WHO AM I?
Finally I have the opportunity to tell you how I feel standing where I am, looking at the Pacific Ocean, close to emerging from my cocoon as a butterfly.
For me, life is full of excitement, joy, amazement, appreciation, fun, laughter, surprises, fulfillment, relaxation, and especially peace of mind.
I don’t worry about anything any more, particularly money. I know with certainty from direct experience of testing and challenging the model that my Infinite I will provide everything I need for the experiences it wants me to have; and it always has. If it doesn’t, I can’t have those experiences since I have no power as a Player on this side of The Field to create anything for myself. I may not know where the money is coming from all the time, but I don’t need to know. I just know it will be there, often from sources I would never have guessed or planned for. (See Chapter Thirty, “Money,” in Part Three of this book.)
I live in total trust of my Infinite I. That’s easy for me to do because I’ve had so many experiences that have proven my Infinite I is fully trustworthy, that it loves and cares for me as its representative in the Human Game, and that it will create for me – and always has – exactly what it wants me to experience down to the smallest detail. (See Chapter Twenty-Nine, “Trust,” in Part Three of this book.)
I have no personal needs or wants or desires that have to be fulfilled, although I do have my preferences as I explained previously. I never think about what I do not have, but only express my appreciation for what I do have. After all, our needs and wants are often based on judgment – needing and wanting something we don't have because we think it's “better” than what we've got. The truth is, as you let go of judgment and beliefs and opinions, the only thing you ever need and want is exactly what’s right in front of you.
I don’t plan for the future, and I doubt whether the past ever existed. I have no goals, no agendas, no objectives, nothing I feel I need to do or should do or have to do or must do. I live in the moment.
But I can still dream. Rudyard Kipling said it best in his poem, “If”….
“If you can dream and not make dreams your master;
If you can think and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same.”1
I have very minimal drama or conflict in my daily life and virtually no pain or suffering, with one exception I’ll speak about in a minute.
I am free of the world of dichotomies, which means I simply do not see “right” or “wrong,” “good” or “bad,” “better” or “worse,” good” or “evil” in my holographic experiences. Only occasionally, when I still need to process some lingering layer of ego in my cocoon, I might judge something “out there” that I encounter; and I trust my Infinite I will create holograms for me in order to see those judgments and process them, so I don’t have to go looking for anything. But it’s been a long time now since any of those experiences of any consequence have appeared.
The vast majority of the time I see only perfection all around me – not only in the magnificent Earth Environment my Infinite I has created for me, but also in the wars, the violence, and the pain and suffering as well. After all, I know from my direct experiences of testing and challenging the model that none of it is real, but a game being played by consciousness, in consciousness, and for consciousness.
The way I relate to other people, to the world, and to myself is the way I have always wanted to relate. I have a wonderful family and many friends whom I love but am not attached to. I do not belong to any group, but I never feel alone or lonely.
I wake up every morning with excitement and curious anticipation to discover what holographic experiences my Infinite I has in store for me that day.
It’s such a relaxing way to live knowing I do not create the experiences I have, and not having to think I must do something, to make something happen. As long as my Infinite I wants me as its Player, I know from direct experience it will provide everything I need to survive, and I don’t have to be constantly striving to make ends meet; and it’s quite a load off to realize I have never done, and can never do anything “wrong” – that every reaction and response I have to every experience is valuable and wanted by my Infinite I, that no reaction or response is “right” or “wrong” or “better” than any other.
I marvel every day at the beauty, the splendor, the magnificence of my life and my world. Here I am, on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, surrounded with water and trees and beach and blue sky and warmth… I am in constant awe of the hologram and its creator. Quite often I laugh, express my appreciation to my Infinite I, and wonder (rhetorically) how I got here, and about the holographic universe in general. How amazing that each Player has its own unique and independent holographic experience, and yet those individual holograms can interact so seamlessly and perfectly that we can give each other gifts. What a game!
I don’t meditate or pray, but try to stay fully awake and aware and observant of the ripples of the Universe going on around me, and follow them with my hands off the tiller. (How’s that for a koan?)
I observe – I “witness” – what goes on “out there” with other people, places, and things without getting involved or attached; and although I wish everyone else could experience the joy and peace and serenity of being I now enjoy, I know whatever experience they are having at the moment is perfect for them as well; and that any change in that experience will require a self-determined decision on their part about their reactions and responses, and there is nothing I “should” be doing other than “being the change” I would wish for them.
I have no fear of death and no fear of non-existence. Until proven otherwise, I assume I will cease to exist when this body dies, my role as a Player in the Game being over; and I’m very okay with that. It’s been quite a ride while it lasted. But I know all the feelings I ever had as a Player have been transmitted to my Infinite I through our connection and will forever remain part of its infinite nature.
I feel so relaxed and relieved not to be carrying around the layers of ego that were defining me and determining my identity. I no longer have to be the father, husband, ex-husband, son, lover, friend, coach, teacher, mentor, student, musician, politician, pilot, chiropractor, businessman, management consultant, jack-of-all-trades-and-master-of-none, and the list went on forever. Soon I will also let go of “scout” and be completely free to be me, which is nothing.
