To understand the first magnificent relationship, let us say you are developing, day by day, through faith and companionship. And, you are striving to be more conscious. At this point, you don’t know quite what to expect, what higher consciousness will be like. You simply direct an appreciative flow of emotion toward your meditation object or higher consciousness itself. You gather and direct your emotions to flow toward your ideal, again and again.
The Experience of Awe
One day, in the privacy of your meditation, or during a quiet break from the activity of your day, rapture fills your heart and mind. Suddenly, the intense light, or power, or glory of the higher consciousness reveals itself.
Blinders or curtains seem to be withdrawn and you behold the intensity and the magnificence of this very real and palpable power. You strive to contain your astonishment lest you lose your mood. The experience is heavenly! It’s beautiful; it stops your throat, for the experience is ineffable.
You sit mute and ever so small before what you are beholding. Its immensity is truly mind-blowing. You are looking at, and feeling, wonder beyond comprehension. Thus, you have entered what is generally the first relationship: awe.
Different Experiences of Awe
People have different experiences, depending on which part of their nature is more developed.
- Often, light, blazing as bright as the sun, but ever so soothing to look into, is enchantingly beheld.
- However, most seekers in this state experience a “thunderous silence” which totally calms and stills their minds, as their consciousness is extended far beyond any dimensions they have ever conceived.
- Also, many seekers find the awe state as the “little” love in their hearts meets the infinite source of love and their whole self stands in shock.
- Light, thunderous silence, and expanded love are some of the principal ways this major relationship is experienced. The main characteristic, in all cases, is dumbfounded awe.
You return from this experience viewing all life and every living thing with a sense of deep respect and a lingering awe. Even the earth beneath your feet is sensed to have a new significance. Everything you see has an added dimension. You sense that the pure consciousness which you recently beheld has created and is sustaining all the physical forms and every person you see. You try to find words to approximate your experience, but it cannot be communicated. Only the similar direct experience of another person enables understanding.
It Makes You Humble
In the days and weeks after your experience of higher consciousness you continue your daily life with an ongoing sense of awe. The afterglow of this incomparable state reorients your attitudes and perceptions. This mood or relationship of awe performs a most valuable secondary task: it makes you humble — it enables you to sense a reality greater than anything your selfish will or ego can possibly dominate or rule.
In this relationship you get a sense of who is really the boss, or how tiny you truly are. On the other hand, as the relationship of awe develops, you pause regularly to sweetly muse that such a great reality, such a phenomenal being or existence, has lovingly revealed itself to you — as tiny as you are in comparison. You delight that little as you are, amid planets and galaxies, you are nevertheless capable of a relationship with something so astonishingly, enthrallingly grand.
A Higher Power
This awe mood is extremely valuable because oftentimes people who practice techniques of higher consciousness tend, like most people, to get proud, or lazy, or even to take the best things in life for granted. This initial, totally silencing experience of awe can resonate throughout the rest of your life. Awe enables you to maintain a renewed sense of humility and thus be even more receptive to subsequent relationships.
Also, in this relationship of awe you realize that a higher power truly exists and really is capable of helping you with your life. The awe mood validates your devoted practice of faith and makes it very easy for you in your littleness to turn on the switch of your thought and allow higher consciousness to move and express wherever you are willing to receive that help.
It Waits Until You Are Ready
If you were simply to remain in the relationship of awe without experiencing other relationships, you would nevertheless live your life with deep gratitude and a spectacular sense of well being. Needless to say, after the first experience of the awe mood you are often so totally impacted by it that you should spend a few quiet hours after the experience resting or walking, praying, or lightly meditating, allowing yourself to calm down. The awe relationship is governed by your higher consciousness and does not occur in unpleasant or inappropriate surroundings.
Higher consciousness waits until you are ready, not only mentally and emotionally, but also in terms of your outer circumstances and schedules. Usually the awe experience is so profound that while you yearn to have it again, you are likely somewhat frightened that it might actually occur again! Your apprehension gradually diminishes in your growing consciousness of higher power and your sweet reflections on the surpassing beauty of your first awe experience.
Awe Returns
When your apprehension has subsided and a continual flow of devotion returns, the awe experience will again come to you. Ultimately, awe can be experienced regularly. Its qualities will sparkle throughout your activities and even in your sleep. You will live in countless variations of the awe mood.
Awe is a precious experience which will occur only when you have prepared your heart, mind, and body. All you can do is prepare yourself, yearn toward the higher consciousness, and know you will be amazingly enriched when you are ready. May you be so fortunate!
