* *temples * *

So my Life had many ups and downs, and many round and rounds. After years and years of wine women and song, I decided to look to my eternal salvation. But I needed that 'sign'. Something to guide me somewhere. Something to tell me that there was something to find.

By that time, I had had my fifth child with my fourth woman. Not that I had only been with four women, but she was the fourth woman I had a child with.

Her name was Katherine. And our son's name was David. Baby Davie and I were good friends. Sweet Katherine was a first class Lady herself. But I had a very serious problem at the time. It was the drug cocaine. I had fought a losing battle with it for ten years. In the end, not only did I lose the battle, but I lost sweet Katherine and Baby Davie as well.

So here I was in a big empty house and a big empty heart. It was a very shallow existence. I was good at my job as a sales rep but my Life was formless. I had a nice new car, my own house, lots of nice clothes, but it meant nothing. So I rented out the top floor of my house to a girl who was a church going believer.

One morning she came down to get her mail. We got to talking, and into drinking some wine. She was always trying to convert me and get me to go to church with her. Well I needed more than just someone asking me to go to church. I needed Divine Intervention. I always wanted a 'sign' just like St Paul got. He was taking some Christians to the arena to be killed for the amusement of the Romans. And God fired down a lightning bolt and knocked him from his horse and asked him point blank, " Why do you persecute me..!!?".

So Saul was converted and changed his name to Paul . And well if you haven't read the letters of St Paul, then you haven't read the Bible.

Well I wanted a sign like that. Something definite. Something I could see and feel and know that there was someone there. I needed to be knocked from my horse. So at four in the afternoon a guy drove through a red light and smashed my car in two. I half expected a voice from the sky, but that never happened.

The next day I walked down to the river bank by the hospital. By then I had forgotten about asking for a sign. I was just angry that I had lost my car, and therefor my job and my World was crashing down around me. Back at home I had nothing but time, so I read a book I had had on my book shelf for the last ten years. It was called "Be Here, Be Now." Do yourself a favor, go get it and read it.

I looked at everything with a different light. It appeared to me that we were all puppets being jerked around by our environmental strings. People marry their jobs, and at sixty years of age or so they divorce and get alimony payments. Actually they retire and get pension cheques. Same thing.

You could see these people everywhere, sitting on their porches, waiting for the 'end' to come and take them away. You look into their vacant eyes as they sit on their rocking chairs, trying to revive old memories, roiling up the muddy waters of dreams undreampt, watching inflation eat away at any savings that they might have. I realized that if I stayed there, I would be just as lost as those old folks found themselves to be.

No wonder old people get mean and cross. They realize that they spent their entire lives, being married to some company who doesn't want them anymore.

But you can not turn back the hands of Time. This Life is the real thing. There isn't even going to be any dress rehearsal. What you see is what you get. You had your chance with Life. Now your Life is spent, and you only have to die.

It made me feel worse, more lost, alone, frustrated and angry. I was so angry I decided to just abandon everything and go away. I didn't care where. Anywhere would be good enough.

I went down to the Army Surplus Store, bought a back pack, and walked out the door. I left my house and everything in it and prepared to hit the highway.

Actually, strangely enough, a girl, at the time, dialed the wrong number and got me by mistake.

Well I always have a few minutes to talk to a girl. So we got to talking and she said that she was going on a trip by car to Vancouver and on to Los Angeles, and if I wanted to go with her I was welcome to join her. I let my friend Brent have my house and away I went with Roxanne. She was a curvy Lady who taught Yoga, and was into all that Spiritual stuff. We drove into the Rocky Mountains, and visited her friends who were located everywhere throughout the Rocky Mountains. They were the kind of people you usually associate with hugging a tree.

I had about one hundred and fifty dollars in my pocket and a back pack of odds and ends.

