‘Not I, Not other than I’, a book of the life and spiritual teachings of a man called Russel Williams, was recommended to me. Written and edited by Steve Taylor, it was published in 2015, when Williams was 94. Williams had been president of the Buddhist Society of Manchester, UK since 1974 and was a spiritual teacher.

Williams’ early life had been tough, and he left school at the age of 11, becoming an orphan shortly after. Picking up manual work where he could, Williams was eventually taken on to work with horses, initially part of a small circus that toured the country after World War 2 and then moving to a larger one. He would dress the horses for the show, lead them into the ring, and then afterwards take them back to the stable and sleep alongside them there too. He groomed, fed and watered the horses, and learned how to use different harnesses. Whatever we might think now about exploiting animals in shows and circuses it was still very much part of the 1950s.

Williams says that he grew to love the animals.

‘I felt a strong connection with them. It was impossible not to, living with them 24 hours a day. I was determined I was going to understand them wholly, for what they were, and realised that the only way to do that was through observing them. I knew I wasn’t going to get the knowledge from reading books. So I set my mind to watching and observing every detail, every moment of the day, for days on end.’

After some months of concentrating on the horses, Williams noticed that he had stopped thinking – his mind had gone very quiet, and he realized that you could know without thinking. Much later he understood that over three years he had been meditating about 20 hours a day, seven days a week – completely absorbed in caring for the horses – a life of continual service, with no thought for himself. Then came the revelation that transformed his life.

‘Then it happened, I woke up one morning and looked across at the horses, watching the steam rise out of their nostrils the way it does on a cold morning. The next thing I knew I wasn’t just observing the horse, from the outside. I was the horse. I was looking inside it. I was it. I could look through its eyes and its mind. I was aware of its true nature. I was aware that all things are one. There was a sense of profound peace within me.

It was a revelation. I looked at another horse, and another, and I was inside them as well. I looked at one of the dogs, and saw it in its true nature too. I saw everything in its true nature … We were all the same nature, all arising from the same source. My own nature was just as theirs was, in a different form, with one consciousness linking us all together. They were only separate in terms of form and structure. It was the same essence, the same emptiness, in all of them – in all of us. I went outside to look at the trees, and they were the same nature. Then I looked at my own body, and inside myself, and there was nobody there. My normal sense of self had disappeared.

At that moment there was no more anger, no frustration, just a sense of peace. There was no desire, no aversion, everything was as it should be.’

Williams recounts how the new state was odd yet one he became attuned to, but he was unable at that time to share it with anyone, in case they thought him mad.