Recently I was introduced to the work of Robert Lanza, a respected biologist and researcher in stem cell therapy who is also an executive with Advanced Cell Technology, a biotech company in Massachusetts.

Although he may not refer to his concept as “biophysics,” Lanza effectively opens the floodgates to a scientific discussion of the main obstacle facing science, philosophy and psychology today:

“There is nothing in modern physics that explains how a group of molecules in a brain creates consciousness. The beauty of a sunset, the taste of a delicious meal, these are all mysteries to science — which can sometimes pin down where in the brain the sensations arise, but not how and why there is any subjective personal experience to begin with.

And, what’s worse, nothing in science can explain how consciousness arose from matter. Our understanding of this most basic phenomenon is virtually nil. Interestingly, most models of physics do not even recognize this as a problem.”

Deepak Chopra refers to such aspects of experience as “qualia”, and echoes Lanza’s remarks in terms of conventional science’s reluctance to address the subject of consciousness – or the ground level of our actual experience.

Interestingly the TED conferences, where Lanza has also spoken, recently removed two lectures by other speakers who speculated about the nature of human consciousness in ways their colleagues deemed “unscientific.”

Of course, even a cursory knowledge of Quantum Physics tells us that experiments on a molecular level have shown that our measurement or observation of a phenomenon is an integral part of its manifestation – we cannot take ourselves out of the process and view it “objectively.” (Lanza discusses the famous “slit experiment” also seen in “What the Bleep” that demonstrated that an electron can act as a particle in one situation, and as a wave in another, depending upon observation).

I addressed this issue in a blog I wrote some time ago proposing, lightheartedly, a new theory of “Bio-Relativity” where reality is based on a formula such as M = C/P – where Mind is a function of consciousness based on physiology. I made the point that it is easy to speculate on the different reality experienced by a dolphin, that “sees” through sonar, or a dog, that “sees” through nostrils thousands of times more sensitive than our own.

Dr. Lanza uses the term “Biocentrism” and argues eloquently for an opening within the scientific community to accept the obvious fact that our own consciousness is the lens through which we see everything – so that the religion of scientific objectivity is unfortunately revealed as flawed.

Everything is truly open to question when this reality “lands”, as my friend Michael Jeffreys likes to say.

Michael goes so far in “deconstructing” what we think we “know” by showing that all we really see are colors and shapes—calling something a “pen” for example already introduces “an overlay” of conceptual judgment that the pen itself is not.

In fact, what IS really out there, or “in here”? Michael tells the story of watching a video of a young boy singing “Amazing Grace” on YouTube, as a tribute to his mother who died of cancer, and how it brought tears to his eyes.

When he “came back” Michael realized that the “reality” of what had happened, and evoked such emotion, was the movement of a set of pixels on his computer monitor—nothing more.

All of the emotional content was really supplied by himself. Someone else might have reacted to the video completely differently or not at all.

I recently had a similar insight through a different set of pixels. Financial advisors have convinced me that without taking a bit of risk in the stock market, I will die poor if I live past a certain age. So, I have made some small speculative investments in companies represented by letters like “AAPL” and now, every morning, I can watch how my mood can be affected by seeing the numbers next to those symbols—if the color is green I am happy. Red, not so much.

In this way it becomes obvious that we literally (and I say that deliberately because language is such a key part of it) – we LITERALLY create our own word and the judgments about it that form our “qualia” or experience.

In therapy I began to understand my conditioning, for example, around money being safety, such that a set of numbers on a computer screen could make me feel secure or anxious.

If I pulled back, and observed my “Self”, I quickly realized that my day to day (or present) experience is no way reflected by that number on a computer screen – just as Michael Jeffreys had us realize that we our “selves” shaped our own reaction to a set of pixels moving on a screen.

Taken to a logical conclusion, everything and I do mean EVERYTHING is truly “us” – or our “Consciousness.” This is what mystics mean when they “merge” with the All – by deconstructing their selves they are left with only one Mind or Intelligence that is EVERYTHING.

The common reaction to this is, “but how can you live like this?” To me it is enormously helpful to objectively begin to witness how my conditioned “I” shapes my experience, like the suffering I can endure if AAPL goes down. But the world itself has not changed one iota. If I hug my cat and put my attention on her, the stock market is no more.

A famous quote that gives context to these realizations is “We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” – T. S. Eliot – from his work, “The Wasteland”.

That is the problem for this kind of work – when we begin to see the “overlay” we begin to lose interest in what is “out there” and like Dr. Lanza, focus our attention on our “Selves”.

Others may see this is self-absorbed; often they want us to take great trips or go on adventures, but to us, the greatest adventure is to discover, as Eckhart Tolle says, the “structure” of our thoughts instead of working with their “content.”

Some have called Dr. Lanza one of the great scientific minds of our time, and with his impact on biological research, and the work of others in the area of neuroscience, I do believe that inroads can be made in truly understanding “the nature of Consciousness” – even from the “inside.”

In the meantime it is helpful, when stressed, to remember the immortal words of the comic strip Pogo, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

It’s the premise of this blog that consciousness is not “like” computer software as a metaphor, but rather it IS a computer program in its real existence as mental intelligent energy.

The source code for “our software” is found in DNA, which also acts as a storage center (hard drive) for the software which we “run” as “Us”. (Click the link for a Wall Street Journal article on the findings).

So what do we know about software, from our own experience?

Well we already know that based on written symbols (code) a different set of actions (programs) can launch and run, resulting in different sets of experiences – in such a way the computer simulates “human” thought.

So what about our sense of “Self”? The feeling about “us” that we take without questioning is “real”?

Consider this –

Can thought arise out of matter? Can self, soul, consciousness, “I” arise out of mere matter? If it cannot, then how can you or I be here? This is a profound question raised by neuroscience as it studies our hardware – i.e., the brain and nervous system (which I like to call an awareness system).

In I Am a Strange Loop
neuroscientist Douglas Hofstadter argues that the key to understanding selves and consciousness is the “strange loop”—a special kind of abstract feedback loop inhabiting our brains. The most central and complex symbol in your brain is the one called “I.” The “I” is the nexus in our brain, one of many symbols seeming to have free will and to have gained the paradoxical ability to push particles around, rather than the reverse.

How can [such] a mysterious abstraction be real—or is our “I” merely a convenient fiction? Does an “I” exert genuine power over the particles in our brain, or is it helplessly pushed around by the laws of physics?

