[Drifter]

Where do I live, that's a very good question my friend and it has perlexed me for some time.
Several years ago, around my 50th birthday, not to the day, I had a T.I.A., I didn't realize it for what it was until the next day or so. E.R. doctors gave me nitroglycerin, and sent me home, when the leading E.R. Doctor came in the next day he called me and ask to see me immediately. He then told me I had been mis-diagnosed and sent home, when I should have been admitted for more tests. He did these tests and gave me the diagnosis, I had to have carotid surgery for a blocked artery to the brain on the right side. That area that was blocked caused the blood to stop flowing to one side of the brain which caused it to die. The symptoms were apparent by that time. Very obvious physical anomalies in balance, sight, cognition, speech, emotions. I needed to wait a month before they would attempt to 're-irrigate' that side of my brain, to prevent a brain hemorrhage and death on the table during the procedure. I went in at the appointed time, they prepped and sedated me, wheeled me into the O.R., and I was out. Funny thing. Out of nowhere, there was a consciousness, a nobody, a perceiving, of the whole theatre. Up, a little above the heads of everyone there. No 'body' or anything (eyes, ears, etc)associated with this awareness, perceiving, it was just a perception, a here, a now, a knowing.
Seeing what I formerly thought was me, or I, as I thought "I" thought I was. This was a New "I" (Eye), and I knew It. I knew I had known It before. It was familiar to me in some strange new sense. Seeing the old man I thought "I" was, was a New Man. At this point (this bonding or what felt like returning home)it did not matter whether the old man got up and walked again or if 'he' went to the Cemetery or the Crematorium. Where this New Man, "I" was, death was not a possibility, like being born into a celestial youth. This could not be touched by any of 'that', (old age, sickness and death).This 'remembrance' has been my closet companion and confidant, since that awakening. I remember standing in front of a used book store sometime after 'recovery', and swearing a solemn oath to my self, I would if need be read every book on the subject in that bookstore until I found It again, no matter where it might lead me(subject-wise). I read a lot of books, some were down the wrong path, some were right on.The Holy Books and Advaita Vedanta, The Vedas, The Gitas, The Upanishads and many others, all pointed 'me' to That, which my heart so desired. I was willing to forsake every 'thing', physically/emotionally/psychologically(conditioning-old unquestioned absolutes) in my quest.

"IT" is I.

Namaste',
Drifter

~*~ (wings of spirit"