The Day I Forgot How to Think

I was 22. I was in a strange place in my life and in my mind. Very little was making any sense anymore. I'd been on an 11 year 'spiritual trip' to find myself and I was staring a giant "fuck you" sign that was inescapable. I'd immersed myself in contemplating the ancients and the contemporaries. I'd studied western philosophy until it had begun to curdle my brain. I had banged my head against the Bhagvad Gita, the Upanishads, the vedanta  and the Buddhist texts in futility sensing a depth of truth somewhere but in the end always failing to grasp that one elusive nugget. I had begun practicing meditation when I was only 12 and in a few years was experiencing all kinds of kundalini experiences. There were days when I would sit down to meditate and get up only 24 hours later. 3 or 4 hour sessions were the more common norm. But no matter what I tried or did or studied or attempted to grasp, it always eluded me. In the end it always came right back to this 'me' in the room and I couldn't escape him no matter how powerful the meditation or how profound the intellectual rationalization. This 'me' became my tormentor, my slavedriver and my unavoidable shadow. I fell into deeply depressive phases for a number of years which would come and go like the ebb and flow of a tide. But on one particular day, when I was 22, a strange shift began to occur.

I was at my worst. I had fallen into a depressive funk more consuming than any prior. My dad was visiting my sister and I at the time and he insisted we take a day trip to Toronto's Center Island. After much complaining on my part they finally convinced me that getting out in the city on a warm summer day would do me a world of good. It didn't. By the time we had taken the ferry and arrived at the Island I found myself wishing I'd never agreed. Still I felt terrible that I was ruining their day for them. So we decided to go separate ways for a few hours and meet up when it was time to go. I made my way down to the Center Island Beach where a long wooden pier extends about 100 metres into the lake. Finding a bench on the pier I sat down exhausted. The sky was cloudless and the lake a beautiful shade of blue. Sitting there gazing out at the lake, immersed in a deep sense of despair and helplessness, I fell into a quiet meditation. People came and people went. A family of chinese tourists even posed around me and snapped pictures. But I didn't care. I was done. I felt so completely beaten and defeated by everything. My will was dead.

When my dad and sister found me, I was still sitting there, I hadn't moved. 4 hours had passed and my skin had turned black in the sun. I told them that I was extremely tired and that I needed to go home. I barely made it back before the fatigue overtook me. I passed out and slept for over 18 hours....

I awoke to a strange gushing sound. It was everywhere - around me, in me. I could still hear ambient sounds like the birds outside my window and the traffic in the streets but all that was in the background. In the foreground of my awareness was this gushing static almost like a white noise. I rolled out of bed and stepped on to the balcony and my mouth literally dropped. Everything was alive. Everything was vibrant. Everything reverberated with and emanated energy. It was like I was seeing the world for the very first time. Sounds were tantalising: each one had its own unique vibration and if I really allowed myself to listen, each sound could take me on a journey of its own. For hours I just stood on that balcony gaping in wonder at what we would normally consider the most mundane things - a fire hydrant, a traffic light, a bird in a tree, a car driving by. But to me it was so miraculous that it was all even happening that I was literally just doing a double take after a double take after a double take endlessly.

At some point, I think I received a phone call from my dad asking when we were going to meet. That's when I realized that up until that point not a single thought had even entered my mind. Now, as my father spoke to me on the phone, I found myself losing focus on the content of the conversation constantly. Instead, my awareness was more interested in the sound of his voice, the timber, the depth, the intonations and the impressions. The words were just sounds and sometimes I would tune in but then tune out again. After some confusion on my dad's side I told him what was happening. He listened very patiently and he understood. Strangely enough, he said he had read a book on this just recently. He wanted me to read it. It was "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle. He told me that I had experienced a spiritual awakening. I didn't understand at the time. But I read the book and then I understood.

I remained in that state of emptiness for 4 months after. Thoughts came only when I saw the value in having them. Otherwise they left me alone. That incessant mental chatter that I had experienced since I was a child was now gone. With no means of refering to myself any longer I became free of the need to be anyone. When I met people I felt a genuine joy and sense of compassion for them not for who they portrayed themselves to be but for who they really were which was no separate that my self. Nature too, trees especially became great spiritual teachers. But the Lake remained my master. I visited her often to pay homage for what she had shown me. That state of child-like wonderment, that felt connection with everything living or inanimate and most importantly the absence of a self identity. That was the greatest freedom.

After 4 months the intensity began to fade. Thoughts began to creep in more and more and before I knew it I was back to being me again with all the neuroses and the complaints and the wants and the desires to find myself. That was an irony that was hard to understand. But something had changed. A lot had been dismantled, and when my psyche reassembled itself it did so with a lot more missing pieces and holes. So I could never again be so completely convinced of the reality of my own mind.

At 27 it happened again. Again lasting for almost 4 months. But this time it was my heart that expanded and expanded until it finally exploded like a dying star in a supernova. Whereas the first experience was categorized by a deep pervading silence, this one was one of sheer felt compassion. Everything I saw from a beautiful flower to a newspaper fluttering in the wind to a dog taking a leak, filled my whole being with so much joy and gratitude for life that I would burst into tears and just repeat the words "thank you". The gratitude was utter and immense.  I cried a lot in those months and so i kept to myself in order not to freak people out. But that also eventually passed. Again my psyche restructered but now the holes were obvious. I never felt suffering again the way I used to.

Last month a shift happened. It was not a monumental one like the previous two. It didnt have any fireworks or feelings of wow. It happened while I was at the computer. It was a split second feeling of "oh". In that one momentary shift I realized that now there is no turning back.