by Patricia Hayes

We are what our deep, driving desire is.
As our deep, driving desire is, so is our will.
As our will is, so is our deed.
As our deed is, so is our destiny.
--Brihadaranyaka 1V.4.5

My spiritual quest became a burning desire after reading Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda back in 1964.

My complete emersion in eastern philosophy gave me a deeper understanding and love for The Christ  than all the Sunday school and Catechism lessons I had ever attended. Like the sages of the Upanishads, I wanted to know for myself.  I wasn't interested in an intellectual achievement.  Knowledge means realization.  To know truth, one must; make it real. I was searching for a direct experience of truth: the one reality underlying life's multiplicities. Each day, I faithfully did breathing and meditation exercises and found a natural extension of my spiritual practice was the development of spiritual vision and inner hearing.  The development of my inner senses put me in touch with my own inner spiritual wisdom.  I soon began having the direct experiences of Samadhi: states of Oneness that I had been seeking.

One of my earliest mystical experiences happened soon after I began my daily breathing and meditation practice. I awoke in the night with a blazing heat that was within and without. I sat up in bed and looked around.  My eyes saw nothing but a strange sensation stirred in my chest.  A sweet scent filled the room and a feeling of intense love filled my heart and it grew and grew expanding beyond my body and filled the entire room.  My awareness was no longer in my body or the room.  I was one with everything. And then it began, an indescribable love I had never known.  Through no measure of reason or logic could I ever explain the love of God my soul was feeling.  An incredible bliss permeated my  being. Samadhi graced me without effort in the middle of the night.  When the intensity of the experience subsided, I spent the rest of the night in a trance like state communing with God. Mystical Experience always transforms you in some way. I know knew what Thomas Merton meant when he said:

Without a life of the spirit
Our whole existence becomes
Unsubstantial and illusory
- Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

Every aspect of my daily life took on greater depth and meaning after that experience.

Another mystical experience that shaped my life happened when I was 42 years old.  I had just met Marshall, the love of my life.  Several months had passed when we lay side by side holding hands.  It was 9:30 pm when we began our meditation.  We merged our energies in a column of light between our hearts.  We began lifting our consciousness in the column of light ever so slowly when I saw a blinding light.  And then we were all at once enfolded in a huge bubble of light.  There was no longer a Patricia and a Marshall, only oneness, only One, only love so vast and yet so intimate.  There was no need to ask anything.  There was no thought, yet all was known in a state of indescribable bliss. We were One with All that is, was, or would ever be.  There was no past, present or future. We transcended consciousness and time and entered a pure state of Being and remained there most of the rest of the night, fully awake.  Towards morning sometime, we re-entered the realms of consciousness and began to clearly see a procession of our past lives as if we were watching a movie. All were meaningful and offered great insight but one in particular stirred me deeply and still does every time I recall the vision.

In Israel before the time of Christ, we traveled following the water sharing with all that would listen about One who would come and open hearts and alter the destiny of mankind. We'd travel by night and fall asleep by waters edge and one day I couldn't go on.  I had fallen ill with who knows what and he tried to wipe the fever from my head but it wouldn't subside.  He carried me gently in his arms for three days stopping only for water, a bit of bread and a short rest in attempt to take me home to my village but I died in his arms on the third night.

With tears streaming from his eyes, he sat cross legged and placed my head on his lap and held up his arms to the starry spheres.  He called out to his spiritual brothers that were not in earthly light.  The stars danced awhile, then my vision was filled with delight.  There were five of his brothers that held out their arms to receive my ascending light.  Then hel spoke words that I will forever hear. "Take care of my love and when my work is through, I'll be there." It was so clear. I saw my spiritual body standing with his brothers.  I turned and so lovingly my eyes met in oneness with his as he stood on the earthly plane. I'd wait with his brothers till his service was through and wait I did.  I met him dressed in a white gown with long flowing hair when he came.  My eyes and smile had not changed at all when his spirit rose and his heart searched for me.  In each others arms surrounded by love, we promised our hearts to God again as we bid his brothers goodbye for awhile and spiraled towards greater light.

Eventually Marshall and I came out of our meditative state and drifted back to physical awareness and pangs of hunger caused us to rise.  We couldn't believe our eyes when we looked at the time. A whole night had gone by.  We had been in a bubble of bliss and vision for over seven hours and it felt no more than a moment of time.

Following that enlightened meditative state, a steady stream of spiritual memories began to return to both of us.  We have been blessed with a relationship of love and friendship for over twenty-four years as we continue our spiritual mission once again.