Find ourselves “possessed by the sense of a being at one and the same time greater than the self and identical with it; great enough to be God, intimate enough to be me” Evellyn Underhill (1911, p.133).
The transformative experience is something that is ineffable, meaning there are no words. Even when you do try to explain, you might find that most people will just stare back at you with disbelieving eyes.
If you choose, this experience is one that can eventually, given enough time and effort, change your entire life. In this phase you go beyond the boundaries of the self. When you go outside yourself, you actually go “into” the divine or at the very least, into your soul or higher self.
The way in which you move into the expanded state differs. Trauma tends to shatter the psyche and peak experience gives the sense of expansion. Regardless, the light that you encounter, the impact of its sheer difference, extinguishes some aspect of your humanity. When we touch the divine there is something that instantly dies and subsequently, something else is promptly conceived—quite literally. There is an interpenetration and the divine enters into the womb of your own space. This state can involve a detached feeling that observes. There is a sense that ranges from neutral to curious, peaceful, blissful or even ecstatic.
