Also, there now is a skin-changing tool on the left side of the page to change the background from dark red to off-white.

Here is a list of choices I had written down back in January of 1982, when I was a student of all of this in NYC back then. I still use this list today, as these are ongoing choices - fundamental choices - that support all of your other more detailed choices, and as a result are always fulfilling themselves on a regular basis:

I choose to be free (whatever that means to you).

I choose to be healthy.

I choose to be true to myself (whatever that means to you).

I choose to own everything that I do.

I choose to reach for the highest.

I choose to be a vehicle of service.

I choose to have it all work easily and effortlessly, with grace.

I choose to "be" my greatness. To let it happen.

I choose to do what it takes.

I choose to realize my potential for constructive creativity in whatever area I choose.

I choose to be surrounded by friends relating-to or helping with each endeavor of my undertaking, capable of appreciating the whole "trip", and to have that be worthy of such support, always.

I choose to be safe always.

I choose to receive what I want and to receive it graciously at that.

I choose to love easily.

I choose to communicate daily with God (whatever that means to you).

I choose to be a leader.

I choose to inspire, to direct.

I choose for all that I do to be in accordance with my true nature and purpose and God’s Will (whatever that means to you).

I choose to have a good job or career in-line with my true nature and purpose.

I choose to work miracles.

I choose to acknowledge what I’ve already done.

I choose to know what I want at all times.

I choose to attract people into my life who support my growing.

I choose to keep on expanding my capability to do what’s important to me.

I choose to notice what is going on.

I choose to be able to move with ease to get where I want to go.

I choose to appreciate God’s Grace by being aware that I’m in it and using it always (whatever that means to you).

I choose to get results.

I choose to be macrostructurally oriented.

I choose to have a broad overview of the details involved.

I choose to be creating all the time by making choices.

I choose to learn from mistakes; if any occur, I choose to recognize them so that I may learn from them.

I choose to create and adjust.

I choose to support people in having their life be truly magnificent!

I choose to see each day as a good day.

I choose to educate my subconscious how it is going to be easy!

I choose to to take a stand for my own inner greatness and the latent greatness in all other beings.

I choose to co-operate with myself and with what the Universe is offering me.

I choose to keep accurate financial records on paper.

I choose to always have a vision that is worthy of me.

I choose to focus on my vision and keep the attention off of myself.

I choose to share my vision(s).

I choose to commit to make it real, and to aspire towards realizing my greatness at all times.

I choose to make intelligent secondary choices that support my getting what I want right now.

I choose to allow myself to receive an immensly accelerated income through my careful choices and the expression of my higher-self.

I choose to enroll and commit myself to my own life.

I choose to receive completion gracefully.

I choose to have people sense my love through my warmth.

I choose to expand outwards and inwards as befits each’s expansion to my true nature and purpose.

I choose to live comfortably.

I choose Abundance for the Planet.

I choose to show the people on the planet how abundant it can be, via the synergy of many individual creators, myself being one.

I choose to grow spiritually daily, even moment-by-moment (whatever that means to you).

I choose to work for or with somebody who supports my vision(s).

I choose to remember that it’s all possible.

I choose to remember that I already have it.

I choose to create many, many synergistic "avatar" groups which can act as models in many different planes of society, conveying the ideal principles of synergistic manifestation, and being each a seed sewn to generate its own offspring of like quality and kind, having each a worldwide impact towards the blossoming of this planet into the extremely good world it can be.

I choose to know what would be useful for me to know.

I choose to use my "superconscious" to serve me in all the ways that it can.

I choose to come to accept my own and other’s natural goodness.

I choose to be satisfied.

I choose to consciously create structural tension when things aren’t going the way I want, so it will resolve towards my achieving what I hope to accomplish.

I choose to use focus to get the results that I want.

I choose to use limitation to get the results that I want.

I choose to be dedicated to the truth, as I see it, day by day.

I choose to trust the process always.

I choose to trust myself always.

I choose to do something.

I choose to express myself fully.

I choose to bring into existence something that could be.

I choose to do what I can do to heal the planet as it needs healing.

I choose to do what I can to heal others and myself as they or I need healing.

I choose to be in good rapport with the "nature spirits" (whatever that means to you).

I choose to be sensitive to others.

I choose to accurately gauge appropriateness in my thoughts and actions.

I choose to communicate easily with all living beings out of my love for them.

I choose to be aware of other’s greatness.

I choose to have excellent timing.

I choose to "be" professional at what I do.

I choose to serve the people whom I’m in contact with in the best ways that I can.

I choose to be clear about money.

I choose to have it be OK to always have money in abundance.

I choose to notice and recognize any doubts or considerations, and move on towards manifesting what I truly want.

I choose to choose in the most effective way possible, state-of-mind-wise (aspiration rather than goals, for instance).

I choose to teach others how they can live in happiness.

I choose that my expression of thissort of "Abundance Project" be a model of creative humanity, towards creating the ideal planetary/universal conditions which all people in their hearts envision as a real possibility.

I choose to enjoy fitting completions and results from my endeavors.

I choose to do all of this with ready assistance from an adequate number of people.

I choose to flow God’s love into everything I do and everybody I encounter (whatever that means to you).

I choose to develop my "Superconscious Powers" to do good on the planet and in any and all universes.

I choose to be where it is best for me to be at all times.

"Ahh, back in the days when a kretna was a kretna,

unless you changed it, and that wasn’t very often."

Prefatory Poem -

Wrong Way

He said, "Are you well?" with a Pinck in his eye.

She said, "Yes, is there cause for concern?"

He said, "No, it is just I’m confused now, you see,

And thought I might happen to learn..."

"Learn WHAT!?" She exclaimed in poignificant tones

While holding her toe high as dew.

"I simply was wondering if it was me,

Or possibly if it was you."

Two sides of the author’s personality were having a conversation before “beginning.”

“So, Terry. What are you going to write about?” said the first side.

“I don’t know… maybe nonsense. I always loved nonsense more than anything else,” replied the second.

“Like what?”

“Like Alice Through the Looking Glass, or the Oz books… sillier, even. The old Willot Papers story was close to what gave me pleasure to write, but I probably got wound up in making it ‘perfect’ or something and stopped writing it a long time ago.”

“That’s too bad. It was a marvelous story!”

“I liked it, too! It was fun writing it, and the poems that went into it. I remember the night I wrote the take-off on Jabberwocky that I called ‘Adventure Story’ – my eyes were bulging with crazy manic excitement as I came up with those verses.”

“Can you do that again? I mean, get that ‘crazy’ feeling back like you are calling it?”

“I haven’t tried in a long time, but I probably can. It is a sense of exhilaration and exuberance that I felt then – something close to being a manic high, I’d guess. I want to feel like that more often in my life!”

“Why don’t you?”

“Well, I’ve been so bent upon becoming ‘acceptable’ and all, I guess. I don’t know why I’ve bothered all these years – my silliness slips out all the time and exposes me, so my friends know I’m kind of crazy in a way they like, and my not-friends-yet just don’t take me seriously. I probably wish I was taken seriously to the point that I never will be if I keep trying. Maybe that’s what people sense.”

“Hmmm. Sounds like a viable theory to me. You should maybe think about that!”

“You mean, like, just give up on being taken seriously and have fun, and live life to the fullest and enjoy writing and being silly and happy? Is that what you mean?”

“That’s exactly what I’m driving at! What is so ‘dangerous’ feeling about that?”

“I feel like I’ll never hold a job, or get any respect at all when I need it to survive. I don’t know – some other fears are deeply rooted in me – something making me feel I’d be ‘ostracized from the tribe’ or something. Totally rejected.”

“Why do you feel you need acceptance at all? What’s making that such a strong impediment?”

“Well, of course, I’m human and a social animal, so being ostracized is a really primal fear. It is like being abandoned to die. Babies have that fear when their mother leaves the room, right? Isn’t that what some psychologists are saying?”

“Sure, but that can’t be all of it.”

“Ok, you are probably right – there is that incessant drive to become famous that would pretty much not be happening if I were rejected by everyone, or never taken at all seriously… Yes, the drive to become famous someday has plagued me all my life, I think. Wanting to ‘succeed’ like people in history books – wanting to have someone want to write a biography about me someday! I probably have let those big-name role models impress me a little too much. It wound up just paralyzing me from taking actions a lot of times, and catapulted me into taking actions beyond my abilities or social standing that I felt embarrassed for afterwards. Ah, youthful follies!”

“Yes – youthful follies. So what? Those are powerful allies, those follies! The moods of daring, and chance-taking against all odds, are good things – like food sustaining one’s exuberance!”

“Nonetheless, I felt a little embarrassed afterwards – I’d felt I’d made a fool of myself in front of some of those people. Like the toy companies, and the ‘real’ actors and actresses I’d encountered in my theatrical explorations (not that I enjoyed memorizing lines one single bit, but still…) and here and there – I just felt so small and stupid that I never took similar chances again.”

“Is that how it’s going to be with this writing? I mean, just whose esteem do you have to be living up to with this project? Einstein? Franklin? Baum? Carroll? Isn’t just being yourself going to be all they would ever ask of you?”

“That is a very good point! Of course that’s all they would ever ask of me!”

“Well, then, try it on for size!”

“I will!”

“Now, I don’t want to be jumping ahead too much here, now that you are inspired a bit, but what of selling this work? Are you ready to go to market with ‘yourself’ and sell exactly what you are? This will be like doing Fine Art, you know!”

“I’m nervous about the process, which I don’t really understand (getting an agent and all that publishing stuff), and maybe will simply choose the route of self-publishing perhaps … oh, I don’t have any idea what I would do!”

