Here there be dragons... (excerpt from my upcoming book, Portrait of a Seeker: Born to Wonder)

You’re heading off the edge of the planet, into unmapped territory governed by a solitary tyrant, well-intentioned but not clearly sane; his solitude, some have said, has been working on his head.  He is opinionated, honest, earnest and verbose in turns.  The following excepts from his correspondence with others are mere bits chipped from a vast iceberg of interaction with outsiders near and far, who, too, are working on the same arcane problems of inner meaning, truth and insight.

You are warned that this will be a lopsided read; a Siamese twin without its twin.  The voices of his partners in discussion are largely silent, save for one section at the end between himself the tyrant’s younger brother; there, the brother is permitted to speak more than the customary two sentences. 

So.  Why? You ask.  Why has the tyrant allowed only his own voice to remain un-muffled in the following pages?  Though an academic question to most, who feel the answer is self-evident, the best of speculative thinking on the matter has produced two elegantly simple guesses: first—he feels his opinions and statements contained in the following excerpts paint a better, more honest picture of his view of things than volumes of essays could, and second—this is his book, after all; let it reflect him… and let these others, referred to in initials only, say who and what they are when they write their autobiographical tomes.  Sometimes cruel and arbitrary-seeming, this tyrant (it is believed) regards publishing the private words of others… beyond.

On Shawn Nevins’ website, spiritualteachers.org, there was a discussion board—still is, in fact—for people desiring to meet other people in the seeking-for-truth world.  I checked out the site and corresponded with Shane for a while.  I don’t remember what we had been talking about.  He asked me to describe what I called, for a lot of years, my ‘night of hell.’

Correspondence

To Shane of Ireland from Stuttgart, June 2001:

Five years ago, for no good reason maybe, something happened.  A couple of things.  I was pushing hard as hell.  One hell of an efficient diver.  I read something recently from a guy who said that no one can push for an answer to their life 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  I would disagree.  I had become one hell of an effort in a direction towards I didn't know what.

Basically taking apart myself through looking at myself.  I didn't take apart anything.  It happened.  I came apart, like that onion you talked about, as a result of incessant looking and diving....