My parents came from the “old school” when it came to childraising. I was not allowed to wander the streets with the other children of the neighborhood. My parents confined me to the yard unless I had expressed objectives, somewhere specific to go and someone to oversee what we were doing. I often felt trapped as I watched my friends come and go at will. I am grateful today for what my parents did, but at the time it was a bitter pill to swallow. When the others would go carp fishing or bike riding I stayed home and invented things to do. All alone I lifted weights until I almost couldn’t comb my own hair because muscles got in the way. It may have been different if we had been raised on a farm.

I spent a lot of time praying, which was uncharacteristic of the children my age. But I had more time on my hands than most of the others. Prayer became a friend to me. I enjoyed it a lot because praying would often leave me with a feeling of freedom and joy that my friends never could quite understand. Some of my most significant understandings came from the early years in prayer. I remember jumping gleefully to my knees along side my bed after school and saying to myself, “Now a little time with my Father in Heaven”. Almost all of the good emotions I felt about my early life began on my knees. I would have liked to have taken credit for that behavior, but the credit belongs to the wisdom of my parents.

The human organism contains many perceptive abilities beyond the five senses. Many of them have been suppressed in our day of mass media where we rely on input to provide us with the way we feel and think. I learned at the same time that the power of my feelings had the ability to change my condition in some pretty amazing ways. Prayer was the time I used to learn how to think and feel. Our ancestors learned the abilities of the mind and body in the quiet of an agrarian society. Native Americans learned this lesson from nature long ago. The ability to learn from one’s conscience, the ability to sense danger, the ability to care about other people and live synergistically with the earth, the sixth sense of knowing things that you can’t perceive with the five senses and many others can be developed if we allow Mother Nature to take her course. I also learned that the way I felt had a way of connecting to other people even when I didn’t contact them directly at the time. Without training, birds would not migrate and people loose this rich ability to “feel” their way through life’s decisions. With powerful feelings we can touch other’s lives without knowing it.

It is only natural for people to feel anger, depression and fear in the quiet of an otherwise peaceful and tranquil life, like noticing ripples on a glass-like pond. This is the way the soul teaches us how to pay attention to what needs to be done. Feelings can become our friends in a proactive sense as well instead of merely warning us about our enemies or what is going to go wrong.

I remember telling myself as my ex-wife walked out the door for the final time that she can take all my property, garnish my wages, make me sad and even take my children but I will not let her prevent me from having feelings, even if they hurt me. My feelings kept me alive as a young man and were the power behind the miracles in my life. It was the one thing I could control and she couldn’t take from me. It was the most brilliant thing I ever decided in my whole life. I have come to the conclusion over the years that she left because she couldn’t be alone as long as I was around and she wasn’t ready to give up her secrets. Even though I was working and studying 22 hours a day (two hours of sleep a night) and often away from home, living with me was an exercise in synergy I learned in South America and in prayer. She couldn’t have a secret because I would feel it from afar. I learned about her biggest problem during one of my private prayers. I don’t remember hovering over her or smothering her with my attentions. I don’t remember feeling jealous. Jealousy is a feeling of insecurity within one’s self. Maybe I was too arrogant, but the last thing I felt at the time was insecure. We didn’t have to argue to become estranged. Paradoxically I had triggered her defense mechanisms when I seemed to know what she was doing all the time. She just needed to be separate and hadn’t learned the power of “togetherness”.

Sadly, the night I found out her secret on my knees I was so shocked and stunned that I simply walked up to her and asked the question. The look on her face was corroboration enough. I did a stupid thing that night. I went out and got roaring drunk, which I had never done in my whole life. I woke up in the bathtub with a pennant wife pouring water over my head and apologizing. I don’t remember making the conscious choice of getting drunk. I think the bars were the only things open that late at night and I couldn’t drive a car very far feeling that way. The next day in class my professor, and the head of the department, could see me dripping tears off my chin in the back row. I am sure now that he could probably smell the alcohol too. He knew I didn’t drink and abruptly canceled the rest of the class. He told me to get in his car and we drove into the mountains for a long conversation. His ultimate advice was that I needed to pay her back in kind. I turned and told him simply that two wrongs don’t make it right. However, it was wonderful that he would care enough to take the time.

Prior to our problem she wanted to learn to play the “country fiddle” and I bought her three and encouraged her to get involved in the culture as a hobby while I was preparing a career for our home. I encouraged her to attend country concerts and to play in a band. I knew that she needed to be independent. I helped her find the time by cooking and shopping, tending the kids and some of the cleaning.

