i have little use for the past and rarely think about it however i would briefly like to tell you how i came to be a spiritual teacher and how this book came into existence until my thirtieth year i lived in a state of almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression it feels now as if i am talking about some past lifetime or somebody else s life one night not long after my twenty ninth birthday i woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absolute dread i had woken up with such a feeling many times before but this time it was more intense than it had ever been the silence of the night the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room the distant noise of a passing train everything felt so alien so hostile and so utterly meaningless that it created in me a deep loathing of the world the most loathsome thing of all however was my own existence what was the point in continuing to live with this burden of misery why carry on with this continuous struggle i could feel that a deep longing for annihilation for nonexistence was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live i cannot live with myself any longer this was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind then suddenly i became aware of what a peculiar thought it was am i one or two if i cannot live with myself there must be two of me the i and the self that i cannot live with maybe i thought only one of them is real i was so stunned by this strange realization that my mind stopped i was fully conscious but there were no more thoughts then i felt drawn into what seemed like a vortex of energy it was a slow movement at first and then accelerated i was gripped by an intense fear and my body started to shake i heard the words resist nothing as if spoken inside my chest i could feel myself being sucked into a void it felt as if the void was inside myself rather than outside suddenly there was no more fear and i let myself fall into that void i have no recollection of what happened after that i was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window i had never heard such a sound before my eyes were still closed and i saw the image of a precious diamond yes if a diamond could make a sound this is what it would be like i 8 opened my eyes the first light of dawn was filtering through the curtains without any thought i felt i knew that there is infinitely more to light than we realize that soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself tears came into my eyes i got up and walked around the room i recognized the room and yet i knew that i had never truly seen it before everything was fresh and pristine as if it had just come into existence i picked up things a pencil an empty bottle marveling at the beauty and aliveness of it all that day i walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth as if i had just been born into this world for the next five months i lived in a state of uninterrupted deep peace and bliss after that it diminished somewhat in intensity or perhaps it just seemed to because it became my natural state i could still function in the world although i realized that nothing i ever did could possibly add anything to what i already had i knew of course that something profoundly significant had happened to me but i didn t understand it at all it wasn t until several years later after i had read spiritual texts and spent time with spiritual teachers that i realized that what everybody was looking for had already happened to me i understood that the intense pressure of suffering that night must have forced my consciousness to withdraw from its identification with the unhappy and deeply fearful self which is ultimately a fiction of the mind this withdrawal must have been so complete that this false suffering self immediately collapsed just as if a plug had been pulled out of an inflatable toy what was left then was my true nature as the ever present i am consciousness in its pure state prior to identification with form later i also learned to go into that inner timeless and deathless realm that i had originally perceived as a void and remain fully conscious i dwelt in states of such indescribable bliss and sacredness that even the original experience i just described pales in comparison a time came when for a while i was left with nothing on the physical plane i had no relationships no job no home no socially defined identity i spent almost two years sitting on park benches in a state of the most intense joy but even the most beautiful experiences come and go more fundamental perhaps than any experience is the undercurrent of peace that has never left me since then sometimes it is very strong almost palpable and others can feel it too at other times it is somewhere in the background like a distant melody later people would occasionally come up to me and say i want what you have can you give it to me or show me how to get it and i would say you have it already you just can t feel it because your mind is malting too much noise that answer later grew into the book that you are holding in your hands before i knew it i had an external identity again i had become a spiritual teacher the truth that is within you this book represents the essence of my work as far as it can be conveyed in words with individuals and small groups of spiritual seekers during the past ten years in europe and in north america in deep love and appreciation i would like to thank those exceptional people for their courage their willingness to embrace inner change their challenging questions and their readiness to listen this book would not have come into existence without them they belong to what is as yet a small but fortunately growing minority of spiritual pioneers people who are reaching a point where they become capable of breaking out of inherited collective mind patterns that have kept humans in bondage to suffering for eons i trust that this book will find its way to those who are ready for such radical inner transformation and so act as a catalyst for