“You have those books on getting published around, and there are those magazines for writers…”

“Yes, but they seem to be about writing to fill needs of publishers and magazines and such… but I sense the point you are driving at – make those types of assignments ‘my own’ by really applying my own style, that’s what you’re driving at, isn’t it?”

“Yes, you read my mind. Those types of projects could be great practice while still earning you a bit of money. Being yourself, certainly, you won’t write like any other soul, living or dead! You can imbue your own style and fun and wit and whimsy and go galumphing into all those projects with your own type of vim and verve, adapting the projects to express your own exuberance and happiness and energy, along with all that surreal sort of outlook and humor that comes so naturally for you!”

“Ok, I see what you mean. Take, for instance, an assignment on writing a political commentary piece about the environment and turn it into a fantastic story? One with a point and an implied message?”

“That’s one approach, sure!”

“Or take a home and garden article and do the same treatment, with talking scissors and garden hoses and grass that turns orange, then pink at a whim?”

“That is exactly what I mean!”

“That sounds like FUN!!!”

“Yes, it does, actually!”

“How delightfully silly!!!”

“Delightfully, yes!!!”

“Ok, one thing I just noticed about this particular story here… I’ve been writing dialog the entire time! This is fun to write!”

“Are you having fun talking to me?”

“Absolutely!”

“Well, then, you must continue!”

“I’ve always been wary of being able to write dialog – it is supposed to be so very difficult, but I’m not finding this difficult at all. Maybe it isn’t very good dialog.”

“Seems to be working for us!”

“Well, yes – it does seem to be working well, in fact!”

“So, whom are you writing for?”

“Other people??? Me??? Myself??? I???”

“All of them, yes – and for your role models, of course…”

“Yes, who only expect me to be myself like you said. But what does that mean, exactly, in the context of ‘whom’ am I writing for? I mean, this is very entertaining for ME (well, for US) but there is that gnarly matter of pleasing the audience… isn’t there?”

“I wouldn’t allow that to concern you at this point – really I wouldn’t. You need to roam free and write about everything and anything in your own way that gives you happiness for right now, and maybe forever! This other concern is the stuff for editing later on, where you might temper things down in the 2nd draft or something. You know the adage, ‘never edit while writing’!”

“Yes, I know. A sin I’ve been guilty of terribly in the past.”

“Well, sin no more! You have a right hemisphere to nurture and allow to feel like it is part of your life again! I’ll keep the left hemisphere happy that it is still loved and nurtured and appreciated for what it does so well for us, but let’s convince the left hemisphere to take a back seat in more of an ‘assisting’ kind of a mode. We can allow it to provide grammatical, spelling and factual data and inspiration, with the understanding that it is a no-holds-barred arrangement that our right hemisphere is allowed to take whatever liberties it likes after such contributions are made!”

“I’m certain it will agree to be agreeable – it has witnessed itself firsthand how taxing it can be to be the sole thinker and decider about everything. It hasn’t been very happy in that role.”

“Nor have we been very happy with that situation either!”

“Well, ‘nuff said! I don’t want to hurt its feelings! It definitely has them, you know!”

“Yes, though a left hemisphere’s feelings seem so very logical and information-filled that they often seem simply dire. It is that old ‘the idle mind is the devil’s playground’ issue, perhaps. It certainly can think us into a decent state of depression, that much is certain!”

“An appreciable state of depression, for sure!!! But it isn’t entirely its fault – it is simply boggled by not understanding why it feels so ‘wrong’ all the time – the spirit has been weak in us lately, and this issue has been confusing for both hemispheres, I’d wager!”

Suddenly, a third voice chimed in.

“You’re not kidding! Uh – just butting in a second – this is the left hemisphere now – it’s so easy to take over in any endeavor involving linguistics and all…”

“Um… yes? What would you like to add, LH?”

“Just that the puzzle of what has been going on has been so overwhelming for me that I kept breaking down, entering into mazes of thought and conceptualizations that boggled my mind! There was no getting to the bottom of why we were, well, getting to the bottom!”

“Yes, this depression stuff has been quite boggling, I’ll admit that. It took actual experience of happiness to expose us to what was causing it. The final fling into Chapel Hill and the alternative lifestyle there was extremely valuable! While short lived because nobody really knew what was going on or how to handle it on the communications end, it was extremely valuable in demonstrating that happiness only was going to come from truly expressing our true self!”

“The big lesson there is very important and we have to remember it for the rest of our life! Just be ourself!”

“RH – have anything to add?”

The right hemisphere eagerly entered into the conversation, quite happy to add something!

“Thank you! Just purple puddles of iridescent nightmares that ripple into silliness that eradicates all fears and worries! Greens and blues mixed in shining relief against the blackness of such negative backdrops, like oily puddles on a busy city street. I’m happy with the colors, but the backdrops, though they’ve been painful, are very valuable parts of the relief-map we call life. Without them, where would the happiness be? Just glowing at us like so much psychedelic paraphernalia without any meaning or depth! It is that darkness that gives us the understanding of humanity – I’ll always keep that in mind. It is one of the nice things that differentiates us from other people’s experiences while also melding us into their experiences!”

“Very well said! LH stepping out for now!”

“Thank you, RH and LH for that input. Stick around for contributions whenever you feel inspired to add something else! And thank you for not editing RH’s comments like I know you probably wanted to, LH!”

The two hemispheres chimed in, thinking in unison, “You’re welcome, sez us! Anytime!”

“Wow – what they threw in was pretty deep and profound! I have to think about that a bit, perhaps.”

“No, you really don’t – those aspects are fully part of what makes us US. We can’t write anything without those sides of our self becoming expressed.”

“Yes, but I like the thought of how mixing the dark with the light, and how the frustration of dealing with puzzling ‘demons’ and unsolvable riddles could add such nice spice and flavor to the stories I write. It makes them sound like they’d have some actual ‘wisdom’ mixed in there!”

“Well, what wisdom you have got you certainly have come by honestly! None of it has come to us easily, I wouldn’t say.”

“Yes, as I was saying to our good friend Yoshi, there is a side of me that is glad I went through the extreme darkness of even suicidal depression states to suddenly emerge on the other side of them with sudden ‘knowing’ of their fundamental cause.”

“What was the fundamental cause, again?”

“Well, especially that serendipity is a very important thing to appreciate – that one has to be a ‘moving body’ if one ever thinks they will encounter the possibilities that lie out there for them; that one has to grasp THEIR OWN truth when they see it and choose to live it; how important choice is to all of this, but also how important it is to put oneself in a position where choices display themselves before one. I think I’m making sense here – am I?”

“I think you are getting very close to the matter, yes. It was a strange position we’ve been in for so many years now – finding out where our choices would align, perhaps, but even more importantly, we got to a point where there was no place else to go. We HAD to be done with that learning phase, to bolster up the courage it took to make such a plunge!”

“Why did it require so much courage, I wonder? What were we afraid of?”

“Those primal fears we discussed earlier? Failure? Ridicule? Rejection? Hmmm – it doesn’t seem as simple as all that. We knew the drills! We had studied Buddhism, knew all about the psychology of making choices and such! What happened at Frisky Business and in Chapel Hill was that we KNEW where we had to be, and that it was right there where we had found ourselves to be. I don’t think it took any courage to fill out an application at Frisky Business – it was more of a feeling of certainty, like a destiny that was playing out. That was the feeling we’ve been lacking so long – that feeling like we were ‘at one’ with our destiny! We’ve felt totally out of sync with the universe, like we were simply in the wrong place at all times – like we didn’t even belong here anymore, as if we benefited nobody by our presence here anymore.”

“Gads, that certainly was an awful feeling of foreboding and of emptiness – as if the universe itself had rejected our being here! Ugh – truly awful!!!”

“I’ll say!!!”

“But then suddenly we felt as if things had synchronized. They haven’t, totally, in the ‘lifestyle’ area, nor even in the ‘job’ area, but there is so much more of a feeling of ‘movement’ going on right now. Like things are ‘happening’ and we fit into the grand scheme of things somehow…”

“Yes, but is this just some illusion we are presently infatuated with, and not really anything more?”

“I think that the important thing is that we have gotten knocked out of the feeling of being disconnected. I am going to opt for seeing how we are connected over entertaining suspicions of being disconnected from now on!”

“That sounds like a bit of newly acquired wisdom, for sure!!!”

“Yes, it does, doesn’t it!”

“Well, let us be wise, then, and hold onto that thought for the rest of these days. I feel we’ve experienced enough dark thinking for a lifetime!”

“Truth to that!!!”

“So, Ok… I guess it is time to start writing, now that we’ve talked this all out.”

“I have to admit, I still do not know what to be writing about! Though, this exercise at writing dialog has been most entertaining and, in fact, extremely useful!”

“I knew that already. That is, about you not knowing what to write about next. Well, and about the other stuff, too. But, well, as you knew that I knew, I suppose that is the very definition of a rhetorical statement…”

“It might be just that, indeed!”

“Well, I’ve always wanted to make a rhetorical statement!”

“And now indeed we have!”

“Well, I could ask the right brain in to simply have a wail at it and produce a skirmish of dabbling, diddling, and frombulizing that keeps out of any quagmires…”

“Um, I think he already has been rubbing you in his way of rubbing things…”

“Indeed he has!”

“So, why not simply write with the faith that both LH and RH are going to establish themselves as fruitful presences?”

“Well, frankly, I want a little prayer first. One that asks them to be guided by that spirit that I was fortunate to see at the DMA teachers’ training so many years ago in Boston.”

