My Enlightenment Experience

[SkyPanther]

To start off, I used to be an irreligious person.  I was/am an Agnostic Atheist.  

However I had an experience that I cannot explain. The best way of putting it would be a deeper version of the "Overview Effect" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect a shift in world view.

I work as a Software Engineer, and since I can remember, have had a deep attraction to gaining Knowledge, Science and a search for meaning of existence. Basically the “who am I, why is there existence instead of no existence"  I read a lot of books on biology, information theory, quantum physics, time, process philosophy, Artificial Intelligence, etc.  All secular science books.

The experience is kind of hard to explain;  Blissful Fear, I think about sums it up.  It was like a cascade of "connect the dots” moments(of all the past knowledge I had acquired), which ended in a momentary loss of self(an expanded awareness, and no thought), and then a confusion/fear of what "that" was... followed by a sense of a weight being lifted off my shoulders that I did not realize was there before this. 

After which I had an understanding of a few things that I did not see before, but had previous knowledge of that was not “connected” until that moment: 

1: That what we call the "self" is a compounded entity, a concept. Which I now see as Memory, Future projections based on memory, various emotions, genetic tendencies, and cultural programing.  Words, labels, and concepts are all "empty" we give them meaning.  I got what I would describe a two second divide between my thoughts/emotions and my identification with them.  I could just label it a thought or an emotion, and ignore it.  I also lost the “fear” of death because nothing "dies"; the ego entity is an illusion.

2: Entropy or change is constant. Nothing ever stands still, and nothing is ever constant, except entropy. 

3: Things are connected to each other.  For instance, a magnet has a positive and a negative poll,  if you break it in half, you will still have both polls, because one poll cannot exist without the other.   Love implies Hate,  Black implies White, etc... One causes the other, and neither can exist without the other causes that preceded it.  Essentially Cause and Effect, or Chaos Theory.

 And all of this is from a scientific perspective. I had a very superficial understanding of Buddhism before this all happened, I did not really meditate, though my job requires a lot of focus.  I did have an understanding of Kamma which I did not so much “believe” but followed.  Secular Humanism was my ethics system.

After this experience happened,  I had a week or so of a kind of euphoria, where things did not seem to bother me. Then that faded, but did not go away completely, though it did change into contentment/equanimity.  Along with that,  Race, Sex, Countries, etc, stopped mattering to me; not that they mattered to me to begin with, but it was more that I did not see a point of labeling people as their color, or sex,  etc... all life on this planet came from the same single cell, and we all “want” the same thing, to be loved, accepted, etc, and try to avoid suffering.   War became a dumb thing to do.  Hate does not stop hate. 

Since then, by trying to figure out what it all means(I thought at the time, that I had a very pleasant mental breakdown), I eventually found Alan Watts, and then through him (Theravada) Buddhism, and have started Meditating. 

I still know there is a lot of cruft to clear up, etc, but I now know the path (from the Buddhist point of view, and speaking to people that lead the meditation retreats, I am at the Sotapanna stage).  So there is still a lot of work to do.

[cetus]

Become a unified field.

[SkyPanther]

13 minutes ago, cetus56 said:

Become a unified field.

Heh, from my point of view, It would be more like the things "outside" the universe, the unconditioned (quantum like) element that collapses into energy to become the building blocks of "the universe" (and all of us).

Edited March 18, 2016 by SkyPanther

[vizual]

You say entropy is the only constant. Constant in what? In the passage of time? If so, who or what is experiencing this so-called time?  

[SkyPanther]

Constant meaning change is constants, i.e. Impermanence

The observer is the observed. Or, to put it in another way, we are the universe observing, and learning about itself.  Because we have no memory of anything (beside this experience), and the awareness of now, which is always in flux. 

 

 

Edited March 19, 2016 by SkyPanther

[Emerald]

I was agnostic leaning heavily atheist when I had my experiences too. It really is something hiding in plain view.