it i also hope that it will reach many others who will find its content worthy of consideration although they may not be ready to fully live or practice it it is possible that at a later time the seed that was sown when reading this book will merge with the seed of enlightenment that each human being carries within and suddenly that seed will sprout and come alive within them the book in its present form originated often spontaneously in response to questions asked by individuals in seminars meditation classes and private counseling sessions and so i have kept the question and answer format i learned and received as much in those classes and sessions as the questioners some of the questions and answers i wrote down almost verbatim others are generic which is to say i combined certain types of questions that were frequently asked into one and extracted the essence from different answers to form one generic answer sometimes in the process of writing an entirely new answer came that was more profound or insightful than anything i had ever uttered some additional questions were asked by the editor so as to provide further clarification of certain points you will find that from the first to the last page the dialogues continuously alternate between two different levels on one level i draw your attention to what is false in you i speak of the nature of human unconsciousness and dysfunction as well as its most common behavioral manifestations from conflict in relationships to warfare between tribes or nations such knowledge is vital for unless you learn to recognize the false as false as not you there can be no lasting transformation and you would always end up being drawn back into illusion and into some form of pain on this level i also show you how not to make that which is false in you into a self and into a personal problem for that is how the false perpetuates itself on another level i speak of a profound transformation of human consciousness not as a distant future possibility but available now no matter who or where you are you are shown how to free yourself from enslavement to the mind enter into this enlightened state of consciousness and sustain it in everyday life on this level of the book the words are not always concerned with information but often designed to draw you into this new consciousness as you read again and again i endeavor to take you with me into that timeless state of intense conscious presence in the now so as to give you a taste of enlightenment until you are able to expe rience what i speak of you may find those passages somewhat repetitive as soon as you do however i believe you will realize that they contain a great deal of spiritual power and they may become for you the most rewarding parts of the book moreover since every person carries the seed of enlightenment within i often address myself to the knower in you who dwells behind the thinker the deeper self that immediately recognizes spiritual truth resonates with it and gains strength from it the pause symbol after certain passages is a suggestion that you may want to stop reading for a moment become still and feel and experience the truth of what has just been said there may be other places in the text where you will do this naturally and spontaneously as you begin reading the book the meaning of certain words such as being or presence may not be entirely clear to you at first just read on questions or objections may occasionally come into your mind as you read they will probably be answered later in the book or they may turn out to be irrelevant as you go more deeply into the teaching and into yourself don t read with the mind only watch out for any feeling response as you read and a sense of recognition from deep within i cannot tell you any spiritual truth that deep within you don t know already all i can do is remind you of what you have forgotten living knowledge ancient and yet ever new is then activated and released from within every cell of your body the mind always wants to categorize and compare but this book will work better for you if you do not attempt to compare its terminology with that of other teachings otherwise you will probably become confused i use words such as mind happiness and consciousness in ways that do not necessarily correlate with other teachings don t get attached to any words they are only stepping stones to be left behind as quickly as possible when i occasionally quote the words of jesus or the buddha from a course in miracles or from other teachings i do so not in order to compare but to draw your attention to the fact that in essence there is and always has been only one spiritual teaching although it comes in many forms some of these forms such as the ancient religions have become so overlaid with extraneous matter that their spiritual essence has become almost completely obscured by it to a large extent therefore their deeper meaning is no longer recognized and their transformative power lost when i quote from the ancient religions or other teachings it is to reveal their deeper meaning and thereby restore their transformative power particularly for those readers who are followers of these religions or teachings i say to them there is no need to go elsewhere for the truth let me show you how to go more deeply into what you already have mostly however i have endeavored to use terminology that is as neutral as possible in order to reach a wide range of people this book can be seen as a restatement for our time of that one timeless spiritual teaching the essence of all religions it is not derived from external sources but from the one true source within so it contains no theory or speculation i speak from inner experience and if at times i speak forcefully it is to cut through heavy layers of mental resistance and to reach that place within you where you already know just as i know and where the truth is recognized when it is heard there is then a feeling of exaltation and heightened aliveness as something within you says yes i know this is true 