One of the most rewarding things I’d found when I went on my spiritual journey was discovering that I could reach a trance state without the use of drugs. I am reminded about this while conducting a group class this morning. As I led the group through a series of meditative movements overlooking a vista of calmly-flowing river, I was aware of my senses becoming more acute and having an expanded sense of myself. The essence of me, the juice of passion, flowed like warm treacle running through my veins and igniting sparks of inspiration that brought me closer to who I really am.
I became more alive, more lucid and grounded in my physical experience. This is the essence of a spiritual trance. Yet the term ‘spiritual trance’ can be misleading. We tend to think of a spiritual trance as going outside of our physical bodies, but what it is is that our spirit is fully anchored in our body while we’re fully engaging our emotional body to feel the rich array of emotions as our consciousness expands. The trance is not coloured by illusions, instead we get a greater clarity about our existence.
Rather than being taken away from ourselves, we are more present in ourselves.
True joy is when we come more fully into ourselves, to experience more of who we are, rather than being taken away from ourselves, to escape who we are. A drug-induced trance tends to do the latter; we take illegal substances primarily to escape from ourselves.
In contrast, a natural trance state takes us closer to ourselves and opens us up to a greater concept of who we are – and we realise that who we are is much bigger and more powerful than we’d ever imagined. When we truly come into who we are, we can discover that our concept and perception of who we were had been limited, even distorted. In finding the truth of who we really are, our spirit spreads through our being until we open up, expand and deepen into our experience of life.
We are more in control in a drug-free trance. When that small doorway presents itself, we simply walk through it calmly, with a mixture of surrender and intention as to the depth we want to reach. Once we reach the realm of infinite spiritual space within, our creative power opens up. A sense of passion rises from our core. We feel more alive and joyful in a delicious paradox of being wildly stimulated yet profoundly calm.
