Stop Making Yourself Miserable

Welcome back to our Podcast. and in this episode, we are going to explore the mysterious junction between human potential and the human predicament. Today, we're diving into an idea that may sting a little at first, but, if we look closely, it might also open a hidden door to hope. It involves the unfortunate observation that while human technology, what we do, has evolved at an astonishing pace, human consciousness, who we actually are, has lagged significantly behind. Our ability to split atoms, utilize instant global communications, and code digital realities has raced ahead at lightning speed, fueling our Modern Times. But our capacity for empathy, humility, compassion and having the capacity to be able to live a peaceful, and meaningful life looks much more like we're still stuck the Middle Ages. Which brings us to the content of this episode called “Spears and Switchblades: One Stubborn Species.” To help bring the basic idea into focus, we're going to compare two of the most iconic love tragedies ever put on the stage: William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and its mid-20th century musical reincarnation, West Side Story. Though separated by more than 350 years, these two narratives—one set in Renaissance Verona and the other in 1950s New York City—are mirrors reflecting the same fundamental human flaws. Jealousy. Tribalism. Miscommunication , Stubborness and Pride, among many others. All of which are run by an emotional impulsivity that can turn love into war, and beauty into ashes. So, the first question that we want to explore is: have we grown at all in the past 400 years? Or have we simply become more sophisticated in the weaponry that we have developed in order to kill each other more efficiently? Let's start with the core human dynamics that drive both plays, because even though they are separated by centuries, their basic human flaws remain exactly the same. In Romeo and Juliet, two teenagers fall in love across the boundary of a family feud. The Montagues and Capulets have nursed a blood vendetta for so long that no one even remembers how it started. And it doesn't matter anymore. They just plain hate each other. And its consequences are clear: violence in the streets, death, heartbreak, and ultimately, a double suicide. What are the dominant negative human traits here? Hatred passed down like an heirloom Honor culture run amok Impetuous emotion overpowering reason A lack of inner stillness or reflection, overcome by rage Fast forward 400 years to West Side Story, and we meet Tony and Maria, two lovers from opposing street gangs: the Jets, composed mostly of white working-class youths, and the Sharks, made up of Puerto Rican immigrants. Once again, love blossoms in hostile soil, and once again, the terrible price of primal tribal hatred is death. Different clothes, different slang, different soundtrack. Same madness. And this is the bottom line of the issue. Totally different external world, everything has changed, as well it should. After all, four hundred years have gone by and the situation facing the teenagers living in the streets of New York City would be absolutely unimaginable to the kids running around in the late 1500's.  Completely different on the outside – yet the inner madness remains exactly the same. And the ramifications of this imbalance are immense. Let's compare the outer worlds of these two stories: Romeo and Juliet takes place in late 16th-century Verona. It's a world without electricity, medicine as we know it, or organized police. Family ruled everything. Honor was a matter of life and death. Raw emotions emerged dramatically and physically. And the sword was both symbol and solution. West Side Story unfolds in 1950s Manhattan, post-WWII. Televisions had entered the living room. Jet engines had conquered the sky. The UN had been formed, civil rights movements were stirring. Science had given us vaccines, electricity, and refrigeration. And yet... disputes were still settled with violence. In this case, the weapon of choice was the switch blade. Anger and tribal pride still led to bloodshed. And the beauty of love still ended in the tragedy funerals. So, what changed? The world around us got faster, smarter and ever-more connected. But the world inside us? Pretty much the same old garbage pail. And one of the primary central drivers in both stories is basic tribalism—the instinct to form in-groups and out-groups. The name of the game is us-versus-them. In Romeo and Juliet, the tribes are defined by blood. In West Side Story, by race and ethnicity. In both, the borders are irrational and absolute. This human trait is ancient, seemingly almost hardwired into our survival code. We evolved in small tribes where loyalty equaled life, and strangers equaled threat. But now we live in megacities, online echo chambers where we're still addicted to tribalism. We divide ourselves by politics, religion, race, nationality, gender identity, and more—often with a sense of inner hostility that's far more emotional than rational. In both plays, the pride of belonging to an in-crowd becomes a major fuse. Tybalt's stone cold sense of us and them, along with an ego based identification with personal honor won't let him ignore Romeo's presence at the Capulet ball. Four hundred years later, Bernardo's defense-based sense of belonging to the Sharks won't let him see Tony as anything but another American self-entitled Jet. In both cases, primal tribal dignity demands a serious and significant attack against the perceived enemy. So, the basic recipe for tragedy that spans the centuries remains the same: paranoid pride, mixed with anger and fear, driven by impulse and untampered by any wisdom or understanding turns into a violent weapon of darkness and death. In a certain sense, what happened to us over the years isn't evolution at all. It's just plain repetition Unfortunately, of course this didn't end in the late 1950's. Far from it. While we've vastly upgraded our weaponry, we've also developed more subtle, yet powerful ways to threaten and hurt each other, like social media shaming for example,  where it becomes pretty easy to ruin someone's life just by pressing a few buttons. In the time between William Shakespeare and Leonard Bernstein, humans invented calculus, steam engines, telegraphs, airplanes, televisions, and atomic bombs. We mapped the human genome. We put men on the moon. But we still haven't figured out what we're really all about. Oh, we all know how to chase things, but are these things that we've been programmed to chase real, or they just illusions? Maybe we're just addicted to chasing, itself. In that regard, we've all heard about the tendency of dogs to chase cars. But there are two key aspects to that particular pursuit. One – the dog can never really catch the car. It is much too fast for it. And secondly – what happens if the dog actually does catch the car and we all know the answer to that – nothing. The dog can't do anything if and when it catches the car. It's the same way for us. We're just running after things on the outside, oblivious to who we really are and what we are really made of, not to mention what can actually make us truly happy and satisfied. And all of this goes on while we continue to improve our technology by leaps and bounds. Yet, we still don't know how to disagree without resorting to violence. We still haven't universally adopted the idea that every human being, regardless of their identity, has intrinsic value. We still raise children who feel unloved, unheard, or unsafe. We're still driven by fear disguised as pride. We still confuse dominance with dignity. And we still kill the thing we love because we don't know how to hold it. And the bottom line of it all is basically defending the inherent illusion of our ego selves, which is still at the basic foundation of our inner C-Suite. As such, we still confuse noise with strength. And we still take most the good things in our life for granted, which is truly tragic. Like Joni Mitchell sang in a seemingly earlier age, “Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got till it's gone.” As it all continues to spiral further, in so many ways, the message to us is crystal clear – It's time to wake up and grow up. Romeo and Juliet loved across a line they weren't supposed to cross. Tony and Maria did it too. Their love was a shining light in the midst of all this darkness. Even though everything seemed to be against them, they knew what they had. And we knew it too. And despite what we knew it was that they were facing, we all rooted for them, because something about the higher thing in life, the Better Angels of Our Nature, speaks to the deepest part of our intelligence, both in our hearts and in our minds. We have more tools than ever to connect across cultures, to educate, to innovate, to heal. And yet, we still face the same old demons. But here's the good news: we are capable of change. Unlike the characters in those plays, our story isn't written yet. We are not locked in a script. We can choose awareness. We can choose evolution. The keynote to both of these tragedies is that it is time to individually bring our inner light to our own inner darkness. The Wisdom of the Ages as well as modern brain science tell us that we do have the power to protect this light from the winds of hate, fear and pride, and that we can, and essentially must, cultivate the inner skills of patience, compassion, empathy, and yes - courage. NeuroHarmonics: Inner Technology for a New Humanity That's what the NeuroHarmonic Method is all about: cultivating the inner circuitry to match the brilliance of our outer inventions. It's not just about brainwaves or affirmations or even spirituality. It's about training the nervous system to return to equilibrium, to respond rather than react, to perceive the human being behind the mask, and ultimately to shift from emotional immaturity to presence. From the rage of vengeance to an intuitive sense grace. But this is a path toward real evolution that can only be travelled one person at a time. Because the world won't evolve until we do it individually. Not really. So here we are, somewhere between Shakespeare's Verona and the 21st century, still caught in the drama. But I hate to tell you that the Bard didn't invent this particular tale. The truth is, it stands atop a mountain of ancient stories echoing the same theme—love thwarted by fate, culture, or conflict. And this motif is not unique to the Renaissance or even to Western civilization. The same basic story can be found in the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, Babylon, ancient Egypt, Persia, and India. Indeed, it's one of the most enduring themes in human storytelling. And the deeper you dig, the further back you go, the more you realize: the tragedy of love versus society and the battle of light versus darkness is as old as storytelling itself. But maybe, just maybe, we're ready to write a different ending. One where love doesn't die. One where pride yields to peace. One where technology finally partners with wisdom. Let's imagine a future version of West Side Story, maybe 400 years from now. What would it take for that version not to be a tragedy? Maybe the gangs might still exist, but their interchange would consist of words instead of weapons. Maybe love would not be hidden in the shadows, but declared in daylight. Maybe reconciliation would be taught in schools, right alongside science and math. Maybe forgiveness would be considered a mark of strength, not weakness. Consciousness evolution would be about not just developing new tools, but new tendencies, moving us from: From reaction to reflection From judgment to curiosity From pride to presence From tribalism to universalism It means valuing not just intelligence, but wisdom. This all represents something to look forward to and welcome into our lives in the here and now, as much as we are able. And if we're not able to yet, at least we can make our intentions known to ourselves. Well, this will be the end of this episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.

In the next two episodes we're going to look at certain sets of facts that are designed to do just one thing – to help us to stop taking things for granted so that we can begin to see how incredibly special this life is for us, and how truly amazing our actual potential is as human beings. When we begin to grasp and understand this viewpoint, so many things can positively change for us, both Within You and Without You, as George Harrison sang all those years ago.             Now given the nearly absurd nature of how quickly things move in this life of ours in this allegedly civilized world of ours, it's amazing that we have time to even think at all, let alone focus on some of the deeper elements of life that lend true meaning to our existence. We are constantly bombarded by so much messaging that our brains become literally numb to anything that takes more than just a few minutes to consider. Our exposure to all this messaging is 4 to 10  times greater than it was just ten years ago.             But given all this, both the Wisdom of the Ages as well as modern neuroscience insist that this life holds amazing potential for us to evolve as beings and grow into levels of meaning, happiness, and satisfaction that are absolutely remarkable, and more than well worth the effort of simply opening up to them.             So, to get started in this tour of the miraculous, let's begin at the beginning – the beginning of our overall story as a species, because if we want to understand who we are, and ultimately grow into the best possible versions of ourselves, it really is essential to know where we came from, which will help us gain a deeper understanding of what an absolute miracle it is that we are here at all. And the process of cultivating a profound sense of appreciation for the miracle of life that we are being given every moment of every day, is the real beginning of our joyful journey to higher ground.             So, let's take a deep breath and travel back roughly 300,000 years ago, to the emergence of our species—Homo sapiens—on this planet. When you give yourself time to really pause and reflect on this, you begin to see that our origins are both humbling, as well as awe-inspiring. Scientists estimate that over the course of Earth's history, somewhere between 5 billion and 50 billion different species have evolved. Now that's truly a staggering number, but here's the real kicker and it's a  bigger number: about 99 percent of them have gone extinct. This means that entire species came into existence, thrived for a while, and then, due to environmental shifts, predators, disasters, or simply because they just couldn't adapt, they disappeared, and they disappeared forever. Which brings us to a profound and rather unsettling question: why not us? Why didn't we, too, disappear like so many countless others? It's an obvious question because, after all, if you look at the big picture, human beings aren't exactly a strong pick for survival. We are not the biggest animals. We are not the strongest. We're certainly not the fastest, and in terms of physical defenses, we're laughably weak. No fangs. No claws. No protective armor. Not to mention the fact that we can't even fly. As a result of this, our position on the food chain is ridiculously low. Think about trying to run away from a cheetah, or outswim a shark and we'd lose the fight every time. And in terms of pure survival, put a naked human being in a fight to the death against a little squirrel and the squirrel would take us out in seconds. With its sharp claws and its ability to jump into attack mode, it would rip out our eyes and slit our throats almost instantaneously. What can we do with just our bare hands? And that's just a fight with a relatively small creature. Let's not even think about our survival odds barehanded against a lion, a tiger or a bear. On top of all this, when it comes to reproduction, the odds of our survival get even more pathetic. We have a comparatively small number of offspring and our infants are born completely helpless. Indeed, a human baby is probably the most vulnerable creature on Earth. It takes them years to become even remotely self-sufficient, which makes us an extreme outlier in the animal kingdom, where many creatures are walking and foraging within hours of birth. So, from a statistical standpoint, according to the laws of the survival of the fittest, we should have been wiped out long ago. Yet, we're still here. And not only did we survive, but we've thrived, eventually becoming the dominant life form on the planet. So, how in the world did this happen? What was the game-changer? What was nature's secret ingredient that allowed this vulnerable, physically weak and unimpressive species to outmaneuver and outlast so many others? The answer, of course, is sitting quietly inside of each and every one of our skulls right now: the human brain. It's easy to overlook, but this small, three-pound organ—about the size of a medium cantaloupe—is nothing short of a miracle of evolution. Though it occupies less than 100 cubic inches, it is, without question, the most sophisticated masterpiece every produced by nature. Packed with approximately 100 billion neurons, each one connected to thousands of others, it forms a vast and intricate network capable of truly astonishing things. Each neuron can fire between 200 - 1,000 times per second, so we're talking speeds in the milliseconds here. Truly astounding!   At first, our ancestors' brains gave them the ability to craft simple tools—sharp-edged stones that allowed them to cut, scrape, and build in ways no other species could. But that was just the beginning of the revolution. With those primitive tools, we began to rewrite the rules of survival. But then something truly incredible happened. It is largely hypothesized that at first, all we humans were running on was pure instinct. We didn't have the ability to think rational thought. Suddenly, at some point, for reasons unknown, our brains took on a third more fat and we developed our prefrontal cortex. We became able to think rational thought and language developed, vastly expanding our capabilities, followed by writing, and everything really started to change for us because we could evolve and pass our understanding beyond the barriers of time and space. Over time, we became hunters, gatherers, farmers, builders, and eventually, creators of civilization itself. As millennia passed, this remarkable brain of ours allowed us to harness fire, cultivate crops, construct shelter, and later, to write poetry, compose symphonies, and build spacecraft that could escape Earth's gravity. So, we each have our own modern human brain and let's take a look at it from a modern perspective, which reveals a most remarkable fact: it's estimated that it would take a dozen of the most advanced computers in the world about 45 hours to perform what your brain does in just one second. Think about that for a moment. And then take it one step further, our brain is involved in a key area that no computer will ever be able to touch – it can feel! And boy can it feel. We can literally feel hundreds of millions of different feelings. We don't have the time here to get into all this here, but you get the point.   You are walking around every day with a mind of such complexity, speed, and brilliance that it outshines the most cutting-edge machines ever built. And yet, most of us rarely, if ever, give it any thought, let alone tap into even a fraction of its potential. This brings us to an essential insight: while our brain is the very thing that has allowed us to survive and dominate, it is also the key to something even much greater than all of this – It is the key to our growth, our transformation, and, yes, even our happiness. Now, evolution didn't just stop when we made it to the top of the food chain. The brain itself is a dynamic, ever-changing organ. Through the miracle of neuroplasticity, it is constantly rewiring, adapting, and evolving in response to what we think, feel, and experience. So, our brain truly is an incredible masterpiece. But let's not forget: with great power comes great responsibility. The very intelligence that has given us so much can also lead us terribly astray. It is capable of fear, anxiety, self-sabotage, and truly destructive habits. We see this everywhere—from personal struggles with self-worth to global crises fueled by greed and lust for power. Our human brain is a real double-edged sword. It can create miracles—or it can create truly horrible mayhem. That's why conscious evolution is so critical now, perhaps more than ever. We are at a pivotal point in human history where the challenges we face—whether ecological, political, or psychological—demand a new level of awareness and intentionality. And this is where the NeuroHarmonic Method comes in. Designed to consciously engage the brain's natural capacity for growth and transformation, it's about learning to harness your neural wiring in ways that uplift your life, enhance your clarity, and empower you to live with purpose, compassion as well as passion, and peace. It is a framework for harmonizing your intelligence with your highest aspirations. The same brain that once helped your ancestors carve flint and build fires can now be tuned—harmonized, if you will—to unlock your deepest potential. Imagine what your life would look like if you could access more of your brain's innate power—not just for survival, but for true flourishing. What if you could train your mind to break free from limiting beliefs, to rewire patterns of fear and doubt, and to create new habits of joy, resilience, and creativity? What if you could harmonize your inner world so beautifully that it naturally radiates out to transform your outer world as well? This is not a pipe dream. This is the promise of the NeuroHarmonic Method. And it begins with recognizing where we've come from and nurturing a deep sense of gratitude for life itself, as well as for the evolutionary miracle of the human brain. And it continues with a commitment to expanding your awareness of that miracle within yourself, day by day, breath by breath. We have some rather detailed plans regarding the release of the NeuroHarmonic Method which will include a revolutionary new book and a powerful website that will host many different innovative formats including video presentations and a specially trained NeuroHarmonic Artificial Intelligence Service. And I'd like to close this episode with a poem that was co-produced with this service. When I was researching the part of this podcast that dealt with the remarkable idea that it would take a dozen of the world's most advanced computers over 45 hours to do what our brain does in just one second, we decided to put that information into an artistic form and ended up writing this poem.  Pay close attention to the words because it really sums up the deeper meanings of this episode. It's called “The Symphony in a Second,” and see if this rings any inner bells for you… In a single second, your brain conducts a symphony no machine can follow— light enters your eyes, and is not only seen but recognized, interpreted, remembered, and folded into the ongoing narrative of you. Your breath adjusts without command. Your heart adapts to emotion before you speak its name. Memories rise like whispers, and feelings surface like the wind before a storm. You balance the physics of posture, weigh the weight of a word, and anticipate the consequences of a choice you haven't even made yet. In that same second, dozens of the world's greatest computers—humming in bunkers, consuming megawatts— would still be struggling to simulate the visual field of a child watching a butterfly land. And yet you do it while thinking about dinner, holding a loved one's hand, and remembering a song from thirty years ago. This is not processing. This is presence. This is not code. This is consciousness. The marvel is not just that the brain is faster— it's that it is alive. Aware. Awake. And, when tuned rightly, capable of touching the Infinite.   So, that's the end of this episode. As always, keep you eyes, mind and heart opened, and let's get together in the next one.

As you may recall, we began the last episode by saying that we are deeply involved with preparations for the release of our next project, “The NeuroHaronic Method.” As a short introduction to it, I discussed two critical times in my life that helped lay the foundations for my lifelong study of personal growth. These were the metaphysical events that surrounded the sudden death of my father followed by my unexpected introduction to the idea that there has been a deep level of wisdom that has manifested itself in every human culture since the beginning of civilization. This remarkable intelligence is commonly called the “Wisdom of the Ages” and is by no means limited to ancient times.             Now, in this episode, we're going to complete that part of the story and then we will go into a deeper overview of the “NeuroHarmonic Method” itself. Again, the purpose of all of this is to present you with ideas that you may find useful as you continue your own path of personal growth, which in my view, is a journey that we are all on in one way or another, because the innate desire for real growth is deeply tied to authentic human happiness. Some of us have begun to realize that we are on this quest and some of us haven't. Yet. I ended the last episode with a short description of the course that I took in college that was simply called – World Religions, which started to open my eyes to the prospect of evolving my own consciousness. Prior to that, I never even considered the idea. The next important thing that happened to me in this regard took place in the early part of 1968 when I, along with the 70 million other baby boomers I came in with, heard the news that the Beatles had travelled to India to study meditation. Besides being a major global media event, they were actually making some kind of a statement about inner growth, which was in absolute congruence with the music that they were making at the time. Not only were they deeply involved with the process of changing Western Culture, by extension they were also affecting the entire world.   Personally, since my generation first came under their spell in 1964, I basically did whatever they did. I mirrored their hair style and eventually their drug use, along with their overall counterculture understandings. So, because they started studying with a teacher known as the Maharishi, by early 1970, I had gone to his outpost in Philadelphia and started doing what is known as Transcendental Meditation, which was a form of mantra meditation. Of course I wasn't what you might call a “sincere seeker,” I was still just a devotee of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. Still, I practiced that form on and off for about a year but I stayed pretty much on the surface. Eventually though, along with the changing times, my quest for inner truth got deeper and I ran into a rather profound form of meditation that finally began to melt the inner ice that had frozen my insides for so many years.   Since then, I've explored and experienced several dozen other approaches as well, including some rather advanced mindfulness modalities, but that one form of meditation that I started back then, has continued to be the basic foundation to my overall approach.   Again, this is just some background to set the stage for the emergence and creation of the “NeuroHarmonic Method” and in that vein, something critical happened to me about ten years ago, when I started to learn about of a certain set of understandings that was becoming popular among some brilliant neuroscientists and psychotherapists. They had begun to examine the effects of meditation, contemplation, and mindfulness on the neurology of the people who regularly practice these methods and their findings were astounding. This was especially true regarding something called neuroplasticity, which is our brain's remarkable ability to physically transform itself, a truly amazing feat which it does constantly, The implications of these neurological validations of the positive effects of certain methods of personal growth are massive because they confirm a major idea that we can each wholeheartedly embrace and that is that we are not stuck! We're not stuck with the negativity we carry. We're not stuck with where we are at all, and most importantly, we are not even stuck with who we are. We can positively reshape the way our brain works, which changes the way we see ourselves and our lives in the world, which basically changes everything. Again, we were born with this ability and we still have it. So, to sum up this part of the story, this whole world of personal growth is truly a game changer and I've been lucky enough to have been involved with it for close to fifty-five years. And I'll add with all humility, that there is a decent chance that I might be starting to scratch the actual surface of it! Now to make a very long story very short, this is, in essence what has led to the development of the NeuroHarmonic Method. So let's move on to a fairly quick overview of it, which I hope you'll find inspiring. It has emerged over what has basically been a lifetime of experience, study, and inner exploration. You've been hearing echoes of it in some podcast episodes, woven into stories and reflections, and maybe you've even experienced an occasional “aha” moment from some of its information. But now, I'd like to offer a fuller view of what it is, and why I believe it may hold real value for people in all walks and stages of life. Again, the NeuroHarmonic Method was not born in a lab or a university classroom, although its roots certainly drink from the well of neuroscience. Nor did it spring fully formed from a single moment of insight. It came together gradually, over many decades, from lived experience, long meditation, and a commitment to understanding both the workings of the human mind and the deeper currents of consciousness that flow beneath the surface. Also, as I've mentioned in a few earlier episodes, I've spent over five decades of serious study with a talented and deeply profound meditation teacher whose work reaches beyond theory and technique to a direct experience of an extrtemely joyful, yet profoundly peaceful state of awareness.    At the same time, I've been a lifelong student of human intelligence as it manifests throughout the brain and nervous system—how it functions, how it breaks down, and how, under the right conditions, it can harmonize with its own, inherently higher states of being. The NeuroHarmonic Method lives at the intersection of those two streams: ancient spiritual insight and modern neuroscience, so in a broader context, you could say that this is “Where Science Meets the Soul.” So, essentially, what ss NeuroHarmonics? At its heart, the NeuroHarmonic Method is about attunement. It's an easy, yet practical way of harmonizing your brain and nervous system so you can resonate with your own higher frequencies of truth, clarity, and love. Just as a musical instrument can be tuned to produce harmonious sound, so too can the mind-body system be gently brought into alignment with its natural, unburdened state. But here's the key: we're not just talking about mental wellness or stress reduction, though these often happen along the way. This is about a truly transformational alignment. The NeuroHarmonics process tunes your entire being—your breath, thoughts, feelings, attention, and even your past—into coherence with the deeper intelligence that animates life itself. This is not a belief system. It's a method of practice. This is something that you do, and the results are experiential. Let's start with the breath, which is appropriate because that's where life began for each one of us – it started when we took in our first breath, and obviously it ends when we breathe our last one out. But the power of the breath goes beyond even that. The breath is the portal to the animating force of life within, and naturally, breath is central to the NeuroHarmonic Method. Not just as a relaxation tool, but as a living bridge—a thread that connects your conscious awareness with the ever-present rhythm of your existence. And we're not just speaking of oxygen exchange here. It's something subtler. The breath becomes a way of remembering presence itself. It becomes the moment-by-moment invitation to return—to come back from the endless distractions of the mind and rest again in the comforting reality of the fact that you are alive. Through this breath-centered awareness, the nervous system can begin to down-regulate from stress, anxiety, and hypervigilance. But even more than that, it can begin to entrain with something greater. It can tune in to what we call our own NeuroHarmonic Frequencies, which are states of being that are marked by deep calm, clear focus, inner joy, and spiritual receptivity. Now let's turn our attention to our overall consciousness itself and look at what we call The Jumping Monkey and the Silent Signal. In the podcast episodes, you've heard me talk about the “jumping monkey” of the ordinary mind. This refers to that incessant inner narrator who's always leaping from one concern to the next, dragging us along like an annoying, impatient child in a toy store. But even beyond that, this is the foundational source of our nagging self-sabotage, which is at the very root of most of our issues. The NeuroHarmonic Method doesn't fight this monkey part of the mind. It doesn't suppress or judge it. Instead, it re-educates its attention. We learn to feel the difference between the monkey's chatter and the silent signal that's always present beneath it. That signal is often felt as a quiet invitation toward peace. Sometimes it's experienced as an inner warmth. Other times, as clarity, lightness, or a kind of gravitational pull toward stillness. That signal is always there. It is part of our higher mind and what changes is our availability to receive it. Critically NeuroHarmonics trains us to step into that availability. The next part of this quick examination deals with life's difficulties, disappointments, and challenges. Now for me, I don't need to pretend that my life has been particularly easy. Of course, everything is relative, but I've certainly had my fair share of significant difficulties. As Bob Dylan once wrote “If you don't believe there's price for this sweet paradise,  just remind me to show you the scars.” To one degree or another, we all know what he's talking about there. For me, there were countless times when things fell apart just as they were coming together. Interlaced with periods of fatigue, heartbreak, and confusion,  and accompanied by that certain exhaustion that comes not just from effort, but from the friction of experiencing constantly unfulfilled potential.  At times, my life felt like I was living an enforced version of that famous Winston Churchill quote, “Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” But NeuroHarmonics isn't about denying or bypassing life's challenges. It's about metabolizing them by finding the harmonic resonance within every event, even the ones that threaten to undo us. Because even the most painful experiences contain higher, hidden frequencies which you can learn how to resonate with, if you learn how to listen carefully enough. So, this is an ideal place for us to stop. We'll continue along these lines in the coming episodes because in reality, we're just getting warmed up. As always, keep your eyes, mind, and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.

As we resume our regular podcast series, the Better Angels Publishing Company is about to embark on its next phase which will feature our newest release, “The NeuroHarmonic Approach,” with its catch-phrase, “Harmonize Your Intelligence - Transform Your Life.”             Now, obviously, that's quite a mouthful, but this is a significantly powerful and innovative program and it's evolved quite a bit over the past year, so, I'd like to give you quick overview of where it stands now and I think you'll be fascinated by the information. Also, as with everything that we produce, our intention is to create a resource that you can use to help you achieve your highest goals as you continue along your own path of personal growth, which is by nature, in a constant state of evolution, expansion and change.    So, let's dig into some of its basics. And as we do, I suggest that you engage in what is often called the “Beginner's Mind,” which means approaching the material as though you're hearing it for the first time - even if you've encountered similar concepts before. When you do that, you naturally let go of old frameworks, open to a fresh perspective and new insights tend to appear. I know that's always been my experience over the years. To put it into context, the origins of the NeuroHarmonic Approach began with some extremely deep experiences that I had many years ago, so let me offer a bit of the backstory, to help you get a sense of how this work came to be, which might help enhance the overall meaning of the material. As you may be aware, the central focus of my adult life has been the exploration and practice of what we've come to call personal growth, which is a path of self-discovery that emphasizes the deepening of awareness. The seed of this pursuit was planted several decades ago, with the sudden death of my father. At age sixteen, it was a devastating shock for me, but it was also accompanied by certain experiences that, for lack of a better word, I can only describe as being metaphysical. I've talked about these before, in my memoir Wilt, Ike & Me, and in some earlier podcast episodes, but for the purposes of this introduction, I want to touch on them here again, briefly. First, the night before he died, I had a vivid, precognitive dream of exactly how I would learn of his death. In precise detail, it included the exact time and place, as well as all of the people who were involved. Then the dream came true the very next night, exactly the way I had dreamt it. Living through those moments is still one of the most unusual experiences I've ever had, because it was like going through a strange blend of past, present and future, almost like being in a déjà vu that lasted for several minutes. Then, about six months later, I had another remarkable dream. In it, my father appeared to me - joyful and full of life.  When I asked him about his death, he smiled and told me that he It wasn't real. “There is no death,” he said. “It's just a public relations stunt that God came up with to get people to think about Him. That's all that it is.” At that point in the dream, he had me give him back his ring, which I had been wearing regularly since his passing. When he touched the ring, the whole room turned into light and I woke up. Then in waking life, just a few hours later that same day, his ring mysteriously disappeared from my locker during gym class - even though the locker was clearly locked and undisturbed, and everything else inside was untouched, including my watch, my other gold ring and my wallet with some cash in it. Although I've described these circumstances many times, I've never been able to truly express what they really did to me. But in hindsight, it's obvious that these events marked a time when some seeds of deep change were planted within me, even though they would take several years to unfold. After some time, I came to two powerful conclusions. The first one is that there is far more to this life than meets the eye. Even though we think we're in an advanced society, we actually understand very little about what's really happening here. Thomas Edison once put it this way, “We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything.” And this was from a major genius who is still considered to be one of the greatest inventors of all time. The fact that this was his point of view should speak volumes to us. So I began to ask myself – Even if it was just in a dream, how could I have experienced a precise visual precognition of events that hadn't happened yet? The details in that dream had been crystal clear and when the events happened in reality, it was 100% accurate. What does that say about the nature of time? It was completely confusing tome, and of course I'm not alone. Even Einstein himself once said that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. Now obviously, I'm no Einstein and probably neither are you. Also, I had to wonder - how could my father's ring have vanished into thin air when I knew without question that the locker was locked and undisturbed when I got back from gym, let alone the fact that my watch, my other ring and my wallet with cash in it were all still there. It made no sense. It simply defied all logic. So, the two dreams – the precognitive one of his death, and the one where I gave him back his ring and then it mysteriously disappeared the next day, put the seeds of some deep thoughts in my head. Which makes sense, because as you can imagine, this sudden and major disruption of time, space and logic was a pretty big deal for an average sixteen-year-old kid. Which brings me to the second conclusion I drew from those days. My father's dramatic death was totally unanticipated.  The massive heart attack that he suffered took him instantly, and neither he nor any of the rest of our family had the slightest idea that a tragedy of this magnitude was about to befall us. For me, this rude introduction to your world being turned upside down by a sudden death drove home the undeniable fact that life can change, or end, at any moment. It happened to him and it could just as easily happen to me. So, like a thief in the night, the idea of the ultimate ticking time bomb got planted somewhere deep within me. As I began to live my life in the new reality that followed, on a deep intuitive level, while I sensed that it was important to resolve the existential questions that were beginning to appear within my mind, the ticking time bomb kept reminding me that I better get on with it because I might not have that much more time. Of course, we're all in the same boat on this, because regardless of external appearances, nobody has any guarantees here. These events happened nearly sixty years ago. This is how I felt about it all back then. And this is how I still feel now.               To continue on this track of early experiences that became critical to my interest in personal growth, during college, I took a course called World Religions. Now I wasn't a serious student at all. In fact, it would be a stretch to consider me a student at all. Academics were more like a nuisance you had to deal with while you lived rest of your college life. The freedom of it alone was intoxicating. The times had gotten pretty crazy back then and as far as being a student, you could say that I had the attention span of a housefly mixed with the philosophical depth of a skunk, so the general odor emanating from my academic life wasn't all that pleasant.               With that being said, I don't even remember why I took World Religions. I'm sure I didn't have any real interest in it. I wouldn't be surprised if I took it because it might have been a “gut course,” which in the parlance of my esteemed fraternity, meant that it didn't require much work to be able to get a good grade. As you can extrapolate, I had gotten in with a pretty smart bunch of guys.               Anyway, I ended up in this class and to my extreme surprise, after a little while, I became quite interested in it. We studied all of the world's major religions and the teacher's point of view was that in essence, they all had the exact same basic understanding, which was that there is one God, who is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. And as human beings, each one of us has come here to grow into the best possible being that we can and that individually we can grow out of the world's chaos, emerge into the higher realms and ultimately merge with God, even while we're still alive. In fact, according to him, you could say that this is the actual purpose of life here.              As you can surmise, the teacher was quite a learned man and taught that this universal truth that contained all of these deeper understandings, was generally known as the “Wisdom of the Ages.”             Now one thing I've learned in my life is that you never know when something profound is going to come into our consciousness and take you in a new direction. You often don't see it coming and you don't know why or how it happens. It just does. In this case, I wasn't looking for anything other than just an easy way to get a good grade that would boost my cumulative average, so that I could get into a major law school. But without having the slightest idea about it, I subtly found myself moving down a completely different track, and unwittingly, this whole “Wisdom of the Ages” thing took up residence somewhere deep in the back of my mind. There was just something new and gripping about the whole thing The concept that there was a universal truth that had been expressing itself through wise men and women in every culture since the beginning of human history was brand new to me. It was also the first time I had seen beyond the walls of different religious dogmas to the view that essentially, they all had the same basic message - that as a human being, you could somehow evolve your consciousness and then actually merge heart, mind, and soul with God. It was all deeply intriguing. Not to mention the fact that the wise ones said the bliss of living in this elevated state of being was beyond human comprehension. It really captured my imagination. And on top of all this, the American status quo was crumbling from the mushrooming counter-culture movement, Marijuana and psychodelia seemed to be everywhere, fueling it along, and the mind-expanding music that played our soundtrack saw to it that we never missed a beat. You get the picture. And I'd also like to add one of my favorite quotes about those days from the great comedic master, Robin Williams who always insisted, “If you can remember the sixties, you weren't really there.” Well, this is a great place for us to stop. We'll continue the journey in the coming episodes, so as always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened, and let's get together in the next one. 

The last episode ended on the evening of April 5, 1968. I was unexpectedly leaving Washington DC as my college had been abruptly shut down following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I was in a friend's car and as I looked back, I could see that the clouds in the darkening sky were flickering red, reflecting the light of the fires that were burning, as violence had begun to break out in the city. Within a week, 1,200 buildings had been burned, 12 people were killed and 14,000 federal troops were still occupying the nation's capital.    Now even though the murder of Dr. King was one of the most tragic and deeply disturbing events that could possibly have happened, I am not going to focus on the assassination itself, or on the profoundly traumatic effect that it had on the country. Thousands of articles have been written about it by hundreds of authors who have a much deeper understanding of history than I do. Instead, for the purposes of this podcast series, which again focuses on the ways that consciousness began to evolve in those days, as witnessed through my own personal lens, there are a few key points that I would like to bring up. The first one is that Dr. King was a far greater figure than the iconic public servant that is presented in the current annals of American history. Even though he was one of the primary founders of the Civil Rights Movement, as well as one of the nation's most inspirational orators, there was much more to him than that. He had a highly enlightened view of human potential as well as of its ultimate destiny. As such, he was continually expressing some of the deepest essential truths concerning human wisdom and understanding. In reality, he was at the very forefront of the enormous expansion of consciousness that was beginning to take shape back then. And it is truly hard to grasp how far ahead of his time he really was. The easiest way to realize this is by looking at his lofty position on non-violence, both as a means for resolving conflict, as well as for moving the evolution of humanity forward. For the sake of clarity, let's compare it with the law of the jungle, which has been the basic modus operandi of humanity since civilization began. As a species, our knee-jerk reaction to the seemingly dog-eat-dog world we live in can be summed up in one basic phrase - might makes right. It began in the time of the caveman, as tribe fought against tribe, and over time, man began the process of inventing weaponry. Primitive spears and clubs turned into bows and arrows and swords. And thus, the arms race began. To our great misfortune, it has continued, unabated since then and the constant development of ever-increasing firepower has only served to heat things up. Tragically, even though times have changed dramatically, this basic concept of settling disputes has remained exactly the same. When push comes to shove, we resort to good old fashioned brute force. From the one-on-one fist fight, all the way up to massive conflagrations fought between millions of soldiers, it's still the same old story. One side prevails due to its superior weaponry, along with its unbridled  willingness to inflict severe pain and death on the other side. And of course, it doesn't matter how many innocent people have to suffer and die. What difference does that make when it comes to getting what you want? Now, even though this unenlightened unconsciousness has remained unchanged since the dawn of human history, remarkably, throughout every era, certain people have emerged who seem to be tapped into a deeper level of understanding. With a higher and more compassionate perspective, non-violence is usually the central theme of their approach and from a very early age, Dr. King was clearly one of them. Indeed, he spent his entire short life trying to elevate human awareness to this higher viewpoint.    At the root of his understandings was the work of Mahatma Gandhi, whose brilliant use of non-violence helped overthrow the brutal British rule that had subjugated the Indian people for nearly a century.  His interest in Gandhi grew over time, and following his successes with the Montgomery bus boycott in 1956, Dr. King felt the desire to travel to India to gain a deeper understanding of the life and teachings of this unlikely, yet remarkable leader. Finally, on February 3, 1959, he and his party, which included his wife, departed for a six-week visit to the ancient land. “To other countries I may go as a tourist,” he told reporters when he arrived at the airport. “But to India I come as a pilgrim.” His aim was to study how political goals can be accomplished through the use of non-violent methods, rather than through the use of brute force. According to Gandhi, it was the fundamental difference between using the higher parts of our hearts and minds, rather than just relying upon the primitive, survival-based impulses of anger and fear.  The visit proved to be an extremely powerful experience for him and he stated that it had helped clarify and empower his dedication to alleviate “the suffering, the exploitation, the injustice, and the degradation of human beings.”  These noble, universal feelings had only grown since his return, and when he formally came out against the war in Vietnam, he also stood against the horrible injustices of the economic exploitation practiced by “capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out, with no concern for the social betterment of the countries.”     Along with his stance on non-violence, there is one associated factor regarding the tragedy of the King assassination that I would like to mention at this point. In general, as far as race relations in the United State had been concerned, black people had always been delegated into a fundamentally subservient position in the society. While it was within their civil rights to express their views regarding the racial injustices that existed in the country, it was always firmly understood that it had to be done in a basically respectful and civil manner. But that mindset had begun to change a bit in the mid-sixties, and it was brought into focus on March 6, 1964, when Cassius Clay, the young boxer who had just become the heavyweight champion of the world, changed his name to Muhammed Ali and announced that he had joined the Nation of Islam, which was also known as the Black Muslims.  This controversial movement was part of a larger sentiment that had been gathering momentum that became known as “Black Pride” or “Black Power.” Along those general lines, the Black Panther Party was formed just two years later. I remember these developments very clearly, and in particular, I was struck by something that Malcom X once said. An extremely charismatic leader, as the chief spokesman for the Nation of Islam, he summed up the emerging point of view in a way which I found to be particularly clarifying. “If you stick a knife in my back nine inches and pull it out six inches, there's no progress. If you pull it all the way out, that's not progress. The progress is healing the wound that the blow made.  And they won't even admit the knife is there." Now, of course Dr. King clearly understood the sentiments and feelings behind this point of view, but he never wavered on the issue of non-violence. As an ordained minister who took his work extremely seriously, the idea of using violence to accomplish the goal was completely out of the question. As such, he felt that the motto of Black Power represented “essentially an emotional concept” that meant “different things to different people.”  Even though it “was born from the wombs of despair and disappointment…and is a cry of pain,” he had deep concerns that “the slogan was an unwise choice,” because it carried “connotations of violence and separatism.” In his view, the real way to create change was to amass political and economic power, and then use it to achieve ennobling change. As far as the higher destiny of the country was concerned, he believed that “America must be made a nation in which its multi-racial people are partners in power.” Now, the truly remarkable thing about Dr. King is that he had the ethical and moral standing to bridge the gap between the various viewpoints and promote a more inclusive path. And this basic fact makes his loss to the country and to humanity itself all the more tragic. With all of this in mind, the outpouring of grief that followed the assassination was staggering. The funeral was set for Sunday, April 7th in Atlanta, and in an official proclamation, President Johnson declared it to be a National Day of Mourning. All sporting and theatrical events were to be postponed, with all flags lowered to half-staff. Of course, not everyone in the country was aligned with the idea of paying respect to the memory of Dr. King. Lester Maddox, the staunchly segregationist governor of Georgia always looked upon King as a major villain, who had no right stirring up the black population to go against the venerated laws and traditions of the South. As funeral arrangements were being made, the governor was approached with the idea of having Dr. King's body lie in state in the Capitol building in Atlanta, but he flatly refused. On top of that, he declared that no flags in the state of Georgia would be lowered to half-staff either. When his position was relayed to Washington, although the federal government had no power over his refusal regarding the use of the state Capitol, it did have the power to enforce the lowering of all flags in the nation, so the flags in Georgia were lowered in accordance with the decree. The funeral itself became an iconic moment in American history. At first, the city of Atlanta estimated that about ten thousand people would be in attendance. But by the time of the funeral approached, it became clear that this estimate was way off. It took place on April 9, 1968, in Atlanta, Georgia, where he was born and raised, and began with a private ceremony at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King had co-pastored with his father. The intimate service was attended by just family and friends. But then something truly extraordinary happened. A four-mile long funeral procession began from the church to Morehouse College, which was King's alma mater. King's coffin was placed on a simple wooden wagon which was pulled by two mules. As the procession got underway, approximately one hundred thousand people joined in and walked along with it. The global media coverage was extensive. Major American networks broadcasted the event live, which allowed millions of viewers across the country to participate in the intense feeling of collective mourning. Throughout the country, people who were driving in their cars spontaneously turned on their headlights, as though they were driving in a funeral procession. The simple wooden cart being pulled by two mules highlighted King's commitment to the struggles of the poor and marginalized in society, while the throng that walked behind the coffin was also filled with hundreds of major celebrities who had flown in to show their respects. Leaders from the field of government and politics were mixed with the top tier of the county's athletes and entertainers. The list of notables who walked in that somber procession is far too large to include here. Again, as I've mentioned regarding the JFK assassination, I wouldn't even try to put into words what it all felt like. Let's just say that the injustice and the hopelessness of it was simply overwhelming, And on top of it all, the fact that one of history's major apostles of non-violence was brutally murdered for what he stood for was far beyond ironic and it soon became gasoline added to the fire; significant violence erupted in more than 125 American cities across 29 states. Nearly 50,000 federal troops occupied America's urban areas. Thirty-nine people were killed and 3,500 injured. These uprisings produced more property damage, arrests, and injuries than any other uprising of the 1960s. In all, it was just a truly, horrible feeling, and with that, let's end this sad episode here. But even so, keep your eyes, mind and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.

In the last episode, we took a quick look back at Robert F. Kennedy's rise to the senate in November of 1964. Then we mentioned that in 1967, the soon to be anti-war candidate, Minnesota Senator Eugene McCarthy had approached him with the idea of opposing President Lyndon Johnson for the nomination of the Democratic Party for President of the United States. But Kennedy had quickly turned the idea down. Now back to early 1968. Everybody knew that Bobby was certainly no friend of LBJ's. They had a long and well-known history of animosity between them. But again, for many significant reasons, he didn't think the timing was right to mount a challenge against a sitting president, so he just stayed in the wings and watched Gene McCarthy try to take him on. Then on March 12, 1968, something completely unexpected happened. The largely unknown senator from Minnesota, whose grass roots campaign had been largely run by a group of underfunded student volunteers, made a truly significant showing in the New Hampshire primary, and it proved to be a shocking upset.  Lyndon Johnson, who had the powerful name recognition of the incumbent, was well-funded and well organized with a huge staff of seasoned supporters. But he won only 49.4 per cent of the vote. And incredibly, McCarthy won a remarkable 42.2 per cent, which really took everyone by surprise. Suddenly it became obvious that the anti-Johnson, anti-war sentiment in the country was far larger and deeper than anyone had calculated. Overnight, the equation had clearly changed and Johnson was not as firmly in the driver's seat as he seemed to be. And as you can imagine, the outcome caught Senator Kennedy's attention as well. Now, there have been several biographies about RFK written over the years and many of them have examined the evolution and inner growth that led him up to this time. He had traveled extensively throughout the entire country and his views on the makeup of the American culture had broadened deeply.  I remember watching some of his speeches and noticing that there did seem to be something different about him, like a deeper level of empathy and compassion was emerging, especially for the underdog. And he seemed to have let his hair grow longer as well, maybe to emphasize his youth. Not that he needed it - he was only forty-two years old, afterall. Anyway, it didn't take him long to make up his mind.  And just four days after the outcome in New Hampshire, on March 16, 1968, in the same room where his brother had done it eight years earlier, Robert F. Kennedy announced his intention to run for president of the United States. Of course, his move was met with mixed reactions. Many people in the anti-war movement called him an opportunist, coming in only after McCarthy had courageously paved the way. But somehow, it seemed much bigger than that, like he was on a completely different level from the rest of the prospective field and was capable of producing the major change in the county that was so desperately needed.  “It is a time of difficult choices, a time of danger and opportunity,” he said. “It is a time for all of us to choose whether we will stand for what we believe in, or whether we will be silent. “I believe that we can build a country where every man, woman, and child has the opportunity to live up to his or her full potential. I believe that we can build a country where every person is judged not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. And I believe that we can build a country where the pursuit of happiness is not just a dream, but a reality. “But in order to do that, we must first have the courage to change,” he continued.  “We must have the courage to stand up and speak out for what we believe in. We must have the courage to demand better from our leaders, and better from ourselves. “That is why I am here today. That is why I am running for President. Because I believe that we can do better. Because I believe that we must do better. And because I believe that together, we can build a country that is worthy of the ideals that we hold dear.” So that was it. Wherever you stood - like it or not, with him or against him, anti-war or pro-war, Bobby was in the race. The game was on. And suddenly everything had changed completely. This was an enormous development, as well as a major surprise to a large portion of the country. Suddenly, the idea of serious opposition to the war in Vietnam had reached an entirely new level, to the delight of the entire anti-war movement. Of course, Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota wasn't happy about it. He had personally approached Kennedy five months earlier, arguing for an anti-Johnson initiative and urging him to run, but Kennedy had squarely turned him down, saying he said he didn't want to challenge Johnson at that point in time. A lot of other people in the anti-war movement were skeptical about Kennedy as well, feeling that he was an opportunist who only found the courage to run after McCarthy had bravely paved the way. But Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who had been standing firmly against the war for nearly a year, felt otherwise. He felt that RFK's entrance into the field was a real help because it made the case against Johnson even stronger. As he stated, “I think both Mr. Kennedy and Mr. McCarthy represent the kind of competence, dedication and relevant thinking on the basic issues that confront us today, that they are the kind of men that present the alternative that I think we need.” But it really didn't matter how you looked at it - the race for the presidency had suddenly and radically changed because Kennedy had now entered it.  Besides his enormous name recognition, on a deep level he also represented the JFK Camelot mythology to a large portion of the general public, and his announcement had an immediate impact on the entire country. He quickly began active campaigning, targeting the key primaries that were the closest on the schedule. And when it came to managing a presidential campaign, he was a true expert, for he had overseen every aspect of his brother's incredibly successful race.    Over the next few weeks, things began to settle into the new political normal and then, toward the end of March, suddenly, President Johnson's office requested airtime from the three TV networks. He wanted to make a major speech regarding the status of the war in Vietnam. His appearance was scheduled for Sunday night, March 31 and at 9:01pm, the president began to address the nation. He started by giving an extensive overview about the state of the war in Vietnam. He discussed troop levels and urged Hanoi to consider a recent US initiative for peace, after which he went on about the real chances for ending the war and praised the US determination to bring the situation to a successful conclusion. After going through these topics for over an hour, he began to discuss his actual role in the process, “I have concluded that I should not permit the Presidency to become involved in the partisan divisions that are developing in this political year,” he stated. “With America's sons in the fields far away, with America's future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world's hopes for peace in the balance every day, I do not believe that I should devote an hour of a day of my time to any personal partisan cause or to any duties other than the awesome duties of this office - the Presidency of your country.” Then at that point, with no warning, he suddenly shocked the world.  “Accordingly, I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president,” he said. Then he quickly ended his speech. It was a major bombshell and absolutely nobody had seen it coming, not even the closest members of his cabinet or staff.  He had kept his decision completely private, but suddenly, here it was - Johnson was out and the presidential race was now wide-open. Almost everyone believed that it was RFK's entrance into the field that did the trick, but years later, it came out that Johnson's health had been seriously deteriorating and he didn't think he was physically up to the callosal demands that would be facing him. He had pretty much made up his mind several months before the McCarthy/Kennedy phenomenon had even begun to emerge. But none of the reasons why he did it mattered. All that mattered was that he was stepping down, it seemed like a whole new era had begun, and suddenly, things seemed incredibly bright. With Bobby Kennedy, Gene Macarthy and several other key players emerging into the forefront, a true change of direction for the war, as well as for the entire country seemed imminent. Although I don't remember a whole lot from that particular time, I do remember that night very well. The next day, our entire campus seemed elevated. Who knows? Maybe the summer of love and the sudden emergence of flower power had something to do with it. But it really didn't matter. All we knew was it was it seemed like we were in the Wizard of Oz; black and white had turned into color and we weren't in Kansas anymore. April had begun, spring was about to dawn, and there was no telling what the future might bring. It was a great feeling. Suddenly, this elevated mood seemed to light up the world. And although major challenges were still plentiful, a new sense of optimism had begun to set in and it was truly a magical time. But unfortunately, it didn't last long, for only four nights later, on Thursday evening, April 4th at 6:05 pm in Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was brutally murdered.  Now, details traveled much more slowly in those days. Don't forget, this was still a dozen years before the idea of 24-hour news coverage had even begun. I do remember hearing that Dr. King had been shot, but the next morning, the enormity of what was happening really got driven home. At my first class, the professor announced that school was immediately closing and that basically, we should all get out of town as quickly as possible. The best thing to do now was to just go home. By that evening, I was on my way back to Philadelphia in a friend's car and as I looked back at DC, I could see that the clouds in the dark sky were flickering red, lit by the color of burning flames. It was clear that some truly disturbing days lay ahead. So, let's let this terrible news mark the end of this episode. We're entering into a tough time now, but as always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.

