My Epiphany In Love

Life is an adventure that I enjoy in a constant state of bliss. Suffused with joy that defies comprehension, the full range of emotions play upon the moments as forms of enrichment that defy boredom and complacence. My bliss is not related to the events and changes of living. It was born within and flourishes there with fearless effulgence. I was not born this way. Love did it, and it happened in an astonishing epiphany practically instantaneously. My existence changed forever. I was re-born in ecstasy by love. My eyes were opened anew. Love is the reason, the cause, the miracle. Love is the Answer. It is 43 years later now. I am still soaring in ecstasy and hoping everyone will find the answer in love. Now, I am prepared to tell all who will listen how it happened.

On a beautiful spring night in 1971, I was trying to figure out how to save the world when I remembered something my mother, Mary, told me when I was about eleven. It was mid-afternoon about 1961. I was lying on the couch avoiding the heat, as we had no air conditioning, when she came bustling into the room all full of energy and enthusiasm. She says, “Nickey, do you know what the most important commandment is?” I didn’t know. So, she told me. She said that the most important commandment is the one that requires us to love each other because doing so would compel us to do all the other commandments. Seemed reasonable to me. Now, there I was that night in spring about ten years later trying, for lack of anything better to do, to figure out how to save the world, which seemed in peril to me at the time, remembering what Mother had said to me so long ago, and I will thank her again here. It seems to me now to have been just good luck, an accident, if you will, that I remembered what she had said at that time. There were many sources of influence that undoubtedly helped me to come to that memory. There was my favorite band, The Moody Blues, singing a lot about love as “the answer,” as were many other bands. There was also a general sentiment that there is an answer if we can get the right question. Love was a prevalent theme among my age group, as well.   It was a common thing among my friends and me at that time to “find the answer.” We were all getting high a lot and philosophizing was a common thing to do when we were stoned.

 I was trying to find the answer and I began to think that what Mother had said could be it. So, I tried to imagine the world as it would be if everyone loved everyone else to see if the idea had merit. Images began to take shape in my mind, wonderful images. The more I imagined it, the more it became imaginable. There would be no war. There would be no hurting others anymore, at least intentionally. Crime, real crime, not rule breaking, would not exist. There would be billions of people helping one another and working together for our mutual benefit. I could see that the work load of the people would be reduced to nearly nothing and that we would be freed up to pursue our own personal fulfillment and that that would be the driving force behind our work and our adventure into science, art, spiritual matters, outer space, and everything. Even the daily work that we now see as drudgery or undesirable activity would be performed with joy and satisfaction, but, through the unfettered advances of technology and resources, such things would be reduced steadily

There would be no impassable borders between nations and no barriers between people. Racism would not exist. Gender discrimination would not exist. Everyone would be seen by everyone as a miracle of life cherished and admired. Sharing would be something that was not limited to physical objects. Each person’s unique and wondrous experience of existence would be shared. Our views, understanding, and experiences of life would, thereby, not be limited to only that which we are personally endowed. I could see people going on walks simply to meet and commune with others. We would rejoice in each other’s company, even strangers, much as we do now when we are in the presence of a lover after a long separation.

Equality would be a silly concept regarded as a poor stage of history when there were those who felt they were better than others, or inferior to others. There would be no struggle for position or possessions that fuel the need for equality. All would appreciate the uniqueness of everyone and desire only to elevate others, to help others, and be of service.  None would be equal to any other, for all are unique and everyone would prize all others. The recognition of our similarity would enhance the appreciation of our uniqueness. Bi-pedal humanoids that we are, we have more in common than different. The cherishing and adulation of our few differences would engage our loving hearts in appreciation of our inequality. The fight for equality would be relegated to a symptom of our growth processes long passed.

 Loving brothers and sisters all! A giant super-family with combined powers and objectives manifesting material things far beyond the rudiments of survival, even of luxury and fulfillment. Gathered like family to supply and satisfy what are seen today as basic needs and desires, the power of the people would reduce the struggle for such things to a marvel of the past, much as we now see the days when people lived in caves and lived only briefly. So much of what we expend ourselves and our resources on today would be unnecessary freeing up resources and time until abundance would become an over-abundance.

Having surpassed the struggle for survival, people would find themselves able to manifest other characteristics previously suppressed by the struggle. Possessiveness would vanish.  Generosity would be the norm. All would be free of pressure and dominance from others. People would be allowed to move along their unique paths to fulfillment further enhancing the richness of life for all. Fulfillment would manifest in its totally unique and infinite forms of beauty. Everyone would be happy! The human species would be exuberant, excited, festive, creative, productive, and caring.

There would be a vastly different world where humans are concerned and that difference would affect all other living things. Love grows. It cannot help but grow until it encompass all that have life, even all that is.  I saw a worldwide park-like Earth where all living things flourish and enjoy one another. Most industry and production would be done off the planet and our access the rest of the universe would expand in adventures that defy imagination today.  All the things built by people were as artful as they were efficiently utilitarian. There was deep, satisfying peace. The people were fulfilled and blissful while they pursued their favorite goals with power and resources limited only by their own limitations, which constantly diminished. I began to see it as a vision in my mind and it looked like paradise to me.

As I persisted in the visualization of this different world, more and more refinement and focus developed. I began to see more clearly until it took on aspects that exceed imagination. It became almost palpable, and it excited me. I felt elated and I felt as if I had accidentally discovered something too wonderful to describe. It was profound. The more I considered it, the more it began to appear that it was the inevitable result of all that has already happened. Ultimately, I sensed by some unknown sense that what I was seeing was not just my imaginary world, but the world that is ahead, as if our destiny, even the world that God envisions.

I did not spend much time on the notion that what I was seeing was something of God or something more than my imagination. That came much later.  After all, I was intentionally trying to imagine something and I was evidently doing a good job of it. Instead, I stuck to the pursuit of my goal and saw it through. My mind was dominated by the splendor and the desirableness of what I was conceiving. It was something so desirable that I was overwhelmed with the compulsion to do everything I could to create it.

