Chapter 1

“I love you! Why Don’t You Love You?”
My Introduction to the Divine Universe

In the biblical story of Adam and eve they where innocent and intelligent and full of knowledge, understanding, wisdom, able to name all the animals of the world and they were in paradise.

Living in the ever present full of joy peace and happiness living in the garden of Eden, but upon partaking of ‘ the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” they left paradise and entered in to the ” alone and dreary world.”

And they were “afraid” of being Naked? That’s silly for some one who is wise enough to name all the animals of the world to all of the sudden become afraid of being necked.

Ever since the fall from grace we all have been trapped in our own minds ever since, obsessed with continually evaluating our perceptions & definitions of Good and evil.

And the price we pay is to be stuck in the alone a dreary world of suffering and pain, anguish weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Hell on earth!

We as a world have been searching ever since to find a way back in to paradise, and it is so simple, that the whole world including me has and continues to miss it!

So how can we return to paradise and the peace of mind that we only have fleeting moments of?

How do we obtain this allusive nagging goal that eludes the whole world even though it’s all we truly want?

Stop partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil!
Let me say that again, Stop partaking of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil!

Now even though this is true I’m not saying that the story of Adam and Eve is any thing more then just a profound parable of principal, since through the observation of the earth’s strata we have completely and scientifically proven the evolution of life and we continue to expand this knowledge almost daily.

But it’s still true that the way to return to paradise is to stop partaking of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and return to LOVE!

Return to Forgiveness return to Understanding return to Paradise return to Eden.

As a mostly conscious adult I now know that “My Story” has nothing to do with who I truly am, for the ”I AM” of my true self is something beyond Mind, beyond any story, beyond any experience, and in truth is a Stillness, intelligent, Eternal, Awareness and Understanding, full of the love that has no opposite.

I share my story of misery here now and the illusions that I created to teach through my experiences what is not real.

On the day you where born you started a great and wonderful journey, you left the consciousness of the Devine Universe where all is One and Unconditional love is a constant, to come in to a world of immense diversity of experiences, all of them but an Egoic driven Illusion.
A dominance of mind that is not real, for all that is ultimately real is the Devine Universe of unconditional love, peace and joy, that can only be experienced in the ever present Now and this is your true home.

When You get old and the young life filled form brakes down the true you will still be full of life and will never change, and when you die if you don’t find out before you will be reintroduced to your true self Eternal full of Peace, Love, Intelligent and unchangeable.

This book is dedicated to your personal journey back to Your True Self and Your True Home. If you are like me from time to time you have said to your self this is not how life is supposed to be.

There is a lingering internal memory of our true home calling all of us to return to the stillness that is who we are, but know one in the world of form seam’s to know how.

Those who speak the loudest that they have all the answers, never do, but just more of the same old pretty stories that have no relevance to your life now and your misery and suffering right now.

I needed some one to teach me to escape my self made prison that I didn’t have a clue that I personally made. I don’t want to know how to get to Sesame Street, like Dorothy in the wizard of Oz I just want to find my way back home.


Igmard Gustafson’s “Locked In” - Translated from Swedish
All of my life I spent in a coconut. It was cramped and dark, especially in the morning when I had to shave.

But what pained me most was that I had no way to get in touch with the outside world. If no one out there happened to find the coconut and was nice enough to crack it open then I was doomed to live my life in a coconut and even die in a coconut.

I died in my coconut. A couple of years later they found me shrunk and crumpled inside. “Oh what a shame,” they said. “Only if we could have found him earlier maybe we could have saved him.

Maybe there are more like him.” So they started cracking open every coconut in reach. No use - meaningless, a waste of time. A person who chooses to live in a coconut must be a nut in a million, but they didn't know that I have a brother-in-law who lives in an acorn.


As a child I was loving, kind, understanding, inquisitive and full of life; I had a profound imagination able to see and understand things with out words or definition internally able to see things and go in to it 3 dimensionally understand that which I could not define, I just knew.

People trapped in there own egoic mind didn’t understand how some one could know something with out concepts and definitions so this part of me was ridiculed and I was taught to suppress one of my Devine gifts.

My way of being was very different then typical children like different textures would mystify me like the way sand feels or the bark of a tree or soft grass and smells of flowers.

My favorite smell is damp dust to this day it is a wonderful thing to smell, I live down a dirt road and so my car ventilation system gets filled with dust and when you turn on the Ac and the dust gets wet the smell that comes out to me is delicious wonderful and sublime, I cant get enough of this smell.

I also used to create things in my mind looking at every detail before I did a thing so when I went to make it I would just make what I already saw.

I do this with art all the time. And all of this is wonderful. I also naturally loved people and saw beauty and goodness in every one.
Very different then my mother she saw danger every where and in every thing.

My magical way of being is called dyslexia, having my primary method for learning be kinesthetic, so my approach to learning is through my feelings and touch with out definition I just understand. To me something is not real until I can touch it, smell it, taste it, and feel it.

I also feel whatever emotion is being felt by anyone in my close proximity, being an empath that just came natural; I don’t know why it just is.
When I started to develop my ego it became confusing because I didn’t know how I did it, it was just an understanding beyond definition.

So when I was with some one feeling strong feelings I would feel what they were feeling and I would comment on it this would make them very angry for me to expose there secretes in denial they didn’t want to know them self.

