TMI US: TMI US: Dolphin Relationship Lagoon

Dolphin Relationship Aquarium

Interview with Richard Bach
Adventures of the Spirit, 2nd Volume
Part 2 of 3 parts

THINKING ALLOWED
Conversations On The Leading Edge
Of Knowledge and Discovery
With Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove
COPYRIGHT (C) 1998 THINKING ALLOWED PRODUCTIONS
Reprinted with permission from Thinking Allowed Productions

BACH: And from the moment we first open our eyes, huge dragons circle us about and say, "Who are you?" We say, "Well, I'm a definite expression of life, and I'm here playing with the light --" And the dragon cuts us off mid-sentence: "Wrong! This is space-time, kid. You can die. Stop breathing for two minutes; you are dead. Stop eating for one day; you are dead. Separate from your mommy; you are a gone cookie. That dog that looks like the family pet can eat you in a
second. This is space-time. Let's get our feet on the ground." "But don't I remember choosing it?" "You remember nothing. You remember nothing."

Over and over, hypnotic. Every time an infant opens its eyes, sees a wall, and notices Mommy and Daddy never walk through the wall; they always walk through the door -- before we even have a word for wall, we know wall is a limitation. And if somebody as big as Mommy and Daddy can't walk through it, I'm just a tiny little creature; I can't begin to. What other limitations are there? The dragons circle closer, and they will tell us what our limitations are: "There are four and a half billion people on this planet. You are one too many. If you do not eat much, and if you are very quiet, we allow you to stay. But be quiet, and remember, you don't matter."

We listen to those lies, and as children we grow up, so many of us, believing that, because it's over and over and over. And all that we know, all that's locked away within us -- that wonderful intuition, that revelation that would set us free, that remembering that we are life expressing itself joyfully in this arena of space-time -- dims and dims and dims, and finally we say, "Well, if I can see it and touch it, it must be real."

MISHLOVE: But isn't that part of the script that you yourself wrote?

BACH: Absolutely right. And the game then is to remember to remember. And that time comes. Some little flicker and flash, in some strange -- maybe a deja vu kind of experience, or a meeting with someone that we've never met, and we know, we have instant rapport with this person; we know we know: "I have known you for half an hour. Ask me what you believe. I can tell you in detail exactly what you believe. I know you that well."

And so we begin remembering, and that memory can radically alter our life. What we hold in thought comes true in our experience. That to me is a great cosmic law. So if we have chosen an environment that is ferocious for us, the way to change it -- we all have the key to change it -- is our imagination. Hold in thought a different environment -- not
for a second, because the dragons are powerful. You must hold it steadfastly, and you must say, "Here's how I will reach it. What I hold in thought will be an area that I love." All I need to find -- and this is difficult -- what is it that I would love to do? It doesn't have to seem possible at all.

What would I love to do? I, a little kid, what would I love to do? I'd love to fly. The dragon, scuttling quickly over the concrete: "You can't possibly fly. You have to be a super person to fly. You've got to have eyesight like eagles. You have to be an absolutely perfect physical specimen. You've got to have a mind like a computer. You can't fly. You're
a kid." Quiet, right? "But I'd like to fly."

And so the kid is forced back against his corner for a while. But an airplane flies over, and he watches, and a bird flies
over, and he watches, and a cloud flies over, and he watches secretly. And the dragons are restless, and every once in a while, a little tongue of flame. But then, holding that in thought, "If only I could fly," another principle comes to work. It's the principle of coincidences. Coincidences will happen, strange things.

When I was a kid, I perched like a raccoon in the chain link fence around the airport, watching the airplanes, and led into that environment, seeing that the people who walked through that gate, they were not super people. Some of them even wore glasses, and did that one limp, ever so slightly? And yet all of them set themselves in this little airplane, started the engine, and were in the air. Could I do that too? There are so many of them who fly! Could I?

Then coincidence, later on -- I come from a family where no one loves flying, and my father had a bad experience in an airplane, and he hated flying. There was no support for flying in my family. When I was in my first and only year of college, I realized I took that whole year of college in order to take a class in archery, because standing next to me on the archery range was a fellow by the name of Bob Keach, who did a strange thing. He was just about ready to let go of the arrow at his target when an airplane flew overhead, and he slacked the tension on the bow, and he looked up at that airplane. I, standing next to him, said, "That is so unusual! Airplanes
fly over Long Beach, California all the time. He must have some special interest."

And I blurted out, I said, "Bob Keach" -- by way of a joke, I said to myself -- "Bob Keach, I'll bet you're a flight instructor, and I'll bet you're looking for someone to come along to wash and polish your airplane, and in return for that you'll
teach him to fly, ha ha ha ha." And he looked at me, and he said, "How did you know?"

MISHLOVE: Synchronicity.

BACH: And the story of why he needed to have a student -- I was his second student. He needed to have five students before he would become a real flight instructor instead of a limited flight instructor. He was looking for students, and here right next to him was this guy who said, "Teach me." A little coincidence, and I ran away from school.

MISHLOVE: But it expresses, as you say, some deep principle of the universe.

BACH: Absolutely right -- that we are led toward what we love, and all we need to do is hurl ourselves toward that love, and then later on we can understand why it works, and I now, 40 years later, understand how it works. I see a kid walk out to the airport, and he's looking at my airplane, or she's looking at my airplane, with perhaps softer eyes, saying, "It's a magical machine. It's been above the clouds. If only I could touch it."

I see myself in her, and that's the dynamic that moves it. And so, gruff-faced, stony as I can be, I toss her a rag, say, "There's a lot of oil on the belly of that airplane. If you feel like it, if you really want to touch the airplane, touch it with this rag. Get that oil off. Take some polishing compound, get those exhaust stains off the belly." No promises, no nothing. Just do it.

And the kid says, "Can I?" I say, "Sure." The kid goes and works on it 15 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour, till it look pretty good. The kid walks away. The next weekend the kid is back, right? Another rag: "Get it cleaned up." This time when the kid is done -- because the kid has demonstrated, "I'm here because I want to be here. There's something about this maybe I don't understand, but I love it." So this time maybe when the kid is done washing the whole fuselage, I
say, "Looks nice. Want to fly?" "Oh!"

And a magical thing begins to happen, because seeing myself in her or him, I have the fun of reliving that time when I was
discovering my love, and yes, it is magic. There's a principle of aerodynamics as there is a principle of life. There's a huge, beautiful metaphor and simile that's working. Trust what you can't see, says flight. And here is a kid who is yearning to know just these things. So it's a delight, then, for those who have already somehow established themselves in fields that we love, it is their pleasure to help us, if only we show that we share that love with them. And it can be anything. It
can be sailboats or retail sales or broadcasting -- whatever it is.

End Part Two of Three Parts

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