Reflections on a Twelve-Hour Mystical Experience in India
At the age of twelve, I had a brush with death that changed me. On the first day of a weekend father-son canoe trip in the Ozarks, the canoe carrying my dad and I capsized, and we were both sent overboard into the cold, fast-moving water. In the chaotic next seconds, my lifejacket snagged on a […]
Short Memoir: How Pilgrimage Shows Us the Way Back to True Self
Last winter, I traveled to southern India for a pilgrimage to Arunachala, a conical mountain considered by Hindus to be the embodiment of Shiva, the god of destruction and rebirth. The night before the pilgrimage, I dropped onto the mattress in my bamboo hut hoping for a peaceful rest. I fell asleep listening to mosquitoes […]
Short Memoir: How Pilgrimage Shows Us the Way Back to True Self, Part 2
Something changed in me that day on Mount Arunachala. I glimpsed something I’d never seen before. At least, not since I was a boy. It was only a glimpse, so I can’t say for certain what I saw. But during and after my circumambulation, I peered deeper inside myself than I had done before. Deeper […]