Thích Nhất Hạnh Profile

Thích Nhất Hạnh Profile

Apr 3, 2023 | David Jay Brown, Profiles, Spiritual Teachers

Thích Nhất Hạnh’s wisdom and teachings have been a great inspiration to Carolyn and I. He was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, as well as an author, peace activist, poet, and teacher, who had a major influence on Western practices of Buddhism. According to The New York Times, “Among Buddhist leaders influential in the West, Thích Nhất Hạnh ranks second only to the Dalai Lama.”

Nhất Hạnh combined a variety of teachings from Early Buddhist schools, with different Buddhist traditions, and ideas from Western psychology, in order to teach the foundations of mindfulness, offering a modern perspective on meditation practice. Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment.

Nhất Hạnh was born in 1926, in the ancient capital of Huế, which is located in central Vietnam and was under French colonial rule at the time. His father was an official with the French Administration and his mother was a homemaker. Nhất Hạnh was the fifth of six children, and until the age of five, he lived at his grandmother’s home with his large extended family.

At the age of seven or eight, Nhất Hạnh saw a drawing on the cover of one of his older brother’s magazines of a peaceful, smiling Buddha sitting on the grass, and he recalls that this picture gave him joy, and left him with a feeling of peace and tranquility.

One day on a school trip when Nhất Hạnh was eleven, he visited a nearby sacred mountain where a hermit was said to live, and he had what he would later describe as his first spiritual experience. The hermit was said to sit quietly every day to become peaceful like the Buddha. Nhất Hạnh explored the area, looking for the hermit, who he never found. However, he found a natural well there, which he drank from, before falling into a deep sleep on the nearby rocks. When Nhất Hạnh awoke he felt so completely satisfied from drinking this magical well water that he was inspired to become a Buddhist monk.

Nhất Hạnh first expressed interest in training to become a monk at the age of 12. Although his parents were cautious about this at first, they eventually let him pursue his calling at the age of 16. In 1942 Nhất Hạnh entered the monastery at Từ Hiếu Temple, where he received three years of instruction, and his primary teacher there was a Zen Master.

From 1955 to 1957 Nhất Hạnh lived in Huế and served as the editor of the official publication of the General Association of Vietnamese Buddhists. However, after two years the publication was suspended, as higher-ranking monks disapproved of Nhất Hạnh’s writings. In 1964 Nhất Hạnh became involved in co-founding the Institute of Higher Buddhist Studies, a private institution in Saigon that taught Buddhist studies, Vietnamese culture, and languages.

In the early 1960s in Vietnam, Nhat Hanh also co-founded Van Hanh Buddhist University and the School of Youth for Social Service, a grassroots relief organization of 10,000 volunteers based on the Buddhist principles of “non-violence and compassionate action.” This was a neutral corps of Buddhist peace workers who went into rural areas to establish schools, build healthcare clinics, and help rebuild villages.

In 1966 Nhất Hạnh received the “lamp transmission” at the Từ Hiếu Temple in Vietnam from a Zen master, making him a Buddhist teacher and spiritual head of temple and associated monasteries. That same year he was exiled from South Vietnam, after expressing opposition to the war and refusing to take sides. Nhat Hanh continued his humanitarian efforts, rescuing boat people and helping to resettle refugees. ​Nhất Hạnh then spent decades living in exile, mostly residing in France during this time.

In 1967 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. nominated Nhất Hạnh for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work for peace and reconciliation during the war in Vietnam. Nhất Hạnh played an important role in educating Dr. King about the reality of the war from a Vietnamese perspective and inspiring King’s transformation into a national leader in the anti-war movement.

In 1982 Nhất Hạnh established Plum Village France, the largest Buddhist monastery in Europe​ and the hub of the international Plum Village Community of Engaged Buddhism, a social movement composed of Buddhists who are “seeking ways to apply the Buddhist ethics, insights acquired from meditation practice, and the teachings of the Buddhist dharma to contemporary situations of social, political, environmental and economic suffering, and injustices.”

Nhất Hạnh published over a hundred books during his lifetime, which have been translated into more than forty languages, and have sold millions of copies worldwide. Some of his popular books include Being Peace, Peace is Every Step, and The Miracle of Mindfulness.

