What makes an experience "spiritual?"

[laughingwillow]

Just curious as to how members of this community define a spiritual experience.

I'll be back with my 2 cents worth in a bit.

lw

[Amomynous]

Well, there are a few ways of answering this.

One answer: The experience of spirituality is a subjective reality, so the answer is "the experience is spiritual if the experient perceives it as such."

Another answer: Beginning with William James, much study has been done of the mystical experience, showing invariants of the experience which can cross temporal and cultural boundaries. There is a solid base of empirical evidence on this, and an experience can be considered spiritual if it fits the shoe. (By the way, this was the approach taken in the recent Hopkins study on the spiritual effects of mushrooms.)

There are also religious/philosophical/metaphysical answers, such as:

"An experience is spiritual if one feels contact with a greater intelligence which lies behind the unfolding of the universe."

"An experience is spiritual is one feels united with all things."

"An experience is spiritual if it causes one to behave in a kinder, more loving manner."

etc.

(These types of answers are, for the most part, subsets of the second answer offered.)

Personally, I have a hard time answering the question because, while I definitely experience a "signature" to an experience I consider spiritual, it is hard to put it into words (not surprising, considering "ineffability" is one of those cross-cultural aspects mentioned above ). The closest I can come is to say that there is a certain class of experiences in which I feel that the the ground of being is revealed (and I experience myself as part of that ground), and these experience have a certain "taste" of sanctity. But to be truly spiritual these experience also need to provide guidance on how I can live better in this reality.

[laughingwillow]

Right on, amom.  :cool2

Not much more need be added, imo.

But I still want to chew on this one for a spell.....

lw

[laughingwillow]

Most of the personal experiences I'd call spiritual have occurred in the context of musical events with 10,000 or so of my closest friends present.  :smoke:3

The sacraments can work profound magic with music. For me, it usually entails ecstatic dancing followed by prostate meditation.  A light trance state is initiated before ingesting the sacrament. This state intensifies as the music begins and the sacrament becomes active. Fear, apprehension and self-doubt are usually intimate companions, at least early on. Fear is a gatekeeper, imo, always alert for excess baggage. However, once that load is dropped and bridge is crossed, the transcendental lessons in spirit begin. Deep insights ensue; the possibility of merging through music becomes a reality. But first one must become light as a feather and recognize the tune as a rising wind. For me, the transcendental reward has been contingent on the ability to absorb lessons of love, compassion and empathy.

lw

[kosmo]

The more I live attentively, the more everything I encounter has a spiritual aspect to it. So a "spiritual experience" occurs whenever I am simply aware of that.

Earlier in my life I paid little attention to my ordinary situations and relationships, never even imagining how they could be spiritual. I sought  spiritual experiences of the kind I had read about - mystical, rhapsodical, transforming. I did find these, or rather I felt I did, in powerful hallucinogens, a near-death experience, and the occasional, out-of-the-blue hyper-perception of something meaningful enshrouding a moment of existence.

But add them all up, and they account for very little in terms of the number of seconds, minutes, hours... I have lived my life. Gradually, in my case, I come to the realization that every experience is spiritual when it is recognized and nurtured by the only thing I can give it - awareness that it is.

[laughingwillow]

Right on, kosmo.

Be here, now.....

While every moment of a life should be considered sacred, I sometime need a jolt to remind me of that fact.

The first time the wife and I visited Holland, I had one of those electrical moments....

