A) Apparently my body was dead because I am under
the impression that my heart stopped beating.
B) My mind was unable to think, although it could
watch inwardly.
C) My mind could store to long term memory (this
document testifies to that), but it could not recall from memory.
My mind was completely and totally occupied with the present
moment within.
The following philosophers, one from the West; the other
from the East, have spoken about this state. Here is what they
have to say:
(1) Spinoza experienced this state. The evidence for this
is his Ethics V,P21 & its proof:
'Proposition 21: The mind can exercise neither imagination nor
memory save while the body endures.
Proof: It is only while the body endures that the mind expresses
the actual existence of its body and conceives the affections of
the body as actual. Consequently it does not conceive any body
as actually existing save while its own body endures. Therefore
it cannot exercise either imagination or memory save while the
body endures.'
Baruch Spinoza(1677), The Ethics and Selected Letters,
Trans. by S. Shirley and edited by S. Feldman (Hackett Pub. Co.,
Indianapolis, 1982).
(2) A Hindu monk of the Ramakrishna Order explains
it this way: 'Deliverance consists in cutting off all bonds of
relationship between the true self and the chitta [mind] .
Henceforth it would become impossible for the movements of the
cosmic prakriti [primordial nature] to be communicated to the
subtle body or to trouble our individuality. When the self
ceases to identify itself with the chitta , it withdraws into its
own field. There, it would not be affected by passions, for, the
Purusha is, in its real nature, none other than the witnessing
consciousness of all the activities of the mind.'
Siddheswarananda, Meditation , 32-33.