#2: Richard Bach

One of the things that I wondered a lot in my youth was why do people live like this. Why do we automatically go to schools, get professions, work, create families, buy houses and so on. Why do we live according to such pattern? That did not sound nice to me. It seemed so obvious that we should live the way we would like to, to fullfill all our dreams, to be free of all systems, to have adventures! Why is everybody looking so serious and trying to just get new material toys into their daily routineous life? One of Richard's books started like this:

“We think, sometimes, there’s not a dragon left. Not one brave knight, not a single princess gliding through secret forests … What a pleasure to be wrong. Princesses, knights, enchantments and dragons, mystery and adventure … not only are they here-and-now, they’re all that ever lived on earth! Masters of reality still meet us in dreams to tell us that we’ve never lost the shield we need against dragons, that blue-fire voltage arcs through us now to change our world as we wish. Intuition whispers true: We’re not dust, we’re magic!”

So one can easily understand why I loved getting acquainted with books of Richard Bach. At that time I was studying (namely studying, actually I spent 1% of my time in school studying) a profession I didn't care about and met a wise fellow in virtual world. In some of our discussions he mentioned that I would probably like a lot Richard Bach's books so I went to library to borrow Jonathan Livingston Seagull, which is his most famous book. After that I read all his books. It was perfect material for dreamer. His quote "You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true." became my favourite.

Richard was a fomer air force pilot and he was living "on the road" type of life by giving flights to people in his small airplane. He slept in his plane and wrote about his "philosophy" in a story-like way. He was just enjoying life day by day. However he had his dream, which was about finding true love, a soulmate. He had divorced his first wife (I assume that's when he left on the road) but still believed in his dream. And he did meet his dream - although as always, things were little different than he believed in. Since my biggest dream (nowadays I would call it desire) was the same than Richard's, it gave me lots of belief in his idealism. And as Richard's, my dream came true as well.

Of course I didn't always agree with him. In some issues (like out of body experiences) he went too far for my taste but his core understanding was pretty good, even when I observe it nowadays. He understood non-dualism & ISness even though he seemed to put it aside at times when it did not suit him. From his later writings I could see that he learnt a lot and even more importantly, unlearned lots of his former beliefs. These next two excellent quotes are late writings of him.

First one:

"I used to think that the purpose of language was to communicate. That if we were clear enough and careful enough, we could make anyone understand anything we write, make them see anything we see. Not so, I found.

The only people who can understand us are the ones who already know what we want to tell them, and then the best of our writing can merely remind, can simply whisper, "I know that, too."

Have you ever wondered why some readers love a book and others just don't get it? I'll tell you why (but you'll understand only if you already know):

Some readers love a book because they enjoy remembering what it brings back to them. The ones who don't love it either don't know what it says, don't care what it says, or would rather not be reminded. They have different enjoyments than chasing once again the ideas a book brings out to play."

And second:

"Each of us discovers our own definition for "soulmate." These range anywhere from "A Meaningless Concept" to the pronouncing of our Significant Other's name.

For me, a soulmate is one with whom we've made a mutual decision before the beginning of any life experience, with whom we have an agreement to meet in spacetime and demonstrate for each other the best we know about sharing love.

In the highest sense we're all soulmates, one to another, we're all reflections of one light. But the highest sense renders the word impractical on our worlds of make-believe, and I resolved to lower the vibrations of my definition to embrace at least one and at most a very few soulmates in any focus of consciousness I call a lifetime.

Soulmates are not images of religious custom or cultural institution, of age or gender. Marriage does not define a soulmate, nor divorce dissolve one. No earthside connection affects that bond. We recognize each other when we meet by signals arranged at a time and place we half-remember from old dreams. The curve of a smile, fragments of shared memories, a phrase that two minds speak at just the same instant. And then we begin the dance we asked of each other before the music of time was written, and enter upon the lives we've customized for our education and our delight."