When someone is going through intense spiritual experiences it's very easy for that person to feel alone and isolated, as if he or she is the only one in the world who's ever experienced what he or she is experiencing. For that reason I decided to share some of what I've experienced and undergone, in hopes that whoever needs this writing will find it and realize that others have been where they're going. For those people who need it, I hope what I have to say will provide support and encouragement.

I've considered putting this phrase at the end of every paragraph, in bold red type: "What I am, you are. What you are, I am. Everything that I've experienced you can experience; everything that I am, you are. Everything that you are, I am also."

When I think back on what I've read that has meant the most to me, it has been without a doubt the personal accounts of people's spiritual experiences. Those accounts gave me something to relate to, to compare notes to, sometimes to argue with: something to interact with. I first read Muktananda's Play of Consciousness less than a year after my 1978 experience, and it was the first writing I'd come across that I could relate to. I cannot describe how much it meant to me to be able to read someone's first person account of experiences that were incredibly similar to my own.

Shortly after that, I discovered Longchenpa, and shortly after him, Milarepa's Hundred Thousand Songs and biography. To this day, I still dearly love Milarepa: reading him is like coming home. Awhile later I discovered my attention being drawn to the right side of my chest during meditation, and a few weeks afterward I came across Franklin Jones’ autobiography The Knee of Listening, another excellent first person account. In that book, Jones mentioned Ramana Maharshi, whose name I knew but whom I had never explored —specifically, he talked about the right side of the chest and Ramana’s emphasis on it. So from there, I became acquainted with Ramana’s writings, and his first person accounts of his experiences. I had discovered that all I really needed to do was follow myself back, just relax into myself, rather than do any kind of complicated meditation practice, and I was overjoyed to read Ramana basically saying the same thing. So in that spirit, remembering how much those writings, and others, have meant to me, I decided to resurrect my old Spiritweb writing, with some updates. My hope is that someone will find my writing useful, and that it will give them something to relate to in their own spiritual growth and experiences.

[ Top ]