It was 1981. Ronald Reagan was sworn in as the 40th US President. In late March, he was wounded by John Hinckley Jr. Six weeks later in mid-May, Pope John Paul II was shot in Rome. On October 6th Egypt’s President, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated during a military parade in Cairo. Judge Sandra Day O’ Connor was nominated to become the first woman to serve on the US Supreme Court.

AIDS was identified. Two American and one Swedish physicists won the Nobel Prize for physics developing laser technologies. The FDA introduced an artificial sweetner, Nutrasweet. IBM introduced its first personal computer with the Microsoft Disk Operating System. On Broadway, famed choreographer, Gower Champion, was awarded the Tony for 42nd Street.   And in the same year that an aging Henry Fonda was recognized with an honorary lifetime achievement Oscar, he lit up the Big Screen with his daughter, Jane Fonda, in the film, On Golden Pond.

In 1956, twenty-five years earlier when I was ten, my dad sat me down in the living room of my childhood home requesting I listen to The Strangest Secret, the first spoken-word million seller Gold Record, written and recorded by Earl Nightingale. I was introduced to a significant lifelong exploration, stated precisely by Nightingale’s declaration of the secret: we become what we think about.

How is our mind the tool that shapes life experience? What can we learn about the power of our mind to guide behaviors, choices, relationships, work?   Why do the many live with unceasing distraction, fear, and worry while the few live with clear, purposeful and peaceful thoughts and actions? Is it true… as ye sow, so shall ye reap? Do we really become what we think about?

Now in our third year living in Santa Rosa, my wife and I enjoyed spending Tuesday evenings attending a lecture and meditation program at the Veterans Building in Sebastopol presented by a former UC Berkeley English professor, Eknath Easwaran.

Easwaran was born and raised in India. An established professor and writer in his homeland, he came to the US on the Fullbright Exchange program in 1959. He became a full professor at UC Berkeley and, ultimately, founded the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation in Tomales, CA. Under his leadership, he educated 1000′s of individuals in meditation while writing more than 20 books including Love Never Faileth; Gandhi, The Man; and Words To Live By.

Those Tuesday evenings with Easwaran were explorations of the strangest secret and the power of the mind. The program’s format was two-fold. Part One was a half-hour topical, insightful message on life. Weekly, Easwaran crafted a no-notes message on how the power of our thoughts shape our world. His messages were delightfully seasoned with simplicity, humor, honesty and timeless wisdom. He was a teacher extraordinaire.

Part Two was a half-hour meditation. Easwaran taught that meditation’s purpose was to encounter one pointed attention of mind and heart by repeating to oneself memorized passages of sacred literature in silence.

On this particular summer evening in 1981, I encountered something unexpected. In the midst of the meditation, I opened my eyes. I gazed to the front of the room where Easwaran sat with eyes closed. Surrounding his head was brilliant white light, faintly tinged with gold. As I continued watching, I observed how this light was fluid as it moved above, around and beyond him reaching two-five feet above his head. It was a spectacle of Light I had never seen; It was an aura of serene beauty. Visually, I witnessed energy that surrounds one who is alert and focused in one pointed attention to Life greater than self. This moment confirmed experientially in my awareness what Nightingale had recorded: you become what you think about, and was illustrated to me in 1965 by Ethel Barnhart when she showed me the lesson of Light in her office.

What meaning did this moment offer? As a mentor, Easwaran was a wisdom teacher. He was a model of the spiritual life. He demonstrated grand influence for good. But why this intuitive, mystical encounter now? A greater understanding of that question would be revealed in 1987.

That evening Easwaran gave me insight into the lesson of one pointed attention. I would misrepresent this lesson if I limited the experience to the activity of meditation. At its essence, one pointed attention has the unique quality of moving the mind to be gathered up into a relationship with something bigger than ourselves. I call it, Our life in God. For one person, one pointed attention may be found sitting at the beach watching waves rhythmically ebb and flow. Another finds one pointed attention listening to Andre Bocelli. Then, another encounters it in a conversation with a wonderful friend; or writing a thoughtful reflection in a journal. One pointed attention offers continual learning of the mind’s partnership operating to accomplish one thing: influence for Good, sourced by God.

It was July, 1986, when I visited Easwaran one last time. That evening Judy I gave him a gift of two praying hands, carved from olive wood. The smile he shared with us when receiving the gift came from a deep ocean of love. His smile carried the same energy I saw encircling him many times after that first encounter, and, which he expressed in the introduction to his book, God Makes The Rivers To Flow: “Bring forth the noble work of art within you. My earnest wish is that one day you shall see, in all its purity, the effulgent (brilliant, luminous) spiritual being you really are.”

For the majestic message of one pointed attention, Easwaran came my way.

 Appreciating you on the ethical edge!

