After some time of intensively practicing and exploring Belsebuub’s techniques of training to be aware during my day, trying to overcome some strong negative states and addictive patterns, working overall to bring balance and clarity within, I had an experience where I was helped to reach a heightened state of consciousness, where I felt I could separate from the stream of thoughts in my mind.
It arose through the practice of being aware in the present moment, and has stayed with me since.
Beyond the Mind
I was with my family, just sitting outside in nature and enjoying a hot summer day in the mountains. As I tried to feel the nature around me, I suddenly felt much clearer than usual. I was surprised.
The clarity of my state increased to a point where I felt that I can completely switch off my mind as something separate from me and just be clear, perceiving and hearing everything around me. I felt very quiet and perceptive.
I felt blissful and a silent joy was overflowing within me. At a point I decided to go back to my previous mode of being, just to check if it was still available – yes, my thoughts were still there, but they were not shouting at me or taking over me. Something else was dominating my being at that moment, a more full and real me. It actually felt like the real me that I didn’t even know was there.
It was a unique experience – something I haven’t felt before or since.
Recalling the Clarity
After a while the feeling diminished, but for some time even after the experience had passed I could go back to it to a certain extent, though not to the same intensity.
Sometimes while walking or any time I didn’t need to use my mind, but wanted just to be aware and alive, I would call back the feeling of that experience to bring me the determination and willingness to be aware.
In his work, Belsebuub mentions that at an advanced stage of spiritual development it is possible to separate from the mind when you wish to. I wonder if that experience I was given was aimed at showing me a glimpse of what is possible if enough internal work is done.
Thanks for sharing Pavlin! I loved reading your experience.
I especially like how to titled the article “How I was helped to go beyond the mind”. You could have attributed the experience to your efforts of overcoming your negative states instead, but, you didn’t. It really reminded me of the role spiritual help plays in making breakthroughs.
Hi Pavlin, thanks for sharing your experience. It’s such a blessing to be given a moment of awareness free of the mind.
“Sometimes while walking or any time I didn’t need to use my mind, but wanted just to be aware and alive, I would call back the feeling of that experience to bring me the determination and willingness to be aware.”
I can relate to the feeling of determination and willingness to be aware. One time, While walking through a very old and beautiful forest is was trying really hard to be aware while praying deeply to my divine mother, I desperately wanted her assistance to free me from the chaos within. Suddenly I felt connected and aware of the moment, and I could hear her guidance, it’s something that you know is completely real and not a figment of my imagination. I was able to maintain this awareness for a period, I’m not sure for how long but I felt this amazing sense of peace completely connected to something beautiful. Sadly, this was not the case on my next walk.
My poor understanding and willingness to fight from moment to moment is a true reflection of my lack of connection and assistance from my divine Mother.
I often feel great remorse for my poor attempts to work harder. But why do i constantly fail in my attempts. Do I secretly like these states that constantly bring me down.
Obviously there’s so much more to work on, also I need to address a very good point from Belsebuub, “Do we want to be people of the Earth, or people or the Spirit “
Thank you for sharing Pavlin. When I first read your experience I thought, “wow, he had it around his family….” as this is usually one of the most difficult situations for me to be able to rise above the mind! But on reflection, I’ve also felt this sweet separation when around others, although mostly I think it has happened when I’m alone. It’s amazing to know that at some point we can start to use the mind, rather than it use us – it does sound like you had a gift of a glimpse of what this later stage of spiritual development might be like.
I used to be quite confused about how to ‘go beyond the mind’ and at the same time how to get daily mental tasks done, like writing a shopping list or planning a journey. It really helped me to hear, in Belsebuub’s practical tips, that we can train the mind while using it – making it focus on one thing at a time for example, and also develop a sense of what it is to perceive life without it through awareness. Through these two practises it suddenly made sense to me how daily life can be used for this gradual training of the mind and awareness so that we can access the feelings of consciousness. Haven’t cracked it yet though!
What a beautiful experience Pavlin. I’m not sure I have felt anything like that. Only a subtle joy in noticing life. Very inspiring, thank you.
Hi Pavlin,a wonderful experience,getting beyond the mind priceless , thanks for sharing.
That was very nice to read Pavlin.
Just perceiving the world straight with the consciousness, without the mind and thoughts getting in between—talking and creating images, with us being so much more in the mental impressions of forms rather than to just quietly perceive life around as yourself.
I have also experienced this myself, but more like very short periods after a build up of super efforts. Yet not with the duration or consistency I would like which I believe is when you can actually properly feel what it’s like.
But I did experience this state of being much, much more. And that was in certain periods of my childhood. Where certain components of the psyche worked a bit differently and were still developing, the specifics of which are still a bit of a mystery, but there was this whole time period before the mind and thoughts. A state of being that I just felt as normal at the time and which I didn’t really appreciate at all! There were at that time some emotions and such, so it’s not like I was necessarily conscious the whole time, but when those emotions weren’t there I was in a very different state of being that a ‘normally’ operating adult psyche.
