“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light ... For a child has been born to us ...”
“The swift flash of lightning rending the darkness has been given the value of a mysterium tremendum which, by transfiguring the world, fills the soul with holy terror.”
Illumination is close to the center of spiritual experience. Like all experiences, something is lost in the telling. We want to explain, we want others to know, we need to check out what we think we have experienced. Yet, the telling forms a narrative framework that restricts, limits, and dulls the experience.
We are fortunate if at some point in our lives we are given moments of illumination. I am thankful for several over the last half century of spiritual seeking.
Eleven years ago, at Christmas time, I went into the back garden for my morning meditation and taiji practice. I began as usual with some gentle stretching. Then out of nowhere and with no warning I had a very strange experience. All I can say is that momentarily everything changed. It was as if I could now see and feel Reality itself. It was an instant of the utmost clarity. The world was gossamer thin—the material transparent. It lasted but seconds and passed. It was startling in the extreme. In its wake I was left literally dizzy. I went inside and sat down. I had feelings like a panic attack. I was sick in my stomach. I put my head between my knees. The discomfort lasted several minutes before I was able to go outside again. When I did, everything was as ever it was. I did my meditation with no further disruption.
I have pondered my experience. I will not say what it was, for in truth I do not know. It was ambiguous. It felt like total insight (though that is inadequate to explain the experience), followed by almost total fear. A momentary brain malfunction? A trick of the mind? Mysterium tremendum, the mystics called such an experience. It is said of the Christmas shepherds that as the glory of G*d shone around them that they were terrified. Reading that Christmas story again, after my strange experience, I had a new insight— or perhaps the beginning of insight. By all accounts we are ever only given glimpses. The human frame can only take Reality in very small doses.
What to make of such experiences of illumination?
a) There is always ambiguity. Did I see? What did I see? Was it illusion?
b) We can never say we have not seen.
c) Such experiences create desire for Reality.
d) They are best tucked away. Saved to memory.
e) Standstill often follows illumination, but gradual progress follows with perseverance.
Christmas—the birth and return of the light. Enjoy the season.
+Ab. Andy