After a 39-year exile, Nhất Hạnh was permitted to visit Vietnam in 2005. Nhat Hanh was fluent in seven languages until 2014 when he experienced a brain hemorrhage that left him unable to verbally communicate for the remainder of his life. In 2018, he returned to Vietnam, to his “root temple,” Từ Hiếu Temple, near Huế, where he lived until his death in 2022, at the age of 95.

Thích Nhất Hạnh’s spirit is still very much alive. His students continue his work of healing, transformation, and reconciliation, establishing “communities of resistance” around the world. His teachings continue to be read widely, and I see his wisdom shared regularly on social media memes.

Some of the quotes that Thích Nhất Hạnh is known for include:

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.

Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything— anger, anxiety, or possessions— we cannot be free.

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.

Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.

Through my love for you, I want to express my love for the whole cosmos, the whole of humanity, and all beings. By living with you, I want to learn to love everyone and all species. If I succeed in loving you, I will be able to love everyone and all species on Earth… This is the real message of love.

The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace. With each step, the wind blows. With each step, a flower blooms.

We are here to awaken from our illusion of separateness.

Life is available only in the present moment.

by David Jay Brown

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D.H. Lawrence Profile

D.H. Lawrence Profile

Apr 3, 2023 | David Jay Brown, Profiles, Writers

When I first met Carolyn in the early 1980s, one of the writers that we passionately discussed was British novelist and poet D.H. Lawrence. We had both enjoyed his novels and been inspired by his sensual writings.

David Herbert Lawrence was born in 1885 in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England. His father was a barely literate coal miner and his mother was a schoolteacher. Nottinghamshire was a coal-mining town, and Lawrence’s working-class background influenced his writings.

From 1891 to 1898 Lawrence attended a boarding school in Eastwood that is today named in his honor: D.H. Lawrence Primary School. Lawrence was the first local student to win a scholarship to Nottingham High School. Lawrence had a great love of books while he was young and throughout his life.

From 1902 to 1906 Lawrence worked as a schoolteacher in Eastwood. It was around this time that he began writing his first poems and short stories. In 1907 Lawrence won a short story competition, and he began working on a draft for his first novel. Lawrence enrolled as a full-time student at the University of London in 1908 and he earned a teaching certificate there.

For a while, Lawrence both taught and submitted his writings for publication to some of the literary journals of the time. His first novel, The White Peacock, was published in 1911. The novel explored the theme of love triangles and the damage associated with mismatched marriages. The book received generally positive reviews, and that same year Lawrence quit his teaching position in order to be able to write full-time.

In 1912 Lawrence met the woman who he was to share his life with, Frieda Weekley, and although she was already married when they first met, they eloped and left England for Germany. Once in Germany Lawrence was arrested and accused of being a British spy, although, thanks to an intervention by Frieda’s father, he was released.

That same year, the Lawrences walked from Germany, across the Alps, to Italy. This magnificent journey, with sights of incredible beauty, and Lawrence’s impressions of the Italian countryside, were recorded in the first of Lawrence’s travel books, Twilight in Italy. During his time in Italy, Lawrence completed his novel Sons and Lovers, and he also spent time with his good friend Aldous Huxley. Lawrence’s novel, about the emotional conflicts associated with suffocating relationships and the realities of working-class life, was published in 1913 and received positive reviews.

While in Italy, Lawrence also wrote the draft of a manuscript that was eventually divided into two of his best-known novels, The Rainbow, published in 1915, and Women in Love, published in 1920 as a sequel. In both of these novels, lesbian characters play prominent roles, and the novels were considered highly controversial when they were published. They were initially banned in the United Kingdom for obscenity. In 1922 the Lawrences moved to the United States and settled in Taos, New Mexico.

Lawrence’s final novel, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, was first published privately in 1928, in Italy, and in 1929 in France. The story is about a young, married, upper-class woman who has an affair with her working-class gamekeeper, and the novel revolves around the theme that love can happen purely from physical expression.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover wasn’t openly published until 1960 when it became the subject of an obscenity trial in the United Kingdom for its depiction of sexual intimacy and its use of forbidden language. It was initially banned in the United States, Canada, Australia, India, and Japan. Lawrence’s publisher won the obscenity trial in the United Kingdom, three million copies of the book were quickly sold, and the bans was subsequently lifted around the world.