As the last episode ended, we had begun to examine the speech that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had made as he publicly came out against the war in Vietnam. He talked about his lifelong commitment to non-violence, saying he had been compelled to speak against the war effort because the United States had become “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” He went on to link the war to the nation's economic injustices, arguing for a fundamental moral shift in the country's priorities. He called the festering US involvement in Vietnam, “some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war.” And he declared that “America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money, like some demonic destructive suction tube.” Indeed, he found that the amount of money that had been spent in producing such meaningless destruction, was simply obscene. Total expenditures had surpassed $252 billion by end of 1967, while over 25 million Americans were still living below the poverty line. And don't forget, our troops weren't a bunch of volunteers fighting for a cause that they considered to be worthy. Far from it. This war was being fought by draftees. The country was under a mass conscription order, and if you were a male between the ages of 18 ½ and 26 and you didn't have a deferment, you were either going to fight or you were going to jail. On top of all these other issues, the number of black soldiers fighting in the war was out of proportion. You had nearly 80,000 black soldiers being forced to fight a war that was 8,500 miles away, while their families were largely treated as second class citizens back home. But given all this, on a larger level Dr. King still had a sense that a major change of some kind was beginning to take place in the world and he stood squarely behind it. But it was going to take a lot of sincere effort and prayer. As he said, “Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance.” “Somehow this madness must cease,” he continued. “We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. “I speak…for the poor of America… I speak as a citizen of the world… as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. Then he concluded, “I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours.” Today, this is considered to be one the greatest speeches of his lofty career. But things were quite different back then, and to say that his decision about the war wasn't well received would be quite an understatement. But Dr. King was well aware of the probable opposition he would face as he went into the church that day. The idea of standing against the war had presented quite a difficult conundrum for him because it meant standing against President Johnson, who had been an enormous ally of the Civil Rights movement during the course of his entire presidency. He had been a powerful force of positive change in the lives of black people throughout the country, and the idea of opposing him on the war was rife with significant difficulties. And indeed, it proved to be so. A large portion of the Civil Rights movement was shocked that King chose to oppose Johnson and the NAACP called the speech a “serious tactical mistake.” But the opposition in the mainstream press was far stronger than that.  The editorial board of the New York Times said that King's position was an oversimplification and that when it came to the Civil Rights Movement and the War in Vietnam, "linking these hard, complex problems will lead not to solutions but to deeper confusion." The Washington Post said that King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."  And Life magazine said his speech had been “demagogic slander that sounded like a script from Radio Hanoi.” But Dr. King stood strong and began stepping up his antiwar efforts. As I mentioned earlier, there were three powerful events that happened in 1967 that would have a significant impact on the American involvement in Vietnam. Dr. King taking a stand against the war in April was the first. The second happened on June 20, 1967, when the controversial, yet enormously respected world-famous boxer, Muhammed Ali, was sentenced to five years in prison for draft evasion. And just to be sure that everyone understood where the government of the United States stood on the issue of the war, on the same day that Ali was convicted, Congress voted 337-29 to extend the draft for four more years.           Finally, on November 30 of that year.  Eugene McCarthy, the astute senator from Minnesota, formally announced that he would oppose Lyndon Johnson for the Democratic party's nomination for president.           At the time, it seemed like a relatively minor event. McCarthy was basically unknown and even though Johnson's popularity had begun to dip a bit at the time, it was common knowledge that he had a secure hold on the party and that there was no way he could be defeated for the nomination. McCarthy's announcement seemed largely symbolic.           Now, let's go back to January of 1968. But before we get into what began to unfold politically, let me give you a very quick overview of what I was doing at school, once I returned from winter break. The reason this will be so quick is because I was doing very little at the time, unless pledging a big fraternity and partying your brains out can be categorized as an accomplishment of any kind.  I wasn't paying much attention to anything outside of the realm of my own little world and I barely paid attention there either. As far as the war was concerned, I rarely thought about it. I had a solid college deferment through to June of 1971 and the whole mess would certainly be over by then, so I had nothing to worry about. Other than that, I guess I had forgotten that I had come to college to learn anything, at least not scholastically. I was busy developing the attention span of a common house fly, along with the clarity and depth of a thin layer of mud. It's not necessary for me to add any concrete details here. Just let your concept of absolute cluelessness fill in the blanks.           So, back to the political world. Shortly after his announcement, to everyone's surprise, even though it was still relatively small, Senator McCarthy's campaign began to gain some traction. It seems there was a little more anti-war sentiment in the country than most people had noticed. At one point, it became generally known that, along with a few other groups, McCarthy had privately tried to convince New York senator Robert F. Kennedy to run against Johnson in the primary. But RFK was quite hesitant about it. Although he was unquestionably opposed to him, he felt that Johnson was in a totally secure position and that opposing him would be a bad choice for both the party and the country, as well as for his own possible future plans.           It's important at this point, to step back a little and take a look at RFK or “Bobby” as he was generally called, who was in a completely unique position in the country at the time. To start with, he was probably one of the first major figures in the United States to be routinely referred to by just his first name.  Whenever TV or news reporters mentioned “Bobby” everybody knew exactly who they were talking about. And that's because, as many of you know, he had become a major figure in America ever since his older brother, John F. Kennedy, had been elected president in 1960. As his tenaciously brilliant campaign manager, Bobby had overseen every aspect of the successful win. And then, as Attorney General, he became the most trusted member of the cabinet. Indeed, someone once asked JFK if Bobby was his number two man in Washington and he said that not only was his number two, he was also his number three, four, and five as well. Then, during the horrible ordeal of the JFK assassination, Bobby was center stage with the family throughout the entire nightmare. In the months that followed, he rarely made appearances and when he did, the scars of agony and grief were deeply etched upon his face. But nine months after the assassination, something truly remarkable happened at the Democratic party's national convention in Atlantic City on August 27, 1964. It was the final day of the proceedings and they were going to show a film commemorating the life and accomplishments of JFK. The auditorium was packed and the program was being carried live on all the TV networks. Bobby was scheduled to give a very brief introduction to the film, and after a few preliminaries, he was finally introduced. As soon as he walked onto the stage, the entire auditorium spontaneously erupted into a massive standing ovation. For the first few minutes, it was overwhelmingly powerful, but it quickly turned into something much more, as the crowd simply would not stop cheering. Even though he tried to speak several times, they wouldn't let him and the standing ovation just went on and on. It seemed that a huge wave of emotion had been spontaneously released and was being showered upon him, as though the whole country was holding him tightly in a fond embrace. It had not been organized, there was no demonstration of any kind and no accompanying music. It was just Bobby standing in front of several thousand people who were expressing their deep admiration and affection for him and what he stood for, including those golden days of Camelot that had been brutally stolen from the country.  It went on like that for over twenty straight minutes and it was truly extraordinary. A few months later, RFK decided to return to public service and was elected the United States senator from the state of New York. From 1965 on, along with being a major figure in American politics, he became an effective and widely respected United States senator as well. Now, this is a perfect place to end this episode, as Senator Kennedy was about to make a political move that would have a major impact on the country. So, as always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open, and let's get together in the next one. 

We ended the last episode with a quick look at the groundbreaking Beatles album, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and the powerful effect it had on popular music and on Western Culture in general. For many reasons, the album, which was released on May 26, 1967, seemed to elevate the mass consciousness of a significant segment of society to a new and higher level. And then a month later, on June 25, 1967, the old Fab Four took things up another notch.   On the first internationally broadcast television program to be beamed simultaneously around the world by satellite, the Beatles introduced their classic masterpiece, “All You Need is Love,” which became an instant anthem for those amazing days. They had invited a bunch of guests to be on stage with them as they performed the song, including the Rolling Stones, the Who and many others. It turned out to be an incredible celebration and along with the music and the expanding tenor of the times, a new form of appearance had come into the world as well. It was the hippy look and it quickly became known as the uniform of the counter culture. It's hard to describe because of its individualized, free and unencumbered, styleless style. But one popular phrase of the times sums it up - you just “let it all hang out.” And the Beatles, along with everyone else who joined them on the stage, all wore it well. Now, there was nothing subtle about what was going on. They were clearly making a statement and the entire Western world reacted. Shortly thereafter, the remarkable summer of love got under way, with its happenings, be-ins and other mass gatherings, boldly celebrating the emergence of this newly liberated way of being. The concept of Flower Power had been born and spread like wildfire, verifying the old adage that, “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”           Now, I haven't mentioned anything about what I was doing personally back then, but it was a pretty incredible year for me as well.  As a senior, I was elected president of our high school, (which was a relatively big deal for its time and place), I had also met and fallen in love with my high school sweetheart, Sally, and we had our own magnificent, teenaged summer of love. And to top it off, the basketball team that my father had founded only a few years earlier, the Philadelphia 76ers, won the NBA Championship. By the way, that high school romance of ours is still in full swing. We went on to get married, had a wonderful daughter, and as Sonny and Cher sang long ago, “the beat goes on.”  However, for the purposes of this podcast narrative, what's important here is that from my little perspective, everything seemed right with the world. Finally, the endless summer came to an end and I soon departed to Washington, DC and entered American University. One of the very first things that happened to me there presents an accurate picture of both the nature of the times and of my personal state of mind. I was living in a dorm and on one of the first nights, we had a meeting of the residents of our floor. There were about sixty of us and it went on for over an hour. Towards the end, the floor supervisor summed up the dorm rules and then added, “So when it comes to alcohol, as long as you're not too drunk, you're going to be okay. If you are too drunk though, you're going have to go before the disciplinary committee. Okay, so I guess you're asking – “What is the definition of being too drunk?” he asked with a smirk. “Well, if you get on the elevator and you're too drunk to remember what floor you live on, or if you're too drunk to remember what your room number is, or if you're so drunk that you pass out in the hall before you even make it to your room - then you're too drunk. If you're less drunk than that, you'll be fine.” Everyone had a good laugh, like hey, we didn't know college was going to be this much fun. But then, his entire demeanor changed and, sounding like a tough cop on the beat, in a curt, strict tone, he said, “Of course, if you're caught smoking marijuana, you're immediately expelled. We have no tolerance for that here.” There was dead silence in the room and I thought to myself, “Who the hell is going to come to college and smoke marijuana?” It seemed like the most absurd idea in the world. “Why would anybody do that?” The mixture of college and marijuana seemed completely incongruous. As you might deduct, at eighteen and a half years old, to coin an old phrase, I was as straight as they came. I had never smoked anything at all and had never had an alcoholic drink of any kind in my entire life. And that was fine with me. I had other plans. I was enrolled in the School of Government and Public Administration and following graduation; I would go to law school and then join my brother in the law firm my father had founded. Anyway, it turned out to be a terrific opening semester for me. I went home for winter break to enjoy some sorely missed, extended time with Sally, and as the year came to an end, the only bad thing that I have to say about 1967 is that it turned into 1968. So, here we go. But this takes us into some rather dark territory and intestinal fortitude becomes an absolute must. By now, you probably know that the first place to start talking about this year is with the ever-deepening quagmire of Vietnam.  Although I hadn't been particularly aware of it, besides everything else that had happened in 1967, it was also the year that a small, but significant portion of the American public had begun to question our involvement in that war. Through it all, Lyndon Johnson kept reassuring the country that even though the financial and human costs had been high, our effort in Vietnam was proving to be more than justified and things continued to go quite well for us over there. However, his rosy picture darkened considerably when something called the Tet Offensive broke out at the end of January of 1968. Without warning, the North Vietnamese launched a massive, well-coordinated attack throughout the entire country, including the South's capital city of Saigon.    As the brutal fight continued to rage on, it became an enormous blow to US public opinion in two significant ways. First, it showed that the optimistic spin that had been put on the war was deeply flawed. And secondly, it prompted something revolutionary in TV news. Due to enhanced technology, all of the networks began to cover the war in graphic detail, and kept it in the lead position of their major broadcasts.    This constant exposure brought the bloodshed home in a way that had never been seen before. Horrible images, filled with violent battle scenes brought the war into the living rooms of the American public on a nightly basis, which was deeply disturbing to the entire country. Suddenly, Lydon Johnson began to seem like a major liar and his approval ratings, which had always been robust, began to tank. At its peak, his approval rating had been 74% with only a 15% disapproval. By the end of February 1968, primarily due to his mishandling of Vietnam, his approval rating had sunk to a dismal 41% with a seriously significant disapproval of 48%. On a personal side note, I used to take the train to Philadelphia on a fairly regular basis to visit Sally, who was still in high school. I would travel to and from Union Station in Washington DC and I began noticing something eerie. On every trip. I would walk by a restricted area where there would be about 20 – 30 rather small, flag draped metal boxes with a military official standing nearby. Soon, I became aware that these were coffins carrying the bodies of US soldiers coming back from Vietnam, and the human toll of it all began to dawn on me. I soon realized that these weren't just some metal boxes in the hallway of a train station. No. In a very short time, each one of them would become the sad focus of deep mourning, as the family and friends of the fallen would try to make sense of their dear young ones taken far before their time. All of this death! And what was it that what we were we fighting for again?  At this point, to set the stage for what was about to come, it's important to look back to 1967 once again, at three events that were to have an impact on the anti-war movement. The first one took place on April 4, 1967, when something truly extraordinary happened. After months of agonizing deliberations, and in a move that was incredibly controversial for the time, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. firmly and unequivocally announced his staunch opposition to the war. In order to understand the significance of this, let's remember that there have been very few people in American history who can match his moral and ethical standing. Of course, he is mainly remembered for his groundbreaking actions in the realm of Civil Rights, but as lofty as those accomplishments were, they are only a small part of who he really was. For in essence, he had always considered himself to be primarily a preacher who had dedicated himself to doing God's work. And as such, he stood for peace, equality, and dignity for all people, everywhere, not just for those aligned with the American point of view.   In a major address before a packed house at the Riverside Church in New York City, Dr. King meticulously outlined his reasons for taking his anti-war stance. He then began to address the issue of non-violence. Throughout his life, King had been deeply influenced by the work of Mahatma Gandhi and had espoused the path of non-violence in everything he did, especially in the inner cities of America. And because of that, he now couldn't justify the hypocrisy of not opposing this massive war effort.  “I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government,” he said. With those deeply striking and incredibly powerful words, let's let this be the end of this episode. We're just beginning this part of the story, so as always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.

In the last episode, I briefly described my grandfather, who was a lifelong mystic, and his reactions to the dream I'd had about my father and his ring, which was followed by its mysterious disappearance. I also mentioned another unusual incident concerning the ring that took place about twenty years later, when a friend told me about a vivid dream he'd had where my father had given him a message for me, saying that I should “remember the ring.” Now this wasn't a childhood friend, he knew nothing about my father, and had no idea if this message was going to mean anything to me at all.  As you can imagine, the fact that it had come through a completely objective third party and had happened a full twenty years after the original incident made quite an impact on me. So, that completes this part of the narrative. In summary, even though my life had been turned upside down by the sudden death of my father, which had been accompanied by two inexplicable events that had defied all logic, I put it all behind me, or so I thought. I continued with my eleventh-grade life, which basically meant that I returned to my everyday state of constant activity.           Now, as I've mentioned a few times earlier, this podcast narrative focuses on the massive evolution of consciousness that began in the early1960s, as experienced through my own individual lens, which brings us now to the middle of 1966. On a larger level, at this time two huge influences were beginning to shake American society to its core – First, the enormous evolution of the Beatles and their profound impact on popular culture, and second, the war in Vietnam.           With the Beatles, as we mentioned in the last episode, at the end of 1965, they had come out with their revolutionary album, Rubber Soul, which George Harrison said was the first music they made when they were all regularly smoking marijuana. It had enormous appeal and was having a major effect on all of popular music.           By the way, their old friend Bob Dylan was breaking some new ground of his own. In March of 1966, he brought out a radical new song that caught everyone's attention. Its free-wheeling, raucous sound was far more in the style of a New Orleans Dixieland band than of rock and roll. And in the wild chorus, with his background musicians singing along in high hysterics, he kept repeating the signature line, “Everybody must get stoned.” The song was over four and a half minutes long and got a ton of airplay on almost every pop radio station.  So, on a daily basis, with a clever twist of words and a message that was unmistakable, millions of music fans would listen to Dylan constantly urge them to try marijuana. It was quite an advertisement.           A few months later, the Beatles took it all one step further when they released their groundbreaking album, Revolver. Again, according to George Harrison, while Rubber Soul was the first album they made under the influence of marijuana, Revolver was the first one they made under the regular influence of LSD.           The easiest way to describe this remarkable collection of songs is that it was incredibly trippy. One song, “Love to You” followed the form of a classic Indian raga, complete with sitar and tablas. Nothing like it had ever been heard in the west before. Another major breakthrough was the soul-stirring “Eleanor Rigby,” which brought an entirely new level of depth to the Beatles repertoire. All the other songs on the album became instant classics as well, but one track, “Tomorrow Never Knows,” deserves some special attention because it was specifically designed to boost the evolution of consciousness.           Apparently, John Lennon had been influenced by a book called, The Psychedelic Experience: A Manual Based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead, by Timothy Leary, Richard Alpert, and Ralph Metzner. The book claimed that under the influence of LSD, it was possible to shed the limiting nature of constant ego identification and emerge into a higher, more enlightened level of awareness. And it gave step by step instructions on how to do it.           Supposedly, after Lennon bought the book, he took LSD and followed the instructions to a tee. Soon after that, he wrote the song, with the psychedelic nature of the music combined with the mind-expanding lyrics. He said he wanted to sound like the Dalai Lama chanting on top of a mountain, as he enlightened the public to the message of possible God realization that underlies the LSD experience. “Turn off your mind relax and float downstream,” he sang.  “It is not dying, it is not dying. Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void. It is shining, it is shining. That you may see the meaning of within. It is being, it is being. That love is all and love is everyone. It is knowing, it is knowing…” Some years later, George Harrison offered an interesting perspective on the song as well as on their evolving perspective at the time. “From birth to death all we ever do is think: we have one thought, we have another thought, another thought, another thought,” he said.  “Even when you are asleep you are having dreams, so there is never a time from birth to death when the mind isn't always active with thoughts. But you can turn off your mind. “The whole point is that…the self is coming from a state of pure awareness, from the state of being. All the rest that comes about in the outward manifestation of the physical world. . . is just clutter.” Then he concluded, “The true nature of each soul is pure consciousness. So, the song is really about transcending, and about the quality of the transcendent.” Of course, this understanding about the higher nature of our consciousness was extremely advanced for its time. And whether the public understood it or not, the message was still pouring out to millions of people on a daily basis, subtly or not so subtly affecting their consciousness. The innovative album caught on in a flash and the influence of psychedelic music began to grow significantly. Over the next few months, the Grateful Dead, the Byrds, the Jefferson Airplane, the Moody Blues, Pink Floyd, Traffic, Jimi Hendrix and the Doors all gained enormous popularity, along with many, many other groups. A new idea of a higher, more evolved state of being was clearly being born in the culture. And speaking of the culture, in a larger context, something called the “counter culture” was beginning to emerge, which not only challenged the mainstream norms and values, but also advocated for social change. Embracing ideals of peace, love, and unity, it was all vibrant, inspiring, alive, and unmistakably - young. But at the same time, another enormous, yet rather sinister influence was in the early stages of taking over the consciousness of the country as well. As you probably know, it was the ever-broadening tragedy of the war in Vietnam.  Even though no one seemed to be paying much attention to it, like an undiagnosed cancer, it just kept metastasizing. President Lyndon Johnson continued to insist that the constant build-up of US troops was the right thing to do because at all costs, we had to prevent communism from taking over the Pacific Rim. And the costs were getting pretty serious.  In 1964, we spent $53.4 billion on the effort in Vietnam. In 1965, we spent another $54.5 billion and in 1966, it escalated to 66.4 billion. That's a total of $174.4 billion. Not that anyone looked at it this way, but in those three years, instead of being used for warfare, that amount of money could have abundantly fed well over a billion people. And the human costs were building as well. The US troops which had numbered 23,300 in 1964, grew to 184,300 in 1965, then onto 385,300 by the end of 1966. And with that, the truly horrible number - how many people actually died there – kept swelling. In 1964, 216 US soldiers died. It grew to 1,928 in 1965, then onto 6,350 in 1966. Now that's just US troops. When it comes to how many of the North and South Vietnamese people died, no one really knows for sure, but an estimate of 10-1 is used as a conservative approximation. So here are the basically revolting numbers related to those three years of war - $174.43 billion just plain wasted on destruction, with a total of over 96,000 human beings needlessly killed. Even so, at that point, there still was very little opposition to the war and President Johnson stood resolute and strong. Afterall, he wasn't about to let the Pacific Rim go communist. And on a side note, he was damned if he was going to be the first US President to ever lose a war. So that brings us to 1967, which would go down in history as a truly magical year. Many volumes have been written about it and there's not a whole lot to say that hasn't already been said. On the grim side, the US involvement in Vietnam got much worse, to nobody's surprise. We went up another 100,000 troops to a deployment of a staggering 485,600 soldiers. And US deaths went up an additional five thousand to 11,363. That's 17,713 families who buried their young sons and daughters who had died trying to protect the Pacific Rim from going communist. Not that any of us even knew what that concept meant. So. the dark side had gotten darker.  But incredibly, the light side was about to get much lighter. On May 26, 1967, the Beatles released what was probably the most monumental album of their entire career, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band. This major phenomenon, turned the pop world completely upside down. The album was filled with references to transcendent states of consciousness that were being now being experienced by millions of baby boomers around the world.  It featured the most psychedelic song anyone had ever heard yet, called “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” The music was absolutely hypnotic and the mind-altering lyrics broke radical new ground on many levels. The initials of the title happened to be LSD, but according to John Lennon, that was just a coincidence. However he always said it with a smile. George Harrison took his Indian raga theme one step further in his song, “Within You, Without You.” It was what is called a “Satsang Song” in the Indian tradition because it expresses some of the deeper truths of their ancient wisdom. “Try to realize that it's all within yourself, no one else can make you change,” he sang. “When you see beyond yourself you may find that peace of mind is waiting there. And the time will come when you realize that we're all one and life flows on within you and without you.” Meanwhile, on the very last song of the album, “A Day in the Life,” after a mind-blowing journey through some seemingly random news of the day, to mesmerizing music played by a 40-piece orchestra John hypnotically repeats the stanza, “I'd love to turn you on.” By then, several million people knew exactly what he was talking about. Now, I still wasn't one of them yet, but that part of the story is coming up soon. Which makes this an ideal place to end this episode. As you might guess, things keep on evolving, so as always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened and let's get together in the next one.

As the last episode ended, I had given a quick overview of my grandfather, who was a lifelong Orthodox Jew, but was also a mystic with his own set of metaphysical understandings, especially about what was happening in modern times. Among his teachings, he used to tell us was that there are always highly evolved people living on Earth, who are here to help bring about the Divine Plan for the evolution of humanity. In the ancient tradition, such a person was called a Kal-El, which means “vessel of God.” As a brief note about that term - when I first started reading Superman comics at about age eight, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Superman's real name on his home planet of Krypton was Kal-El. I never gave it much thought and figured it must have been some kind of coincidence until several years later, when I learned that Superman had been created by two Jewish guys, Jerry Seigle and Joe Shuster. I guess they thought of him as a vessel of God doing good, so naming him Kal-El was no coincidence. Also, when it comes to comic books, surprisingly, my first introduction to the idea that human beings could evolve into a higher level of consciousness came from reading about it in a comic book. I was around twelve and I still remember the moment when the concept first hit me.    After years of being devoted to Superman and Batman, I had gotten introduced to a new company called Marvel Comics and its highly innovative, new characters began to expand the horizons of my imagination. It still featured action stories, but they dropped in some extra tidbits. Like in one episode of the Fantastic Four, there was an alien named “The Watcher,” from an advanced race of beings, who had become friends with Reed Richards, the leader of the Fantastic Four. One day, Richards wanders into The Watcher's laboratory when he isn't there and picks up a baton-like device. Suddenly he's rooted to the ground, can't move and his head begins to morph into a much larger size. The Watcher suddenly bursts in, grabs the baton out of Richards's hands and brings him back to normal. Once Richards is fully restored, The Watcher explains that the device he was holding was a “consciousness enhancer.” In those few seconds, it had moved him forward a thousand years and he had actually become a highly evolved human being of the far distant future. As a fellow scientist, he asks Richards what the experience had been like. Richards says he couldn't retain the details, but he could remember that he had become fully merged with the creative power of the cosmos and the inherent joy of being in that heightened state of awareness was indescribable.  The only thing I can say about being exposed to that idea is that it completely blew my mind. It was several years before that expression became popular, but that cosmic comic book really did it to me. If it was possible for human consciousness to evolve to a significantly higher level, as an extrapolation, I began to wonder if it were possible for me to do it. And could I do it in this lifetime? A certain ideal seemed to take root deep inside my mind, almost like a trophy had been placed on some distant shelf in time to remind me to take up the quest to approach this noble goal at some later point in my life.   Anyway, let's get back to my grandfather and his belief that the modern technologies, including television, were being used by God to expand human awareness and that there are always Kal-El's or vessels of God on earth, helping to further his work. Remember that Zayde, my grandfather, was the absolute spiritual head of our extended family and one day, to my sheer delight, he decided that the TV character, the Lone Ranger, was in reality, a Kal-El. This basically changed the workings of our family because now, whenever the Lone Ranger was on TV, my grandfather had to stop everything and sit and watch the entire episode. Whatever was happening around him, lunch or dinner, party or celebration – it didn't matter. He had to stop and watch the show. Now, this was a terrific development for me because the Lone Ranger was my favorite TV program, and if it had something to do with God, it was all the better. Because in my book, watching the show was a million times better than sitting in Hebrew school for an hour and a half. Zayde would watch each episode with total focus, and after it ended, he would give a short teaching on the moral of the story. Here's one shining example that is still enshrined in my memory. An hourlong origin special about how it all began was being shown, and we watched it together. As it started, the Texas Rangers were ambushed and left for dead by the bad guys. Tonto, the Ranger's future Indian companion, comes upon the scene, realizes that one of the Rangers is still alive, and nurses him back to health. Since he's the sole survivor, Tonto calls him the Lone Ranger. A few weeks later, they find a big white stallion lying near a bush bleeding to death, apparently gored by a bull. The Ranger and Tonto spend weeks caring for it.  Once it fully recovers, they tie a rope around its neck and lead it into an open pasture. “Your horse was killed, and now Great Spirit has given you a new horse,” Tonto says, appreciating the synchronistic workings of the universe. “He's not my horse yet, Tonto,” the Ranger replies. As they stand in the field, the horse feels its strength returning, and with its nose twitching, senses the call of the wild. The Ranger pats it on the head and slowly removes the rope. Then suddenly, he gives it a sharp slap on the rear. The horse bolts forward and breaks into a mighty gallop, charging full speed to the top of a hill.  It rears back on its hind legs, neighing in triumph, standing tall against the sky. But when it comes back down on all four legs, a change comes over it. It tilts its head to one side, and then, as though sensing a call beyond the wild, it trots back over to the Lone Ranger and just stands there next to him.  “There, there, Big Fella,” the Ranger murmurs to him, gently stroking its muzzle. Then he turns to Tonto, and in a clam voice, filled with  absolute certainty says, “Now he's my horse.”   The show went to commercial and Zayde turned to me, his face glowing like he had been staring at a burning bush. “You see?” he asked me. “It's all about free will. God will never force you. He's just waiting for you to choose to be with him. You can do it whenever you want, but it's really up to you. God's in no rush. He has all the time in the world. And more.”  Then, as always, he quoted some Hebrew or Yiddish phrase that I didn't understand. “You know what that means?” he asked me. I never did. “It's simple. ‘In the dark, you're blind. But in the light, you can see. So, stand in the light and open your eyes.'” Then he touched the middle of my forehead with his index finger. “There's a lightbulb in there. But it's up to you to screw it in and turn it on. Understand, Davy?” So, that's a brief introduction to this deeply esoteric man. Now let me tell you what happened when I told him about the incident with my dream and the disappearance of the ring. As you may recall from the last episode, I had experienced a vivid dream with my father. At the end of it, I gave him back his ring and it dissolved into white light. Then, the following morning, after my first period gym class, I was shocked to find that the ring had mysteriously disappeared out of my wallet, which I had securely locked in my locker. A few days later, during my regular weekly visit to him, I told my grandfather what had happened and he was completely transfixed. Every detail seemed to tell him something special. The fact that it took place in the lobby of the synagogue, the fact my father seemed younger and had a healthy-looking tan, the fact that he chuckled when I told him that he died and said that it wasn't real, that it was just a trick…all these things amazed and delighted him. Then, when I got to the part where the ring had dissolved into a white light which filled the room and that I felt a happy presence in the light, he got quite still and didn't move for a few moments. I didn't quite know what to make of it, so I went right into telling him how the ring disappeared out of my locker the next morning. After I finished, he seemed deeply moved. “So, understand, Davy, that you were shown a lot here, especially at such a young age,” he said. “All that you need to grasp at this point is that this life is much more than it seems to be. Try to keep that idea in the back of your mind as you grow, because take it from me, it will always be true. Now matter how much you know, there will always more to learn. That's just the way it works. As a path to infinity, it's an infinite path, and it's always more wonderful than you can ever understand, especially at your age. So, just keep opening up to it.” He broke into a warm smile and said, “It gives you a lot to think about and there are a lot of maybes here for you to consider. The ring turned into light in the dream, then it disappeared the next day in real life. Maybe that means there's a deep connection between the two realms,” he said. “Much more than most people know.” “Also, Dad said there's no death, that its just a trick God does to get people to think about him. So maybe you should give this whole thing a lot more thought. I'm sure that you will, over the years.” “And you said that you both stood there, holding the ring and it felt like a bridge between you,” he continued. “Maybe he's telling you that the bridge is real, that it's still there and that you're still connected, even beyond death. Maybe you'll always be.” “And you know what else? The ring turned into light and you felt yourself get pulled into it. What was that like?” he asked me. “It was incredible,” I said. “It had a presence that was filled with comfort and joy and I don't think I've ever been that happy.” “Exactly,” he agreed. “Maybe, that light took you into Shamayim (heaven). And maybe he wants you to remember that feeling. Remember what that taste of heaven felt like. Don't forget, the reason we came here in the first place is to find our way back home, so maybe you should enshrine that feeling in your heart. and maybe it can help you get there somehow.” “Now look, this whole thing is just like a lot of other things you run into in life. Maybe some of it was real. Maybe none of it was real. Or maybe all of it was real. Who knows? I do know one thing, though - you have the rest of your life to figure it out. And that probably won't be long enough!” His eyes were twinkling, and he gave me one of his glowing, impish smiles. He did this kind of thing all the time. He'd use the word “maybe” in the tradition of the great Talmudic teachers he'd studied for years. They don't tell you things. They just plant seeds and inspire you to help them grow. So, that's the end of what he had to say about my seemingly metaphysical experience with the dream and the ring. But there is one other quick story I'd like to add, which took place about twenty years later.  One Saturday night, I was at a big party and out of nowhere, an old friend who I hadn't seen in quite some time came over to me. He said that he'd had a strange dream recently and he needed to tell me about it. In the dream, he was in a crowd of people and a platform rose up with a stranger standing on it. The stranger looked at my friend and said, “I am David Richman's father and I want you to give him a message for me.” Then he lifted up his hand and my friend could see he was wearing a ring. Suddenly, the ring started glowing with light and the man said, “Tell David that I said to remember the ring.” Then he repeated himself. “Give David Richman this message. Tell him I said to remember the ring.” My friend finished and looked at me quizzically for a moment. “I don't know if that means anything to you, but I just felt I had to tell you.” You can imagine what an intriguing shock that experience was for me! Well, there's nothing more to add to this part of the story, so let's let this be the end of this episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind, and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.

In the last episode, I described a most unusual dream that I had. My father had been dead for almost six months and I dreamt that he appeared to me, looking alive and happy. He told me that his death wasn't real, that it was just a trick. And he went on to explain that there really isn't such a thing as death, it's just a public relations stunt that God came up with to get people to think about him. Then he noticed that I was wearing his black star sapphire ring. He told me he didn't want me to wear it anymore and, in the dream, I gave it back to him. At that point, a tremendous light appeared and everything dissolved into it. The light carried a wonderfully warm sense of happiness and joy in it and I woke up in an extremely elevated state of mind. Let's pick up the story there. I began my day as usual. As I drove to school, I reflected on the dream from a psychological perspective. My second semester of psychology was almost over, and the mysterious workings of the mind were really starting to fascinate me. As I thought about it, I was quite impressed with this dream as it had been a perfect mental placebo for me. In the theater of my mind, my father looked great. Healthy and smiling, he said he had never really died, and that it was only a PR stunt. He called it a gimmick, which I loved. It was a term he used a lot in the early days of the team, but I had forgotten all about it. Yet it was exactly the way he used to talk. Indeed, everything about him was familiar, comforting and reassuring. In short, he was just the way I would have wanted him to be if he were alive.   And there was also a strong God theme running through it, which made perfect sense because I was getting so much religious exposure every day. As the dream ended, I had seen this beautiful light, filled with an essence of peace, happiness, and contentment. I felt like I was finally coming back home and experienced an overwhelming love. Then I merged into it. It was all classic heaven stuff. I didn't know what to make out of my father's ring though. I had given it back to him and it had turned into light, which started the whole heaven part. It probably had some subconscious meaning and I figured that I'd bring it up with my psychology teacher. Anyway, as far as dreams go, it had been a real beauty. And if my mind's purpose was to comfort me and bring me a little happiness and peace, it had certainly done its job. I felt great in the dream. And as a matter of fact, I was still feeling rather elevated from it as I drove along.  When I got to the school parking lot, I took the ring off and looked at it. I liked it, but I always felt a little odd wearing it. I had just turned seventeen, and it was the type of thing you'd see on a fifty-year-old man. I didn't care, though. It was his, and I was going to wear it for the rest of my life and give it to my kids. I put it back on and went into school.                                                           ***   It was a Friday morning, and I had gym first period. When I got to my locker, I followed my usual routine. I wore two rings, a gold initial ring, and his black star sapphire. I took them both off and put them carefully inside my wallet, next to a ten-dollar bill I had brought because I was going to buy a new basketball after school. I took off my wristwatch, wrapped it around my wallet, and put the whole thing in one of my shoes. Then, I put my books on top of my shoes and locked my locker. I double-checked the door and the lock to make sure it was all secure.  I had been doing the same routine twice a week for five years and I was confident that it was as tight as a drum. It was a beautiful May morning, and I played touch football with my friends, a bunch of jovial, eleventh-grade jocks. After gym ended, I took a shower and got dried off. Then, I opened my combination lock, swung open my locker door, and put my clothes on. I took the books off the top of my shoes, took out my wallet, removed my watch, and put it on my wrist. Then I opened my wallet to put on my rings, and the world stopped. To my extreme shock and disbelief, my father's ring was gone! Everything else was exactly as I had left it. My gold initial ring and the ten-dollar bill were still there, undisturbed. But his black star sapphire ring, the one I had given him in the dream just a few hours earlier, was gone. It had disappeared without a trace. All I can say is that suddenly, reality didn't make any sense. What had just happened, quite simply could not have happened. It just wasn't possible. My head started spinning and I felt disoriented. I sat down on the bench in front of my locker and tried to pull myself together. To make sure I wasn't losing my mind, I went over all the details again to see if I had made a mistake. But I hadn't. I remembered everything precisely. “Somebody must have stolen it,” I thought for a second, but obviously, that wasn't the case. The locker had clearly been undisturbed when I came back after my shower. The combination lock was still locked, and the door was untouched. And besides, why would someone steal just that one ring and leave the wallet, the watch, and the gold ring, not to mention the ten-dollar bill? I thought about the dream again. It was now nine in the morning and I had only been awake for a couple of hours, so everything was still completely fresh in my mind. I realized how strange the whole thing had been. I didn't remember feeling drowsy at all or ever falling asleep and then, all of a sudden, I was back in the synagogue chapel. And there had been nothing dreamlike about it at all. Actually, I had never felt more awake in my life. And on top of that, unlike my usual dreams, it hadn't faded one bit. Normally, I forget my dreams before I even start breakfast. But this time, I could remember every single detail, especially my father's tan, smiling face. He said that he hadn't really died and that it was a trick. Then he had me give him back his ring. When we held it, it turned into a brilliant light. And now, just a few hours later, in real life, it had vanished into thin air. What can I say? What had just happened just wasn't possible. Still dazed, I sat in front of my locker for a few more minutes and then the bell rang. I knew I had to hustle because my next class was all the way on the other side of school. There was nothing left to do but get on with my day. My logic had hit a brick wall and as I got up and started walking, I still felt completely out of sorts. But as I hurried along, I noticed that everything felt just a little bit lighter, as if the old bounce was starting to come back into my step.                                            ***   A few days later, it was time for me to go visit my grandfather, my father's father, and I couldn't wait to hear what he had to say about the dream I'd had, followed by the seemingly otherworldly disappearance of the ring. We had always had quite a deep relationship, but it got much deeper after my father died. He and my grandmother lived about twenty minutes away and for one reason or another we would see them at least once a week. After I had my first strange dream experience, where I had the precognitive dream that my father had died and it all came true the next day, I told the experience to just a few family members and some very close friends. Along with all the sadness we all felt, many people also felt a little extra sympathy for me because I was the youngest, and most of the ones I told about the dream just shrugged it off, as something that either didn't happen, or at least not the way I had remembered it. But not my grandfather. He believed every bit of it, completely. Now, before I tell you his reactions to the dream-ring-disappearance sequence, let me fill you in a little bit about him, as he was quite a unique individual. Although I haven't mentioned him in the podcasts very frequently, he was one of the main influences on me in the younger part of my life, and is a central figure in “Wilt, Ike & Me,” the memoir that I've written about those early days. We all called him Zayde, which is the Yiddish term for grandfather. Although he was still the patriarch of our extended family, my father, who was his eldest son and a prominent attorney and businessman, had assumed most of the family's worldly responsibilities. But still, Zayde remained the undisputed spiritual head of the family. That respected position never changed. And on the spiritual side, he certainly had the credentials for it. He had grown up in Lithuania as an orthodox Yeshiva student and as a gifted singer, he was being trained to become a cantor. In the Jewish tradition, the rabbi leads the service and gives the sermon, but the cantor is the one who actually sings the prayers. And ideally, he should sing them with so much understanding and feeling in his heart, that the prayers go straight up to heaven. Zayde could really do it, but he had to give up his lofty profession when his family fled to America. His young wife had gotten pregnant, and he had to make a living, so he became a wallpaper hanger. Eventually he opened a paint and paper store in South Philadelphia and he and his family lived in the small living quarters above the store. He still remained true to his orthodox religion though, carefully practicing all of its customs and traditions. But on top of that and somewhat secretly, he was essentially a mystic, with a deep understanding of the more arcane elements of the faith.    You could see it whenever you looked at him. There was a twinkle in his pale-blue eyes and he always seemed to have a funny look on his face, like he was learning some kind of deep lesson and was ready to burst out either laughing or crying, or sometime,  a funny kind of combination of both.     Along with all his training, both traditional and esoteric, he had evolved some of his own theories about the cosmos, as well. He said God was always pulling humanity closer and closer to him, and the new communication technologies - radio, movies, and TV, were all a part of a great divine plan. Bear in mind that none of them had existed in his early life, not even electricity. He had seen them all develop and to him, they had been created to help teach humanity profound lessons, enabling it to achieve its highest potential. Now, this is actually a great place to end this episode. Of course, there's a lot more to come, so, as always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened, and let's get together in the next one.

As the last episode ended, I was beginning my return to normal life after the unexpected death of my father. The unanticipated event had turned my entire world upside down. After remaining home for a one-week mourning period, when I returned to normal life, everything was exactly the same as it had been when I left it. Same classes. Same teachers. Same friends. Everything was the same. Except nothing was the same and it would never be again. It's a terrible feeling and everyone who has experienced the early stages of deep grief is painfully aware of it. However, there was one thing that was radically different in my new daily routine, which was that I was now going to synagogue every morning and every night and would be doing it for eleven months. The same held true for my brother, who was eight years older than me. It was a big eight years at that age because while I was in the middle of high school and living the life of a teenager, he was in his last year of law school, had been married for a few years, and his wife was about six weeks away from giving birth to their first child. But even so, we had always done everything together. We even lived in the same room in our house until he moved out for college. So naturally, we started attending the daily service together. Very early in the process, I came to understand that while the ritual of saying the mourner's prayer is ostensibly to honor the dead, in reality, it provides a tremendous benefit for the living survivors. It was an enormous help to me on several key levels, and the most important one for me was that the rabbi of this particular synagogue was truly a spiritual giant. We got to spend an enormous amount of time with him and became extremely close. So, that new way of life began for me in the second week of December of 1965. Let's jump ahead almost six months later to the end of May of 1966. As I've said, we have an enormous amount of resiliency at that age, and even with all the trauma around the death, I was still having a great year at school. My brother, Mike and I had been attending services every morning and night. We never missed a service and we intended to keep it that way, but suddenly something came up that was going to be an insurmountable problem for him. His last year of law school was coming to an end and soon, it would be time for him to take the bar exam. A two-day cram course was being offered that went until nine each evening and he was going to have to miss services for two nights. It was upsetting to him but there was no away around it and it absolutely had to happen. The first night came and I attended the service without him. It really was no big deal and I didn't pay any attention to it. It was a normal night. I ate dinner with my mother, went to the synagogue and said the prayer, came home and did my homework and eventually got washed and went to bed. Then, one of the strangest things that has ever happened to me took place For some reason, I didn't feel tired at all and thought I was going to have some trouble falling asleep. I was just lying there, and the next thing I knew, I suddenly found myself back in the chapel of the synagogue once again. It was a strange sensation because I felt like I had actually gone back in time. The events that had just happened a few hours earlier started happening again. It was like watching an instant replay, but instead of just watching it, I was living through it. Everything happened exactly as it had, just a few hours earlier. Services ended, and I walked out of the chapel. But this time, when I entered the main lobby, I heard a sharp sound. “Psst! Psst!” It was clear to me that whatever that replay had been was over. I knew I was in new territory because nothing like this had happened earlier. The sound came from my left. I looked over at the dark corner near the sanctuary doors and suddenly, my father stepped out of the shadows.  Amazed, I walked right over to him. As I got closer, he gave me a warm smile and I was struck by how great he looked. He was wearing a gray suit with a purple shirt. The collar was opened, and he had a dark, healthy suntan like he had been in the Caribbean or Hawaii for a few months. He also seemed a little younger, with slightly more hair, which was slicked back. In short, he looked tremendous. “Where's Michael?” he asked, as soon as I got close.  “Oh, he couldn't come tonight,” I said. “He has to study for the bar exam. They're having a cram course, and tonight's the first class.” “Oh, right, right. That's good,” he said, sounding like he knew exactly what I was talking about. “He'll pass it. He'll do fine. He's going to become a lawyer, and he'll go right into the firm. Everything's going to work out well for him.” Then he got a little serious. “But, watch out for your sister, though,” he said soberly. “She's not doing so great.” “Sybil?” I wondered.  “What's the matter with Sybil?” I didn't say anything, but as I thought about it, I remembered that she had never shown any emotion after he died. She had been extremely stoic, always stone-faced and never crying or even shedding a tear. Maybe that had something to do with whatever it was he was talking about. “Oh yeah,” I said. “She didn't show any emotion after you d—” I was just about to say the word died, when the impossibility of what was happening hit me like a ton of bricks. Suddenly I remembered the actual truth of the matter – that he was, in fact, dead. I guess I had been so glad to see him, I hadn't realized it at first. But now it all came rushing came back into me. The reason I hadn't seen him for all this time wasn't that he had been away on some tropical island. It was because he had dropped dead on the floor of the Boston Garden six months earlier. He was long since dead and buried. Yet here he was, standing in the synagogue lobby, happy and healthy and talking to me like everything was normal.  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” I exclaimed. “What are you doing here? You're dead!” “No,” he said, with a slight chuckle. “No, no. That wasn't real.” “What?” I asked.  “It was just a trick,” he replied. “It wasn't real.” “What do you mean, it wasn't real?” I shot back, a little perturbed. “Of course, it was real!” How could he say it wasn't real? It was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. Everything about it was a nightmare. Our family was completely devastated, and since then, we had gone through month after month of relentless pain. I wished to God it wasn't real, but unfortunately, it was as real as it gets.  “You died. You're dead,” I blurted out, even more upset. “It was terrible. There was this big funeral, and everyone was hysterical. It was awful.” An enormous rush of pain welled up inside of me. “It was horrible. You died! We buried you and you're dead!” I was ready to break down in tears. But then, just like old times, he made his familiar gesture and held up his right hand, signaling me to calm down and listen to him. Just seeing him do it made me feel a little better. “It wasn't real,” he said, calmly. “It was just a trick.”  “What are you talking about?” I asked, bewildered. “A trick. You know a stunt, a gimmick.” I still had no idea what he meant, but I didn't say anything.  “Listen to me,” he said, sympathetically. “There is no death. It's just a public-relations stunt God does to get people to think about him. That's all it is. It's not real.” I didn't know what to say. There was absolutely, positively no question about the fact that he had died. It was irrefutable. And yet here he was—alive and well, telling me it was all just a stunt. As confident as ever, he certainly looked like he knew what he was talking about. He looked great. In fact, I'd never seen him look better. “See?” he said, with a smile. “It's all just a trick.” Then he added, “Some trick!”  At that point, my mind went blank. I don't think I could think anymore, and frankly, I didn't care. It was just such a relief to be with him again and listen to him explain something to me. It didn't matter if I understood it or not.       As I looked at him, I realized I had forgotten how much I really missed him. I hadn't seen him for six months. It had been an eternity of constant pain and I had gotten used to it. But now, alive or dead, we were back together again, and the pain was gone. I was happy and felt like my old self again - two long-lost and long-forgotten feelings. He looked at me with a warm smile for a moment. “I see you're wearing my ring,” he said, looking down at my right hand. He used to wear a black star sapphire pinky ring that he got when he went to the Japan Olympics to sign Luke Jackson to the 76ers. My mother gave it to me after he died, and I wore it every day. “Listen,” he said somewhat soberly. “The stone in that ring has a vibration that's bad for your body. I don't want you to wear it anymore.” I didn't say anything. Then his face lit up.  “Hey! I've got an idea,” he said. “Since I never really died, why don't you give it back to me?” Without giving it a second thought, I took the ring off and held it up between the thumb and forefinger of my right hand. He reached up and held it exactly the same way. I thought he was going to take it, but he didn't. Instead, we both stood there, holding the ring between us, like a statue. After a moment, I felt it start to vibrate. Then, like an instrument being tuned to a higher note, something within me quickened. The ring began to glow, getting brighter by degrees until eventually, the whole room was filled with a brilliant light. But it was more than just a light. I could sense a happy presence to it, a warm beauty that was extremely comforting. And it felt familiar to me as well, like I knew it from somewhere - another time and place from long before my memory began.   I felt myself being slowly pulled into it, as though it had its own field of gravity. It got stronger, like the current of a river nearing the ocean, and the light got even brighter. The more light I saw, the lighter I felt, along with a deep sense of happiness and joy. And finally, an all-encompassing love enveloped me, and I lost all contact with space and time. I have no idea how long it lasted, but I finally began to regain awareness of my body. There was a gentle transition, almost like the physical world gelled into reality around me and I found that I was laying in my bed, wearing my pajamas. It took a little more time, but I soon realized it had all been just a dream. Soon, I was completely back in the real world. Obviously, my life was unchanged, and my father was still dead. Naturally, I was disappointed. As fulfilling as the experience had been, I quickly understood that the whole thing had been just a fantasy that my mind had created in my sleep. Even so, it had been a deeply wonderful experience to feel happy again. It was the first time since the night he died, that the heavy burden that I constantly felt was lifted from my heart. For those few moments, I had gotten to be my old self again and realized that I had completely forgotten the way life used to be, before the road had turned, and I had come upon the Vale of Tears. Now you may be thinking, “OK. So what's the big deal? You had a happy dream that your father was still alive. Why is that one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to you?” All I can say is, we'll get into that in the coming episode. For now, keep your eyes, mind, and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.

The last episode ended on the evening of December 3, 1965 when my father suffered a massive heart attack and died instantly during a nationally televised NBA game between the 76ers and the Boston Celtics. As I have mentioned previously, this podcast series examines the enormous evolution of consciousness that began to take place in the western world during the 1960s, as well as looking at what happened to me personally during those turbulent times, which led to my life-long commitment to the greater realization of human potential.    It also seeks to present you with some fundamental ideas that you might find useful as you grow through your own inner evolutions, which is something we all do, whether we're aware of it or not. That's just the way our intelligence works.   So, even though the events surrounding my father's death were extremely traumatic, this is not an autobiographical look back at them. Rather, I am going to describe some of the realizations I experienced that began to open a pathway to my own inner growth. Looking back, I can see that without having the slightest awareness of it, I had been living my life with two basic assumptions that I had been taking for granted. As naïve as they may sound, these assumptions were simple - everything was going to stay the same and I would live forever. Of course, I knew intellectually, as we all do, that that these ideas are ridiculous. In reality, everything here ends and everybody dies. But as we all must learn sooner or later, there is a vast difference between believing a theoretical concept of something and experiencing the actual reality of it. And that's especially true when it comes to death.   For me, the aspect of sudden death was a powerful and rather rude teacher. It felt like having to learn how to swim because the luxury cruise ship you had been traveling on suddenly sank. The next thing you know, you're in a freezing cold ocean and you notice a dark fin sticking out of the water that keeps circling around you. Of course, that's just a metaphor, but that's kind of what it felt like. But the death itself was also accompanied by an additional, mysterious factor. On top of the shock and grief, I had to ponder the series of cryptic omens that had preceded it that were particularly unnerving. As you may recall, along with several less intense events, I had experienced a jarring, recurring nightmare for three consecutive nights, followed by an incredibly vivid dream that my father had died. Then in the real world, the dream came true the following night, exactly the way I had dreamt it. In metaphysical terms, this is called a pre-cognitive dream, which is more of a prophecy than a premonition. So, under the surface, there was always this other element that I had to deal with, which was the uncanny experience that I had somehow foreseen the future. It had been incredibly strange and I had to ask myself – “How could that have happened? How could you have seen something in such detail the night before it happened? And, what does that say about time and the nature of life itself?” There was another deeply troubling aspect to the experience as well.  In real life, when I began living through the events of the dream, I knew exactly what was coming next and I wanted to change the events. But to my severe shock, I found that I had no control over anything whatsoever. The incredibly odd fact was that I had absolutely no volition. Nothing that I thought, felt, or decided made any difference at all. I was awake. This was real. But it was like I was walking through a movie that had already been made. I knew that nothing could be changed because somehow, I knew that the present had already happened in the past. It was all too overwhelming to even try to understand. Some years later, I came come across a profound quote from Einstein that seemed related. “The distinction between past, present and future is nothing but a stubbornly persistent illusion.” Of course, I found the idea fascinating, but in trying to grasp it, all I could come up was that my understanding of my life in the world was incomplete, and that there was a lot more that I needed to learn, to say the least.  It's like you're living your adult life learning your lessons and something unexpectedly alters your reality. Suddenly you feel like a preschooler enrolled in a babysitting club at an advanced university.  Everything had changed so fundamentally for me that I felt like I didn't know this world anymore. As boxer Mike Tyson once put it, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” And believe me, it was quite a heavy punch for this 16-year-old kid to take. At the foundation of it all, the basic impermanence that underlies all of life had become abundantly clear to me. My father had been an incredibly powerful person, the central figure not just in our family, but in the entire world around him as well. And in less than five seconds, he was gone for good. Vanished without a trace. So, it quickly drove home the fundamental impermanence of life. Nothing here lasts. Everything ends. Which brings up some deeper questions. Why does this creation even exist in the first place? What are we doing here? What is the real purpose of my life, if there even is one?” Suffice it to say that I eventually put all these thoughts and questions aside and got on with living the new version of life that had been presented to me. And it picked up pretty quickly. After all, I was in the middle of my junior year in high school and we are blessed with a tremendous amount of resiliency at that age. As soon as I began to return to my normal school life, a nice little coincidence happened for me. You may remember from a previous episode that my father had made me promise that I would say the Kaddish prayer for him after he died. I made that vow on a Saturday and eight days later, I said the prayer for the first time at his graveside. Amazingly, I had completely forgotten about that promise until those first words came out of my mouth that day in the cemetery.  I started attending the synagogue near our house twice a day and I had to get into the routine of getting ready to go there every morning and night. A new Beatles album had just come out and I got into the habit of listening to it as I prepared to leave. Like all their other albums, its songs took up permanent residency in my mind almost immediately upon hearing them.  The album was called “Rubber Soul” and it was quite a departure for the band. Many years later, once the Beatles had become history and were being studied from a cultural perspective, this album came to be viewed a major turning point in their career. Listening to it was giving me quite an emotional boost and one day, I heard a deejay say that the release date for Rubber Soul had been December 3, 1965, which was the exact day that my father died.  Now, all my life, I've been one of those people who are always on the lookout for “signs.” It's hard to explain exactly why, but if you happen to be one of them, you understand. Anyway, for me, this information meant that somehow, everything was in synch. As insanely disruptive as the death had been, on some level, it all made sense and in some way the universe was still in good working order. I might very well have been grasping at straws, but who cares? The fact that the dates were identical made me feel a little better. And no matter how small, I needed all the “feel better” I could get. Importantly, from the larger standpoint of the evolution of the times, the group had a distinctively new sound. Later this would be understood to be the very beginnings of psychedelic music, and the songs were mainly written and recorded while the band was under the steady influence of marijuana. If you listen to the song “Girl” you can hear someone inhaling a joint, and George Harrison once commented that the album was “the first one where we were fully-fledged potheads.”  But the songs had a new level of depth to them as well. Remember that Bob Dylan had once told the Beatles that he liked their songs, but the trouble was that they weren't about anything. John Lennon said that he took that comment in on a profound level, and when you listen to him sing “Nowhere Man,” it certainly sounds like it. “He's a real nowhere man. Sitting in his nowhere land. Making all his nowhere plans for nobody.” Those words immediately got me. At the time, it sounded like he was talking about everyone, myself included. He continued, “Doesn't have a point of view. Knows not where he's going to. Isn't he a bit like you and me. He's as blind as he can be. Just sees what he wants to see…” In the present day, the song is looked at as an absolute classic and we take it for granted, but back then, it was truly incredible to hear these kind of ideas expressed in a Beatles song. In another cut, “Norwegian Wood,” George Harrison played the sitar for the first time ever in western music, which was truly a sign of things to come. And finally, there was the song, “The Word.” It's a song about love, but it's not a standard love song because it's actually about universal love, which is a theme the Beatles would expound upon seriously over the next few years. “Say the word and you'll be free. Say the word and be like me. Say the word I'm thinking of. Have you heard the word is love? Now that I know what I feel must be right. I'm here to show everybody the light. Give the word a chance to say that the word is just the way.” So, at the end of 1965, big changes were underway. The Beatles had evolved into a new level of musical genius and don't forget, they were the leading force of cultural change in the entire word, so the larger world of popular music was changing in an enormous way as well. And as difficult as it had been for me, I had gone through the first truly major change in my life, and one of the key parts of it had been the fact that I had gone through an experience that had defied science and logic. But something even bigger was waiting for me just around the next corner. Let's take that up in the coming episode, so as always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.

