http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... =6&t=33989
buddhawarrior wrote:Hi BW, nice Initials.
Yes, My experience happened maybe 10 years ago when I was 24. I was swimming in a river in Utah and the current was very strong. I choked on some water midway cross the stream and could not recover the strength to get to the other side. My muscles cramped and seized up and I could no longer keep my head above water. my pride kept me from calling for help at first, but when I really needed it was I had floated too far down stream. at a certain point I realized my fate and made a mental decision that I would give up and give in. I was not afraid of dying. And when I closed my eyes and let myself sink, I could see the bright brown water cover over me and felt the current carry me. I felt my body dissolve, almost molecule by molecule, and as that happened, corresponding memories would flash before my eyes. I realized that I was dying, and I could see a clear bright light/dark. It was neither light nor dark, it was both, and it pulsated. It was an energy field of peace. None of the words I am using right now to describe the experience comes close. The object i'll just say, though clearly not an object, was beyond anything that my human senses could understand. It was beyond time, space, dimensionality, it was everything. It contained everything, was the origin of everything, and created everything. Though it had no will, feeling, nor personality. It was just there, a radiant peace, and I was going towards it. I can not stress how competely useless it is to try and describe this thing. I had no way of knowing anything about it because it was beyond language, or any sensory input. I heard it without ears, I saw it without eyes, I felt it without a body, I was surrounded by it, but I was IT, and IT was me, I knew it without mind or brain, But it was not a thing, it wasn't anything, it was beyond thingness. There were no qualities at all, yet it had every quality and more.
But while floating towards it, imagery of all types flashed by, like if I was on a roller coaster and there were things in the air and i'm zooming by them. they were faces, memories, ideas, history, science, theology, women, monsters, aliens, I could not keep track. all of them were distracting and made it hard to focus on the light, But I knew i must somehow.
I should also say, that at this point, I was no longer in contact with my body. I had completely dissolved and the last connection I felt was thru my very core, somewhere deep in my chest, although it also felt like the middle of my head. I should say that the concept of body towards the end of my dissolving seized to make any sense. I had no body, and the last few strands that held me to this world just was gone. So how I was able to have any sensory input or conscious memory is beyond me. And as i experienced these phenomenons, I knew it was not my brain, nor my senses that comprehended, but something else. I did not know what. Separating from self felt like a droplet of water separating from the faucet, it was slow at first, then BAM, the tension breaks and I was gone. I could also distinctly remember what it felt like to be born from my mother. the same sensation. And as my body dissolved I distinctly remember the memory of my cells splitting in reverse. It felt like I was going backwards in time in hyper rewind, my cells merged with one another in the same way they had split in the first place, and in rapid succession, I was down to the last two cells, and they too, merged and I was only one cell, then poof, nothing at all.
at some point I realized that I was now going away from it, and I thought, oh, rebirth, and felt disappointed, that I did not get to merge with it completely. As I began, I suppose I'll call it descent, I felt my body start to reform. Molecule by molecule, it was peaceful and slow, I almost savored it's return and the sensation of buzzing. But at some point, my hand brushed against something, I grabbed it, it was a root underwater. I followed the root and pulled myself to shore. I don't think I was unconscious for more than a minute because of the distance I floated down stream, but it felt like a hundred years. I immediately coughed up a lungful of water, and could not move from the intense cramping of my muscles. I lay there for a while, then crawled back upstream along the bank till friends saw me.
I can't stress enough that trying to put words to the experience is totally useless. because it's not at all what the experience was like. I'm trying to find examples in my known world to try and use similies and metaphors to describe something that is not like that at all. I'm sure if you had experienced it yourself, you would feel the same way. I would hate for anyone to pick at the examples I use to try and make a point one way or another. Because it's not at all like I'm describing it. I'm really at a loss for words. The best way is to draw a picture of it, but I do not have enough tools in the universe to draw such a thing, plus it existed in such a rainbow hued geometric folding and unfolding multi dimension, that any attempt at recreating it would fall far short. One thing I saw in life that most reminded me of the thing was the inside tile work of a Muslim mosque. The intricate interlaced tile work surrounding you on all sides, so much so that if you blurred your eyes, you would not see the walls, but only be swallowed up by the interlaced tiles. And the patterns were not only on the walls, but extended out in all directions simultaneously, like being a molecule on the inside of a crystalline structure. Every where you look was rainbow hued interconnectedness, I knew intrinsically that the material wa the material of all things, it was the building block of all things. I remember thinking that it looked liked the double helix of the DNA but in all directions thru all dimensions.
Again, I'm sure at this point, you the reader, if you had not seen it yourself, is saying to yourself, this guy is so far off his rocker. And that's why I never tell anyone about it, because it's useless, pointless, you'll all see it one day. No one is spared it's presence, no matter what your faith, no matter what your life path, when you die, you'll see it, as clearly as you see the sun rise and set. Of course I can't be sure of that either, because I can only say that i saw it, and the intrinsic feeling is that it was the source. But I have no idea what that means either.
I have been able to recreate the experience on several occasions with the help of Shamans and meditation. And I have read some descriptions of it that is fairly accurate. The Tibetan book of the dead is one of them. It was like the story of three blind men feeling up an elephant, each saying something different, feels like a snake, a banana leaf, a great big wall, all were describing the same thing, but no one is right, and yet they are alright. I will always be able to tell when someone is describing what I saw even though their words may be so different from mine. I will always know they saw it too.