from Rambhakta
When I came on the spiritual path I had hit rock bottom. My mind was a mess, the result of a “crisis of faith” during which I had experimented with drugs and alcohol. Add to that a nervous system impaired by difficult surgeries to remove a spinal tumor that had left me paralyzed from the chest down for several years. I was desperate to return to physical and mental health, and to find life’s meaning.
At one point in those rocky days I had a dream. I lay on my back at the bottom of a deep well. High above I could see a fragment of the night sky, and in the center, a tiny star. I knew intuitively that if I would faithfully follow the spiritual path I would gradually rise ever closer to the star until its light would fully enfold me. It was a tremendous promise—no matter how far I had fallen, I could be redeemed.
Blind belief, though, wasn’t for me. And I was in far too much pain to accept a “pie-in-the-sky-when-we-die” kind of religion. I wanted God’s guidance now. And so I read the scriptures and held them to their word, testing them with scientific rigor. Each time I faced a spiritual question, I prayed and demanded an answer. And the answers came.
I was at the beach one afternoon, lying on a towel and reading a spiritual book. I was concerned about my mental balance; and I wondered whether I should consult a Western-style psychologist, or if the path of yoga and meditation would bring the healing I needed.
Following my usual practice of demanding that God answer my question, I put the book down and prayed intently. I sensed that the answer would come if I followed my intuition, which told me to pack up my things and get in the car. Praying continually, I felt guided to drive to the city center.
My favorite bookstore was an enormous place called Warehouse of Books. But my mother had mentioned a smaller bookstore recently, and I felt guided to go there.
When I entered the store, without hesitation I turned to the left, walked three aisles down, turned right, and walked halfway down the aisle, where I stopped and looked at the top shelf to the right. On the shelf was a dusty copy of Yoga and Western Psychology, by Geraldine Coster, a disciple of Carl Jung.
I bought the book, and—after driving back to the beach and spreading my towel—immersed myself in its pages, where I found exactly the answers I needed.