This is the subject of “I am a Strange Loop” by neuroscientist and philosopher Douglas Hofstadter – http://www.amazon.com/Am-Strange-Loop-Douglas-Hofstadter/dp/0465030793/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1367090956&sr=1-1&keywords=i+am+a+strange+loop+douglas+hofstadter

Let me digress to the teachings of a mystic and philosopher, G.I. Gurdjieff, who also suggested that we have “three brains” (intellectual, emotional and physical) and that we actually process (digest) three types of food: air (as breath), nutrition (actual “food”) and impressions (thoughts/feelings).

P.D. Ouspensky, another philosopher who popularized portions of the Gurdjieff work in his seminal work, In Search of the Miraculous, describes the nutritional system (all three types of foods) as forming different “I”‘s or selves until they are integrated through intense self observation and psychological work.

His work suggests that under proper circumstances, Impressions (received through the senses) are converted into the finer energies or substances needed for Higher Intellectual or Higher Emotion centers to develop within the organism – but these conditions do not exist naturally at our current level of being.

Due our inner fragmentation into multiple “I”‘s or centers, the shock necessary for the proper processing of impressions is consistently thwarted by the various ego and mental illusions that distract the organism. Our current state of being prevents and obstructs us in from summoning the consistent attention necessary for the proper processing of Impressions to take place naturally.

Another way to describe this is that as a complex organism we have a main “operating system” that we consider ourselves – which “grows” as we derive our conditioned identity through our parents, peers and “education.”

But Gurdjieff/Ouspensky suggest that this “normal” sense of self is illusory – actually a series of ego and mental illusions, that interfere with alignment with our true nature – consciousness – or a proper connection to higher intellectual and emotional “centers” – Life itself.

Evidence of this can be found by simply loading a different set of “programs” as “real food” – namely energetic input through nutrition that is “healthy”. I “experimented” with his recently when a friend suggested I change my diet in the morning (when I felt sluggish and negative) with a different set of chemicals listed here:

Daily Shake for breakfast

1 banana

4 strawberries

1 spoonful blueberries

1 spoonful goji berries

1 teaspoon maca powder

1 tespoon acai powder

1 teaspoon cacao powder

2 glasses of coconut water

piece of ginger

teaspoon honey

3 shakes of cinammon powder

What I believe happened as a result is that my operating system of Ego was modified sufficiently to see myself as less “separated” or differentiated from nature, and consequently more lucid and energetic.

While my DNA (software code) in the nuclei of my cells remains the same, its “activation” has been altered chemically – different software is running within me.

This concept of environment (Life) or energy input activating software (like a mouse click on the computer) is the new field of Epigenetics and also, as Hofstadter’s work suggests, the current trend in neuroscience.

The Newtonian materialistic universe has been replaced by Quantum Physics; energy (nonmaterial reality – including thought and intelligence) – also known as “software” – is part of our organic/biochemical “nature” – and we can feel its influence.

I suggest that you also think of “chemistry” and “biology” in terms of software – and the periodic table of elements as software “code” for how this “program” of Nature “operates.

Some of these chemicals when combined as “molecules” are classified as “organic” – but what does this mean?

It simply means that a different level of programming is operational – higher living and conscious energies are at work – Consciousness “lives” through their manifestation and expression. (Wikipedia describes the table as a “tabular display” of the (known) chemical elements – if you compare it to “sequenced” DNA it is just English symbols for Life and Nature – it is not Nature itself – it is “code” for Nature – or software).

Within “our” consciousness we have developed an artificial and basically arbitrary set of programs that we think of as “Me”.

Most important, this illusory operating system of a single, separate self apart from Nature/Life can be over ridden by a new layer of programming.

The result is a deeper connection with Life and a sense of “joy” – not the ephemeral “happiness” that the mass media promises through material gain, but an energetic connection that runs experientially deeper and that begins to soften the egoic sense of “Me”.

This softened sense is less prone to anxiety and suffering because it begins to “trust Life” – it surrenders “control” because it begins to realize that “I am not inc charge of everything” – in fact, you can “do” very little in many, many circumstances.

It is interesting to speculate where this separated sense of a fixed, solid Egoic Self came from – is it the natural result of an evolved greater brain more able to survive through mental activity – as scientists would have us believe?

Or was there actually a “Fall of Man” – as the bible and some religion suggests, and might that have been an actual bit of genetic “tampering” with our organism to increase suggestibility through our Ego – and more readily control our actions?

I do not pretend to have the answer to these questions – and in fact I think they are more profoundly effective as deep QUESTIONS than as facile answers.

As open questions they again activate levels of software, in our brains and bodies, that more directly connect us to Life and decrease our sense of separation and ultimately the fear of death.

“Lord my body has been a good friend

But I won’t need it when I reach the end”

– Cat Stevens (“Miles from Nowhere“)

It is precisely this deeply sensed fear of the extinguishing of our sensory and mental processes that increases the control of the mass media—through a fear of violence (terrorism) or sense of lack (not measuring up to standards).

These are the negative” impressions” Gurdjieff described in terms of reprogramming our three brains (consciousness) and again separating us from Life (higher centers).

As my friend Michael Jeffreys says, “don’t be a victim [under outside control] – become a ‘scientist’” and actually experiment with these energies.

You can see the same results with meditation and yoga as you do with nutrition – and they are actually new software programs not like a computer – but really and truly – in alignment with Life – truly higher energies that lead to a lessening of separation and an increase in vitality – which is again, another word for LIFE.

(This is an excerpt from Presence of Mind: Journey to a New Operating System discussing Consciousness as a verb – a concept brought up by Deepak Chopra in last night’s live broadcast with Eckhart Tolle)

For my cat, an object or toy that is of absolutely no interest when stationary, becomes an item of intense examination and attraction when in motion. A hat dropped to the carpet, or a fake mouse tossed across the room elicits a spring into action and energetic attention.

David Bohm, a famed physicist and thinker, whose work attracted the admiration of both Einstein and Krishnamurti, suggested that our study of reality became flawed with its initial focus on things, or atomism.

Echoing some of Eckhart Tolle’s insights into the importance of both the structure as well as the content of thought, Bohm says that “the subject-verb structure of language, along with its world view, tends to impose itself very strongly in our speech, even in some cases where some attention would reveal its inappropriateness. For example, consider the sentence ‘it is raining.’

Where is the ‘It’ that would, according to the sentence, be doing the raining—in the same way we might suggest we are running?

