Grew up in the home of a single parent who became mentally ill when I was 8 years old which precipitated my desire to understand the meaning of my life. It was then that I contemplated how much easier my life would have been had I never existed and how that would have been. But I do exist. We all exist. So I felt it was important to find out why and how. In trying to be "normal" I went to college and got a degree in Mathematics. I later went on to get a Masters in Business from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. It was during that time that Time magazine did an article on Einstein. It would have been his 100th birthday. Reading that, it was made very clear to me that reality was not as I had believed, at least according to Einstein and the physicists that have proven the validity of his concepts relating to time. In pondering that, my mind began considering concepts that as a child perplexed me. How could there have been a beginning? How could time be different for one person just by going faster than another, which is the basis of what is known as the "Twin Paradox", which any physicist will defend, regardless of their spiritual beliefs.

I decided that evening to see if I could determine what card I had selected from a deck of regular playing cards. I imagined I was a mist of energy along with the card I was holding in my hands. I proceeded to try to imagine the edge of the universe, which the mind cannot grasp. At that point I understood myself to be the card I was holding. It was much like knowing yourself. I opened my eyes, turned the card over, and lo and behold, it was what I understood it to be! It was really cool. I did it two more times before I called my wife at the time into the room to watch. I did it another 4 times, and stopped in tears as I was deeply shaken and frightened by what had happened. While I was experiencing the card, I lost track of Duane. Being fearful, partly due to my upbringing, for which I'm now thankful, I feared that I might get lost and never remember Duane again. I will say that I have far more faith now.

I put all that aside and completed my MBA, became a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and raised a family. In the mid 80's I began to once again look around me and see a world that made little sense. I saw war, killing, abuses within families, extremely rich and extremely poor, and basically a world filled with people who seemed to be filled with fear and the willingness to hurt others. I was doing fine in terms of business success and the love I felt within my family, but I could no longer ignore what I saw around me. So I began my search for truth about my existence.

Ultimately I was drawn time and time again to the Seth Books. They challenged me and seemed to be very far out at the time. Nevertheless my own personal experience seemed to support what I was reading as the years progressed. I felt that I needed to have my experience support my beliefs and yet I would have to change my beliefs in order to have my experience follow this larger perspective I was seeking.

The next dozen or so years would take me through experiences, both spiritual and your standard life challenges. In 1992 I experienced what I was told was a Kundalini experience. Whatever it was, it opened my mind far beyond where it had ever been. Once again I recoiled out of fear and tried to forget my experience. But within a few years I wanted to once again expand my awareness into that larger picture that I would taste from time to time and then run from. The kinds of experiences I had were that of nearly daily dreams of the future, from trivial things that would happen, to dreams of newscasts of earthquakes before they would occur. I was regularly experiencing realities outside of your average, everyday experience. I was multiple times a week experiencing what people think of as out of body experiences and lucid dreams. I would "wake" up at night with people around me who were helping balance my energy. I woke from a nap one day only to find that I could feel an energy around people as clearly as I could feel a handshake. This was quite normal for me. I would meet friends and receive valuable insights into them that would engender a greater love for them. I would sense things in my mind and be able to describe things I hadn't seen with my physical eyes. I even called out the lottery numbers before they would drop out of the ping pong ball cage. Such experiences showed that the magic of life was quite real and that my previous ideas were very limited.

Now I share this with you not because it demonstrates that I understand the meaning of life, but to suggest that I did have experience to draw from along the way. What this gave me was the understanding that what others tended to believe at the time did not fit my experience. In fact, what many people I cared about believed was contrary to my direct experience. So we each must face our own experience and yet allow that experience some latitude by more fully understanding how we create our experience. We are each responsible for what we chose to believe. Knowledge in a universal sense is not really that important. What is most important is self knowledge, which comes with time and a desire to be more fully self aware. This is what I have become passionate about. Self knowledge, self love and universal love all go hand in hand. Essentially they are all aspects of the same oneness.

So after years of experiences that didn't really make me any happier, one simple thing evolved inside of me. I was deeply loved and life itself had always been working to give me what I wanted. Knowingly or unknowingly, we each serve each other in ways that may sometimes be unfathomable. We are profoundly linked and magical. We are more than we imagine and limited by our own beliefs. Life is exactly what we think it is. Think differently and life will change as if by magic. This is what I have learned. What I expect to do is through discussions about real life issues, shed light on a new perspective that places you in the drivers seat of your life with a partner who will come to you in the form of the individuals you meet each day. We are a family. We are loved. Life is on our side. Everyone's side when we are able to reach out beyond the conditioned way of thinking that we can rise above. The reasons you are here are yours alone, but I can assure you that they are beautiful reasons, regardless of appearances. I have faith in me now, so I have faith in you too. A faith well placed in my opinion.

-Duane