This is Optimal Living Daily Episode 2799, Peak Experience in the True You, by Richard Patterson of thinklessandgrowrich.com, and I'm your narrator, Justin Molick, hope you're having a great Friday. I'm trying to rest personally, so I'm featuring an article I've previously narrated, maybe in the last year or so, hopefully some new ones will be coming soon, so thank you for bearing with me in the meantime. I'm going to keep resting, so for now, let's get right to our next flashback episode as we optimize your life. Peak Experience in the True You, by Richard Patterson of thinklessandgrowrich.com.
The Peak Experience, the mystical experience, the oceanic feeling of great ecstasy, wonder, and awe, the absence of time and space, the conviction that something extremely significant and meaningful is happening. Abraham Maslow. The expression, Peak Experience, was first used by the psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1964 in his book, Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences. Throughout the ages, mystics, and saints have described feelings of great peace, joy, ecstasy, wonder, and gratitude, experiences beyond time and space of being one with everything.
We often view these attainments as verging on superhuman, reached only after years of intense spiritual practice and dedication. After interviewing hundreds of people, however, Maslow discovered that, far from being confined to yogis and deep meditation and Himalayan caves, Peak Experiences can be had by ordinary people from all walks of life, even people with no spiritual background. He found for example that, couples in love, women going through childbirth, long-distance runners, sportsmen, and women, mountaineers, and people witnessing scenes of great beauty, often use the same vocabulary and expressions that mystics do when relating their experiences, time-stopping, connection, peace, joy, awe, wonder. He mentions the experience of a 17-year-old teenager during a football game who, as he ran the length of the field of the ball, described how the world disappeared, all sense of time vanished, and how he was overcome with a tremendous sense of space, presence, and aliveness.
So, how to explain Peak Experiences? How is it that anyone can have these experiences at any time? In short, it's because, in your mind may well totally disagree. Peace, love, joy, aliveness, connection, and bliss are all attributes of your true nature.
They already exist at the core of your being, whether you are aware of them or not. Quote, your natural state is one of ecstasy, but you miss it because you're busy focusing on what the mind has to say about everything. Michael Singer. Peak Experiences happen when, for some reason, there's a temporary pause in the incessant stream of mind-shatter that normally prevents us from experiencing the joy and bliss of our true nature.
A peak experience is a peak behind the curtain of the busy conditioned mind. In my book Awaken the Happy You, I use the analogy of a lighthouse surrounded by fog to illustrate the relationship between the mind and the light of our true nature. In infants, before identification with the mind takes place, the light of the inner being shines brightly. The qualities of joy, maliveness, wonder, connection, et cetera, are clear to see in young children.
You could say that with no mind stories or fog to dim the light of their being, their lives are a continuous peak experience. In adults, it's a very different story. The thick fog of the mind blocks out the light of the lighthouse, but beneath the fog, the light continues to shine as bright as ever, nevertheless. A peak experience happens when the mind is temporarily stunned into silence during childbirth upon witnessing a spectacular sunset or when a mountain climber is perched precariously on the sheer face of a cliff.
When we're completely present in the moment, the mind stops, and what remains is the presence, peace, and deep connection of our true nature. We don't have to go looking for it or create it. It's always there, and when there's a break in the clouds of the mind, the light of our being naturally and effortlessly shines through. How to make peak experiences last?
A major difference between the experience of ordinary people who spontaneously have a peak experience and that of an infant or a saint is that it tends to be temporary and unexpected. The saint or mystic is not identified with the passing clouds of the mind, and as a result is always conscious of the inner reality. Established in their true self, their whole life is an ongoing peak experience. As soon as the long-distance race has finished, the baby has been delivered, or the gorgeous sunset has faded, the busy mind tends to creep back in again through habit and the intense feelings of bliss, aliveness, and connection, and leave with it.
For some, there may be a residue, and after-taste that remains, an intense peak experience can't leave you with a knowingness that a reality far greater than what you normally experience exists and a desire to get back there. In truth, a peak experience is the experience of home that we're all looking for, consciously or not, of coming home to ourselves. A lot of my coaching clients come to me thinking they want to switch off their busy minds and quickly realize that what they are really looking for is to come home to themselves. Until we consciously connect with the peace and stillness of our true nature and learn to live our lives from that place rather than from the tumultuous surface level of the mind, there will always be a sense of something missing.
There will always be a feeling of inner restlessness and a desire to come home, coming home to yourself. Life is meant to be lived in eternal joy, infinite freedom, unconditional love, and unbounded awareness. Many other life is utterly missing the point of being born as a human. Mahasadishiva-sham.
Unless you are fortunate enough to have a spontaneous spiritual awakening, which does happen to some people, meditation is the path to developing a deep relationship with your true nature. There are two parts of your being, the restless and ever-changing thoughts, feelings, and emotions, which most of us call me, and the still, silent, unchanging ground of who you are, the true self. Intermeditation with a qualified teacher can help you shift your identification away from the thinking mind and onto that part of your experience, which is constant, timeless, and unchanging. This is where true peace is found, and where life becomes a seamless peak experience.
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We've probably all experienced this at some point or another, and reminds me of something we've definitely talked about on this show before, the flow state. To me, it sounds very similar. In a state of flow, it's where we're working on something or doing an activity or even just looking at something, and we're completely absorbed in that activity. The example I often give because I've heard others mention it is surfing.
I don't surf, but I would imagine as you're using your sight and hearing and touch, probably even a little smell and taste, you're likely not thinking about what you're going to have for dinner when catching a wave. So we really can't have these moments often, but interestingly, the mind is complex and efficient that the more we do in activity, the more we're able to be less engaged with that activity and start to multitask, thinking about other things and losing that state of flow. So new experiences are a great way to experience it again, but meditation can help as well, even if it's not formal meditation, but a sort of meditation practice. It's really up to you, but in either case, the more we can realize that deep within ourselves, there really is peace, the better.
Wishing you a happy and peaceful day, have a great Friday and start your weekend if you're listening in real time, and I'll see you tomorrow, where your optimal life awaits.