A true silent black enveloping conscious

[ste20man]

Hello!

I'm coming round again after I don't know how many years.

It's time now.

I have a question I need to ask because it scares me a little ( very little now to be honest ) and I'm just a curious person. Ten years ago I was very depressed, maybe even clinically and I had an event that you just don't forget. One that changes you.

I was in my room, crushed on the floor and a silent, black and almost shimmering blackness completely surrounded me. I'm not talking about turning off the light, I'm talking about a silent consciousness that filled my mind and all around. This thing was awake and aware and it wasn't saying anything. It was just consciously letting me know that it was conscious at least to my level. It didn't express anything apart from the fact it was completely conscious. Silent. Waiting.

Obviously this is not an every day occorence, and nothing like this had ever happened to me before. I got quiet real quick, like if you're backed up in a bad situation and you're desperately trying to find some way out. But there was none, that became obvious straight away. I guess you could name it like looking over the wall that was undersea in the film the Abyss. It was on that kind of black magnitude, conscious, unnatural and far bigger than anything that I knew as "human".

In truth I had travelled down every road in my life, I had done all paths that I could think to do. As I quickly thought I realised in the face of this I had absolutely nowhere left to go. I didn't feel sorrow, I just understood the finality of this situation. I couldn't go back, this enveloping silent darkness wouldn't let me I believe, looking back. That was definitely how I felt in the moment. Sometimes, you are just forced to things.

And so, as every hopeful option faded away, I had only one choice.

I was raised as a catholic, but I had long left that behind. But in the face of something so unknowable, something so unbelievably conscious and waiting, I sent up the smallest of prayers. I just sent up the smallest of genuine and honest prayers that there might be something bigger than me, bigger than this. For the first time in my life, I actually prayed to what I hoped would be some kind of God.

And then, knowing I had truly nowhere left to turn, I 'dove in'.

Looking and thinking back, that was true madness.

Not like jumping from a high wall, this could have ramifications for my soul.

If, I had one.

In that exact moment I was plunged into a sea of warm light. Infinite in scope, eternal in nature. I had no body, just my consciousness, I simply 'swam' around in pure ecstasy. I understood that this eternal sea had always existed and always would. It vibrated at a frequency of pure love and it washed all my pains away.

I remained there for a moment or an eternity, time does not exist.

Until my consciousness (I) perhaps 'remembered' that I did not have a body.

In that moment of fear I slid out (as best as I can describe - these are just words) and found myself lying on my bed crying, repeating the phrase, "I never knew it was so beautiful". And it was. It is.

It changes you, although nobody around me understood or believed what I was saying later. It didn't matter. It's like me asking someone to convey the feelings of having your first born. There are no words, there are no pictures, it is just a truth that cannot be tarnished or undone. And so that is what this is, I'm not trying to convince anybody of anything.

What I'm looking for is information and understanding.

I understand what the sea of light is, I get it, there is loads of names for it.

What I don't understand and can't find any information on is the back, oily, silent consciousness that came to me before. I want to know what that is.

I've looked through eastern texts but I can't find anything.

I remember some years ago an Indian spiritual teacher spoke of the black silent consciousness on a podcast I was listening to and he saiid himself

"It is madness to jump in there"

I am a mad guy, at least sometimes.

Being of my era I've though is it some kind of construct?

I just honestly don't know.

It has taken me a long time to get to a place where I am calm and at peace.

I have never been so content and happy.

I need nothing, I want for nothing.

I am at peace.

I am ready to move forward with my life now, I have finally stopped working against myself. It has taken a long time but I have my soul back, I feel and know it, it's an incredible realization on so many levels.

I can die today or live 50 years, I don't mind.

I've been working against myself for 35 years now. I am nothing if not determined. I am about to pick what I think is the right direction and take my first step forward.

I would just like to know what the black is.

It will not come for me again, I know.

I think I have gone beyond it.

I just think that if it has happened to one, it can happen to more.

I didn't get here by meditation, it might be very strange, I don't know.

I just hope one of you out there might know of what I speak.

Be it 1st, 2nd or 3rd hand.

Knowledge is knowledge, and you can't destroy a truth.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks for your time and help in advance, ste.

[Unseeking Seeker]

The inky black void can be disconcerting but if we remain calm, we can communicate with the benign presence that is it.

Light without contrast is black, so we can look at it like that too. It is our dependence on senses that makes us uncomfortable.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

It is our dependence on senses that makes us uncomfortable.

Oh, that makes sense.
Me? I was just in a childlike wonder to enter into this black, Void (I don't think I knew that word until reading Eastern books later.)...
I say - 'a Nothingness almost unimaginable'.
YET,
a Consciousness, a Pure Awareness, nothing else.
'Now' I would be able to say ...
a Witness or Observer...then....for me ...it moved into (now I laugh..), that that One Pure Awareness was ME! Hahahahaha...
oh words...how do you say these things.
Best said to someone who understands.

[Unseeking Seeker]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

that that One Pure Awareness was ME!

Speaking of which, after recognition of Self, by becoming It in active cognition, upon identity dropping away, no doubt we are in time dissolved ineffable peace and renewing Self within Self in its luminosity, in a state of completion and singularity but it yet needs to be determined what impulse then makes us descend to a lower state as of choiceless choice.

