About
The name Josh was given me by my first Teacher, the Master Teacher (of A Course in Miracles), and I use it as a gesture of love and respect for this very dear Friend. I was born in Brooklyn NY, on February 17, 1954. I spent my childhood and adolescence in NYC. What I remember most about it, is that I loved Jesus.
I began a “career” very early in life, and by the time I was 27, I was done. A couple of failed marriages and many miles traveled led to an encounter with the current manifestation of the “Jesus Principle” (ACTIVE Love and Forgiveness), A Course in Miracles. The instant I opened it, I (intuitively) knew that it was true. A journey in relationship (I married the woman who introduced me to the Course) and profound Intimacy (generated by right practice of the Course Principles) led me to the Master Teacher in Wisconsin.
There I studied and taught for 12 years, in the U.S. and abroad. My first mission was a year-long relocation (with my wife and 2 small children) to Amsterdam. Another assignment brought me to Berlin, where I taught for a year or more. In between were many missions in both Europe and the U.S.
While I understood that this practice of “teaching and learning” was setting the stage for the inevitable descent of Grace, I became increasingly anxious for a tangible, that is, wholly physical, encounter with Truth. I wanted to know IT in my bones. And so in 2002, I left the Master Teacher for a more intensive encounter with whatever it was that was keeping me from a “whole body” Knowing of Reality. I knew intuitively that this would manifest as a tacit (wholly physical) experience of the descent of Grace. In that same year I was re-introduced to Beloved Adi Da Samraj. (There was an earlier Heart Recognition of Beloved when the Master Teacher introduced Him as an Influence in his own case, but I did not pursue it at the time.) A devotee friend of mine gifted me a box of cassette tapes of Adi Da´s Discourses, and over the course of the next many months of constant listening and absorption to the point of actually stretching the tapes, I was made ready for Dharshan with Heart Master Da.
In September of 2003, I was Blessed with the extraordinary opportunity to sit with Adi Da at the Da Love Ananda Mahal on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai. He was presenting His "Plastic Camera" photography at the time, and I believe He was looking for viewer response. I was living on Maui, (and so was able to go on a moments notice), and when the Door Opened, I found myself sitting in Heart Master Adi Da´s Company. We listened to music for a while and then Da Arose and Silently Blessed each Individual in the Gathering.
When He Turned to me I was Devastated. My perception shattered into countless tiny pixels, and finally dissolved into Silence Absolute. By the time I “re-covered”, He was gone. Some weeks later, while sitting in meditation, my body was spontaneously “charged" with what seemed like high voltage electricity. I began moving spasmodically around in my seat, and even at one point was thrown across the room by a spontaneous burst of energy. I ultimately settled back into lotus, and that’s when IT Happened. The Energy stabilized in the vital region of the body as I breathed through the impulse of the body to move. It (the body) began a slow undulating motion beginning at the hips and moving rhythmically up to the shoulders and neck. The Very Instant that I signaled “OK” in my mind, the Energy ascended with Great Force up the spine and into the head beneath the crown where it accumulated for a moment and then Burst through the Top of the Head in a literal Shower of Light impossible to describe. Body gone. World Gone.
Only Infinite Love Bliss Extending Forever in all Directions. Somewhere within that Context of Love/Bliss I was reacquainted with the manifest(ing) world. In the instant of its arising, I felt an overwhelming impulse to phone the Master Teacher which I did. That phone call became a whole part of the story of the Re-Union of all of the manifest thoughts of my time/space adventure, which brings me to the Present Encounter…