Your Defining Moment

First, I must apologise if a thread like this exists (I am too lazy to go and search for it)…

I am interested to read about people’s first experiences or ‘glimpses of the unseen’ that started them on the path of Yoga.

I have always been very inquisitive and always looked into things far beyond what is generally perceived…I think I was just a very bored kid. lol

Anyway…It happened when I was 16 years old.

My grandmother (who I was very close to) had just passed away and I was in a period of mourning. It also happened the same week I was to be a bridesmaid at my aunt’s wedding.
I really didn’t feel like being a bridesmaid, but everybody kept telling me ‘life goes on’ and ‘it’s what your grandmother would have wanted’…so I reluctantly decided to go through with it.

It was the day of the wedding and the weather was lousy…it was overcast and raining and I was in the hairdressing salon getting my hair done…
The hairdresser just put curlers in my hair and applied the ‘setting gel’…then she asked if I would like a cup of tea. I said ‘yes’.

She went away for a very long time and I looked around the salon…I was the only one in there…
I was sitting in front of a large mirror and there was another large mirror behind me. I moved my chair backwards until I was equidistant between both mirrors.

I noticed that I was reflected in one mirror and that reflection was also reflected in the other mirror which was reflected back into the first mirror…and on and on this went…I looked deep into the reflections and all the subsequent reflections, trying to define a point where I would lose ‘focus’ (and wondering how many times reflections could actually be ‘reflected’). lol

Then, I heard/felt this huge ‘crack’ in my head and the salon was filled with light…the sun was streaming through the salon windows (on an overcast day)…I was aware of my grandmother with me and being at peace…I had never felt so much joy and happiness in my life…

I ‘woke up’ in the doctor’s surgery next door and was told that I had passed out due to ‘stress’…
My mother said that I didn’t have to go through with being a bridesmaid at the wedding if I didn’t want to…I replied with: “I would love to. It would be an honour”…people were wondering what ‘got into me’…if they only knew. :smiley:

I have always remembered this and look back on it when I get spiritually discouraged.

I have had a few experiences since then, but none as vivid or defining.

Please share.

Beautiful story! Thanks Nobody for sharing this. Gave me goosebumps.

A defining moment for me (there have been many such moments) was when my bother was hospitalized in the intensive care unit and diagnosed with Guillain Barre. He was around 40 and had a 1 year old daughter. He was very ill and partially paralyzed. My mother, brothers best friend, myself and my other brother were there visiting. Steve could barely move. His best friend suggested we do energy work to facilitate healing. I naturally went to his head area and gently held his head in my hands. The others picked other areas of his body. We maintained our positions for what seemed like a moment, but was actually almost 45 minutes. My hand were warm and I was filled with a feeling of being physically and emotionally connected to my brother. I felt the energy in both hands and the connection to the others. The next day, my brother was much better and the paralysis had eased. Before this, I was the only one in my family who had been practicing yoga. Of course I loved to share with them how wonderful it was, but they nicely nodded and were not interested. I have always been very close to this brother who is 6 years my junior. Each day I would pack my lunch and eat with him in his hospital room and we had the most delightful and deep conversations. He became aware of how much yoga had changed my life and was interested in knowing more. He asked me to go to physical therapy with him so I could help him, through yoga, regain his strength. I did so each and every day for some time.

He is now 100% and practices yoga each day. He is very interested in Buddhism and does much reading on both yoga and Buddhism. We are now closer than ever. It was that moment when I held his head in my hands that I knew I was helping him get better. I knew my practice would take on new meaning. That new meaning became Reiki which has been such a blessing for myself and those I’ve worked on. I knew that I was given a gift and it was a gift I needed to share.

I have had some very profound spiritual experiences that led me to my Catholic faith, but nothing like that which led me to yoga. My massage therapist told me about yoga and that it would be a way to maintain the work she did on my body, and I tried it, and got a glimpse of how much better I felt doing yoga, and how much cheaper it was than my massage therapist.

I think this a wonderful thread and am completely surprised that not more have posted.

