A person who identifies as an ex-Buddhist expresses to a teacher that they have been exploring a path of love and devotion for the past nine months and have been having strong emotional responses, including crying, when hearing Christian music or the word “Father.” They interpret this as an energy or entity from outside of themselves.

The teacher responds by sharing that they also feel a connection to this tradition, specifically mentioning a book of Psalms translated by Stephen Mitchell that moved them deeply. The teacher offers a non-dualistic interpretation of the student’s experience, explaining that the feeling is not an energy entering from the outside, but rather the words and music are dissolving the student’s sense of separation from their own true, infinite nature. The teacher concludes that the interpretation doesn’t matter as much as the experience itself, as long as it opens the heart.