My deepest secret

Dating back to when I was a young child, I would have experiences when meditating that I cannot fully put into words. It is something incredibly rare that very few people alive have ever experienced.

The first instance I can think of was when I was very young and in bed. Not asleep. But relaxing in bed. It was like a shocking revelation was delivered to my mind. A realization that reality isn’t real. It was a feeling, a knowing, that everything we think is real, is actually as unreal as a dream.

It was shocking to me. Overwhelming. Throughout my years, I would get glimpses of this. But then something happened to me, that was even more extreme. When I was in my 20’s, I was wide awake and not in bed. It was the middle of the afternoon. I was not intoxicated or anything like that. I was totally awake and sober. I sat in deep meditation and asked myself a series of questions about the nature of reality.

Something triggered within me. I realized reality never came from anything. It never began. Because it has never happened. It has only been imagined and everything comes from the mind, because the mind precedes all things.

I realized that no matter what I thought, my thoughts would be endless. I could try to seek, but the mind would always imagine something else, and suddenly my thoughts ceased.

I knew something was happening to me. I sat up and looked around the room. I saw that everything was being generated by the mind and that everything is like a blank screen with no attributes. I could feel emotions become extinguished within me. And when I say “emotions” I mean ALL emotions. The bad emotions vanished and so did the “good” emotions. Literally all emotions, all feeling, had been ripped out of me. I cannot emphasize that enough. I felt ALL emotions get ripped out of my entire being, within an instant.

Everything suddenly seemed different. I had a dramatic shift in perspective, which hasn’t left me since it happened. I realized everything is constantly generated by the mind. There was a tremendous sense of Déjà vu. It felt more real than anything you can think of. It felt like the entire world I had known, was a blank canvas and that the mind was drawing the world we live in, like how an artist draws on a blank canvas.

It was like I was in an empty theatre watching a play with no actors on the stage. No one in any of the theatre seats. I watched the play from my empty seat in the empty theatre. I wasn’t even there. I was “gone.”

I do not claim enlightenment. Because as a Buddhist, claiming enlightenment is a very serious matter. That would be like a Christian claiming they are the Second Coming of Jesus or a Muslim claiming they are a prophet. That being said, I try to tell people about what happened to me.

When I had this experience, I knew something irreversible happened. I knew the experience was irreversible. There is a deep knowing of that. When I focus, I can still sense it. The feeling hasn’t left me. It almost feels like a television screen filled with static that comes with a crashing sound. Not something I can see and hear. But something I am aware of. I have a deep knowing that I am there, and not “here” anymore.

It is impossible to put into mere words. It is like I am aware this is all a “screen” and I’m just one of the imaginary characters being projected on the “screen.” But I can sense that I am not even “here” right now. I am in this other place that I am trying to describe.

“Screen” “empty theatre” or “blank canvas” are all conventional terms I use to convey what happened to me. It was the most profound thing that ever happened to me, and more shocking than anyone can possibly imagine.

The fact that it is shocking, is why I question when people say there are no “fireworks” when enlightenment happens. Even though I do not claim enlightenment, what happened to me absolutely had “fireworks.” It was wild beyond all imagination.

As a Buddhist, I value direct experience, above all else. I used to be Catholic but I converted to Buddhism and this was one of the reasons why. My experience tells me that what eastern religions say is accurate. Enlightenment, and the idea that there literally is no physical world and that everything is imagined by the mind.

Catholicism only had mere words. But this experience I had was beyond words. It synced up with Buddhism. But I can see that it’s very similar to Advaita Vedanta and other eastern religions. There are differences between eastern schools of religion, but I can tell that it is the same thing being pointed toward. That doesn’t mean I think all religions are true. I absolutely think there are religions that have zero truth in them, which is part of why I left Catholicism for Buddhism. But I can see that many eastern religions point toward a state beyond words. It is more like a “holy state” than a deity. A state of being. A knowing.

Ever since the experience, it’s been like I’ve been in two places at once. The place we think we’re in, which I know isn’t real. And the “real” place, that I’ve been trying to describe. And when I focus, I can sense it. I can feel the deep knowing that everything is coming from the mind and that I am no longer really “here” in the imagined world. But that I still seem to appear here, like a phantom.

My experience has greatly influenced who I became. I’m famous for the horror novels I’ve written. Horror’s Call, which is a series of books that can be read in any order. In my horror novels, I often try to convey my experience through the plots in the books. My fans often notice that I frequently have this topic in my horror novels. Often fans who realize that my books aren’t just normal books, and that I am pointing toward something very deep.

Perhaps one day I will outright tell everyone the specific technique that brought me to the experience I had. The only people I have told it to, are people I know very well. I told them in person, only after knowing they truly wanted to know what it was.

I would need to think about if I were to ever tell everyone though. Because I know that what I did is extremely effective, and I don’t know if everyone can handle it. But I try to point toward it and hint at what my precise method was, in my horror novels. Why horror? Because the sensation was shocking. It wasn’t “bad” but it was shocking, beyond belief. Horror is the best fit, even if that might sound odd. It’s part of what makes my horror novels unique, as I try to convey deep truths within them. Horror is the vehicle F Gardner uses, to point toward the deepest secret I can tell you.

That’s all for now. I’ve made videos about this topic too. I will link one of them here. Peace out.