In a vision as astonishing as the one I was viewing, the detail exceeds my puny ability to communicate. As it developed, it also progressed. I could see the movement, the evolution, the changes of the experience of life on Earth as it would go once the journey in love had begun. I became aware of developments that would today be felt to be miracles, but would actually be the simple evolution of consciousness and ability from the experience of life in a world of people manifesting unconditional love. Things would change. Those born in such a world would experience a world that would influence them to grow up to be incomparably wonderful people content with the conditions of the world they have inherited while bringing to it the next changes.

Everything that has ever happened feels to be the way it had to be, just as everything today feels it had to be this way. The progression of the experience of life as a human in this reality moves inexorable onward (through the fog, as was a popular saying at the time) with each moment being the inevitable sequel to the previous moment. Now that we have moved closer to the time when we can all manifest unconditional love, a fact proven by the words you are reading, we can more easily accept the journey. For life is a journey. Stillness is impossible, except as a relative term for a meditative exercise in calmness. Everything is motion, and a journey. When our journey passes through love, all that came before becomes a price worth paying.  It is a matter of understanding, and once love has been born, understanding blossoms.

I could write a long treatise on the world after love took root and blossomed. At the time, I saw a lot, but since then I have come to see it more vastly and to extrapolate how things would develop over time. I will say this about it. It is delight, thrill, amazement, knowledge, understanding, pleasure, and security without end. It looks infinite to me. It is not a destination, but a condition from which wonders unimaginable would become attainable, an unending adventure. You can look into it yourself and see what you can see. I don’t want to spoil it.

You may be able to find the motivation to love everyone by visualizing the world as it would be when everyone loved everyone unconditionally. I do not know if you can do it, but I hope you can. I have had countless discussions with many people of various types about this through the years, and I have witnessed many who could not see their way clear to a simple visualization in a cooperative spirit. They just wouldn’t let themselves do it. Everyone has a path to follow. We can’t step up on the curb on the other side of the street until we cross the street. If you are ready to step up, you will find it something that you will be happy you did. I think that if you see what I saw, you will dedicate yourself, as I have, to its attainment.

The vision I was seeing was the result of love transforming the lives, the hearts, and the minds of all people. Logic said that to manifest the vision everyone, at least almost everyone, would have to love everyone and that the place to start was with myself. Therefore, I decided to do just that.

I reasoned that, being an average person, if can do It, anyone could do it, and, if anyone could do it, there might be ways to help bring it about if I could develop the skill to be of assistance. A profound feeling pervaded all thought that not only was such a thing possible, it was, and is, inevitable. This conveyed an even stronger sense that dedicating myself to making it happen was the only thing worth doing, and the sooner the better. First, I had to do it myself, and I continued to make the effort.

My thoughts progressed along a simple line that I will never forget. Since I was to attempt to love everyone, I had to have a clear and accurate conception of what love is. I thought of the many ways I love. I love my parents in a certain way. I love my siblings in a certain way. I loved Becky (girlfriend) a certain way and I loved cars a certain way. There seemed to be many different kinds of love.

At that time in my life, I was twenty, Becky had broken up with me and taken me back six times over a period of six or seven years. I would not give up. I loved her and would do anything for her, except let her go. I knew that I would die to protect her and I reasoned that the way I loved her might be the strongest love I knew. I almost jumped to my death at Lovers Leap the first time she broke up with me. Surely this was love. So, I began my process with this as my definition of love.

Defining love as I knew it at that time has proven to be a tough job. I have come to think that every time Becky took me back after a separation the love I felt for her was stronger than it was before. It is as if the trauma and relief were increasing my capacity to love. I am not sure “capacity” is the right word, but it will have to do. What love is for any individual is as unique as the individual. Perhaps there is a certain “love” that must be manifest for love to be the answer. Certainly, it can’t be just any level or quality that anyone can feel. There are examples in our literature attesting to the concept that love must be of a certain type. For example, Jesus said to love one another as he loved them. His story sets an example of how to love, what love must be, how strong it must be. Whatever qualifier one might use for love, that love can be many different things to different people seems apparent. It seems to me today that herein lies the rub.

You can decide to love everyone, but it must be the “right” love for it to make the magic happen. I am not comfortable with the terminology I am using here, but the words and the phraseology are difficult. How does one explain to another with words the different loves one can feel? This is an old problem. Then, how does one develop the love that will transform life in the miraculous way it transformed mine? I do not have all the answers, not yet. I can only make the effort hoping that I am having some success. I know how it happened to me and I know what I had experienced in my life. Somehow, things had developed during my life that brought me to the moment that when I decided to love everyone, I was able to feel love for someone that was, evidently, the love that transforms. For when I did it, it transformed me.

Now, it must be understood that when I began to try to love everyone, the love that I knew began to change rapidly. It was like a cascading nuclear reaction. I was like kicking in the afterburners. The place I started from was left behind rapidly. In mere moments, love was becoming something for me that I had never known. I was exhilarated by the feeling and the exhilaration accelerated the change. I may be unable to say it well, but I am able to feel it beautifully.

This brings me to something that must be brought up here. I have never found anyone who has had an experience similar to the one I am telling you about here. My study of the literature has revealed no other such experience having happened to another. Buddha had an experience that sounds much like mine, but with major differences. There are many wonderful examples of people experiencing dramatic changes in their lives. Some have become astonishing people who made great things happen. Still, none seem to be what happened to me. I have not read everything. I do not know everything. In fact, every day makes me feel more certain that I know far too little. There may be many who have had happen to them what happened to me. I certainly hope so. It would be very pleasing to find such a case. I need no verification or validation of my experience, but it sure would be nice to know that what I am hoping will happen to everyone has already happened to at least one other. Our history is long. Surely there is another.

