How to Live Forever

"You must go through the way in which you are not.


And what you do not know is the only thing you know


And what you own is what you do not own


And where you are is where you are not."

~ T.S. Eliot, excerpt from Four Quartets

When I began deleting my personal history, as Paulo Coehlo describes in The Zahir, it was the most joyous and bizarre experience of my life: I was simultaneously aware of who I was and who I was not, and 3D appeared both silly and sublime. It was expansive, akin to the seatbelt sign blinking off in flight as the Captain announces, "You're now free to move about the cabin."

Similarly: In college I listened to Woody Allen's amusing audiobook Without Feathers. The title refers to the Emily Dickinson poem, "'Hope' Is the Thing With Feathers".

The idea of "giving up hope" is as intriguing as stepping outside our conditioned responses. The day before the U.S. World Trade Center attacks in 2001, I'd finished reading Beyond Prophecies and Predictions: Everyone's Guide to the Coming Changes by Moira Timms, and felt suffused with a calm knowing, a sense that something was about to happen. As 9-1-1 unfolded I sent out a global message contrary to popular reaction, and was castigated as well as thanked. (Email me if you'd like a copy of This IS A Test.)

In this first year beyond prophecy, how do we live beyond hope, beyond history, beyond how we might once have responded, and simply observe our unfolding? Will Linville conveys the evolving human condition with startling beauty, demonstrating what it looks like to live as "a constant stream of consciousness".

We begin by enlarging the lens from microscope to kaleidoscope, as Caroline Casey illustrates: "We are remembering our true selves, our destiny, our role in the Dynamic Mystery Play. You know how sometimes people ask that harumphitudinous question, 'Who do you think you are?' We reframe: 'Hoo-Doo! You think! You Are!'"

This is how we morph into "forever beings" says thought leader Soleira Green. "Forever beings are not trapped by history, by past mistakes, learning, cultural influences, etc. Freedom isn't a concept since there is nothing but complete and utter freedom on every level, available all the time.… A forever being lives within limitless possibility, seeking change and creation constantly and always. This re-orients us to the ever streaming NEW and not to the static past."

Without "hope," without history, we're closer to our true nature than ever before. Or as Linville offers, "If you lose control, you're free. And you have everything."