In Loving Memory of Michael Hutchison 1945 - 2013

yesterday I mention this on the air I gotta a note from the sister one of the sisters Michael Hutchison an old friend of mine that he had passed away the night before last and ahead I'm you know i am. really sort of got in touch with dying when I sat with my father as he died it was the first time ever actually been with the person dying and he died a pretty awful dorothy was in a lot of pain but there was this sense that I had apps liberation for him at the moment he died and pattern if that are large party that my dad died in 2006 was informed bike conversations that I had back in 2009 to 2003 I i forget the year in in the late 90's early 2000's arm with Michael Hutchison Michael had been a friend of mine for ADM at least a decade at that point I'm he you see Rob mega brain in 1986 which was a book that just revolutionized the whole way that we view our brains work in and the ability to expand the power of our brain and the any remembering power in 1991 and an era in eighty four's first book actually was about floating sensory deprivation tanks it was called the book a floating and which I had tried a number of times as a consequence to having read michael's but back in the eighties and I love to I just yeah I'm you can't have a flotation tank and I'm gonna on a boat but so anyhow a Michael and I were friends and Michael and Louise I used to go to Santa Fe and hang out with Michael in which state is home and we've we he used to do these workshops were people come in and try out brain machines and things in and such a you know we've been there and Ian at whenever this happened I'm sorry don't have the date for this but in the 2000 see it Michael talks about you know what happened he actually did an interview that you can find it's titled an interview with Michael Hutchison its age you TCH Ison usually at there's an and Hutchinson but it's not there's a March is some over Tom Arban dot com you can easily google it and he says I got hit by a in this is an interview he did with one of the brain magazines and he's a got hit with a quadruple whammy one february night I was I woke up in the house was filled with black smoke his house was on fire and his office edited out basically the house went down fact he went down he was overcome by the smoke the only reason the firemen are able to find his body was and he was still alive was because they had just bought this new infrared or ultraviolet or whatever sensor and they found him and they took him out of the house but the house burned down and he lost everything he lost his manuscripts he lost his computers he was in the middle of working on a brand new book on consciousness and and all everything was gone and sis a in fact he says it was just amazing like the my neighbor had been awake at 2am to to to see that and then ease is ever going to the hospital I was staying with a friend I went for a run i got quite a snowstorm I was heading for home crossing a footbridge across the Santa Fe River I slipped on the ice patch and fell head over heels a long distance down the rocky riverbed my neck in the back of my head smashed into the rocks basically I was like getting to kill the fall but I broke my spine I was laying there on the icy waters paralyzed from the neck down with only my face out on the water I knew I was paralyzed I couldn't call for help because I couldn't brief well they somebody saw him they got him to the hospital he passed out there they get somebody if they got to the hospital and he was perhaps he spent the rest was like essentially paralyzed from the neck down so he tells the story of us you had run out of money didn't have any health insurance he says the time when the time came for me to leave the hospital has no place to go and he was put in is very grim nursing home he says was dark noisy overcrowded the hallways jam was sickly for real people mainly in the eighties and nineties vegetating in wheelchairs are just milling around many of them with advanced Alzheimer's it was basically a warehouse for all people waiting to die so here I was confined mostly inside this cuckoo's nest where people were wandering around shouting screaming yelling for help the screaming never let up he wrote amazingly many people screamed right up to the moment they died inmates who wander into my room and lay down on my bed with me or take my clothes and books I remember being very frustrated these Alzheimer's patients because I couldn't do anything to stop them from lame decide you're taking my things I was too paralyzed he says it was like something out of dante's inferno and he came to ease as I came to a place where thought my life was over I remember thinking I still feel young but I can't move I'm a writer but I can't move my hands I can try to my father but I'm not with my son I'm a thinker but I can't think clearly I'm a lover but I can't make love I had to face it this was real life and then you know after some weeks or months there he said at some point it became clear to me the way muddy water gets clear when you let it sit still for a while that I was facing a big decision and then it really hit me that I had to do in a serious way what I had been writing about in the new book that I've been working on I had to truly live some of the spiritual processes that I had been exploring before the accident this was no intellectual exercise no book this was real life before the accident I've been fascinated with the idea spiritual awakening now I realized I had to go beyond the idea I saw clearly the truly awakening was my only way out the only way out was in I decided that I would look on being confined to this nursing home is the equivalent to undergoing an intensive retreat in a Zen monastery and then he talks about how it it this he's is it was so obvious the now I realize that I had to continue this work on my own it was so obvious but it'd taken the destruction of my entire life to see it I'd always wanted to spend time is and monsters I decided look at being confined to their in a wheelchair has been confined to a monastery her retreat I started spending many hours every day 8 10 12 hours drew doing intense meditation my main focus a meditation was to attain pure emptiness the No mindstate the void God with all the shouting in the screams the people and people wandering around I shut down my hearing so I wasn't paying attention to it much the time my roomie we have the TV plane so I had to ignore that too I close my eyes months past that's a very interesting experiences Michael rights visions images floods white light movies in my head thoughts ideas it was not like mint though these Ralph thing its the products have my mind in the forms the world are all things the engine masters are very clear about this after months of frustration he writes it began to hit me the voice in my head said lego man let go what you think lifestyle any all these near-death experiences it's all about dying that's why you keep hanging onto life like you're afraid to let go it's time to die Michael Road heard for this told The the person was interviewing him for this magazine he said I rely anne's sure the story with me and virtually the same words he said I realize my ego which is to say myself was was holding on was trying to maintain control trying to remain in existence I knew was the time for the ego to let go it was like my entire being have been clenched in a tight fist and suddenly the fist opened up and let go completely everything