So I started suppress my true nature this after being punished for it and so it went underground the understanding I intuitively knew went away and what was left was I just felt what ever emotion was in my presence and what was a gift became a curse.

Like every one else in the world I started to live in my mind the cold harsh unconscious Mechanism of egoic mind. Striped of my natural intuition, all of the sudden I would find my feelings being hijacked with no apparent ability to change them until I left the persons in my direct proximity.

Then I found all I needed to do was physically leave the presence of the source of those feelings and everything would return to a more palatable form of unconscious egoic mind.

My mother had a strong set of rules and behaviors, one of them were some feelings like anger were bad, some like sex were shameful and some were good and righteous.

And being angry was shameful and bad and wrong a reason to be punished even though anger was where mom was allot of the time, but in strong denial about it.
I now know she truly didn’t know how angry she was. If I expressed anger I was punished and shamed in to denial of it my self.

Good children don’t get angry this caused depression a life long problem for me. Also intuitively I would make a joke and this would transform the energy to a more palatable experience for both of us.

The schools of my day didn’t understand how to teach “special needs” children like me, so I was just passed on to the next grade even though I didn’t learn the curriculum.

Teachers would be very frustrated in trying to teach a dyslexic child; the system just wasn’t set up for this, as it was not understood. Reading was my nightmare! I can’t tell you how many teachers yelled at me, “Pay attention to the words! Sound it out! You’re just not trying!”

And hitting was allowed back then, and it was used. But I was trying. My brain just worked different then most of the other kids.

My brain would mix up the letters and so when I would sound out the word it would come out all wrong. So I became an outcast; ashamed of others like me because I was ashamed of me. Why couldn’t I learn like the other kids?
Although I was dyslexic my mind worked fine, just different then most of the kids I associated with.
So I developed a personal gift to deal with my personal insecurities I became the clown. Not unlike the silly little clown in Bobby Goldsboro’s song see the funny little clown I was laughing on the out side but secretly crying on the inside. song on you Tube

I became aware of the fact that if you where the first to make the joke about yourself then it didn’t hurt as much, Laughter soothed my pain.

My mother was a loner. She was afraid and suspicious of others so her only friends were her immediate family. Mom was also depressed as well as obsessive compulsive; she had certain rituals like checking each door in the house three times at night to make sure they were locked and checking the burners on the stove-top three times to make sure they would not start a fire.

She always doubted her physical interactions so she had to do them multiple times to verify they were real. Mom lived in her head and spent a lot of time daydreaming. Also one of her things was cleanliness, neatness. She kept her self busy always afraid if she stopped other then in reading or daydreaming she would have to deal with the suppressed fears that scared the hell out of her.

I remember mom reining her hands with a terrified look on her face and then she would get really busy to deal with and keep the dragon at bay. My words not hers. Everything had to be clean and organized. She even folded my underwear in my chest of drawers every day. Every drawer and every closet was clean and organized. Every day every bed was made up with hospital corners.

Mom said this was a reaction to growing up in a home that was disorganized. Mom never wanted me bringing friends home into the house; they couldn’t be trusted, and would make messes, so they weren’t welcome.

Also if I brought something home that was considered messy, a clutter, if it had lots of parts it would come up missing when I looked for it the next time. I have accused both my ex-wife and present wife of throwing my stuff away because my mother did it constantly.

We are all products of how we are raised and the conditioned responses are all unconscious. All of these “egoic thinking patterns” are automatically running with little or no control to change then, at least on the level of the mind.

Now a little background about my mother’s environment growing up. When she was born 1924 her mother was grieving the death of two of her previous children. One was still born and another, a boy, died just prior to my mother’s birth so her mother was terrified that my mother would die as well.

Her mother’s fear was so great that mom wouldn’t survive that she lost her milk. As this was before baby formula was an alternative it was a death sentence to a newborn if you didn’t have a wet nurse to feed the child. A neighbor lady filled this need.

Moms father later would tease mom about being the wet nurse’s kid that they adopted. Mom said she was a large German lady who didn’t look a thing like mom, this all just added to moms insecurities, as well mom was a sickly child and came down with whooping cough, a deadly disease back then, and this made her mother even more fearful.

She wouldn’t let my mother out of her sight as she grew older and made her wear thick “long john” underwear all the time. Mom having her first introductions to the world filled with fears they took hold and ran deep it her perceptions of the world. Mom was afraid of every thing.

Mom also went through the great Depression this she carried around her, always afraid the bottom would drop out and she would have nothing. When ever we didn’t eat what was at the dinner table, she would say if you lived during the depression you would eat what you are given.

Needless to say this “fear filled environment” did a real number on my mothers perception of the world making her fearful of everything the root of her insanity.
Mom by all accounts was a good and righteous woman, devoting her life to the raising of her children, we always were fed well, clothed in stylish cloths we never went with out ,and she was constantly striving to make our life fulfilling and complete.

Any faults my mother had been just in her perception of the world and in this she was filled with a crippling fear.

"If you work hard at your job, you can make a living; but if you work hard on yourself, you can make a fortune." ~ Anonymous

Back to me. My youth was spent, a lot of it alone. We learn what we are surrounded with so I had a hard time making new friends, I was also very fearful as a child and much of my adult life as well. It has been only the last few years that I can go out in to the dark night with out fear.