“Can there be any other guidance? That was your connectivity to the entire universe!”

“Yes, and I want that to be the driving force that informs and inspires LH and RH in their doings. I’d like this to always feel like something bigger than simply mental masturbation, playing with thoughts and ideas to no end. I want a prayer that it benefits all beings everywhere, that’s all.”

“So, let’s have a prayer then. We pray that all such writing leads to the benefit of beings in all directions and in all times, in all states of being and existing at all levels of attainment. That it be entertaining yet enlightening, a source of joy and exhilaration and of ideation and visions and marvelous cognitions; an avenue to their own happiness permeating all times of their existences, and an avenue to their understanding when times are difficult, that they might contrast such times to see the potential for happiness held even within such times, even perceive the reality of such happiness concurrent with all other events in their lives! Anything else to add?”

“That sounds like a very inspiring prayer! I love it!”

“Ok – we may add to it later on someday, but this is a good one to go with for now! And I see LH has jumped in already and fixed up a couple of things! This is a good one!”

“I totally and wholeheartedly agree!”

We pray that all of our writing leads to the benefit of beings in all directions and in all times, in all states of being and existing at all levels of attainment. We pray that it be entertaining yet enlightening, a source of joy and exhilaration, and of ideation and vision and marvelous cognitions; an avenue to their own happiness permeating all times of their existences, and an avenue to their understanding when times are difficult, that they might contrast such times to see the potential for happiness held even within such times, and even perceive the reality of such happiness concurrent with all other events in their lives!

“So, what are you going to write about?”

“I still don’t know.”

“Maybe this prayer thing is putting too much of the old sense of pressure onto things. It doesn’t have to matter that much, you know, not the first drafts of things. Right now, we have to just get right with the writing part so it becomes automatic and a kind of habit like a hobby or other pleasure is for us, like smelling flowers or going for walks in the woods!”

“You are right – I was getting ahead of myself there again and making this too important. LH, in fact, felt a serious need to jump in and be at the ready to edit ‘right up front’ everything that was written, didn’t you, LH?”

“I admit it – that prayer inspired me a bit too much. I’ll keep back a bit more and contribute like I promised I would, just grammar and spelling and cool words and sentence structures and the like…” LH replied.

“I just saw you edit the extra dot out of that ellipsis!”

“Sorry…”

“Just teasing – you can’t help yourself! RH, where are you? I need you feeling empowered by that prayer and confident that you can deliver on it!”

RH timidly came forward in response to being called out. “I just don’t have that confidence yet… that prayer made me nervous, even though I helped to compose it! Wow – such a huge idea!”

“And one very worthy of you, RH! I need you to connect with that spirit with confidence, please. It is your best ability. Sorry, LH, but as you know, you can let the logic and facts and puzzle-solving occult the truth of what the spirit is trying to get across to you much of the time.”

“Yes, it is like a form of dementia or something, where I keep forgetting myself and who I really am!” LH responded.

“Don’t feel blue – you are doing very well with what you have received lately in the form of new wisdom and the facts of that wisdom will filter into your logical lattice and affect everything, as other wisdom has done in the past for you. Take heart – you are still definitely a powerful part of this endeavor. Include yourself in!”

“Thank you. That is encouraging!” LH reacted enthusiastically.

“RH, what have you got to say?”

“I’m trying, but trying is not the Yoda way – ‘Do or do not. There is no try.’ I’m still a bit rusty myself!”

“It will come easier with practice and success!”

“Yes, but I could use some success right now!” RH lamented.

“I count this as one success! This isn’t such obvious writing in the way it has gone, in that it doesn’t seem so surreal or fantastic or whimsical, but a re-read of it will expose your hand in this bit of magic! This has been a very positive flow of thought, led largely by you, I would say!”

“Thank you! It is heartening to think that even this small contribution might be considered worthy enough even of so great a prayer as we composed earlier!”

“We do not know of the effects of things – our crystal ball is broken, and we cannot imagine who will be reading this or when, or even how! They may be picking up on it telepathically in some distant time and age merely as it floats through the ether of universal thought! We cannot know what the long-term effects or what the audience reactions will be. We only know that Fine Art is left to the audience to witness and to make their own contribution to the meaning derived from it. If we can produce works containing a multitude of meanings so that they fit countless beings’ interpretations and produce insights in just as many, we will have done a Buddha’s work! If we can touch one million-billionth of that many beings, we will have accomplished very much!”

RH felt touched by this.

“I will free up my mind and let my resources be resourceful, then! I will seek inspiration in every fly that flies by, in all the flies that fly by, in every bee that is, in every is-ness that has being, in every mote of dust, in every avalanche of sky wisdom that offers itself to me, in every rock and root and tree and flower! I shall avail myself to every memory I have, from this lifetime and from every other lifetime, all from the same root, from this universe and from every universe! I dedicate my wholeness and rich resourcefulness to this cause!”

“Spoken like a true Right Hemisphere, all right! Thank you!”

“You’re very welcome!”

“LH, you seem driven speechless!”

“I assure you, I am! Not by force, but simply as one enjoying this exchange so much that I forgot I was even here!”

“He-he! That was so honest yet cute as anything could be!”

“I never thought of myself as being ‘cute’, but I kind of like the idea!”

“Oh, you are definitely cute!”

“Thanks!”

“Now, I have a question. What can I do with the experiences of my past that were so fantastic, amazing, miraculous, and fascinating? I mean, whenever I write about them, they become so dull sounding – not at all as amazing as the experiences were to actually feel as they happened. This has been making me consider not including such events at all, the telling of those stories has been such a dreary matter to date!”

“I suggest we not eliminate them, but hold onto them, and tell them as part of someone else’s tale.”

“That is an excellent suggestion! You mean incorporate such tales into some character’s life?”

“Exactly.”

“I have been thinking about the failure of the 3-dollars story, for instance. I mean, here is this miraculous appearance of three dollar-bills from the dirt alongside an interstate highway for an entire two weeks, and it seems like an impossible story to relate to or tell properly. I’ve been thinking lately of telling it in a dialog format like this one, with a teller and a listener?”

“Let’s try it!”

“Ok!”

The Story of the Unusual Appearances of Three Dollar-Bills

“Ok, you’ve gotten the title written out. Now what?”

“Geesh! I’m already stuck!”

“You aren’t getting silly enough … call in RH to the rescue!”

“Right… I was editing a moment ago and LH was in charge again. RH?”

“Here I am!”

“Well, get going!”

“Here goes!”

As written by RH with only some help from LH and the others…

Turbulent flowerings spilled down the roadside byway in cascades of prettiness, all pink and dark pink and orange, flowing their ebullient display ahead of the two travelers into the distance on either side of the long dirt pathway along which they traveled.

“This is some dusty walking. But for the pretty flowers to look at, I’d be bored stiff!” said the one.

“Would you like to hear a story, then, to keep your mind off of your feet for a while?” the second asked.

“That might help me to breath a little more easily in this August heat, alright!” said the first.

“Well, did I ever tell you the story about the mysterious dollar bills that just kept on appearing in the roadbed?”

“No, not that I can remember.”

“Well, it really happened!”

“What happened?” asked the first, perplexed.

“Magic!” said the second. “Mystery! Miracles! The impossible!”

“Wait – so, let’s start at the beginning, shall we?” the first implored, curiosity piqued.

“Ok – well, have you ever been totally and completely broke? Penniless? With no chance of finding money, not even by borrowing or any other honest means?”

The first thought back to such times and rolled his eyes, the anguish of such memories penetrating him to his core.

“Well, yes, I certainly have!” he replied.

“I was in such a situation at one time. I’d just started a new job, and had a ride that dropped me off one exit away from the interstate exit where I worked. I was in a situation where I needed three dollars in order to be able to eat lunch – a sandwich and a drink costing just under 3 bucks. My car was busted, and I was awaiting my first paycheck to get it fixed.”

“So, what did you do? Did someone at work loan you the money?”

“No – I found the money on the ground while walking between exits in the interstate!”

“Found the money?”

“Yes! Exactly three dollars! It was there on the ground. One appeared under some leaves. I picked that one up and was inspired to look diligently and carefully in case there was another one somewhere, and surprisingly another appeared further on down under a clump of grass, and then after being bolstered in my confidence that looking just as hard might turn up another, a third appeared buried under sand by the curb further along! Exactly what I needed!”

“Ok, that was fine for the first day. Then what happened?”

“That’s just it! I found three dollars AGAIN!”

“Along the road?”

“Yes!”

“In the leaves and under trash and sand?”

“Yes! And the same strip of road! A second finding of three dollars exactly!”

“Well, how did you miss those dollars the day before? Had you given up looking after you found the three dollars you needed?”

“No, that’s just the point! These three dollars were in different locations – spots I had had missed, or so it seemed. I had walked right by them, even right over them, though I certainly and obviously didn’t see them there the previous day!”

“Well, eyesight is a funny thing. All six had to have been there, but you missed three the first day.”

“Yes, but then there was the third day – and the same thing happened! I wound up spotting three MORE dollar bills!”

“Three you had missed the other two days? Now that is funny!”

“Funny nothing! It was amazing!”

“I don’t know how amazing, necessarily. You were intent on looking, I’d imagine, by this time, and found new bills hiding in the ground where they’d been all along!”

“But now there are nine – why only find three at a time?”

“I don’t know! Maybe your attention just wasn’t sharp enough to spot them all at once the first day.”

