Nixon, Gregory Michael (2019) Breaking Out of One's Head (& Awakening to the World). In: Mysticism and Meaning: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Three Pines Press, St. Petersburg, FL, USA, pp. 29-57. ISBN 9781931483407
Preview |
PDF (Chaper 2 of book, Mysticism and Meaning)
- Published Version
506kB |
Abstract
Herein, I review the shattering moment in my life when I awoke from the dream of self to find being as part of the living world and not in my head, discovering my perspectival center to be literally everywhere. Since awakening to the world takes one beyond thought and language thus also beyond the symbolic construction of time, it is strange to place this event and its aftermath as happening long ago in my life. It is forever present. This fact puts into question the reality of my daily journey from dawn to dusk with all the mundane tasks I must complete. My linear march into aging and death inexorably continues, yet it seems somehow unreal, worth a smile as the inevitable changes ensue. Still, I write of the events leading up to my time out of mind and then review the serious repercussions that followed when I was drawn back into ego only to find I did not have the conceptual tools or the maturity to understand what had occurred. I close by looking back with theories that might explain what happened. I am now ready to allow the memory to sink into peaceful oblivion and reference it from within my mind no more. Ironically, the memory itself with its façade of knowledge may prevent me from a new, unexpected mystical experience. Only by forgetting can I hope to leave a crack in the verbal armament of self, so the world soul may break through and free me once again.
| Item Type: | Book Section |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | Authentic personal journey, some elements may be disturbing. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | mysticism, transcendence, psychedelics, LSD, self, awakening, shock-therapy, psychotherapy, narrative |
| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General) B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BD Speculative Philosophy B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) |
| References: | Abram, David. The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World. New York: Pantheon, 1996.
—. Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology. New York: Pantheon, 2010. Becker, Ernest. The Denial of Death. New York: Free Press, 1973. Beckett, Samuel. The Unnamable. In Three Novels by Samuel Beckett, 289-414. New York: Grove Press, 1958. Bergson, Henri, Creative Evolution. Translated Arthur Mitchell. Lanham, MD: Holt, 1983. (Original, 1911) Brown, Norman O. Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytic Meaning of History. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1959. Bucke, Richard M. Cosmic Consciousness. New York: Innes & Sons, 1905. Cichowski, Roland. “Self-Transcendence as a Developmental Process in Consciousness.” Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 2, no. 7 (2011): 966-980. Dass, Ram. Be Here Now. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1971. Forman, Robert K. C. Mysticism, Mind, Consciousness. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999. Gebser, Jean. The Ever-Present Origin. Translated by Noel Barstad. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1985. Harding, D. E. On Having No Head. New York: Perennial Library, Harper & Row, 1972. Heidegger, Martin. An Introduction to Metaphysics. Translated by Ralph Manheim. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1987 (original 1959). Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. The Visible and the Invisible, followed by working notes. Translated by Alphonso Lingis. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1968. Nagel, Thomas. Mind & Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception is Almost Certainly False. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Nixon, Gregory M. Hollows of Memory: From Panexperientialism to Individual Consciousness — Featuring Gregory M. Nixon’s Work with Commentaries & Responses — Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 2, no. 3 (2010): 213-401. —. “Myth and Mind: The Origin of Human Consciousness in the Discovery of the Sacred.” Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 2, no. 3 (2010): 289-337. Roberts, Thomas B. The Psychedelic Future of the Mind: How Entheogens Are Enhancing Cognition, Boosting Intelligence, and Raising Values. South Paris, ME: Park Street Press, 2013. Rosen, Steven M. Dreams, Death, Rebirth: A Multimedia Topological Odyssey into Alchemy's Hidden Dimensions. Online, 2013: http://embodyingcyberspace.com/dreams-death-rebirth-a-multimedia-topological-odyssey-into-alchemys-hidden-dimensions1361/ Sessa, Ben. The Psychedelic Renaissance: Reassessing the Role of Psychedelic Drugs in 21st Century Psychiatry and Society. London: Muswell Hill Press, 2012. Suzuki, Daisetz T. “The Awakening of a New Consciousness in Zen.” In Man and Transformation: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, edited by Joseph Campbell, 179-202. Princeton: Princeton University Press, Bollingen Series XXX – 5, 1964. Original in Eranos-Jahrbücher XXIII, 1954. Varki, Ajit, and Danny Brower. Denial: Self-Deception, False Beliefs, and the Origins of the Human Mind. New York: Twelve, Hatchette Book Group, 2013. Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology, corrected edition. Edited by David Ray Griffin & Donald W. Sherburne. New York: Free Press, 1978 (original 1929). Wilber, Ken. The Eye of Spirit: An Integral Vision for a World Gone Slightly Mad (3rd ed.). Boston: Shambhala, 2001 (original 1997). Wolfson, Phil. “A Longitudinal History of Self-Transformation: Psychedelics, Spirituality, Activism and Transformation.” Journal of Consciousness Exploration & Research 2, no. 7 (2011): 981-992. |
| ID Code: | 428 |
| Deposited By: | Dr Gregory M Nixon |
| Deposited On: | 10 Jul 2021 07:35 |
| Last Modified: | 10 Jul 2021 07:35 |
Repository Staff Only: item control page