Seeking greater understanding of the Big Picture

[Energize]

Hello folks. I'm hoping to get some insights from forum members about how the greater reality 'works'. I've been steadily reading about this kind of material for a long time now. Although I've had a handful of 'mystical' experiences, most of my efforts at development have been intellectual (reading), and fostering greater awareness.

One of my paths of learning followed this line of bread crumbs: I became aware of the phenomenon of near death experiences (through reading books). From this point I researched in many directions. My intellectual knowledge grew, and I was able to piece together a rough outline of how things work.

However, I occasionally come across concepts which don't fit into my growing conceptual understanding. I then turn my attention to the anomaly, to understand it better and how it might fit into the jigsaw.

Not surprisingly, given the complexity of the subject, and my purely intellectual learning framework, I always have a considerable pile of these jigsaw puzzle pieces heh heh! I'd like to use this thread to gain some insights and opinions from others who are more widely read than I, or have some direct experiential knowledge to share.

Bear with me in regards to the length of my posts (hard to cover the material in a few sentences), and my choice of words (I use terms like 'God', 'mystical' and 'time' loosely, for the sake of keeping the posts as short as possible).