My first experience with bliss came when I stood on the Berkeley shoreline at sunset, looking at the Golden Gate Bridge, the sand tickling my feet.

I was 20 years old.

I was not thinking about my university studies or my random love life. I wasn’t looking for or expecting much of anything.

And then it happened to me.

I experienced being connected with the divine and the entirety of existence for that moment and for all time.

This wasn’t an abstract experience, and I wasn’t on psychedelics.

It was a potent feeling of personally belonging in a loving place, where I danced with other souls and divine beings in this vast material universe, while at the same time being in a different dimension of eternal existence.

I have this very clear memory of when I was 10 years old.

I cannot quite remember what stimulated the thought, but I remember thinking that I had such a good life, felt so connected to everything, and was so grateful that if I died that day, I would feel fulfilled.

It was a strange thought for a 10-year-old to have.

I was not under threat. I just felt happy and connected.

Since then, I have remembered that experience many times, especially when I feel like things are not going as well as they could.

It reinforces my gratitude and acceptance of bad things as just part of what has already been an extraordinary and fulfilling life.

I was awakened when when I wsa eight years old. From that point on I knew I was an eternal being and always connected with the divine. I’ve lived from that knowing ever since.

My most recent experiences with Jesus take place on an old railroad bed along the Merced River at a place called Briceburg.

In nature, especially near running water, I am able to enter His presence very quickly.

In this quiet place, the world is shut out, and I bare my soul as I walk and talk with Him like a two-year-old boy, chattering away about every small and large thing on my heart.

I confess my sins, share my fears, and ask the Holy Spirit to fill me up.

Two years ago, I went through a life altering change for the better. This change came into my life through an unexpected and painful experience that took a year to process and overcome. It was one of the most painful and beautiful experiences of my life.

I had experienced bliss many times before this happened, so I recognized it as soon as it appeared.

From the very beginning of this journey, bliss encompassed me with that feeling of complete and utter love that is so amazing it is nearly impossible to accurately put into words.

As I transmuted years of pain and grief, bliss came in and wrapped itself around me and stayed with me during the entire healing process.

Bliss sheltered me, showed me truths I needed to see, and gently spoke the things I needed to hear so I could fully heal.

Bliss took what could have been a life shattering experience and turned into something beautiful that made me a better person.

A friend of our painting teacher had just returned from India and offered to give us a yoga class.

I remember that he concentrated on leading our breathing and instructing our breathing in all the asanas. It was my first ever yoga class.

The bliss state happened when I walked out of the class into the beautiful landscaped grounds and began to notice how everything was very clear and bright as crystal, with very defined edges.

I knew I was in some different state, but I was also solidly on the ground at the same time. I didn’t want it to stop, so I walked around for close to an hour until it began to wear off.

I had been delving into a lot of spiritual thoughts and readings at the time, so I was primed. I knew it was special, and I thought I may not ever experience this again, so I just let it go.

No one ever explained it to me, but I have always felt very connected to this force.

I served as an Alaskan river guide for more than thirty years.

On one of my river trips, a man, his sister, his son, and his daughter-in-law were at the put-in. The father, a soda bottle wrapped in tape in his hand, approached me and asked if he could put his wife’s ashes in the river.

I told him to come on my raft.

Rafts hold eight people, four in front and four in the back. A family of four in the back knew nothing about the family or their loved one’s ashes.

In the river valley is the oldest Tlingit Native settlement in Alaska. There is the Whale House, a ceremonial house used for death rituals.

I floated down the river and caught an eddy in front of the Whale House. I told the family the story of the ashes, and the nine of us had a brief ceremony before we distributed the ashes in the river.

The son gave a beautiful remembrance of his mother, and after we all cried, I continued down the river to the takeout.

The family with the ashes thanked me and sent me a note for a few years, but the other family, who had come along for a simple float trip, sent me a thank-you note for fifteen years.

They told me their experience that day was the greatest trip they had ever had because of the sacred ceremony on the river.