Expert: Joe McSorley - 6/14/2008

Question
Hi Joe, for one of your answers you stated this:
'Many in history have come to a religious or existential awareness that was beyond their faith and generally when they expressed this were then ostracized by their faiths for blasphemy or heresy.  It is the awareness of self as the Universe and the Universe as self.  Meister Eckhardt may have experienced this when he proclaimed “I think the thoughts of God before creation” or Chuang tzu when he said, “ Heaven, earth and I arise simultaneously”.  There is a thread of this type of experience throughout history.'

My question is, would you be able to give reference to books that would refer to this idea of experience? I have read some Eckhart and I am working through the Chuang Tzu, but i was curious of some other texts that would discuss this common 'pre-creation/history' experience.

thanks

Answer
Dear Josh,
   There are references to this type of experience scattered throughout history and throughout the world.   Because someone has had this type of experience doesn’t mean they were necessarily awakened but more that they glimpsed it for a moment.  Walt Whitman refers to his experience in “Leaves of Grass’ while Jane Goodall refers to an experience in her book “Through a Window” where suddenly the world became transparent and she was not separated from it. (I am paraphrasing her)  You can find it in the Upanisads and Vedas of ancient India and in the writings of Al Alawi a Muslim mystic (You are like a mirage in the desert, which the thirsty man thinks is water; but when he comes up to it he finds it is nothing).  You can also find it in the writings of Vivekananda and Nisaragattada.  All of these experience some type of loss of self, that the ego is an illusion and we are just one of many manifestations of nature.
 Again, many people have had some of these insights but may not have fully awakened.  In today’s pop culture there are quite a few who have learned the ‘language of awakening’ and use the right words but have no realization behind it.  
 There is no list of books I can give you.  It is something that you must search for in these author’s writings.
 Take care,
         Joe