There is one particular state of consciousness that can change your life forever.
This holy moment can only be described as “ecstatic” in that your connection to life expands significantly.
In this profound state of being, you feel that life is full of beauty and sacredness – yet this feeling is not subjective, but is instead an objective phenomenon that is outside your personal self.
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Theologian Rudolf Otto called this experience “numinosum.” But in this article, we’ll refer to it as the mystical experience.
All throughout history, the mystical experience has been referred to as a “religious” or spiritual experience, where the few mystics that recorded their experiences reported it as a rapturous and undifferentiated sense of profound Unity with all of existence.
There have been many descriptions of the mystical experience throughout the ages. A few of my favorites are firstly the ancient Greek word and mystical Christian concept of Kenosis, or divine emptying. Such an intriguing word has been used for centuries to describe the state of divine receptivity that closely mimics what it’s like to have a mystical experience.
In psychology, the closest terms that capture this mysterious state of being are Abraham Maslow’s description of “Peak Experiences,” and psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s concept of “flow.”
And in nature-orientated cultures like the Australian Aborigines, mystical experiences have been referred to as “Dadirri” – or the deep listening emerging from silent and still awareness.
But in layman’s terms, what is the mystical experience? And of what relevance does it have to the spiritual awakening journey that so many of us are undergoing?
Table of contents
What is a Mystical Experience?
What is a mystical experience? In essence, the mystical experience is a state of being in which the personal ego (or separate sense of self) merges back into the Divine Self, also known as Source, Consciousness, God, Nondual Awareness, Brahman, or Nirvana.
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A few other synonyms of the mystical experience are the Buddhist concept of Satori, the Kundalini awakening, as well as the Western notion of Self-Transcendence and the transpersonal experience.
Mystical experiences are temporary glimpses into our most sacred True Nature.
Those who undergo mystical experiences often describe feelings of bliss, ecstasy, unconditional love, interconnectedness, and Oneness with all things.
The Candle in the Dark (What a Mystical Experience Feels Like)
Perhaps the best way to elaborate the mystical experience might be with an allegory. The ancient Hindu tradition of Advaita Vedanta has an interesting one:
Imagine that you are in a completely dark room. You’ve been told that in this room lives a very large snake. As you sit in the room, you can see its silhouette and you feel great fear as you contemplate the potential for it to bite you at any moment. But one day there is a flash of light which illuminates the room and you see that what looked like a snake was, in reality, a rope. Although the flash of light was momentary, it gave you a glimpse of the truth. All of a sudden your long-held fear vanished entirely, and your experience of the room was never the same ever again.
This is what a mystical experience feels like: it is like a flash of truth that releases you from your limited sense of self and gives you a taste of a reality that somehow feels more real.
Ancient Greek philosopher Plato once recounted a similar allegory from his teacher Socrates, which described what the mystical experience feels like and how it impacts one’s life. Below, I’ve loosely paraphrased his intriguing thought-experiment:
Suppose that you’ve been kept chained in a cave all your life. Behind you blazes a fire, and next to you sit a row of other prisoners. All that you and the prisoners know of life is the experience of watching the shadows dancing on the opposite wall to you, and the shared interpretations of what you see. However, by chance one day, one of the prisoner’s chains breaks, and he escapes into the outside world. At first, he is confused, overwhelmed, scared, but he also feels an immense sense of expansion, awe, and bliss. He is aware that he is experiencing a larger, more complete and absorbing reality than what he could see within the cave. His natural instinct is to return to liberate his fellow men, but after struggling back into the world of darkness and shadows, his attempt to enlighten his companions is met with ridicule and incredulity as they accuse him of being crazy.
To some degree, we are all prisoners in the cave of our past experiences. Any mental worldview becomes a cave the moment it is taken for “absolute reality.”
9 Characteristics of the Mystical Experience
There are moments of oneness with the Beloved, absolutely ecstasy and bliss. That is nothingness. And this nothingness loves you, responds to you, fulfils you utterly and yet there is nothing there. You flow out like a river without diminishing. This is the great mystical experience, the great ecstasy.
– Irina Tweedie, Sufi & teacher
Every person’s mystical experience varies in length and intensity. However, there are a series of characteristics that almost all people who glimpse the Divine share.
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If you’re curious to know whether or not you’ve had a mystical experience, you can read the nine characteristics that I’ve defined below:
1. Conscious Unity
The boundaries of where you perceive your individual identity to begin and end completely vanish (otherwise known as ego death). Instead, you’re left with a boundless and infinite union with all that is around you.
2. There is No Time or Space
With a lack of a definable identity or spatial recognition, your sense of time feels infinite. You go from perceiving time from moment-to-moment as a static individual, to perceiving it as a stream of eternal present moments.
Without time, space is endless.
Because your sense of identity is gone, your ability to separate “your” (now non-existent) surroundings into individual “spatial” elements also disappears.
3. Objective Reality
Without a discernible identity comes a sense of greater “objectivity” as though you’re experiencing a much more intricate and profound reality. Everything doesn’t just feel perfect, everything is innately perfect.