In the last episode, we looked at two disturbing events that happened to me during the last week of November of 1965. In the first, I was sitting in synagogue with my father and toward the end of the Saturday morning service as the rabbi was announcing the prayer called the Mourner's Kaddish, with a sudden sense of urgency, my father had me swear a solemn oath before God that I would say this prayer for him after he died. Surprised at the completely unexpected request, but taking no serious note of it, I made the vow. Then a few nights later, I had a harrowing nightmare where I was being chased by an invisible killer. I ended up standing before a huge wooden cross that clearly represented death to me. A hooded monk who was standing next to it, telepathically said to me, “You have come upon it.” Then to my extreme dismay, the dream turned into a recurring nightmare, as I had it on the following two nights as well. Now, as you may sense, we are beginning to approach some rather dramatic territory and before we start, I would like to mention a couple of key points, by way of introduction.   First, the events that were about to unfold would alter not only my entire life, but more critically, my most basic understandings about the nature of existence itself.  Foundations were being laid that would lead to the massive inner revolutions I would grow though during the deeply turbulent times that were about to follow. Secondly, the main reason that I am recounting these events is to provide some possible encouragement to anyone who may be facing some hard times and might want to explore the deeper sides of human intelligence and the potential that lies within each one of us.  So here we go. The next part of the story begins on Thursday night, December 2. My father was leaving for Boston the next day for the big 76ers - Celtics showdown in the Boston Garden. It was still early in the season, but the stakes were already enormous. For me, the day had flown by as any standard eleventh grade day normally did.  After dinner, I finished my homework, goofed around a little and finally went to bed, but I never got sleepy.  I was much too agitated. My mind seemed to be spinning around about my social life, my schoolwork, and of course, the gigantic upcoming game with the Celtics. But I knew that none of that was what was keeping me awake. The real reason I couldn't fall asleep was because I was too afraid that I was going to have that horrible nightmare again, and I just couldn't face the prospect of going through it all one more time.  I don't remember getting tired or drifting off to sleep. I was just lying in bed with my eyes closed and the very next thing I knew, I felt a funny sensation in my stomach, like I was in a moving car that had just come over a hill and was on its way down. I opened my eyes and saw my hands resting on the steering wheel of a car. I looked over them at the hood and realized I was driving my father's Cadillac.  I came down the hill on Spring Avenue and turned left onto Heather Road, as I had done a million times before. Our house was on the corner. With slight concern, I noticed that there were a few cars parked in front as I drove by, which was out of the ordinary. I made a right turn into the driveway, pulled up, and got out of the car. I walked around back and came in though the kitchen door. My mother was on the phone with her back to me. She didn't turn around. My father's younger brother was standing in front of the stove with his arms folded across his chest. He kept staring down at the floor, as though I wasn't even there. I went into the main hall, and up the stairs. I turned left at the top and walked up to my sister's room. As usual, her door was closed. I put my right hand on it, and stopped for a moment. Starring at the back of my hand I thought, “Well, this is it.” I pushed the door open. Sybil was standing in the back of the room with a few friends. She looked up at me. “Daddy's dead,” she said. “We don't have a daddy anymore.” “This is terrible,” I thought to myself. “But why are you talking like this? You're twenty years old, and you sound like a four-year-old.” I didn't say anything and walked out of her room, down the hall, and into my room. I sat down on my bed, and suddenly got overwhelmed with an intense anger at God. “Why did you do this?” I thought. “Why in the world did you have to do this?” I closed my eyes and smashed my fist down on the large end table next to my bed. As soon as my fist hit the table, I opened my eyes and felt completely disoriented. I was still in my room, but instead of sitting on my bed, I was lying in it. It took a few moments for me to grasp that I had been asleep and as real as it had seemed, the entire experience had only been a nightmare. Of course, I was relieved. I had just gone through the horrible experience of having my sister tell me that my father had died. And now, thankfully, I realized it had all been just a bad dream. Still, on a deep level, I was profoundly shaken because in truth, there had been nothing dreamlike about it.   I was happy about one thing, though – I hadn't had a repeat of the horrible dream with the killer and the cross. At least that recurring nightmare seemed over.    ***   Now, it was Friday morning, December 3, 1965. I picked up my good friend Marty and drove him to school. But as soon as he got in the car, I felt compelled to tell him all about my dream. I felt like I should tell someone because if it happened to come true, I didn't want to be the only one who knew about it in advance. It seemed like the kind of thing that could drive you nuts if you didn't handle it right. We only talked about the dream for a quick minute as we drove, and then switched to our plans for the upcoming weekend, which was packed with social events. The school day flew by in a flash, and the next thing I knew, it was Friday night. There was a big party and I was going to drive across town, pick up my girlfriend, and bring her with me. It was a half-hour ride each way, and when it came time to leave, I suddenly didn't feel like driving by myself. I called Marty and asked him to come with me. He agreed if we didn't take my Sprite, which was only a two-seater.  He was six-one and didn't want to be cramped-in for that long. The 76ers – Celtic game was going to be on national TV and my mother was getting ready to watch it. My father had flown to Boston with the team.  I asked her if it was OK for me to take her Pontiac. “You better not,” she replied. “Sybil has a bunch of friends coming over, and she may need it.” She turned on the TV and sat down on the couch. “Take the Caddy,” she said, nonchalantly. Without giving it a second thought, I hopped into my father's car and picked up Marty.  About twenty minutes into the ride, I suddenly felt like hearing some music. “Let's listen to the radio,” I said and turned it on. I hit the middle button, but there was no sound at all – just dead silence, which was very strange. That button was always set to our local rock ‘n roll station, and a loud-mouth deejay, a pop song, or some annoying commercial was blaring all the time. But now I heard nothing, and the ongoing silence was absolutely deafening. It lasted long enough that I thought the radio was broken. Then, finally, someone in a solemn voice came on and said - “We have just received a report from the Boston Garden that the owner of the 76ers, Ike Richman, has collapsed at courtside.” It paused. “His condition is unknown.” I quickly turned it off. I didn't want to hear any more. We drove to my girlfriend's house. As soon as we got there, I called home. My sister answered, and she sounded perky and happy, like she was having fun with her friends and everything was fine. “Sybil, what's happening?” I asked. “Oh, nothing,” she replied lightly. “Everything's fine. Listen, Mommy is leaving for New York soon, and she wants to see you before she goes. She's waiting for you, so come right home.” “Sure, I replied. “I'll be right back. “Great,” she said, cheerfully. Then in a slightly different tone, she added, “Come home now, David. Just come right home.”  It was a minor change, but I heard it in a major way.  “This could be anything,” I said to Marty as we drove back. “It could be indigestion. Or maybe he fainted from the lack of air in the place.” I paused, then said the obvious. “Or he could be dead.” Finally, we got to Spring Avenue, came over the hill, and as I started driving down it, I got a funny feeling in my stomach. I looked at my hands resting on the steering wheel and gazed at the hood of my father's car. That moment began one of the strangest experiences of my life. As soon as I felt that odd feeling in my stomach, my dream from the previous night began to come to life, in front of my startled eyes and it was uncanny.  As I lived through it, I knew exactly what was coming next. I turned left onto Heather Road and drove past the cars that were parked in front of the house. I felt they were not a good sign, just like in the dream. It was kind of like having a déjà vu, but very different. Déjà vu means “already seen,” and you feel like somehow, you've already lived through the experience that you're currently having. It's like remembering the present. But it's usually quite vague, and only lasts for an instant. There was nothing vague about the experience I was having. Quite the opposite. It was crystal clear. And it didn't vanish at all. It just went on and on.  As I drove along, one part of my mind was normal, with regular thoughts and feelings. But another part knew exactly what was coming and wanted to change it. As I was about to turn into the driveway, that part said, “Park on the street. Don't turn into the driveway. You know what's coming if you park in the driveway. Don't do it. Do something else!” That seemed logical, so I decided to park on the street. But then I made a deeply disturbing discovery: I had no control at all over what was happening. Even though I had clearly decided to park on the street, I robotically turned into the driveway, shut off the engine and got out of the car. “Don't go in the back door. Go around front,” I told myself as I started walking. “Just go in the front door. Do not go around back. Don't do it!” I thought about whether I had the key to the front door with me, but I knew it didn't matter. I knew I would be going in the back. It was like was watching a movie that had already been shot, but I was now living through it.  And now, not only did I know what was coming, I also knew I couldn't change it. I got to the back door and walked into the kitchen. Sure enough, just like in the dream, my mother was on the phone with her back to me and never noticed me. Neither did my Uncle Ray, who was standing in front of the stove with his arms folded across his chest, looking down at the floor. As I walked out into the hall, I knew it was time to go upstairs and face the news. And I knew it didn't matter what I thought or did. What was coming was coming. I got to the top of the stairs and looked down the hallway at the door to my sister's room. I could see that it was closed and I walked over and put my right hand on the door. I looked at my hand and had the same thought I'd had in the dream. “Well, this is it.” I pushed the door open. My sister was in the exact spot she was in the dream, surrounded by a few friends. She looked up at me and said the exact words from the dream. “Daddy's dead. We don't have a daddy anymore.” And then I had the same thought that I had had in the dream. “This is terrible. But why are you talking like this? You're twenty years old, and you sound like a four-year-old.” I walked out into the hall and down to my room. I sat on my bed and became overwhelmed with the same intense anger at God. “Why did you do this?” I thought in a rage of anger, confusion, and despair. “Why in the world did you have to do this?” And just like in the dream, I smashed my fist down on the end table next to my bed. In my dream, at that point I woke up. This time, when my fist hit the table, the bizarre state of reality I had been in came to an abrupt end and I was snapped back into normal life. Except there was no such thing as normal anymore. Instead of waking up from a nightmare and realizing it had only been a dream, my horrible nightmare was becoming reality. And the  devastating truth of it was unmistakable. This was no dream. This was real life. And my father was dead. Although it may be a bit abrupt, this is an ideal place for us to stop.  So, as always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open and let's get together in the next one.  

At the conclusion of the last episode, in late November of 1965, I was having a happy life as a normal sixteen-year-old eleventh grader. Things were going well and everything seemed right on track.  However, even though I had hardly noticed, a few things happened, which in retrospect could be seen to have been subtle warnings of a coming change. First, my father had told me that he would never be a grandfather and given the fact that my brother's wife was seven months pregnant, that meant that he had less than two months to live.   Then I had unexpectedly ran into an old comic book that had two mysterious stories concerning Abraham Lincoln and death, which I found to be hauntingly disturbing. Again, I paid no real attention to any of these at the time. But two more events were about to happen that would take things to another level.    The first one happened on a Saturday morning as my father and I were sitting in services in a modern synagogue near our home in Elkins Park. He was thinking about changing our affiliation, as we still belonged to our original temple, but it was a twenty-five-minute drive each way. This place was close enough that we could walk, which was a dream come true for him. Toward the very end of every Jewish service, a prayer is recited called the Mourner's Kaddish. It is one of the keystones of the religion, and every congregation does it, all over the world. Interestingly, even though it's done to honor the dead, it never once mentions death or dying. It's a prayer of praise, and the idea is that you always praise God, no matter what happens. As much as your heart may be broken, the teachings say that there's always a pathway that leads to salvation. As we sat there, the rabbi invited the mourners to rise to say Kaddish, and one of the kids from my school stood up, which surprised me. “I know that kid,” I whispered to my father. “I didn't know anybody in his family died.” Suddenly, to my surprise, my father got extremely serious. “This Kaddish prayer is much more important than you know,” he said, speaking in a tone of voice I had never heard before. It was incredibly solemn and I could barely tell it was him.  “I want you to promise me that after I die, you will come to services and say Kaddish for me, every morning, and every night. And that you will do it for the full eleven months.” It was a strange moment for me. I had never heard him that somber before and besides, it didn't make sense - he was only fifty-two. There was no question that I would say Kaddish for him after he died but that was twenty or thirty years down the road. “Of course, I will, Dad,” I said matter-of-factly. “You know I will.” Then the weird got weirder. “We're in synagogue,” he said, still in that extremely somber tone. “We're in front of the Torah and I want you to make a solemn vow to me now. And understand, this is a vow that you are making before God himself.” Now, we were extremely close and nothing like this had ever happened between us. He had never asked me to promise him anything before in my entire life. It seemed like a bizarre request, coming from him at this point in his life, but if this is what he wanted, why not? “OK,” I said, concealing the fact that I was slightly taken aback. “Good,” he said. “Now, repeat after me.” He paused, and then, like a judge administering an oath of office, he slowly recited the vow, one sentence at a time. And I repeated it after him, word for word. “I promise before God, that after you die, I will come to services and say Kaddish for you every morning and night for the full eleven months, so help me God.” When I said the last phrase, he exhaled deeply and slumped forward in his seat, with his eyes closed. He didn't move a muscle and for a second, I thought he might have passed out. It could have been for just an instant or it may have been much longer. I don't remember now.  What I do remember is that there was a deep sense of completeness in that moment. But it wasn't a positive feeling. It felt more like the completeness of the grave.     The next thing I knew, they started singing the last song of the service, which is a happy, cheerful hymn. Whenever I heard that song it always lifted me up, basically because I knew that services were over. My father opened his eyes and looked relieved. He seemed like his normal self again and started singing along with the song. Whatever that strange spell was, it was over. When we got outside, it was a beautiful day and we were both happy as we walked home in the bright sunlight. I always loved that time right after services. I had fulfilled my obligation to God and to my father, and I could finally get on with the carefree part of my weekend.                                                     ***   Then, a short time later, on Monday night, November 29th, I had a deeply disturbing nightmare. Someone was trying to kill me. I was desperately running for my life on a deserted part of the beach in Atlantic City, in front of the Boardwalk. It was daytime, but the atmosphere was dark and foreboding, like a major storm was brewing.  As I ran frantically, the would-be killer kept firing a gun at me. But the assailant, the gun, and the bullets were all invisible. Still, I could hear the loud crack of the gunfire and feel the sharp zing of the bullets as they whizzed past my head and exploded into the sand in front of me. The assassin was hell-bent on my destruction, relentless and getting closer all the time.  In sheer terror, I ran under the Boardwalk to hide.  But once I did, the whole scene immediately changed. Suddenly I was standing in a dark cave and everything was completely silent. Before, when I was running for my life, I heard the panting of my breath, the thumping of my feet on the sand, and the hiss of the bullets as they flew past my head. Now everything was dead silent and absolutely still.  I was standing in front of an old, brown wooden cross, with hundreds of lit candles all around. A monk in a dark-brown, hooded robe stood in front of it. The hood concealed the monk's face entirely. “Behold! The cross of the Crucifixion!” I seemed to somehow hear it inside my mind, but I knew it was coming from the monk. Then oddly, a few complete ideas appeared in my consciousness at the same time. Unlike linear thinking where one thought follows another, they all became clear to me at once.     I knew this was the actual cross from the actual crucifixion and that things were serious. I understood that the cross was a symbol for death, commonly used to mark a grave. And the final message was – “You have come upon it.” I looked at the monk, then back at the cross. Everything seemed frozen in time, like a still picture. The candles had stopped flickering, nothing moved and the stillness seemed to have a presence all its own.   Suddenly, I felt a sharp slap in the middle of my chest, right on my sternum. I gasped in an enormous amount of air and the next thing I knew, I was lying in my bed, in my pajamas. I was in my room, it was morning, and I realized it had all been a dream, a terrible nightmare. My right hand was resting on my chest. I must have stopped breathing in my sleep and then subconsciously slapped myself awake. I was shaken and didn't move for a few minutes. I finally got up, got dressed, and had my breakfast. But as I started driving to school, I was still disturbed. I hardly ever had nightmares and certainly never anything like this before. By the time I pulled into the school parking lot though, I was much more relaxed and decided to let the whole thing go. After all, it was just a bad dream. Maybe it was something I ate. The rest of the day was uneventful, and everything seemed fine. And it would have stayed fine, except that night, Tuesday, I had the same exact nightmare again, right down to the tiniest detail, through to the very end. Now I was rattled. This was more than just a nightmare, it was a recurring nightmare, which made it doubly serious. Then, to my extreme shock and dismay, the next night, Wednesday, I had the exact same dream. Again, I was being chased along the beach by an invisible killer, firing invisible bullets at me. I ducked under the Boardwalk, and it turned into a cave. There was the cross and the monk. Again, I got the same set of inner understandings, ending with the message - “You have come upon it.” And again, I slapped myself awake.   I didn't know what to do. Three straight nights of this recurring nightmare was unnerving. And on top of that, the fact that it had a big cross in it was deeply disturbing. The truth is, I didn't like crosses. They always made me feel uncomfortable. And it wasn't due to any differences in religious beliefs either. It was much deeper than that…a visceral feeling, like getting punched in the stomach.  I felt it the very first time I ever saw a crucifixion statue, which was when I was about six. We lived in the Northeast section of the city, across the street from a church and I was having a catch with a friend. The ball flew over and landed near the front door of the building. When I went to get it, I noticed that the church door was open. The place had always been mysterious to me, so I thought I'd go in and take a peek.   The very first thing I saw in there was a huge cross with a lifelike porcelain statue of a nearly naked man nailed to it. The guy was dead. And there was a crown of sharp thorns stuck into his head, with blood streaming down his face. Thorns! I couldn't believe it. My mother grew rose bushes and always warned me to be careful of them. Still, I got stuck in the finger once. It bled a lot and it really hurt. Seeing a bunch of thorns stuck in this poor guy's head was revolting. The rest of his body was a real horror show too, with whip marks all over it and nails hammered into his hands and feet. It was easily the most gruesome sight I had ever seen in my life. It made me sick to my stomach and I ran out of the church at full speed, crossed the street and collapsed onto our lawn. My head was spinning, and I was out of breath. But the firm ground and familiar smell of the grass made me feel better. After a few minutes, I calmed down. Then, out of nowhere, an unexpected rush of rage came over me. Filled with anger and fury, I thought, “Look what those goddamn bastards did to him!” I was only six, but it wasn't the thought of a child. I felt like I wanted to kill somebody. Crosses always bothered me after that. Later, in college, I studied the symbol's deeper meanings, along with the concepts of sacrifice, grace, forgiveness, the soul's triumph over death, and its eventual reunion with the immortal father. And while they're all ennobling ideas, the cross still reminds me of humanity at its worst, and of things gone horribly wrong. And I still get the same visceral feeling. The jarring symbol had now played a central role in three recurring nightmares, and I decided if it happened again, I would talk things over with my mother. Maybe it was time for me to go see a doctor or something. Well, as far as the ongoing narrative is concerned, this is an ideal place for this episode to stop. All I have to say at this point is – fasten your seat belts! As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open and let's get together in the next one.

We ended the last episode in April of 1965 when George Harrison and John Lennon of the Beatles were unexpectedly given a dose of LSD by their dentist at a dinner party that he was hosting for them. This was done without their knowledge or permission, and although it could have had some significantly negative consequences, fortunately for everyone concerned, it all worked out well. At this point in the podcast series, it's important to understand that this narrative is about the evolution of consciousness, especially as it happened on a mass level beginning in the mid-sixties. And that will serve as a lead in to some of the remarkable experiences I had at the time, which led to my lifelong involvement with personal growth, which is just a simpler term used for the evolution of consciousness.   As we've seen, two substances, marijuana and LSD, played significant roles at the time, but they were just catalysts for the massive changes that were beginning to take place. Critically, this isn't about those substances, how they work or the positive or negative aspects of them. This is about the liberation and elevation of human consciousness itself, which can easily happen with or without the use of external stimulants. Indeed, myriads of people have experienced enlightening inner growth without ever using any of these kinds of substances, and by the same token, plenty of people have taken large amounts of them and have gained very little, if any lasting enlightenment. So, it all depends upon the individual involved, as well as on the circumstances that help set the stage. That being said, let's take a brief look at what happened to John and George that night at their dentist's home and then, what happened to Ringo and Paul a little later.  It seems that George had a profoundly illuminating experience that night. As he said, “I felt this amazing sensation come over me. It was like an intense version of the best feeling I ever had in my life. It was wonderful. I felt in love with everything and everyone. Everything was perfect and beautiful, and I wanted to tell everyone how much I loved them — even strangers. “I had such an overwhelming feeling of well-being, that there was a God, and I could see him in every blade of grass. It was like gaining hundreds of years of experience within twelve hours. It changed me, and there was no way back to what I was before.” Indeed, there was no way back for him and the same held true for John as well, who said about that first night, “God, it was just terrifying, but it was fantastic.” He began taking it on a somewhat regular basis and later he said, “LSD was the self-knowledge which pointed the way. I was suddenly struck by great visions when I first took acid. But you've got to be looking for it before you can possibly find it. Perhaps I was looking without realizing it.”  I've always felt that given the cultural framework of the time, that was quite a profound observation of his. About moving forward, George said, “John and I had decided that Paul and Ringo had to have acid because we couldn't relate to them anymore. Not just on the one level — we couldn't relate to them on any level, because acid had changed us so much. It was such a mammoth experience that it was unexplainable. It was something that had to be experienced, because you could spend the rest of your life trying to explain what it made you feel and think. It was all too important to John and me.”  Ringo joined John and George for their second LSD trip on August 25, 1965 and his experience seemed positive as well. “I'd take anything,” he later said. “It was a fabulous day. The night wasn't so great, because it felt like it was never going to wear off. Twelve hours later and it was, ‘Give us a break now, Lord.'” Paul was a bit more hesitant, and despite repeated pleas from his bandmates, he held out for over a year. But when he finally gave it a try, he said, “I always found it amazing. Sometimes it was a very, very deeply emotional experience, making you want to cry, sometimes seeing God or sensing all the majesty and emotional depth of everything. “It opened my eyes to the fact that there is a God … It is obvious that God isn't in a pill, but it explained the mystery of life,” he said. “It was truly a religious experience.” So, in the larger context, by the end of 1965, the stage had been set for what was about to come. The Beatles had been opened to a higher understanding of consciousness and their music and everything else about them had begun to evolve. Significantly, they would have a major effect on both the music and the messaging that was about to transform the entire culture. But remember, there was also another major factor that had been put in place during the same month that the Beatles first got high with Dylan. And that was the fact that the US Congress had basically given Lyndon Johnson the right to activate the American military in Vietnam in any way he saw fit. And by the end of 1965, he had begun to significantly exercise that right, right or wrong. Unfortunately, the statistics tell the tale. By the end of the year there were 184,300 US troops deployed in South Vietnam and 1,928 US soldiers died there that year. That is more than a 700% gain over the previous year's totals. It was still getting relatively little attention, but tragically, things were just getting warmed up over there. Now, the end of 1965 also brings us to a time of a major, critical change in my own life as well.  As you may have noticed, I have said very little about my life so far and there's a good reason for it. I had been living a standard, normal American life, and nothing out of the ordinary had happened to me yet. If you know of my personal history, you might find it a little strange for me to say that nothing out of the ordinary had happened to me yet. After all, I had grown up in a somewhat unusual environment. My father was a prominent Philadelphia attorney who started the 76ers and had moved Wilt Chamberlain into our home. Wilt was my roommate when I was in tenth grade, so of course, those were some incredible times. But as unusual as they may have been, these are not the kind of “out of the ordinary” events I'm talking about.  As you will soon see, I'm referring to something completely different. Anyway, as November of 1965 was drawing to a close, I was making my way through eleventh grade and enjoying it thoroughly. I had a great family with lots of terrific friends. My future seemed well-planned and rather rosy as well. I would finish high school followed by college and law school. At some later point my brother and I would inherit our father's law firm as well as ownership of the 76ers. So, everything seemed pretty much set up for me.  Speaking of the team, the season was coming into full swing, things were going well for us and the NBA championship seemed clearly in sight.  So, there I was, a normal, happy sixteen-year-old, eagerly looking forward to what was coming next. But the truth is, as we all must learn sooner or later, you can never really know what's coming around the next corner. The actual reality of the future always remains unknown. The past, of course is a different story. And with the clarity of hindsight, it's fairly obvious that some troubling signs were starting to appear in my path. The first one was barely noticeable at the time. My brother's wife was about seven months pregnant and my father and I had driven over to visit them one afternoon. When we got home and pulled into the driveway, I asked him, “So how does it feel now that you're going to be a grandfather?” “What do you mean?” he asked me. “Does it make you feel old or anything?” He didn't respond right away and just stared out at the rose garden near the back door of our house. “I'm never going to be the grandfather to this child,” he said. There was a distant sound in his voice, like he was talking from afar.  “No. I won't be the grandfather,” he continued matter-of-factly. “I'll be the father's father, but I'll never be the grandfather.” He used to say quirky things like this all the time. It sounded like he was splitting hairs and I didn't pay any attention to it.   *** A second subtle omen came in the form of a comic book. I was in student council and started thinking about running for school president. My high school was quite large, with about two thousand students. If I wanted to run, there would be a lot to do, and it was time to give it some serious thought. One night at dinner, I mentioned it to my parents and they both encouraged me. The next day, when I got home from school, an old comic book of mine was on the end table next to my bed. I hadn't seen it in years, but I immediately recognized it. It had stories about each president of the United States. My mother kept a few boxes of my childhood things in the basement and had pulled it out, probably to inspire me.  As I looked at the cover, I clearly remembered that there was a strange story about Abraham Lincoln in the middle. I quickly flipped it opened and sure enough, there it was, “Lincoln, the Mystic.” It had two parts. The first was called, “I Am Not Dead – I Still Live.” It showed a letter from a psychic that was found in Lincoln's desk after he died. Supposedly, it was a channeled, life-after-death message from a close friend of Lincoln's who had been killed in battle. Written backwards, it had to be read in a mirror. It said - “I am not dead. I still live…I experienced a happy reality - a glorious change by the process called death… Man lives on Earth, to live elsewhere, and that elsewhere is ever present. Heaven and Hell are conditions, not localities.” You might be surprised to learn that Lincoln had kept a letter from a psychic in his desk at the White House, but it's in the archives of the Library of Congress.  I went on to the second part, called “The Most Famous Pre-Cognitive Dream in American History.”  It showed Lincoln asleep in the White House. A mournful sound wakes him up. He gets out of bed and starts walking toward it. As he gets closer, he realizes that it is the sound of people sobbing in misery. He enters the East Room and sees a coffin on a flag-draped stand, guarded by soldiers. “Who is dead in the White House?” he asks one of them. “The President,” comes the reply. “He was killed by an assassin.” The crying gets much louder and Lincoln looks into the coffin and to his shock, he sees himself lying there. He stares at his dead body for a moment, then he suddenly wakes up and realizes it had all been a bad dream. Looking back on these small events it seems like I was being given some information about what was to come. The first part came from my father. If what he said about never becoming a grandfather came true, whether he knew it or not, he was telling me that he had less than two months to live.  The second and third came from the comic book about Lincoln and they were both about death. One said that in truth, death is not an ending, it's actually a glorious change into a happy reality. And the other said that it's possible to have a pre-cognitive dream of death that can quickly come true.   Again, I barely noticed these three factors at the time and certainly didn't see any connection between them and my life at all. That being said, this is a good place to end this episode. As you might guess, the unfolding story is about to go a few levels deeper, so as always, keep your eyes, mind, and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.

In the last episode, we looked at two critically important events that happened in August of 1964 that would eventually have truly profound effects on Western culture, as well as on world history in general. On August 7, the US Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and 21 days later, on August 28, Bob Dylan got together with the Beatles in their New York City hotel suite for a casual evening of fun. Again, neither event seemed overly important at the time, but in the long run, they were truly critical. By a nearly unanimous vote, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution effectively gave President Lydon Johnson “carte blanche” to direct the American military operation in Southeast Asia however he saw fit.   A few weeks later, at the party New York, Bob Dylan got John, Paul, George, and Ringo high on marijuana for the first time in their lives, blowing the doors of perception wide open for them.  And significantly, in their altered state, he told them that he admired their songs, but the problem was that they weren't about anything. This casual comment proved to be deeply moving to them in terms of their creativity.   The last episode was titled, “Tale of Two Seeds,” and that's exactly what it was because two very different seeds had been planted. And within a rather short period of time, both of those seeds would sprout and start growing like wildfire, and ultimately, one would be the undoing of the other. But let's veer off a little here for a quick reminder of what this sequence of episodes is all about. As I've mentioned a few times earlier, the underlying theme of all of this is the evolution of consciousness that began to take place in a very serious way back then and has continued, through to this day, although often quite subtly. As the series has unfolded, we've gotten some terrific feedback from our subscribers, but there has been one question that has come up a few times and I'd like to address it briefly. The question is, “What do you mean by the term “evolution of consciousness?” It's really quite simple. Essentially, we each live in two worlds - our external world and our internal world. Our external world consists of everything that is happening around us on the outside, which generally involves our friends, our family, our career, our home, our car, our pets, and so on. And on the other hand, our internal world relates to everything that is going on within us – our thoughts, our feelings, our knowledge and understandings, our memoires, etc. The term, “consciousness” simply refers to this inner world of ours, which holds the mass composite of all the intelligence that is within each one of us on an individual basis.  When our consciousness grows toward the positive, it turns us into better human beings, and the term “evolution of consciousness” is used to simply identify this wonderfully powerful kind of positive inner growth. Now, human society is largely a reflection of the overall state of consciousness of the human beings in it, so the more highly evolved our individual consciousness becomes, the better the chances we have of living in a kinder and more humane society.  In other words, better people will always create a better world. In this regard, history has shown that the artists of any age usually play very significant roles in stimulating the inner growth of the people of their time. Along these lines, although I haven't been able to find out who said it, I once came across a great quote about the role of the artist in society. It divided people into two categories. The first one is made up of society's solid, reliable, hard-working people, the ones who go to work every day and do all the things we need to keep our lives going. It said that these are the people who make the world go around. But it said that the job of an artist isn't to make the world go around. The job of the artists is to make the world go forward. As a wanna-be artist, painting the colors of words onto the canvass of ideas, I found the idea to be quite inspiring.    So, with all that being said, let's go back to the Beatles in August of 1964. Apparently, when Dylan got them stoned that night, it began a bit of a love affair between the lads and the weed. As happened to so many of us upon our first exposure to the mind-altering powers of THC, they began perceiving things in a very different way. After that, getting high on marijuana became a normal part of their abnormal lives, and their music, along with everything else about them began to undergo a slow, but dramatic metamorphosis. Small and subtle as it was, I clearly remember the first time I became conscious of a definite change in their music in December of 1964. I was in tenth grade, finishing my first semester of high school and a new Beatles album had just come out called Beatles 65.  It was always a major event whenever a new one of their albums came out and this was no different. All the songs were remarkably great, as they always were, but there was one that seemed just a bit different. John Lennon was singing. His voice had become incredibly familiar to me and always made me happy. The song was about a lost love, but instead of just being sad, it seemed to have a new sense of pathos in it. And in the slow introduction, I couldn't believe the words that I heard him sing. “I'm a loser. I'm a loser. And I'm not what I appear to be.” I was pretty surprised. To me, he seemed to be the coolest superstar in the whole world, which to my young mind made him one of my major heroes. And now, I am hearing this greatly influential voice tell me that in actuality, he's really  a loser and he's not what he appears to be. And there were some pretty deep ideas in the rest of the lyrics as well. “Although I laugh and I act like a clown, beneath this mask, I am wearing a frown. My tears are falling like rain from the sky. Is it for her or myself that I cry? What have I done to deserve such a fate? I realize I have left it too late. And so it's true, pride comes before a fall. I'm telling you so that you won't lose all. I'm a loser. I'm a loser. And I'm not what I appear to be.” It's not like it was that all that big of a deal for me, but still, something seemed noticeably different. Clearly it was a break-up song, but also clearly, it was not a song that didn't mean anything. I didn't notice it at the time, but in a larger sense, some initial seeds of concepts of change were being planted in my subconscious mind. “Maybe I'm a loser too, and maybe I'm not what I appear to be. And you know what? Maybe this whole world isn't what it appears to be. And what about life itself? Maybe life isn't what it appears to be, either. These are really important questions and you don't really know a thing about this kind of stuff, do you?”  These hadn't exactly formed into thoughts yet, just somewhat ethereal feelings and of course, I had no answers. Far from it. I didn't even have any questions. Again, it was just a subtle feeling, like on a very deep level, a curtain of some kind was about to be lifted. Again, these were the earliest of times for me. It would be several years before I would find myself being forced to explore the treacherous terrain of self-deception. As far as the  society was concerned, at this point, it's important to remember that during the mid-sixties, as well as for at least the ten years that followed, the Beatles were by far, the most influential force in popular music. Of course, there were many other tremendous musicians during that time as well, far too many to mention here. But the Beatles always led the way, coaxing the culture down the yellow brick road for at least a decade.  All in all, a truly remarkable output of rock music became the primary source of influence to the seventy million American baby boomers. With their radios and record players constantly blasting the beat, it became the soundtrack of their lives as they made their way through the incredibly influential years that led them into becoming the people they eventually became. By the way, on a completely different track, let's take a look at a few statistics regarding Southeast Asia as the year of 1964 came to a close. At the close of 1963, the US had 16.300 “advisors” active in South Vietnam and 122 of them had been killed that year.  By the end of 1964, the number had increased by over 40% to 23,300 and 216 of them had been killed. Not that anyone was paying any attention to it. These weren't particularly alarming numbers and Vietnam could have been on the moon as far at the general public was concerned. A vast majority of the American population had never even heard of it. But the Beatles music had definitely begun to change. It started out with a random song here and there, but the same way that random rocks trickling down the side of a mountain can suddenly catalyze a massive avalanche, in many significant ways, the Beatles were about to change the world. In this regard, one evening in April of 1965 marked the beginning of their next phase, as their newly elevated path was unexpectedly launched into hyperspace. John Lennon and George Harrison, along with their wives, went to dinner at the home of their dentist. The dentist served them a meal, followed by coffee and dessert, and it seemed like he made sure that John and George drank all their coffee. Then, a short while later, he told them that he had spiked their coffee with LSD. Of course, dosing someone with LSD without their consent is a terrible thing to do. History has taught, as Timothy Leary's research at Harvard had proclaimed much earlier, that the drug can wreak severely negative impacts when done in the wrong way at the wrong time. Fortunately for the couples at dinner that night, even though it turned out to be a bit of a crazy ride, they still remained safe. But both George and John had some deeply profound experiences. But that's enough for right now. As you can imagine, we're coming into some interesting territory in the coming episodes, so as always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.  

As we ended the last episode, a party was beginning in a swank hotel suite in New York City. It was August 28, 1964, and Bob Dylan had driven down from his home in Woodstock to spend an evening with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, who had become known to the world as the Beatles. Before we get into what happened on that magical evening, let's step back a little and remember that we are looking at certain key events that took place back then that were hardly noticed at the time, but would have incredibly powerful effects on the massive changes that were about to come that would shake our society to its very core. Two of those major events happened in August of 1964 and the meeting between Dylan and the Beatles was actually the second one. Let's start this episode by taking a quick look at what happened a few weeks earlier, on August 4. On that date, by a vote of 98 – 2 in the Senate, and by a 100% unanimous vote of the House of Representatives, the Congress of the United States passed something called the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.           The odds are high that you either never heard of it or barely remember it, but in essence, this is what opened the door to the ever-deepening US involvement in Vietnam. In a lot of ways, this event marked the very beginning of the coming catastrophe.           At the time, in the battle between North and South Vietnam, the US was backing the south against the communist regime of the north. But South Vietnam's forces had been largely ineffective and the Johnson administration concluded that it needed to prop them up to prevent a communist takeover of the entire region. This idea was called the “domino theory” and was often used to justify deeper US involvement in the area.   The South Vietnamese began a series of naval raids on the North Vietnamese coast and to lend support, the U.S. Navy stationed two destroyers, the Maddox and the Turner Joy, in the Gulf of Tonkin.  On August 2, they reported that they had been attacked by some North Vietnamese patrol boats and had returned fire. Later it came out that the US had fired the first shots. Then on August 4, with the area under severely inclement weather, relying on radar readings, the ships thought they were under larger attack. The two ships fired at the area delineated by the radar readings and reported up the chain of command that they were engaged in a battle. But soon, the captain of the Maddox realized that not only had there had been no attack, there were  actually no ships in the area at all. He sent the corrected information up the chain of command. Then, as Johnson's Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara said in the documentary, “The Fog of War,” things got a little foggy. No one knows exactly how or why it happened, but President Johnson, speaking with the full authority of his office, notified congress that the attack had happened.   He then addressed the country on national TV and explained the alleged facts of the alleged situation. And calling for action, he firmly stated that the US could not tolerate this kind of aggression on the open seas.  Congress passed the Tonkin resolution which stated that “the United States is, therefore, prepared, as the President determines, to take all necessary steps, including the use of armed force.” Note that the key words, “as the President determines.  Now there are two key points to take away from this congressional  resolution. The first one is that the report's inciting incident was, essentially, a “false flag,” which means it never happened. Of course, it was only after certain secret documents about it had been de-classified in 2005 that the true information became known. All things considered; forty years of misinformation sounds about right. But the second, and by far most important issue with the proclamation is that it gave the president the right to use US military force at his discretion, without having to go before Congress for authorization. They basically gave him Carte Blanche to direct the actions of the military in Southeast Asia as he saw fit. And as events would subsequently prove, he really took them up on it.   It's not necessary to go more deeply into all this here. The important thing is, and no one it knew back then, tragically, the trap-door been set and soon, we would fall into the horrifying abyss of death and destruction that was lying in wait for us in Vietnam. Now, on a much lighter note, let's jump ahead three weeks to August 28 and the party in the swank premier suite at the Delmonico Hotel, when Bob Dylan joined John, Paul, George and Ringo for an informal get together.   Dylan was always a big influence on the white-hot band from England. He had hit the big time about a year before the Beatles had emerged and they really looked up to him. Now, although they had both become major forces in popular music, in reality they operated in distinctly different musical frameworks. All of the Beatles' songs were about standard romantic themes, while Dylan's carried much deeper messages. He had begun as a protest singer and quickly came to be considered the voice of the new generation. But he had recently gone through quite a change and was working on a new album called, “Another Side of Bob Dylan.” And indeed, it clearly was a very different side of the rapidly evolving artist.   In his new music he was dealing with themes that were far more personal than societal. Still, on the deepest level, his new songs were every bit as revolutionary as his protest songs had been, and as deeply insightful as well, but in a very different way. One of his new songs was called “All I Really Want to Do.” Instead of being tied down to the normal roles of a standard romantic relationship, he expressed the liberated desire for freedom and individualism for both partners. He sang, “I ain't looking to compete with you, beat or cheat or mistreat you. Simplify you, classify you, deny, defy or crucify you. All I really want to do is baby be friends with you.” No one had ever heard anything quite like it before and it quickly became a big hit. But there was also a rumor about this new direction he was taking. According to one record producer who claimed he had been there, Dylan had tried LSD for the first time earlier that year. As I already mentioned about Dylan, he always has been and still is, prone to keeping the details of his private life extremely private. So, nobody knows if or when he ever did LSD, how many times, or anything like that. But he wrote a song back then that found its way onto his new album and some observers consider to be the first popular song ever written about an LSD trip. The song was called, “The Chimes of Freedom Flashing” and this deeply poetic statement quickly became an iconic standard in the annals of popular culture. Dylan seemed to have entered into a different dimension, where he was getting a sense that a major change in consciousness was approaching, that would bring freedom and liberation to those who were suffering from the slings and arrows of humanity's unending inhumanity. It was and still is quite a powerful idea.  In the song, he and a companion were having a dramatic, multi-sensory experience as they witnessed what he called, “the chimes of freedom flashing.” He said the chimes were “Flashing for the warriors, whose strength is not to fight, flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight. And for each and every underdog soldier in the night.” He went on, saying they were “Tolling for the searching ones on their speechless, seeking trail, for the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale, and for each unharmful gentle soul misplaced inside a jail.” And in the last verse, he proclaimed that the chimes were “Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed, for the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse, and for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe. And we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.” Obviously, this guy was light years ahead of his time. Anyway, back to the party with the Beatles. It started out in a friendly, light hearted manner and stayed that way for a while until unexpectedly it went up a notch as Dylan told the group that he had brought along some rather high-grade marijuana.  He said he had assumed that the Beatles were already getting high because he thought the lyric to one of their famous songs was - “It's such a feeling that my love, I get high, I get high, I get high.” They all had a good laugh because the actual lyric in the song was “I can't hide. I can't hide. I can't hide.” Not “I get high.” The hilarity continued, one thing led to another and before they knew it, the fab four, along with their manager Brian Epstein, got stoned for the first time in their lives. And it seems like they got really stoned, because, as it can happen, rather than just having an elevated inner feeling, it seems they took a little journey through the doors of perception and started having some rather profound realizations. You might have heard the term, “the doors of perception before,” as writer Aldous Huxley used it as the title for his 1954 book. It comes from the quote by William Blake, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is – infinite.” And that's kind of what happened to them that night. Paul McCartney felt like he was having an inspiring brush with enlightenment. He said something to the effect that this was the first time in his life that he felt he could really think. He had one of their assistants grab a pen and paper to keep writing down all deeper understandings he kept having. Apparently, as the revelry of the evening continued, at one point Dylan made a comment to them that went in pretty deep. At the time, 100% of the songs the Beatles were writing and singing were about the ups and downs of standard, romantic boy-girl love, and that was their entire repertoire. That was it.    Dylan told them that he really enjoyed their music and he did. He often said that they had a great sound, that their melodies were terrific and their harmonies were perfect. But he said that even though he liked them, he had a problem with their songs and his problem was that they weren't about anything. Supposedly John Lennon got blown out and later said that Dylan's comment had produced some major realizations within him, prompting him to start writing about deeper themes that were “outside of just the meat-market.” In retrospect, many cultural historians believe that this meeting between Dylan and the Beatles marked the very beginnings of a major change that would soon completely transform popular music, which in turn, would change the entire world.  We'll go into it all this little more in depth in the coming episodes so let's call it quits for now. As always, keep your eyes mind and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.  

We ended the last episode with the Commencement Address that President Kennedy gave at American University, which marked a major thaw in the cold war, leading to a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union. That was on June 10, 1963. Now let's move on to June 11th. Governor George Wallace, in defiance of federal desegregation orders, attempted to block the enrollment of two African American students at the University of Alabama. Symbolizing his resistance to federal integration efforts, he stood in the doorway and proclaimed, “Segregation Now. Segregation Forever.” It's hard to know if he thought his action was going to intimidate the President, but it did no such thing. JFK quickly federalized the Alabama National Guard, who immediately removed Wallace from the premises.   That night, the President delivered a televised address to the country announcing that he had ordered the National Guard to ensure the enrollment of the two African American students. Then, emphasizing the importance of upholding the rule of law and the Constitution, he clearly reaffirmed his administration's full support of the Civil Rights movement. It turns out that the month of June was to become a truly historic month for him because as it continued, on June 26th, he made his legendary trip to West Berlin. In his world-famous speech to 120,000 wildly admiring West Berliners, he said, “There are many people in the world who really don't understand, or say they don't, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin. There are some who say that Communism is the wave of the future. Let them come to Berlin.” Then, with the wit of biting sarcasm he continued, “Freedom has many difficulties and Democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us.” At that point, he concluded the speech with words that went down in history, “All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner.” Of course, it meant, “I am a Berliner.” At the end of the trip, he left Berlin for a four-day visit to his ancestral homeland in Ireland, a journey that can only be called a love fest. Not only was he the first US president to ever visit the emerald isle, his trip was celebrated as the return of a truly beloved native son, and wherever he went, he was mobbed by adoring Irish crowds.  He then moved on to two days spent in London consulting with Prime Minister MacMillan before returning to Washington. Following his return from the exhilarating trip abroad, it was time to begin preparing for the coming presidential election. Although it had been a promising first term, he still had a tricky path to navigate in 1964, as his political enemies were powerful and the road ahead of him had some serious obstacles. During these early, pre-elections days of October and November, there were rumored to have been two other events that may have happened which would have critically changed world history if they had come true. The first one is that Kennedy, concluding that the government of South Vietnam had become too unstable to justify further US support, had supposedly set in motion plans to terminate all US involvement in Vietnam by the end of December, 1965, He had made up his mind and we were pulling out. The second possible event is the report that Kennedy had decided to drop Lyndon Johnson from the ticket for the election of 1964 and had told him so. Now, there is no substantial proof to verify either of these claims and there never will be. Still, if you let your imagination run wild a little, you can see how the history of the coming era would have been radically different. Whatever his plans might have been, they would have had to remain top secret given the turbulent politics of the upcoming presidential election. In that regard, he began to embark on some politically-motivated trips. On November 2nd he left for Chicago, followed by a trip to Tampa, Florida on the 18th. Then, on November 21, he and the first lady departed for Texas. They went to San Antonio, then Houston, and then to Fort Worth, where they stayed overnight. The next morning, they took the short flight to Dallas and arrived at 11:38 AM. They got into the presidential limousine and left Love Field at 11:55, arriving in downtown Dallas following the short ride. The streets were lined with throngs of awestruck people, enthusiastically cheering them on, as the most recognized and charismatic couple in the entire world slowly passed by. As they basked in the warmth of the adoring crowd, the motorcade continued on, into the brilliant sunlight of what was shaping up to be an absolutely perfect day. Then, at 12:30 pm, the unthinkable happened.   ***   It's neither necessary nor possible to begin to describe the effect that it had on America, and in particular, the youth of America, as the plague of that horrible news spread like wildfire throughout the population. And it went on for the full thirty days of mourning that followed. For me, when the assassination happened, I had just begun ninth grade, my last year in junior high school and I was in the sadly unfortunate position of being just old enough and just young enough. I was old enough to understand the true gravity of the tragedy, but still young enough to have my childhood sensibilities shaken to the core. And let's not even talk about that four-day stretch of dark days. There was the assassination itself, followed by a day of absolute shock, then the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald on national TV, followed by the incredibly sad and deeply somber funeral, as the forty-six year-old, fallen hero of the republic was laid to rest. It was all so sad, but also, it was all so weird.        For the first time ever, the whole country stopped to watch television as the entire nation stood still for the six-hour funeral. Something like this had happened before, on April 14, 1945 when President Franklin Roosevelt was buried, but that was only on radio. This was completely different. It was much more graphic, as one incredibly grief-stricken image after the next was broadcast to the entire western world. And when it comes to tragic images, the spontaneous salute that John-John gave to his father's flag-draped coffin as it passed him by was seared into our collective memory. Nobody saw that heart-wrenching moment coming. It was almost as if we were being taught as a culture, a dramatic seminar on the ever-present possibility of sudden death…how everything can come to a screeching halt, no matter who you are. And subconsciously the message was clear - if instant death can happen to someone like that, who was at the absolute pinnacle of power, it can happen to any one of us. We can be gone in a flash. And then nothing is the same. In total, all three major networks suspended normal programming for four days and played seventy consecutive hours of the live coverage of the proceedings. From a mass media perspective, the only other time anything like this has ever happened was the coverage of the 911 attacks in 2001.    Again, the purpose of this series of podcasts is to focus on the mass evolution of consciousness that happened during this formative era, as well as to examine my own story as I went through it all. At this point, to put it simply, we all had the wind completely taken out of our sails. Our daily lives continued, but again, it was all so sad and it was all so weird, like we were painfully groping our way through the shadows of a slowly unfolding nightmare that never seemed to end.  And then, suddenly, something completely different happened.   ***   Exactly eighty days after the assassination, on the night of February 9, 1964, variety TV show host Ed Sullivan walked onto the stage of his Sunday night program and with five words, spoke a phrase that absolutely changed everything - “Ladies and Gentleman – The Beatles.” Seventy-Seven million people were watching and for the youth of the country, it was like a magic spell had been cast, designed to dissipate the suffering and the pain that had enveloped us. In an instant, one phase of our life ended and another began. The mourning period was over and suddenly, it was time to sing and dance again. And boy, did we! Once more, it is neither necessary nor possible to begin to describe what happened. Suffice it to say that everything changed for us almost overnight, as this thing called Beatlemania set it. We had four new heroes, these guys named John, Paul, George and Ringo and they were so cool, yet so incredibly upbeat at the same time. Their music was truly amazing but there was also something else about them, something intangible. They seemed to be happily above the toils of life, like they had just arrived from another planet that ran on nothing but pure fun. And on top of it all, their haircuts were like nothing we'd ever seen before. It seemed a little strange at first, but within a few months, all the guys were copying them. I know I went from the standard buzz-cut to the new mop top as soon as my hair would grow out. If it sounds like we were completely awestruck, we were, but don't forget what we'd just been through, not to mention our age – I was just a month shy of turning fifteen. Amazingly, it ended up that the Beatles were just the first wave of what became known as the British Invasion as the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, the Who, the Hollies, the Zombies, the Kinks, Herman's Hermits and God knows how many others came cascading into the country. It seemed like every day, wave after wave of new songs washed up onto the shores of our AM radios, which we had blasting all the time. And that's not to mention all of the new remarkable American music that helped launched us into hyper-space, as well. Of course, we were still going to school and studying, as normal life continued, But, a massive new party had obviously begun, with the Beatles leading the way.   Things went on like that for about six months. Then the Beatles hit an unexpected, little turn in the road, when on the night of August 28, 1964, they finally got to spend an evening with one of their primary musical heroes, the enigmatic Bob Dylan. Now this was another one of those events that was only a very quick couple of hours, and it was largely unnoticed at the time. On one level, it was just your standard meeting of two major musical superstar acts. At the time, the Beatles were enjoying a level of fame that had never been seen before. And along with also being extremely famous, Dylan was the most influential musician of his time. It started out with a lot of goofing around, a lot of partying, you know the standard kind of things that can happen in a glitzy high-end hotel room in New York City when the absolute pinnacle of rock and roll gets together to relax and have a good time. But it ended up being quite a bit more than that. Even though it was extremely subtle, again, those subterranean Teutonic plates were set in motion and a major earthquake was looming, just over the horizon. Well, this is a perfect place for us to stop, so as always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.  

