Edgar Mitchell: An Astronaut's Detour Into Inner Space

As astronaut Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, completed his Apollo 14 mission and returned home toward our big blue earth, he experienced a sudden and radical epiphany. Trained in all the disciplines appropriate for space exploration -- physics, engineering, orbital mechanics -- nothing could have prepared him for this life-changing experience:

"On the way home from the moon, looking out at the heavens, this insight - which I now call a transcendent experience - happened. I realized that the molecules of my body had been created or prototyped in an ancient generation of stars - along with the molecules of the spacecraft and my partners and everything else we could see including the Earth out in front of us. Suddenly, it was all very personal. Those were my molecules.

It was an experience of interconnectedness. It was an experience of bliss, of ecstasy...it was so profound. I realized that the story of ourselves as told by science - our cosmology, our religion - was incomplete and likely flawed. I recognized that the Newtonian idea of separate, independent, discreet things in the universe wasn't a fully accurate description."*

Upon his return from space, Edgar founded a research institute called the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) which was born out of his profound unity experience, and his desire to bring scientific inquiry to the frontiers of human consciousness.

I've just spent the weekend with Edgar and a handful of colleagues on the IONS board who inspired me to write this post, although this article is not really about any single individual. It is about our interconnectedness. It is about unity. Oneness. The direct experience of being non-different from all that is.

For some, Edgar's story might seem like merely a touching vignette but, for me, I delight in the connection of similar direct experience which was as life-changing for me as Edgar's epiphany was for him.

My transformational story took place in India (which might as well have been the moon, given its vast distance from my life in Silicon Valley at the time) when enlightened saint Dattatreya Siva Baba offered me an ancient and sacred transmission (called shaktipat) by touching my third eye. As I sat in meditation following the initiation, I felt the power of molten lava erupt up my spine dissolving my entire body into a blinding column of light, more brilliant and luminous than the sun. "I" expanded in wonder and ecstasy as the full array of my perceptual field -- people, objects, the space itself -- merged and exploded into pure, unified radiance. Instantly the sense of individual identity evaporated into vast, unlimited, undifferentiated intelligence and energy. "I" was Pure Being. All knowledge and all power existed in unity with the Self. The illusion of separateness was completely shattered.

I persisted in this state of supreme bliss and cosmic rapture for several days and, while I was not capable of holding this enlightened state indefinitely, it was a profound gift to see beyond the fallacy of separation, if only for a few days or a few hours.

Since that initial experience of universal consciousness, I've asked Dattatreya dozens of times, "Is it not possible to give all of humanity, if even for a moment, a direct experience of Oneness?"

This would be something akin to a spontaneous, collective vaporization of ego. For just one instant we would all understand the illusion of separation under which we toil. For just one instant we would experience our universal Self -- non-different, non-separate, undivided, complete, whole.

After being blasted to bits, our egos could then re-assemble themselves, like in the Terminator or Matrix movies where the villains, surprised and disoriented but not mortally wounded, shake themselves off and resume their trickery. We could resume our identity crises as Palestinian and Israeli, black and white, male and female, Sunni and Shiite and any other divisive orientation that we so pleased.

But I guarantee you, we'd be changed. The ego's ignorance would be irrevocably shaken. Once we saw beyond the wizard's curtain, the illusion of Oz would never hold quite the same appeal.

The metaphor for unity used often in spiritual texts involves the waves of the ocean. There are myriad expressions of a "wave", from gentle ripple to devastating Tsunami, each shaped by wind, tides, currents, salinity and a thousand other factors. But each wave is non-different from the ocean.

We are like these waves. While we express ourselves in 6B unique forms, a limitless bounty of shapes, sizes, personalities, roles, and identities, we are all essentially non-different from the ocean of universal consciousness that animates us. As Edgar Mitchell discovered upon his return to earth, "Seeing things as separate in the universe but experiencing them as one, accompanied by bliss...the more I studied, the more I realized that this type of experience can be found in every culture."

Spiritual teacher Adi Da refers to this principle as "prior unity," emphasizing that "unity is inherently the case - at a deeper level than all the apparent differences and conflicts in our world. Unity, in other words, is senior to all apparent signs of disunity." In his lexicon, the term "prior" does not mean "coming before in time" but something more like "always inherently true."

Our unity is always inherently true.

This inherent truth has deep implications, not the least of which is that nearly all of our current methods of resolving conflict are inherently flawed. We will never fully end conflict through methods predicated on the illusion of separation: dialogue (between two or more parts), negotiation (to divvy up value among the parts), compromise (to show goodwill to the other part), etc. We are still approaching our social, political, environmental and economic crises from a separation and scarcity consciousness. Not that these methods aren't helpful...but we have not yet embodied the truth of unity, so will continue to see schisms reflected in our world.

