THE FOLLOWING ARE A FEW EXCERPTS FROM
THE MEMOIR SECTION OF THE BOOK 48 HOURS TO ENLIGHTENMENT
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WHY THE MEMOIRS?

​The author has included this memoir section for some very clear reasons.  First, it is human nature to be curious about a writer’s past and his influences.  Sharing these might help to create a deeper bond and friendship with the reader across time and distance.  One will see that the author was, and is, a simple man who grew up in an environment where, most often, there was little direct input from other spiritual seekers.  He was quite alone spiritually for much of his life; and although difficult at various times, in hindsight, this was likely a good thing.  He trusts that his sharing of personal experiences might help the reader to grasp that teachers are, in the end, very human, too.

Secondly, the memoirs contain here and there descriptions of outward events that he remembers and describes from a standpoint of deeper understanding and respect.  He attempts to show the reader that inside the human mind there can be a cohesive dance of passion, reason, and innocence.  The author trusts that this helps to give the reader a taste of this profound truth: that a careful, critical mind – resolutely devoted to fact – actually unleashes an all-encompassing, passionate delight in the mystery and sublimity of everything.


THE VIRGIN FOREST

He was on one of his treasured fall, weekend getaways to rural, northwestern Pennsylvania.  He didn’t so much enjoy going to the big cities nor to popular ocean beaches because they both clamor with too much humanity.  When vacationing, he preferred, and still does, retreating to places where thoughtfulness and meditation come easily.

That day they wandered to Heart’s Content, a 20-acre tract of revered ground lost in the endless mountains of that region.  It is one of the few remaining patches of the vast old-growth forests that once sprawled across Pennsylvania before people lumbered for the improvement and betterment of their lives.

Entering the trail through that forest, they came across a sign that warned to be wary of falling trees.  Odd, they thought.  Some had been standing for centuries, and they wondered how unlikely the odds that one would fall when a hiker was passing through.

The forest was markedly silent, and one immediately was enveloped by the Sacred.  The woods had matured into a proud stand of Eastern hemlocks, white pines, and beeches.  Some of the trunks of these pines were likely approaching four feet in diameter, and some towered to an alleged 140 feet.  The ages of the more venerable trees were said to be approaching 400 years.

Time seemed to stand still while touching those silent giants that had seen so many generations of people come and go, with all their hopes and despairs.  Because they competed with one another over the centuries for sunlight, most of their branches, needles, and leaves were near their tops.  It was magnificent standing right next to one of these trees, while gazing directly upward along 100 feet of thick trunk thrusting to the sky.  He touched tree after tree, their rough bark, attempting to feel the centuries that these mighty beings had witnessed.

Then they heard it, perhaps 200 yards away.  A creaking, then a sharp snapping, then the sound of heavy limbs scraping against others, culminating in a thunderous crash.  There indeed was a reason for that sign near the trail’s entrance.  They later examined that newly fallen tree, and saw that it was long dead and probably had been preparing to fall for decades.  After perhaps centuries of life, there was a sacredness in the fact that it came down during that hour that they were there.

Sorrowfully, in a patch of broken bark on that tree, they discovered a nest of what were probably newborn squirrels or chipmunks.  They were surely not old enough to survive if their mother had fled.  Maybe four of them, squirming with yet-closed eyes – and their hearts broke for them.  There was nothing they could do to help them at that tender age.  They could only trust that mom might return.

There was a small stream at the bottom of this path, and they halted on a footbridge over it to silently drink deeply of the moment.  It is difficult to describe the mesmerizing atmosphere in a forest of this stateliness.  One heard the whispers of the breeze teasing the needles high above.  Chipmunks, darting here and there, chattered with one another.  There remained just a bit of morning mist in the air.  Sunlight, here and there, streamed through the mist to the forest floor creating exquisite rays.  Glints of sunlight teased the lush ferns and mosses.  Underneath them, the brook spoke with its meditative babbling.  His breath naturally suspended during this intent listening, and any movement of one’s body felt like an act of irreverence.  There is no temple, no church on this earth, whose dignity could match those woods.

And, there was no doubt – there could be none – that the Hallowed was starkly there. It was obvious and pressing.  It always was, is, and will be in all places; but there on that morning, It demanded that one feel It.  In the truest sense, there is neither inside nor outside, nor any distinction between him, her, and those trees on that still morning.  Completeness, Solitude.  Innocent and Eternal.
 

NIGHTTIME IN THE CEMETERY

It was in the middle of summer, July 2005, and was another one of those restless nights in those rolling hills.  Thunderstorms were flashing silently in the remote distance.  Amazingly, that lightning was probably 50 to 80 miles away, from storms far to the east or west.

