It seems like you believe this is the most rational way to go, but you actually go against it. It’s really interesting.
Seriously, I found your story really fascinating. If I had an experience like that, it would be tough to stay rational. But rationality is all we have in trying to be accurate. I figure it’s better than just believing things.
How exactly did your experience begin? Did you do anything that you hadn’t done before?
First of all, thanks must go to OTavern who just introduced the phrase “of the numinous” to me, which has led me to another term, “Mysterium Tremendum Fascinans” and another book to read, The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto. I had never heard of this before, but the synopses really resonate. Thanks.
Rainier, if I get too much into an experience that I had, someone might jump on the rule about unapproved private revelations, although I don’t think that I could violate that rule because there were were no visions, no voices, no “extra knowledge” downloaded into my brain (“I know Kung Fu”), or anything like that. What I had (IMO) was an extra-rational, beyond rational, non-rational (not “irrational”) experience. I have not really unpacked the experience much yet, though, so until I do, I’m not sure I can be the best proponent of this kind of thing. To be honest, for whatever reason, I did not feel that it was right to dwell on the experience, but to rather just let the experience point me in the right direction and move on. I recorded some it in writing before it faded so that I could go back an reexamine it (see how rational I am?) some day, but I have not done that yet. It just seemed too self indulgent and sort of spiritually gluttonous to dwell on it. Some day there may be a good reason to examine this, for instance, so that I can explain it to people who want to understand these things. But for now, I have my hands plenty full with playing catch up with all the things that I should have learned about my Faith.
You want me to be all rational, and I’m going to get all mystical on you. I can tell you, for whatever it’s worth, that I am now very turned off by these new age types, with their hybrid eastern mysticism, trying to “empty the self” to attain “oneness with all that is.” My personal sense is that this is all false and dangerous. We empty ourselves to allow room for God, not to create a vacuum as if the emptiness itself is some sort of ideal. And we should not attempt not attain some supposed oneness with all that is in some kind of pulverization of identity, but rather we experience the “otherness” of the Infinite God in ways that leave us with a sense of the inadequacy of our language for describing such an experience, the limitations of our emotions for identifying the feeling, and the limitations of our intellect for fully grasping the experience. Like I said, I had a deep sense of “knowing” of truth, but no “extra knowledge” that didn’t exist before. As for “feeling”, I once described the feeling by saying, “you know those wheels that show emotions going in a circle? Well, I have a powerful emotion that is nowhere to be found on that wheel.” And, I did not go into a lotus position – I got my butt to confession as fast as I could because I was scared, and knew I had good cause to be.
I really was made to know that there is a God, that we are insignificant creatures but that we are loved more than we could ever comprehend, that despite our insignificance, we are deeply respected by God, that we must work to attain perfection, and that doing so requires us to act and think in ways that are often laughed at by modern society, that we have a model for our actions in God’s only son Jesus, without whose sacrifice we would be lost, and the richest, deepest, most intellectual, most spiritual, and most physical (yes, physical) expressions in this journey to perfection are found in the Catholic church.
No, I don’t think that I did anything that I had not done before, except that I did not block it, which might be different from past occasions. It began like I said in the other post. Gradually, vaguely, as a thought and feeling that I allowed to grow. It was gentle (which is why I think some people anthropomorphize the Holy Spirit as a woman) but powerful. I believe that I could have rejected the experience if I wanted at any time. The intensity faded after a few weeks, which was a loss, but in a way is good, because it was a little bit hard to function when the world itself seemed insignificant. That’s not to say that I did not love the world because I actually loved the world more, I just didn’t “cling” to it. There are similarities now when I pray like I should where the world takes on an appearance of closeness yet distance, like I have one foot here and one foot almost in the next world. It’s hard to explain, but lots of people here know exactly what I’m talking about.
