Out of the mouths of babes...

[Busby]

The cause of me being on this forum is an experience I had as a lad of about nine or ten. Say 1947/48. Then the streets were empty of traffic and we played all sorts of games on the roads. For football we'd just throw pullies or jackets onto the ground to mark goals, for cricket we'd draw stumps on walls ..and so on. We were perfectly happy although all around us was the remaining devastation of the war - which took years to be cleared away.
One day, in the middle of playing a game of football, I suddenly had to stand still and look because it hit me with full force - the realisation that that all around me; the houses, the bushes, the roads, in fact everything was absolutely impossible. I did indeed perceive the outside world, that solid world which hurts when you fall on it, as a lie. This overbearing moment of conscious awakening (or whatever) set me off on a search which has lasted more than 7 decades. These 7 decades have led me into many and varied fields and I've read about, seen, heard and experienced many strange, odd and inexplicable 'things'.

In the years following that moment on the streets of London I've had 15 more astounding, inexplicable, interludes of what I prefer to call cosmic consciousness or cosmic insights - these I look upon as being the fruits of my efforts to find anything which will or could give a clue as to what this thing called life is all about.

It is clear to me that there is a force (I'm not giving it any name here) in which we are embedded or surrounded and which gives us the opportunity to exist in this state or condition we call consciousness. I am also of the opinion that consciousness is all there is and forms the backdrop for everything and is in itself boundless. It was this, then for me indiscernable knowledge that hit so hard when I was ten years old.

Originally Posted by ketzer

Interesting. Perhaps what is surprising is not that he is so young to be saying such, but maybe that he is so old. I often wonder if in growing up, we paper over the knowledge we had before birth, with the knowledge and facts that we are taught by the world. We create within us, our model of the "real world" and our model of "our selves", and they take up so much of our attention and time that our mind is far to busy with life to be aware of the knowledge we still hold deep within. Maybe he is telling you what any 3 month old baby knows, but doesn't have the words to express. By the time one does learn the right words, perhaps most are too preoccupied with all the new things to learn from the life experience and have forgotten about it. Most, but perhaps not all.

Children are allowed to use imagination and play "make believe", adults are expected to know what is real and what is not. And so we meet that expectation or at least try to fake it. But how good a job of categorizing we have done is a question that is hard to answer. Personally, I have found I was much too quick to judge when placing things into the not real category, and now I have much left to unlearn.

Love this reply. As far as my son is concerned, I have always felt like he had an "old head on young shoulders".. I feel he's been here before. Aged about 7 he was always more comfortable sitting in a room chatting with adults rather than playing in other room with siblings/ cousins...

Originally Posted by Busby

The cause of me being on this forum is an experience I had as a lad of about nine or ten. Say 1947/48. Then the streets were empty of traffic and we played all sorts of games on the roads. For football we'd just throw pullies or jackets onto the ground to mark goals, for cricket we'd draw stumps on walls ..and so on. We were perfectly happy although all around us was the remaining devastation of the war - which took years to be cleared away.
One day, in the middle of playing a game of football, I suddenly had to stand still and look because it hit me with full force - the realisation that that all around me; the houses, the bushes, the roads, in fact everything was absolutely impossible. I did indeed perceive the outside world, that solid world which hurts when you fall on it, as a lie. This overbearing moment of conscious awakening (or whatever) set me off on a search which has lasted more than 7 decades. These 7 decades have led me into many and varied fields and I've read about, seen, heard and experienced many strange, odd and inexplicable 'things'.

In the years following that moment on the streets of London I've had 15 more astounding, inexplicable, interludes of what I prefer to call cosmic consciousness or cosmic insights - these I look upon as being the fruits of my efforts to find anything which will or could give a clue as to what this thing called life is all about.

It is clear to me that there is a force (I'm not giving it any name here) in which we are embedded or surrounded and which gives us the opportunity to exist in this state or condition we call consciousness. I am also of the opinion that consciousness is all there is and forms the backdrop for everything and is in itself boundless. It was this, then for me indiscernable knowledge that hit so hard when I was ten years old.

Hi Busby... Beautiful story. And wonderful knowledge. I believe you were truelly being shown the truth.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by Busby

The cause of me being on this forum is
an experience I had as a lad of about nine or ten.
...it hit me with full force - the realisation that that
all around me; the houses, the bushes, the roads, in fact,
everything was absolutely impossible.
I did indeed perceive the outside world,
that solid world which hurts when you fall on it, as a lie.

... conscious awakening....

In the years following that moment on the streets of London I've had 15 more astounding,
inexplicable, interludes of what I prefer to call cosmic consciousness or cosmic insights ...

I am also of the opinion that consciousness is all there is and forms the backdrop for everything and is in itself boundless.

The bolded jumped out for me, Busby.
I never knew this about you, that I remember anyway.
I did have to look hard to see ...'Did I write this?' Lol.

Cosmic Consciousness is an amazing thing - it elevates us, common people, to heights the great saints
and mystics of all cultures experienced.

