“Some realize the Self within them through the practice of meditation, some by the path of wisdom, and others by selfless service. Others may not know these paths; but hearing and following the instructions of an illumined teacher, they too go beyond death.” - Bhagavad-Gita.
Depression at nine years old really sucks. Maybe I needed a therapist and maybe I still do. I came from the usual dysfunctional American family. Mother divorced, and remarried. We had to move in with my step dad in the house he grow up in, when I was five. Was I depressed because of my parents? Or did I truly feel disconnected towards everyone in my life, my teachers, and the other students. I spent a lot of time day dreaming. What if you went to bed one night, and the next morning, you know all the details of your life and of your future, what would you do? “Morpheus: Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?” From the science fiction movie, The Matrix.
In life we are guided along a path by unseen forces. Some might call it G-d, Mother Nature, the universe or the divine. There is nothing supernatural, or beyond nature in this universe because we are all connected by this force, or the force of the universe. This force is guiding us and we are directing it. Our path is lighted by many great teachers some alive and some dead to connect us with force. The real path to enlightenment is when the mind separates itself from this reality of time, space and matter and connects to a higher reality, to a greater force of the universe. The journey of a thousand mile starts with the first step. I turn around only to reflect but never with regret or remorse but with an open mind.
As a child we question a lot less about what is real, and what is not real. During play time, we pretend to be anything, or anyone. What if you sensed you were someone else? Are you crazy, or odd, or gifted? My first attempt at meditation during recess on the play ground, everyone thinks I am mad, or I am just waking up. I had visions during my meditations, sometimes bad ones. Don’t worry the world isn’t going to end. I am not Nostradamus.
We can only explain the past, from experience and observation. How about causality, serendipity or déjà vu? Events unfold because of our decisions? Are we driven by a manipulating universe or from our own will? My belief is we are part of the universe, therefore we are guided and also the guide by and of this unseen force in the universe. To understand this you must have an open mind.
We all want to know what our purpose in life is supposed to be. We want to feel significant, and not overshadowed by the awe of this reality, to find meaning in this existence. What is the nature of the universe? My question has to do with the nature of reality or our perception of reality. You could describe reality as a river that is flowing and we are moving with the river, you can also move against the direction of this river, wade in it, even manipulate it and bend to your own will. I have a sense of where this river is taking me. I will show you that path.
I think like most people in this world, we are looking for answers to the tough questions about our relationship to the universe, to reality. I hope my life has the meaning I am looking for. I think sometimes you can’t always find the answer you are looking for in life and know who you are until you spend time reflecting and analyzing those past events and actions. We want to know our fate, finding music in the symphony of the chaos.
In science we are seeking answers as well as the truth. In order to accomplish this we measure, and study a fragment of time, space, and matter, what we call an event.. Just remember the universe isn’t made up of nice whole numbers, it is made up of real, and irrational numbers. So what does this mean, the universe is strange, very strange, weird, interesting? Yes to all them.
Physics as a science has fascinated me since I was in junior high school. Stephen Hawking is a cosmologist who talks about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in his book A Brief History of Time, which has to do with the uncertainty of a place, and time or the movement of a subatomic particle. If you don’t know where an electron or another subatomic particle is, how can you be certain of anything in the universe? Not everything is rational in the universe look at the number Pi which isn’t this nice whole number and yet its ratio describes most of the known universe. The universe is kind of fuzzy and looks chaotic. We think we see it so clearly, yet it is like we have scratched up glasses. I will help you find the corrective lens that brings that into focus. I am going to show you my life, my reality and how it has been shaped over time.
At thirteen I started learning to fence and it became a passion over my life, dedicating hours, weeks, and years practicing a dead art, but a living sport. Fencing allowed me to focus and channel my energies into something positive. I also widen my understanding of the world as well. To be a good fencer you also need a good philosophy. I need to expand my understanding fencing and swordsmanship, so I decide to try and read the Book of Five Rings written by Miyamoto Musashi a dead Japanese swordsman to light my path to a greater understanding. I learned real tactics useful to fencing from Musashi, and my first lesson in Zen Buddhism. I started to meditate more, but I didn’t understand the technique, and Zen Buddhism was more confusing, but Zen taught me to change my perception to see the details as well as the whole picture all in the same moment of time.
After reading the Book of Five Rings I was fascinated about Japanese swordsmanship and I wanted to learn kendo, or Japanese fencing, but never had the money. I also wanted to be a fencing master after I grew up. These two ideas I would grow up and get to experience them at the same time.
