

My three month old daughter is placed in my arms. I hold her, and she too becomes saturated in the golden cocoon of awareness.

Some time later, my muscles are so relaxed that they don't function
properly. I have to be helped to sit up and walk because I can't
co-ordinate myself properly.

This happened in February 1982. It was not the result of imagination or visualisation. if it was i would do it every night. it felt real, like my spirit had left my body and the planet, flown through the starry sky and into a huge ball of conscious light (the sun?) before emerging, returning, re entering my body, which was by now in a state of complete ecstasy.

since then, for various reasons, i gave away meditation, & had a normal life working and being a parent to my children. I entered a new happy relationship and had a good life.

now, i look back on that experience. in the moment, it was wonderful, it was a realisation. but life in the last few years has been pretty normal. having a rational mind, despite that experience, I am still unable to sentimentalise about God, the universe, and while i can sometimes feel inspired, at other times i feel spiritually dry.

I would like to be sustained by faith. but how?

sky cat/shy cat