Stop Making Yourself Miserable David Richman

As the last episode ended, I was beginning my return to normal life after the unexpected death of my father. The unanticipated event had turned my entire world upside down.
After remaining home for a one-week mourning period, when I returned to normal life, everything was exactly the same as it had been when I left it. Same classes. Same teachers. Same friends. Everything was the same. Except nothing was the same and it would never be again. It’s a terrible feeling and everyone who has experienced the early stages of deep grief is painfully aware of it.
However, there was one thing that was radically different in my new daily routine, which was that I was now going to synagogue every morning and every night and would be doing it for eleven months. The same held true for my brother, who was eight years older than me.
It was a big eight years at that age because while I was in the middle of high school and living the life of a teenager, he was in his last year of law school, had been married for a few years, and his wife was about six weeks away from giving birth to their first child.
But even so, we had always done everything together. We even lived in the same room in our house until he moved out for college. So naturally, we started attending the daily service together.
Very early in the process, I came to understand that while the ritual of saying the mourner’s prayer is ostensibly to honor the dead, in reality, it provides a tremendous benefit for the living survivors. It was an enormous help to me on several key levels, and the most important one for me was that the rabbi of this particular synagogue was truly a spiritual giant. We got to spend an enormous amount of time with him and became extremely close.
So, that new way of life began for me in the second week of December of 1965. Let’s jump ahead almost six months later to the end of May of 1966. As I’ve said, we have an enormous amount of resiliency at that age, and even with all the trauma around the death, I was still having a great year at school.
My brother, Mike and I had been attending services every morning and night. We never missed a service and we intended to keep it that way, but suddenly something came up that was going to be an insurmountable problem for him.
His last year of law school was coming to an end and soon, it would be time for him to take the bar exam. A two-day cram course was being offered that went until nine each evening and he was going to have to miss services for two nights.
It was upsetting to him but there was no away around it and it absolutely had to happen. The first night came and I attended the service without him. It really was no big deal and I didn’t pay any attention to it.
It was a normal night. I ate dinner with my mother, went to the synagogue and said the prayer, came home and did my homework and eventually got washed and went to bed. Then, one of the strangest things that has ever happened to me took place
For some reason, I didn’t feel tired at all and thought I was going to have some trouble falling asleep. I was just lying there, and the next thing I knew, I suddenly found myself back in the chapel of the synagogue once again. It was a strange sensation because I felt like I had actually gone back in time. The events that had just happened a few hours earlier started happening again. It was like watching an instant replay, but instead of just watching it, I was living through it.
Everything happened exactly as it had, just a few hours earlier. Services ended, and I walked out of the chapel. But this time, when I entered the main lobby, I heard a sharp sound. “Psst! Psst!” It was clear to me that whatever that replay had been was over. I knew I was in new territory because nothing like this had happened earlier.
The sound came from my left. I looked over at the dark corner near the sanctuary doors and suddenly, my father stepped out of the shadows. 
Amazed, I walked right

The last episode ended on the evening of December 3, 1965 when my father suffered a massive heart attack and died instantly during a nationally televised NBA game between the 76ers and the Boston Celtics.
As I have mentioned previously, this podcast series examines the enormous evolution of consciousness that began to take place in the western world during the 1960s, as well as looking at what happened to me personally during those turbulent times, which led to my life-long commitment to the greater realization of human potential.   
It also seeks to present you with some fundamental ideas that you might find useful as you grow through your own inner evolutions, which is something we all do, whether we’re aware of it or not. That’s just the way our intelligence works.  
So, even though the events surrounding my father’s death were extremely traumatic, this is not an autobiographical look back at them. Rather, I am going to describe some of the realizations I experienced that began to open a pathway to my own inner growth.
Looking back, I can see that without having the slightest awareness of it, I had been living my life with two basic assumptions that I had been taking for granted. As naïve as they may sound, these assumptions were simple - everything was going to stay the same and I would live forever.
Of course, I knew intellectually, as we all do, that that these ideas are ridiculous. In reality, everything here ends and everybody dies. But as we all must learn sooner or later, there is a vast difference between believing a theoretical concept of something and experiencing the actual reality of it. And that’s especially true when it comes to death.  
For me, the aspect of sudden death was a powerful and rather rude teacher. It felt like having to learn how to swim because the luxury cruise ship you had been traveling on suddenly sank. The next thing you know, you’re in a freezing cold ocean and you notice a dark fin sticking out of the water that keeps circling around you. Of course, that’s just a metaphor, but that’s kind of what it felt like.