Mom had a lot of problems with natural male behavior, and so did my church. She would talk about how locker room talk was wicked. So, as I look back, I understand why I was always being accused of being Gay, since I was taught that male behavior was bad and female behavior good and righteous. I naturally wanted to be more like females because they where righteous. Ultimately though I was the one who believed I needed to be more like girls.

Also as a child Dad wasn’t around most of the time, he was out of town most of the time working so I didn’t have a male role model to make the connection with my maleness. One of my mother’s favorite scriptures was, “Put off the natural man,” so I spent most of my youth and young adult life not knowing who or what I was, and trying to mold myself into what I thought was supposed to be, a girl.

Most of my friends at school were girls. I couldn’t relate to boys as their way of being was wicked so I always felt in conflict when I was around boys, especially when they would talk about guy things like hunting, sports, fighting and swearing which made it hard to make male friends.

Telling dirty jokes created a torrent in side of me I loved them and felt ashamed for loving them making me work even harder to suppress this nature. Ok, I was Gay, even though I have never been attracted to my same sex! And it’s funny too.

But in truth there would truly not be anything wrong with me being Gay and you are born that way it's not something you can fall in to or catch like a cold.

So I spent most of my time trying to change and mold myself into what I was told to be by my church, my school, my community and my mother. The main message I remember is, “YOU CAN’T DO THAT!” with a million reasons why I couldn’t; the biggest reason being, “Because GOD said so.” Needless to say, I was a pretty messed up little kid.

“Inside of me there is something that no one will ever see; some kind of something that I can't as yet define. I drowned it every night with wine, for it's no friend of mine.

Inside of me there's a wild thing pushing to be free. Like some mad maverick that's been walled up in the canyons all these years, feeding only on the fears that drive it downward. Part of me longs to race down to the freedom of the sea.

Inside of me, like a long forgotten lover there, simple as silence. I can’t even feel the sound of something almost real and it's telling me, “Be careful.”

In spite of me there are worlds around me turning round. Things I'll never find and things it's likely that I've never found; but they’re real, and still a gulf between the world and me as wide as wide as my black soul.

Locked up inside in a jail of my making I keep that secret, my own, till it dies all alone.
Inside of me. Inside of me.” ~ McKuen & Rodrego


Growing up in a family with lots of kids always presented the competition for attention and so the one who talked the loudest got the most, kind of like the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

My older brother, Wayne, had a magical mind - lots of ideas of things to explore. I remember one day we tried to dig to China and we dug all day long and by the end of the day we were around four feet deep and we were sure we were almost there! Isn’t that grand to believe you can dig to China!

Oh, the magical mind of the child! But life at home was pretty good, for us kids as long as you stayed outside and we kids had some really fun times. Then when all my older siblings went away to school I was alone most of the time. My younger siblings where three and six years younger then me so I didn’t relate. I wanted to be big and they were small something I didn’t want any thing to do with.


“Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly, at first.” ~ Maxwell Malts

Then when I started school my whole life changed for the worse. Because of the teacher’s lack of understanding about my dyslexia and the rules of conduct they would ridicule me constantly, impatiently saying things like,

"Look at the words, it doesn't say that! Pay attention! Stop being so lazy! Listen to me, you idiot! That's stupid! You’re acting retarded!” And all the children would laugh. I would want to die! I didn't know why I couldn't read things right. School to me was hell, pure hell.

"Most teachers waste their time by asking questions which are intended to discover what a pupil does not know, whereas the true art of questioning has for its purpose to discover what the pupil knows or is capable of knowing." Albert Einstein
He had the exact same kind of dyslexia I have; also his primary mode of learning was kinesthetic.

He describes his discovery of relativity was obtained by imaginings what it felt like to be riding a light beam across the universe.

Ok, I’m going to go on a little rant here for a minute.
It's sad in the school systems we have created that we teach children to conform to a model of tests and so-called normal standards that none of us fit in. Doing this as children and adults we all feel we need to conform to the “normal” or “popular” way and try to be the same as everyone else. The problem is none of us are exactly the same; we all have unique differences of how we see life and what we enjoy. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we were taught to embrace our individuality and to respect diversity instead of conform!

With this system in place we wonder why “peer pressure” in middle school and high-school is such a problem. It seems, if it were the popular thing to jump off a cliff everyone would. Your children are not stupid!

They conform out of habit because they are conditioned to, and this is because the system teaches a militaristic form of behavior modification that harbors mindless conformity and destroys creativity and self awareness.

The school systems teach us how to become part of the system but it doesn’t teach people life skills, of how to live and be happy.

There is a better way coming, and it’s all about “consciousness” and “awareness,” connected to applied information and technology, instead of the mindless memorization of facts and information, where, in the end you have a mind full of information without the ability to form a conscious thought. When all of society lets go of its illusions and fears of life, of change and of diversity, then the whole planet will profoundly change and improve for the better.


"The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it’s conformity." ~ Rolo May- Man's Search for Himself
Ok, I’m through with my rant.

Back to my self, my old egoic, narcissistic, insane self. To top this off I found out I was one of the shortest kids in my school. My last name is Lyon. The children would say, “You’re too short to be a lion so they called me “Mouse.” I even got so I would answer to “Mouse” when they called me. “Here, Mouse,” “Come here Mousy, Mousy, Mousy.” That’s funny. It’s messed up, but its funny.

In this environment I felt very small, and unable to take control and direct my life. Not having good life-skills, I also found out how children can be very cruel, as they would tease me and mimic what the teacher called me; words like “stupid” and “retarded.” I took it all personal.