In 1971 I had decided to love everyone the way I loved Becky. It was very intentional. It was a deliberate action. For some reason I considered the challenging problem of defining love before I attempted to love everyone and I went through a simple line of reasoning that resulted in my decision to take what I felt for Becky as the best example of love that I could find.  I feel that I was most fortunate that I had in my experience love for a person that seemed to me to be the one I wanted to feel for everyone. Once I had chosen the love I would use, I set about trying to overcome all the things that seemed to prevent my purpose and as I overcame them love grew.

The first obstacle I encountered was how to feel that way for people I don’t even know? Well, why couldn’t I? I didn’t even know them. They were just ideas to me. There was no reason not to love them. So, I set that as something I could do. The next problem quickly arose.

How do I feel for people who do terrible things the way I felt about Becky. Almost immediately I understood that I was thinking not of the people but of the actions of those people. I can hate what a person does, but a person is not what they do. Could I confuse actions with persons? Would my feelings about something someone does make me unable to love that person? What a person does is a result of many complicated things. So, I took a look at why people do what they do.

It was easy to see that everyone does what they do in the subjective reality they live. They bring only to the conduction of their behavior those things they have, no more no less. They decide what to do with themselves based on the circumstances of the moment as they appear to them and with only the ability they possess at the time. They seldom, if ever, conduct themselves with omniscient understanding backed by omnipotent power. Even murder is sometimes considered the right thing to do in both common law and jurisprudence. If someone is trying to kill your child and the only way to stop them is by killing them, circumstances exonerate the killer. It seemed to me that when one took into consideration all the facts pertaining to a person’s behavior that the only conclusion that could be drawn is that that person is doing the best they can at that time and under those particular circumstances. Not the best that I or someone else can do. The best they can do. This does not mean the best they could potentially do. It does not mean the best they will soon or someday be able to do. It seems people have trouble making this distinction, but I didn’t. Consider a person that races in a track and field game. Even the fastest runner cannot achieve their best race every day. They have off days. They even have on days when they exceed their previous ability. It all becomes quite relative.

Semantics become important here. What is meant by the word, “best?”  It is a relative term that has no meaning outside its use in comparisons. If something is the best, what is the comparison? You must consider an expansion of understanding that can see the “best” as the best that person can do considering all the circumstances, including you. Every action you make is always what you decide to do and that decision, as flawed as it may be, is what you decided you had to do and you could not have done better. You may have doubts and you may later learn that you would do it differently given the opportunity. But that does not mean that you did what you did in light of what you didn’t know at the time. Let go of the idea that the best is the ideal as it would be manifest by someone better, or even by the all-powerful all-knowing God. Sure, that is a way to define the word, but how can you apply it to your life? Will you judge everything from a perspective free of the realities of living in this world? It can be useful to do so, but it is not the only way to employ the word. What is your best? It might not be the mine. To strive to improve to the ideal best is a worthy goal, and even a virtue. I hope everyone always tries to achieve the ideal. I just know that it is probably infinite. So, when are you satisfied? If you are me, you are always satisfied without ever settling.

I might be able to run faster than you. So, when we race and I win, do you think you didn’t do your best? I can feel you already trying to make a case for the idea that maybe you were not at your best during the race; that you weren’t well and are capable of running faster than I can. Well, that proves my point. Doesn’t it?

What are the circumstances? It seems to me that there is Truth and that it is probably something that can never be fully comprehended because it is infinite. At any given moment we are compelled to act within the circumstances of the moment and all we have is our own perspective, our own view of the circumstances, in other words, our own opinions. We see things the way we see them and act accordingly. It’s the only thing we can do. We may be totally mistaken, or we may be right or mistaken to various degrees, but we can only be what we are. So, the circumstances are what we think they are.

We are not all-knowing and all-powerful, evidently. We are meager little humans trying to live in a hostile environment that seems to have no mercy at all. We face a complexity of living that is probably beyond the scope of consciousness, at least for almost everyone. Then we add to that the fear of loss, pain, and death complicated by our fear of what happens after we die. The fear is too much for most of us. What to do in any given situation is probably, at best, a stab in the dark. People live in constant doubt, even those who think they know. We are compelled inexorable to deal with the life we have in the place and time we are living it. We didn’t make it this way. It was already here when we were born. I am aware of the concept that we choose before we incarnate how we will live, who we will be, and how we will die. That could be, but it does not remove the fact or negate its profundity that we are facing the life we have.

Those who say we create our own reality are getting very confused, I think. Even if it is true, we still have to face it as it is, and if we are creating it, it is likely to be very flawed, making our actions even more likely to be something we have to hope will turn out the way we intended; and then that what we intended was right to intend.  We have influence upon our lives, sure. We take ourselves along a path and that path is affected by each and every decision and action we make. But we are working in a reality that was here long before we were even born. You are on Earth (probably) in your place and time. You can mold your life somewhat, much as a potter shapes the clay, but the clay was clay all along and is more amenable to influence than the universe you inherited at birth. There is no freedom.

You are you. You can only mold the person that you are, and only to a limited degree. You can’t stop being who you are. Even in death, you are you, just dead. You cannot be in a different time. You will deal with all the aspects of your life with only the power and wisdom that is yours. There is no escape or freedom. Perhaps, someday, we will gain our freedom, but to me it looks like a mental concept only. And that is just beautiful to me! I have options and I wouldn’t know what to do with the kind of freedom I can conceive. I am grateful for the opportunity to be me in this reality that I have little control over. I feel completely free. I have many options. But, a prisoner in solitary confinement has the option to sit or stand, to look left or right. Is this person “free?” A ridiculous question that makes some of our cherished illusions vanish. We are all bound in the “self.” Everything you do is more a product of who you were when you got here and of the world as you found it modified by the experiences you have had since you started. It all leads up to this very moment and you are set up to take the next moment by everything else. It is a sequence. One thing leads to another. Who is going to stand aloof and judge someone’s decision to be less than what they had to do? Not even God, I say.

An evil deed is always done because the person is incapable of doing better given all the characteristics of the person and the conditions and circumstances that person has to deal with. This is not a lifting of responsibility, but an understanding. It is compassion.

