Pure Divinity: Such Magnificence and Glory

Initial Awakening: On my first retreat in 2020 I had the clear shift of awakening after Lorn was kind enough to have a conversation and put some attention on me. The experience was one of a sense of expansion and a letting go of some of the restrictions of the mind and yet it was completely effortless and natural. Afterwards Lorn asked me how I was doing and then asked where the sense of “me” was and I responded that I could not find the “me”!  That was when I realized that something significant had happened. 

At first during the following weeks the shift was somewhat subtle and in the background of day to day experience and at the same time was never lost. The mind and personality continued on as if nothing had happened. But there was a sense of a shift of perspective of who I was. Having practiced meditation for over 50 years I was very familiar with the deep silence one experiences during the practice. And the sense of me was now replaced with that same silence that was previously only experienced during meditation. 

I took a second retreat with Lorn and Lucia one month later and during that retreat the shift significantly deepened and expanded to become a clearer experience of the Self changing from one of limitation to thoughts and feelings to one of deep silence and unboundedness. The experience of witnessing, as if I was watching a movie of my daily activities, became more and more frequent and along with a sense of wonder and joy about this new perspective. 

Shift to Unity: I had been living the perspective of less and less of a personal self since the initial shift of awakening for many, many months and I was attending retreats with Lorn and Lucia regularly. 

On one of the retreats Lorn and I had a conversation and he said something during the interaction that immediately caused an opening to a new experience of everything feeling different. All of a sudden everything I saw became an extension of my Self and there was a sense of identification with everything that had not previously been there. All the objects of perception had a faint glow as if they were all made of energy and that was the same energy of myself. Although there was still a sense of separation between myself and the physical objects I was looking at, there was also a sense of intimacy with everything and that everything is just consciousness in flow becoming a physical manifestation. 

Life became more joyous and carefree. 

Shift to Brahman: After living in Unity for some time during a retreat with Lorn and Lucia, Lorn and I again had a conversation and coming out of that, there was an unmistakable new experience. Everything just disappeared!  Although I could still see all the objects around me, the dominant experience was that everything I saw was just made of nothing. And surprisingly, consciousness itself dissolved into nothing. The previous experience of everything was made of consciousness, which is the same as myself, completely vanished, and I remember thinking, “Where did everything go”?

At first this new perspective was a bit disconcerting and took a short time to get used to as it was so different from previous experiences.  And at the same time there was a great sense freedom and even a sense of relief as if being let out of some type of jail that I had spent my entire life locked in. The nothingness had a sense of infinite silence that had no boundaries and gave a sense of deep peace that was wondrous and became the new way of living life. Everything including consciousness became nothing and it was wonderful!

Shift to Divinity: I had been living in Brahman for a few months and during another retreat with Lorn and Lucia I shared with them an experience that I had been having during meditation for the previous 2 weeks, which was of a very strong light that would appear as if coming into my head from somewhere, and it was so strong that it would push my head way back. It was not unpleasant in any way, but it was powerful. 

Both Lorn and Lucia commented on it, and the following day, during meditation, the light appeared again and then turned into a figure of a woman that was draped or covered in some type of shawl. She then uncovered herself, and there was her universal form, and I immediately recognized her as the Divine Mother or the Pure Divinity. She was extremely powerful and yet soft and loving and both with a “form” and yet with no form. And she was beyond our normal sense of time and physicality.  Such magnificence and glory as one had never seen or felt before was the experience. Having that reality dawn, all one can do is to immediately and spontaneously begin to praise her.  And interestingly enough, along with the experience of her grandeur, there was also the fact that there was no person who was experiencing her, that there is only her.  That praise and wonder at her overflowing power and joy continue.  Everything experienced now is clearly seen as only her bliss as she revels in herself, and that the appearance of a world and universe is nothing but that Pure Divinity. 

— RM, California, USA