photo by macwagen

Once Upon a Midnight Gnome

or

Only the Gnomley

Then I thought back to my first reaction on hearing what I am about to share with you.

I’ll be brief: I thought it was nuts.

That’s when I realized I should not attempt to “dress it up” at all.

The further we go, you may already be hovering over your mental file cabinet (file under: … potential crazy or serious whacko).

If you have read Bending God, this may lead you to the first. If you have not, I risk being put under the second label. (I won’t take it personal. Life has a funny way of showing us our errors.)

The title is not a metaphor. It means exactly what it says.

Here it is, with no exaggeration, exactly what I saw, heard, felt and experienced.

To be true to the facts, this started in 1999. I was living in Los Angeles.

Eric Pepin and I were visiting Evil Richard (no offense intended. see Bending God for explanation).

It was an uneventful conversation. I was sitting back, letting the two idly banter, as they often did. The talk harmlessly drifted into why Richard was crazy.

To this day, I still have no idea why I was brought into it, or why he felt the need to share this strange detail…

Rather than defend himself against being crazy, Richard feigned thoughtfulness, “Well, I won’t argue there. It’s possible you know. I’ve considered it.” Then he leaned close to me. With the glint of mischief (so I thought) he whispered loudly, “Did I ever tell you about when I saw a gnome?”

Eric saved me from stammering. He said in a disbelieving tone, “Whaaat? What are you talking about?”

“I told you about it. You laughed!” Richard said quickly. Without missing a beat he turned to me and continued casually, “I saw one at night. It was running across the floor. It was about this big,” he measured his hands apart to about five inches tall, “it had clothes on, just like you see in the pictures. This little hat and a big nose. I think it even had a knife or something!”

Then he leaned back and chuckled. “Scared the hell out of me!”

“Well, there you go. You are nuts.” Eric said with mild amusement.

Richard sat watching me. I sat watching his face. Looking for a sign. Was this a joke? Pulling one over on the newbie?

I had known Eric for a little over six months. In that time I had an entity turn the water in my bathroom on, twice, saw the night sky turn white, more than twice, been psychically pushed over on a public sidewalk, woken up to an entity bouncing and shaking my bed, gotten zapped in the forehead with so much energy it hurt, had voices sing to me, and so much other insanity I couldn’t dismiss it quickly.

Still, everything I experienced hadn’t been what I expected. There wasn’t anything Hollywood about it. The idea of a storybook gnome, clothes, dagger and all, running around… was too conventional to take. This had to be a joke.

Finally, Richard seemed to get the confirmation he needed. He turned to Eric and bellowed a laugh, “He doesn’t believe me!”

“Why would he? You’re nuts.” Eric said with a slight smirk.

“Well, if I’m nuts, then you…” Richard starts to say until I cut in.

“So, are you serious?” I make sure he can hear my skepticism. I don’t want him to think I’ll be fooled that easily.

“Hey, think what you want. I didn’t expect it. Shocked the hell out of me seeing it.”

“Whatever. I wouldn’t go around telling people that.” Eric goaded him.

Their conversation fades into the background. Richard didn’t continue pressing it. If he was pulling a joke he should try to convince me. Still, there has to be a line between fantasy and reality. All the real things I’ve encountered don’t come close to fantasy.

Besides, why would he say he was scared? What would be so scary about something that small? Thinking for a moment I came to a conclusion.

He was making it up. I didn’t believe him.

Fast forward four years. It’s now 2003. I moved from Los Angeles to Portland. The quick little three minute story from Richard was a footnote memory in my mind.

***

I find myself in an art museum. Everything is clean white marble. Large paintings line the walls, with elaborate golden frames. Uncomfortable stone benches, common in museums, are the only decoration in the place.

Turning I look at the painting nearest me.

It’s about four feet tall, fairly wide. A colorful scene of a forest in autumn. The golds, oranges and reds of the trees are extra vibrant against the plain white wall. The brush work is incredible, really capturing the detail of the landscape.

Suddenly, the painting moves.

For a brief moment it starts to pull me in. The forest opens up and I can see deeper into it, as if it became three dimensional. Shaking my head I blink my eyes and look at it again.

It’s a colorful and bright forest. But only a painting. Staring at it, I wonder if there’s a trick to it. Like one of those 3D paintings where you look at it a certain way and the image opens up to look three dimensional.

My breathing slows. I stay aware this time, mindful of the moment.

Looking at it, a movement stirs in my chest. Unaware of it before, I instinctually start to scan the picture. Immediately the movement is triggered. It begins to come to life.

The trees sway slightly. The path, winding through the trees, opens and pulls away from me as I can actually see it wind into the distance. The more I scan the more it comes to life.

My concentration is broken as I’m suddenly aware of someone standing right beside me. Surprised I flash my head to the side. It’s Eric. He’s looking up at the painting.

Puzzled, I try to figure out where he came from. That’s when I realize none of this is real. It’s a dimensional dream. It was too lifelike. I got too caught up to notice.

Looking back up at the painting I notice it has returned to its former flat, state.

“Have you figured it out yet?” Eric asks.

To confirm his answer I start scanning the painting. Watching and feeling it come to life, it suddenly becomes not a painting, but a window. It’s then I realize there is a more substantial lesson here. Something to do with another aspect of dimensional portals, or a deeper lesson in what scanning really is.

“Yes. If I scan it rather than looking at it, I can open it up and…”

Eric spins on me, suddenly filled with urgency. “Eric!” he yells at me. “Eric you have to wake up!”

I begin to stammer. He’s never done anything like this. I’m confused on what to do.

