Dimensions of Bliss

I keep saying to myself that I will write an essay about similarities between speaking in tongues, mantras, and effects of hallucinogenic drugs. I've experienced all three. There are parallels. But those parallels aren't straight; they twine.

I guess I could throw in something about the richness of group experiences, for lack of a better way of saying it. Yet, that aspect (the group experience) is a bit different from the three experiences listed in the first paragraph. The first three don't necessarily happen in a group. They can, but they are more intimate, more personal. Hmm, at least in one sense.

Yesterday, or maybe it was the day before, I wrote a memoir piece. As I was writing and putting my self back into the scene, I could see the relationship, I could feel the relationship, between a multi-level marketing gathering and a gathering of The Way International.

There were times in The Way, like attending The Way Advanced Class or experiencing The Way Corps or attending a weekend Way Advance, times I'd tell people that they'd have "to go to know," they'd have to attend the gatherings to understand the experience. There was nothing else to compare the experience to. The experience was like the chewy, caramel center of God's heart. It was rich and lush and deep. It was like another level of life. It was experiencing the breadth and length and depth and height. It was like another dimension for which there are no words.

At one time I thought that the "true" experience was unique to The Way, that the experience was the Body of believers lush with God's love, living what is called the "Mystery" in the book of Ephesians in the Bible. Any similar experiences, outside The Way, I once believed were counterfeit, were a trick of the spiritual dark side to lure one away from the "true" experience.

I now have a different opinion, about that.

Experience. Experience.

Come to think of it, my weekend of Transcendental Meditation rounding had a similar feel. Hm, no surprise.

Well then, if it feels so good, is it wrong?

I don't think so, not necessarily. I think it becomes "wrong" when a person turns off their critical thinking skills. When one begins to think "this is it." When one believes that this is unique and cannot be found elsewhere outside that environment.

It's kind of like getting high, in that one can recognize (hopefully) they are high and that their perception is distorted. Or say, when a salesperson is convincing a buyer that she needs to buy that product right at that moment. That's a distortion, at least most of the time.

Perhaps I'll get around to sharing my experiences and the similarities between mantras, speaking in tongues, and LSD/et al. At times, they were all 'cosmic;' they all felt supernatural.

"Ema." That is my Transcendental Meditation mantra. I received it in 1975 when I was 16. Here, check out the mantra list! :-D

"Le quiote mai yuma hental." That's speaking in tongues (SIT). I first spoke in tongues in 1977 when I was 18. There's no list for SIT. I guess it beats mantras for originality. (No offense God.)

BTW, I still speak in tongues at times, especially when I am hiking alone in the woods. I'll make up tunes and sing too; I like it. It's quite "blissful" for me. ;-)

I guess people who are deaf and mute cannot speak in tongues? Or repeat a mantra? Hmmm...

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