All Comments (7)

WENDY- its interesting that your parents strict secularism forced you to be secret about your spiritual leanings- intolerance can come from any mindset- non eare immune-

BOB- this isnt an ordinary experience-
and it is probably one ofthe most inclusionary experiences a human can experience-
its true- often a person does have to be in deep searching and despair to have these little preternatural occurences- i think that it requires a deep level of submission to our own powerlessness- and a subjugation of the self and ego that are herculean and without ecpectation- a great and abnormal confusion followed by greater clarity-

i suspect many dont ever have the ability to let go of their feeling of control over things-

my last and final little switching of tracks on the railroad of life was similar in feeling- but it happened in a house- and my despair was registered as the exact opposite- being surrounded by concrete walls in a deep well- the exact opposite of a natural experience-

if others feel excluded- they are doing it to themselves and its their choice-

everybody has their own ways of feeling their way to their own answers-

BILL C- i for one care- not much fodder indeed and i dont miss the usual vitriol and desparate vying for attention and superiority that often accomanies more sensational wrath inducing posts-

i have a feeling that many read it and feel calmed by it and dont find it necessary to add anything because its been so eloquently and simply said by the panelist.

I posted the above.

Again, we get the rather ordinary human experience of integration with nature, the awareness of human consciousness available to all human beings all the time, and experienced daily by any child:

"when I was 15 years old, I found myself in complete, near-suicidal despair, suffering from unrequited love and a kind of late-adolescent metaphysical desperation, flailing about . . . Then something happened. . . it felt like suddenly being warmed and then suffused first by the sun and then by the flickering images of the branches of the trees and the shapes of the clouds drifting by above me and the salt taste of the sea breezes and the sound of the surf. It was a sudden realization that they were all beautiful, all good, and all simultaneously a part of me and a part of some all-encompassing source of love, a power that pervaded the universe with compassion."

I'm happy for Wendy. Notice how everyone has essentially the same experience, but how quickly it gets taken to absurd doctrines which try to usurp the common human experience and turn it into something only a "chosen" can dogmatically share to the exclusion of "others".

Not ture for the LA Times atheists guy, Bill C.

Maybe they should have called for everyone's personal experiences. One doesn't even have to have had one. The best one's are fiction anyhow. Religion is a drug akin to extasy where people fantisize all sorts of things and get their jollys all tuned up.

There's always a trip to the funny farm where one can converse with Napaleon and find out what really happened at Waterloo. More interesting than many of these "real" experiences posted here.

This question to the panel has been a true dud. Who cares about personal experiences. All it proves is that they had one. Not much fodder for discussion as evidenced by the drastically lower number of reader comments.

I have read in here many testimonies (not necessarily this one) of Creation from the Nothingness of the body to the transcended being usually occurring at such a time when we are in the dark and desperate. (This experience is claimed by followers as being saved by Grace, and since this experience is not shared by everybody, are we privileged or has belief led us here!). After the experience, we eventually follow a choice made during the metaphysical experience and solidify it in our vocation.

In the state of Nothingness, our physical existence alone deteriorates and tends to self destruct as discovered in the splitting of the atom. Usually when detachments of the self leave us vulnerable, it makes room for creation to transcend our body into a higher realm. Rather than influenced by selfish material desires of the body, our minds take over the decision making, and usually towards the common good.

While pure principles are prevalent in our decisions, we are free within the worldly existence and its laws to make our decisions. Freedom of the Spirit is innocent to the law and expectation – 'St Paul'.

Interesting spiritual experience, life saving even.

Isn't the University of Chicago the place where Wong and others discovered that human sperm is competitive sort of comfirming "natural selection" for humans too?

There's an essay on sex at http://www.hoax-buster.org/sex claiming that sex is man's favorite subject. Well, after spirituality of course.

Is life actually sexually transmitted?