James Finn I first had the sort of experience you describe via mediation by way of the Jesus Prayer, made famous in the US by JD Salinger — Franny and Zoey (sp?) It mediates this different, more diffuse sense of self that is just as you describe. And looking back, it was these experiences in my praying that revealed to me how deeply rooted my fear was (I guess it was a form of homophobia, without the self-loathing because I’m straight)… without getting pickled in a non-rivalous experience of the divine (or what I took to be that, it was love at any rate), there’s no way I could have even seen what I came to see let alone make the moves I made. Your description of your communication with Lenny was particularly moving to me as it comports so well with what I experienced recently with my late wife.