Seeking: : An Encounter with Spiritual Ecstasy and Its Aftermath

A young man in full rebellion against his Catholic education is swept up not by an addiction to drugs or alcohol but to something every bit as powerful and potentially destructive: the overwhelming state of ecstasy brought on by his single-minded drive to live a solitary ascetic life. Grappling with an affluent but empty upbringing he stumbles upon what he comes to call the atomic weapons of eastern religious practices and is ultimately confronted with not only devastatingly pleasurable sensations arising from solitary meditative practices and self-denial but also with their inexplicable sudden loss. From a suicidal low point he manages a slow recovery with the aid of a thoroughly unusual collection of saviors including a brilliant young nun an enigmatic old restaurant owner and his wife and a fiery French lover. It is a decades-long journey from the despair of irreparable loss to the blossoming of acceptance.