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← Back to Spiritual ExperiencesI Do Not Exist!
is Truth (al-Haqq, God).
When the ego is gone, then God is his own mirror in me."
On Friday, February 8th, 2008, during an afternoon walk in the park, began yet another powerful mystical experience and chapter of my life. As usual, I walked and performed a silent variation of the Islamic Sufi dhikr, or remembrance of God, whereby I mentally place upon my heart, the Arabic words: La ilaha il'Allah, (No! There is no god but God, or There is no reality except Absolute Reality, or No truth but Truth).
However, I stopped in the frustration of yet again catching myself engrossed in negative, critical, angry thoughts about others that I found offensive. But, this time I had finally had enough, and I was determined to do something about it!
After considering what I might do, I asked myself the question: "Would it help, if while repeatedly affirming that God is all there is, I simultaneously remind myself, somewhere in the back of my head, that it must follow, that even 'I' do not exist?"
I immediately began to apply this as I continued walking. As I performed the dhikr, I pointed to the back of my head and simultaneously affirmed that I did not exist. Within a few moments, I was catapulted into an experience of sheer ecstasy that I can only characterize as the "flight of the one to the One." Within this state of absolute consciousness, there was no me, no ego, but only a single, or rather non-dual, all encompassing awareness, filled with a crystal clear, overwhelming intense stream of pure Bliss.
For the next several days, I was in and out of another world. My response was both amazement and extreme gratitude. I now knew that 'Of myself alone, I am nothing;' that my ego, or everything that I think I am, is in Reality only an empty phantom. I clearly saw that the absolute Truth about me, the only Truth, is that, I am a reflection of God! All else concerning my thoughts, attitudes, personality and behavior, is illusory appearances that in actuality contain no real Substance (on the level of Spirit).
For several weeks, I joked with others that "I do not exist." Of course, they simply thought that I was nuts! Only later was I struck by the strange fact that I had frequently repeated this dhikr for a number of years, and never realized its deeper, paradoxical meaning: