February 10, 2025 • 73 mins
Alan Gompers is a nationally recognized author, insightful lecturer, expert on recidivism, mentor to at-risk youth, and beloved authority on meditation and Self-Actualization. Prior to his startling transformation in prison, Alan’s insatiable need for recognition and power drove him to make and lose fortunes on Wall Street, betray family and friends, and become an extraordinarily successful real estate developer. Arrested while selling drugs to an undercover informer, he was given a 15-year-to-life sentence. Within the forbidding confines of a maximum security prison, he experienced what had eluded him his entire life: perfect freedom and unshakable contentment.
Contact Alan:
Website: alangompers.com
E-mail: alangomp1protonmail.com@proton.me
FREE Guided Ascension Breathwork Meditation Session
FREE How to Quantum Leap, Heal, Manifest, & Co-create? EBOOK!
90 Day Transformation: The Zebra Self Healing Method
Follow us and support us in social media:
YouTube Podcast Interviews Click Here!
https://www.instagram.com/quantumalchemistmaster/
Website:
https://linktr.ee/Quantumalchemistmaster
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi Alan, how are you?
Welcome to Quantum AlchemistMaster Podcast.
It's a pleasure to have youhere today.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
It's all mine, my dear.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
You're welcome.
So Alan and I met through amutual friend.
I want to thank a moment to DrTara for introducing us.
So I'm very, very grateful tohave come across you.
Alan, your story is absolutelyfascinating, empowering your
(00:36):
meditation sessions.
I've done meditation with you.
It was so wonderful, beautifuljourney.
But your story, it isabsolutely a testament to the
hero's journey, our humanjourney here on earth, the
(00:57):
journey that our soul goesthrough.
I would love for you to sharewhatever you feel called to
share today about your ownjourney today, to share whatever
you feel called to share todayabout your own journey today?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Sure, thank you for those sweet words, but you know
it's really interesting onspiritual path I'm sure I'm
talking to the choir when I saythis is that the journey is not
something we do.
It's not something we do.
It's something that I find thatwhat we are searching for is
(01:33):
already there and it getscovered up by the machinations
of the mind.
Thought itself acts like cloudscovering the sun, so that the
sun is always there, but theclouds prevent us from
experiencing its light and itswarmth and its love.
And the process of meditationis the way in which the universe
(01:59):
gives us a way in which toconnect with that deeper part of
ourselves, and that, for me,has been the transformational
process of my journey.
And we talk you know I'm goingto talk a little bit about my
experience in prison and all ofthat, but when we spoke the last
(02:22):
time, rosie, I shared with youa letter that I had received
because I started doing a lot ofprison work, going around the
country after myself got out ofprison and visiting inmates in
men's and women's prisonseverywhere in Canada and all
(02:42):
over the United States, becauseI wanted to give back to the
prison system, which had givenme so much, which is kind of an
oxymoron, but it was a placewhere my inner energy, what we
call Shaktipat energy my innerenergy, what we call Shaktipat
(03:05):
energy was awakened in me and Ihad a transformational
experience that literallychanged my life forevermore.
And I believe the first time wespoke, I had shared a letter
(03:26):
that I had received from aninmate in a maximum security
prison, and it was a verypowerful letter.
I have another one that Iwanted.
It's all about meditation, buthis experience before I share my
own.
I think this is a great way inwhich to create an inspiration
for your listeners and for allof us.
I think Absolutely.
I think Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I would love if you could share that absolutely.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, I'm so happy too, because you know one of the
most powerful letters thatwe've received, and we've
received thousands of them overthe years.
But anyway, this is what hesaid and I'm quoting the letter
verbatim.
I spoke with my attorney today,after 17 years on death row,
(04:14):
and he informed me that the USSupreme Court turned down
everything he filed with them.
I'd expected this, but I cannow approach the play of my
destiny with a smile, knowingthat simply because this is the
last curtain call of thisincarnation, it doesn't mean
(04:36):
that the entire drama is over.
My attorney was sad, but Itried to lessen the blow for him
.
Imagine that he's trying to,you know, help his own attorney
and he's facing the deathsentence.
But anyway, he said, I tried tolessen the blow for him by
telling him that I'd come toterms with this years ago and
(05:00):
that I'm now ready.
I assured him that if theappointed time has come for me
to leave, if God is trulycalling me home, then there is
nothing anyone can do to keep mehere.
I also assured him that Iunderstood how hard he'd fought
for me over the years and thathe shouldn't feel bad or be sad
(05:25):
that it didn't work out otherthan it did.
I've taken this same approachwith my family and other loved
ones, letting them know that Iam ready for him, ready for this
, that we all must leave thesebodies one day.
But when we leave, where weleave and how we leave is up to
(05:48):
God.
But I smiled at my destiny,hoping that it would somehow,
through the grace of meditation,touch all those involved in my
life and soften the blow totheir hearts.
I say this only to illustratethat, if it weren't for
(06:08):
meditation and the grace of myguru, my meditation master, a
lot of people would be hurtingfar more than they are now, and
for this I am eternally grateful.
It is through meditation andthe grace of my guru that I am
able to step to the threshold bydestiny with a smile and enter
(06:32):
the door that leads to the stageon which the next play be acted
out.
I am so grateful for thisblessing, to have this
opportunity, grateful for thisblessing to have this
opportunity to prepare for thegreat transition from this realm
of existence to the next, and,of this I am certain, with great
(06:56):
love and joy, james.
Wow, that was so powerful.
Wow, that was so powerful.
And you know, what's amazingabout this is the geography
where this took place.
Most people that I've comeacross and maybe you have as
(07:16):
well look at prison as a placeof punishment, of oppression, of
loneliness, violence, whatever.
And the people who have foundmeditation one way or another in
(07:38):
prison have found a way inwhich to transform their lives.
And you know, when you lookhistorically at all of the great
beings that ever walked theplanet, from Gandhi, from Martin
Luther King, from Mohammed Imean the list goes on and on
(08:00):
they all served time.
From Mohammed I mean, the listgoes on and on, they all served
time, they all found themselvesin prison, even the South
African Mandela 28 years, andyet he came out and he
(08:25):
transformed his whole countryand his people that the place of
prison can be a place ofsanctuary with the right
understanding.
And that's what these inmateswho found meditation found out
for themselves the grace ofthese beings that they connected
to while they were in prison,who introduced them to
(08:45):
meditation that is so beautiful,alan, thank you so much for
sharing that letter.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Every time you share a letter with me, I feel almost
like as if it had a healinginside of me.
I don't know if it makes anysense, but it's just very
powerful.
So thank you so much forsharing that and I hope that it
can change in the positive thelife of some of our listeners.
(09:21):
It's a very, very powerfulletter for some of our listeners
, um, it's a very, very powerfulletter.
Thank you so much, um.
Are you able to share a?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
little bit about your journey that does it feel like
a oh sure, absolutely.
Um, how much time do we havetoday?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
well, there's not, you know, a set time.
Typically our episodes aresomewhere anywhere between, I
guess, 30 minutes to an hour,but there's no a set time.
Typically our episodes aresomewhere anywhere between, I
guess, 30 minutes to an hour,but there's no actual set time.
We can just have a conversation, kind of see where it goes and
when it feels right to kind ofend it.
It doesn't have to be yeah,scripted or set on stone.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Okay, well, I think you know, on the spiritual path
they refer to these great souls,these great beings, these s
pain and suffering, and theyconnected to you.
Know that word God can beinterpreted?
You know, if you asked ahundred people what the word
meant, you'd probably get 50 to100 different answers.
(10:39):
Everybody seems to have theirown take on what it is, but the
masters are not.
They're very, very finite inthe way they describe what the
word God means, and they talkabout it in terms of
enlightenment, liberation, oflove, of wisdom, of empowerment,
(11:00):
whatever that is not temporarybut eternal, and that every
living being on the planet, insome way or another, is
connected to the same energy andthere is no other.
So that when we use the termGod, we are all that.
(11:22):
We're not part of God.
We are all that we're not partof God.
We are God, and that's adifficult one to understand
without the experience that wehave.
Through the spiritual path,through meditation and through
the grace of a master who'salready attained it, they easily
wake up that energy inside ofus, and the issue is all focused
(11:45):
on the mind, which I'll getinto in a moment.
That quieting the mind is theanswer to tapping into that part
of us that is forever.
You know, I had a guru.
He passed some time ago and wasreplaced by Guru Mai, who was a
(12:08):
.
She took over for him, but asan enlightened being she
received the same energy.
But anyway, he always used tosay that God dwells within you
as you.
There is no other.
In all the spiritual texts fromthe East the Yoga, vashista and
(12:31):
the Guru Gita and all of thesegreat texts they all talk about
the word God as an eternal beingthat encapsulates everything
and everyone, and that we areall part of that, not only part
of it.
We are that and that's thewhole.
(12:54):
Idea of the spiritual path isto connect with it.
And I remember, rosie, when Iwas a little boy, I was left
alone in my house.
My parents had gone out and Ijust kind of like began to, you
know, snoop around, something Ishouldn't have been doing, but I
(13:16):
did.
And there was always in mymother's room.
She always had a drawer whereshe kept all kinds of stuff, I
would call it, and it was kindof a sanctuary for her and she
didn't want anybody to look inthere, but I did.
And when I opened the drawer Ifound at the very top, a whole
(13:36):
bunch of black and whitephotographs.
And at the top, the photographon the top was a little boy,
maybe four or five years old.
His shoulders were all slumpedover and his face was, all you
know, contracted in the saddest,loneliest expression that I
(13:59):
could have imagined.
And as I stood looking at thephoto, tears began to well up in
my eyes and I realized thatthat little boy was me and that,
even more so, that the feelingsthat were projected from my
face as a little boy completesadness and unhappiness and fear
(14:24):
was the way I had felt all mylife.
And at that time, maybe, I was12 or 13 years old and it scared
me to death to think that Imight spend the rest of my life
living in those horrendous,insidious feelings, those
(14:46):
horrendous, insidious feelings.
And as I looked at that pictureagain, this fear welled up
inside me.
And you know, rosie, the wordfear is always looked at, as you
know, a very contracted,powerful, you know, negative
feeling.
But what I came to learn inthose initial phases of my life
(15:09):
was that fear was also a verypowerful driving force that
moved our lives, when we weren'taware of where it was coming
from, because it all comes fromthat same place, of where it was
coming from, because it allcomes from that same place, and
in that moment I wanted to finda way in which to end those
(15:31):
horrible feelings.
And so, as a preteen, what youdid in those days is, you know,
I grew up in the Bronx andeverything centered around your
friends being accepted, beinglooked at and having recognition
.
It didn't matter how goodlooking you were, how much money
(15:55):
your parents had, it was thegame, was basketball of all
things, basketball of all things.
And when you got out onto thecourt wanting to gain that
recognition and acceptance, itmattered how good you were.
Everything else just fell away.
(16:15):
And I tried so hard, I competedso hard to be good, to win.
And that was the first time inmy life that I realized that, in
the act of wanting to competeto win, it became a.
(16:39):
It actually stopped my mind andI became extremely focused on
what I was doing.
And I went into this state wherethe fear was gone.
I wasn't afraid and I had noall I, all I knew was I focused
everything on what I was doing.
It was kind of a wakingmeditation, which I didn't have
(17:02):
any idea.
Um, but it was bliss, it wasabsolute.
I just loved doing it becauseit made me feel so good and it
also got me accepted with myfriends and family and everybody
else who came out to watch.
But at the end of the day I hadto go home.
(17:24):
But at the end of the day I hadto go home.
When I got home and I got intomy house, all the old feelings
of loneliness and fear anddepression and unhappiness came
roaring back and I would climbinto bed with covers over my
(17:48):
head and cry myself to sleepevery night.
Wow, it was.
You know, so I would.
You know.
Naturally, the game ofbasketball came for me, a
sanctuary of sorts, and so Ibecame addicted to wanting to
play, wanting to win, wanting togain that sense of feeling, you
(18:10):
know, happy and free.
But invariably the minute Istopped and left for the day, it
all came back again.
There was nothing lasting in it.
And I remember one day, as Iwas walking home, I lived in a
place called Parkchester in theBronx, and it was a 60,000, you
(18:33):
know population of familiesmiddle, you know middle class
families, and they wereconnected building by building.
You know 12, 15 stories.
And I remember walking throughthe hall connecting two
(18:54):
buildings.
One day, as I was on my way homeand as I walked into the hall,
it was like a giant soundstage.
You could actually hear my feetas they clumped on the floor of
the concrete.
I had these leather shoes andas I looked up, at the end of
the hall there was this group ofteenagers, maybe five of them,
and one of them raised his handand as he brought it down, it
(19:17):
was like him leading a symphonyorchestra.
But then they began to singFive-part harmony, a cappella.
No instruments, just voices.
It was the most beautifulmelody and harmony and sound I'd
(19:38):
ever heard in my life.
I was mesmerized.
And after I heard them sing,they sang a song called A Sunday
Kind of Love and the lyricsjust blew me away.
The initial words were I want aSunday kind of love, a love
that will last when Mondays arecold.
(20:02):
And those words they just thehair on my arms just stood up
and I said I've got to find away in which to continue
listening to that kind of music.
I'd never heard anything likeit before.
I'd never heard anything likeit before and I began to realize
(20:31):
that on the street corners inthe Bronx at that time, back in
the 50s, it seemed everywhereyou went groups like that were
forming.
They called it doo-wop rock androll, but it was all about love
and harmony and relationships,and it was just.
I just couldn't get enough andI longed to form my own group
(21:00):
and several months later I foundfour other guys who were
interested in doing the samething and we formed a group
called the Montclair's and webegan to, you know, make records
, perform in shows around townand, um, when we would be on
stage, I would hear the peoplein the audience.
They would applaud and and andstand up and cheer.
(21:23):
They just loved the sound.
And it was another way.
It was like playing basketball.
It was another way in whichthat feeling of ecstasy just
welled up inside me and thehappiness that came from it.
For the moments I was doing andsinging, all the unhappiness
(21:46):
and loneliness and depressionjust evaporated.
And one day, one of the guys inthe group came over to me and
he said hey, alan, we just gothired to do a show at a Sweet
Sixteen party, and you won'tbelieve it, but the girl whose
Sweet Sixteen party is, she'sabsolutely gorgeous.
And we sang at the party and,as it would happen, the girl
(22:15):
fell in love with one of theguys in my group and that guy
was me.
Two years later we were married.
We had our first baby.
Life was me.
Two years later we were married.
We had our first baby.
Life was sweet.
I was living in a place where Iwasn't lonely anymore and
frightened, and I felt connectedfor the first time.
(22:37):
And it lasted for two years andthen one day she got up.
She left the baby with her andit was almost two years before I
saw the baby again and then 20years before she came back into
(22:57):
my life.
Wow.
I thought I was about to diebecause back, as you know, back
came all of the pain andsuffering.
Fortunately, somehow one of theguys that I knew, I decided to
go back to school.
(23:17):
I was teaching at the time andI went back to school to get my
master's degree and I met acouple of guys I grew up with
and they seemed so carefree andhappy and it was infectious, and
they used to make fun of me andtell me you're sorry now,
(23:39):
you're always unhappy, what'swrong with you, life's great.
And they would cajole me intowanting to change my life.
And when I was around them, itmade me feel good and again the
good feelings would come back.
And what would happen was oneday we decided to enter the
(24:06):
world of finance.
They were saying that if wemake enough money, all our
troubles, all our unhappiness,everything will disappear and
we'll be on top of the world.
And we can do that.
And two years later, rosie, theskies opened up and millions of
(24:28):
dollars this is back in the 60sbegan to pour down all over us.
We started a brokerage housethat became one of the largest
brokerage houses in the country.
Over-the-counter brokeragehouses in the country,
over-the-counter brokeragehouses and just you know I
(24:50):
couldn't even begin to tell youhow incredibly amazing our lives
had become, so beyondeverything else.
After that, I got into realestate.
Then I became a boxing promoterand everything they seemed to
(25:12):
touch became successful and mademore money than I could ever
dream possible.
But instead of being happy andsuccessful which I was
materialistically I fell intothe deepest state of depression
I had ever been in my whole lifeand thoughts of suicide
(25:34):
actually rained through my head.
I'm familiar with that.
What's that?
Speaker 1 (25:42):
I said I'm familiar with that.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, I hear you.
And it just kept spiralingdownward and I didn't know what
to do.
So what happened was it led meto drugs and and as I began
using drugs, it led me todealing drugs because I was no
(26:07):
longer working or making moneyor anything like that, but I
still had made a lot of money inthe market and real estate.
But it was about the drugs gaveme a feeling of being high and
took away temporarily again thefeelings of despair and
(26:30):
depression and fear.
And it got to a point where Icame home one night and I
started selling drugs too.
And I came home one night andthere was the police waiting for
me.
They came pouring out of thewoods, stroll cars with their
(26:52):
lights blaring and sirensblaring, pulled up behind me and
surrounded me and a handreached out and drew me down on
the hood of a police car.
And I remember the voice, rosie, as clearly as I remember the
voice, rosie, as clearly as Iremember anything in my life,
and it said into my ear you arein more trouble than you've ever
(27:20):
been in your life.
I felt the energy just drainout of my feet and into the
ground and I lay helplessly onthe car, I was taken to a police
station down in Manhattan inNew York.
(27:40):
I was booked and then somehow Iwas released on bail.
I got an attorney, I got out onbail.
An attorney, I got out on bail,and a year later I stood in
front of a judge as he sentencedme 15 years to life.
I had absolutely no idea, otherthan the word life, what I was
(28:01):
facing, and when I first arrivedin prison, I found myself out
in the prison yard facing over2,000 inmates Most of them were
lifers.
Rosie, I was scared to death.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
How old were you?
If you don't mind me asking.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (28:22):
How old were you when you first went in?
I was 40.
40, wow Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yep, yep, and it was like those first 40 years in my
life was a horror show.
It was like everything that Ihad ever touched in my life.
I became successful at Money,sex and rock and roll, whatever.
(28:49):
It all worked on the outside,but underneath those feelings
were these horrible feelings ofloneliness, despair and fear,
and they played over and overand over like a broken record
inside me, no matter how muchmoney I made, no matter how much
love came in my life, no matterhow many friends I had, it
(29:12):
didn't matter.
The outside seemed to becompletely disconnected to the
feelings I had inside.
When I got busted and I was sentto a maximum security prison,
upstate, with a sentence of 15years to life, there was over
(29:39):
2,000 inmates, most of themlifers out in the yard, most of
them with nothing to lose, andI'm scared out of my mind.
I don't know what to do.
And I remember walking to thefarthest part of the compound
where there was a building andit was as far away from the
mainstream media inmates that Icould get, and I sat down up
against the wall, I closed myeyes, my legs crossed and
(30:05):
spontaneously I fell into astate of meditation.
Now, the thing was.
I had absolutely no idea what Iwas doing.
I never meditated before.
I didn't even know whatmeditation was.
And after some time maybe 20minutes, half hour, I don't even
(30:27):
remember my eyes opened.
I looked around and I realizedthat word realized became a
mantra.
It breaks down to meaning beingwith real eyes, being the truth
.
You know they call theseenlightened masters
self-realized.
They see the wisdom and thetruth beyond anything that
(30:52):
they're faced with.
And I realized that myexperience of the prison, my
sentence, my inner state hadcompletely changed.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
The fear was gone.
I felt lighter and freer beyondanything I had ever experienced
in my life before.
Could I ask a couple questionshere?
Sure, sure, sure, thank you.
So meditation I don't know ifyou concur or not, but you can
answer after.
In my opinion, it varies theway people experience meditation
(31:39):
.
For example, did it differ whenyou first started meditating
versus your meditations now?
(32:01):
Um, any form of I mean sourcesyou know, I see it as all that
is, but you know, any form ofconsciousness that was able to
come forward with any messagesthat were guiding you um through
this challenging part of yourjourney?
Um, if you're able to shareanything like that, or how, how
has your meditation evolved umthroughout time?
Speaker 2 (32:27):
your meditation evolved throughout time?
Oh, that's a great question anda profoundly important one,
because the the expectations ofpeople and perceptions of people
are so varied and so different.
But I, you know, you knowthere's a great saying in yoga
(32:51):
that you can only get as high asyour teacher and that the truth
is not something that varieswith time.
Truth is absolute.
Amen.
That when we touch it, when weexperience it, we know there's
(33:14):
nothing else.
It's like that with love.
When you fall in love, you knowthere is no other experience,
there's nothing else going on.
Love just encaptures everything, it's all-encompassing.
And you know, to understandwhat meditation truly is is to
(33:38):
let go of what we think it is.
And again, that word think isthe mind getting in the way of
the experience.
And that word think is the mindgetting in the way of the
experience.
And what meditation is is not apractice, it's not something we
do.
Meditation at the ultimatelevel is the state of being.
(34:03):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
I love that.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
I love that.
Well, it's also the truth,because, you know, when we
experience love, there's nothingelse going on.
When we have an epiphany,there's nothing else going on.
When we fall in love, there'snothing else going on.
It's the times that we are notin that state that we say, well,
(34:31):
meditation takes us only so far.
Meditation has nothing to dowith that.
Meditation is the state of God,it's the state of the self, it's
the state of the universe.
It's the state of the universe,it's the state of the eternal
presence.
That is everything.
There's nothing that's not God.
(34:54):
And so everything that we seein yoga they call the material
universe maya, which meansillusion.
And they call it maya illusionbecause it is temporary, it has
(35:16):
an expiration date and therefore, no matter how much we use the
external world to gain happinessor freedom or love or success
or recognition or anything, itis here and it's gone.
How can anybody find anythinglasting in a place that's
(35:39):
temporary?
The material world around us?
But when we get in the state ofmeditation, when we get in the
state of love, when we get inthe state of wisdom, when we get
in the state of liberation,they're all synonyms, they all
(36:03):
mean the same thing, and thatGod, the Guru, self, truth,
wisdom, love.
They are all the same.
They arise out of the sameplace, which is everything.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
That is absolutely beautiful.
Could I?
Speaker 2 (36:25):
ask you, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
I'm sorry well, I love that you said that
everything is God and there'snothing but that, and I love
that.
But just for the sake of ourlisteners and to kind of
(36:47):
brainstorm a little bit when itcomes to, I guess you would say
you know I don't know if that'sthe word I want to use but you
know more of the shadow side,the negative, the devil, the.
You know that, that otheraspect, if you want to, that
(37:08):
other polarity, um, how wouldyou, how have you come to to
understand or reconcile withthat opposing force?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Well, you know that's .
That's wonderful to hear yousay that Because, again, it is
very difficult to understand thetruth when you're living in a
perception that's conditional.
(37:45):
Mm-hmm, love is unconditional.
Mm-hmm, in a perception that'sconditional Love is
unconditional God isunconditional.
And you know, muktananda, myguru, used to say if you're not
giving love in the world, whatis it?
that you're giving.
Wow, and if you're notreceiving love in the world,
(38:05):
what is it that you're receiving?
So when we receive somethingthat's negative, it has to be
conditional, because it's hereand it's gone.
It's temporary, and when we getmarried and we fall in love, we
want it to be forever.
(38:26):
Our dreams as human beings iseternal.
We don't want it to end.
We get afraid because we'reafraid it's going to end,
because we have no experience ofwhat is lasting, other than the
moments that we have noexperience of what is lasting,
(38:47):
other than the moments that wehave those experiences.
We think they're coming fromoutside, when they're not.
They're coming from within us.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Could I, sorry, go ahead, go ahead.
Well, I was going to say aparenthesis in that, because
you're saying they're comingfrom within us.
So, for example, with theseconditioning, just to kind of
stay in the realm of that othernegative polarity which should
(39:21):
also, in my opinion, place apurpose yeah, absolutely in my
opinion, plays a purpose.
But yeah, to me everythingplays a purpose of the whole
ecosystem to kind of.
But anyway, you know, to me alot of these things could also
be perceptions, not only of theindividual conditioning, whether
(39:45):
it's fears, limitations, etcetera, or the collective belief
of any particular identity orkind of like, like, kind of we
we feed into that idea or intothose we feel the fire of,
(40:07):
whatever form we perceive thatother thing could be.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
What is a belief?
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Oh, I love that.
I've never been asked that.
A conditioning, an illusion.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Well, of course, it's a thought, it's a thought, it's
a thought.
And the mind has no basis inanything lasting.
That's why beliefs are Sundaymorning breakfast and Monday
morning's lunchtime.
They change, they have no power, no lasting quality to them and
(40:47):
, as a result, we cannot rely onthem and therefore we become
frustrated.
And you know how the spiralworks after that Frustrated
despair, loneliness, depression,fear.
And the list goes on and on.
And, as all of the great sagestell us that the mind is the
(41:08):
only thing in the way ofexperiencing the eternal quality
of who we truly are, and whenthe mind is quiet, what is left
is God.
