VINEETO: Hi Metta,

Alan from UK has brought my attention to your web site through our mailing list and I am indeed intrigued and fascinated by what I found there. You describe very honestly and detailed the events that happened to you in 1997 and it is easy for me to understand the experience you had and the experiences you are now having ‘by thinking about’ what happened then.

You wrote in your introduction:

METTA: The intense waves of emotion that accompanied the ‘Awakening’ were rekindled simply by thinking about it, and it seemed that no words were large/broad/deep/magnificent enough to do justice to the power, intensity or vast extent of the experience.

VINEETO: Further you wrote about your ‘awakening experience’ in the epiphany (http://members.tripod.com/~Metta_Z/Epiphany.html):

METTA: ... transforming into an wave of complete and absolute euphoria, an indescribable contentment that extended far beyond the bounds of human expression.

This was a moment of overwhelming revelation, of pure and absolute joy. The perfection and wholeness of the universe seemed so obvious, so simple, so complete, so absolute. Like a bliss-filled fool, I alternately laughed and cried, spontaneously and irresistibly, at the exquisite perfection of All That Is. Even as I eventually awakened my partner, and began to shower and prepare for our client’s meeting, this astonishing energy continued to move through me, in wave after wave of sweet and unspeakable joy.

VINEETO: What you describe here sounds like a powerful Peak Experience. It can be brought on by various circumstances including certain drugs and lasts for periods from a few minutes to days. ‘I’, my identity, get a taste of the actual world in its utter purity and ‘as-it-is-ness’, in its clarity and perfection, and I experience everything including me-as-my-body being made of the same stuff as the rest of the universe. In a pure consciousness experience I don’t have the feeling of ‘Oneness’ but know for the first time that there is no actual separation between you as a physical body and the rest of the universe. In a peak experience I experience the world as it is, in its marvellous actuality, factuality, while ‘me’, the ‘self’ is temporarily in abeyance, not interfering. Then it is possible to see the world as-it-is, without the psychic and psychological web of human emotions, beliefs, instincts and fear. The peak experience is a glimpse into what it is to be a human being without the ‘I’ being present and spoiling it all.

But then you go on describing – as I see it – an emotional and affective interpretation of the perfection you experience, reverting to the ‘normal’ frame of good emotions, bliss, euphoria, gratefulness and the belief in Oneness and Wholeness:

METTA: I became keenly aware of the river of energy flowing through each of us – an energy arising from within and intuitively guided by this exquisite perfection. I realized that everything appearing before us is simply a manifestation and expression of this energy, and that this energy is always moving through each of us, guiding us throughout our lives. Suddenly, I realized the fundamental simplicity of our existence and our purpose:

• There is nothing we need to do or achieve, beyond the fullness of the present moment.

• the relationship between body, mind, and spirit,
• the relationship between intellect and intuition, and
• the energetic rhythms and intuitive impulses moving within each of us.

VINEETO: And here, I think you went off the originally pure experience. From experiencing the world in its purity, actuality and perfection ‘you’ jumped in and gave it a name and a philosophy, creating and repeating yet another belief ABOUT perfection. It is a grand scheme, it is viewing the ‘normal’ human belief structure from a grander, wider perspective, but still fully within the psychic web and within the limited and distorted interpretation and imagination of the ‘I’. You say it yourself, there is an identity still operating, enjoying the bliss and the euphoria of the realisations.

METTA: I was also delightfully surprised to discover, in this moment of ecstatic euphoria, that ‘I’ – the little identity I recognize as ‘me’ – did not disappear or extinguish! I was astonished that ‘I’ didn’t have to die in order to ‘experience’ this magnificent Wholeness! The Realisation of this incredible integration occurred, and yet ‘I’ still remained conscious and aware. The personality remained intact: ‘I’ was still ‘me’, and ‘I’ was still here, but ‘I’ was now contained within, and not separate from, the Presence and Essence of vast and integrated Wholeness.

VINEETO: Experiencing an altered state of consciousness or enlightenment, when fear transforms into ‘energy’ filling up the chest area and turning into the bliss of knowing and seeing it all, is so tempting, so alluring, so engulfing. And it is such a wonderful alternative to the fear of death. I know what you are talking about. I myself have started on a journey to eliminate the very core of instincts, beliefs, emotions and the whole psychic construct of making sense in order to live 24 hours in this often experienced peak experience. And one of the powerful experience on this journey was an ‘enlightenment experience’, lasting for 3 days, until I managed to get myself out of the web of my own very powerful passionate imagination, interwoven with the universally collective web of the world of Bliss and Oneness.

Fortunately I was warned by Richard (see our web site about Actual Freedom), not to run aground on the Rock of Enlightenment, but to stay courageous and keep going. So when the ‘enlightenment experience’ with the experience of Power and Glory hit me, with the overwhelming fascination of the Great Realisations, as I have only read them from the Enlightened Ones, I curiously followed this so alluring Grand Emotion, but nevertheless kept my faculty of scrutiny switched on. I kept my hands in my pocket and my mouth shut. I did not forget that I was heading for an actual freedom from the whole of my identity and not for the delusion and calenture of enlightenment.