Thank God I learned to joke about what they said to me; I would make them laugh and it would be less painful. Very fast I got into the habit of making fun of myself all the time. I also used this on the teachers when they would say things like, “Stop acting retarded and just read it.” I would make goofy sounds and hit my head like if I had cerebral palsy and the other children would laugh at the teacher.

Frustrated, the teachers would go to someone else and leave me alone. Although I often felt out of control of my life's experience, as a child, laughter really did help. It's a powerful release to otherwise difficult feelings. Used as a conscious choice, laughter can bring lightness and a clearer perspective to otherwise painful experiences. And I was funny, really funny.

Tom Hanks in the movie "Punch Line:"
"The reason why I'm so funny and you’re not, is because you’re trying to be funny. To me, everything I talk about is serious and if I didn't laugh I would cry. "

The first time I heard this, I found that it really spoke to me.

My school life became a process of keeping myself from being humiliated by having to read; this also kept me from learning how to read. My mother also tried to help me read and she also didn’t know about dyslexia and so it was just more of the same.

She would get frustrated when I would try to sound out something and it would come out all wrong. Mom would think I wasn’t trying, and just being a smart alack. Then in the fourth grade they sent me to “Special Ed Class” and the kids called it “retard class,” so I took it personal. I took everything personal back then, so it got worse. I felt no one could know this terrible thing about me even though everyone did already.

Fear is a funny thing as it never is satisfied; it always calls for more fear. So I would never associate with children from school at home because I was a loner and an outcast at school. I also never talked about this personal dilemma to my family members. I didn’t understand it myself, I was afraid they would tease me also. I had some pretty messed up ways of thinking back then.

Ok, this next thing is a little depressing but it’s true. In junior high I had a friend named Kenny and he was my best friend at home but not at school. I never questioned this even though he lived just down the street.

When I was at school I never saw Kenny even though we went to the same school. I had gotten used to being pretty close to no one at school. I attracted bullies like ants to sugar and anyone who wanted an easy fight sure to win, I was it. I spent a lot of time running away from fights.

Kenny was a bad kid my childhood Judgment he wanted to try things like drinking alcohol he got a mini Bottle from home once and I Had a cap full of it. It was afoul and I felt guilty for drinking that cap of rum for years.

Kenny also introduced me to masturbation he called it jacking off. We were riding home in the back of the truck coming home from snow-mo-billing he was in one sleeping bag and I in the other sleeping bag he said when your "a man" after stroking your dick for a while it will release a white stuff called sperm.

I wanted to be a man so I stroked it until it swelled up to 3 times the size, I Thought I had damaged it and disappointment nothing happened, no white stuff. Ya like you never did that, and it is funny too. But finely one day several months later it happened and I was a man, I liked being a MAN so I did it all the time, but when the day came that I had a bishop’s interview about it I was masturbating almost every day. It felt so good. When he called it masturbating I didn’t know what he was talking about, he told me it was sinful and shameful, and I should never start.

Too late the cat was out of the bag. So after that when I did masturbate I would try to end as soon as possible because it felt good but the shame poisoned the experience and made me feel guilty during and after. We would also play spin the bottle for a kiss with girls I loved kissing and still do.

Then one day I got off the bus and Kenny was picking on one of the neighborhood boys, a boy named Lee. Lee was in a car accident as a child that damaged his brain and he walked a little funny and was a little slow. On this day Kenny was teasing him, calling him “a retard” and hitting him. I hated what he was doing to him. It made me feel sick inside so I stepped in and told him to stop. thinking because of our friendship he would. Wrong!

In doing so Kenny said, “You're just sticking up for him because you're a retard too. That hurt. He said I know how you go to Special Ed and if you don't like it I'll kick your ass too.” Being confronted with my biggest fear by my supposed best friend made me absolutely furious so I started to fight him.

It was very rare for me to fight and as we were down on the ground wrestling, for just a moment I asked myself, "What if I really am a retard" and it was just like someone unplugged me. I went weak and he kicked my ass. I never associated with Kenny after that. From that time on I felt this weakness (depression) all the time.

At that time in my life I was so unconscious, I didn’t have the ability to forgive and let things go. I would judge people and just think badly of them whenever I saw them. I also spent a lot of my time avoiding or running away from an illusion of perceived danger.

The first time I had a major shift in my life was in 10th grade. My father was experimenting with nutrition and he created and made a kelated mineral product that made me grow a lot - 14 inches. I grew form 4’ 6” to 5’ 9” and for some reason after growing and no longer being one of the shortest kids in school I got picked on a lot more than I was before. I was never taught to stand up to people as I didn’t really have a male role model as a child. Our home was more like a single parent family. Mom was the main role model.

I think being a parent scared dad and he avoided it pretty much most of the time. He left raising the kids pretty much up to mom. Dad wasn’t a “hands on” dad at all. He never went to any of my baseball games; he never sat down and told me what it was to be a man or anything like that.

Dad was most of the time trying to solve scientific problems. He was a problem solver for the people he worked for. This was his passion. Dad’s passion for scientific advancement, he passed on to me. I have always loved learning about new technologies.

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing. ~ Agatha Christie

So after being picked on more in the tenth grade, I started ditching my 7th period class, the class I got beat up and picked on most. I would just walk home, and after three months of ditching class, they found out and I met with the school principal and he decided I needed to go to another school where no one knew me.

