peak experiences

[donq]

There's a slogan in my country, "Beauty via docs". Really, when has beauty becomes something doctors have to cure/treat? Anyway, I think it should change to be "beauty via spirituality". It would be great and it also has some rhyme.

Sorry, I don't mean to complain about that. Today I'd like to talk about some spritual experience in a daily life. Someone called it peak experiences.

I hold my (second-hand) Ipod (video 5th gen) in my hand and for the very first time, really appreciated its value. Yes, it was not easy to get the cheap one like that. It's said that it provides the second best sound quality of Ipod (the winner is Ipod 5.5). They have Wolson audio dac chips.
Listen to good music is something that really helps my inner peace. I knew that. But it also requires some good music players (and good audio files). hahaha
This reminded me of something Christian do before eating, thank God for their food. It's good to enhance the peak experiences in daily lives. The only problem, I think, is like any chanting ritual or mantras, the means have become the means themselves, not the ends any more.

Anyone has any peak experiences in daily life to share?

[hera]

Ah Gratefulness, another path to becoming more enlightened as many of the current 'Light Workers' would have us believe.

I neither believe nor disbelieve but have, like you Donq, incorporated it into daily living on a fairly minor basis purely because I think I have much to be grateful for in a world where so many have so little so my experiences always include having a warm safe bed to sleep in each night, food in my belly, clean water to drink, clothes on my back. I can walk, see and hear and of course I have the internet as a way to connect with the world which otherwise I would be almost completely detached from.

These are probably not the peak experiences you were asking about but are what your question brought to mind, oh and seeing a post from someone here on The Spiritual Forum is always pleasing.

[gruntal]

I can think of things I obtained in the pastI was so glad to get: a Selmer Series 9 clarinet; a Ricoh SLR 35mm camera with f1.4 lens; a Tenshodo HOn3 brass locomotive; a Yaesu FT7800 radio - but over time I had different wants and needs. As for experiences that at least to me is more elusive. Attending spiritual meetings and having a Master actually notice you enough to impart advice and/or revelation makes you feel like you amount to something beyond a toad. Like maybe your countless hours spent agonizing or serving was not wasted. Even meeting a human being you haven't seen in awhile is stunning when they still want to hug you and not throw rocks at you. Just going to the mailbox and having the neighbor's dog run up to me and try to lick my face is gratifying. At least the dogs still love me.

I remember the poem by Charles Bukowsi CONSUMMATION OF GRIEF "it matters little - very little love is not so bad - or very little life - what counts is waiting on walls - I was born for this - I was born to hustle roses along the avenues of the dead".

Disappointment isn't the end of the world. It just means you go on looking. More then anything I remember encountering facts or revelations I never expected to hear or see. I wondered if I would ever live long enough to see the truth. You go crazy when you have to live in a world you know isn't correct. Vindication is a thrill beyond any petty ego trip ....

[donq]

Hi Hera,

First, let me expain this. Peak experiences were originally described by psychologist Abraham Maslow as "moments of highest happiness and fulfillment". And someone said, "Most of the peak experiences had occurred during athletic, artistic, religious, or nature experiences, or during intimate moments with a friend or family member".

It's somehow close to religious experiences. In Zen Buddhism, there's something call "satori" which means "seeing into one's true nature" or "sudden enlightenment". Anyway, in the older Buddhism school, this kind of enlightenment is just a brief and temporaly enlightenment. There's still a lot of work to do after that.

Oh! I've diverted, Sorry. The above (boring) information was not meant for you or our firneds here, just for someone else who might pass by and read it.

Okay, let me go back to my I-pod's peak experience. :-)

When I first (and finally) got it, I was so pleased. I was glad because it was rare and not easy to get it (always rather expensive for me). And after using it for a while, I was glad that I bought it because it was worth my money as its sound quality was really good as its reputation. Then one day, while I was holding it in my hand, didn't even turn it on and listening to my music yet, I got very comfort and warm feeling from it. I felt so good not because it was famous and expensive Ipod, not its so good sound quality but becuase I did appreicate its value, not in the material sense, but in something beyound that. Well, after 13 years (its introduction date was in 2005) it has still served its duty so well until today.
Then I imagined that what if I could expand this good/comfort feelings of mine to anything else in the world, then it would be so great, right? (someone called it transpersonal experiences. Well, that's another story and another posts). :-)

About my recently other peak experiences: when I saw Robert's (including yours, Gruntal's and Ace's), I felt so good and decided to join again. You know, I've been here for five or six years now. In the first few years, after I posted my post, there would be at least 50 clicks (of readers). Sure, one reader (including me, myself hahaha) might click many times. But for the last few years, sometimes there was only less than 10 clicks! hahaha
And yes, I felt so appreciate that you replied my post. That meant you read it. It's not that I care about my popular (too old to care about that). But as a long time (professional) writer, if there's no one read what I wrote, I should consider myself to stop writing it, right? ;-)
So, yes, your post really enhanced my good/peaceful feelings. I appreciate it. Thanks.

I do agree with you about some spritual feelings in everything the daily life. The real sprituality should not be formal. And in theal life and for the real life.

P.S. Hmm...I hope some other readers, after reading my post, might consider more about getting some peak experiences, not Ipod. That...that would be misreading my post. 


Hi Gruntal,

Somehow you could talk about technology with spritual tounge. That was beautiful!
Thanks.