But the death itself was also accompanied by an additional, mysterious factor. On top of the shock and grief, I had to ponder the series of cryptic omens that had preceded it that were particularly unnerving.
As you may recall, along with several less intense events, I had experienced a jarring, recurring nightmare for three consecutive nights, followed by an incredibly vivid dream that my father had died. Then in the real world, the dream came true the following night, exactly the way I had dreamt it. In metaphysical terms, this is called a pre-cognitive dream, which is more of a prophecy than a premonition.
So, under the surface, there was always this other element that I had to deal with, which was the uncanny experience that I had somehow foreseen the future. It had been incredibly strange and I had to ask myself – “How could that have happened? How could you have seen something in such detail the night before it happened? And, what does that say about time and the nature of life itself?”
There was another deeply troubling aspect to the experience as well.  In real life, when I began living through the events of the dream, I knew exactly what was coming next and I wanted to change the events. But to my severe shock, I found that I had no control over anything whatsoever.
The incredibly odd fact was that I had absolutely no volition. Nothing that I thought, felt, or decided made any difference at all. I was awake. This was real. But it was like I was walking through a movie that had already been made. I knew that nothing could be changed because somehow, I knew that the present had already happened in the past. It was all too overwhelming to even try to understand.
Some years later, I came come across a profound quote from Einstein that seemed related. “The distinction between past, present and future is nothing but a stubb

In the last episode, we looked at two disturbing events that happened to me during the last week of November of 1965. In the first, I was sitting in synagogue with my father and toward the end of the Saturday morning service as the rabbi was announcing the prayer called the Mourner’s Kaddish, with a sudden sense of urgency, my father had me swear a solemn oath before God that I would say this prayer for him after he died. Surprised at the completely unexpected request, but taking no serious note of it, I made the vow.
Then a few nights later, I had a harrowing nightmare where I was being chased by an invisible killer. I ended up standing before a huge wooden cross that clearly represented death to me. A hooded monk who was standing next to it, telepathically said to me, “You have come upon it.”
Then to my extreme dismay, the dream turned into a recurring nightmare, as I had it on the following two nights as well. Now, as you may sense, we are beginning to approach some rather dramatic territory and before we start, I would like to mention a couple of key points, by way of introduction.  
First, the events that were about to unfold would alter not only my entire life, but more critically, my most basic understandings about the nature of existence itself.  Foundations were being laid that would lead to the massive inner revolutions I would grow though during the deeply turbulent times that were about to follow.
Secondly, the main reason that I am recounting these events is to provide some possible encouragement to anyone who may be facing some hard times and might want to explore the deeper sides of human intelligence and the potential that lies within each one of us.  So here we go.
The next part of the story begins on Thursday night, December 2. My father was leaving for Boston the next day for the big 76ers - Celtics showdown in the Boston Garden. It was still early in the season, but the stakes were already enormous.
For me, the day had flown by as any standard eleventh grade day normally did.  After dinner, I finished my homework, goofed around a little and finally went to bed, but I never got sleepy.  I was much too agitated.
My mind seemed to be spinning around about my social life, my schoolwork, and of course, the gigantic upcoming game with the Celtics. But I knew that none of that was what was keeping me awake. The real reason I couldn’t fall asleep was because I was too afraid that I was going to have that horrible nightmare again, and I just couldn’t face the prospect of going through it all one more time. 
I don’t remember getting tired or drifting off to sleep. I was just lying in bed with my eyes closed and the very next thing I knew, I felt a funny sensation in my stomach, like I was in a moving car that had just come over a hill and was on its way down. I opened my eyes and saw my hands resting on the steering wheel of a car. I looked over them at the hood and realized I was driving my father’s Cadillac. 
I came down the hill on Spring Avenue and turned left onto Heather Road, as I had done a million times before. Our house was on the corner.
With slight concern, I noticed that there were a few cars parked in front as I drove by, which was out of the ordinary. I made a right turn into the driveway, pulled up, and got out of the car. I walked around back and came in though the kitchen door.
My mother was on the phone with her back to me. She didn’t turn around. My father’s younger brother was standing in front of the stove with his arms folded across his chest. He kept staring down at the floor, as though I wasn’t even there.
I went into the main hall, and up the stairs. I turned left at the top and walked up to my sister’s room. As usual, her door was closed. I put my right hand on it, and stopped for a moment. Starring at the back of my hand I thought, “Well, this is it.”
