Personal Experiences
At the same time that it was becoming physically difficult for me to read, it was also becoming more imperative. In giving up my grandiose identity as the Supreme Being, I now turned my attention to becoming a renowned author. My research led me to many books on religion and social change, and I began to see that my ideas were not so original. While reading Roszak's The Making of a Counterculture, I realized that my "vision for a new society" was nothing more than a stock "60's" Utopian plan that had led to the founding of numerous communes.
These realizations further lowered my low self-esteem by making me aware of the folly of my actions during the height of my crisis. I was embarrassed at the thought of having sent a semi-incoherent "Holy Book" to all my closest friends and family. Now I questioned whether I had anything worthwhile to say in the book, which had been my raison d' etre for the previous several months. I felt totally lost and confused. I was still quite sick physically with Crohns' symptoms, headaches, and insomnia. I was even considering the possibility of committing suicide with medications. The image of my skeleton spontaneously appeared to me on several sleepless nights.
Two months after moving to Cape Cod to be alone, I was walking near the bay, ruminating about the events of the last six months and feeling depressed. Suddenly I heard a voice speaking to me. I was startled. The voice distinctly said, "Become a healer." At that time, lost in self-recriminations about the past, I did not think of myself as even having a future! However, this voice--the only one I've ever heard emanating from outside of myself--set a whole new train of events in motion. Although the voice was not accompanied by the ecstatic emotion of my first rebirth as The Scholar, it initiated my path toward a new lifestyle and profession.
The Aftermath and Analysis >
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