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"As I left the tawaf, as I left the Kaaba, as I left the mosque, and as I left Mecca for other destinations, I felt both a powerful pang of separation and a comforting closeness towards what I left behind. The separation arose from being cut off from that which had so intensely attracted and impacted my consciousness. The closeness emerged because my direct experience of an ancient transcendental rite had inwardly magnetized me. I knew that even after I flew back to the comfort of home, some essential part of my consciousness, some essential part of my heart, would always turn, unbidden, like a compass needle to face the simple structure of the Kaaba."

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".. In front of me an aged blind man, his pure white hair and beard glowing in the sun, leaned on a wooden staff as he performed his circuits unguided except by the sounds of the crowd and the movement of bodies around him. His free hand would rise occasionally, palm upwards in supplication as he would speak a prayer. What was it like to do this tawaf in darkness, with no visual cues, no images to process. Did he sense the looming presence of the Kaaba by his side, was he able to turn his consciousness completely inward without the incredible spectacle of the tawaf to distract him? I closed my eyes and for a few steps walked blind.

A swirling eddy of sounds came and went as people passed by or as I passed by them. Some traveled in groups loudly reciting quran'ic verses in unison, some whispered to themselves - others moved in silence and I knew their presence only by their touch as they brushed past. The sounds ebbed and flowed in my consciousness as if I was a leaf floating on a river of prayers - currents and eddies of supplications tugging my consciousness this way and that.

When I opened my eyes the blind man was far ahead, moving confidently through the thick crowd, his staff seeming more like the staff of Moses than a crutch to lean upon. I looked about me as I moved forward. Some pilgrims were in wheelchairs, some frail and weak with age were being carried on rough bamboo litters or on hospital stretchers, some went around in tight groups, arms linked together so as not to separate in the crowd. Some shuffled along in their tawaf, others dodged in and around the crowd as if in a race to complete their circuits. New people continuously entered the tawaf, while those who had finished theirs cut across the crowd and exited the circle."

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