Mystical Experience Or Nervous Breakdown?: How I Turned From Atheist And Pessimist to Believe And Optimist

MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE OR NERVOUS BREAKDOWN?: How I Turned From Atheist And Pessimist To Believe
And Optimist And Opened To A New World And A New Life.

When people ask me now who I work with and what I do, I tell them, “I do business with God. She tells me what I think." I got the job when I saw a sign on a lamp post, HELP WANTED, INQUIRE WITHIN.”

Well, I inquired within and got a lot more tha
I bargained for: near madness, a mystical experience and eventually spiritual enlightenment, or I should say, Self enlightenment – Higher Self enlightenment.

It happened over twenty five years ago while going through divorce. I was an atheist at the time. During the first session with a therapist, she said the mind controls all. Yogis can walk on nails or hot coals and not get hurt. They can even control their body temperature. Even though my ex-husband decided to leave, I was determined to be happy instead of sad. Also, wanting to be thin for the singles world I lost thirty pounds in two weeks, and craving to learn everything I could about relationships, what goes wrong, and how to have a healthy one I started reading nonstop, oftentimes all night long taking to sleeping barely one or two hours a night. Also, a neighbor who divorced six months earlier suggested I keep a journal to record the changes that would take place in me. I kept a pad with me at all times and constantly wrote down my thoughts and experiences – day and night.

Getting all my thoughts down on paper helped me see what was going on in my mind. I became so tuned into my mind that after a while I began experiencing ESP and mental telepathy. At night I began writing theories on higher creativity and heard things about Plato and Aristotle, ideas I never studied heretofore. Thoughts continued coming only faster and more furiously like a train speeding up and never stopping. One day overwhelmed with non-stop thought and total exhaustio
I had a meltdown. I started crying hysterically and ran into my bedroom. My knees went down to the floor as these animalistic guttural sounds poured out of me in a crying and shuddering that was brain shattering. Then automatically I screamed GOD HELP ME! When I reclined on the bed it felt like every bit of my being left my body. Then total silence! In the silence I experienced an incredible light and sensations of pins and needles surround me messaging my skin. Then an indescribable warmth and love entered into me. It was a deep inner love that came to me and through me. I remembered thinking this is the feeling of true love; love without having someone to love. This is unconditional love! Then I heard a voice, like talking through a megaphone. The voice said, “You are a messiah.”

I screamed internally, “I’m not a messiah. A messiah can save the world. I can’t even save myself. Besides, a messiah knows all. What do I know?”

The voice said, “All knowing is within. What you know will manifest in poetry.”

I never wrote poetry, never read poetry and in high school it would take me three hours to write three lines. I chalked the whole thing off as a hallucination while at the same time thinking I would write at least two books and do research. On what I had no idea.

Two weeks later I awoke in the middle of the night and wrote the first of approximately 1,000 poems. They just poured out of me day and night. Not great literary prose; just little ditties in my own words answering questions I was asking internally on life, love, God, relationships.

After the spiritual experience, although I continued to write poems I lost that high clear state. It felt like I awoke temporarily and went back to sleep. I needed to wake up again. Contemplating the occurrences leading up to and including the spiritual experience I realized I reached a higher level of consciousness and love. I was shown a glimpse of what and how this connection would feel and be like. The next twenty-five years were spent researching that experience. I needed to know what it meant; how I created it; and how to receive and maintain that connection of wisdom and love intentionally and, more importantly, how to apply and maintain it in daily life.

Over the years I was guided to study a variety of spiritual traditions, and psychotherapeutic and interpersonal relationship methods. These included meditation, communication, energy psychologies and manifestation techniques. I also remarried, at age 48 went to college and grad school then I became a transformational psychotherapist and began giving workshops internationally on communication, spirituality and finding purpose. And, serendipitously I was asked to write the book, Personal Kabbalah: 32 paths to inner peace and life purpose. (Sterling Publishing, 2005).

To sum up what I learned:

* We are each our own God. We create our lives. However, there is energy out there to help us when we ask for help.

* Unconditional love isn’t something we do - it’s something we receive when we’re open to it.

* Purpose isn’t something we search for - it finds us when we declare that we’re ready for it.

* Transformation is not an end result, but an ongoing process of healing ourselves one belief and one instinct at a time.

* All knowing is within, which means the intelligence of each of us dwells in each other’s bodies, hearts, souls and spirits and when we heal a part of ourselves we heal a part of the world.

* We are each our own messiah capable of reaching a state of peace within ourselves by taking responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, speech and actions and transforming them to peace and love. And when we deal with others from peace and love we allow them the space to feel peace and love and that’s when the greater Messiah will emerge.

I invite you to be your own messiah and take responsibility for your own thoughts, feelings speech and actions and transform them to peace and love. In doing so you will have access to all that is; and that includes having a wonderful life. If you want more information on how to heal yourself and change your life by all means go to my Website: PennyCohen.com, or join me on Facebook and Twitter or subscribe to my weekly newsletter: Penny@PennyCohen and write in the subject line: I subscribe to Love-n-Life.