I think my defining moment was when I realized that being unhappy and feeling like I was loosing my spirituality slowly was not what I wanted to happen. I see things all the time being that I am sensitive to the spiritual world but the big moment was feeling the way I was feeling and realizing that it was not how I wanted to feel.

When I was very young, maybe eight or nine, I was playing in the back garden, when I suddenly had the overwhelming realisation that everyone, and everything, dies. It wasn’t scary or morbid, it was just a sudden inner certainty. But it was accompanied by the knowledge that death was not the end, and that there was no futility.
It took years before I could find anything that spoke about this. When I was 13, I found “Teach Yourself Zen Buddhism” and the Dhammapada. Then I discovered the Western Esoteric Tradition when I was 16. Eventually, after years of being involved with various things, I encountered a Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) tape, and at about the same time The Gospel of Shr Ramakrishna. That’s when I knew I was finally on the right trail.

Here’s something that happened around that time.

Having read Be Here Now, in which he describes his Guru, who always wore a plaid blanket, and who had jokingly asked for the Land Rover Ram Das was driving when they first met. I had started to chant Ram on a mala. I’d chant for about two hours in the morning, and again about two hoursmin the evening, all the time thinking of Neem Karoli Baba. I heared about Ram Dass’ book ‘Miracle of Love’. This was long before the Internet, so I wrote to the NKB Ashram in New England to order a copy, and carried on chanting.
One night about three months later, I’m on the bus home doing my japa, and get that feeling you have when some is looking at you. The bus stationary. I look over my shoulder out of the window, and there is a Land Rover being driven by an old Indian gentleman. He’s looking right at me and smiling. I can’t describe what happened inside me. A sort of rushing filled my ears, and it felt like the seat dropped a couple of feet underneath me. I turned away in stunned confusion. A moment later I looked again, and the Land Rover had turned a corner, and was driving away. There was a plaid blanket over the rear seat.
The journey home was surreal.
When I arrived home, I had a parcel. It was the book I had ordered three months earlier. This is a book of stories about Neem Karoli Baba. I opened the book and the first story I read was one written by a European devotee of NKB. It went something like this:
"I was riding a bus home from work, and there are only a few people on. I’m sat in an aisle seat, and nobody is in the seat beside me. We stop and a little old Indian man gets on the bus, wrapped in a plaid blanket. He walks right over to me, and I’m trying to ignore him, they way you do on a bus, but he insists on pushing past me go sit in the window seat beside me. I travel the extra few stops and when I come to get off, I turn to give him a friendly smile…but there is nobody there!"
When I read this story, I have an absolutely overwhelming sense of joy and love, and start to laugh and cry uncontrollably. I’m in that state for a good while before I manage to regain control.
I consider myself blessed.

[QUOTE=dharma66;44461]When I was very young, maybe eight or nine, I was playing in the back garden, when I suddenly had the overwhelming realisation that everyone, and everything, dies. It wasn’t scary or morbid, it was just a sudden inner certainty. But it was accompanied by the knowledge that death was not the end, and that there was no futility.
It took years before I could find anything that spoke about this. When I was 13, I found “Teach Yourself Zen Buddhism” and the Dhammapada. Then I discovered the Western Esoteric Tradition when I was 16. Eventually, after years of being involved with various things, I encountered a Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) tape, and at about the same time The Gospel of Shr Ramakrishna. That’s when I knew I was finally on the right trail.

Here’s something that happened around that time.

