I read everything I got my hands on. Teilhard De Chardin, C.S. Lewis, the rapture conspiracy and End Times books, the Bible in other editions, Treatise on Cosmic Fire, The I Ching, and Yogananda. The list is long. I had already been through the Eastern studies at college. I loved Yogananda for his poetry and practised Kriya Yoga and meditation.  A spiritual fellowship with 10 other "Jesus Freaks", as the movement was called in those days, met at my house in the early 70's.  We would talk about God and pray together, sing songs and write music, so there was a lot of love and energy. Jesus was very real to me. Being able to recognize Him as the highest of loving intelligences and the light that is Golden that then turns into love... was truly intoxicating those first five years of my spiritual conversion. Such perfect  high intelligence used to scare me; because of its order, organization and structure, which were things my personal life lacked, but I gradually learned to own it.  There are huge holes in my cultural experience of life as a human, but with Jesus as a friend, it doesn't bother me too much.