The grandeur of nature demands our awe — photo by author, at Kuhio Beach, Honolulu, Hawai’i

I’m Not God After All

The Ethical Will of Donald Armstrong — Part 17

For an explanation of what an ‘Ethical Will’ is, please see my previous post, ‘I Leave to You … Whatever Wisdom I May Have Gained.’

By the time I celebrated my 21st birthday, I had figured it all out. More than that: I had experienced it … I had experienced ultimate reality. For a brief time, God and I and … well, everything … were one. The universe was a vast and beautiful tapestry which included and sanctified all of existence. The All was God; divisions and individuality were illusions existing only on the surface. The fundamental nature of reality had been revealed to me at the end of a 45 minute meditation session.

Or, at least, I had convinced myself of that.

But then, as so often happens in life, the unexpected occurred and everything changed. The Air Force wanted us to know how a loss of oxygen in an aircraft would impact the crew. Consequently, we were each required to spend a short time in an oxygen deprivation (hypobaric) chamber. The latter was an airtight, metal room with glass windows. One by one, we were directed to enter the chamber, and were given a set of simple instructions, such as “Put your right hand on the top of your head, palm down.”