While we were in the Rocky Mountains, I ran into a Buddhist monk who I peppered with questions. All of the questions were variations of the same thing. How does one determine what to believe when it comes to one's Eternal Salvation? From where comes the spark of belief, and what do you need do, to fan the flames of commitment? How can anyone make a definite conscientious decision regarding a purpose in Life. How does one go about in determining that. Her response was quite succinct.

But after two hours she grew impatient with me, and she condensed everything she wanted to say to me in one word.

"Meditate".

" Meditate, where, and how?" I persisted.

"Go sit in the forest.' was her reply.

Still I persisted, " How long?"

"Go sit in the forest." she replied again and closed the door.

How long ? I wondered. How long was I to go and sit in the forest? And what was I supposed to do when I got there? She said that I should just go there and sit.

So one day shortly after, I did exactly that. I went to sit in the forest. I sat there day after day waiting for something to happen.

There was no flash of lightning or bolt of thunder. But away from all the distractions of mankind I did take notice of some perspectives that until then I had not seen. There is truth in the saying," It is hard to hear those inner voices over the blaring trumpets of desire. "

I had been such an arrogant fool all my Life, and I had made a pile of mistakes. When you have the distractions of everyday Life you tend to gloss over mistakes, and soon forget them. But if you stop and think for a while, they come back up, except there is no way that you can change anything.

And there was just a limited space of time to correct those terrible mistakes I made. Somehow I had to try to right the wrongs.The thought occurred to me, "How could I concern myself about my Eternal Salvation when there were so many issues that clearly blocked the way?"

How could I possibly correct them and where exactly was I supposed to start. The first week in the mountains went by relatively easily. I don't know if you have ever tried to just sit still for a week, but let me tell you that it is not as easy as it sounds.

Just a week before, I hopped on a bus in Vancouver and right where we were in the middle of nowhere I asked the driver to let me off. "There is a lodge up another forty miles." he told me, but I got off right there. I wanted to be totally alone by myself. The Greyhound bus roared to Life spewing black diesel smoke into the pristine mountain air, and disappeared around the bend. I headed straight into the forest and up the side of a mountain. It was a real hot sunny July afternoon and I was wearing a leather jacket.

About three hours in, I was up on a ridge and spotted a stream about a hundred and fifty feet below me. Getting there was no easy chore. I would have to descend a forty-five degree rocky slope. As soon as I started the whole side of that mountain started to move. It was awesome. Like the skin of a giant monster the mountainside came alive with boulders crashing everywhere. And I was right there in the middle of a rock slide. Rocks bounced off my head and tore into my flesh and, I believed I was going to die. The roar was thunderous, but in thirty seconds or so it was all but over. I was at the bottom by the stream on my back. Me leather jacket was shredded and I was bleeding all over.

I watched the cloud of dust rise into the sky and started to move my limbs. I noticed that in my right hand were clutched my mantra beads. I looked to the sky, and said "Thank You!" Everything seemed to work okay, and none of my bones were broken, but I was mighty sore. I gathered the remains of my back pack, crossed the stream and set up camp on the spot. That night, I said "thank You" many times. Three days later as I sat by the fire, and blood still oozed from a three inch cut in my leg, I was still saying "Thank You".

A week later I settled down to the task at hand. How long, I wondered, how long was I supposed to sit there. And how was I to meditate? I didn't understand any of that. So I just sat there. All alone, under a splendor of a magnificent starry night, and a broiling hot sun during the day. Day after day, the time passed. Gone were the distractions of everyday living, no phones, no cars, no people. Just me, alone in the mountains. It was very unsettling.

By the second week I actually thought I was losing my mind. In a normal day, you have people around you all the time. Certain behaviors are expected, and so shape your Life. Basically you do what you think people expect you to do. And that is what you are, a reflection of others expectations. That's how it works. Basically you become what others 'expect' you to be. This is what they expect, and that is what you become. You become what others expect you to be.