I pushed the door open. Sybil was standing in the back of the room with a few

At the conclusion of the last episode, in late November of 1965, I was having a happy life as a normal sixteen-year-old eleventh grader. Things were going well and everything seemed right on track. 
However, even though I had hardly noticed, a few things happened, which in retrospect could be seen to have been subtle warnings of a coming change. First, my father had told me that he would never be a grandfather and given the fact that my brother’s wife was seven months pregnant, that meant that he had less than two months to live.  
Then I had unexpectedly ran into an old comic book that had two mysterious stories concerning Abraham Lincoln and death, which I found to be hauntingly disturbing. Again, I paid no real attention to any of these at the time. But two more events were about to happen that would take things to another level.   
The first one happened on a Saturday morning as my father and I were sitting in services in a modern synagogue near our home in Elkins Park. He was thinking about changing our affiliation, as we still belonged to our original temple, but it was a twenty-five-minute drive each way. This place was close enough that we could walk, which was a dream come true for him.
Toward the very end of every Jewish service, a prayer is recited called the Mourner’s Kaddish. It is one of the keystones of the religion, and every congregation does it, all over the world. Interestingly, even though it’s done to honor the dead, it never once mentions death or dying. It’s a prayer of praise, and the idea is that you always praise God, no matter what happens. As much as your heart may be broken, the teachings say that there’s always a pathway that leads to salvation.
As we sat there, the rabbi invited the mourners to rise to say Kaddish, and one of the kids from my school stood up, which surprised me. “I know that kid,” I whispered to my father. “I didn’t know anybody in his family died.”
Suddenly, to my surprise, my father got extremely serious. “This Kaddish prayer is much more important than you know,” he said, speaking in a tone of voice I had never heard before. It was incredibly solemn and I could barely tell it was him.
 “I want you to promise me that after I die, you will come to services and say Kaddish for me, every morning, and every night. And that you will do it for the full eleven months.”
It was a strange moment for me. I had never heard him that somber before and besides, it didn’t make sense - he was only fifty-two. There was no question that I would say Kaddish for him after he died but that was twenty or thirty years down the road. “Of course, I will, Dad,” I said matter-of-factly. “You know I will.”
Then the weird got weirder. “We’re in synagogue,” he said, still in that extremely somber tone. “We’re in front of the Torah and I want you to make a solemn vow to me now. And understand, this is a vow that you are making before God himself.”
Now, we were extremely close and nothing like this had ever happened between us. He had never asked me to promise him anything before in my entire life. It seemed like a bizarre request, coming from him at this point in his life, but if this is what he wanted, why not? “OK,” I said, concealing the fact that I was slightly taken aback.
“Good,” he said. “Now, repeat after me.” He paused, and then, like a judge administering an oath of office, he slowly recited the vow, one sentence at a time. And I repeated it after him, word for word.
“I promise before God, that after you die, I will come to services and say Kaddish for you every morning and night for the full eleven months, so help me God.” When I said the last phrase, he exhaled deeply and slumped forward in his seat, with his eyes closed.
He didn’t move a muscle and for a second, I thought he might have passed out. It could have been for just an instant or it may have been much longer. I don’t remember now.  W

We ended the last episode in April of 1965 when George Harrison and John Lennon of the Beatles were unexpectedly given a dose of LSD by their dentist at a dinner party that he was hosting for them. This was done without their knowledge or permission, and although it could have had some significantly negative consequences, fortunately for everyone concerned, it all worked out well.
At this point in the podcast series, it’s important to understand that this narrative is about the evolution of consciousness, especially as it happened on a mass level beginning in the mid-sixties. And that will serve as a lead in to some of the remarkable experiences I had at the time, which led to my lifelong involvement with personal growth, which is just a simpler term used for the evolution of consciousness.  
As we’ve seen, two substances, marijuana and LSD, played significant roles at the time, but they were just catalysts for the massive changes that were beginning to take place. Critically, this isn’t about those substances, how they work or the positive or negative aspects of them. This is about the liberation and elevation of human consciousness itself, which can easily happen with or without the use of external stimulants.
Indeed, myriads of people have experienced enlightening inner growth without ever using any of these kinds of substances, and by the same token, plenty of people have taken large amounts of them and have gained very little, if any lasting enlightenment. So, it all depends upon the individual involved, as well as on the circumstances that help set the stage.
That being said, let’s take a brief look at what happened to John and George that night at their dentist’s home and then, what happened to Ringo and Paul a little later.
