As we meandered our way around the island to meet our friend Fritz, we were engulfed by a sea of excited tourists enjoying the 2010 Olympic games and festivities. There were long lines waiting to get into everyone of the venues, including the pavilions showcasing the provinces of Quebec and Ontario. Live music, events for all ages and a carnival atmosphere had the entire place jumping.
Radha with our friend FritzFritz has been an articulate, intelligent, and socially active citizen of Vancouver ever since he first arrived from San Francisco back in the late sixties. We met him six years ago, while first exploring the delights of the island, and quickly became friends. His decision to become a Canadian was at least partially a response to being arrested in Selma, Alabama, while supporting the civil rights movement. His search for a more socially conscious government brought him to Vancouver. We arrived at his woodwork shop unannounced, and he was delighted to see us.
After of catching up, Fritz asked a question that sparked a lengthy conversation. As one of the senior members of the oldest pagan community in North America, he shared that his group had recently decided to become a teaching community. One of their new members has been practicing Transcendental Meditation for a number of years, and since the pagan group was already familiar with their experiences in the trance state, they quickly realized they needed to know more about the practice of meditation and how it differs from trance.
Radha and I have had a regular meditation practice for close to forty years as well as numerous trance experiences, and I told Fritz about my three most memorable trance experiences:
1) Sufi dancing
2) the movement portion of Osho’s Chaotic Meditations
3) chanting at the Hari Krishna temple in Montreal
In each instance, I experienced myself as an individual in perfect harmony with everything around me: nature, people, the sky, the earth all became an extension of my being. What remained, however, was a definite sense of being an individual, of being a person who is having an experience.
Similar to trance, meditation allows a state of euphoria to saturate the consciousness. The difference for me is that, in deeper states of meditation, all sense of individuality dissolves. There is no "me" to be separate from nature or earth or sky. We become absorbed into something that can only be explained after the experience ends.
During the course of our conversation, Fritz asked me if I would be interested in writing a paper on the differences between trance and meditation for the elders of his community. Fascinated by the topic I agreed.
That brings me to an invitation. If you have experience with trance, meditation (a daily practice for more than a year would be preferable), or especially both, I would appreciate your comments and contributions. Just write them in the comment section of this article, or email them to me at gary@gopalgarybello.com. I have began organizing my thoughts around this topic and look forward to reading yours.
my most memorable experience with trance happened back in 2000, when i was driving a Ryder truck through Indiana. something about the distance between the rows of corn, coupled with the constant speed of the vehicle, pulled me into an altered state of conscious.
ReplyDeleteneedless to say, this served as a detriment to my driving.
i watched myself slowing veering off the interstate and into the grass. fortunately, my co-worker, who had been sleeping in the passenger seat, woke up. she alarmingly asked, "what's going on?" which helped to nudge me back into possession of my body. i still remember thinking to myself, "i need to slowly remove my foot from the gas pedal and place it on the breaks. if i move too quickly, the vehicle will wreck."
we switched positions and arrived in Michigan without further incident.
that experience is what most clearly defines the difference between meditation and trance for me. in trance, we are not necessarily in control of our physical being, but there remains some notion of embodiment. there is still a "me" watching "it."
in my deeper meditations, that sense of embodiment is either less pronounced or dissipates altogether. there is no "me" watching "it," but rather a blissfully supramundane experience that allows me to experience myself as nothing, surrounded by nothing.
- Jeremy