Hi all,
I had all sorts of experiences before i ever learnt to meditate “properly” which were provoked by conpletely abandoning my deeply held Christian beliefs at 25. All sorts of unity type stuff, hallucinations of conversations, feelings of “coming to” into the space around, being able to exude a charismatic energy etc etc… Nothing stuck around though, yet it was because Richard described that “i am god” type of enlightenment that i believed he had done it. That’s one of the core ideas that was in my life at the time all that stuff was happening, it had nothing at all to do with any sort of practice.
So, when i came to formal mediation, it is exactly that trying to “not fabricate” mediation i was drawn to, yet as it turned out, such a thing as “not fabricating” doesn’t happen. It’s all fabrication once one has prior knowledge of what others have done. I seriously didn’t know enlightenment was even a “thing” in the modern world. I thought at 25 years old that there was Buddha, and that’s was it. So, for me those who genuinely become “god/full ego death” usually are those who it happens spontaneously in some catharsis / crisis in there life. (which is what the intense type of meditation training trys to recreate; a mental /emotional breakdown).