Is what we see, hear, taste, feel and
experience real? This reality has always had a bit
of unreality in the experience and it has seemed
that way for a long time for me. I’ve never
written about my earliest mentor and role model
until now for the simple reason I had no idea that
was the case until Karra and I were looking for
things to use in this month’s editorial. It came
about as an epiphany and it has given me a new
mental trick to lift my spirits anytime the news
of the world becomes too depressing as is often
the case these days. I would like to pass it on to
anyone else needing such a lift and the concept
came about as Karra and myself were thinking back
on my earliest influences. The earliest by far was
the author Richard Bach through the guise of a
small bird with great ambitions who I would grow
to emulate throughout my life. The year was 1972
when I was twelve and my reading was mostly
allotted to textbooks or books assigned by my
teachers. I thought reading books for fun was a
poor substitute for television thus the point was
lost on me. My mother, in a moment of inspiration,
had heard about a book that had become a best
seller that even children my age would enjoy. It
was called "Jonathan Livingston Seagull" and the
moment my mom handed me the book is etched in my
memory to this day. It had a lot of pictures of
seagulls in black and white as I paged through it
which for me was a big draw. Living near the beach
had made me appreciate their gracefulness so I
thanked my mom and headed off to my room for what
was a surprisingly quick read. I knocked it out in
about thirty minutes and went back to read it
again as I felt I had missed something important.
The story revolved around ideas I had never
considered before like my own inner power and a
justification for feeling apart from society. What
I had no idea of at the time was just how much
more of a transformation would take place when I
read the book’s sequel years later.
"Jonathan Livingston Seagull" is a
book first published in 1970 about a seagull of
the same name who was tired of his life as just
one of the flock. The daily search for food from
the bait trawlers just offshore or whatever could
be gleaned from the waterline was the entire focus
of his fellow gulls. Jonathan though had dreams,
dreams of flight and speed. The constant fighting
for scraps held no interest for him and it was
only the goal to go faster than any gull prior
that drove him to risk everything, even his life
in achieving that dream. His love of flying higher
and faster was a threat to the required conformity
of the flock and the demonstration of his skill
only caused him to become an outcast in exile,
shunned by his kind. Undeterred by the many backs
turned away from him, Jonathan set off to pursue
his dream without relying on the support of
others. Relentlessly he would climb higher and
higher before angling down toward the sea at a
speed that made his eyes water. Having reached the
abilities of his physical being, he was met by the
Elder Gull who transported him to a place where
special gulls go to learn to live beyond the
limits of the body. It was there he learned that
the way to progress is through transitioning from
a student trying to learn into a teacher learning
to teach. He embraces forgiveness as the path
forward which helps him realize that his mind,
spirit, and body exist across all of time and
space enabling him to master teleportation. He
returns to the flock to teach what he has learned
where he attracts a group of students seeking
self-improvement from his acquired wisdom. One
day, he decides he has been successful in his
mission but does not want to be seen as the
mythical Great Gull. A glow surrounds him and he
ascends to heaven to take his studies to the next
level but prior to his departure, he leaves his
legacy in the hands of his star pupil and friend
Fletcher Lynd Seagull who then proceeds to carry
that legacy onward. The correlations of my life
since the first time I read that book are too many
to list. Now the epiphany mentioned above which
struck Karra and me while recalling the story was
that like a seagull, sometimes you have to soar
above the flock if your goals take you to a higher
plane.
Seven years later in 1977, Richard
Bach released "Illusions: The Adventures of a
Reluctant Messiah" and, while not an official
sequel, I always saw the protagonist of Illusions
to be Jonathan Livingston Seagull’s next
manifestation as a teacher. Summarizing a book
from memory that is more educational than it is
fictional makes for a challenge as there is too
much learning to encompass in a single paragraph.
The story is told in the first-person of a pilot
named Richard who flies a vintage biplane selling
rides in the small towns he lands near in the
Midwest. One day as he is flying he sees another
biplane on the ground taking up some of the local
townsfolk for rides. Landing, he introduces
himself to the other flyer who is named Donald W.
Shimoda, the same name painted on the side of the
pilot's nearby Travel Air 4000. The two strike up
a friendship that is also profitable for both as
they move from town to town giving patrons the
time of their lives. In one town the customers
include an old man in a wheelchair and his
granddaughter. Helping the granddaughter overcome
her fear of flying by explaining it was due to a
past life, he next is able to heal the old man who
suddenly found he could walk through his desire to
fly and his belief in Donald's belief he could
walk. Richard, fearing the fate surrounding
miracle workers and the crowd suddenly gathering,
takes off leaving Donald to face the excited mob
arriving in cars. Later, Donald finds Richard
against all odds in the middle of a field among
millions of fields with the explanation that like
attracts like. He reveals that Richard is a fellow
messiah like himself, a position which comes with
a handbook Donald gives Richard full of sayings
any messiah in training should know. During this
time of learning the ropes, Donald teaches Richard
that the reality making up his existence was only
an illusion. He proves this through a series of
demonstrations such as walking on water before
sinking into the shore, walking through walls and
creating a physical being through the use of a
thought-form. At one point he uses an analogy that
life is like the movie "Butch Cassidy and the
Sundance Kid" in that one must suspend belief to
grasp the storyline of the movie. How it compares
is that the kind of life one experiences can be
its own love story, horror story or even comedy
depending on the circumstances taking place. The
many lifetimes of a person are just the many
movies they’ve stared in where they've forgotten
their roles. I won’t give away the ending to the
book but the lessons included throughout can shape
a life as each page is turned.
The takeaway of two people unable to
walk through walls or walk on water is that we
feel both books are about the limits we place on
ourselves and our ability to surpass them. This is
where parallels can be found between the teachings
of those from Ashtar Command and these two books
from Richard Bach. Two perfect examples from
Ashtar Command, mental shielding, and
meta-concerts. With mental shielding, the student
strengthens the aura and then adds multiple
extensions from there along with enhancements such
as a mirror finish. The entire concept is built on
imagination so there should be absolutely no
effect on the physical self but that is not the
case. The same with meta-concerts, five or more
people pooling their energies to achieve something
positive on a physical level should, in theory,
have no effect that would be visible to the naked
eye. In actual fact, neither example above is an
absolute. A mind is a powerful tool whose
abilities have never really been fully tested.
Even the simple act of imagining a line of energy
extending deep into the ground so any excess
energy can be channeled into it has an effect that
can be felt. Of course, shielding, grounding, and
meta-concerts would be alien concepts to most but
it works for aliens so it should work for us.
Where the student takes it is in any possible way
the imagination can use the energies within and
around them to protect themselves and to help
those in need. In the times to come, the need may
be great so the self-imposed limits of what the
mind can do will have to be expanded to include
concepts completely foreign previously. In the
end, it comes down to the question of what is the
purpose of living hundreds if not hundreds of
thousands of lives? In our opinion, it's to go
through the human experience in every conceivable
manner and learn the lessons choice brings. It’s
choosing how to live beyond the accepted reality
of a majority of the population that leads to that
next plane in our epiphany. Richard Bach wrote
about setting your own beliefs while letting
others set their own limits. He also wrote the
messiah’s handbook which is central to the story
of Illusions. In it, one of the sayings puts it
better than we ever could and it goes, “remember
where you came from, where you’re going, and why
you created the mess you got yourself into in the
first place. You're going to die a horrible death,
remember. It's all good training, and you'll enjoy
it more if you keep the facts in mind. Take your
dying with some seriousness, however. Laughing on
the way to your execution is not generally
understood by less-advanced life-forms, and
they'll call you crazy.”
