Chapter Summaries

Remaining silent as if in a trance, the vision of a dark-haired woman transported my memory beyond my little life. The comforting presence of my mother in the kitchen faded into oblivion as love and sorrow engulfed my memory. But how could a six-year-old articulate such profound feelings of the horrible loss of love, so nobody knew.

Her face, known to me as absolute beauty. Her hair, distinctly charcoal, resembling burnt wood in a campfire. Her lips, the embrace comforting my soul, filling mine to completeness. Quietly, accompanying her gaze, the ever flowing sadness from the loss of love permeating my memory.

This chapter recounts my lifelong secret quest to find this woman from a past life, not knowing if she even existed. Hundreds of charcoal sketches poured out of me through childhood, my LSD years all the way through high school, keeping the memory alive.

Then the sketching stopped and she faded into the background for many years until a profound vision crashed my psyche with ferocity.

This chapter recounts the transformative moment when I first experienced Divine Presence as a radiant white light, marking a profound shift in my awareness. At just eleven years old, I had mastered the art of slipping away unnoticed from Saint Anthony’s Catholic School. On one such occasion, my journey through the New River Tunnel and a seemingly mundane stop at a 7/11 became the backdrop for an extraordinary event.

Leaving the store, an ethereal shadow around my body was revealed and then peeled away, lifting me upward into a tunnel of brilliant light. Time and space dissolved, and I found myself engulfed in the unconditional love of an eternal being. In that moment, I was home—completely at one with Divine Presence. When the light faded, I found myself back at school, seated at my desk, as if no time had passed. My heart brimmed with love and compassion, particularly for a boy often bullied, and from that day, I refused to partake in the taunting.

In the days that followed, I experienced another profound calling. While playing baseball, a voice beckoned me, “Come to me.” In a trance-like state, I was drawn to a church where I sat in stillness, overcome by the love of Divine presence. These visits became a weekly occurrence for months, filling my mind with purity and eradicating my mischievous behaviors.

This period of my life was marked by a deep awareness of my soul—a union between myself and the Divine. Encapsulated in a bubble of love, I began to see the beauty and light within everyone. The phrase, “The Divine in me honors the Divine in you,” became a lived truth as my soul recognized the inherent divinity in all.

The Divine in me honors the Divine in you.

Unaware that my spiritual bubble was slowly dissipating, I served as an alter boy over the next year, aspiring to become a priest. Believing they were called to priesthood through similar experiences, I revered them as inspiration. But they never spoke of their encounters, so neither did I.

A sudden presence snapped my head to the left. A dark shadow loomed, seemingly piercing through the roof as it surged straight at me. Fear raced through my body for the first time in months and my gaze locked onto the advancing cloud of darkness entering me. Snuffing out the light, I was me again.

Dismayed, I turned to Father Rocko for help. He appeared changed, now an overweight drunkard with a bulbous nose, hiding behind a facade of religious piety. Disgust and the sting of betrayal consumed me. Feeling utterly abandoned, the presence of the Divine within me was dying, fading into the background behind some dark obstruction. The reality of lightness turned into a dense heavy illusion, stripped of Divine energy.

“This is not real. Where are you? What’s happening? ” I cried out. Turning away from the grotesque sight of him, I saw myself in a full-length mirror. My light was gone. Just like the priest, I was adorned with the external robe of religious piety. There was nothing under the robe but a boy with the absence of light. Holding myself in disgust…

“I hate you!” and my self-loathing began. “God left me because this is who I really am.” I incorrectly blamed myself.

The darkness overwhelmed me, as an intense duality formed, swinging the pendulum of morality with an equal and opposite force.

I was utterly alone.

“The Shadow in me honors the Shadow in you”

“Have you ever been experienced? Well, I have…” Three ninth graders were singing along with Jimi Hendrix in a bedroom lit up with black-light posters. Long drawn out gurgling sounds emanated from a didgeridoo looking bamboo bong lined with cherry wax and filled with ice cubes to cool down the smoke. Sitting underneath a glowing Jimi Hendrix poster feeling the pot, pain and fear ripped through the pit of my stomach, throwing my back against the wall.

“Tommy!” blurted from my mouth. Jumping to my feet, I ran 6 miles from James Cayia’s house, through the New River Tunnel and paused, recalling my experience years ago. A vision of my younger brother Tommy in great pain quickened my pace.

Arriving at the hospital, Tommy was in ICU, unconscious with seven tubes coming out of him. Overhearing the doctor privately speak to my parents, he was not expected to live through the night. I cried.

