All the labels people like me carry are labels other people stick on. Probably because I am a person who is Self-Realized, meaning I know Who I Am, I get called a Teacher and/or a Master. The labels certainly define how I spend my days, but if I were choosing a label it would definitely be 'The man who pollinates flowers.' Maybe I should explain that. Quite a few years ago, and about a year after the linear moment of my enlightenment - enlightenment is not a linear event! - I was communicating with a non-physical Being about my life. I could see no need for me to be a 'Teacher' in the world, because I now knew that the world was perfect. Despite humanity's lack of awareness, everything is happening in perfection. The Being asked me a question. "If the flowers of the world were never again pollinated, what would happen?" "After a time, there would be no more flowers in the world," I replied. "Would that not also be perfect?" the Being asked. I knew that it would indeed be perfect, but I also realized that I prefer a world in which there 'are' flowers. I smiled at the Being, sharing my thanks. From that time I responded to life's requests, and began to pollinate human flowers. However, I do need flowers that are open and receptive, for human flowers are pollinated with Truth.
2. What do you mean when you say, "the heart doesn't have questions."?
We live in a world that is brain dominated. Worse, it is not even a wholistic brain expression, but predominantly from the left hemisphere of the brain. Basically, brain sees life as threatening, separate, competitive, and non-supportive. Heart is very different. Heart is always wholistic. Heart sees life as welcoming, connected, co-creative, and supportive. Both heart and brain communicate with each other, and with other people’s hearts and brains. Because brain sees the world as separate, it continually asks questions, attempting to put the separate parts together. Whereas it may be very successful with putting machines and computers together, it is unable to make sense of life. Truth defeats it. Heart, however, sees life in its 'wholeness,' so there are no questions from heart. It is connected with all life. Heart 'knows' Truth. In Truth, you cannot have a question - a part - without also having the answer - the whole. Life lived through the brain is a VERY different experience from life lived through the heart.
3. In one of the facets of my career, I am a psychiatric social worker. When I share the concept of the mind/heart dichotomy with my clients, they say, "You make it sound so easy . . . it really isn't." How would you address someone who could make that comment to you?
People often say, "You make it sound so easy ... it really isn't." I have a simple reply to this. You have a choice. If you say, "Life is difficult," you are right. It is, and will continue to be so. If you say, "I can do this," you are right. You can, and you will continue to do so. You are the creator of your life, and what you think and speak is the substance of your life. I would also say, "Get out of your critical, pessimistic brain, and into your supportive, optimistic heart.”
4. Please explain: Consensus Reality vs. Greater Reality.
Consensus reality is humanity's view of life through the brain. In each country, despite its very different world view, there is a shared view of its own cultural expression. This shared view is commonly agreed upon by most people, a consensual agreement. Equally, although religions and cultures offer enough differences to war, fight, and kill over – a measure of our immaturity - the people of the world also have a huge basis of agreement in purely brain focussed everyday reality, consensus reality. This is the 'chicken pen' mentality. Consensus reality is closed to the possibility of life outside the chicken pen. Consensus reality would agree that life is a linear expression, that what is past is finished, and cannot be changed. There is, however, a 'greater reality.' There is life beyond the confines of the limited thinking that defines the boundaries of the chicken pen. Life is 'not' a linear expression, and the past 'can' be changed. If you disagree with this, you are right - for yourself, in the chicken pen. If you live outside of the chicken pen, you are smiling and agreeing. Try as it may, brain cannot get you outside the chicken pen, because heart holds the key. Mind holds you imprisoned -consensus reality; yet the door is wide open - greater reality.
5. I've felt drawn to the Prayer of St. Francis for as long as I can remember. One line in particular resonates with something you have said, about "dying to the self." What does that mean to you?
Dying to the self needs defining. I communicate in talks and books using Self as Who I am, and self as the identity self. For a person to know who they are, the identity has to die. Dying to the self means surrendering the identity. This is, literally, a death. I experienced that death of the identity, but body survived. Mind will oppose and fight this process because all of its investment is in the identity. Mind views life as separate, identity has accepted this deception, and brain expresses it.
6. Although in your seminars, you share ideas and tools, you caution that any technique has a 'use by' date. How can we move away from reliance on techniques and integrate whatever we learn into our lives?
Every Truth we encounter has to be lived. Often at a Re*treat people say to me, "I know that." I tell them, in no uncertain terms, that they do not 'know' that. All they have is the information. In-formation - unformed, unrealized. If you are not living what you know, then you do not know it. You simply have the words in your intellect. The only Truth you have is the Truth that you are living and expressing. Anything else is a game in the brain - an illusion! Techniques are mostly games in the brain, trying to fool it, or slip past it, unnoticed. Unlike techniques, living your Truth never has a use-by date, for Truth takes you into the eternal moment. Which takes us to the next question!
7. Living in the moment . . . is there anything more profound or important than that?
Everything that you truly want and need in life exists in the moment. Love, Life, Enlightenment, Joy, Peace, Truth, God, all live and express in the moment - and only in the moment. Why are these such strangers in human life? Because we live in an incredible paradox. As conscious Beings we can never be out of the moment, yet we are so consciously unaware of life in the moment that we have no awareness of this! The moment 'is' the ‘Greater Reality.' The moment is eternal, infinite, containing and expressing all our life in one simultaneous happening. If life could be described as a movie, we live frame by frame - linear time. But all the movie is on the reel of wholeness, and as spiritual Beings we have the ability to access the whole movie, going beyond the frame-by- frame approach. On a physical reality we live frame by frame, but the quintessential Self is a spiritual Being, and can be fully expressed in a day-by-day reality. All life is One. Heart knows this, needing to embrace and express it. Brain ignores this, denying and resisting it.
