CHAPTER 1 Being an Original Begins Here The (Re)Defining Moment You Were Born to Have Our lives are a series of defining moments, strung together by passing time. Surrender fully to this moment, because it is not the moment itself that defines us, but how we choose to live in it. -JILL PENDLEY On a trip to Rome, my wife and I had the good fortune of being hosted for a private tour of the Vatican. It was a sticky, hot, autumn day with wall-to-wall people from every corner of the globe moving slowly through the monolithic complex. As we walked the historic halls and galleries, some dating back 1,600 years, our guide, Stephan, paused and said, "This is a very typical day here in Vatican City . there will be about 25,000 people who will pass through these corridors today, each on a pilgrimage of their own making. Many people come to see the historical sights, and some come to seek a deeper part of themselves-to reconnect with their ancient roots-to be reminded that they are part of something much larger than themselves that they seldom think about." Stephan''s comments also tell us of our story.

There are those of us who shuffle through life as if it were a museum where our entire lives are on display-day by day adding another bit of history that influences and shapes our beliefs in ways that we may not pause to fully comprehend. At the beginning of our personal metaphoric tour, there is a moment when we are each born, and at the end of the tour, a moment when we each die; the space in between those two events is a continuum of moments, which, when strung together, we call our life. Between the coming and the going, we walk through the halls of our daily lives, spending countless unconscious moments staring at our own personal history. As we pass each display (event or experience), we seldom stop to contemplate that each experience is adding to our minds another layer of belief about ourselves and life that, ultimately, defines who we think we are. Many of us believe that we are no more than the sum of our experiences, and we have a plethora of evidence to prove this is so-we talk about it, we take plenty of pictures and video, and we share our history with others who are on a similar tour of the museum. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, I refer to living at this level of life as existing horizontally, "living on the surface." When we live on the surface of life, we believe that life is something that happens to us rather than through us, and we are unknowingly inviting the ever-changing conditions that occur on the surface of everyday life to shape us. That is a powerless and potentially unfulfilling place in which to exist.

And then one day, when it is our time to leave the museum, with our final breath, we may realize that, perhaps, just maybe, there could have been more to our lives; a deeper exploration and dimension of living than what we experienced . but we missed it by moving through each day as if we were being herded through an ever-crowded parade of passing events. My point is that by living on the surface of life, many of us squander our entire existence, spending countless precious moments being defined by our surface experiences, living from the outside in rather than the inside out. Living on the surface is probably easier and more comfortable, but we will never find the truth of who we really are by skimming the surface of life. What Awaits Us Below Surface Living? "Direct your eye inward, and you''ll find A thousand regions in your mind Yet undiscovered. Travel them and be Expert in home-cosmography." -HENRY DAVID THOREAU, Walden For many of us (until now), life has been more about getting by, surviving, and staying safe-essentially enduring life until we exit the planet. Why is it that so many of us seem to live lives that are less than deeply rewarding, enjoyable, and fully expressed? Because we exist in a horizontal world where living vertically is not the norm.

We have wandered astray; we have forgotten we are a child of the infinite Universe and lost our way, spending increasingly more time living horizontally on the surface, each day moving farther and farther, it seems, from the authentic self we knew ourselves to be at birth. To illustrate this point, just go to a park or playground and watch young children "being" themselves at play. Listen to their words and observe their behavior, and you''ll see and hear real authenticity. That is because they are still navigating life in a vertical manner; they are not yet trapped on the surface of life. Then go to a nightclub or any work environment, and watch and listen to adults "doing" whatever they do. You will see and hear something quite different as they perform roles that they have acquired through various cultural mandates. The problem is, too often, they forget it''s only a role they are playing; they have become so absorbed in their roles, they forget who they "truly" are. On the other hand, in a natural and safe environment, young children do not perform for others, even when playing with one another.

They express themselves freely and authentically . until they grow older and learn to do otherwise to survive, or so they think-and the role-playing begins. The more years we have lived, the more we have forgotten from where we''ve come and why we have come to this life. Many of us have become so disconnected from our authentic self, it''s as if we are wandering through life with no compass-no sense of who we are, or where we are going, or what we are doing here in the first place. Our soul knows who we truly are and what we are doing here. The good news is, if we are willing to access and follow our internal guidance system (the intuition continually being emitted from the soul), it is preprogrammed to seek our center, to guide us vertically, back to the authentic self. Yes . You Are That Important "There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique.

And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and will be lost." -MARTHA GRAHAM Inherent in every living thing is an insatiable hunger, the innate desire to express life by freely and fully being "what" it was uniquelycreated to be. To personalize this, consider the possibility that there was a time when you were a "what" before you were a "who." If you can wrap your mind around that possibility, then, the question to explore is, what were you before you became a who-and why did you become the who you uniquely are when there are so many other "who"s on the planet you might have been? While this may seem like a bit of a paradoxical tongue twister, it is the quintessential question that requires exploration if you are to follow your true North Star back to your point of origin, where you''ll find your authentic self waiting to weave itself into the fabric of your human life today and every day. Make no mistake about it, this is the sojourn you were born to make, not just once but many times in your life, each time returning, from your center, to the surface of your life with a deeper awareness of who you truly are beneath the trappings of the egoic-self and a world that defines itself by what lies of the surface. The "practice" (a term I use throughout this book that invites you to consider taking a specific action regarding the topic at hand) is to learn how to consciously bring your authentic "being" into your human "doing," which is where vertical living and horizontal living intersect. Your (re)defining moments will open the portals to vertical living along the way that get you there. In the process of reconnecting with your authentic self, you may be led to fully understand the significance of your life and how important you, as an individual, really are, to the whole of life.

Now let''s take a look at why this is so. In the Beginning, There Was Only Life, and There Still Is Only Life "The great mystics have been illumined. They have seen through the veil of matter and perceived the Spiritual Universe . All emerge from that One Whose Being is ever present and Whose Life, robed in numberless forms, is manifest throughout all Creation. Creation is the logical result of the outpush of Life into self-expression." -ERNEST HOLMES About fourteen billion years ago (give or take a few billion) the first chapter of the greatest miracle and mystery of all time began when something beyond all human logic and comprehension happened-the Ethers of that which, for countless millennia, would become known to humankind by many different names, including the Original Self, began to stir. This was the initiating sacred spark of Life; in a flash, self-igniting, giving birth to, and manifesting the idea of Itself. In the process of unfolding, from within and by means of its own creative nature, it left, and continues to leave, in its wake, stars, planets, and galaxies far beyond our ability to count.

It is common knowledge that stars group together in formations called galaxies. The Sun under which we bask on summer days is just another slightly above-average-size star known as a yellow dwarf and belongs to the Milky Way galaxy. Astronomers tell us there are about 100 thousand million stars in the Milky Way alone. Even more astounding, the Universe consists of millions upon millions of galaxies . and is still expanding at the speed of light (and some scientists are now saying even faster than the speed of light) without showing any sign of slowing down. I don''t even pretend to understand the physics of how this all happened or continues to happen, but I invite you to just sit for a moment with that information and breathe.