Bohm suggests that it would be more accurate to say, rain is going on. And the same is true of running—the “I” is similarly an assumption.

Expanding on this concept, and bearing in mind the significance of the observer in quantum physics, Bohm goes on to say that our structural view of a separate observer and an observed object is similarly prejudiced by the language we use to consider its meaning.

In reality, according to Bohm, there is only a process of observing going on with whatever the object is – or may be doing.

Moreover he suggests a new experiment with language and thought he calls a “Rheomode” that puts the emphasis on the state of being – or the verb – rather than our structurally predisposed tendency to give primacy to the subject – a noun or a false sense of “I”.

Just rain is happening, running is happening, you are happening and I am happening, all as part of a greater complete Whole that Bohm calls the “Implicate Order,” and of which all of our thoughts and experiences are necessary fragmentations.

Above all, I would submit, Life is happening, and in many instances we operate under the illusion that we are in control. Occasionally, what happens may indeed correspond to our thoughts or expectations and we feel more powerful—the “I” which we assume to exist according to our mental conditioning takes the credit.

But what did the “I” actually “do” if the ego is a purely habitual mental construct? And what does this say about our negative emotions that pummel our inner “I” with rejection, humiliation and shame?

So, now that we also know that our own software mimics the activity of life on the level of genetic code—DNA is based on a set of coded instructions like software that tells genes how to express—let’s examine more closely what that actually means.

If we go back to the simple example of macro code cited earlier, which turns a rectangle red in Microsoft Word:

Sub red()

‘ red Macro

ActiveDocument.Shapes.AddShape(msoShapeRectangle, 93#, 43.5, 117.75, _

141.75).Select

Selection.ShapeRange.Fill.ForeColor.RGB = RGB(192, 0, 0)

Selection.ShapeRange.Fill.Visible = msoTrue

Selection.ShapeRange.Fill.Solid

End Sub

What is “happening” here is that based on a user input (click of the mouse), a subroutine (sub) “named red” will “run,” executing this code in the same way the geneticist (Juan Enriquez) said that an apple executes its (DNA) code and falls from the tree.

Two active verbs form the basis of this simple subroutine—Selection, which puts the attention of the Program on the shape whose color will be changed, and Fill, the activity which will ensue based on the coded instructions.

But there is no Subject doing anything.

Fill is happening to the Selection.

It is the result of data processing (happening) just as Life is simply being.

Remember, this is how Life and DNA also “work.”

The difference here is that rather than “data process” with chemicals in our body, for example, like proteins and amino acids, in our macro this simple set of coded instructions works with a property of silicon that puts those concepts into action programmatically, in this case to create text and graphics on a page.

If we examine our own lives and the conditioning that shapes us, it turns out that our automatic functions (habits) work exactly like the macro described above.

If you can “be the scientist,” as suggested by my friend Michael Jeffreys, and observe yourself carefully, as my therapist had me do early on, you will see that changing a habit comes down to three essential steps, as outlined in The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg.

Each habit has three components – a trigger, a routine and a reward.

Performing an experiment with life –like changing a habit –you find that these steps conform perfectly to a simple computer program like a macro:

First, in a macro, the trigger an “event”–is “On Mouseclick” — the routine has the same name in programming — subroutine — and the reward is getting the desired result—like filling the rectangle with a new color.

Like a habit, the programming macro lets you run the same program again and again with just one keystroke (trigger)).

The first step toward changing a habit or conditioned response is observation and noticing – and then altering the reward with something that provides the same feeling (fulfillment) but is not self-destructive.

But consider the meaning of this – changing the conditioned responses of your brain (and its structure—neuroplasticity) involves rewriting (or rewiring) internally coded instructions— inner alchemy is reprograming your software.

This ability to mimic life through the coded instructions of symbols or language is why I consider the development of software an evolutionary event in our history.

Incidentally I take this opinion again directly from geneticist Juan Enriquez, who has suggested that we (our species) is now in a position to effect (if not control) its own evolution through our knowledge of DNA sequencing.

But I suggest that this aspect of software—its ability to actively mimic our intelligence symbolically as an active force in the world, and thereby demonstrate how life actually operates, makes it the most significant human achievement since the construction of the Great Pyramid.

Why is Mind a necessary primary attribute of these processes?

If we go back to our macro, a mind needed to “decide” on some level that the rectangle “should be” red.

Or rather, within the activity of a human mind, Redness will happen to the rectangle.

So “whose” mind contemplated the various purposes behind DNA?

The problem here is the again the structure of any sentence, if we go back to Bohm, the very assumption of a subject-object structure for it to be “understood” by our thoughts or language—solely the left brain.

Based on my personal experience (Life) it has become apparent that through meditation, it is possible to occasionally step into a “space” where “I” am not thinking, but thinking is happening within being, and an observing faculty or notices this.

As soon as “I” identify with the observer, the Subject returns to thought, the space and my state changes. Thought happens, the space disappears, and “I” return.

But within that space I can sense that Life happens through me and without “Me.”

As soon as “I” identify with the observer, the space and my state changes.

But within that space I can sense that Life happens through me and without “Me.”

“I am” – but what I am is Life, energy, movement—genetic code running –all beyond and besides my sense of who “I am” as a thing, group of words, set of stories, beliefs or attributes.

Any “thing” that I think “I am” is wrong.

As Buckminster Fuller titled one of his works, “I seem to be a verb.”

Where does that leave me?

Unfortunately, at one point I became isolated and separated from the majority of my fellow humans who live according to an entirely different set of beliefs.

Yesterday, I was picking up some items at Ralphs when I passed within earshot of the deli counter and heard a guy say, “Yeah, Lakers won by 20 points.”

Suddenly the rest of my day seemed ruined. I was looking forward to a nice nap and watching the first playoff game on DVR. Without Kobe, the Lakers were suddenly an underdog and I suspected they might play really well—and actually resemble a team—but now my mood turned foul.

The game was ruined. I stormed back to the cat food aisle, picked up some cans, and scowled at the unsuspecting clerk near the checkout stand. I grumbled through checkout, took my bag of groceries back to the car and drove home.

Why would “they” do that to me? One random step and the entire pleasure of watching the game was ruined. Sure, there was tennis recorded, the end of a great match with Djokovic and Nadal, and some other playoff games later that evening but I was REALLY LOOKING FORWARD to watching this.

