personal development
Becoming a better person can be a gradual process of discovery and growth over many years. Or it can be a hell-bent drive to climb out of a black hole where a crash and burn is always at hand and failure is never an option .
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After Earth
When he awakened to find himself floating horizontally, Brad Rosedale’s first thought was I am dead. Yet he could open his eyes and see two bluish hairless beings leaning over him. I am no longer human. I am Numan. Memory of his pre-human life surged into his awareness, and the life he lived on Earth became a dream. Assume the vertical position, said a voice inside his head. His body was raised up and he could feel the ground under his feet. Follow us, and he was walking behind two Elders and out of the Great Hall. He arrived at a circle where 300 beings sat facing him and began…
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The final days of the Rosedales
Moving beyond his robotic behavior, Brad meets the final challenge of fully accepting his humanity. He decides that because he has reached a contented state the mission has been accomplished. He believes from his studies that he could pass on to a higher plane of existence, one with more evolved spiritual evolution. A terrible tragedy takes place – Elly dies in a plane crash returning from Japan. Brad is lost, but makes a final effort to spend his remaining years in service to the good of others. He donates the Elly’s life insurance check to a charity for poor children, and takes a volunteer job doing medical exams in homeless…
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The man who’s wife called him a robot
Elly watched Brad head for his upstairs office for the second time one Saturday. First after breakfast, now after lunch. “You’re a robot,” she called out, as she cleared the dishes from their lovely lunch of whole-grain pasta stewed with fresh-cut vegetables and a side of steamed brown rice. She worked hard to keep him healthy, and she deserved a little attention. Not today. Butt back in his chair, he refreshed the computer screen and continued entering data for the third medical report of the day. Pushing sixty, preparing for retirement, he thought of Mo dying alone in his beat-up trailer, or Natalie waiting for the next government so she…
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Oman decides to challenge Brad (Numan) on Earth
The natives on the big blue planet, mostly Elders, would check in on their members who were foolhardy enough to go on a human mission. When they saw that Numan as Brad Rosedale, had succeeded in becoming a doctor, it was big news at The Gathering. Oman was especially intrigued and projected an energetic thought ball, “I’m going to be born on Earth and challenge Numan in his mission.” Everyone in the group was intensely amused, even the Elders paused and let sparks of laughter-energy ripple through their bodies. There was some discussion, and two Elders immediately offered to collaborate. They didn’t need to run Oman through the preparation protocol…
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Opening to abundance
Brad picked up Elly at the San Francisco International Airport arrivals level, after a red-eye flight. Popping the trunk of his Toyota Corolla, he began loading her luggage, which was heavy with scrumptious cookies and stylish ladies apparel from Japan. “How were your meditations, hon?” he said, excited to share his results. He closed the trunk and gave her a quick hug and a kiss. “I didn’t do any,” she said. “There was too much going on with my family, and my parents needed help. They can’t keep things clean and organized like they did when they were younger.” They got in the car and he nodded at the traffic…
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Enlightenment and the Dark Night of the Soul
Elly’s support for Brad was unconditional, even after he turned the temple trip into a competitive sport. The monks had beaten him at every form of spiritual practice, which made him bitter. “They played me,” he said, as they prepared for the 10 hour flight back to California. “They set me up for the hardest practices, and then laughed at me when I failed.” “Honey, nobody was trying to win anything. And they weren’t laughing at you. They are actually happy! You should try it. How can you expect to beat monks who practice every day for years? They didn’t go to medical school, you wouldn’t expect them to come…
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Throwing oneself to God
The monks were in constant motion, chanting scriptures, maintaining the temple grounds, and doing Gyo. The Master did not believe in being idle. He would explain that Gyo was the practice of “throwing oneself to God,” and would purify the spirit. Eventually it would bring Enlightenment which was the goal of all monks. When foreigners came, they mostly did basic forms of Gyo, like walking around the temple grounds lighting candles, or sitting in the hall chanting for world peace. The more energetic ones might do the Hyaku Gyo, walking back and forth between two engraved marble posts 100 times, while chanting blessings, which took about 2 hours. Brad had…
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Wanderers to a Buddhist Temple
The naked monk, holding nothing but a plastic bucket, stepped into the small pool at the foot of the little waterfall. Brad could hear him gasp as the shock of the icy water went through his body. Following the path of the flashlight held by another monk, he waded in and sat down, the water up to chest level. Then he began chanting the Heart Sutra. “Kan ji zai bo sa gyo- jin han-nya ha ra mi ta ji…” As he chanted, he pulled the bucket through the freezing water and splashed it onto his face and chest, again and again. his voice tremulous, shouting as if to fight off…
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Criticized by a kamikaze pilot
On his home turf, Otosan was the King. He seemed to enjoy bossing people and rebutting any opinion. At least once he had Elly in tears. Brad could not understand a word of the man’s fierce Japanese and would ask Elly to break it down. Then he tried to win the old man over. It was a mistake. Brad told Otosan, through Elly’s translation, about his childhood and how he had tried to help his family. He told about his father’s alcoholism, their poverty, and about how at the age of 16 he had left his family to go and work his way through school and become a successful doctor.…
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Honeymoon
The newlyweds took an all-inclusive honeymoon at a tourist resort in Mexico, where they went down a zip line over the beach, and Brad learned of Elly’s fear of swimming. The bond they had made the moment they met deepened. Anything that could provoke marital conflict was a ripple on the surface of a deep love, which made Brad muse that they had known each other in a past life. He told her about his childhood dreams of a girl born in a faraway land, and how she might be the one that made the dreams come true. She loved it and thought it was romantic. She believed in reincarnation,…