When I experience monks chanting and sometimes other trance-inducing experiences, I experience ecstasy: I am so much into ecstasy that it is as if I am experiencing a state of consciousness similar to that of experiencing a sexual orgasm---except, of course, the physical manifestation of a sexual orgasm is not present. The sensation can be continuous, so long as the chanting or other creating mood lasts.
I believe that the chanting opens up the soul to permit special contact with one's spiritual guides. This could be a manifestation of love, and that if one experiences a great love, this love could be a minor form of this ecstasy. Yet, it can be so overwhelming that one may seek out such a relationship or expand upon it to a degree that it may have disastrous consequences.
Society frowns upon seeking out this love as a basis for a personal relationship:
First, we are subconsciously aware that it is related to this intense form of spiritual love or ecstasy, and that it is rarely experienced on planet earth. Many people spend their lives looking for it, not even getting married, for perhaps they have vague, subconscious experiences with it in the spiritual realm.
Second, this love is only one part of a meaningful relationship. Love alone without the ability to compromise and grow cannot make an otherwise impossible relationship work. One may not be able to find the personal support in the relationship that one may be able to find in another. Also, without the adaptive skills of the individual, it alone may not be able to overcome the dysfunction that one learns from parents.
Third, if anything happens to the individuals experiencing this love, both can be extremely devastated.
Yet, it is important to find that combination of love, attraction*, cooperation, and compatibility to make a relationship, such as marriage, work. Two diverse individuals can still unite in a successful relationship, so long as there is self-respect and respect for the other.
David C. Hakim
Sterling Heights MI
October 12, 1995
*It should be noted that sex is communication; touching can be an ecstatic connection and also can be an expression of love.