What a gift that was. For the first time in my life I was one of the popular kids and I loved it. But I never felt comfortable being in any group. I was afraid of some groups, like the jocks and “their wicked locker room talk” who had also picked on me in the past.

So instead, I tried to be friends with everyone. Also I didn’t get too close to anybody as they might find out that I couldn’t read. But I did have a favorite male friend and that was Devar.

He was a great friend and we enjoyed doing things together. He was in a rock band and was always trying to get me to be a part of it as a drummer, even though I sucked. We also would go on double dates together and had lots of fun. At the time I didn’t know Devar was Gay and madly in love with me. I was better off that way. I would not have been able to handle that as my society and religion looked at being Gay as evil and disgusting; such cruel and abusive judgment from Christians.

Devar was never inappropriate; he was just a good and loving friend. Besides being Gay is not bad any more than being blond is bad. The writings of the Bible are wrong on this subject. It’s just an incorrect tradition passed down that is false. Devar was the most loving and understanding friend I ever had in my youth.

So, I grew up with a strong sense of personal shame and self-loathing, especially around my inability to learn. In the 12th grade I was tested on reading and it was determined I read on a 5th grade level with pour comprehension.

Just before I graduated from high school my older brother Melvin introduced me to a girlfriend of his named Sandy. She was going to BYU and she invited me to help her with a thing she was involved with called “The Group.” “The Group” was college students having problems with drugs and also unwed mothers, two big taboos in the Mormon culture.

We had a fast and testimony meeting one Sunday and one of the guys from the group who looked like a rock star to me, and was a big Jimmy Hendricks fan, with tattoos said: “I used to be bad, and I was real bad, and now I’m good and I can’t be bad any more.” This sounded cool to me and mysterious and so I remembered it.

After I graduated from high school we moved to Modesto, California. Cool! A whole new group of people to associate with who didn’t know my history. At a young adult’s church meeting, shortly after we moved there, we had a testimony meeting and I got up and said, “I used to be bad and I was real bad, and now that I’m good I can’t be bad any more.” A complete lie, but it accomplished what I wanted. I was “mysterious and cool” to everyone and I was immediately very popular. Christians always want to befriend the protocol son.

Little did I know this little lie I told got back to the bishop of my ward and when I wanted to go on a mission for my church my bishop wouldn’t let me go. So I moved back to Utah with my older sister who was married and tried to go from there. Well, the bishop from California talked to the bishop from Utah about my “testimony lie” and he didn’t want to let me go either. He told me he was inspired by God I was a homosexual, had sex with animals, and some other weird stuff.

At the time I was a virgin (except for the masturbating) and remained so ‘til I got married. I, on the other hand, had forgotten all about my little testimony lie and didn’t understand why they wouldn’t let me go. I felt like a total victim and made up a whole bull shit story why I thought my bishops were persecuting me. The insane ways the Ego dills with disappointment.

Well, my brother-in-law’s mother heard about this and she knew people in high places, and she told the bishop if he didn’t send me she would tell her old mission president and friend, one of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and would have him removed as bishop.

So he sent me on a mission to Australia and also sent a letter to my mission president telling him I was probably Gay. The Aussies would call being Gay, a "shirt lifter," a "poofta" a "poof" or a "dunnie boy," all funny terms.

Our life is what our thoughts make of it ~ Marcus Aurelius

I was sent to Australia. What a cool place to be sent, but a real shocker to a naive “green behind the ears” kid from Utah. Then six months into my mission something happened that would change my whole life.

So I was nineteen years old almost 20 and serving on a ministerial mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Sydney, Australia. That’s right, I was a Mormon missionary. I was trying so hard to be the kind of person I thought God wanted me to be, but instead was filled with personal pain and a mountain of self-judgment. I just wasn’t good enough to be representing God thing about naked girls.

My mind was filled with self-judgment, focused on all my flaws; absolutely unworthy to be who I judged I should be. Here I could have been in heaven but instead was in hell, the hell I created with my own mind.
You see I had been posted at Bondi Beech for the past six months and was having problems with thinking impure thoughts (thinking about sex). Seeing girls walk up and down the streets in string bikinis all day long made me quite horny (or “randy,” as the Aussies would say).

I spent many days and hours praying and reading scriptures to take away these feelings but nothing would help. I felt out of control with no relief in sight. Evan though I only masturbated in the shower once a day, I started hating myself for not being able to control my thoughts.

I didn’t know, when you renounce anything you are tied to it. I also didn’t know that at age nineteen I was at my sexual peek and my hormone levels where as high as they would ever be in my life. I didn’t know that back then and my religion didn’t teach me that either. Growing up in Utah, sex was taboo, and you were shamed if it was ever brought up and told you are not supposed to think about sex until you are married!


“Life in Lubbock, Texas, (or Utah) taught me two things: One is that God Love’s you and you’re going to burn in Hell. The other is sex is the most awful, filthy thing on earth and you should save it for someone you love”(and after you’re married) ~ Butch Hancock

After struggling with this for several months, I finally decided I must be a lost cause and there was no hope for me and my problem. I heard a scripture that said “if you commit a sin in your heart you might as well have done it.” And my church taught me that to commit fornication was next to murder in its level of sin in the eyes of God and they would rather I come home in a box dead then to defile myself and the church by committing fornication. I know it’s a pretty messed up belief.