The horrors that are reported to have been done by people can defy imagination, and will never find approval from me, but I will not expect from anyone that they exceed themselves in the moment by moment existence of life. There are few, if any, who conduct their lives in ways that I fully approve, but it is not my place to judge them for I cannot know all the circumstances and conditions that must not be left out of any judgment. I have my opinions, but I also have acceptance. I will act according to my opinions just like anyone must and this forces me to choose. I always do my best. I intend to do my best.

 If it is within my power and my will, I will stop some of the actions I do not approve, but most I cannot and/or will not stop. If I find someone hurting another, I will defend the one being hurt with the least amount of force required, even to the point of killing, but I will not stop loving that person.

I feel sad for people who do terrible things. They do not know anything even approaching the joy that I have had for many decades. I love them because they are alive and part of my world.  All living beings are worthy of my love. It is unconditional. I loved Becky even though she had hurt me deeply and repeatedly. I didn’t love her for a reason. I just loved her. I couldn’t help it. It is one thing to love a person; it is another to love what they do. So, why couldn’t I love those who do things I do not like? I could! I did! I do!

Once I had found compassion and understanding of those who do terrible things, I examined the way I felt for my friends and family. I loved them to be sure, but not the way I loved Becky. I couldn’t figure out why. Why did I love Becky differently? Since that day in 1971 I have come to realize that I was operating as a person who was under the influence of life. My life influenced me. I was not a product of my own engineering. I had been to public school for decades. I had been trained by two parents, four grandparents, and countless others. I had received, but I had not created. The changes of my life were not something within my capacity to control or even to understand. I was a product of my life and like anyone else, felt love in different ways for different people and things. Maybe you haven’t noticed the training to discriminate that pervades the societies of the U.S.A.

 I have come to think that the difference I was detecting was simply the sculpting of my feelings for each person by that person’s particular manifestation. I now know that my experience of a person immediately begins to shape the characteristics of my feeling for that person. It becomes a tailored love, and unique. This did not occur to me when I was examining the possibility of loving everyone as I loved Becky. However, like loving those I will never know, I saw no reason not to love my friends and family as I loved Becky. It was an easy obstacle to overcome. I overcame it! This was getting easier and easier. I was getting excited, and elated.

So, since I saw no reason not to, I began to try to love everyone with love like I felt for my ex-girlfriend. I saw the way clear, was willing, and began to earnestly and sincerely try to love everyone that way. It actually seemed it would be an easy accomplishment when thought through clearly and carefully. The possibility of living to see the world transformed to that astonishingly wonderful place I had envisioned seemed plausible. And the elation escalated. By this time, I was feeling sensations of pleasure, happiness, and love that were so wonderful I can’t describe it. The happier I felt, the easier it was to love everyone, and the more I loved everyone, the more I felt happy. The speed and momentum mounted. One moment transported me to the next. I felt as though I was crashing through barriers, going around some, under some, and over others. Suddenly, as if breaking through a final wall, I had done it. I had brought about in myself a feeling of love for everyone and the sheer joy I was feeling increased fast and hard. It was beyond anything I had even remotely imagined as joy and it was getting more and more intense. I was soaring in ecstasy. Then I heard a loud and profound click.

The sound of a click distracted me. It was a loud and distinct sound that seemed to come from a space about ten feet in front of me, just to the right, and a few feet above the floor. I investigated all the surrounding rooms and found no source for the sound. I asked if anyone else heard it. I thought a door latch had been actuated, but a big heavy metal latch. I found no cause for it and it didn’t seem to matter.  I sat back down on the floor and continued the exercise. I was indulging in the joy I was feeling from having attained love everyone. The process continued as though it had not been interrupted.

I began to experienced things that defy description. There are too many to attempt to go into here. I can tell you it felt very good! I had never imagined such a wonderful feeling and I feel certain I cannot adequately describe it even after all this time. It grew and grew. I saw the way it would transform the world and my life even more clearly. It was heaven on Earth. It was paradise. My joy increased with the clarity.  I was going like a rocket and there seemed to be only more to come. It got so intense that I felt my heart.

My heart was pounding! Too much! I couldn’t take it all at once. So, I calmed myself and went to the sink and splashed cold water on my face. It had the desired effect. My heart calmed, but my joy did not. I kept feeling better and better. I now refer to the feeling I reached as “bliss.” I don’t know what else to call it. It continued to build and has never stopped. I did get used to it, inured, eventually, but it still grows today. I feel more and more all the time that I can transcend this existence when I want. I just don’t want to yet.

At this point I sat down on the floor again and continued. The things that happened next seem very esoteric to me even still. Surely they will seem so to you, if not just plain crazy. On the other hand, it may seem perfectly logical and understandable to you. I began to change. I began to see myself in a new light and I didn’t much like what I saw. This was all accompanied by a flood of what I can only refer to as “insights.” I didn’t know where it came from, or even if it came from somewhere outside myself, though today I think I have learned the source. As I looked at myself and saw things that I didn’t like, I understood how and why I was those things. There was no displeasure or undesirable feelings from it. Instead, it was more joy for I knew that I would never be that way again. I had found something I didn’t want to be and the discovery erased it.

I was erasing at an incredible pace. This entire episode I am relating lasted only about a half an hour, I think. I didn’t time it, and my perceptions were in flux, but I think it happened quickly. After a decidedly short time, I had erased my entire self. That is how it felt. I felt blank! Then I rose out of myself.

I have to put it exactly that way. I distinctly felt that I floated out of my body to a place above it, and as if that were not strange enough, I felt like I was a little toddler. It was clear to me that I was just a child of a year or two old looking down at my twenty year old self and seeing me as I was, in the past tense. This still seems weird to me after all this time, but it is the truth.

Looking down upon the old me and understanding that me better than I had ever understood me before, I determined to start over. I would remake myself as I wanted to be. I would not be a person who had ways, feelings, thoughts, or anything else that I didn’t create and assimilate through my own effort. I would re-create myself! And I felt my little baby self descend slowly into my body.