She told me ten years after our divorce that she had never been in love with me from day one. That one hurt a lot until I realized that she had forgotten the reason she married me somewhere over the years. You can’t be engaged for two years without knowing somewhere along the line that you don’t love your perspective partner, especially if you are beautiful and have the constant attentions from others. One of the greatest lessons I have learned in life is that you can forget feelings very easily, especially the good ones. The last feelings you feel become the only feelings you remember. That is the secret to emotional healing and well as emotional demise.

Most people who suffer catastrophe or loss try and turn off their feelings to avoid suffering. The smart ones encourage their feelings and learn. That is the thrust of most expensive psychotherapy. It is also the basics of the teachings of Jesus. Looking at the advice of Jesus from a distant one might think that Jesus is trying to teach us to “give up” on life and wait for something better in the life to come. That isn’t the case at all. Jesus’ advice to Nicodemus to sell all that he had and to come and follow wasn’t suggesting that poverty is the answer to life’s problems. Jesus was trying to say that to spend one’s life caring for the things of the world and ignoring the life’s real purpose is to loose the power and rewards of being a child of God and an eternal being.

I remember the day I returned after a long stay in South America before I met my wife. I had lived in homes with dirt floors and no electricity. I had eaten in the streets with the people. I had watched them die of common diseases we can remedy with over the counter medication. I watched as the insane walked the streets with no place to go. Amidst all this deprivation there was a spirit of joy among the people that is hard to describe for someone who hasn’t lived in the third world for extended periods of time. They loved their children and their aged more than we. They watched out for each other and neighbors would take care of people to whom they were not related.

One of the native women who came to see me off as I was returning to the USA gave me the gift of a chicken egg before I boarded the plane. It was the most precious thing she had. I sobbed at her gift and received it with affection. That gift has changed the way I view everything in my life and substantially altered the way I look at possessions. I wonder if that woman knew how many others have benefited from her present to me. As a result of her gift I have never sold my used cars, but rather gave them to someone in need. When we moved from Illinois after college we needed the largest U-Haul in the fleet. When mother and I moved to Arizona three years ago we put a lifetime of both of our affects in suitcases. The rest went to those in need. It was the smartest thing I have done in a decade. This was the lesson of Nicodemus in our lives.

I often dreamed while in South America of getting back to the US and taking a hot bath, eating a tomato, fixing a can of mushroom soup and using a private bathroom with walls and toilet facilities to which we have all become accustomed. I promised myself I would get on my knees and kiss the ground when I got off the plane and pay homage to the land I loved. None of that happened. When I arrived at LAX the thing I remember most was sitting on a bench and not being able to hold back the tears. At first I didn’t understand what I was feeling. It was extremely powerful. These were not tears of joy for having come home. These were tears of sadness for the coldness of the American people, something I never imagined before that moment. I realized in an instant after watching the people in the airport that we are not the benefactors and philanthropists of the world we think we are. We were the main source of thoughtlessness, hatred, decadence, immorality and sloth for the whole world. We had permeated the planet with “new age” values that were inferior to the ones in the third world…the real “old school”. I knew instantly why God loved these “lost sheep” more than we the “ninety and nine”. Most of all I felt sorry for America. In South America even strangers communicated across a crowded room. At the airport in Los Angeles people standing right next to each other were oblivious to the person next to them. It felt like for the first time in years I had disappeared into a crowd, when that was never possible in South America. There was a form of “People Power” when you felt part of those around you. There is a sense of loneliness when you don’t.

There was another time I felt this “people power”. It was during a near death experience. The first thing I noticed in the heavens was the overwhelming spirit of well being, peace and love and most of all connection. The basic ability to feel is the power which created the universe. It is the ultimate science. I finally understand that love is not the icing on the cake. It is the power behind the creation of the cake to begin with. I also have come to understand that the same power the heavens use in the creation process and in governing the universe is a power we can use ourselves in a wide variety of practical applications. It was clear to me while I was in heaven that the sensation of love and peace wasn’t merely a sense of appreciation for having a nice place to spend eternity. These feelings were the power behind what everyone was doing.

Jesus said that if we had faith we could move mountains with the power of the words of our mouth. (Matt. 17: 20) He called it faith. Faith is a feeling. Faith is also power. The power I felt in my Near Death Experience wasn’t the power of independent magic. It was like everything was cooperating with a singular-higher purpose. Nobody was operating independently from each other. In heaven they were sharing what was going on with everyone else in a form of universal “one-mindedness”. I wondered later what my ex-wife would think when everyone around her will know what she was doing and feeling?

