Discriminating the Innate Capacity: Salvation Mysticism of Classical Sāmkya-Yoga

The author describes a recurring waking trance, experienced since boyhood when alone, induced by silently repeating his own name. In this state, the intense consciousness of individuality dissolves into a sense of boundless being, which feels clear and certain beyond words. Death becomes an almost laughable possibility, and the loss of personality seems not like extinction but the only true life. The author expresses shame at the feeble description of this experience.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract I have never had any revelations through anesthetics, but a kind of waking trance-this for lack of a better wordI have frequently had, quite up from boyhood, when I have been all alone. This has come upon me through repeating my own name to myself silently, till all at once, as it were out of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality, individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being, and this not a confused state but the clearest, the surest of the surest, utterly beyond words-where death was an almost laughable possibility-the loss of personality (if so it were) seeming no extinction, but the only true life. I am ashamed of my feeble description.