In short, life is even more than I ever imagined it could be, and who I am now is who I only hoped I could be for many, many years; and I haven’t yet finished my transformation into a butterfly, so perhaps there is more to come.
I know I have done my job well and fulfilled my purpose, because, most importantly, I now know who I am and my purpose for being here.
I am a Player for my Infinite I, created by my Infinite I to represent it in the Human Game; and I am totally honored and privileged to be that and nothing more. I have given up trying to be something I’m not. I call it “Serenity of Being” – that state of complete acceptance with total joy and appreciation for “Who I Am.”
* * *
I remember a night in 1995 when I was sailing in the east Atlantic Ocean from Madeira to Tenerife in the Canary Islands….
It was a night straight out of a dream. I was standing at the wheel of the Kairos, an eighty-foot wooden schooner, looking up into a midnight sky overflowing with stars. There was no other light, no land in sight. A gentle wind filled the sails, and the only sound was the ship responding with ease through the peaceful waters. From time to time, dolphins would leave green phosphorescent trails as they darted toward the bow.
I was alone on deck. There were twenty others on board that week for a workshop, including a dozen beautiful women who would say “Yes!” if I asked; but at this hour they were asleep below, trusting me to captain them safely to our next destination.
“Could there be anything more perfect?” I thought, turning the wheel slightly to adjust our course.
But with the next thought, the dream was gone.
“So why am I not happy?”
It was true: When I honestly looked at the way I felt in that moment fifteen years ago, I wasn’t happy. There I was, fifty years old, surrounded with everything I thought I wanted out of life. In fact, I had more than I had asked for. I had achieved it all and found myself in the very scene I always assumed would deliver me to Nirvana. This was the moment I had been working and waiting for my entire life; and yet I wasn’t happy.
Of course, that was while I was still inside the movie theater, and of course I couldn’t really be happy then. But it’s interesting for me to compare that moment to the present, some fifteen years later, and observe how the opposite of everything is true. Now I really am happy, and it has nothing to do with what’s going on outside of me at all.
* * *
Jed McKenna said you reach a place in spiritual autolysis when you’re “done”….
“At a crossroads a couple of miles from the house, Paul joined me. I was pleased to see him. I’m always pleased to see anyone when they get where I believed Paul was at that point. He joined me silently and we walked on. It was ten minutes before he spoke. ‘I’m done.’ I smiled as warmth poured through my heart. Warmed by the memory of the day I came to the same startling and improbable conclusion for myself, and warm for the times I had heard it from others. Warm knowing the journey one takes to arrive at such a place and warm knowing what lies ahead. That’s how it is when you get here; no bells and whistles, no radiant backlighting, no choirs of angels. As Layman P’ang put it, you’re ‘just an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.’ ‘I have no more questions,’ Paul said. He didn’t just mean he had no more questions for me, he meant he had no more questions, period. That’s how it is when you get to the end, you’re just done.”2
I may not have any more questions, or at least none of any real importance; but I can’t say I’m “done.” I’m not, and I know that. I’m still in the cocoon; and even though I can see it, like a bright light at the end of a tunnel, the Pacific Ocean is still some distance away.
I made it across the Rocky Mountains, although the climb up to the Divide3 was difficult and full of limitations and restrictions; I made it through the great North American Desert4, where I had to get rid of a lot of baggage I had collected along the way if I was going to survive; and I made it past the Sierra Nevada5, the last of the “ups” and “downs” before reaching the ocean.
In the process I found a way that was safe for others to travel to the same place – not an easy route, but a safe route – if they want to go there. So I chose to stop here and write this “scouting report” of what I have discovered thus far before I forget a lot of the details or lose the motivation.
Before I actually get to the Pacific, however, I have a big layer of the ego left to tackle. It has to do with the body, and it’s sitting here waiting for me to process during the rest of the stay in my cocoon.
Robert Scheinfeld calls these packages of baggage “eggs” – emotional eggs, money eggs, fear eggs, and so on – and we have to open these “eggs” and process the stuff inside them.
The body “egg” is perhaps the last and most difficult aspect of the ego to let go of – at least for me, but I think also for many people. After all, we identify ourselves a lot with the body; we consider it to be who we are in many cases. Even when a Human Adult starts to get used to the idea there is no “out there” out there – that nothing in the holographic universe it perceives is real – it has a tendency to leave itself out of that equation, still thinking “it” is real or its body is real while everything else isn’t.
I found it somewhat difficult to process my mental, spiritual and emotional “eggs,” but I am finding it extremely difficult to process my physical “egg.” In other words, it was relatively easy for me to let go of the judgments, beliefs, opinions, fears, and associated layers of the ego when it came to something “out there,” but not nearly as easy when it comes to my own body.