It was a wonderful experience. I had no fear at all. I felt delight, satisfaction, hope, and security. I was back in my body feeling like the baby that arose from my body. I felt that I didn’t know anything…other than the fact that love is the answer and that I felt so ecstatically joyous that I had to control it somewhat just to keep my heart from exploding.

After calming myself to a non-hazardous level of excitement again, I ran into the big living room shouting that I had found the answer. I was living in a commune of sorts while going to school at the University of Texas in Austin, and some of the other students were studying in that room. Their reactions to me are still a source of study for me. I learn from that experience even still. In fact, I am still learning from all my experiences and my memory of them goes back to, in one little bit of memory, to my first few months of life. When my friends heard my “answer,” they responded as people do.

I have seen people respond as my friends did many times since this all began. I have said the same words I said to them that night to many people and witnessed what is probably a large percentage of the available responses. It began to repeat rather quickly. It has been a learning experience and I needed learning experiences that night.

I had trouble understanding what they were even saying. It was as if I had forgotten how to speak English, though I surely had not. I lost my vernacular, sort of. I didn’t know the meaning that is commonly conveyed almost psychically among those who are well acquainted and from similar backgrounds. I knew at the time that this was happening to me because I had erased a lot of my “programming.” I am still struck with the human ability to communicate. It requires a common understanding that may not be obvious to most people. I had released such things.

I consider the person I was before love to be a person that was programmed to function without much understanding of what I was feeling, thinking, or doing. I was just operating. I was never going to be able to be that person again and the process left me lacking in the understanding that I could have used then and have now. My friends began to argue with me. They were not listening to what I was saying or trying to comprehend what had just happened to me. They were responding from the place I had just abandoned. I didn’t know how to deal with it. I tried, but I feel I did not succeed.

We spent a few hours going over it with a cudgel, their cudgel, not mine. I was getting a pounding. It bothered me only because it showed me right away that it was not going to be as easy as I thought to get everyone to love everyone. One of my friends made his point by saying he didn’t even love me and there was, therefore, little chance that I could get him to love everyone else. This was an old and dear friend. I was pretty surprised. But not thwarted. I was learning already.

They eventually tired of me and I was left alone with my new self. Good company, as I see it. I was assimilating the gains from my conversation, if you can call it that, with my friends, and working on the construction of my new self. I made life-long changes right then to things that had taken a life-long to establish.

First and foremost, I gave up killing to eat. I have never eaten any type of meat since then. As I sat there flying in ecstasy, creating my new self and looking at the world through the “eyes of love,” as I like to refer to it, I came to many emphatic decisions. I quit smoking cigarettes. I dedicated myself to taking care of my body. I decided to give up all my possessions and commitments. I would travel the world and seek out new understandings and new people. I would see the planet and commune with Nature. I would stop believing in God. What? You didn’t see that coming?

It is true. I stopped believing in God. I had been raised as a fundamentalist Christian with the instilled belief in the Christian God and the accompanying Heaven and Hell. The thing is, I had no reason to believe in God. It was something that I needed to erase because it was a belief that I had no basis to believe. If God existed, I would find Him. I would believe in God based on my own discovery, or not.

I didn’t decide that God does not exist. I did not become an atheist. I just refused to take the programming any longer. I cast out the demon that is Hell. I cast out the god that is Heaven. I had no reason to believe there is a heaven or a hell.

As the morning dawned, I was settling into my new place. I was so elated and excited that I couldn’t even think of sleeping. I was bouncing around talking to anyone who would indulge me, and I lived with about 26 other students. My mind was racing. Whatever I turned my thoughts to opened a door and insights flooded through. I was being deluged with understandings that seemed so obvious I was startled by the fact that I had overlooked them for so long. I now have thoughts as to what was happening to me, but that is another story. At the time I was reconstructing myself and riding a wave of exuberance and security that made all I had ever experienced seem mild by comparison.

Early that morning Becky’s mother stopped by to see me. Becky was with another. We never got back together, but her mother and I were great friends and she came to visit me that very morning while I was soaring. I related to her some of the experience I am writing about here and she understood it, I thought. Until, that is, she burst into tears and bolted out the door. She and Becky have gone on to the next place by now and I never got an explanation of what cause Becky’s mom to bolt that day. We remained dear friends through her remaining days, as did Becky and I. Looking back, it seems more profound that she came to see me that particular day. I was not put off by the experience. Instead, I was enriched, for it seemed to me that she was able to comprehend what I was telling her. That made her the first one to do so. The things I was realizing continued to imbue me with greater joy.

I know this will probably come as something outrageous to you. I have experienced people’s reactions to it countless times. Still, I must be true to the truth and this is a profound part of it. By the way, my cousin once told me I should get to know a person for at least six months before sharing this. I will take my chances. I learned that morning that death is not the way.

This has caused stronger reactions in people than most things I can say to them. The people I know are convinced beyond entertaining anything to the contrary that death is inevitable. I don’t know everyone, so I can’t say for certain, but I think almost everyone thinks this is true. I have found evidence to the contrary, but that doesn’t seem to matter to anyone else. There are books written by people who claim to have ascended and come back to help mankind. Of one thing I am certain, my evolution after love brought me to a sense of security that I will never face the specter of death again. I became certain! I know the joy and security that comes with the removal of death from my future. You can think what you want. It will never take away from me the feeling that I enjoy.

I have learned that it is possible to maintain a level of health that makes the body improve with age, instead of degrading unto death. I have discovered many things that confirm this, even accounts of Jesus that confirm it. I am not referring to living after death. I mean literally having a body that does not have to die.

Death is what happens when the body becomes too damaged to suffer living any longer. It is a blessing, actually. It just doesn’t have to happen. One must do what will work. There are laws of life that must be obeyed and even understood. There are laws of emotion that must be obeyed and understood as well. I have a lot to share about all this, but I find it an unwelcome topic. It must be understood, however, that love gave me the feeling of living as long as I want. I feel immortal! Can you imagine how wonderful that feels?