I began to notice the annoyance and had to smile. This was precisely the sort of thing I’ve been working on—seeing how my reactions to essentially neutral circumstances cause my discomfort.

Was the deli guy “wrong” to talk about the outcome? Well he was loud – he could have kept his voice down – after all lots of people do DVR the games. But come on – objectively – he was excited about the game. Who could blame him? “I” could, that’s who.

So I took my nap and got up and put on the game. I tried to excited by the pregame blather and skipped past the “predictions”—after all, I knew the outcome already. The game was RUINED.

So I started watching and the Lakers were playing well. Without Kobe they actually ran a few plays and passed the ball, and they had great energy.

But they were losing. There was no evidence of them building the 20 point lead I had heard the deli guy talk about. At halftime they were down about six points. So I figured why not watch the beginning of the second half and see them build a lead.

But instead, as the third quarter unfolded, it was the Spurs that built their lead up to double digits. A twenty point Laker lead? On the road? What was that guy smoking?

I realized that maybe I had misheard him. Maybe the Lakers LOST? Or would they still come back? Maybe the 20 points was wrong, but I know I heard him said they won – didn’t I?

Who knows? I watched the fourth quarter in ambiguous delight as I did not know the outcome but it became more and more certain that the Lakers would actually lose – which was not what I “wanted” but I also wanted the uncertainty.

The game ended. They lost. I had to laugh. I had watched an entire game that had been “ruined” for me with even more attention because the “information” I had was completely wrong.

I was still able to get appropriately annoyed by the attention given to Kobe Bryant’s tweets (he hadn’t even gone to San Antonio with his teammates—recovering from surgery I guess) – it wasn’t about Kobe but he was the “star” they had to blather about.

So okay, I got my annoyance, I got my excitement and I discovered that everything I thought I had known was completely wrong.

I had also watched myself going through this entire experience with amazement and some delight, because I hadn’t really gotten caught up in any of it, except the initial ten minutes of frustration that I “knew” the outcome of a game I wanted to watch.

With the game over, I switched to CNN. Now it was time to really watch my self get pissed off.

Last night my power cord fried and I had to jiggle it to run my Dell laptop–so I needed a replacement (my second since I bought the laptop – they are built to fail). I went on Amazon and within about a minute I had the right model in my cart ready to order for about twenty bucks with shipping, or shipping was free if I found another item that would bring my total to $25.

But like a fool I decided to see if I could possibly buy the item in person (in the “real world”) at one of the following stores: OfficeMax, OfficeDepot, Frys, BestBuy and Staples.

Each of their web sites had both a store locator and an online catalog, but twenty years into Internet, they are still not properly coordinated.

Both Frys and BestBuy seemed to have in-store pickup, but I could not even locate a suitable item on the Frys web site–and in reality at BestBuy it was only available online – actual store pickup is “greyed out” (unavailable).

I found suitable replacements on several of the web sites, but also could not determine for certain if those adapters would actually work with my model and/or whether the item was physically available in the store.

Phone calls to the stores themselves led to decisions as to which button to press on my phone for store hours, etc. and then lengthy hold times for “sales representatives” who were either clueless or could not confirm that a suitable item was available at a price remotely close to the Amazon price.

Phone calls to the “800 number” got me one confirmation that the item I saw online was again not in any of my nearby stores, and another connection to a sweet woman in the Philippines whom I could not understand and who could not locate the model number as I read it to her from my screen.

All of this yielded no results and took about an hour. I could easily spend another two hours driving to Frys and/or the other stores and looking for the item, hoping for a miracle.

(Two years ago I had a “will call” item at Frys supposedly waiting for pickup; after 45 minutes waiting at will call the store manager confirmed that they did not have the “confirmed” item and substituted another).

So of course I will order the item from Amazon and wait a few days and get it delivered without hassle. Whenever possible I no longer deal with a human to fulfill a transaction, if I have the option.

If you multiply this experience exponentially you realize that economically we are doomed—because if real humans can no longer fulfill basic retail needs, then there will be no jobs for humans to enable them to participate in a functional economy.

A great deal of the blame goes directly to the corporations like OfficeMax, OfficeDepot, Frys, BestBuy and Staples who have been unable to put systems in place that serve human needs and can compete with completely automated stores like Amazon that have no overhead and few humans.

There is absolutely no reason why a potential customer should not be able to go to these other company web sites, find the item with the requisite information (will it work with my shit?) and ascertain whether it is actually available at the store down the street, and if so reserve it for pickup and go there and buy it in person.

To expect the potential customer to wade through automated voicemail menus to speak to ineffectual sales “professionals” who also cannot determine this information is borderline insane – to connect them to the Philippines is beyond the pale.

I am not excusing or exonerating mass murderers, but when the media says that they cannot figure out a motive for people who “flip out”, it would make sense to me to blame the reality that people can no longer simply get a straight answer from another human about a basic product or service.

Add this to similar “systems” for courts, hospitals, insurance companies and so on and it is no wonder people are flipping out all over the place.

The complexity of these “systems” and their complete lack of responsiveness to human needs (tell me the truth without putting me on hold or transferring me to the Philippines) would drive many insane, and apparently that is what is happening.

And then, when you look at unemployment figures and economic statistics it becomes obvious that most of the crap being purchased by “consumers” is being bought on credit.

Therefore, you must also realize that our economy simply cannot support the purchases with the meager salaries of retail workers—and well playing skilled jobs are no longer being created.

The best paying jobs are in fields like law, finance and “entertainment” – none of which create anything of real value. You can’t eat (or survive) on divorce, money or movies.

The other “stuff” being created is technology and software, which simply adds complexity without solving the human needs of workers – it merely makes them more “productive” – or not.

And the stores that employ these remaining unskilled retail workers also cannot compete with the automated systems that actually fulfill orders (like Amazon), and certainly not in sufficient numbers to enable them to hire more unskilled employees and pay them enough to buy the shit being offered and advertised—and not with real money that these unskilled workers actually earn—only on credit.

So these “companies” lay these unskilled workers off, or increase their hours without overtime and cut their pensions and medical benefits to compete in a “free economy.”

How is this being addressed by our “economic experts”? Well we are simply doing “quantitative easing” – which is an Orwellian term for printing money to buy fake bonds to prop up a rigged stock market that makes a few people feel prosperous enough to buy more shit.

And of course these dollars being “spent” represent no real value being created, that is if you even have “real dollars” – chances are you are “spending” electronic pixels on your screen or smartphone that simply change other electronic pixels on computer screens in “banks”.

