Concerning my years in college, which were from 1968 on, I came to the States in August 1968 and attended community college on Long Island. I was a science student, and I got very good grades. As a result, I received a scholarship to go to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Upstate New York.

Beautiful New England landscape, beautiful hills and forests and beautiful nature. So that was in 1970. I started my third year at Rensselaer. Very tough scientific program. Lots of hours studying, cramming for exams, and just studying. At some point, I believe it must have been in 1972, probably, one night, I was walking on campus, possibly going to the library.

It was in the evening, and I had an experience, an out of body experience, where I experienced myself out in space looking down onto this man walking on campus, and this man walking on campus was me, which immediately raised sort of a very deep question immediately, which one am I?

The experience was so vivid that it was unsettling. Am I the student on campus walking towards the library, or am I this other awareness, this other being out there in space perceiving?

At some point, soon after that, I became interested in understanding more about the human mind, I guess. And at that time, we were allowed to audit various classes. And so that’s what I did. I audited various psychology classes and philosophy classes. But every time I would go to audit a class, I wouldn’t find any resonance. I found a lot of concepts, a lot of words. And at the time, that’s what it seemed like to me. Of course, it’s much different now.

Until one day, I audited a class being taught by the chairman of the humanities department. His name was John Kohler. And he was teaching a course on eastern philosophies. And, somehow, I figured, let me audit this class. And, initially he started talking about… the material covered was the Vedic scriptures, and it didn’t resonate much for me.

And yet I continued to audit the class. And, soon, he announced that he’s going to start today to cover Buddhism. And I had heard about Buddhism, but I didn’t know much about it… what Buddhism was. So I remember sitting in the class towards the back, not completely in the back, but towards the back of the class.

And he started the class by saying, well, the main principle of Buddhism is that there is no personal self, something to that effect.

And as soon as I heard these words, I was sort of in a hypnotic state. I was struck by those words. It’s as if they sort of went right through me. There is no personal self. There is no personal entity. And, the class had just started, and class usually was, like, an hour or forty five minutes or whatever. And I completely lost sense of time. So it’s like, it felt as if the next moment the class was ended.

And, of course, I rushed to professor, and I asked him, with quite a certain intensity, “Professor Kohler, somehow I understand that there is no personal self, and yet here I am.”

And I guess I must have said that with such intensity that it struck him. And he invited me to come and meet with him in his office, which I did. And this developed a new relationship between us, where I would regularly meet with him and share with him some of my questions. And I would say he was my first mentor.

In a way, I didn’t really understand much of what our conversations were about. But every time that I met with him, something would… I would feel something was deeply shifted or touched or understood.

I remember one day, I was walking up the hill towards his office, and as I was walking, I found a small watch, a ladies watch on the ground. I picked it up, and when I went to meet with him, I told him, “I found a watch, you know, as I was coming over.” And I showed him the watch, and he said, “Did you find the watch, or did the watch find you?” Something to that effect. Of course, I mean, it sounds silly as a question, but for me, it wasn’t silly. It had a deep import. Something was being shared there. Who is the doer? What am I? Am I somebody? Anyways, there were many incidents like that, small conversations where he would say something, I would share something, and he would make a comment, and it would take me deeper into not knowing.

So one night, I was with a couple of friends and we were high. And we started a conversation… I started a conversation about no self, no personal self. It was a topic that was always stirring in my mind.

And as I was trying to share my questions and my understanding with my friends, there was a very profound glimpse as if an energetic field came from the right side, my right side, and sort of just traveled right through me, and it revealed in that instant, which is not in time, the whole illusory structure of me, my whole life, my whole family, my identity, my nationality, my everything was seen to be empty.

And simultaneously, I experienced a great joy, gratefulness, and an inexpressible happiness and a sense of freedom that was beyond the mind. And it’s as if the answer was given to me. I don’t know what the question was, but I am not even sure that I would have been able to formulate what I understood. Although I did, you know, later that night, I called professor John Kohler. At the time, he was my friend John. And in the middle of the night, I called him at, like, two or three in the morning, and he was up answering the phone immediately.

He told me he just stepped out of the shower. I said, “John, I just had an amazing experience.”

And he said, “What is it?”

I said, “I realize now. I understand now that there is no self. There’s no separate self. It collapsed.”

So, yeah, I guess I could formulate at that moment what the experience was.

And, of course, it took me many decades of further exploration and contemplation to have this experience to be fully established effortlessly. But what I can say is that, after that glimpse, I was never the same.

I was no longer… The identity had cracked. Yes. There was a body mind named Magdi, brothers, mother, etc, school curriculum too. But its rigidity, its solidity had been seen through as if you see through a mirage.

Soon after that, I was recommended by John Kohler to go and check out this local Zen Center, which was about 40 kilometers away, 20 miles away, in Sharon Springs. And then that became my path, I guess. I loved sitting, although it was very difficult for the body initially to sort of sit in those postures, you know, the Japanese postures. But in spite of the pain, I love sitting, and I did a lot of endless hours of sitting. At home, I would wake up at, I don’t know, five, six in the morning, sit for two hours, and then sit again during the day. I was, maybe one could say even obsessed by sitting. I loved sitting and going to retreats and so on. So this is just a few words about the years, the college years.

I was doing my master’s degree, and it took me forever to finish my master’s, because my heart was no longer in the thesis and in the research, but I had a very open minded adviser who worked with me.

And I remember when I was doing my thesis, I would, like, do some work, and then at the time, I was again, the seventies, I hitchhiked to California. I hitchhiked to California twice from New York to Florida. I was, I guess I must have been exploring my life, being a young man. You know! Anyways, I eventually finished my master’s degree, and life goes on… Eventually, married and two kids and divorced, remarried. Okay.