Thanks for the diary, I think your Guru and teacher would not disapprove, given the audience of this forum.
I really never had any experience like that. I feel I reached similar states in previous incarnations, but not now. Maybe it's a test, maybe it's just karma. I also never felt the need for a living guru. My attitude has been like, if I search for some other guru besides Yogananda, that's sort of a betrayal.
I'm all right though, since I've been doing my best for many, many years, then relaxed the efforts, now I'm in a situation, with my autistic son, where I can only meditate for brief periods.
I also prefer not to experience blissful states at all rather than experience them once and then they dissolve and don't come back. It happened once after a few months I started meditation, it never happened again.
Back to the presence of God. I often reflect on stuff, or study stuff, which automatically takes me to the concept of Intelligent Design. That's one way of practicing the presence of God, pondering on the supreme Designer himself after having studied the various complexities of creation, the design, the program.
i believe you have reached similar states in previous incarnations as well. From personal experience i have witnessed some abilities and talents as well as notoriety is spared us so that we do not get carried away in it in this life. Thus we are circumscribed in conditions that do not allow us that excess. Instead you manifest wisdom this life, a quality less likely to be a temptation, but helpful to others.