dropped away all contractions released and disappeared contraction the mind to the body of the emotions everything's a contraction you know even thinking just at this point they came to take me for a shower they wheeled me down the hallway and hosed me often for a time I forgot about meditating in seeking as they wheeled me back to my room I suddenly found things begin to happen at first it was radiance within me I began seeing and experiencing this upwelling or emanation it wasn't for my eyes but also inside my eyes inside my body. its radiance begin flowing upward it was like a spring welling up but it was welling up out of infinite emptiness he was emptiness the void but it was luminous as this continue to happen I realized it was bliss it was just take current bliss over the next few hours became more and more intense as the days went by I began to realize I was existing any CEO less which we would call consciousness for spirit everything around me was bliss the simple keenness up being was bliss it was fun to be alive every moment even though I was having a lot of pain and was paralyzed in stockings Graham cuckoo's nest no matter what my external condition was there was still the since transit joy at bean online so my son Michael hutchison passed away two days ago author measure brain and my current follower I very proud of his son survived by his sisters services and the sender Kali on the son of a dollar and Russell such as some good man and he's talking about this experience that he had after he was paralyzed from the neck down in this nursing home in this hellish nursing home where he just after weeks months and months actually have just meditating and relaxing and trying to let go he finally did it is completely let go aces the days went by I began to realize I was existing in a sea of bliss what we would call consciousness or spirit everything around me was bliss the simple beingness have beam was bliss it was fun to be alive every moment I was experiencing experiencing being like a fish swimming in water suddenly realizing that he's in the water I had the sensational blitzer consciousness has been some transparent invisible all-pervasive substance that surrounded in permeated and enter penetrated everything in the world and I was slain in it we all are all the time even though we don't know what everything that happened in nablus was totally effortless I realized I wasn't doing my life but that I was being lived through by consciousness I wasn't breathing I was being breathed through by consciousness I wasn't thinking I was being thought through I wasn't seen I was been seen through when you look at it this way everything is happening just the way it is everything is perfect just the way it is you don't need to worry about anything because whatever is going to happen happens nothing you can do about it so just sit back and let it happen because it's all going to anyway my sub shin had been michael writes that peak experiences were rare events like precious jewels the ordinary mark of life now became clear to me that this kind of awakening a been lived through by consciousness was not a peak experience per se it wasn't rarer it wasn't even really an experience it was just the condition being the nature of reality the primary innermost essence far from being rare this pure consciousness is always here always the same never changes never moves is constantly going on no matter what experiences you may be having you could have an experience a pain in this consciousness would still be here you can experience a carrying on a conversation and the consciousness is still here you have it every instant of your life every moment of your life but you just not aware of it in fact once you become aware that you can make it go away so watching a movie any attention is on the images on the screen the screen is always there and once you notice the screen are the images go away it's like you get rid of everything mmm that the think what's left what's left his consciousness or absolute awareness once I recognized it this experience was very familiar with to me because I'd had it all my life actually it's not an experience its prior to experience when you have an experience there's someone their having the experience in pure consciousness the one who experiences goes away one way I can describe it is the time disappears that's the Bliss i'm talking about. when time disappears you're in a place where there's no insider no outside no center no edge know before know after no pass no future just now the space is essentially for most limitless and very clear open empty alive and still radiant in a live the totally still a paradox but that's what it is it was just bliss or pure consciousness or God this primordial awareness is reality it's totally real totally natural effort once in closer to you in your own *** ever Michael saying that to me the first time he said to me on the phone and I just checked caught my own breath and power wow you know is I'm I've been breeze through in fact it's not me its consciousness in this me it's just an illusion Kenya he said as I meditated and found myself opening to this continuing upwelling a bliss what happened was that as my experience at the monastery over the nursing home continued I was able to shut out the grim bleak environment in getting to completely internal state awareness then I began to carry that with me when my eyes weren't closed actually got clear that whether my eyes were open or close this consciousness was always there it's like an infinite vast miss inside yourself the world becomes more real than real it takes on a higher dimension so to speak coincidentally he writes is all this was going on I was getting better physically by that time I'd been in the nursing home for two years by consensus at that time a public housing apartment became available I was able to move out at the nursing home into the apartment he wrote I'm living on my own now I have a helper comes in the morning to getting dressed in for breakfast in the evening for dinner so that's my answer to your question about what happened to me it's basically been a good experience been paralyzed force me inward in a radical way something that never would have happened otherwise and he goes through that he ends the whole thing with this this note he said so to sum up by just I just get this hit like like I'm a cry if if I don't sorry he said so to sum up I'm a quadriplegic I live in poverty I'm the happiest man on earth am crying you know how to just cut some kinda selfishness because I you know I'm call Michael any for cannot walk me through these experiences and it was Charest extraordinary unite I published as a No you know many people called him and he would you talk with people on walked in through this stuff and I got it that this this was a you know a very a very real experience for him now that doesn't mean that there wasn't still a personality there a personality that could be you know up Satter angrier unhappy or patch launder you know what the couple has things you know come along with being a human being on this earth there was still Mike but I'm convinced that what Jesus experience with Buddha experience was all the great saints experience is what Michael experienced and it's available to me and to you we may not know until the day we die and I'm certain that we will on that day but I'm convinced it's me you're listening to the Thom Hartmann program call 866 987 thon in fact I'm convinced is the only reality