It was the spring of 1995 and my life had spiraled out of control. A wife, three young kids, a 10,000 sq ft house on 4.5 acres on the Merrimack river, 3 luxury cars, tuitions at private schools and my new business venture was failing. Creditors at my door, a life to be sustained, and I was staring at a dead end road. With no logical option I could see and totally beaten to my core I walked into the empty church at the end of my street. 

Surrendered and beaten, I sat down in a pew and said to my God “ I give up, I don’t know what to do and I don’t even care, just keep us safe…. “All I really want is to know you. I don’t want to know about you. I want to know you.” ….. That was the beginning of my life becoming alive!

Until that moment I had been living a false and empty me. Following the dreams and expectations of my immigrant parents and wife. Working to create an externally driven life with the status and grandeur of the life we had left behind in Cuba.

I kept acquiring and becoming “the American dream” but I was full of fear and feeling unworthy without this outward success. Somehow needing to prove myself. Not really enjoying the work that I was doing nor the blessings that were in my life. Everything felt heavy, a burden needing to be sustained.

Then, sitting on that pew, a deep peace began to arrive. I felt embraced by this bubble of inner calm. I felt an unconditional love…. I felt safe… Somehow we would be ok.

A window into the divine had opened in me and I began to spend more and more time sitting in stillness drinking from this fountain, nurturing my soul. The external world was just as demanding and threatening but an inner peace began to take root in me. I felt like I was on a sail boat in the middle of a gigantic, nasty storm and all I could do was stay calm and weather out the storm…. It was a very long and difficult storm bringing new challenges with every turn but my peace and stillness kept getting deeper and stronger. My connection to the Divine became the center of my life and my only real focus.

As I understand it now, my kundalini energy opened/released in my love for God and my surrendered state in the church pew. I began to “see” the world quite differently. I began to see energy fields and (except for the little kids) everyone looked like “zombies’ absorbed in the stories of their own mind, not seeing what was really there in the present moment, but simply projecting their past and expectations into what was actually happening.

I spent approximately two and a half years devotionally studying and meditating from 12 to 18 hours per day / 7 days a week… I was in a “natural high” exploring this new world full of love and peace and contentment… God had revealed himself to me… He was in everyone and in everything… He is the love and the foundation of all Creation… He had answered my prayer!