It’s now 37 years since the main events I describe in this story — half my lifetime. I’d kept the letters and documents, meaning to write it all up one day, but every time I started, I found it impossible to continue — it was still too difficult. But a year or two ago, someone asked me to tell the story of how I’d got self-realisation (a spiritual awakening I describe later). Telling a part of this story, I found myself bursting into tears. I decided the wounds were still there, and I really needed to write this partly as a form of healing for myself and partly because it might help other people who are in difficulty or who are searching for the truth, the universe, and all that, Now, at last, I can re-read it without emotion.

This is the story about the breakdown of two relationships and how that eventually led to profound changes in my thinking, leading me to spirituality and membership in what many would regard as an obscure Indian sect. It’s the story of why I adopted the path I did, despite my having a very normal upbringing and background.