Finally I made a breakthrough. Turned a corner & realised a very important thing; I no longer feel as though I am wandering groaning & rattling a chain, so to speak.
It came to me today as I wandered around the West End. Something shifted & brought with it a lovely feeling of happiness & closure. I realised at once that I no longer felt inadequate & that I must re-join society immediately. I no longer felt as though I was on the peripherals of society, just hanging on, trying to make do. I felt strong, vital, as though I really had something of value to offer. Self-empowered, with a good education, & love in me. Wealthy, you may say ? I thought, as I wandered around the streets, floating in this delicious, wonderful feeling of optimism, that I was just having a pleasant day shopping, being polite toward others, feeling healthy of mind & body, but it was only later that I realised that I must of experienced what the psychologist Abraham Maslow called a ` Peak Experience`. I had read about them many times, & was never to sure as to how to tell when one was about to come on. If I knew then perhaps I could prepare myself, & gain a deeper understanding of what they consist of. Through reading about them I also learnt that that one can actually instigate this `Peak Feeling` whenever one wants to, but the contributing factors & mental conditions must be right & congruent for an episode to take place.
I had experienced them before, but I had never really attached too much importance to them, until now. They had usually come on previously after a particularly dark episode concerning my alchemical journey, or after a bout of illness. I remember one welling up in me after I began to get well again after a particularly severe case of influenza. I think that this had been brought on by the equally terrifying experience of being suspended from work. This also takes my mind back to another episode that I experienced after I had achieved what I thought was an exceptional piece of writing. In all honesty though I never Until now though I never gave them too much credence. I would just write them off as either as a temporary euphoric mood, or as though, in the case of my meditation, that I had made a breakthrough within some particular issue that I had been struggling with. Either way, I certainly never bothered looking too deeply into any of these euphoric mind-shifting moods. The nearest I got at the time to thinking about them with any depth was the disappointment that it would not last too long. Wishing that it could stay longer. So you can imagine my ecstatic feeling when I my mind quite freely began to suggest that I could actually stay in this joyous mood much longer than I had ever done before.
It came to me during meditation only recently, when I began to experience a wonderful surge of joy & well-being. Could you imagine just how incredible your life would be if the mood was able to stay just by learning how to re-create it ? Or even if one was to skilfully manipulate the mood & that it stayed continuously. One would naturally eliminate depression overnight just by simply learning how to re-create the actual conditions that brought it on originally, without medication, or any other synthetic stimulant ! How wonderful the potential could be. If the mind has already brought on one of these episodes in the first place, then it is completely possible, quite naturally, to bring on another, this time being conscious of it though. This is what I have found so exciting. Embracing the possibilities of a new way of living.
During this mornings meditation I had another of these euphoric episodes come on. I tried to think why one had suddenly appeared, yet the only feeling that manifested in me was concern I have for a friend of mine who has become embroiled within a dysfunctional relationship with a manipulative person. I never realised just how painful this can be to witness. However when I stayed away from thinking about her my spirit lifted & became free thinking again, bringing on the `Peak Experience. Thinking about my friend made me feel the same as when a bill comes through the door, that one has`nt the foggiest idea how one will pay it. Not afraid so much, but more a feeling of heavy drudgery. So, by staying away from the heaviness of my friends predicament, I was able to maintain my `Peak`. It did, however go around an hour later, but I had managed to retain it for some considerable time.
Of course, it is fairly obvious if one hangs about with the depressed it will in time turn one into a depressant, but this is not what I am offering here. What I am suggesting here is that if we can condition ourselves not to allow our inner pressure to leak mentally, through say, boredom, depression, or just a lack of vitality, we can retain the peak experience. It is as though we are a carapace for all the emotions that we have, & once one of the negative emotions enters our consciousness, we begin to deflate. We then spend much of our time in a continual state of lack. No vitality, & it is this that brings on the inability to retain ones peak experience.
It could be seen to be a state of denial that I am advocating here, but this would be missing the point. Certainly keeping ones negative feelings at bay is denial, but what my point here is, by compartmentalising those emotions that keep ones vitality away, as I have mentioned above, & manipulating the good feeling that works its way through to ones consciousness, one may keep hold of the good feeling for as long as one would like to. Practising this allows the mind, through concentration, to become more equipped to cope with the pressure that is needed to hold onto the peak feeling. Somewhat the same as exercising one`s biceps. The more one becomes used to stronger, healthier arms, the more one achieve more strength & more vitality. This is what the peak experience is for, I have come to understand.
A Peak Experience is natures way of keeping us focused, alive &, above all, interested in the world & our place in it.
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