Pathways Through to Space was actually the first book by Franklin Merrell-Wolff that I read. It is his "...record of transformation in consciousness written down during the actual process itself." Mr. Merrell-Wolff's consciousness experience took place while he was studying The System of Vedanta by Paul Deussen, "...an interpretation in western philosophic form of the Vedanta as it is developed in the commentaries of Shankara on the Brahmasutras." Merrell-Wolff goes on to say, "I had been led to this specific program of reading through the realization that Shankara's words had peculiar power, at least in my own experience. For some time I had spontaneously looked to him as to a Guru with whom I was in complete sympathetic accord. I had found him always clear and convincing, at least in all matters relative to the analysis of consciousness, while with the other Sages I either found obscurities or emphases with which I could not feel complete sympathy."

Finding this book again and rereading it after the passage of more than 30 years is affecting on many levels; but perhaps the most profound affect is also the most immediate. This report above, about the author's study of Shankara, appears on the first page of the first chapter of Pathways Through to Space. And what makes it so affecting to me is that these many years later I read it as a teacher of Vedic meditation, a practice which comes from the Shankaracharya tradition of Vedic knowledge, and the place from which I have found my own transformation in consciousness.

These are the experiences that make us feel we are in dialogue with something greater than ourselves, experiences that allow us to smile in gratitude even though there may be aspects of our life that are causing us sadness or difficulty. These are the sorts of indications of right direction nature is wont to provide when one spends time in meditation and tries to pay attention to what nature may want us to be doing.

Today I will ask myself what nature would have me do. How may I be of service? I will say to the universe. And I will stay awake and present to hear the response that is sure to come.