You know the old story about how your whole life flashes before your eyes just before you die? Well, that had happened to me three times in my life before the morning of September, 2nd 2009. Once was when I was drowning at the age of seven. Once was when I did drown and was clinically dead for 3 (or so) minutes at 13. Another was while falling from the top of a 250 pole while on a sky coaster ride that I thought had broken. (The catch at the bottom was something of a relief.)
The morning of September 2nd 2009 was the fourth, except there was no imminent death threat (or event.) I was just doing my normal meditation thing. I was in about 10 minutes when all of a sudden *Bam!* my entire life flashed before my eyes, just like it had those other three times. It caught up to the moment I was in and there was a “drop”, like I’ve had before when really clicking into the practice of atma vichara, which is my primary spiritual practice (sometimes called “self inquiry”). Then, nothing. The rest of the meditation, about 15 minutes or so, was in utter silence without thought. I’ve had periods of no-thought before during meditation, but they usually last a maximum of a minute and a half, and usually no longer than 45 seconds before a thought wanders by and grabs my attention, after which I (at some point) catch myself and go back to the vichara. Not this time though. 15 solid minutes of no-thing. Not even the idea that it was pleasant, or long, or anything really.
Then my timer went off, so I got up. In retrospect I am very glad my timer didn’t hoark, like it sometimes does. Probably would have been there until Daisy got up.
Tags: Atma Vichara, Meditation