 It seems that George had a profoundly illuminating experience that night. As he said, “I felt this amazing sensation come over me. It was like an intense version of the best feeling I ever had in my life. It was wonderful. I felt in love with everything and everyone. Everything was perfect and beautiful, and I wanted to tell everyone how much I loved them — even strangers.
“I had such an overwhelming feeling of well-being, that there was a God, and I could see him in every blade of grass. It was like gaining hundreds of years of experience within twelve hours. It changed me, and there was no way back to what I was before.”
Indeed, there was no way back for him and the same held true for John as well, who said about that first night, “God, it was just terrifying, but it was fantastic.” He began taking it on a somewhat regular basis and later he said, “LSD was the self-knowledge which pointed the way. I was suddenly struck by great visions when I first took acid. But you've got to be looking for it before you can possibly find it. Perhaps I was looking without realizing it.”  I’ve always felt that given the cultural framework of the time, that was quite a profound observation of his.
About moving forward, George said, “John and I had decided that Paul and Ringo had to have acid because we couldn’t relate to them anymore. Not just on the one level — we couldn’t relate to them on any level, because acid had changed us so much. It was such a mammoth experience that it was unexplainable. It was something that had to be experienced, because you could spend the rest of your life trying to explain what it made you feel and think. It was all too important to John and me.”
 Ringo joined John and George for their second LSD trip on August 25, 1965 and his experience seemed positive as well. “I’d take anything,” he later said. “It was a fabulous day. The night wasn’t so great, because it felt like it was never going to wear off. Twelve hours later and it was, ‘Give us a break now, Lord.'”
Paul was a bit more hesitant, and despite repeated pleas from his bandmates, he held out for over a year. But when he finally gave it a try, he said, “I a

In the last episode, we looked at two critically important events that happened in August of 1964 that would eventually have truly profound effects on Western culture, as well as on world history in general. On August 7, the US Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and 21 days later, on August 28, Bob Dylan got together with the Beatles in their New York City hotel suite for a casual evening of fun.
Again, neither event seemed overly important at the time, but in the long run, they were truly critical. By a nearly unanimous vote, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution effectively gave President Lydon Johnson “carte blanche” to direct the American military operation in Southeast Asia however he saw fit.  
A few weeks later, at the party New York, Bob Dylan got John, Paul, George, and Ringo high on marijuana for the first time in their lives, blowing the doors of perception wide open for them.  And significantly, in their altered state, he told them that he admired their songs, but the problem was that they weren’t about anything. This casual comment proved to be deeply moving to them in terms of their creativity.  
The last episode was titled, “Tale of Two Seeds,” and that’s exactly what it was because two very different seeds had been planted. And within a rather short period of time, both of those seeds would sprout and start growing like wildfire, and ultimately, one would be the undoing of the other.
But let’s veer off a little here for a quick reminder of what this sequence of episodes is all about. As I’ve mentioned a few times earlier, the underlying theme of all of this is the evolution of consciousness that began to take place in a very serious way back then and has continued, through to this day, although often quite subtly.
As the series has unfolded, we’ve gotten some terrific feedback from our subscribers, but there has been one question that has come up a few times and I’d like to address it briefly. The question is, “What do you mean by the term “evolution of consciousness?”
It’s really quite simple. Essentially, we each live in two worlds - our external world and our internal world. Our external world consists of everything that is happening around us on the outside, which generally involves our friends, our family, our career, our home, our car, our pets, and so on. And on the other hand, our internal world relates to everything that is going on within us – our thoughts, our feelings, our knowledge and understandings, our memoires, etc.
The term, “consciousness” simply refers to this inner world of ours, which holds the mass composite of all the intelligence that is within each one of us on an individual basis.  When our consciousness grows toward the positive, it turns us into better human beings, and the term “evolution of consciousness” is used to simply identify this wonderfully powerful kind of positive inner growth.
Now, human society is largely a reflection of the overall state of consciousness of the human beings in it, so the more highly evolved our individual consciousness becomes, the better the chances we have of living in a kinder and more humane society.  In other words, better people will always create a better world.
In this regard, history has shown that the artists of any age usually play very significant roles in stimulating the inner growth of the people of their time. Along these lines, although I haven’t been able to find out who said it, I once came across a great quote about the role of the artist in society. It divided people into two categories.
The first one is made up of society’s solid, reliable, hard-working people, the ones who go to work every day and do all the things we need to keep our lives going. It said that these are the people who make the world go around. But it said that the job of an artist isn’t to make the world go around. The job of the artists is to make the world go forward. As a wanna-be artist, paintin