It was late, likely toward midnight.  He always liked cemeteries, wandering in them, thinking, wondering what each person’s life was like from years ago.  Those deceased, too, had their hopes, dreams, fears, defeats, broken hearts, sickness, deaths of friends and relatives.  It surely seemed for them, like so many alive now, that their lives would go on forever.  But, they did not.  Years pass, decades pass.  Their children, their grandchildren, all who knew them, eventually will die, too, until there is not one living person who remembers them.  There is a sadness and an oddness to that.

Turning off the headlights, they pulled the car quietly into that cemetery along a country road.  They got out and sat respectfully on a grave behind a large tombstone, with even larger arborvitae on each side.  They were well hidden to enjoy the night air.  He wondered about the life of the person directly below in that ground, and trusted that no disrespect was meant by being there that night.  No, it was not disrespect.  It was reverence.

Cemeteries are peculiar in the dead of night, hallowed places, and that night was no different.  The atmosphere was particularly moving.  The graveyard was surrounded on three sides by woods.   A waning, gibbous moon was looming on one side of the sky, shrouded now and then by quickly moving, very low, fog-like clouds.  The opposite part of the sky was that distant lightning which eerily would light the landscape and tombstones all around.  And, of course, that restless wind, that ever-restless, haunting wind.

The moment was intense, and on the surface, seemingly contradictory.  Death all around; the vastness of the universe before one.  Life, death, the earth, the moon, human feelings, the immensity of existence.  It was all there – without contradiction.  That great Is-ness.  The hour was deeply centered, deeply moving.  Great silence, great holiness, overwhelmed the mind.

 
THE STARS DECORATE THE TREES

The nightly drives have been countless and the meditations endless.  Profound and rich reflection comes easily along those winding mountain and valley roads.  Each season carries with it its own perfume, its own character, its own flavor.  Each is cherished.

He had put an enormous amount of miles on that car over the years from those drives, and the vehicle had become oddly treasured to him.  Others have their revered churches and temples where they go to contemplate and commune with Truth.  That car has become his temple where he easily enters into deep thoughtfulness and sacredness.  He has had it since 1995, and its odometer is now inevitably approaching a half million miles.  Whatever goes wrong with the vehicle, it is fixed; and many wonder why he would continue spending money repairing such an old machine.  How could they know what has been thought through and understood within it?  He doesn’t even attempt to explain why to those caught up in the world.

At its wheel, he has meditated for all of those years, probed the depths of philosophy and endless deep questions, pierced through the illusory “I”, and refined all his thoughts that he is now sharing within these pages.  No.  He cannot simply part with it, any more than others could consider razing their old temple or church merely to replace it with a prettier one.  That would be sacrilege.  It has seen too much.  There has been too much profundity within it.  The thoughts, the great flashes of insight, the conversations, the understanding, the exaltations, the tears – if only the metal, plastic, and fabric of that car could speak.

Amidst some state game lands, there is a remote hollow where he still likes to frequent.  He stops that car along an unpaved road sheltered by a forest.  Other than the wind, songbirds, a nearby babbling brook, and recently late at night a few lonely, howling coyotes, there is silence there.  The aloneness is always a benediction toward the end of a day.

It was a December evening, and just a few hours before there was a burst of about two inches of wet, heavy snow – the kind that clings to every limb and twig.  However, by then, the skies had cleared; and it was a crystal-clear, winter night.

He stopped the car along that hollow, turned it off, and stepped out into the sacred darkness.  The beauty and tranquility of the landscape abruptly stole the breath away.  The surroundings had been turned into a consecration, a faultless moment that was enveloped by the wonderment of that freshly fallen snow.  By then, the temperatures had dropped well below freezing.  The wet snow had frozen and now clung tightly to whatever it had gently fallen upon.

He reclaimed his breath, and inhaled deeply of the cold, pristine air and gazed skyward.  Blessedness was there.  It was everywhere, and It was more than tangible.  The snow-flocked maples and oaks arched above and over that lonely stretch which created a cathedral-like tunnel enclosing the road where he stood.

The stars overhead were bright and twinkling, glimmering through the thousands of snow-covered branches.  It seemed that the stars themselves were deliberately decorating the trees on that holy night, each flawlessly suspended from the branches.  No manmade lights could ever adorn them so perfectly.  His tears flowed freely amidst that innocent, unspoiled magnificence.  My god, how could they not?
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Lost in that Sacredness, he stood there, not remembering how long, helplessly transfixed.  Indeed, time was meaningless; and the mind was still.