Prologue to Paradigms of the Soul:  How we become that for which we are 
searching


					-1-
           
           I remember a conversation with my father when I was about nine years 
of age.  It was concerning respecting the lives of animals and plants, and how 
it was important to consider their integrity as beings, as well as our own.  I 
think I'd been mutilating an ant, or maybe it was a centipede.   I found the 
conversation to be very insightful to a point, but I questioned further.  "My 
religious training, and what you have said to me, is very important to me, but 
when do we get into the real instruction?  When do I find out about what made me 
be cruel, and how do I change that?  Who will work with me about this, 
directly?"  My father said that he didn't know what I was talking about.
	I was looking for instruction which would directly pertain to my own inner 
life.  What was so difficult about that question?  Hadn't my father resolved 
this same question already?  My question was quite straightforward and to the 
point!  The beauty of the mind of the child, its depth and insight, must not be 
mistaken for sophistication.  I was looking for direct answers to a question 
which was only beginning to take shape within me.  To even start to answer this 
kind of question I was going to need life experience of which I had not as yet 
imagined.
	Children have moments in which they can "see into" the world at a depth 
which can be astounding, but which is actually available to all, at any time in 
life, and is only extraordinary because we have so often forgotten how to look.  
Again, around the age of nine or so, I was lying on my back in our backyard,  
looking up at the tops of two towering evergreen trees, and beyond into the sky.  
I was thinking about God, and angels, when a feeling of incredible peace came 
over me.  My entire self was enthralled with the moment, and my attention was 
easily and fully focused.  I felt at one with nature and the divine, in a state 
of exquisite contemplation.  A feeling of immense gratitude for being alive 
filled every part of my being.  I will never forget this moment, I promised 
myself, and I have not forgotten it to this day.
	Was this just another moment in life, the same as any other?  It depends 
on one's perspective.  Some might see it as a moment of sentimental reverie, a 
passing thing which was merely the fantasy of an innocent and naive child.  I do 
not see it as such.  I see this moment as a glimpse of something very important, 
a moment where acceptance and appreciation, combined with a sincere wish for 
"touching the divine", became a reality for me.  I did not do it to "please" 
anyone.  I did not do it to make myself better, or stronger, or as a preparation 
to gain money or prestige.  It was a moment of simple purity, of simply being 
fully engaged in the process of being alive.  It was glorious!	
	It is my hope that such moments are not foreign to the reader.  The joy of 
an expanding consciousness,  in the adult years, is also often laced with 
painful aspects.  Our sophistication is both a protection and an encumbrance 
when approaching states of consciousness which are unfamiliar, unknown, formerly 
unconscious, or seemingly out of control.  We rarely, if ever, as adults see the 
world through a child's eyes.  Perhaps this is not entirely necessary, in a 
literal sense, but maybe such openings are allowed us in our adulthood if we are 
willing to acknowledge them, love them freely, as a child does, and appreciate 
them.  Is there time in our lives for such moments?  We cannot manufacture them, 
or control them. They must be allowed, waited for, welcomed with an open heart 
and mind, with a relaxed body and attention.  Sometimes, as in the morning, it 
is very difficult to awaken.  At other times it is a joy.
						-2-

	As a child, and to this day, my love of music has been a key to exploring 
the early questionings.  Music seemed to speak from a world which included my 
everyday life, but a world much greater than my everyday life.  To my mother's 
credit,  she provided me with recordings of the works of Beethoven, Schubert, 
Dvorak, Rossini, and Gershwin, from a very early age.   I saw this world of 
music as both "real" and "mystical".  It seemed to speak of understandings which 
were beyond the realm of mere individuality, although the individual person was 
part of this greater realm.  The music would seem to "lift" me into a fleeting 
awareness of this greater world.  At that time I saw this as the world of angels 
and deities.
	Later in my life, I discovered that others had shared similar experiences:

	Music is another planet.  -- Alphonse Daudet (c. 1890)