I even remember some of the different stages of the mind and intellectual centre changing and how I was going into the mind and daydream for more and more time during the day but could still, as you describe in your experience, stop the mind at will so to speak. But then… the mind became more active until I reached a point where decided to try to quieten it again, have control over it like before, but I noticed I couldn’t stop it! This was very frightening to me at the time, to not actually be able to stop it.
It’s interesting that contrast of a life conscious, and like Laura says, perceiving the outside world straight to the heart, compared to living inside the daydream, constant and incessant— which we’re trying to break free from now.
P.S. It would be nice to be a kid again, or at least have the psyche I had back then, and to try my hand at some of the practices I know of now. 🙂
I know what you mean Karim. When I look back, childhood just seems so magical. I have such vivid memories of playing and feeling happy, mostly in nature. My mum says I quite seriously used to announce: “I’m just going to the garden to play with the fairies now”!
I also remember a moment when the mind started to ‘close in’. I was in a room with my family and I suddenly realised that I was thinking, and that no one else could hear my thoughts. Next I realised that this meant they too could be doing the same thing. Suddenly reality changed and I ran out of the room. I’m not sure what I thought before, that there wasn’t this hidden realm or something, that we were all knew each other’s thoughts perhaps or could communicate telepathically.
I also wish I had a spiritual training when my mind was more flexible, rather than it being filled with ever more junk, only to now have to get rid of it. I’m sure astral experiences would have been a simple step further when I was younger. It’s a huge pity that most children never get anything of spiritual encouragement.
I actually thought the same – wondering if people could read eachother’s mind but then realising as an older child that it wasn’t the case, that it was like trying to perceive in a dark room and people could not realize things, believe in lies, etc. Looking at it now, I can see how involved thoughts are in the maintenance of deception or negative attitudes- the justifications and the ‘logic’ letting something cement itself as an impression in the mind, stirring up lower emotions which are enjoyed, triggering thoughts again which keep the circuit going. How beautiful it must be to just perceive life clearly without any distortions!
I can also relate to your experience Pavlin. From reading it and people’s comments I can see that this kind of experience is something that happens on a regular basis, although its intensity varies. I can had one such glimpse as well in recent memory. It was when I visited some friends and was talking with them in the kitchen. I felt present in that situation and something inside me was happy to experience it. It lasted only a few moments, because a quick remark from me started a series of exchanges that left me buried in my thoughts once again.
Hi Pavlin,
A gift of gold! such a lovely experience to be helped with as it sounded so inspiring that you were able to experience such a state of awareness and the impression that it left with you.
What a wonderful experience that must have been, Pavlin, to separate from your mind. Maybe that experience was given as a preview of what your life could be like by reaching the state Belsebuub describes. It sounds like such a feat, to be separate from the mind, but something so totally worthwhile!
“Something else was dominating my being at that moment, a more full and real me.” – I like your description there. I find in those moments when I’m deeply conscious, I feel more full and complete, too, perhaps because I’m then perceiving the world with my utmost capacity and all of myself.
How awesome and practical it would be to have this ability permanently! Thank you very much for sharing your experience with that state Pavlin. It seems your previous sincere efforts paid off to bring you the glimpse of this “real you”. 🙂
I have experienced it to some degree I think once while consciously in the astral plane. At that time, I remotely “heard” my thoughts babbling somewhere on the background of my mind, but I was clear and could make my decisions there without their interference. If I wanted, I could “look closer” at the babbling thoughts, just as you described, but they didn’t have the power to dominate me at that moment.
Hey Lucia – I think I had a similar experience. When I was a teenager I used to have funny sleep habits, (of course!) and I used to lye there half-in, half-out of sleep just watching my mind. I used to think it was like a radio or TV show, with the images fading in and out – but someone was always flicking the channels, it was such total nonsense. Once I started to become aware of its ‘theme’ or ‘plot’, or try to focus on it, the station would change. I think this experience of being able to watch the mental noise meant I resonated with the explanations of the multi-layered components of the psyche that Belsebuub gives in his books, and most importantly, that the real us is separate from it.
This is really inspiring Pavlin. Thanks for sharing. It’s hard to imagine what it would be like, to be able to separate so completely from the mind and exist like that, as we’ve grown up thinking it’s really what we are and an integral part of us.
Having said that, I actually had a similar glimpse a while ago. I had been working diligently to help others spiritually for some time, and at the time I connected this experience with my efforts, that it was given as a sort of gift. I got off the bus from work and was standing next to a big busy street on one side and a beautiful park on the other. Then, for just a second, I felt myself rising up and above the mind, being separate from it, perceiving the noise of the cars and everything around me in a different way, not through the mind, but purely through my consciousness I guess. I felt free and light and clear, but most of all amazed, to know first hand that it was possible to separate from the mind, continue to function and feel so beautiful, that there was much more beyond the mind that I just had not been able to know or perceive before.
It passed in the blink of an eye and I couldn’t go back to it afterwards though, so it’s pretty amazing to read that through your efforts with awareness you were able to get it back to some extent, this ability to switch off the mind. It’s mind blowing to think about all the higher things that exist and that we have the potential to feel and experience if we had our spiritual side strong and developed enough. It is entirely thanks to Belsebuub that I know about them and that, more importantly, I know about the ways to reach them.