I’ve been working on this for a while now and have made a little progress, but it’s as if my ego knows this is probably its last stand before virtual annihilation and is fighting back with a vengeance. I have this image of me standing on a hilltop looking at the Pacific, knowing my body cannot take me there in the condition it’s in. I recognize I put it through a lot on the journey across the Rockies and the desert and the Sierra Nevada; and I admit I didn’t take very good care of it while in the movie theater either.
Put very simply, as I write these words, I’m currently in a fair amount of physical pain.
Now… I can tell you the pain isn’t real, and that the body isn’t real. I can tell you the body is just a hologram, and it can change in an instant and I could be totally pain-free in the next minute, as evidenced by the documented cases of multiple personality disorder....
“Multiple Personality disorder, or MPD, is a bizarre syndrome in which two or more distinct personalities inhabit a single body. Victims of the disorder, or "multiples", often have no awareness of their condition. They do not realize that control of their body is being passed back and forth between different personalities and instead feel they are suffering from some kind of amnesia, confusion, or black-out spells. Most multiples average between eight to thirteen personalities, although so-called super-multiples may have more than a hundred subpersonalities….
“In this sense becoming a multiple may be the ultimate example of what [quantum physicist David] Bohm means by fragmentation. It is interesting to note that when the psyche fragments itself, it does not become a collection of broken and jagged-edged shards, but a collection of smaller wholes, complete and self-sustaining with their own traits, motives, and desires. Although these wholes are not identical copies of the original personality, they are related to the dynamics of the original personality, and this in itself suggests that some kind of holographic process is involved….
“Another unusual feature of MPD is that each of a multiple's personalities possesses a different brain-wave pattern. This is surprising, for as Frank Putnam, a National Institutes of Health psychiatrist who has studied this phenomenon, points out, normally a person’s brain-wave pattern does not change even in states of extreme emotion. Since brain-wave patterns are not confined to any single neuron or group of neurons, but are a global property of the brain, this too suggests that some kind of holographic process may be at work. Just as a multiple-image hologram can store and project dozens of whole scenes, perhaps the brain hologram can store and call forth a similar multitude of whole personalities….
“In addition to possessing different brainwave patterns, the subpersonalities of a multiple have a strong psychological separation from one another. Each has his own name, age, memories, and abilities. Often each also has his own style of handwriting, announced gender, cultural and racial background, artistic talents, foreign language fluency, and IQ.
“Even more noteworthy are the biological changes that take place in a multiple's body when they switch personalities. Frequently a medical condition possessed by one personality will mysteriously vanish when another personality takes over. Dr. Bennet Braun of the International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality, in Chicago, has documented a case in which all of a patient's subpersonalities were allergic to orange juice, except one. If the man drank orange juice when one of his allergic personalities was in control, he would break out in a terrible rash. But if he switched to his nonallergic personality, the rash would instantly start to fade and he could drink orange juice freely….
“Allergies are not the only thing multiples can switch on and off. If there was any doubt as to the control the unconscious mind has over drug effects, it is banished by the pharmacological wizardry of the multiple. By changing personalities, a multiple who is drunk can instantly become sober. Different personalities also respond differently to different drugs. Braun records a case in which 5 milligrams of diazepam, a tranquilizer, sedated one personality, while 100 milligrams had little or no effect on another. Often one or several of a multiple's personalities are children, and if an adult personality is given a drug and then a child's personality take over, the adult dosage may be too much for the child and result in an overdose. It is also difficult to anesthetize some multiples, and there are accounts of multiples waking up on the operating table after one of their "unanesthetizable" subpersonalities has taken over.
“Other conditions that can vary from personality to personality include scars, burn marks, cysts, and left- and right-handedness. Visual acuity can differ, and some multiples have to carry two or three different pairs of eyeglasses to accommodate their alternating personalities. One personality can be color-blind and another not, and even eye color can change. There are cases of women who have two or three menstrual periods each month because each of their subpersonalities has its own cycle. Speech pathologist Christy Ludlow has found that the voice pattern for each of a multiple's personalities is different, a feat that requires such a deep physiological change that even the most accomplished actor cannot alter his voice enough to disguise his voice pattern. One multiple, admitted to a hospital for diabetes, baffled her doctors by showing no symptoms when one of her nondiabetic personalities was in control. There are accounts of epilepsy coming and going with changes in personality, and psychologist Robert A. Phillips, Jr. reports that even tumors can appear and disappear (although he does not specify what kind of tumors).
“Multiples also tend to heal faster than normal individuals. For example, there are several cases on record of third-degree burns healing with extraordinary rapidity. Most eerie of all, at least one researcher – Dr. Cornelia Wilbur, the therapist whose pioneering treatment of Sybil Dorsett was portrayed in the book Sybil – is convinced that multiples don't age as fast as other people….”6
Yes, it’s true. My body could change in the blink of an eye; my pain could be gone and I could be totally healthy. All that would be required is for my Infinite I to download a new hologram of my body and in the next second I’m off and running.
I know all of that intellectually, but damn… right now the pain is still there.