After my coronary I was told I might drop dead any minute. "Don't climb a stair unless you absolutely have to," I was warned.
That was in 1952. I was forty-three years old.
I was desperate.
This fear of dying scared me more than I've ever been scared in my life. It caused me to conclude with determination, "Either I get answers, or I'll take me off this earth. No heart attack will do it!"
And I had a nice easy way to do it, too -- morphine that the doctors had allowed me for my kidney stone attacks.
that determination to get the answers was the thing that gave me full realization of what life and happiness are.
After a few days of fear of dying, I resolved that there was nothing I could do brooding about it.
I started thinking of a way out. I sat alone in my apartment and just thinking , thinking, thinking.
I had a problem and had to get the answer. So I sat me down and said, "Lester, you were considered smart. You were an honor student in high school. You won a scholarship when only three scholarships to Rutgers University were awarded through competitive, statewide examinations. You were a honor student in college." But for all of that, I was dumb! dumb! dumb! I did not know how to get the very elementary thing in life -- how to be happy!
Well, what do I do?
All of my past knowledge was useless. So I decided to drop it all and start from scratch.
Okay. well, what am I? What is this world? What is my relationship to it?
I began reviewing the little happiness I had known and it was always related to a woman.
"Oh, being loved by a woman is what happiness is!" Then I thought, "Well, here I am. I've had and still have lovely women wanting me. But I am still miserable!"
I thought, "Then it's not being loved!" I began reviewing it again and I discovered that when I was loving them -- then, I was happy.
Conclusion: my happiness equates to my capacity to love.
Then I went through a very keen process of trying to love others. I would review my past behavior. Where I thought I had been loving, I saw I wanted to be loved. For instance, when I saw that I had been nice to a girl only because I wanted something from her, I would say, "You son-of-a-gun, Lester. Correct that!" Then I would love her for what she was, not for what I wanted from her. I kept on correcting this until I could find no more to correct.
The next big awareness that came to me was what intelligence is. I got a picture of a single overall intelligence that each one of us is blindly using, available to use to the degree we do not cut off. I also discovered that I am responsible for everything that happens to me. Then I discovered that every thought materializes, sooner or later. Therefore I took responsibility for everything that was happening to me. Looking for it, the initiating thought would come up in mind, and it being conscious, I would then be able to drop it.
I was letting go and undoing the hell I had created. By squaring all with love, trying to love rather than trying to be loved, and by taking responsibility for all that was happening to me; finding my subconscious thought and correcting t, I became freer and freer, happier and happier.
The picture of intelligence that I received I think is interesting. I suddenly got a picture of the amusement park entertainment consisting of bump-cars that are made difficult to steer so that the drivers continuously bump into each other. They were all getting their electrical energy from the wire screen above, through a pole coming down to every car. The power above was symbolic of the overall intelligence and energy of the universe coming down the pole to me and everyone else, which we were all using and bumping into each other, instead of driving along together in harmony.
We use this intelligence in life and we just bump! bump! bump! That was the first picture I got go life and intelligence.
We all have a direct line to that infinite intelligence up there and we are using it blindly, wrongly, and against each other.
For that first tow months I was getting answers to, "What is happiness, intelligence and love?" As the answers came, I was gradually being unburdened of my miseries and tensions.
The very first insight was on love, seeing that my happiness was determined by my capacity to love. That was a tremendous insight. It began to free me. Any bit of freedom when you're plagued feels so good. I knew that I was in the right direction. I had gotten hold of a link of a chain and was determined not to let go until I had the entire chain.
Then I saw that my sum-total thinking was responsible for everything happening to me, and that gave me more freedom. I could control my life by undoing the compulsive behavior, all of which had been determined in the past, and was now subconscious.
The third phase was discovering and recongnizing who and what I really am, I began to see that we are infinite beings with no limitations; that all limitations were only concepts in our minds, learned in the past, and being held on to.
When we see what we really are, we can see that we are not that limited being that we had thought we were, and we can then easily drop the limitations.
Working on those three things, I became freer and freer. My heard become lighter. I was happier, more at peace. Mu mind got quieter. Then my curiosity took me all the way. I said, "If this is so good, I must find just how good it can get. I'll go the limit."
I'd had life most of misery. So when this wonderful thing of happiness began coming in, I wanted all of it. I doggedly kept at it.
