I’ve always been the adventurous type, I wanted to discover the world, other peoples, other cultures and ways of living.

The making of a career, the founding of a family didn’t seem the right path to choose. I had always been looking, at first unconsciously, for another kind of happiness, of freedom than those suggested by society.

At a very early stage I was attracted by wide spaces, by stories of adventures. I was dreaming of travelling around the world, of having enthralling adventures. During my teens I was reading avidly books concerning spirituality, especially those by Arnaud Desjardins. He brought me know about the great Wise Persons of India and the holy mountain of Arunachala, in southern India, which I was lucky to discover in 2011.

Then in 1980 I had the possibility of leaving Europe for the first time and to travel to the country I had so much dreamt of, India. It became an unforgettable journey of about four months, during which I travelled around this huge country. And then in New Delhi, at Connaught place, I had the most incredible encounter of my life.

"Connaught place is a big circular place with a great dome in its centre and a park covering a little round market place underneath. This park is surrounded by a large sidewalk with stone benches here and there. I was sitting on a bench without any special goal in mind when I noticed something in the park on my left. Sitting on the ground in the Lotus pose position was a man looking a little like Gandhi and wearing only a white cloth around his waist. Physically he looked old and frail, but there was a strength radiating from him, a superhuman power. He appeared to be at the same time here and somewhere else, and no one seemed to notice him. I couldn’t stop looking at him. Time seemed to have stopped. Then suddenly his gaze lighted up and plunged into my deepest self. I was turned upside down, and deeply moved. This spiritual Being knew me infinitely better than I knew myself. This look of the Sage said to me "look, you also are THAT". This look, the Darshan of the Wise one, has been engraved into my soul for eternity..."

In the following years I worked in Switzerland in the summer and discovered South East Asia, Japan and Australia in the winter...

Dear friends,

Here are a few lines a summary of my life journey from a spiritual perspective. First I am not a guru but a traveler on the way. I think I'm on the road since I was born in this world with the human body. I have always felt different, more lonely than others. At around 18 I asked a psychic if it was my last incarnation on earth.

Then I met some friends who enlightened me and stop me to sink into drugs. This is partly, thanks to them, that I'm here today.

I always wanted another happiness, another way than what the society offered me.

My first experience

I remember it as clearly as if it had happened just yesterday.

I must have been about two years old at the time. I was standing on my little child’s legs in front of a cooker that seemed very tall to me. To my right was my mum, who was probably cooking.

In my little child’s mind, I wanted to know what was on that cooker. So I stood on tiptoe and raised my right arm as high as I could. My mum saw this and said, "don’t put your hand there, it’s hot." I pulled my hand away and came back down onto my heels.

But in my little child’s mind, I wanted to know, what does "it’s hot" mean? I stood on tiptoe again, raised my right arm as high as I could and put my hand… into the fire.

I pulled my hand away very quickly and looked at it: it was covered in blisters and it… ouch.

From that moment on, I’ve always put experience before belief, books and what people say.

To 17 I left my body and went to incredible speed to a light at the end of a tunnel. Then a voice or maybe a thought made me understand that it was not my time, I had to return to earth.

Many years later I went out of my body again but this time I was in a sphere that brought me to a "place" where I heard voices and saw the head of a man who says "what are you doing here ?" And I found myself instantly in my body.

These experiences made me understand that it is useless to seek life, happiness elsewhere, on other planets. They also brought me to have an open attitude to the "unknown".

But I also always felt guided by a "force", a "power" far beyond me, protecting me and that is the Life that animates me, that animates all things.

Then I spent some 13 years on the roads of India, Southeast Asia, Japan and Australia with a lot of experience, discovery and sharing life moments with beings apparently different from me by their cultures, their philosophies, their ways of living but with whom I felt familiar, in unity. In Asia I have always felt "at home".

Perhaps these experiences, this course of life have prepared me to live the spiritual experience that I share in my book.

But I did not try this experiment. As one Indian spiritual master say: "It just happens". It just happened, so I just wanted to tour the beautiful island of Bali by motorcycle.

This experience is not a perception of reality that is beyond us. Because for there to be perception must be someone who sees something. Out when in the spiritual experience there is no ego, so nobody to perceive something. It is a total immersion in the divine Self. This is the state without ego, the spiritual awakening.

Now is there method for "reach" this state of enlightenment? certainly yes. Self-presence, meditation, yoga, the question "Who am I" ? and especially the total letting go of what we believe to be to awaken to who we are.

And then there is life itself, the one we live daily. It is our master, our daily exercise. Our yoga. Our experience.

That's what I can tell you based on my own experience, not books, speeches or religious or scientific theories.

The only thing that matters is our life experience and what we do with this experience.

Friendships.

Alain Badan