leonardcohenforum.com

I let go and accepted in a way that maybe only young children can do. At that moment the terror changed to awe.

The fact of existance, how little we know, the miracle of it all filled me with awe. At this moment I felt something gently holding me - so gentle that I had hardly noticed it.

Jack, this experience fits in beautifully with the present Cohen reading.
It is also "numinous" moving into "mystical experience". It is the way home.
It is the goal of zazen (satori) and the view of Blake and other Mystics.

A mystical experience occurs beyond all senses and intillectual cognitions and can only ever be partially conceptualised and/or remembered. I would suggest that the highest moment of this sequence of events from little boy looking,,,falling among the stardust through numinous fear and awe to mystic union back to little boy lost; is the classical "mystical" experience.

Beyond the games we play as thinkers/poets/preachers/seekers is this gem of an experience of yours.
That one may penetrate that "kingdom not of this world" even more deeply is probable. But the door was opened and you peeked in!!!
This is what Leonard strives for....Big deal!
It is what all the greats experience and long for again.

That you were 4 when you experienced this is wonderfully relevent.
"unless you come to me as a little child, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven".
That open innocence is probably a pre-requisite whether one is 4 or 84.

Being a mystic doesn't make you wise or smart or capable of explaining the meaning of existence.
But it does transcend hope and faith to gnosis...transcendental knowing.

That is handy manna (food) in your backpack for the "journey".

What a refreshing story you gave us Jack. Thanks, Matj.

Hi Jack ~

I couldn't validate it with all the details that Mat did, but I can 1000% say I believe you and can relate to it... not because I've experienced such a thing, but because I know it happens. I also feel that your age is very relevant because at four, the veil separating the spheres is still very near and thin, and it hadn't been so long since you'd been on the other side of it and you hadn't been in the world so long as to have lost that 'memory' and built up your defenses against those realms. That's my belief system.

I would think it has supported your openness through the years. I'm missing it [again ], however, as to what you mean with, "It left me bewildered and with a disgrace that came through the early years of school." What is the relationship that you're referring to here with this?
Thanks.



~ Lizzy

Indeed, Lazariuk it is a beautiful story. I am also curious to know what you meant by having experienced a disgrace.

I was quite on a rush when I answered here this afternoon and I had the desagreable impression to have inadvertantly cut the grass under Simon's feet - if you don't understand what I mean by this, he will - and now I feel it could give the impression that I have done it to you too.

I should navigate more slowly I guess.

mat james wrote: Jack, this experience fits in beautifully with the present Cohen reading.
It is also "numinous" moving into "mystical experience". It is the way home.
is the classical "mystical" experience.

If I thought it was a "mystical" experience I wouldn't have mentioned it. At the latitude of Montreal where I am the planet is spinning axially at about 900 miles an hour. We are travelling around the sun at about 60,000 miles per hour and travelling with the sun through our galaxy at around 60,000 miles per minuet. We don't know where we are headed or why we are here and the attraction that is keeping it all in place is a complete mystery to us but seems to be 100% reliable.

What happened to me when I was 4 years old did seem like a door opening which led to a long series of additional experiences but the point that I am trying to make was that there was nothing about it that was out of this world. It was in fact experiencing this world freed from a lot of misinformation and it seems to me to be something that is available to everyone.

Jack

"We are not human beings
having a spiritual experience
we are spiritual beings
having a human experience" T. deChardin

On a strictly first level interpretation, psalm I.8 could also be describing amazingly accuratly an experience of tandem free fall sky diving. Look at the picture below and then read the psalm again. Sorry to break the mystical fun here for a moment. Is he the kind to have indulge in extreme sports? One thing sure is that this psalm could become the anthem of free fall sky diving, base jumping or bungee.

Simon wrote:On a strictly first level interpretation, psalm I.8 could also be describing amazingly accuratly an experience of tandem free fall sky diving. Look at the picture below and then read the psalm again. Sorry to break the mystical fun here for a moment. Is he the kind to have indulge in extreme sports? One thing sure is that this psalm could become the anthem of free fall sky diving, base jumping or bungee.

I don't know about the tandem part but I agree. Take away some notions about us being physical and yes that is the freedom that we long for.

I had a dream once of free falling and finding my hand meeting other hands and feeling in the dream that I was finally making it home. I don't think I would do free falling though as I am terrified of falling. You can't even get me on a roller coaster.

Jack

Numen/Lumen!

That's our motto here at University of Wisconsin. (Also sifting and winnowing).

I'm not quite sure where to begin, but I think that I should again mention the Axis Mundi or vertical line that divides the cosmos. And especially how the natural explanation from both Biblical and western literature posits a desire to rise toward the higher forms.

So I think that Leonard (as Jack has intimated) is using a reversal of the form as gravity (or as human accident-perhaps like the the crack in everything) that somehow brings the narrator back into intimate contact with the absolute by sinking.