We closed the last episode by looking at the emergence of Bob Dylan onto the Beat Scene in Greenwich Village in 1962, and we mentioned his song, Blowin' in the Wind, where he asked some deeply troubling questions about what was going wrong in the world and said that the answer to them all is blowing in the wind. Now Dylan has never confirmed nor denied that he was referring to marijuana in that song. But if he was, it was a pretty obscure reference because less than 4 per cent of the US population had tried it at the time, and a vast majority of people had never even heard of it. It's known that a lot of the “Beatniks” were into it, including my sister who was attending a big university in a major US city, so it was probably starting to get around, although her private escapades were always kept top secret. There was another drug, LSD, that was flying well under society's radar screen as well, but there were two major differences between the two substances. While marijuana got you high, meaning it put you into of an elevated state of mind, LSD was a powerful psychedelic, capable of significantly altering your entire sense of reality. And, although the far less potent drug, marijuana, had been against the law since 1937, remarkably, LSD was still legal. We'll get into the effects of these substances on American culture more deeply as the story unfolds. For now, let's go back to the period immediately following the Cuban Missile Crisis and take another look at President Kennedy.  It seems clear that serving as the Commander in Chief of the United States armed forces during those harrowing thirteen days had a profound effect on him and most historians believe he started to seriously explore ways to reduce the tensions between America and the Soviet Union. When the crisis began, Kennedy had authorized his brother Robert, the Attorney General and a key member of his cabinet, to set up a back channel of communications with the Soviet Ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Dobrynin. JFK felt that it was imperative to have a reliable form of direct communication with Khrushchev. According to released Russian documents, the Soviet premier's son-in-law Alexei Adzhubei, met privately with the President to confirm that the Attorney General would be speaking on his authority. When he asked JFK if Bobby was his “number two” in Washington, JFK replied that he wasn't just “No. 2, but 3, 4, 5 and 6.” The message was relayed to Khrushchev and the back channel was secured. Once the crisis had been resolved, the two leaders set up a permanent, direct channel that became known as the “Hot Line.” Before it was officially completed in June of 1963, it could take as long as twelve hours for the two sides to communicate. Twelve hours is an obvious eternity in a world filled with massive atomic weaponry. Now, at least communications were on a much sounder footing. In various public statements and speeches that followed, President Kennedy began expressing a stronger commitment to peace and the importance of finding diplomatic solutions to international conflicts. He emphasized the need for dialogue and negotiation to prevent the escalation of tensions. And he began to prioritize Civil Rights in Americas well. Like most members of my generation, I had always felt a kind of personal connection to him. I don't want to sound too shallow here, but along with all of his other accomplishments, he just seemed like the coolest guy in the world, and we all looked up to him. A commentator once put it this way. Nixon reminded us of who we were, and Kennedy of who we wish we were. It was for obvious reasons. He was young and handsome, came from a very wealthy and powerful family, had a beautiful wife who seemed like royalty, along with two adorable kids. And on top of all this, his life played extremely well in the mass media, which was still in its earliest stages. The truth is that besides being president, he was also the most charismatic media superstar in the world. He would routinely hang out with the hottest entertainers in show business and everybody was totally enamored by him. At the top of the heap was Frank Sinatra and his pals, who were known as the “Rat Pack” and as the presidential campaign began in 1960, Sinatra changed its name to the “Jack Pack.”  Supposedly Jack and Frank were very tight and obviously Frank ran with a huge circle of A-List celebrities. All the glitzy pieces of the political/entertainment puzzle formed a glamorous mosaic when Marilyn Monroe sang happy birthday to JFK at his 45th birthday gala celebration in Madison Square Garden. Popular culture as basking in the high life, with John F. Kennedy at the very top.  So, again, I had always been pretty taken with him. Looking back on it from a cultural perspective, an interesting side note is that Timothy Leary, the former Harvard professor who became a major counter-culture guru, claimed that JFK had been experimenting with LSD during this time as well. According to Leary, at one point in mid-1962, a very impressive woman in her early forties came to visit him in his office at Harvard. She said she was an artist living in Georgetown and wanted to learn how to conduct LSD sessions. Apparently, a few of her female friends had a plan to turn some of the most powerful men in Washington on to LSD. After a few meetings, she confided in Leary that she was having a serious affair with a very high-ranking member of the administration and he was interested in experimenting with the drug. Leary gave her detailed instructions on how to properly conduct sessions and things moved on from there. She began reporting her progress regularly to Leary and apparently things were going quite well. Along with the fact that this high-level member of the administration's mind was expanding, their love affair was reaching extremely satisfying new heights.   Now, it turns out that Leary's friend was no ordinary woman. Her name was Mary Pinchot Meyer. She came from a wealthy family, had known JFK since they were teen-agers, and they had been neighbors together in Georgetown. She was also extremely well-connected in Washington. Her sister was married to Ben Bradlee, a major reporter for Newsweek and a close friend of JFK's. who later became the Executive Editor of the Washington Post. So, you can imagine how well-connected she really was. I'll tell you in a future episode how Leary came to the conclusion that JFK was the high-ranking member of the administration in question. Obviously, Leary's theory has never been proven and it never will be, as all the players, including Leary, are long since dead. The whole thing could have easily come from a false memory of his or even a hallucination. But it never mattered to me whether it was true or not because my focus has always been on the growth of human consciousness, regardless of the catalyst. And there is no question that LSD played a significant role in the massive changes that were about to overcome society during the next few years. Also, and again I don't want to sound too shallow here, but the idea that JFK might have been experimenting with mind expansion only made him seem cooler to me. LSD was completely legal at the time, many members of the intelligentsia had tried it, and I found the idea to be intriguing. Regardless of the reason, Kennedy was making major strides in the direction of establishing a framework for the reduction of tension and the establishment of peace, not just with the Soviet Union, but around the world as well. On June 10,1963, he took it a step further by delivering one of the most important speeches of his presidency as he gave the Commencement Address at American University. He set the tone at the beginning by saying, “I have, therefore, chosen this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived--yet it is the most important topic on earth: world peace.” Then he continued, “I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children--not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women--not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.” He then shifted to the relationship between America and Russia saying, “both the United States and its allies, and the Soviet Union and its allies, have a mutually deep interest in a just and genuine peace and in halting the arms race.” And then he made a major policy announcement calling for a test ban treaty and stating that the US would suspend nuclear atmospheric testing if Russian would agree. And then he went on, “So, let us not be blind to our differences--but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved…For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.” The speech, which represented a break from contentious rhetoric, was revolutionary for several reasons. First, it marked a real thaw in the cold war. Although he acknowledged the ideological differences between the two superpowers, he still stressed their common humanity, which transcended those differences. Moving away from the adversarial language that had characterized the cold war for so long, he sought to create an atmosphere more conducive to negotiations and détente. And critically, from the standpoint of policy, it represented a true breakthrough, as he announced his intention to pursue a comprehensive test ban treaty with Russia. Importantly, the speech received positive response both at home and abroad, which helped set the stage for the major diplomatic initiatives that followed, including the signing of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in August of 1963. Today, it's hard to grasp how revolutionary his ideas as well as his actions were. From our modern perspective, his views were incredibly advanced for the times. And when he talked about the commonality between the Americans and the Russians, saying that “we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal,” even though he was six years early, from his words, he almost sounded like a hippy who had just come back from Woodstock. Who knows - maybe Timothy Leary was right. Maybe he had been experimenting with consciousness expansion. But it really didn't matter. What mattered was how he was steering the ship of state. So, let's end this episode by leaving things here for now. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.  

The last episode ended with the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962. As you may recall, one day at the height of the crisis, October 27th is considered by some experts to be the closest the world has ever come to a full-out nuclear war. And it is thought that the wise decision of one 34-year-old Russian naval officer was all that stood in the way of provoking what could have been the cause of the greatest single loss of life in human history.           The American public had been deeply shaken by the event. Early in the crisis, on the night of October 22, 1962, JFK appeared on national TV and outlined the situation to the country. He said that Cuba had in essence, been turned into a Russian strategic nuclear base, complete with long-range and unmistakably offensive weapons, clearly capable of mass destruction.           Saying that this now constituted an explicit threat to all the Americas and acting in the defense of the entire Western Hemisphere, he announced a strict naval embargo. Then he gave a clear and stark warning to Russia. “It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”           Clearly, the gauntlet had been thrown and the ultimatum was unmistakable. If you fire a missile from Cuba at any county on this side of the globe, we will launch an immediate and full retaliatory response upon you.           In closing, he said to the American public, “My fellow citizens: let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out. No one can foresee precisely what course it will take or what costs or casualties will be incurred.”           Nothing like this had ever happened before and a lot of people felt that a real catastrophe was at hand. Fortunately, the crisis resolved itself with no major incidents and things returned to some facsimile of normal. Still, most people remained extremely concerned about the future, because it had become painfully obvious that this ongoing cold war could get really hot, really fast.           Again, the evolution of consciousness is the focus of this story, along with an understanding of how certain societal and cultural events served to catalyze its emergence, so we're going to shift our perspective a bit at this point.   We're going to stay in the same time-frame, but we're going to look at a different series of events, set against a very different backdrop. In 1945, when the country had emerged victorious from the six years of hell that it had gone through in World War Two, it exhaled a deep sigh of relief that turned into a general state of conformity. It seemed that we wanted and needed a calming sense of normality to set in after suffering the harrowing insanity of the unending torment of injury, misery and death that had overcome the world for what seemed like eternity. It might have been a little boring, or even intimidating, but we wanted everything to be safely, sanely the same, at least for a while. And that's what happened. America turned basic vanilla, 70 million babies were born and for a while, we just let it be. But that kind of thing only lasts for so long, and then the younger generation starts to stretch its legs and flex its muscles a little.  In the mid ‘50s a kind of subculture began developing around the country. In general, it featured a rejection of conventional norms including the materialistic and conformist aspects of the society. It became known as the Beat Generation and interestingly, the term had been coined by writer Jack Kerouac, who claimed that it didn't mean that you were deflated or beat. It meant you had the beat. It was something you could feel, like a jazz beat, and according to him, it didn't matter what you called it. What mattered is that you had it. Along with Kerouac, other key writers included Allen Ginsberg, William S. Burroughs and Neal Cassidy. The Beats became known for their exploration of alternative lifestyles, experimentation with drugs, and a deep interest in Eastern philosophy and spirituality. Although it began as a relatively small nuance of society, the seeds they planted throughout the fifties and early sixties would populate and grow into a massive forest. And like flower power on steroids, it would permanently alter the landscape of the entire culture. Along with the poets, writers and folk musicians, other revolutions began to take hold in the entertainment world. In movies, a new actor named Marlon Brando was being noticed for his avant-garde style of acting, which created a radically different kind of hero. With his ability to convey a feeling of inner turmoil and vulnerability beneath a tough exterior, he brought a new sense of realism to the screen. Soon after playing a conflicted blue-collar brute in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” in 1953 he played a black-leather jacketed, delinquent motorcycle gang leader in “The Wild One.” Early in the film, a possible girlfriend  asked him, “What are you rebelling against Johnny?”  With a casual shrug he replied, “What do you got?” His defiant attitude symbolized rebellion and constructed a new kind of “bad boy” archetype in film. James Dean took it a step further in “East of Eden” and “Rebel Without a Cause” and inevitably, movies began to change in a major way. A similar, but louder revolution was building in popular music as well. A new rhythm called “Rock and Roll” had begun to emerge. In the early-fifties, artists like Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Fats Domino fueled the flames of the vibrant new sound, and year by year, its popularity continued to grow. Then on September 9, 1956, the burning candle of rock exploded into a full-scale conflagration when Elvis Presly gyrated his way onto the stage of the Ed Sullivan Theatre. The genie was out of the bottle, sixty million kids went nuts, and that was only the beginning.    Meanwhile, a vibrant Beat scene had begun to develop in New York City's Greenwich Village and a bunch of coffee houses had sprung up featuring folk music singers and poets. Thousands of onlookers were drawn to the streets on a weekly basis, just to check out the scene.   In January of 1961, as the Beat scene was in full swing, a 19-year-old kid from Minnesota hitch-hiked to Manhattan to see what he could see. He was a skilled singer-songwriter who played the guitar and harmonica, and a few years earlier, he had changed his name to Bob Dlyan. He began hanging out at the folk café's and playing songs whenever he got the chance. But it soon became apparent that this was no ordinary kid. He seemed to possess an extreme talent, both in writing and performing. Within an amazingly short period of time, he became one of the most important folk/protest voices in the city. Of course, that was just the beginning of a truly legendary career. Fifty-five years later, he was granted the Nobel Prize in literature and the New York Times estimated that he had written over six hundred songs. But even back at the beginning, he seemed to be light-years ahead of everyone else. And there seemed to be something prophetic about his work. Surprisingly, he had secured a record deal rather early in his career, and in April of 1962, he went into the studio to record his second album. At one point in early September, he recorded his iconic song, “A Hard Rain's a Gonna Fall.” In the song, in response to the question, “Where have you been my blue-eyed son?” he answered with line after now famous line. Listen to his poetic description of the visions he saw, which stood for the darkness that was engulfing the world. “I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans. I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard. I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it. I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken. I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children. I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world.” Then as if warning of the fallout from a nuclear blast, he sang the chorus. “And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.” The song was an immediate phenomenon with the beat generation and about a month later, it seemed to have been prophetic as President Kennedy went on TV to inform the American public about the Cuban Missile Crisis, and for thirteen days, the world held its breath. A few months after that, things seemed to come back from the brink a little, but Dylan was just getting warmed up. He recorded a series of protest songs that instantly became classics and still are today. His first one sounded like it came right out of Eisenhower's warning. It was called “Masters of War” and was incredibly powerful. The first verse says. “Come you masters of war. You that build the big guns. You that build the death planes. You that build all the bombs. You that hide behind walls. You that hide behind desks. I just want you to know. I can see through your masks.” A little later he continued – “You've thrown the worst fear that can ever be hurled. The fear to bring children into the world. Let me ask you one question – is your money that good. Will it buy you forgiveness, do you think that it could?” Then the last verse really puts the nail in the coffin.  “And I hope that you die. And your death will come soon. I'll follow your casket by the pale afternoon. And I'll watch while you're lowered. Down to your deathbed. And I'll stand over your grave. 'Til I'm sure that you're dead.” Maybe he was thinking that the masters of war were so tricky, they would probably fake their own death if would benefit them. Remember, in his warning, Eisenhower said to take nothing for granted. Regardless, representing the forces of life, he wanted the warmongers off the planet for good. Before we close, a few points about the passage of time. First, it still always amazes me that Dylan was only 21 years old when he wrote that song. And besides his youth, these were still the earliest of days. JFK was still president. We live now, knowing the history of what was to come, but back then, nobody knew it. Consider what was about to happen over the next seven years – JFK, Martin Luther King, Bobby, Woodstock, Kent State. And the emergence of a new generation whose look and outlook would have been unimaginable back then.  But that generation was on the forefront of a conscious revolution that would ultimately bring the war machine to a grinding halt. Obviously, it was just a halt, not a stop.  But at least it was a beginning. Anyway, at that point in 1963, Dylan's career launched quickly. On April 12, he played Town Hall. On July 27, he played the Newport Folk Festival and on October 26, he played Carnegie Hall. And earlier, on May 27, Columbia Records released his second album which had Masters of War on it. But it had another song that blew the roof off  the entire folk world. It was called “Blowin' in the Wind” and it quickly became an anthem for American Youth. Dylan goes through a probing set of questions about the world as it was.  “How many roads must a man walk down, before you call him a man? How many times must the cannon balls fly before they're forever banned? How many deaths will ‘it take til he knows that too many people have died?” Then, in the chorus he said, “The answer my friend, is blowin' in the wind. The answer is blowin' in the wind.” Now, I was in eighth grade when that song became popular and I remember hearing it and wondering, what the hell is he talking about, the answer is blowin' in the wind?  What is it that is blowing in the wind that could possibly be the answer to all these problems? Well, we're going to dig into that in the next episode. So, as always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened. And let's get together in the next one.  

In the previous episode that took place in March of 1965, I mentioned that although we didn't know it, the western world was entering into the early stages of a turbulent upheaval that would eventually revolutionize human consciousness on a global level. As one of the seventy million American baby boomers who were busy growing up at the time, I was heading right into it, as well. In the chapter of “Wilt, Ike & Me” that was included in the episode, I had made mention of three critical factors that would become significant influences in shaping the upcoming changes – John F. Kennedy, Bob Dylan, and marijuana. Like the subterranean movements of massive Teutonic plates, the foundational reverberations from these powerful forces were about to unleash a major earthquake. As with the rest of us who lived through that era, I was radically changed by it, and I'm going to present some of the deeper impressions that it made on me. But before I do, there are a few things I would like to point out.  First, during that time I was exposed to a combination of events and influences that changed the trajectory of my entire life, and ultimately, personal growth became my primary focus. So, I tend to view things from that particular perspective. Of course, there are many other ways of looking at what happened back then and mine is only one of them.  I will also include some profound events that happened to me which opened my eyes to a larger vision of what human intelligence can become, which inspired me to reach for higher ground. I continue to be a work in progress, but so is everyone else who is still alive. Regardless of your hopes and dreams, if you want to move forward, you always have to start from where you are. And as any great card player will tell you – the trick to the game is in learning how to play the hand you're dealt.  Regarding the societal history of what happened, some of what I am about to discuss can be proven and some of it cannot. But presenting historical fact is not the purpose here. And besides, history isn't always what it's cracked up to be. According to George Santayana, the renowned American philosopher and educator, “History is a pack of lies about events that never happened…told by people who weren't there.” As with the content of all these podcasts, the information that follows will simply be presented for your consideration. My suggestion is that you just take it and see what it does for you.   This episode is going to focus on JFK. We'll get to Dylan and marijuana a little later. For now, we want to look at one essential aspect of JFK's presidency, particularly his emergence as a champion of world peace.    Let's start weaving this tapestry of time on January 17, 1961, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave his Farewell Speech to the country. Before he became president, Eisenhower was the quintessential military man. He had graduated West Point in 1915 and remained on active duty in the army for thirty-three consecutive years. A five-star general in WWII, he served as the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe, directing the allies to victory in that grueling six-year tragedy that claimed the lives of 15 million soldiers and 38 million civilians. So, it's three days before he's about to leave office, and the soldier/president is bidding farewell to the people of the republic that he had served for his entire life. And what does say to them? Well, at one point, he issued them a stern, now-famous warning. “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex,” he said.  “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.” If you wonder that he meant by all this, it can be summed up in one simple, but simply dreadful fact – warfare had become extremely profitable. Both the constant threat of war, as well as its execution, creates an enormous, constant, and ongoing cashflow, regularly generating massive profits. This makes it inherently dangerous, because of an inherently dangerous aspect of our current mentality – when it comes to being right or being rich, a lot of us will choose to take the money, regardless of the consequences. Our world is rife with examples of the unenlightened rationales that we use to justify our misguided actions, which are incredibly short-sighted to say the least.   In his speech, Eisenhower was the first one to coin the term, the “Military Industrial Complex,” which delineated the network of dependencies and relationships that exist between the government, the military, and powerful defense contractors. With his decades of military experience, he warned that we must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. He said that it was the unwarranted influences by the complex that posed the potential risk, due to the disastrous rise of misplaced power that could come from it. In other words, policy could become driven by profit.   When it comes to gaining influence, nothing beats just plain buying it, which is a practice that human beings began perfecting almost as soon as soon as they created money. In modern times, money spent on lobbying congress is a reliable barometer for tracking influence sought.  In 2022, the defense industry spent over $125 million in lobbying and its affiliates contributed another $17.5 million to the reelection of certain members of congress. A total of $858 billion was spent on US defense that year. Now this is a number we readily accept today. It continues year in and year out. But in 1961, it was unthinkable. It reminds me of what Deep Throat said to Woodward and Bernstein in “All the President's Men” about solving the mystery of Watergate, when he told them, “Just follow the money.” Three days after giving his farewell speech, Eisenhower, the oldest man ever elected president at age 70, passed the gavel to the youngest man ever elected – John F. Kennedy, at age 43. And in many deeply profound ways, the old was giving way to the new. We're going to jump ahead a little bit here. We're going to move forward 646 days, from inauguration day, Jan. 21, 1961, to October 27, 1962, which is considered by some to be the most significant day in human history which most people have never heard of.    Of course, John F. Kennedy is one of the most famous figures in all American history and he has been the topic of over 40,000 books, so I'm quite sure you've heard of him. But I'm also just as sure that you've probably never heard of someone named Vasily Arkhipov. But these were two of the key players on that fateful day.   As you may have guessed, it was at the very height of the incredibly dangerous Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy had recently learned that Russia had installed a significant number of nuclear missiles in Cuba that were easily capable of inflicting severe damage on over half of the United States. The President had put in place a naval embargo, blocking all cargo into Cuba. Ominous threats between the two countries had been escalating and hostilities were rapidly building. Then, earlier on that October day, Russia had shot down a US spy plane, killing the pilot. In America, Kennedy's military staff was calling for an immediate counter attack. Meanwhile, the Russian commanders were demanding that Khrushchev take significant military action as well. Castro even wired Khrushchev calling for him to launch a nuclear missile targeted at Florida. In the extremely volatile situation, things had clearly gone from bad to worse. Meanwhile, four Russian submarines were secretly lurking in the waters near the blockade and unbeknownst to US intelligence, they were armed with nuclear torpedoes. At one point, the battery died aboard one of the Russian submarines, the B-59, and it lost all communication with the outside world, including with its command center. One of the major US destroyers in the area, the Charles B. Cecil, suddenly detected the sub and began dropping mini depth charges into the water to force it to come to the surface and identify itself. On top of all this, the sub had lost its air conditioning and was running low on oxygen. The crew had become extremely anxious and it was getting worse.  Believing that the war between the US and Russia had already begun, the captain started to prepare to launch one of their nuclear torpedoes. He would make a pre-emptive strike and blow the US destroyer out of the water. Fortunately, though, the Russian rules of engagement dictated that the decision to fire a nuclear weapon had to be unanimous among all three commanders of the ship. At 34 years old Vasily Arkhipov, the guy you never heard of, was second in command and he resolutely refused to endorse the action of launching the torpedo. Instead, he went against the captain, insisting that in a non-combative stance, the sub should rise to the surface and identify itself. An intense argument ensued for quite a while, but Arkhipov stood his ground and in accordance with the Russian rules, he blocked the launch. Finally, they decided to bring the B-59 to the surface. The two ships signaled each other of peaceful intentions. The Cecil stood down and the situation ended without further incident. Over the next few days, with a round of intense back-channel diplomacy between Kennedy and Khruschev the entire crisis was finally resolved. It may not sound like much now that sixty years of history have gone by, but many scholars consider that moment on October 27 to be the closest humanity has ever come to a full-scale nuclear war, with all the tragedy that could have ensued. If Arkhipov had complied with the captain's order and that Russian sub had sunk the American destroyer with a nuclear torpedo, all hell might have broken loose and we don't know what might have happened. We do know that Russia and America had major nuclear arsenals pointed at each other that were ready to launch at a moment's notice. And those weapons were about a thousand times more powerful than the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, which killed about 100,000 people. If things had gotten out of hand, which could have easily happened, it is quite possible that fifty million people could have been killed within an hour or so. More casualties that took place during the six years of World War Two, would have been caused in less than a day. Kennedy had been deeply moved by the entire episode. He headed the US position hands on, making all the key decisions from beginning to end and he knew how close we had come to a major, human-caused catastrophe. He may or may not have known that just one 34-year-old man, standing on his own, outside the chain of command, made a decision that saved millions of lives.  But Kennedy was a renowned student of history and had earlier passed around a book to his staff called “The Guns of August,” which told the story of how World War I took place due to a series of reckless mistakes coupled with poor diplomacy, and he fully understood what could have happened. He knew what was in his hands and he knew what he had to do.   We'll stop here for now, but sometime after this harrowing incident JFK began to transform into an active proponent for peace. As the tale continues in the next episode, we'll get into some fascinating theories about JFK's metamorphosis. And then we have Dylan, marijuana, LSD and the Beatles on the horizon. So, essentially, the story is just beginning… As always, keep your eyes, mind, and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.

As you may recall, I am currently preparing to release a comprehensive personal growth program called, “The Higher Mind Training.” Its purpose is to help people harmonize their intelligence, which will allow them to transform the prison of self-sabotage into the freedom of self-empowerment.           We will have programs designed to address specific needs, like smoking cessation, freedom from drug and alcohol abuse, and weight loss.  We will also offer a general personal growth training, as well.           As I have also mentioned in some previous podcast episodes, as part of the preparation effort, I am reviewing a large portion of the research material I have collected over the years, including some of the journals that I have kept, and I am going to present some of it to you for your consideration.   Although the material may seem to cover a wide range of topics, it all revolves around one central theme, which is the fact that as human beings, we have a remarkable potential within our intelligence which remains largely untapped and if we choose to, we can connect with it. Even small improvements in this kind of self-knowledge can significantly transform our lives for the better.  At this point, I'm going to look back at certain dramatic events that led me to explore some of the deeper sides of life, ultimately leading me to become deeply committed to the process of personal growth. Like each one of us, my personal life has been set against the background of the society and culture I've lived in, and as it will become apparent, the times, they were a changin'. To set the stage, I'd like to start out with a short chapter from my memoir, Wilt, Ike & Me. It takes place in March of 1965 and I am beginning here primarily due to the nature of the times. Back then, hardly any of us knew it, but we were on the verge of a massive cultural change that would eventually revolutionize the entire western world. And even though it may not be obvious, in many, the revolution goes on today.. In those days, Wilt Chamberlain had been staying with us in our home for a number of weeks and it was quite an adventure. But this isn't so much about Wilt, as it is about my sister, Sybil, a college student who had become a bit of what they called at the time, a “beatnik.” So, let's take a look at a day in the life…   * * *   A lot of the times in the late afternoon, Wilt and I would end up hanging out in my sister's room at the end of the hall, listening to music. Sybil had a nice record player and was never there. She was a sophomore now at Temple University and was out all the time. Her room was in its own part of the upstairs. Wilt was in my room, and I was in the guest room right next to it. That was on one side of the house, along with the bathroom. Then there was a long hallway that went past a small sundeck on the roof, and Sybil's room was at the far end of the hall. It was a universe unto itself, and the door to that universe was always closed. One thing I learned early in life is that you never, under any circumstances, entered her room without knocking first, and then you had to wait for her permission to come in. This was a cardinal rule and we all obeyed it implicitly. Only our homemaker, Geneva had free rein to come and go as she pleased. Sybil was what was called a beatnik in those days. My mother just called her a vilde chaya, which is a Yiddish term that doesn't translate perfectly into English, but basically means a “wild Indian.” And that shoe really fit. She was a lot like the weather in our part of the world—lots of warm, sunny days but some dark, stormy ones as well. And as her little brother, while I enjoyed basking in the sunshine when it was out, I always knew to get the hell out of the way whenever one of those storms blew through. She was by no means a bad kid, adored her parents and was fiercely loyal to her family. But she had an untamable wild streak running through her. And no matter what was going on, she was always her own boss. The first time I really saw it was during the 1960 presidential campaign. My father was for Nixon. He was tight with the Pennsylvania Republican party and had met both Eisenhower and Nixon. He had even unsuccessfully run for Congress in 1956. On top of that, he was no fan of the Kennedys. In his view, Joseph Kennedy had been weak on Hitler and he didn't trust him when it came to Jewish welfare. And in my father's world, the apple never falls too far from the tree. Sybil, on the other hand, fell madly in love with JFK. He was the first candidate who was a real media superstar, and my fifteen-year-old sister was crazy about him. She pasted about five hundred pictures of him on her wall in a massive collage. I think my father got nauseous every time he saw it and avoided ever going into her room. Even after the election, her JFK shrine endured for quite a while. Now that she was in college, her taste in wall décor had veered off into some new directions. One of her girlfriends was a talented portrait painter, who later became a famous courtroom artist. She painted three large full-color paintings for Sybil, who displayed them prominently in her room. Two were portraits of Sybil. In one, she was wearing an enormous black-feathered hat. It looked like her head was covered by a dark, foreboding raven. In the other, she was seated on a big, comfortable gold easy chair, with an opened book lying face-down on her lap. From the sour look on her face, she was either the most bored or the most depressed person in the world. But she hung the masterpiece of her collection in the center of the back wall, and it really grabbed your attention when you walked in the room. In the rear of the large painting was a blindfolded naked woman hanging from a meat hook by her tied hands. A priest stood in the foreground, dressed in a black suit and a black shirt with a white priest's collar. He was holding a Bible in his hands with a gold crucifix on top of it. And he was staring daggers at you. Sybil added her own piece of art to the mix. She made a collage and put it right next to the painting. She covered a large piece of poster paper with cutout photos of every form of human suffering imaginable. It was unbelievably awful. And in the middle, she put a true-to-life depiction of Jesus on the cross. She was obviously making a statement of some kind, but it probably would have gone over better in a dorm than in her room at home. My father couldn't stand it. I was sitting with him in the kitchen having ice cream one Thursday night, while my mother was still in New York doing her charity work. Something seemed to be bothering him. The whole time we ate, he had a weird look in his eye, like his mind was on a slow simmer. Suddenly it exploded into full boil. “God damn it!” he said and smacked his hand down on the kitchen table. He stood up, went over to a drawer, rummaged through it and pulled out a medium-size carving knife. “God damn it!” he repeated and angrily stomped out of the kitchen toward the steps that led upstairs. “What the hell is this?” I thought and went running after him. Knife in hand, he went up the steps, then down the hall to Sybil's closed door. He burst it open without knocking and flicked on the lights. I had no idea what he was up to, but I was glad she wasn't home. He walked right over to her human suffering collage, and using the sharp point of the knife, started scraping off the Crucifixion scene. He attacked it like a maniac and kept going until he had gotten rid of every last bit of it.  When he was finished, he stood there and stared at the poster for a moment. Then he turned around and looked at me. I had absolutely nothing to say, and neither did he. Now, of course, symbols mean different things to different people, and whatever that image meant to him, he clearly didn't want it in his daughter's bedroom.  But now it was gone, and everything seemed fine. We walked back to the kitchen together, sat down at the table, and finished our ice cream as though nothing had happened. My mother was absolutely horrified when she got home later, and he told her what he'd done. Somewhat of an artist herself, she felt he had no right to invade Sybil's room and inflict his will on her creative expression. She thought it was appalling. When Sybil got home the next day and my mother sheepishly began to give her the details, my sister made a point of being outraged. But her biggest effort was to hide her deep relief. When my mother said, “Sybil, Daddy went into your room last night,” her heart sank, and she got really scared. But when she heard what actually happened, she was so happy she almost burst out laughing, but kept a straight face. She told me years later that she always kept an ounce of grass in the drawer of the night table next to her bed. She couldn't have cared less about the collage, but if he had found the marijuana, it could have been a disaster. She would have really had to reach into her bag of tricks to wiggle her way out of that one. We both knew she could have done it—she was that good. But it would have been quite a challenge, even for her. Now, this was still the early days, when marijuana had just started blowing in the wind, and not too many people were smoking it at the time. When she first started, I could clearly smell a pungent, unfamiliar odor in the air. It definitely was not the same as the normal cigarette smoke that pervaded every other part of our house. When I asked her about it, she told me she had begun burning incense. It was a new thing she had found, a study aid that would clear her mind and help her concentrate. It made sense to me. One day, during Wilt's stay, she was home in her room with the door closed. Wilt and I were in my room, and I had to drive him somewhere. As we walked out into the hall, it reeked of that smell of hers. He immediately picked up on it and stopped on the landing before we went downstairs. “What's that?” he asked me, taking a couple sniffs of the air. “Oh, Sybil's into burning incense now. She does it all the time. It helps her study.” “Really?” Wilt, sounding impressed. He looked at me like I was five years old. “So, you think that's incense, huh?” I didn't say anything. What else could it be? “OK,” he said with a chuckle. “Incense it is.” But before he moved, he took one more sniff and nodded in appreciation.  “It smells like some pretty good stuff to me,” he added, and we left.   * * *   Before we close this episode, I want to add one other element to the mix. Behind her closed door, my sister always had music playing and at one point, for some strange reason, she seemed to have gotten into this hillbilly singer who had a high pitched, twangy voice and played a guitar and harmonica. It was such a weird sound that I figured it must have been some kind of comedy album. I mean, why else would anyone pay good money to listen to someone who sounded like that? It turned out that the hillbilly singer was some kid my brother's age named Bob Dylan. Astonishingly, within another few years, he would become a major hero of mine and I would know all his songs by heart. But that was still a few lifetimes away. Again, these were the very early stages of a major, unprecedented change of consciousness that was about to disrupt the entire world, but we'll pick it up again in the next episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened and let's get together in the next one. 

I'm going to ask you to try to stretch your mind and imagination a bit for this episode. A true story is going to be presented to you. It took place in India, sometime around 1910 and you may find the cultural differences to be a little unusual for you. But on a subtextual level, a lot of important information is going to be presented as well, and you may find that it takes you to some interesting places within your own intelligence. I know it did for me. As I mentioned a few episodes earlier, as my interest in Personal Growth began to grow strongly towards the end of 1971, I became aware of certain writers and speakers that grew into significant sources of information for me, and many have remained so.           One of these was the renowned Indian Yogi, Parmahansa Yogananda, and my earliest introduction to him was in the memoir he had written which was called, “Autobiography of a Yogi.”           At the time, I was being exposed to an idea about God and religion that was new and somewhat revolutionary for me. Rather than being far away from us, the Divine Essence was actually very close. In fact, closer than our own breath. And you didn't have to die to get to be with it. You could somehow could turn your attention within and experience it now, while you are alive. Yogananda's writings were very much in line with this perspective.           Historically, he came to America in 1920 and became a powerful force in the west until his death in 1952. His towering legacy still lives on, but this story is from a much earlier time in his life, when he was a teenager, still living in India. And according to him, it marked a truly major turning point.             For thousands of years, that country has had a tradition of gurus, who are teachers and master practitioners. They usually have a set of disciples that they teach. At the time of this story, Yogananda had recently become a disciple of a master named Sri Yukteswar and had begun living in his ashram, practicing, and studying to become a yogi.           But as a teenager and young college student, he was getting restless and wanted to travel to the Himalaya mountains. He thought he would go there to sit in silence to achieve continuous divine communion. Although he felt his intense yearning was sincere at the time, he later called it “one of the unpredictable delusions which occasionally assail the devotee.”           His teacher discouraged the idea, saying that "Wisdom is better sought from a man of realization than from an inert mountain."      But Yogananda decided to go anyway. As he was preparing for his journey, he heard stories about someone known as the “sleepless saint” who was supposedly always awake in an ecstatic state of consciousness. The story was that he had spent decades alone in a cave, practicing meditation and had achieved some kind of enlightenment. Yogananda decided to travel to the village in the mountains where this man supposedly lived and try to contact him.           After a few days on the road, as he got nearer to the village, he came upon a shrine that many people in the area considered to be a holy place, like Lourdes. When he walked into the temple, he was surprised to see that it contained nothing but a large stone ball. Most pilgrims bowed before it, but Yogananda, believing he should bow only to God, just walked out without offering any reverence at all to the huge stone ball.           He finally got to the village and started asking where he might be able to find this holy man, whose name was Ram Gopal Babu. And here is where his nightmare of confusion began.           He began to be told a series of conflicting bits of information. He was told that no such person lived in the village. He was sent to another village several miles away. When he got there, he was told he had made the wrong turn. In another village he was told he had just missed the man.           Finally, night fell and he found a place to eat and sleep. The next day, his fruitless journey got even worse, filled with hour after hour of following wrong information, in the blistering hot sun. Toward the end of the day, feeling completely hopeless as he was standing at a crossroad wondering which way to go, the extreme heat made him feel like he was ready to pass out. Then, he noticed someone walking towards him at a casual and very leisurely pace.   In his autobiography, here is what Yogananda happened next -  “The stranger halted beside me. Short and slight, he was physically unimpressive save for an extraordinary pair of piercing dark eyes.  "I was planning to leave the village, but your purpose was good, so I awaited you." He shook his finger in my astounded face. "Aren't you clever to think that, unannounced, you could pounce on me?” In the presence of this master, I stood speechless. His next remark was abruptly put. "Tell me; where do you think God is?"           “Why, He is within me and everywhere." I doubtless looked as bewildered as I felt. "All-pervading, eh?" The saint chuckled. "Then why, young sir, did you fail to bow before the Infinite in the stone symbol at the temple yesterday? Your pride caused you the punishment of being misdirected…and today, too, you have had a fairly uncomfortable time of it!" I agreed wholeheartedly, wonder-struck that an omniscient eye hid within the unremarkable body before me. Healing strength emanated from the yogi; I was instantly refreshed in the scorching field. "The devotee inclines to think his path to God is the only way," he said. "Yoga, through which divinity is found within, is doubtless the highest road…But discovering the Lord within, we soon perceive Him without. Holy shrines …are rightly venerated as nuclear centers of spiritual power." The saint's censorious attitude vanished; his eyes became compassionately soft. He patted my shoulder. "Young yogi, I see you are running away from your master. He has everything you need; you must return to him. Mountains cannot be your guru." Ram Gopal was repeating the same thought which Sri Yukteswar had expressed at our last meeting. "Masters are under no cosmic compulsion to limit their residence." My companion glanced at me quizzically. "The Himalayas in India and Tibet have no monopoly on saints. What one does not trouble to find within will not be discovered by transporting the body hither and yon. As soon as the devotee is willing to go even to the ends of the earth for spiritual enlightenment, his guru appears near-by." I silently agreed.             “Are you able to have a little room where you can close the door and be alone?" "Yes." I reflected that this saint descended from the general to the particular with disconcerting speed. "That is your cave." The yogi bestowed on me a gaze of illumination which I have never forgotten. "That is your sacred mountain. That is where you will find the kingdom of God." His simple words instantaneously banished my lifelong obsession for the Himalayas. "Young sir, your divine thirst is laudable. I feel great love for you." Ram Gopal took my hand and led me to a quaint hamlet. The adobe houses were covered with coconut leaves and adorned with rustic entrances. The saint seated me on the umbrageous bamboo platform of his small cottage. After giving me sweetened lime juice and a piece of rock candy, he entered his patio and assumed the lotus posture. In about four hours I opened my meditative eyes and saw that the moonlit figure of the yogi was still motionless. As I was sternly reminding my stomach that man does not live by bread alone, Ram Gopal approached me. "I see you are famished; food will be ready soon." A fire was kindled under a clay oven on the patio; rice and dhal were quickly served on large banana leaves. My host courteously refused my aid in all cooking chores. "The guest is God," a Hindu proverb, has commanded devout observance from time immemorial. Ram Gopal arranged some torn blankets on the floor for my bed, and seated himself on a straw mat. Overwhelmed by his spiritual magnetism, I ventured a request. "Sir, why don't you grant me a samadhi ?" (Note: In Hindu yoga, samadhi is regarded as the final elevated state of consciousness, at which union with the divine is reached.) "Dear one, I would be glad to convey the divine contact, but it is not my place to do so." The saint looked at me with half-closed eyes. "Your master will bestow that experience shortly. Your body is not tuned just yet. As a small lamp cannot withstand excessive electrical voltage, so your nerves are unready for the cosmic current. If I gave you the infinite ecstasy right now, you would burn as if every cell were on fire. "You are asking illumination from me," the yogi continued musingly, "while I am wondering-inconsiderable as I am, and with the little meditation I have done-if I have succeeded in pleasing God, and what worth I may find in His eyes at the final reckoning." "Sir, have you not been singleheartedly seeking God for a long time?" "I have not done much. For twenty years I occupied a secret grotto, meditating eighteen hours a day. Then I moved to a more inaccessible cave and remained there for twenty-five years, entering the yoga union for twenty hours daily. I did not need sleep, for I was ever with God. My body was more rested in the complete calmness of super consciousness than it could be by the partial peace of the ordinary subconscious state. "In super consciousness, the internal organs remain in a state of suspended animation, electrified by the cosmic energy. By such means I have found it unnecessary to sleep for years. The time will come when you too will dispense with sleep." "My goodness, you have meditated for so long and yet are unsure of the Lord's favor!" I gazed at him in astonishment. "Then what about us poor mortals?" "Well, don't you see, my dear boy, that God is Eternity Itself? To assume that one can fully know Him by forty-five years of meditation is rather a preposterous expectation. However, even a little meditation saves one from the dire fear of death and after-death states. Do not fix your spiritual ideal on a small mountain, but hitch it to the star of unqualified divine attainment. If you work hard, you will get there." Enthralled by the prospect, I asked him for further enlightening words. He related a wondrous story of his first meeting with a renowned Hindu avatar. Around midnight Ram Gopal fell into silence, and I lay down on my blankets. Closing my eyes, I saw flashes of lightning; the vast space within me was a chamber of molten light. I opened my eyes and observed the same dazzling radiance. The room became a part of that infinite vault which I beheld with interior vision. "Why don't you go to sleep?" "Sir, how can I sleep in the presence of lightning, blazing whether my eyes are shut or open?" "You are blessed to have this experience; the spiritual radiations are not easily seen." The saint added a few words of affection. At dawn Ram Gopal gave me rock candies and said I must depart. I felt such reluctance to bid him farewell that tears coursed down my cheeks. "I will not let you go empty-handed." The yogi spoke tenderly. "I will do something for you." He smiled and looked at me steadfastly. I stood rooted to the ground, peace rushing like a mighty flood through the gates of my eyes. I was instantaneously healed of a pain in my back, which had troubled me intermittently for years.  Renewed, bathed in a sea of luminous joy, I wept no more. After touching the saint's feet, I sauntered into the jungle, making my way through its tropical tangle until I reached the village with the holy temple. There I made a second pilgrimage to the famous shrine, and prostrated myself fully before the altar. The round stone enlarged before my inner vision until it became the cosmical spheres, ring within ring, zone after zone, all dowered with divinity.” And so ends this part of Yogananda's remarkable story, which was clearly worlds away from our own. As I mentioned earlier, I came upon this in the very early stages of my interest in personal growth and a few parts of it really hit me. And these parts still impress me, but on a deeper level as I continue to age. Here are a few of them for your consideration. First was the general state of consciousness of Ram Gopal. He knew all about Yogananda before they ever met. He knew that he was travelling to try to find him and he knew about Yogananda's refusal to bow before the stone in the shrine. Also, he had meditated alone in a cave for decades and seemed to be in a permanently exalted state. Yet, even in that state, he mentioned that when we are talking about the Divine Force, or God, we are talking about the infinite, and practicing meditation for several decades in one lifetime isn't necessarily as big a deal as it may seem to us. And finally, he healed Yogananda of back pain that he had suffered from for most of his life. All this made me look at the state of my awareness at that time. I was a standard, twenty-two year old American know it all, who thought he knew it all, but was starting to find out a thing or two about some of the illusions of this life. And I started wondering what the greater potential of our consciousness is? It suddenly seemed like there was more to life than learning how to master the skills of how much, how many, where and when. All centered around the stone cathedral of “I, Me, Mine.” We don't have the time to go into more detail about how this story affected me. I just wanted to present it to you for your own personal consideration, and I hope you found it interesting and helpful, as well as somewhat enlightening. Enough has been expressed for this episode As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened, and let's get together in the next one.

As with many people, in my line of work, one thing often leads to another, and often in some very unexpected ways. As you may recall, I have mentioned in a few earlier episodes that over the years, I have been involved in the writing of several stories for the purpose of possibly developing them into novels or films, and at one point in my life, I became very involved in studying story structure.           This was around the time of the release of the first Star Wars movie and during my research I became intrigued when I learned that George Lucas, the writer, producer, and director of the film, had been significantly influenced by someone named Joseph Campbell and that the basic story structure of Star Wars was largely developed from of what Cambell had termed, “The Myth of the Hero.”           This was from his book, “The Hero With a Thousand Faces,” that was published in 1949 and as I started studying it, I was amazed to find that what happens to Luke Skywalker in Star Wars follows the exact outline of Campell's story structure to the tee.           As I continued my research, it turned out that Campell's understanding of the hero was just one part of his work, which also included a general grasp of the power of myth in the human psyche. And, additionally, a large influence on him had been psychologist Carl Jung.           Of course, like most people who have gone through the standard western educational system, I had heard of Jung. but to be honest with you, the only thing I think I knew about him was that there were some differences in the way his last name could be pronounced. I called him Carl Young, but some of the finer students of linguistics pronounced his last name Yooong. I doubt he would care. I don't want to sound too shallow, but that's really about all I knew about the guy. Now suddenly I had an interest in him. It began with his influence on Campbell and the way his views pertained to crafting stories. But the deeper I got, the more fascinating his overall viewpoint became to me. By way of a very brief overview, Jung was a Swiss psychologist born in 1875 who became one of the major figures in modern psychology. But he was a little different from Freud and many of the other authorities of his time. He was slightly more esoteric. He founded analytical psychology, which emphasizes the exploration of the unconscious and deeper elements of the psyche.           He also introduced the concept of archetypes, which are universal, innate symbols and themes which remarkably appear in myths, dreams, and fantasies across all human cultures, throughout all eras of civilization.  He considered them to be part of the collective unconscious, representing fundamental human experiences and emotions that we all have in common, like a shared reservoir of memories and ideas that all human beings inherit.           And to take it one step further, he also delved into a process that he called individuation, which perceives life as a journey of self-discovery. It is a transformative process, and Campbell used it as a foundation of his myth of the hero. The protagonist, which also represents each one of us, undergoes trials and hardships, comes face-to-face with the unknown, and ultimately triumphs, returning to the world with newfound wisdom, giving boons to his fellowman. This is a basic storyline that has deeply affected human beings since the beginning of recorded history. I could see that thanks to George Lucas's consultations with Joseph Campbell, Luke Skywalker's journey in the ultra-modern Sci-Fi epic Star Wars, exactly mirrored the psychological and spiritual transformation that Jung had associated with individuation. I was starting to get pretty blown out and although my initial interest in Jung's observations began with just my interest in the elements of good story construction, his understandings began to take on greater relevancy to me as they pertained to my interest in some of the deeper meanings in life and how they relate to personal growth.           Which leads me to the basic theme of this episode. Because, as interesting as this may have hopefully been so far, what I really want to do is pass along four of my favorite quotes from Jung that I have found to be particularly transformative, and I have found that their meanings to me have deepened considerably over the decades.           The first one is, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.” In this regard, Jung observed that individuals tend to project their own unconscious qualities onto others. In other words, the aspects that we find irritating, offensive, or challenging in other people may be reflections of our own unresolved issues or unacknowledged traits. For me, this one required a little upgrade in the old humility department because about the easiest thing in the world to do is to dislike something about somebody else. Take it from me, if you're tuned into that sort of thing, you see it all day long. So and so is narcissistically self-centered. This one has an obnoxious mean streak. Or, that one is a power-hungry egomaniac. And on and on, ad nauseum. And it gets a little unsettling if you take Jung's point of view, that maybe the reason I see all these terrible traits in others is because I carry them all in me. Maybe if I didn't have them, I wouldn't even notice them. Like hearing strangers speaking in a foreign language that I didn't understand, I wouldn't pay it any attention at all. And if I recognize these irritating traits within myself, maybe I can find out what is causing them, and more importantly, maybe even transform them into something better, which would be great for both for me and for those around me. I find that anytime you think like that, you don't feel like such a big shot.   The second great quote from Jung is, “Your vision can clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside awakes.” This was in line with another realization I was dealing with as I started to become aware of some of the sayings of Buddha. Once, someone asked him what he was. Was he some kind of divine being, like a god, or an angel or a master of something like that? And he replied, “I am awake. To be awake is everything.” Now a library worth of books has been written about this idea of being awake in life, rather than being asleep. But Jung's quote was pretty confronting to me. How much did I look into my own heart? To tell the truth, I didn't even know what that meant, and no matter what I think I may have learned in the last half century, I probably still don't. And when it comes to looking outside versus looking inside, I wouldn't say that all my attention was completely focused on the outside. Probably no more than 98% of it. And again, I've been practicing personal growth for over fifty years, and I think there's a decent possibility that I may have picked up a percent or even two over the that time. Which, according to Jung, means that I'm still basically dreaming my life away. So, it seems like we all have in front of us the idea of making life a journey of self-discovery, gaining clarity through self-reflection, transcending illusions, and awakening through internal inquiry. For me, although it may sound like a tall order, what else should I be doing with this fleeting existence? The third quote that I want to mention is a short, pithy quip that I still really enjoy. “One ought not go to cadavers to study life.” Of course, you can look at this idea in a lot of ways, but here is an idea to consider. Perhaps observe the difference between what is alive and what is not. We have life within us. We are alive. But many of the antiquated concepts from unenlightened cultures that went before us are dead and the people that came up with them are long since dead. Flowers and insects are alive. And one thing about life – it always functions only in present time. The past is a memory and the future is only an idea. Life is always now and all of creation is throbbing with life. Maybe what he is saying is that by bonding ourselves to life, rather than to death we will produce a major change in both our outlook as well as our behavior. I'm reminded of a passage in the book, “Little Big Man,” by Thomas Berger, which was the source of the movie of the same name. Old Lodge Skins, the wise Cheyenne chief was reflecting on the difference between the Native Americans and the White Man. He said something like, to the Cheyenne, everything is alive. Not only the people, the animals and all the plants, but the dirt, the mountains, the sky and the sea, the earth and all of creation is alive. To the Cheyenne, everything is alive. But to the White Man, everything is dead. He even sees his brothers and sisters as just the walking dead. There's a lot to unpack in that comment. Finally, the last quote by Jung that really got to me was, ““The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved but only outgrown. We don't so much solve our problems as we outgrow them. We add capacities and experiences that eventually make us bigger than the problems.” This was the first time I had ever heard things put quite in this way. I know for me, I seem to spend the majority of my life solving problems. One thing, after the next, after the next. And I never thought about the idea of outgrowing them, that I could become bigger than the problems. The idea of outgrowing something reminded me of the first time I ever learned about outgrowing anything. I must have been about five years old and I had a pair of red cowboy boots that I absolutely adored. I wore them every day through the winter and when spring came, my mother put them on in the back of my closet. I completely forgot about them until late fall, about six months later. She was getting me dressed to go to a birthday party and I saw my old boots. I was overwhelmed with excitement at the idea of wearing them again. When I told my mother I wanted to get them out she said, “Oh no. They won't fit you anymore.” What she said didn't make any sense to me. These were my favorite shoes. After begging her about a hundred times, she finally put them on me with a big shoe horn. They felt pretty tight, but I decided to wear them anyway. When I walked out the front door, to my shock, I couldn't even make it to the car. They were so tight that I couldn't stand them and had to get them off as soon as possible. And the idea of ever wanting to wear again went right out the window. Permanently. Jung would say that it is the same with the greatest and most important problems in our lives. The only solution to them is to outgrow them. Maybe as our consciousness expands and grows, from our enlarged perspective, we see them with a different set of eyes. And we approach them with a different set of tools. And maybe from there, not only are the big problems taken care of, the little ones fall in line as well. Who know? It seems like we each have to find out for ourselves. Anyway, I hope that the quotes from Dr. Jung have stimulated some ideas in your awareness. As with a lot of insights from the world of personal growth, if you give them a little time and attention, they have the potential to bear some wonderfully tasty and truly nutritious fruit. But let's leave it at that for this episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.