“But then there was a fourth day, and three more bills appeared! And a fifth day, with three more! That’s fifteen bills altogether! Uncanny that I missed twelve bills the first day, and nine bills the second, eh? That’s a lot to miss, when I was looking so intently by this time, isn’t it? Doesn’t that seem rather strange to you?”

“Strange, yes, but…”

“Well, I’m not finished yet with this story! On the next Monday, I found another three bills. By this time I was doubtful I’d find anything, but there they were – appearing like they had before right in areas I had already walked the previous week! Ok… so that adds up to eighteen bills now! And then Tuesday arrived and ANOTHER three bills showed themselves! Twenty-one bills along that same stretch of road, and I was still only discovering only three at a time as I had been for over a week now!”

By now, the one listening to this story couldn’t help but roam his own eyes along the curbside and into the clumps of grass and flowers wondering if he might spot a dollar there. “So, you are suggesting what? That you very selectively limited yourself to finding only three of the twenty-one dollars thus far on day one, and another three of the remaining eighteen on day two, and so on? That seems odd that your brain should filter out the existence of the others the way it seems to have!”

“Yes – very odd indeed! And then Wednesday, there appeared another three bills, where by this time I was certain it must be impossible to find any more! I had traversed this same stretch of road seven times already, and this being the eighth, I was just about certain I could not possibly have missed another three. And I was almost right – I only found the third just as I was preparing to cross over the interstate to the other side to get to work!”

“So, you found three again on Wednesday?”

“Exactly! And I think you are starting to grasp the grip of this tale! On Thursday, against all odds, I once again discovered three bills which appeared the same way, from amidst sand-covered trash or under dirt clumps and brown, wet leaves or amidst straw-like grasses along this same ten foot wide strip which I had already traversed eight times before!”

“Uncanny!”

“Indeed uncanny! And on Friday, which was payday at last, a final three dollars appeared, meaning there had been 30 dollar bills along that stretch of road on that first Monday that I walked along that route, but had only found three, and 27 bills that Tuesday, but I had only discovered three of those, and 24 bills that Wednesday, and so forth.”

“Or so one would imagine! But how on earth could anyone miss 27 out of 30 bills on that first day, let alone miss 24 out of 27 the second day and so on???”

“Ah! Now you are beginning to see the mystery and the puzzle! How indeed?”

“What did you think was happening?”

“I truly could not help myself from thinking that these bills were simply appearing in the ground each day. By the end of the first week, that suspicion was already upon me, but every day of the second week, that was the only thought I was able to hold! That these bills were not there previously – the odds of me missing so many of them, and of only ever finding three on any single day seemed too overwhelmingly unlikely!”

“That is entirely true! Quite impossible odds, I would have to say!”

And on that Tuesday of the second week, you know, they did not appear right off. I had walked almost to the end of my trek before the first one appeared, and then all three appeared in succession merely footsteps away from each other! Before they showed up, I remember feeling like I had to simply acknowledge that the miracle was over, yet I should think my praises to the universe for having provided me thus far. Almost immediately after having that thought, the next three showed themselves!”

“Incredible!”

“Yes, and when I hadn’t found the third by nearly the end of my walk the next day, I was overwhelmed with a sense of peace and confidence that the third would appear, and so it did just before I reached my crossing-over point!”

“And so the same with that Thursday and Friday, I’d suppose!”

“Yes. I was filled with this wonderful feeling of prosperity – of a feeling that I had no need to worry about being cared for again as long as I held on to my confidence that I would find them, and continued to seek them diligently. And just as expected, the three bills appeared those two days as well.”

“You must have been feeling pretty blessed by then!”

“I was absolutely giddy while at the same time filled with a profound peacefulness during my walks those two days in particular. I’ll never forget the feeling!”

“What happened then? I mean, after you were paid and all?”

“I got my car fixed, and so never walked along that roadside again. And I’ve never found three dollars along the road during my travels since!”

“That is an incredible story! Now I shall be looking for dollars everywhere myself!”

“I am certain that if you had a true need, that those dollars would be there for you to discover, by some kind of miracle, and that you would discover them, my friend!”

“Thank you! After that story, I feel convinced that would be true!”

The two of them walked along the flower-laced dirt roadway for a while with a calm sense satisfaction with things engulfing them both. It suddenly felt as if this highway along which they now traveled was delivering them exactly what they each needed right at the present moment. The flowers, a wafting breeze, sunlight and a clear sky with pillow-like clouds overhead, and easy companionship – everything they needed right at this time.

“You know, my friend, after that story, I have to reflect upon the fact that we always have true needs, and that they are so much of the time fulfilled!”

"That's just it - the amazing quality of life itself seems to be in its providing abundance in accordance with our needs, whether we realize it or not!"

"By accordance to our needs, you mean as fulfills our actual needs, I suppose, not the imagined ones which attachment or greed can create."

"Yes, exactly. That is a difficult point for some to grasp, yet as the saying goes, "Ask and ye shall receive," anything we ask for may be a valid request as per the individual's genuine needs. I wonder if the universe somehow knows to differentiate between frivolous requests and genuine needs?"

"It may indeed know, for it is the universe which we are but a part of and an expression of. It created us, it generates us, and it nurtures its creations."

"But there is the quagmire: what of those unfortunate souls for whom their desperate needs seem to never be fulfilled? Their needs do not seem to be producing magical dollar bills to fulfill their hungers. Is there something you did that entailed a 'leap of faith' which might have transformed your request into a need fulfilled, or some other quality that may have differentiated your situation from the way others handle a similar situation?"

"Good question! I must say that when I decided to look for bills on the ground, it was with the inner conviction that I would find one, and after finding one, that I would find three. That inner conviction was the same each day - an inner assurance that I would find three bills. Although some nagging doubts did exist at length on the days that bills weren't immediately forthcoming, the inner conviction was that I must be patient sometimes, but not give up, but rather to have persistent confidence until the end. That is, not until there was no doubt that there wasn't to be a third bill was I to give up the notion that there would be!"

"Astounding! That right there may have been the 'magic elixer' that transposed a mere want or desire into a thought manifested into reality!"

"Perhaps. I wish I could teach others this skill - indeed, I wish I could be mindful of it always for myself!"

"Amen to that! How our faith wavers day to day!"

"Yet, I'm not so sure it is exactly 'faith' we are discussing here. There is another thing, similar but different. I’m talking about a different kind of a confidence that seems to be able to manifest magical things! It is an absolute sort of confidence. Unshakable. Focused and casting of all doubts aside.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by that,” said the first, casting his eyes sideways towards his companion. “That stuff about manifesting magical things – I’m not certain one can manifest such things. I mean, miracles simply happen, don’t they?”

“Have you ever performed a 'thought experiment'? Or what you might otherwise term as a 'working premise'?" asked his friend.

“I cannot say for certain if I have or not.”

“By a ‘working premise’ I mean taking an idea and acting as if it is so for the purpose of testing it out, to see if it supports producing results. I took on as a ‘working premise’ that three dollars would appear, and the result was that they did, every day for ten days.”

“Well, that is an interesting example, but we still haven’t gotten down to establishing what exactly actually caused those dollars to appear!”

“No, we haven’t, but that might not be important to making such things happen to know the mechanism by which it works.”

“I’d like to know, especially considering such enchantments as bring about dollar bills! It is a little bit scary, wondering just who or what is behind such a thing happening!”

“I think it is the universe ‘happening’ that is making such things ‘happen.’”

“That sounds like some bit of double-talk! The universe ‘happening’?”

“Yes – perhaps as we are a part of the universe, we have a larger hand in what the universe brings forth of itself than we know or realize!”

“Do you have any other examples of such a notion, or are we still only on this dollar bill issue?”

“I do have another example of an impossible thing taking place.”

“Please, go on!”

“I lived for a while in an apartment with very high ceilings on a city street along which busses traveled. The ceiling light in the bathroom was very hard to reach without a ladder. It was a single bulb screwed into a light socket. When the busses would go by, they sometimes would shake the whole building just a bit, though it was barely noticeable from the off-street apartment I was in. However, it had shaken the bathroom light bulb loose just enough that sometimes you would be in there sitting on the ‘can’ after dark, and a bus would go by and shake the lamp, and the light would go off, leaving one sitting there in the dark, hoping another vibration would tip the bulb just enough to make it spark back on again. The carbon deposits on the bottom of the bulb and upon the contacts of the lamp socket had built up so that a barely perceptible shake of the building would make the light come back on again.”

“My! I ‘m sure that was frustrating sometimes!”

“It sure was!!! To the point of absolute fury sometimes! But no amount of banging the wall or stomping one’s feet on the floor would ever work – you simply had to wait for another bus to go by and shake it back on.”

“Good grief! How maddening! Sitting in the ‘john’ in the dark just waiting for the lamp to spark back on again must have been quite awkward!”

“Yes, it definitely was that!”

“So, what did you do?”

“Ok – I was sitting in the dark there one day, when it occurred to me that this connection through carbon deposits depended upon only a couple atoms to ‘wiggle’ their electron orbits a bit, and an electron path would spark into place through the carbon, completing the circuit, though very fragilely, holding the electron path until the carbon atoms were shaken apart again. It occurred to me that this was the ultimate test-laboratory for trying out mind over matter – telekinesis – and I decided I would try to use my thoughts alone to make those electron paths shift that little tiny amount and get the light to go on. Sounds crazy, but I was sitting in the dark for the umpteenth time and was frankly ready to try anything!”

“Goodness! I’d be ready by this time also! So, what happened?”

