An altered state of consciousness.

Anyways after battering myself like an idiot beats a dead horse I finally broke through to this altered portal of mysticism.

In most genuine traditions of mysticism, there is a defined breakthrough experience that is required before the yogin can be considered a genuine yogin.

In Tantra this is called the abhisekha.

In Buddhism, stream entry.

In Taoism, no clue.

In Zen, satori.

Anywhozzles I babbled along like this in this state for a couple of months, all the while being extremely sexually frustrated at college, when suddenly it dawned on me: I’ve been neglecting my practice!

Yes, that’s right James. To get laid you need to practice more spirituality! *hand on face* Anyways, I ramped up my practice again, reading some Zen crap and suddenly I was flitting in and out of jhana (a deep Buddhist absorption) and voila! I was the Tathagata.

From then on I experienced nearly going to ‘hell’, the rediscovery of Madhyamaka, the Deathless, the extinguishing of the aggregates, Nibbana, the experience of raw existential power (iddhi) and many other very very Buddhist things.

Most of the original Pali Canon insights I resonate with very well and have experienced.

It’s all BS and a massive hallucination though, and is not good for functioning in school, having a social life, or getting laid, so I don’t recommend it.

--More fun in the sun!

--Prior to achieving this mystical portal I was actually a relatively average kid, although, one who fucked up quite a few things in his life.

Here’s that story.

So I don’t know if you believe in existential death, but young James definitely did, and when he found himself hurtling towards it at the age of 15, he was fucking scared.

But he got a hold of himself and coasted, and boy did he coast on that roller coaster! It started when I began having this nervous breakdown-y feeling in High School. I felt like ‘my time was up’, that I was going to die, that I was heading towards some kind of death.

So I began acting strangely, telling fellow students that I was going to murder people at the school and writing strange essays. Not so long after the counselors caught wind of this and asked me if this was true.