“Eric you have to wake up now! Wake up now or you’ll miss it!!”

Trying to focus on my sleeping body his voice begins to fade but the intensity of his demand does not.

The urgency is shaking me. Eric is shaking me to wake up, but I can no longer see or feel the museum.

My eyes open. I’m back in bed laying on my side. My bed is pressed up against the wall, which I am facing, about a foot and a half away.

I’m shocked awake by my bed shaking. It feels like someone is standing above it, shaking it hard! Now my brain is racing into alertness. I’m quickly trying to deduce if the bed is really shaking, or if my consciousness came down so fast it’s still vibrating so much its creating the sensation.

Instantly, I don’t care.

Inches away from my nose, right in front of my face, a small bubble begins to appear in mid-air.

Right at the head of my bed, just above me, is a window. It has no curtains and a light from the apartment building shines directly into the room. It’s a small room, so it lights it up as if there were a full moon out. More than enough to see clearly by.

The bubble looks like rippling water… only it is rapidly growing and forming right in the air!

I gasp as, what looks like floating liquid, grows from an inch in diameter to about a foot. At first it is almost flat, but quickly swells to look more like a true bubble. I’m right in the middle of telling my body to get up and move the hell away when it pops!

A small tiny figure blasts out of it! I’m so close, my face mere inches away, the sight slams my heart into my throat.

It’s a gnome.

Hat. Strange gray clothes. Distorted face so filled with wrinkles it looked ancient. Big, crooked nose. In a way I can’t explain… it was really, really scary.

Plus, once it hit my bed, it paused just long enough for us to catch eyes. Then it ran across my bed faster than a panicked cat.

Almost as quickly I threw my back against the wall. In a move I am not proud of, I ripped my blanket up to hold in front of me. If it came at me that fast, it would be the only barrier I had.

My eyes are wide with fear. My eyelids pinned against my forehead. I can’t miss a breath of movement. My chest is hammering. Adrenaline cranking through every muscle.

Do I lunge at it? Wait for it to attack?

Entities are one thing. Mostly energy, I can use energy to counter them. In this place, this dimension, I’m stronger than they are. But this… this creature, this is real! This gnome!

Living, physical, things change the game completely!

In the moment, I don’t recall or question where the memory comes from…

Somehow the brain pulls it up. A choice detail from Richard’s forgotten story so long before – the gnome might have a knife. (You can laugh about the image of being in a knife fight with a gnome. Go ahead. Some night, maybe you’ll understand.)

Shocked and surprised, I’m caught in the moment.

Without thinking I go back to the moment our eyes locked, I grab its frequency and scan the room. I’m surprised for the second time. It’s energy is so strong – but it’s so small!

Instantly I have a lock. It’s moving back and forth, quickly, at the foot of the bed. Part of me goes on instincts and starts to lunge for it, then I catch myself. I keep tracking it and my thoughts return.

It’s as surprised as I am. It wasn’t prepared for me. We’re in the same boat. Then I feel it scan me back! It is aware, I am of aware of it. We both know where each other is. I feel a sudden urgency from it: escape! It doesn’t want to run out in the open, where it might be vulnerable.

A strange energy moves through the room. It’s opening a way out.

Without thinking, I take a hard gulp. Now or never. Pushing against the wall with my foot, I propel myself towards it. My hands are out to grab it. Moving closer I see the top of its head. Crashing over the end of my bed, I feel it vanish.

Scrambling with my eyes I look everywhere. Gone. Not a trace.

Shaken I turn on the lights and search for any physical evidence. Something left behind. There’s nothing.

… as the title suggests, this would not be the last time I would see the fairy tale anomalies. Only the first.

Later, I would be even more surprised to hear someone else, through a completely different method, speak about seeing them too! But we will only talk about that if you’re interested.

What do you think? Ever seen one?

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Listen to their inner voice as it echoes through the energetic fibers of eternity -

If they are locked in epic PvP battle with their brain …

To maintain attention –

beyond 140 chars.

(or less)

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This is something I came across after I really dug into finding my reason to meditate and started meditating with it. Around this time I also started reflecting more on time and what time is. Started dissecting it. The two, The River and time, are somewhat connected, which will make more sense to you in a moment.

The river is really split into two things: perceived and actual. Most people will probably find the first more useful as the second won’t always apply.

After I started meditating for awhile with my “reason” I started having “good” meditations. Notice I put “good” in quotations. I do this because Eric told me once there is no such thing as a bad meditation. Every meditation is perfect. You get from it exactly what the Universe needed you to. I find that’s an important frame of mind that’s too easy to overlook.

I’d had “good” meditations before but because that was my “want”, my goal, I too eagerly ate them up. Excited I jumped at the new discovery I’d gotten from it. Now that I had my reason, I wasn’t really concerned about having good meditations, I was more curious about “why” I had a “good” meditation.

I had enough emotional distance from it that I was able to look at it and reflect in a more unattached way. What I found, or felt is more like it, was a sensation of some kind of slow, deep, inner movement. It was so soft, so subtle, yet definitely present. This feeling was strongest when I had a “good” meditation.

What else was I to do but follow this feeling? So, follow it I did. I watched it for awhile. Watched it when I walked to work. When I walked on the beach. When I ate dinner. I watched it when I took a shower. When I sat down to meditate. When I went to sleep.

This is the simplest way I can describe what I learned from it. Meditation, particularly the Foundation meditation, is like a river. When I meditate and I have a “good” meditation, often the result did not come from that moment. Rather it came from the momentum I’d created two weeks before, two months before. It simply took that long to peak and come to the surface. All I looked at was the surface, so I’d always jumped for joy when I had a “good” meditation like, Yay! I did something right.

