I’ve been involved in spiritual practice now for the majority of my time here on earth. To varying degress of seriousness of course, though I do include those many years of partying to have been the process of unearthing those parts of me that could embrace altered states (right!?!?). So because of this, anyone who knows me for any decent length of time discovers that I’m into exploring consciousness. And depending on the person, a variety of questions will often develop over time.
Describing states of experience which have occurred due to a practice geared at awakening those levels outside of the mind, is very difficult to describe WITH the mind and understand FROM the mind. The mind knows the mind. Often when I begin relating an experience in meditation to someone they will try and fit what I am telling them into an experience they have had from the mind. The mind is a bit of a snob, and that’s good! It has a job to do and does it well – often too damn well. But the capacity for the mind to relate to experiences is limited to the mental level, and when someone tries to categorise an experience from a memory or event, by it’s very nature the mind has made the experience a mental one, and so the essence has been lost.
But this ability to convey spiritual experiences to people is such an important skill to have. When you describe an experience, and the person is open enough, there can be a flavour or a quality of that experience that can pass through the words. I’ll often find that when I start describing an experience it will be all muddled and hesitant at first, but then as I move more into it I find myself slipping away from the mind and more into the experience which makes it much easier to convey. Because I’m in it. And it’s so beautiful that that can happen!
Now in saying that, there are some experiences that just cannot be conveyed. There are levels of experience out there, or in here, that are so outside of our understanding of how our minds have told us reality works that no amount of re-entering the state or poetic delivery will ever even begin to re-imagine the concepts into logical thought patterns. There is no limit to the amount of butchering our minds can do to an experience that has such a deep effect on our state of being. Doing so has often left me feeling really bad about trying to talk about my experiences, as in I didn’t do it justice and had even lost something of the experience by trying to mentalise it.
To explain, let me give you an example. Because how better to convey how hard it is to describe something indescrible than by trying to describe it.
Experiences of consciousness can generally be placed within three categories: dimensional, fluid dimensional and non-dimensional.
Dimensional. That’s the easy one. That’s on the level of up/down, left/right, in/out. It can have tangible sensory qualities like density, pressure, heat, tingling. The experience can be related to according to location: center of the head, in the heart, in the belly, etc. Can be experienced in relation to the body: expanding away from the body, below the body, above the head etc. Dimensional experiences are usually where we begin our movement into a meditational state because it is the easiest level to access with our awareness. We’re used to it. The mind likes this level and can cope with the experience of it easily.
Next we have fluid-dimensional. If during an experience of sourcing consciousness you happen to find yourself in a space who’s description often contains the words “sorta”, “kinda”, “a bit like but not really”, “almost like”, it could perhaps be an experience within a fluid-dimensional state. Fluid states are almost describable but when you start to describe it words just don’t seem to do it justice. They can have dimensional-ish aspects but are not limited to their usual experience and can sometimes contain their opposite. For example, something can seem both vertical and horizontal; both expansive and small; be above the head but not really above the head; can be somewhere but not there at all. Fluid states is almost understandable by the mind, but not really, because when the mind tries to grasps the experience it isn’t sure what to grasp. It’s like there is something to grasp, but when the hand of the mind extends it’s greedy claws to extract what information it may, it doesn’t know what to hold onto. It’s like consciousness’ version of having something on the tip of your tongue. Or almost remembering something. Or recognising something but not knowing where from. Or I have no idea how to explain this actually.
And while we’re at it, let’s talk about non-dimensional experiences. Or let’s just not, because there is absolutely nothing I can give you here. There are no references. Non-dimensional states have no location and no reference. And even that is incorrect because even those terms are used in reference to things that have a location and a reference. The experience isn’t big or small, or “like” or “ish”. The mind just will not and cannot, and when it does it butchers it so what you are experiencing isn’t non-dimensional but the mind’s copy of it. The mind has xeroxed your experience, left a description and you are reading the memo.
So it can be very difficult. And I understand why not a lot of people have attempted to explain what can occur in meditation. But it is so difficult to not want to do because there are experiences that are completely life altering and you want people to know that it’s out there. You want people to know that life is so much larger, so much more full than what they are seeing. That life is an indescribably beautiful and confusing multi-layered canvas that is beckoning us to partake in a fuller experience of it.
When people ask me what my experiences in meditation are, the difficulty lies in finding a way to convey experiences that are tangible for them, but also with enough fluidity at some level that it ignites their curiosity and the mystery of consciousness. Because life is mysterious, and a travellers duty upon the return from their journey should always be to share their findings with those who wish to hear, so that they too might one day take to the vast realm of the unknown.