Proton Hugging Quarks

Recent posts have alluded to the ‘awakening’ I experienced during the middle part of January. Perhaps you have noticed that details have been slow in coming. The episode had such impact, and seemed so special, that I’ve wanted to savor and assimilate it before taking the risk of describing it badly. How could I possibly do it justice? If it is not entirely beyond words, it will certainly be reduced by them. So please forgive the hesitance with which I am spelling it out.

Not only do I have trouble describing what happened, I can’t even categorize it properly. In terms of emotional impact, it had much in common with the ‘psychosis’ that overwhelmed my mind in 2000. At that time, my universe came alive with divine forces and holy beings. Afterwards, everyone around me suffered through long descriptions of what I called ‘my religious visions’. Because the amazing sights, sounds, and feelings had seemed to be the handiwork of supernatural agencies, I believed them ’spiritual’ in every sense of the word. What happened this January had the same emotional impact, but the causes seemed different. Whereas before I heard holy voices and met divine spirits, this time nothing supernatural seemed to be at play. I felt a profound connection with my surroundings, and enjoyed a penetrating clarity about my true condition as a human being. But I did not hear, feel, or see any gods or angels. My thinking did not go in that direction at all.

So was this experience ’spiritual’, or not? Consider that it: 1) made me exquisitely aware of the profuse (and unarguable) connections between all life forms; 2) showed me my insignificance in the face of a vast and mysterious cosmos; 3) helped me recognize that the universe is perfect in its own way; and 4) reminded me of what a privilege it is to be a witness. Because I felt both humbled and absorbed by the cosmos, and because the universe struck me as exactly ‘right’, the episode counts as an awakening. And yet everything that I saw and felt, or that comforted me, came from either scientific knowledge or day-to-day experience. Whatever happened cannot be labelled ’secular’, because it felt so numinous. But it did not seem supernatural, either. Can it be called ’spiritual’ if it did not involve ’spirits’?

My awakening can be described as a ’sacred’ experience, even if it was not a strictly spiritual one. Although dictionary definitions of ’sacred’ mostly relate to ‘God or gods’, there is also the meaning: ‘highly valued or important’. In that sense, I found myself recognizing how we inhabit a sacred universe, where every particle holds tremendous significance. Which, if you think about it, is not much of a stretch. For the simplest example, isn’t it spectacular that protons exist? And that they comprise even smaller particles called quarks, which evidently contain even smaller things of some sort (strings?). With my awakened state of mind, these momentous truths almost overwhelmed me. I was awestruck by the enormity of my surroundings, and yet I felt both absorbed and supported by them. The universe was not somehow separate from ‘me’, and I could find no objective boundary between the outside world and my inner mind. I also had absolute confidence that there are no flaws in the cosmos. Everything is as it must be. Although the reality of tragedy remained quite clear, I saw that in the larger scheme of things, it is unavoidable. Hardship is inseparable from life. In short, I knew the universe to be profound, one with me, and perfect.

Later, as the impact of this experience hit home, I found an entirely new attitude toward life. No longer obsessed with my small inner concerns, I now have much more appreciation of the larger, outer world. My depression and anxiety have lightened to the point where they hardly deserve those names any longer. Not that I feel giddy or supremely ‘happy’. An undertone of sorrow can still be heard anytime I slow down and listen. But it is a special kind of sadness, with an almost inexpressible, sorrowful majesty. Everything in this universe, including my depression, holds beauty of one kind or another.

Not only was my experience ’sacred’, therefore, it was also transformative. After years of very slow and incremental change, I found myself leaping over barriers that had seemed insurmountable and permanent just a week earlier. My mental health jumped to a new plateau. There is room for a great deal more growth and maturity, of course, but I made more progress in January than in the entire decade between 2000 and 2010.

Having been granted a sacred, transformative awakening that followed specific actions and contemplations, I suspect that something in my experience might assist others. My first obligation, and the one way I might be able to help, is to write.