And then all of a sudden powers fell in on me. I could know anything anywhere.
I saw there were people just like us on endless numbers of planets.
then I took a look across the country to Los Angles. I called up this friend and said, "In the living room there are three persons," and so on. I started telling him what was going on. Dear air! Suddenly I realized I had frightening him. I had to cut the conversation short.
I was amazed at the very pleasant sensation of watching divine laws in operation. the fascination was not the powers themselves, but the watching and witnessing of the divine laws operating. I really didn't feel like the doer.
I had seen by this time that this world is mentation -- a dream. So to get interested in the dream again through interest in powers would trap me back into what I was wanting to get out of.
Toward the end of my period of seeking, I one day saw the, my gosh! This whole thing is like a dream in my mind, just like a night dream! And it's a dream that never really was -- any more than a dream you had last night was. Was it a real thing that dream you had last night? No. I was only in your mind. But of course until one awakens out of this everyday waking state, it seems real to one.
The new reality was that I am, and that's all there is! That my beingness is the changeless essence of the universe, of course, I was punch-drunk, slap-happy, and in a state of euphoria.
In this state the whole world looks perfect. looking at my body, I also saw this body as part of that perfection. This instantly corrected all my ailments.
Several times on the way up I'd get a realization that would so supercharge my body, I'd have to walk for miles and miles at a good pace.
Some of those realizations are really more than a body can take. you can't sit still. Many a time I was forced to walk off the new, intense energy.
I was undoing the subconscious hang-ups, tendencies, pre-dispositions, realizing more and more that I am free, that freedom is my basic nature. I was getting freer and freer and I automatically went into a state where, having undone enough of the mental limitations, the real Self of me began presenting itself to me.
I saw that the real "I" of me was only beingness, was only existence, and that my beingness was exactly the beingness of the universe. And when I saw that, I identified with every being in this universe I identified with every atom in it. And when you do that you lose all sense of being a separate individual, an ego.
When I saw that, that I AM the Amness of this universe, I then saw the whole world as just an image in my imagination, like a dream.
I imaged or dreamt that I was a body. And I'm dreaming right now that I'm this body.
In reality, the only thing that is, is Isness. That's the real, changeless substance behind everything.
I was desperate.
This fear of dying scared me more than I've ever been scared in my life. It caused me to conclude with determination, "Either I get answers, or I'll take me off this earth. No heart attack will do it!"
And I had a nice easy way to do it, too -- morphine that the doctors had allowed me for my kidney stone attacks.
that determination to get the answers was the thing that gave me full realization of what life and happiness are.
After a few days of fear of dying, I resolved that there was nothing I could do brooding about it.
I started thinking of a way out. I sat alone in my apartment and just thinking , thinking, thinking.
I had a problem and had to get the answer. So I sat me down and said, "Lester, you were considered smart. You were an honor student in high school. You won a scholarship when only three scholarships to Rutgers University were awarded through competitive, statewide examinations. You were a honor student in college." But for all of that, I was dumb! dumb! dumb! I did not know how to get the very elementary thing in life -- how to be happy!
Well, what do I do?
All of my past knowledge was useless. So I decided to drop it all and start from scratch.
Okay. well, what am I? What is this world? What is my relationship to it?
I began reviewing the little happiness I had known and it was always related to a woman.
"Oh, being loved by a woman is what happiness is!" Then I thought, "Well, here I am. I've had and still have lovely women wanting me. But I am still miserable!"
I thought, "Then it's not being loved!" I began reviewing it again and I discovered that when I was loving them -- then, I was happy.
Conclusion: my happiness equates to my capacity to love.
Then I went through a very keen process of trying to love others. I would review my past behavior. Where I thought I had been loving, I saw I wanted to be loved. For instance, when I saw that I had been nice to a girl only because I wanted something from her, I would say, "You son-of-a-gun, Lester. Correct that!" Then I would love her for what she was, not for what I wanted from her. I kept on correcting this until I could find no more to correct.
The next big awareness that came to me was what intelligence is. I got a picture of a single overall intelligence that each one of us is blindly using, available to use to the degree we do not cut off. I also discovered that I am responsible for everything that happens to me. Then I discovered that every thought materializes, sooner or later. Therefore I took responsibility for everything that was happening to me. Looking for it, the initiating thought would come up in mind, and it being conscious, I would then be able to drop it.
