July 20, 2014

I listened again to the audio recording I made when I had this experience and decided to re-write this with more of my original words: from November 15, 2013

I was meditating and I had this moment of letting everything go; letting go of all my thoughts and all my perceptions … and it felt like death – like dying and going into the unknown, but as pure awareness.  The awareness didn’t leave but it felt like I was leaving something and that I actually had to let go of it.  So I imagined letting go of my body and my life and my memories and everything I could imagine. There was also just the sense of letting my life BE as opposed to having any kind of attachment to it.  But my thought was that whether my body actually dies (in this moment) or whatever happens, it’s not under my control anyway so just let it be and let it go, with the idea that it might be gone forever.  This life, this body, this mind, just let it all go – and as I continued to do this there was a feeling of traveling into a pure expanse of … nothing … or light.

I have to say it was a good feeling, not so much in the sense of joy but in the sense of setting down a heavy burden.  I recognized also a kind of a trust in letting go, that it will be ok.  You don’t know if you will ever see this life or this body, or even any memories of anything that happened, ever again.  You trust because the trust is of what you DO have which is unshakeable – what you DO have is something you can’t lose.   It’s funny because you have no mental connection to it; you have no thoughts about it , and no memory of it or even any … you’re not trusting it based on any kind of belief or thought.  It’s like you’re letting go of everything that you’re holding on to, but the one thing you’re not holding on to is not something you can even let go of; it’s what you ARE.

The trust in THAT, because you are still in duality, is really like you are trusting something beyond you, like God, that has always got your back.  It’s always with you.  It might be taking you away, like a parent taking a child away from the candy store, but at least you know you are safe; you’re in  in safe hands, and that even though you don’t get to be with the candy, it’s ok.  There might be a little tantrum there but ultimately you know that you are loved, and you know that’s more important.