Welcome to Reality

By the second day of the retreat with Lucia and Lorn, I began to experience increasing depths of silence and fullness both during and outside of my meditations. I also began to experience a few spontaneous movements of my body like a twisting and holding of my neck or arms in movements to an extreme range. When Lorn and Lucia became aware of these spontaneous movements, they were completely unperturbed and encouraged me to go with the process, "to allow". By the last day of course, I experienced an increase in these spontaneous movements to the point where I could no longer sit in my chair and found myself on the floor. My body went through a changing and elaborate series of postures that could be likened to yoga asanas. The movements were spontaneous and I simply allowed my body to move in the direction that it felt necessary. During this time, I experienced a deep inner wholeness like being carried along a wave of universal energy, timeless and space less. The stretching and extreme movements that my body was propelled through seemed totally necessary, as if I needed him to stretch and release blocks and inhibitions from my body. The movements felt right but at the same time were painful, especially in my neck. This was all happening in the midst of the afternoon group meeting with Lorne and Lucia providing me with support and encouragement. I am not certain how long this lasted but I believe it was half an hour to two hours. When the experience finally settled, I felt exhausted but purged, purified, and spotless, like my nervous system and body was scrubbed clean. From then on, for the next six months, I felt continuous and deep inner and outer wholeness. My perception of everything in my environment was suffused with vibrating wholeness and silence. Everything was very beautiful. At the retreat, I finally understood that what I had been doing was constantly trying to figure out what was happening in my everyday life. I had been trying to use my mind or my intellect to give an explanation to my experience and interpretation of the world around me and it never satisfied me for very long. I was stuck in my small mind or intellect believing it to be the final authority. I awakened to the realization that my small mind was not capable of understanding the wholeness that underlaid everything. As well, my small mind could not accurately interpret almost anything. WHAT AN ENORMOUS RELIEF! I was released from struggling constantly to understand. I could stop trying altogether. I realized that I could fall back on, I could let go to, my cosmic mind, a depth that underlaid and permeated me, a deep and completely satisfying understanding of all of the changing levels of my experience. When I operate or function from that level, everything operates spontaneously correctly, without doubt, or questioning. I still, momentarily, become overshadowed by the ever-changing aspects of the world around me. But it is so easy to remember, to come back to that underlying certainty of wholeness and silence that I am. B. T. Edmonton, Canada

At the first workshop, we as a group were guided into what I would call a state of open-eyed meditation. From there we were asked to just observe our state. Of course, my mind was trying to grasp at something to understand how to be. As I focused deeply on Lorn's gaze, my conscious mind seemed to separate into two states. One state left me as the observer sitting in the chair, while the second seemed to move away from me but encompass the whole room, and remained with me as well. This brought on a great state of euphoria that lasted for weeks. Also, because of my expanded consciousness, I became very sensitive to people's vibrations (the best way to describe this feeling). Finding some people so loud as a vibration, I could not be in the same room with them. Over time this has faded, but it is still a clear memory and defined experience which I continue to reflect on. My second experience of awakened consciousness began in much the same manner at a workshop. Having had this experience previously, I knew what to expect, so I thought. Almost immediately after sitting in the workshop, I was drawn inward and would remain there for the entire weekend. As my consciousness expanded, I became deeply settled into myself. The draw to become more and more inward was very compelling and also very delicious. This draw opened a passageway within me that is still there today, as if there is no bottom to my inner well. Metaphor is the only way I can speak of this because it is a personal, deep inner sense of myself. There is a continued unfoldment of my awareness that at times surprises me by throwing up emotional boulders which have been lodged in my consciousness since childhood. Such as "Unworthiness," which recently became separated from me. “Thank you” seems like such a small phrase for something so personally profound. You both have been a very cherished part of my life ever since we met. The subtleness of this experience is difficult to define, especially when you must use words. The truth can only be "I," the inner I, well aware of itself as a silent witness to this person and his perceptions. L.S. Whiterock, BC

The first time I met Lorne and Lucia was from a last minute invitation to a Satsang. Without having too much prior knowledge to who they were or were not I sat near the back in a comfortable chair and drifted into what felt like a light slumber for most of the gathering. At one point I noticed Lorne engaged in an eye glaze with someone I knew and I had feeling of empathy for this person getting so much attention. On the drive home at night, my vision seemed altered. As I sat in the passenger seat looking out beyond As I sat in the passenger seat looking out beyond the windshield where the car lights shone I had the sense that I was looking from behind me over my right shoulder. This sense carried with me for a couple of days and then seemed to fade. I attended a retreat later that year, where I was able to relax and unwind I had received some similar attention to the person at the Satsang. In these very quiet moments, I felt a lot of heat and my vision would alter in ways hard to describe. At a separate mid-way point during the retreat, Lorne said not to listen to the words he spoke, but to the spaces between the words. This resonated with me as I could hear the hum of the fan in the room and then underneath that the faint hum of the fluorescent lights and like another layer below this was a strong silence. At our last session with LL at the end of the retreat, I had the opportunity to speak about this experience. As I spoke about it, I again became aware of the layers of sound and the deep silence was right there. Once again Lorne and my eyes met, my mind and body deeply relaxed, and in what felt like a split second and an eternity I experienced no boundary to where my physical body stopped on this tether of silence. Simultaneously I experienced being in various rooms of the retreat hotel. After this final session, there was absolute stillness and I recall very little beyond a sense of floating and seeing through different eyes. I remember looking at my left hand and it was like I was looking at someone else's hand. Later, in moments of doubt, I would use the 'looking at my hand' as a gauge to see if this state of being and witnessing was still there. Since that day there has been much more ease in my daily life, less attachments to agendas, more allowance, and an acceptance to the flow. On a physical and emotional level, many sense perceptions have heightened, I am much more relaxed and there are fewer stories or ideas about how to be. One noticeable trait is more sensitivity to sounds, where it is like a felt sense in my physical body. As well, my perception of stillness has transformed. Initially, the stillness, removed of thought, would be so thick it was palpable. At times I could relate it to watching a movie with sound but no commentary. However, now the silence and stillness, always there underlying the phenomena, has an attentive sharpness to it. One other notable aspect is the layers of my concepts and beliefs have fallen away resulting in a much greater sense of freedom. N. C. Salt Spring Island, BC Canada