[cetus]

11 hours ago, SkyPanther said:

To start off, I used to be an irreligious person.  I was/am an Agnostic Atheist.  

However I had an experience that I cannot explain. The best way of putting it would be a deeper version of the "Overview Effect" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect a shift in world view.

I work as a Software Engineer, and since I can remember, have had a deep attraction to gaining Knowledge, Science and a search for meaning of existence. Basically the “who am I, why is there existence instead of no existence"  I read a lot of books on biology, information theory, quantum physics, time, process philosophy, Artificial Intelligence, etc.  All secular science books.

The experience is kind of hard to explain;  Blissful Fear, I think about sums it up.  It was like a cascade of "connect the dots” moments(of all the past knowledge I had acquired), which ended in a momentary loss of self(an expanded awareness, and no thought), and then a confusion/fear of what "that" was... followed by a sense of a weight being lifted off my shoulders that I did not realize was there before this. 

After which I had an understanding of a few things that I did not see before, but had previous knowledge of that was not “connected” until that moment: 

1: That what we call the "self" is a compounded entity, a concept. Which I now see as Memory, Future projections based on memory, various emotions, genetic tendencies, and cultural programing.  Words, labels, and concepts are all "empty" we give them meaning.  I got what I would describe a two second divide between my thoughts/emotions and my identification with them.  I could just label it a thought or an emotion, and ignore it.  I also lost the “fear” of death because nothing "dies"; the ego entity is an illusion.

2: Entropy or change is constant. Nothing ever stands still, and nothing is ever constant, except entropy. 

3: Things are connected to each other.  For instance, a magnet has a positive and a negative poll,  if you break it in half, you will still have both polls, because one poll cannot exist without the other.   Love implies Hate,  Black implies White, etc... One causes the other, and neither can exist without the other causes that preceded it.  Essentially Cause and Effect, or Chaos Theory.

 And all of this is from a scientific perspective. I had a very superficial understanding of Buddhism before this all happened, I did not really meditate, though my job requires a lot of focus.  I did have an understanding of Kamma which I did not so much “believe” but followed.  Secular Humanism was my ethics system.

After this experience happened,  I had a week or so of a kind of euphoria, where things did not seem to bother me. Then that faded, but did not go away completely, though it did change into contentment/equanimity.  Along with that,  Race, Sex, Countries, etc, stopped mattering to me; not that they mattered to me to begin with, but it was more that I did not see a point of labeling people as their color, or sex,  etc... all life on this planet came from the same single cell, and we all “want” the same thing, to be loved, accepted, etc, and try to avoid suffering.   War became a dumb thing to do.  Hate does not stop hate. 

Since then, by trying to figure out what it all means(I thought at the time, that I had a very pleasant mental breakdown), I eventually found Alan Watts, and then through him (Theravada) Buddhism, and have started Meditating. 

I still know there is a lot of cruft to clear up, etc, but I now know the path (from the Buddhist point of view, and speaking to people that lead the meditation retreats, I am at the Sotapanna stage).  So there is still a lot of work to do.

You experienced what is beyond the self. Yes, it does feel like a mild "mental breakdown" because that's what it is. A collapse of the false "mental" image. The model of self gets put in stark light for what it truly is. I see it this way, nothing in reality has changed at all. Only the way it is understood changes.     The "outside" that you speak of, in physics it could be called a big bang or the singularity? Here it is the non-manifest becoming the manifest.        The "work to do" is just the slow removal of what has never been true in the first place. It is the "Throwing Away" of false perceptions. That's the journey we all share.

[cetus]

@SkyPanther @SkyPanther Have you seen this yet? Don't mind the coughing in the background !

 

[SkyPanther]

On March 19, 2016 at 5:09 AM, cetus56 said:

@SkyPanther @SkyPanther Have you seen this yet? Don't mind the coughing in the background !

 

Thank you for sharing that, I have not seen this but I will take a look.