My curiosity about the seventy-seven year old author and skeptic-turned-mystic was sparked at a Self Knowledge Symposium (SKS) meeting at Duke University in the fall of 1998, when Augie Turak brought "The Dazzling Dark," an article John had written for What is Enlightenment? (Volume 4, number 2: http://www.wie.org/j8/dazdark.html). The article recounted his near-death experience and subsequent immersion in "eternity consciousness"—or what is more commonly called spiritual Enlightenment. Raised Roman Catholic, I've always been uneasy with the idea of "Enlightenment," and the more esoteric things we talk about at the SKS. When I went to Australia for a semester abroad last spring, a few other SKSers suggested that I find John Wren-Lewis and ask him about his experiences in person. Why not? I thought. In Sydney, I found his number in the phone book. I called him up to ask him if he would like to meet for coffee, but ended up in a more than three-hour phone conversation with him. In his insightful, kind, rambling, rational, and witty manner, John did the best he could to answer all my questions about his experience and Enlightenment in general.

Once an outspoken skeptic of mysticism, he was thrust unexpectedly into Enlightenment in 1983 as a result of a near death experience. On a long-distance bus in Thailand, John ate a piece of poisoned candy from a would-be thief. Though he didn't have an out-of-body experience, didn't see any bright white lights or meet any spirits, John woke up in a hospital bed in a new state of consciousness, which he would later come to call "the Dazzling Dark." John had been a long-time spiritual skeptic and was a strong proponent of the "Death of God" movement in the 1960s. Although after his experience he realized that the mystics had been right all along, John has stayed true to his scientific roots and has been working hard to make Enlightenment understandable to the average person. Bringing Enlightenment "down to earth" is the main theme of his upcoming book, The 9:15 to Nirvana, in which he tries to explain simple things, such as how Enlightenment makes your corn flakes taste different.

After our initial conversation over the phone, we met in the city, where my friend Colin and I helped him carry a second-hand Macintosh back to his place so he could finish his book. He lived in a picturesque location: it was on the coast, overlooking the Sydney harbor bridge. And John looked just like I thought he would—energetic and alert, especially considering his age. As we spoke in his one-bedroom apartment, cluttered with spiritual research and notes for his book, John enthusiastically offered me insights into the truth of existence. This time I came armed with a tape recorder so as not to miss a word.

"My first realization after the accident was that nature did not involve suffering at all, it was only the human mind that was out of step with natural consciousness," explained John. "Human consciousness is unaware of the unconditional love of the universe!" John is now aware of that love but says that he spends only about 50% of his day in eternity consciousness, since concentration of any kind causes the eternal, or the "Dazzling Dark," to temporarily recede. He is working toward perpetual eternity consciousness, and though some gurus have claimed to have reached it, he doubts if it is possible. John experiences two types of regressions into normal consciousness: the first he calls a "slip-out," which happens once or twice a week; the second he calls "screening." When John needs to concentrate on something, the Dazzling Dark is pushed to the background, and the "role" of John Wren-Lewis takes the attention on the forefront of his mind. He used the metaphor of a camera shutter closing briefly, then re-opening so he can see the world "correctly" (in eternity consciousness) again. Occasionally, the camera shutter gets "stuck," and this results in the slip-out. But he falls back into Enlightenment as soon as he remembers the Dazzling Dark, and no harm is done.

The other kind of regression, screening, is a more extreme slip-out—the shutter closes, and John cannot relocate the dark. This has happened to him only a couple of times, and it has always been associated with severe physical or emotional pain. John describes the time when he is apart from eternity as his own "dark night of the soul."

One thing about the prospect of Enlightenment has always bothered me: the notion of the complete loss of self and identity. I ask John about this—is it true? Do you really cease being who you are?

In his enlightened state, John says it is as though nothing has changed and yet everything has changed. He has retained his personality, needs, and desires, but now is aware that the entirety of his existence is simply one of the infinite ways the universe is expressing itself moment by moment. When I asked him if it was worth it, he says definitively that "Yes, this is the best thing that's ever happened to me and it's the natural birthright of everyone and I haven't got a clue how to reach it!" In fact, he feels that most methods people practice to try to reach Enlightenment are counter-productive in that they concentrate on self-effort and think along the lines of time and causality. Although the acausality of enlightenment may sound like bad news at first, John says that it is also good news in a sense because there is no need to kill yourself with spiritual practices or worry about making irreversible mistakes on the spiritual path. In the sixteen years since his experience, he has sought out other people who have had permanent Enlightenment experiences. He has thus far found fifteen, and only two had previous spiritual backgrounds. Just as we are all different people, John told me, there is an infinite variety in the types of Enlightenment experiences that people have. John says the eternity/God/Dazzling Dark loves the variety. The best you can do in the meantime is be aware and to "travel hopefully."

