We hunger to be known and understood. We hunger to be loved. We hunger to be at peace inside our own skins. We hunger not just to be fed these things but, often without realizing it, we hunger to feed others these things because they too are starving for them. We hunger not just to be loved but to love, not just to be forgiven but to forgive, not just to be known and understood for all the good times and bad times that for better for worse have made us who we are, but to know and understand each other to the same point of seeing that, in the last analysis, we all have the same good times, the same bad times, and that for that very reason there is no such thing in all the world as anyone who is really a stranger.
One night as I was deep in meditation, I suddenly found myself in a very curious state. It was as if I were dead. Everything had been cut away. There was no longer any before and after. Self and object were gone. The only thing I felt was how the inside of my self was totally unified and filled with everything that was over, under and around me ... After a while I came back to myself like one risen from the dead. My seeing, hearing, speaking, my actions and thoughts were completely different from what they had been up to then. As I hesitantly attempted to reflect on the truths of the world and to grasp the meaning of the ungraspable, I understood everything.