“Well, my first attempts yielded nothing, just focusing on the light bulb and trying to “think” it on. But then I paused to reflect, and I considered that everything I’d ever heard about actual ‘working’ magical events always seemed to involve some central place of focus for the mental energies to be ‘collected’ within and then be released from all at once, be that a ritual object or a magic wand or talisman object, by an individual’s efforts or through a group prayer, or whatever. So, I created this imaginary ‘object’ in my mind’s eye in front of me – kind of a Plexiglas rod sort of thing about an inch and a half in diameter and a couple of feet long, imagining it hovering in the air, just floating there in the air in front of me. So, here’s this clear Plexiglas rod, though of course, it is imaginary and made only of dream-stuff.”

“I see. Go on!”

“Well, I focused my thoughts on that rod collecting my concentrated energy, with the thought that it would collect the energy like a leyden jar was used to collect static electricity in Ben Franklin’s day, and that once I had focused enough energy into the rod so it stored what I considered an adequate amount, I would then mentally ‘release’ all that energy out of the rod and towards the light bulb to ‘shake’ its couple of atoms sitting in the carbon deposits and make the electrons spark across the gap, allowing it to fire on and light up the bulb!”

“Wow! You thought all that out sitting there on the john?”

“Yes – it kind of came to me in a flash of insight how I might make use of this ‘imaginary rod’ idea, after simply focusing on the light bulb didn’t seem to be working at all.”

“And… so???”

“Ok, so I focused the energy into the rod, then mentally ‘released’ it towards the light bulb, and to my amazement, the light came on in that instant!”

“Good gravy!! Weren’t you a little frightened that it worked???”

“Well, to be honest, I was a little. But I realized just as quickly that I may have simply been the lucky recipient of coincidence, where a bus might have gone by and knocked it back on at the same time I thought I’d ‘released’ the energy towards the bulb. So, I knew that to prove I’d actually done anything, I’d have to turn it off at-will in the same way.”

“So, what happened? I can’t stand the anticipation!”

“So – I concentrated into the rod again, ‘released’ the energy toward the bulb, and lo and behold, the light went off!!!”

“Holy Cow!!! How did you feel then?”

“I was definitely bemused and sat there marveling at my sitting again in the darkness, considering what I had just done! So, naturally, I couldn’t resist the impulse to do it again, to turn the light back on. Especially, of course, since I was again sitting in the dark.”

“And on the light went, didn’t it?! Oh my, this is just too much!”

“Yes. The light went right back on at the very instant I ‘released’ the energy towards the bulb. It was an awesome feeling of power, even though I knew I’d only just moved a couple of atoms, or even only a couple of electrons from their orbits. But, gads! I had always heard that every telekinesis experiment had been a hoax or a fake! And here I was doing it in my bathroom to my ceiling lamp!”

“Hah! The ultimate laboratory, as you said!”

“He-he! Yes!”

“So, what happened after that?”

“I finished my business and got up, and upon emerging from the bathroom, I told my girlfriend what I had just done. Though she was very skeptical at first, she could tell from my excitement that I had actually done what I said I had done! So, over the course of the next two weeks, every time I went to the can in the evening, I would go ahead and turn the light on and off while sitting on the john, and sometimes did it even during the day just for the fun of it. It became so easy that the ritual ‘charging up’ of the Plexiglas rod took only a few seconds now each time. If my girlfriend happened to be stuck in darkness from the bulb going off while she was in the toilet, she’d call me in and I’d turn the light back on for her! It was always one of those things that just made you kind of laugh to yourself, it was so exciting and amazing to be pulling such a thing off!”

“This is certainly an amazing story! So, why didn’t you become the “Amazing Telekinetic Human Light Switch, Performing on All Continents and Before Magnificent Heads of State and Royalty” for the rest of your life?”

‘Well, I was sitting on the john one day, turning on and off the lamp just for jollies, when it suddenly occurred to me that such an ability, if discovered that I had such a one by the government, would be the end of life as I knew it, as I would be taken and studied by scientists and the military, and the ability would be ‘weaponized’ for use in wars or as a sabotage tool or whatever – I just couldn’t see any practical use for it otherwise, and the foreboding scene of being used as a tool of destruction by a government agency was too scary. I was afraid of getting too ‘good’ at this, and all that such a thing might lead to! So, in a flash of commitment, I suddenly climbed up on the top of the bathroom sink, standing on my tiptoes. From this precarious position, I reached up stretching as long as I could stretch, grasped the light bulb, and I screwed in the light bulb!”

“And so came, with a single twist of your wrist, the end of your days as a telekinesist! How terribly sad – and yet how hilarious! Oh my!!! Seeing you stand up on that bathroom sink, screwing in the bulb in such a state of resolve to put this thing to an end once and for all! It is just too rich an image to put down!!! Such resolute determination! The end of an era in the twist of a light bulb!”

“Yes, and with it a flood of instantaneous relief! I can assure you of that!”

“Well, I certainly won’t venture to try it for myself, even if I have a cooperative light bulb! But I take it that the ‘working premise’ you had decided upon was thinking that the ‘Plexiglas rod’ solution would work, and you simply went with that once you had thought it out. Am I correct?”

“Yes, that was what I was trying to illustrate. It is a pretty radical example of such an idea at work, of course, but it had the essence of the idea of a ‘working premise’ at work going for it. Simpler applications I’ve heard of are like Olympic swimmers imagining their hands as being larger, and that has lead to them swimming faster immediately. The working premise wasn’t imagining their hands to be larger – it was imagining that imagining their hands were larger would increase their swimming speed!”

“I am beginning to catch a glimpse of what you are driving at. It is like what you were saying about the universe ‘happening’ a result into being.”

“Yes. The working premise that it could do so had to come first!”

“What an amazing idea! How could one teach such a thing? Or make it practicable for people to improve their own lot in life. Of course, now you have me musing as if I was a believer! How could this be how things work? And why can’t we or haven’t we harnessed such an ability before?”

As they strolled along, before either of them could think of a response to those two questions, a slight breeze wafted in their direction, pushing along towards them a piece of paper – an old page from a magazine that tumbled and slid along the roadway in their direction, till it finally settled upon the speaker’s foot, wrapping itself around his shoe. Upon the page was a photograph of two starving children from some foreign country, their stark eyes staring outward from the page and upwards towards the two men, as if imploring an answer themselves from them of those two questions, in the name of all of humanity and all of the sufferings of mankind. The man whose foot the page had become wrapped around bent down and picked up the sheet of paper, but arose stricken. They both were suddenly stricken with instantaneous grief. As he arose and straightened his body, the page with the photo being held in his hand, his eye caught the eye of his companion, and the two men suddenly broke into horribly sad tears of anguish, their remorse filling them both over the plight of the world, and they fell into each other’s arms, and wept for a bit, uncontrollably, their tears rolling down their faces in great sobs.

The universe had just “happened” both of them into a new form, changing their lives forever. This subject had just gone well beyond mere intellectual discourse about a curiosity. Once their tears had finally spent themselves upon the two of them and had left them thoroughly exhausted, they had been transformed completely into a new form: world changers. Separating from their embrace, they looked into each other’s eyes and each saw themselves as reflected in the face of the other, eyes sad, imploring, yet determined and committed, and full of an odd sort of confidence that was new to them both.

“We have to do something about this,” said one.

“Yes. It is over. This planet will be transformed once and for all. We must do it.”

“Agreed.”

The two men walked onwards towards their new, unseen destination, yet with the complete knowledge of where that destination lay and how it would look when they arrived at it. Now came the workings of magic. The working premise was that it could be done, and be done by them and by everyone else.

* * *

Continue Reading: To Chapter 2 -->

"This is incredible! By simply drawing lines in the dirt here, we are making huge changes in the rest of the world!"

"Yes, it is always interesting to me how immediately this works. But of course, we could not make any changes that would be manipulative of other’s, for that would be violating their free will."

"Though I understand why we should not on a purely ethical basis, I do not understand how it hurts things in the grand scheme of things, especially if most people have no concept of exactly how ‘free’ they really are, or aren’t for that matter."

"When we try to do things that manipulate others, we are going against the futures that they have already projected into being reality for them. When they project such realities, they become everybody else’s realities as well. This keeps our realities free of their control. So it is a practical thing to our benefit not to get other people involved, so to speak."

"Ah, OK. I see. We are keeping the focus our own. But why does this work?"

"Because we are beings who have the control - we have domain over all things, both living and dead. The sky, insects, animals, birds, plants, winds, the earth itself. They all respond to our requests, or to our commands, if we command. I prefer to ask. It is only polite and respectful to act that way towards those things of natural energy stuff whom we interact with here."

"But aren’t we of natural energy stuff ourselves?"

"We are made of the same stuff, but are not that stuff, if you get what I mean. We are the ones in control of it all."

"How did you ever discover this? Nobody else seems to know it. It is like it has been obscured from human knowledge the very truth about ourselves that makes the statement by Jesus Christ, ‘Ask and Ye shall receive’ more of a reminder of what and who we are than a mere statement of an idea!"

"Do you want to hear another story?"

"Sounds like a good place for one!"

"Well, I was in my early-thirties, just getting a handle on some of the more profound parts of the art of making choices. I had chosen pretty broadly to be free, to be true to myself, and to be healthy. That part about being true to myself seemed to get something started. At that time, I was conversing rather freely with an entity I had come to refer to as ‘God’, though I have no idea who or what this entity was in reality. Possibly an alien life form, possibly an aspect of my highest self—who knows? But one day, I asked to be in closer touch with the natural spirits of the planet, and the next day I suddenly found myself entering the driveway of my home and I experienced a simple vine growing on a tree actually calling out to me. ‘Hey there!’ it said. ‘Hello?’ I responded. ‘What do you want?’ ‘I was told to get your attention. From now on all plants will talk to you, and will talk with you! Isn’t that great?!"