	It was deep calling unto deep -- the deep that my own struggle had opened 
up within being answered by the unfathomable deep without, reaching beyond the 
stars....  It was like the effect of some great orchestra when all the separate 
notes have melted into one swelling harmony that leaves the listener conscious 
of nothing save that his soul is being wafted upwards, and almost bursting with 
its own emotion. -- Professor Starbuck in The Variety of Religious Experience, 
William James (1982)

	... (A)n answer came.  It flashed up lightning-wise during a performance 
of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony at the Queen's Hall, in that triumphant fast 
movement when "the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted 
for joy."  The swiftly flowing continuity of the music was not interrupted, so 
that what Mr. T.S. Eliot calls "the intersection of the timeless moment" must 
have slipped into the interval between two demi-semi-quavers.  When, long after, 
I analyzed the happening in the cold light of retrospect, it seemed to fall into 
three parts:  first the mysterious event itself which occurred in an 
infinitesimal fraction of a split second...then illumination, a wordless stream 
of complex feelings in which the experience of Union combined with the rhythmic 
emotion of the music like a sunbeam striking with iridescence the spray above a 
waterfall -- a stream that was continually swollen by tributaries of associated 
Experience;  lastly Enlightenment, the recollection in tranquillity of the whole 
complex of Experience as it were embalmed in thought-forms and words. -- H. 
Warner Allen, The Timeless Moment (1946)

	After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is 
music. -- Aldous Huxley, 1894-1963

	When I was in high school, I remember listening, in the cozy dark of my 
room, to the 9th Symphony of Anton Bruckner, and closing my eyes.  Worlds of 
cosmic dimension seemed to reveal themselves to me, of planets and galaxies, of 
ecstasy and torment, of beauty and chaos, all simultaneously.  This world seemed 
to be present, alive, genuine, inspiring, calling to me.  I had heard the term 
"music of the spheres", but I 
						
						-3-

had heard no explanation of the term.  I wondered if my perception had something 
to do with that idea.  Later, when I was in a college-level music theory class, 
one of the TA's asked if anyone had had an experience concerning "music of the 
spheres", since it had been referred to in the literature.  I was the only one 
to raise my hand.  The TA smiled, and continued discussing music theory.	
	But back in high school, when I tried to talk with my parents about this 
impression of the higher aspect of music, they looked worried.  It was time to 
do my homework, mow the lawn, and do the dishes.  Such things were possible, but 
they were for others, not for me.  My father's laugh was a spear to the heart.
	I had a peer who was also my mentor, Jerry.  He played the French horn and 
piano with the beauty and grace of a god, and his personality was kind and 
patient.  He helped me with my struggles to play the horn, and also with my 
whole outlook on life.  Once, when I was complaining about what my family 
situation was like, and told him I liked his family better, he said, "I believe 
what you are telling me.  But you must try to get 
along with your family for now.  You will understand more about this later!"  It 
was the best thing that anyone could have said to me, compassionate and 
practical.
	I continued with my music, and even though I later found out that my 
parents hadn't really had faith in my ability to become a professional musician,  
I owe them a great debt.  They got me an instrument, took me to the orchestra, 
didn't force me to quit.
	I entered the Seattle Youth Symphony when I was a junior in high school.  
It was an experience which was both heavenly, and hellish.  Vilem Sokol was our 
conductor, a brilliant musician, inspiring, and often kind.  But he could also 
be a fearsome taskmaster.  I was plagued by feelings of inadequacy upon first 
entry, but he nurtured the devoted ones, and I luckily was devoted, to the point 
where, when I graduated from the orchestra, I was good enough to play part-time 
with professional groups in Seattle.  I had come to a point where I could 
actually make a reasonable, sometimes wonderful, contribution to the world of 
music.	
	My spiritual path was at that time tended to by the Catholic Church, and 
although I am no longer a participant in that faith, it was the church which 
fostered my sense of the possibility of "greater things", of divinity, and of 
the power of Love.  There were moments of transcendent beauty in my experience 
there.  The dogma is what I could not 
reconcile myself to.  When things were excused which were not within my ability 
to assimilate -- the historical atrocities, the spiritual and political 
hegemony, the sense that all would be forgiven by way of ritual --  my interest 
in that path began to wane.  By the time that I was a senior in high school I 
had lost my interest in modern Catholicism.  	Also, individual spiritual 
insight, especially if it conflicted with the authority of the church, was not  
encouraged.  I was told that what I thought or felt had more to do with a "lack 
of faith" than with any inadequacies which might have been contained in the 
church doctrine, as it stood.  I realized that I did not want to become the 
person that the church was forming me into.  But, I was not willing to abandon 
principles, insights, and intuitions which were related to things which I had 
learned along the way.  I did not become an atheist, but my view of divinity was 
changing, at times quite painfully.