4. Gratitude
Most of your ecstatic feelings stem from an immense sense of gratitude. This gratitude is an overwhelming sense of awe at “your” (now non-existent) insignificance in comparison to the vastness of existence.
5. Life is Seen as Sacred
Your sense of gratitude is so vast that you feel almost undeserving of having the opportunity to experience such a miracle. You develop a new sense of respect for the sacredness of life that allows you to be here.
6. You Understand the Nature of Paradox
Normally, our sense of egoic self creates a duality in our perception of reality (i.e., “I” am separate from “That”). However, the moment this separation disappears, you’re left with a non-dual reality in which your intellect finds paradox after paradox (e.g., something is both light/dark, here/absent, human/divine, limited/eternal, beautiful/ugly, etc.). In truly understanding the nature of paradox and how it permeates all of reality, you experience mind-blowing realizations and expansive breakthroughs.
7. The Experience is Indescribable
The overwhelming magnitude of emotions and intuitive understanding that you embody makes the attempt to even describe the mystical experience feel limited by language. To try and put words to such a reality feels insulting to the depth of the experience.
8. The Experience is Temporary
The very nature of the mystical experience (experience being the keyword here), is its transience. Eventually, you end up returning back to your habitual way of life, but the experience changes something deep inside of you.
9. The Experience is Life-Changing
After experiencing such a state of ineffable Divine Truth, suddenly death isn’t as scary as it used to be, and the beliefs or ambitions that you once held to be so important often tend to lose their meaning. In fact, the mystical experience often awakens a deep thirst to try to integrate as much of that experience back into one’s regular day-to-day life as possible. And so begins (or deepens) the spiritual awakening process.
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The Mystical Experience is Only a Taste
There’s a useful term in the Christian doctrine known as “Grace.” This word basically means that we receive mercy and love from the Divine because it wants us to have it, not because we have done anything to deserve it.
Many people confuse having a mystical or spiritual experience with cultivating a spiritual life. It’s common to think that we can somehow “earn” or “manifest” such profound glimpses into the Divine, when in reality, such experiences are brought about by grace.
Furthermore, our appreciation of such profound experiences is directly proportionate to our development of spiritual maturity.
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If the grace of a mystical experience is given to a 10-year-old child, they will no doubt enjoy the experience. But the degree in which they absorb it will be much less compared to someone who has undergone maturation – or the deep exploration of their psyche and the ability to live life from the seat of their Soul.
For the child, the mystical experience will be a great experience that will eventually fade and become a distant memory. But for an adult who has dedicated their life to cultivating spiritual maturity, to “tilling the soil of the Soul,” this experience becomes the seed that is prepared to blossom.
Indeed, such an experience might be the very tipping point that leads to the ultimate spiritual awakening – also known as Enlightenment or Illumination – or the permanent shift in consciousness from the individual ego to the Infinite Higher Self.
Inner Work & Soul Work
Experiencing spiritual liberation as the goal of the spiritual path is precisely why practicing inner work (i.e., self-love, inner child, and shadow work) and soul work (i.e., surrender, disidentification with the ego, stillness) are so essential to committing to the journey of spiritual awakening.
Without removing the blockages that obscure our Inner Light, mystical experiences have no deep or long-lasting impact on us.
In other words, such experiences just become extravagant rendezvous with no real substance.
But by learning to integrate the profound realizations that we’ve been given access to, we can experience true and long-lasting transformation. Slowly and steadily, we begin to taste the essence of Eternity.
Have you ever had a mystical experience? What was it like? I’d love to hear about it below!
