Introduction

“Are the mystics and sages insane? Because they all tell variations on the same story, don't they? The story of awakening one morning and discovering you are one with the All, in a timeless and eternal and infinite fashion. Yes, maybe they are crazy, these divine fools. Maybe they are mumbling idiots in the face of the Abyss. Maybe they need a nice, understanding therapist. Yes, I'm sure that would help. But then, I wonder. Maybe the evolutionary sequence really is from matter to body to mind to soul to spirit, each transcending and including, each with a greater depth and greater consciousness and wider embrace. And in the highest reaches of evolution, maybe, just maybe, an individual's consciousness does indeed touch infinity — a total embrace of the entire Kosmos — a Kosmic consciousness that is Spirit awakened to its own true nature. It's at least plausible. And tell me: is that story, sung by mystics and sages the world over, any crazier than the scientific materialism story, which is that the entire sequence is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying absolutely nothing? Listen very carefully: just which of those two stories actually sounds totally insane?” – Ken Wilbur (A Brief History of Everything)

I was standing by my mom’s bed. I say my mom because my dad was away sailing most of the year. Everything in the house was mom’s. I was standing by mom’s bed. It was evening, the sky outside had turned to the darker side of twilight, and the yellow bulbs were on in the house. I had just finished a shower and my hair was wet. My mother was supervising my brother taking a bath; the bathroom door was open and I could hear them. It had been less than a year since my navjote, still doing my sadra – kusti and they were laid out on the bed. It had felt like a chore, but I felt so connected to the stories I had read from the Shanameh, about Zoroaster, about the Parsi migration to India. I felt greatly in touch with this deep knowing of a certain rare history that I carried in the stories of my DNA. I had been told that my navjote was the initiation into this faith, and I held that so preciously I would not give up this simple muslin vest and cotton chord. That night, as my wet hair tickled against my face, I slid into my princess undies and sadra. I do not remember that I had any intention or aspiration; I do not remember it being any sort of special day, good or bad. I picked up my kusti, and started my prayers.

I cannot remember how it started; I do not know that I even knew when it started. Somewhere after the first two prayers, just as I started Kem Na Mazda, the last cleansing prayer before the kusti is tied, I realized as I was standing in my body looking out, I was also feet away from me, hovering, looking at me. I stayed there and watched myself say the prayers, soft gold rays extended out of me. I could see Dad’s cupboard behind me, the windows, and the lace curtains on them. I could see my eyes were closed. There was a path extending from where my feet started, tilting downwards going somewhere. I softly gazed, feeling full. I could also see outside of me from within, the light from the bathroom, the dark corridor, the golden light extending forwards all around me.  The words coming out of my mouth, from deep inside my soul, from deep back in my history, were supporting this extended, non-dual, spiritual spaciousness. Fuck knows what that was. It was something. It moved me, and wrapped around me, and I knew there was so much more than I had been taught.