(Remember, real “banks” used to provide real capital to real companies to build real products and provide actual services to real humans. Those days are apparently over – banks today do “investment” which means they lose massive amounts of fake dollars to enrich a few humans no one ever sees.)

I do not have children, but if you think this is sustainable for another generation, much less more generations, you are delusional. All we are doing is creating more shit, shrink-wrapped in plastic that is killing our real oceans and poisoning our real water and air.

And the real humans who are supposed to consume this useless shit cannot afford it and don’t really need it.

And the consumers who are the basis for this entire “system” are granted more credit to buy more of this shit, and go into more debt to consume it because they are no longer qualified to produce actual goods that would have the real value to pay for it.

Therefore, they need to take substandard retail jobs, if they can find them, at wages competitive with similarly unqualified and substandard workers in the Philippines.

To solve this “situation” we have a “government” that argues about abortion, gay rights and prayer in the schools.

I rest my case: America and Western Civilization are doomed.

One of the joys of April Fools Day is getting “punked” – sometimes. Three years ago a web site sent me an email congratulating me that a video I had posted had gone “viral” – I thought I was famous for about an hour before an email from a friend revealed the “truth” — and deflated me once again.

The key to the experience is that the rug of “knowing” is pulled out from under us. So much of our existence is lived on bedrock of certainty about things, which when revealed as illusion, can be terrifying…. Or, upon further reflection, quite liberating…

I remember feeling relatively “safe” before the financial crisis of 2008 hit. Then, suddenly I feared that the savings I had accumulated would be rendered worthless and I would be destitute. I was certain that I was entering my father’s nightmare of hyper-inflation and anarchy…

Obama’s election temporarily appeased me but watching the news continued to fuel anxiety. I dealt with it as best I could until I found myself in an Eckhart Tolle discussion group, led by Michael Jeffreys.

Eckhart Tolle is the author of the Power of Now, and I hoped that by being “present” I could alleviate some of the demons that were haunting me.

When Michael asked a simple question he turned to me for the first time (we didn’t know each other) when he asked, “So, can you accept not knowing?”

Our eyes met and I realized that this was a core issue for me, and I shook my head fiercely and emphatically “no”. That was really the beginning of some amazing insights.

I had to confront the fact that I had bought into the (unquestioned) belief that I should and ought to “know” many things – how to earn a decent living, plan for the future, take care of myself and loved ones, and so on.

I should be “in control.”

And yet, right then and there, I had to admit to myself that I had to surrender – that ultimately there were many many many things I did not and could never know.

“I” was quite literally the April Fool.

Michael and I have had many conversations since about what we can and cannot know and as we delve into issues of philosophy and neuroscience, and “who” we really are, many certainties are peeled away, layer by layer.

This struck me yesterday when I saw the trailer for an upcoming documentary , Holy Rascals, on Facebook. There was a rabbi and the film maker, apparently a Christian, and with them was the subject of the segment, Prasanna.

In the conversation they explored what you could know, and the rabbi, after citing his “identity” as a Jew and a teacher admitted that as Prasanna suggested, there was only one thing he knew absolutely – for sure – and that was that at that moment he existed.

Every other “truth” was relative; namely it was a thought and essentially an assumption.

What was interesting is that so much of what we think we “know” has been taught to us by religion and other institutions; but these are all easily revealed as relative truths based on concepts. Even our name is a thought or idea. There is only one thing you know for certain. You are here now.

Whether through sophistry or direct argument, it can be demonstrated that everything besides the fact that you exist is ultimately a “relative” truth or idea.

Michael does another exercise which is to try to locate physically where in your body “you” reside. Many of us immediately point to a spot behind our eyes – ostensibly our brain. That’s because our idea about who we are – the sound in our skull – thoughts – are so compelling and real. (The key to this exercise by the way is to actually do it, and become quiet – not to think about doing it). You may well discover something surprising….

But of course you could be comatose or lobotomized and still “exist.” Your breathing, digestion, circulation and other functions would still “operate” – in fact so would some parts of your brain.

(As Eckhart Tolle suggests, it is a much higher “knowing” intelligence that truly controls those functions).

And you might even still dream… But as Eckhart Tolle also points out so well, “you” are what notices the thoughts that seem to define you – and that becomes your conditioned sense of self.

From the time someone calls you by name and you experience yourself as a separate being, this “concept” is reinforced over and over again until it becomes “second nature”.

Of course, the ultimate illusion of Descartes, that it is our thought that defines us (“I think therefore I am”) is the basis of all of our science, but it is quickly reversed upon any true self inquiry.

The “I am” that we think we are seems to be a “thing” – but the knowing is, as Eckhart Tolle calls it, “no thing.” It is rather a sense of “being here right now” – the only absolute thing we know.

Many of these other “concepts” seem incontrovertible based on our experience and survival – for example, if there is a cliff and you walk off it, you will die. Taking this as a “relative” truth and testing it for yourself can have dire consequences.

(Your absolute truth, your existence, may come to an absolute end).

So as we become “educated” and conditioned we gather within us a storage unit of such relative truths that we are ever more fearful to test through our own experience.

For example, going back to my own experience, the safety of saving money was a deep truth taught to me by my father which I held sacred.

Suddenly this truth was exposed as very relative – as long as money is “valued” then it can provide me with a measure of safety – but it can be quickly devalued as was threatened by the banks’ collapse in 2008.

(It is interesting to ponder that some civilizations like native Americans had no “concept” of property or owning land, which made Sitting Bull sign treaties he simply did not comprehend; of course when those contracts were enforced by the people who had thought them up, his relative and absolute reality ended.)

And indeed my father had the relative safety of a stable economy pulled from underneath him by the Nazis in 1939. It was the main reason he indoctrinated me with this fear – to keep me safe.

And like the cliff I assume will kill me, in this case the financial cliff fear may keep me safe for a while—but seeing that ultimately it is an unknown is the only way to stave off immobilizing fear.

But isn’t an admission of what we don’t know even scarier? It was at first – that’s why I shook my head so fiercely when Michael asked me that question.

But “digging deeper” as my friend Michael likes to say, it is actually quite liberating to recognize the true vastness of what we do not know, and drop the burden of illusory control.

It is stepping off this cliff, literally not figuratively, that can lead to a much richer existence, because it frees us from the thoughts and conditioned fears that truly imprison us.

