Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / Spiritual Experience Impacting the External Being

Transcript

Spiritual Experience Impacting the External Being · Sri Aurobindo Studies

• 0:00
  Spiritual experiences are not purely subjective events
• 0:04
  impacting the mind or the emotions.
• 0:07
  They can also take on a very concrete form that impacts the
• 0:11
  vital nature and the physical body.
• 0:15
  Because of a general mental, religious, and social bias
• 0:19
  against what appear to be unusual experiences, many people
• 0:24
  are left confused, bewildered, or even afraid to discuss what
• 0:29
  has occurred within them. For fear of being labeled or
• 0:33
  even ostracized. Many people have been referred
• 0:37
  for psychological counselling once they have begun to speak
• 0:40
  about what is occurring in their inner state.
• 0:43
  This bias, however, is being eroded as more people engage in
• 0:48
  spiritual pursuits and begin to experience things outside the
• 0:53
  realm of what is generally labeled as normal in the West.
• 0:58
  Pioneers such as CG Jung have opened the doors to a new
• 1:03
  understanding of experiences which have been known and
• 1:06
  appreciated for millennia. In the ancient Indian Vedic
• 1:10
  tradition, having the support of an experienced guide or guru can
• 1:16
  be very helpful as the seeker begins to navigate these inner
• 1:20
  spaces and opens himself to experiences outside the frame of
• 1:26
  the external body, life, mind, normal responses.
• 1:31
  Numerous people report experience such as a widening of
• 1:34
  the perceived body, essentially a connection to the vital
• 1:38
  envelope that is felt as a concrete sensation, or a sense
• 1:43
  that one is uplifted off the ground several inches while the
• 1:47
  physical body remains visibly fixed on the ground.
• 1:51
  Countless people have reported what are called out of body
• 1:54
  experiences, and they recount seeing things occurring from
• 1:59
  that new viewpoint while they are not locked into the physical
• 2:03
  form. Practitioners of what is known
• 2:07
  as Kundalini yoga report the experience of a power rising up
• 2:11
  from the base of the spine, through the subtle energy
• 2:14
  channels and out through the crown of the head.
• 2:19
  People who go on any form of vision quest will frequently
• 2:22
  recount experiences of the sense of travelling without the body
• 2:27
  or temporarily occupying the body of a totem animal and
• 2:32
  experiencing things from that space.
• 2:36
  There are also many experiences that recount the descent of
• 2:40
  light, knowledge, power, or bliss into the being.
• 2:46
  People who have these experiences are frequently able
• 2:49
  to recount details that make it obvious that they have had
• 2:53
  something extraordinary happen to them.
• 2:57
  One of the most common experiences, however, is the
• 3:00
  descent of a sense of peace and silence, so solid and concrete
• 3:05
  that it takes over the body sense and the individual feels
• 3:10
  enclosed within this piece for long term progress in the
• 3:15
  spiritual path. This experience provides a real
• 3:18
  and lasting basis for what is trying to develop.
• 3:22
  It is not a transient experience, as some of the
• 3:25
  others turn out to be, but something that can remain with
• 3:29
  the individual, built into a constant stable foundation for
• 3:35
  the transformative action of the divine force on the external
• 3:39
  nature. Fiora Bindo writes quote.
• 3:44
  The experience of this solid block feeling indicates the
• 3:48
  descent of a solid strength and peace into the external being,
• 3:53
  but into the vital physical most.
• 3:56
  It is this always that is the foundation, the sure basis into
• 4:01
  which all else Ananda, light, knowledge, Bhakti can descend in
• 4:08
  the future and stand on it or play safely.
• 4:12
  The numbness was there in the other experience because the
• 4:15
  movement was inward. But here the Yoga Shakti is
• 4:19
  coming outward into the full aware external nature as a first
• 4:27
  step towards the establishment of the Yoga and its experience
• 4:31
  there. So the numbness which was a sign
• 4:35
  of the consciousness tending to draw back from the external
• 4:38
  parts is not there. And quote reference Shriya
• 4:44
  Robindo, Faces of Yoga, Chapter 1 column Peace and Equality,
• 4:50
  page 17.