Every moment of your life can offer you this choice but there are certain times when the choice seems particularly stark and it is often these moments that we come to see as being the formative experiences of our lives, whether or not we pursue a spiritual path. While the intuition for this sense of there being more came from the core of me and was essentially wordless, I had to package this intuition up into a form that made sense to me based on my past experience. For example, I had an image of myself that I was a relaxed and easy going chap. I remember sitting by a lake and noticing how I was completely unable to stop thinking about the trees, the ducks or things that had happened during the day. I was unable just to be there, at peace.
Awareness is always the first step in becoming free.
Although I was then unable to relax and just be, by being aware of this I had ceased to be unconsciously adrift in my thoughts and had begun to gain some distance from them. The unescapable fact that I was trapped in my mind and the futility of trying to use my mind to transcend the mind felt as if I had met a impenetrable ceiling. The First Stage was the only thing that I was aware of that seemed to offer a way out of this trap. And when I began the First Stage it felt as if this ceiling was instantly removed. Ann, an enlightened woman, took me through to the First Stage, the ability to meditate on Essential Light and Sound.