Having read Be Here Now, in which he describes his Guru, who always wore a plaid blanket, and who had jokingly asked for the Land Rover Ram Das was driving when they first met. I had started to chant Ram on a mala. I’d chant for about two hours in the morning, and again about two hoursmin the evening, all the time thinking of Neem Karoli Baba. I heared about Ram Dass’ book ‘Miracle of Love’. This was long before the Internet, so I wrote to the NKB Ashram in New England to order a copy, and carried on chanting.
One night about three months later, I’m on the bus home doing my japa, and get that feeling you have when some is looking at you. The bus stationary. I look over my shoulder out of the window, and there is a Land Rover being driven by an old Indian gentleman. He’s looking right at me and smiling. I can’t describe what happened inside me. A sort of rushing filled my ears, and it felt like the seat dropped a couple of feet underneath me. I turned away in stunned confusion. A moment later I looked again, and the Land Rover had turned a corner, and was driving away. There was a plaid blanket over the rear seat.
The journey home was surreal.
When I arrived home, I had a parcel. It was the book I had ordered three months earlier. This is a book of stories about Neem Karoli Baba. I opened the book and the first story I read was one written by a European devotee of NKB. It went something like this:
"I was riding a bus home from work, and there are only a few people on. I’m sat in an aisle seat, and nobody is in the seat beside me. We stop and a little old Indian man gets on the bus, wrapped in a plaid blanket. He walks right over to me, and I’m trying to ignore him, they way you do on a bus, but he insists on pushing past me go sit in the window seat beside me. I travel the extra few stops and when I come to get off, I turn to give him a friendly smile…but there is nobody there!"
When I read this story, I have an absolutely overwhelming sense of joy and love, and start to laugh and cry uncontrollably. I’m in that state for a good while before I manage to regain control.
I consider myself blessed.[/QUOTE]

That was an awesome and beautiful story. <3

I share a similar background.

Ever since I was young, I have always questioned everything.

At age 11 or 12, I picked up ‘The Third Eye’ by Tuesday Lobsang Rampa.
From there, I read all of his books (I didn’t realise that he was a ‘fake’ until much later on)…

Then, my family and I traveled to Bali, Indonesia. I made a good friend there, who gave me 2 books to read (and keep): ‘The Rubiyaat’ by Omar Khyamm and ‘The Prophet’ by Khalil Gibran…it was about the same time that Shirley Maclaine stopped acting and started writing…I lapped all of her books up too…

Then I also got into Ram Dass (after doing some research on Carlos Castenada which then led me onto Timothy Leary and Stephen Levine)…the first Ram Dass book that I read was ‘Grist For The Mill’ followed by ‘Be Here Now’…from there, I got into Osho (who was Bhagavan Sri Rajneesh at the time) and I followed that for a while…then, I became involved with a spiritual movement called ‘Mahikari’ (I wonder whatever happened to that)?
It was whilst I was involved with Mahikari that I had some of my most profound experiences…

From there, I was a regular at the ‘Theosophical Society’ in Sydney and joined their comprehensive library. It was at this stage I read The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads, The Ramayana, The Vedas and Puranas…I spent a lot of time there and also at the Hare Krishna temple in Darlinghurst just ‘pigging out’ on scrumptious Prasadam and joining in their evening Kirtan…

Other days were spent in meditation at the Balmain Park in Glebe Point, or just swimming/surfing and enjoying nature…

I was so naive back then…lol

This is a good thread. I have had spiritual experiences, but none too much to write home about, except for a new notable one. However, my defining moment in my life was not my spiritual experiences, but a period in my childhood. Naturally, you cannot remember much from such early ages, but from what I am told and the few fragments I remember I can see I was easily in my most happiest, joyous and alive state. I was born as a rather overweight baby, very quiet, rarely ever cried. My relatives use to remark, “Unusual, all other babies cry, and he does not” My aunty also noted when I went to sleep I slept in prayer posture, so she said to my mom, “He was surely a saint in his past life” I am not sure how much of this is true, but it was noted by everybody how quiet I was. I would not play with others. I would always sit on my own. Then things changed when I went to India when I was 5 and spent 6 months there, I became very talkative, I had loads of fun and adventure, and I was uber-confident. I even beat up the local-bully who was bullying my cousins and threw him down the stairs. I remember in fragments me saying, “Are you messing with my cousins” like a hero from a movie. I got so much love, support… and loads of spoiling in India, it bought out a lot of positive qualities in me. Alas, it did not last, we returned from India and when we got back to England, I had forgotten how to speak English! I had relearn how to speak English and I had become isolated again. I had also witnessed so much that a child should not in these early years that left deep emotional scars. But those 6 months I spent in India were the greatest and defining moments of my life. I long to reawaken that inner child. I think it is only those 6 months in my entire life when I really got love, support and a chance to be myself.