Lawrence’s work, opinions, and artistic preferences, were highly controversial during his lifetime, and there were many people who didn’t like what he was writing; as a result, he endured quite a bit of persecution and much misrepresentation of his work. Many critics viewed his erotic writings as pornography. However, although Lawrence’s depictions of sexuality were seen as shocking at the time that they were published, they seem rather tame by today’s standards.

There is also a deeper, almost mystical philosophy underlying Lawrence’s novels that many of his early critics missed. The leading characters in his most controversial novels go through rebirth experiences, and they grow into more fulfilling versions of themselves. Also, according to Lawrence, “the journey into the unconscious is accomplished through sensual experience.” This is an important theme for Lawrence. He urges us to explore the impulses and desires of the unconscious in order to find our deeper selves. Lawrence didn’t trust the intellect because he believed that the mind distorts reality, and that bodily sensations are more concrete and thus more real.

Lawrence also wrote five screenplays and nearly 800 poems in his lifetime. He had a lifelong interest in painting as well, and this became his main form of creative expression during his final years. In 1929 Lawrence’s paintings were exhibited at the Warren Gallery in London and the show was extremely controversial. Over 12,000 people attended, and after some people complained about the artwork, the police seized thirteen of the twenty-five paintings. Lawrence was able to get the paintings back— but only under the condition that he never exhibit them in England ever again. Lawrence’s paintings are now housed in a hotel in Taos, and in Austin at the University of Texas.

Lawrence died young, in 1930, at the age of 44, and he was buried in Taos. Since 2008, an annual D. H. Lawrence Festival has been organized in his hometown of Eastwood, to celebrate his life and works.

Some of the quotes that D.H. Lawrence is known for include:

Be still when you have nothing to say; when genuine passion moves you, say what you’ve got to say, and say it hot.

But better die than live mechanically a life that is a repetition of repetitions.

This is what I believe: That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self and then go back. That I must have the courage to let them come and go. That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women. There is my creed.

Life is ours to be spent, not to be saved.

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.

One must learn to love, and go through a good deal of suffering to get to it, and the journey is always towards the other soul.

by David Jay Brown

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Robert Anton Wilson Interview

Robert Anton Wilson Interview

Mar 30, 2023 | David Jay Brown, Interviews, Writers

Carolyn and I have enjoyed our friendship with, and have been inspired by the late author and philosopher Robert (Bob) Anton Wilson.

Bob is the author of over 35 popular fiction and nonfiction books, dealing with such themes as our future evolution, unexplained phenomena, synchronicity, the occult, quantum mechanics, altered states of consciousness, the nature of belief systems, and the link between science and mysticism, with wit, wisdom, and personal insights.

Bob was born “Robert Edward Wilson” in 1932 in Brooklyn, New York. He suffered from polio as a child and found effective treatment through the Kenny Method, an unconventional treatment using hot moist packs applied to the muscles, that the American Medical Association refused to acknowledge at the time. Lingering symptoms continued, and he walked with a cane due to post-polio muscle spasms, but as a result of his positive experience with the Kenny Method, Bob remained open to alternative medical perspectives throughout his life.

Bob attended Catholic grammar schools in New York before gaining admission into Brooklyn Technical High School. After his graduation from high school in 1950, he worked as an ambulance driver, engineering aide, and salesman. From 1952 to 1957 Bob studied electrical engineering and mathematics at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and English education at New York University from 1957 to 1958.

It was in the late 1950s that Bob first began writing professionally, as a freelance journalist and advertising copywriter. Around this time is when he adopted his maternal grandfather’s name, “Anton,” for his writings. In 1958 Bob married Arlen Riley, and they remained married until her death in 1999.