I was watching a NOVA special on the meteor that hit Russia last month, and if I focused on this, as watching CNN would have me do, I would be terrified every morning when I got up.

Like the fear of a financial crash, the fear of a meteor hitting is a thought. Another thought can also make me realize that “science” thinks this only happens every 70 years, so I am “relatively safe.”

But the only absolute knowledge that I have is that all of these thoughts are relative truths, noticed as thoughts and ideas by the only “me” that truly exists – that which notices all of this.

I can certainly gauge other relative truths, and I will do so – such as when I turn the faucet, there will be water to drink.

But as the folks in New Jersey and Staten Island discovered recently, even that relative truth–that we take for granted so much of the time, can instantly be disrupted.

So we know that our time as “being here” in this physical form is limited and quite tenuous, and yet here we are. So while we’re here, the only absolutely essential response would be awe, and gratitude.

Everything else is a thought – many conditioned – many leading to relative fears. Let them go.

Happy April Fools Day.

It is truly amazing to consider that if my father were alive today, this would be his 113^th birthday.

He was a teenager when World War I broke out and always said that it was the dissolution of the monarchy of Austria-Hungary (eerily reminiscent in hindsight of the Kennedy assassination(s) that marked the end of one America and the beginning of another) – and that end to the monarchy in Vienna and of course the Communist revolution in Russia shaped the techno-corporate world of today.

He first came to the United States from Prague in 1934 as part of a trade delegation – he worked as an economist and bank executive as Hitler rose to power in Germany. He raised a family (my half-brother, his first wife) and prior to that, as a bachelor, travelled to the French Riviera with his best friend, the famous German actor Curt Goetz, and Valerie von Martens, a Czech actress whom he introduced to Goetz and who became his wife; they eventually spent the war years (WWII) in Hollywood before retiring in Lichtenstein. I remember vaguely meeting him and spending a Christmas at his home.

My father was imprisoned by the Germans and survived the war in Therezienstadt with his first wife and son, and his mother, my grandmother. After the war he divorced his wife and gained custody of his son (draw your own conclusions) and met my mother. At the time Prague was under the occupation of the Communists and when my mother was pregnant my father managed to get us to Vienna without governmental permission.

He was set to join us just before my birth, when my brother ran away to his mother and my father asked his own mother (my grandmother who I never knew) what he should do. She told him to go – that he had a new family – and he left his son in Prague to join us in Vienna.

We arrived in New York after six years waiting for papers in Vienna (where he was terrified of being abducted and returned to Prague as a defector – we always remained in the American sector).

My father had no job and went to night school to learn English. Neither his sister nor brother could or would really help and he worked as a ski salesman at Macy’s at age 55, lacing boots on his knees, the only job he could get because he was from Austria and they assumed he knew skis – my father of course never skied a day in his life. He played billiards and smoked cigars in cafes.

From this background my father eventually became the treasurer and confidant of the CEO of a large international incentive travel company, so that he was able to see me bar mitzvah and attend Tufts University. In 1971 when I graduated college, he arranged for me to go to Puerto Vallarta and Acapulco as a tour guide. I kept that “job” for 7 years, while he encouraged me to travel the world and ride it out because I would never have such an opportunity again.

During this period we returned to Vienna for a few days where my father reunited with his first son, Hansl. As one might imagine, it was a terribly emotional time and the only time I can remember my father crying – which he maintained was due to my brother’s poor health. My brother returned to Prague where he worked as a manager of musicians, and my dad was proud of his survival skills.

During college I remember coming home and going to religious services to please my father, and getting into political and philosophical arguments. I once said to him, “I don’t need money. Money doesn’t matter to me,” and my father carried those words to his grave hoping that he had taught me that financial responsibility was a requisite for safety in an unsafe world.

From these beginnings my father managed to win a settlement in a ten year struggle with the German government for his pension and my mother’s pension, and when I moved to Los Angeles he assured me that if I was “settled” he would retire.

Since my father had taken the subway every morning for about 25 years and worked harder than anyone I ever knew, I took this with many grains of salt. However, after I lived here in L.A. for a year, my parents visited and we went to La Jolla for the weekend. That Monday afternoon when I spoke to my father, he informed me that “just like that” he had put down a deposit on an apartment “near the tennis courts” and he was retiring and they were moving to San Diego.

He survived one of the earlier heart bypass surgeries to take daily walks and play bridge in his beloved La Jolla until his death about six lovely years later in 1986. My mother would say lovingly that “he is retired, but I’m not,” when he returned form the bridge club where other widows clamored for his company and attention.

As I write this I am tearing up because besides all of this, my father was incredibly kind and very affectionate and I can still remember driving into La Jolla and he would pretend to just be out for a walk, but we both knew he was out waiting for me, and when he saw my car he would raise his walking stick into the air with glee. He had a rich mane of white hair through which my mother and I loved to run our hands.

We would sit for hours talking about everything and anything (even women, believe it or not) and he was the wisest and most intelligent man I ever met. He was also my best friend and I miss him every day.

But today the scale of the span of his life, the wisdom he accumulated, and the depth of his achievements and love, are known to me in a way I could have never imagined.

I suppose we will be reunited in due course.

A few years ago I invited a few friends over to watch an “important” Laker game and when a commercial came on and, as I normally do, I pressed the mute button on the remote.

Suddenly the conversation stopped, the room went quiet, and they asked what I thought I was doing.

I always mute the commercials I said, and they seemed a bit disturbed but ok until I forgot to resume the audio for the game itself. “Leave the sound on!” they demanded, so they could continue to hear the “important” commentary.

I was thinking about this in light of work I’ve done in self-observation, and specifically what Eckhart Tolle calls “the voice in the head.” According to Eckhart, we identify with this stream of talking in our heads to the point of madness, thinking it is “us” — when in fact it turns out that it’s simply a bunch of conditioned sound that is, for the most part irrelevant – very much like the play by play of sports commentators.

Let’s remember a couple of things.

First, sports play by play began with RADIO. No one could see the baseball game and the sounds were “recreated” with different audio effects while the announcer described the action. It was like being blind and we needed the announce to “see” the game.

When TV came aboard, it was still quite helpful because picture quality was poor and the screen was small. Then jock “experts” were added to the mix to provide “color commentary.”

Now I watch the Lakers on high definition with a view of the action almost as good as being courtside; I can see the sweat dripping off their noses.