I got a fencing scholarship at the University of Detroit which started me down a path that was significant as well as very stressful, maybe it was because I was on the wrong path.
I was told by my coach it is a waste of time. My coach, Dr. Goldstein, Jewish, the full-time physician, part-time fencing coach married with three children around my age. His oldest daughter now lives in Israel with her husband. After he came back from his first visit he visited Israel, I told him I wanted to visit. This path to Israel, I would be on later in life. Somehow I know it as fact, not just words spoken into the winds of time.
Dr. Goldstein was another one of these “illuminating teachers” he taught me how to fence, the value of an education and push me to complete my goals. His advice has guided me over the years. He was the one who told me to join the Army when I didn’t think I had another path. Like a father I never had.
At age seventeen I meet my first girlfriend, Mari. She was a woman, not a girl. We met at FAM, the Fencing Academy of Michigan in Southfield. I was totally taken by her and fell in love. From the beginning we had issues. She was black, and I was white, even though it was the 90’s she was confused, and confusing. Dating a woman four years senior to me was exciting, and interesting. Her mom felt she was robbing the cradle. Mari opened my mind to new ideas, and taught me to push for success. She wanted a renaissance man, a man of the world. I was just a kid. I was none of those. She was amazed at my luck, she use to joke that I could fall into a pile of pig shit and come out smelling like a rose.
That relationship last for about two years. We broke up after she cheated on me with another fencer. My mind went into a spiral, and I lost it, everything my girl and my scholarship as my grades plummeted down a sink hole. I forgive her, but she never forgave herself.
During one of our conversation after an argument she asks me, who I saw myself with in the future. I said a woman with black hair. Is it just words? Once again I am depressed, and feeling disconnected. I feel my world going out of control, and consider suicide. I go for a ride in my used car that I had just bought, uninsured, unregistered, and unplated. I was looking for trouble. That is when the accident happened, making the wrong turn at the wrong time. I decided I wanted to live; my heart wasn’t into dying that day. I decided to be a Buddhist, but it was still confusing, and I fled to the army. I also had a vision I would see Mariahn again in tens or so. I real thought she was the one, my soul mate. How did I see this, was the universe giving me a hint about my future. How should I react to this? At the time I didn’t have the answer. The path was unfolding as time unfolds to us all.
From the beginning I didn’t get what I wanted. I wanted to be a medic, learn medicine, like my fencing coach. I wanted to make a difference in the lives of others by helping them. I also had a larger plan, become a doctor like my friend, and coach. Just before basic training the recruiter at the MEPS station called, and told me my contract had to be broken, and I would need a new one. They told me I was not qualified to be medic because of being color blind. I was left with two choices pick a new job, or not join. I decided I the need for money for school was more important. I signed up to learn how to launch missiles. It is frustrating to feel you are on the wrong path not knowing you are on the right path.
The army was like a second awakening, like my first attempt at meditation. I didn’t know what I was doing, or why. Then I realized how insane I was, losing it, and crying. Again I am depressed, and disconnected. I felt like suicide, but this time I wasn’t giving up so easily. I had to grow up fast, or being eaten by two lions wearing brown rounds was not acceptable. I decided I was strong than that and I pushed hard like the way my girlfriend would have expected, even though we not together anymore. I would become that Renaissance man, a college graduate, a success. She became my muse to recreate myself into a better man. That is what real passion and love is about.
My missile training is classified, like some top secret from the X-Files, but I will tell you this much, the government wasted a lot of time and money training people on an older, battle tested and successful missile system, when the plan was to phase out this million dollar system to bring in a new million dollar, modern missile system. Love them tax dollars going to waste. I called my mom about the news, and told her that if I got a chance to become a medic I would. The trainees from my class were faced with choices, get discharged from the army, or pick a new job. Once again the money for college was on the line and after training in my new job I would only have two years left of my contract. We were told to make a list of three choices. I decide to pick three medical jobs; my top choice was medical specialist, or what is known as a combat medic or simply a medic. A classmate, Private Chris Philips asked about my choice of the job, medical specialist. He asked me if we would go to the field. I told him, “No way man, we will work in a hospital.” The next few days I awaited for an answer, the anxiety was killing me. Then I saw the orders. Within a month I was to order to report for training as a medical specialist. This was not my original path, was my mind pushing me towards this destination?
