Spiritual Experience Impacting the External Being

Spiritual experiences are not purely subjective events impacting the mind or the emotions. They can also take on a very concrete form that impacts the vital nature and the physical body. Because of a general mental, religious and social bias against what appear to be unusual experiences, many people are left confused, bewildered, or even afraid to discuss what has occurred within them for fear of being labeled or even ostracized. Many people have been referred for psychological counseling once they have begun to speak about what is occurring in their inner state. This bias, however, is being eroded as more people engage in spiritual pursuits and begin to experience things outside the realm of what is generally labeled as ‘normal’. In the West, pioneers such as C.G. Jung have opened the doors to a new understanding of experiences which have been known and appreciated for millennia in the ancient Indian Vedic tradition. Having the support of an experienced guide, or guru, can be very helpful as the seeker begins to navigate these inner spaces and opens himself to experiences outside the frame of the external body-life-mind ‘normal’ responses.

Numerous people report experiences such as a ‘widening’ of the perceived body, essentially a connection to the vital envelope that is felt as a concrete sensation; or a sense that one is uplifted off the ground several inches, while the physical body remains visibly fixed on the ground. Countless people have reported what are called ‘out of body’ experiences and they recount seeing things occurring from that new viewpoint while they are not locked into the physical form. Practitioners of what is known as Kundalini Yoga report the experience of a power rising up from the base of the spine through the subtle energy channels and out through the crown of the head. People who go on any form of vision quest will frequently recount experiences of the sense of traveling without the body, or temporarily occupying the body of a totem animal and experiencing things from that space. There are also many experiences that recount the descent of light, knowledge, power or bliss into the being. People who have these experiences are frequently able to recount details that make it obvious that they have had something extraordinary happen to them.

One of the most common experiences however is the descent of a sense of peace and silence so solid and concrete that it takes over the body-sense and the individual feels enclosed within this peace. For long-term progress in the spiritual path, this experience provides a real and lasting basis for what is trying to develop. It is not a transient experience as some of the others turn out to be, but something that can remain with the individual, build into a constant, stable foundation for the transformative action of the Divine Force on the external nature.

Sri Aurobindo writes: “The experience of this ‘solid block’ feeling indicates the descent of a solid strength and peace into the external being — but into the vital-physical most. It is this always that is the foundation, the sure basis into which all else (Ananda, light, knowledge, Bhakti) can descend in the future and stand on it or play safely. The numbness was there in the other experience because the movement was inward; but here the Yogashakti is coming outward into the fully aware external nature, — as a first step towards the establishment of the Yoga and its experience there. So the numbness which was a sign of the consciousness tending to draw back from the external parts is not there.”

Sri Aurobindo, Bases of Yoga, Chapter 1, Calm — Peace — Equality, pg. 17