I look forward to your inputs on this …

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by Unseeking Seeker

...but it yet needs to be determined what impulse then makes us descend to a lower state as of choiceless choice.

Hi. :)First, I'm no intellectual or philosopher.
I don't see it as any mystery, tho, how sand slips out of our hand.
With the many, many distractions in life as simple as a pot boiling over or
a broken hinge our minds let the Oneness slip away sometimes ...it doesn't for everyone.
So the yogis, saints, gurus and masters have their jobs still; reminding us to keep placing that needle gently back into the groove, soon it will stop skipping.

And the obstacles, hurdles, challenges and struggles are part of the Divine Lila or Dance, Romance or the Cosmic Play, Game, Prize, Chase are there to overcome
to get back Home or to God or to that original Oneness of bliss, love, peace and wisdom...that was always 'there'.
It's built into the Divine Paradox to struggle for what is already there, ha!
My take. :)

[Ewwerrin]

I've had several of those bliss experiences in my life. They always last short. And it leaves me more sad that I cannot reproduce them. I wish that bliss experiences were the lowest possible state for all beings. And that there were only better things than it.

but most of my life is just coping with the moment. Often praying to that bliss or god or whatever it is, to come and pick me up, or help me. but it never comes.

Sometimes when I cry I get glimpses of what I am so missing. Those glimpses they last a second sometimes less. Not enough to hold on to it or focus upon it to expand upon it. Or even remember it. Just vague glimpse of happiness almost as short as a cough. Just glimpses of when I used to be happy. And a small hope that maybe it still exists in me or is possible to be happy again.

[Ewwerrin]

thanks for the story tho, ste20man, it was a nice read. I've never heard of a blackness leading to bliss. The closest thing I can think of is a short experience where I was attempting to become aware of my awareness, and like a repelling magnet it became more difficult and I was focused in utter darkness to align my awareness with my awareness and with all my effort something clicked and a burst of bliss love light infinite wisdom consciousness came pouring out, like I dug a hole in the veil through my efforts.

I haven't been able to reproduce that one either. So I can't say more about it either. Except that I, like always, know, there is something out there that is more than just sadness. but it's very rare.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by Ewwerrin

but it never comes.

Unsolicited advice? Change that thought and never say that phrase again.

Replace it with -"But I know it's coming or Hasn't come yet or It will happen when I allow it fully or It will happen at the perfect moment...
I know when I'm more open with total faith it will come again, yay!..."
See the difference?

Even seeing it in the future rather than the, "It is here now" is better than ''....but it never comes".

This is Allowing, Accepting, Being Open, Preparing 101.

[Starman]

ste20man, and in that experience of light your body was also made of that light. I have had that experience and it comes to me when I completely let go and do not expect it. It happens spontaneously. For me it felt like being in the womb, safe and secure at home. My interpretation is that my waking consciousness slipped into the radiance of my deeper being, or soul, whose fabric is amazing unconditional love and incredible light. The experience you have described is common.

As far as the blackness is concerned, my interpretation, the darkness is nothing more then the shadow of the light. We live in reflections of light here on Earth; physical existence is a dance of shadow and light. Reflections are shadows, and most are in the shadows, but in my opinion, all will come into the light. The shadows are thick with blackness below the surface; this is the same darkness which brings on depression, only made manifest as blackness as we move deeper past it towards the light.

Actually, the light is all there is; the rest of it is just a passing byproduct of physical existence, which has a duality created by reflections, in my opinion.

[iamthat]

Originally Posted by Starman

As far as the blackness is concerned, my interpretation, the darkness is nothing more then the shadow of the light. We live in reflections of light here on Earth; physical existence is a dance of shadow and light. Reflections are shadows, and most are in the shadows, but in my opinion, all will come into the light. The shadows are thick with blackness below the surface; this is the same darkness which brings on depression, only made manifest as blackness as we move deeper past it towards the light.

This suggests that the blackness is something negative to be avoided or transcended. Yet various traditions speak of the Void as a state of realisation.

You are much more familiar with the Kabbalah than I am, but my recollection is that the Kabbalah speaks of three veils above the Tree of Life:

1. Ain Soph Aur - limitless and eternal Light. This is the lowest veil.
2. Ain Soph - limitlessness, without boundaries. This is the middle veil.
3. Ain - nothing, absolute emptiness, the absence of anything. This is the highest veil.

So we have the idea that all Creation, including Light, manifests from Darkness.

I am never sure what to make of Samael Aun Weor but he does say:

Ancient wisdom states that darkness is in itself Father/Mother, and Light is its Child. It is said that the Absolute is darkness. Light emerges from darkness. The Uncreated Light of the Absolute emerges from the profound darkness of the great night. From this darkness, that does not have light, emerges the Uncreated Light. If we are placed in this darkness, we will see nothing but an abyss and profound darkness, but for the inhabitants of the Absolute, the Paramarthasattyas, this darkness is Uncreated Light, which is not created by any god or human being, and where only an inexhaustible happiness and inconceivable joy reigns.

Peace