So on this particular night I decided I was going to ask God to end my life. I had felt his presences before many times and thought he would grant my wish because I couldn’t stop these sexual feelings no matter what I did. I thought I was evil. So I set a time when I knew my companion would be absent for about an hour.

He was in the bathroom every night about an hour and as soon as he left, I knelt down, poured my heart out to God and asked Him to end my life, feeling the pains of a damned soul. I told God I wanted to be a good and faithful servant but was unable to keep thoughts of naked women out of my mind. I didn’t live in a family where sex was talked about.

To my mother, sex was something awful and you didn’t talk about it. My father was a research scientist and wasn’t around much when I grew up as he was out of town most of the time, so I didn’t know I was at the age where all young men have raging hormones.

And just before we left for our country for our mission we had a special meeting with church leaders in the Salt Lake Temple where we where told, “No untruth could be told,” so I believed it. They told us, like I said before, that our parents and our church would rather see us come home in a casket then to defile ourselves and the church in committing fornication, and I felt like I was almost there. I know I just repeated my self but the statement is so bazaar and absurd I just had to repeat it.

While I was praying in the depths of despair, I felt a loving presence, an inner stillness that start in my chest and expanded ‘until it enveloped my whole being, and I was filled with this consciousness of being unconditionally loved and a peace like I had never felt before.

My consciousness expanded and I felt a connection to the whole of life, and my mind stopped its endless ramblings I was so use to. In the stillness I was at absolute peace. All of my feelings of being damned where completely removed and replaced with this glorious feeling of being “unconditionally loved.” This, in and of itself, would have been more than enough to completely let go of my shame, and then I heard a voice.

The “Voice” was not in my ears, or my head; it didn’t make a sound – “It” was an expansion of consciousness, awareness and understanding. I felt it in my heart and it expanded, so my whole being was filled and bathed with its unconditionally, loving, blissful words, when it said: “I love you! Why don’t you Love you?” And I thought, “God loves me? Even with all my impure thoughts?” But I knew it was true, that God loved me, because the experience did not allow any doubt to enter into my mind, in fact it was an absence of mind. A stillness where mind was absent, but awareness was intense enhanced and expanded awareness to take in an endless awareness of now.

Then Spirit said: “I trust you! Why don’t you trust you?” And I was instantly filled with this disputable knowing of God’s trust in me.

And then Spirit said: “I believe in you! Why don’t you believe in you?” and I was filled with this experience of being totally believed in.

And then Spirit said: “I know you, and you are good! Why don’t you know you are good?” And I was filled with this unquestionable experience that I was good.

In this experience my mind ceased it endless ramblings, of judgment and evaluation and all there was, was an inner stillness and awareness that the whole of life had value, not the judgment of good and bad but equal and of equal value and in a very real sense it was all a part of me.

I just sat and cried tears of joy; I was so filled with peace, love, joy and confidence, like I had never known before. I never told my companion. He was my senior companion and was the one who was supposed to be inspired - rules of the church; not for some new “green behind the ears” junior companion.

For the next several months I felt this presence within me all the time, telling me truths and making my day to day life filled with confidence, happiness and joy. Also present was an absence of mind, an absence of the need to judge and evaluate every thing I came in contact with.

Every moment was a wonder and then gone, to be replaced with another moment of bliss. My ego was truly dead, but wanted to be reborn. So it started to cause me to I identify with this experience and think I was some how special and better then my unenlightened companions, but I’m sure he was aware I had had a profound experience. . This absence of mind and intense experience of peace love and joy stayed with me constantly for several months, and every one I came in contact with spirit would say to me this person needs to know I love them.

One day shortly after my awakening, I was out track ting, we came to a door where a woman uncontrollably crying and police came up right behind us and asked us to leave. Spirit said stay, but my senior companion an Elder Parsons from Idaho, said we need to leave, so we did. About 200 feet down the road spirit stopped me dead in my tracks and turned me around and I said we need to go back, and I returned with or with out my companion.

As I was walking back spirit said over and over again she needs to know I love her. When we got back she came to the door and I blurted out God loves you I just needed to tell you this. She broke down and invited us in, and I know she could feel Gods love, and her pain was replaced with peace.

My Ego laid dormant for a time, several months but once my Ego got a foothold, it stepped back in and came back with a vengeance. My mind was no longer still, but a quagmire of endless random thought processes and judgments. Once again I thought I was my mind and felt no connection to the whole of life. My thoughts left the conscious here and now where happiness and peace is and I went unconscious again. My mind was forever in the past or the future where suffering lives. It was “Gone” and I felt alone against the world. I got very sick and was bedridden for a long time.

The past wonderful experience was something I just longed for and I didn’t know how to bring it back. I didn’t know if I would meditate on the present moment I could return to the peace. I didn’t know that my attachment to the experience, now in my past, kept it from returning in the present. I didn’t know That all that offended my soul I made up My mother never said I want you to be a girl, I made that up it was my Illusion, my creation, and so I was always in control, me not any one else, just me.

I didn’t know then that I needed to unlearn the things I had been taught so I could live in the truth of Spirit every day. I didn’t know that my judgments of the world made me not see the wonder of the world. I didn’t know that my attachment to things from the past, and my unwillingness to let go of that attachment kept me stuck, in the mire of longing for something that only lived in the here and now. But I have never since that day doubted ever that God is, or that the Devine Universe loves me. This I can never deny.