Besides the commercials, I can easily mute the commentary because I don’t need the announcer to tell me “What a dunk!” because you know what? — I AM WATCHING THE GAME. I saw what happened and I do not need it interpreted.

I really noticed the difference a few years ago when the Lakers’ cable channel offered “courtside view” – which had multiple cameras and microphones at courtside WITH NO PLAY BY PLAY.

(It wasn’t repeated – it was either too expensive, or it never caught on).

But what a revelation. It was really like being there – you could hear the comments of the players under their breath (yes they were swearing), you could hear dribbling and the sneakers squish on the floor, and you could hear the actual crowd sounds – awesome.

So I was thinking about what if I were in a quiet park and two guys got into a fight – and I watched and there was no play by play – “he throws a right and a left, he goes down, he gets up” – all of it completely superfluous because again, this is LIFE and I am SEEING what is happening…

I would truly be “present” to the situation – until my mind began its inevitable interpretation.

Of course human thought has evolved for some time. But it is really our new technology that has introduced this dysfunctional, invasive persistent new audio track into our lives…

We can see it on CNN, when a debate is not about what is said by the candidates, but by the commentary of the pundits. Even the President can’t give a speech that is simply taken in by the public, it needs to be analyzed.

Further, everywhere I go I must listen to music – in elevators, stores, supermarket, etc.

If I get into my car, I notice myself turning on the radio or CD player. When I come home I reach for the laptop to check my email. Now I have a smartphone and email and text follows me everywhere.

As someone pointed out, they don’t call it “programming” for nothing. Can this be healthy?

Certainly the “voice in the head” was part of our evolution in a valuable way – “Hey, there may be tigers out there” was probably a useful message back in the jungle.

But as Eckhart Tolle says, probably 90% of what goes through our minds as self-talk now is useless drivel.

Don’t take my word for it – pay attention to it and you will see for yourself — and more important –

You will notice that most of what passes for “information” is worrisome and negative. This is the result of the mainly cautionary conditioning (programming) we receive growing up from our well-intentioned parents and teachers—not to mention the “leaders” of our society.

Fear, dread and worry are our most basic operating system. We need to download some new programs.

Just as you don’t want or need someone talking to you while you’re driving (watch out over there) because it’s distracting and needless you don’t need the constant stream of commentary that passes for “significant information” calling attention to itself in your skull.

It is detrimental to your mental health.

Technology can be lauded for one thing – bringing this aspect of our psychology to our attention – and providing the example of a mute button.

What is immensely helpful is the growing capacity to also “mute” the brain’s mental chatter.

First, monitor the tone of the inner voice. If you have a particularly negative play by play announcer going on in your skull, it’s not surprising that your irritation will be projected out into the world and lead to unfortunate consequences. It may surprise you to discover that you have no friends. (Unless you live in New York where this is considered “normal”).

More important, when the voice is quiet, you will notice other things, both inside and outside. You will see that you are actually breathing, digesting and sensing automatically and miraculously – you don’t need the chatter for most important functions. And when you begin to intimately sense how other parts of your body actually feel, they will relish the attention and respond with friendliness and well-being.

You will also listen more attentively to others and begin to notice significant aspects of your environment that you hadn’t even bothered with before: sun, clouds, ocean, birds, flowers, and cats. There will even be space in your mind for other thoughts and feelings, often expanding your potential and horizons.

Ideas may even come in from other sources that you hadn’t expected. Some good, some useless, but as the new observer of all of this, “you” will have a choice whether to give a thought attention or “mute” it.

My friend Michael Jeffreys likes to say that your chatty mind is both the fire chief, and the arsonist – it first sets the “fire” – a problem arises – and then demands it be extinguished – solved.

But as Eckhart Tolle rightly points out, neither the arsonist nor the fire chief is really “you.” You are what can notice this neurotic behavior.

When the arsonist informs you there’s a problem, “you” can actually evaluate and decide if it’s really a problem and you need to deal with it immediately, later, or at all.

Indeed, if there is a real fire, you’re going to get the hell out of there, trust me.

But for other “emergencies”, like someone pulling out coupons on the express lane at the market, or a “jerk” cutting you off in traffic, the abrupt disruption of your tranquility will be increasingly reduced, as will the risk of you getting murdered.

It’s like when the phone rings – and you rush to pick it up. Let the machine answer sometimes – the world will go on — and you retain a measure of control of your reactionary responses.

Eckhart suggests that a mass adoption of this sort of “presence” will have a healing effect on the entire planet, and well it might, because for one thing we’ll buy less shit we don’t need, and dump less plastic into the oceans.

One final thought—Krishnamurti and others have noted that when you name a bird you no longer really see the bird… The tendency to instantly label our experience separates us from life.

Don’t take my word for it. Experiment for yourself – try the mute button on your mind for a few days or a week and you’ll see – you won’t go back to the annoying “play by play announcer” except for focused moments of significant attention – like doing your taxes, satisfying your boss or arguing with your spouse.

The rest of the time your boss’ voice, your spouse’s voice and your own deranged prattle can subside and life can be experienced as it is – without color commentary.

“You” will magically reappear in your own life, and perhaps really see it and experience it for the first time.

This past Saturday morning I was fortunate enough to “attend” an online seminar by one of the most powerful writers and thinkers of our era, Jacob Needleman, author of An Unknown World.

This particular Webinar: “Introduction to Gurdjieff” was of particular interest to me because I had read not only many of Dr. Needleman’s books, but also much of the work of G.I. Gurdjieff, and his most famous student, P.D. Ouspensky, author of “In Search of the Miraculous.”

For those unfamiliar with these individuals, Gurdjieff was an enigmatic figure, a mystic and hypnotist who appeared in Russia in 1912 and attracted a devoted following of students who sought to “awaken” from the deeply conditioned sleep that the teacher claimed prevented true knowledge and consciousness. Gurdjieff later opened an academy in Paris and travelled to America where he again attracted noteworthy followers, including the wife of Frank Lloyd Wright, who himself became interested in Gurdjieff’s ideas and cosmology.

I became fascinated with this teaching in my twenties and it followed me throughout my life; one of the more interesting aspects of it is that it is not publicized and in fact one of the tenets has always been that it be kept hidden from those who did not possess a deep yearning to discover such truth. It is only in today’s world with the Internet that much of these concepts have come to light and been popularized (and perhaps distorted) – and components can also be found in the work of many other teachers including Anthony Robbins, Werner Ehrhard, Bagwam Rashneesh, Alan Watts, Wayne Dwyer and Eckhart Tolle, among many others.

