by Spencer Perdriau

Early 1996

After a few months of eager discussion with my gentle wise good friend, Allard (my doctor) each week, my awareness was becoming more and more in awe of what we were dialoguing and questioning about the mind, consciousness, life and reality. The main question that posed upon my conscience at the time about it all was this, “does the brain generate consciousness, or does the brain just house consciousness for personal use and bodily operation?” In other words, is consciousness a product of matter, or is matter a product of consciousness? I didn't want to believe, I wanted to "know", and I would not settle for anything less than what is actual and so, beyond all my personal stuff and colourings about it all. At the time, Allard also gave me books like Deepak Chopra and the Upanishads to read. So as the weeks passed, from reading the scriptures and my very eager attendance with my doctor each week, my awareness was becoming more and more in awe for the greater reality to existence that was being confided in me. Not only was I feeling great joy from such discussions, so was my doctor.  I had very much, fallen deeply in love with the nature of God, and God ItSelf. Then one day a few months later, in the mid summer of the new year, it all came to a mass, when I was struck – totally out of the blue – with my first spiritual experience of mystic union at the age of 23. The experience only lasted between 5 to 10 seconds, but within that space I was fully conscious of becoming totally boundless out into everything. In my being, no difference was subjectively felt (and I stress the word “felt”, at the level of being that is) between me and everything else around me, people included – the difference between here and there was totally gone (lost), and it all felt together like (my) one big unified Self. A greater impersonal Self of all. Even though I felt immediately connected to everything (my personal ego boundary lost/dissolved), I still experienced the sensation of my personal subjectivity expanding out beyond my body into the environment around me. It was as if my individual boundaries had been lost and nothing distinguished me from all else…  It all happened, very ironically, at the local gym (of all places) at the Harbord Diggers Club, when I was attending to my usual training there. Resting between a set of exercises, I stood there, paused in silence, breathing deeply and smoothly, coming to a complete halt. Looking up slightly, I became stilled in myself, and in that moment, the gym all of a sudden became quiet to me, and I felt myself go… I began to feel my identity larger than body – larger than my individuality… expanding…. My boundaries of personality instantly gave way (dissolved) and I felt myself expanding to a point of about twenty feet out into and merging with everything around me. The difference between myself and the surrounding area, including people, lost distinction and difference, and I was continuing to expand further out at an immediate rate equally in all directions everywhere. Distance was being overcome, as if it was all part of my own body. Fully conscious throughout the entire episode, it was an enormous shock going from the transition of usual every-day relativity to the boundless; from one extreme to the other within the space of seconds. The experience was not registered in the usual way through the limitation and confinements of the brain and five senses, but rather I felt the larger area as my subjective self (my being), just as it feels usually within the operation of the individual body. Just as all parts of my body – lung, brain, head, hand, heart – go into making up my entire body, the same was happening on the larger ratio scale… all parts of everything around me – people, furniture, the room – were now part of my being, or rather, Bigger Being. But, just as we do not separately identify with every single aspect of our body, nor did I separately identify with any one particular object or individuality during the expansion of my subjectivity into the Greater Subjective everywhere. It all felt one and the same. One whole identity. The same Self. Not knowing how far I was going to go out into everything, or even if I would return to my individuality for that matter, I called myself back in fear of the unknown deeply wondering if I would return to myself again. Although I was expanding, I still had reference in my local brain mind, as I called to myself from in my mind, “come back, COME BACK!!!” And without any effort on my part I was gently and easily brought back to my body individuality again by unknown effort (by the greater care of “Impersonal Subjectivity” – my technical definition for God). If there is one thing that ego cannot contend with, it is losing its boundaries of definition and distinction. Coming back to myself I noticed a gym member nearby, leaning next to a training machine, asking me with a friendly smile, “Hey, you okay?” Turning to him, I replied, “Yeah.” I then simply continued on with my next repetition of exercise, as if nothing had happened.

After the experience, I was in profound shock, having thought I had just had some sort of heart attack and was going to die, but I then simply left the gym wondering what in God’s name had just happened to me??? Even though I had no idea that I had just had an experience of mystic union, the most obvious thing for me there and then was that I “felt” instantly connected (in my being) to everything during that experience – that was profoundly and immediately obvious to me.

This was my very first experience of my personal consciousness becoming boundless out into and connecting with The Greater Impersonal Consciousness of All. This experience also very directly confirmed for me what I intuitively knew for myself, and very much answered my initial question put forward to my doctor - that the brain is merely a personal transmitter to house consciousness personally for individual use and operation; that consciousness, in essence, is boundless and subjectively everywhere and ever-present, within and beyond all things, known and unknown. This initial experience of mystic union was to be the initiating usher for my next two experiences of mystic union later that year in mid April. The second being the experience of feeling everything upon myself in total, and third lastly, being relieved of it all by being saturated, enveloped in the total sensation of divine love flooding my entire being.

PS: Any true mystic experience of union with The All very much confirms (most very directly) that consciousness is just as much beyond individuality, as much as within it (us). For how else could "conscious" union with everything occur in the first place if consciousness was not equally and essentially everywhere and boundless throughout all existence, known and unknown. As the Gospel of Thomas declares...

"When you make the inner the outer, and the outer the inner, you are one with God."

In other words, when the personal boundary of individuality (ego) is mystically lost/dissolved, no difference is experienced between the inner world (personal) and the outer world (Universal).

This is what happens for us in any true-genuine mystic experience of union.

© Copyright Spencer Perdriau