Underneath the surface you are building this momentum of energy. The more you add to it, the greater this momentum becomes.

Now, to make this more complicated let’s say there are two kinds of rivers. Deep rivers and shallow rivers. Shallow rivers have lot’s of rapids. These rapids splash and crash and have lot’s of white water. They look the most fun and because there’s SO much water splashing all over the place, people often assume they are the more powerful.

Deep rivers look still on the surface except every once in awhile you’ll see a swirling eddie, like a whirlpool.

I grew up around the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. These are deep rivers. Compared to the rivers my family would go canoeing on, I always thought these rivers were little sissies that any kid could swim across. They look so lazy and quiet.

One day someone explained to me that deep rivers have stronger currents. The currents go deep towards the bottom of the river. They could take a swimmer and pull them under. Sometimes the currents rise to the top which forms the eddie.

Most people, when they meditate, are looking to ride the shallow river. They are concerned with what’s splashing around on the surface. They want the waves, they want the ride. This is fine, except when that becomes the way you judge your whole journey.

If you have ever gone river rafting, you’ll know, riding the rapids can be tiring. What’s more, the rapids are always going up and down.

Maybe you haven’t sat for long periods of time and stared at a river. If you haven’t, you should. I’ve sat and watched them both which is why I think I feel this analogy so much. I can sense the currents of the rivers and put that feeling inside of me to form a contrast of the difference.

When I felt this feeling inside of me, and I saw the way time was influencing my meditations, I saw the river clearly. My journey before was ruled in the shallows. I was riding the rapids always watching the up’s and down’s. Now I’d felt depth and my view was changing.

I was no longer meditating for today. I wasn’t even meditating for next week. I began meditating for next month, for 3 months from now, six months from now…. five years from now. My feeling of time and the impact, in terms of depth, my meditations were having on me were expanding outward.

I didn’t want quick shallow rapids. I realized the real change would come from the strong current. The one that would rise from the depths and climb like great wave out of the ocean. To get that, I needed to move into that current. My mind moved further away from the desire for the immediate, “give me the buzz” meditations or experiences. This went perfectly with my “reason”. The Navigator was begging to keep going in that direction.

This is about perception and the effect perception has on your growth. My frame of view grew so that I could see, and appreciate, a bigger picture. Too many people get caught in the rapids. They get fickle and fuss over every little splash or slow time. They don’t reach out and take in the VIEW, the RIVER. It helped my mind quiet so that I could sense, and then ride, another current.

The more I meditated the more I could sense the momentum of this current. Once I started moving with that momentum that was my experience.

When I did have “experiences” I could appreciate them more. Sure they were cool, fantastic really. What meant more was the realizations they gave me and how I could feel their movement within this inner “river”. This inner “river” started to bleed over into my waking life more and more. I could begin to sense it beneath the surface of everything. I became aware of how everything was nothing but a flash, a moment, and yet it was also the overwhelming breath of eternity. Intertwined in an instance.

This encouraged me to view things in greater and greater spans of times. I could feel the undeniable importance and fragility of a single moment and love it all the more in recognition it was nothing in the great ocean of eternity. Meditation was a moment. It was forever.

Fifty years, one day, two hours, the rise and fall of an entire civilization… they were joined in my awareness of time. “The River” ran through it all equally. My meditations would be from that place. They became, as Eric told me, perfect… in that context.

Expectations… what for? I was consistent. My moment had yet to happen, it had already happened. Judgment? For what moment? I was meditating through it all and all strewn together, in one stream, one moment… they were perfect. Do you judge a river for a rock? An ocean for a wave? I stopped thinking it and became it, as close as I could be. Even that I didn’t judge. It would be, when it was time, which already was, it simply hadn’t come to be.

I’m not trying to be cryptic, I’m trying to capture the state of mind. The meaningless frame of “time” that we allow ourselves to be governed by. It is a governor.

That’s the perceptual part of the river. If you just read it and say, “Yeah, that’s lovely”, you missed it. There’s nothing else I can say to help you get it. Either you’re going to take the time to reflect on it and see what I’m saying or you want. I’m not saying it’s the end-all be-all, but I will say there’s something there. Something I don’t see people getting and maybe they can’t get it until they’re in the current but… at least you know.

The second part of the river is actual. Some people call it the pendulum swing. But, another time…

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“When someone is seeking…it happens quite easily that he only sees the thing that he is seeking; that he is unable to find anything, unable to absorb anything…because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal.”

For me it describes a state a fluidity. A state without expectation, which means to me, a state where I am placing no DEMANDS on the Universe about what I should be experiencing. When I think about “expectation” that’s what I feel it is. You have set a destination and now you are telling the Universe to take you there. When it doesn’t, like a kid who wants to go to Disneyland but can’t, we throw a fit.

This gets into the problem of what you are experiencing is not the specific progress you are looking for. That’s a serious problem because it means you will only be satisfied by material that meets your expectations, which means it is taking you where YOU want to go, not the Universe.

I accidentally found a way that, for me, allowed me to progress while removing expectations. I call this..

“THE REASON”

There was a time that I decided I would finally step up to the plate and commit to Eric’s material. I was REALLY going to do it. It suddenly struck me one day that he’d been saying all these things to do in order to have success and I never took him literally. Like he said meditate twice a day. I didn’t think he really meant meditate twice a day! I just took it as a rough guideline to meditate say, once a day, or once every 3 days but then catch up with really long meditations on free nights.

Now, could be you meditate reguarly. Fine, this still applies.

