Observations placeholder
Naval gazing as a source of bliss
Identifier
026063
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
As described in Illustrations Of The Influence Of The Mind Upon The Body In Health And Disease, Designed To Elucidate The Action Of The Imagination - Daniel Hack Tuke, M.D., M.R.C.P.,
PART II. THE EMOTIONS.
CHAPTER VII. INFLUENCE OF THE EMOTIONS UPON SENSATION.
In regard to epigastric sensations, there has always been a tendency to connect the deepest feelings of the soul with this region or the umbilicus. To this spot a monk in the eleventh century directs the thoughts to be turned in order to arrive at the highest degree of mental insight.
"When thou art alone in thy cell," says he, "shut thy door, and seat thyself in a corner ; raise thy mind above all things vain and transitory; recline thy beard and chin on thy breast; turn thy eyes and thoughts towards the middle of thy abdomen, and search the place of the heart, the seat of the soul. At first all will be dark and comfortless ; but if thou persevere day and night thou wilt feel an ineffable joy, and no sooner has the soul discovered the place of the heart, than it is involved in a mystic and ethereal light."
[See Mosheim's " Ecclesiastical History," ]