8. Knowing vs. believing . . . could you elaborate on that?
What I am writing in this email interview is my 'knowing.' In a greater reality life is a direct experience, so 'knowing' is a direct experience. This is easily possible outside the chicken pen! However, inside the chicken pen people need to 'believe' in things. Things like God, goodness, tomorrow follows today, love, fear, suffering, life is not meant to be easy, and similar sorts of supportive and non-supportive concepts. In the chicken pen life is all conceptual, and concepts give birth to beliefs. People generally believe in what they don't really know. 'Knowing' transcends believing. Many of today’s beliefs are foolish and dangerous, they kill people, yet people remain attached to such beliefs. Why? Because if consensus reality says that this is the way it is, and everybody believes it, then this is the way it is! What a typical, foolish, non-supportive belief. I 'know' it to be false.
9. How can we listen with our hearts and quiet the chattering mind that loves to create chaos and spin out of control for its own entertainment?
The heart whispers its Truth, the mind shrieks and chatters nonsense. Sounds grim? It's worse. In that incessant chatter is a constant stream of self-criticism - and all criticism is self-criticism! So how do we tune out the mind and into the heart? Try practicing with a 'Greater Reality.' Imagine that the moment is a tranquil pond. Focus into and on the pond. Give it - the moment – your full attention, your full awareness. While you do this some wild ducks come flying toward the pond - wild thoughts. Focus on the pond, but do not deny or resist the ducks. The ducks fly in, circle around, while you focus on the pond, and the ducks fly away. Within moments more wild ducks fly in, but your focus and attention is on the pond. However, if you resist the ducks, trying to deny them, your focus instantly shifts from the pond to the ducks. Whatever you resist you empower. The ducks land on the pond, swimming around quacking loudly, dirtying the pond. The pond is the greater reality, but you have been trained to see wild ducks. Retrain yourself. Focus on the pond, let the ducks fly in, but give them no attention, no energy. The key is energy. The energy of the pond will nourish and heal you, while the energy you give the ducks will exhaust and devitalize you. The pond offers a reflection of Truth, the wild ducks will dirty and distort the pond, creating a reflection of illusion. Practice it by living it.
10. What life changing events occurred that carried you to where you are now?
Life is full of life changing events. The events either change our lives, or are sufficiently resisted that life continues as it was. When we resist those changes, life builds up to another, even bigger event. When we accept the changes, flowing with them, change becomes less painful, less shattering. Along my path there have been many such events, for as I strongly invoked change, I just as strongly resisted it. It's called the path of suffering. I do not recommend it! I could isolate some of those events, and expand on them, but it would take too much space in this interview. I could write books on them, as indeed I have. My books, Talking with Nature, Journey into Nature, Journey into Oneness, and Into a Timeless Realm all focus on a nine- year period of my life which was shattering in its change. This was when my physical reality was confronted and overwhelmed by my newly emerging metaphysical reality. It was a time when metaphorically, I was faced with a bottle. Inside the bottle was a genie, and I knew that I had to release the genie. It took a while to get the cork out the bottle, and when it did come out, this immense, incredibly powerful genie burst out of the bottle. My metaphysical self came into its own. I knew that I could never get the genie back, and that from this moment my life would never be the same again. I was right, thank goodness.
11. How has it been working and playing with your life partner?
At this linear time of my life I have been married to the same beautiful, wonderful, woman for forty-three years. When we met, we both 'fell in love.' Couples now seem to have a relationship, we fell in love. We are still 'in love,' still experiencing the dynamics and newness of the 'love' experience. We have been together all those years, and with the exception of one year, when Treenie got a job, we have worked and played together all our life. Quite honestly, I love my life with Treenie. We are each the two halves of a whole, and the whole in two halves. We are each unique, with different personalities, but love unites us, and in our differences we expand and grow our selves, and Self. When we got married in 1958, it never once entered our minds that it might not work out. We never once even considered that our lives would be less than perfect together. We have, and still do, empower each other, uplifting each other, helping each other to reach our ever-expanding human/spiritual potential. Our joy is growing together, living and loving together, yet in all this, we have found the place for the development and expansion of our own individuality. 'Heaven on earth' is a good description for life with a loved and beloved partner, both spiritually growing together in a partnership that is never static, never stagnant, never dull, just forever new.
12. If there was one thing that you would want to communicate to the entire world that each person would GET without doubt, fear or hesitation, what would it be?
If there is one thing that I would like to communicate to humanity it is that life does NOT have to be sad, fearful, stressful, or filled with suffering. All unhappiness, fear, trauma, and suffering result from walking the Path of Resistance. I suggest that you change direction, walking the Path of Honour. The foundation of this path is a Principle of Truth. It works like this: If you honour Self, you honour Life. If you honour Life, Life will honour you. It works, totally and infallibly. However, you do have to 'Live' it. You are required to honour Self in your thoughts, with your words, and with your actions. The implications of this are vast, but, the rewards are even greater.