Nothing really notable happened in my life again until the age of 21-22. I just got on with it when I returned to the UK, my mother who was overprotective would not let me play with the kids outside, so I stayed in most of the time. I had only one best friend, but I was a year older than him, so we ended up being in different years at school and drifted apart. I rejected religion around the age of 17-18, stopped going to the Gudwara(Sikh temple) and stopped believing in god. I hit a period of depression and suicidal feelings and become nihilistic. It is at this point, somehow I got in touch with a spiritual group known as the Brahma Kumaris. They taught me meditation, and I could accept the meditation, but their dogmas were anthema to me. They repeatedly told me to pray to god and accept god, and being an atheist I cannot just do that without proof. Im my solitude I use to scream out, “GOD, I CANNOT JUST BELIEVE IN YOU WITHOUT PROOF, IF YOU ARE THERE, GIVE ME A SIGN” and of course I was greeted by silence. After a while though, things started to shift. Hearing those Brahma Kumari tapes constantly citing, “I am a peaceful soul, om shanti om” seem to have made some impression. I got quick beginners gains and had my first OBE. The most unexpected thing that has happened to my in my life. It was as if I was lifted by some loving invisible hand out of my body into the celestial skies and great joy was felt, but then all of a sudden a feeling of guilt arose in me, I thought to myself, “I do not deserve this” and the moment that thought came upon me it consumed me and I fell from this grace I was receiving into a total darkness, an absolute abyss, total void and nonexistence. I fell deeper and deeper into it, like it was some bottomless chasm. It was suffocating me, I felt like all my life was sucked out of me and I felt terrible fear and the presence of immense evil there. I knew where I was - I was in hell. I knew why I was there because of my beliefs of nihilism and atheism, misanthropy. I pleaded, “Please give me one more chance, just one more chance” and then all of a sudden I rose from the abyss and I came back to waking life.

After that I had sporadic OBES and other spiritual experiences. I had found overtime my nihilism, atheism and misanthropy were completely gone and were replaced with optimism, spiritualism and philanthropy. However, this too was only a stage. But it was the beginning of my spiritual journey.

[QUOTE=Surya Deva;44538]…After that I had sporadic OBES and other spiritual experiences. I had found overtime my nihilism, atheism and misanthropy were completely gone and were replaced with optimism, spiritualism and philanthropy. However, this too was only a stage. But it was the beginning of my spiritual journey.[/QUOTE]
So if these OBE are not yet Samadhi how does one get there?

Three years ago on a day when I was at work, my supervisor noticed a mistake of mine – I had been making more of them recently – and dressed me down publicly, in front of my co workers. I had no defense. I sat in my chair and cried silently.

And when I was done crying I called my MD’s office to ask for help.

This was the first time I took seriously the fact that my habits lead me to an unhealthy (in fact, disordered), detached, and unproductive place.

Yoga has been part of my climb out.

I think my ‘moment’ may have been similar.

Early 20’s I was reading a lot of Zen books and meditating a lot, I was lonely. One time meditating I felt a jolt of lightning, my eyes shot open, I felt immense love, relief, joy and felt I was floating with light, stars all around me.

My main focus of meditation was asking who am I, why am I here, what’s my purpose? kind of thing.

Throughout my life still, every now and then I’ll have certain moments, where everything is perfectly in place, those still moments where peace and love can exist and joy can be felt.

Breathe peace and light.

[QUOTE=Awwware;44705]So if these OBE are not yet Samadhi how does one get there?[/QUOTE]

OBES are more like side effects of Yoga. Patanjali mentions them as Siddhis which originate from Yoga sadhana, and says we should not get too carried away with them. However, spontaneous arisings of siddhis is a very good sign you are progressing on the path. It is a worry if the siddhis do not arise, then it can be taken as a symptom you are not progressing.

