"I Saw the Light."

I saw the light is an ancient expression but it has taken on new meaning for me  as I've thought about A.A. and the need for a Higher Power to end the cycle of addiction.  In 1968 I was involved in a high speed collision with a car while riding a motorcycle.  On impact my brain was filled with a bright light which I interpreted as the "other side" of the demension I currently inhabit which is the earthly demension we all inhabit while alive.  I placed my experience in the category of "near death" experiences other people have described over the years, which neurologists have explained away.  Likewise, many religious experiences are considered products of temporal lobe epilepsy.

Kundalini Yoga describes chakras in your body as lights and as you practice you achieve knowledge of different levels of light energies or something like that. The light represented in this photo by the 4th light down., is very similar to my vision on impact. I have never thought much about it before tonight

Kundalini is a psycho-spiritual energy, the energy of the consciousness, which is thought to reside within the sleeping body, and is aroused either through spiritual discipline or spontaneously to bring new states of consciousness, including mystical illumination. Kundalini is Sanskrit for "snake" or "serpent power," so-called because it is believed to lie like a serpent in the root chakra at the base of the spine.

The power of kundalini is said to be enormous. Those having experienced it claim it to be indescribable. The phenomena associated with it varies from bizarre physical sensations and movements, pain, clairaudience, visions, brilliant lights, superlucidity, psychical powers, ecstasy, bliss, and transcendence of self. Kundalini has been described as liquid fire and liquid light.

Indian yoga, with its emphasis on the transmutation of energy to higher consciousness, was the chief contributor to the cultivation of kundalini and the preservation of its knowledge prior to present times. Kundalini was a rarity in the West before the 1970s until more attention became centered upon the consciousness. In 1932, for example, psychiatrist Carl G. Jung and others observed that the kundalini experience was seldom seen in the West.

Thinking about the trans formative experience of accepting a Higher Power into your life made me think of that old expression about seeing the light.  Do some people experience the intensity of my crash vision when they "see the light" in a religious context?  If to see the light means the same experience in a religious context, it is understandable that they become fervent in their Belief in Jesus, God, Buddha, Yahweh, Allah or Krishna.  And what a splendid experience it must be for a person to have such an Awakening.  Most of us need to rely on Faith and never experience things like a burning bush that commands us to go forth and do good or whatever.  To whomever you attribute it, the Light to me involves the Immortal Hand that dares to frame the Tyger's fearful symetry in William Blake's Poem from:Songs of Experience.

THE TYGER (from Songs Of Experience)

By William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art.
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
1794

Wonder.  Mystery.  These are words I fall back on to describe this kind of thing.  Is it not enough of a miracle that we even exist to give you hope that their is meaning in our short lives?  We have been given a great gift to be alive and we should be thankful everyday.  Surrender to the Light that exists beyond your intellect and your present experience, your ego and any earthly conception you might know intellectually.  Do some people experience that kind of intensity during the variety of religious experiences that William James writes about?

It has always been my contention that the absolute mystery of the creation of the universe and any knowledge of God are concepts beyond the human intellect to explain.  Mathematical models do not produce understanding for the average human mind to grasp.  Scientists have many elegant ideas but none can answer our pressing questions about where did we come from?  Why are we here? and what is our purpose?  We do not get satisfying explanations that make us any more comfortable than myth or superstition can provide.

Going to the moon was a great feat but was it just an extension of other tool-using behaviors?

For instance, this Orangutan using a spear to catch fish reveals intelligence.  Or is man really a special creature?  Homo Sapiens currently dominate the earth and take ourselves very seriously for many reasons.  Nietzsche claims that our stomach stops us from mistaking ourselves for Gods.    We are not yet masters of the universe and cannot continue to exploit the Earth at the cost of the rest of the planet's inhabitants.  But that is another topic.