CHAPTER 1

So ... I'm sitting in my parents' car at a red light, right? It was an unusually weird day for me, and I don't do weird at this point in my life. Pretty much a clockwork path laid ahead of me: Transferring to University of California at Berkeley in a semester's time, majoring in God knows what (though there's no God at this moment) and a job I despise at a bank vault counting other peoples' money. I needed the job because I had to help my parents pay for the exponentially increasing cost of university education and I was only going for two years. The first two (or at this point, 1.5yrs.) had been spent at high school part deux, or community college.

I had enrolled myself in a direct-transfer program as conciliation for being rejected by the aforementioned UC school, even though I had a really high GPA and did every extracurricular activity under the sun. As long as I maintained a 3.0 grade point average at the community college for two years, I was guaranteed a place at Berkeley as a junior. I was bored a lot of the time, but the experience wasn't a total waste. Singing base in their choir was awesome, and learned that I had hidden abilities in acting and writing poetry. I also had some truly exceptional educators, too. I had always excelled in the realm of academia, believing it to be my key to life's successes, yet it was a rare occurrence when I found anything in class to peak my authentic interest.

I knew from an early age that success in school had little to do with actual learning or depth of thought. It had everything to do with psychologically analyzing one's teacher, understanding their patterns, views on their subject, and subsequent meeting of their particular expectations that wrought achievement in their class. This strategy had worked for years, and I found, was equally applicable to community college.

I was hungry to challenge the established paradigms in every field, in every subject, because I had so many ideas and questions, and so many things in this world just didn't add-up. My professors didn't seem to have the desire to explore any further than their syllabi. Oh well, I'd sigh to myself, just a little longer until Berkeley.

I thought perhaps that Western Philosophy might be my saving grace; ambrosia and nectar against the wounds of intellectual iniquity, where free thought could examine every angle of every subject already perceived to be set in tablature. I had been looking forward to the class ever since I was introduced to Plato's writings in high school.

Its founder, Socrates, my hero to this date, was famous and heralded as wisest because he boldly declared that he didn't know shit. He was, in fact, murdered by his contemporaries because he proved repetitiously that everyone else did not know what they were talking about either, even though they thought that they did (my kind of guy). It seems, however, that I had been mistaken.

My professor (I use the term loosely) was under the illusion that the answers were set in stone, that he knew what Kafka meant, etc ... we argued all semester. I don't believe he was a lover of wisdom, and can you really teach what you don't love and therefore know?

Ahhhh ... modern philosophy. Endless, circular, intellectual masturbation with no pay-off or pragmatism.

I'll admit I had no higher hopes when I enrolled in Eastern Philosophy. I had heard of Buddhists and knew of them vaguely as a peaceful bunch. I admired this trait, and honestly, I was miserly with my admiration of anything even remotely involving religions. I was aware of the contemporary running jokes applied often to Hari Krishnas; their funny clothes and music, in-your-face evangelicalism, and cultish surrender of individuality. Though I thought they disturbed the general peace, I also quietly approved of their harmless demeanor.

I realize now that my believing this sect encompassed all that was Hinduism was roughly the equivalent of Hindus assuming that born-again, fire-and-brimstone Baptists represented the more than 300 varieties of Christians that existed, but I was nineteen-years-old. You don't truly realize that you don't know shit until you reach age twenty-five and Life has roughly handed your ass to you a few times ... but I digress.

Eastern philosophy was, well ... a revelation for me. Whereas the Bible seemingly had endless contradictions, cryptic codices and plentiful fear-filled admonitions, the scriptures of the East were clearly stated, and even more surprising, were psychologically sound. I enjoyed the mysterious hypothetical poetry that Taoism's Lao Tzu had recorded, though it made little sense to my reasoning mind.

Hinduism, I found, encompassed far more than clanging cymbals, incense, and chanting. Though they lost me with talk of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva (not escaping my notice, even then, that these Personalities of God were a Trinity), the Vedas' description of the cosmos sounded on-par with what scientists of today were proposing ... and they were written thousands of years ago? Krishna was supposedly an incarnation of Vishnu, and Hindus worshipped him the way Christians did Jesus, though he had blue skin and played the flute a lot. Whatever, I thought.