My new friend and I reported for training at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas. Chris and I became friends like the odd couple. We were in the same squad, same platoon. A few weeks before graduation, Chris received a letter from the commandant at Ft. Bliss asking if he would consider returning because he was trained as a missile mechanic. I was just an operator. He laughed it off. I came back with, “Wouldn’t it be strange if we went back to Ft. Sill.” We both did basic training at Ft. Sill in Oklahoma.
Just a few days before graduation we got our orders. Private Philips, Ft. Sill, MEDDAC. Private Riddle Ft. Sill, MEDDAC. Chris screamed my name after hearing the news. My drill sergeant hated me told me I didn’t deserve a MEDDAC, Medical Detachment Army Command. I wondered what a MEDDAC was. One soldier told me, it is a hospital. I was disappointed, I wanted the infantry.
Chris came up to me afterwards and asked, “Who did I contact?”
I said, “No one.”
He smiled and laughed and didn’t believe me. I told him, no seriously. He gave me a pat on the back, and smiled.
I went on leave for a couple of weeks, later reporting in at Ft. Sill. My training at my first assignment was excellent. I had a great boss Sergeant Heath, an NCO heading towards his twentieth year. Gradually Chris made his friends, and I made mine. He bought a bike, a crotch-rocket. As cool as he was, he was not an expert driver, and spilled his bike two times. Both times I told everyone what happened before they got the news from the emergency room. Making friends is always tough, and so is fitting in. I felt like a freak not performing to my abilities. I tried, and pushed again not giving up. Chris was disappointed in me as well. His Irish temper came out, and he belted me. I just reacted.
I told him, “I hope you die on that bike.” Not sure if I meant it. It was lonely, new to my duty station with no friends and family. No fencing either, my real passion.
Christmas was always depressing. I was invited over to Sergeant Heath’s house. When I arrived everyone was in a melancholy mood. I asked Sergeant Heath what was going on. He told me Philips had been an accident. His roommate was driving his bike, coming home, and as Philips backed out, his roommate crashed into the side of his new wife’s pickup. He was thrown from the bike, hit the ground, and died. It was a tragedy, purely an accident. Somehow I knew at that moment perhaps my words might have had an impact on what just happened. Looking back the next few months I could connect all the events.
My last hitch of my tour was spent at Pine Bluff Arsenal. It is a chemical arsenal, it holds over ten percent of all chemical munitions dating back to World War I and World War II. The arsenal holds other secrets such as the place where the development of BZ, 3-Quinuclidinyl benzilate, which was a psychological agent, had taken place during the 1960s. I remember telling a friend of mine knowing my damn luck I there would be fire at the arsenal. It was something all the medics were training for on a weekly basis. It was a week before I was returning to Ft. Sill to clear post and get discharged. We had a chemical fire that lasted for more than a week. When I got back to Ft Sill I know somehow I was part of something greater and that force was guiding me.
I have one fond memory of a patient who came in all the time for heart palpitations. I had run into her at the Shoppette on post. I told her I didn’t want to see her back in the clinic. One morning I was late for work because of an inspection, when I arrived she was there in a supine position getting an I.V. Just as my boss, Dr. Moser was about to give her a dose of adenosine.
I told her, “I thought I told you I didn’t want to see you back in here again.” Right at that moment she cardio converted. I was told I had golden hands. Just before I left to return to Ft. Sill to clear post, Dr. Moser tried ordering me to reenlist. I told him, “Sir, you can order to me do a lot of things, but not that one you can’t.” I laughed.
After being discharged I came back to Michigan. I decided to go to Eastern Michigan University, they had an ROTC program. I didn’t have the time for the program, and it was no longer my cup of tea. I decide to focus on my studies, biology with the hopes of going to medical school. Dropped out of the ROTC program it gave me time to fence again. With the help of another student we started a fencing club. Over the summer I met the program director, and told him my students wanted me to start teaching. That was the end of the conversation. The end of the summer came around and Phil, the program director asked me if I was still going to teach in the fall. I told him of course I was going to teach. Seven years later the undergraduate part-time lecturing fencing master was finally burnt out. I had my bachelor’s degree in biology I decided it was time to move on.
Fencing was something I loved, and it loved me back. I spent just as many hours teaching, and learning more about fencing as I did with my academic studies. One advantaged I loved was, as a professor I had access to the gym all the time. One morning I went out to breakfast a Coney Island across from campus. I ran into some old high school friends, Charlie, Kevin, and Eric. We all went to and graduated from Ferndale High. Charlie Kondek was in the class ahead of me. We met in gym, my freshman year of high school. I looked at him as my protector, freshman year was scary. I started talking with Charlie, and he told me he had taken up kendo. He asked me if I was still fencing. I told him I was still fencing, and was even teaching at the university.
