Over the years many people have pressed me to write this story. I resisted, considering it inappropriate to write a book about myself, until something happened to change my mind. In May of 2005 my lifelong friend Bhakti Tirtha Swami called me. He was dying and wanted me to be with him. Bhakti Tirtha Swami was an African American who rose from the ghetto of Cleveland to become a world spiritual teacher whose admirers included, among others, Nelson Mandela, Muhammed Ali and Alice Coltrane.
I arrived at a modest home in rural Pennsylvania where Bhakti Tirtha Swami was passing through the last stages of melanoma cancer. He looked up at me from his bed with a beaming smile and said, “I want to die in your arms. Please stay with me.” For the next seven weeks I sat at his bedside, talking about mysteries and miracles and enjoying stories from the Sanskrit devotional texts.
Nobody knew me better than Bhakti Tirtha Swami. He knew the details of my quest and also my hesitation to write about them. One day he clasped my hand, gazed into my eyes and said, “This is not your story. It is a tale about how God led a young boy onto an amazing journey to seek the inner secrets that lie within all of us. Don’t be miserly. Share what has been given to you.” His voice choked up and a tear streaked down his ebony cheek. “Promise me,” he said, “here on my deathbed, that you will write the story.” A few days later, on June 27, 2005, he passed from this world. This book is my attempt to honor his wish.