I am continuing with the process of releasing some of the large amount of notes that I've filed away over the years that pertain to personal growth. As I mentioned, I am not building any podcasts specifically around any of these ideas. I am just putting them out to you without any particular format so you can take them in one at a time and see if they do anything for you.           One thing I didn't mention is that some of these are not just ideas, they are actually notes that I've taken with the idea to possibly construct a short story around. It's something that I learned from the gifted American Literature professor that I was fortunate to have in my senior year of college, prize winning author Kermit Moyer.           Kert told me that for the most part, he wrote like a jazz musician who was improvising a piece. He said he never knew where the writing would take him. He would just get started and soon the work would begin to take shape, almost on its own. He authored many of his writings in that way. The idea caught my fancy, and although I do a lot more planning than that, the technique is something that I do love to play around with.             So, we're going to begin today's podcast with a quick story about something that happened to me about fifteen or twenty years ago. I have a working title for this working story, but to be honest, I'm not sure that the story is going to go much farther than here. The title is, “You Know It When You See It.”           As I mentioned in a few episodes in the past, I've been playing golf for many, many years and I am really, really bad at it. Trust me. I'm not being modest or humble about it. The truth is that I was horrible when I first started playing around with it and I am every bit as horrible now as I was twenty-five years ago. I do enjoy playing. I've learned a lot about it and a lot from it. But I'm just plain bad at it.           Comedian Larry David says he's in the same boat and he once put it this way. “You really have to have a knack for this game and the truth is, I'm knackless.”           Don't worry. This story isn't really about golf at all. It's more about the recognition of mastery. So, here's what happened.           We live in a condominium on Philadelphia's Fairmount Park and there is a golf driving range about two miles away that is called “Longknockers.” I used to go over there about twice a week to hit some balls. Because my schedule is usually pretty flexible, I would go over on weekdays in the early afternoon, when the place was basically empty.           Like most driving ranges, it is a huge, open field and being in the park, there is a large line of trees on one side. I would generally go all the way over near this line of trees so I could be in the shade as I was hitting.           One afternoon, I went over there as usual and as I was walking over to my secluded spot near the trees, I was surprised to see that someone was sitting in a chair, right behind the area where I usually played from. There was never anybody there and I always had it to myself, so I was mildly perturbed. Anyway as I walked closer, I could see that this guy wasn't just sitting in the chair, he was actually sprawled across it. As I got a little closer, I could see that he seemed to be unconscious. I didn't want to disturb him, but I did want to hit my bucket of balls from my spot, so I set up about ten yards in front of him. From that vantage point, I could see a few empty bottles on the grass around his chair.  I'm not sure exactly what had been in them, but they looked like booze bottles and the general smell of the place gave a clear confirmation. I started to hit a few balls in the direction of this huge tree that was off in the distance. I had been told it was about 210 yards away. I would always hit towards the tree and even with my driver, I would consider myself lucky to be able to reach it. If you know anything about golf, you know that if you consider yourself lucky to be able to hit your driver 210 yards, you're not what they call a “big hitter.” So, I kept hitting and the guy was still passed out on the chair behind me. Finally, after I hit a shot I heard him say, “You're not replicatin' your practice swing.” I turned around and looked at him. He was sitting up a little and was a little more conscious than he had been before. “What the hell are you takin' a practice swing for if you're not going to at least try to replicate it. Complete waste of time.” I knew he was right, but I also knew that it wouldn't be a stretch to categorize my interest in golf with that phrase. Complete waste of time wouldn't be an inaccurate summation of all the hours I had spent in my life hitting golf balls. Mark Twain once said that golf was a good walk spoiled, which never bothered me much because I usually took a cart.   “You want a lesson?” he asked me. My first thought was, “My God, why would I want a lesson from this guy. He looked like he'd be lucky if he could stand up. “I teach all the best players around here. I teach at Merion, Pine Valley, Commonwealth National.” That last name caught my attention becasue my closest friend belonged to Commonwealth. “Oh yeah?” I asked. “How much?” “Forty bucks,” he answered. “I only got twenty,” I said. “Good enough,” he responded. He got up and kind of staggered over to me. He looked in my bag. “Oh, you got a new Bubble Burner,” he said. Taylor Made, a major golf company had just come out with a new driver called the Bubble Burner. It was a big sensation and my wife had surprised me with one for my birthday a little earlier. It was an incredibly sweet gesture on her part because the truth is, at my level play, buying me a fake putter for miniature golf would have been a far more appropriate use of money.   “I haven't seen one of these in person yet,” the alleged teacher said. “You mind if I hit a few? He asked. “No, not at all. Go ahead,” I responded. Now I'm not nearly a good enough writer to describe what happened next.  He pulled the club out of my bag and the second he had the club in his hands, my perception of him immediately changed. I could tell just by the way he casually held the club in his hands that this guy really knew his stuff. He teed up a ball, and with a very slow and easy, and obviously perfect swing, with no recognizable source of power whatsoever, he hit a ball over the tree in the distance. And I mean well over the tree, like over 250 yards in the air. For a hacker like me, whenever you see someone hit a ball like that, you are basically stunned, which I was. He hit about five balls in a row. Each one went way over the tree and he deliberately bent a couple of shots to the right, which in golf is called a “fade.” And then a few over to the left, called a “draw.” I was in a transformed state just watching him. I'm not sure I was even breathing. He handed me back the club and said, “I don't really like what they've done with this. I couldn't really control it.” I could barely move. He started giving me a lesson and honestly, I don't really remember what he taught me. I do remember that the way he had me swing the club was very different from the way I had been doing it. We had a nice time together and as we were about to say goodbye to each other, he looked at me sideways and said, “Let me ask you something.” He was still pretty inebriated. “If I hadn't shown you what I showed you today, what would you have been practicing?” “I don't know,” I responded, “I guess my same..” “Your same old freaking bullshot,” he growled back at me, like a drill sergeant.  Of course those weren't his exact words, but you get the point. Later that day, I called my friend who belonged to Commonwealth and he knew exactly who this guy was because he was well known to the top players as the best player in the entire Philadelphia area. He could have made the pro tour but he had a serious problem with alcohol and was never able to kick it. A couple of years later, they found him dead in a flop house. So why did I tell you this story? Well, simply because it taught me two very critical lessons that ultimately had to do with personal growth. The first one is, you know that you are in the presence of the master of a craft as soon as you see them perform. This can be about anything, sports, cards, chess, knitting, you name it. You can be around a lot of people who are good, but when you're with a true master, you know it when you see it. With this guy, whose first name was Billy, he was dead drunk when I first met him and he could have said a million things to me. When he took the club in his hands, I could tell he had skill, but I still had my doubts. But as soon as he started hitting the ball, constantly putting it well over the tree in the distance that I could barely reach, all my doubt immediately vanished and I was in that state in that famous Bruno Mars song when he sang, “Don't believe me, just watch.” The last thing that he said to me was deeply meaningful as well. If I hadn't run into a teacher who could point out my errors and show me the way to a better swing, even though I would be doing something that I would call practicing, all I would really be doing is my same old freaking bullshot. And by the way, with golf as with most skills, nothing beats having a real live teacher giving you instruction. God knows I have a million books and tapes on golf and they really haven't done me much good. One good teacher is worth its weight in gold. Now, it's easy to know when you're exposed to transformative information about golf because your score eventually starts to improve. With personal growth, if you have access to good information and especially if you have a good teacher, your inner world starts to improve. As our consciousness begins to evolve and expand, there is a natural sense of harmonic well being that starts to come over you, and all the better angels of your nature start to show up. Well, I haven't really examined this little anecdote in several years and it's always a lot of fun and a little enlightening whenever I do. It was just a quirky little lesson about life that came to me unexpectedly on a golf driving range, delivered by a lovable rapscallion of a character who could have easily come straight out of the Twilight Zone. It's the kind of thing that often happens when you're lucky enough to be able to tune into it. So that will be it for this episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened, and let's get together in the next one.    

As you may recall, I had mentioned in the last two episodes that we are making a slight change in format for the “Stop Making Yourself Miserable” podcasts. Instead of building each episode around one particular theme, I am going to start presenting notes that I've made over the last fifty years that were particularly inspiring to me as I continued to go through all the ever-unfolding phases of inner growth.           For me, these living ideas are like beautiful flowers and bountiful fruit trees that align the side of the path I travel along.  And again, they are not being presented as specific teachings of any kind, just simply ideas for you to consider.  My suggestion is that you just take them in, maybe contemplate their meaning a little and see if they take you anywhere interesting within yourself. You may come across some pleasant surprises that might be surprisingly long lasting. You never know because the evolution of your inner consciousness truly is a gift that keeps on giving.           And one last point, which again comes completely from my own experiences with each one of these – although they may seem to be incredibly simple, they are often far deeper than they appear to be at first glance.  For me, when I would encounter one of these, a natural process of inner contemplation would take place, seemingly on its own, and layer upon layer of meaning would make itself known.           This following message is a perfect example of the simplicity of the profound and the profundity of the simple. As I mentioned at the end of the last episode, several decades ago I had been reading the transcript of a press conference that had been held for Prem Rawat, who was just thirteen years old at the time.           Someone asked him, “Do you believe in God?” And he immediately responded, "I believe in the God who put a smile on every baby's face." Now that phrase really stopped me dead in my tracks and made me give it some real thought. For one thing, I had never heard that particular idea before and the first thing I asked myself was, “Is there really a smile on every baby's face?” Well, obviously,  they're not smiling all the time. I mean a lot of the time, they're crying. But then I realized the deeper idea behind the question, which made me rephrase it to, “Is there the potential for a smile within every baby? And if there is, where does it come from? Might it be instinctual?'           Now back then, I had been around enough babies to know that they can break into a beautiful smile at any time, so on an intuitive level it quickly became clear that yes, there is a potential smile within every baby. So I had no issue with the idea that there is a smile on every baby's face.           Then I started thinking about the nature of that smile and a few things quickly occurred to me. The first one is that a baby's smile is incredibly transformative on the human beings around it. It's actually remarkable. You can take the most hard-boiled person in the world, who could easily win the Mr. or Mrs. Universe title for the most miserable people on earth, and put them alone in a room with a baby. And if no one is there and enough time has gone by for the adult to settle down a little, when that baby suddenly beams one of those beatific smiles at them, the adult's heart of ice will melt in an instant and they'll smile and start cooing at the baby in a matter of seconds. This inherent tenderness of a human's connection with a baby is a critical element of the highest and best aspects of our nature. And it doesn't even have to be a human baby either. The sweetness of this reaction has been clinically observed in people when they get around babies of other species as well. We all know what happens to people when they get to be around a baby puppy or a kitten. And it doesn't stop there. It's the same with baby deer, baby rabbits, baby horses, all the way through to baby turtles. It just does something truly wonderful to us.   So, if an incredibly powerful smile lights up every baby's face, the next big question is, “What are they smiling about?”           When viewed from a certain perspective, this is a truly great question. Studies have shown that babies do smile all the time and it's also been shown that children under the age of five experience significant laughter about three hundred times a day. That's a really lot of smiling and laughing. And the obvious and deeply profound question is, “What are they smiling and laughing about? What is it that is making them so happy? Why are they all in such great moods?” We know that they're not laughing at any jokes, because they're this happy long before they gain any language skills. They're also too young to be happy about the various external things that generally make adults happy – like money,  success, prestige, power, position, etc.            Of course, there are probably hundreds of well-reasoned out reasons why they are so happy, but personally, I'm fond of this one particular idea which is rooted in Ancient Wisdom and validated by modern neuroscience. And that is that they are so happy all the time because they are still closely connected to the very essence of our consciousness. They haven't absorbed enough of the unconscious confusion of the external world to be over-influenced by it. And although they may have been exposed to the agitating aspects we all run into like anger and fear, they haven't yet cemented the associated negative channels in their brain. The inherent happiness and contentment of our inner essence, existing in its state of joyful, creative genius is still who they are. And that's why there is so much smiling and laughter in their lives.           Okay, so much for the smile on every baby's face. Now what about the first part of the statement that the young teacher made in the press conference when he said, “I believe in the God who put the smile on every baby's face?” In so many words, the statement says that God is the source of the smiles on the faces of babies. Or you could say that God is the source of the inner joy that makes the baby smile. And that says something about God that is radically different from most of what I had been exposed to up until then, and it was pretty shocking to me, but in a good way. As I said earlier, I had come upon this quote when I was still pretty young myself. To be exact, I was about twenty-two. And I had never thought of the idea of the Supreme Being in these terms.           As I've mentioned previously in these podcasts, during my upbringing, I was given a pretty heavy dose of what is called the Judeo-Christian tradition, and the idea of the deity that it introduced me to was a male-God who carried around a big quiver full of lightning bolts and didn't seem to be a particularly nice guy.           I mean, half the time, he's smiting someone for some reason, so you come away with a fairly hefty burden of fear. And that's not to mention the guilt that you get from the origin story. You have original sin, where our great-times-a-million grandmother and grandfather got kicked out of paradise.           And then when you flip to the new version of the tale, you continue down guilty lane, by hearing that God had to have his only begotten son killed so his blood could wash away our sins. The first time I came across the idea, it actually made me sick. But that may have been from just the idea of blood because I've always had one of those medical phobias. Anyway, there was this huge sign in Atlantic City that said, “Christ Died for Our Sins.” It was over a church near the boardwalk and I must have seen it at least five hundred times in my life and the more I saw it, the more uncomfortable I got. It kind of made me think, so this is actually all my fault. I'm the one who committed the sins that forced God to kill his only begotten son, so his blood could be used to cleanse the world of the sins I brought. Jeez, this blood bath story took the guilt thing to a whole different level. I certainly don't want to give offense to anyone about any of this, but a whole pattern of thinking went off within me. What the hell did I ever do that was so Goddam bad that God had to kill his son so his blood could wash my sins away? And why would blood wash anything away? It didn't make any sense to me and to be honest, it made this God guy seem a little sick. Why would I want to have anything to do with him? When you consider all the stuff they tell you that you have to do to try to worm your way back into the Big Guy's good graces, it didn't seem worth it. All this praying, fasting, begging and repenting to butter up this thunderbolt bearing human-blood-sacrifice-craving character? What's the point? Again, this is probably all my own mishegoss, which is a Yiddish term for craziness or lunacy, and I apologize if I offended anyone, but all this stuff put up some pretty steep walls between myself and the Ultimate Power of the Universe. So, that's where I was. Now, let's go back to the idea of the God who put a smile on every baby's face. And by the way, you can probably see why the idea was so foreign to me. Beautiful, intriguing, even perhaps enlightening. But definitely foreign. By contemplating the image of a smiling baby and tying it to the essence of the Deity, a different perspective began to take shape in my consciousness. The purity and innocence of it, along with the idea that immense joy is bestowed by God to every human at birth, was something I had never considered before. And that was just the beginning of many new ideas for me. The concept that there is inherent good within every human being and that all the negativity was just learned behavior began to emerge. And it brought along the idea of universality with it. The image of an innocent, smiling baby experiencing the joy of the Divine within brought me a sense of hope that perhaps all the separation brought on by the world's religious, cultural, and geographical boundaries might be able to be transcended. Again, this was still rather early in my interest in personal growth and I was just starting to get introduced to certain ideas that were actually thousands of years old. The idea that there is pure, unadulterated happiness within us that is not tied to anything external. That there is a compassionate and loving universal power which is the source of all the magnificent goodness and beauty in the world. And that this power serves as a guiding light in life and because it is always within, it can be accessed at any time. And all you have to do is open up to it.   With the birth of all these seeds of understanding, it was like some noble, high minded and extremely powerful group of friendly strangers had suddenly come to visit me in my jail cell where I was imprisoned in the dungeon of my mind. I had been locked up there for ages and now they were telling me about this wonderful realm that existed just outside my prison walls. Then they told me that there was no lock on the door to my cell and actually it had never been locked. I was free to leave there anytime I wanted. And it was all up to me. So, these are a lot of the realizations that started coming to me from that 13-word sentence that was spoken by that 13 year old teacher. Not bad. I started thinking that maybe the kid had something after all. Okay, enough for one episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened and let's get together in the next one.

As I mentioned in the previous episode, I am about to begin a series of episodes that will have more of a free-flow format than the ones that have gone before. This is because I have a large amount of information that I have collected over the years which I consider to be extremely valuable when it comes to personal growth, and rather than try to build a context for each one that would be the theme of an entire episode, I am just going to put them out one at a time, without trying to format them into a general context. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first one is that I have found that every one of these ideas has been extremely helpful to me at some point in time, just the way they are. And they may be very helpful to you, as well. Also, if I don't put them out now, rather than serving to possibly help someone in their path of personal growth, they'll probably end up just being food for worms somewhere. And although the worms might appreciate the nutritional value of the paper, the ideas themselves will do the crawlers no good at all. That kind of stuff only works for human beings. So, before I begin, I'd like return to my own personal story and move it forward a little bit from where we left off in the last episode. I had mentioned that my interest in inner growth began when I heard the news that the Beatles were continuing their magical mystery tour by travelling to India to study meditation. Before I knew it, I decided to look into meditation and went to the Philadelphia Transcendental Meditation center and received a mantra to meditate with. The practice didn't really do much for me and my interest in inner evolution left me about as quickly as it came. But at this point, I want to underscore something important about what was happening within my overall intelligence. You may or may not be aware of the fact that I had a few extraordinarily metaphysical experiences surrounding the sudden death of my father. These experiences are detailed fairly extensively in my memoir, “Wilt, Ike and Me” and they were the subject of a few podcast episodes about a year and a half ago. To make a very long story very short this is the gist of what happened. With absolutely no background in this kind of thing at all, one night when I was in 11th grade, I had a clear and vivid dream that my father had died. I dreamt the events as they happened to me. It was quite a long dream, with several sequences, it was crystal clear and I could remember every bit of it. And then incredibly, it all happened the next night exactly as I had dreamt it, down to the finest details of who said what to me and when. Then, about six months later, I had another deeply vivid dream in which my father appeared to me and told me that he never really died. He said that there is no death and that it's just a public relations stunt that God came up with to get people to think about him. At the end of the dream, he noticed that I was wearing his ring He told me to give it back to him. I did and the whole room exploded into brilliant white light. Then back in real life, a few hours later, following my gym class, when I opened my locker and went into my wallet where I kept my two rings, his ring had disappeared. My other ring, my watch, my wallet with a ten-dollar bill in it were all still there. But inexplicably his ring was gone. It had vanished without a trace. Now, even though the details about these events were truly extraordinary in and of themselves, the thing that was important to my growth was the fact that they had happened at all. Underlying the shock and grief that came along with the sudden death of my father was a deep understanding that started to come over me, that was that there's more to this life than meets the eye. There's more to it than we've been told. I mean, how is it possible that in a dream, I clearly foresaw events that hadn't happened yet? What does that say about time and space and the so-called reality of life as we know it? Of course, this was a lot for a standard American 16-year-old schoolboy to begin to grasp, but it lit a deep desire within me to find out what the hell is going on around here. What am I doing here? What is the purpose for my life? Why was I born? What did I come here to do? You know, all those basic kinds of existential questions that we are generally warned to dismiss from our minds at all costs. There's no answer to them and they will just lead you down a never-ending rabbit hole of confusion. Well that may be true, but the fact was, I had no choice about asking these kinds of questions and I still don't. I still have to ask them. By the way, I've learned a lot since then and although there is still effort to be made, there is an enormous amount of difference between the effort of searching to find a gold mine and the effort of mining the gold once you've found it. Anyway, in the fall of 1971, suddenly some powerful events began to take place almost simultaneously. The first thing was that I heard about a unique Indian teacher who supposedly had a very evolved way of teaching. He was all the rave at the time, but I was really put off by the fact that the guy was only 13 years old. He was basically just a kid. I'll never forget it. I was in my first semester of law school walking down the quad at Temple University with my old friend and fellow student, Ted Simon. Ted was already very serious about the law. He studied hard and quickly became a major criminal lawyer, as well as the President of the National Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys. I won't go into details about it here, but let's just say I went down a road less traveled. Anyway, I had a hot dog in my hand and was about to bite into it and suddenly saw a poster taped to a pole which said something like, “13 year old spiritual teacher has come to relieve you of your suffering.” I stopped dead in my tracks and just stared at it. “Whoever is promoting this guy is going to go bankrupt fast. Who the hell is going to believe that a 13-year-old kid is a spiritual teacher? What the hell can somebody that young know?” I asked Ted. I was so flabbergasted by the complete absurdity of the idea that it took me a few minutes to finally bite into the dog. Well, things went the surprising way they often do and within a few months, to my extreme surprise, I started taking this young teacher a bit more seriously. He was teaching a form of meditation that was supposedly quite powerful and in certain circles that I had become familiar with, he was gaining a serious reputation for having significant wisdom. That's a really quick overview, but how it actually happened is quite a story in and of its own right and I will probably tell it in a podcast episode one of these days. Anyway, this teacher's name was Prem Rawat and besides hearing a lot about him, I also got exposed to a few other sources of information that began to exert a strong influence on me in those days. And this kind of happened all at once. The first one was that a lot of people I knew had begun reading a book called, “Autobiography of a Yogi,” by someone named Parmahansa Yogananda. At some point, I got that book and couldn't put it down. I'll go more deeply into who he was and what his influence was on me at a later time, but his writings became a major source of inspiration to me. And they still are. At the same time, a lot of people were recommending reading a book called, “There is a River, the Edgar Cayce Story.”  I had never heard of Edgar Cayce before and the story of America's most documented psychic was another element that played a major role in my inner awakenings back then. The idea that someone could tap into a higher realm of consciousness and gain access to a wealth of knowledge that was otherwise unavailable was basically a mind blower. Another book that hit me pretty hard at the time was called “The Essene Gospel of Peace,” which was one of a four-part series that presented a deeply esoteric view point about God and religion. Along the same lines, it was recommended to me that I begin reading a book called “The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ,” which was supposedly channeled by someone named Levi. This book was truly incredible and I plan to present a few chapters of it down the road sometime. I began reading all of these books within a few months of each other and it was quite a powerful experience because essentially they all said the same thing. Prem Rawat hadn't written any books back then, but he was giving a lot of talks which also said the same exact thing. And the basic message which was common to them all was that – yes there is such a thing as God and it is omniscient, which means it knows everything, is omnipotent, which means that it is all powerful, and it is omnipresent, which means that it is present everywhere, throughout every molecule of creation and beyond. And the most important thing is that it is within every single individual and we are all born with the inherent ability to connect with it, expand and grow,  and eventually merge into it. And the successful performance of this merger of consciousness, which could also be termed, the ultimate surrender, was the purpose of our life, the very reason we were born here in the first place. And if we were able to accomplish this evolution of consciousness, we will be complete and able to have the highest experience of life possible or find heaven on earth while we are still alive, if you want to put it that way. This is the brass ring on this otherwise crazy looking merry-go-round we found ourselves on. And the most amazing bottom line element to me was that God is not some ultra powerful guy who lives ten zillion light years away and can only be approached after you die. No, all these sources taught that you can find the god presence within yourself and ultimately merge with it. The general term for it was “the indwelling god presence” and I had never been exposed to this kind of a concept before in my life. Like I said, all of this hit me at the same time within just a few months. I started practicing the meditation taught by the young teacher and I'm still doing it to this day. So, this has been quite a lot of information for one episode and I'm going to close it by relating to you one of the first notes I took from back then that was deeply meaningful to me. I was reading the transcript of a press conference that was held for Prem Rawat. Again, he was thirteen years old at the time. And by the way, as bizarre as the idea of such a young teacher seemed to me back then, in the east, great teachers who were child prodigies and began teaching at a young age does happen from time to time. The greatly venerated Yogi, Sri Ramakrishna was recognized as a master soul by the age of seven. The current Dali Lama was recognized as a master soul by the age of five and assumed full leadership duties at the age of fifteen. And there is currently a very young teacher who will apparently take his place at the appropriate time. I didn't know any of this back then and the reality is that it didn't really matter. I liked what the young teacher had to say and his approach seemed not only revolutionary but it was deeply meaningful. Anyway, at this press conference someone asked him, “Do you believe in God?” And he simply replied, “I believe in the God who put a smile on every baby's face.” That eleven-word sentence was one of the most beautifully profound statements I had ever heard, and I'm going to get into it more deeply in the the next episode, along with several  other things. But in the meantime, you may want to give that statement a little thought and see what it does to you. “I believe in the God who put a smile on every baby's face.” So, for now, keep your eyes, mind, and heart open and let's get together in the next one.    

Over the course of these podcasts, I have mentioned several times that I first became interested in personal growth around the time that the Beatles went to India to study meditation in February of 1968. My interest wasn't particularly deep. The only thing deep about me at the time was how deeply I was being influenced by the world around me, and I basically mirrored every move the Beatles made. They said that meditation was great, so I thought I'd check it out. My search didn't go very far. Just far enough to understand that I didn't understand anything about anything to do with it.  And I had no real interest in it either. But that changed as the next few years went by in a flash. One thing I haven't mentioned about those days is that at one point I began taking random, but detailed notes on anything that I came across that helped to expand my inner awareness, even in the smallest of ways. I never stopped this notetaking process and I never threw any of it out, either. That began half a century ago so, as you can imagine, I have an enormous amount of material stored away in my office. As I was recently considering what to do with all of it, an interesting idea occurred to me that involved our podcast series. But before I tell you the idea, first let me tell you a fascinating story that I once heard that served as a significant inspiration for me to begin making notes in the first place. It's the story about how the ending of the movie, Casablanca came to be, and once you hear it, I'm sure you'll understand how all these strings tie together.           So, it started back in my college days. As I mentioned in an earlier episode, in my junior year, I had spent a full semester working as an intern on Capitol Hill, with my major in Government and Public Administration. But by the end of the semester, my experiences on the hill led me to conclude that the world of politics was not one that I wanted to set up shop in. Maybe it was just what was going on in the country during the late sixties, as extreme societal turbulence violently eradicated any semblance of normality. But from my perspective the hill seemed like one big snake pit, constantly churning through never-ending rounds  of ego-based struggles for money and power.           After considering a few different options, I finally decided to change my major to American Literature. For some unknown reason, the idea of possibly becoming a writer seemed to hold a much bigger draw for me, not that I had any talent or experience in the field. Now that I have been working at it for several decades, I can hypothesize with some degree of certainty that at least I've gained a modicum of experience.           Anyway, around that time, I came upon an interview with Julius Epstein who, along with his identical twin brother Phillip, had written the movie, Casablanca. I, like millions of other motion picture enthusiasts, had always been a major fan of that film, ever since I first saw it in a film club in high school. And being a would-be writer, anything a successful author had to say about the craft of writing was naturally interesting to me. But in this interview, Julie Epstein began describing an element of the making of the movie that I had never heard before and it really got my attention. According to him, as screenwriters, he and his brother had never been able to come up with an ending to the story and they still didn't have one even when shooting began.           If you've never seen it, on a basic level, it's a bittersweet story about a love triangle and throughout the piece, you never know which of the two men the woman will end up with. But its classic ending reveals the fact that it also has profoundly noble themes as well, one of which is the critical importance of performing individual duty. Rick Blaine, played by Humphrey Bogart, ultimately sacrifices his love for Ilsa Lund, portrayed by Ingrid Bergman, for the greater good. Ilsa's husband, Victor Laszlo, is a renowned Czech resistance leader, and he needs her support to continue his vital work in his uphill battle against the Nazis. Rick finally recognizes the significance of Victor's mission and the importance of Ilsa's role in it. In the final scenes of the movie, even though he is clear that Ilsa would rather stay with him, Rick puts his personal feelings aside and helps her escape with Victor, understanding that their mission is far more important than any of their own personal feelings. As he puts it, “Ilsa, I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.”           This incredibly climactic ending is truly a piece of cinematic history and I was a deep admirer of it, but I never knew until listening to Epstein that the ending wasn't written or even decided upon until the shooting was well under way. And then, in the interview, he went on to tell the story of how he and his brother came up with the ending. To me, it was a remarkable tale and it stuck to me to this day because it speaks volumes about the role that instinct plays in our intelligence.           He said that as writers he and his brother would routinely write down any notes that struck them about anything at all., It didn't matter if the idea had no context or relationship to anything they were working on. In fact, the ones that seemed to come to them completely out of the blue, often ended up being the most usefully creative ones in the long run. And that was especially true when it came to writing dialogue. He said this form of note taking was a well-known method of the craft and they had been doing it for their entire careers.                       Then he shifted back to talking about the difficulties they had run into in coming up with the ending of Casablanca. They just couldn't decide if Ilsa should go with Victor to America or stay with Rick in Casablanca. And as shooting continued, this lack of an ending had become a real problem for everyone involved in the film, especially the actors and the director.           As the pressure continued to mount, they started rummaging through their huge file of random ideas and at one point, they found a line of dialogue that stopped them dead in their tracks. The line was, “Round up the usual suspects.”                 They had no real recollection of when or how it was written. They just knew it was a great line, and given the gripping drama of the story line, they instinctively knew that if it was used in the right way, at the right time, it could really take the movie to a whole different level. By the way, no one involved with picture at that time thought that it was going to be any good at all. They all thought it seemed destined to be a flop.             They started to try to figure out where to use this terrific line. The first question was - who could say it? It quickly became clear that the only character who could deliver it was the police captain, Captain Renault, played by Claude Rains.  But what would lead him to speak that line? Well, it might be great if he spoke it after somebody killed somebody. Then they thought, “Who would the audience most like to see killed?” Again, it became obvious fairly quickly that the audience would love to see the villain killed. The villain was Major Strasser, a high-ranking Nazi officer. Now the big question came up - who should kill him? They considered all the key players and Humphrey Bogart's character was far and away the favorite. Ultimately, he was the central hero of the plot and it's always most satisfying when the hero defeats the villain. So, when should he kill him? Suddenly the resolution of the ending began to emerge. The most dramatic time would be if the Major tried to stop Victor and Ilsa from escaping and Rick eliminates him, opening the way for them to escape. And with all these plot elements in place, it only made sense for Rick to remain in Casablanca and become pals with Captain Renault, who had used that great line to save his life. The film was released in early 1943 and despite the premonition of doom and gloom that pervaded the cast and crew during the filming, it quickly gained significant approval. But over the years that followed, the ending became one of the most renowned and respected in Hollywood history and catapulted the film into movie immortality. And eighty years later, it is still one of the most beloved movies of all time. And hearing that the ending wasn't the result of a planned-out strategy but was reverse-engineered from a random line of dialogue really impressed me. I don't remember whether it was a conscious or an unconscious decision about it, but I found myself making notes about anything and everything related to personal growth that impressed me, and as I said, I never threw any of it away.           Now, let's go back to the idea that occurred to me regarding all this personal growth material I have in my files. So far, in preparing these podcasts, I generally pick out one central them for an episode and weave the entire episode around that theme. At this point, we've produced over eighty episodes and they have all followed this format.           But as I was looking over all of this material I have collected it hit me that while a lot of it is extremely valuable, it may not be a large enough topic to build a complete episode around. And then I thought that it might be a great idea to develop a different format. Rather than building a whole episode around one particular theme, maybe I should just present the ideas without thinking about developing a context at all. Maybe I should just present them to you and you can just take them in and see where they may lead you.           So, I am going to incorporate this creative free-flow format into the next few episodes and see what happens. Again, these will not be teachings of any kind, just some intriguing ideas you might like to consider. They will still be coming from Ancient Wisdom through to modern neuroscience, along with personal experiences and observations that have been particularly helpful to me.           If you just relax and let them come into your consciousness, it's quite possible that they may bring you some interesting and maybe even enlightening realizations. You might even play with the concepts in a reverse engineering, “Casablanca” ending kind of a way, where you let one idea lead to another. Maybe you'll experience your own “Round up the usual suspects” effect. With inner growth, you never know where you may uncover your next masterpiece of wisdom.           So, we'll begin the new format in the next episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open and lets get together in the next one.

  In the last few episodes, we've talked about the fact that many of us suffer from a case of mistaken identity in which have come to believe that we are actually the contents of our neural template, which is largely responsible for forming our ordinary mind. We looked at some of the limitations of it, especially that it is, by nature, always dissatisfied, that it has the element of fear deeply rooted in its awareness and that it cannot dwell in present time. We also discussed the existence of its voice, called our inner critic which feeds us over 30,000 negative messages every day. And we touched on the phenomenon of self-sabotage, in which we often become our own worst enemy.           In this episode, we're going to look a little deeper into the make-up of our overall intelligence by considering some of the differences between our ordinary mind and our higher mind. Now, even though we have made tremendous advances in neurology, the brain sciences, psychiatry, and psychology, we still know very little about the actual potential of our intelligence. Current thinking is that is far greater than we currently imagine. So, let's dig into it.   Obviously, even though, in reality we each have only one intelligence, the easiest way to examine it is by separating it into two distinct parts – our ordinary mind and our higher mind. In that regard, I am going to present some information from a tremendous resource, “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying,” which gives a terrific overview of the key teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. This classic compilation of wisdom was first published in 1982, with a thirtieth anniversary edition released in 2012. As an aside, I find that even though it may be thousands of years old, Ancient Wisdom often captures the obstacles facing us in modern times with uncanny clarity, as though it were written today. I remember once reading a description of our ordinary life as lived through the filter of our ordinary mind which said something like this, “When we are children, all we think about is - my toys, my toys, my toys. Then we get older and it becomes – my mate, my mate, my mate. Finally, when we become adults, it turns into – my worries, my worries, my worries. And it just stays there.” Sound familiar? I guess on a certain level, some things never change.   Anyway, let's use some of the text from the “Tibetan Book of Living and Dying” to help shed some light on the ordinary mind and then on the higher mind.              The Ordinary Mind   Let's remember that after years of neural firing and the establishment of billions of neural pathways, our brain sets up our neural template, which is an incredibly interconnected matrix of all the information stored in our brain. By around age five, we become increasingly identified with this template, which is also called our Ordinary Mind and we basically start filtering our life entire through it. It's important to understand that we can't function in the world without it. Afterall, among many other critical tasks, we use it to navigate our way through life. The problem is that even though it is an incredibly multi-faceted tool, it is also severely limited. For the most part, we are given no training in using it at all and we can easily become over-identified with it. If it gets out of control, it can be the cause of endless trouble for us. So, let's take a look at what we are dealing with here. The Tibetan book says that while the ordinary mind does possess discriminating awareness, its focus is largely external, always making us look outside of ourselves. It also possesses a basic sense of duality – good and bad, light and dark, which makes it constantly grasping or rejecting.  And it is discursive, which means it is always digressing from one subject to another, often focusing on a projected and falsely perceived external reference point. After this, the text really gets down to brass tacks. Even though this is thousands of years old, see if it sounds familiar to you: “So, the Ordinary Mind is the part of the mind that thinks, plots, desires, manipulates, that flares up in anger, that creates and indulges in waves of negative emotions and thoughts, that has to go on and on and on, asserting, validating, and confirming its existence by fragmenting, conceptualizing, and solidifying experience. “The Ordinary Mind is the ceaselessly shifting and shiftless prey of external influences, habitual tendencies, and conditioning. The Ordinary Mind can seem like a candle flame in an open doorway, vulnerable to all the winds of circumstances. “Seen from one angle, the ordinary mind is flickering, unstable, grasping, and endlessly minding others business, its energy consumed by projecting outwards. The ordinary mind can be thought of as a Mexican jumping bean, or as a monkey hopping restlessly from branch to branch on a tree. “Yet seen in another way, the ordinary mind has a false, dull stability, a smug and self-protected inertia, a stone-like calm of ingrained habits. The Ordinary Mind is as cunning as a crooked politician, skeptical, distrustful, expert at trickery and guile, ingenious in the games of deception. It is within the experience of this chaotic, confused, undisciplined, and repetitive, ordinary mind that, again and again and again, we undergo change and death.” So, while we do have this vast neural network that makes up our Ordinary Mind, and we can't live without, it is critically important to understand its limitations. Again, this mind is not our true identity and it is certainly not the sum total of our intelligence. Far from it.   Here are some things to remember about it, so you can avoid its pitfalls, which in many ways are the source of most human problems, both individual and societal:   1.     It is dualistic, constantly fluctuating, and reactive in nature. 2.     It generally vacillates between attachment and rejection, which leads to endless desires and negative emotions and thoughts. 3.     It is unstable and reactive in nature. It projects constantly flickering reactions to an endless parade of external circumstances. 4.     It fragments and conceptualizes experiences and its assumptions and conclusions can be significantly flawed. 5.     It is continuously vulnerable to external influences and circumstances which change constantly. 6.     By the nature of its insecure and skeptical foundation, it is cunning, and skilled in deception and trickery. 7.     Despite its apparent instability, it also possesses inherent inertia and is resistant to change due to ingrained habits and patterns. So, this is quite a list. Again, it's just a summary of some of the characteristics of the limiting aspects of our ordinary mind. They are common to us all and personally, as intense as they may be, take it from me, my own ordinary mind makes them look pretty tame. Anyway, we can all benefit by gaining a simple awareness of them and understanding and eventually transcending these limitations is a central goal to many of the spiritual and contemplative practices contained in Ancient Wisdom. According to it, a higher state of awareness can be achieved, bringing a state of consciousness that exists beyond the dualistic and reactive tendencies of the Ordinary Mind, resulting in a state of peace, equanimity, and ultimate freedom from suffering. This is a great introduction to looking into the other part of our intelligence, which is said to be the primary foundation of our identity: Our Higher Mind.   The Higher Mind   We all start out life with the awareness of only our Higher Mind and if you've ever spent time with a baby or toddler, you know how magical and creatively intelligent this level of consciousness is. Its learning capacity alone is truly astonishing. Here is what the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying says about it: “Then there is the very nature of mind, its innermost essence, which is absolutely and always untouched by change or death. At present, it is hidden, within our own mind, enveloped and obscured by the mental scurry of our thoughts and emotions. “Just as clouds can be shifted by a strong gust of wind to reveal the shining sun and wide-open sky, so, under certain special circumstances, some inspiration may uncover for us glimpses of this nature of mind. These glimpses have many depths and degrees, but each of them will bring some light of understanding, meaning and freedom. “This is because the nature of mind is the very root itself of understanding. In Tibetan, we call it ‘Rigpa,' our primordial, pure, pristine awareness that is at once intelligent, cognizant, radiant, and always awake. It could be said to be the knowledge of knowledge itself. “Do not make the mistake of imagining that the nature of mind is exclusive to our mind only. It is, in fact, the nature of everything. It can never be said too often that to realize the nature of mind is to realize the nature of all things. “Saints and Mystics throughout history have adorned their realizations with different names and given them different faces and interpretations, but what they are all fundamentally experiencing is the essential nature of the mind. Christians and Jews call it God, Hindus call it the self, Shiva, Brahman, and Vishnu. Sufi Mystics name it the hidden essence, and Buddhists call it the Buddha nature. “At the heart of all religions is the certainty that there is a fundamental truth, and that this life is a sacred opportunity to evolve and realize it.” I don't know about you, but whenever I come across a great description of this higher state of being, I always feel like something is knocking on some kind of door within me. I know it sounds vague, but I also feel a deep desire to open that door up. What the Tibetans call the nature of mind, or Rigpa, is another term for the higher mind. Now most of us feel that it is easier to relate to and understand the ordinary mind than it is the Higher Mind, probably because we've had much more experience experiencing it. Understanding the Higher Mind can seem much more challenging and I'm very fond of what inner growth teacher Prem Rawat has to say about it. According to him, the Ordinary Mind is finite in nature and therefore, our finite mind can easily understand it. But the Higher Mind is infinite in nature and therefore, we can never truly understand it. According to him, we can just feel it and trust it. And that is far more than sufficient. Even though we may not be able to comprehend it, here is a very brief summary of some of its remarkable aspects:    1.     At its essence, it is immutable, meaning it is not subject to change. Ancient Wisdom says it is not only untouched by change, it is also untouched by transient thoughts and emotions, and incredibly, even by death. 2.     It is universal in nature. Not limited by anything, including the individual mind and ego, it is the root of understanding, transcending all other personal boundaries. 3.     It is inherently connected to the infinite essence that is at the root of all creation, and is the home of our insight, intuition, inspiration and aspiration. 4.     It is the source of all the “better angels of our nature,” including among countless other aspects, love, compassion, integrity, courage, altruism, etc. 5.     It represents a constantly expanding horizon for us. Infinite in nature, no matter how much of its positive essence we are able to grasp and experience, there is always more. 6.     It exists in the state of the “ever new.” Not subject to the limitations of time and space, it is the essence of the “now” and can never age. Therefore, the ever-enlarging experience of it is always new for us. 7.     Whether or not we are currently aware of it, we are infinitely attracted to it. At the essence of our intelligence, we have an intense desire to merge into it.   So, we've seen that there are two basic aspects of our intelligence – our ordinary mind and our higher mind, and we've taken a quick look at some of the characteristics of each. Personally, I've always been attracted to the idea of the Higher Mind. But like the rest of life's endeavors, growing from the idea stage into reality is the challenge and probably the opportunity as well. When it comes to the Ordinary Mind, like blindly stepping into a mud puddle, it's basically effortless. But to grow into the Higher Mind, it seems to take some intention, like you have to want it, like a truly thirsty person needs water. Yet, voices from Ancient Wisdom through to modern neuroscience assure us that it is, in fact, available to us. Some say that our thirst for it is inborn and fulfilling it is the actual purpose for incarnating here in the first place. Who knows? I guess we each have to figure that one out for ourselves. Well, once again, this has been a lot of information for one episode. So, keep your eyes, mind, and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.

As mentioned in the previous episode, we are continuing to provide some of the basic information that is imparted by the Higher Mind Training, which is a new personal growth program being prepared for release by the Better Angels Publishing Company. Its purpose is to help the normal, everyday person emerge from the prison of self-sabotage into the freedom of self-empowerment. The program probably won't be released until the middle of next year, but we want to give our podcast subscribers the information now, so you can begin using it right away, if you like.           To begin this episode, let's start out by taking a little detour in time and space back to August 13, 1865 to a sanitarium in Vienna, Austria, which is the date upon which one of its inmates named Ignatz Semmelweis died. He had suffered from a nervous breakdown and had been confined to the sanitarium a few months earlier. Outspoken, unruly, and constantly arguing that he was being held against his will, he suffered regular beatings from the guards. The cause of his death had been a gangrenous wound on his right hand, which was a probable result of one of these beatings.           Surprisingly, Semmelweis was a physician and scientist who had fallen into serious disrepute among the medical establishment of the capital city. He had been doing research on the mortality rates among women during childbirth and at one point, he had come up with a radical new idea that became extremely unpopular, primarily because there was absolutely no scientific basis for it. Even so, it seemed to make intuitive sense to him, so he began to institute it at Vienna General Hospital's First Obstetrical Clinic.           He documented the results of his unfounded and unaccepted new procedure and found that over several months, the maternal mortality rate in the obstetrical clinic dropped from 18% to 2%. Even though he still had no scientific theory upon which to base any medical hypothesis whatsoever, he still published a book about his findings in 1861, called “Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever.”           Given the story so far, the next obvious question would be – what was this radical new idea that Dr. Semmelweis had come up with that had seemingly cut the maternity mortality rate by nearly ninety percent? Now remember, he had no scientific explanation for how or why his procedure worked and every medical professional who had heard about it was adamantly opposed to it.           Get ready. You will probably find this quite shocking. He proposed that all the health care workers in the hospital, the doctors, nurses, and midwives, should wash their hands before they performed any procedure on any patient. In fact, he felt they should wash their hands before they even touched anyone at all and he came up with a chlorinated lime solution to do the job.           He had absolutely no scientific reasoning to support his supposition and his outrageous idea was met with ridicule and universally condemned by the entire medical establishment. They were certain of their opinion because, in their highly educated minds, the concept made absolutely no sense. Why would washing your hands have anything to do whatsoever with protecting the health of mothers and babies during childbirth?           And on top of that, the doctors felt personally offended. Why should they have to wash their hands? Afterall, doctors were considered to be refined gentlemen and gentlemen never have to wash their hands. That was for laborers and other members of the lower classes.           Following his clashes with the medical establishment, Semmelweis got involved with some other societal and political battles as well, and was ridiculed, ostracized, and finally ruined. He suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to an asylum where he eventually died from the beatings he received from the guards.           All of this came from the audacity he had to suggest that medical professionals should wash their hands before treating patients. And don't forget, they weren't treating just anybody. This was the upper crust of Austrian society.  Many of the mothers and babies who died in the contaminated obstetrical hospitals were members of the aristocracy and royalty of Europe, who were being treated by the finest doctors of the day.           Many years after his death, because of his efforts to protect the maternity environment, he became widely known as the “Savior of Mothers.” Of course, he wasn't the first savior to be crucified by his detractors and certainly not the last.           To put the story into historical perspective, Dr. Semmelweis had made his radical handwashing suggestion about twenty years before the general emergence of germ theory into the scientific world, which followed the work of Pasteur and Lister.   Back in 1860, they knew nothing about germs whatsoever. They had never even heard the term. They still believed that disease was caused by liquid “humors” in the body, a two-thousand-year-old concept that was concocted by ancient Greek and Roman doctors. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the standard accepted medical procedure of the day for treating disease was still simple bloodletting. And they felt that the state of their medical understanding was incredibly advanced.           As primitive as they may appear today, this has been the case with most cultures. Every society thinks they are incredibly advanced, and this conceit goes way back. When chariots were invented in about 1600 BC, they were all the rage. The Hittites took them to an unheard-of level of comfort and maneuverability, and eventually refined them for warfare. The most advanced military battle of its time was fought in 1274 BC with over five thousand chariots helping to boost the carnage. I'm sure the warriors were all proud of the level of modernity they had achieved.           Going back to the “Savior of Mothers” 1860 example, let's back up a little to 1830's, 40's and 50's, and consider the tremendously advanced water system that was set up to bring water into the White House. It was complete with steam driven pumps and cast-iron piping and the fact that water was delivered in this way to the White House was a marvel of the times.           Of course, no one knew anything about germ theory and although the piping system was ingenious, the water that it carried was severely contaminated, coming from wells that abutted wastewater dumps that were loaded with pathogens. It is now believed that Presidents Henry Harrison, James Polk and Zachary Taylor all died as a result of exposure to the water brought in by that otherwise innovative system.           And that's not to mention the tragic death of Abraham Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, who died from typhoid fever which was directly related to the putrid White House water.           So, due to their significant technological advances, they were able to distribute water in a more convenient way, but with their ignorance of germ theory, they just made it more convenient for people to get sick and die.           Of course, we've come a long way and hand sanitization has become almost universal, especially since the pandemic. But back then, they just didn't know what they didn't know. And guess what? Neither do we. No one ever does. I often find myself wondering what the people living a hundred and fifty years from now will think of us. Like all previous cultures, we believe we are incredibly advanced. But what critical factors don't we know now, that will be common knowledge throughout the world in 2175? With my lifelong focus on the evolution of human consciousness, my assumption as well as my hope is that it will have something to do with the way we use our minds. Because to put it simply, the way we use our minds is the basic root of all the major troubles that we face today. Look at it this way. We live in an extremely troubled world, nearly drowning in a sea of immense problems, and from what I've read, if you ask artificial intelligence to come up with a plan that would quickly and efficiently save the planet, it would simply respond, “Get rid of the human beings.” Of course, it's a shocking response, and some AI experts find it deeply disturbing, but you can see the troubling logic behind it. And if we are the primary cause of the problems that are plaguing our world, what's wrong with us?  Again, the answer is dramatically simple. It's our mind. That's right. the most advanced biological evolution since the beginning of life on earth, and indeed the very factor that enabled us to emerge from the brutal tests of survival of the fittest, this miraculous organ is the very cause of all our issues. And it isn't really the mind itself that is the problem. It's the way we use it. Let's refine that statement a little. It's the unconscious way that we've been unconsciously trained to unconsciously use it that's creating the problem. We have a mind with nearly unfathomable intelligence, but we haven't learned how to use it in a human-centric way. We develop incredible technology, but we don't use it in a way that serves humanity or the rest of the planet.   And this lack of evolved consciousness is nothing new. Just look at our track record. It's pretty dismal. And that's not just in caring for the planet, it's also deeply troubling in taking care of ourselves. Here is a particularly disgusting example.  About 160,000 people die each week from starvation on earth. That means that close to 8,500,000 people literally starve to death each year. They die because they simply don't get enough food to eat.           Now, get this – in the United States alone, 119 billion pounds of food is wasted each year. That means that 130 billion meals, $408 billion in food or about 40% of the total food supply is simply thrown out. Discarded. Four hundred and eight billion dollars of food is wasted each year, while 8,500,000 people die of starvation.           We have the money and we have the technology. We just have a serious problem with the way we misuse our intelligence. And personally, I believe that if and when people 150 years from now look back on us, it will be the generally primitive level of our human consciousness that will be so shocking to them. Because when it comes to the overall state of our consciousness, basically, we're still living a glorified law of the jungle. You know the drill – I, me, mine. Dog eat dog, Winner takes all, and the countless variations of the same primitive, fear-based theme, which leads to the sad conclusion that in the entire world, we have no greater enemy than ourselves. No other creature or factor poses a greater threat to our survival than we do. If the human species is ever destroyed, there is a high probability that it will be a case of unconscious suicide.           So, there can be no doubt that the growth of our inner consciousness is critical to our survival as a species, and I'd like to offer two of my favorite quotes on the subject. Albert Einstein said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” And Dr. Carl Jung said, “The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved, but only outgrown.”           So again, we must grow. And when it comes to inner growth, I'd like to suggest a “what if.”  What if it's not all that hard? What if like the germs in the nineteenth century, there is something incredibly basic that we just don't know yet? And what if the key to our advancement is as simple as just washing your hands?           Well, this seems like a good place to stop. We'll go a couple of steps deeper in the coming episode, so keep your eyes, mind and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.

