INTRODUCTION
Sweet freedom whispered in my ear
You're a butterfly
And butterflies are free to fly
Fly away, high away, bye bye
~ from Someone Saved my Life Tonight,
music by Elton John, lyrics by Bernie Taupin
George had a problem.
Although he hid it fairly well, George was basically unhappy. He was feeling unfulfilled; his life had become dull and boring; he hated his job; he was probably going to be fired soon because of the economic recession; his relationship with his wife had gone south; he couldn’t communicate any more with his kids; he had no real life except working, eating, watching TV, and sleeping; he could count his real friends on one finger; and he saw no real way of changing anything, of making anything better.
But that wasn’t George’s biggest problem at the moment. His most pressing concern was that he had begun to walk in his sleep.
One night while George was out sleepwalking, he fell into a very deep hole. When he woke up, he discovered he was lying on the bottom in just his pajamas, and there was nothing in the hole except him. He looked up and saw the morning sky above him, with a few bare branches of trees overhanging the perfect circle of sunlight at the top. It was early spring, and there was a chill in the air. He saw no one, but he could hear the faint sound of voices.
He knew he had to try to get out; but the walls of the hole were straight and slippery and high, and there was nothing to use for climbing. Each time he tried, he fell back to the bottom, frustrated. He started crying out for help.
Suddenly, there was a man’s face peering down at him from the top of the hole.
“What’s your problem?” the man asked.
“Oh, thank God,” George cried. “I’m stuck down here and can’t get out!”
“Well, then, let me help,” the man said. “What’s your name?”
“George.”
“Last name?”
“Zimmermann.”
“One ‘n’ or two?”
“Two.”
“I’ll be right back.”
When the face disappeared, George wondered what was so important about the spelling of his name; and then the man was back.
“This is your lucky day, George! I’m a billionaire, and I’m feeling generous this morning.”
The man let go of a small piece of paper he was holding in his hand and it floated slowly down into the hole. George caught it and looked up again. The man was gone.
George stared at the piece of paper. It was a check for a thousand dollars, made out in his name.
“What the hell? Where am I going to spend this down here?” he thought to himself. He folded it and put it in his pajama pocket.
Then he heard another voice coming.
“Please help me,” George yelled to the empty space at the top.
A second man’s face appeared, a kind and compassionate face.
“What can I do for you, my son?”
George could see the man’s clerical collar as he leaned over the edge.
“Father, help me get out of this hole… please.”
“My son….” The voice was soft and loving. “I must perform mass at the church in five minutes, so I can’t stop now. But we will say a special prayer for you today.” Then he reached into his pocket. “Here, this will help,” and he dropped a book into the hole before leaving.
George picked up the Bible, studied it and tried to imagine any possible way to use it to get out of the hole. Eventually he gave up and tossed it aside.
The next passerby was a woman. When she understood George’s predicament, she threw down some organic vegetables, along with vitamins and herbal supplements.
“Eat only these,” she said.
George put them in a pile on top of the Bible.
A doctor stopped and donated a few bottles of the sample medications he was being paid to peddle that week.
A lawyer came by and talked for a while about suing the city for not putting a fence around the hole. He left his card.
A politician promised to pass a law to protect sleepwalkers if George would vote for him in the election tomorrow, assuming he could get out of the hole.
By this time George had taken a seat on the bottom of the hole, shivering slightly from the chill, starting to give up hope that anyone would help him get out. He felt lonely, helpless, and a little fearful. He moved the drugs aside, picked up an organic banana off the pile and took a bite.
“I can help you get out.”
He heard a strong, convincing, powerful female voice. He wasn’t quite sure…. Did he recognize that voice? Had he seen her on TV or something?
“You just need to let go of all your negative thinking, learn to visualize, and then use the ‘Law of Attraction’.”
“But that’s exactly what I’m doing – trying to attract someone to help to get out of this hole!” George protested.
“You must not be doing it right,” came the response.
She tossed something thin and square that landed at George’s feet.
George yelled up to her, “But… wait!” There was no one there to answer.
He picked up the DVD, still shrink-wrapped, and stared at the cover. The Teachings of Abraham Master Course DVD Program.
“At least you could have thrown down a portable DVD player,” he said quietly, to no one in particular.
In a little while a Zen Buddhist sat down in a lotus position at the edge of the hole, wanting to teach George to meditate. “If nothing else,” the Master said, “if you practice long enough, you’ll feel better about being in the hole. Who knows, you might even be able to levitate your way out in a few lifetimes.”
George was about to resign himself to being in this hole forever when he heard the voice.
“Can you move over a few feet, out of the way?”
George looked up. “What?”
“Could you please move away from the center of the hole?”
George stood up and took a few steps back toward the side. “Why?” he was about to ask, when the man jumped into the hole, landing at George’s feet.
“Are you crazy?” George exclaimed as the man got up and brushed himself off. “Now we’re both in this hole together. Couldn’t you just throw me a rope or a ladder or something?”
The man looked at him gently. “They don’t work.”
“How do you know?” George asked incredulously.
“I’ve been here before, and I know the way out.”
* * *
I assume you’re asking for help, or you wouldn’t be reading this book. Something’s not right in your life and you want to change it.
So I’m about to jump into your hole, but not because I feel any desire or obligation to help anyone. Helping someone else is one of the biggest traps anyone can get caught in.
I also have no intention of becoming a teacher – yours or anyone else’s – or a guru, or a mentor, or a coach, or someone who pretends to have any or all of the answers.
If you want, you can think of me as a “scout” – like a scout on a wagon train in the Old West, whose job it was to ride ahead looking for a way over the Rocky Mountains to reach the Pacific Ocean, finding a path for others to follow with relative safety and security against the elements and the Indians.
I’m not the only scout out there, and I don’t claim to have reached the ocean yet. But I’m the only one who has taken this particular route, which turned out to be a very effective way to go and safe enough for me to return to talk about it.
On my journey, I explored some very radical territory and collected a lot of information about which paths work and don’t work that might benefit someone else. That’s the main reason I’m writing this book, to pass on that information, knowing there are others – not that many, but some – who want to go where I’m going and where I’ve been. Maybe you’re one of them.
You hired me to be your scout (whether you’re conscious of it or not), but you should know that it doesn’t matter to me what you think about this information, or what you do with it. You can take it or leave it. My only job – and my total joy – is to report back to you what I’ve found.
So I’m jumping into your hole because it seems like fun and in alignment with what the universe has in store for me at the moment.
However, maybe you don’t want me in your hole. You should really think about this. If you keep reading, there will come a point where there’s no turning back. In a way, switching metaphors, it will be like climbing Mt. Everest. The journey can be very difficult, physically and emotionally; and it takes a while.
As I said, I’m not yet at the summit, but it’s in sight. I’ve reached a point high enough along the way that the appreciation, the joy, the peace, the serenity of being are already beyond expectation. What I know with certainty – and confirmed for the most part by eye-witness reports from other scouts – is that arriving at the peak is definitely worth the effort of getting there.
You may or may not want to go all the way. I will let you know when we reach the place where you can only go on and not back.
On the other hand, you may decide you don’t want to leave your hole at all. If so, you should stop reading now. There is nothing “wrong” with your staying there. You’ll have enough money and good organic food and books to read and DVDs to watch and drugs to take to keep you occupied and entertained.
It’s your choice.