It would be a great deal longer than I could have imagined before I encountered this Daniel guy again. I kept an eye out for him on the streets and in the coffeehouses of Berkeley over the next months but saw him not once. Slowly my hope (and hidden fears) of meeting him again faded. The first meeting with him was an incident that was alive and powerful in my memory. It had changed me forever, and had removed any lingering doubt that I might have had that we pass our days in a magical universe, one that is framed in emptiness and decorated with changing vibrations.

This understanding came from the science of physics and from the incredible experiences that continued to manifest in my sleepy life. I was somewhat more alert and determined to grow, to grow in both knowledge and in “practice”. “Practice” being my catchword for applications of methods that cultivated my internal and external awareness. “Practices” also often used energy, this energy usually represented through manifestations of sound and light. I directly perceived, directly understood that for most people that making and listening to music was their subconscious effort to be more than their restricted state allowed them to be sound-wise. Similarly the activities of the eyes, simply observing, watching television or movies, or navigating the daily journeys were a less conscious application of light in every-day life.

At any rate after some months my active expectation to reconnect with the Daniel was quite subdued. I had relived the incident many times and the starkness and power of it did not diminish. If he was just a passing hologram his work with me was not wasted. About one year passed and then one day suddenly I had the idea that if I went everyday to the upstairs area of ‘the Med’, a coffeehouse on Telegraph Avenue that I would soon see him. This was not where we had gone on our previous meeting and was, in fact, not a coffeehouse that I frequented. Nonetheless I began to faithfully park nearby every afternoon on my way into the world and run upstairs, check out the patrons, turn and race back out the door.

After about a week of this, one day, with only about five minutes to spare as I was on my way to the dentist, there he was, frizzy head hung down over a book. I was almost speechless, though quite excited.

“ Hi!” I interrupted him.

“ Hello yourself,” he replied, shutting the book and looking up.

“ I am on the way to see my dentist right now, but I truly wish to talk to you. Is that possible?”

“ Of course,” he replied, “Be here at 2pm tomorrow…”

“ Great! Thanks.” I wheeled toward the exit.

“ Bring a pencil.” He called after me.

The next 24 hours whirred by and the next afternoon I bounded up the stairs with a spiral notebook and a pencil. Daniel was already there, lounging thoughtfully at a table for two. He put out his cigarette as I approached him and motioned for me to take the chair across from him.

“ Okay,” he immediately began, without any helloes or other niceties, “Write this down. From the top, write these three words on separate lines, they are Truth, Love, Peace. Capitalize each of these words. Drop down a few lines and then write the following sentence, ‘infinite and eternal pure spiritual being, consciousness, and bliss’.” He paused and looked over to see if I was having any difficulty.

“ Satchitanand,” I mumbled, trying to show my erudition.

“ Now drop down further and write another group of three words on separate lines,” he continued, ignoring me. “From the bottom they are Concentration, Meditation, and Contemplation.”

I had just received my first initiation from this unknown teacher but it was months later before I realized it. My head swam with questions and it would be some while before my self-importance could subside enough for me to hear more clearly what this remarkable being had to say.

From that day on he taught me almost every day for the next seven years. And I mean seven years almost without a break, some days for 15 or 16 hours straight (I was pretty thickheaded after all).

On one of the first days I gave him a key to my apartment and although he was rarely there when I went to sleep he was almost always there when I awakened, sitting in this big old stuffed rocking chair, lost somewhere, deep in contemplation. I would stretch and groan and move about and go about the busyness of getting it all together. He would wait patiently, silently. Occasionally an eye would open, probably to check my progress, and then close again.

Invariably, after I nibbled on some food, he would start with, “You know I was just reading a passage in this here book,” and then he would pick a book off the round table that dominated my living/dining/bedroom and start thumping on some tattered copy of the “Upadesa Sahasri” by Sri Sankaracarya, or some other spiritual classic, thumping with a love that is hard to imagine, or describe, as “thumping” sounds rather violent, but thumping with love was what he was doing… “and you might want to read it too. If you were to read it out loud we could talk about it, talk about what it really, really means.” Which was the prelude to me reading one line and him lecturing about it in depth for perhaps an hour. Followed by him asking for the next line whereupon the same scenario was played out. Sometimes the entire day disappeared in this way. Whenever I would read a paragraph, or an aphorism, or a sentence, or a pith instruction he would close his eyes and seemingly drink it in, drink it in in a way that seemed sensual, permeated with a pleasure that nothing else could possibly give him.

If someone else were to visit, they became part of the teachings, like it or not. Their only escape was to leave because the Daniel was not going to let up, the Daniel had his foot on the Dennis’s head and kept it there – for seven years. Seven years are an unimaginable stretch of time for most people in our western culture but I have to say that they flew by for me. The classic spiritual retreat is three years, three months, and three days in length. This timeframe gives the teacher enough time to give the instructions and the student enough time to make practice real. Perhaps I was a slow student.

One day my friend Richard came by and was asked to read the first line from a translation of the Avadhuta Gita that Daniel was particularly fond of. I still remember how six hours later Richard was reading that same line for perhaps the fortieth time, and each and every time it was accompanied by elaboration and elucidation that could only have been inspired by the Divine.

Daniel’s very existence was a miracle and that he chose to teach me was a manifestation of grace. He was sent to me by Aaraak, I had no doubt.