About the Website
This website is about the attempt to explain those rare moments in life when one feels the full force of the universe, when we are one with the world--connected, invincible, all-knowing. When we are God-like, or at least in touch with something other people call God. The words we use to attempt to describe these moments are varied but often instantly recognizable.
Terms that have been applied as people try to explain these experiences include:
- peak experience
- conversion experience
- moment of illumination
- euphoria
- birth should have been like that
- religious ecstasy
- visionary experience
- silver lining behind everything around me
- contact with God
Hopefully by reading the collected anecdotes and thoughts here you will begin to feel a connection and perceive these patterns in your own life. Perhaps they will remind you of an experience you would like to share. If so, please submit your experience by clicking on the "Submit Your Moment" tab above. You may remember the moment as deeply important in your life. Conversely, you may have minimized it or blocked it out because it is so hard to explain. In either case, it is important to share it.You can submit your moment through the link at the top of the page for inclusion in the site. Please do so!
Terms that have been applied as people try to explain these experiences include:
- peak experience
- conversion experience
- moment of illumination
- euphoria
- birth should have been like that
- religious ecstasy
- visionary experience
- silver lining behind everything around me
- contact with God
Hopefully by reading the collected anecdotes and thoughts here you will begin to feel a connection and perceive these patterns in your own life. Perhaps they will remind you of an experience you would like to share. If so, please submit your experience by clicking on the "Submit Your Moment" tab above. You may remember the moment as deeply important in your life. Conversely, you may have minimized it or blocked it out because it is so hard to explain. In either case, it is important to share it.You can submit your moment through the link at the top of the page for inclusion in the site. Please do so!
Three Points of Direction
1) We have many moment of being at harmony with the world around us. It is when you are in the zone, when the jagged edges of life smooth out. It may be walking down a sidewalk and the crowds part for you, something you are writing suddenly flows, a perfect sliver of light falls on the wall in front of you and you are aware enough to perceive it. Those moments are to be treasured. You can have these more often if you are focused on developing your self-awareness.
2) But there is another class of moments that are very, very rare. Some of us have just one in our lives, others a few, others none that we recognize. When you have one, you will never forget it. If you have had such a moment in your life, something you have never been able to explain fully to another because it was so powerful, you may recognize similar descriptions here. These moments are the focus of Everything is Connected.
3) None of these moments are identical, but they are all important. Perhaps, as Jain religious theory claims, they are moments of enlightenment on the path between levels of consciousness. You may have not had a moment like this for many lifetimes before. Perhaps Jainism is bogus and there is another explanation. Please provide your thoughts, and together we will keep trying to explain these moments of such immense feeling and importance.
2) But there is another class of moments that are very, very rare. Some of us have just one in our lives, others a few, others none that we recognize. When you have one, you will never forget it. If you have had such a moment in your life, something you have never been able to explain fully to another because it was so powerful, you may recognize similar descriptions here. These moments are the focus of Everything is Connected.
3) None of these moments are identical, but they are all important. Perhaps, as Jain religious theory claims, they are moments of enlightenment on the path between levels of consciousness. You may have not had a moment like this for many lifetimes before. Perhaps Jainism is bogus and there is another explanation. Please provide your thoughts, and together we will keep trying to explain these moments of such immense feeling and importance.
My Story
I have had two experiences that I will never forget, and still struggle to explain. The search for explanation, and for more such moments, are the reason for this site.
Studying outside on a brilliant sunny day in late spring, I sat on a grassy hill by a walking path. A deep relaxation fell over me. I felt the blanket beneath me, the slight breeze, the sun on my face with increasing intensity until it was as if each atom of my body was sensing contact with the air and ground. As some friends approached and I talked to them, I felt a great levity, an effortlessness in all living. Beyond that, I felt that I understood completely and utterly each person around me, and I had a sense of pure empathy for each of them. Then I realized it was a feeling beyond empathy--rather I felt that I was one with them and with all other people in the world. I perceived a thin silver lining, a glow, around each person and even other living things, such as the trees that surrounded us. I could feel, and almost see, a shimmering web connecting everything before me to everything else in the universe. I laughed occasionally at the simultaneous joy and irrevocable sadness of life and death, but somehow both emotions were completely exhilarating and I was not bothered by the awareness of death. The sensation lasted for about half an hour before gradually fading away. A residual sense of bliss lingered for the rest of the day, and in some ways lingers to this day.
A few years later, I was traveling and spent the day in Heidelberg, Germany. I was absorbed in War and Peace, reading it at every opportunity. I went for a walk in the hills around the city, with a bag carrying the novel, a knife, and sausages, bread, tomatoes, cheese and water. I found a large rock in a clearing off of the path and sat down in mottled shade. As I sat alone on the rock, drinking in Tolstoy's prose and eating crudely-built sandwiches, I felt a deep, complete euphoria. I was giddy with the complex richness of life and amazed at the ecstasy of art. Again the feeling lasted for some time, before gently fading away into a subdued elevated state that lingered for days. This experience was far less spiritual than the first. It was more connected to the joy of Living, while the first experience was on a higher spiritual plane.
Studying outside on a brilliant sunny day in late spring, I sat on a grassy hill by a walking path. A deep relaxation fell over me. I felt the blanket beneath me, the slight breeze, the sun on my face with increasing intensity until it was as if each atom of my body was sensing contact with the air and ground. As some friends approached and I talked to them, I felt a great levity, an effortlessness in all living. Beyond that, I felt that I understood completely and utterly each person around me, and I had a sense of pure empathy for each of them. Then I realized it was a feeling beyond empathy--rather I felt that I was one with them and with all other people in the world. I perceived a thin silver lining, a glow, around each person and even other living things, such as the trees that surrounded us. I could feel, and almost see, a shimmering web connecting everything before me to everything else in the universe. I laughed occasionally at the simultaneous joy and irrevocable sadness of life and death, but somehow both emotions were completely exhilarating and I was not bothered by the awareness of death. The sensation lasted for about half an hour before gradually fading away. A residual sense of bliss lingered for the rest of the day, and in some ways lingers to this day.
A few years later, I was traveling and spent the day in Heidelberg, Germany. I was absorbed in War and Peace, reading it at every opportunity. I went for a walk in the hills around the city, with a bag carrying the novel, a knife, and sausages, bread, tomatoes, cheese and water. I found a large rock in a clearing off of the path and sat down in mottled shade. As I sat alone on the rock, drinking in Tolstoy's prose and eating crudely-built sandwiches, I felt a deep, complete euphoria. I was giddy with the complex richness of life and amazed at the ecstasy of art. Again the feeling lasted for some time, before gently fading away into a subdued elevated state that lingered for days. This experience was far less spiritual than the first. It was more connected to the joy of Living, while the first experience was on a higher spiritual plane.