I love that what is left islove.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
You know I was just going to say A Course in
Miracles says something to theeffects of nothing, but love is
real, it's true, yeah, so kindof like everything.
Like you know, a lot of peoplewant to have their truth or
(41:46):
their God, be the one universaltruth or the one God, and just
focusing, rather than aparticular identity of whatever
form or thought you imagine thatto be more just to focus it on
love in general.
More just to focus it on lovein general, kind of like values,
(42:10):
virtues that we can kind offocus more on as a species.
You know the qualities of God,rather than if you're right or
I'm right or you're God, my God,type of thing.
You know.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Well, you know, it's so important to begin our search
by saying to ourselves nomatter what comes up, we begin
our dive into the inner being byunderstanding and saying to
(42:50):
ourselves I begin by saying I amGod.
In the scriptures it says I am,that I am, I am God, there is
no other.
Once you say that, everythingbecomes benevolent.
And that is such an incrediblyimportant perception, Because
(43:13):
when you say to yourself and youbegin to understand that, you
begin to realize that no matterwhat comes to you, no matter
what is happening, no matter howyou perceive it, it is all
based on God's grace.
And think about this for amoment.
(43:35):
When something gets too hot,what do we do?
get away from it yeah, if, ifyou turn on the uh, on the flame
in the on your stove and youstick your hand in, what's the
first instinct?
(43:56):
you have to take it out exactlyso the pain that we call uh
suffering or pain, becomes theopportunity, because it prevents
us from staying asleep, becauseif we're asleep and we don't
(44:16):
experience the pain, we willlight ourselves up in flames.
And the universe, beingbenevolent, says I'm not going
to let you do that.
I have created the pain andsuffering so that you take your
hand out of the fire and youbegin to move from your head to
(44:39):
your heart.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
That's beautiful.
Yeah, throughout my journeyI've come look at um even the
hardest challenges asopportunities, kind of like um
changing the perception and it'sa little bit too of what the a
course in miracles shares tokind of change the lens of how
we look at life and the eventsthat happen to us.
Um, so definitely kind of likeshifting.
(45:06):
That at least makes the journeya little bit more enduring, a
little bit lighter.
So let me ask you this oh sorry,Go ahead.
I was going to ask for how longwere you actually in jail for?
Like how many years?
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Well you know, can I share a little quick story with?
You Sure sure, Go ahead.
One day I'm out in the yard andyou know I'm meditating out in
the yard, which I did every day,Whether it rained, whether it
snowed, it didn't matter.
I just that was it.
And you know, after a while theinmates cleared out an area,
(45:52):
Believe it or not.
They cleared out an area whereI used to sit for meditation and
nobody would put a blanketthere because it was like a big
athletic field out there and youknow, they would, you know, put
their blankets out and they'dtake out something to eat or
(46:12):
whatever they did on a nice dayor whatever.
But when I started meditatingout there, nobody put a blanket
within 20 yards, 30 yards ofwhere I used to meditate.
It became a spot.
It wasn't that they wereavoiding it, they were honoring
(46:35):
it Because the energy wouldbuild up.
And when I would come out ofmeditation and stand up and
begin to move around, they wouldall kind of look at me and
smile.
For the most part that theywere, they were just
acknowledging that somethingreally magical was going on for
(46:56):
me and it was making them feelgood.
And I and it was confirmed bysome of the inmates would come
up to me and go hey, what is itthat you're doing?
It looks so peaceful, you lookso happy, blah, blah, blah blah.
And these guys are doing life.
And I began to realize thatthey were all looking for the
(47:17):
same thing, Even if they wereornery characters, that when
they came, you know, in contactwith that grace, with that
Shakti it wasn't me, it was theShakti that I was getting closer
to.
That was kind of radiating out.
It's like being around somebodywho's very loving, you feel
(47:39):
really good.
When you're being aroundsomebody who's angry and violent
, you want to get the hell outof there.
Absolutely.
And I was getting that kind ofvibe from wherever I went and I
started a meditation class andthey gave me a room in the
school and I had 50 guys on thewaiting list and 25 was the
(48:00):
limit that they could work.
And the warden of the prisongot wind of what I was doing and
he came over to me one day andhe said you know, whatever
you're doing, keep doing it,because it's having an impact on
the whole prison.
And it was, you know.
(48:21):
When he said that to me, I was,you know.
