In my youth, I was not prone to easy laughter or the common jokes that circulated among human beings. I lived in a world all by myself, thinking, feeling and being led innocently toward a life of relentless spiritual evolution. It would be many years before my spiritual sadhana, or spiritual practices, would reveal the memory of my inherent oneness with the Divine.
My parents did not hesitate to inform me that my destiny was to attend “college,” a word they spoke with joy and enthusiasm, emotions that stood out starkly in my young attention, since those emotions were so deeply absent in almost every other part of my childhood. My early religious background was coincidental and predetermined by my parents’ educational choices. I attended Roman Catholic schools from kindergarten through high school, schools selected for their reputation for academic excellence.
My fate unfolded several months before my graduation when I was given an early graduation present, instruction in an East Indian form of meditation. In the meditation center, I looked past the sundry forms of decor and what to me were superficial, distracting (and even disturbing) proclamations of the “benefits” of meditation. Nevertheless, I went forward to receive initiation into a unique form of Indian meditation. On April 26, 1975, I learned to meditate with a quiet and eager anticipation for “enlightenment.” It was a day of joy I will never forget.
I practiced meditation for over twenty years, adding various asanas (yoga postures) and pranayama (yogic breathing exercises), reading every form of non-dualistic mysticism and scripture I could acquire from Europe, India, Tibet, China and Japan. I also read poetry avidly.
Again, and again, I surrendered into psychological/emotional/spiritual dissolution, dying into Consciousness. I was madly in love with oblivion, ecstasy and self-transcendence. While others were busily preparing for a conditioned life in the world, I was ceaselessly going beyond the conditioned mind and its world of disappointments and illusions.
I still recall the various forms and flavors of intense spiritual raptures and samadhi (transcendental awakenings) that I experienced in my third year of undergraduate study. The pinnacle of these raptures culminated in the state of nirvikalpa samadhi in March or April of 1980.
During this time, I also experienced other forms of exquisite and exalted Transcendental Realizations in my active and meditative life, as well as during sleep. In sleep I tasted intoxicating, ambrosial nectars flowing from my heart to my brain in a cosmic circle. I’d wake up each morning feeling as though I had ascended into the worlds of Gods and Goddesses. It was a time of unspeakable ecstasy in the subtle regions beyond the body-mind.
Simultaneously, I began to feel the palpable manifestation of the Primordial Energy of the universe, the Shakti. It was brilliant, active, and sparking. Shakti had simultaneously been born in that Being of Pure Light. Sharing this Radiant Energy and Divine Light became a natural capability: a radiation without circumference, effort or knowledge. A spiritual magnificence, a superabundance of Being, a Transmission of Radiant Awakening–that which has been written about in every religious scripture–was born within that Ultimate Meditation. Primordial Bliss was now free to enjoy Its own spontaneous play in the world.
Yet, the Bliss of Perfect Unity in the Self and its ever-present Shakti still needed to migrate more deeply throughout the physical body, toward the outskirts of the flesh, right to the surface of the skin; divinizing and transforming it further. Amrita sahaja samadhi (the nectarous, ambrosial, natural state) dawned, displaying itself as this further evolution: a God-Intoxicated Condition wherein the body became a living host for Devotional Rapture, Kundalini-Shakti, and Divine Light. These qualities revealed a Dynamically-Interactive, Embodied-Form of Ecstatic Bodily-Love. Through my fleshly location, a virtually infinite number of human beings could participate in a passionate and endless relationship with Kali: the expressed, condensed and ferocious form of Adi Para-shakti, the Supreme and Primordial Energy of the Universe.
David's main site
David's book: Beyond the Place of Laughter and Tears in the Land of Devotion
Summary and Transcript of this interview
Interview recorded 6/27/10.
YouTube Video Chapters:
00:00:00 - Introduction to David Spero and his Spiritual Journey
00:03:47 - Catapulted into a Golden Love World
00:06:56 - A State of Bliss and Dissolution
00:10:23 - A False Reality and a Divine Consciousness
00:13:16 - The Dual Nature of My Personality
00:15:38 - Initiation into Meditation Practice
00:18:41 - Maturing in Divine Company
00:22:32 - Yogic Journey and Progression through Sheaths
00:26:50 - Immersing in Spiritual Texts and Influences
00:29:51 - Attending Maharishi International University
00:33:53 - Levels of Development and the Concept of Enlightenment
00:37:44 - The Prohibition of Successors in Ramana Maharshi's Teaching
00:41:28 - The Process of Awakening and Jadedness
00:44:24 - The Dawning of Perpetual Consciousness and the Experience of Nirvikalpa Samadhi
00:46:56 - The Unbearably Deep Transformation
00:49:21 - The Fury to Accomplish
00:52:21 - Sahaja Samadhi and the Loss of Spiritual Identity
00:55:32 - The Sahaja State: Beyond Consciousness
00:58:08 - Different Levels of Realization
01:00:35 - Sahaja Samadhi and the Unproducible Condition
01:02:48 - The Meaning of Avatar
01:05:25 - Understanding Avatars and their Consciousness
01:08:43 - The Remarkable Friend Who Didn't Belong Here
01:11:35 - The Sahaja State of an Avatar
01:14:21 - The Uniqueness of Sahaja Samadhi
01:16:38 - The Natural State of Sahaja Samadhi
01:18:53 - The Nature of Human Development
01:21:23 - Ways to Access David Shapiro's Interviews
01:23:06 - Public Meetings and Retreats
01:24:30 - Live Events and Webcasts
01:26:02 - Opening music