A few weeks later I ran into another pair of kendoka (iaidoka), who were practicing iaido, and kendo in the racket ball courts. I explained to them I was a fencing professor, and that I had a gym. If they wanted to come and share the gym they were more than welcome. The following week they brought along their iaido sensei Charles Ham. We have been good friends since.
Charles explained to me there was a difference between iaido and kendo. I told him, that if the kendo sensei wanted to use the gym as well that was fine. Now it was turning into a real swords club. I was allowing them to use the gym for selfish reason, because I wanted to learn kendo and iaido. From there the kendo and iaido clubs grew. Like the ripples in a pond created from the throwing of a stone. I am a following a path that was created by a mere though from when I was a kid and created a reality around that.
My life during this time wasn’t much different than most other college students, except I was an undergraduate student teaching at a university. I did most things a student does i.e. date and have fun. My best friend at the time was Mike Weaver, who was in the same army reserve unit. Mike and I were close like brothers. I told him just about anything. We had met in the library on campus. We hung out all the time going to bars, parties, and restaurants, doing one basic thing that young bachelors do, look for women. I told him once as a joke, that I would be in Ann Arbor, and Mariahn would walk past me, and I would not recognize her. That would be my luck.
One evening Mike and I went out to eat. We were walking down Main Street in Ann Arbor; I came to know it was her after walking a few blocks past a woman wearing a fur coat. We had walked several blocks past her, and I knew it was her. It was about ten years from when I had that vision when that would happen, it would be another two or so years before we actually met face to face again. This path was important for me to this chapter in my life. I knew she wasn’t the one for this life.
At the time I was living on campus, I was dating a few women who were also living on campus. My friend, Stephan asked me to room with him because his girlfriend just broke up with him, and need someone to split the rent with. It was ok, until he decided not to renew the lease. I got a hold of a friend, and student of mine to see if he needed a roommate. I jumped from place to place for a few months over that summer.
It was the end of summer and I was going to back to teaching in the fall. One Sunday after church, I met an old man, who was looking for someone to rent a room in his house. At the time I was considering converting to Catholicism. I finally got around to asking him after roommate jumping for those several months. He said yes. I was relieved. After moving in, and getting to know him better, I learned who my landlord was. He was Jim Monaghan, younger brother of Tom Monaghan, president of Dominoes Pizza.
There was another man rooming in the house, his name was also Jim. He had been in the USAF Pararescue during Vietnam saving downed pilots, a college graduate and a past employee of Motorola for over twenty years. He was into the paranormal, and UFOs. Jim introduced me to scientific remote view. This was a technique developed by the CIA, and military to train psychic soldiers. I started learning the technique from some training tapes Jim had bought online. Normally the military uses the technique to find the enemy. I used the technique to find my soul mate.
The first time I did this, three women came into my life. As well as the return of my first love Mariahn. She emailed me, and we went out for dinner. I still had feelings for her, but it was dead, something I didn’t want to return to. I dated one of out of the three women. She had been one of my students, August, and we dated for three years before meeting my wife. It didn’t work out. I mean I loved her, and we had a strong connection both as friends, and as lovers, but there was no plan for the future. I was still teaching, and going to school. She at least convinced to finish my last class after taking three years off from school. She had been a student of mine. She knew it wasn’t going anywhere. Her family didn’t like me, and I didn’t like them. The talk of marriage was avoided.
A few months before the break up I had a vision. My girlfriend asked me what the vision was. I told her it was an Indian woman dressed in a wedding sari, with lots of jewelry. It was a bad break up details I don’t want to get into. From there I tried to follow my vision, black hair, Indian. I signed up on Shaadi.com an Indian matrimonial website. Perhaps my ex-girlfriend was my soul mate helping me connecting me to that soul mate, which I need to be with in this life.
While working part-time for my uncle Jack at his company, Garden Fresh Salsa, I got a volunteer position working at the University of Michigan. I worked for a retired Russian, biochemist. I was using the opportunity to get more experience in my field with the hopes of landing a job. I finally landed my job at Wayne State as a research assistant. After working for close to a year, my cousin begged me to return to working for his dad. My brother told me I was crazy, there were too many conflicts.