						-4-

	When I entered the University of Washington I registered for a course on 
the Transcendentalists (Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman).  Reading Emerson changed 
my life.  I did not pretend to understand all that was being said, in fact, 
quite the opposite, I understood very little.   However, something in Emerson's 
message reached me on a very deep level, something about the individual's 
relationship to "mystical" experience, something which, at my best and worst 
moments, started to emerge in my consciousness.   This something may have been 
the "oversoul" which Emerson talks about at times, but to try to describe 
exactly the experience I was having would be a vain effort.  Suffice it to say 
their work was part of the general change in perception which was occurring 
within me, a change which was to be with me for a lifetime.
	During my sophomore year, my longtime friend, Jeff, introduced me to 
Transcendental Meditation.  I still practice TM, although not with the 
consistency which is mandated by that tradition/dogma.  It was a breakthrough of 
the highest order for me.  I no longer had to theorize about transcendent 
reality; the perceptions which accompanied the practice were undeniable, whether 
I accepted the labels given to them by the organization or not.  This was 
something which completely changed my world view. However, I am not now a 
participant in that organization, and have not been for some time.  I saw people 
having profound experiences, which I shared, but, over time, I did not see the 
changes in them, or in myself, which I was seeking -- a transformation of the 
heart.   Granted, many on the TM track have found inner fulfillment of a sort, 
but I realized quite early on that the organization was run by individuals, 
individuals who asked me to again go on "faith" that the right decisions were 
being made, and that the higher authorities who were "running the show" somehow 
knew more about spirituality than any of their supposed subordinates did.  I 
wasn't willing to go along with it.  If this was higher realization, which it 
might have been to a certain extent, it still wasn't the only way, and it 
definitely was not the way that suited me best.  
	When I got to my late 20's I was starting to get desperate.    Although my 
meditation path was wholly satisfactory,  I was not finding a community of 
individuals who seemed to be looking for what I was looking for, a path which 
acknowledged the "reality" of both the immanent and the transcendent, and which 
included both, in a 
compassionate way.  
	Also I was not interested in a path of "faith", in an individual or an 
institution.   
I  needed shared personal experience and validation along with instruction in 
transcendent experience and principles.  I needed to be with a group that was 
experiencing something similar to what I was experiencing, which did not put 
complete 
faith in dogma or a charismatic leader, but rather put faith in mutual discovery 
and 
transformation.  
	One day, a friend told me about Gurdjieff, and gave me a book called In 
Search of the Miraculous, by Ouspensky.  The ideas in it fascinated me enough to 
the point that I joined a "work group" soon afterwards.  Although I am no longer 
part of the Gurdjieff Work, I still carry much that I learned there with me, and 
treasure it.  During the time spent there I experienced different states of 
conscious awareness about which I previously had had no idea, one of which is 
"remembering oneself".   This is a state 