The point is one day I decided I was really going to buckle down and do it. Guess what? As soon as I decided to do that everything got about 10,000 times harder. Right away, even doing something as simple as sitting down twice a day, 20 minutes, I was fighting myself. Every reason I could come up with in the world to NOT do it I was on it. When I did finally “find” the time to meditate they were completely frustrating. They were horrible meditations. Nothing good about them.

Then I thought, if my meditations are going to suck, and I’m fighting myself to do them… maybe it means I really shouldn’t be doing them at all!

Brilliant logic.

This despite the fact I’d heard all about the DOE, and how the DOE energy pushes you down to its vibration and how it’s like a machine designed to keep you asleep… and on and on until I could recite it in my sleep. The thought that the DOE was real, and that I was experiencing a real life example of it was totally beyond me.

What really made my meditations more frustrating is that they weren’t “good”. I wasn’t experiencing what the others were. I wasn’t hitting those “highs” I’d heard some of them talking about. I was judging them.

One day, I’m sitting down, arguing with myself about meditating and I finally stopped and asked myself, “What do I want?” I sat and thought about it for awhile. Then it occurred to me. Forget WHAT I want… WHY do I want it?? I was stumped. I had no answer. Why was I sitting down to meditate? Why? Why? I sat there for a few minutes and I said, “Well, I meditate for energy. To get prana.”

The crisis was averted so I started to meditate. Then I got frustrated so I stopped. “Why do I want energy? Why bother getting prana?” I thought for a second. Well, energy increases my vibration, the tonal of my energy body. It gives me fuel so I can do things. Satisfied, I kept meditating.

Then I stopped. “Do what?!” I yelled to myself.

Well, anything psychic or spiritual takes energy. If I don’t eat, I don’t grow.

This process went on for some time. What I mean for “some time” is months. I would think of a reason for why I was doing all of this and then I would try and live with it for awhile. I’d test it out. Pretty soon, every reason came up hollow. It wasn’t enough to keep me going. It was all meaningless for me. Energy, psychic abilities, dimensional worlds, dream travel, healing… I had no interest in any of it.

This was a process where I dissected, in a sense, my purpose. My inspiration. My will. I found I quickly moved away from “things I wanted” to “why I wanted.”

That means I didn’t want psychic abilities, but I found myself asking “why” I wanted them. Finally, I decided I was doing all of this for “enlightenment”. As yes, the end of the rainbow. But there was a problem. I didn’t know what enlightenment was. How could I find inspiration in the pursuit of something I had no clue about?

That was my last “want”. After that I realized there was nothing I “wanted” but I needed to know why I “wanted”.

So, off I went in search of that. Finally, I came to it. My “reason”.

My “reason” was the reason I did it all. The reason I meditated. The reason I practiced scanning, portals, auras, telepathy. The reason I reflected on the knowledge. The reason I did it all.

When I had a “bad” meditation, I didn’t care. I knew why I was doing it. When I had a “good” meditation, I didn’t care. Good, bad or indifferent I no longer “wanted” things from meditation. I knew “why” I was meditating. This might sound really simple but let me stress I went through a really long process of self-reflection to find this. It gave me inspiration. It gave me drive.

What it also did for me that I didn’t see then but realize now, is it gave me a space to work within without expectation. I no longer expected things from the Universe. I no longer expected things from meditation, or anything I did. I had my WHY and, knowing that, I had no reason to seek WANTS.

For me, that’s when everything changed. That’s when I really took off.

When Baard first came to Higher Balance he’d been in Star Reach… a year and a half I think. He complained about stuff all the time. He can’t feel this, or do that, or see auras. He even told me he thought he was “the exception” (like there was only one) that this stuff wouldn’t work for. The funny thing is he’d been telling me all these stories about things he’d experienced in Thailand before he got here. He even slipped into a state where time almost stood still. Oh, but this stuff doesn’t work and he wasn’t experiencing anything.

His problem was expectation. He was expecting something specific and that’s how he was defining his success. He couldn’t see all these things happening, that he was even telling me about. What’s more, his expectations really were limiting him. He WANTED something. As long as he wasn’t getting his WANT he was getting nowhere.

So, we had a long talk about his reason. Forget what he wanted, why did he want it? I told him all about my experience. Shortly before he arrived I even read about a coach for Olympic athletes. The coach was talking about how inbetween training athletes, he asks them why they are competing. Why are they doing it? He says they all come up with shallow answers to start. He continues to drive them, WHY, WHY, WHY? Finally he said they come back with an answer and he knows that’s it. Once they find that answer their performance increases 10 fold. It becomes their inspiration and everything falls into step.

When I read that I was kind of shocked. It was perfect. I don’t know why it worked for them but I could see I went through the same process. I dug for something deep inside my core.

Your reason can also change. What you find “true” to you today, may not be true tomorrow. What I do know is shortly after, whether a result of that conversation or time spent around the staff or it was just his time, Baard starting complaining less and experiencing more. Maybe he became more open with his experiences. Since then, he’s really changed.

To me finding your “reason” is a way to slip past expectations. When you know WHY you do this, you won’t worry so much about your WANTS in doing this. I could tell you what I found when I started meditating with my reason but that would just create more expectations.

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A pretty noble idea.

While most people out there are pushing manifestation for wealth, health, and relationships (The Secret, and offshoots, oh ye of my great disdain)… this person was thinking about *gasp* increasing the very purpose of spirituality.

Of course, the thought made a big assumption… one I have made before.

Is the problem with awakening that there is not enough God, literally the energy consciousness of the Universe, in reality?