One starlit night I climbed onto a log that reached out over a small lake. In the darkness of the black water I looked for my reflection. I couldn't see myself but I could see my form because there were no reflecting stars there.

At first I couldn't see anything, then just like that, there I was, where the absence of stars was. I couldn't see myself, but I could see my form. In that instant I realized something profound. I realized that there was another me but it wasn't the me everyone including myself saw. There was another me, a me which I had never seen.

This other me was so masked by the me you see, that it was impossible to see the real me. The me, everyone including me saw, was the reflection of other people's values, and other people's beliefs. I was the living reflection of my parents and teachers and all those authority figures who cultivated me, and played such a dominant part of my Life. I was everyone *except* me.

I almost fell off the log with a type of delirium. It was as if, right there in the still blackness of the starry night, a stranger walked up and introduced himself to me. Only, really ......, the stranger was me. I could feel the energy of this being which stirred within, clawing to get out.

So then I wanted to see some of the real me. But to do that, where should I start? What should I do? Where should I stop, or shift or whatever. The real me was buried under tons of expectations which governed and shaped my Life. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. But I knew that I wanted with all my heart, to set myself free. So I went back to sitting and waiting.

In the third week I was overwhelmed with a sense of just being and what it was to be a living thing. I was awestruck with the knowledge that all living things had that magical mixture of a substance called Life. And Life was certainly a very sacred possession. Today I feel sad when I walk by a plant which is wilting. Because I know that this plant has no choice in the matter. A plant is a Life that must do the best it can, at the whim of its owner. To see a plant weakened so, just because someone can't give it a simple glass of water, causes me distress. I know that I can't go around watering the plants of the World. 50,000 children die of hunger related illness every single day on this planet Earth. And there is a host of other problems. Do something about them.

By the fourth week I decided that I had to come back to civilization, otherwise known as this wild and crazy type of World. I had progressed enough to try some new concepts out.

So off the mountain I came. I felt different. I could feel my blood coursing through my veins. I was aware of the energy of my being. I was happy to be alive, and I was aware that I still had time to make some changes in my Life.

I lived in a Buddha Center in Vancouver. At seven PM every evening we would gather in the shrine room and say this mantra 1600 times. I had an empty room to myself and the temperature was never above 15 degrees Celsius at that time of the year, and that is about 59 degrees F. I spent some very chilly nights in that Center.

Then I started going to this Monastery every day. I would get there at four-thirty in the morning and leave at nine at night. It was exotic. Gongs would gong, bells would be rung, incense curled its thick white smoke into the air, we said Tibetan Mantras and walked in a huge circle around the Monastery. The Monks had the saffron robes and everyone else wore black satin gowns. Everyone except me. I was just some guy who came in from the street and walked with them. They seemed to feel comfortable with that and gave me a phonetic book so that I could join them in their mantras. I showed up at 4:30 AM every morning and walked the walk with them.

Have you ever tried to sit and be still for a while ? It is not as easy as it sounds. But I could be as still as any of them. There is something about being perfectly still, and feeling the energy of your body coursing with Life. I would get into my own space oblivious of everything and yet aware of everything.

You have to learn to walk before you can run. I was learning how to crawl. I listened to what anyone said and soaked up information like a sponge. It was nonsense that made sense. I had to pull away from everything to let the real me come out.

I would be away for six years. In that time I had been in almost every temple and ashram in Canada.

When I returned I could walk on water.

That is not so special a feat here in Winnipeg where the water is frozen solid six months of the year.

Non the less, I came back a mighty different man. And I did have some answers. We will talk about that a little later.

Right now I want to tell you about my school days. I want you to see some of the 'shapers' of my attitudes, I want you to see why some of my values were so different, and I want you to understand the origin of some of my beliefs.

I was different from everyone else. I knew that at a very early age. Teachers would have their hands full when I walked into their class. As far as I was concerned, it was me against the teachers. Sometimes they would win, and sometimes I would. Most of the time they won.