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Hi! I once, twice had a mystical experience but I don’t know exactly if it’s considered as mystical phenomenon… Everything was potentially a faith experienced and Oneness with the Divine… It was raining all day, and went to the farm carrying my guitar, singing with grateful hearts for the birds singing, animals on my way, and was one with the nature… With great appreciation of the nature that I was passing by, out of my mind or awareness , I suddenly picked a stem of a mangrove plant…then the church bell rang… Then, I went home bringing the stem with me to prepare myself to go to church to hear mass… On my way going to church, I just noticed that I was holding the stem and ask myself, “why did I bring this stem with me?” Then, in a distance, I saw the convents gate where a newly founded religious community is living. Then, I thought of giving the stem to the elder. When I arrived at the convent, the elder was at the door standing, so, innocently, I gave the stem to the elder saying: “it’s for you.” But all of a sudden, when I give it to… Read more »
I have had 2 major life changing mystical/spiritual events in my life. At 13 I was on the edge of town, riding my bike to get some books in town. I saw a strange sight which caused me to abruptly stop my bike. I saw a glowing ball of light. This was about 3 feet around and just above the ground. It called to me and I heard words in my mind. I was advised to choose a branch within that glowing sphere, only if I wanted to, but be careful and choose wisely. I waited 5-6 minutes and reached into that glowing orb. Instantly my future life flashed in 1000’s of images and I knew the purpose of my life overall. I started studying many different religious practices and became a licensed massage therapist and studied a dozen techniques like Reiki, Rolfing, energy work, to name a few. But my main purpose was to be a gardener/nurturer of the seed of awakening within others. I would find and help any that yearned to explore religion or spirituality that they had within themselves as a seed. I only helped water that seed, planting only ideas that they could shape, nurture… Read more »
Yes, yes, yes! OMG, yes! Everything you wrote deeply resonates with me! I finally found the most accurate description to what I lived and experienced the night that my 89 year old father passed away at 1AM as I was holding his hand in 2018! Just minutes after his soul leaving his frail body I began to experience moments of what can only be described as incredible grace, even though yes, a nonbeliever could say they were also incredible coincidences but deep within me I knew they were divine in their nature because they came to helped me and my mother when we needed it the most… This overwhelming feeling of ecstasy, gratitude, openness, warmth, love and pure unity with what can’t be seen or described stayed with me for hours after going to bed the night of his passing. I laid in bed in the dark for ages, staring at the ceiling with a huge smile on my face, and feeling completely at ease and at one with the Universe, my father’s death, his spirit and all my ancestors’ spirits….It’s as if I suddenly understood the meaning of life and of death, as if I had just realized that… Read more »
Hello Mateo, I had a mystical experience in my 20’s. I was going through a very difficult time myself. I don’t remember much except one thing always baffled me. It was like I could read people, connect with them, their emotions, what was going on inside of them intimately. I could “feel” them and knew exactly where they were emotionally and intellectually. That was a very odd experience which I never forgot, I couldn’t explain this experience to anyone.
My mystical experience came to my understanding and believing ..key word here is believing..that everything with a molecular makeup which is everything we can see or feel is in its own sense alive ..why else would we give a car its own special nickname and talk to it ?why would we talk to anything that we don’t expect an answer back from? but if you are talking to a car ..you don’t necessarily have to speak car …you have to understand car .. I have been taken to where the soul incubator exists at least that is what I was told that it was..A giant pulsating purple and blue of what looked like honeycombed eggs floating around in another dimension that I was allowed to see . I have had enough out of body experiences to qualify for a lifetime of frequent flier miles. through these experiences I know there is life after death..and I do not look at it as a finality ”’even if it were (just a one shot deal)I believe with my whole heart that there is more and not only because i have seen the other places ..it allows me to carry on each day knowing… Read more »
I was between awake and sleep when I saw a rock and all of a sudden the rock became a the wall of large cave. I was there and there was a young girl who was being dressed and adorned with handmade jewelry and flowers. Her mother gave her a drink a dark colored liquid inside a large bowl and it got on her face and she smiled. I got very close to her, right next to her and I thought she was me. As a moved in front I looked at her face and told myself it wasn’t me and then as I moved back to her right side she looked in my eyes and I knew we were one. As I moved to her side She smiled at me and I was smiling. I followed her out of the cave and I I moved away and she motioned me look at everything then I opened my eyes and I felt like everything made sense. I knew that death is not final. And I had been in another realm or another life. I was so happy I cried, but I didn’t know really what my vision meant. Today I… Read more »
I had a strange experience in 2016, it sounds very odd, but I went into another state of mind in my apartment after feeling suicidal. I remember going out for a walk, because everything felt unreal, there was no air and I people seemed like zombies walking down the street. I got back home and felt a need to pull the blinds up and down in a particular order that i just felt compelled to do, for about a week, i didnt eat for a whole week. Prior to this, i felt the devil in my bedroom, which frightened me, i have had lots of dreams about the devil and dracula as well. The whole episode was weird, i didnt eat or sleep for a week . I was doing what i thought were religious rituals, like baptising myself in the bath. I also saw a large wooden cross outside the local supermarket. I must of been hallucinating. I wasnt taking illegal drugs at the time but trying to get off psychiactric drugs! All this occured over the Easter period 2016, but i didnt knoww it was Easter at the time.
The Mystical Experience worksheet is just leading to a blank page with no download. I just thought you’d like to know! Great article! Thank you! <3
I once instead of falling asleep, I went (or I feel I went) to some place where there was no fear, no strain, no struggle, and I felt like I already had everything I want and need and life was perfect there. Then, I woke up and was annoyed and immediately had this thought: “Oh! I’m still here?!” And I can’t remember exactly what I was doing in that experience but I remember that it felt amazing and that I was really annoyed to be “back here” so to speak. This happened a few years ago and didn’t happen again and till now, I still don’t know what that was!
What has happened to me does not appear to quite fit. I had a longing to go to a local spot, alone. This is a park like area, a peaceful hilltop, with a view to mountains. Finally I got there about 5 months ago, for about a half hour.
Something so changed in me and it is hard to describe. I felt an overwhelming sense of peace and joy, never felt before. Beauty, birds singing, gentle breeze, serenity…. I see everything differently, more in tune, connected, from that day. This experience has not left me. Even through the highs and lows of everyday living, this great sense of joyfullness and appreciation of life is still strong. I am in my 60s and so pleased to have had this experience in my life time.
Joy and peace to all.
Maz