In January 2007, as I was on a walk while dwelling internally in the void, I felt a bush “pull” me as I walked past it. What a peculiar but oddly pleasant feeling. Then the same thing happened with the next bush, and so on. By the end of that walk, I felt as if my self extended into the ground I was walking on and all the surrounding objects as I walked by them: bushes, trees, poles, parked cars. The feeling subsided after I got home but it was to return regularly and enlarge to include more and more classes of objects at a greater distance. The feeling of unity with all that I could see brought great joy, and still does.
Starting in July 2007 it became my practice to go on long walks, hours at the time, enjoying the unitive experience, of being one with everything. I felt like a blood cell circulating through the body it is part of, marveling at the feeling of belonging to a greater whole. The distance to everything vanished and I could “feel” the waves on the water as ripples on my own skin.
The last class of objects to get included in the unitive experience was other people, and that took a couple of years before it started happening. This is also the order reported by Eckhart Tolle7. The unitive experience can generate spontaneous empathy for everyone. When I watch someone talking, it feels as if the words are coming out of my own mouth.
Joy arises every time that I turn my mind toward the unitive experience and remains as long as I dwell in it. Following Baruch Spinoza who defines loves as “pleasure with the accompanying idea of an external cause”, I interpret the pleasure that the unitive experience provides as love for all that is, a universal, unconditional kind of love.
By comparing the benefits of dwelling in the void with that of dwelling in the unitive experience, I gradually came to the conclusion that the void was a dead end, spiritually speaking. Despite hundreds, if not thousands, of hours spent contemplating the void it never led beyond the mild advantages listed in the last section. Because it is seductive and is held as the pinnacle of the practice in so many traditions, it traps many practitioners. At least as a skeptic I did not buy into the supernatural interpretations that are sometimes given to it. I solely judged its merits from the benefits it brought, and I eventually found it wanting.
The unitive experience, on the other hand, has many benefits. There is a feeling of intimacy with everything. It enlarges your circle of care. You feel more alive, more awake. In comparison, the void felt like turning away from life, from the world. I chose life.