Sneaking into Tommy’s room after everyone was asleep, tears began pouring from my eyes for Tommy. Believing he was going to die, I asked God to take my life in exchange of his. Immediately, a wind filled the room. Whether physically or ethereally, I really don’t know.

“He will be all right” rang through the room and filled me with peace and elation. Divine presence had returned.

Arriving at Broward General the next day, Tommy had been moved out of critical care during the night. I remember walking up the stairs then entering his new room to see him sitting up eating jello, smiling, with tubes and bandages attached to his body. Relief overwhelmed me. Slowly backing away from everyone, I looked out the window up at the clouds and said:

“You can take me now.” So I quietly waited to die.

In the 70’s, I began taking periodic hitchhiking trips across the US, over 30,000 miles total, in search of metaphysical and spiritual truths. Each journey was a conscious act of intention, starting with 45 minutes of Transcendental Meditation. I would set clear intentions, visualizing the ride I wanted, and the results were often uncanny.

Refining my abilities by setting more specific intentions about the type of person or woman and include an invitation to stay a day or few, my romantic encounters increased. Remember, this was the 70’s and I was a hippie, clean and well dressed, but still a hippie.

My desire for the spiritual shifted the nature of my intentions toward spiritual connections. The responsiveness of the universe astounded me with inspiring heartfelt encounters.

In 1977, during a hitchhiking trip to Seattle with a woman, I tested the power of intention by pushing it to the limit, imagining a specific couple driving a yellow and black Monte Carlo who would give us a ride and invite us to stay with them. To my amazement, the couple appeared exactly as I had envisioned, reinforcing the sense that I could either manipulate the physical realm through my intentions or pick up on an extreme possibility.

It was then I realized my potential for abusing this gift and stopped hitchhiking. My meditative intentions turned toward the manifestation of necessities of life such as work, living spaces, vehicles relationships and tough situations, which I continued to practice throughout my life.

“There’s a shadow in you.” said Herschal, igniting his hand-carved bone pipe and stroking his Gandalf like beard.

I met Herschal and Obruni somehow waiting for me in a diner outside Santa Fe on one of my cross-country hitchhiking adventures. Herschal, a seasoned mountain man, became my first spiritual mentor. He, alongside Obruni, a compassionate and beautiful woman, helped form a small community in La Cañyon. Their way of life centered around barter, shared meals, and deep spiritual connections, creating a familial atmosphere.

One day, Herschal and Obruni led me into deep meditation, asking me to reflect on what hurts inside. Guiding me into a moment of profound self-awareness, I realized the source of my pain was not my father’s withdrawal of verbal affection, but rather my own perception of the absence of unconditional love. This insight healed me, allowing me to reconnect with a deep love for my father and experience a flood of peace and freedom.

This was my introduction how the hidden recesses of my psyche can unknowingly govern my life and through self-discovery, they can evaporate.

A few weeks after my Divine encounter in Gainesville, the following happened:

It was my habit to get to the construction job a half-hour early so I could sit in my car and absorb the bible like a sponge. Reading in the book of Exodus, I came across 33:18:

• Moses Asked: “Now show me your glory.” (Similar translation: “Please, show me your splendor, your wonderful essence!”)
• The Reply: “I will make all my goodness to pass in front of you…”

At that moment the vision in my eyes went dark and my mind froze. The heartfelt yearning of Moses became mine as tears of longing welled up from my heart. Then these words silently landed in my psyche:

“If you ask, I will!”

Silence surrounded me. The one I love just invited me to see him.

Remembering how I entered the Divine Light at 11 years of age, I saw how this message was placed within my heart like a whisper back then.

But who am I, judging myself as unworthy, I was frightened to come face to face with the Divine white-light again. Who was I to even ask? Thinking of it every day, I could not bring myself to ask.  So for the next three years the echo of the invitation faded into a small distant possibility.

Six months after my marriage, we moved to Boulder and my desire for the Divine began to increase.

Every morning for two weeks, I went up the side of the mountain and began asking for Divine presence again. Meditating next to the famous dead tree overlooking Boulder as the sun rose, shining on my face, my heart began filling with hope.

Continuing to languish for the Divine, I drove to a park after sunset. While sitting in my car for two hours longing to see my Divine love again, a silent wind filled the car, blowing through my soul. Filling me in every way, the powerful love and peace of the Divine washed over me, returning me to the person thriving in the light.

Upon returning home my wife said my face was glowing and I replied “You mean I look happy?” “No, its actually glowing.” she said. There were no words to convey what I was experiencing, so I could not share.

The effects of this experience lasted for the next six months.

