The summer after graduation from high school I hit the road with Tom and we hitchhiked to Denver intending to visit a friend who used to live in our little town. This was my first adventure traveling so far from home — with a destination in mind but no idea how we were going to get there. It was an act of faith, but not seen that way, taken by the innocence of youth with the desire for adventure and discovery.

We arrived totally unannounced with no one expecting us. The girl we traveled to visit had left earlier that day for a two-week vacation and, with our arrival, her mother scrambled to find someone who would show us around. To our great delight, we met two beautiful girls and were treated to a grand tour of the Denver area.

This experience brought me back to Colorado many times and the American West became a beacon for adventure and discovery. The West called me and was always the answer to a yearning that I did not understand but felt whenever my life became mundane or an opportunity to travel arose.

Travel was one of the ways in which I found extraordinary experience. I had very little money, but that did not stop me. At one point, I remember selling my cherished record collection to get the money I needed. And I wanted to travel without spending money or as little as possible. Not because I didn’t have any, but more as a challenge to see how little money I actually needed to to go where I wanted to go.

Before one trip, I rigged up a minimalist solution devoid of tent and backpack that included a lean-to that doubled as a swag in which I rolled up all my stuff and wore it over my back. Those were days of discovery made possible by a desire for adventure and a complete lack of time constraints.

During one of those early trips to Colorado with my buddy Tom, I found myself sitting on a cliff in the foothills of Pikes Peak near Green Mountain Falls, legs dangling over the side and facing east toward the flats of eastern Colorado. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were just basking in the sun enjoying the fresh mountain air.

I marveled at the magnificence of the mountains — even of the foothills that were much smaller than then the many Colorado peaks exceeding 14,000 feet. So majestic, pristine, and beautiful they crackled with the exuberance of life. I wondered if the mind of man could build even a single mound that could rival the lowliest of foothills.

Basking peacefully in the cool afternoon sun my mind began to imagine how a foothill might be constructed right there — next to the one I was sitting on. I imagined a huge quarry just over the horizon, in the prairie of eastern Colorado, and a long line of dump trucks inching slowly toward the loader filling each with a load of dirt and rock.

Then proceeding slowly west up to a flat spot near my vantage point, each truck, coming one by one, dropped it’s load and headed back for another. Each one packing the load of the one before and slowly making a road ascending the growing pile of dirt and rock. The mound was growing and the steady stream of trucks, bumper to bumper, extending from beyond the horizon, was focused and purposeful, moving unbroken about the task.

I was consumed by the image and could actually see it and watch the mound rising in front of me.

Suddenly, an overwhelming blast of energy entered my body through my chest and engulfed my entire being — it took me from awareness of time and space and body to an experience of pure, radiant, all-encompassing, overpowering love! A feeling so profound that elicited a flood of tears coming from a depth never imagined.

I was loved totally, I was accepted completely, I was held securely and rested in a peace so deep where tears of gratitude purely flowed.

Slowly the intensity began to recede and I became aware of myself. I tried to re-engage the feeling by forcing tears but to no avail. I didn’t want it to stop, but it departed with the same degree of mystery from which it came.

There is more to share but I’ll leave that for another time.

I don’t remember what happened after that, but it changed me. I received a taste of life that far exceeded anything known in the world of my experience and showed me something truly incredible — mind-blowing — exists and can be experienced.

Something fishy is going on and I want to know what it is!

Stay tuned…

Originally published at jalancintasanctuary.com on October 1, 2015.

I remember one such experience when I was around 10 years old. In our house, there was a clock that chimed on the half hour and I awoke one night to hear it begin to chime. I counted, “one, two, three …” all the way up to twelve. Yikes! Twelve — it was twelve o’clock, not a good time to be up and about, and that was just what I wanted to do having the need to visit the bathroom.

I carefully planned my course of action. First, jump out from the bed to a distance where “the hand” would be unable to reach my ankle from under the bed. Success! Now, take a right turn just outside the bedroom door and walk briskly to the bathroom. But…

As I was exiting my room, I saw a strange figure — a man, with a patchwork suit and matching hat, walking up the stairs slowly. Not my Dad, that’s for sure. Immediately I turned around and dove into bed covering my head.

The next morning I awoke from a deep sleep with a lot of ‘sand’ in my eyes. I concluded that I was visited by the Sandman — who else could it be? This was a very real experience and I remember it today as something that actually happened.

This and many experiences since have caused me to question my everyday reality as being unquestionably true. There’s something fishy going on around here…

A common experience I suspect many people have is, what I call the Mirror Delusion. For many years, as I was growing up and well into young adulthood, I felt the image looking back at me from the mirror was me — it looked like me, it made funny faces, mimicking the ones I was making, it was sad when I was sad and sick when I was sick — it was me.

But then there was a time when the body started to lose its youthful luster and I started to recognize something in the mirror that was not me! It tried hard to convince me by its mimicry — a skill honed over many years, but I didn’t fall for it. I didn’t fall for it because, even though it looked like me and acted like me — it didn’t feel like me.

It was obviously getting older and I was not! I didn’t feel any older, as a matter of fact, I didn’t feel old at all. The body had a few ache’s and pains but, inside, I didn’t feel older — I just felt like I’ve always felt.

I realized that my internal perception of myself was not tied to age at all — it seemed to be ageless even though my body was showing the typical effects of aging, graying hair, wrinkles, even, some would say, a protruding belly.

Something strange is going on here!

I read the book Autobiography of a Yogi when a senior in high school, actually — I consumed it. It revealed a world I couldn’t imagine — as real, of people, doing extraordinary things and living life in a way far different than I had learned. I was intrigued and fascinated — they weren’t even on drugs!

Can people really do that? Can life be lived and experience had that deviate so drastically from the ‘grow up, get an education, have a career, raise a family, happily retire’ model of life I had been taught?

It was a question that led me further into an answer. I took several stops along the way, one was Carlos Castenada, a mystic in different clothing — and Gandhi, who taught the world of peace and the power of conviction to the truth of love, and Martin Luther King, Jr who demonstrated that same truth in the US.

Internally I was drawn to discovering extraordinary experience — apart from the norm, and outwardly the power of truth and conviction — was being demonstrated to me.

There is something strange going on here.

Take a moment — right now, and remember the extraordinary experiences that you have had. We all have them in one way or another. Maybe you were thinking of someone and out of the blue they called. Or you suddenly felt a deep connection and love for everyone you met. You might have felt an extraordinary sense of peace and well-being descend upon you — one never before experienced. Or a profound connection with a stranger you met.

Experiences like these, and many many others, are messengers bidding you to explore more deeply. There is a world of experience — out there — that is asking for your attention and awaiting your discovery.

An extraordinary experience is a taste of a consciousness, a way of being, that is not of this world but available within it. It is extraordinary precisely because it is not ordinary — and not ordinarily experienced in everyday life.

Don’t you want to discover more?

Join me as I begin to share my journey of discovery of Christ Mind. I’ll write of how I found myself where I am, what Christ Mind means to me and where I find inspiration. Then I’ll begin the exploration of Christ Mind and the journey of embodying Christ — right here, right now, right where I find myself.

This is a process of self-discovery that I want to share so that it moves more deeply into my being — beyond my conscious experience.

So join me here and offer your comments; I would love to have a real conversation begin.

See you soon,

R ;-)