In 1962 Bob edited two magazines, one in Ohio called Balanced Living, and a New York magazine called Fact. Then in 1965, Bob started a job at Playboy Magazine, where he worked as associate editor until 1971. Bob co-edited the magazine’s Playboy Forum, a section consisting of responses to letters, and it was here that ideas for his most famous work, The Illuminatus! Trilogy began to percolate.

Published in 1975, Bob coauthored the cult classic trilogy with his associate Playboy editor Robert Shea. The trilogy consists of three novels that weave together a surreal, satirical, science fiction adventure that revolves around a web of intertwined conspiracy theories and historical facts involving a hidden organization called the “Illuminati” that is secretly running the world. Some of Bob’s other well-known fiction books include Schrödinger’s Cat Trilogy, Masks of the Illuminati, and The Historical Illuminatus Chronicles.

In 1977 Bob published his autobiographical book Cosmic Trigger: Final Secret of the Illuminati. This was Bob’s personal story of how his “self-induced brain change” experiments affected him, and it contains a whirlwind of radical ideas. It’s the single most transformative book that I’ve read in my life, and it inspired my career as a writer. Many of the people that I’ve interviewed—such as Timothy Leary and John Lilly — I first learned about from this extraordinary book. Bob later published two additional Cosmic Trigger volumes, and some of his other non-fiction books include The New Inquisition, Right Where You Are Sitting Now, and Quantum Psychology, which I wrote the introduction to in the latest edition.

Bob went back to school in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in psychology from Paideia University in California in 1978, and his Ph.D. in 1981. His dissertation on the 8-circuit model of consciousness, first developed by Timothy Leary, was reworked and later published in 1983 as Prometheus Rising, which became one of his most popular books.

In 1981 Bob and Arlen moved to Dublin, Ireland, where they lived for six years. They moved to Los Angeles in 1987, and to Capitola, California in 1995. Bob was a huge admirer of James Joyce and was an expert on his literary work. Bob once remarked, “Dublin, to me, is a James Joyce theme park.”

Bob had a remarkable talent for leading his readers into a perspective where they question assumptions that they didn’t even know that they had, and redefine their unconsciously-constructed notions of reality. He had an uncanny ability to guide people, unsuspectingly, into a mutable state of mind where they are playfully tricked into “aha” experiences that cause them to question their most basic assumptions about what is real and what isn’t. Remarkably, he accomplished this with a wonderful sense of humor, and his writings had a powerful, shamanic quality to them.

I first met Bob at one of his lectures in Santa Cruz in 1988. At the end of his talk, I asked him if he would consider writing a blurb for the back cover of my first book, which I was working on at the time. He didn’t respond with much enthusiasm, as though he got asked this question too many times that day, but he said to have my publisher send him a copy. You can only imagine my excitement when I later learned that he wrote an 11-page introduction to the book, Brainchild,” and Carolyn did the artwork for the cover!

From 1989 to 2007 I saw Bob at least once a week when I attended book readings, discussions, movie nights, celebrations, and other gatherings at his home in Los Angeles and then in Capitola. We read from great literary works, such as Joyce’s Ulysses, Ezra Pound’s The Cantos, and Bob’s own Illuminatus! Trilogy. We watched films by Orson Wells and episodes of The Prisoner.” Our friends Valerie Corral, Nick Herbert, and others used to come regularly. It was the best of times.

One evening in the early 1990s I brought Carolyn and Oz Janiger over to meet Bob and Arlen when they were living in Los Angeles. At the time Carolyn had an art exhibit at the Gallerie Illuminati in Santa Monica, which was a striking synchronicity that night.

Bob participated in the roundtable discussions on technology and consciousness with Carolyn and me (along with Ralph Abraham, Nina Graboi, Nick Herbert, Rebecca Novick, and Stephen LaBerge) at UC Santa Cruz in 1993. He sat across from Carolyn on the stage during the event— Mavericks of the Mind Live!— which was recorded by Sound Photosynthesis.

Bob died in 2007 at his home in Capitola. I miss him dearly. Bob had an uncanny ability to perceive things that few people notice, and he had an extraordinarily wide and well-integrated interdisciplinary mind, with an incredible memory. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of many different fields— ranging from literature and psychology to quantum physics, Buddhism, and neuroscience.