For three semesters, I took nothing but computer programming classes at the Community College of Denver in Broomfield, Colorado. My last semester marked the beginning of another two week quest for Divine presence along side my search for full time computer programming position.

After securing my first programming position immense gratitude propelled me to spend time communing with the Divine as if walking with a friend for the next two weeks.

Then it happened, almost two weeks to the day. Rushing into my being from what seemed to be through the top of my head, the energy of Divine love presence entered me like a swoosh. My inner self expanding beyond its own borders and into the presence of eternity and peace. My heart, mind and body were fulfilled, not just filled. Divine did not enter me, I expanded into Divine presence.

Filled with awe and only thoughts and emotions originating from Divine love, I took off running at full speed around the mall. Leaping and laughing, bursting with energy, I ran all the way around the mall like a gazelle, or crazy man as I imagined was the perspective of people driving by.

Waking around 5am every morning for the next few months filled with energy, the dance I experienced as a young boy returned. Filled with flowing energy, there was nothing else on earth I desired.

But then the shadow returned and the elated state of being slowly faded.

In August 1994, my 14-year marriage came to an end. A few months later, upon awakening, the overwhelming pain of loss of love caused me to stay at home for three days. Allowing myself to fully embrace the pain, all I could think a feel was “it just hurts.”

Upon the third day, I arose to find the pain was replaced with love. But an unconditional love, not requiring an object to love. I was reminded that emotional pain was the perceived absence of Divine love.

Embracing my pain, instead of avoiding it, allowed the energy of love into the pain, dissolving it. My transformation from suffering to deep spiritual growth gave reason to the pain. Without this, it simply would have remained just pain.

“How do I reach inside and cause transformation from the soul level?” my eyes reflecting the depth of my longing. With silent lips, her eyes spoke compassion toward my unfulfilled desire as the hope of an answer pulsed through me.

Then it began.  Filling my solar plexus and surging outward in a radial pattern, an energetic wave enveloped my entire body. Adrenaline overwhelmed my physical senses. Quickening my heartbeat, the blood resounded within my ears as my breath was taken away within a few short seconds.

Quickly opening, my mind revealing a thought from deep within my soul, presenting its revelation as the unveiling of hidden reality:

“I did not possess the power to affect a change at such a spiritual level, therefore, it was not my job. Awakening comes from Spirit.”

Because “I” did not hold the power, it was not “my” job. Therefore, I could simply stop attempting to change through human effort. Instead, my human effort should be redirected to seek Spirit presence. This transforms from the inside out instead of outside in.

One swift pulse of Spirit energy radically altered my perception, shifting the vantage point of “I” to outside myself and thus creating an ensuing metamorphosis that would ripple throughout the rest of my life. One little glimpse rerouted the trajectory of the rest of my life.

Suddenly, my thoughts were interrupted as another wave engulfed me like a strong wind within my spirit. My physical senses faded into the background and my focus was redirected to an image of a spirit orchestrating the manifestation of a situation between two people with the intent of drawing them together to assist spiritual growth.

They showed me a vision of the multitudes of humanity but from the perspective of the spiritual realm. There was no separation from one spirit to the next, all were as one, yet unique. Transparency between all was the norm, no hidden thoughts or agendas.

I saw how one spirit connected to another person’s spirit and the two spirits arranged a meeting of their human selves in order to satisfy each other’s growth needs. This was accomplished by creating what might be described as a magnetic, energetic attraction that manifested within the human mind and sometimes filtered into the body as romance. There were thousands of variations of the energy of attraction, but the majority of them contained the hope of fulfillment of a human desire. It was like a carrot to the humans that drew them toward a specific path.

It was inferred that many times as we embark on a journey of fulfilling a desire, we learn a valuable lesson as well. If we learn the lesson, then we are satisfied on a deeper level. If not, we repeat it.

The tunnel opened up completely as if I had passed through it to the other side. Without turning my head I could visually see all around me, front, sides and back all at the same time. I was also experiencing this dimension.

My attention was drawn to the east. The figures of twelve spiritual beings appeared. Suspended in midair, looking straight at me, they radiated Divine energy that transformed my state of mind into unconditional love. Inside I cried with relief because every human desire was fulfilled and every thought of separation from The Divine left me. I was whole and eternal. I had returned home.

At first, they were one energy system, hovering in place that slowly formed into twelve distinct beings, cloaked as if wearing robes. The robes were somehow for my benefit.

Positioned in the east, just behind and above Martha’s head, allowed me to see them and Martha’s face at the same time. They did not occupy physical space, the physical was superimposed on top of the spiritual.

