The Awakening

By my 30th birthday, my life contained many of the usual ingredients for human happiness ... loving family, 3 beautiful children, career, university study, house, car, travel, music, running, tennis etc. ... yet, at the same time I had a compelling inner voice shouting at me. "Who am I?, Why am I here?", and "Where am I going?"

I would discuss these questions with friends, workmates and acquaintances but that was as far as it would go. Then,at a dinner party I met a young pharmacist called Ian, who said that he had recently spent 3 days in total silence with 20 strangers in a retreat house on a private property in the hills and, for 18 hours a day, they had contemplated the question ”Who am I?” Ian said that he was not sure what the experience meant, but that he had a very good feeling after the weekend.

I was enthralled by his description of the retreat – silence, vegetarian food (I was a meat eater at the time), rural setting, the question – “Who am I?” and most of all - the name of the 3 day workshop – 'Enlightenment Intensive'. Ian gave me a brochure which described how great teachers, like Lord Krishna, the Buddha, Sri Ramakrishna and Jesus Christ, came to earth for the sole purpose of helping others discover the enlightenment that they themselves had already attained .

My parents brought me up in the Roman Catholic, Christian tradition and our family had close friendships with some of the priests and nuns. My mother was an admirer of the late Mother Teresa ... when I was about 12 years old I can remember taking a parcel to the local post office to send to the Sisters of Charity in Calcutta.

I was an altar boy during my teens and I was moved by both the singing in the beautiful Latin language and the piety of my local parish priest. I was also touched by the love, sacrifice and forgiveness of Jesus Christ. But, I did not understand what Jesus meant when he said '"I and my father are one" and that "the kingdom of Heaven is within" ... and I had no idea that it was our birthright to eventually become illumined and 'Christ-like' in consciousness.

The brochure went on to explain how participating in a 3 day Enlightenment Intensive, asking the question “Who am I?”, was a powerful way to go within and directly experience the same realization/ enlightenment within ourselves ... the words struck me in the depths of my heart like a revelation-lightening-bolt from Heaven and I knew that I had to enroll for the next intensive.

The Enlightenment Intensive

It was early in January 1980, and I eagerly drove up into the Adelaide hills on a Friday evening for the start of the 3-day ‘Enlightenment Intensive’, which was to finish on the Monday night.

I had recently run my first marathon and was keen to improve my time – so I ran my Sunday 15-mile run on the Friday morning before work. I was concerned about losing condition, by sitting around for 3 days, so I also ran another 4 miles after work as ‘damage control’.

There were approximately 20 of us doing the intensive – our ages ranged from 20’s to 50’s - plus 4 monitors who helped out with the food etc.The workshop coordinator was an intelligent, bright-faced young man called Kym. After welcoming us Kym played a tape by an American Swami, who outlined the format and rules for the weekend:

The Rules

• Complete silence • No phone calls • No watches, radio, TV. Etc. • No physical contact with others. • Stick to contemplating the question – even when we eat and sleep, Sleep was from 12 midnight to 6 a.m. • The format was that everyone would sit on the floor on cushions opposite someone else. We were to rotate who we sat opposite every 40 minutes. • For the first 5 minutes, we could share with the person opposite us anything we directly experienced as a consequence of contemplating the question “Who am I?” • For the second 5 minutes, we were to listen, in a detached way- without any comment, to anything the other person shared with us. • The 5-minute alternating process would continue for 40 minutes – followed by another switch of partner. • This routine was to go from 6 a.m. to 12 mid-night each day with short breaks for food and snacks. • There was a 40-minute outdoor walking contemplation and a 40-minute mid afternoon slumber period each day. •We had a cup of peppermint herbal tea (a new experience) and then we went to bed. At 6 a.m. Saturday the intensive started.

Who Am I ?

I had no idea what I was looking for but tried very hard to experience who I was. Most of the other participants were also very sincere. It was surprising how much stuff came forth from my past, childhood etc. - some happy, some sad.

I was also surprised how much emotion others were expressing – one girl wept on and off for 1½ days about her mother. After 2 days a young man exploded amidst the silence; cursed his father in a very loud angry voice and promptly threw a chair across the room over our heads – then lay on the floor crying like a baby for an hour or so.

After 2½ days I had a tense head, felt tired and just wanted to go home. I felt that others were more sincere than me and were really letting go of stuff. So, I started concentrating, with all the will power it takes to run 26 miles, on a source deep within my spine.

After a few minutes of very intense concentration, I had an immensely powerful experience of my life energy in the form of a glowing, burning fire that rose from a source near the base of my spine and enveloped every part of my physical and subtle being ... it was so encompassing that I wondered if my soul was about to leave my body and I was going to die. When the experience settled, I was left with a profound sense of purification along with a deep, abiding inner joy and peace.

Aftermath

For the remainder of the weekend and for weeks afterwards I was centered in a very deep and beautiful part of my being and felt undisturbed by the world and my surroundings ... I had no doubt that I had truly experienced a significant aspect of who I was.

It had taken me 30 years to start to wake up and now I felt an urgent necessity to move as quickly as possible to refocus my life’s priorities and seek out the deeper truths of my existence.

Thus, my conscious search began.