A few years ago, I had an experience that completely changed the course of my life, especially my philosophical work. After much contemplation and research, I have found that what I felt possessed all the characteristics of a mystical experience.
I experienced an overwhelming and powerful current of love wash over and possess me. My will felt as if it was no longer my own. I had the intuition of an ancient, primal love working through me that took possession of my actions and my thoughts. There was still a vestige of my personality, but I was no longer actively willing or desiring anything, just observing this current of love acting through me. For the first time in my life, I understood what it meant to have faith from a place of love instead of fear. Not faith in anyone or thing in particular, just faith in love. As long as the grace of this life-giving force acted through me, I could do no wrong.
I felt whole, like what I had been missing my whole life was there all along waiting for me to turn around and see it. This ineffable experience possessed the character of Truth to a greater extent than any intellectual or philosophical form of contemplation I had previously undertaken.
And yet, despite my immediate intuitive apprehension of all of this, I could not for the life of me describe what I was feeling. Any attempt to translate what I was experiencing into words felt like desecration, and all I wanted was to lay and feel in silence.
At the time, I was reading Pierre Hadot's book on Plotinus. This was a very happy coincidence, given that Plotinus’ descriptions of his own mystical experiences of unity with the Good resembled what I had felt:
“As a gift of the Good, Plotinian love is immediately love of the Good. It is the invasion of the soul by a presence which leaves no room for anything but itself… It is as if the Good, in its pure presence, were itself ineffable delight; and as if the soul, too, by becoming the Good, wholly became the satisfaction the Good derives from itself. In the final analysis, the Good itself is Love.”
Having for many years been a follower of Nietzsche and vehemently denied the kind of transcendental Goodness that Plotinus and Plato spoke of, I was surprised to find myself taking Plato and Plotinus very seriously.
This experience opened up a whole new world to me that I had previously been closed off to. I started to find that mysticism runs through many religious and philosophical traditions. I began to study Zen Buddhism and, more recently, Christian mysticism more seriously, and validation of my experience could be found in the mysticism of many traditions.
I was especially delighted to find that William James, the father of American psychology and author of The Varieities of Religious Experience, took these experiences seriously and suggested that there were four main features that characterize a mystical experience, all of which were present in mine: ineffability, noetic quality (a state of deep insight), transiency, and passivity (“the mystic feels as if his own will were in abeyance, and indeed sometimes as if he were grasped and held by a superior power.”)
And yet, despite all this research, validation, and reflection on my mystical experience, I still have periods where I feel extreme doubt and anguish. I wonder sometimes if the drastic changes to my lifestyle and philosophical work that this experience prompted were warranted. Does it make sense to let one brief experience completely change the course of my life? What if it was just a peculiar state of consciousness that expressed nothing but a rare brain-state? But most of all, I often feel angry and abandoned because I haven't experienced anything like that ever since. The indignation and doubt often haunt me, as they did when they inspired the poem below. But at the end of the day, I still hold on to the love and the insights from that day with every fiber of my being, hoping that one day that tremendous Love will seize me once again. For now, the best I can do is to try to embody and spread the grace that was imparted to me.
In the stillness of the light, I hear birds singing and children playing, As my body celebrates Spring's first signs of life. It's almost a consolation For my soul's desire For the divine light. I look at the speckled leaves of the pine, Reflecting the golden sun, Hoping its beauty Will lead to ecstasy. The sun sets behind the mountains. The final embers of the day Burn behind the peaks. I hear the hoot of an owl. All this beauty around me, But I'm still yearning. Where is that divine love That once possessed me So completely? That acted through me And revealed eternity? I am forever grateful for the secrets Of faith and love, But I am afraid no other beauty Will ever do. Maybe it's waiting For that complete surrender It found that fateful day. It's cold. The embers are red now. Perhaps it's time To let my attachment To detachment Burn. Did midnight come at sunset? I pray: The annihilation of my will May be complete, So I may be reborn In the humility Of that infinite grace.