In the last episode we spent some time looking into our innate human genius as well as some of the remarkable attributes we have within our vast intelligence. We also touched on the fact that many of us are troubled by self-sabotage and other forms of negativity that limit our ability to truly enjoy our lives.   And we ended the episode with two questions - if we began life in a genius state of consciousness and it is still within us right now:  What happened to us? And more importantly, what can happen for us?”           We're going to look at these critical questions in this episode today. But let's start out with an extremely condensed overview of the answer: What happened to us is that we began suffering from a subtle case of mistaken identity, which is hampering us from fulfilling our ability to achieve highest human potential. And what can happen for us is that we can re-connect once again with the larger part of our intelligence and enjoy all the inborn gifts that are built into it. This will create a more fulfilling life for ourselves, having a positive effect on everyone in our sphere of influence.  Okay, that's only two sentences, but there's a lot to unpack in them. Our case of mistaken identity brings on the condition of self-sabotage, which seems to affect almost everybody. I'm always impressed by how many people tell me how much they are bothered by it, and some of them are incredibly successful. Many are suffering from the dreaded imposter syndrome, which is one form of it where they believe that despite their accomplishments in life, on the deepest level, they are really a fraud. There are dozens of psychological syndromes like these that prey on our minds and can plague our lives in hundreds of ways.  It kind of reminds me of a west wind at the Jersey shore, near Philadelphia. On those beaches, if there is a west wind, which is also called a land breeze, it blows tons of mosquitoes and green head flies onto the beach and you really can't go on it. Everything else can be perfect – great sunshine creating a beautiful, warm day, bright clear ocean giving off that fresh saltwater smell. But if you go onto that beach, a swarm of insects will make a meal out of you so fast that you won't be able to last longer than five minutes. Believe me, I am speaking from painfully direct experience on this. It can be just like that in life. It makes no difference how great things may be going in your outer world, if your mind is making a meal out of you on the inside, you've got real problems.           So, as we approach the information, I'd like to suggest that you try to maintain what is called the “beginner's mind,” which simply means you continue to suspend your assumptions and previous understandings as you consider the ideas presented. Also, even though you may have heard some of these ideas before, there is a decent chance that you have never heard them in this exact context before. As I mentioned in the last episode, I am always reminding myself of Thomas Edison's view of our so-called understandings in his quote: “We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything.” That's a truly helpful perspective because if you can stay opened and give the understandings a fair chance, a lot of pleasant inner surprises may surface within you.              Now, as has been mentioned a few times, as a species, we humans are on the very low end of the food chain and would never have made it through the grueling selection process of survival of the fittest were it not for our incredible brain. Indeed, not only is it the single greatest biological evolution in the history of life on earth, it is the only factor that has allowed us to prevail over the almost insurmountable odds that were stacked against us.           Incredibly, we have about 86 billion neurons that fire together constantly and after enough repetition of firing between specific neurons, a neural pathway is established. Once the pathway is established and used continually, it becomes fortified and the neural firing mechanism becomes greatly enhanced. And when this has happened to a sufficient degree, we feel that we have learned something.           This is the way you learned your name. This is the way you learned the language that you speak and in fact this is the way you've learned everything that you've learned throughout your entire life. Learning is basically just the repeated firing of neurons which create the advanced formations of your neural pathways.           After a while, all your pathways develop an internal brain structure that we call your neural grid, which is the massive, interconnected electronic highway which holds all of your individuated knowledge. And we know from the study of people who have suffered from severe stroke or traumatic brain injury, these pathways can be completely wiped out, with nothing remaining. But, after what can be a grueling process of reprogramming, the grid can be rewired and a lot can be regained. So, it is the content of this neural grid that creates who we seem to be.           But as critical as our neural grid is on a countless number of levels, including the shaping of our identity in the world, it is only one small part of our massive overall intelligence. Another term for this grid is the ordinary mind, and it is a very powerful tool that we have created to navigate our way through life. And now, as touched on in the last episode, here comes the root of the problem for us. Instead of understanding that this is just a tool that we have created, due to a myriad of external factors, we have come to believe that this is who we really are. We have become so overidentified with the makeup of this inner matrix that we have lost sight of our real nature, which is a key element of our much larger intelligence. And here's where the pain of it comes in. Within this small part of our intelligence is an even smaller part which has been called our inner critic. And as small as it may be, it has a critically big mouth. The reason it's called the inner critic is because it is always criticizing us. It's merciless and once you start believing that your inner critic is who you really are, and you listen to its constant negative rambling like it's the gospel truth, you're in for one nasty day at the beach. Followed by many, many more. Our mind moves almost at light speed and the current estimation is that it is giving us about 30,000 negative messages every day and fifty percent of those are repetitive. Which means we are programming the same negative messages into our mind at least 15,000 times each day, or about fifteen times a minute. This is a truly incredible amount of negativity, which can make you feel like you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Now it's important to remember that our ordinary mind is a truly extraordinary tool and we could never survive without it. And we can never grasp how much intelligence we each have within us at this very moment. Indeed, it is estimated that it would take the most advanced computer in the world about 45 hours to do what our brain does in just one second.  But this mind of ours can be a real double-edged sword, which means it cuts both ways. And when our inner critic wields the sword, we usually find ourselves cut and bleeding within seconds. To further clarify the situation, let's briefly examine three basic aspects of our ordinary mind that can have an enormous impact on us.               The first element to grasp about our Ordinary Mind is that it is responsible for making improvements in every part of our lives, which is a truly tremendous benefit for us. But to utilize this talent, a key part of its nature is that it is always dissatisfied. No matter what's going on, it will always be looking for something better, something more. Its innate dissatisfaction is what makes it so effective and productive. Without it, we'd still be living in caves and every advancement in our world, from the wheel to the computer and beyond, is a direct result of it. But the when the dissatisfaction becomes unbridled and gets out of control, it can become brutal because living in a state of constant dissatisfaction can truly darken your life. Thinking that your dissatisfied mind is who you really are, you become dissatisfied with everything. Nothing is ever good enough, including your spouse, your family, and your profession, among many other things. And ultimately, you become dissatisfied with yourself, which can become deeply destructive, turning your world into a prison of endless frustration.               A second key characteristic of the Ordinary Mind is that it is deeply connected to our limbic system, which is responsible for our safety and security. In this area, it's in a state of constant surveillance, always on the lookout for threat, and we couldn't survive without it, especially during the early days in the cave. This survival mechanism is a critical function for us and we can't do without it. But the other side of the coin is that its default signal is fear, and its general tendency is to catastrophize problems, making a mountain out of every molehill on every issue. Ultimately, fear can become the root of our awareness, completely dominating our minds and bringing devastating results to our health and well-being. Ironically, if unchecked, the very part of our mind that is responsible for protecting our life can end up ruining it.           The last aspect of our Ordinary Mind to understand is that by nature, it cannot operate in present time. It's always remembering the past or hypothesizing about the future.  Or it may go into weaving random fantasies. But it can never be in the here and now. When we're in present time, we're in an entirely different state of consciousness than our thought world.           This may not seem so bad at first, but if we don't understand it, it can become deeply problematic. We can often find ourselves wondering why we're not fully present, why are we day dreaming our way through our lives and not really paying attention. The next thing you know, the inner critic has more ammunition to torture us with. But that's only if you believe that you are your mind. When you know that you're not and you understand how it works, you can take advantage of an entirely different approach which yields vastly different results.           Now here's one last thing to consider about the make-up of this neural grid of ours. It wasn't exactly created by us. We actually had very little to do with assembling the deepest structures of it. That was done by an amalgam of all of the influences that we were exposed to throughout our younger years. And we really don't have access to its actual formation.           Of course, we know that our parents or primary care givers had an enormous amount to do with it, but we don't know much about what they were truly like as adults. We just saw them through the eyes of a child.  And there were many other architects of it as well that we can barely remember, specifically our teachers from kindergarten through second grade, who also were among its primary programmers.            And that's not to mention the world of television, radio and the internet, generating the constant barrage of commercial messaging that we have lived with for our entire lives. In the 1970s we saw between 500 to 1600 ads per day. Now we are exposed to between 4,000 to 10,000 of them each day. So, who really shaped this  grid of ours anyway?            We're coming to the end of this episode and we have only taken a 40,000-foot overview of the lay of the land. Suffice it to say, that if you have come to believe that your ordinary mind is who you actually are, with its neural contents of all your likes and dislikes, opinions and concepts, memories and future dreams, and you don't understand that in reality, it's just an incredibly innovative tool that was largely created by a random hodge-podge of constant impressions, you're in for a pretty rocky internal ride as you proceed down the highway of life. Whether we understand it or not, our neural grid is not who we are. It's not even close. Fortunately, our overall intelligence is something far greater. Now, this has been a lot of information to absorb. We've exposed the pathway that leads to the trap of our inner prison. In the next episode, we'll start looking into finding the doorway out.           As always, keep your eyes mind and heart opened and let's get together in the next one.

In the last two episodes, I discussed the Higher Mind Training, which is a unique personal growth program that is being prepared for release by the Better Angels Publishing Company. I also mentioned that for the past six months I have been teaching some of its basic understandings and techniques to the counselors and residents of the James A. Casey House in Wilkes-Barre, PA, which is an innovative halfway house where about fifty men live, recovering from the effects of severe alcohol and substance abuse.           This effort has been kind of an experiment because although I have been speaking about and teaching the fundamentals of the training for many years, I have never exposed it to a population of this kind and had no idea what to expect. The results have been deeply inspiring. It's been obvious that these guys have never heard anything about their greater inner potential before. Neither well-educated nor well-funded, most of them have been beaten down by the external world for most of their existence. They've been told that they are losers, that they've basically ruined their lives and that the road ahead of them is a dangerous, thorny, uphill climb, with a high probability that they'll fail in their efforts to recover.   Suddenly, they're being given new information - that they were born geniuses and that they still have the genius potential inside of them. And most importantly, that they're not their minds, Even though it may be filled with anger, fear and thousands of other forms of negativity, their finite mind with its vicious inner critic is not who they are. It's just one part of a much larger intelligence that they have. And they don't have to buy into the miserable story that it's telling them all day long. They can let it go and move on, because there's a bright road ahead of them if they choose to choose it.   We also show them a few simple inner exercises and even though they may get only a brief introduction to inner freedom, it's clearly a liberating experience for them and it's been an incredible phenomenon to watch. After one exercise, a resident smiled at me in disbelief and said, “I have never felt anything like this before in my life.” During these months, as I began to prepare for the return of the podcast schedule, I decided to make some of the key points of the training available to all our podcast subscribers. There is still quite a lot of work to be done prior to the program's release and I wanted to make this information available to you now. You may find it to be quite helpful and there's no reason for you to have to wait. Now although a lot of what I am going to present to you may seem basic at first, just take it in. I have found that most people have never had a clear introduction to these inner fundamentals and having a clear understanding of them can be critical to our long-term happiness. Afterall, they pertain to the achievement of our highest human potential, which will enhance every area of our lives.  So, let's begin with a somewhat tricky problem that can be a real barrier to the growth of our inner awareness and that is – on a certain level, we're know-it-alls. We think we already know everything. Now I'm only talking about a relatively small part of our mind, but it has a pretty loud voice. And there is a companion trait that comes along with being a know-it-all  and that is - we like to be right.  Actually, we love to be right, but we make far too much out of it. And it's not just an annoying trait, it can be downright dangerous. When it gets out of hand, wars can start with terrible catastrophes following. Sometimes you have to wonder: why are we so proud about being right, anyway? Being right isn't such a big accomplishment. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. This particular part of our mind isn't really such a big deal. It's bark is much worse than its bite, but if we want to grow, we really do need to grow beyond it. It reminds me of a story from the old days, and I mean the thousands of years old days, when a student approached a master and asked to be taught knowledge of the inner self. “Let's have some tea first,” the master said. He then poured the student a cup of tea. When the cup was full, he stopped for a few seconds and said, “Here, let me give you a little more.”  The master then poured more tea on top of the filled cup and the tea ran onto the saucer. The master kept pouring more tea onto the cup and it ran onto the table. He kept pouring and it ran over the table onto the ground. He kept pouring for a few more moments, then he looked at the would-be student. “You see, all the tea that was poured into your filled cup just ran off and ended up on the ground. It was a complete waste and never did you or anybody else any good. Is that right?” he asked, and the student nodded. “You see, you have to empty your cup before you can fill it.” So typical of Ancient Wisdom - an extremely simple statement with an extremely profound meaning.   By the way, this know-it-all, love-to-be-right trait isn't bound to only individuals. Every culture throughout history seems to think that it's completely advanced. Even the most appalling barbaric ones thought they were great. So, both as individuals and as societies we remain proud of our so-called knowledge. And this always leads me to one of my favorite quotes, which comes from Thomas Edison, who is still considered to be one of the greatest inventors of all times. He is credited with over a thousand patented inventions including the light bulb, the phonograph, the motion picture, and the telegraph. Pretty impressive! Probably one of the smartest humans ever! Well, here's his view about the state of our knowledge. “We don't know one millionth of one percent about anything,” he said. Hearing that phrase and knowing that it comes from him always makes me humble. And when it comes to inner growth, humility is one of the most reliable allies we have.   With that, let's quickly recall that famous study that was commissioned by NASA in which Dr. George Land found that 98% of us begin life as creative geniuses and remain that way though the age of five. Then it progressively diminishes until by our early twenties, only two percent of us are in the genius category. But according to Dr. Land, this remarkable level of intelligence remains within us and can be recovered relatively quickly. Personally, the thought that there are advanced levels of consciousness within our intelligence that we have not yet discovered has always intrigued me and through research I have found that this concept has been expressed in every culture and religion throughout human history. I have mentioned in a previous episode that one of my favorite ideas about this is the inner state called Satchitanand, as expressed in Vedantic philosophy. The term can be broken down into three components: Sat, which is truth. Chit, which is consciousness and Anand, which is bliss. The ancient teaching is that although we may not be aware of it, there is a profound state within us which is connected to eternal truth, unending happiness, and immortal contentment. Together, they represent the ultimate reality or supreme principle, which exists both within and without. George Harrison expressed the concept in his classic song, “Within You Without You.” Personally, I fell in love with the idea when I first heard the song on the Sergeant Pepper album. I was in college at the time, it was the late sixties and chaos had become the societal norm. Things were falling apart as quickly as they were coming together, but as George put it, “When you see beyond yourself you may find that peace of mind is waiting there.” Now, with the idea that there is a pristine state of peace, consciousness and bliss within our awareness, along with Dr. Land's conclusion that we are in a genius state of consciousness from birth through age five, I started thinking about our early years, especially before the age of three. It seemed to me that if a toddler is not hungry, tired or in need of being changed, and nothing external is bothering them, they seem to exist in a most amazing state of being. They're creative, expressive and completely aware. And they're incredibly happy. Indeed, according to current research the average toddler laughs about 300 times a day. Of course, we can blow right by that number but stop and think about it.  That's a lot of laughter. So, what are they laughing about? They don't have much of an understanding about anything in the so-caller real world, so they're not laughing at a good joke or because they just found out they unexpectedly came into a ton of money. No. The fact is they're not laughing at anything at all. They don't need a reason to be happy. They just exist in a state of consciousness that is inherently joyful. And a countless number of masters and teachers over thousands of years, have told us that this state of consciousness is within us now. In that regard, I'm reminded of a poem called “Samadhi” that was written by the great teacher Paramhansa Yogananda. Samadhi is a term that refers to the highest meditative state where the individual achieves union with the Divine. He wrote it after he first experienced it as a yogi and this is the ending - “Spotless is my mental sky. Below, ahead, and high above - Eternity and I, one united ray. I, a tiny bubble of laughter, have become the Sea of Mirth Itself.”  Can you imagine that? Living in a state of inner consciousness where you have transcended the bonds of earth life and merged with the Divine. And what about that term - the Sea of Mirth itself? The dictionary defines “mirth” as abundant gladness expressed by laughter. I don't know about you, but with all the ideas about God and heaven that I've been taught throughout my whole life, and believe me, that's a lot of ideas – I never came across the idea of God being abundantly happy and expressing it with laughter. The big guy they taught me about seemed to be pretty pissed most of the time and was always ready to smite somebody. Well, so much for concepts. But also, to appreciate the incredible state of being that we have within us, we don't have to go looking for some arcane, yogic, meditative state. It's much simpler than that. We can just look within our own heart, which is already filled with what Lincoln called “the better angels of our nature.” There are hundreds of average, everyday traits that we have within our awareness that are miraculous in their own way. Love, gratitude, kindness, generosity, integrity, and compassion are just a few. So, if we start out life in this incredible state of consciousness and it is all within us right now, a most obvious question comes up: What happened to us? And more importantly, what can happen for us? Well, we've covered a lot of ground here and as you might guess, this will be the topic of the next episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open and let's get together in the next one…

In the last episode, I offered a brief introduction to The Higher Mind Training, which is the next project that will be released by the Better Angels Publishing Company. I mentioned the remarkable fact that modern neuroscience is in the process of verifying the basis of the higher understandings that have been expressed by Ancient Wisdom for tens of thousands of years. Now, we don't have the time to go into the specific scientific details of what happens to our brain and nervous system when our inner awareness evolves into its higher levels. Just suffice it so say that the physiological proof of its positive effects on us is irrefutable.            I also presented the work of Dr. George Land and the study he produced for NASA that indicated that an astounding 98% of us were born geniuses and remained that way through the age of five. And by the time we reach adulthood, only about 2% of us are still in that genius category. But amazingly, that level of intelligence hasn't left our consciousness. It's still there and we can definitely reconnect with it. And finally, I began the episode with the statement that the Higher Mind Training presents the average, everyday person with practical understandings and techniques they can use to expand their awareness and take them into our larger sphere of human intelligence. It is specifically designed to be simple to understand and easy to put into practice. So, with this in mind, let me give you a brief update about some powerful events that have taken place with the Higher Mind Training during this past spring and summer. About six months ago, I was invited to teach some of its basic principles to the counselors who serve in a half-way house in Wilkes-Barre, PA as well as the residents who live there. The results of this initial phase of implementation have been truly encouraging.           The name of the establishment is the James A. Casey House and it has been in operation for over twenty years. Its population is about fifty men, all of whom are recovering alcoholics and/or drug addicts.  And these guys are all veterans of some truly hard times. Many have just been released from incarceration, several have recently been subject to severe overdoses, and many were homeless before the Casey House took them in.           You could say that a lot of them are living on the very bottom rung of society's ladder, with very little education and even less wherewithal to survive the school of hard knocks that they find themselves involuntarily enrolled in. For me, although I have been speaking about and teaching the ideas and methods involved with the Higher Mind Training for many years, I had never tried to apply it to a population of this kind and had no idea what to expect. As I began to train the counselors, I also held six training sessions directly with the residents so I could gain first-hand knowledge of their reactions. It was far more powerful than I had anticipated. Not only did they understand the material, but many had uplifting, liberating experiences practicing it. The results with the counselors, who continue to learn about the training and practice it have been equally impressive as well. And even though we are still in the early stages of implementation at the Casey House, the results have been truly encouraging.   One of the key fundamentals of the training is that most of us live in a state of Self-Sabotage and this is clearly at the root of most of the problems of the residents of the Casey House. The basic description of the state of Self-Sabotage is quite simple. We keep getting in our own way of making progress in our lives.  If it becomes bad enough, we become our own worst enemy. To one degree or another, this happens to almost all of us. No matter who we are or what we may have accomplished in life, we all have certain dissatisfactions that we are trying to transcend, higher goals of some form that we would like to achieve. And we each have only one truly powerful enemy who is fighting us every step of the way. And that is – our own self! And the reason for this is also quite simple. Basically, we are at war with ourselves. In his introduction to the NASA study, as Dr. Land put it, our neurons are constantly fighting with each other. And again, this goes on with most of us, no matter who we are, how successful we may be, how much money we have, etc., etc. So where does this constant inner battle come from and how can we resolve it? Believe it or not, it all comes down to a case of mistaken identity. Let's use the lens of the Higher Mind Training to take a quick look at it. To get started, let's go back to the very beginning, which for us means, let's go back about 300,000 years ago to when our species first began to appear on earth. In that regard, there are a couple of things to consider. First, since the beginning of life on planet earth, an estimated five to fifty billion species have evolved here. And incredibly, approximately 99 percent of them have become extinct. They came, stayed a while, and then for one reason or another, they vanished. Gone for good.   So, the obvious question then comes up – how did we survive? Why haven't we become extinct? The fact that we didn't defies all logic. Given our relatively puny bodies with our lowly position on the food chain, natural selection should have wiped us out thousands of years ago. After all, we're not the biggest. We're not the strongest. We're far from the fastest. Compared to sea creatures, we're pathetic swimmers and we can't fly at all. And when it comes to reproduction, our babies are born helpless, it takes them years to get to where they can survive on their own and compared to most other species, our overall offspring statistics are terribly weak.             So, under the laws of survival of the fittest, we should have been long gone by now. And indeed, we would have been just another unknown creature that came and went, except for this one small feature that was bestowed upon us by nature. We were born with this incredibly powerful brain. And although we're clearly outmatched on every other level, this one small organ, with its endless creativity, has given us an overwhelming advantage against the competition.           At first glance, it doesn't appear to be much. About the size of an average cantaloupe, it's less than 100 cubic inches and weighs only about three pounds. And yet, of all the biological evolutions that have manifested on earth since the appearance of the microbe, with its 100 billion neurons seamlessly wired for endless creativity, it's in a class all by itself. Indeed, the human brain is the single greatest masterpiece ever created by nature. And we each have one of our own.           With just its ability to invent tools, starting with primitive flint rock knives, it altered the survival equation, and soon we were at the very top of the food chain. And it did much more than that. With its boundless innovation, we didn't just survive, we became the dominant creature on earth, radically transforming the entire planet.            And it truly is a most extraordinary tool. It is estimated that it would take the most advanced computer in the world about 45 hours to do what your brain does in just one second. So, your mind is absolutely incredible, and you could never grasp how much intelligence you have within you at this very moment.           So given all of this, where does this horribly destructive state of Self-Sabotage come from? Well, the truth is, it's not all that hard to understand. The first concept to grasp is that we all have something in our intelligence which the Higher Mind Training calls our “Neural Template.”            Our brain has about 86 billion neurons that fire together constantly, and as the saying goes, neurons that fire together, wire together. They create about a hundred trillion neural pathways, which form a neural grid. This vast neural grid is called our neural template. It is an incredibly complex device and it's filled with everything that makes us who we are in the world, all of our concepts, emotions, thoughts and feelings, likes and dislikes, hope and memories, and on and on. We end up filtering everything that happens to us through this vast neural network, and that filtering shapes our entire life experience.  We've each been basically living our lives through this neural filter since age five. Now it's important to remember that according to Dr. Land's study for NASA, 98% of us were born geniuses and remained in that category through the age of five, which is when our creative intelligence began a significant and steady decline. So, what happened?   For most of us, we become more and more over-identified with our neural template, which is also called our ordinary mind. Due to an almost unending barrage of external stimuli, we lose the understanding that this grid that we have created is just a tool that we use to navigate our way through life, and we start believing that this neural template, this ordinary mind that can be overwhelmingly filled with negativity - this is actually who we are. And this extreme over-identification with this very small part of our overall intelligence becomes this case of mistaken identity. And this mistaken identity is the root cause of most of our mental and psychological pain.  Now, we don't have this over-identification with anything else that we own. I don't care how much you might love your car or your cell phone. You never get confused into thinking that they're actually a part of you.  But by mid-childhood, we've become so bonded to this neural template we've created, that we've lost touch with our actual identity and we no longer know who we really are. And the inner civil war, the war between the states of consciousness rages on. So, as I mentioned in the last episode, this is just the tip of the iceberg, but it's also a great place to bring this episode to an end. There's a lot more coming, so  as always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open and let's get together in the next one.   

Welcome back to the Stop Making Yourself Miserable Podcast and I certainly hope that you had a wonderful summer. As you may recall, in the last episodes before the hiatus certain key chapters from my memoir, Wilt, Ike & Me, were presented along with the subtext behind them as I delved into some of the deeper meanings of the story for me. The response from many of you has been quite gratifying and I want to express my sincere thanks to all.           Now, as we return to our regular podcast schedule, I want to start presenting some information about my next project, the Higher Mind Training (HMT). To begin, let me give you a little bit of background about it.           You probably remember that for my entire adult life, I have been a writer, researcher, speaker and most importantly, practitioner in the field of personal growth. I've been seriously involved in it since it first began to emerge in popular American culture in the late 1960s. Along those lines, about three years ago I began to construct an educational program which I called, the Higher Mind Training.           Simply put, over the years, I have found that everybody wants to grow internally. Everyone wants to live a happier, more fulfilled life. And true personal growth, the evolution of our inner awareness, holds the key. But it seems that we each have our own individual roadblocks and currently there is so much confusing information out there. On top of that, our lives have become so busy, that the task of finding an approach that really works for us has become truly daunting. So most people don't even consider it.   To address this need, my basic idea is to take the very best understandings and methods that I have used over my decades of research and personal experience and put them into a basic format that is simple for the everyday person to understand and easy to put into practice. Nothing special is required – just average intelligence and the simple desire to grow into a better human being. Now, I have mentioned the basic concept of this training in some previous episodes, but in broad strokes, you can look at it as information that is drawn from sources as diverse as Ancient Wisdom, all the way up through modern neuroscience. And it turns out that modern neuroscience is actually validating the key fundamentals of Ancient Wisdom, which is a remarkable phenomenon which I have found to be extremely powerful.           Let's take a quick look at it. So to begin, what is Ancient Wisdom? When you consider it, the answer is pretty astounding because throughout every culture in the world since the beginning of civilization, certain deeper understandings have emerged about fulfilling our purpose for living and realizing our highest human potential. And it boils down to just a few key points. These are - as human beings, we have a greater potential than we currently understand. There is a higher state of consciousness that is available to one each of us and it can be realized through self-discovery. This will lead us to fulfilling our greater potential and the vast treasures that await us in this new state of consciousness are truly immeasurable. That's an extremely basic introduction to it.            Now the format of storytelling has been largely the norm. And although the customs, cultures and languages have been vastly different throughout the ages, this basic message remains the same. Along with the caution that although we can spend our entire lives searching for happiness and satisfaction in the outside world, what we are really looking for is actually within us.           There's also one other idea to consider - on the deepest, intuitive level, we all know this. And because of this intuitive understanding, at the very root of human consciousness is the built-in compulsion to grow towards it. If we don't grow on an inner level, our life becomes an inner prison where we are trapped by our own limitations.           Now, this may seem overly simplistic, but just because something is simple, that doesn't mean it isn't true. Quite often it's the other way around. The simplest things can be the truest.           So, that's a very quick outline of the make-up of Ancient Wisdom and the question becomes, what do these thousands of years of wisdom have to do with modern neuroscience?  Well, that's exactly what I wanted to know when I first became aware of the unlikely relationship between the two about fifteen-years ago. And although as I researched it, I found it to be quite startling at the time, in retrospect it makes perfect sense.           To put it in a nutshell, modern neuroscience has begun to scientifically verify the beneficial effects that are produced on us by the understandings and practices of Ancient Wisdom. Before the current modern era, we knew that practices like prayer, contemplation, and meditation seemed to produce exalted feelings that expanded our awareness. Now we know why, at least on a physiological level.           And all this really hit me, because as I've mentioned many times before, I've been exposed to many different forms of higher understandings throughout my adult life. But I've always been a pragmatist about it.  Maybe a bit on the creative side, but a pragmatist nonetheless. Of course,  I'm a big fan of wisdom, but I like the practical kind and I'm probably not alone in that. I think we all feel more secure with our feet on the ground. Along these lines, two old practical sayings come to mind. The first one is attributed to Zen and it says this, “Before Enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water. After Enlightenment, chopping wood and carrying water.” Depending upon your perspective, I guess the meaning is self-explanatory. For me it says that no matter what may happen with your inner consciousness, the laws of three-dimensional life remain the same. The view may be different but the task remains the same. So pay attention. Another similar saying I've always like is, “Feet on the ground. Head in heaven.” There are many traditions which carry similar sayings, but the message is simple. Just because you may become an enlightened soul, you still need to know your zip code. So this fact - that the basic underlying ideas behind Ancient Wisdom continue to be verified by advanced neuroscience - served a great role in inspiring me to develop the Higher Mind Training. And there was another element that provided further inspiration to me when, about ten years ago, I happened to watch a TED talk by Dr. George Land.            You may be aware that NASA once commissioned a study on creative genius to be applied to its work force. They were facing several serious issues and because they had a large base of top-level professionals in their work force, they wanted to see if they had any creative geniuses in their employ that they could tap into to help solve some of these critical problems.           They commissioned Dr. Land to devise and conduct the test. An astute scientist, he was one of the pioneers in the study of creative intelligence in modern America and was the founder of an internationally renowned research institute. His key principles are still used by over four hundred organizations throughout the United States.           The test he devised was extremely successful for NASA and he decided to extend it into the general public. He began by applying it to register the creativity of 1,600 children ranging in ages from three-to-five years old who were enrolled in a Head Start program. He re-tested the same children at 10 years of age, and again at 15 years of age. The results were astounding.           98% of the five-year-olds proved to be in the genius category. When he tested ten-year-olds, the percentage had dropped to 30%. At age fifteen, only 12% tested genius and by adulthood, in tests administered to 280,000 adults, only 2% were functioning on the genius level.           Dr. Land then concluded that from birth through the age of five, an astounding 98% of us were geniuses. Then, one way or another, society seems to program the genius out of us. According to him, this mass reduction in our overall intelligence began when large factories first emerged in society. We had to build factories to create workers to fill the factories and creativity was certainly not welcomed there. He said these “worker creator factories” were called “schools.”           But then Dr. Land threw another remarkable idea into the mix. According to him, we all still have that creative genius inside of us right now. It's still there. It didn't leave us, we left it. And according to him, we can each recover it. And not only that, we can recover it fairly quickly. It all has to do with learning how to use our imagination.           So, to sum things up, with my decades of positive experience in the study and practice of personal growth, and with the fact that modern neuroscience is proving the benefits of it beyond question, along with the findings of Dr. Land, that  we were all born creative geniuses and that we can still recover our higher level of intelligence, you have the basis of my efforts in developing the Higher Mind Training over the past few years.           As you can imagine, this is just the tip of the iceberg to the story, but it's a perfect place to end this episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open. And let's get together in the next one. 

The Better Angels Publishing Company announces that the “Stop Making Yourself Miserable” podcast will now begin its annual summer hiatus. We'll resume our normal schedule again in the fall. At this point, I'd like to take the opportunity to thank everyone for your continued, enthusiastic support. As you know, the purpose of these podcasts is to present intriguing information that is specifically designed to stimulate personal growth, and I'm happy to report that so far, it has been a terrific success. Let's take a look at some robust statistics that highlight how valuable your support has been. To date, we have completed a total of 74 episodes, which are sent out by email to our growing subscriber base. We also have readers and listeners who access the podcasts entirely on their own. So far, we've had close to 15,000 views of the written episodes and about 4,500 downloads of the recordings. Now, this has all happened with no marketing whatsoever – simply by word of mouth, which makes these statistics all the more impressive.   Also, our podcast emails continue to enjoy a tremendous open rate. According to industry standards, the average open rate for this kind of content is about 7-10%. Since we began, our open rate has steadily maintained an incredible 57.3%, which is more than five times the industry standard! So once again, I want to offer our sincere thanks to you for your loyal support. Now, besides this hiatus announcement and podcast update, I am happy to report a few other significant upcoming developments as well. As you may know, this August marks the fifth anniversary of the publishing of my memoir, “Wilt, Ike & Me” and it continues to be extremely well-received.  Readership has been growing steadily, and we recently passed seventy-five unsolicited five-star reviews on Amazon.  For your interest, I'll add a couple of samples at the end of this email.  But now for some exciting 5th anniversary news about the book.  At the end of August, we will be publishing a commemorative, limited edition hardback version and we are going to prepare a special release for podcast subscribers. I'll keep you posted as things develop, so keep an eye on your inbox. And also, in a completely different genre, at the end of 2023 we are planning to release a new book called, “The Higher Mind Training – How Your Innate Genius Can Transform Your Life.” By way of background, there was a famous NASA study that found that 98% of humans begin life as a creative genius, and even though we've mainly lost touch with it, we still have this incredible resource within our intelligence.  Resulting from over fifty years of research and experience in the field of Inner Growth, I've drawn on sources as diverse as Ancient Wisdom through to modern neuroscience, to design this program to help the average, everyday person fulfill their highest potential. Of course, I'll keep you posted on the progress of this groundbreaking project as it continues to evolve and grow. As you can see, we have a number of innovative projects in the works, and there are a few more in development that I will mention to you a little more down the road. So even though the podcasts will cease for now, keep on the lookout for email updates from me that will be arriving in your inbox on a regular basis. In closing, I wish you a terrific summer and I urge you to keep on growing your awareness to the higher levels of understanding. Remember, there's no end to this inner evolution and we're all changing every single day. It's how our intelligence naturally grows, so we don't have to resist it and we don't have to be afraid of it.  The great master of words, Ben Franklin, once put a great spin on it when he summed it up this way: “When you're finished changing, you're finished.”   As I mentioned, here are a few Amazon review samples about “Wilt, Ike & Me”: “David Richman, eloquently delves deeply into the underlying meaning behind unanticipated losses. He shares a valuable perspective on the inevitable challenges that we will all face in life. I couldn't put this book down!”   “A poignant and evocatively written tale of a great Black American and his cultural immersion in a 60's Jewish family. This is a unique and unlikely story that could only happen in the USA amid the cultural ferment that was 1960s America.”   “Richman has brought us a rare and wonderful treat, rich with details that ring with joy, pain and meaning.  He opens a doorway to a depth of meaning that we rarely stumble on ourselves. Richman is a master storyteller, but far more important are the stories he has to tell. Quite an extraordinary feat and quite an extraordinary book.”    I hope you can relax and enjoy your inner journey. And I wish you all the best. Have a great summer! – DR  By the way, if you haven't gotten a copy of the book yet, here is a link to order: Wilt, Ike & Me Available Now   And if you would like to write a review, you can post it to this link: Review Wilt, Ike & Me

This is the last episode of a four-part series featuring the text and subtext of some excerpts from my memoir, “Wilt, Ike and Me.” The last two episodes dealt with two of my earliest conceptual encounters with aging and death. This next episode looks at them as well, but from a significantly different perspective.   *    *    *   In December of 1974, my father's father, Zayde, finally passed away. He was eighty-four, a ripe old age for the time. He had lived alone since my grandmother had died a few years earlier. He cooked his own food and was in great health - never hospitalized or even sick. And every day, he would walk the two miles to his Orthodox synagogue, where he would pray, do a few chores, and tutor some bar mitzvah boys. We had always been close and of course, we got closer after my father died. But one day in 1972, unexpectedly it went to a deeper level. We were watching a NASA moon landing on TV and he said it was a fake, and that they were really doing it in a TV studio. When I asked him why he felt that way, he told me about a prayer they used to say in the old country on the full moon. Apparently, the ancient prayer got dropped and never made it over here. Then he recited it - “The moon is so far away from the Earth. And in the same way, God's perfection is far away from man. But one day man will touch the moon, and when he does, know that the days of the kingdom of heaven on Earth have begun.” I had never heard that prayer before and even though it intrigued me, I didn't say anything. I had actually been keeping something from him and didn't want to discuss anything to do with God or religion.   During my recent college years, I had gotten a strong dose of the hippie lifestyle, along with some of its some mind-altering components. As comedian Robin Williams once said, “If you can remember the sixties, you weren't really there.” Well, I really was, and it really changed me. Recently, I had started practicing a form of meditation which was having a profound effect on me as well. I was simply outgrowing a lot of my childhood concepts. But I didn't want to talk to my grandfather about any of it. He was an old man and had been through enough Tsuris in his life. (Yiddish for trouble), and he didn't need any more. I was certain that my expanding point of view would only upset him, so I stayed away from it.  “So, you see,” he said, pointing to the lunar surface on the TV screen, “This isn't real. It can't be. If they were really on the moon, the Kingdom of Heaven would on its way.” “Actually, Zayde,” I heard myself say, “it is real.” “What?” he asked, like he hadn't heard me right.   “Yes. It is real. All the prophecies are coming true and the whole planet is moving into a higher state. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” I couldn't believe those words had come out of my mouth.  I hadn't planned to say anything to him, but my tongue had been faster than my mind. The truth is though, that's the way I really felt. I had spent four turbulent years in college in Washington DC, front and center at the demolition of the American status-quo. It felt like my generation had been on the vanguard of a revolution that had transformed the world. For baby boomers, since Woodstock, the old order of “might-makes-right” was crumbling, and a new awareness was arising. The stirring message was everywhere - in the music and the movies, on TV and the stage. It really did seem like the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, as they said in the musical “Hair.” Millions of us believed it, and the high times were global.  Still, I hadn't meant to say anything to him. He came from another era, a distant time and place. He had been a Yeshiva student, and as a part-time cantor, was a full-time, orthodox Jew. “What?” he shot back at me sharply, “What did you say?” I thought he sounded angry and scrambled around in my mind to find a way out. But as I looked at him, I realized he wasn't angry; he was hungry. And alive with curiosity. From that moment on, and for the rest of his life, all we ever talked about was higher consciousness. He was like a sponge and wanted to know everything I knew. The more I learned, the more he wanted to know. And he had no conflict at all with what I was doing, which completely amazed me.  He just wanted as much knowledge about God and the higher realms that he could gather. He didn't care where it came from.  I once asked him about it and he said, “Your religion's like a car. You drive it to get somewhere, and when you get there, you get out. It's the same thing with religion. It's supposed to get you to God. And when you do get to God, you leave everything else behind and go straight to him. Never forget that, Davy. Go straight to him.” As time went by, he was getting more and more otherworldly and I started visiting him every few days. He was always happy and cheerful, but the end was clearly in sight. “Hi, Zayde,” I said when I walked in on one of those last days. “What are you doing?” I was referring to the fact that he was walking toward the dining room. “Oh, I'm just waiting now,” he said. “That's all I'm really doing. Just waiting.” “What?” I asked. “Just waiting. You know, I'm just waiting for him to take me.” He raised his eyes up, toward the ceiling. “I really don't know why he hasn't yet. Most of my people are gone, and there's not much left for me to do here anymore. So, I'm just waiting for him to take me.” He sounded like a passenger sitting in a bus terminal, whose bus had been delayed. He didn't mind. He knew it was coming sooner or later. And he was happy to be finally going home.   *    *    *   The last time I saw him, he was sitting at his dining-room table, about to eat lunch. He began every meal with a small glass of schnapps. He had one on his plate and downed it like water. He started eating, but soon, after just a few bites, he fell sound asleep. His head was resting on his chest, and I wasn't sure if he was still breathing. He had a faint smile on his face, like a baby, listening to a lullaby. At that moment, I could really see the family resemblance between him and my father. And as I looked at him, smiling in his sleep, I remembered my father's face, as he was lying in his coffin. He was smiling too. Of course, he was dead, but he still looked like he was having a great time.  I had often thought about that smile and wondered - was the reason he looked so happy because he actually was? Had he made that glorious transition into a higher reality, like the psychic said in that letter that was found in Abraham Lincoln's desk?  I wondered if there really was such a thing as a higher reality. And if there was, do you really have to die to get there? It didn't seem to make sense. Why can't you know that joy while you're still alive? After another minute, Zayde started to move a little. He lifted his head off his chest, opened his eyes and his slight grin turned into a happy smile.  “Well, it won't be long now,” he said cheerfully. Obviously, he was referring to the fact that he was about to die. But if anything, he was glad. He went on with his lunch, but when he finished, he looked at me somewhat seriously. “Listen to me, Davy, and pay attention now,” he said. “We came to this Earth to learn. And not just about anything. We came here to learn about the highest. And I'm going to tell you something important. When we leave here, we actually get to keep what we learned. In fact, that's the only thing we get to keep. All the rest just goes back to dust.”  He got up and started walking me toward the front door. I figured he was going to take a nap when I left. “So, learn what came here for, and don't get too distracted by all the other stuff. You know what I mean? Most of what's here isn't really real.” We got to the door and he turned and looked at me.  “In the morning, always say to yourself - I want to accomplish what I really came here for. And then, at the end of every night ask yourself - what did I learn today that brought me closer to God?  Remember, it isn't what happens here that really matters. It's what you learn. That's what it's all about.” With his soft, contented smile in the afternoon sunlight, he really looked like the embodiment of a learned soul.  “The higher your understanding gets, the more gratitude you feel in your heart,” he said. “And when you leave here with a heart filled with gratitude, you've done your job. Then the journey was worth the trip.” He put his right hand on the crown of my head and said some prayer in Hebrew that I didn't recognize. His pale-blue eyes were lit by a warm, steady flame, and he gave me a soft stroke on the cheek. “So long, Tot-a-la,” he said. We hugged each other, and I left. A few days later, as he was giving a bar mitzvah lesson in the synagogue, he died peacefully among the ancient texts.   *** And so, ends the written description.  Now for the subtext, which for me, is quite profound.  By way of background, in his world, my grandfather had become known as being a “Tzadik,” which means a “righteous one.” He had been educated as an Orthodox cantor and had spent a considerable amount of his life engaged in study, prayer and service to his religious community. He also had a mystical temperament, was an deep admirer of the eighteenth century rabbi called the “Bal Shem Tov,” and had been a student of the Kabbalah.  And as he was nearing the end of his days, the rarified effects of having lived such a life were unmistakably obvious. Being with him during these last days was deeply meaningful to me. Even though he was quite old for his time and had outlived most of his contemporaries, he wasn't facing the end of his life with any sadness or regret at all.  If anything, he seemed excited about it. And not only was he verbally giving me his perspective about what really matters in life, his example spoke far more than words could ever say. Listening to him, it seemed that when you know that you have fulfilled your true purpose in coming here, you can face the end with gratitude and fulfillment, which seemed to be much more appealing than grappling with a heart and mind filled with confusion and regret.   From that perspective, it seemed clear  that many of us spend the majority of our lives chasing after passing, man-made illusions that ultimately bring little in the way of real fulfillment, which suddenly seemed like a colossal waste of time.   Although this final encounter with him took place almost fifty years ago, the light that it generated still illumines my path and inspires me to keep on growing throughout all of the rest of my days, no matter how few or many more I get.  As he said, it's only what you learn about the highest in this life that really counts. So, this marks the end, not only of this episode, but also of the four-part series. It started out with Wilt Chamberlain taking his epic walks around Peter Widener's palace. Then it went to Davy Crockett's valiant fight to death at the Alamo, followed by my meeting with Cousin Agnes, the former glamorous flapper from the 20s. And now, we conclude with witnessing this elevated state my grandfather was in as he contentedly faced the end of his life. As with all things in the field of inner growth, it's up to each one of us to draw our own conclusions and extract our own benefits.  Again, that's the end of this episode and as always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened, and let's get together in the next one.

In this episode, we continue to look into the text and the subtext of a few portions from my memoir called, “Wilt, Ike and Me.” Again, the text relates to the written words and the subtext relates to the meanings behind them. In the last episode, we dealt with the subtextual theme of death, when a classic comic book dramatized to me how my hero, Davy Crockett, had died at the Alamo. This unexpected encounter with the certain impermanence of life took me completely by surprise, which made it all the more powerful. This coming episode also deals with an unexpected encounter with impermanence, but it comes in a different flavor.                                         *       *        *     My mother was thinking of adopting a dog, a big Afghan poodle that belonged to an old woman who couldn't care for it anymore. I was supposed to go take a look at it and see if it was too big for our house. “Isaac Ruvah will drive you over,” she said. “He knows the old lady pretty well.” “Isaac Ruvah” was another name for my father's uncle, Uncle Ike. When you talked to him directly, you always called him “Uncle Ike.” But when you referred to him in the third person, he was Isaac Ruvah. Ruvah was a nickname. There were so many Isaacs, they gave each one a Yiddish modifier, so you could tell who they were talking about. It was like an Italian family that had so many Paulies, they had to give them nicknames like Paulie Walnuts, Paulie Bag o' Donuts, and so on. A few days later, Uncle Ike picked me up, and we drove over to the woman's apartment. He said her name was Cousin Agnes and asked me if I knew who she was. When I told him I didn't, he wasn't a bit surprised and explained that she was the widow of one of my father's cousins, Natey Schaeffer. He asked me if I knew who he was. “I'm sure you don't,” he said before I even had a chance to answer. And he was right. I had never heard of him, but that was nothing new. Our extended family was huge and a lot of them didn't speak English, so to me, they were a big blur.  Uncle Ike didn't say anything for a few moments as he drove. His salt-and-pepper hair, now far more salt than pepper, shimmered in the flickering sunlight as it poured through the windshield. Then, with a smile of both irony and affection, he started telling me about this unfamiliar relative, and I quickly understood why I had never heard of him before. Apparently, Cousin Natey was a Jewish gangster, and a fairly significant one at that. As with most American subcultures, the Jews had a dark side, a criminal underbelly. And like the Irish, the Italians, the blacks, the Asians, and so on—they didn't like to talk about it. To them, it was best kept private. Natey had been dead for quite some, but it was clear that Uncle Ike's memories of him were still very much alive. “Yeah, Cousin Natey was really something. There was never anybody like him,” he mused. “He was our cousin, a first cousin to your Bubbe and me, and we were really close.” He got quiet again, like he was trying to decide how much of the vault he wanted to open. “Listen, this is just between you and me, so don't talk about it to anybody, but he was with Meyer Lansky.” He looked at me like he had just revealed a great truth, but I had never heard that name before. As it turned out, Meyer Lansky was the most notorious alleged Jewish mobster in American history, but it meant nothing to me. Since he sounded important, I figured he might have owned one of the stores on Castor Avenue, the neighborhood's big shopping strip. It couldn't have been the toy store because the brothers who owned it, Hershel and Zvi Slansky, were tight with my parents, but there were dozens of others.    “You know who that is, don't you?” he asked. “Sure!” I shot back. “OK, good. So, during prohibition, Natey and his group ran Philly for Lansky,” he said. “Made a fortune.” “A lot of people in the family were ashamed of him, but not your Bubbe,” he went on.  “No sir. She would never let anyone say anything bad about him. She wouldn't hear of it. And I'll tell you one thing, you don't want to get on her bad side.” As tough as he was, Uncle Ike was my grandmother's baby brother, the youngest of eight, and I could hear a definite sound of fear in his voice. It was surprising because to me, she was just my sweet grandmother. She was always full of love, and although I could barely understand her, I always felt it. She'd been here over fifty years and still sounded like she just got off the boat. It didn't matter though. Her hugs and kisses, and the light in her eyes told us everything we needed to know. She was all heart, and Uncle Ike's comment about her fierce loyalty made perfect sense.  “If somebody had a bar mitzvah or a wedding and they couldn't afford it, Natey would always cover it,” Uncle Ike continued. “Same thing with a shiva. If somebody in the family died and they didn't have the money, Natey was right there. Great guy!” A shiva is a gathering that happens at a mourner's house, and there's always a lot of food put out for the visitors. Before then, it hadn't occurred to me that you had to pay for it. Somehow it seemed to come along with the death. “Cousin Agnes is really something,” Uncle Ike said as we got to her apartment. When we walked up to the door, he took out his own key. “She was a flapper, you know? Great dancer. I don't know how they met, but she was a real looker and Natey fell hard for her.” He opened the door, bent down, and picked up the mail. “She was a real shiksa [a non-Jewish woman] too. That was another big strike against him with the family. But Natey didn't give a shit. He was nuts for her. My God, she was pretty, though. Really, really gorgeous.” We walked down the hall, into a dimly lit bedroom full of stale cigarette smoke. A huge white dog was lying at the foot of a double bed. And an unbelievably old, white-haired lady was lying in it. She looked like a creature in a comedy/ horror film, a kindly old ghoul who had been dead for years but could still smoke cigarettes. There was a bottle on her end table with a half-filled glass of clear liquid next to it. A sort of pungent odor filled the air that I would later come to know as vodka. Next to the bottle was a black and white picture in an ornate silver frame. Clearly from the Jazz Age, a dapper-looking guy in a sharp tuxedo was standing next to a curvaceous flapper in a short dress. She wore one of those 1920s hats that covered her forehead, framing her face with a perfect blend of pearls and curls. They were obviously at a fashionable party or some fancy joint, having an amazing time, and she had a dazzling smile. “There's your Cousin Natey,” Uncle Ike said, pointing to the picture. “And Duvid, take a guess who's on his arm.” I shrugged. I didn't know, and I really didn't care. The whole scene was starting to get to me; I just wanted to get out of there. “That's right,” he said, smiling at the pale ghost in the bed. “It's Agnes.” She lit another cigarette, took a long drag, and blew out an enormous billow of smoke. It didn't seem possible for that much exhaust to come pouring out of a body that small and frail. She gave me a wide smile. Her white skin crinkled into a thousand pieces, and her mouth revealed a smattering of teeth that were more orange than yellow. “Boy, was she something,” he mused, with a faraway look in his eyes. He peered into the dense cigarette smoke, like he was looking through a veil, at a vision of the distant past. “You were one pretty lady, Agnes,” Uncle Ike said to her. “And according to Natey, nobody could do the Charleston like you. He always said there was magic in those hips of yours.” He did some ridiculous Charleston imitation, swiveling his hips around like he was twirling a hula hoop, which really cracked Agnes up. She laughed for a moment, then broke out into a long, hacking cough. She reached over, grabbed a tissue, and spit into it. That did it. I really had to go. She seemed like a nice enough lady, but I couldn't handle being there any longer. I had never been around anybody that old before, and I wasn't prepared for it. I mean, Uncle Ike was up there in years, but next to her, he looked like a teenager. It was all just too much. After another few minutes, we left. As far as I was concerned, I wasn't coming back. My mother could handle anything further with the dog. I was done. Later that night, as I was lying in my bed, I was too agitated to fall asleep. We all know getting old is a fact of life, but this face-to-face encounter had really thrown me. In my mind's eye, I kept seeing that great old picture of Agnes and Natey. They were at the high point of their lives, young, happy and clearly in love. But the suave and handsome Natey was long since dead. And his vivacious showgirl had turned into the withered, ancient, woman, confined to bed, laying in a shroud of smoke.  “Is this what's going to happen to me?” I wondered. But I knew the answer before I even finished asking the question. “Of course, this is what's going to happen to you,' I replied to myself.  “This is exactly what's going to happen to you. That is if you live that long.” Images of the young Agnes and the old Agnes kept alternating in my mind, like someone was running a slideshow in there. It was hard to believe they were the same person. “What else do you think is going to happen? How do you think this whole thing ends?” my inner dialogue continued. “One way or another, you die.” After about an hour of this mental back and forth, I finally drifted off. But I didn't sleep well that night.                                     *       *        * That's the end of the text of the story. Now for some of the meaning behind the words. I was only sixteen at the time and had just gotten my driver's license. And it seemed like the whole world was opening up to me. I don't know about you, but getting my license is still one of the most transformative events that has ever happened to me. It changed everything. So, here I was, this excited and happy adolescent, enthralled by the thrill of this whole new stage of life, suddenly running headlong into the brick wall of truly serious old age. And let me tell you that my description of it didn't even come close to imparting the true severity of the blow. As he was telling me about them, Uncle Ike had built up Agnes and Natey's life together to a lavishly mythic level, which made sense because he was ten years younger than them and they were clearly his idols. I don't know what I was expecting, but when I finally met her, not only did I meet the oldest person I had ever seen, I also came face to face with the unequivocally transient nature of our life on earth. And it really got driven home when I saw that picture of them in their heyday, this jazzed-up couple, jazzing it up in the jazz age, and then looked back at this frail, ancient lady, smoking her cigarettes, as her crumpled sheets matched the crevices that made up the atlas of wrinkles that covered the pale skin of her face. In the picture, they seemed so cool, but now, the faded glory of their bygone era was so ancient, that I might as well have been looking at a picture of the Sphinx in front of the Great Pyramid, And that night, when I couldn't fall asleep and the images of the young Agnes and the old Agnes kept alternating in my inner vision, it was clear to me that I too would someday be that old. That is if I lived that long.  I'm sure you get the picture, because this subtext is true for all of us. All of our hopes and dreams, our cares and fears, and our successes and failures are just temporary stops along this road of life, and we all know all too well, that regardless of any circumstances, this road inevitably comes to an end. But for me and for anyone else who cares to look a little deeper, the outlook isn't as dark as it may seem, because according to the Wisdom of the Ages, understanding impermanence can mark the doorway out of the prison of self-limitation that leads to the liberating freedom of self-knowledge, along with the inherent joy that comes along with that territory.  And even though I may only be just starting to scratch the surface of this whole thing, so far, the view has certainly been worth the climb. And with that, let's let this be the end of this episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened, and let's get together in the next one.