“Forget what you’ve been taught so you can remember what you know” ~ Alan Cohan

"The matter that makes up our world doesn’t really work the way we think it works. Underlying everything is a consciousness and intelligent mind; this mind is the metrics to all matter." ~ Max Planck 1944 (He is considered one of the fathers of Quantum Physics)

So my whole life, since that moment, has been the pursuit to learn how to live in this Peace, Love and Joy from God every day. Or more correctly, as I now know, to unlearn what I had been conditioned into by society so I could embrace my natural way of being, the way of my soul.

My mother told me many times when I was a little boy, that one day I was playing with a neighborhood boy and he said to me: “I don’t like you Chucky,” and I said: “I don’t care, I like you anyway.” You see, as a child I intuitively knew how to live in my bliss all the time. I was born knowing that and now at fifty-four I have finally “unlearned” enough to remember and understand the truth I knew as a child.

"Do not believe in the strength of traditions even if they have been held in honor for many generations and in many places; do not believe anything because many people speak of it; do not believe on the strength of sagas of old times; do not believe that which you have yourself imagined, thinking a god has inspired you. Believe nothing which depends only on the authority of your masters or priests. After investigation, believe that which you yourself have tested and found reasonable, and which is for your good and that of others." ~ A Tibetan Buddhist Teaching

So the rest of this book is what I believe and have tested in my personal life to know it is good stuff and it works. So now I am going to ask you to exercise a bit of faith like you did when you where very young; when you knew the truth because it was “in you” and you lived from its magic every day; when every moment was an adventure and joy was your daily pleasure; before you where conditioned to stop being your true self and become part of the society of the walking dead, to live from your head instead of your heart!

So if you can go back in your mind to a moment in time when life was blissful and every moment was complete in and of itself; when you didn’t have to be anywhere because the “ever present now” was complete in and of itself; when you were enthralled to just play without any thoughts of the past or concern for the future! So for a moment, forget what you have been taught, so you can remember what you know!

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. ~ Albert Einstein

Now The great and wonderful Commandments of the master teacher, Jesus Christ.

After saying this I don’t intend to get all preachy, religious and self-righteous on you. No! I’m not going to ask you to believe he is the son of God or in the virgin birth or the resurrection, or any other of those religious “Must Beliefs.” Forget about all of it, it doesn’t matter; that’s right, it doesn’t matter.

The only question is: “Does what he taught work?” The master teacher, Jesus, when he was on this earth gave some of the most wonderful teachings ever. They were not commandments like Moses gave, with punishments attached; instead they where positive affirmations, with the promise of, “All that the Father has given to me shall also be yours. It’s yours for the taking!” But no one would listen. Even his apostles didn’t understand. They where looking for some powerful leader who would concur the power structure of their time. They would much rather let someone do it for them. They wanted to remain asleep; to close the door and not try to wake up - just like we do.


"We would rather be ruined than change; we would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die." ~ W. H. Auden from his wonderful book, “Change Your Mind, Change Your World”

Jesus Christ gave simple universal truths like, “Ask and it shall be given, knock and it shall be opened, seek and ye shall find;” simple, straight-forward truths. But the business of religion put them selves between you and the truth to make you believe you needed them to reclaim that which was your birthright.

I’m going to go on a little rant.
So they put the business of religion between you and God and they added conditions to everything Christ gave freely. They took, “Ask and it shall be given to you,” to ask and belong to the right church and do the things we tell you to do and then maybe if you’re good enough you might get some of the crumbs left over from those who we deem worthy.

And so who is worthy? We will tell you. So trust in our judgment and don’t trust in your own intuitive knowing, and never look inside yourself in your heart for God (where your connection to God is!) Look in our rituals and our songs about God and our stories about God and we will give you just enough to keep you coming back and giving us your money.

I am saying here and now, that all the religious rules are hooey. Except to be loving, the only thing Christ said after asking, is to believe it will be so. He also said, “Know that I have given you the power to have everything your heart could ever desire for free.”

God doesn’t need your money, that’s absurd; but the business of religion does. “Come unto our business,” say all religions, “and we will teach you to draw near to God with your lips” but your heart will be closed and afraid to approach God.

We will make you afraid to try anything we don’t recommend for fear of being wrong, and this fear will be your relationship with God. We will teach you to be afraid, very afraid of God. Then we will tell you this is good, to be “God fearing.” (The original term, “God Fearing” in the Bible means: “Respectful, or to hold in honor.” Not to be “afraid of” or fearful.)

In a nutshell, that’s my experience of all organized religions. Yes, all of them. Ok I’m through with my rant.

The bible is a wonderful and inspiring book and is not the word of GOD it was formed by men before and during the counsel of Nicaea in 325 AD and during this time many wonderful books were removed because they were bad for the business. Just because men canonized it and declared it the “word of god” doesn’t make it so.

Any and all holy books like stated by Siddhartha Gautama who became the Buddha is just a finger pointing in the correct direction but religion troughs away the correct intention of the text pointing to truth and worships the finger instead.

Now everything that I am saying about organized religion is in their formations; the creation of its traditions many years ago, not in present day. The religious leaders of today are just keeping with a tradition that was given to them from the past. They are not bad, they’re just deceived by the traditions of their particular form of religion.