[mojomojo]

About three weeks ago my sister in laws, kids, came to visit with their grand parents.
Basically they are good kids, but coming from a middle class background as is sometimes the case, they are spoilt rotten with very little in the way of discipline, and shielded from life by over protective parents, they have every toy, known to mankind.
Their day with us, was spent in the shed, using their hands, making stuff out of wood.
The delight on these kids faces, planing what to make, and using drills and screwdrivers, and finally painting the toys they had made, was priceless. They are only seven and four, but for one day, they were allowed to be kids and run the risk of hurting themselves. The eldest boy with all his expensive toys, carries his hand made wooden tank with him every where he goes, and by all accounts, it was the best day they ever had, the youngest has put on the top of his Christmas list, a drill.
Peak experiences, when soul interacts with soul, its the stuff memories are made of.

[hera]

Thanks for taking the time to explain Peak Experiences for me Donq, I was obviously way off beam with my post, but your explanation brought to mind two Peak Experiences. The first was shortly after moving into a new home, quite a wreck and needed a lot of work, but that first evening there I walked out into the garden and heard a blackbird singing it's beautiful going to bed song and the world stopped. It was as if I was hearing that song for the first time and I stood and listened for around 10-15 minutes motionless, filled with awe, totally enraptured I can see and hear the moment still, 25 years later.

The second was an occasion when my 3 teenage children were doing the teenage thing, running riot, creating havoc, but for a period of about 1/2 hour they united in sibling fun, happiness and laughter and, just like the occasion with the blackbird, I literally stopped, watched and listened and was filled with something so powerful it remains almost tangible 20 years later and I remember thinking at the time that I would remember it always.

Thank you for bringing back those Peak experiences for me through your post Donq you made me today.

[donq]

Hi Hera (and everyone),

To thanks everyone, let me summary about our peak experiences (or the sudden shift to higher consciousness) here:

Hera, "I walked out into the garden and heard a blackbird singing it's beautiful going to bed song and the world stopped. It was as if I was hearing that song for the first time and I stood and listened for around 10-15 minutes motionless, filled with awe, totally enraptured I can see and hear the moment still, 25 years later."
"...when my 3 teenage children were doing the teenage thing, running riot, creating havoc, but for a period of about 1/2 hour they united in sibling fun, happiness and laughter and, just like the occasion with the blackbird, I literally stopped, watched and listened and was filled with something so powerful".

Gruntal, "Even meeting a human being you haven't seen in awhile is stunning when they still want to hug you and not throw rocks at you. Just going to the mailbox and having the neighbor's dog run up to me and try to lick my face is gratifying. At least the dogs still love me."
Some good writing (expecally poem) also help us to get peak experiences as Gruntal quoted Charles Bukowsi's CONSUMMATION OF GRIEF:

"it matters little
very little love is not so bad
or very little life
what counts is waiting on walls
I was born for this
I was born to hustle roses along the avenues of the dead".

Robert, "Their day with us, was spent in the shed, using their hands, making stuff out of wood. The delight on these kids faces, planing what to make, and using drills and screwdrivers, and finally painting the toys they had made, was priceless. They are only seven and four, but for one day, they were allowed to be kids and run the risk of hurting themselves. The eldest boy with all his expensive toys, carries his hand made wooden tank with him every where he goes, and by all accounts, it was the best day they ever had, the youngest has put on the top of his Christmas list, a drill."

I have to apologize Robert here (as I know he doesn't believe in the tales told in regilion). But let me tell about some religious story I read, in brief. After monk Siddhartha tried and mastered some serious methods of meditation he had learned from two famous masters, he realized that it still wasn't the way. So he walked away and tried it by himself. He did some serious self-mortification and found that it wasn't the way either. Then he recalled the peaceful time when he was a boy sitting under the tree in the garden. He got some natural warm/good feelings (for the sake of this thred, let's call it the peak experience. hahaha). So, he tried to start from that peak experience again and found the middle way and finally got enlightenment.
Though I do agree with Robert that no way we can know for sure if there religious storied were true or not. But I still think that, ancient people respected/honored their masters with all their hearts, right? Then, how could they dared to lie about these stories?

[mojomojo]

Hello to all,
Hi Monty, it has been a while, I think it is far too easy for us to believe in something, because it suits us or makes us feel better, like, life after death for example, then we may decide we believe in re-incarnation, because it backs up our first belief, and soon as we add on more beliefs our guard tends to drop and things start been accepted, only because it reinforces the belief system we have accepted, often without any evidence or proof, from my point of view, what someone else writes is not proof. Unless as your story clearly shows, you put it to the test for yourself and your belief comes from your own experience.
I would have walked away from spirituality a long time ago, if it wasn't for the personal experiences I have had, and I strongly believe these experiences must spill over into this reality, otherwise it maybe in your head only.
At the end of the day it doesn't really matter who said what, as long as what has been said has been tested and becomes personal experience.
There is an old saying, "when man first learned how to talk, an hour later he learned how to lie."
Good to hear from you again Monty.

[donq]

Thanks Robert for your clarification. It was very clear.

Hope you and Betrice are fine.

Cheers,
from Monty

[donq]

Talking about Ipod made me forgot some point I wanted to tell when I started this thread.

I went to had my notebook fixed last week. While I was eating in the (mall) food center, a maid warned me that I was going to drop my money from my pocket (of trousers). I turned to thank her. Then I got a call from my technician telling me that my notebook had been fixed (wow! in less than half an hour). I asked when I came back to see him how much I owed him. He said three dollars. Wow! So I tried to give him double, six dollars. He cound fix it so fast which only meant he was really good at it. And he didn't stall time to look as if he should get more paying at all. So he really deserved it. Anyway, he politely refused.
That day really made my day. I felt so good not because I could save my money from dropping it and computer repairing (okay, maybe partly. lol) but because I found that there were still good people out there. The maid could easily get my dropped money after I lfet. Or if my technician took the money I offered, he would get a double paid.
The reason why both of them didn't do something that could make them get those money was because they were good persons. And they were so beautiful!