CHAPTER 9

An Incident In Denver

IN THE MIDST of this period of dramatic transformation and self-recognition, I was forced to function at a very high level at work (except for the first few days, in which I was incapable of anything). I am a manager in a leading edge software firm with a number of intense responsibilities. I've gone through many feelings about work, whether it was holding me back, harming the process, etc., but even in the midst of work, this process heightened and to a great extent, came to fruition. Therefore, many of my preconceptions were dropped concerning what is "good" or "bad" for my spiritual process during this period.

In early April, I was given the task to do demonstrations for a new product for a group of faithful customers at a "Users Group" seminar in Denver. I arranged my flights so as to minimize my time away, as I want to be with the people I love as much as possible. When I arrived at the new Denver airport, it was 75 degrees, but then for the next few days, it proceeded to snow and perform winter's last dance for the last time this season.

Staying in the Brown Palace Hotel, a luxurious hotel where they have maids that come around to fill your stainless steel ice water jug every afternoon, I treasured my own space in a lovely hotel room. On one of the days, I was free from all duties by noon, so I locked myself in my room, and did a tiny retreat of meditation, study and journalling. I thoroughly enjoyed being totally alone to explore.

During the last meditation of the evening, I became acutely aware that all arising - attention, thoughts, the sensations of my body, the space around me and even objects in the room - were all simply a manifestation of consciousness/being, and thus had no real intrinsic separate reality. It was all the same - nothing made any difference!! In a single moment, I was standing prior to attention itself as Consciousness/Being itself. The insight was like a flash of lightning that bolted forth from my own Self-Nature to penetrate everything in my field of awareness to the point of "transparency".

The import of this flash seemed as profound as the initial awakening weeks before. At that time, I was utterly Aware of Who I Am, but as for others, and the objects around me, this was still not as clear as the self-recognition, in this breaking of the "lock on the back of the heart" as Saniel said. This left a feeling of slight dilemma in the attempts to see the context of all of existence, But this insight in my hotel room in Denver was a summary recognition of all that arises as consciousness/being and therefore not one iota different than my own Self-Nature. To put it in theistic terms, I am God, and all is God. It resulted in a blissful period of feeling the utter conviction that it is all One Being, and I Am That. I felt an increased love for everything, people, objects and even space itself, which I found remarkable.