It takes a child into the wisdom his soul knows and just left!
I do tend to think our past lives of God-focus paved the way.
Cuz we both know, as children we didn't 'deserve' such blessings, nor all
the other many many Divine moments when the Doors of Perception were inexplicably opened to us,
seeing this that we see is not real, at all.
I think we both were lead to find out what is.

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

The bolded jumped out for me, Busby.
I never knew this about you, that I remember anyway.
I did have to look hard to see ...'Did I write this?' Lol.

Cosmic Consciousness is an amazing thing - it elevates us, common people, to heights the great saints
and mystics of all cultures experienced.

It takes a child into the wisdom his soul knows and just left!
I do tend to think our past lives of God-focus paved the way.
Cuz we both know, as children we didn't 'deserve' such blessings, nor all
the other many many Divine moments when the Doors of Perception were inexplicably opened to us,
seeing this that we see is not real, at all.
I think we both were lead to find out what is.

Lovely....

[AnotherBob]

Thanks for this thread! Just came across it. The theme brought to mind an experience to share:

I was eight years old, and had just returned from the Catholic Youth Organization summer camp. When I stepped off the bus back in San Francisco, after 2 wonderful weeks of being on my own for the first time, I was so overwhelmed with joy to see my family again that I fell into a kind of swoon. In the process, the world which I had known up to this point, and which I had naturally taken to be all that is, was suddenly dissolved before me, as if it had all been a long day-dream, and now I was startled awake.

I do not know exactly what happened next, but when I opened my eyes, I was lying on a couch in my parent’s house. I realized that these people – my family — were not real, but more like dream characters. Yes, it was as if I had awoken from a dream, but I was somehow still within it, and I became fearful that I had somehow lost my mind. I wanted my family back!

I had no frame of reference for any of this, but then I became oddly detached from the fear, and began adapting to these strange new circumstances. I wanted things to be like they were before, but something told me that they never could be again – I had seen too much, and I could never go back to the reality I had once taken for granted. Now I had recognized it for its essential impermanence. It had no real substance. I now knew first-hand that whatever appears can just as easily disappear, that there is nothing solid to count on, nowhere to find certainty or security.

A man leaned over me. I recognized the family doctor, feeling my pulse, listening to my heartbeat through his stethoscope, and taking my temperature. All the while, there was only this “internal” sense of an I-presence, though not so much as an individual person, but more as a focus of awareness in the midst of an unfolding dreamscape. There seemed a very thin boundary separating inner and outer — an arbitrary one that depended on attention to hold it in place.

After some time, the doctor apparently could find nothing wrong, and we had a “welcome home” dinner later, while I attempted to adjust to a dramatically transformed perspective. I felt a strange mixture of familiarity and affection, combined with a new-found detachment, as I sat with my dream family. I had nothing to say, and I remained very quiet for a long time afterwards.
For the rest of the summer, I lay out on the backyard lawn, watching the clouds trailing through sky, and inhaling the fresh earth, redolent with the fragrance of growing things. If I allowed my attention to go there, I could enter into the tiny shoots of tubers and experience their sensations as they reached through the soil into the light – it was amazing!

At school in the fall, I lost all interest in the lessons, falling into the swoon more often than not. I would suddenly find myself in a room with other children, then I was somehow lying down in my backyard; it was night, it was day, none of it had any substantiality, everything was one piece, just like a piece of smoke. I was in love with this, but I didn’t know what any of it was, nor did it even matter – everything simply was what it was, empty and full, without need for naming or grasping.

People seemed familiar, but were weirdly interchangeable with trees, bicycles . . . it was all breathing, vanishing, appearing, changing; it was all transparent, it was me, but I didn’t know what that was — it didn’t even occur to me. It was already gone before it could solidify enough to be grasped, like river water flowing through one’s fingers.

Sometimes I would find that I had wandered 8 blocks or so down to the Pacific Ocean, through Golden Gate Park, and I was standing at the edge of the surf, but didn’t remember how I got there, so what — just the feel of the water lapping at my toes thrilled me with an indescribable ecstasy, there was no other day than this one.

Sometimes when I was asleep, I found myself practicing flying, and I was able to fly all over the neighborhood, swooping and diving and soaring at great speeds. I also realized I had this huge love in my heart which felt like an intense hopeless ache — a kind of subtle wound which, if given attention, would prompt spontaneous tears, not of sadness, but a kind of ecstatic longing or divine homesickness. I really had/have no words that can describe it any better.

Anyway, I eventually began assuming the conventions of my young peers — joining in the sports games, laughing at the jokes, collecting baseball cards, and listening to the ingenious little portable transistor radios that had just come on the market. It was all a kind of game, like “Let’s Pretend”, although they all seemed to take everything so seriously, as if it was all real. At any rate, I went along. There was no resistance. It was “no big deal.” In time, it became second nature – just going along, pretending.