Russell Williams, Founder/President

Passkeys Foundation/Ethical Edge

www.ethicaledge.org

It was 1979. Margaret Thatcher became England’s new prime minister and Mothers Teresa was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The Shah of Iran was deposed as the Ayatollah Khomeini grabbed power in February. In November militants seized the US Embassy in Teheran, holding American hostages for over a year until President Ronald Reagan’s Inauguration Day.

Billy Joel and the Bee Gees were hot. So was the overheated reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear facility in Pennsylvania causing the evacuation of 144,000 residents. In medicine the CAT scan was birthed. John Wayne…The Duke… Motion Pictures’ all time leading Box Office draw, died in June. In one of the great classic matchups in Wimbledon history, Martina Navratilova was crowned champion, defeating Chris Evert 6-4;6-4 while Bear Bryant and the Crimson Tide produced a 12-0-0 season culminating the most dominating decade in college football history winning 3 National Championships.

Now living in Luther Burbank’s hometown, Santa Rosa, located an hour north of San Francisco in the rolling hillsides of the exquisite Sonoma County Wine Country, I had begun my second year as Minister of a non-denominational community church in the summer of 1979. It was an exciting, energetic time both professionally and personally as our family had now grown to include two daughters, Leah and Krista.

Our church did not have permanent facilities. Weekly, church life was conducted from an office in my home. On Sunday mornings, the congregation met at the YMCA. On Tuesday evenings, we had use of the sanctuary at a Methodist church for programs. With a congregation of 150, we were a nomad band in search of more permanent facilities! But, in the meantime, we had vision and vitality.

One Tuesday evening that summer, in a display of instant programming, we learned that Peace Pilgrim was walking through Santa Rosa. You may ask, who? Yes, it was Peace Pilgrim. She was not unknown in America. Her celebrity had followed her on an endless journey that began in January, 1953, when she adopted her name and began walking back and forth across the United States for the next 28 years.

The year was 1908. Peace Pilgrim was born Mildred Lisette Norman in New Jersey. At age 45, she started her pilgrimage for peace while the Korean War was in progress and she continued throughout the Vietnam War era. By 1964 she stopped counting the miles, having walked more than 25,000 for peace.

“She walked owning nothing but the clothes on her back and a handful of items she carried in the pockets of her blue tunic which had the name, Peace Pilgrim, printed on the front. She trod with no organizational backing, carried no money, and did not ask for food or shelter. She vowed to ‘remain a wanderer until mankind has learned the way of peace, walking until given shelter and fasting until given food.’ ”

Often, Peace Pilgrim spoke at churches, universities and was invited to do interviews on local and national radio and television. And so, here she was in Santa Rosa. I don’t recall how but we asked her to speak at our Tuesday evening program.

That evening I encountered a noble human being. Nobility in the human spirit is like Mt. Whitney in the Sierras. Its presence is compelling. It overshadows you with beauty, elegance, awe. The mind and heart that entertains and sustains nobility does so with a pure, aspiring viewpoint toward life.   It offers itself as a gift to others. It expresses as a life painted on a larger canvas defined by a purpose that seeks to see beyond the dulling human preoccupation of getting. Noble ones behave with distinctive clarity. That was Peace Pilgrim. She walked the talk of noble purpose!

I do not recall her words that evening, but I remember the beauty of her eyes. They were windows through which another might peek to see what is found in the hidden chamber of one who holds authentic mutual regard for others. Noble ones embody insightful human awareness that has shifted from ego-self identity to ego-connected identity. Like a towering peak pushing upward, their presence lifts you, opens you, and calls you forth to place your feet on a trail that has been prepared for you. In 1996, some seventeen years later, I would begin to pen an allegory about humanity’s journey toward its nobility. Completed in 2000, the unpublished manuscript was titled, Are All The Heroes Gone?

Now, thirty-three years down the road from that encounter with Peace Pilgrim, I have learned that Noble ones can be found everywhere. Their vocation is common…serving a greater good. The pathways of expression are as diverse as a gardener manicuring a garden for beauty; a nurse managing the pain of a patient; a business executive creating new synergies for shaping an inspired work culture; or a politician living beyond a mission for re-election.

Noble ones carry the evolutionary DNA of humanity seeking itself. As such they are pragmatic activists of hope; they are encouragers for a better tomorrow. Looking forward, seeing promise in the midst of pain, they trail blaze…grabbing humanity’s tomorrow and bringing it back for us to see.

Peace Pilgrim came my way as a touchstone of the one who walks with nobility…daily. Fortunately, as a young, eager-to-succeed minister, I was not so busy being full of myself to miss seeing my Self.

Just two brief years later… in the summer of 1981…Peace Pilgrim’s earthly journey ended when she was killed while being driven to a speaking engagement near Knox, Indiana.

 Appreciating you on the ethical edge!

Russell Williams, Founder/President

Passkeys Foundation/Ethical Edge

www.ethicaledge.org