What has been your most spiritual experience?

by Qcmbr 37 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  fairchild

  Lourdes.

  If you are not familiar with Lourdes, you can google for either Lourdes, or Bernadette of Lourdes.

  I was 16 and had saved my money from washing dishes at a catering place to go to Lourdes. I wanted to see it for myself. My 7 day stay in Lourdes was probably the most powerful experience in my life. One night, I joined the thousands of people who lit their candle on and around the hills. Everyone prayed in their own language, as their were people from all over the world. The praying, the singing, and the thousands of candles were very beautiful. I am not a crowd person, but you don't think about the crowd when you are surrounded by so many people who have made the pilgrimage to Lourdes, often as their last hope to be cured from some disease or another.
• 

  fairchild

  oh, I did a quick google search..

  http://www.theworkofgod.org/Aparitns/Lourdes/Lourdes.htm
• 

  lilbit

  Watching the sunrise in the mountains during the fall on a chilly morning wrapped up in a blanket on the porch drinking a nice hot cup of coffee. Also being on the beach at dusk when a thunderstorm is rolling in. Nature just fills me with awe I spend as much time outside as possible
• 

  nowisee

  once, many years ago, someone wronged me badly. i had to do a lot of soul searching but in the end i was able to forgive. i thought about it a lot and one day, in my attic apartment i looked out at the spring sky, with the flowers blooming and sun shining i realized if i could truly forgive, and i was certainly a most imperfect creature...then i could be forgiven. and if i could be forgiven anyone could be forgiven....and i will never forget that day and that moment when absolutely everything seemed right in the world.

  after 911 being apart from any semblance of piety for a very long time i told God that i didn't know if he was there but that i was looking for him and why didn't he come and find me. a few minutes later i happened to meet an athiest friend who proceeded to tell me out of the blue, that she had just had a conversation with her doctor who had converted from islam to christianity. she, being intrigued, had questioned him and he gave her the book, "mere christianity" by c.s. lewis. she told me she wasn't going to read it and i could have it. this incident impacted me months later when i actually read the book and actually began to feel that there was some hope.
• 

  Terry

  Spiritual, then, is having a kind of overload of sensory input without connecting it to a conceptual heirarchy of explanation or context. Right?

  This sensory input is entirely for the sake of the experience and not as a MEANS to any end. It is an ESTHETIC immersion in non-congitive reductionism. Right?

  In other words: we all reserve for ourselves the possibility that we might unexpectedly transcend (go beyond) our wildest expectation during some moment of activity (or inactivity) so mundane that it transports us to a nonverbal state of mind we would prefer to everyday life.

  But, that is way too complex.

  Spirituality appears to be simplicity of mind; not complexity.

  But, not simplicity as in "simple-minded". Simplicity, as in fundamental, basic and foundational.

  I would venture to say that when we are born and our brain is alive and receptive to sensation (but, not wired in to comprehension) we are our most "spiritual". Which is to say we are in a constant state of wonder. But, that wonder is for a purpose. We wonder about the wonder and connect it to a cause and learn to predict what comes next.

  I think we all grow very tired of trying to UNDERSTAND everything. We want a momentary vaction from thought itself. We want the impact of a pure moment unmoderated by analysis. It is the purest EXPERIENCE and the emotion that follows can mean anything or everything all at once.

  That abandoment to pure feeling is a stolen moment as releasing as a sneeze and as fulfilling as orgasm.

  That "seems" to be what SPIRITUAL means.

  But, is it?

  Terry
• 

  bebu

  I think I've had many situations like expressed here: an amazing connection to nature, or finding love or forgiveness where I didn't expect it...

  But the ones that impacted me the very most were after intense times of struggle. I would be struggling with God (or, usually, struggling with the absence of God), trying to get some sense of a promise for a certain outcome/result to a devastating situation. I would get NOTHING!!! In the end it was obviously a very stark question, which I didn't want to accept: whether to trust in God completely though He was (deliberately!) not going to answer me in any way, shape or form--or not. I certainly would have given up in God... except that I already knew I had nothing better in myself, and I was already powerless in the situation... So in the crucibles of decision--or more accurately, after going thru the crucibles--God would throw off the cloak of silence, and the heavens seemed to pour out to me.

  Edited to add: I should clarify. I realize it sounds like I was having a cathartic experience; in some ways, making a decision is greatly peaceful, whatever you choose. I was not immediately rushed into some kind of Presence, but experienced a change like you do when you crest a hill: first a pause, and then you notice the momentum slowly build as you begin to go downhill, and even after you reach the bottom of the hill you go a long ways further because you are moving right along. But this change has to do with feeling more of the presence of God than going somewhere.

  bebu

  PS: Hey, now I see nowisee!! Long time no see, nowisee!
• 

  EvilForce

  It's like trying to explain the color red to a blind person...you can only use what you can relate to.
  
  Buddha's enlightenment was very similar to what I feel. Or at least what I think he may have felt thru his words. Very hard to describe and I guess in someways may even demean the experience by trying to box it in to a definable set of standards.
• 

  Terry

  It's like trying to explain the color red to a blind person...you can only use what you can relate to.
  
  Buddha's enlightenment was very similar to what I feel. Or at least what I think he may have felt thru his words. Very hard to describe and I guess in someways may even demean the experience by trying to box it in to a definable set of standards.

  Well, I certainly have respect for you and for that which you find to give you this freedom.

  But, for myself, I cringe. Not because what you describe is intrinsically disgusting. Heck no! Sounds great. But, I have come to feel that my mind is the first line of defense for sanity. I've had friends who were into drugs describing a similar release and just as non-verbal. For them, they surrendered their mind's hold to simply experience experience itself. Okay. But, that ride costs a pretty penny.

  We have all seen people who were in a vegetative state whose minds (through accident) had surrendered to pure sensation. There was nobody left "at the wheel". That is how these "spiritual experiences" sound to my ears. And heck, I can be wrong. I can certainly be wrong.

  But, the red flag for me is that it is all so subjective, vague, inarticulate and touch-feely. I was in Federal Prison for two years with (among other persons) people who were busted for drugs. Their attempts to justify drugs was just as inept, subjective, vague and inarticulate. They just LIKED THE FEELING and craved the irresponsibility of being in a mind cocoon.

  I'm not labeling SPIRITUAL people as drug-takers or mindless daffodils. I'm just saying these explanations make them ___sound___that way.

  I could be the one who is mindless; but, it isn't through lack of effort trying to grasp the ineffable.

  I've come to see that most (if not all) MYSTICAL experiences are just like wishful-thinking; they are idealized make-believe unconnected to demonstrable fact. Mystics always require you to simply accept (without proof) that what they are saying is terrific, wonderful, transcendant and available to you too if you just relax your mind and surrender to the moment.

  Well, I'm reserving the right not to surrender without a fight :)

  Terry