Kent Nerburn wrote in his weblog last week about seeing the sudden spiritual transformation of a woman who survived a severe auto accident. “I can’t explain it. It would be simple to say that she has gained a newfound wisdom or appreciation of life. But that is too simple. This is something deeper, something that she herself is not even able to comprehend. In the twinkling of an eye, she has been changed.”
This reminds me of a book I picked up a couple months ago when the author visited our local bookstore for a reading and book signing. Ann Jauregui is a therapist and the author of Epiphanies: A Psychotherapist’s Tales of Spontaneous Emotional Healing (available via Booksense or Amazon.)
It’s a book that focuses more on the possible scientific underpinnings for these sudden spiritual transformations and less on any psychotherapeutic intervention. “There is something deep, something elusive still missing in our understanding of how the world works. What is certain is that a person can slip into an alignment with these workings. Often while walking out under the sky. Indoors or out. On legs or in wheelchairs. There, on a lucky day, we see something.”
Herbert Benson’s new book, The Break-out Principle, also may give a clue about what’s happened to the woman Nerburn cites. “… a powerful mind-body impulse that severs prior mental patterns and–even in times of great stress or emotional trauma–opens an inner door to a host of personal benefits… Breakouts open the door to different kinds of peak experiences–self-awareness, creativity, productivity, athleticism, rejuvenation, and transcendence–and lead to lasting changes.”
Benson cites the interesting developments surrounding nitric oxide in the body and its possible connection to what we call the mind. “Puffs of insight” — break-outs — can occur when this natural gas gets triggered in the body. While his book is all about learning to deploy a variety of techniques and habits that trigger break-outs, Benson also says: “It seems quite possible to me that some part of the mind — perhaps what theologians refer to as the “spirit” of human beings — may be linked to a dimension beyond the physical matter, DNA codes, cell structure, and other limitations of our brains and bodies.”
And maybe that’s what God is.