I grew up in a church family – Mom was Southern Baptist, Dad was Pentecostal, and we ended up at a Presbyterian church when I was six years old, in Fresno, California. Dad received his “calling” at about that time, went through seminary over several years, and has been an ordained minister since the mid-70's.
At the age of four, I began to experience ecstatic phenomena in conjunction with “visitations” from the person of Jesus Christ, who would appear to me as materially “real,” like any other human on the planet (aside from the fact that it was Jesus, of course). For about a month, I would seclude myself in my room, sitting on my bed in a semi-lotus position, facing west – and Jesus would talk with me, reminding me of who I was before taking birth. He would take me by the hand, and a powerful influx of spiritual energy would course through my being – such that I would grow bigger than my room, bigger than our house... rising up and out until Earth was just a speck of blue and white against a black expanse of space.
I had no way, at that time, of knowing that the Buddha had described these phenomena 2,500 years earlier, in terms of the non-material jhana/samadhi realms.
I was given a little mantra to chant just as Jesus and my other spiritual friends met with me for the last time, so that I would be able to repeat the words at any time during 30 subsequent “years in the wilderness." Chanting these words, I could always get a hint of the ecstatic states I'd known during those early days. I was told that, after 30 years had passed, these phenomena would become active again, and this inner assistance would begin to return.
I spent those 30 years as a typical preacher's kid – a gifted athlete, but also a dedicated stoner from 15 to 34. I worked various industrial jobs, lived in various towns and cities throughout the western states, experienced marriage and divorce... and then, at 29 (in 1991), found myself single and free in Boulder, Colorado, where I've lived ever since.
Along with learning hypnotheraphy, astrology, Tarot and dreamwork, I began to work with what I called “trance states” shortly after moving to Boulder. I would sometimes spend 10 hours a day diving deep into these states, and would in any case spend many hours each day in a quest to access the non-material realms that had offered themselves so easily when I was a young boy. I did have limited success, but – probably due to the fact that I was smoking a LOT of pot and partying very hard during the early 90's – I never quite made it to where I hoped to go.
In late 1995, however, I was persuaded by a good friend to take a “sabbatical” from the herb. This sabbatical started out as a four-month break, and has basically turned into a permanent situation. The reason for this is that, after a week away from smoking, I still felt “high,” only without the mental and emotional cloudiness that had set in over many years of ingestion. After a month, I not only felt the same “high,” but noticed a tingling in on the forehead between the eyes – the third eye area – that increased in intensity with each passing day. I'd noticed this tingling at times while trancing-our during the previous couple years, but I was never sure if it was the trance or the pot. Four months into my sabbatical, the localized tingling had become a “halo” around my head, which, over the succeeding months, encompassed my body like an egg.
It occurred to me that those two years of intense trance work had born fruit. I “knew” that I needed to meditate, which I began to do without external guidance of any kind. Meditation was not regular at the time, but the urge to sit would hit me once or twice a week, and I would then notice how “the energy” was maturing, becoming more constant and “full” as time passed.
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It took about eight years – from 1994 to 2002 – for me to find a “peer teacher” in Jeffrey Brooks – an experienced fellow-traveler who not only recognized what was happening to me, but was immediately able to direct me to the Buddha's recorded explanations of these phenomena – which, in turn, handed me a practice for working with the self-arising bliss, joy and ecstasy that had begun sometime late in 1994. Through persistent correspondence and a long retreat with Jeffrey in 2004, I gradually came to understand that daily rigorous and skillful meditation was what I needed to build my life around. On February 1, 2005 I posted a daily practice schedule on the refrigerator (giving fair notice to my wife and a housemate!), and commenced the life of a jhana yogi that continues to this day.
So, for me, ecstatic phenomena arose totally out of context and in a way that was foreign to my conceptual background. It wasn't until years after the fact that I connected my early trance work with the onset of jhana/samadhi. I contacted many spiritual teachers from 1994 to 2002, and was always told to forget about these phenomena, as they were a “diversion” from the “true goal.” The phenomena only grew in intensity, however, and it wasn't until encountering Jeffrey that I received enough validation to move forward with what had been “gifted” to me. Through the Jhana Support Group Yahoo discussion group, I came to know that I was not alone – that there are many others who have come into various manifestations of jhana/samadhi, who had also been discouraged (or worse) by spiritual authority figures, and who craved some sort of validation for their ecstatic experiences.
I've also received validation as a preacher's kid, believe it or not. By examining the writings of Christian mystics down through the ages, I've been able to compare these teachings with ecstatic instructions from other spiritual traditions and religions, both Eastern and Western. Reading the Bible through “ecstatic eyes” has been a profound revelation to me, and has gone far toward healing a great deal of woundedness I'd accrued during my early years in the church.
Becoming “jhana active” has not been a case of triumphalism, nor has it been a reason to toot my own horn. It has, rather, constituted a transformative journey that possesses a life of its own, such that I cannot avoid its effects. Daily saturation in the bliss, joy and ecstasy of jhana is wonderful... but it is also a challenge, in that one can never interface with the world like she or he could before. This divine energy comes first and foremost, demanding attention, requiring commitment and never letting up, not even for a second. It is not always a pretty sight, to be honest – we have an idea that, as a serious meditation practitioner, we will be calm, cool and “enlightened” in all our interactions – and, while things DO head in that direction on aggregate... there are also times of explosive emotional turmoil, as though the jhana has unleashed monsters from the depths of the PIT. Jhana accelerates the process of transformation – this is my belief, anyway – and, due to its relentless nature, there really is no turning back.
Accepting this, then, we continue with our daily practice, we take it out into the world, and we give patient trust to an unfoldment that has no guarantees... but is always forcefully present, 24/7.
Looking back to those early days with Jesus, racing around the Cosmos to remember my pre-born perspective, I realize that I wouldn't have it any other way.