Is the solution really to go out and change the BIG PICTURE? (Can’t get any more BIG than bringing more GOD into the room right? lol)

Or isn’t it possible it comes right back down to eeny-meeny-bitty us?

Here’s the memory flashback the idea sparked:

It’s eight years ago, summer of 2003. I’m floating in the middle of Haag lake and Eric Pepin is there.

We’re talking about how good the energy feels. The prana of the trees, the water, the surroundings. Then I start rattling on about how closer I feel to God out there.

Eric pops up from the floating position, splashing water everywhere, and belts out a laugh that echoes across the lake that would do any crazy Zen master proud. “Eric believes God is more some places than others!!”

Then he starts kicking his legs (splashing more water everywhere) and swims off laughing at the idea. You know what I thought? Of course that’s true! Some places do feel more spiritual than others! Sometimes the Force does feel closer than other times! It is more THERE!

That’s what I love about finding assumptions. They are little hidden thoughts or beliefs, that somehow you accepted, without ever considering or thinking about them.

They fly around under the radar until they hit you in the face! (then they seem absurd.)

Imagine two fish swimming around the ocean, and one fish says to the other, “You know what Billy… I don’t know what it is, but there is just more water here!”

If the Force is spread through this dimension, and being like an ocean is spread more or less equally, then when we feel it greater… is it that IT is more here, or that we are more receptive to it?

There are places that feel more spiritual. Where you feel closer to God. There are moments where that is true as well. It all comes down to perception doesn’t it? I am witnessing a feeling and attaching an action it.

I walk into a place and feel more of the Force. But if the Force is already around us as much as it can be, then it isn’t that it is more here, I am more THERE. My RECEPTION to it has amplified.

Once I tagged that process with a PERCEPTION, I never thought to analyze it. It seemed too simple. There is more God there. End of story, move on, eat cereal.

But what’s really going on? I walk into a place with better energy, a higher vibration, a more spiritual vibration, and that energy changes the frequency of my consciousness. It dials me to a different “station”, where I am more tuned to the Force. What I FEEL, is that it is stronger, closer, more THERE.

Of course it is! I am now more tuned in, and so closer to it!

Why was this a big realization for me?

It reinforced to me the process of awakening. One view was that the Force came and went, was interested and disinterested, engaged and withdrawn. Despite so much growth, part of me… waaay in the back of my mind where we like to hide things, was still waiting for it to take action. I was passively approaching it.

My view was that much was left up to the Universe, to come to me and pick its moment. Or for me to find PLACES, external, where it was so I could be closer to it.

The other view flipped that one upside down. The responsibility, and power, to be near or far, listening or ignoring God was now in my hands. I was the receiver. I could create a reception connection or not. The Force had little part in it.

It goes back to the Handbook of the Navigator and the end chapters. It talks about using the sixth sense, your sensory, and putting together the satellite dish to receive the frequency of the Universe. Enlightenment, awakening, whatever! It doesn’t say my job is to increase the bandwidth of the Force, and find where it is hiding MORE of itself, it is for me to build a satellite to pick it up the signal it is always broadcasting!

The more satellites everywhere, the greater the network, the more collective reception on the planet. In that way one could achieve, MORE of God here, but of course that isn’t right because we will just be more tuned into it!

God, the Universe, is as close to you right now as it will ever be. It is right here. Right now. A breath away. Whether you listen, or ignore it, pursue it, or shrug it off… is your choice.

Just remember, it is here. It has always been here. It will always be.

If you ever lament not feeling in touch, or neglected by the Universe… you should check your dial first. It’s probably a bad receiver…

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The power to awaken begins, and ends, with you.

If you have the proper tools, and if you put in the effort to use them… you will have incredible experiences. Experiences are the key to the universe. They will teach you more than 1,000 books, or blogs, old yogis or anything else ever could.

It is the Universe teaching you. Just the way a true spiritual master learns… right?

I’m not talking about experiences you get from popping a pill, or some push-button meditation program or some kind of psychedelic drug. They’re all dead-ends.

There is a HUGE difference between “brain experiences” and true spiritual states.

But everyone always goes looking for the easy short-cuts… I hate to be the one who tells you but… the only shortcut is using the right knowledge, in the right way, and learning from your own experience.

It really comes down to this:

I don’t dismiss the power of knowledge, rather I see that knowledge only increases your potential to transform…. potential is idle… it is energy at rest.

True transformation doesn’t happen until you turn the sitting, idle knowledge into applied knowledge, not absorbed knowledge.

You have to use what you learn. Sounds simple but… most people learn just to “know” and stop there. It isn’t clear how to use and apply what they know.

If you can learn, in the way that I learned, how to have experiences… that will teach you more than any book, any teacher, or any amount of “information” ever could.

One experience is worth 1,000 books. Not only will you gain infinitely more knowledge, having experienced it yourself, it will free you from the chains in your mind… to finally believe.

THE POWER TO MOVE MOUNTAINS

Part of you must (in the least) break through the cynical, blocked-off nature of the brain and allow for the possibility that reality doesn’t work the way the majority believes. That all you see and touch isn’t all there is. That miracles and magic are only funny words for things we don’t currently understand.

But if you believe, you can experience them. You can do the impossible and see a world most can’t imagine. It is a simple process really…

If you believe an aura is possible… then go out and see it.

If you believe an energy being (ghost, entity, whatever) is possible… go out and find one.

That experience confirms your belief, frees your mind, and gives you ever greater access to what lies beyond.

There is a perfect moment in the movie Kung-Fu Panda (It’s a kids movie, but that also allows for a very pure, innocent expression) where the old master knows, from experience, the ways of enlightenment.

