The music ripples and flows. Startling contrapuntals weave in and out of each other, suddenly falling away to reveal a single instrumental lyric of astonishing beauty. The themes are played against each other, varied in intensity and rhythm, thrown from set of instruments to another, flashing evanescent bright colors as they are tossed and turned, like a muticolored hologram which takes different shapes as it bounces around the concert hall. Fingers fly with unbelievable speed, lifting a flood of entrancing sound. Then there is a lull, which slowly builds, tossing tunes back and forth, questions, themes answers, arguments, suddenly falling together as the tempo builds, the volume builds, the rhythm becomes driving and ferocious as all of the music comes together in a glorious climax. A cacophony of gorgeous sound assaults my brain and fills my soul. Goose bumps appear and hair stands on end, tingling, my body paralyzed as the climax on stage is accompanied by one in my body. Union with the Divine has been reached, and treasured. I have, for that moment been transported to Heaven. The afterglow lingers for days, and the memory accompanies me for the rest of my life.
These are the moments for which we live. There is nothing to compare. My soul, my body, my mind are overcome by the sheer beauty of the sound, which by some mysterious means, not yet fully known to any of us, completely entrances all of me with pleasure. There is not only that sensation of complete release from all earthly trash, trial and pain, but there is something else rather inexplicable. It is a feeling that at those special moments, there is communion with everything else in the universe that exists, that is important, that matters to anyone, that once existed, now exists and will exist in the future. How can you put such a special overpowering sensation into words? They escape us. Some will say it is God speaking in their lives. Some will say that it is a mystical communion with the universe. Some will say it is a momentary lapse of motor neuronal control. Some will say it is a figment of imagination that never happens truly to anyone. Call it what you will. These phenomena of communion with something beyond us insignificant humans do happen, and when they happen, are moments to treasure. They are the mysterious lodestone of mystics, and the stuff from which religions are not only born, but nurtured.
Throughout history, humans have tried to describe and explain these extremely special life experiences, and haven’t done a very good job at it. So far, we have been a rather dismal failure at understanding these special times, and particularly tongue-tied at describing them to others. We have been able to explain them fully to no one else. Our language systems have been with us for only the last 5000 years, and fail us every day in many ways. “I wish I could describe it to you.” “Let me see, how should I say this?” “I just can’t put it into words.” “Um, um, um, I don’t know what to say.” The simplest of events are sometimes hard to convey clearly, and we really fail when we try to describe these events of overwhelming pleasure. We not only don’t understand them, but we don’t know where they come from, why they exist, and cannot fully describe the feeling that occurs at these precious times to anyone else, with any accuracy.
We also have no knowledge that these moments of intense paralyzing pleasure exist for any other animal species. Maybe they do, but no one has ever pointed them out to us before, or commented that maybe such a thing was possible in other animate life. Dolphins, whales and elephants might have such moments, but if they do, those events are so far hidden to us. It seems that all animals have their special pleasures, but so far we have no understanding as to whether their special moments compare in intensity to our special moments. We get a thrill about a lot of different things in life. We love winning a tight game, achieving a long term goal, receiving praise from a group of our peers, being entranced by beautiful scenes of nature, witnessing a truly unselfish loving act of one human to another, a sudden deep revelation and the bliss of uninhibited sexual union. This is all great stuff. We live for these moments. Some of them may progress to rapture, and if any of them do extend to this state of intense pleasure at any time, they become memorable and unique events in our lives. We simply don’t know if these singular overwhelming events occur for other animal life as well as humans.
All animals, including us, think in egocentric terms. We tend to give special events great meaning in our lives, and quite often make much more of them than we should. This is probably the case with moments of rapture. It may be presumptive to believe that these times are evidence of a mystical union with the universe, and communication with the divine. It is certainly presumptive to think that these momentary overwhelming experiences are evidence of a Creator and Sustainer of the universe. It is exceedingly presumptive to believe that these moments of great pleasure are our personal God speaking to us in our lives. It just happens. It probably happens in some forms for other animals too. Moments of rapture are superlative events in our lives, which should be treasured – just as we should treasure this superlative, evanescent gift of life for each of us.
There is communion with the Divine. It is that absolute peace of understanding that occurs when we finally realize that we are here on Earth by chance, given only one shot to manage our lives to the fullest, only one shot to show love and understanding for all other life, only one chance to preserve our planet home. When all the shackles, chains, heavy crosses and boulders of religious myths are lifted from us, then we are able to become gloriously free, and feel at one with the universe.