"And besides," says John, "Death takes you straight there anyway!"

Now he really had my attention. I realized more acutely than every before that the primary motivation behind my interest in spirituality was my fear and fascination with death and the prospect of life after death. So I popped the question: "What happens to you after you die?"

"I don't know. I haven't died yet!" John said with a laugh. What he really meant was that the didn't know specifics about what part of a person survived death or what exactly happens to it, but he could tell me that some sort of "personal essence" returns to the unconditional love of the Dazzling Dark. Partly this knowledge derives from a real sense of closeness that John feels with family and friends that have passed away, a feeling that what was "good" in them is still contained in the Dark somehow. However, John is quick to point out that it is more than just a "sense" that there is "life" after death—he knows.

"The Dark," he says, "is constantly there, producing everything at every moment, from the big gang to the final whimper. When you die, the Dark in you lives on." John likens the whole space-time universe to a theater in which eternity is playing out the "time game." The only place to go when your personal "time game" is over is offstage, and back to the Dazzling Dark. No judgment, no hellfire and brimstone, simply a return home to eternal love. "The entire concept of a fallen angel is ridiculous," says John. "I can't imagine anyone choosing not to have Enlightenment!" The fact that there is no hell is not to say that there is no universal morality, for as Christ taught, that which is not in accord with unconditional love is still "immoral"; however, there is no sin that goes unforgiven.

As a great sigh of relief echoed through my Catholic soul, I felt a new sense of vitality and freedom. But at the same time, I felt an overwhelming aimlessness due to the fact that there no longer seemed to be a huge "agenda" for life. So I asked John, "If you were in my shoes, twenty-one years old and unenlightened, with a world of opportunities before you, what would you do?"

Characteristically, the playful John Wren-Lewis quoted Shakespeare, saying, "'There is nothing serious in mortality.' Live mindful fo the fact that life is nothing but a grand play," he advised, "and become more settled day by day in the knowledge that death is but a return home. Remember that happiness is in the moment and its value is itself."

And with that, I was at peace, maybe for the first time ever. After years of mental turmoil and anguish over parting with constrictive Roman Catholic beliefs, and subsequently moving into a more worldly, open-minded, and rational spirituality, my feet had finally found some stable ground. In retrospect, John told me little that I hadn't already theorized or suspected, but being an extreme skeptic (just as he had been), I needed to see it to believe it. It is truly transforming to look with trust into a man's eyes as he sincerely tells you, "I know God." John Wren-Lewis did not bring my spiritual journey to an end, but to a new beginning. He replanted in me a mustard seed of faith that had long been uprooted. And for that, I thank him.


Rumi & the Media (top)
Claudia Horwitz


I spent a weekend recently immersed in "the media," as broad and definitionless as this topic is. Ever since I have been stewing about the incessant flow of information to which I am voluntarily and involuntarily subjected and the vastly different stimuli that have relevance in my life. In an effort to balance this, I have also returned to Rumi, the 13^th century scholar and mystic who wrote ecstatic poetry. With his searing words of truth, Rumi is helping me wade through my quest to balance my needs to know and to not know, my desire to gobble up outside sources, and my desire to just be quiet.

I wonder first how much longer this developing cyber world will compel me to move faster while simultaneously leaving me feeling slow and sluggish. My experience of media is one of being sometimes inspired and sometimes intrigued, but all too often it leaves me overwhelmed, drained, almost drugged by sensory overload. Quite simply, I am fearful of losing the tenuous link to what maters. Because I have access to the cyberworld, it is easy to occasionally be catapulted from my low-tech home to a distance, high-tech galaxy where everything happens fast, fast, fast.

I notice that the quicker we move, the less time there is for consensus building. Worse, there is really no space for ambiguity. If we cannot get a quick and easy answer to our question, we forget about it and keep moving. So here we are, inundated and rushing ahead. Without enough time for real reflection, how does the information we absorb become wisdom? What exactly is the value of these seemingly random bits and bytes if I cannot figure out a way to make them mine, cannot hold them in close the way I do my deepest truths? And Rumi says,

Which is worth more, a crowd of thousands, or your own genuine solitude?
Freedom, or power over an entire nation?
A little while alone in your room
will prove more valuable than anything else
that could ever be given you.