“Who is it that is talking to you” she asked.

I hadn’t thought to ask, so I turned to look straight at him and a wave immediately passed through me.

“He is knowledge” I said as I turned back to her. “I think I’ll call him Knowles.”

I was swimming in an ocean of love. It was outside of me; it permeated me and originated from within me at the same time. It was eternal, with no end in sight, either in time or space. The translucent form of a human body appeared, suspended within a bright oval light, joined at the solar plexus. The light was the body’s creative life-force and the energy behind human existence.

The oval light was a perpetual, consciously aware eternal being. Millions of twinkling colorful light fibers were emanating from its center, extending out to form the shape of the oval. The white included all the colors of the rainbow as twinkling moments. This energy of life I translated as unconditional eternal love.

Like looking into a baby’s eyes, the human form, a denser light, was a blank canvas without gender, awaiting incarnation to fill in the individual traits of a person. Without realizing at the moment, I was being shown myself through the eyes of my soul.

Within an instant, I was transformed into the spiritual being shown to me and the burdens of life were lifted. All the mortal and physical aspects of my life no longer existed, only the purity of life and love. I felt extremely light and buoyant, moving about effortlessly and suspended in a space that connected me to the rest of the universe rather than bound to the earth by gravity.

Then I was taken on a journey through my mortal life and all the things that create stress for me. I saw my business life and the heaviness in comparison to how I was currently feeling. It felt thick and burdensome as I tried to control all the details associated to running a business. All this was within a split second but was communicated to me with such completeness.

Then I experienced something similar to a general life review and was able to see and experience the damage to my own life resulting from my not being connected with my spirit. There was no person or situation to blame. Even when something happened to me, the focus was on the damage done through my own negative response born out of not being integrated with my true eternal spirit.

Oh, how sweet the feeling of freedom from burdens.

But then I thought of death?

A surge elevated my spirit a new height of vibration, beyond my ability to be aware of Martha’s presence or my body. Finding myself standing on the edge of a chasm void of the energy that existed in the physical or spiritual realm, I could not see to the other side but knew something was there. Looking down over my left shoulder and seeing myself and Martha sitting on the couch, I desired to have the chord cut.

A force began pulling at my solar plexus towards the chasm, snapping the chord attached to my body. Passing through the threshold, I was completely set free from death and all the fears associated to it. Taken through the process of physical death, transformed me back to my true self, an eternal spirit, radiating like a star pulsating with light and love. Breathtaking, yet so natural. I had gone home.

Knowles was leading me and as if holding my hand, passing others, just like me, radiating love and light as they existed in eternal peace. Each one was unique, having their own identity without being separate from the others, we were all knit together in the same fabric of light. They were neither male or female but embodied the characteristics of both in harmonious oneness.

Looking up at Knowles, he verified the transparency between beings here. Then I noticed a distinction between Knowles and these other beings. Like me, they were of the human category of spirit but Knowles was a fundamentally different being. Knowles was twice my height and was leading me by the hand like the older brother of a little child.

After we passed all the others, I became aware of my physical body in the company of a good friend watching me. This awareness returned me to the couch as my physical sight came back into focus and I saw Martha looking straight at me, peacefully waiting for the wave to finish.

“I died.” I said with a smile.

The sound of vibrations became visceral. Recognizing my own being’s vibration, a force began to tune it upward, faster, higher, similar to the Lucasfilm THX sound effect from the movie theaters. My internal self was being elevated while my human self was fading out of sight. I was becoming pure energy.

The First Spiritual Realm

My soul’s sight expanded into the deep hum of cosmic vibration, the sound of blending the physical universe with the first spiritual realm. The sound of the life-force infusing itself into molecular structure, I became one with the pulsating atoms of our solar system. This was the closest realm to human vibration, and the realm from which Divine energy densifies into physical form.

The Second Spiritual Realm

This time, they vibrated me through the first realm, continuing upward into another distinct dimension far beyond the first. My conscious human awareness could not pass beyond the first realm into the second, it was left behind.

Upon being tuned back down, there she was, on the couch watching me. The only thing I was able to bring back from this dimension, was the deep wonderful feeling of being somewhere beyond everything else I’ve been shown.

The Third Spiritual Realm

Past and future dissolved into a singularity of the exact moment. My mind, ceasing to think, gave way to the experience of oneness. Individual existence vanished. I had become Divine love and my love for Martha turned Divine, as she vanished from my sight.

