Stop Making Yourself Miserable

In the last episode, I briefly described my grandfather, who was a lifelong mystic, and his reactions to the dream I'd had about my father and his ring, which was followed by its mysterious disappearance. I also mentioned another unusual incident concerning the ring that took place about twenty years later, when a friend told me about a vivid dream he'd had where my father had given him a message...

As the last episode ended, I had given a quick overview of my grandfather, who was a lifelong Orthodox Jew, but was also a mystic with his own set of metaphysical understandings, especially about what was happening in modern times. Among his teachings, he used to tell us was that there are always highly evolved people living on Earth, who are here to help bring about the Divine Plan for the evolut...

In the last episode, I described a most unusual dream that I had. My father had been dead for almost six months and I dreamt that he appeared to me, looking alive and happy. He told me that his death wasn't real, that it was just a trick. And he went on to explain that there really isn't such a thing as death, it's just a public relations stunt that God came up with to get people to think about hi...

As the last episode ended, I was beginning my return to normal life after the unexpected death of my father. The unanticipated event had turned my entire world upside down. After remaining home for a one-week mourning period, when I returned to normal life, everything was exactly the same as it had been when I left it. Same classes. Same teachers. Same friends. Everything was the same. Except noth...

The last episode ended on the evening of December 3, 1965 when my father suffered a massive heart attack and died instantly during a nationally televised NBA game between the 76ers and the Boston Celtics. As I have mentioned previously, this podcast series examines the enormous evolution of consciousness that began to take place in the western world during the 1960s, as well as looking at what hap...

In the last episode, we looked at two disturbing events that happened to me during the last week of November of 1965. In the first, I was sitting in synagogue with my father and toward the end of the Saturday morning service as the rabbi was announcing the prayer called the Mourner's Kaddish, with a sudden sense of urgency, my father had me swear a solemn oath before God that I would say this pray...

At the conclusion of the last episode, in late November of 1965, I was having a happy life as a normal sixteen-year-old eleventh grader. Things were going well and everything seemed right on track.   However, even though I had hardly noticed, a few things happened, which in retrospect could be seen to have been subtle warnings of a coming change. First, my father had told me that he would never be...

We ended the last episode in April of 1965 when George Harrison and John Lennon of the Beatles were unexpectedly given a dose of LSD by their dentist at a dinner party that he was hosting for them. This was done without their knowledge or permission, and although it could have had some significantly negative consequences, fortunately for everyone concerned, it all worked out well. At this point in...

In the last episode, we looked at two critically important events that happened in August of 1964 that would eventually have truly profound effects on Western culture, as well as on world history in general. On August 7, the US Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and 21 days later, on August 28, Bob Dylan got together with the Beatles in their New York City hotel suite for a casual eveni...

As we ended the last episode, a party was beginning in a swank hotel suite in New York City. It was August 28, 1964, and Bob Dylan had driven down from his home in Woodstock to spend an evening with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, who had become known to the world as the Beatles. Before we get into what happened on that magical evening, let's step back a little and r...

We ended the last episode with the Commencement Address that President Kennedy gave at American University, which marked a major thaw in the cold war, leading to a Nuclear Test Ban Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union. That was on June 10, 1963. Now let's move on to June 11 th . Governor George Wallace, in defiance of federal desegregation orders, attempted to block the enrollment...

We closed the last episode by looking at the emergence of Bob Dylan onto the Beat Scene in Greenwich Village in 1962, and we mentioned his song, Blowin' in the Wind, where he asked some deeply troubling questions about what was going wrong in the world and said that the answer to them all is blowing in the wind. Now Dylan has never confirmed nor denied that he was referring to marijuana in that so...

The last episode ended with the resolution of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October of 1962. As you may recall, one day at the height of the crisis, October 27 th is considered by some experts to be the closest the world has ever come to a full-out nuclear war. And it is thought that the wise decision of one 34-year-old Russian naval officer was all that stood in the way of provoking what could have...

In the previous episode that took place in March of 1965, I mentioned that although we didn't know it, the western world was entering into the early stages of a turbulent upheaval that would eventually revolutionize human consciousness on a global level. As one of the seventy million American baby boomers who were busy growing up at the time, I was heading right into it, as well. In the chapter of...

As you may recall, I am currently preparing to release a comprehensive personal growth program called, "The Higher Mind Training." Its purpose is to help people harmonize their intelligence, which will allow them to transform the prison of self-sabotage into the freedom of self-empowerment.           We will have programs designed to address specific needs, like smoking cessation, freedom from dru...

I'm going to ask you to try to stretch your mind and imagination a bit for this episode. A true story is going to be presented to you. It took place in India, sometime around 1910 and you may find the cultural differences to be a little unusual for you. But on a subtextual level, a lot of important information is going to be presented as well, and you may find that it takes you to some interesting...

As with many people, in my line of work, one thing often leads to another, and often in some very unexpected ways. As you may recall, I have mentioned in a few earlier episodes that over the years, I have been involved in the writing of several stories for the purpose of possibly developing them into novels or films, and at one point in my life, I became very involved in studying story structure....

I am continuing with the process of releasing some of the large amount of notes that I've filed away over the years that pertain to personal growth. As I mentioned, I am not building any podcasts specifically around any of these ideas. I am just putting them out to you without any particular format so you can take them in one at a time and see if they do anything for you.           One thing I did...

As you may recall, I had mentioned in the last two episodes that we are making a slight change in format for the "Stop Making Yourself Miserable" podcasts. Instead of building each episode around one particular theme, I am going to start presenting notes that I've made over the last fifty years that were particularly inspiring to me as I continued to go through all the ever-unfolding phases of inn...

As I mentioned in the previous episode, I am about to begin a series of episodes that will have more of a free-flow format than the ones that have gone before. This is because I have a large amount of information that I have collected over the years which I consider to be extremely valuable when it comes to personal growth, and rather than try to build a context for each one that would be the them...

Over the course of these podcasts, I have mentioned several times that I first became interested in personal growth around the time that the Beatles went to India to study meditation in February of 1968. My interest wasn't particularly deep. The only thing deep about me at the time was how deeply I was being influenced by the world around me, and I basically mirrored every move the Beatles made. T...

  In the last few episodes, we've talked about the fact that many of us suffer from a case of mistaken identity in which have come to believe that we are actually the contents of our neural template, which is largely responsible for forming our ordinary mind. We looked at some of the limitations of it, especially that it is, by nature, always dissatisfied, that it has the element of fear deeply ro...

As mentioned in the previous episode, we are continuing to provide some of the basic information that is imparted by the Higher Mind Training, which is a new personal growth program being prepared for release by the Better Angels Publishing Company. Its purpose is to help the normal, everyday person emerge from the prison of self-sabotage into the freedom of self-empowerment. The program probably...

In the last episode we spent some time looking into our innate human genius as well as some of the remarkable attributes we have within our vast intelligence. We also touched on the fact that many of us are troubled by self-sabotage and other forms of negativity that limit our ability to truly enjoy our lives.   And we ended the episode with two questions - if we began life in a genius state of co...

In the last two episodes, I discussed the Higher Mind Training, which is a unique personal growth program that is being prepared for release by the Better Angels Publishing Company. I also mentioned that for the past six months I have been teaching some of its basic understandings and techniques to the counselors and residents of the James A. Casey House in Wilkes-Barre, PA, which is an innovative...