Then we studied Buddhism. Wow, I thought, this is Socrates minus the proving-everyone-wrong thing. Not only that, it was a guy who said (and I'm paraphrasing here), 'Please don't worship me as God or as a god. I'm a former prince (not the artist formerly known as) who realized there is suffering in the world and I sought the way to end it. After a long search and trying every known spiritual practice ... I achieved it in myself and attained perfect peace. The good news is that you can too. Please don't take my word for it; if you just do these eight things (The Eight-Fold Path), you too can be "enlightened" (know the Truth) and attain perfect peace (or Nirvana).' Oh man!

I loved it! Perfect for an atheist. No talk of soul, condemnation or fear! Scientists always said we only used about 10% of our brain cells; well maybe "enlightenment" was the ability to access the dormant 90%! The Eight-Fold Hypothesis, as I called it, couldn't be more scientific. Buddha actually went on to describe WHY and HOW each postulate was applicable and useful to life now and not in the hereafter. It just made so much goddamn sense I couldn't believe it, and I loved it because it didn't require unquestioning faith! Oh man! Thank you Siddhartha Guatama!

I realized that this was the fundamental problem that humanity faced: People feared a hell that awaited them after death. That their "Creator" might punish them for things they did or said or thoughht that went against the rule He might have set-up, not realizing that hell was on Earth the whole time. Suffering in "ignorance of truth" was hell. It was here, reflected everywhere in war, starvation, disease, pollution, and poverty. This man who sought no worship (though millions still do) said that he found the way out into the light, like in Plato's The Allegory of the Cave. Socrates left no map, though. Buddha did.

Doctorate, please!!! (Stephen Colbert voice with gimme hands)

Wow! A person, who not only loved wisdom, but used it, and (I was shocked to admit it) seemed to embody it. Could I truly become enlightened as he had? I pondered the question deeply, but with my usual skepticism (or intellectual cowardice ... yeah, that's a burn).

I really desired that peace. My thoughts never ceased and were loud and rapid. Always analyzing. Always invalidating anything that didn't make sense to my mind. Buddhism still eluded my understanding, but I just knew that the Four Noble Truths were accurate and the Eightfold-Way could make you enlightened (whatever that really was) because I felt it deep within my body. Like when you fell in love for the first time.

This even made intellectual sense to me; that the mind was the barrier to wisdom and truth, if not paradoxical. It made zero sense to the kid who sat next to me in class, though. Not only did it not make any sense to him at all, it caused him downright agony and pissed him off ... and coincidentally, so did I.

You see, this kid was a Christian, and I'll be more specific before a few of you get all huffy. He embodied everything I used to stereotype as Christian: Loved Jesus, but feared God (go figure, as they're supposed to be the same guy), thought he was "conceived in sin," and that we non-believing sinners were going to hell (including our professor).

In almost apoplectic frustration, he would debate with and question our teacher on the finer points of metaphysical truth, and I'll admit that the professor was as patient and diplomatic as could be. I, however, reached my limit with the brainwashed ravings of this young man one fine day, and I ground his intellect and belief-system into puppy chow.

What can I say in my defense, other than that I was nineteen-years-old and had had enough?

I brought his attention to every backward, contradictory passage the Good Book had to offer. Kings 2 where the holy and revered Elijah murders 40 children for calling him "baldy" by summoning two female bears to punish them. Genesis 19:8 where the pious Lot serves his virgin daughters up on a platter to the men of Sodom. Every point he could conjure was blown to pieces by cool, concise logic and reasoning.

I never could understand how anyone who was religious would think that they could argue a point, and I mean argue to the point of violence with the complete absence of any direct evidence, something that can't be substantiated by anything other than one's own subjective experience. Or what a bunch of dead guys claimed was the truth because they wrote it down and had generational cred. Give me a fucking break.

I nailed him, finally, with the fact that no one who had written a passage in the Bible had actually sat in front of, learned at the knee of, or even met Jesus the Christ. I thought he was going to cry, as many do when Truth is discovered to be spelled with a lower-case "t".

Even as I felt terrible for his newfound plight, I pressed on (just to ensure we didn't have to repeat this little debate later). 'How can you judge? Didn't Jesus say you'd be condemned for that? What if Jesus was just a guy like Buddha who could access more of his brain, and we idiots didn't believe we could too, so we feared and worshipped him? He could have been a time-traveler, for all you know, and just dazzled everyone with his Star Trekkey technology. If their really was a Jesus, though, I'll bet that he's in Heaven right now sobbing his eyes out over the death, stupidity, and destruction that has been done in his name by fear-filled meatheads like you!' (I used to be very diplomatic).

He had no response to that.

