Peak Moments of Awe & Delight

Peak Moments of Awe & Delight

Dear Friends,
Deepak Chopra defines peak moments of self-realization as having six characteristics. To illustrate each character, below I’ve quoted from my won experiences at various National Parks in the United States that are included in the book, Unblock Your Creative Flow: 12 Months of Mindfulness for Writers and Artists. Most of these are excerpted from the chapters, “Mindfulness and Travel” and “Mindfulness, Stillness, Silence and Solitude.”

• Loss of ego: “Rapture envelops me.”
• Time slowing: “People seem to be cheering in slow motion.”
• The inability to hear: “I can’t hear a thing.”
• The feeling of being one with all that exists: “I am one with all that exists, a living cell in the body of the universe.”
• A heightened sensory perception: “Everything looks radiant. Surroundings turn luminous.”
• Connecting with the inner self and being unafraid of mortality. “The glaciers, the fiords, the rivers and the trees all live in me as much as I live in them. I feel immortal.”
The experiences shared so far this month are similar, but I would add two more characteristics:
• Silence: “A hush falls. The chatter quiets down.”
• Perceiving the Earth anew: “The Earth is born. Is this how the Earth looked at its birth?”

Have you experienced some of these characteristics during the moments of awe, delight and wonder, perhaps while meditating, midst natural surroundings, looking at a great work of are or listening to music?