During this time I decided to try another remote view session hoping to find love. I did meet some women, who were Indian, and went on some dates but nothing sparked. After a few weeks post remote viewing I started getting hits on Shaadi.com. I had been a member for about three years, and nothing. Then out of the blue, all these women started writing me, and showing lots of interest. There were several, but three stuck out the most. Sigalith, Siya, and Janet all three women were from India. My wife was one of them. She was Bene Israel a Jew of India. She grew up in Thane which is a suburb of Bombay. My wife was living in Israel when we met. My desire to visit Israel came true . It was difficult to decided, but my decision was partly based on the fact that I am most familiar with Judaism because of my grandpa Jack. My mom doesn’t follow Judaism, but she is a cultural Jewish, but follows the Christian religion. The part of Judaism I find interesting is about Kabalah, which means in Hebrew to receive. They are talking about receiving G-d. The most important aspect of receiving has to do with our perception of receiving, or giving. We learn to connect with the divine or that unseen force.
After a couple months, I decided it was time to travel, and visit my girlfriend Sigalith in Israel. My uncle Jack was basically using me and I was crazy for quitting my job at Wayne. After two months of working for him I was fired. I was free now. My wife and I got married a year later. We are connected by this force and those around us help us guide along our path as we help guide them.
Siya and I became friends. I always felt a strong connection with Siya. We wanted to get married, but she felt it won’t work because of her community being Punjabi. Afraid other people would speak badly about her family. It was difficult being split between my love of Sigalith, and of her. While I was traveling to visit my wife for the time my friend was getting married in England. She got married to a British national. On the first visit to Israel I flew British Airways. I landed in London. I tried calling her, but couldn’t figure out how the pay phones work. Siya and her husband moved to Toronto, Canada the following year. A year and half ago I went and visited Siya in Canada. What are the odds that this could happen, meeting one of many soul mates? Did I will this, was it my actions, or was it the universe pushing me close to what I want.
Some might say what an Amazing life. There are days I still feel depressed, and disconnected. Maybe it is because of the dysfunctionality of my family, having superficial parents, were finding love is impossible. My friend Jim once told me, he believed in reincarnation, and that when you reincarnate into this life you decided what mission you going on. Who your parents are, when and where you will be born, what kind of life you will have. My mission has unfolded as I have seen it. Jim also said that a higher reality can’t know a lower reality and a lower reality can’t know a higher reality. I say it possible if you change your percept of what reality is.
The one saying that I disagree with, and hate is, “It must have happened for a reason.” What the hell does that mean? To me it means, don’t think to hard about it. Wonderful, another great philosophical conundrum. That is what I mean by superficial.
My friend Bill calls it, “Just, damn, dumb luck.”
I told him, “I don’t believe in luck.” Luck means randomness and chaos. Reality is a river flowing, not a out of control flood. This river can be controlled like the way a river is controlled by a damn. We can swim with it, swim against or just wade in it.
Even though I am not religious, I still believe in the divine, the universe connecting us. This is not our first life, or our last. My wife, and my friend Siya even though they lived thousands of miles from me, we were connected. Soul mates. Does it answer my question? Who am I, what is my nature. Is the universe guiding me, or am I guiding the universe. In remote viewing the technique allows a person to connect to the universe. We are all connected to the universe by quantum means, by microscopic strings, shaping our reality.
Out of all the beings in the universe why did these events happen, what drove them to happen? Some might say these are strange events. Who are we are, is shaped by events, our destiny, our destination, time, space and matter. The universe seems chaotic and uncertain yet somehow my life has been shaped either by my own freewill or by the manipulation of the universe for me to discover my meaning and purpose.
I have had more visions of the close future. I have also tried using remote viewing, and meditation to get a clearer picture of my future and the future of humanity, ok maybe I am like Nostradamus, so sue me. As I have told my friends it is not a trick or magic, we all have this ability. You just have to change your perception of this reality. The mind is more powerful than the physical. Maybe I am deeply romantic or too philosophical. To some this might seem even too fantastic. As I told my first girl, “Just believe.” To be closer to the divine, G-d or this unseen force, we are a creature that needs to believe. By believing we are creating or shaping this reality we want to live in.
Works Cited
Easwaran, Eknath. The Bhagavad Gita (Classics of Indian Spirituality). Trans. Canada: The Mountain Center of Meditation. 2007
Hawking, Stephen. A Brief History of Time. United States of America:Bantam Books. 1988
The Matrix. Dir. The Wachowski Brothers. Perf. Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishburne, Carrie-Anne Moss, Hugo Weaving, Joe Pantoliano. Warner Bros. Pictures.