Since love transformed my life, I have come to understandings about death that transformed it into something that I call “my friend.” I wrote a poem for Elizabeth Kϋbler Ross that has a line, “death is but an escape of the intolerable.” If something causes the body to be intolerable, such as being run over by a train, there is a way out. Now, is that not a valuable friend?

It is my feeling that love can make one immortal. It is my hope that one may not become immortal until one has become a person of unconditional love. Living life over and over until love is attained may very well be one of the laws of life.

Becky came to where I was living with her new boyfriend a few days after I saw her mother. I was not the same person she was never able to love as she wanted to love someone, but she was not much aware of the person I had become. I saw her in a whole new light. I loved her as I had never loved her before. So much, in fact, that I was delighted beyond belief to let her go, finally. I wanted her happiness. I already had mine and I walked with her trying to explain what had happened to me. She was kind and receptive. She even seemed to feel much relieved and even happier after I was able to convince her that I was letting her go without felling grief or pain, as I had always felt before. This seems to have been a milestone in a new life, and I was elated even further.

There is a good book to be written about the things I experienced during the months after I found the answer. By September, I was standing on the highway with a small bag of hippy clothes, rags really. I had no money and no other possessions. I was dropped off by a dear friend who is not among us now in the middle of nowhere. I was embarking on my trip about the world. I had no real plan and no destination. I thought for a few minutes about the first choice I had to make, which direction on that highway to go. I chose north. I am not sure why, and it seemed illogical since winter was approaching and I had no warm clothing, not even a coat. Still, north it was, so I put out my thumb and soon got a ride.

It was wonderful. Everything seemed to go my way. I celebrated my twenty-first birthday with a bunch of women about my age celebrating their birthdays, none of whom I had known before and only actually knew one of them for a few days. Everywhere I went I got everything I tried to get. When no one else could find a job, I found one immediately. When there were no places to rent, I found one of the best in Boulder, Colorado with the first call I made, and it was walking distance from my new job as a carpenter. This sort of thing just goes on and on, until I was in San Diego, California about six months later.

I was still hitchhiking. I went down Highway 1 on foot. A sailor hit me when I wasn’t looking while I was in San Diego. He hit me again in the mouth before I could even get my feet back on the ground. He was about to hit me again when someone yelled out that I know karate. Which is true, and if he had not stopped then, I might have killed him, for I was ready. Without even thinking, purely by instinct, I was prepared to kick him in the throat. A fraction of a second latter, if he had moved a muscle, it would have been terrible.

Instead, I did nothing, for he had decided that he might get hurt, that I was not actually just some guy, but a trained fighter. That is what I was, true. I still am, only better. I was a street fighter until I began studying the martial arts and vowed to refrain from violence. I will defend myself and others. I will not retaliate because I am injured. I was surely injured, too. I still bear the scars. I think my antagonist was a bit shocked that his two best punches did not take me out. Instead, I told him he must be crazy and left. I knew I had it coming. I had asked for it, in a way.

The day before I was riding around with some guy who picked me up. We stopped at a store. I had decided to do a test. Since everything I wanted was just coming to me and nothing bad was happening to me, even after many months, I thought it might be an opportunity to see if stealing would cause anything bad to happen to me. So, I made it out of the store with a small block of cream cheese. I couldn’t even eat it. I was vegan. The next day this guy knocks the lightning out of me. I have not stolen anything since.

I spent a couple of years traveling around the world. Ultimately, I was in the mountains of Colorado setting up to live in the wilderness. It was so beautiful there! Winter was approaching and I was preparing. Then it hit me. I was being selfish, in a way. I realized that I couldn’t abandon the people I love. They were in the cities and towns all around the world facing all sorts of peril and hardship. How could I just live in the mountains and enjoy my bliss when there was any chance that I could help them?

I love everyone and I want them to be fulfilled, happy, blissful, healthy, unafraid, and long lived because I love them. It is nothing I do on purpose. It is just the way I feel and I am happy to feel this way. It is a source of even greater bliss, which I think probably has no limit, to know that someone I love is happy. Imagine it multiplied by the entire population.

I have never stopped doing whatever I can to bring about the manifestation of a world where everyone loves everyone. For over forty years it has been the primary motivation for everything I do. I will never quit. What else is worth doing? Actually, I can’t even help it. Love makes me want to help you, to share the wonderful feelings that suffuse my very essence at all times, to rejoice in your fulfillment, and to see you manifest yourself as you would like to. It is too beautiful to cope with for me. Even the writing of it chokes me up. You are a miracle! You deserve to reach your own health and happiness. All you need is love. It will make it happen for you. When it does, I will rejoice. I want to rejoice with you, to commune with you, to see life and the world from your vantage point and share mine with you. We can all be as one. I want that, I truly want that.

I do what I can, and that is enough, but I never stop trying to increase my ability to do more, to learn more so I can better perform. I have a plethora of ideas on how to do that and on how to do things that will help you find the love in your heart. I have been trying to put those ideas before you in written words. It is not easy, and I have been trying to improve my skill. You may have difficulty understanding how I can tackle a seemingly impossible task without being frustrated. Such has been expressed to me before.

Just realize that my happiness is within me, invincible, inviolable, perpetual, and always increasing. I take on projects and become involved with all the feelings that come from the effort. I get angry, sad, tired, frustrated. Sure I do. The thing worth understanding here, though, is that I do all this from a place of pure bliss. I love all my feelings. I rejoice in the ability to feel all emotions. It is indeed a blessing. I am like a millionaire football player bashing, crashing, straining, and training to win while holding my two year old daughter gently in my loving heart. The player will be frustrated if he doesn’t win the game, but that does not mean he is unhappy or make him want to quit the game. He revels in all the feeling that come from playing, even the pain.  I wouldn’t say I pursue my mission as a game, but it is similar. It is a mission. I have my mission and I am not deceiving myself with unwarranted expectations. I do what I can knowing that I can’t do more, but that I can at least do what I can and that I can improve by ability as I go.