Despite some serious personal challenges over the years, Bob always maintained a strongly upbeat, optimistic, and perpetually cheerful perspective on life, and— regardless of the circumstances, and up until his final moments — he never failed to make me smile every time I saw him. Everyone who was fortunate enough to know him agreed; there was something truly magical about Robert Anton Wilson.

I interviewed Bob in 1989 for my book Mavericks of the Mind, which includes my interview with Carolyn. (Exciting news: The third edition of Mavericks of the Mind will be published next year by Hilaritas Press — more on this soon!) I interviewed Bob again in 2003 for my book Conversations on the Edge of the Apocalypse. Here is an excerpt from our conversation:

David: Synchronicity is a major theme that runs through your books. What model do you use at present for interpreting this mysterious phenomenon?
Bob: I never have one model. I always have at least seven models for anything.

David: Which one is your favorite?
Bob: Bell’s Theorem combined with an idea I got from Barbara Honegger, a parapsychologist who worked for Reagan. . . . Long before Barbara became a controversial political figure, she gave me the idea that the right brain is constantly trying to communicate with the left. If you don’t listen to what it’s trying to say, it gives you more and more vivid dreams, and if you still won’t listen, it leads to Freudian slips. If you still don’t pay attention, the right brain will get you to the place in space-time where synchronicity will occur. Then the left brain has to pay attention. “Whaaaat!?”

David: What do you think happens to consciousness after physical death?
Bob: Somebody asked a Zen master, “What happens after death?” He replied, “I don’t know.” And the querent said, “But you’re a Zen master!” He said, “Yes, but I’m not a dead Zen master.” Somebody asked Master Eckart, the great German mystic, “Where do you think you’ll go after death?” He said, “I don’t plan to go anywhere.” Those are the best answers I’ve heard so far. My hunch is that consciousness is a non-local function of the universe as a whole, and our brains are only local transceivers. As a matter of fact, it’s a very strong hunch, but I’m not going to dogmatize about it.

by David Jay Brown

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Hafez Profile

Hafez Profile

Mar 29, 2023 | David Jay Brown, Poets, Profiles

A few weeks ago I wrote a profile about the 14th Century Persian poet Rumi. A passion for Rumi’s poetry led me to the work of another 14th Century Persian poet, Hafez, whose beautiful spiritual poetry is equally insightful and inspirational. Carolyn and I have both enjoyed Hafez’s wonderful lyrical poems over the years, and his collected works are often regarded as some of the most treasured literature to emerge out of Persia.

Commonly known by his pen name “Hafez” (or “Hafiz”), the late Sufi poet was born as Khwāje Shams-od-Dīn Moḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī sometime between 1310 and 1325 in Shiraz, which is located in present-day Iran. Although accounts vary, most scholars think Hafez was born in 1315 or 1320. Not much is known for certain about Hafez’s early life, so historians rely on anecdotes to try and understand what happened, and separating fact from legend about Hafez is tricky, as many mythical stories were written about him after his death.

Hafez is said to have memorized the entire Quran when he was young, by listening to his father read it. He was given the name “Hafez” at an early age, which was a title given to those who had memorized the Quran by heart, and means “memorizer and safe keeper.” Hafez must have had an incredible memory, for he is said to have memorized numerous other writings as well, including the works of Rumi.

Hafez had two brothers; his father was a coal merchant who died young and left the family in debt. Hafez’s uncle helped to raise him, and he had to leave school to work for his family, first in a drapery shop and then in a bakery. While working at the bakery, Hafez had to deliver bread to a beautiful young woman named Shakh-e Nabat, who he fell in love with, and to whom many of his poems were addressed.

Enraptured by this young woman’s beauty, but knowing that his love for her would not be returned, he supposedly held a 40-day-and-night “mystic vigil” at the tomb of Baba Kuhi (a 10th Century Persian Sufi), where he encountered an angel. This was a life-changing event for Hafez, as the angel led him into his pursuit of a spiritual union with the divine.

Hafez became a Sufi, a practitioner of the mystic branch of Islam. He received a classical religious education, lectured on the Quran and other theological subjects, and he wrote commentaries on religious classics. Hafez married when he was in his twenties and had one child.