My body froze and disconnected. Traveling upward again, through the frequencies of the first two realms, my vibration shot through the roof as I entered into a third spiritual realm. Neither of the first two realms could grasp the third, therefore, my only recollection is a beautiful existence beyond the second realm. Different than forgetting, the first two dimensions were incapable of seeing the third dimension just like my eyes cannot see the full spectrum of light. I passed back into myself while the complete oneness dissolved as my reorientation into my body took awhile. We sat in silence.

“Hi.” was the only thing that could eventually emerge. I had become pure energy where human thought or language does not exist. Filled with love, I was genuinely happy to see her.

It’s a good thing I cannot see into the future, because if I could, I would have tried to avoid the final wave with every ounce of my strength.

Then it hit… Like a tidal wave. All night waves of elation came upon me, creating great joy and peace, but this wave hurt. Great fear ripped through the core of my being. Not fear of being harmed, but fear of being caught in a lie. Pulling back the curtain to my human-self, I became both the deceiver and the deceived.

“I am undone..! I am trapped within myself..! What will I do?” I was suspended in time without hope of escape.

I became spirit. Then something like a holographic fortress surrounded my human mind, shifting my consciousness from spirit to human by reflecting back to me my human oriented beliefs, thoughts, perceptions and limited physical senses in an array that resembled a stained-glass window. I absolutely believed what I thought to be true.

This mask, or veil (as I named it), is the shadow that filters out the higher vibrations of light emanating from The Divine through my soul. The purpose of this veil is to effectively cause the densification of the energy of Divine light to solidify into what I can only perceive as a solid physical realm, turning my reality of a spiritual entity into a physical entity. Incorrectly defining it as the real-world, I could no longer see beyond my human-self.

This was the first lie I told myself and the lie from which all others are formed. This created the first pain, the pain of loss of direct connection with Divine Love and the pain from which all other pains evolve.

But the human mask is designed to open as the heart-felt desire to see the Divine rises up through to the pinnacle of all other human desires, without rival, the veil is temporarily removed. This knowledge is one of the things they left me with.

I looked at Knowles, emanating this same love, and this is when he became my friend, showing me the truth. Then he spoke to me through the energy of knowledge:

“When you understand all I have shown you, you will be who you truly are. This is your task, and when completed, each of the others, in their time will come to you. This is your preparation for what is to come.”

The dimension closed and they were no more.

Emotional Pain is The Perceived Absence of Divine Love

Gazing over the calm ocean, I settled into the familiar calm state of diminished thought. Passing in front of me, a man caught my eye as I began seeing people and their psyche’s energetically.

A twinkling star, radiating out a few feet out from his body to form an oval, filled me with compassion. Sensing his life’s struggles, I felt the unhappiness of his existence in the pit of my stomach. He had closed himself off to the awareness of deep emotional pain. Seeing his spirit buried underneath, my heart wept, without a critical thought.
Experiencing the compassionate non-judgmental love of Knowles, each person’s lives were transparent, their struggles, the threads of human existence. I knew them… They were me!

At the core of their unhappiness was a recurring theme, “the perceived absence of Divine love.” Without knowing the presence of this love, they were lost, adrift in a sea of emptiness, paddling in circles with their human desires toward temporary fulfillment while avoiding touching the emotional pains of life. Their buried pains becoming layers of false perceptions further distancing themselves from their own spirit.

Two weeks of experiencing people’s pain was as much sorrow as I could handle. I was at the end of myself and asked for the ability to see people’s pain to be removed as I drifted off to sleep.

That night I had an intensely profound dream about the layers of emotional pain and false perceptions that exist between my conscious awareness and Divine mind. My eyes looked out into the world to see exactly what I normally see, a physical realm with solid objects.

A golden key was placed in my right hand as my arm stretched out. When the key was turned clockwise 45 degrees, an ember appeared, burning away the fabric of the physical as if a thin veneer. Crackling away a hole large enough to reveal another realm behind it, less energetically dense than the physical. There were shapes and forms but not the impression of solid mass.

My hand raised the key again through the physical hole into this new realm and turned in the same fashion. Another ember appears and began burning a hole in this dimension, crackling like before, unlocking yet another dimension behind it with properties even less dense energy.

One more time my hand raised the key but it did not turn. I had reached the end of my natural ability to open the next realm, not because there was something wrong with me, but because I had to evolve through my layers of emotional pains and false perceptions.

The next day, people’s spirits were no longer visible to me, nor was their pain.
Since the time of Knowles in 1994, my life has become about revealing the layers of my humanity in order to achieve their task. Becoming the observer of myself, I watched my own evolution from the confines of limited religious beliefs and practices into an experiential being walking this planet. It took some time and my mind did not let go so easily.