I still have to live in this world, not the one I would create, to work on my mission; even though I think I have found the way out of this world through ascension, not death. I have all the usual requirements for survival that we all have, for now at least. If I were not dedicated to my mission, I would be like a monk, living in the wilderness communing and reveling in Nature, pursuing higher levels of consciousness, and seeking out the mysteries of the Universe, attaining ascension and all the fantastic things it brings. That is what I would do. I would love it. I just can’t turn away from my loved ones and do nothing to help them. If it kills me, I die. I do not fear death. I will go there if I must with my honor intact, with my love full within my heart knowing that I did everything I could without letting up, ever. I would gladly give my life to achieve this goal of mine.

The decades of living in love have brought me wonders of understanding regarding God, spiritual matters, and religious matters. Knowing full well how it affects people, and being well aware of how people react, I must tell you that I have been blessed by a visit from God. Now, knowing the ramifications of this next bit of news, I still must tell you that I was at that same time blessed by a visit from the Goddess. I have no intention of going into it in detail here. I saw Them and He spoke to me. Someday I will write about it, but there is already too much death and suffering caused by people’s beliefs in this matter.  I did not become religious. Instead, I came to love Them and to feel that They are all good things. This became a personal relationship that I would rather cherish within than have it be a public thing. Everyone has a unique path they must follow. Someday it will take each to the same place. I call it the truth. My belief is based on my experience, as I was determined it must be.

To this day, I study religion vigorously. I read all I can about every religion. I attempt to get others to share their views about such things. I meditate. I cogitate. I contemplate. I commiserate. The divergence among people regarding God is vast. The history of people regarding God is vast, and, sadly, deeply covered in violence. He has his hands full, no doubt. I find much value in every religion I look into. I do not find myself fully embracing any, though. Still, I study. I am currently doing a comparative analysis of the Catholic and King James Bibles. I am reading the Qur’an. I also study Hinduism,  Judaism, too.  I love the subject, and I must understand them for so many of my brothers and sisters are devoted to one or the other. I don’t have enough time to do all I want, but I do what I can to understand the beliefs of the people. I wish for a day when we all become united in the truth.

I also am certain in my belief in reincarnation. I know that my death would present me to the open loving arms of God. I do not entertain at all the notion of a punitive God and the mythical hell that so many fear. I know God loves me. I know that God loves you, that He understands everything you do and has no need to forgive you any failings you might have. Forgiveness requires a sort of antagonism, or that something is held against someone. Where such things do not exist, forgiving is an archaic expression.  I hope He can reveal Himself to us all without hurting any who would learn that they had envisioned Him incorrectly. I also know that there is a Goddess.

That’s right! A Goddess. The Goddess. The Mother of everything, even God. I can feel you choking on these words even before they are written. So be it. I wish it were not so, for I love you and do not want to hurt you. I would vanquish your fears, though. God will never hurt you. The Mother will never hurt you. Your life is yours because you exist. They have the wisdom to let you be free, even if it hurts you. Why wouldn’t they? They know there is no such things as death and that you have to do what you must. Do as you will and know that the cause and effect of life is complex and that most of you have no point of reference; just as you do not perceive the motion of Earth because there is not point of reference to measure the motion against. Your path, your process requires all that you experience. Life is the blessing of learning through experience. They want your love, not your worship. Worship is a process that we had to go through because it was in the path that we put ourselves on so long ago. We can pass that now. They want us to love each other, I know they do. I also think it is probably the way to come to the real love for Them.

Do you love your concept of God, or do you love God? It seems there are as many concepts of God as there are different kinds of love. I have heard that we create God in our own image. That may be true, but it does not mean God is not real. God the Father, and Goddess the Mother, are there to be discovered. You may find them or not, but time is evidently vast. I feel certain that you will find them eventually, in your own way and in your own time. If you want to think they are not real, they don’t mind. They love you no matter what. They are the greatest examples of unconditional love. We are their children. If you see God as something He is not, He doesn’t mind. You cannot offend Him or Her. They understand your situation better than you do.

As I come to the end of the account, I realize I have far more to say. It is 2014, and my experience of life in love, my view of the world through the eyes of love, has matured me. At the age of 63, I feel 43. I have not eaten any kind of meat in all these years, and I never will. I will not kill to eat, not even plants. I eat no roots. I live on what is given me by the plant kingdom and those few things the animal kingdom can give me in a symbiotic relationship, milk, for example. I will fight in self-defense. I would kill to save you, even to feed you meat, if that is what I had to do and if that is what you would allow me to do. It is not within my ability to abandon you. I would rather die than kill to eat. If I die, I will have my honor intact. When they say you can’t take it with you, they were not referring to your honor, or lack thereof.

I have never stopped pursuing my mission. I have tired. I have even taken a break, once. Still, I keep up the effort. I try to increase my power from within the system. I know that there are many things that could be done to make your progress faster and more enjoyable. I am working on it all the time.

I have had to learn a lot. I have had to come to understand people better, to understand history better, and to understand how mechanical things work. There are few things I have not had a chance to learn to do, and I have endeavored academically with all my might. The complexity of the systems of our time are a current area of study for me.

I spent about twelve years working on my health. I studied, tested, and discussed the ways to be healthy. I was Vegan, and harmless. I used herbs, fasted, dieted, and cleansed my body. I even did high enemas to clean myself within. I didn’t drink. I ate no sugar, salt, baking soda, yeast, unnatural foods, and on and on. I virtually lived on fruits, vegetables, beans, seeds, and nuts. I was fruitarian for a long time. I got so healthy, it confirmed to me my understanding of not aging and dying. I also became separated from the rest of humanity.

