Though I am Jewish, I used to be envious of people who believed in Christ and could surrender their angst to him. I was not religious and was full of angst. So I could never have imagined experiencing bodhi, an enlightenment or awakening.
During the school year of 1967-1968, I was a high school dormitory counselor on an army post in Pusan,Korea, employed with U.S. Department of Defense Dependents Overseas Schools (DoDDS). The high school students were bussed in from Taegu Army Post two hours away to attend high school on Pusan U.S. Army Post.
My job was virtually stress-free since I could relate to the kids as a counselor rather than as a teacher or parent. Since I was dorm counselor, I had my days free while they were in class.
Awakening
Most days were spent wandering about the local village taking photos, then developing and printing black and white blow ups in the U.S. Army Post photo lab.
One day I wandered out the back instead of front gate and in a matter of minutes I was out in open countryside. After a short walk, a curtain opened and closed in my mind and I found myself on the other side. It was unlike anything I had known. No words to describe it. The Narrator, that incessant pesky voice in my head, was absent without a trace.
Spiritual Presence
I had never known the world from this perspective. Now it was clear, vivid, pellucid. This was the true world that had been hidden from view. Truth existed everywhere on this side of the curtain. Unbelievable how this truth could exist so clearly and yet be hidden.
All around in the hills, rocks and trees, fields, everywhere, there was what I can only put into words as a spiritual presence. I saw this with crystalline lucidity. No doubt of what I was seeing. Not to be able to see this world is blindness. I remember thinking that I could give up all my possessions. There was nothing more I needed.
Reality
How could truth be all around and I could not get a glimpse of it before this? And how can I be like a blind man now back on this side of the curtain? How could I return to a material life where everything is a noisy story; thoughts, comma, and thoughts about thoughts — devoid of reality; truth.
From that day, I began questioning my beliefs. I started to question reality. I became aware that there is much more to reality than we are able to perceive. And what we are able to perceive may not be reality at all.
Richard Feynman, Nobel Prize-winning physicist, said about quantum physics: “Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possibly avoid it, but how can it be like that? Because you will get down the drain, into a blind alley from which nobody has escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.”
Widening Circles of Compassion
Albert Einstein said:
“A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Self-help books that help:
Total Self-Renewal through Attention Therapies and Open Focus (Sample Chapters)
The Open-Focus Brain: Harnessing the Power of Attention to Heal Mind and Body