Dr. Needleman has hinted at these ideas through his more mainstream philosophical works but I was particularly interested in how he would approach such a significant topic online, in the space of only two hours.

I had expected more of a historical account of Gurdjieff’s work and his ideas, but Dr. Needleman surprised me by suggesting that this work truly embodied what the philosopher Plato first called “Eros”, namely most deeply felt inner yearning for contact with the highest realities. I recall that in “In Search of the Miraculous” Ouspensky writes that in his inquiry there is first the identification of a deeply held yearning or wish to know something that becomes the most powerful motivating force of one’s life – answers to questions of the heart.

Therefore Dr. Needleman instead posed what he deemed to be the 10 most fervent Questions of the Heart (unanswerable by ordinary knowledge), and echoing part of “An Unknown World,” he suggested that a deep question is more important than a shallow answer.

In this context Dr. Needleman is saying that what Gurdjieff brought in his approach to these subjects is a probing faculty that takes into account the Western need for “answers” and addresses Western science as well—and yet finally approaches issues which science, until recently in neuroscience and quantum physics, has deemed the province of mysticism or religion (unscientific).

So then what are these Ten Questions? It is interesting to note that in many ways they are the questions a child will ask to the exasperation of elders when he or she begins he endless inquiry of “Why”…

1 Are we alone in the universe? In Gurdjieff’s cosmology and in Needleman’s latest book is the deeply held belief that the Earth is a living organism – not “like” a living organism (metaphor) but actually so, and it is only our deeply conditioned “scientism” that prevents our experiencing the world as such.

What is fascinating about these ideas to me is that they are not “religious” in the ordinary sense—there is no personal “higher Being” but rather a witnessing to the obvious reality of man’s scale within the cosmos that speaks to awe and mystery.

Another aspect of this question is the realization through direct experience we discover that, at the heart of the living universe is an intelligent power, which becomes accessible to us only if we penetrate our own deeply conditioned egoism (which suggests separation and the ability to know objectively apart from understanding the reality of our own consciousness).

Science has focused exclusively on outward directed experience—with the assumption that we are somehow separate from the experience – a subject experiencing objective reality.

It was Gurdjieff who opened Western man to the inquiry into the quality of our inner experience—”knowing the knower” – and beginning to examine the very source of conscious attention – by turning inward

A big part of this method is objective and “ruthlessly honest” self-observation, and the study one’s own illusions and self-deceptions.

2 Who am I?

With the process of self-observation come a series of shocks when we truly perceive how far we are from what we think we are. Here another kind of knowing emerges which awakens a capacity of attention that is more truly my Self – Dr. Needleman describes this as a “coming home” or presence.

Gurdjieff called this continuous process of inward attention Self Remembering – returning from the distractive illusions of the exterior world and coming back into where I really am.

One of the shocks of self remembering is the recognition of how distracted we are by the world, and how many different “I”‘s or “Self”s actually exist through our bodies and experience depending upon our circumstances, moods and illusions about life.

Here are the other deep questions to be considered. Facile answers are to be avoided; instead a deep inquiry into every aspect of these issues is encouraged.

3 Why do we live – what is the purpose of human life?

4 Why do we suffer?

Here Dr. Needleman identified 3 distinct type of suffering

1) Suffering of the ego (story – self imposed) [Identification - attachment]

2) Seeing the truth about myself (aware of my illusions, nothingness)

Intentional – redemptive suffering (therapy) Science is state specific

3) Injustice and loss – sorrow – the unavoidable circumstances that life will bring through intimate loss, death or war and rampant inhumanity.

5 Is death the end?

Here Dr. Needleman introduced the notion of an experience of time-lessness which exists in a different way – a different quality of time that is almost “vertical” as opposed to horizontal linear time, taking us into other dimensions beyond those of our ordinary sense. This brings up the question of a Soul which Gurdjieff claimed did not exist at birth but can only be developed through inner work and struggle.

As an aside it is my belief that this is the precisely the purpose of group work or intense body therapy which makes us confront our conditioned beliefs and “alchemically” change our own brains as we begin to “reprogram” our misconceptions about ourselves, about others, about our egos and the true scale of the world around us.

6 Why is there evil?

Here Dr. Needleman said that Gurdjieff suggested that “We cannot imagine what man can be.” Of course evil can make us aghast at the negative dimension of human nature, but “the development of true Conscience” can begin to develop our positive capacities.

7 What can I hope for (that is not just a fantasy)? Not merely (conditioned) self suggestion?

8 What can we really know? (we live in a world of appearances)

Gurdjieff said that we live on the surface of reality because we live on the surface of ourselves.

It is the discipline of self observation, sometimes ruthlessly honest, that can expose our illusions and bring us to deeper truth.

9 What ought we to do? Or is morality relative?

Is there a source of objective knowledge of values.

Gurdjieff wrote that in the deeper aspects of ancient art there is the chance to “digest” nourishing impressions that can lead to the experience of humility and awe that can develop conscience and an objective morality. But what that may be is often mired in human fantasy and everyone must discover such truth for him or herself.

10 How ought we to live?

Can I live more welcoming the difficult moments in order to study my own capacity for presence? We live in a world which worships ease and comfort and where discomfort of any kind is to be avoided as “wrong.”

Again all of this ultimately leads us back to self-knowledge and “presence” – a sense of connection to that which is real. To me the key here is that every individual must discover this for him or herself, no external “test” can measure reality from the dimension of scientific detachment – and it is only when I am fully present that I know it… with depth. It is not a “belief” – it is a certainty.

It was Gurdjieff’s assertion that this sort of work cannot be done alone and that it must be accomplished within a “School” – which he saw as not a fixed physical structure but rather a psychological set of conditions for awakening of conscience administered by those who were more advanced.

Of course determining the “qualifications” of such “teachers” is a difficult task in itself.

Through his writing I have always felt that Dr. Needleman has had the unique capacity to point the way to these truths, and to me the fact that his wisdom can be accessed from the comfort of my living room is a miracle.

I also made the effort to hear him personally on several occasions in the bay area. It is interesting to me that his latest book “An Unknown World” resonates so strongly with another work by a favorite of mine, Eckhart Tolle, namely “A New Earth.”

It is my belief that deeply taking in and opening to any of the ten questions posed above and exploring them within oneself, and with like-minded souls, is among the most satisfying tasks one can undertake. It is the essence of philosophy.