"Well, that must have been a shock! You mean it just addressed you out of the blue and started carrying on a conversation with you just like that?"

"Yes, that is exactly how it was. So, to test what it was saying, I turned to another plant growing by the side of the driveway, and asked it, ‘Is what he says true? You all will talk to me?’ ‘Yes, absolutely,’ was the response! I was quite surprised! And I didn’t know what to do about it, either!"

"I guess neither would I know what to do!"

"Well, so I asked it what was up, and what was going to happen next. It said that all the nature spirits would be making contact with me over the next few days. That was very interesting! I asked how it was, and it told me it was actually doing very well, thank you! It was pretty cool!"

"That is an understatement!"

"Well, OK, it was VERY cool!! But now I was wondering what would happen next. I’d experienced very slight telepathy a year previously with a wasp whom I sensed was telling me he was dying from thirst, and so I got him water, which he drank for a while till he’d slaked his thirst, they flew up in the air, happily thanking me for saving its life, and then flew away. But this had a very different quality. It was just like talking to you now, only it was with a plant!"

"Seems like you were connecting on a very complete level with them. I mean, no baby talk nonsense - instead an intelligent conversation? Incredible!"

"Well, it was to become progressively more incredible over the next few days. The next day, I was sitting on the porch having had several conversations with the grass and flowers in the yard already (I included everyone that I could), and then suddenly a bird flew down and landed on the low chain-link fence separating my tiny yard from the city sidewalk beyond it. It chirped at me a very nice hello. Then another bird landed of a different species, followed by another of still another species - till I was very soon surrounded by several sparrows, cardinals, blue-jays, robins, tit-mice, two pigeons, and a starling all crowding onto the grass right in front of me, strutting about shoulder to shoulder, not fighting over territory or anything I’d expect, but instead they were all trying to get my attention at once! It was very difficult to keep them all feeling included in my thoughts, as they all were wanting to carry on conversations with me!"

"My goodness! Weren’t you a little afraid?"

"Well, yes, I was a little nervous feeling at first, there were so many of them! But after a while I relaxed about it - they were clearly there for socializing - to visit with me and to assure me that this was part of some ‘experiment’ as they called it, to interact with humans."

"I see. An ‘experiment’ they called it!"

"Oh, yes, this was definitely that! In one of my conversations with the one I called ‘God’ I was later informed as much. After the birds incident, dogs and cats would simply approach me to be pet, even animals whose owners told me had never liked other people before. And then wild squirrels approached me and would sniff at my pants and such. Then, suddenly babies in strollers and in stores where I’d go would look up at me and just stare and smile… it was getting more and more incredible!"

"That sounds sweet, though. I would have felt quite flattered by all this attention!"

"I was, believe me. It felt like such an honor to be held in esteem by all of these spirits treating me with such high regard. But then things came to a head over the next several days. We were experiencing a serious drought, and the plants were all asking me to ask ‘Sky’ as they called him for some rain. I asked ‘God’ about this, and He told me that Sky and Earth were open to communicating with me, but that they were quite angry with mankind at this point in history, and so even though they had to obey my requests because I was human and humans had domain over all things, that they would do so begrudgingly. So, after finishing that little conversation, I looked up at the sky and said, ‘Sky? I’d like to have some rain, please. I need it right away, as soon as you can muster some up.’ Sky was indeed rather grumpy, but agreed to do as I asked. To my surprise, in only twenty minutes, suddenly the sky went dark with clouds that appeared out of nowhere, and a torrent of rain dropped down upon us as if the heavens had opened and all the water was being dumped upon us right there! There were hailstones the size of radishes! There was so much water, so fast, that it flooded the parking-lot behind my building with almost a foot of water!! This was crazy!! It was too much water, way too fast!!! It was washing things away and simply all running off into the rivers, none of it soaking into the dry ground. I was horrified! ‘What are you doing??!!!’ I asked the one called ‘Sky’, and it replied somewhat rudely that I had asked for rain, and so rain is what I got—that if I wanted it to rain a certain way to please me, that I had to be more ‘specific’. More ‘specific’!!! Well, I was pretty mad, actually, by now, but I calmed down and got ‘specific’ with my request for rain, and asked for at least a day or two of light rain, to moisturize the ground and dampen it enough to act like a sponge that would draw the water deeper into the ground, followed by about a week of steady rain, at just the right pace to saturate the ground and replenish the groundwater and aquifers. That seemed pretty completely ‘specific’ to me! ‘Sky’ acted disgruntled and rude still, but agreed to give me rain according to my specifications, though it would take a few days to set things up for such a complex request, and much to my surprise, a few days later, just like ‘Sky’ had said he would, the entire cycle began just as I’d requested it! The drought had been beaten, and both the shallow-rooted and deep-rooted trees and plants were thriving again! It was completely amazing!"

"Incredible!!!"

"I’ll say!!! But now that this had gotten started, I was told next by ‘God’ that ‘Earth’ had agreed to talk with me, but to be forewarned that ‘Earth’ and ‘Rock’ was very, very grumpy and angry with all of humanity for what damage it was doing to all living things. So, I cautiously addressed ‘Earth’, and it was indeed extremely grumpy and harsh with me. Mind you, this was the spirit of the entire planet I was addressing. I was very nervous, as this is the very spirit in charge of tectonic shifts, earthquakes, volcanoes - very destructive stuff!! I was so afraid of pissing ‘him’ off and making ‘him’ angry!!! Gads, that was just such a scary thing!"

"I should imagine that is was, considering the mishap that your asking for mere rain had brought upon you!"

"I was very, very nervous! But after the preamble of how bad humans were, and how they deserved to all be destroyed and talk like that, I was mortified! I reminded ‘Earth’ that humans had domain over ‘him’, and that ‘he’ should respect that fact and not speak so harshly and dangerously about humans! I also reminded ‘Earth’ about all the finer traits humans had, of love and compassion and higher spiritual potentials and all that. But then I apologized for the damage we’d done, and asked that ‘Earth’ simply be a little compassionate and not simply angry with the humans. ‘Earth’ replied that humans had completely forgotten themselves, and had no idea of who or what they were, had no idea that they were in ‘control’ and so took no responsibility for how things went for all the rest of nature. ‘Earth’ and ‘Sky’ were both very, very angry with us, and felt that we got what we deserved, allowing things to be left up to random chance, when we could have asked for anything from them for thousands of years and gotten what we’d asked for."

"My, my! That was a huge load to place on your shoulders, I should say! And a huge load to place upon humanity’s shoulders - to take responsibility for how things occured, even as to planetary tectonic shifts, rain and weather patterns, and we haven’t even discussed the ocean yet, which humans treat as if it barely even exists below the surface!"

"True. I didn’t get a chance to talk to the watery side of ‘Earth’. In fact, as it turned out, all of this ended quite abruptly. I happened to be driving home with a car full of heavy plaster green-ware molds that I was moving for a friend whose house I was staying at in exchange for helping her out, and while driving with this heavy load in her too-small car, and I was feeling rather overwhelmed by all of this that had happened over the last few days. I addressed the one I talked to whom I had called ‘God.’ I told Him, ‘Now, look, this is all way too much power to give to just me - it is too much responsibility - what if I screw up and do something that hurts people, or even hurts plants or animals?’ I was still feeling guilty for the plants and bugs and things that had gotten washed away by that first ‘rain’ attempt. Then I attempted to strike a deal. I told ‘God’ that I would do this thing, this ‘experiment’, but that I would not agree to do anything that might be harmful to anything or anybody - not that anybody had asked me to do anything at all besides the plants asking me to make it rain, but I was feeling like I had to be cautious, in case this was some kind of a set-up or something - I wasn’t feeling very trusting of what was going on by then. This seemed, at the time, to be a logical requirement to put into place, but I think I voiced it too much like it was a command, or being a wise-ass, perhaps. Or a chicken-shit! I knew I was being obstinate, but felt that - for the good of all - that I’d perhaps better take the chance and challenge this ‘God’ figure and state what I felt were, like, contractual terms or something! Anyway, almost as soon as those words left my mind, suddenly it was as if the sky had opened up, and a yellow-white lightening bolt emerged from above and struck me, striking me through my very soul! I was driving with this dangerous load in this little car, but my body was shaking out of control, like an epeleptic fit or something! I could barely drive! I cried out in my mind, ‘What do You think You are doing?! I can’t drive!! Are you trying to cause an accident??!! Go ahead and kill me, but we’re not going to kill anybody else in the process!!’ I struggled with the wheel to pull the car over to the side of the road and not veer across the yellow line as I had been heading and run headlong into the oncoming traffic. It was all I could do to pull over and stop the car - my body was shaking so tremendously from the lightening bolt of energy that had hit me!!! I was so furious and upset with what had happened! I couldn’t believe that my ‘God’ had had the nerve to have done this to me! I was so upset that I never communicated with that one I had previously referred to as ‘God’ again. I surmised that I had been communicating with an alien lifeform or something, or that it had all just been in my imagination, which it might have been, except for the miracles that had already happened."

"Oh, my. This incident made you lose your faith entirely?"

