An experience beyond the active mind, in a post-satsang silence.
At the end of the first satsang I attended in India, I chose to remain sitting in silence, and had an experience which I later came to understand, was a ‘vision of non-duality.’
There were several other people who were also settling in to continue their engagement with silence. I opened my eyes briefly, noticing the relative proximity of others. I closed my eyes and the knowledge of the others remained with me. I began an inquiry into whether or not we can, would or should ‘feel’ each other while sharing space in this way.
It was then, that a cool breeze blew through the covered roof space, which I felt distinctly as blowing directly ‘though’ me. In that moment, everyone and everything around me, that a moment before, I was considering and holding in my mind, instantly disappeared!
What remained in my ‘awareness,’ was an observed black space, an empty matrix, like a freshly washed blackboard. Everything else that I was so curious about, was simply gone! What remained in me, was clear and pure, natural and still.
I opened my eyes and everyone and everything was still ‘there,’ but now it was all appearing as forms – without any interpretation, understanding, or naming of what they may be. Cushions, bodies, my body, trees, clouds and a mountain, all existing in a flat, distant, two dimensional image.
Like a picture without it’s impending story, something merely observable, bright and rich and empty, accepted and enjoyed. Everything existed in a simplified, ‘normal’ form, of which I was a part, in sameness.
It was a vision of a moment, as it appears before thought, interpretation or consideration. A simple and truthful moment beyond the grasp of the mind.
Some years later, I have come to the understanding, that what made all of the variant forms appear entirely ‘equal’ to me – was the fact that they were all illumined by this very same single light of awareness. I was seeing my radiant self in the whole of creation, and I failed to comprehend it!
My appreciation for discovering a teaching which is designed to bring forth a clear understanding of the meaning and truth of such visions – is as unbound as the light itself.