We were both maybe a little crabby after a long flight. Amsterdam was cool and rainy. Mrs lw had the Anne Frank House at the top of her agenda so we stopped at the tweede kammer coffee shop on the way to satisfy my craving.  Then we bought an umbrella at a kiosk for the walk to the Anne Frank House. I tried to finish the joint of purple haze along the way, but suddenly realized I'd already went over the top. And right then I also realized that I could be a better husband. It was a crazy moment; right then I just wanted to make my wife happy. But during that long walk, she was just getting more and more perturbed with me. I wasn't holding the umbrella right. I was walking too fast. I was walking too slow. I poked her with the umbrella. The list went on. And all while riding the wave of that little matrimonial epiphany. By the end of the walk, I'm actually not dreading the thought of visiting this museum. I figured we'd poke around, read some original documents and check out the attic where the family had hid out before setting out on the next adventure. Soon we were ushered into a room with a few old wooden benches and a movie screen. I stood at the back of the full house as the lights went down and the film rolled. Soon we were in the middle of a very graphic documentation of holocaust atrocities. When the realization of the evil man is capable of perpetrating came over me, I slid down the wall and began to cry. I don't know how the rest of the audience managed to hold up under that display of the ugly side of human nature. But then that didn't matter to me; I wasn't embarrassed at my ability to be human. The rest of the tour was a gray haze. On our way out, we realized that I'd misplaced the umbrella and we watched as a stranger left with what the missus claimed was our umbrella. But as we opened the door we were met by sunshine and a gentle spring breeze and soon were sitting on top of the world once again.

lw

[judih]

definitions are words till they're put to the test.
lw, that story qualifies for a multi-faceted forever ingrained example.

i'd also like to add that once i feel that soul-rocking, mind/body/heart perception of things, everything else is tinged with increased depth, if i honour it with my relaxed attention.

[JRL]

Great thread!! lw's story says a mouthful.

I have had the soul shattering experiences provided by the major sacraments, but that has led me to a more Zen like place. The highest place is here now. I guess I get my illumination on the instalment plan, little glimpses of the unlikey miracle of existence, moments of clarity, harmony and gratitude. Like looking down the tunnel of trees that lines my street with the sun filtering down or magic musical moments, or my baby's smile.

So for me I guess "spiritual" means knowing the preciousness of life and awareness. My gypsy speedfreak bartender spiritual advisor once said "Loving life is the only wisdom", words I took to heart and carry with me everywhere.

So I just cut wood and carry water and live on the earth!

Much love to you guys!

[Amomynous]

The sacraments can work profound magic with music. For me, it usually entails ecstatic dancing followed by prostate meditation.

[Translation: I trip balls, stumble around bumping into things, and end up face down in the mud.]

All joking aside, I love the fact that there are as many "spiritualities" as there are people. Taking an entheogen at a festival with 10,000 people is probably the last thing I would do, and I think it speaks tellingly human diversity just how much differently people react to spirit. I imagine that my "ceremonies" could be the last thing that LW would do to connect to spirit. Viva la difference.

An interesting and related question: Ignoring for the moment just what "spirituality" is (just accepting that something is spiritual if you say it is), what experiences -- or class of experiences -- do you find most spiritually engaging? LW gives us an example. JRL hints at it, without really letting the cat out of the bag. There are just so many possibilities. Do you relate to spirt in an eastern way, falling into moments of choiceless awareness? A western way, with God burning the shrubbery in your vicinity? Is your experience occult, with telepathic downloads from the White Brotherhood of Sirius? Do you channel Jesus or Ramtha?

I guess I agree with JRL and LW and kosmo, with spirituality being an in-the-moment thing. So I guess I'm asking more about "entheogenically induced Peak experiences."

[laughingwillow]

amom: Just to clarify......

There are only couple of musical groups, audiences and venues that fits the bill for what I described above. And usually no stumbling is involved. (I don't really drink much alcohol.)  The scenario I describe is an alembic pressure cooker that admittedly isn't for everyone. However, after a few decades of cosmic fermentation in that particular phat vat, I'm pretty confident of my ability to appreciate and function in most any other approach. SO I'd love to hear about your rituals and all that entails.  :smoke1

lw

[JRL]

I think he was funnin wit ya.

For me it's pretty hared to create those "peak" experiences anymore. I think it takes enough velocity to leave your everyday self far behind. That's why the concert thing works, it's not just the sacrament it's the energy of the assembled multitude.

