“Did you see that?!”
“See What?”
“Up in the clouds, just off to the right. It looked like a bright light. It was there for a moment and then darted off. That way. It was just sitting there and then moved really quickly over towards the east.”
“Come on! Are you joking with me? I didn’t see anything. Neither did you. You’re funny!”
It has happened to us all, we’ve seen something, experienced something, understood something that doesn’t mesh. Something beyond what we’re willing to talk about or share. But we know it happened. We know we saw it. Or did we?
It’s happened to me. Even as I write this I think back to my posts from a year ago. As I wrote about my body talk sessions and the insights they provided me. And now, a year distant from them my analytical mind says “You were just imagining that helped. You just like to think that worked.” But I know it did, I know it helped, but the further I get from it, the easier it is to dismiss it. The easier it is to roll it into the ball of experiences, that don’t quite mesh with the societal version of accepted reality, and tuck it in a corner.
But letting go is more sinister than losing the experience. It’s more powerful than forgetting an anomaly. It’s symbolic, and symptomatic, of our plight to see beyond this physical plane. There are experiences all around us that if we only allow ourselves to process, point us to a higher truth, something beyond what we’ve been taught and told and trained. Something mystical, something powerful, something realer (sorry, not a real word). More real?
It is symptomatic of our inability to hold onto the mystical.
The mystical has to be revealed individually. A group mystical experience doesn’t really work as well as each person, individually, being offered the opportunity to break through the veil. Each person exposed in their own personal way to a snapshot that can change their thinking, their values, their life. This cannot be done en masse.
I’m reminded of the lyrics to a Sting song, All This Time:
Men go crazy in congregations
But they only get better
One by one
Truth is revealed to us as individuals, and it is our burden and our privilege as individuals to think for ourselves, process for ourselves and believe for ourselves. It is up to us to embrace and process our mystical experiences. It is our job to treasure those experiences and nurture the new knowledge towards a growth of consciousness that can only come to you as an individual.
So I encourage you to think back to your spiritual experiences. These treasures, the gold currency of the spirit, and look again at what it may mean. Because, “Yes! You really did see that.”
Namaste,
Kevin