He wants his student, who has become cynical and jaded, to open his heart for just a moment… to believe and accept the possibility of something he cannot possibly imagine. (In the movie it’s that the fat panda is the Dragon Warrior who will save them all, but the lesson can apply to so much.)

Imagine if the peach, instead of representing the clumsy panda, is the essence of your spirit.

It is not as strong here, in this place, as you may think. It must be nurtured. It must be strengthened. You must believe in it.

The student begs for the master to help, but the wise old turtle declines. He understands that at this point in his growth, to truly ascend, to become the master, the student must assume responsibility for his own awakening. He must experience it for himself.

Then, the old spiritual master returns to the Universe… from energy to energy… giving his student an incredible experience. He parts on him the last words of wisdom, “You must believe.”

Experiences can move mountains, because they open your heart to believe and to accept the infinite power of the universe within you.

WHERE THE JOURNEY ENDS… OR BEGINS

I want you to do something. I am not old turtle ready to impart my final words. With a little luck I’ll be around some time yet but… if I was, I might utter the same. I see the simple, but difficult truth of the matter.

I want you to believe.

Believe there is a world around you, right now, that you may not be able to touch with your hands, or hear with your ears, or taste, smell or see.

Yet, I know as the old turtle knows… it exists. It can be felt, and heard, tasted and seen. It is alive and it is real. Even if you’ve never had a clear experience, right in front of you, part of you must suspect it exists… or you wouldn’t be reading this far.

You may not see, smell, touch or taste oxygen… yet it is here. This other reality is no different. It is here, waiting for you to open it.

But at some point in your journey, you will have to confront your final doubt. You will have to believe to be free.

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I look up to my right and see two police officers standing in the hall. Not your normal, friendly, neighborhood-Joe-and-Sally-in-blue, but bullet-proof-vest-wearing, SWAT team types, looking amped up with their hands ON THEIR GUNS.

I raise my hands in the air. They inch forward like wary tigers. “Sir! Drop the NAPKIN!!”

I have to blink a few times to make sure I really heard them. I glance up at my right hand, raised in the air, and see that indeed I am holding a soft, fluffy, white paper napkin. An instrument of death and destruction in the wrong hands…

… just days before, I had finished Bending God. Joy. Relief. Elation. A promise fulfilled.

How did it come to this? Between these two great moments, these two dualities, I would spend the next three years wrestling and battling. Falling and rising.

Some curiosity seekers may notice the three year gap between when Bending God was originally published and now. They may ask, “Why the absence? Why did it disappear? What happened?”

When I wrote Bending God, I made a decision how personal I would be, how much I would open myself and my life up for examination and not seek to “rewrite history” or hide what some may consider the ugly marks of reality. It wasn’t easy but I feel it was the best decision.

Life is strangely beautiful. Warts and all. You cannot cherry pick. Either embrace it all, or none of it. It doesn’t mean you have to like it, or agree with it, only that you cannot refuse the whole for a part.

This perspective helped guide me through three years that in many ways, are as unbelievable as many of the paranormal experiences in Bending God. That’s the main reason I’m bothering drudging up memories of dark days I’d rather not give energy to. That’s life.

Life cannot be super-fantastic, ultra-spiritual, the-greatest-thing-ever all the time. That kind of motivational, self-improvement hype is rampant in spiritual circles. It is not realistic… or honest.

To the path of awakening, you must constantly strive to maintain an honesty with yourself, and others. That’s harder than it sounds.

I’m not going to go into a lot of detail. You probably aren’t that interested and I feel that enough time has been taken by many of these events. I don’t want to give them any more than they deserve.

Unlike Bending God, the whole story is a sad one. Tragic in its avoidable suffering, full of conflict and lies, ripe in the corruption, hatred and greed man is capable of.

The end is not yet written, but I choose to believe it will ultimately be a tale of the triumph of nobility and grace. The unwavering ability of the human spirit to overcome adversity with hope, perseverance and faith.

Our story begins while another was ending. I had finally finished Bending God.

Two years of long nights, longer weekends, and endless experimentation with the strange bedfellows of espresso and energy drinks was finally over. Relief. Elation. Joy.

It was a book I did not even want to start. After losing a month-long argument with the Universe about how I was too tired to even begin writing Bending God, it left me with little choice but to feel compelled to do it. A crashing sense of urgency screamed at the thought of procrastination…

That’s just the set up. Now let’s get back to the really funny punch line…

The week I finished Bending God the police raided Higher Balance.

It went something like this…

I’d been whipping the last few molecules in my brain who had energy left to finish the book. Now, with the deed done, I was a functioning human organism. That’s about the best I could say.

It was lunch time. I put a bowl of vegetable soup in the microwave and I was staring blankly at it waiting for the countdown. Finally, it beeped so I grabbed a napkin and took it out and placed in on the counter. I picked up a spoon and started to stir it, moments away from lifting the nice, soothing soup to my mouth I hear a voice to my left…

“Step away from the counter and RAISE YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR!!!!!” (Where else you gonna raise them?)

I blink a few times trying to figure out if the voice came from inside my head. If it did, it was a new council member I hadn’t heard before. It helps if you’ve read Bending God, but, I’m not crazy. I just used to pay attention to the voices that everybody has in their head. Recognized their separate personalities. Visualized strange Roman senate meetings held in infinite black space when they would argue.

Anyway, I look to my right and standing in the hallway are two police officers. Not your normal, friendly, neighborhood-Joe-and-Sally-in-blue, but bullet-proof-vest-wearing, SWAT team types, looking amped up with their hands ON THEIR GUNS.

I raise my hands in the air. They inch forward like wary tigers. “Sir! Drop the NAPKIN!!”