I started tripping on Osloid acid in the sixties, high doses of amazing material. My trips were earth shattering spiritual explosions, whereas a lot of my friends were just taking a trip to the funhouse to play psychic paintball. I guess my set was different, I read a lot of spiritual texts, studied Zen, read Leary's early work which all helped(along with music) to creat amazing satori/samahdi experiences. Hard to integrate for a sheltered 16 year old, but looking back, these are still a very big part of who I am.

I fell out of psychedelia for 20 years, but when I got back on the path I trippes a whole lot. I became adept at maintaining, playing music on stage, things like that.

What I wasn't having was peak experiences. I think I just got too familiar with the state so it wasn't taking me out of my habits of mind, just enhancing experience. It also was a form of therapy, dealt with a lot issues.

The way my life is now, I really don't have the time or space to trip hard enough on the traditional sacraments to get outside myself.
My last several life changing type experiences have been with short acting trypts and/or salvia, but they have been quite signifigant, giving me much to integrate.

I think my psychedelic ranger days are in the past, but I never say never.

[laughingwillow]

jrl: I don't think your peak experiences are a thing of the past, bruddah. At least not if'n I'm to have a say one day...  :smoke2:

I just came up with another "garden variety" spiritual experience that trips me trigger on a regular basis each spring... Hunting the elusive morel mushroom in the local woods, ravines and riversides.

lw

[Amomynous]

Yea LW, I was just funning with you. I didn't mean to kick any dust in your direction; I had hoped that was clear from what I said, but if it wasn't I apologize.  

And just for full disclosure: when I take a sacrament, I stumble a lot.

SO I'd love to hear about your rituals and all that entails

Well, they're kind of the antithesis of a pressure cooker. Of course things change and evolve, but if I had to describe a "normal" experience...  

I normally retire to seclusion in my underground den of equanimity. It is quiet and dark and has few distractions, so it lets me turn inward to hear the still small chorus. I turn out the lights and perhaps light a candle, perhaps burn a little incense.  

I take the sacrament, sit, wait, and breath. Sometimes I sing or chant a little while I wait. [Note: I should probably mention that the vine is really the only sacrament that I've been using with any regularity over the past few years.] When it starts to take hold I'll usually blow out any candles that are lit. When it really gets going I usually lay down, still my mind and body, and listen to the songs that the spirits sing. [Second note: I'm actually rather agnostic about any interpretation of spiritual experience, so when I say something like "the spirits sing" I do so for two reasons: narrative convenience and because that's how it is experienced at the time. I make no claims about the ultimate ontology of any spiritual experience.] The songs vibrate on the strands of the connective tissue of the universe's body, and in doing so sometimes the Logos is downloaded, insights are had, strange ideations form, and all sorts of metaphysical hijinks ensue.

To answer the question I posed -- what "class or classes of experiences engender the feeling of peak experience" -- well, it's hard to put into words.

There's always the unitive, where you feel your sense of self redefined and you feel yourself to be part of something larger, sometimes eternal and infinite. That's always a good one!

More commonly, I'd have the characterize peak experiences as engagement in the Mythic. Often these engagements are downright neo-Platonic.  I feel as if I am observing/participating in the causal, seeing the reality behind the instantiation. Things become not themselves but the thing behind them,  or act as stand-ins for the archetypes from which reality (or our perception of it) is constructed. As an example of such stand-ins, a note from a journey taken this summer, in which the creative spark of divinity is represented by, well....

I continue to release, to let go. As I disappear the logical necessity of the Other and the One become the same thing. When there is no I there is only the One. I vocalize and order is imposed upon the chaotic, the unordered. I and the divine are not necessarily different. I feel echos of the beginning of time, the first breath, the creative impulse that gives birth to all. I drift into the utter darkness and into the light. I experience the Object that gives birth to all.  The moment of creation, the moment that starts it all. The ground of being.  

Sometimes I close my eyes, sometimes I open them. Sometimes darkness fills my vision as I look, sometimes light fills my vision as I don't.

