On March 11, 2007, I was in a ski accident that changed my life. Two quadriceps were severed just above the knee, leaving me unable to walk for six months, unable to work, and unable to do anything I loved. This forced me into a tailspin questioning everything about my place in life.
At that time, I was training to run a marathon in every state, a feat only about 125 people had achieved. I was a boxer, motorcyclist, outdoors-man, craftsman, and athlete.
After the accident, I lost everything I owned, including my identity.
Many tumultuous years were spent in recovery—financially, emotionally, and spiritually. Desperate, depressed, and afraid, I drove away from the Golden Gate Bridge, deciding not to jump, and instead choosing to find another way. If I was willing to take myself out through suicide, I was determined to find another way to relate to life to ease the suffering I was feeling. If it didn't work, I rationalized, I could always go through with the jump later.
That small willingness was all that was needed. Over the next several years, a series of events led me to meditation. On my first big retreat, which turned out to be two and a half months of silence, I entered into true silence—universal consciousness.
My entire life had been rewritten. I was reborn.
What I share is not the truth that I experienced. Every individual must have their own experience of it. I guide from the place of that truth so that, when you are ready, you will have your own experience of the deeper truth within you.
There is a reason why there is confusion in this world. There is a reason why there seems to be suffering in this world. There is a reason why everything seems so familiar yet uncertain. We've been here before many, many times. We've repeated the same stories over and over again. When it gets old and tiring, with a little willingness, you can choose to step out of the cycle of suffering. Step out of the mold and embrace life, not to the fullest of what the world seems to offer, but to the fullness that it is.
Each moment contains within it the possibility of a true direct experience of the eternal.