Originally Posted by AnotherBob

Thanks for this thread! Just came across it. The theme brought to mind an experience to share:

I was eight years old, and had just returned from the Catholic Youth Organization summer camp. When I stepped off the bus back in San Francisco, after 2 wonderful weeks of being on my own for the first time, I was so overwhelmed with joy to see my family again that I fell into a kind of swoon. In the process, the world which I had known up to this point, and which I had naturally taken to be all that is, was suddenly dissolved before me, as if it had all been a long day-dream, and now I was startled awake.

I do not know exactly what happened next, but when I opened my eyes, I was lying on a couch in my parent’s house. I realized that these people – my family — were not real, but more like dream characters. Yes, it was as if I had awoken from a dream, but I was somehow still within it, and I became fearful that I had somehow lost my mind. I wanted my family back!

I had no frame of reference for any of this, but then I became oddly detached from the fear, and began adapting to these strange new circumstances. I wanted things to be like they were before, but something told me that they never could be again – I had seen too much, and I could never go back to the reality I had once taken for granted. Now I had recognized it for its essential impermanence. It had no real substance. I now knew first-hand that whatever appears can just as easily disappear, that there is nothing solid to count on, nowhere to find certainty or security.

A man leaned over me. I recognized the family doctor, feeling my pulse, listening to my heartbeat through his stethoscope, and taking my temperature. All the while, there was only this “internal” sense of an I-presence, though not so much as an individual person, but more as a focus of awareness in the midst of an unfolding dreamscape. There seemed a very thin boundary separating inner and outer — an arbitrary one that depended on attention to hold it in place.

After some time, the doctor apparently could find nothing wrong, and we had a “welcome home” dinner later, while I attempted to adjust to a dramatically transformed perspective. I felt a strange mixture of familiarity and affection, combined with a new-found detachment, as I sat with my dream family. I had nothing to say, and I remained very quiet for a long time afterwards.
For the rest of the summer, I lay out on the backyard lawn, watching the clouds trailing through sky, and inhaling the fresh earth, redolent with the fragrance of growing things. If I allowed my attention to go there, I could enter into the tiny shoots of tubers and experience their sensations as they reached through the soil into the light – it was amazing!

At school in the fall, I lost all interest in the lessons, falling into the swoon more often than not. I would suddenly find myself in a room with other children, then I was somehow lying down in my backyard; it was night, it was day, none of it had any substantiality, everything was one piece, just like a piece of smoke. I was in love with this, but I didn’t know what any of it was, nor did it even matter – everything simply was what it was, empty and full, without need for naming or grasping.

People seemed familiar, but were weirdly interchangeable with trees, bicycles . . . it was all breathing, vanishing, appearing, changing; it was all transparent, it was me, but I didn’t know what that was — it didn’t even occur to me. It was already gone before it could solidify enough to be grasped, like river water flowing through one’s fingers.

Sometimes I would find that I had wandered 8 blocks or so down to the Pacific Ocean, through Golden Gate Park, and I was standing at the edge of the surf, but didn’t remember how I got there, so what — just the feel of the water lapping at my toes thrilled me with an indescribable ecstasy, there was no other day than this one.

Sometimes when I was asleep, I found myself practicing flying, and I was able to fly all over the neighborhood, swooping and diving and soaring at great speeds. I also realized I had this huge love in my heart which felt like an intense hopeless ache — a kind of subtle wound which, if given attention, would prompt spontaneous tears, not of sadness, but a kind of ecstatic longing or divine homesickness. I really had/have no words that can describe it any better.

Anyway, I eventually began assuming the conventions of my young peers — joining in the sports games, laughing at the jokes, collecting baseball cards, and listening to the ingenious little portable transistor radios that had just come on the market. It was all a kind of game, like “Let’s Pretend”, although they all seemed to take everything so seriously, as if it was all real. At any rate, I went along. There was no resistance. It was “no big deal.” In time, it became second nature – just going along, pretending.

Wow Bob... And firstly Thank you so much for sharing this incredible story of "you". Absolutly amazing. For one so young to experience all of this is wonderful. I can image at that tender age how confusing and alarming this must have been. On the other hand, does a child so young just "accept" that this is what happens as part of everyday life?. I Too go flying all over the place, across my local area etc, and the sense of freedom and exhilaration is lovely. Our natural state of being , I would think. Please keep sharing, as this is music to my ears !!!

[AnotherBob]

Thanks Elfin! Yes, I do think children are generally more accepting of whatever appears, since their fear complex hasn't become entrenched yet.

Originally Posted by AnotherBob

Thanks Elfin! Yes, I do think children are generally more accepting of whatever appears, since their fear complex hasn't become entrenched yet.

Hi.. yes. And I think children , up until around 7 are born with all the knowledge, but then spend a whole lifetime remembering it again.

[AnotherBob]

Ironically, the Catholic doctrine considers the age of 7 as "the age of reason", which in effect means that the child would be conditioned enough by the prevailing reality/morality descriptions to be able to differentiate the nominal "right & wrong" behaviors in that culture. Some mystics claim to have gone beyond reason, which historically may have put many of them at odds with the dominant culture's protocols in that regard -- the same cultures habitually rhapsodizing on the innocence of little ones. This is cognitive dissonance, a commonly shared malady of the perceptual/interpretive mechanism.