Because what I understood from Richard is that when he was enlightened he still knew that something was wrong. His experience of enlightenment was not the same as his first Peak Experience, it was distorted by grand feelings of Love and Compassion, saving people and being superior. And this was exactly my experience as well. It was very different to the purity of my first pure consciousness experience. And from what you describe of your Epiphany compared to your state of being now, there is a qualitative difference. You say that you need to ‘rekindle simply by thinking about it’. This is not the genuine article, it is a copy of the original experience. The original experience did not need to be thought about, it just happened.

This imagination is a faculty of the very ‘I’ that stands in the way of experiencing the world as it actually is, fresh, pure, perfect, magical, ever-new and independent of someone’s thinking, feeling or imagining. But, for the genuine article you would have to die, psychologically and psychically, to disappear completely, give up your identity that you are now and your capacity of making sense and seeing laws and realisations. But also you will eradicate the fear of death completely, never to return, this instinct of survival, which has driven human beings to murder, rape, to waging horrendous wars, torture others and themselves.

Because, as was my experience with ‘enlightenment’, the fear of death is not eradicated. It is pushed into the background by the euphoria and power of the Light, protected by the flood of imagination that sets in as soon as the small ‘I’ that ‘was now contained within, and not separate from, the Presence and Essence of vast and integrated Wholeness’. You describe that very precisely. But as soon as I applied only an inch of a serious doubt to that imagination, it proved its fragility and revealed the lurking fear underneath.

Fear of death can only be eliminated by dying psychologically and psychically. Imagination is a castle build on sand, the moment you really stop imagining, it is falling to pieces. And I am searching the genuine article – the world as-it-is, without my doing or non-doing, without applying any kind of psychic effort.

I have experienced this perfect world as-it-is in Peak Experiences and thus I know it is actual, factual, always here. There is no ‘I’ needed to create or maintain it, on the contrary, it is exactly this ‘I’ that prevents me-as-this-body to be and experience the purity, magic and perfection.

Further you say in the epiphany:

METTA: Nonetheless, in spite of both the ineffable quality of the epiphany, and the overwhelming depth of emotion that has accompanied it, I have still felt a continuing desire – indeed, a strong and compelling urge – to try to find some words, some means, some way to convey the Essence of this experience. As paradoxical as it may seem, I have felt an almost irresistible desire to try to find a way to describe and share the Indescribable.

VINEETO: I have strongly felt the urge to proselytise and shout it from the rooftops, as they say, during my days of the ‘enlightenment experience’. After all, it is such an emotionally overwhelming experience, that one wants the whole world to know about it. But exactly those emotions are the unreliable part in the whole affair! Emotions are never facts. They can, at the most, be an emotional interpretation of facts, a frame of identity, as you so well state:

METTA: The almost indescribable sensation of ‘opening’ that triggered this experience of ‘Awakening,’ and the incredible flood of intuitive ‘insight’ that followed were, quite simply, the most significant turning point in my life. As a result, the Realisation inherent within the epiphany experience has increasingly become the Ground and reference point for my own identity, and my understanding of the Reality within which we live.

VINEETO: But did you ever consider that the way one feels compelled to bring the message to other people is both interfering with your own freedom to do or not to do, and with the freedom of other people who cannot relate to you as a fellow human being now. In enlightenment there is no equity, there is only the messenger and his people. The relationship can never be from fellow human being to another fellow human being, there is always a strong aspect of superiority and inferiority in the relationship. You have something that the other desires. You are the pathway to the other’s happiness. You have the Truth, the message, the key.

Freedom is something everyone has to find out for themselves. There are only a few signposts around, because only Richard has explored the path. I have explored a fair way, enough to tell you my story about the ‘enlightenment experience’ and the ‘getting out of it’ too. And if you can get out of it on your own accord, it is proof that this is not the genuine article, it is dependent on one’s imagination and the upkeep of the Grand Emotions.

There are a handful of others who are intrigued to experiment and discover what it is to be a human being – free from malice and sorrow, completely happy and harmless. It is a new and radical, down-to-earth freedom, something that obviously no-one has ever discovered before. It looks completely mad, the further one goes into it. But all the other approaches of religion, spirituality and philosophy have failed to bring peace on earth and harmony between man and woman. That’s why I, for my part, 18 months ago decided to search 180 degrees in the other direction to all spiritual beliefs. And I found that it works.

It has been immense fun to discover your site and to write to you about my story.

Should you be interested in further communication, I would welcome it. If you agree, we can have it on the mailing list of actual freedom. You can find the link to subscribe on our homepage. I am sure everyone will profit from our conversation.

I am very keen to hear from you.

26.10.1998

METTA: Dear Vineeto,

Thanks also, Vineeto, for your feedback on the website reply form! I recognize that an improvement in type face is sorely needed ... I’m always torn between going out on new ventures (expanding the web page and developing the ezine) and ‘staying home’ and cleaning house (working on the web page formatting) ... I will get to it eventually ... Thanks for the prompting, and the valuable reminder!