Most of us are Sunday believers who divorce our business and everyday lives from the things we espouse on the weekends. That is a grave mistake. It is not only wicked, but is ignorant and falls short of the power we could generate in our lives. Earl Nightingale said in the late sixties, “If there was no such thing as “honesty” someone ought to invent it as the best way of getting rich”. “Honesty” begins with a feeling on many levels. George Eccles Caine, the grandson of Marion Eccles (the former head of the Federal Reserve) said to me that, “The higher up in business you go the nicer people become”. George came from old money which he clamed was “nicer money”. Truly he was a wonderful-caring man who taught me a great deal. The power of his life has influenced thousands of people far beyond the philanthropy of his generous family. He drew business to him like a magnet because you could sense his feelings from across a crowded room.

I have thought long and hard about the lessons of George Caine over the years. The age of his money really wasn’t the reason for his pleasant demeanor and philanthropy. He had learned that money wasn’t an excuse for ego and didn’t make you better than someone else. He learned how to provide an estate for his family and the secret of taking as many as he could with him. Nicodemus should have learned that lesson. It was also the lesson of the wealth of the family of Jesus. They were renowned philanthropists too. They gave a third of their increase to the poor and needy. (Gospel of the Virgin Mary)

Though the power of egocentrism has preserved tribes and nations through the millennia it falls short of the power of a higher protocol. I rarely get political, but anyone who thinks that we invaded Iraq to benefit from their oil reserves doesn’t know how to use a pencil and add a column of simple figures. How much suffering would the world have avoided if someone would have taken out Hitler or Stalin before their reign or terror and suffering? Whatever the cost in terms of money and criticism would have been cheap. We are the only nation in history who intervenes in order to return power to the people. That process hasn’t been perfect and the leaders have made many mistakes. However, God has done the same thing over the millennia. Civilizations have allowed themselves to “ripen in inequity” and God has destroyed them before they could destroy successive generations and thwart is plan. At some point the people need to rise above their ego and cure themselves or someone, or something, will cure the problem for them. It is an old story. The longest contiguous civilizations didn’t have dictators and rampant corrupt regimes for extended periods of time. The strength of Rome was their republican form of government. The decadent Caesars didn’t last long. The emperors of China with the longest-term dynasties learned the lessons of home-ministerial rule, civil education and the development of the arts of the people. The Toltecs governed the Americas longer than any other recorded society because of the merchant traffic owned and operated by the people. Governments can accomplish the whole task.

We face another era of world catastrophe if we do not come to our higher senses. The prophecies are clear. You can disagree with me all you want, but the evidence is like handwriting on the wall. The Kolbrin speaks of these things. “Maya Cosmogenesis 2012” http://www.ancientmanuscripts.com/books/maya_cosmogenesis_2012.htm speaks of them too. Each of us has the responsibility to gather the passion of this feeling expressed in the ancient texts for ourselves. It is our only protection.

I have been to Egypt and had the people gather around and hug me. Our troops in Iraq have experienced the same thing. Ask them. I have stood in the middle of Anti American demonstrations in Bolivia and had the people hug me while carrying signs saying “Yankee Go Home”. Part of them loves Americans and part of them fears us. It must be frightening to love and distrust the people who both provide the world with hope and spread the amoral message in film and media. You would be confused too.

Love and hate are closely associated with each other and have the same level of power. It is impossible to truly hate someone unless you have loved them too. Standing back, the world teeters on the edge of survival based on the power of our feelings. Will we learn the lessons of “old money”? I admit that we need the skeptics to pull on the reigns of government imperialism. That is the magic of checks and balances envisioned by our godly founding fathers. However, we should never let the skeptics drive the country either. They are the blindest of the sightless and the ultimate third party…Monday morning quarterbacks. It would be wonderful to hide within our own borders and let the rest of the world fend for itself. However, that is a lesson hard learned over many generations paid for in blood. If we don’t do the minimum then God will do it for us. We think He has done this over the millennia in juxtaposition with His great love. That isn’t correct at all. He sees the earth in an eternal context and understands that if He had left man exclusively to his own devices that there would be no humans left, which would have thwarted His grand design. The skeptics of God need only review history to see the evidence of the Almighty.

If we should be at war with anything we should be at war with amorality, which is a form of not caring. To abandon that front will cost us in blood the likes of which we have not known in modern times. The final chapter of mortality has a happy ending, but it is a happy ending paved in blood. I have said that all my life. Ultimately it is the pathos we have created for ourselves which will teach us the lesson God sent us here to learn. The earth has come and it will pass away. Billions years from now we will be telling the story of mortality, having learned if for ourselves. The lessons of courage and apathy (both feelings) will be the power behind our level of participation in the events of the eternities. Heaven is a busy place and no one is idol there. They are busy with synergistic tasks. Somewhere along the line we need to learn how to generate feelings…passion in our lives. Passion is “The stuff of the heavens”. That is the purpose of Ancient Manuscripts.

Glenn Kimball's websites: ancientmanuscripts.com and ancientamerican.com