“It’s hard to pinpoint when Thomas’s interest in interspiritual sharing first arose. The seeds of it were most likely there from the beginning, already embedded in that watershed conversion experience during his second year at Yale. Lost in the mystical splendor of the early patristic Christian writings, Thomas experienced an overpowering sense of the mystical presence of God…. He was overwhelmed by a direct infusion of oneness that broke down any illusion of separation…
“Oneness is a generic mystical experience; it occurs on all ‘lines’ as a mystical foretaste of what will finally be accomplished once and for all at the ‘level’ of nondual awakening. The direct experience of oneness is also what fundamentally parts the waters between mystical consciousness and the more dogmatically oriented theological mainstream. The mystics will walk directly into the arms of that underlying oneness; the nonmystics will be offended and horrified. Thomas entered active faith through the route of oneness, which essentially guaranteed that he would outgrow the traditional theological forms of his Christian home base and find his deepest spiritual allies among those doing the same thing on other lines as they collectively tilled the nondual soil.”