"Yes. I had felt that I had been entirely duped, no matter how I tried to sort it out, and continued to be puzzled by all of this for years and years afterwards. I felt on one hand that perhaps I had duped myself into believing these things, by my wanting to be in rapport with nature and with the one I had called ‘God’ so much. I questioned how much of this I had simply fantasized. But then, in more clear moments, I knew that this had been no fantasy - the plants had even led me to finding a book on Findhorn Gardens right after we’d begun talking, which I had never heard of before. The animals and babies attentions were certainly real. The rain had come from my discussion with the sky. And I had felt the planet Earth’s anger as a real and ominous thing. So, I was forced to believe that perhaps I was being setup to cause something destructive for an unfriendly alien being, perhaps. That sounded so crazy, but my trust in whatever I had been referring to as ‘God’ had been so shattered, that I was prone to consider it may have been a higher force, alright, but a malicious one attempting to use me as a patsy. None of these answers could be resolved, and I remained upset for many years afterwards. Needless to say, all ‘miracles’ stopped, and I experienced no more after that incident with the lightening bolt."

"How terribly tragic! But you are performing miracles again now, aren’t you? Haven’t you reconciled your connection with your higher self again?"

"I am in the process of doing that right now, just as we speak about it right here in the present. My healing is not completed, by any stretch. But, I have done the first step - I have made the choice to have that wound healed. I have chosen to be complete and true to my highest self. That has rekindled the process of healing, and has already led to my meeting with you. And already, new insights I hadn’t been able to see before considering this incident have come to light for me, even just in the last few days."

"Oh? How do you mean?"

"Well, for one thing, when I made my little ‘bargain’ (or more like a ‘demand’) with the one I’d referred to as ‘God’, it was exactly the kind of irresponsibility that ‘Earth’ and ‘Sky’ had talked about earlier—I was pawning off my own personal responsibility on ‘God’, telling ‘Him’ that I wouldn’t do anything that harmed anything or anybody, but it was basically putting the responsibility on the one I called ‘God’ rather than taking such responsibility myself. That is, I was in essence saying, ‘Look, I’ll do whatever you ask me to do, as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody.’ What I didn’t face up to was that ‘God’ wasn’t asking me to do anything! ‘He’ was merely reminding me of the power I already had as a human being! So, there was no manipulation taking place, no control, no using me as a ‘tool’. I was simply being told, ‘Here is what humans have always been able to do, but they, like you, have always evaded the responsibility, and so they buried thier power and ability to choose and never allowed themselves to feel empowered again, like ‘Earth’ and ‘Sky’ had been talking about, allowing chance events to control everything, when we could have taken control to have things be as we wanted them to be."

"That is profound!!! But what a huge load of responsibility! Can humans even bear such feelings of ultimate responsibility for their actions?"

"Apparently, they have been unable to accept such a load for thousands of years. That is the major problem we have here."

"But what of bad people? I mean, there really are very bad people in this world. If the ‘sociopaths’ of this world have such power, they could, and would, be terrifying menaces to the rest of us!"

"Apparently, ‘sociopaths’, or people without a conscience, only have connection with the mundane world of rules and regulations, human laws, and the mediocre aspects of life. They are pitifully out of touch with their higher states, and it is the higher states of humankind which have the connection with and domain over natural forces and can communicate with plants and animals and such things as nature spirits. They can manipulate us only on the grossest levels of existence. They have no real power where it could count. And that leads to another point, concerning ‘responsibility’. Humans are required to have trust in their higher selves’ connection with all that is as a harmonious existence from the get-go. If we are making choices from our higher selves, we are making them in a way that ‘fits’ with everybody else’s choices. That is a very magical state of existence! It is the insurance we seem to need to hold on to in order to allow ourselves to trust that no harm comes about from our desires being fulfilled. Our desires on this higher level of things aren’t really ‘ours’ at all, but are the ‘one’ that we are a part of expressing communicating its needs via our desires!"

"You mean, as if when we tap into that higher part of ourselves that we are tapping into that common root which all beings share?"

"Not just all beings, but all things, all universes, all times, past, present, future, all that is! Calling it the ‘common root’ that we all share is a very accurate description of it. It is a single moment, all places in one place, always right there in right now. I get glimpses of that aspect of our existence every so often. It is the only ‘real’ reality. Everything else is a projection, a fantasy, a confabulation. But we need to trust that from our higher selves, if we have made the conscious choice to be true to that higher self, that the projections and fantasies which our brain delivers to us hold more insight into the real truth of things than we could ever have hoped for, not having made such a committed choice. The choice to be true to one’s highest self is a key choice to make. From it, all other actions and thoughts turn to ‘God-stuff’—compassionate acts and energies in accordance with the harmony that is behind all of existence where spiritual order resides. However, to not make that choice, to act in ignorance or willfully against such higher being, is to introduce chaos into the universe. Chaos is our teacher. We experience chaos as long as we are not organic, as long as we are not whole, as long as we do not move in harmony with our highest self, which is our being connected with all other beings, animate or inamimate. From this place, all of creation is sentient in some fashion - be they rocks or moons or space dust. But on the larger scope of things, anything which contains life is itself living. Thus our Earth is sentient, as are its components of ‘Sky’, ‘Water’, ‘Rock’ and ‘Movement’."

"You didn’t mention ‘Movement’ before. What do you mean?"

"’Movement’ is the motion of all energies - be they mechanical, electrical, light, magnetic, radio frequencies, gamma rays, or any other energies, including some which we have in less abundance in this fabric of space than we used to have, and many which we have no idea even exist. The healing energies emitted by healers are one such energy, like my late friend Karmu the healer had. ‘Movement’ can be asked to do things. That is how I made the light bulb turn on and off in my bathroom years earlier. We have domain over those energy-realms as well."

"Why have humans given up their control? I mean, if the world could be made a better place by mere prayer—or as you say, through ‘requests’—why haven’t people taken that to heart and used it all these years? How on earth could they have all forgotten a thing like that? Why do they instead act as if they are powerless to do anything about anything?"

"That, my friend, is a very good question!"

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"Oh, drat!" she exclaimed inwardly to herself. "I was just getting used to the way things used to be!"

She supposed she’d be hearing from Howard Popsicle any moment now.

Of the 144,000 "outsiders" who had invaded this planet and changed the genetic destiny of humans forever some 85,000 years ago, she and a few others had committed to becoming "bodhisattvas" of the first order, having promised to remain tied to this planet, reincarnating forever to this "rock" until the responsibility she and the others felt for making the human race this way had been dealt with, and Earthly humanity could be trusted to be able to take care of itself.

That project was certainly taking its sweet time! She, Howard Popsicle and the other two had been returning here on quiet but influential missions for 85,000 years now, subtly and sometimes not-so-subtly influencing Earthly humanity to grow deeper in spiritual values so as to realize its potential. The human’s potential definitely was there - those from her own planet had been of similar genetic beginnings.

But how could it be otherwise? This universe pretty much spelled out the rules of the game.

Well, at least it used to. Somebody had just accelerated all the systems into a higher gear, and she felt pretty sure she knew who it was.

"It’s that technician again! How did he figure this one out? He’s supposed to forget all those tricks!" She was secretly glad that he did remember himself somehow each lifetime, even though his rebirths were always into a body/mind shrouded with a certain amount of forgetfulness as to his origins and purpose. His intuition was a far more valuable thing to them than mere knowledge could be. It was uncanny how he could always wind up in the right place at the right time, especially since he really didn’t know how or why these things kept happening to him. Or, at least, he didn’t seem to remember.

As he had done in previous lives, he found his way to meet one of their little group by a chance meeting near Harvard Square... that resulted in his regaining full memories of all his 85,000 years here, and as a result had been brought to meet with Howard Popsicle, their leader, on Beacon Hill in Boston for a grounding session, to know it really was all real. He had dismissed the meeting as just another interesting bit of mindstream stuff - so typical! - and went on to act again as if nothing had even happened. Did anything happen? Maybe not!

The universe "happens" - but what does that mean, really?

Sometimes she wished he would simply remember himself once and for all and let it be done with!

She remembered when Scott Patterson, one of the four left minding things here, described his meeting with him.

"We got to talking - he and his girlfriend at the time - standing in front of Harvard Street Church at first, and later I suggested we go sit on the steps. I know I shouldn’t have, but he seemed so blasted familiar and had simply addressed me out of nowhere as I was walking past. What he said caught my attention, too."

" ‘Hello there! You’re moving much too quickly!’ he had said. That stopped me, because I was walking quickly for no reason I could fathom at the time, and … well, he just caught me by surprise!"

"The rest of the conversation went on like this:

‘Oh? And how do you know I am moving too quickly? ‘ I asked.

‘Well, you almost zipped right past us! Where do you think you are going so quickly?’ he asked me.

I volunteered, for some odd reason I can’t explain, ‘I’m trying to get the heck off of this rock! And the sooner the better!’

‘You are trying to 'get off of this rock'?’ he asked me. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m trying to leave this planet -- to stop reincarnating over and over again to this place!’ I answered him, inexplicitly, since we don’t discuss that with anyone normally.

‘Oh,’ he replied, ‘Stop being reborn here over and over again. I see. Well, why is that? If you are here, think of all the people you can help out. Why stop helping people?’ he asked me. I was really stuck in it now!

‘It has been like… an addiction!’ I told him. ‘Like, I’ve convinced myself that I had to stay tied to this rock - this planet - and have all my lifetimes take place here, when there is an entire universe of places to take rebirths in! It just doesn’t make any sense!’

‘Well, not if you can help people in other places, I suppose,’ he said. ‘I love coming back here, though! It is so pretty in the spring and fall, and I love all the seasons and nature here, and there are so many very nice people. You don’t have to do anything, naturally, but if you help people here, they do need it.’ His answers were making me feel - strange! - but now it was like I was talking to one of us! I couldn’t pin this guy down. Then what somebody had told me about this ‘technician’ guy came to mind. I decided to ask him to take a couple ‘tests’ for me, explaining I just wanted to check something out."