I wonder, would I even have the willpower to escape the information age? I am aware of how I exploit the very media and its benefits which I rail against. For example, with so many friends, family, and colleagues living elsewhere on the continent, email has added a measure of lovely, though sometimes unnerving, convenience to my life. You would probably not be reading this piece if I'd had to personally stamp, address, and mail hundreds of envelopes in order to put it in people's hands.

Similarly, my fascination with the Web has grown, which both delights and frightens me. The sheer convenience is undeniable. In less than an hour I can buy a plane ticket, find information on yurts for my interfaith monastery group, get the schedule for the New York Liberty, find out where "Rent" is currently touring, download information on the upcoming Parliament of the World's Religions in Cape Town, and register for a conference. All the while a strange question nags at me: Should any of this be so easy?

I walk down the street with my friend Tony and his cell phone rings. It is our friend Alison, who lives in L.A., but is calling from New York, where she is meeting with my friend, Dan. Moments later, at an outdoor café, I chat happily with Dan (who, incidentally, is on his cell phone as well) while Tony opens up his laptop to find some email addresses I need for a joint project we are working on. I feel some quick thrill in this moment, but the power charging through me is unsettling. I know if I lived in Manhattan or L.A., perhaps even Atlanta, this whole event would not be such a big deal. In Durham, however, I sense that we are somehow out of place. And this very fact is partly the reason I stay here. The passage my eyes fall on shortly after the cell phone episode regrounds me, somehow. Rumi says,

An eye is meant to see things.
The soul is here for its own joy.
A head has one use: For loving a true love.

And I wonder, too, about how the ever-changing media is impacting our lives and our relationships with God, with others, with ourselves. One media expert from the weekend I mentioned earlier told us there is more information on one page of the Sunday New York Times than someone living in the 17^th century would have come across in a lifetime. A blur of television images, a mass of spaghetti-like criss-crossing connections of fiber optic cables through cyberspace, a thousand flashy magazine titles in an airport bookstore—what are we gaining from this? How does this vast input help us remember what really matters between people, between people and nature, between this world and the divine? Rumi says,

Beauty surrounds us,
but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.
The body itself is a screen to shield and partially reveal
the light that's blazing inside your presence.
Water, stories, the body,
all the things we do, are mediums
that hide and show what's hidden.
Study them,
and enjoy this being washed
with a secret we sometimes know,
and then not.

I have heard people say that the Internet is about relationships. This baffles me. How is it, exactly, that one builds a relationship with someone when you cannot see the curve of their eyes, or hear the inflection of the voice, the awkwardness or grace of a slight movement? Yes, of course, I have exchanges with people over email (and in regular letters, for that matter) that I would not have in person and our relationship has flourished and moved in new directions as a result. But for me these encounters have impact because I already know the person in the flesh, understand some of the pain around their eyes, or how their body reacts to joy.

A month or so ago I had one of those connections that you treasure. Formed in the waning hours of a grand party, I found an ease with someone I'd just met. He asked me the questions people never ask, the ones you find yourself wishing someone would, and fearing they actually will. I talked of turning points in my life and fears I am usually reluctant to share. Surrounded by people at the end of the evening and at a loss for how to bring closure, we simply said good night in that way people do when they really mean something else. I was not surprised by the glow that surrounded me in my sleep that night. Aren't the answers to our most pressing questions and greatest challenges found deep inside, perhaps reflected back to us from the corners of an extraordinary conversation, maybe between the lines of an ancient text? Rumi says,

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

I fear that our attention spans are growing infinitely shorter, in reverse proportion to our intake of images and information. When we are bombarded by the external musings (particularly of people we do not know), it makes it harder to just connect deeply with the present. We are all too distracted to sit still and be present. More and more I find this is one of the things I value most in myself and in others—this ability to pay attention. The spiritual practice of meditation, which I have come to relish over the past six years, is rooted in the idea that one must empty out constantly to know truly, to touch the spirit, to fill up again with the realities a day presents to us. And Rumi says,

The mystery does not get clearer by repeating the
question, nor is it bought with going to
amazing places.
Until you've kept your eyes
and your wanting still for fifty years,
you don't begin to cross over from confusion.

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