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Message: [QUOTE="PacoSwede, post: 5025266, member: 120"] I was wandering around campus when I was in college -- it was in the era of upheaval, the late '60s and early '70s -- and I was trying to figure things out. It was getting dark on the hillside beside the library when I took notice of a tree. Just an ordinary tree. And I recall thinking: [B]What's it like to be that tree?[/B] This intrigued me. I thought about it some, and after a while I decided to imagine being that tree. Think I was on drugs? It was about 1970, after all, and my college was awash in drugs. I remember stepping out of my dorm room on a Friday night and I couldn't see but a few yards down the hall because of the marijuana fog, with accompanying scent. I guess such a scene was not unusual in those days; maybe it sparks some of your own memories. But for me, while surrounded by it, that scene wasn't for me. So, no drugs were not involved. I was just unusual, it seems. What is it like to be that tree? I meditated. I tried to feel like that tree. I projected myself into that tree. It worked. I got beyond myself. I realized that the tree was wonderful, that the world was wonderful -- and that I was irrelevant to it all. Ego, while still there, was an impediment to any understanding. It changed my life. For awhile, I investigated further. I tried to project into other things, and occasionally succeeded, feeling at one with other objects I meditated on. It didn't always happen, but getting outside of myself, beating ego, was a real high. I wondered if I could develop this; to reach this state consistently; to learn a 'trick' that could bring on this feeling at any time. I wondered how to interpret this; was this what those eastern religions were talking about; could it be nirvana, whatever that was; was mysticism at play? I was aware of some progress. But you can't subvert ego and also get along in this world. There are things that need to be done, practically, and to do them you need ego. I understood this. My solution: awareness of the divided aspects of reality, the practical world that we live in, which needs answers, actions, and your ego, and the other, spiritual world, that doesn't. You can adjust perspective to accomodate both. The one with ego involved is finite. It has problems and solutions, triumphs and loses, elation and sadness, boredom, death. The one that excludes ego has none of this. It has unity, oneness. Answers to the 'great questions' are irrelevant. The meaning of life? Where does love come from? What's the value of art, creativity? Why are we here? Is there a god? What is time and how does it work? Maybe there are answers. If there are, so what? If ego is eliminated, the answers don't matter. It's even bizarre to have the questions, from this perspective. Just accept, don't try to figure it out. But, we must make a go at life with ego as companion. We also can have an understanding that there is another way, beyond ourselves and our egos. It's liberating. It's fine. I realized this because of my encounter with that tree. The exploration ended when I was admiring the night sky and my focus, I ventured, should be on projecting myself into all the universe from the library roof -- or was it a certain star? I don't remember -- and attempted my meditation trick, which was not perfected though at times rewarding. As I did, a bolt out of the blue flashed -- extremely briefly -- and the universe engulfed me. Everything was one. All was one ... including insignificant me. It was brief but it was complete joy. For a while, I tried to imagine a way to express it. Eventually, I concluded this was impossible. There were no words for it. No way to share it. One simply had to experience it, as mystics apparently have. I came to know it was simply an incredible gift bestowed on me. By the universe? Why? I have no idea. There are no reasons, at least that I could understand. And it's not important to understand. What is important: I'm grateful. [/QUOTE]

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