A memory begins to form, something that I have forgotten. What is it?  What is it that I almost remember? Yes. I reach for my bucket, struggle to get it into place and then purge. I expel the content of my stomach, and my retching is a reverberation of the Big Bang, a god vomiting out the universe.

And other times this engagement doesn't fall into any neat category, but it seems meaningful and numinous anyway. Two examples from a ceremony last weekend:

Either the night before the ceremony or perhaps the day before that I had a very complex, long dream. However, like most dreams, I didn't remember it; upon awakening it evaporated, gone, never to be experienced again. But during the ceremony, as I listened to the songs, the memory burst back into my awareness, and I was transported back into the dream. I was a sailor on a ship, and the ship was lost, and everyone mourned the loss. It was a great, uniting tragedy. I have no idea what the dream meant -- if it in fact had any meaning -- but in reliving it I became a part of the Myth, and that experience was profound and moving, a peak experience, if you will.

And the second example... hell, I still don't know what to make of it...

A few hours before taking the sacrament I had performed an utterly trivial act: walking from one room to another and filling a glass of water for one of my children. This was totally chopping wood and carrying water, with no great import.

At some point during the ceremony this memory came to me, but instead of a literal replaying of what happened, I re-experienced the action in a totally alternate way. In this alternate reality I paused as I filled the glass, and everyone in the room briefly stopped pretending to be human, became spirit, and joked about the play in which they were acting.

To this day this "false memory" seems every bit as real as the "true one." Why do I mention it? Because the experience, while brief, probably felt as profound as what would be experienced by any good Christian gazing into the countenance of his Lord. The point is that "spiritual" experience can be all over the map. There is a subjective feeling-state, but what engenders it can be almost anything: a unitive experience with the universe; looking deeply at some random thing in your environment; remembering an event -- real or imagined; vomiting.  Spiritual experience is the verb, not the noun. It is the act of perception, not the thing perceived.

And, of course, I'm speaking about peak entheogenic experience here, which is a little different that what you first asked.

[laughingwillow]

Yeah, mon-amom...... I knew you were joking above. On the other hand, tons of people DO go to concerts, get raging drunk and fall flat on their face. SO I thought I'd just clarify for the sake of posterity.

Btw, I like the idea of looking at "spiritual experience" as a verb rather than noun. ( I teach english.)

As far as peak experiences go, for me it sometimes entails the spirit whispering intimacies into my ear and the emotional reactions that ensue due to the revelations in question. The last show we caught was a good example....

I was on the floor of the Philmore in Denver, sharing energy with the crowd behind the soundboard when the spirit started calling to me through the music. So I slunk up to the balcony and found the right spot to lay out. There was a slight shift in the musical direction and soon I could feel the physical connection (music) between the stage and my crown chakra. Almost like radar. And then all motion on my part ended for a spell, as this seems to help maintain the tenuous neon connection.  Breathing slowed and to most curious parties, it probably looked like I was a stoned out hippie sleeping through the second set. Then the spirit started whispering in my ear. I saw an image of my grandmother and the spirit encouraged me to go to her. Soon I was embracing my grandma and thanking her for being such an important of my early development and well-being. I felt the love of my grandmother and began to weep; She's so old and feeble that I know she won't be with us much longer. But there I was in my grandma's dream, enveloped in her love. So I was crying tears of both joy and sorrow at the same time. Right then a concerned stranger reached over and asked me if I was OK. I sat up for a second and told him I wasn't OK but would soon be and thanked him for the concern before getting back to my grandma's warm embrace. And right then I knew it was time to schedule a visit with my grandma in the flesh as well.

lw

[Amomynous]

I sat up for a second and told him I wasn't OK but would soon be and thanked him for the concern before getting back to my grandma's warm embrace. And right then I knew it was time to schedule a visit with my grandma in the flesh as well.

To use your words, right on. You gotta bring it home, make it real. Failing that it's just a game. An interesting one perhaps, but a game none-the-less.