The funny thing is, it is claimed that my talking about my mystical experiences is an obstacle, or an avoidance of actually having any. Yet, why is it I do then? That notion must be misguided. I not only describe my mystical experiences to others, but I have them unimpeded by this. When I am meditating I don't try to describe them, of course! 
That would in fact be being stuck in my thoughts about what is going on, rather than simply being absorbed by the experience of what is going on. I've learned long ago, in fact probably within the first few days of meditation, the importance to not be engage in trying to "figure things out" in meditation, to not "think about them", because doing so pulls one back into themselves. You're looking at your thoughts "about" the Light, rather than being "in" the Light.
That's was my first, most fundamental and basic realization. Along with that is to not "seek" for that Light, because if you are seeking, your focus in on yourself, again. You are looking to your "needs", and that is ego-facing. I learned, in those first few days of meditation that the seeking you do is to "seek Love for Love's sake", not for your own. The seeking we do is to abandon our seeking, to abandon ourselves to that Light. And when we do, we find our True Self. Who we are beyond all our thoughts about ourselves, and our thoughts about the nature of truth and reality. Those are all illusions. We learn from this illumination that we should not place an over-reliance on what we think about something as the truth of it.
But we of course continue to think and have thoughts in life, as we need to in order to function as a human. We know however, or begin to learn at the least, that we should not hold to and place our sense of Peace in those ideas of who we are or what is truth. We rest in our Being, we find that Center, that Ground and rest in that as our Self, our identity, which is in fact beyond thought itself. This is how we live with an Enlightened mind, to not lose ourselves, our center in illusion, but at the same time not dissociating from ourselves into the illusion that no-thought is the end. This is the nature of nonduality. It is not to sever one from mind, but to expand mind to include form and formlessness. This is a process of awakening, not escaping.
These basic truths of meditation, and there are a few very basic fundamental truths such as realizing the illusory nature of thoughts, are something we come back to again and again, like a spiral ascending over the same points. We dismay that we're "back here again" when we thought we understood this basic truth, assuming we have now left it behind us! Very common to do this. I speak from experience, of course. But there are layers of unfolding of this deeper and deeper within us like layers of an onion. We hit the same basic truth again, finding we are looking to the mind again, but it is at a deeper level now. The Spiral is not just a flat circle, but includes lessons learned before it. So now, we find that once we "thought we got it!", we were in fact only just beginning. To insist that we have "figured it out", is in fact to betray we are avoiding the next layer of that onion. To go preaching to others "All you need to do is this!", is in fact stuck in an idea, and not actually using it as a tool to peel back further into true Self Awareness.
It's progressive. A peak experience of Ultimate Reality, is just the invitation!! I have learned. It's the bell to call you Home. All the rest is work. State experiences are easy. Growing in that Light and becoming a fully Realized human is a matter of death and resurrection, over and over and over again, learning to integrate that Light into your person as a human being. Enlightenment as an escape from this world, is not Enlightenment, it's another form of illusion.
That would in fact be being stuck in my thoughts about what is going on, rather than simply being absorbed by the experience of what is going on. I've learned long ago, in fact probably within the first few days of meditation, the importance to not be engage in trying to "figure things out" in meditation, to not "think about them", because doing so pulls one back into themselves. You're looking at your thoughts "about" the Light, rather than being "in" the Light. That's was my first, most fundamental and basic realization. Along with that is to not "seek" for that Light, because if you are seeking, your focus in on yourself, again. You are looking to your "needs", and that is ego-facing. I learned, in those first few days of meditation that the seeking you do is to "seek Love for Love's sake", not for your own. The seeking we do is to abandon our seeking, to abandon ourselves to that Light. And when we do, we find our True Self. Who we are beyond all our thoughts about ourselves, and our thoughts about the nature of truth and reality. Those are all illusions. We learn from this illumination that we should not place an over-reliance on what we think about something as the truth of it.
But we of course continue to think and have thoughts in life, as we need to in order to function as a human. We know however, or begin to learn at the least, that we should not hold to and place our sense of Peace in those ideas of who we are or what is truth. We rest in our Being, we find that Center, that Ground and rest in that as our Self, our identity, which is in fact beyond thought itself. This is how we live with an Enlightened mind, to not lose ourselves, our center in illusion, but at the same time not dissociating from ourselves into the illusion that no-thought is the end. This is the nature of nonduality. It is not to sever one from mind, but to expand mind to include form and formlessness. This is a process of awakening, not escaping.
These basic truths of meditation, and there are a few very basic fundamental truths such as realizing the illusory nature of thoughts, are something we come back to again and again, like a spiral ascending over the same points. We dismay that we're "back here again" when we thought we understood this basic truth, assuming we have now left it behind us! Very common to do this. I speak from experience, of course. But there are layers of unfolding of this deeper and deeper within us like layers of an onion. We hit the same basic truth again, finding we are looking to the mind again, but it is at a deeper level now. The Spiral is not just a flat circle, but includes lessons learned before it. So now, we find that once we "thought we got it!", we were in fact only just beginning. To insist that we have "figured it out", is in fact to betray we are avoiding the next layer of that onion. To go preaching to others "All you need to do is this!", is in fact stuck in an idea, and not actually using it as a tool to peel back further into true Self Awareness.
It's progressive. A peak experience of Ultimate Reality, is just the invitation!! I have learned. It's the bell to call you Home. All the rest is work. State experiences are easy. Growing in that Light and becoming a fully Realized human is a matter of death and resurrection, over and over and over again, learning to integrate that Light into your person as a human being. Enlightenment as an escape from this world, is not Enlightenment, it's another form of illusion.
