Student reads from PB: "It is not enough to lull the mind: the heart's feeling must be stimulated and directed in aspiration and devotion, warm and strong, toward the Overself, which by reaction, arouses a certain force, the Spirit-Energy, which acts for a short time to prepare him for deeper, more concentrated contemplation." (Persp.p 41)
S: I would like to understand what is this process a little more.
AD: If you succeed in arousing that Spirit energy, you'll see it. It's like a golden thread coming from above, and it comes into you, and there's a deepening, and a further inwardization of your consciousness.
S: I thought by "short time period" he meant like two or three years.
AD: No, it'll only last a couple of minutes.
S: So it is something that's a specific experience in meditation?
AD: Yes. You may or may not be aware of it -- it depends.
S: Were you saying it takes you from one stage of meditation to another?
AD: I don't know if it's one state to another; I think it's more accurately described by noticing the deepening inwardization -- that before you didn't have the strength to plummet inward further, but now it gives you that strength to go in much further.
It's not that rare. Sometimes you may not see it, but you may feel it. You would feel an increase in your will, in your resolution. You might temporarily be surprised that you have it or that it came, but then you realize it wasn't you: it was like help extended, or PB would probably say grace. But basically it is help that is being extended to you to help you further the deepening.
S: Anthony, is it an experience that happens only once in a lifetime?
AD: No, it could happen a few times.
-- Anthony Damiani and students 11/30/83
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