A purified mind will naturally start to develop siddhis. It is a basic cause and effect relationship. If you meet a guru, you should
expect siddhis. Otherwise, they are not that enlightened to be honest. It might be their choice not to show them to everybody,
but at some point they need to show you to win your faith in them and to show you show what you are capable of after reaching
their level of yoga sadhana.

when i was lonely in ireland, a black dog came and laid across my lap and kept me company as the sun went down over the ocean. when i was lonesome on canada a squirrel came and sat on the porch steps and studied me for nearly half an hour. in a park in england a pigeon flew onto my forearm and stood staring into my eyes for some time before flying away. these are the times when my third eye opens :slight_smile:

[QUOTE=Surya Deva;44739]If you meet a guru, you should expect siddhis. Otherwise, they are not that enlightened to be honest. It might be their choice not to show them to everybody, but at some point they need to show you to win your faith in them and to show you show what you are capable of after reaching their level of yoga sadhana.[/QUOTE]

I could not agree more.
Immediately after my Guru had given me and my wife diksha, we were walking through the antechamber and He was there. He called us over and spoke to us briefly. As we were talking, I was looking up into his face, and I had to shade my eyes because the sun was shining through a window behind Him. The light was so bright it hurt my eyes, an I could not focus on His face.

As we walked away, I realised I had definitely been looking up to His face, but He is much shorter than me! Puzzled by this, turned around to look at Him and realised that there was no window, and the light had been shining directly from Him.

This is not the only miraculous thing I have seen from Him, but they are rare events, witnessed by only a few people at a time. I believe he behaves exactly as Surya describes. When someone will greatly benefit, the siddhi manifests, otherwise not.

I remember the first time I learned to really meditate. Afterwards when we were sharing our experiences I said it was like "I was really really huge but had no body, just my mind and I was filling up a universe with no stars. Is that okay?"
Some people looked jealous & the teacher just smiled & said “Yes, that is perfectly fine.” & after that I was hooked.

Hi there, this interests me too. Here’s an excerpt from my last blog post (clareactman22.blogspot)

A few months ago, I attended a class in Tasmania called ‘Open heart meditation’. We were instructed not to focus on the mind and instead, told to focus on the heart chakra and accept any passing thoughts, rather than actively try to stop them.

During the meditation, I became aware of a strong, delicate white energy coiling up through my whole body which felt so powerful, I intuitively thought, there is something inside all of us that remains alive after death. I no longer felt like a physical being; I felt connected, made of energy and instinctively thought that there is something higher at work here.

Is this a valid explanation for having blind faith in something? I discussed my experience with the teacher afterwards who described the energy as ‘Kundalini energy’: ‘Energy that lies dormant at the base of the spine until it is activated, as by the practice of yoga or meditation, and channeled upward through the chakras in the process of spiritual perfection’. (answers.com)

My defining moment was one night in August in 1996 at a lecture at the Theosophical Society in my city. The lecture was on Siddhis and psychic energy by Sri durga Devi and I decided to go as I am able since a young age to just see things.

About halfway through the lecture I suddenly felt a vision coming on, I would get very hot, my heart would start to race and my ears started to sing and I knew the signs of a vision coming on. Sri Druga was standing in the middle of the hall and to her left and right was to large open walls, on her left side suddenly I saw something like a movie that played off in front of me. I saw a Being of Light and a dark image fighting over my soul. At one point the Being of Light was busy losing this battle and I was getting very anxious at that point and I remember a little voice came up who said you can will anything you want to happend. I then remembered willing it that the Being of Light must win, I wanted my soul to be on the Light side and so it happened. Moments later I woke up in a little room with a few people around me and Sri Durga wanting to know if i am ok. I remember her taking my hand telling me that I am now ok.

Three things happened that night:

a. My soul made a decision where it want to be and I learned the power of the Will.
b. My search for my Path started, which lead me to yoga.
c. I met my teacher Sri Durga Devi and two years later I started doing yoga with her and gave myself to her teachings, for which I am ever grateful.