"Egos will never unify the world," says Adi Da. "Only egolessness (or inherent non-separateness) is the principle of prior unity."

Now, then, back to the question I posed to my dear teacher Dattatreya Siva Baba, "Is it possible for everyone to have a momentary experience of oneness? Can a brief glimpse of the inherent unity be offered to all?"

"No, not yet," was his first response five years ago. "All souls are on their own evolutionary journey, each at their appropriate level. They must continue to abide by the cosmic laws of cause and effect, learning from the impact of their own choices in order to ultimately recognize unity. But there will come a time, not too far off now, when humanity will be ready for the next level of evolution."

As I mentioned, I've asked this question a dozen times, each subsequent inquiry yielding a similar, patient response. "Not just yet." After spending time with Edgar this weekend, however, I felt compelled to ask again.

Today, the answer was different. "Many souls are now preparing to receive the grace of awakened consciousness."

For those of you dedicated to this process, you know who you are. I write these articles for you and salute your courage. I'll write more on this unfolding process in the coming weeks. In the meantime, see if you can tune into the interconnectedness of all things, relax the ego and its many agendas, open to the harmony that underlies apparent disharmony. Unity is always inherently true.


* Excerpt of Edgar Mitchell's experience from Living Deeply: The Art & Science of Transformation in Everyday Life (Schlitz, Vieten, Amorok)

Comments

[Riverwolf]

I recently learned of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, Edgar Mitchell and just finished reading their publication "Shift." THanks for this post, and it's so refreshing to hear someone talk about the things that we all have in common instead of what separates us (actually nothing does!). I've had a few experiences like you describe. Most have lasted mere seconds but have nonetheless changed me forever. But they're hard to hold, hard to remember. So thanks for this little moment of serendipity and for the reminder of our unity and oneness.

[cinemaven]

I read this post hoping to learn about Edgar Mitchell's experience and was somewhat disappointed to see it turn so quickly into your story. Interesting that you chose egolessness as a tag. You spent the weekend with Mitchell and yet you only shared an exerpt from his book...

[JamesRiddle]

I alternately mock the idea that anything exists beyond our five senses but also beleive that our egos trap us into a false reality. One day I'm deeply convinced that we are trapped in the illusion of this is all there is and the next I beleive that all spirtuality is pure bunk . I've fluctuated between these opposite feelings my entire adult life. I'm now 47. I listen to Astrophysicsts who beleive Buddhist teachings are childish crackpot concepts. I hear Astrophysists discuss space , molecules and creation itself in terms that come close to Buddhist concepts. I have had a profound experience similar to the ones discussed in this article ( it lasted one day after a meditation session). Later I dismissed it just some sceintifically explainable organic screwup in my brain. I feel pulled into this world like a magnet but also know deep down all of the striving we do here to find an identity, job, political orientation, material objects, are cosmically meaningless. As Bob Dylan said: "My life is led by confusion boats, mutiny from stern to bow".

[Jonahson]

A touch of TAO!

[tcagle]

I had a profound experience in April, 1980. I am from the Flint Hills of Kansas and spent an inordinate amount of time in my youth sleeping under the stars and following the movements of the moon. Later, near the end of my enlistment in the Navy, I was transferred to Winter Harbor, Maine. One night the moon was full and hanging low, and somehow my brain calculated the difference of the angle between that latitude and that of my home in Kansas. Suddenly I was experiencing the moon in binocular vision somehow! I could sense the actual distance to the object and how very massive it was. It also gave me the sense of being something very small on a similarly sized object. The emotional effect this had on me was profound and unforgettable. I remain in awe of the universe and our place in it.

[StreamSource]

That was it... you tapped the Motherload.

[HGPilot]

"The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make this station and the nebula outside, that burn inside the stars themselves. We are star-stuff. We are the Universe, made manifest, trying to figure itself out."
- Ambassador Delenn, "Babylon 5"

[WilliePilgrim]

Wow...very interesting story and thanks for giving us your impressions of your experience. As human endeavors to examine and explore human intelligence continue to gain some understanding of our mental processes, expereinces like these are becomming better understood and their usefullness in overcoming our old perceptual patterns and conceptual barriers to seeing reality as it is, the better-off I think we will be. Now, if we can just scrape the patina of imposed religious spiritualism off of the expereince, I think we can become actually more spiritual in the sense we gain awe and respect for the process of which we are a part.
By the way, some of the chemical paths to this experience have the potential to be equally profoundly transformative and don't require trips to India (or the moon) or the presence of a religious figure. Enlightenment, it appears, is awakening to the realization that you don't have to follow someone else's path. Cheers.

[MarilynBB]

This transformation is a very quiet evolution and one people hesitate to share but never the less it has been occurring for years. I have not yet had such a deep and profound experience as you have related but I have been with those who have. I feel privileged to have been privy to such personal stories. Thank you for your post.