UNDULATING FORMS
Initiation—when born spontaneously out of life’s dynamic fabric—is like finding oneself surfing an unexpected wave in the midst of a calm ocean, pulling one irreversibly in a new direction. A new mode of being is born, a new human condition. Unlike going through the traditional rite of passage of a religion or sect, what triggers these life-changing eye-openers can just be a powerful, revelatory dream that comes at the right time or the result of a series of events, either in the inner life, external one, or both. On closer scrutiny, the seemingly disparate events that sculpt this sudden wave appear to be remarkably correlated, as if stitched together to present a perfectly crafted set of lessons that propels one forward. There is a sense that beneath it all is an underlying order at play that caters to our evolutionary needs, an interplay between life and our inner focus and proclivity.
My own experiences led me to an initiation period that lasted a full three weeks during my late twenties, and it split my life in two. Similar to some of the personal accounts that describe initiations of the traditional type, the unusual phenomena I experienced came with much revelation and triggered a form of death and rebirth. But everything occurred without a guru or master guiding me along, as if I were living through some kind of existential art project.
Now, around a decade later, I am able to articulate what happened to the sufficient degree that I can write this book. I present the framework of thought I developed over the years within which the events that took place began to make sense from a psychological or psychospiritual perspective. I begin my story with a milder initiation that I had eight years before the big one hit, a much more simple and straightforward experience.
DORMANCY, LIFE-OBFUSCATED
We were two musicians standing before a piano. Its keys remained untouched that evening; rather than playing, we conversed about religion and the supernatural, debated the existence of God. I was twenty-one years old at the time, and the notion of an all-powerful deity who never showed His face seemed as outlandish as the existence of a Santa Claus. Or for that matter, why not believe in a gigantic Easter Bunny roaming about an undiscovered region of our planet? While I nevertheless saw how an agnostic position over God’s existence could make sense—especially because there were so many interpretations of what God was—my friend repeatedly expressed with adamant certainty that any belief in the supernatural was born out of the human need to have a sense of purpose in life or to explain the unknown. I was startled to find that his firm atheism left the aftertaste of a nagging discomfort deep within me, and this highlighted my own ambivalence in the matter.
This unexpected reaction of disturbance led me to conclude that I could not move on with my personal development until I came to closure on whether or not God existed because so much of my outlook on the nature of reality would change if He did. By this time in my life, I knew that certain truths could be harvested from the self’s Inner Garden when nurtured with the proper attention, contemplation, and desire to know. The discomfort I felt seemed to indicate that a seed was already planted, and I resolved to seek out an answer once and for all. Gradually, my entire being became fixated on finding an answer to the question, “Does God exist?” so it became a point of singularity about which the rest of the world revolved.
Roughly two weeks after the conversation with my friend, I finally received an answer, albeit in an unexpected manner. It occurred in the middle of the night. I was having a dream that depicted a nightmarish struggle. I woke from it with a start, and although I felt fully awake, a part of me retained a link to what seemed to be the subconscious. I still had my eyes closed, and I was consciously observing images that had a quality and level of intricate, lifelike detail that differed significantly from any dream I could remember. It was as if I were walking across the lawn of a house with someone else next to me. We knocked on the door, and we were welcomed in. While this was happening, a voice popped into my head that sounded completely real and somehow familiar, and it said with great clarity: “Mak,” which is my nickname, “you are astral projecting.”
I started to panic, and I opened my eyes to pull myself out of this post-dream. What followed was equally, if not more, bizarre. My bedroom was vibrating with energy, and there was an immense sense of power in the air that was both awe-inspiring and frightening. Everything around me felt alive. Not only was I completely awake, but I also had a keen sense that I was not witnessing a distorted version of reality, despite being so different. Instead, I distinctly felt that my state of mind was a form of transcendence over ordinary illusions. Somehow I recognized that I was seeing the world in a way that was clearer and more direct than ever before. The experience came with a sense of immediacy and intensity of impact that trumped any kind of intellectual speculation over what was occurring.
It was a traumatizing event, and when I went back to sleep I dreamed another nightmare, something about a negative presence in the room. My disturbance was so great that I woke up opening the front door of my apartment, having sleepwalked my way out of my bedroom and down the flight of stairs, ready to step out into the street, completely naked.

Read more excerpts at www.shiftingshadow.net/interplay