Falling into the Mystery

I had quite a profound experience a few days ago while driving across the snow-covered prairies of Canada. 

As I was sitting in the relative comfort of a warm car on a chilly winter's day, I began to talk aloud.  I wasn't talking to myself, per se, I was just talking.  Now, I normally enjoy writing because it's a vehicle to focus our thoughts and create order out of the elegant chaos of our minds.  Speaking can be just such a vehicle, too, and even more immediate.  Often in writing, I find myself concerned with the bigger context of having a coherent grouping of thoughts and ideas that make relative sense.  This is not a bad thing at all but as I was sitting alone on a nine-hour drive with no one to hear me but the wind, I was struck by the fact that I could say anything and it would never be evaluated or judged for coherence and consistency, for content or stylistic flourish.  It would likely never even be remembered by me! 

So I began to speak.  I didn't have anything in particular I wanted to express or 'get off my chest,' rather I was simply enamoured with the idea that I could open myself as wide as possible and let the words flow without judging them, seemingly free from consequence and implication.  The 'goal,' if there was one, was simply to open my heart and mouth wide enough to face and experience whatever emerged without being particularly concerned with any of the actual content. 

What was so different about this time was not the words I was saying but the posture I was taking in relationship to them.  As soon as I began to take this inner posture of openness - of choosing to avoid nothing that emerge - I began feeling lighter in my being.  As I pressed on, a sense of joy began to arise within my awareness.  At this point, the words were no longer the center of attention at all but I kept speaking, continuing to express the beauty I was witnessing.

This joy that was rising up within me was not connected to anything in particular, no thought or image or feeling was its source.  It seemed to emerge from life itself, that there was nothing that could be separate from this joy, not even me.  I felt as though every cell in my body was being pulled forward, towards embracing all of manifestation as an inseparable whole.  Tears filled my eyes as I was overwhelmed by the sheer goodness of life, that existence, in and of itself, is wholly positive.

It became apparent that I was standing on the edge of something, leaning into the unknown, filled with both terror and ecstasy at the realization that to fully embrace what I was seeing would mean unconditionally letting go of everything else.  It had to be all or nothing.  But I also knew that there was nothing to fear in giving myself fully to this Mystery. 

After some time, the experience began to diminish in my awareness, as it almost always does, and yet the profound revelation I received was not only regarding the experience itself but the recognition that it emerged within this internal posture I was taking and that the experience and posture were, in fact, fundamentally not separate - two aspects of the same reality.  The experience was a gift of grace, which I had no control over, and yet taking this posture was a conscious decision that I made. 

So what am I going to do with what I've seen?  Bearing witness to it is a nice start but the real work of contemplation is what's in store for me.  We have to give ourselves time and space to consider these experiences when we have them or they'll become a nice memory rather than an immanent reality.  Spiritual experiences are wonderful and yet they seldom, by themselves, have the power to radically transform our lives.  Why not?  Because if we sincerely want to transform then we have to be willing to consider and embrace the implications of what has been revealed to us through these experiences.  

It really is up to us. 

I hope this particular story can be a signpost towards Spirit and an encouragement for us to engage more consciously with our own spiritual journeys.  Sorting through our experiences and the implications that emerge can be quite a challenge and bringing these things out in dialogue with others can be a huge support so if you have any experiences you'd like to share, or questions about my own, feel free to let me know.