Hafez mostly wrote lyrical poetry, or what is known as “ghazals,” which are lyric poems with a fixed number of verses and a repeated rhyme, and usually set to music. Some of the themes of Hafez’s ghazals include love, faith, and exposing hypocrisy. He was also known to ignore the religious taboos of his time, and he found humor in some of his society’s religious doctrines. Hafez was a court poet, and as such, was supported by patronage from several successive Persian regimes, although he briefly fell out of favor with one of the rulers due to his mocking of inferior poets.

Hafez wrote approximately 994 poems, which were collected into (at least) 5 volumes, and his poems have been translated into all major languages. The Complete Divan of Hafez, which contains 793 of his ghazals and other spiritual love poems, is available in English translation. Translations of his collections Faces of Love, Beloved: 81 Poems from Hafez, and The Collected Lyrics of Hafiz of Shiraz are also available.

At the age of 60, Hafez is said to have begun another 40-day-and-night vigil, by sitting inside a circle that he had drawn. On the 40th day, it was said that he had achieved “cosmic consciousness” and attained spiritual union with the divine.

Hafez died in 1390. His tomb is located in Shiraz, the city of his birth. The Tomb of Hafez, known as Hāfezieh, is a popular destination for tourists. It is composed of two memorial structures erected on the northern edge of Shiraz, which house the marble tomb of Hafez.

Today Hafez is the most popular poet in his native country, and October 12th is celebrated every year as Hafez Day in Iran. His spirit is alive and well here too. His poetry is read widely, and I see Hafez’s wisdom shared on social media memes almost daily.

Some of the quotes that Hafez is remembered for include:

I wish I could show you… the astonishing light of your own being.

You, yourself, are your own obstacle; rise above yourself.

Your heart and my heart are very, very old friends.

What we speak becomes the house we live in.

This place where you are right now, God circled on a map for you.

The heart is a thousand-stringed instrument that can only be tuned with love.

For I have learned that every heart will get what it prays for most.

An awake heart is like a sky that pours light.

by David Jay Brown

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Wayne Dyer Profile

Wayne Dyer Profile

Mar 29, 2023 | David Jay Brown, Profiles, Spiritual Teachers

Although I recall seeing a book by the late Wayne Dyer in my mom’s library when I was a teenager, it was Carolyn who first introduced me to his writings years later, during a time of great difficulty in my life. Carolyn says he changed her life and is her foremost muse. I found Dyer’s wise, insightful, and encouraging words to be extremely helpful at the time and he has remained a powerful inspiration.

Dr. Wayne Dyer was an internationally renowned motivational speaker and self-help author, who published more than 40 books in the fields of self-development and spiritual growth, including 21 New York Times bestsellers.

Born in Detroit, Michigan in 1940, Dyer had a difficult childhood. He spent the first ten years of his life in an orphanage, and then in foster homes because his father left the family when he was a child. After graduating from high school, Dyer served 4 years in the U.S. Navy. Then, in 1970, he completed a doctorate in educational counseling at Wayne State University. His dissertation was titled: Group Counseling Leadership Training in Counselor Education.

Early in his career, Dyer worked as a guidance counselor with high school kids in Detroit. He went on to have a successful private therapy practice and then to teach counseling psychology at St. John’s University in New York City as an associate professor. Around this time, a literary agent approached Dyer and encouraged him to write a book about his ideas.

Dyer took his advice, and in 1976 he wrote Your Erroneous Zones. The book offers step-by-step advice on how to break patterns with negative thinking and take greater control of one’s life. Dyer began driving across the country by himself, selling copies of Your Erroneous Zones from the trunk of his car, and this was how he began his career as a self-help author and motivational speaker. The book became the bestselling book of the 1970s, and one of the bestselling books of all time, selling around 100 million copies to date.

Dyer went on to write 20 more bestselling books and he produced a number of television specials for PBS. His books Wisdom of the Ages, Manifest Your Destiny, There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem, The Power of Intention, and others have been featured as National Public Television specials.

