Back in the Marketplace

Back in the Marketplace

About this time, I went on a four day Thanksgiving weekend to spend with Charlie Brockett and his family in Tennessee. My childhood friend, Pat Hamlett and his wife, Sharon, were also going to be there.

All I can tell you is that is was a strange weekend. In talking to my friends, I slowly began to realize that I had…all along…been moving into that place that Larry been describing. I began to realize (or merely believe?) that I had been enlightened. Like I say, it was strange. I believed I was enlightened, but there was no sudden awakening. And yet, so many of the concepts and side effects of enlightenment seemed to be happening to me. No, I can’t really explain it. I was, but then again I wasn’t (which really is to say, I wasn’t.)

I existed in this strange place for about 3 weeks. I also seemed to realize that Larry wasn’t any more enlightened than I was. It was like he wasn’t even aware of his own concepts.

As I think back, I remember that this same sort of thing happened once back in The School. Himself dismissed it rather quickly but I forget the term he used. Something like “mental high”…but it wasn’t that.

This pseudo-enlightenment was not even as solid or as overwhelming as the six or seven previous times I had experienced the awakening. It was…and then again it wasn’t.

Based on my new “status”, I became Larry’s teacher…for about 10 days. As it happens, he had formed a relationship with one of his students…and they had decided to move out of state. Larry went back to Kent State to enroll in a PhD program in philosophy to validate his ideas.

He died about 8 years later of throat cancer (heavy smoker).

My illusion of enlightenment slowly dissipated within roughly three weeks.

As it happens, Teri and I had also formed a relationship. Teri had left Larry and moved into an apartment in the San Fernando Valley for a bit. A month or so later, she moved into my apartment. About a year later, Teri and I were married and we settled down, got real jobs and raised our daughter, Chime.

Again, I drifted.

I suppose it wasn’t actually drifting. I did as millions of others did. I read tons of spiritual books. I avidly discussed enlightenment as if I really knew what I was talking about. I also spent a good bit of time…perhaps due to my lack of satisfaction with my own search…in proselytizing my daughter Chime.

Of course, I really wasn’t coming from a place of real knowledge and Chime was insightful enough to realize this…and she rejected any discussion of philosophy from an early age. Over the years, of course, I continued to try to cram ideas of enlightenment into her head. It became a bitter bone of contention for us over the years.

So I went back to school and became something of a computer expert (I was something of a network pioneer). Teri…who was an extremely competent bookkeeper went back to school to continue towards her accounting degree (which she received) and eventually got her CPA certificate.

Over time, Teri and created our own businesses formed corporations and worked out of the house. My computer expertise complimented her accounting practice and vice versa.

We made a bunch of money and mishandled a bunch and went bankrupt and formed new companies. We rose and fell with the tide of the Los Angeles economic backdrop.

And, yeah…I read a ton of spiritual books. But none ever grabbed me and almost re-dedicated me as much as a book I discovered around 2000. It rocked me as much as “Be Here Now” had rocked me 30 years earlier. The book was “The Power of Now” by Eckhart Tolle.

But mostly, like I say, we drifted…I drifted.