I have to blink a few times to make sure I really heard them. I glance up at my right hand, raised in the air, and see that indeed I am holding a soft, fluffy, white paper napkin. An instrument of death and destruction in the wrong hands…

Because I’m so tired, I slip into a meditative state without really thinking about it, and disassociate myself from the emotions of the moment. I feel the napkins soft, whispy texture, its lightness and then I look at the cranked out cops, the armored surface of their vests, the shiny, lethal glint of black metal at their sides…

… and I feel the urge to laugh.

I’l never forget that bizarre reaction. It was the contrast. The contrast between the two, their guns and my napkin, their fear and assertive stance, my confusion and open vulnerability… was too much. It was the perfect contrast. The texture of the moment so stark it was hilarious. Rarely in life will you ever get to experience such splits! It really deserved to be pointed out and have a good lung-heave.

Some primal, defense mechanism must have kicked in, because then I visualized me starting to laugh at the absurdity of it all… police wearing bullet-proof vests storming the office with hands on their guns of these quiet, unassuming meditators… them getting freaked out by me laughing, drawing their guns and shooting me dead.

It’s a sobering thought. I drop the napkin, which seems to take its own sweet time as it joy-rides floating to the ground.

They escort me out with everyone else, where we are detained for almost an hour in the open for all the world to see. At one point I pull out my phone to call our lawyer. A cop asks me what I’m doing. I tell him calling a lawyer. He gets up in my face and tells me if I make a call he’ll take me to jail.

All said there were around 15 officers. When our lawyer was finally allowed to arrive he said he’s never seen anything like it. Brilliant.

That was it. As soon as Bending God was done, the hurricane struck. All life was swept up in its gales of destruction. It was released, quickly sold out, and that was it. By then, it didn’t seem to matter. A memory burned in the fire.

Turns out, months before, a man came to Eric asking for money. His family had shut him out long ago because he’d burned them so bad leaving him with few other options. Eric agreed but with conditions. One of them being drug-testing to ensure he was clean since he had a history.

The man refused and, after that, his girlfriend decided they should go to the police. Eric had a lot of money and perhaps they could file some kind of employment claim since he used to work for Higher Balance.

The police told them they would take their report but an employment issue would be a civil case, so they should find a lawyer. They found a lawyer, who changes their story to something far more enticing and sell-able to police. This lawyer, as luck would have it, used to work in the District Attorney’s office – oh what connections will get you, right?

Turns out the District Attorney wasn’t really interested in the money. (If the police won a case against Eric, the man and his lawyer would instantly win a civil suit. Cha-ching!)

One of the strange parts of the whole ordeal was what the police were doing. After the raid Eric gave them access to everything. Things they had no warrants for, or even jurisdiction to search. Computers, homes, whatever.

He knew the story was made up and believed all the police needed was evidence proving that.

All of our lawyers, veteran Portland police officers (it was Beaverton police, not Portland, handling the case) said the case would be dismissed. It was clear the man was lying, all evidence pointed to that.

Yet, strangely, the case ever-so-slowly, kept moving forward. Eventually Eric was arrested, and tried, found to be not guilty (not like that matters anymore). What was strange was how much press the case was getting from one reporter at the Oregonian. She kept writing articles, often with the District Attorney in it.

Never having experienced anything like this in my life (or hoped to), one just assumes this is the way it is.

Now comes the real dagger in the heart… as if the two years before that hadn’t been bad enough.

The fall after the case ended came election time. The District Attorney, it turns out, decided to run against a sitting judge. A very hard thing to do. It requires a great deal of money, to be sure, but it was also reported that elections like that are won or lost on… name recognition.

A quick search for the reporter showed an article talking about how she basically lived in the District Attorney’s office. Little more than a publicity service.

Suddenly, the light goes off. The lives of all these innocent people, who regardless of the not-guilty verdict would face a lifetime of hardship and ridicule, risked years of prison… for what?

So that a man could become judge? Further his political career? A stepping stone on the legal ladder?

It is in these years I learned many hard life lessons. Any naiveness about the world was burned off. They say justice is blind. Somehow saying it treats all equally, without concern for color, gender or economic station.

That is partly true. I do not see that justice is ever a part of the equation. Only in marketing that the legal system is “good”. Truly the legal system is neutral. It is a machine. It takes everyone the same. The guilty, the innocent, it doesn’t matter. When you are in the system it is a process where guilt or innocence plays no part.

For the District Attorney and police, they will support whoever comes to them first. You make an accusation, they decide whether or not they can get a conviction.

In the “corporate ladder” of law enforcement it seems the conviction is the means to promotion. It is the resume that a District Attorney, for example, can show during an election. Like a prize boxer, the number of convictions like knockouts.

The police never investigated the man making the accusation. Never spoke to Eric or anyone involved.

When the police, who hold all the resources of the state, level their overwhelming odds against you… I assume most choose to work a deal, even the innocent. Unless you are wealthy, it will financially ruin you to even go through the process and you never know how a jury will react.

I’ll tell you one more moment that cements this for me.

I’m sitting in a deposition of the man making the accusations. The lawyers are going through the accusations he made. When did this happen? When did that happen?

The man stops them. He tells them perfectly calm that the things they are asking about never happened.

The lawyers pause for a moment, look at each other, and tell the man… these are accusations you told police. These are allegations you’re making. If they never happened why did you tell the police that?

… do you know what he said? I was on the edge of my seat.

“I don’t know. Ask my lawyer. He wrote it.”

