I really appreciate this thoughtful post, thank you Michael, it's exactly the type of post I was looking for.
And thank
you. I'm glad you seem to have appreciated my response.
Before I forget, I must ask. How long do the rare 'periods of extreme happiness' that you experience, last for?
The longest and most memorable (insofar as I can remember it or re-experience it -- it lasted around two weeks) occurred in 1994 while I was reading Doris Lessing's
Canopus in Argos pentalogy. At the time, I was extremely interested in the works of Idries Shah, with whom Lessing had a close association. I can't quite remember which book in the series I was reading, and I can't be sure it was the cause of my experience, or simply coincidental with it. Whatever, I can remember something most peculiar started to happen.
I don't know if you're at all like me, but I frequently find myself thinking of past indiscretions/stupidities and endlessly beating myself up about them; cursing myself for having been, at times, a complete f****** wanker. Well, I was able at that time to perceive these episodes arising, and effortlessly able to brush them off before they managed to hook me into my frequent bouts of self-denigration; in short, I was able to laugh them off before they ever took hold.
It was as if I'd somehow grown, been transformed from an ugly duckling into a magnificent swan. Incidentally, though Hans Christian Anderson is credited with the fable, it may be a relatively modern incarnation of perennial tales such as
The king's son, a Sufi story found on p. 217-18 of Idries Shah's book,
Tales of the Dervishes. Somehow, I had unwittingly and unaccountably stumbled into a new but strangely familiar landscape. It was utter bliss; I spent those two weeks or so floating on cloud nine being someone completely different from what I usually perceived myself to be: something much grander, able to perceive both myself and anyone else I came across in a totally different and much more compassionate way. I effortlessly loved everyone, experiencing a connection with the whole of humanity, whom I could perceive as being just like me.
Since then, I've periodically experienced somewhat less vivid cousins of this experience, mainly focussed on the sense of connection. Some people seem to be able to bring about such experiences through meditation, which is something I've never been able to do myself. But one way they sometimes come about is through exploring music on YouTube. I'll fortuitously stumble across a video I particularly like, and that will lead me onto other videos and other artists, and before I know it, I've spent hours following the trail of discovery and am completely lost in the sense of connection. Quite why it works, I can't say, and it may not work for you or others, but there you go. Some videos are particularly effective: I've posted some of them here in the past, such as:
and:
-- I could post a number of others, but those will suffice for present purposes. I must stress that what these performances do for me seems to be something over and above emotional arousal; they seem to be capable, at least sometimes, of switching me into a "connected" state of awareness. I speculate that it may have something to do with the specific quality of delivery of the music by the singer or artist(s) involved.
If this, or the YouTube thing in general, doesn't do it for you, there may be other things that
do do it for you. I recall occasionally having seen others totally absorbed in doing something they really enjoy doing. It could be anything, such as gardening, playing golf or fishing, even eating out, and I have at times been entranced by how they seem to become transformed into new and apparently different people -- perhaps nearer to what they actually are, even if they (and I) don't know what that
is exactly.
There's a term used by Sufis for something like it (a sense of unity in multiplicity) in Arabic --
jam (pronounced "hum"), and of course the Sufis aren't like orthodox muslims in that they recognise the power of music/dancing/rhythm in some of their practices:
and this, which is mesmerising:
This is perhaps akin to what I've mentioned, watching someone being totally absorbed in an activity, when they can seem to lose their ego and one seems to become able see them from a new and different angle; for what they really are, and, as an observer, come closer to what oneself really is. It's possibly a
loss or
diminution of ego rather than a
gain of something; the
removal of a barrier experienced in normal perception rather than some kind of
enhancement of perception.
Of course, such examples aren't from my own culture and maybe I've accidentally stumbled across something more appropriate for me embedded in popular Western music. The happiness and sheer delight such experiences bring to me seems to be incidental to something else, some underlying reality, and it is this, perhaps, that Rupert Spira is pointing to.
One last point before I leave this topic: I also get such sensations when composing some of my posts here. I spend quite a lot of time and effort getting them just right -- or as near right as I can -- in the sense of as truthfully and accurately as possible saying exactly and only what I want to say. This post, for example, was composed over many hours' (intermittent) activity and reflection.
I wish I could contact Bernardo, and ask him privately what he sees in Spira that's special. Unfortunately,that isn't easy to do with Bernardo any longer.
You should find that Bernardo keeps an eye on postings on
his forum. It's quite likely that if you post a new thread with an eyecatching title -- "A question for Bernardo about Rupert Spira" or somesuch -- he will respond.