						-5-

described in other literature as non-dual awareness.  I no longer needed to 
fantasize about whether non-duality was only a myth, or whether it could be real 
in one's life.  
	The enneagram -- a system based on the division of a fundamental whole 
into seven parts--and the existence of different soul types were discussed in 
this group.
	I remained in this teaching for four years before again becoming 
disillusioned about the organization and its purposes.  There were either too 
many people in it who were beyond me, or there were too many people in it who 
thought they were, and made it very clear that they thought they were.  Fine, 
that is to be proven, but it is not something that, after four years, I was  
willing to accept by "faith".  When I left I endured an intense session of 
reproach by my teacher, which led me to be suspicious of the entire process 
there.  It was clear at the time, and is still clear, that my decision to leave 
was for the best.  
	So, I was again left "in the lurch" without a teacher and without a 
community of like-minded individuals.  So, one day, after meditation, I decided 
that if I had a spiritual guide, a guardian angel, or whatever term is 
appropriate, I would ask this guide to lead me to my next teacher.  The mental 
response was "ask Dave".
	Dave was a friend, and a coworker in the San Francisco Opera orchestra, 
who had shared my interest in spiritual questions, a person that I trusted.  But 
for some reason I did not ask him.  However, when I saw him at the next 
orchestra rehearsal he 
handed me a book, Messages from Michael by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, and with it a 
rather cryptic looking chart with my name on it.  The chart said: Paul M., 1st 
level old scholar, in the perseverance mode with a goal of acceptance, a realist 
in the moving part of the intellectual center, with a chief feature of 
impatience.  I thought that Dave had popped his cork, it seemed so outlandish 
and out of character.  But, out of respect for him, I read the book.  It was 
interesting enough for me to pursue the lead, and I soon found myself in a group 
led by a channeler.  It was fascinating.
	I will not go into the contents of that entire teaching, but most of it 
was awesome.  Here was a place where questions of the type in which I was 
interested were being discussed, and I was being provided not so much with 
answers, although they were there too, but with directions for my inquiries, and 
encouragement and help along my individual path.  I stayed with this group for 
three years, and am still in contact with several members -- I even married one!  
Although I left that group, I never totally left the work that I experienced 
there, and I often use what I learned there in my everyday life.  
Many of that teaching's realities are still with me, and I still rely upon 
information discovered in that group for my present work.
	It was here that I first was introduced to the concept of the paradigms of 
the soul (referred to as "essences" in this teaching):  Server, Artisan, 
Warrior, Scholar, Sage, Priest and King.  
	 My years with the Michael Teaching removed my skepticism concerning the 
possibility of higher states of consciousness and higher sources of information 
which are available for us to tap into, and which are not part of our "normal 
daily state of awareness".  How we reach those levels of awareness, and what we 
think about the sources is up to us.  I left the teaching with no question in my 
mind that states of intuition-inspiration do exist which are beyond our daily 
consciousness; at least, we don't 
						-6-

pay attention to them as part of our usual awareness framework.  This heightened 
awareness, which the Michael work terms "causal," can bring previously-
unimagined insights.                          
	I would not have stayed as long as I did if I hadn't found this group to 
be very worthwhile, because by this time I was able to spot a red herring a bit 
quicker than 
before.  But, after three years,  I no longer wanted to continue with that 
channeler, despite my continued interest in the teaching itself.
	It may be that a person's stay with a particular group of this sort, or a 
particular channeler, is by necessity limited.  After a certain amount of time a 
person may gently be prodded from within to do it themselves, or study the 
material in general and be happy with that.  I was treated with respect for the 
most part, except for a few unfortunate mix-ups, and I appreciate my time there.
	But, now, at the age of 38, I was really on my own.  Where was I to go 
from here?  I no longer needed proof that we are each an integral part of a 
great universe, and that we relate to that universe on many levels, both obvious 
and hidden, consciously or unconsciously, depending on our state of awareness, 
and that we are significant both as individuals and as parts of greater 
"wholes".   
	Also I no longer was attached to the idea that all of evolution stopped 
with humankind.  I believed, and still do believe, that we are a part of a 
"great chain of being" (Whitehead) which extends through all levels of the 
universe.  
	Then it began to dawn on me, it wasn't more understanding that I needed, 
although the process of understanding is always important. What I needed had to 
do with me, with a deepening of my individual awareness of what I am, and what 
is possible for who I am.  When I started to focus  on this question, something 
more profound started to shift, and then transform, for me.    
	More than 10 years have passed.  My path is quite different now, not 
altogether without remnants of past habits and assumptions, but what I value is 
no longer so unconscious, so unattainable, so mysterious.  I have been reading 
the work of Ken Wilber for the past few years, and find it to be astounding, 
profound, and full of hope.                       	As for my group, my "soul 
mates", well they've been there all along, we have joined hands many times, in 
many places.  I was just expecting everybody to be in one place, waiting for me!