A spiritual moment...but no God

[Deleted]

I have heard it mentioned by others about experiencing a profound 'spiritual moment' (for want of a better description) during an extraordinary celestial event such as a solar eclipse but never thought much of it.
My personal experience observing the eclipse the other day at the brief moment of totality when the sun was obscured and the corona was flaring, I can best describe thus...

At that moment, I was overwhelmed with an ecstatic rush.
The hundreds of others on the beach, including my partner at my elbow and close friends nearby all dissolved into nothingness as a strong connection between my 'inner self' and the celestial bodies overhead overtook all senses, washing away all other reality.

It is as close to a 'spiritual moment' I can imagine, yet throughout , there was never any sense of presence of a higher being...just me and the universe beyond.

It left me shaken and close to tears.

Having shared that intimate moment, dear reader I welcome your perspective, without ridicule.

Grim

[pim]

A numinous moment, grim? That would be one to savour! Atheists can experience them too - and remain atheists, as author the late Albert Camus (a Frenchman so pronounce it "Albair Kahm-yoo") portrays in his Nobel Prize-winning novel The Outsider - or L'Etranger in the original French. The main character, Meursault (mer -sew), is also the narrator. The novel is in two parts: the first part is about his life and the events that lead up to his crime (he kills a bloke). The second part is his trial, his death sentence and the novel leaves him sititng alone in his cell waiting for the executioner to lead him to the guillotine.

It's definitely n atheist novel, or rather you could argue that the purpose of the author is to postulate an atheist morality Meurault in his cell on death row is visited by a priest who attempts to save his soul. This galvanises Meursault into forcefully rejecting the priest's blandishments as a waste of Meursault's time. Meursault realises he has little time left and he has his own thoughts to collect and his own inner preparations to make for the ordeal he is about to face and he doesn't want to spend what little time he has in talking about God to a bloody priest!

The concluding passage of the novel is a soliloquy by Meursault in which he contemplates not his own situation - he doesn't wallow in self pity. He understands that as a condemned murderer his death will be welcomed by some people. But he appears to have his own atheist epiphany, his "numinous moment" as it were. I can still recall the line (in English translation) about the "sublime indifference of the universe" and that this "indifference" is neither good nor bad. It just is. Basically the cosmos, magnificent as it is in all its glory - which you got a glimpse of with the eclipse - is on such a vast scale that you become aware of your own insignificance and its benevolent indifference. It means you no harm. Does an elephant feel any malice towards an ant?

It's good to feel that sort of humility. Apparently Buddhists are rather good at it.