--- In [email protected], "Marek Reavis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Certainly the mindset (of the darshan receiver) and the setting are > factors which provide a fertile ground for the experience of a > purported saint's darshan. Most interesting to me would be the > occassion in which the darshan came from an unexpected source, i.e., > one that neither the darshan receiver anticipated and was in no > other > way elevated or singled out from the background as a 'possible' or > anticipatory source; in other words, not someone on stage or sitting > elevated on a dias, or behind a microphone covered in garlands, etc. > This would be the unprepossesing, humble saint type of darshan -- > illumination radiating from someone shining bright in his or her own > effulgence. Has anyone ever experienced anything like that?
I've had many such experiences, and they all contributed to the way I phrased my post on this subject earlier. In terms of "unexpected darshan" in the presence of objects, my strong- est experience of this was at a museum in Albu- qurque, New Mexico. There was an exhibit of Tibetan art there, and for some reason I'd been putting off checking it out, thinking, "How good could an exhibition of Tibetan art be in *Albu- querque*, ferchrissakes. Boy, was I wrong. It turns out that the show was curated by the most famous curator of Tibetan art on the planet. He had retired a few years earlier, but was coaxed out of retirement to do this show, with the challenge, "Do something you've never done before." So he mounted a show of objects that had never been displayed in public before. All were from private collections, and had been for decades, in some cases hundreds of years. But I didn't know any of this. I was just taking some woman friend of a friend to the Albuquerque airport as a favor. I hate to say this, but 1) she talked incessantly, and 2) she had nothing to say when she talked. And I was stuck with her during this trip to the museum. Suffice it to say that I was *not* in a mood-making mood or had "set myself up" for any kind of spiritual experience. But ten feet inside the door of the museum and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I literally had to find a bench and sit down, the silence and light were that intense. And I wasn't the only one to notice. I'd see "straight" tourists stand in front of a centuries-old lapis lazuli Buddha and go weak in the knees and have to be supported by their spouses. They just didn't know what was happening to them. *Very* powerful experience, and as you say, completely unexpected. During the times I studied with the Rama guy, I had quite a few instances of "unexpected darshan" with him. One night I was waiting in line for a movie in Westwood with my girlfriend and suddenly everything "went gold." It stopped both of us in our tracks and in our conversation. The light had gotten "lively" and we both felt a profound shift in our states of attention. We were talking about it when Rama snuck up behind us and poked me in the side and said, "Gotcha." He was like that. :-) Lots of similar experiences in places of power that I didn't *know* were places of power beforehand. I'd just go there out of curiosity and find myself settling into meditative or clear-witnessing states. Is that the sort of thing you were asking about?