I was letting go and undoing the hell I had created. By squaring all with love, trying to love rather than trying to be loved, and by taking responsibility for all that was happening to me; finding my subconscious thought and correcting t, I became freer and freer, happier and happier.
The picture of intelligence that I received I think is interesting. I suddenly got a picture of the amusement park entertainment consisting of bump-cars that are made difficult to steer so that the drivers continuously bump into each other. They were all getting their electrical energy from the wire screen above, through a pole coming down to every car. The power above was symbolic of the overall intelligence and energy of the universe coming down the pole to me and everyone else, which we were all using and bumping into each other, instead of driving along together in harmony.
We use this intelligence in life and we just bump! bump! bump! That was the first picture I got go life and intelligence.
We all have a direct line to that infinite intelligence up there and we are using it blindly, wrongly, and against each other.
For that first tow months I was getting answers to, "What is happiness, intelligence and love?" As the answers came, I was gradually being unburdened of my miseries and tensions.
The very first insight was on love, seeing that my happiness was determined by my capacity to love. That was a tremendous insight. It began to free me. Any bit of freedom when you're plagued feels so good. I knew that I was in the right direction. I had gotten hold of a link of a chain and was determined not to let go until I had the entire chain.
Then I saw that my sum-total thinking was responsible for everything happening to me, and that gave me more freedom. I could control my life by undoing the compulsive behavior, all of which had been determined in the past, and was now subconscious.
The third phase was discovering and recongnizing who and what I really am, I began to see that we are infinite beings with no limitations; that all limitations were only concepts in our minds, learned in the past, and being held on to.
When we see what we really are, we can see that we are not that limited being that we had thought we were, and we can then easily drop the limitations.
Working on those three things, I became freer and freer. My heard become lighter. I was happier, more at peace. Mu mind got quieter. Then my curiosity took me all the way. I said, "If this is so good, I must find just how good it can get. I'll go the limit."
I'd had life most of misery. So when this wonderful thing of happiness began coming in, I wanted all of it. I doggedly kept at it.
And then all of a sudden powers fell in on me. I could know anything anywhere.
I saw there were people just like us on endless numbers of planets.
then I took a look across the country to Los Angles. I called up this friend and said, "In the living room there are three persons," and so on. I started telling him what was going on. Dear air! Suddenly I realized I had frightening him. I had to cut the conversation short.
I was amazed at the very pleasant sensation of watching divine laws in operation. the fascination was not the powers themselves, but the watching and witnessing of the divine laws operating. I really didn't feel like the doer.
I had seen by this time that this world is mentation -- a dream. So to get interested in the dream again through interest in powers would trap me back into what I was wanting to get out of.
Toward the end of my period of seeking, I one day saw the, my gosh! This whole thing is like a dream in my mind, just like a night dream! And it's a dream that never really was -- any more than a dream you had last night was. Was it a real thing that dream you had last night? No. I was only in your mind. But of course until one awakens out of this everyday waking state, it seems real to one.
The new reality was that I am, and that's all there is! That my beingness is the changeless essence of the universe, of course, I was punch-drunk, slap-happy, and in a state of euphoria.
In this state the whole world looks perfect. looking at my body, I also saw this body as part of that perfection. This instantly corrected all my ailments.
Several times on the way up I'd get a realization that would so supercharge my body, I'd have to walk for miles and miles at a good pace.
Some of those realizations are really more than a body can take. you can't sit still. Many a time I was forced to walk off the new, intense energy.
I was undoing the subconscious hang-ups, tendencies, pre-dispositions, realizing more and more that I am free, that freedom is my basic nature. I was getting freer and freer and I automatically went into a state where, having undone enough of the mental limitations, the real Self of me began presenting itself to me.
I saw that the real "I" of me was only beingness, was only existence, and that my beingness was exactly the beingness of the universe. And when I saw that, I identified with every being in this universe I identified with every atom in it. And when you do that you lose all sense of being a separate individual, an ego.
When I saw that, that I AM the Amness of this universe, I then saw the whole world as just an image in my imagination, like a dream.
I imaged or dreamt that I was a body. And I'm dreaming right now that I'm this body.
In reality, the only thing that is, is Isness. That's the real, changeless substance behind everything.
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