In this episode, we continue our look into the text and the subtext of a few portions from my memoir called, “Wilt, Ike and Me.” Again, the text relates to the written words and the subtext relates to the meanings behind them. The last episode dealt with the subtextual theme of impermanence and it took place during my tenth-grade year in high school, when Wilt Chamberlain was living in our home during the 1965 NBA season. This next episode begins a decade earlier in 1955, when I was an extremely impressionable six-year-old.                                     *       *        *   We lived in a neighborhood of row homes and were a typical family for the times - a husband and wife, two boys, one girl, a dog and a bird, and of course a television, which was still kind of new. Less than 35% of the homes in the country had one. We watched it all the time and in my young mind, our world was an extension of what was on it. Our home life seemed like just one more happy show. The times were ordinary, and I thrived on the normality of it. The only unusual character in my life was my father's father, Zayde. who was the undisputed spiritual authority of the family. Besides being trained as an Orthodox Jewish cantor, he was also quite a mystic.  You could see it when you looked at him. There was a twinkle in his pale-blue eyes and half the time, he looked like he was ready to burst out laughing. And the other half, crying.   He had some interesting theories about God, saying there are always highly evolved people living on Earth, to help bring about the Divine Plan. And one day, to my delight, he decided that the TV character, the Lone Ranger, was such a one. It was a great development for me because he was the star of my favorite show, and if he had something to do with God, all the better. In my book, it was a million times better than going to services. Zayde would watch each episode with total focus, and after it ended, he would give a short teaching on the moral of the story. In the origin show, the Texas Rangers were ambushed and left for dead by the bad guys. Tonto, the Ranger's future Indian companion, comes upon the scene, realizes that one of the rangers is still alive, and nurses him back to health. Since he's the sole survivor, Tonto calls him The Lone Ranger. A few weeks later, they find a big white stallion lying near a bush bleeding to death, apparently gored by a bull. The Ranger and Tonto spend weeks caring for it.  Once it fully recovers, they tie a rope around its neck and lead it into an open pasture. “Your horse was killed, and now Great Spirit has given you a new horse,” Tonto says, appreciating the synchronistic workings of the universe. “He's not my horse yet, Tonto,” the Ranger replies. As they stand in the field, the horse feels its strength returning, and with its nose twitching, senses the call of the wild. The Ranger pats it on the head and slowly removes the rope. Then, he suddenly gives it a sharp slap on the rear. The horse bolts forward and breaks into a mighty gallop, charging full speed to the top of a hill.  It rears back on its hind legs, neighing in triumph, standing tall against the sky. But when it comes back down on all four legs, a change comes over it. It tilts its head to one side, and then, as though sensing a call beyond the wild, it trots back over to the Lone Ranger and just stands there next to him.  “There, there, Big Fella,” the Ranger murmurs to him, gently stroking its muzzle. Then he turns to Tonto, and in a calm voice of certainty says, “Now he's my horse.”          The show went to commercial and Zayde turned to me, his face glowing like he had been staring at a burning bush. “You see?” he asked me. “It's all about free will. God will never force you. He's just waiting for you to choose to be with him. You can do it whenever you want, but it's really up to you. Understand, Davy?” Davy—now that was a magical name for me. To my grandfather, it was just short for Dave-a-lah, an endearing Yiddish nickname meaning “little David.” But for me, it was the doorway into the realm of heroes.   That was because I used to watch a TV show every afternoon called The Mickey Mouse Club. Probably every other baby boomer in the country with a TV did the same thing. It was our own private club, with a special membership cap that had mouse ears. Everyone seemed to have at least one.  It was an enormously popular, national phenomenon, but one day, they introduced a new character that took it to a completely different level. His name was Davy Crockett and he was The King of the Wild Frontier. It immediately became an unprecedented success and within weeks, Davy was the number one TV kids' hero in the country.  Disney launched a massive merchandising campaign that turned into a major profit center for them. The more popular the show got, the more stuff they sold. And the more stuff they sold, the more popular the show got. There was no end to it. I had three coonskin caps. Disney was selling over five thousand a week. I probably had six different styles of Davy Crockett T-shirts and a toy rifle; a replica of the one Davy always carried that he called Old Betsy. Brave, but light-hearted, always fighting for what was noble and right, Davy became the embodiment of the true American hero, and we all loved him. Now, all my life I had been called Davy. I was Davy Richman. Our new hero was Davy Crockett, and everybody called him Davy, as well.  As if the line between fantasy and reality wasn't already blurred enough for me, now whenever I heard my name, I felt like a mythic hero. Every other six-year-old Davy in the country who was glued to a TV set probably felt the same way.  My life was deeply intertwined with Crockett's and I was having a great time, until the day my mother came home from the supermarket with a new comic book about him. It had great artwork, and I was enthralled by every part of it until I got to the end. The last few pages went into a dramatically realistic portrayal of Davy's death at the Alamo. Disney had touched on the death briefly on TV but had just glossed over it, probably for advertising reasons. They didn't want you to feel too bad before their sponsors sold you candy and cereal, which was their bread and butter.   But this comic book was no Mickey Mouse job. The colors and the artwork were haunting, with noble, idealized writing. And unlike TV, it was static. It didn't move. You could just sit there and stare at it. Which I did.  And it really brought the death alive. They took you inside the Alamo, where Davy and his men were being defeated at every turn. One by one, all his companions are killed. Finally, Davy is surrounded by dozens of Santa Anna's soldiers, their bayonets bared, ready to tear him to shreds. Knowing he is out of ammo, he turns Old Betsy around, bravely swinging it in the air by the barrel, ready to go down fighting. The last panel was just his silhouette, swinging his rifle against the backdrop of a dark crimson sky. The caption read, “With no hope left, Davy fought on, and as the sky turned blood- red, The King of the Wild Frontier, the noble champion of truth, virtue, and all that is right, finally was no more.” I couldn't look away from that last panel. The color pictures saturated my mind and the truth sunk into me like a thousand-pound weight - Davy was dead. For the first time in my young life, I tasted the finality of death. And it took the life right out of me. I sadly closed the comic book and decided to go outside. I put on my favorite Davy Crockett T-shirt and my coonskin cap, picked up Old Betsy and walked out to our small front yard. Everything was the same as always, but I didn't know this world anymore. The light had gone out of it. It was already late afternoon. I stood on our little hill and looked out at the sky. As the sun began to set, it turned blood-red, just like the end of the comic book. The deep color made my grief a hundred times heavier. It was unbearable, and I closed my eyes and started to cry silently. Then, somewhere in the depths of my imagination, I thought I heard a deep voice talking to me from far away saying, “Be strong, Davy. It's time to be strong.” For a moment, I didn't know where I was. Then I heard another voice. “What are you doing?” it asked me. I realized it was someone in the real world. I opened my eyes and saw my father standing there with his briefcase in his hand. He had just come home from work. He looked me over for a few seconds, dressed in my Crockett gear. I don't know if he was picking up on the fact that something profound had just happened to me, or if he was picking up on the fact that you could move a lot of merchandise on TV. Whatever it was, he gave me a smile, picked me up, and carried me into the house. As soon as we got in the hall, I smelled spaghetti sauce and knew we were having one of my favorite dinners. I immediately felt better. He said something to my mother in Yiddish and she started laughing - my favorite sound in the world. It made me feel even better than the spaghetti sauce.                                     *       *        *   So much for the text of this excerpt, now let's take a look at the subtext. For me, there's a lot to unpack here. For one thing, with my grandfather you have the presence of a mystic which, according to the dictionary definition, is someone who seeks enlightenment in ways that are beyond the scope of pure intellect, the idea being that there is a deeper understanding of life that transcends the limitations of the ordinary mind. Or to put it in a nutshell, there's more to this life than meets the eye. Furthermore, it's not bound by time. My grandfather grew up before there was widespread electricity and spent much of his life studying ancient texts that were thousands of years old. Now he's getting the same teachings from a character on a TV show. Go figure. Then you have the element of free will as represented by Silver, the great white stallion. The Ranger could have saddled him up and forced him to be his horse, but instead, he set him free. And the horse could have run off into the wild, but instead he chose to serve the Ranger. Although it may be a simple allegory, it's filled with profound meanings. And finally, there's the Davy Crockett comic book, which presented me with my first encounter with death itself. Even though it was only about a fictional character, this was my biggest hero, not to mention my alter-ego, and the ultimate finality of it completely obliterated my young world and I was utterly devastated. Now I don't care how talented a writer you may be, the profound sadness and despair that the death of a loved one brings can never be adequately communicated, and anyone who's felt it knows exactly what I'm talking about. For me back then, as well as for all of us when we're children, as immense as it seemed, it was nothing compared to the real thing. But then, I quickly stabilized back into my natural state of joy when my father scooped me up and took me inside and I heard my mother's laugh and smelled her spaghetti sauce. Even this small moment carries some deep subtext for me because according to today's neuroscience we each have been made with the built-in capacity to come back from pain and anguish. No matter what may happen to us, we can always find a way to recover. It's a natural part of our survival mechanism. Lincoln put an interesting additional spin on it when he said that nearly all men can handle adversity, but “if you want to test a man's character, give him power.” How's that for a short statement that carries many layers of major subtext?  Well with that, we'll close this episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open and let's get together in the next one.

As I mentioned in the previous episode, we're going to look at four different excerpts from my memoir, “Wilt, Ike & Me,” and were going to examine some of the subtext in each. The following is the text from the portion of the first excerpt. By way of background, my father had recently moved basketball superstar Wilt Chamberlain into our home for the remainder of the 1965 NBA season.                             *                *                  *   We had fallen into a fairly regular daily routine and Wilt would generally be sleeping when I left for school in the morning. When I got home, he'd be either up in his room or out walking around the neighborhood. He took a lot of walks. We lived in a community called Elkins Park, which is in Cheltenham Township, just north of Philadelphia. It's an upper-middle-class American suburb and has a lot of stretches where you can take some great long walks. Our house was just a few hundred yards away from a large religious institution called Faith Theological Seminary, which was a training facility for future clergymen. But it didn't start out that way. When it was first built at the turn of the century, it was called Lynnewood Hall and was a 110-room Georgian-style palace from the Gilded Age. Finished in 1900, it quickly became known as the American Versailles and was considered the most magnificent estate outside of France. It had luxurious gardens complete with huge fountains and ponds. The home was filled with over two thousand artistic masterpieces, and it was the center of a social network of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the land. There were legendary parties that went on all night, routinely ending with sumptuous sunrise breakfasts. The mansion itself stands in the middle of a thirty-five-acre circle of land, enclosed by a black wrought iron fence. It was about a two-mile stretch from our house, around the estate, and back. Wilt would usually make the trip every day, sometimes going around twice. Now, this was 1965 and in our neck of the woods, black people and white people generally didn't live in the same neighborhood. Things were basically segregated. Cheltenham has changed a lot over the years and is now a model of multicultural living. But back then, things were different, and in our area, all the residents were white. Soon the local grapevine was buzzing with news that a huge black man was regularly seen walking around the neighborhood near the seminary. A short time later, it became common knowledge that this mysterious giant was, in fact, Wilt Chamberlain and that he was living in Ike Richman's house. Before you knew it, nearly everyone claimed they had seen him out on one of his famous walks and had gotten a wink, a wave, or a nod. One day, a school bus slowed down to a crawl, so all the kids could come over to one side and wave at him through the windows. For most people, seeing Wilt up close was an experience they would never forget. Not only was he much bigger than they'd thought, he was also strikingly handsome and extremely charismatic, with an engaging personality. Along with a great sense of humor, he always had a slightly comical expression on his face, like he was in on some kind of inside, private joke. He was just unbelievably cool.  And memories of him never seem to fade.  Although he walked that neighborhood over fifty years ago, people still tell me stories about seeing him. And they're all still smiling. Lynnewood Hall always held something special for Wilt. He was fascinated with its architecture and loved to take it in from all the different angles he would see as he walked around its perimeter. As a world traveler, he had developed quite a discerning eye for art, architecture, and design. And this palace was a real masterpiece. It was built by Peter Widener, who was the embodiment of the American dream. Born in 1834 and starting out as a butcher, he made his first real money selling beef to the Union army during the Civil War. Then, he parlayed his holdings into a huge transportation company that he formed with his partner, William Elkins, the namesake of Elkins Park. He also helped start US Steel and American Tobacco, and ultimately became one of the wealthiest men in American history. Unfortunately, his interests extended into the steamship business as well, and he owned a piece of the White Star Line. The RMS Titanic was one of his investments. He sent the elder of his two sons, George, over to England to celebrate the maiden voyage of the “unsinkable vessel.” George, his wife, and their son occupied one of the premier luxury suites in first class. The night of the iceberg tragedy, the Wideners were hosting a formal dinner party for the ship's captain, who was summoned from it when the collision occurred. Mrs. Widener survived the horrible ordeal, but father and son both went down with the ship. Peter Widener was devastated. He withdrew from the world, retreated into Lynnewood Hall, and never really re-emerged from it. Within a few years, still mourning the loss of his son and grandson, the old man died of a broken heart. But the grand old mansion still stands. Its religious conversion didn't take place until 1952 and it remained a monastery for about twenty-five years until the brotherhood finally closed-up shop. It's been abandoned for decades.   Now, after an age of neglect, with its insides gutted and its once-white limestone faded to a dull brown, it still holds its magnificent place in the sun, perhaps waiting for some dreamer to come along, with inspired visions of restoration and redemption. Wilt knew all about Widener's Titanic connection and the place always got to him. I don't know if it was just plain spooky, or if it spoke to him on some profound level, maybe about our ultimate mortality. Whatever it was, I could always tell when he'd been there from his distant gaze as he walked back onto our street. I had recently gotten my driver's license and one day Wilt decided that we should drive over to a commercial part of North Broad Street, where he could give me some pointers on how to squeeze into a parking space. He said it wasn't all that hard. “I think you're good enough to listen to the radio now,” he commented as we drove along. I turned it on, and soon, the deejay said it was time for the daily double, which was two songs in a row by the same artist. Then Sam Cooke came on singing “Another Saturday Night.” “Oh my God! My theme song,” Wilt exclaimed. “Turn it up! Turn it up!” I made it louder, but it wasn't loud enough for him. “Come on!” he said. I blasted it, and he started singing as we drove along.  He actually had a fine singing voice and had made a record once. He kept snapping his fingers along with the music, right next to my ear. His hand was probably three times the normal size, and every snap was like a firecracker exploding in my skull.   I did my best to concentrate, but this was crazy. I wasn't even a novice, and he was totally distracting. I started getting perturbed, but that was just one part of me. Another part felt like it was the coolest thing in the world. Wilt had a happy smile when the song ended. But then the slow, haunting introduction of “A Change is Gonna Come” came on, and everything changed. It was the final song of Sam Cooke's young life and the mood got somber as Cooke began to sing: “I was born by the river, in a little tent. And just like the river, I've been running ever since. It's been a long, long time coming, but I know, a change is gonna come. Oh yes, it will.” “I knew him,” Wilt said over the music. “He came up to Paradise right before he died and sang a couple of numbers.” The nightclub he owned was called Big Wilt's Smalls Paradise, but whenever he talked to me about it, he just called it Paradise. “They released this right after he got killed,” he said. We fell silent and listened to the rest of the song. When the last verse came on, Wilt closed his eyes and sang along, his soul coming out of his mouth. “It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die. 'Cause I don't know what's up there, beyond the sky. It's been a long, long time coming, but I know, a change is gonna come…Oh yes, it will.” When the song ended, I looked at him in the rearview mirror. His eyes were closed, and he was clearly in another world.                          *                *                  *   So, that's the end of the text from this excerpt. Now let's briefly go into some of the subtext. Again, subtext refers to the deeper meanings behind the words, and of course, it's purely subjective, meaning that everyone will have their own interpretations.  To me, the overall concept behind the text is impermanence. Nothing in our life on earth lasts, including all the people, places and things that make up the realm for us. It's all temporary, and this applies to everyone, no matter who we are or what we do. This idea is symbolically represented by the grand estate, Lynnewood Hall, that was built by the great industrialist Peter Widener, as he was achieving his greatest successes. But his son and grandson were tragically killed in the Titanic disaster and he retreated into seclusion and died soon after. The once world-famous palace of opulence still stands to this day, but it has degenerated into a deserted and  dilapidated ruin. Again, it is only about 350 yards away from the home we lived in when Wilt stayed with us. And there is something haunting about the image of him, taking long walks around the huge perimeter of the estate. Here he was, this 7-foot-tall NBA giant, who at the time was the most recognized celebrity in the entire world, with vast aspirations of his own, circling the former home of one of the greatest business titans in American history. They were both in the same location, separated by a mere 65 years. Each at the peak of their powers and each dominating their worlds. And as different as they may seem, they were in the same basic situation. They both played out their roles, filled with all of their triumphs and tragedies, and eventually they vanished and were no more. It goes without saying that we're all in the same boat on this one. Finally, to drive the point home, the excerpt ends with Sam Cooke singing “A Change is Gonna Come” on the radio. At age 33, the megastar of popular music was also at the peak of his power. But he had recently been shot to death, and watching Wilt sing along to the lyric about being afraid to die was quite a powerful moment for me. So, what's the subtextual takeaway from all this? Again, it's a completely subjective matter and will vary from individual to individual.  For me, the somewhat metaphysical experiences I had surrounding the sudden death of my father forced me to take a deeper look into the mysteries of life and I eventually came into contact with some profound understandings from humanity's Ancient Wisdom Traditions. From that perspective, there is nothing more important in life than true inner growth and nurturing our consciousness is critically important for us to be able to fulfill our highest human potential and genuinely enjoy the gift of life.   And in that regard, understanding the factor of impermanence can become a great ally for us. For once we begin to accept the truth of it, humility, gratitude and appreciation naturally begin to take hold within our intelligence. And that noble trio never fails to illuminate the path to our higher inner ground.   Well that's quite a bit of subtext, so this seems like a good place to end this episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart open, and let's get together in the next one.

The last podcast episode called, “One Lucky Soldier” was the final installment in a five-part series from the novel I am writing called “The Better Angels – Lincoln, the Psychic and the Spy.” During the previous episodes, we followed the arduous journey of Annie Franklin, a 19-year-old psychic who came to Virginia to bring her brother Daniel, a seriously wounded Union soldier, back home to Connecticut for care.           After being abused and extorted by a Union captain who withheld the necessary furlough, and then learning that her brother had been left to die in the rotting remains of a deserted Union field hospital, Annie had finally reached her breaking point and had no idea of what to do next.  In her hour of despair, she unexpectedly ran into Charles Kean, a powerful Union spy who, with a kind heart and a mighty pen, quickly saved the day for Annie and her brother.           In the book, this marks the beginning of an extraordinary adventure that brings Annie into close contact with Mary Lincoln and eventually with the President himself. As a strong romance begins to blossom between the psychic and spy, they embark on a dangerous, but thrilling adventure as they attempt to foil the Lincoln assassination. As you can imagine, the story has a lot of different layers to it and I am slated to release the novel by mid-2025.           Also, as you may recall, when I first introduced the series of podcasts, I mentioned that I had become seriously interested in writing during my college years when I changed my major from Government and Political Science to Literature. Back then, I intuitively felt that storytelling has a tremendous capacity to assist in the positive growth of human consciousness, which seemed to be absolutely essential to our survival as a species.           Over the years, as I continue to study the powerful effects of writing, I am always fascinated by the relationship between what is called “text” and “subtext.” The text refers to the actual words that have been written, while the subtext refers to the meaning behind the words. The subtext helps reveal the theme of the story; understanding it is often referred to as “reading between the lines.” And sometimes, a very small amount of text can reveal an enormous amount of meaning for us. Here are two great examples of that remarkable phenomenon.           The first one is a phrase that says, “Basic Life Needs: Backbone, Wishbone, Funnybone.”  Just a few simple words, but they point to three key traits of human nature that are critical for us to successfully navigate the often-turbulent waters we face in life.           The idea that we need a strong backbone tells us that no matter what you want to do in life, you have to keep putting effort into it. And on top of that, you need to have the courage to stand up to tough times, because one way or another, they do show up.            In addition to a strong backbone, we need a robust wishbone as well, so that we can keep our sights set on our highest aspirations. Regardless of the situation we may be in, somewhere inside we have an innate sense of hope Its optimism helps bring about inspiration and creativity, along with dozens of other key components that lead us forward to fulfilling our highest human potential.           Finally, there is the idea of the funny bone, having a good sense of humor, which can be more important than it may seem. The fact is, over sixty-five different species of animals are known to laugh, and scientists now believe that laughing and having fun are critical components to survival. because it helps us see the brighter side of life.           So, it's best to take it all with a grain of salt because one thing to remember is that we each have only a limited time here. Impermanence is a fundamental part of our existence, and having a clear understanding of that not only bring us a deeper sense of appreciation, but it also keeps us from taking ourselves too seriously, which can be a major hurdle to our inner growth. A good sense of humor can also serve as a protective barrier for us, as well. For example, while I was doing research about Abraham Lincoln, I regularly came across the fact that he genuinely loved to laugh. And this proved to be a great help to him when he was president, as he was faced with the difficult task of managing the nation throughout the entire, unprecedentedly bloody Civil War. This was not only a truly dark time for the country, but for him personally, as well.  His eleven-year-old son had died early in his first term, and he had to confront an appalling amount of death and destruction on a daily basis. As he put it, “If there is a place worse than hell, I am in it.”           But it's a well-known fact that he kept joke books in his desk at the White House and read them often. When a reporter asked him why he would try to find humor during such a dark time, Lincoln, a deeply sensitive man who never drank or smoked said, “I laugh because I must not cry. That is all. That is all. With the fearful strain that is on me night and day, if I did not laugh, I should die.”           So having a strong backbone, wishbone and funnybone are all critical for our success and well-being. Very simple, but very deep stuff.              Here is the second example of an extremely simple text that carries enormous meaning in it. In fact, this has been called the most profound story ever told in six words. It was an ad in a newspaper that read, “Baby Shoes for Sale. Never Worn.”           Now if you've been interested in these podcasts, it's a good bet that you'll immediately feel the depth of meaning behind these words.  Afterall, why would someone have a pair of baby shoes that had never been worn? Obviously, it could be for a number of different reasons, but there are certainly some pretty sad ones to consider. Death, loss, dashed hopes and the fragile nature of our existence are just a few of the sorrowful themes that come to mind. And each would produce an immediate and profound sense of empathy in us. On a somewhat lighter note, I once came across a slightly different version of this ad that had a very different resolution to it. Supposedly the ad read, “Baby Carriage for Sale. Never Used.” Someone called to inquire about it and first offered sincere condolences. “Thanks so much, but no condolences needed,” was the reply. “It turned out that we had twins.” I really enjoyed that when I read it. I don't know about you, but I always love unexpected silver linings.           And here is one last quick story that had an enormous depth of subtextual meaning for me. I first heard it when I was on an extended visit to India in the early 70s and it's actually at the foundation of one of the world's most influential religions.           It took place in the sixth century BC, in a kingdom in the foothills of the Himalayas, when a son was born to the wealthy and powerful king of the realm. A seer told the king that the new prince would either expand the kingdom and become a great king, or he would turn into a renunciate and become a great teacher of inner truth.           Deeply disturbed by the prophecy, the king decided to keep his son in a world filled with pure delight. Throughout his entire life he was shielded from any form of suffering and pain, and was never allowed to go outside of the palace walls. The prince's name was Siddhartha and finally, at the age of 29, he had his charioteer take him out for a chariot ride, past the palace walls and into the outside world.           They soon came upon an old man. The prince had never seen anyone old before and asked his driver what type of creature this was. He looked like a person, but was bent over and shriveled up. The diver said that that this was a regular person, just like him, who had gotten old. And he added that we all will get old like this if we live long enough. This idea of old age was new and was deeply troubling to the prince.           Then they came upon someone who was very ill. When he asked what was happening to that person, his driver said the person had become sick. Then he added that sickness can strike any of us at any time. This concept of sickness was a second deeply troubling idea to the prince.           Then they rode past the crematorium grounds as a dead body was being prepared to be placed on a funeral pyre. When he asked what had happened to that person, he was told that the person had died. He was looking at a body that no longer had the power of life in it. Then he was told that we're all going to die someday, no matter who we are or what we do. The prince had never heard of death before, let alone the idea that we're all going to die, and this presented a serious problem for him.           So, within a matter of an hour of leaving his palace of earthly delights, Siddhartha had been shown the realities of old age, sickness and death.  Then, as they made their way back to the palace, they came upon a traveling saint, who was giving a talk to a few people of the town. With a smile on his face, he told the people that there is way of understanding that can take you from the suffering of the outer life to an immortal inner kingdom that lasts forever.           When Siddhartha asked his driver what kind of person this was, the driver explained that he was an aesthetic, someone who had dedicated himself to finding inner enlightenment. And he sounded like he had found it.           According to legend, this tremendously transformative journey for the prince became known as the four sights. Soon after his return, Siddhartha left the palace in search for inner truth. Then, at the age of 35, after six years of searching and practicing, he attained the state of inner enlightenment, began teaching and became known to the world as the Buddha.             The subtext of this story is as incredibly profound as it is simple. It conveys the idea that no matter who we are or what we are doing, we are all subject to the conditions of sickness, old age and death. And also, it is possible to attain the higher state of consciousness that transcends darkness, illusion and mortality. Of course, there are a lot of interpretations of this legendary tale, but these are the basics to it, plain and simple.           So, back to the ideas of text and subtext. As you may know, I have written a memoir called, Wilt, Ike and Me, about the days when my father founded the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team and moved NBA superstar and cultural icon, Wilt Chamberlain into our home. Wilt was my roommate during my tenth-grade year of high school. As a memoir, the text of the story is very clear. It simply recounts the events of the time, as they happened to me. But there is a considerable amount of subtext to it as well.           In the next four podcast episodes, I am going to present four chapters from the book and I am going to go into some of their deeper subtextual meanings for me. Writers are generally somewhat hesitant to do something like this because the idea is to let the reader draw their own conclusions. But given the nature of the Stop Making Yourself Miserable podcasts, I felt inspired to do this with these chapters and I certainly hope you will enjoy them.           So that will be the end of this episode. As always, keep your eyes mind and heart opened, and let's get together in the next one. 

In the four episodes that preceded this one, during the Civil War, Annie Franklin, a nineteen-year-old woman who happens to have psychic gifts, had come to Virginia to take her brother, Daniel, a badly wounded Union soldier, back home to Connecticut for care. It had been a difficult and trying time. After attempting to take advantage of her, an unscrupulous Union captain angrily refused to give her the furlough she needed. Then, when she went back to the field hospital to see what she could do for her brother, she found that it was basically deserted, and along with a few hundred other soldiers, he had been left there to die.   Overwhelmed by their desperate situation, she had gone out into the field to try to think, but broke into tears and ended up sobbing into her lap. Unexpectedly, a man dressed in buckskin riding clothes came over and offered to help her. He took her by the arm and started walking her towards a table where some soldiers had gathered. But she was still shaken by the terrible experience she had when the army captain had tried to molest her, and she pulled her arm away, refusing to move until the stranger told her his intentions. The man assured her that he was acting in her best interests and as the episode ended, the two of them stood facing each other as she tried to decide if she could trust him. And now, the story continues…                                    *             *             *   He took her by the arm again. She intuitively felt her body relax and began to walk along with him before she had consciously made up her mind to do it, which surprised her. As they approached the table, the soldiers immediately looked up with attention.           “Do you happen to have a paper with your brother's name on it?” he asked Annie.           “Why yes, I do. I have his enlistment certificate,” she said.           “Oh perfect,” he responded and held out his hand “Give it to me.”           She couldn't tell if he had given her an order or made a statement of assistance, but he spoke with total authority and complete confidence. She handed him the paper, and when he took it, she felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders.           “Fred, we still have a few furloughs left in the pack, don't we?” he asked one of the men at the table.           “I think we have a few left,” the man replied.           “Good,” he said, putting the enlistment certificate on the table.  “Fill one out for this young lady's brother, will ya?”           “Sure thing,” the man said, rifling through the certificates that were neatly filed in a leather saddlebag. “Be happy to.”           “A furlough?” Annie asked, hardly believing her ears. “I thought you could only get them at the War Department.”            “Well, things are not always the way they seem,” the man responded.  As the clerk at the table filled out the papers, the man in buckskin motioned to two other soldiers who joined them.           “This girl's brother is in the infirmary tent. I want you to get them to Georgetown right away,” he said quietly. “Go tell Serling to dress up as a doctor and dress Willoughby up as another wounded soldier.  Take the two snipers and dress them up as orderlies. They'll all travel along as one party.           “Georgetown is a great place for them to lay low for a few days. They'll know where to go. Tell them that once we get things set up, I'll get their orders to them.”           He looked over at Annie, who was clearly amazed by what was happening.  “This really came along at just the right time,” he said, smiling at her. “It's perfect.”           “All done, Charlie,” the man at the table reported to the man in buckskin. He walked over and read the papers.  After a moment he signed the furlough and handed it to Annie. “Here you go,” he said to her with a smile.           “So that's it?” she asked him. “I don't need to go to another doctor and I don't need to get an army officer to authorize this? This is all we need?”           “That's right,” the man replied. “We just took care of all that here. You don't need to do anything further. Just get your poor brother some care and bring him back to health.  A military escort will transport you to your friends' house.”           He then walked over to the table and started talking to the soldiers. After a moment Annie walked over to them.           “Um, pardon me, but when do you think we'll be able to go?” Annie asked tentatively. “I don't think Daniel can last here more than a few more days, maybe a week at most. Longer than that, I - ”           “Oh, I'm sorry,” he interrupted her. “I wasn't clear. You're going today. I put a rush on it. They'll probably have you both on the road within an hour. Two at the most.” “Oh my God!” Annie said quietly, almost to herself. “Oh my God,” she repeated as she breathed in a deep sigh of relief. “Everything will be taken care of for you from here,” the man continued. “Now you just do what the soldiers tell you to do and you and your brother will be in Georgetown before nightfall.” “Oh my God!” Annie quietly repeated again. It seemed to be all she could express, the unexpected change in their fate had happened so suddenly, she could hardly think straight. The air was cold and still reeked of death, but now she was filled with gratitude, and everything was different. She held out her hand to the noble stranger. He shook it and held it in his and said, “Miss, it's been an honor to meet you. You came at just the right time.” He paused for a moment and added soberly, “Good luck to you and your family in this bitter time of trial for us all.”           “Sir,” she responded.  “I just want to say, really from the bottom of my heart, I just want to say,” she stopped and looked him squarely in the eyes. “I just want to say… thank you.”           “You're most welcome,” he replied. He patted her on the hand, then buttoned up his buckskin jacket. He gave her one last look, then turned and walked toward his horse, a huge golden stallion with a bright white mane.           He put on his brown leather riding hat and mounted the massive steed that seemed to welcome him into the saddle. It eagerly shook its head and snorted, like it couldn't wait to run. He turned the horse away from Annie and sat in the saddle for a few moments, gazing out at the field. He seemed to be deciding which way to go. The day had brightened, the sun was shining, and the stinging rawness had gone out of the air.  He continued to survey the scene as Annie watched him from behind the horse.  With this simple act of kindness, he had ended her horrible ordeal and saved her brother's life. It was far beyond anything she could have hoped for. But who was this mysterious stranger? He was clearly in charge of the soldiers at the table, but he seemed kind of young for that.  Obviously, he was deeply involved with the brutality of the escalating war. Yet there was a steely kind of optimism about him…a sense of confidence in that ultimately - the power of good would prevail. As she looked up at him, she became overwhelmed, not only by what had he had just done for her, but also by the man in the saddle, himself. He muttered something to his horse, it turned around and, he was face to face with Annie once again. On horseback he certainly cut a striking figure. But she suddenly realized how handsome he actually was, and she stared up at him like he was a gift from above. They looked at each other for what seemed like a very long moment. Then with a warm, yet slightly coy smile he said, “Well, I'll tell you one thing, Miss Annie Franklin, your brother is certainly one lucky soldier!”           No man had ever looked at her quite like that before. There was something endearing in his eyes, but there was also something more than that. A thrill rippled through her and she felt the blood rush into her head. Even though she was already nineteen, she came from a small town, had been sickly as a child and had no experience with men at all.  Her breath quickened and she blushed as red as a beet.           “Who knows?” he finally said, “Maybe our paths will cross again someday. You take care of yourself ‘til then, okay?' “I will,” she said with a subtle smile as her face lit up like a budding rose.  “I'll take that as a promise,” he said with a knowing look and turned the horse around. Giving it a slight nudge, it lunged forward and then galloped away. She stared at him for a few moments until he finally disappeared over the horizon.            “Is this really real?” Annie asked abstractedly. “I mean this is real, isn't it?”           “Pardon me, Miss?” asked the soldier who was sitting at the table near her. She turned to him and put the paper on the table.           “Oh. I mean the furlough,” she said, quickly changing her focus. “It's real, isn't it?  I mean, that man wasn't even in uniform. Can he really do what he just did?” she asked.           “Well, his kind never dress in uniform. They run undercover. But that furlough is as good as gold.  You see his signature there?” the man pointed at the paper. “You see that - Charles Keane – BDF.”           “Yes,” Annie said. “Does that mean something?”           “You bet it does. BDF stands for the Baker Detective Force and that means a hell of a lot. They're a top-secret group, the Bakers. Nobody really knows that much about them.  I think there's only about 12 of them in the whole army. But you see that signature there? That can only be overruled by a four star General.”             She stared at Keane's signature on the furlough. The soldier gave her a kind pat on the hand, then added reassuringly, “You're safe now, Miss. You can relax.”   *        *        *             It was dusk when Annie stood and watched as two soldiers carried the stretcher holding her semi-conscious brother into the parlor of the Harrison's home. Just a few hours earlier, on the hospital grounds, she had been staring into the pits of hell, only inches away from having to make a vulgar deal with the devil. Then unexpectedly within minutes, the dark scene had suddenly filled with light, her troubles had vanished, and now she could see a clear pathway home.           Filled with gratitude, she lit a candle on a nearby table and heaved a deep sigh of relief. Finally able to relax, she sat down and stared at Daniel's peaceful face, glowing in the warm, flickering candlelight. He had fallen asleep and was snoring softly. Smiling, she gazed contentedly at his chest, rising and falling with the steady flow of his rhythmic breath.             And so ends the story of when the psychic met the spy. And this is also the end of this episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened, and let's get together in the next one.            

In the last episode, when Annie Franklin went back to the field hospital to try to get another letter from a doctor to allow her to take her brother, Daniel, home to Connecticut for care, she was unexpectedly confronted with an appalling situation – the formerly crowded hospital was now basically deserted and there were no doctors present. Along with just a few hundred other critically wounded soldiers, her brother had been basically left there to die. She met with Daniel and put on a brave face to try to reassure him, but now it was completely obvious to her that they were in truly dire straits. And so, this episode begins…                                 *               *               *   She walked outside the tent, took a breath of the chilly air and looked over the field.  The place was pretty much deserted except for a small group of soldiers huddled around a makeshift table about fifty yards away. They were carefully studying some maps and in a rather animated discussion as a small fire was giving off some much-needed heat. A man dressed in civilian buckskin riding clothes was clearly in charge.   As Annie looked around, it seemed to be the only place available to go ask for help and stood watching them, waiting for the right time to approach.  After a few more moments there was a pause in the discussion and she took a step toward them, and as soon as she did, the man dressed in buckskin picked up his head and stared directly at her. They looked into each other's eyes for a moment, but he seemed so intently focused on his work that that she quickly lost her nerve and started walking in a different direction, towards another group of soldiers who were off in the distance. But once she got close enough to see what they were doing, the nature of their horrible task became clear - they were loading dead bodies onto a wagon. There was a pile of about a hundred of them, next to a large, blood-soaked wooden box that was filled to the rim with amputated limbs.           Sickened, she walked back towards the first group of soldiers. The wind shifted a little and the smell of death and decay which pervaded the camp, suddenly enveloped her.  She had noticed it before, but now it engulfed her like a damp, moldy shroud, turning the very act of breathing into a nauseating chore. She felt like she was going to vomit, but she fought it back. This was no time to get sick.           She stood still and went over the situation in her mind. Daniel was definitely better than he had been, but he was still in dire straits. There were no doctors present. He had clearly been left there to die, and without proper care, she didn't see how he could make it.            What could she do? To her disgust, the only hope she had was to go back to the War Department, makeup with Captain Lee and just do whatever he wanted.  How bad could that really be? Whatever it was, she could handle it, she told herself. But how could she really trust Lee? Would he really help her? Maybe not, but it didn't seem like she had any choice. What else could she do?             It was all she had left. She pictured the captain with his blood-shot eyes. The smell of his foul breath had been almost as bad as the stench of death that pervaded the hospital field. In her mind she could still see the anger in his face, as he spat out his curse - “It's your own stupid, stubborn goddamn fault. His blood is on your hands now.” Then she could see his sneering smile as he said, “Oh, by the way, honey, you'll be back! And you know what? I'll be here waiting for you.”           Suddenly her legs got wobbly and she knew she needed to sit down or she would fall down. A few yards away, a small bench lay on its side, surrounded by discarded boxes and some rotting garbage. She walked over, straightened up the bench and sat down.           Then, in that instant she lost control of her emotions and suddenly burst into tears. She quickly covered her face, bent over, buried her head in her hands, and sobbed silently into her lap. She had come to the end of her rope and the situation was completely hopeless. She couldn't even think anymore.           “Help,” she silently called out in despair, into the depths of her inner darkness. She didn't even know what she was saying, or who she was talking to. It was beyond all that. It was just pure desperation. “Help me. Please, please, please help me,” she sobbed silently into her lap.                       “Can I help you?” she heard a voice ask. For a moment she wasn't sure if she had lost her mind.            “Whaaat?” she muttered incredulously, almost to herself. She didn't want to open her eyes. Even if this was just some kind of mental mirage, she didn't want it to end just yet. Illusion or not, at least it was something comforting.           “Miss?” the voice spoke again. “Is there something I can do for you? Do you need something? Can I help you in some way?”  The voice was coming from directly in front of her and she knew it was real.  She opened her eyes to the vision of a pair of light brown buckskin pants. She looked up and saw the face of the man who had been standing at the center of the soldiers' table a few yards away. Although he had a rugged appearance, there was something trustworthy about his tone of voice, and he seemed sincere.           “Yes,” she said, looking at him through her tears. “Yes, thank you, I do need help.” She paused, trying to collect herself and dry her eyes.  “I don't know if you can help me, but God knows, I need help.”           He held out his hand. She took it and he helped her stand up. She wobbled a little and he put his hands on her shoulders, steadying her and helping her gain her ground. “So, what's the trouble?” he asked, kindly focusing his steady gaze on her.            She went to talk, but no words came out. She was still too shaken to answer him, and just stood there, mute. His face softened and he gave her an encouraging smile. “Come on now. Tell me. You can tell me,” he said in a softly encouraging tone. “What is it?”  She felt some life come back into her body, and her voice suddenly made its way back into her throat.           “Sir, I have got to get my brother out of here. I have come here for him, to take him back home to heal. He got seriously wounded in the battle, caught a bullet in the stomach and now they've left him here to die,” she blurted.           “Oh, I see,” he said and looked at her for a few seconds. “So, you're his next of kin and you've come to get him, you've come to take him home. And he's in there, I take it,” he said, motioning toward the hospital tent.           “Yes. Yes, he is, and he looks better today than when I last saw him. I think he's getting better. I think he can make it if I can get him out of here. But if he has to stay here, I don't think...”           “Well, did you go to the War Department?” he interrupted.  “I take it you know that they are directed to give furloughs for exactly this reason?” he asked.           “Oh yes. Oh my God, yes. I went to the War Department. I went there twice. What a nightmare,” she said. “A doctor here gave me a letter with a recommendation for a furlough. I took it to a captain in his office in the War Annex.  He said it was fine. He said there was no problem. He told me he would have it issued the next day. And then, when I came back to get it, he told me that he didn't have it. A problem had come up with it.” A wave of emotion tore through here and she stopped for a moment, and let it pass.  “He wanted me to go with him to - I mean he wanted to take me to dinner and he said that if I , uh...” The man held up his hand, stopping her.            “You don't have to go any further, Miss,” he said. “I'm sorry to tell you that I've heard the story a million times.”           “He said that if I wouldn't do what he wanted, he'd make sure I would never be able to get the furlough and my brother would die here,” Annie blurted out, as a wave of hopelessness and despair flooded back through her.            “I presume you didn't go along with him?” he asked.           “Of course not,” she replied indignantly.           “Well good for you. You're smart,” he said, and looked her in the eye. “Because let me tell you the sad truth – he would have never given that furlough to you anyway, this Captain Whoever-He-Is. He would have just strung you along until he got some other poor gal who came to him for help.           “Those boys have quite an operation going on for themselves down there,” he continued.  “That's how they do it. They hang out the hope of a furlough like bait on a hook. As soon as they have someone who'll bite, they keep dangling hope in front of them forever. They really couldn't care less about the poor injured soldier.  Could die for all they care.” He stopped and looked over the hill for a moment. “But they do love that power, though,” he mused. “That's the thing. They probably love the power even more than the uh -” He stopped for a moment and looked her as if he had an idea.             “Would you mind telling me your name?” he asked.           “Annie Franklin,” she said. “My family is from Farmington, Connecticut.           “Oh. Okay. And where are you staying while you're here?” he continued.           “I'm with some friends in Georgetown,” she said.           “Georgetown,” he said thoughtfully. “Hmm, Georgetown. So, you're staying in Georgetown.”           “Yes, with some friends,” she said.           “And I assume that's where you want to take your brother? To your friend's house in Georgetown?”           “Exactly,” she answered.           “Ok. Great. Come with me. I've got an idea,” he said suddenly, taking her by the arm. He started walking her over to the table where the soldiers sat with the maps, but she stopped in her tracks.           “Sir, what are you doing?” she demanded, pulling her arm away. The memory of the army captain who had just tried to take advantage of her was fresh in her mind, and she was still wary.              “You can relax now, Miss,” the man said with a calm smile. “Just take it easy. Believe it or not, fate has smiled upon you today. You came here to take care of your brother. He's a soldier and you're obviously a Union girl. Now it just so happens that I can help you and you can help the boys in blue. So just trust me and come along. Believe me, you're going to be much happier than you know.”           And that's the end of this episode, as it seems that some sunlight might be starting to break through the clouds. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened, and let's get together in the next one.

In the last episode, Annie had returned to Captain Lee's office in the War Department, expecting to pick up the furlough that would allow her to take her badly wounded brother, Daniel, back to Connecticut for home care. But when she went into Lee's office, instead of giving her the furlough, he withheld it, attempting to get her to allow him to have his way with her. It was a pure case of abuse of power, as he ransomed her brother's life to extort her to submit to him. When she refused, he became infuriated and told her she would never be able to get the furlough unless, of course, she changed her mind. Again, she was a nineteen-year-old, inexperienced girl who had never been over thirty miles away from home before and was unexpectedly thrust into a truly desperate situation. Now, she had no idea what she was going to do.  And so, the next episode begins…                              *              *              *   Annie had no choice but to start over. On top of what happened, Captain Lee had kept the letter from the army doctor and there was no way to get it back. She had to go back to the hospital, get a new letter from a doctor and try to find a better contact in the War Department. It seemed like a hopeless idea, but it was all she had left.             When she saw the Harrisons in the morning, rather than telling them what had happened, she just mentioned that a bureaucratic delay had come up and quickly headed back to the ferry to Alexandria.           Her mind churned out a whirlwind of scattered thoughts. She was hoping that Daniel might have improved. She was both sickened and seething from her unexpectedly horrible encounter with Lee. And she was starting to run out of money. She hadn't planned on staying as long as she had, and the cost of all the transportation was high.            After the long ride, as her carriage climbed up the hill that overlooked the vast hospital grounds, she gathered her internal fortitude.  But when she got to the top, the scene she saw hit her like a hard punch to the stomach and she gasped at the sight of it.           She had expected to see the several hundred white canvas tops that made up the hospital tent city. Instead, the place was basically deserted.  What had been a sprawling medical encampment just two days earlier, was now just a gigantic grassland of deserted debris. The grounds were covered in garbage and medical waste was everywhere. There were just a few dozen tents left standing and it was a truly appalling sight.           A few Army men were packing up a wagon as she approached them.           “What happened?” she asked one of them.           “What do you mean?” he asked her back.           “What happened to the hospital?” she asked. “I was here the day before yesterday and it was -” she looked around. “It was -” She couldn't continue and just shook her head.           “Oh, I see Miss,” the soldier said kindly. “Are you here to visit someone?”           “Yes,” Annie said. “I'm here for my brother.”           “Well,” he explained, “early yesterday morning, orders came in for us to break up the camp immediately. They set up a new tent hospital about ten miles from here. It's bigger and much better equipped. “The boys that were almost better just got sent back to their companies.  The ones who were well enough to make the trip, got taken over to the new place. And the other ones will stay here. We're going to finish gathering them up today.”           “Gathering them up?  What are you going to do with them?” Annie questioned.           “Well, we're going to take care of them here, Miss, in the big infirmary tent.”           In shock, Annie looked out at the sprawling desolate scene around her. “Sir, can you tell me how I might be able to find out if my brother's still here?” she continued on.           “Well, the best place to start is to just go look in the big infirmary. Come with me and let's see if he's in there,” he said as he took her gently by the arm.           In a few minutes, Annie was standing inside the large tent, gazing over a sea of about 250 cots spread out before her. With the soldier next to her, she started walking up and down the aisles between the cots. Finally, she spotted Daniel. He was sound asleep.           “That's him,” she said quietly to the soldier. She guided him a few steps away so that she could talk a little louder.           “Listen, sir, I need your help,” she continued. “I came here from Connecticut to get him a furlough and take him home so we can care for him. I need to get to a doctor who can write the recommendation letter and I need to do it right away. Can you stay with me and help me find a doctor?  I don't know if he can make it here much longer.”           It was mid-December and although there were some small fires burning, it was still quite cold in the tent. “Miss,” the soldier spoke slowly. “I'm afraid that can't be done.”           “Please,” Annie begged. “I'll do anything that's necessary.” The words didn't come out quite right and she was a little wary as she looked at him.           “I couldn't help you if I wanted to,” he said immediately. “There are no doctors here anymore.”           “What?” Annie asked disbelievingly. “How can there be no doctors here?”           “They all left. They all got assigned to the bigger hospital,” the soldier explained.           “Well, what is going to happen to all these men?” she asked, looking at all the cots with the wounded.           “Like I said, we're going to take care of them here. We were told to keep the boys as comfortable as possible,”           “How many soldiers are here with you? How many are here to help these men?” Annie asked.           “There were about 20 here yesterday. Today we're down to about 12,” he said blankly.           “Twelve?” Annie asked, and the reality of the situation suddenly dawned on her.  “They left them here to die, didn't they?” she asked, dumbfounded. “They just left them here to die.”           “Miss,” the soldier tried to explain. “They didn't have a choice. They couldn't take everyone. There wasn't enough transport, and the ones they left behind probably wouldn't have survived the trip anyway. You understand? They had to do it like this. Nobody wanted this, but this is what we got.”           Annie's mind spun in several different directions for a few moments. Then she reached a determination. “Alright,” she said firmly. “This is what we have to do. We have to get him out of here. I am going to take him home with me and I'm going to do it now.  Will you help? Will you?”           “Now, look, you have to calm down, Miss,” he said. “You don't know what you're up against. You don't just walk a man out of here. If a soldier goes leaves these grounds without a furlough, he immediately becomes a deserter. If he's caught, they'll hang him.”           “So what?” Annie retorted. “He's going to die here anyway. He'll die if I don't get him out of here.”           “Yes, but if you take him off the grounds, you automatically become an accomplice. Make no mistake. This is the army, this is wartime and the laws are clear. Helping a deserter is treason. They'll hang you too.  Now don't even think about it.”  He paused for a moment and looked at her kindly, but resolutely.    “And I'll tell you what - if you try anything crazy like that, I promise you, I'll stop you. And believe me, it will be for your own good.”           Annie didn't know what to do. She needed some time to think, and she wanted to talk to Daniel and see how he was. From afar, he seemed like he had a little more color in his face. Hopefully, he was getting better.           “Alright sir,” she said, stalling for some time. “Alright, thank you. I appreciate it. I am going to speak with my brother for a while. Then I'll try to figure something out. I know some people in Washington. Maybe I can do something there. They might be able to help,” she finished, having no idea what she was talking about.           She took a few steps back over to Daniel's cot, put on the bravest face she could muster, and gently shook him awake. He opened his eyes, looked at her for a few seconds and then smiled.           “Hey, Sis,” he said quietly.           She immediately hugged him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. He shivered a little, but he definitely seemed a little better than he had been two days earlier. At least it didn't seem like he was just about to die.           “Annie, we have to get away from here,” he said and coughed a little.           “I know, Daniel. I know. That's what I came here for. I am going to take you home,” she said.           “Everything went okay at the War Department, didn't it? You got the furlough, didn't you?” he asked. Annie turned her face away to hide her tears and just stroked his hair.           “Look, the doctor will be here soon,” Daniel said confidently. “He told me yesterday that he would be coming around today. He said if we run into any problems at all, he would help out. He should be here soon.”  They looked at each other for a moment and Daniel broke into a smile. “Don't worry,” “he said calmly, but brightly. “I know everything is going to be fine.”           She couldn't tell whether he was delusional or if someone had lied to him about being a doctor. It didn't matter.   She needed more time to think. She was scared to death, shaken to the core and didn't want Daniel to see any of it. Even though his health seemed a little improved, but he was still very fragile. The last thing he needed now was a hard dose of reality. Annie closed her eyes for a second, then turned back to him smiling.           “It's so good to see you, Danny. You look much better today,” she said and gently stroked his hair for a few minutes. He smiled at her.  “Such a dear, dear soul,” she thought. “Probably the last person in the world who should be in combat.”           “Listen,” she said, “I am going outside to see if there is someone around that I can talk to, you know, to start to make the arrangements and things.” She patted him on the head. He nodded, closed his eyes and drifted away.           And that's the end of this episode, with things having gone from bad to worse. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened, and let's get together in the next one.

The last episode began a key segment of a story called, “The Better Angels – Lincoln, the Psychic and the Spy.” As a quick summary, it takes place in December of 1862; the Civil War is raging and a brutal battle has been fought that has been a devastating loss to the Union Army.           Annie Franklin, a nineteen-year-old, inexperienced girl, has traveled to Washington DC to apply for a furlough to be able to take her brother home for care. He has been seriously wounded in the battle and because the hospital is so overwhelmed and understaffed, the government is allowing injured soldiers to be taken away to be nursed back to health at home.           Annie has already gone to the field hospital and gotten the letter she needed from a doctor authorizing the release of her brother. The previous day, she had gone to the War Department and presented the letter to the appropriate officer who had told her that everything seemed to be in order and to come back the following day and she can pick up the furlough.           As the story continues, Annie has returned to the War Department, with the expectation of getting the furlough and bringing her brother back to Georgetown, where she is staying with some friends of the family. Once he is well enough to make the trip, she will take him back to their home in Connecticut.   *        *        *             At 4 pm the next day, Annie was eagerly sitting in the waiting room of Captain Lee's office with three other people. He called each one of them in before her, all of which took about a half hour. Finally, he waved at her, gesturing to come in.           Annie walked into his office and sat down in front of the desk.   Lee reached over to the ashtray, picked up the cigar which had gone out, lit it, and puffed for a few moments. “What a day,” he sighed. “What a day. So busy. Never seems to stop.” He took another long puff. “So - what can I do for you, Miss?”           Annie looked at him, a little surprised that he didn't seem to remember her or the reason for her visit.           “I am here to pick up the furlough for my brother. Remember? Daniel Franklin of the 14th Connecticut?”           “Oh, Franklin, sure, sure. I'm sorry,” he said and started shuffling through some papers. “What a day…” After a few moments, he stopped and stared at one particular paper. He picked it up and read it for a few moments.           “Oh, hmmm, this one...” he said somewhat sadly. He looked up, took off his glasses and stared at her. As he pulled a piece of tobacco off his lip, she couldn't help noticing how yellow his teeth were.           “Well, my dear, you see this one here, this was one of the ones we had a problem with today,” he coughed and took another puff from the cigar. “Yeah, there were a few, that well - we're not so sure of...”           “What?” Annie asked tentatively.           “Well, look, let's put it like this - there are a lot of people that have to give the approval on this kind of thing, and we hit a little snag. There's a delay. And to tell you the truth, I'm afraid this could go on for quite some time.” He put the paper back on the file and looked up at her. “Anyway, there will be no furlough issued on this one today,” he said officially.  “So sorry.”           Annie felt confused. Her emotions began to well up inside of her, but she stayed in control. “Sir, I don't understand. Yesterday you said that – “           “Look, Miss,” he cut her off, “it's obvious that you are new around here and you don't really know how things work.”  He gazed at her for an uncomfortably long moment. “Do you know what I mean?” he asked. Her expression was confused and he studied her face.  “No. Of course, you don't,” he said, answering her silence. Then he broke into an ingratiating smile.             “Listen, let's make this easy for both of us.  Do you like oysters? There's a great oyster bar around the corner and we could go there and talk things over. Personally, I could use a drink too. I don't know about you...”           Suddenly, he seemed to have a new expression on his face and Annie didn't know what to make of it. He got up from his desk, walked over to the office door and closed it. Then he came back and stood next to her chair. As she looked at him, she noticed the large ash that had fallen onto his Union jacket, and that he was engulphed by the smell of stale cigar smoke, like a skunk enshrouded by its own stench.           “Honey, like I said, I want to make this as easy for you as I can. I really do,” he continued in a conciliatory tone. “Now I don't usually do this, but you seem like a nice girl, maybe not all that experienced or knowledgeable in the ways of the world, but that kind of makes it better in a way,” he chuckled.           As Annie got more uncomfortable, she furtively glanced around the room and took a quick inventory of possible ways to get out. They were on the second floor, so the windows weren't an option, and the large office door immediately behind her was shut.             “Sir, I uh,” she started.           “Look,” he broke in. “There are only two things you really need to know at this point. First, I am in a very strong position here. In fact, I'm pretty much in charge. And believe me, I can get a lot done. I can really speed things up. Or I can slow them down.” He looked at her for a moment to see if he was getting through. He couldn't quite tell, but he decided to keep going.           “And the second thing is - well, to tell you the truth, I'm a little bit lonely, if you know what I mean.” He reached down and touched a curl of her hair that was resting on her shoulder. She didn't move a muscle. “Now I can help you and you can help me. It's really as simple as that. Actually, you could look at it as a gift of fate.”             “So, you come with me to the bar,” he continued, still fondling her hair. “We'll have dinner tonight. You'll like the food there, it's very good. Then after dinner, maybe something else might happen, and maybe it won't. That'll be up to me.           “But whatever does happen, I can promise you one thing. You do what I tell you, and your brother's furlough will be waiting on my desk for you by noon tomorrow,” he stopped. “Now could anything be any easier than that?”            The rancid air around him was sickening and as she kept breathing it, Annie felt a wave of nausea in the pit of her stomach. She slowly stood up and turned to face him. She could see the office door out of the corner of her eye. As he looked at her, she coughed a little.           “Sorry,” she said, still coughing. “I'm not usually around this much cigar smoke.” She opened her handbag as if to take out a handkerchief, but in the next instant, she ran over to the office door and opened it.            Her unexpected move took him by surprise. To her relief, they were not alone.  There were a few people sitting in the lobby. He rushed over, pressed his body against her and tightly gripped her upper arm. His hand felt like a vice and he seemed to be shaking a little           “Now don't get stupid, girly,” he muttered underneath his breath. “You see, you already made a big mistake - you got me mad, and I got a bad temper. But I'm also a forgiving man. I won't hold it against you. We can talk about it over dinner.”           “Let me go,” she hissed at him and tried to pull her arm away. The people in the lobby didn't seem to notice and he tightened his grip even more. Her arm started to go numb.           “Now you listen to me and you listen good. You say ‘no' to me and I promise you, your brother will rot and die in that goddamn stink hole in Alexandria. You don't know who you're talking to. I can fix it so no matter what you do, you'll never get a furlough for him from anyone in the War Department. I can do it and I swear to God I will. Now don't push me. Get your head together and wise up!”           “You let me go right now, or I'll scream,” she threatened, glaring at him.           “Alright,” he said, slightly louder. “Alright,” he repeated and gruffly let go of her arm.  “But you just remember one thing. I gave you a fair chance. I gave you a choice to make and you made it. And when your brother's dead, you selfish bitch, and you're standing there watching them lower his coffin into his grave, you just remember one thing – it was your own stupid, stubborn goddamn fault. You had your chance and you didn't take it. His blood is on your hands now.”           He rudely shoved her out the door into the hall. She straightened her dress and started walking away.  “Oh, by the way, honey,” he called after her. “You'll be back! And you know what? I'll be here waiting for you.” A wave of revulsion welled up in her stomach and feeling like she might throw up, she stopped for a moment to let it subside. Seeing her pause, with a softer, but still sinister tone, Lee said, “Remember this one thing. When you come to your senses and you realize what's best for your brother, you don't have to worry. I'll take you right way, I promise. And you're going to find a lot of comfort in that promise. I'll take you anytime you decide to see me again.” He stopped for a moment, then added, “And trust me, you will.” Still nauseous, Annie walked away.    Two hours later, she slipped into the Harrison's house and snuck up into her bedroom. But there was no sleep or even rest for her that night. She found herself in the depths of hell, fighting for life as relentless waves of despair and panic kept dragging her under.  What was she going to do now?           Tune in next time to find out because that's the end of this episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened, and let's get together in the next one.

