(AbeBooks.com)

I sat down on a flat rock ledge and started to do my deep breathing from Aikido. I was hoping it would take the edge off. . . . Somehow, I managed to get so centered that I detached from myself. . . . At that point, a crystal- clear voice comes cutting through all of this chaos and disintegration and says, “You know surrender is in order.” . . . There was a flash of white light. . . . There was an ever so brief revelation into the underling unity of things. . . . It was a tremendous shock to my system to suddenly realize that Someone was running the universe, and running it with exquisite control, awareness, sophistication, and utter fairness. . . . I looked out at some sandpipers that were running around on the beach. I remember feeling so incredibly close to them. . . At that point the voice came again. It was a crystal-clear voice. It once again cut through all the chaos in my mind and said, “It’s time for you to walk in the water.” . . . As soon as the bottoms of my feet touched the water, a feeling of love, energy , and radiance coursed through my entire body. . . . Tears of joy came to my eyes, and at that moment it became pretty clear to me that there really was a God.

–Man in his forties on how he found orthodox Judaism from How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others by T.M. Luhrmann