My decision to start ESN was guided extensively by spirituality
By Richard A Luthmann, Founder
Spirituality, like the words love or hope, can never be adequately defined by a dictionary citation. There are elements in common though, that can paint the picture of the nature of spirituality as I learned it. There is a sense of connection to something bigger than us. Also, it is a vehicle to find some meaning and purpose of life. Determining our sensory experience is only part of being human and we are not bound by the universe. What we are a part of is a cosmic and divine in nature. People may describe a spiritual experience as sacred, transforming and sensing a God presence.
The spirituality I am referring to is the teachings and principles that extraordinary visionaries in past cultures have passed down to future generations. Mystics, religious leaders, teachers from India, Tibet, Asia, Mexico, to name a few, were read and studied. I gleaned what I needed to progress along my spiritual journey.
My spiritual path started from an unfortunate and dangerous occurrence, an overdose with several drugs. My life’s course was permanently altered on the last day in July 1994. Having just fallen to the ground unable to breath and losing consciousness as I knew it, I was overdosing. The EMS arrived, began resuscitation and off I went to the hospital. I was clinically dead on that day and would have died at forty-one in the Grand Hotel, Wildwood Crest, New Jersey. My body fell to the ground lifeless, but I was so full of fright that I began to run. My body was not running, my consciousness took over and it fled. I felt a flash of light as a giant flash bulb would produce. I was experiencing a classical near-death experience (NDE). My spirit left my body and was rising quickly propelled by a liquid golden light. There was a progression of incidents which culminated with a voice that said to me telepathically, “There is much more but this is what you need to know, now go back and get it right”. My progression halted, even though my spirit wanted to continue rising in the light. I awoke in a hospital bed with tubes, wires, IV’s all over. A Doctor was snapping her fingers in my face and said loudly with a Russian accent, “We thought we lost you, now come back”. I felt at peace and there was no fear. I was ok with where I was in the universe.
Direct experiential knowledge of my immortal self enabled me to find a life of meaning and purpose
I was permanently altered that day when I was shown direct experiential knowledge of my mortal self. Spiritualty was explained in its totality in those few moments by that experience.
Within a few months I became clean and sober with the help of 12 step programs. There is an important spiritual component to the 12 step programs, and I started incorporating their spiritual principles. My existence was becoming quite the opposite of what it was. Like a battery and the polarity somehow magically shifted my perception of self changed from what I did for a living and what I become a spiritual creature living upon this earth. The worldly things I was obsessed with had become less important. My definition of success changed from a predominantly material to more humanistic. In those few moments I was endowed with the awareness that there was a better way of life, and I was bluntly reminded “to go back and get it right”.
How did I get to the low point in my life? I grew up in the sixties where the drug culture became in my mind mainstream. My lack of inhibition to drugs and alcohol was spurred by my burning desire to experience everything and be a part of the Now Generation. Being a pharmacist tended to enable my dysfunction in later years. My attitude was of the libertarian type, “You and I know the risks and can make decisions for ourselves”. I was unaware that drugs and alcohol damaged your brain in so many ways that added to the misconception that I didn’t have a problem. For me, it started as a party and ended as a nightmare. All I worked for in 28 years was dismantled in two years. I was at the end of my rope in the Grand Hotel.
I reveal this as testament to assure others that people do recover. I am proud of my years in recovery and today I realize all my experiences even the atrocious are useful in my quest to help others. It is my honor to be founder of the Emerald Star Network.
PEOPLE HELPING PEOPLE