It sure left me with a lot to ponder, ironically, and my whole being was buzzing. I walked down the hallways of the school, lost in myself. Everything around me, from the college girls, the sound of chatter, even the buildings had a quality of unreality to them. Almost like the concept of maya, or illusion found in the Hindu and Buddhist writings; like the feeling/silence one feels when swimming slowly under water, but becoming aware of it to the point of forgetting your body.

As though in a dream, and I hadn't even remembered a dream for years, I found myself getting into the car and beginning to drive to a friend's house. The implications of what I had said had rocked me to the bones. What if, just what if Jesus was like this Buddha fellow? What if he studied Buddhism and became an enlightened Rabbi?

The Bible leaves out a good eighteen years of his life, and his followers did call him the "Prince of Peace". What if this "Christ within" is the same as the Atman, described by the Hindus as our individuated piece of Brahman (totality of God), supposedly located in the heart?

The Kingdom of God is within. Hmm.

What if there actually is a God?

This question crashed though my unending chain of thought just as I rolled up to a traffic light that had just turned red.

Attempting to use words to describe the moments that followed is a bit difficult, but I'll give it a go.

I remember the sensation of lightness, as you experience before fainting or passing out, though I was surprised to register that I was still conscious. The top of my head was tingling a lot, almost buzzing. Then I felt like I had no body at all. Suddenly, I was floating over the Earth and felt completely at peace with reality and myself, for the first time ever, I might add. Just as I began to revel in this thought, and the clear realization that I was truly not my thoughts and separate from them (I was watching them like a movie in front of me, strung together like a DNA chain), I saw in the distance only something that could be described as a worm-hole made of multi-colored light.

The moment I observed it, though, I began to get pulled toward it. Fast. If I could have been aware of them, or had time (though it didn't exist here), I would have soiled my drawers. Have you ever seen that movie "Contact," where Jodi Foster's character was being sucked into multiple star systems throughout the cosmos via a machine designed by aliens? It looked, upon reflection, a lot like those scenes. Also, the ride Space Mountain at Disneyland is close, only without the safety-bar, coaster, car, and a thousand-times more intense.

I realized (because there was no time to think) that this cosmos was no accidental happening and that intelligence was maintaining its perfection and balance at all moments, even between the moments. That there was a Source and that it filled and existed in all "things." Yet, it was beyond even its' own myriad creations. The knowingness of this was so vast that I became afraid, even as Love was surrounding and coursing through me.

My fear jerked me back to floating over the Earth in an instant, and I was sad to no longer be swooping through the universes, but the traditional fears associated with God had surfaced in my consciousness. Now that I knew that She/He was real; really, really, real, I was naturally terrified that I had pissed Him/Her off with my many denials and blasphemes.

I felt, rather than heard, the sensation of amused, joyful laughter. It surrounded my being and overwhelmed me until I felt peace again. Then with the same knowingness, I'm sure, that a parent feels when they contemplate the Love they have for their child or children, I knew that God had been misunderstood. Man had fashioned God into his image, with all his trappings and imperfections; but God was perfect, just as Jesus had proclaimed. We were, and everything was His children, and loved unconditionally in a profoundly personal way.

Not gonna barbeque me on a spit for eternity for what I said or did?

The feeling of hilarity and Love increased. Sweet. What a relief!

So what now, um ... Dad?

My attention was brought back to viewing my native planet. There were many versions of them now, lined-up in a row. Each one had a different theme and future, from being ravaged by nuclear holocaust, one enslaved to elitist groups (I'm looking at you, Central Bankers!), some ruined by pollution and others destroyed by nature's cataclysms. I visited and stood on each of these worlds, and my descriptions of them will be limited to this: Not good. Not fun or desirable. These were the Earths to the left of the middle one.

To the right of the center, from outer space (or more accurately, inner space) the worlds became almost opaque, and to the far right, Earth had a golden sheen. I visited only a few, and all were progressively more Utopian than the next. For some reason, I didn't visit the golden one. Maybe I wasn't ready or something. Then I focused on the center Earth. I definitely wasn't prepared for what I saw there.

It was our planet, but I was in an ornate, high-rise office in New York (because the view was obvious and spectacular) in what looked like the 1930's. A man sat behind a beautiful desk, but it looked like he'd been through hell and had been crying, his hair disheveled. I watched him slowly rise from his chair, walk toward me, then turned to face and gaze at his huge office windows. I watched as he ran (in slow-motion) toward the center pane, crash bloodily through it, and plummet to his death thirty floors below.

'Why am I witnessing this? Why am I here?' I wondered aloud.