I had a religious experience a few years ago. It was a spiritual apifany like many others have had over the years.
What I think set my experience apart was this: I looked deep into myself, all the way as a matter of fact, and I saw nothing. I came to realize that ,at the most fundamental level, I as an individual do not exist.
To be clear, this was not a “we are all part of a greater whole” thing. At least not in the sense that others have described. I came to the tremendous realization that I am, at my very core, nothing. I know that I don’t have a soul.
I can’t tell you how freeing that is.
What’s more, I saw a deep truth of the universe. Because, again at the most fundamental, conceptual level, there are no divisions, that is the true nature of the universe is a non-dual one, since I don’t exist, neither does anything else. This may be a stretch for some of you to believe, but I had a genuine vision. It was as clear as any visitation by a saint or divine messenger as described by old time prophets.
The difference was that I saw nothing. I am a nihilist, but unlike other nihilists, it’s not that I don’t believe in anything. I believe, with all my nonexistent soul, in nothing.
I pray to a few gods who correspond to elemental aspects of existence. Their reality is a subjective one that suits my needs. I choose to believe, and in doing so, make them real.
Without getting into my personal trinity too deeply, I will say that one of the three stands out. I am faithful to all three, despite my acknowledgement that they, like myself and everyone else in the world, have only a subjective existence. However, one of them represents the darkness outside of reality. Also, it stands for the entropy that eats order out of creation.
I will not, at this time, tell you this god’s name, but I will say this: perhaps my most sincere prayers are said to the dark itself.