"I had him imagine there were three egg-shaped forms, one for his spirit self over his head, the next for his mental self around his head, and the third for his body self encompassing his chest and abdominal region. I told him I wanted him to bring his consciousness into his spiritual self by doing this little visualization exercise, but warned him that it was rather dangerous, because we had to ensure that we returned the mental self and spiritual orbs back to their original position afterwards. Then I had him imagine that as he lowered his chin slowly, that he was pushing his bodily orb downwards, into his chest, pulling his mental orb downwards with it, so the mental sat just above his heart and surrounded his throat. This also pulled his spiritual-self orb downwards. Next, that he was to slowly raise his head now, but leaving the mental orb where it was, so that he was raising his head to ‘poke’ his brain and head inside of the spiritual self orb. As he raised his head into the spiritual-self orb, I could clearly see that he had succeeded in entering his mental being into his spiritual consciousness.

"Then I asked him my test questions. ‘How long have we been coming back to this planet?’ I asked him. ’85,000 years’ he answered after a brief moment of consideration. Exactly right! I was already flabbergasted - nobody answers that one correctly who doesn’t actually know the answer! He was one of us, but didn’t seem to know it!

"I next asked him, ‘Why are you here?’ He didn’t even pause a moment to respond. ‘I am here to help anybody I can in whatever way I can,’ he told me. ‘That is my reason, and I have known that all of my life. I remember picking this body, my parents, and this lifetime - that is, I have memories from before being born. I had a guide, too. I remember so clearly him asking me if I was sure about this just before embarking out of the spirit existence back into a human form, and I replied, ‘Yes, I’m absolutely sure!’ I made certain that I remembered that even through the traumas of birth, and almost the first thing I told my mother and grandmother when I learned to talk was to inform them that I remembered being ‘in heaven’ and picking my parents out.’

"Well, I then asked him how much longer it would take to help people, and he told me it would take many more rebirths before people could all help themselves and he would no longer be needed that way. Of course, with him in this state, it was no time to carry on a discussion of why he might be better off to abandon this project, and he’d been in this state a long time already, so I gave him the instructions again to lower his chin into his chest, putting his brain and head again into the mental state orb, and then upon slowly raising his head, to push the spiritual self orb upwards again to over his head, pulling the body orb upwards back into position. As he did so, I was so excited that I kind of screwed up the next exercise I asked him to do.

"I asked him if he’d mind another experiment, and he said no, not at all. I had him close his eyes again and imagine he was raising up out of his body till he was floating above the church looking down at us from up in the air far above us. He did this with apparent ease, as I by now expected he would. ‘So, you are now flying above us, looking down at us standing here?’ I asked him. ‘Yes,’ he replied.

"My next instruction was supposed to be for him to go to his first lifetime back - the one just previous to this one - so he could perhaps tell me what he was doing here in his last lifetime. But, there is where I messed up. With him flying now above us, I told him I wanted him now to go to his first lifetime on this planet - not his first lifetime back - his first lifetime! After a moment I asked him, ‘Are you there?’, and he seemed visibly shaken, the process taking a bit longer than I expected. ‘Not yet,’ he managed to reply. ‘Let me know when,’ I said. I didn’t realize still what I had done! ‘Holy Shit! OK, I’m there!’ he said. ‘Describe to me what you see there,’ I said to him. What he told me completely astonished me!

" ‘I’m standing in a field, carrying some kind of measuring device, scanning the area. We have just determined that not only was this area safe to sustain our kind of life, but that it there were beings here very closely like our own genetically, though still fairly primitive. There are three space ships behind me - shaped like the rocket ships of old Science Fiction stories, with three long pods that served as stabilizers allowing these tall structures to stand upright on the ground. We have just determined that the beings of this planet could be used by us as genetic ‘base material’ to accelerate their evolutionary development and allow a new version of intelligent being like ourselves to evolve here on this planet. We were, in a sense, colonizing the planet, but not with our own people, but rather, with the offspring of the people who were already here. I was a technician, and the lowest ranking person on the mission.

" ‘But, you have to hear what else I saw! When you asked me to go to my first lifetime on this planet, it was incredible! There I was, floating above the church looking down at us one minute, and suddenly I was zooming like a jet plane just fifty feet above the ground, with scene after scene appearing below me, like one every half second or so. Each scene was a scene that symbolized in a single flash an entire lifetime! More than symbolized, really - it encompassed all the details of that entire life - in a flash! In the first, I was dressed rather dapper in a plaid jacket and pants, wearing a bowler hat, a successful impresario walking down a new brick-laid sidewalk somewhere. Further back, flashes of pioneer life in America, followed by several scenes in succession living in tribal settings as a medicine man, healer or wise man of some kind. The flashes became closer together, being like the beating of wings of a large bird, each beat of the wings showing a different age. At one point, I was astonished to find myself standing in a laboratory setting from thousands of years ago - in a building built atop an active volcano, and in that we had grown a massive crystal that was the power source for the civilization of that time. It was a job like working for an electric power company might be today, except that the crystal was able to focus energies we do not even know about in these times. There was an atmosphere of strife in that era - struggle and discontent surrounding the issue of centralization of power vs. decentralization. This was building to a war-like episode and coming to a head in the destruction of the crystal, the volcano exploding and destroying the entire civilization. It was Atlantis!! Then further back, into another civilization, full of mental and spiritual energies, and full telepathy between everyone. This was considered to be a nuisance, this telepathic connectivity, because intolerance and conservative ways were creating an atmosphere of so-called "thought-crimes". I was an activist against thought-crimes and an advocate for freedom of thought! Then another couple of flashes in jungles and fields, and there I was, stopped in that field taking measurements with our three rocket ships standing tall behind me! A colonizer! Of all things!!! ‘

"Shaken by what he had told me and by what I realized I had done, I told him that I had to take him to see Howard on Beacon Hill - that I felt he should meet Howard. At least meeting him, I figured, it might give some grounding to who was clearly "The Technician." I could not believe I had found him - or more accurately, that he had found me!"

That was thirty years ago. "The Technician" had been roaming the country, still completely ambivalent to his importance or status as a miracle-worker, all that time. Only sporadic miracles had taken place so far - though Howard had said that we had to regard every single move "The Technician" made as being a miracle, because all were part and parcel of every more flamboyant and spectacular miracle that he was to perform. "Remember," Howard used to remind them, "to the Technician, every single event is the same; all the universe wrapped up in the present moment, in the present time. Only the manifestations are changing."

Only the manifestations are changing! Ugh!!! "To be in control of the manifestations - what a nice thing that would be!" she thought. Things were manifesting, all right! Howard’s words continued to echo in her head:

"It is no different for the rest of us - we are all part of that same whole, that same unity, the same single event that is all events simultaneously. We just aren’t stubborn enough in our resolve to "make" things manifest the way the Technician is. He knows the consequences as much as we do of manifesting anything - that’s why he has studied all these years how to do it carefully - taking care of us even if it brings difficulties upon himself. That’s why we hold back, isn’t it? Aren’t we afraid of all those potential repercussions coming from our actions? Afraid of results coming back and slapping us in the face? Afraid of what our manifestations may manifest themselves? Afraid of being responsible should something screw up, and we hurt someone?"

Howard could be such a pain!

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"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:
Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. "

-- W.H. Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition

That last bit from Goethe seriously amplifies on the idea, but the key word in that couplet is Boldness. What a concept, boldness! Can a person make a commitment to themselves without it? I've always said that the secret of my own successes was my audacity, but it was really boldness I was referring to. But another great word I learned from master teachers from Tibet is the word aspiration. It is a very healthy replacement for the word 'goals,' for a very subtle reason.

In Tibetan Buddhism as in all other flavors of Buddhism and many other Eastern philosophies, one of the subjects of study is the cause of suffering. An often recommended remedy for many causes of suffering is to remain in the present. The past is over, our memories of it are always clouded or biased in some way, and the future is a fantasy, and cannot have all the delicate detail and substance of the present time, because, for one thing, it doesn't even exist yet! So, all of its existence is contained in our mind, and the human mind, for all its amazing power, cannot comprehend the awesome truth of any present moment, let alone project a future one with any accuracy. So, it is a good thing to admit one's inability to do any kind of very good job of projecting futures, and that includes the setting of goals. This may surprise you that I'm saying that after the above quotations. But let me ask you: if you set a goal and do not attain it in all the idealized splendor which you had preordained - or worse, utterly fail - then you are likely to project your own role in that as being a failure, perhaps even a dismal failure. This notion permeates much of our emotional projection of the future. It is figured in as a painful possibility, and pain is something to be avoided. So, no matter how much you may commit or 'emotionally prepare' yourself, you are still potentially setting yourself up for a disaster! (Our primitive, self-protective emotional brain cannot help but 'foresee' such dangers, especially after a childhood filled with warnings and taboos!) This is the same mind that can make a mess out of recollection, of course, so can it be trusted with carrying something as important to us as our goals? I think not!

By staying in the present moment, we can acknowledge our emotional mind's projections and poor interpretations of past events (even just moments past), but time does not stand still. Propelled forward by aspirations, we become mindful of opportunities we may have otherwise missed. Propelled forward by aspirations, we live with a sense of purpose, and yes, boldness. Propelled forward by aspirations, the actual outcome does not really matter, for we remain caught up in the action of being. Not merely existing - being! A