What was the formative experience in your life?

I would say that there have been many. And I hope that they never stop. Unless you experience them every so often, you're going to find yourself fossilized.

One that comes to mind occurred when I was 11 or 12. At school one of the kids demonstrated how, by hyperventilation and applied thoracic pressure, you could induce loss of consciousness.

I underwent the experience twice, as I recall.

It broke my link with the commonly assumed reality, that we are physical beings that contain a spiritual add-on. I was very disconcerted thereafter to find that as of then I perceived the world differently. Not knowing how to internalize what I had undergone, I labeled my new state as semi-consciousness. Now a better description of the way that I feel is that I realize that I am a spiritual being having a physical experience.

I contain the body; I'm not contained or constrained.


I guess it was my closest brush wit a near-death experience. And it had the same ultimate effect.