As human beings, storytelling is not only one of our favorite forms of entertainment, it's also a critical part of how we learn. This universal trait goes back to the very dawn of civilization, and transcends all divisions of time, place and culture. We've been telling each other stories forever, and the probability is that it will be with us far into the future. Actually, a joke came out a few years ago that illustrates the point. A perfect computer had been created that had immediate access to all human knowledge and could answer complex questions in a user-friendly way. The first question it was asked was, “How does our intelligence actually work?” and it quickly responded, “Well, let me tell you a story about it.” So, from the caveman to the computer, it seems like past is prologue. Anyway, like everyone else, I've been fascinated with stories all my life, and at one point I found myself making a key career decision that was based on their inherent power. I was a Political Science major at American University in Washington, DC. It was my Junior year and I was one of two students who had been chosen to serve as an intern in the office of a United States Congressman. Instead of attending my usual classes, I worked on Capitol Hill four days a week, six hours a day for three and a half months. As you can imagine, it was a pretty exciting environment and I gained a tremendous amount of first-hand experience. But after getting such an up close look at what really goes on up there, when it was finally over, I decided to change my major from Political Science to Literature.           I'm sure I was oversimplifying it at the time, but it seemed to me that the whole place was running on an intoxicating mixture of ego and greed, spiked with a major dose of good, old-fashioned lust for power. It was the late sixties, my generation seemed to be coming alive with a quest for a greater life, and I didn't see how anything truly transformative was going to come from the world of that masquerade ball, which smelled like it was set up somewhere between a swamp and a cesspool. It seemed like literature held a much greater potential to foster the nobler essences of the human spirit so I decided to start focusing my attention there, and have been deeply involved in it ever since. One of the most unexpected and amazing stories I've ever worked on revolved around the deeply spiritual side of Abraham Lincoln. Although I had been a long-time fan of Lincoln, I had never been exposed to this side of him. I found it absolutely fascinating and decided to construct a dramatic story based on it. I thought it would make a great book and maybe even a movie someday.  I know… it's not a very novel idea.           Now, this is all kind of a roundabout way of introducing you to the next five episodes of the Stop Making Yourself Miserable podcast in which I am going to present two key chapters from that proposed book which is titled – “The Better Angels – Lincoln, the Psychic and the Spy.”  The jacket-cover blurb for it is: “During the Civil War, a young woman who is a gifted psychic, secretly channels for the Lincolns and becomes part of a private, White House inner circle. By chance, she meets a daring Union spy and as their romance begins to blossom, they unexpectedly discover a sinister plot to kill the President. They secretly join forces in a desperate attempt to thwart it.” Based on actual facts, it's a multi-layered story filled with history, intrigue and all mixed with a sense of the metaphysical which was extremely popular at the time. But at its root, it's a truly enthralling love story. In the excerpts that follow, the two main characters, who are the love interests of the story, meet each other for the first time. Annie Franklin is the 19-year-old talented psychic, and Charles Keane is the dashing, 27-year-old Union spy.   I think it you'll find the story well worth the ride, so let's begin with a little background. It is mid-December, 1862, a bitter time for the Union army. The gruesome battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia had just been fought, with two hundred thousand American soldiers gripped in a truly ferocious battle. It had been a major defeat for the Union, with a staggering 13,000 of their soldiers killed, including two generals, and another 10,000 left badly injured.    Not only was the Union army suddenly and seriously demoralized, its field hospitals were also utterly overwhelmed. Unable to properly care for all of the wounded, the government is now allowing the worst cases to return home for care. Annie Franklin's brother, Daniel, is lying in an enormous field hospital, very close to death. She has made the trip from her home in Connecticut to Washington DC to obtain a furlough for him and is staying at the home of some family friends in Georgetown.  She had visited Daniel at the hospital grounds two days earlier and had gotten the necessary release letter from an army doctor.  Now, all she needs to do is deliver it to the War Department, and the furlough will be issued.           Annie approaches the large office building in the nation's capital. Things have gone smoothly so far and now, she fully expects to bring Daniel home within days.  *        *        *             The War Department was located in a large annex building, not too far from the White House, and it took Annie almost an hour to make the trip from Georgetown. It was open to the public from 10 am to 3 pm daily, and although she had gotten there at 9:30, the place was already nearly a madhouse, packed with hundreds of people, fervently trying to get their various personal missions accomplished.            She had the name of Captain Ernest Lee, an assistant to the Under Secretary of War, who was in charge of logistics for the wounded at Fredericksburg. After wading through the tumult, she finally found Capt. Lee's office on the second floor, in a distant corner of the building. When she arrived, she was given a number and told to wait her turn. There seemed to be about 20 people in front of her.           She sat down on a bench, clutching the letter she had brought from an army surgeon stating that Daniel's condition was serious enough to warrant a furlough, and recommending it be issued immediately. Finally, after not moving for over two hours, she was ushered in to meet Captain Lee.           “Hello, Miss,” he said officiously. “Sorry for the wait, but as you can see, we are really busting at the seams here.”           There was a lit cigar in the ashtray on his desk giving off a thin, steady stream of smoke, filling the air with a rancid yellow haze. He sat down at his desk, picked up the cigar and took a few puffs. Annie stifled a cough, but unphased, the captain kept puffing away.           “So, what brings you here today?” he asked, his bloodshot eyes staring out at her over a pair of dark brown bags that hung under them.            “Sir, my brother is with the Connecticut regiment and he has been wounded,” Annie stammered, “badly wounded. I went to visit him yesterday. He doesn't seem to be healing right and -”           “I see,” Lee interrupted. “Sorry to be curt, Miss, but as you can tell, we are really backed up here. This whole thing is completely out of hand. Terrible battle, just terrible. A complete disaster.” He paused for a moment. “So, let me ask you, were you able to you get a letter from a doctor?”           “Oh yes,” Annie brightened up. “Oh yes indeed, I -”           “Let me see it if you don't mind,” he interrupted.           Annie handed him the letter. He put on a pair of wire spectacles and puffed on his cigar as he read it carefully. He looked like he was in his late forties, with a large mustache, offset by a stubbly growth of hair. It wasn't an actual beard.  He just hadn't shaved for a few days. After a few moments, he put the paper in a pile and looked up at her.           “Well, Miss, uh, Franklin, is it? I assume you have the same last name as your brother?”           “Yes sir,” Annie said.           “It looks to me like everything is pretty much in order here,” he said and smiled. “I just have to pass this through a set of approvals and then get the actual furlough issued. I should be able to have it finished by the end of the day tomorrow. Why don't you stop by here at around about four o'clock in the afternoon and I should have everything ready for you.”           “Oh, thank you, sir, that's so wonderful,” Annie sighed with relief. “But are you sure it will be alright for me to come then? I was told that they don't let the public in here after three.”           “Oh no, that's just a general rule for people bringing new business. Don't worry about it. Four will be fine for you. If anyone stops you, just tell them you have an appointment with Captain Lee. They'll understand. It will be fine,” he said, waving her out of the office. He pulled out a new paper and called for the next person to enter.           “Thank you, Captain. Thank you so much,” Annie shouted back to him as she walked away. He never looked up or acknowledged her at all. He was already on to the next case.  *        *        *   “Well, that wasn't too bad,” Annie thought to herself on the ride back to Georgetown. “It was a long wait, and it took a lot of patience, but the captain was kind and he said I can pick up the furlough tomorrow. Thank God, Daniel and I will finally be on our way home.”           As the carriage made a turn, they passed the White House, and she started thinking about all of the psychic messages she had gotten over the last few months, saying that it was urgent for her to travel to Washington and meet with President Lincoln. The readings said that there was certain critical information that had to be delivered to him immediately, which could alter the course of the war and change history itself. She had been promised that all would go well if she just went to see him. But she had deep resistance to the idea. Interest in Spiritualism, with its emphasis on channelings through mediums, had swept through the country like wildfire since the early 1850s and there were large Spiritualist newspapers in every major city in America. But a legion of charlatans had sprung up as well, and it had gotten worse since the war had intensified, with grieving relatives willing to pay anything to contact their departed loved ones. It was easy pickings and phony quacks trying to cash in seemed to be popping up everywhere. And now, the spirit guides she channeled were telling her that she had to go present herself to Mr. Lincoln. She had been a sickly child and had very little schooling, so the idea of an uneducated nineteen-year-old girl who could barely read or write, telling the President that she had important information for him, seemed completely preposterous. She kept refusing to go, sure that she would be dismissed as some kind of lunatic. But at the end of a recent reading, she had been told that it was so important Lincoln receive this particular information that somehow, some way, she would be brought in to meet him face to face, regardless of what she thought.  As the White House disappeared from view, she put the idea of trying to see him out of her mind, for the thousandth time. She had come to Washington to take care of Daniel. That was her focus and it finally seemed to be going well.           When she got to the Harrison's front door, she stood outside for a moment and looked around at the stately Georgetown neighborhood. She had never seen anything like it. Actually, she had never been more than 30 miles from her home before. Now, suddenly she was in the nation's capital and the trip had opened her up to an entirely different world. But as stimulating as it was, she still couldn't wait to leave. Seeing all the poor, wounded soldiers in the field hospital had been devastating, and she just wanted to get Daniel out of there and back home, safe and sound. She took a breath and looked around optimistically. After delivering the doctor's letter to the officer at the War Department who looked at it with an approving eye, it seemed like she had real hope that Daniel's life could be saved. With that, this part of the story comes to a close, to be continued. But as the saying goes, “Strap on your seatbelt. It's going to be a bumpy ride...” And that's the end of this episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind, and heart opened, and let's get together in the next one.

I hope all is well with you and that you are enjoying the coming onset of spring. This is just a quick announcement to let you know that the Stop Making Yourself Miserable podcast will be going on a short, two-week spring break.           For me, early spring is always a poignant time, when once again I get to witness the magnificent transformation of nature.  And it always reminds me to try to stop the process of constantly taking things for granted, which seems to be a basic human tendency with some very deep roots. Someone once said that when it comes to all the positive things in our lives, we're like Teflon. We seem to let our good feelings slip away from us, like a buttered omelet sliding off a non-stick pan. But when it comes to the negative ones, forget it. We're like Velcro, clinging to that nasty negativity with a stubborn tenacity that defies all logic. I guess when you get down to it, it's all based on fear, along with its trusty sidekick, ignorance which, by the way, is derived from the concept of ignoring something. Now that brings up an intriguing question – Are we ignoring something positive that could stimulate a major, spring-like transformation in our lives? Could it be the miracles that are happening around us and within us, on a constant, 24/7 basis?           To me, the question reminds me of the basic process of breathing, which is at the very foundation of life for us. We all know this. No breath – no life.           So, what does the process of breathing have to do with the miracle of spring?  Well look at it this way, our inhalation brings us oxygen and with our exhalation we release deadly toxic waste. So, we each inhale life and exhale death about 22,000 times every day.           And this process of breathing is every bit as miraculous as the rebirth of spring. After all it's a phenomenon that can't be explained or understood by science. Call it a gift, call it a miracle, or call it anything you like, the truth is, the process of breathing defies all human understanding.           And even though we are basically unaware of it and take it completely for granted, on a subtle, yet profound level, you could say that are each reborn 22,000 times a day. Wow – 22,000 miracles a day! Can you imagine what life would be like if you could tap into having real gratitude for even just a fraction of that, let alone the whole thing?           So, I guess the basic idea for me is to enjoy this happy season and see if I can become a little more grateful and appreciative for the gift of life. And maybe I can even flip that Teflon/Velcro thing around, and have the positive stick to me like Velcro, while I let the Teflon part of my awareness allow any and all negativity to slide right off of me like water off a duck's back.           Sounds like a good idea, and I'm going to give it a shot. And of course, I wish it for you as well. So in the meantime, Happy Spring, and let's get back in touch soon…

I've always been amazed by the fact that there are genius levels of human intelligence that are far beyond the ordinary. Some people seem to be born with remarkable talents and capabilities that the rest of us clearly don't have. That's not to say that these people don't need to work and practice to perfect their skills. They clearly do. Still, they possess brilliant talents that are far above those of the average person.           Take music for example. My mother was a real lover of classical music. She attended concerts regularly and had a great collection of records that she would play in our house all the time. And without question, I knew that her fondest hope for me was that I would become a concert pianist, not that I had ever shown any talent or the slightest bit of interest in it.           Still, she made sure that I took piano lessons every week for about six years, until the painfully obvious became painfully obvious, and she finally let me quit.  On some level though, I've always been kind of sorry about it and I've tried to pick it up every now and then. I've even taken a few lessons here and there but still, all I can do is play a few basic scales and bang out a couple of elementary songs, and that's it. As a result of all this, to say that I have the keyboard finesse of an aging chimpanzee would be more kind than accurate.            So, it always makes me wonder - what's the story with these geniuses, who are able to play as if the music is pouring out of their very soul. They perform these outrageously difficult compositions by heart, without reading any music at all. In a state of pure inspiration, they don't even open their eyes half of the time and yet, these magnificent melodies flow out of them in perfect timing and sequence, seemingly with no effort at all. It just boggles the mind. If you want to see a truly amazing example of this, watch Leonard Bernstein conduct the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at Lincoln Center in 1976, performing Rhapsody in Blue. The multi-talented maestro conducts the fifty-piece orchestra while he performs as the piano soloist at the same time. I've probably watched it over twenty times and I still can hardly believe my eyes and ears. But this astounding manifestation of genius intelligence also has two other forms of it that are just as hard for me to grasp. They are child prodigies and polymaths. We've had child prodigies among us for many centuries. For some inexplicable reason, certain young children manifest extremely advanced talent and abilities at a very early age, and no one has been able to figure out why this happens. Probably the most famous prodigy in musical history was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.           By age five, he was already extremely competent on the violin and piano and he began composing music. At six, he embarked on a three-year career, playing before the crowned heads of Europe. Can you imagine that? Think about what you were like at that age.  By six I had memorized the theme song to the Mickey Mouse Club and my parents probably thought I was a genius because of it.             Anyway, there have been child prodigies in dozens of different fields including math, science and the visual arts, but it's still pretty rare. The current thinking is that it's only a one-in-ten-million phenomenon. And staying within the realm of music, even though it's quite a stretch from Mozart, Stevie Wonder was clearly one of them, as well.    Born six weeks premature, he went blind from having too much oxygen in his incubator. Still, in his early childhood he taught himself how to play the piano, harmonica and drums and along with his powerful singing voice, signed his first recording contract in 1961 at age eleven. Since then, he has won far too many awards to list here, including, twenty-five Grammies, eight Honorary Doctorates, an Academy Award and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And in all this time, he hasn't slowed down a bit.             Now, let's go on to the polymath, which is another manifestation of intelligence that I just can't fathom.  Simply put, these are people who are able to excel in several different fields, which are often completely unrelated.  Some of the most famous ones have been Leonardo da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. But there have been other, quite surprising ones as well.  I was pretty amazed when I found out that Danny Kaye, the famous performer from the golden age of movies and TV, was one of them. He was an extraordinarily gifted actor, singer, and dancer. But it turns out that his genius as an entertainer was just the tip of the iceberg. He was also an expert jet pilot who flew his own plane. He owned a Lear Jet and flew it to sixty-five different countries, mainly on UNICEF tours for the United Nations. In addition, he spoke eleven different languages and although he couldn't read a note of music, he was a talented conductor of symphony orchestras and spent fifteen years giving benefit performances with the finest orchestras in the world including the National Symphony, the Boston Symphony and the New York Philharmonic.   He was also a bit of a sports nut. He was a single digit golfer who grew up a die-hard Brooklyn Dodgers fan. And as a lifelong lover of baseball, as well as a savvy businessman, he was one of the founders of the Seattle Mariners.           But that's not all. He was also a master chef, particularly in Chinese and French cuisine and he is still the only non-professional chef to ever be awarded France's highest culinary award, which is bestowed by the Sorbonne.            And finally, and probably the most unexpected, he was an honorary member of the American College of Surgeons as well as the American Academy of Pediatrics. He had always wanted to be a doctor, but his family couldn't afford  higher education, so he went into show business instead. Still, he always maintained his serious interest on medicine.           But it went a little further than that. He was close friends with the heart surgeon who performed history's first coronary bypass. He would observe operations, which they would later discuss in great detail. “Danny has had no medical training, but he knows his way around an operating room” the doctor said. “He's so intelligent he picks up immediately what he has observed.”           This was all absolutely remarkable to me because I had been aware of Danny Kaye as an entertainer for many years, but had never heard about all of his other abilities.           When it comes to observing this kind of extraordinary talent, I had a similar experience when I ran across someone who was a child prodigy, but was also a budding polymath as well. It happened when I was beginning to explore the world of personal growth, which was really just a by-product of having been a die-hard Beatles fan for over a decade.   Capturing global attention, the Fab Four had gotten into meditation in 1968 and had been studying under a teacher named the Maharishi, who was a classical Indian guru, with flowing white robes and a long, grey beard.   Like the millions of other Beatles devotees throughout the world, I basically mirrored whatever they did, so I started practicing the same form of meditation. But I wasn't very sincere about it and after a couple of months, I stopped. Then, a few years later, a friend told me that he had started practicing a deeper form of meditation that was doing him a lot of good. A little while later, he told me that the teacher of that meditation, who was supposed to be a major authority on inner growth, was coming to Philadelphia to give a talk about it. It sounded interesting until he told me that the teacher was only fourteen years old. I don't remember what my exact reaction was, but I'm pretty sure I burst out laughing because it seemed ridiculous on the face of it. I mean the Beatles' guy looked like he was in his mid-eighties and this kid was barely a teenager. What could he know about the evolution of higher consciousness? Out of deference to my friend, I decided to do a little research and I learned to my surprise that in the East, this kind of thing does happen from time to time. There were child prodigies who were renowned spiritual teachers.   There was Sri Ramakrishna, a globally respected teacher during the mid-1800s, who had been recognized as a spiritual master at the age of nine. His successor, Swami Vivekananda, was recognized in the same way at age of nineteen. And the current Dalai Lama assumed the full authority of his role when he was fifteen years old.  As an aside, in our culture, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became a fully ordained minister at nineteen.           Anyway, this fourteen-year-old teacher was named Prem Rawat, and when I went to hear him speak at the Irvine Auditorium of the University of Pennsylvania, I found him to be surprisingly impressive. There was a calm, but extremely powerful presence about him, and he seemed to really know what he was talking about. I observed him rather carefully from the time he entered the prestigious auditorium until he left, and perceived nothing about him that had anything to do with his age whatsoever. Rather than seeming like a young teenager, he had the presence of a secure adult about him. In fact, he seemed to be the most centered individual I had ever seen. But there was also a subtle, yet clearly present joyfulness about him that seemed foundational to his being. Again, it was quite impressive. By the way, as far as being a child prodigy is concerned, he had been in this teaching mode for quite some time.  He had begun his work at the age of four and started meditating at six. At the age of nine, he became the recognized teaching authority to several hundred thousand Indian meditators. But there's also a profound element about being a teacher of inner growth that I found to be most intriguing. It's different from being a genius in art, music or science because in those realms, you can tell if someone is truly a master of their craft just by observing their work. You look at the art, listen to the music or watch the dance, and you can quickly get a sense of how good they are.           But with a teacher of inner growth, it's quite different, because the purpose of the teaching isn't just to entertain and inspire you, it's to actually help you expand and grow your own consciousness. And the only way you can tell if the teacher is truly a master of the craft is by the actual experiences you start having within your own awareness. And this is not just in the short-term. It pertains to the long-term as well.  Are you continually growing beyond where you were? Are you becoming kinder and more compassionate?  Are you feeling more connected to the larger and higher consciousness? You have to determine all this for yourself. It doesn't matter what anyone says, what matters is what's going on inside of you. Along these lines, that night at Penn, Prem made a statement that I still remember. He said if you find his information to be helpful, then enjoy it. If not, then immediately leave it and move on.            So, as a child prodigy, I found him to be most impressive, but surprisingly, he was also blossoming into becoming a polymath as well. Over the years that followed, while his primary focus was always on teaching meditation and inner growth, his considerable other talents spread out into seemingly unrelated fields.   For instance, in the aviation world alone, his accomplishments are truly noteworthy. He is a fully licensed jet pilot, with tens of thousands of hours of flight time, and was one the youngest pilot in aviation history to be certified to fly a certain sophisticated jet aircraft. He is also a helicopter pilot and a veteran helicopter instructor as well. More down to earth, he is also a master car mechanic and one of his hobbies is the total restoration of antique automobiles, of which he has completed several. In addition, he is also a prolific photographer on a professional level, and several of his photographs are hung in galleries around the world. On top of all this, as an author, his recent book on personal growth is a New York Times best seller. And on the lighter side, he is a tremendous chef and has been approached a few times to host a cooking show. And get this last one - he writes his own computer code and is a master programmer. For some reason, to me that one really takes the cake. After using a computer for over forty years, I still have absolutely no idea how they work. Well, so much for geniuses, prodigies and polymaths. In essence, as impressive as they are, this episode isn't really about just listing their incredible accomplishments. It's really about the fact that they exist at all and what that says about human intelligence, and our possible potential.    For starters, it puts things into perspective. If they're only one in ten million, then the nine million, nine hundred thousand, nine hundred and nine of the rest of us have an opened door to feeling truly humble. We've all heard the phrase - a jack of all trades but a master of none. Well as far as I'm concerned, I'm not even one of the jacks. Still, to close, here are a couple of quick, rather optimistic things to consider.    First, neuroscience believes that within the next hundred years, we will find methods that will enhance our intelligence exponentially, taking us into levels of existence that are inconceivable to us now. According to them, we all have genius potential within us and as the brain sciences evolve, we will find ways to bring it into the forefront. And they also say that we all possessed genius intelligence through the age of five, so in one way or another, we were all child prodigies. And finally, the essence of our intelligence shows that we are all inherently positive beings, biased to the highest. And that is revealed by the simple fact that we have a finite capacity for suffering and pain, while we each have an infinite capacity for happiness and joy. I don't know about you, but all of this inspires a great deal of hope in me. So that will be the end of this episode. As always, keep your eyes mind and heart opened, and let's get together in the next one.

In the last episode, we took a look at our mind's built-in propensity for doubt, which is critical to the healthy functioning of our intelligence. Without it, we simply could not progress. Used in the right amount, for the right reasons, at the right time and in the right way, doubt can produce incredibly positive results. For example, doubt is at the very root of the scientific method, which has been largely responsible for most of the extraordinary advancements that we've made over the last four hundred years.   This method, based on logic first began in 1610, when Galileo doubted the Church's position that the sun revolved around the earth. He got in serious trouble for it, but after refining his telescope, it was obvious to him that his position was true, despite the superstitious, inaccurate religious dogmas of the day.   So, that's an example of the positive use of doubt. But it's important to remember that it can also be truly a double-edged sword, and on the negative side, it can be utterly catastrophic. Unbridled doubt bonded to negative feelings like anger, guilt and fear can drive us to act against our own best interests, doing and saying irrational things that we would never do if we were in our right mind. Now we're going take the idea of doubt a step deeper by examining self-doubt, which can be one of the most insidious inner challenges we ever have to face. The dictionary defines self-doubt as a simple lack of faith in one's self, a basic loss of self-confidence, which may not sound like much at first, but it's a poisonous seed that can viciously grow like wildfire.     An easy way to examine it is to break it down into three basic parts; let's look at some of the harm that self-doubt can do, followed by a brief summary of its root causes. And then, we'll go into a couple of simple ways to grow beyond it. So, what kind of harm can self-doubt do to us? First of all, on a personal level, it can cause significant damage to our self-esteem, which hinders our creativity as well as our productivity, bringing on a mountain of regret and self-pity. Over time, it begins to block our overall inner growth, especially in the key areas of emotional, psychological, and spiritual wellness. All of this leads to a general weakening of our will, which can cause major problems in every single area of our lives. As you continually encounter loss of faith in yourself, it can become hard to do anything to the best of your ability. In fact, it can become hard to do anything at all.  Eventually, you don't even want to try anymore. The causes of this condition are relatively well-known. One of the major contributing factors is the way our mind was formed during our childhood, which established the basis of our overall self-image. Along with that, past negative experiences that we've had, including major mistakes we have made over the years are two other extremely significant factors.   While there are many more, they all lead to the one basic bottom line of self-doubt, which is plain, old-fashioned fear of failure. Self-doubt and fear of failure go to together like fire and gasoline – a perfect combination if your goal is to destroy everything in sight. And then there's one final factor to consider that makes it all much more destructive, and that is our propensity to compare ourselves to others, which is something we do all the time. We've inherited this stubbornly annoying trait from our society and for the most part, it does us absolutely no good. Of course, regardless of all this, many people do achieve success. But that's not the end of the game because at that point, you may have to deal with another form of self-doubt called the Imposter Syndrome. It's almost a subconscious feeling that no matter what you have achieved, you still feel that you don't really deserve it. On a very deep level, you believe you're a fraud. You're not as good as you seem. Maybe you just got lucky and success came to you in spite of your inadequacies.  And with this insidious little seed planted in your mind, you run around hiding your fear that one day people will realize that you're an imposter, and everything will quickly fall apart. This syndrome is just self-doubt, in a sophisticated disguise that's hard to spot. Now the good news is that while all of this can present us with a wide variety of problems, it can also help open the door to a higher realm of being. Wisdom traditions from around the world all teach that to truly grow into higher awareness, you have to be at peace with two fundamental factors concerning our human existence. They may seem off-putting at first, but once you begin to grasp them, they can become quite liberating. The first factor is that we are all mortal. We are all going to die at some point and on the deepest level, we all know it. And no one has any guarantee about their lifespan. The end can come at any time and we have no control over it whatsoever. Like it or not, that's just the way it is. The second factor is that even though we probably don't realize it, we are always operating on incomplete information. Experts tell us that we can never have access to the complete and total picture of anything regarding our life at any time. And unlike our mortality, which we all know comes with the territory, most of us don't have a clue about this. And it's because of a very fundamental reason - we just don't know what we don't know. And we can't know it until we find it out.   So in light of all this, no matter how logical our plans may be, they are all essentially just our best guess. And a lot of times, we're functioning on assumptions that are no longer valid. One extreme example of this is the position I was in at 8 pm on Friday night December 3, 1965. I was driving to pick up my girlfriend. We were going to a big party where all of my eleventh-grade friends would be. It was sure to be a great night and I had the whole thing planned out. But at that moment, something critical had happened, but I hadn't heard about it yet. About a half an hour earlier, my father had dropped dead from a massive heart attack and I was just about to get the news. So at that particular moment, my plans were based on information that was no longer valid, but I didn't know that I didn't know. Of course, it turned out to be a very different night from what I had planned. Turned out to be a very different life, as well. So, with this knowledge that we are mortal and always operating on incomplete information, and that these two conditions can never change, it's no wonder that we encounter self-doubt in all of its varying forms. So, the next logical question is, what are we going to do about it? Well, again going back to the world's wisdom traditions, the first thing we need to do is just accept it. Realistically speaking, we have no other choice. And this acceptance leads us to a remarkably powerful inner state called true humility, which in turn, leads to true wisdom. Amazingly, for some reason your heart starts to lightens up a little and eventually, you rise up to meet your challenges once again.  With this in mind, let me share with you two quick stories which I have found to be quite illuminating.  The first one is about a dear old friend of mine named Tim Gallwey. If the name sounds familiar it's probably because he is the author of the “Inner Game of Tennis,” which is still the most popular sports psychology book of all time. And Tim is still widely regarded as the father of sports psychology.           This very brief story is about how the Inner Game came to be. Tim was the captain of the Harvard tennis team and at a big match, he went to rush the net and blew the point by hitting the ball into it. It was a self-inflicted wound, and on his way back to make the next serve, he was screaming at himself. “You stupid idiot. How could you have blown that shot? What the hell is the matter with you? Come on man, get it together. You had that point and you blew it!”           At that moment he got hit with an epiphany. “Who's talking to who?” he asked himself. “This is all going on within my own mind. I'm me. Why does it sound like there's two of me in there. Why am I saying you blew it, when I'm the you I'm talking to.” This enlightening moment launched his exploration into the world of the inner game, as he developed the idea of Self One and Self-Two, the thinker and the doer.   I met Tim a few years later, as we had both gotten involved with a form of meditation that was being taught by Prem Rawat, an internationally accepted authority on inner growth.   Tim was getting quite a bit of inspiration from this teacher, and he told me that he felt that Prem was the most creatively intelligent person he had ever met. I found that to be pretty impressive because Prem happened to be only fourteen years old at the time, and Tim was about the most intelligent and talented person I had ever met. So, here was this genius captain of the Harvard tennis team absorbing deep life lessons from a fourteen-year-old Indian teacher. I'll talk a little more about Prem in a later episode.           Anyway, for our purposes here, it's important to understand that there is an inner critic within our own mind which seems to have taken up permanent residency there, and self-doubt isn't its only stock in trade. It's responsible for the constant stream of negative garbage that goes on in our minds, day-in, day-out, twenty-four seven. Anyway, that's is the way it is for me. If you have it any better with your inner critic, more power to you..           Now, here's the second brief story to consider and it also comes from the world of sports. I was watching an interview with one of the greatest modern golfers of all time. He had won over a hundred tournaments including several majors and had been inducted into the Hall of Fame, so this guy was no joke.                  Anyway, this great golfer said that every single time he stands over the ball and prepares to swing, the same thought pops into his head, “I can't do this,” he says to himself. Then he takes a breath and hits the shot anyway. And most of the time the results are tremendous.           Then he said that after a while, a second thought started coming into his mind before hit the ball.  He would think, “I can't do this.” And then he would instantly think, “Oh yeah? Just watch me.”             So, these two stories deliver a profound message to me. From Tim's, we learn that we have this inner critic within, and self-doubt just happens to be one of the dark cards it plays. But we have a more trustworthy voice in there as well. And from the golfer's story we learn that the inner critic is probably never going to go away. I mean, here was one of the greatest golfers in the world thinking the same thought every single time he gets ready to hit the ball, “I can't do this.” But that voice doesn't have to have the last say. Immediately, the next thought arises, “Oh yeah, just watch me.” And he hits the ball. He challenges the challenger and goes on to win tournament after tournament. And remember, this is a pro, so he's winning millions of dollars as well. Personally, I get a lot out of this. With the inner critic and the voice of self-doubt, I'm not overly troubled by the fact that it always seems to be there. And I'm not worrying too much about whatever it has to say. Trying to engage with it always seems to take me down a pretty dark rabbit hole.               So, there's a road ahead of me that is filled with opportunity as well as with challenges. I'm sure it's that way for each one of us. Maybe we think thoughts like - I can never let go of my anger and fear. I can never get beyond the terrible guilt I have for everything I've done so wrong. I can't evolve beyond all this and merge into my greater self. I can't realize my greater potential as a human being and I'll never fulfill my best destiny.           But maybe it's time to start doubting the doubter and maybe it's time to begin trusting the trustworthy. And when the inner critic says, “I can't do this,” maybe we should just roll up our sleeves, put our foot down and say, “Oh yeah? Just watch me.!” So this is a good place to end this episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind, and heart open and let's get together in the next one.  

It's really hard to grasp what America was like in late 1973 if you didn't live through those times. For one thing, the country was in the process of falling apart. The unprecedented scandal of Watergate was starting to reach a boiling point, the executive branch of the US government was coming unhinged from the top down and nobody knew what was going to happen next.           Somehow, it all seemed like an extension of the earlier national nightmare that had begun with the escalation of the war in Vietnam, which became deeply unpopular.  Tens of thousands of US soldiers were dying for no apparent reason, as the enemy posed no discernable threat to America. Massive protests were taking place constantly and finally, things began to change. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came out firmly against the war and a few months later, Senator Robert Kennedy announced his opposition to it he launched his candidacy for president.             Then, on April 4, 1968, Dr. King was assassinated. And just sixty-four days later, Senator Kennedy met the same brutal fate. They were both extremely popular iconic figures in American culture, deeply compassionate, powerful leaders who represented the hope for a brighter, more enlightened future for the country. And they were young as well, which was deeply meaningful to the 76 million Baby Boomers in the population. Although they had accomplished so much in their lifetimes, King was only 39 and Kennedy was only 42. Then, with a couple of tragic flashes of gunfire, to our extreme shock and dismay, both Martin and Bobby were suddenly gone, and the two strongest voices for peace and sanity in the country had been silenced.   Predictably, the war kept escalating and the student protests continued to increase. Then the Kent State Massacre happened, when four unarmed college kids were gunned down in cold blood by the Ohio National Guard. The country went into complete chaos and things went rapidly downhill from there. Fear and confusion became the new American way of life. Eventually things seemed to normalize out for a while, but then the treachery and darkness of Watergate, with its resulting severe constitutional crisis took it all to a whole new level. Again, if you didn't live through these events, you can't imagine how disconcerting and deeply traumatic it was, as it all played out in real time.             But there was also something else happening during those days that is just as hard to grasp from today's perspective. Almost as if it was the opposite end of the spectrum, an enormous interest in personal growth was rapidly spreading throughout the country as well. It had been prompted by the Beatles' trip to India to study meditation, which also happened in 1968 and it continued growing exponentially from there.   By early 1974, the search for inner peace and consciousness evolution seemed to be everywhere. And given the metaphysical events that had happened to me around the sudden death of my father, which shook my world to its very core, it made sense that I found myself travelling down this newfound road towards self-discovery. In those days, I was entering into my second year of living in a meditation ashram, which was a modern American version of basic monastic living. We practiced meditation two to three hours a day and attended lectures on a nightly basis. We had about thirty people under the age of thirty, living together communally, and the rules of the house were no meat, no fish, no eggs, no sex, no dope, no booze. You can imagine what that was like.             We also had information meetings that were open to the public, which regularly drew hundreds of people who were interested in inner growth. As a result of these meetings, there was a constant influx of new practitioners.           I was one of three leaders who helped guide things along. I was about to turn twenty-five years old and had been practicing meditation for almost two years, so I was considered to be one of the senior members of the community, which should tell you a lot about a lot of things. Anyway, something a little quirky happened to me around then that unexpectedly left quite a deep impression on me. I was serving as a counselor to new meditators, helping them get acclimated to the practice. I had about ten people that I was meeting with individually on a regular basis. One of them was a young college professor who seemed to be in his late twenties. His name was Leo and he was extremely intelligent in a rather witty, but somewhat shy kind of way. There was also a young lady who claimed she was over twenty-one, but everybody thought that was a bit of a stretch. Her name was Peggy and she worked in a nearby doughnut shop. She later confided in me that she had never done well in school and felt lucky that she even graduated high school.           One day, during my meeting with the college professor, I couldn't help but notice that he seemed completely blissed out of his mind. I knew that the meditation we were practicing had the power to elevate your awareness and help you feel inner peace but out of nowhere, this guy was completely off the charts. Finally, he told me that he had fallen deeply in love and was basically over the moon from it. Now I had been around the block a few times myself and was now living the life of a monastic, so I had my reservations about it, but I kept them to myself. Whatever he was into certainly seemed to be making him incredibly happy, so who was I to say anything about it?             A couple of days later, I had my meeting with Peggy from the doughnut shop, and it was immediately obvious that something wonderful was happening to her as well. After a little while, she blurted out that she had fallen in love and had never been so happy, which certainly explained the bright smile that lit up her face and the light that kept pouring out of her eyes. She was a nice kid and I felt good for her.           For some reason, I just didn't put two and two together, but a few days later, to my complete surprise, I found out that Peggy and Leo were going together. The college professor and the girl from the doughnut shop had fallen in love. Apparently, they had met at a meditation meeting and sparks started flying immediately.  After a couple of quick coffees, the magnetic attraction had taken hold and now they were in the midst of the great love affair of their lives.           And naturally, they both started confiding in me. Leo said, “She tells me that I'm sexier than any of the younger guys in her crowd. And she says that making love with me is the best sex she's ever had in her life. She can't believe how great it is,” he stopped for a moment, then sounding like he was describing a magnificent dreamscape, he added, “I never knew life could be like this.”           A couple of days later, I sat down with Peggy. “He tells me that not only am I the most beautiful girl he's ever seen, I'm actually smarter than any of the students he teaches,” she gushed. She literally looked like she was about to bust a gut from glee. “He gives me books to read, we discuss them and he loves my comments. Can you imagine that? I'm sitting there talking to a real college professor who thinks I'm smart. I can't believe it. And my God, what great sex we're having. I have to tell you; I feel like the heavens have opened up for me.”           Well, I was impressed to say the least. I hadn't seen two people this happy in years. Sure, the age difference was pretty big, not to mention the gap in their intellectual backgrounds. But hey, crazier things have happened and who knows, maybe love does conquer all.           Well, it went on like that for about a month and then I'll bet you can guess what came along next. One day Peggy came in to see me. She looked like she was in the middle of a deep sense of disappointment mixed with a much deeper sense of relief.           “I finally had to get away from Leo,” she told me. “I couldn't take it anymore. The guy's just a stick in the mud. He never wanted to do anything but stay home, and when I could get him to go out, he was a total drag.” She stopped and took a breath.  “All of my friends thought he was a real creep, too. He was obviously way too old for me. I mean, after a while, I felt like I was going out with a friend of my dad's. What the hell was I thinking? Thank God it's over.”           We both had an “isn't life strange?” kind of laugh about it and I prepared myself for my next meeting with Leo, which took place a few days later. I was hoping that she hadn't broken his heart, but as soon as I saw him, it was obvious that he was every bit as happy to be done with Peggy as she was to be done with him. Probably more so.           “You know what,” he said. “At first, I thought it was just the circumstances that she had grown up under, but after a little while, I had to accept the fact that she just didn't have it upstairs. And let me tell you something, that's really a nice way of putting it. Believe me, I'm being kind.” He looked like someone who had just made a narrow escape from a torture chamber. “You know what?” he continued. “There's a reason people end up working in a donut shop. The girl has the IQ of a salamander.”            I certainly felt relieved for him that he hadn't had his heart broken, and I was happy that they were both walking away from it unscathed. Of course, it wasn't totally unexpected because it had been so incongruous from the very beginning. But still, it gave me a lot to chew on. For one thing, they had both seemed so extraordinarily happy that I could have sworn it was based on something real.           But after I gave it a little more thought, it was obvious that it had just been an extremely powerful infatuation.  They fallen into the romance trance, where you temporarily lose sight of your new partner's shortcomings. You're on such a high from what's going on that just don't notice anything negative. But sooner or later, you open your eyes and come back to reality.           The explanation made perfect sense, but I felt intuitively that there was more to it than just that. The ecstatic joy they were experiencing was just too powerful to be limited to that bubble of infatuation, and then it became clear. They each had a deep-seated psychological issue and they were providing each other with some much-longed for and much needed relief.           Leo was in his late twenties, and suddenly this pretty, young woman who was twenty-one if you were willing to stretch the truth, was attracted to him. It soothed his fears that he was getting old and gave him proof that even though he was about to break the scary age barrier of turning thirty, he still had the goods. In short, it brought back his confidence and made him feel young.           And Peggy was also an open book. She had been told she was stupid her whole life and besides being the object of a lot of sexual attraction, nobody ever took her seriously on any other level. Now she was suddenly on par with an actual college professor. They were reading books together and having deep talks. And he was telling her that she was much smarter than the students in any of his classes.  And suddenly, a bright light went on in her head and she thought, “Hey, you know what? Maybe I'm not so dumb after all.”   It was a deep point for me to contemplate. The relief of having your psychological problems resolved, although it may be a deeply pleasurable experience, is not the same thing as experiencing true happiness. Getting relief from being unhappy is not the same thing as actually being happy. It may seem subtle, but saints and sages throughout the ages have told us that they're very different. To make real progress, your awareness has to grow and you have to elevate your consciousness, because if you don't evolve into a more enlightened being, although you're going to be greatly relieved when your big problem is resolved, you're just going to create another one that's going to put you right back into the same trap. So that's a look back at a couple of interesting things that I found myself involved with just about fifty years ago. And one thing I can tell you from my perspective, although the times change, the scenes change and the characters come and go, the lessons remain the same. And I'm still trying to learn them. My deepest hope at this point in time, after all this study and all this practice, is that I just may be starting to scratch the surface. But on an infinite path that's loaded with happiness, peace, love, joy and fulfillment - what difference does any of that make?  Well, this seems like a good place to end this episode. As always, keep your eyes mind and hearts open, and let's get together in the next one.

We've all heard the famous phrase, “Do as I say, not as I do.,” and many people take it to be a sure sign of duplicity.  Why should I listen to what a person is telling me to do if he or she isn't doing it themselves? It seems purely hypocritical, and a lot of times it is.            But there can also be some other circumstance for it as well. For example, the person may be telling me to follow his instructions, not his actions, because he is imperfect and makes mistakes. So, he tells me not to model myself after him because of his own shortcomings.  Although his advice is good and his guidance holds true, his actions don't always show it. I ran into another situation concerning a “do what I say, not what I do,” statement several years ago, that surprised me, when I was taking a round of golf lessons. By way of context, I've always been a fairly decent athlete, especially in the American schoolyard sports of basketball, baseball and football. But I'm a pretty pathetic golfer and I've been that way forever. Indeed, the idea of ever being able to achieve mediocrity seems like a distant dream on a hill to me. But I'm not alone. I've got millions of fellow duffers out on the links with me, and comedian Larry David is one of them. He once said that to be good at golf you have to have a knack for it. Then he added, “And I'm knack-less.” Same here, but for some reason I just keep on trying, although I can't seem to get any better at it. But I can't seem to give it up either.           Anyway, I had taken a couple of lessons from this one instructor who was a really good player. He had won several local tournaments and had almost made the junior professional tour a few years back. In my first two lessons he had taught me a great deal about some basic fundamentals - how to grip the club, align yourself to the target, and take your stance.           For this next lesson, I had gotten to the range a little early. The pro was on a tee, hitting a few short shots and I watched him practice for a while. He was barely paying any attention to what he was doing, just hitting shot after shot, and they were all perfect. It looked pretty cool, so I started doing the same thing at the next tee. Suddenly he looked up and saw me and stopped short.           “Hey! What are doing? Don't do that!” he shouted. He seemed perturbed, which surprised me.  “I'm hitting like this just to work on my rhythm, but you're not ready for this. You're nowhere near it. I'm just smoothing out my flow, but it took me years of practice to get here. You don't even have the first part of the fundamentals down.” He went back to his routine, hitting perfect shot after perfect shot, with seemingly no effort at all and no focus on anything but the rhythm of his swing.           “Everybody wants to hit the long ball. Everybody wants to win the gold cup. But nobody wants to work on the fundamentals.” he said as he kept hitting. “People always say - Practice makes perfect, but be careful. That's a dangerous half-truth. Practice makes perfect only if you are practicing the right thing. Keep practicing the wrong thing and you'll just keep digging yourself into a deeper and deeper hole.” He stopped and looked me in the eye. “So do what I told you to do and don't try to copy me at this point. Focus on the fundamentals. If you don't learn them, you'll always be lost no matter how hard you try.”           So, this was truly a different kind of “do as I say, not as I do” moment because if I did what he was doing instead of what he had been saying, it would have caused me far more harm than good. According to him, I had to get the fundamentals down before I did anything else.           Now I've been focusing on consciousness evolution and personal growth for my entire adult life and I seem to always be trying to take things to a deeper level and see the big picture, so with this, I suddenly found myself in a world that had nothing to do with golf and it quickly got pretty deep for me. I started thinking about the fundamentals of life. The fundamentals of being grateful for the gift of breath, of being kind and compassionate, of growing beyond the limits of ego-driven selfishness into a greater identification with the so-called indwelling God presence. In essence, the fundamentals of growing into a better human being.     Maybe I should focus more on these, instead being so easily carried away by the endless delusions of grandeur, that my grandly deluded mind keeps churning out endlessly. After all, they're all variations of the same basic theme: all things concerning I, Me, Mine. I, Me, Mine. I, Me, Mine.  I'm sure you get the point.           And I've come to understand that you never know where you're going to stumble upon these kinds of insights. The fact that this one came from golf just proves that they can come from anywhere. Wisdom is wisdom, regardless of its shape, form or origin. And one thing I've learned beyond the shadow of a doubt: I need all of it that I can get. So, in that regard, I came upon another remarkable story along the lines of giving advice and setting examples when I was on an extended meditation retreat in India. This one was about Mahatma Gandhi.   I had first studied a little about Gandhi during college in a government course as we were examining the difference between the way that India had broken free from British rule compared to the way that America had done it.  Now, any student of history knows that the American Revolution was a brutal war that lasted seven years and killed about twenty thousand people. It seemed like most of the history that I had studied was about all the different wars that had been fought over the millennia, so I guess I always assumed that this was the way that big change happened. Both sides slug it out until one of them beats the other with better strategy along with a strong dose of cold, hard brute force.  So, it surprised me to learn that while Gandhi had led the critical revolt for independence that finally terminated British rule, it was done by a largely non-violent form of civil disobedience. The power of non-violent disobedience: What a remarkable idea! I subsequently learned that Martin Luther King, Jr. had modeled much of his civil rights approach based the teachings of Gandhi. So, I knew that Gandhi was a man of great political and social stature but when I was on this retreat in India, I learned that he was also deeply spiritual as well. He used to attend prayer and meditation meetings on a regular basis, all the way through to the end of his life. In fact, it was at a prayer meeting where he was assassinated.   This story about Gandhi giving advice took place at one of these prayer meetings several years prior to his death.   Apparently, as these meetings, Gandhi would set aside some time at the end, where he would be seated in a certain place and people could come up and speak to him on an individual basis. Usually there would be a long line of people waiting to see him. One day, a woman approached, accompanied by her son who was a young teenager. “Mahatma Ji,” the woman said. “Please tell my son to stop eating sugar.” Gandhi looked at the woman for a moment, then looked at her son for a little while and then turned back to her. “Come back in two weeks and talk to me then,” he replied, and the woman left. Sure enough, two weeks later, she returned. After waiting in line for quite some time, she finally approached Gandhi. “Mahatma Ji, I have returned,” the woman said. “Do you remember that I had asked you to tell my son to stop eating sugar and you told me to come back in two weeks?” “Yes, indeed, I do remember you,” Gandhi replied.  “Well two weeks have gone by and I have returned,” the woman said. Gandhi then turned and faced the boy and looked him straight in the eye. “Son,” he said kindly. “You really must stop eating sugar. It does a lot of bad things to you. It won't be easy to do. In fact, at first, it's going to be really hard. But if you stay with it, after a while, you'll be able to stop. And once you do, not only are you going to feel better, you'll be able to think better as well. It will be a big benefit to you, both in body as well as in mind. It might be hard to do at first, but trust me, it will be well worth the effort.” The boy thanked Gandhi sincerely for his advice and said he would try. The woman then looked at Gandhi with gratitude, but also with a little confusion. “Thank you so much, Mahatma Ji,” the woman said. “But with all due respect, I have to ask you, why didn't just give my son your advice when we were here last time?  Why did we have to leave and come back after two weeks just to hear what you could have said to him back then?” “Because two weeks ago, I was still eating sugar,” Gandhi said. “And if I had spoken to him then, my words would have had no power.  Now I am speaking from my own practical experience rather than from just theoretical belief. Now I really know what I'm talking about and that makes all the difference in the world.” Even though it's a rather simple story, it's quite moving. I've told it to many different people over the years and everyone seems to have the same reaction. Most people don't say anything. They just silently nod their heads and smile. It seems to universally ring that certain inner bell we all seen to have within us. So that's a tremendous story about the congruence of word and deed. Now to close, let me tell you another quick story that's always been a favorite of mine.  It's a little different from the one about Gandhi because that was a story about someone who knows that he knows, and this next one is about someone who knows that he doesn't know. It comes from the writings of Carlos Castaneda, an author I've mentioned in a few earlier episodes. He was extremely popular during the late 1970s and one of his main characters was someone called Don Juan, who was a shaman and a practitioner of an esoteric South American form or sorcery.   By way of context, in many spiritual and esoteric traditions from every culture around the world, there is a great reverence paid to people who are considered to be “masters.” In general, the term refers to a man or woman who has attained a certain elevated state of consciousness and has the ability to help others attain it as well. Again, it is an extremely highly regarded title. Don Juan had always referred to himself as a warrior. He had given Carlos tremendous insight and advice over the years and had also performed a number of seemingly miraculous feats.  Carlos always had enormous respect for him and one day, after witnessing many awesome examples of his sorcery, Carlos asked Don Juan, “Are you a master.?” Don Juan just smiled and with a clear look in his eyes said, “I don't even know what that word means.”   I always loved his response because there is not even a hint of pretense to it. Now the finite mind usually likes to pretend that it knows more than it does, but here was someone who knew what he knew, and was what he was. And he had absolutely no reason or desire to claim otherwise. This kind of humility is more rare than we realize.   So, to sum it up, we started with the golf teacher who taught me to focus on fundamentals, rather than trying to imitate him, who's skillset was far beyond my reach at the time. Then we went on to Gandhi who taught the value of really knowing what you're talking about because you are speaking from your own practical experience. And we finished with the Don Juan, the Yaqui sorcerer who exemplified the difference between knowing what you know and knowing what you don't know. Personally, what attracts me about all these stories is that they are all examples of being authentic, which is a quality that we all love. There's something so genuine about it. Well, there's been a lot to think about here, so let's let this be the end of the episode. As always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened, and let's get together in the next one.