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The first book which brought me into mystical ideas was a curious fictional composition by Abu Bakr Ibn Ab Tufail. The title was The Life of Hai Ebn Yokdan, the Self-Taught Philosopher [also known as The Awakening of the Soul--Ed.]. Ibn Tufail flourished in the twelfth century in Spain and Morocco. He was a practising physician, a mathematician, and a Sufi. The book opened my knowledge in a vague general way to the possibilities of meditation, so I embarked upon the practice--unguided, uninstructed, groping my way in what, at first, was absolute darkness.

-- Notebooks Category 12: Reflections > Chapter 6 : The Profane and The Profound > # 123