There were few social interactions I could share with my loved ones. I had given up hunting and fishing, drinking alcohol (which I seldom did anyway), eating in restaurants, watching television, going to the movies, owning a car, and just about everything most people do. It got so that when I saw someone eating something like a birthday cake, I was appalled. It seemed so crazy to want to put something like that into your body! I was becoming more and more alienated from my loved ones. So, I decided to moderate.

When I was 35, 1985, I decided to be willing to drink alcoholic beverages, to go to the movies, watch television, eat foods that are not good for me, and many other things that would make it possible for me to share life with others. I did not give up my commitment to eat only what I can get without killing. I will never do that. But, I have destroyed my health for all the years since 1985. I am glad I did. It was well worth it.

I have learned about the world and people more than enough to feel I paid a small price with my health. I am still very healthy, comparatively. I plan to return to my healthy ways soon. I feel totally certain that I will have no trouble getting back to an immortal state of health. I learned how. I just have a little more to do first.

The study that I conduct daily has revealed many things to me that I would not have known. It is alarming. The circumstances of life today are perilous. No amount of good health will prevent radiation poisoning, toxic air and water, the death of the plant kingdom, and all the other catastrophes looming. The need to change society has become more urgent than I thought forty years ago. It seems that little is as it appears. The lies and deceit that are going on are beyond the awareness of too many. People are letting their power be stolen and used against them and against life itself without even knowing it is happening.

I am doing my best to contest the things that are putting us all in great peril. I write things for the internet, and I reach out to all within my reach. I work feverishly in my business helping trees so that I can get enough money to increase my ability to do some good. I have many plans that should bring me vast amounts of money without compromising my honor and integrity. I do not focus on any one. That does not feel like the right thing for me to do. Instead, I do everything I can as I can with contentment. I feel frustrated and impatient too. It just doesn’t bother me to feel those things. I appreciate them, instead. I have every confidence in a wonderful outcome, but I know I have to do my part, and I have no doubt that I will, even that I am.

People are dying all around me. It grieves me to see them have to get new bodies, but grief is not something I do not like. I try to keep form having the experience, but not due to aversion to grief. I do it because I love people and want them to attain their fulfillment. That may not be in this life. I can accept that as long as there is nothing I can do about it. I love the animals, and they don’t live long, so I have to see them move on all the time. Most people love to hunt and fish. Most people love to eat flesh of one kind or another, or even all kinds. It grieves me to see all the slaughter, but I know that everything will end up beautiful.

As my experience of life on Earth grows, so does my experience of the horrible, unspeakable things that are happening to people. I dare any imagination to make up greater horrors. Children are suffering beyond belief and dying young. Radiation poisoning is creating children deformed terribly yet alive and trying to cope. I try to understand why. I try to do something about it.

I walk as gently as possible upon the Earth. I can’t even feel comfortable walking on the grass. I strive to hurt no living organism. I drive a vehicle. It smashes insects. It bothers me to do so, but it would bother me even worse to do nothing while I enjoyed by life in bliss. I have to do what I can. We all do.

It doesn’t matter what you believe or what you think. Things on Earth are what they are regardless of your opinion or belief. The Truth does not require your belief; you require the Truth. You have a part to do. The sooner the better. All this at the same time that you are always doing your part. It seems a conundrum, even a contradiction, but as consciousness expands, so does the ability to see greater detail, to refine understanding into other understandings. Everything is wrong while everything is right, so to speak. Time is important, but it doesn’t matter either. In the final analysis, you must realize that you have to act.

Life requires action. There is no life without it. Every living thing must act. It defines us as something other than, say, rock. Since we must act, we must choose our actions. It seems that many do not make a conscious choice of actions, but they are always choosing. Even plants, I think, have consciousness, and make choices. Microscopic life may be conscious, too. I can’t say so with certainty, but I suspect it is true. It seems to be a mistake to conceive consciousness as something solely as a function of a brain. I have seen indications of consciousness being brainless. The mysteries are unveiling constantly. I can’t seem to understand things beyond my ability yet. Funny, but true. However I try to see it, it always comes down to the fact that I have to act. If I must act, I will act with as informed a choice as I can at the time. I will learn from my choices as best I can. My best is always getting better. My bliss is always increasing. My anchor to this life is getting lighter.

As life becomes more and more in tune with the universe, we become more and more close. I look forward to the future with complete security and so much conviction of beauty that hope has become an archaic concept, meaningless. To hope for something you are certain of makes no sense at all. I wish I could share with you the joy of such a feeling of certainty. I don’t think it is comparable to anything. I have hopes, sure I do. However, I live in a world without hope. It is unnecessary. Hope for me is simply relative to my plans of action, it has nothing to do with the outcome of reality.

I realize I have wandered into areas that have less to do with the purpose of this writing. I can do that more than you might imagine. The esoterics are fun. As I grow, what I have to say becomes more esoteric sounding. Just imagine, you can become imbued with consciousness that makes you sound esoteric even when you are not. It all seems “nuts and bolts” to me, but I have learned from others how it sounds to them.

All this is thanks to Love. Love is the answer. You have heard it before, and you will hear it again. You will probably say it yourself. I don’t know how to put into words the feeling of becoming inured to blissfulness, but that is the fact after all this time.

I was pretty high back then. I wonder how much that influenced what happened to me. I think it could be a large factor. If so, I would encourage everyone to get high. I long ago stopped doing that. I never quite, I just lost the desire. I am naturally high now. I drink to escape my motivation. I am driven in my mission. Sometimes I need to back off a bit. It has become work. After over forty years, I feel a sort of retirement approaching.

When I feel my part is done in my mission, if I ever do, I will probably leave this existence. I plan to attain ascension. What I have discovered would make you think I am crazy. I feel it would be like explaining calculus to a child learning to add. It is just something that I have a lot of experience with. Eventually we will be able to discuss it. First you will have to become a person who manifests unconditional love, who gives life to love, who radiates love like the sun radiates heat and light indiscriminately upon all without expectation or desire for anything in return and for no reason at all.