Dyer also created many of his own audio and video programs, and he appeared on thousands of television and radio shows, including the Oprah Winfrey Show, The Tonight Show, and virtually every major talk show at the time. Dyer’s feature film, The Shift, was released in 2009, and a film based on his life, My Greatest Teacher, was released in 2012.

Dyer discovered that there was a widespread need for the principles of self-discovery and personal growth, and he sought to bring these ideas to a wider audience. His early work was influenced by psychologists Albert Ellis and Abraham Maslow, and it focused on themes such as self-actualization and motivation. Yoga guru Swami Muktananda influenced his later work and he focused more on spirituality, collaborating with physician Deepak Chopra on a number of projects.

Dyer was also a generous philanthropist, whose charitable contributions included donating a million dollars to his alma mater, Wayne State University, and raising over $150 million for National Public Television through his PBS specials.

Dyer left our world in 2015. According to Dyer’s official website, “His main message was that every person has the potential to live an extraordinary life. What’s more, it’s possible for every person to manifest their deepest desires — if they honor their inner divinity and consciously choose to live from their Highest Self.”

Carolyn has been close with Marcelene, Dyer’s wife and the birth mother of their 7 children. Here’s what she had to say about Carolyn’s book Immortal Seeds: Bearing Gold from the Abyss:

“Carolyn Kleefeld, my beloved heroine, in Immortal Seeds, paints on the page opposite her words of love for David Campagna. These paint her world for me. This love pulses a rapture rare of design and rarer still of existing. Oh, how I long for this to play differently. Yet it is perfection in its telling.”

Some of the quotes that Wayne Dyer is remembered for include:

Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

With everything that has happened to you, you can either feel sorry for yourself or treat what has happened as a gift. Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose.

I am realistic – I expect miracles.

When the choice is to be right or to be kind, always make the choice that brings peace

Begin to see yourself as a soul with a body rather than a body with a soul.

by David Jay Brown

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Laura Huxley Profile

Laura Huxley Profile

Mar 28, 2023 | David Jay Brown, Interviews

Photo by John Engstead

Carolyn and I met Laura Huxley in the early 1990s through our friend Oz Janiger. Laura was an extremely gifted psychotherapist, a concert violinist, documentary filmmaker, author, and lecturer, as well as a cherished friend and a great inspiration.

Laura Archera Huxley was born in Turin, Italy in 1911. A musical prodigy, Laura began playing the violin at the age of 10 and she had special magic; at the age of 14, she played before the Queen in her native country. Laura performed with her violin all over Europe and left for America before the start of World War II. In 1939, Laura performed a violin concerto by Mozart at Carnegie Hall in New York City, and she played in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra from 1944 to 1947 as a virtuoso.

Laura settled in Los Angeles. In 1949 she worked on freelance documentary films, and she was hired as an assistant film editor for RKO Radio Pictures in Hollywood. Around this time Laura’s close friend Virginia Pfeiffer became ill, and this had a profound effect on Laura. Laura donated her violin to another violinist, put her music study aside, and began training to become a psychotherapist. Laura pursued a lifelong interest in health, nutrition, psychology, and the advancement of human potential.

Laura first met celebrated British novelist and visionary Aldous Huxley in 1948, when she was pursuing an idea for a film, and although the film was never produced, this was the beginning of their legendary relationship. They were married in 1956. Laura wrote the revered book This Timeless Moment, about her experience with Aldous, who she was married to for the last 7 years of his life.

Laura had a number of mystical and transcendent experiences in her life, and she was outspoken about her beliefs. Between 1963 and 1987, Laura wrote three popular self-help books about getting through life’s difficulties, You Are Not the Target, Between Heaven and Earth, and One-a-Day-Reason to be Happy, as well as a book about conscious conception, The Child of Your Dreams. In 1977, Laura founded Children: Our Ultimate Investment, a nonprofit organization dedicated to “nurturing the possible human.” The organization sponsored a four-day conference in the early 1990s that Carolyn and I attended.

In 1994 Laura participated in the roundtable discussion at UCLA that I co-hosted about the future of technology, along with Carolyn, Timothy Leary, Oz Janiger, John C. Lilly, and Nina Graboi.

