Ecstatic Experiences
I was thinking today of ecstatic experiences, times when we seem to be in a magic bubble, when everything is as close to perfect as we’ve ever known, and in which we have an incredible feeling of well being. And when those times come we are grateful for them, and we hold onto them as long as we can, but of course, inevitably, the bubble bursts or it deflates slowly and we’re back in our world. I got to thinking about those experiences and what their purpose might be and why we have them at all, and how, again, we’re often using many different words for the same experience. We could say, “I had a heavenly experience today,” or “I was in ecstasy,” or “I had a magical day.” I think we’re talking about the same thing.
Someone might say, “I had an orgasmic experience.” And what is an orgasm? We think of it in terms of the physical act of sex, but we can have that kind of experience when we have a delicious meal or when we bite into a piece of absolutely fabulous fudge – anything that is so perfect that we are lifted up and taken into another state. I think that these are pictures that God gives us of heaven, of paradise, of eternity – again, a lot of different words, I think, for the same experience.
We’re talking about a world following this one in which we are finally out of school and back into a garden-like setting where there are no rules and we cannot mess up. It’s the picture of Adam and Eve in the garden before the so-called temptation. We are given experiences like this all through our life, initially, I think, to keep us going.
We go to movies. We get drunk and take drugs and have sex. We smoke pot and get the munchies and go on food orgies. Music does this to me. To be at the player piano or anyplace where I’m hearing something as nearly as perfect as it is possible to have it in this world, Frank Sinatra with Nelson Riddle’s orchestra behind him, and I am moved into this ecstatic realm where I’m able to forget the world for a while and I’m transported back to heaven for a short time, and the frustration of this world is that these experiences always end. The joy is that God, to encourage us, keeps giving them to us off and on through the years. Eventually we come to a place where I’ve been recently where I begin to view these not as just very pleasant experiences in a world that is unpleasant or BORING, but as promises from God, where I am encouraged to remember that these are heavenly experiences that I will be experiencing all the time once I am finally out of this veil of tears, or at least the illusion of it.
I would like to help people to identify these ecstatic experiences for what they really are, as reminders from the creator that we came from a place that was perfect and where there was no disharmony, strife, illness, death, or loss of any kind, and that we’re going back, perhaps much more capable of appreciating it.
Even though I don’t think that we will remember any of this experience, I hope that there will be some kind of cosmic memory that will allow us to really appreciate the garden after all these years of slugging through this earthly pilgrimage. This reminds me of a wonderful scene near the end of The Bishop’s Wife, that wonderful 1948 movie with Cary Grant, David Niven, and Loretta Young, in which Grant plays an angel who comes down to this troubled couple. He spends some time with them, and when he leaves he take away all memory that he was there. At the point when he leaves, David Niven turns to Loretta Young and says, “I have the most incredible feeling of well-being.” I just love that. This feeling is what Cary Grant leaves behind. Although the couple don’t have any physical memory of it in their brains, in their hearts still there is this incredible feeling of well-being, because they had an ecstatic experience with an angel.
Someone might say, “I had an orgasmic experience.” And what is an orgasm? We think of it in terms of the physical act of sex, but we can have that kind of experience when we have a delicious meal or when we bite into a piece of absolutely fabulous fudge – anything that is so perfect that we are lifted up and taken into another state. I think that these are pictures that God gives us of heaven, of paradise, of eternity – again, a lot of different words, I think, for the same experience.
We’re talking about a world following this one in which we are finally out of school and back into a garden-like setting where there are no rules and we cannot mess up. It’s the picture of Adam and Eve in the garden before the so-called temptation. We are given experiences like this all through our life, initially, I think, to keep us going.
We go to movies. We get drunk and take drugs and have sex. We smoke pot and get the munchies and go on food orgies. Music does this to me. To be at the player piano or anyplace where I’m hearing something as nearly as perfect as it is possible to have it in this world, Frank Sinatra with Nelson Riddle’s orchestra behind him, and I am moved into this ecstatic realm where I’m able to forget the world for a while and I’m transported back to heaven for a short time, and the frustration of this world is that these experiences always end. The joy is that God, to encourage us, keeps giving them to us off and on through the years. Eventually we come to a place where I’ve been recently where I begin to view these not as just very pleasant experiences in a world that is unpleasant or BORING, but as promises from God, where I am encouraged to remember that these are heavenly experiences that I will be experiencing all the time once I am finally out of this veil of tears, or at least the illusion of it.
I would like to help people to identify these ecstatic experiences for what they really are, as reminders from the creator that we came from a place that was perfect and where there was no disharmony, strife, illness, death, or loss of any kind, and that we’re going back, perhaps much more capable of appreciating it.
Even though I don’t think that we will remember any of this experience, I hope that there will be some kind of cosmic memory that will allow us to really appreciate the garden after all these years of slugging through this earthly pilgrimage. This reminds me of a wonderful scene near the end of The Bishop’s Wife, that wonderful 1948 movie with Cary Grant, David Niven, and Loretta Young, in which Grant plays an angel who comes down to this troubled couple. He spends some time with them, and when he leaves he take away all memory that he was there. At the point when he leaves, David Niven turns to Loretta Young and says, “I have the most incredible feeling of well-being.” I just love that. This feeling is what Cary Grant leaves behind. Although the couple don’t have any physical memory of it in their brains, in their hearts still there is this incredible feeling of well-being, because they had an ecstatic experience with an angel.
posted by Old Timer at 2:24 PM
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