The Ashram

Book excerpt: In the summer of 1989 Eric Bullard took a month off from his job as Vice-President in charge of sales and marketing for the family publishing company and returned to the Hindu ashram where he had lived and studied for three years. It was supposed to be a vacation, a sort of rest before the heavy Christmas season's workload. But what he found there and the resulting years of uncertainty, mystery, and finally great magic will leave readers on the edge of their seats, questioning their own perceptions of reality. Sometimes shocking, sometimes humorous, always on the edge, "The Ashram" is a true story and unforgettable adventure: the unfolding of one man's unconscious mind and his travels through the wilds of Central America as he comes to grips with what he has found. Synopsis: Destined to leave readers on the edge of their seats, questioning their own perceptions of reality, "The Ashram" is one of the most unique, original, true, spiritual adventure stories of all time. Beginning in 1983, the story chronicles Eric Bullard's personal search which begins at the end of a six month odyssey through the South Pacific when he begins to question all that he has seen and lived in life up to that point. Now, desperate and preparing to return to the exact same world that he left six months earlier, he retreats up to the remote summit of Mount Solitaire in the Blue Mountains of Australia for a final week of fasting and contemplation in the hope that the answers he so desperately needs will come. Once there he reads a book on meditation, becomes fascinated with the subject, learns to meditate, and achieves great results. Two yeas later he enters into a Hindu ashram where he spends he majority of he next seven years studying deep meditation techniques. The real heart of the story begins to unfold in 1989 when, after four years in the ashram, he participates in a thirty day intensive meditation course during which he experiences a set of deep spiritual experiences that irrevocably change his life forever. Totally unprepared for what he has seen and experienced on the course, he spends the next three years in the ashram trying to come to grips with what he has found and now knows lies deep within each and every other human being. This main story line is further expanded and articulated upon by the second story line of the book which occurs nine years later as Eric, after drinking his way through Mexico and Guatemala for four years, decides to hike across the remote, war-torn Cuchamatane Mountains of Guatemala with a couple of hiking companions that he has just met. Not sure what they might find, if it is safe, or even the way, they end up becoming lost in the perilous mountains then helped by the humble yet courageous Highland Mayan Indians that they meet along the way. Arriving to the other side of the mountain range the trio enters into a mysterious, ancient Mayan kingdom known as the Ixil Triangle where they are confronted by the incredible devastation left over by the recently ended Guatemalan Civil War. Venturing deeper into the Triangle and the tragedy that lies within, Eric is finally forced to confront the personal demons, fears and doubts that have been plaguing him since the course of nine years earlier and discover something far greater then he could have ever imagined.