Carolyn Mary Kleefeld and Laura Huxley

Carolyn Mary Kleefeld and Laura Huxley

Laura died in 2007 at the age of 96 in her home in the Hollywood Hills, with Valerie Corral, Dr. Paul Fleiss, and Carolyn by her side. Valerie Corral wrote this about her experience with Laura while she was dying:

“She closed her eyes. We sat in that vast silence. Suddenly Laura spoke. ‘Emptiness, emptiness, emptiness. It is emptiness.’ Laura laughed with weakened enthusiasm. With that smile still on her face she looked at me, ‘Tell Ram Dass, it’s all brand new. It Is All Brand New,’ in a soft, rich laugh. She began to speak about the things we all must face, uncertainty, longing, and pain. But there was no remorse or sorrow, only peace, and luminosity. She was stunningly beautiful.”

Carolyn had this to say about her experience with Laura: “I cherish our timeless camaraderie in the last years of her life, and the mischievous comments she loved to sprinkle into the mundane. She was my beloved mentor and friend and is forever in my heart. I have great memories of us walking around the Hollywood sign, and spending numerous evenings with her marvelous friends — the DiCaprios and her daughter Karin Pfeiffer — and of our dancing together, with scarves she would drop down to us from her perch on the stairs above.〞

Laura wrote the introduction to Carolyn’s book The Alchemy of Possibility. Here’s an excerpt:

“Like all nature mystics, Carolyn has a symbiotic relationship with nature. The Alchemy of Possibility might remind us, not through statistics but through poetic prose, that the Golden Rule is to be applied to every tree, every rock, every creature, and everything on the planet. The poem, “is you, is me,” says it all. There is a numinous presence in her identification with nature… In writing freely about her amorous, spiritual, and mundane life, Kleefeld offers… [an] effective intangible therapy for “surfing the waves of existence.” …  The Alchemy of Possibility is to be kept nearby and enjoyed slowly…”

I interviewed Laura in 1992 for my book Mavericks of the Mind, which also includes my interview with Carolyn. There was an old-world elegance and mischievous charm about Laura that I adored. Here are some excerpts from our conversation:

David: What do you think happens to human consciousness after death?
Laura: I think and feel that it goes on. I can’t imagine that this extraordinary complex of feeling, thought, and whatever else, just vanishes. I believe that it goes on; but how is a mystery. Perhaps it goes on into vibrations, or into other bodies, or into something totally different and unknown to us.

David: I read the experience that you wrote about at the end of This Timeless Moment, with the medium and the bookcase, that suggested the possibility of contact with Aldous after he had passed on into the afterlife.
Laura: That was extraordinary wasn’t it? I never speak about that because I wrote it with such exactness. I think that if I were to speak about it, I would not remember the moment, the time, and all that exactly. What I have written is absolutely correct.

David: Have you had any other experiences where you felt the presence of Aldous after he had died?
Laura: I went to one or two other mediums who also gave me a very strong presence, but not like that one. That one was…

David: Uncanny.
Laura: That’s right.

David: What’s your personal understanding of God?
Laura: I think, I feel, that there is an immense power; something that is so incredible that we cannot even imagine it— it has so much more imagination than we have. So that when we imagine God, we just imagine as far as we can imagine. But our imagination is very limited when you think of all the flowers and stars. You think of a star, and you think of a cell, and it’s mind-boggling.

David: We can’t even grasp ourselves, let alone a supreme being of cosmic proportions.
Laura: Exactly. How can we grapple with God when we don’t even understand the simplest of things? I don’t even know what goes on when I speak to you, or how you hear, and how you interpret what you hear, and how this influences what I am going to say, etc., etc.

David: If you could sum up the central message that you learned from the time you spent with Aldous, what would you say that was?
Laura: He said it himself. I can do no better than what he said. It was at this important meeting of outstanding scientists in Santa Barbara. Everyone was very serious, and they said, well, Mr. Huxley, what is your final advice after all these years of inquiry? He said, “I’m very embarrassed because I worked for forty years, I studied everything around me, I did experiments, I went to several countries, and all I can tell you is to be just a little kinder to each other.”

by David Jay Brown

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