Understandings of crowning experience

Engaging with Globality through Cognitive Crowns (Part #2)

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• First, when Ruysbroeck described that union with God "without mean" that he considered to be the crowning experience that a contemplative could aspire to (Jess Byron Hollenback, Mysticism: experience, response, and empowerment, 1996)
• The structure of the Mass prepares people for that crowning experience, and the experience of forgiveness is a key part of that preparation. (Fraser N. Watts and Liz Gulliford, Forgiveness in Context: theology and psychology in creative dialogue, 2004)
• This course is a crowning experience coming at the end of the program with the specific objective of integrating knowledge, concepts, and skills associated with an entire sequence of study in the program. (United Arab Emirates University, Academic Programs and Curricula Catalog)
• By direct contemplation, he realized mind's profound nature and thereby attained enlightenment. This was his crowning experience. (Luminous Mind: the Way of the Buddha, 1997)
• The crowning experience of all, for the homecoming man, is the wonderful feeling that, after all he has suffered, there is nothing he need fear any more -- except his God. (Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search For Meaning -- Experiences in a Concentration Camp)
• A good internship can be the crowning experience of a student's college education (National Asphalt Pavement Association)
• For the student, the defense should be a 'crowning experience,' the ultimate opportunity to demonstrate his or her expertise after years of research, reporting, and writing. (Educating Mathematical Scientists: Doctoral Study and the Postdoctoral Experience in the United States, 1992)
• Groups can pamper themselves at small day spas or major spa complexes. Although the sauna to Finns is a part of life, even a matter of fact, for your group it can be a unique and crowning experience for your event. (Finland Convention Bureau, Finland for Meetings, Events and Incentives)
• When the passion is extreme, suffering may actually be gloried in, provided it be for the ideal cause, death may lose its sting, the grave its victory. In these states, the ordinary contrast of good and ill seems to be swallowed up in a higher denomination, an omnipotent excitement which engulfs the evil , and which the human being welcomes as the crowning experience of his life. This, he says, is truly to live, and exult in the heroic opportunity and adventure. (William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: a study in human nature, 1902, pp. 62-63)
• The experience of enlightenment, reported by saints, yogis, and sages, shows remarkable similarity from one culture to another. Modern consciousness researchers are increasingly identifying the 'deep structure', or common features, of the path to enlightenment and the crowning experience itself. This pattern is echoed in many aspects of life, from the beginning, as we struggle to be born, and at the end, as we struggle to die. (Martin Borosan, The Architecture of Enlightenment, Building Material, 8, 2002, pp. 58-61)
• Everything Plotinus says -- points to a crowning experience, what he termed 'henosis' -- realizing a state of 'at-onement.' Hence, any idea of identifying Plotinus use of the term 'Nous' (translated as 'intellect' in English) with its narrower, modern equivalent, would be a fatal misunderstanding. Plotinus leaves no room for distinctions between the knower and the known, presenting a marked parallel with Buddhist intuitions. Given the extensive influence that Buddhism has exerted upon western culture in recent years, it would be a crime to ignore the fruitful parallels afforded by Plotinus. (Review by Richard Hunn of Plotinus: The Enneads, 2002)
• Odell had climbed many peaks alone, and witnessed sunsets from not a few, but this, he says, was the crowning experience of all. (Francis Younghusband, The Epic of Mount Everest)

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