Title: Audacious Alchemist

Gender: Male

Age: 32

Sun Sign: Virgo

Chinese Sign: Fire Dragon

Life has been pulling me in many directions as I continue on this journey of growth and discovery.  Busy with teaching, my MA program, reffing laccrosse, reading and writing.  I appreciate you all greatly and will check up on all your wonderful contributions.


My links:
http://themagus555.stumbleupon.com/
Really enjoy stumbleupon.com check it out.

I recently wrote a vision statement/autobiographical sketch in three pages for a Master of Arts program in Conscious Evolution at the Graduate Institute with Christian de Quincey.  The program is fantastic and has just begun.

 The following is a slightly abbreviated and slightly modified version of my college essay:

As far back as I can remember, I have always felt a calling: I knew with all my heart that there was something more-something bigger, something brighter, greater, truer, deeper, more pure: that Spark, calling us from our infancy! Setting out for answers I became an English major in college. The words of Kerouac, Plato, Thoreau, Hesse, Kundera, Kant, Nietzsche, Lao Tzu, and many others offered glimpses of an evasive truth that I sought desperately. Finding no answers in school or in the church, I felt that something was wrong, something missing. Left wanting, I sought to escape. Though fairly happy, confident and optimistic, I was also a bit naïve and chased shadows much of my life-finding an escape from the confines of an unfocused mind through drugs and alcohol.

Beyond college, I knew this lifestyle wouldn't suit me much longer and decided to go back to school and become certified to teach high school English while earning my Master's degree in Education. I took some Tai Chi and dabbled with meditation along the way. I found them enjoyable and beneficial for clearing the mind and relaxing, but the experiences fell short of miraculous.

I have always been fascinated by magic. In high school, I would perform birthday parties for children. As I entered college, I let the hobby go: supplies were expensive and hard to come by, while beer was cheap and easy to come by. About a year ago, after a long hiatus and perhaps as some part of a mini, mid-life crisis, I developed a new fascination with magic and became intrigued by several new magicians, especially Derren Brown of London. I noticed that these men seemed to have powers of the mind that I thought impossible. Some new discovery on my part and their claims about the powers of mind, body and spirit led me to read up on hypnotism and Neuro-Linguistic Programming, which I found immensely fascinating. I found new control over my addictive impulses and also gained greater ability to control my moods. I discovered brilliant new ways of learning. Beginning to realize the potential this could have on education reform, I began reading furiously. I found a wealth of information on mental imagery, learning theory, and mysticism on the Stanford website; all of it made so much sense. I found more and more information on the subject, but all pushed out of the mainstream. I felt outrage that the country had things so backwards. Being an auditory/kinesthetic learner with attention deficit disorder, I was thirty-years-old and learning how to visualize.

Towards the end of my college years, I read the Tao Te Ching and immediately recognized it as truth, as opposed to the dogma of the religious institutions that I had been more formally introduced to. I have always lived accordingly and had thought that I had everything figured out. After my new discoveries with hypnosis and N.L.P., I began experimenting more with meditation and the power of the subconscious. Jon Kabitt Zinn's Wherever You Go, There You Are and similar books provided new insight into living a life less entrapped by thoughts. Realizing that I was still plagued with incessant mind chatter and sometimes still struggled to control impulses, I began to take meditation more seriously. Eventually, I no longer needed to take Strattera, an adult Attention Deficit Disorder medicine, and have since been in much greater control of my mind. I began gaining tremendous insight into myself and about my life.

Last year, I began mentoring students as part of a new program to help at-risk students. I couldn't get over the stories these kids would tell me. I was often able to give them insight or just let them know that they weren't crazy or alone, and the look of relief on their faces made it worth every moment. They kept coming back. Helping these students allowed me to release a great deal of pent up guilt from having lived a hedonistic lifestyle for so long: I realized that the suffering and grief I caused friends and family had some purpose in the end-the insights gained allowed me to better understand and help. A tremendous burden lifted.

My meditation experiences went to another level. I experienced transcendence! Something snapped. I cried for hours. I stopped biting my fingernails overnight. I truly understood Plato's Allegory of the Cave. The concept of space/time began to make clear sense. I had a few meditation experiences that I wouldn't even begin to describe and can literally feel the spiritual energy inside of me. I've opened my mind's eye. How could I have not even heard about such things before? I can't believe the churches and schools don't acknowledge any of it. I became less bound to my feelings, emotions, and mental traps. My psychiatrist confirmed the transformation and I stopped seeing him. I became obsessed with the works of Wilber, Tolle, Chopra, Jung and many others (including the books I have started to read from the curriculum). This evasive mystery now seemed so obviously the truth to me.

I have been planning to go back to school for a sixth-year degree and was debating what avenue to pursue for some time now, but nothing seemed to fit quite right. When I saw, through the WIE link, that this institute existed-with the perfect schedule for a teacher, no less-I began drooling like Pavlov's dog as I felt the Cosmos shift in alignment with my Dharma: The series of fortunate coincidences continues.

Member Since: Sunday, September 30 2007

Last Visit: 29 days ago.

Profile Viewed: 1069 times (last viewed less than a minute ago)