I was speechless. I lost my breath. If this were a movie, that would be the smoking gun. The moment the argument collapses, truth prevailed. Had he finally had a change of heart? Was he finally seeking redemption? Were the lies too much for him??

Here is the reality. The lawyers, opposing and for, looked at each other… and carried on as if nothing had happened. It was only another turn of the crank in the great legal machine. They all already knew he was lying. The lawyers. The police. They already knew it was about money, and power and none of it made any difference.

The machine must run. Uncaring to the trivialities of truth. It simply must run its course. That is its purpose. To reach an end. Any end, but it must follow the process of the end. That is all.

It’s funny, for a short time I lived in Mexico, and sometimes I hear people talk about the corruption down there. Cops pull you over, tell you some story, you were speeding or ran a light, and now you need to pay a “fine” or they will have to take you in to the police station. Things like that.

For sure it is corruption, and I’ve known people it has happened to, once I thought it would happen to me but being able to speak a little spanish seemed to be enough. But I will take that corruption, which I see as more open and less harmful, than the supposed corruption that doesn’t exist in the US.

People talk about dirty back-room deals with politicians, how lobbyists buy votes, work the system. All this evidence exists that corruption is rampant, yet when it comes to local police we assume that system is miraculously clean.

It never quite hits home until it happens to you.

That was one of the more shattering realizations of the experience. The people you counted on to keep you safe, to protect you, that you believed were there to help… the police, turned against you. Did not investigate. Were the last people you should rely on.

In Mexico where it is a “known” factor, at least you are prepared to be suspicious. Or at least their wants are fairly obvious. A simple payoff and they are on their way.

Here, there is no simple payoff. Corruption isn’t supposed to exist, so it works the system, it moves with it and as a part of it, invisibly behind the scenes.

Some days I wanted to rage against the system. The feeling of powerlessness was overwhelming. The senseless pain caused to so many people, for such ugly reasons. After the trial, the cold realization it would never be over. This would be here for the rest of our lives.

Some days I sat in the shower and cried.

The unforgiving weight that crushes your heart when your hope in humanity is damaged.

That was probably one of the hardest parts. Here we had given so much to begin Higher Balance, with this dream of helping the world, giving to others. Was it all worth it? If I had never pushed Eric to start Higher Balance he would never be known publicly, never have been perceived to be wealthy – never have anything others wanted.

Was it still worth it? Life would be easier, and more peaceful, if we left the world to itself. I could pursue my spiritual path in solitude.

I lost some friends. People always want to believe the worst. How can I blame them? Only let them know, should they ever read this, they never lost me. I’m not perfect but I care more than I show, and more loyal than most expect.

There were dark days where I considered it. Why lie. I wanted to blame them. Were they so quick to jump to conclusions? Was the world so fickle?

I’d fight them all! The idealist in me was lit with fury! If it took me the rest of my life I’d make sure that truth prevailed. I would expose the lies and the dark deeds of all the people who tried to gain from others suffering. It was enough to see injustice in the world, but now it came to my door, to my home, how could I live with myself if I did not pour every ounce of my being into stamping it out??

I love that part of me. I wish I could have protected it, from much of what we saw, but I see now the wisdom that came from it. A necessary tempering of the soul.

I said before I existed in two worlds in these three years. The duality. The darkness and the light.

That is the darkness. It is the light that prevailed and made it all worth it. I would take the darkness all again, no regrets though I wish the pain were less, for the light. It is the mix of the two that beauty shows her true wonder.

It is perfectly said in the movie Vanilla Sky, “The sweet is never as sweet, without the bitter.”

It is through the worst, you know your true strength. You know your true friends. You know the power of love to lift and carry you. You know the unyielding, all-compassing glory and goodness of God. You know the radiance of your spirit.

For the nights I sat and cried in the shower, was there mornings I would kneel on my meditation mat and thank the Universe, grateful for another day. Grateful for the gifts it did provide, never angry or spiteful about the hardships.

For the days I fought with lawyers, exhausted with anger, helpless and powerless… there were nights I walked and marveled at people laughing, happy, free and without a care in the world. Nights where I too would laugh, without a care in the world, lie in the happy embrace of love, knowing I too, still had love to give, help lift a friend up… reclaiming the sense of power to still make a difference. Life is a river. It is always flowing. Always flowing.

The small moments, held as much strength and power, as the giant ones.

Somewhere, between the two, a perfect dance.

It’s hard to see when you are in it. Even then I had a sense distance was giving me perspective. Vision and clarity returning. What made it more of a challenge, was the exhaustion. There was a period where I don’t think I spoke to my family for sixth months. At the end of the day, I barely had enough energy to crawl on the couch, and stare at the ceiling.

Even the thought of thinking, much less speaking, seemed to be more than I could give.

Was all the effort, the long hours and pushing, pushing, pushing… was it all for nothing? Did it make a difference? Or was it just a furnace I had to burn, so that I could finally collapse, and let it all go?

I’m not sure. I just know I had to give what my heart could. I had to give it all.

That was the end, another beginning. The dream I had, long ago, is still there. Intact. Safe.

I wrote Bending God, not for me, but as a gift. That you might share in some of what I have been given. It was always what I hoped for, though it seemed at times it would be lost. I do not regret the years inbetween, or the Universe pushing me so hard to finish it then, only to have it vanish.

The truth is, if I hadn’t written it then, it wouldn’t be here now. I’d be too tired.

I suspect, like so many strange coincidences, the Universe has once again chosen its own course. Its own timing. If you are reading this, now is most likely the perfect time. Bending God is being released and while many distractions may suddenly arise to prevent you from reading it, I hope you can see it through.

Either way, I wish you… well, I wish you this…

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