They are unconscious for the belief in any model any Ideology is unconscious , and unconsciousness is the source of all that is called evil. And therein are all the problems of society, religion and the world as a whole – “the incorrect traditions passed down from generation to generation.” The Unconscious societal beliefs held on from generation to generation and never questioned is the madness of the world.


“You have nothing to be afraid of but your own mind”. ~ A Course in Miracles

Before we look at the biblical writings of Jesus I would like to state, I am what is called a “Red Letter Christian.” I’m also a Buddhist. What I mean by “red letter” is in the New Testament where they have put all of the quotes of Jesus in red letters. I put a lot of stock in the red letters but the rest of the Old and New Testament I see as a great and wonderful mythology, with many beautiful things but not a perfect text, or the final infallible Word of God. I do not believe a perfect text exists on earth. Everything written by man has man’s flaws of thinking, including my book I am writing now.

Again just because Constantine canonized the Bible during the council of Nisei, doesn’t make it perfect. I believe everything in life should be questioned, and never just accepted.

As the great Eastern Mystics say, “Doubt is a healing Balm; though it burn at first, it will heal you.”

When you find beliefs you have believed all your life no longer work, it can be a very scary thing and at the same time a very good thing; but it is the continued application of awareness and understanding which is the true cornerstone of change.

Changes we force on our self are a form of violence against our self and do not represent real change at all. By changing our behavior we don’t change; our behavior may temporarily change but it is never permanent.

It’s like moving the furniture around or changing your cloths; the surface looks different but under the surface everything is the same. But on the other hand, change that comes about from awareness and understanding; this type of change is instantaneous, easy and permanent.

And this is the true meaning of being “born again,” wherein you have a “new mind.” So doubt has a very positive function, for it releases old beliefs that don’t work any more when you become more mature in your thinking. It’s seeing reality - seeing life as it is.

It’s seeing that under your bed are just dust bunnies and not some evil monster. So it’s not a bad thing to be a “doubting Thomas,” like religion tells you; it’s a good thing to help you wake up to reality.

As the apostle Paul put it, “As a child, I thought as a child, but now I am an adult and have put off childish things.” He also taught that the ultimate purpose of religion was to become obsolete, because when you are directly communicating with God you no longer need the vehicle of religion;

or, as Dr. Wayne Dyer puts it, “Have a Mind open to everything but attached to nothing.” You must be willing to let go of old foolish beliefs when you outgrow them. I also would like to recommend a wonderful text filled with beautiful thoughts.

The text is, A Course in Miracles. I have found it to be in harmony with the original teachings of Jesus and highly beneficial to your personal journey, back to your “True Self.” Also I would like to recommend two books by Eckhart Tolle. They are The power of Now and A New Earth; both profoundly insightful books to connect you to your true source.


To day we go beyond grievances to look upon the miracle instead. We will reverse the way you see allowing sight to stop before we see we will not wait before the shield of hate, but lay it down and gently lift our eyes in silence to behold the son of God.

He weights for you behind your grievances and as you lay them down he will appear in shinning light where each one stood before.

For every grievance is a block to sight, and as it lifts you see the Son of God where he has always been. He stands in light, but you were in the dark. Each grievance made the darkness deeper and you could not see.

Today we will attempt to see Gods Son. ~ A Course in Miracles

Now let’s look at the beautiful messages of love the man Jesus who became the Christ gifted to us two thousand years ago.

Title page

Exercises in Awareness
Spiritual Principles for the Inner Awakening & the Conscious Application of Living Principles

By Charles William Lyon


“Every adversity carries within it a
greater or equivalent benefit.”
~ Napoleon hill

“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”
~ Lao Tzu (c. 604-531 B.C.E)

Trials, temptations, disappointments -- all these are helps instead of hindrances, if one uses them rightly. They not only test the fiber of a character, but strengthen it. Every conquered temptation represents a new fund of moral energy. Every trial endured and weathered in the right spirit makes a soul nobler and stronger than it was before.
~ James Buckham

Shallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances -- it was somebody's name, or he happened to be there at the time, or it was so then, and another day would have been otherwise. Strong men believe in cause and effect.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Table of contents

Forward
Chapter One – “I Love You. Why don’t You Love You,” My Introduction to The Devine Universe
Chapter Two - To Love God, The First Great Commandment
Chapter Three - To Love Your Neighbor, The Second Great Commandment
Chapter Four ~ Letting go of Judgments
Chapter Five ~ More Love Talk
Chapter Six ~ Say to Your Heart - Peace, be Still
Chapter Seven ~ Let Your Light Shine
Chapter Eight ~ Faith, The Power of the Universe
Chapter Nine ~ The Consciousness of One
Chapter Ten ~ Christ Consciousness
Chapter Eleven ~ The Gift of Forgiveness
Chapter Twelve ~ The Kingdom of Heaven
Chapter Thirteen ~ To Hunger and Thirst After the Truth
Chapter Fourteen ~ Gratitude, The Great Attitude
Chapter Fifteen ~ Living in The Present
Chapter Sixteen ~ Discovering the Divine Inner Child
Chapter Seventeen ~ Know Thyself - Becoming the Quiet Observer
Chapter Eighteen ~ Following Your Bliss ~ page 136
Chapter Nineteen ~ Being Open to Possibilities and Letting Go of Attachments
Chapter Twenty ~ I’m an Ass, You’re an Ass Too
Chapter Twenty-one - My Conclusion’s