Pengy945

That...sounds magical.

I lived in the desert/mountains of Utah/Nevada traveling around nomadically with a group of people for 3 months. I didn't hear the news, see a computer, T.V. ect... for the whole time. Hell I only saw ONE cabin the whole time. We had walkie talkies to communicate with the guy who would drop off food at certain locations and that was it. It was so amazing just being completely off the grid for an extended period of time. It was strange integrating back into society. That experience truly taught me how much technology and our culture effects certain patterns of thought. It was one of the most amazing chapters of my life and I completely relate to what you say about nature being sound and the city being noise.

I decided to go off into the wilderness for a number of reasons. To make a long story short I felt really internally lost, struggled in many facets of life at that time and was abusing xanax, oxy, ect... By the way I worked at a pharmacy delivering medication from ages 16-18. After a close call with death I decided I was tired of falling victim of self destructive behavioral patterns and left for the woods to "find myself". It was also a therapy based program. I lived in the woods with other very lost people and we had "staff" who would guide us from location to location. We would hike on average 2 miles a day, sometimes 10 and everything I used for 3 months was on my back.

The locations were normally random, but typically was a mile or so away from a back country dirt road so that when the guy with food and water drops came on Wednesday, we wouldn't have to walk that far with the heavy jugs of water. I can tell you right now the bonding and healing of that experience was life changing. I left a new person. It definitely was not the end of my struggles, but the beginning of something powerful.

The kind of bond you have when you are living and growing with people in that way is powerful. I don't think I have gotten to know many people the way I did them. I mean picture living with a group for 3 months and every single night by the camp fire, each person is spilling their guts to the group. You get to experience not only the beauty of watching others come to life changing insights, but being a part of that process by challenging and being there for them.

Nature was a huge part of that whole experience. It was so tranquil and humbling. I never realized how much I took for granite so many luxuries we have. Also, the lack of the chaos of society allowed me no where to go to escape my internal hell I had been carrying around for so long. I was 18 when this happened, I am 22 now. The only other things that I have experienced that have helped me internally grow in the way I did was my first true psychedelic experience and meditation. I'll stop now before this gets too long.

TL;DR: Lost kid, went to wilderness therapy to "find myself", left a new person.

Haha, unfortunately it was 5 years of obsessing and neglecting the worldly while still being a lay practitioner that did it. The retreat made it worse, it was only after pushing myself too far after the retreat that I came to that insight :-).

I'm also curious, did you find the line between unstable madness and various spiritual phenomena to be a grey area? The awe was amazing, even during some of the more terror filled experiences, but there were occasions when so much was happening I couldn't sleep and that was when things got a little off kilter to say the least. These experience all happened in Los Angeles too, so I am sure that didn't help haha.

Thanks for taking the time to answer all these questions too. It's been really beautiful to see such a transparent and well thought out dialog.

I saw you were doing some Hindu stuff, but what tradition were you practicing in? What sort of practices (i.e. more about Kundalini or Advaita type stuff).

I use to long for the lifestyle you had and planned to follow that fire after I did a 3 month vipassana retreat and didnt want it to in. However, I had a few destabilizing spiritual experiences that taught me how important the relative world was, it became very clear that I was running from my shadow (Jungian term) and relationship issues for transcendent experiences. As amazing and transformative as that was, it killed my desire to devote myself solely to meditation practice (though I suspect relationships and work can be just as powerful, especially if one is balancing that with a month or so of retreat a year).

Then I met Reggie Ray and discovered Buddhist Tantra which very much integrated the realtive. Really awesome stuff.