If one thinks about it, ordinary religion prescribes a series of rituals based on beliefs, that if followed admit the subject into the rarified air of a new realm. Some (lucky) people are able to short circuit this pattern by a type of ecstatic experience that allows them a more direct access to the absolute which bypasses the rituals (or, at least, so they say!). This is what we mean by the mystic experience. Like DB, I'll have more to say about this later-and I don't want to get too far ahead of the story as there is so much richness to be relished by going through this anguished process with the narrator.

Joe

lizzytysh wrote:I would think it has supported your openness through the years. I'm missing it [again ], however, as to what you mean with, "It left me bewildered and with a disgrace that came through the early years of school." What is the relationship that you're referring to here with this?

The experience that I had I think put me at a disadvantage. I was overwhelmed by how much was unknown but everyone around me didn't seem to be as bewildered as me and so I thought that somehow they all knew something that I didn't. I thought that my parents or the school or the church or the government would eventually fill me in on what it was all about.

I tried to pay attention but the information that I was being given never seemed sufficient to fill the sense of wonder that had been opened and so I was never focused enough to learn some of the lessons that my classmates were learning like how to please the teacher, how to get a girlfriend, how to make your parents happy with you etc. and so time and time again I would see myself failing at many things that were easy for others. This led to a lot of very painful experiences in my early years at school and then much later on in life when I tried to get back to my position by the window I was at when I was four. Eventually you come to realize that just because someone doesn't have any questions it doesn't mean that they have the answers.

Jack

Joe Way wrote: So I think that Leonard (as Jack has intimated) is using a reversal of the form as gravity (or as human accident-perhaps like the the crack in everything) that somehow brings the narrator back into intimate contact with the absolute by sinking.

I don't think it should be seen as a reversal of gravity. Einstein covered the territory of showing the the only true state of an object being "at rest" was when it was in a state of free fall. In a state of free fall the direction is always toward the attraction and hense when I say that everytime you half the distance between objects you fourfold the attraction I don't think that should be considered a reversal of how it is usually stated but rather just a more accurate one.
I can't imagine Leonard using the word sinking to describe movement toward the absolute.

Jack

Thanks for those details, Jack. It puts your comment into a much MUCH clearer context for me. It opened right up, what you meant by it.

I thought that my parents or the school or the church or the government would eventually fill me in on what it was all about.

Guess you can't pass on what you don't know or don't think about, huh.

If I thought it was a "mystical" experience I wouldn't have mentioned it.

Might you be willing to consider it as a possibility?

Eventually you come to realize that just because someone doesn't have any questions it doesn't mean that they have the answers.

So true, so well said.

. . . when I tried to get back to my position by the window

The Window

I've just had time to read through I-8. It's almost electric to see all the directions everyone is going with it. At this point, I have no comments on it, but am really enjoying sorting through these perspectives.


~ Lizzy

Joe Way wrote:(..) like the the crack in everything)

That's how the light gets in. This did cross my mind too. But it is a very Jewish idea and I was into Christian explanation in that post, so I let go.

It is interesting to see the same concept depicted in different religions and philosophies through the ages.

Hi Jack ~

. . . the sense of wonder that had been opened . . .

The window is still open and so is your sense of wonder... and that is so agreeable.


~ Lizzy

Jack wrote:

I don't think it should be seen as a reversal of gravity. Einstein covered the territory of showing the the only true state of an object being "at rest" was when it was in a state of free fall.

Jack, I think you could equally discuss the weak nuclear force that holds us all together if you want to discuss this in scientific terms. For me, it makes more sense that we discuss this in Biblical or accepted terms of literature.

I am not opposed to changing the terms, but I really don't think that Leonard was considering Einstein when he wrote this work.

Tchoco,

I've often thought that it is simply amazing that "If It Be Your Will" seems to be easily explained in Jewish terminology as well as Christian terminology. When Ramesh, in the article that Jarkko posted, explains it through Indian philosophy, I began to understand how fundamental this is. I think that it can also be easily interpreted through a strictly psychological, non-religious method as well and make as much sense as any other explanation. I know now, why Leonard answered how he did in that chat-if you could write any song, what would you write (bad quote), but he said he did and it was, "If It Be Your Will."

Joe

lizzytysh wrote:

If I thought it was a "mystical" experience I wouldn't have mentioned it.

Might you be willing to consider it as a possibility?

I have an uneasyness with the word, because it gives a sense that there are things of importance that are not available to everyone and I don't think that is true.
I was drawn to hearing tales of the hasid and also tales of zen masters because they seem to be intent on making the everyday holy.

One day I went looking for the crack in everything that let in the light and it finally hit me that I was staring it right in the face. This is it. This that we all have in common where we can meet and dance and touch and be kind, the place where we meet when we leave sleep behind. This tiny little wisp of reality is the crack in everything and it is this that I want to respond to well and if I get gathered out to see other worlds, I guess that is alright, but this is the only one that I am interested in living.

Jack