I felt really glad that he saidthat, not so much because I
realized that what I wanted todo is I wanted to help people.
It was something that washappening spontaneously.
Anyway, one day I hear my namecalled over the loudspeaker and
(48:42):
it said Gompers, ada 2139.
That was my number.
Please report to the warden'soffice.
He wants to see you.
And I said, my goodness, whatdid I do now?
That was my first thought and Irealized that I had no
skeletons in my closet anymoreand that I couldn't conceive of
(49:04):
being called for.
You know, some negative thing,although I had no idea what it
was and I wasn't afraid at allbecause I felt very clear about
who I was in those moments.
And when I got up to thewarden's office.
There he was, rosie standingoutside of his office pacing up
(49:25):
and down like he was about tohave a baby.
And the minute he saw me, hisface lit up and he made his way
over to me.
I didn't even walk towards him,he just ran over to me and he
held out his hand.
He said, mr Gompers, so good tosee you.
Come into my office.
We need to talk.
And so I went into his officeand I sat down down opposite him
(49:48):
and he looked at me and he saidhow long have you been in
prison?
I said at the time I'd beenabout three or four years.
And he said you know, you'vebeen granted executive clemency
by the governor of New York.
Wow, and he stood looking at me, anticipating me jump out of my
(50:15):
seat, scream and yell and jumpup and go into an ecstatic
moment.
But you know I wasn't lookingfor anything, nor did I feel I
needed anything.
I acknowledged the fact thatthis was a good thing, but you
know, it didn't matter to me.
(50:35):
I felt completely relaxed andat home with who I was and I
wasn't looking for anything.
At any rate, he stood lookingat me like I was out of my mind.
He expected me to go crazy andI didn't.
And I just walked up to him andI said Warden, thank you so
much, I appreciate this.
(50:55):
And he handed me a letter and Iwalked out the room with him
scratching his head and as Iwalked back towards my cell, all
of a sudden this wave of fearcame wafting up inside me,
something I hadn't experiencedfor almost two years since.
(51:17):
I started the meditation and Irealized that I could be going
home the next day.
You ready for this?
I?
Didn't want to go the next day.
You ready for this?
I?
Didn't want to go.
I wasn't expecting that.
(51:38):
It wasn't the prison that Iwanted, it was the time, which
was another oxymoron.
Oxymoron, imagine most peoplethat I knew, and especially
myself, grew up with theunderstanding that time was the
worst enemy, because one day itwas all going to end.
I was behind it all, but timewas always a beginning and an
(51:59):
end.
And I had this time in prisonthat was no longer my enemy, it
was no longer punishment, buttime had become my friend and I
realized that I wanted more timeso that I could continue to
work on my meditation, so that Igot to a place where nothing or
(52:22):
no one could ever undermine myfreedom again.
And when I got back to my cell,I sat down on my bed and I
opened the letter and theclemency order said that I had
been granted not a pardon but areduction, a reduction from 15
(52:45):
to life to six to life.
Wow.
And as I sat on my bed and Ijust pondered it for a moment, I
realized that I had just beengiven a gift for three years.
Not a sentence, but a gift,because it gave me the time
(53:07):
where I, when I finally wouldget out, I would be in a place
where nothing could take it fromme and as I sat there looking.
My cell had a window with barson it and it overlooked these
beautiful mountains.
If you ever saw my book, thatwas the picture I saw.
And.
I'm looking out over themountains and I hear this voice
(53:30):
and I close my eyes and thevoice said Alan, it is not about
getting out, it's about gettingfree.
You're not there yet.
Behind these walls, you canhear my voice.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
That's beautiful and, as I understand it, also, after
you got out, you stillvolunteered in some of the
prisons to continue teaching.
This Is that plus your book,yeah to this day, this day.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
Okay, yeah, I still go into prisons and I still, um,
you know, I, I still teach, Istill have a well-being and a
life coaching practice,meditation teaching practice.
So, um, and it gives me so muchjoy to have people who are
looking for some kind of respitein their life because, whether
(54:34):
they're suffering biologicallyor psychologically or
emotionally or whatever, orspiritually, you know, it gives
me an opportunity to share withthem what we're talking about
today and to teach people youknow what meditation is and how
(54:56):
to meditate, and what the objectof meditation is, and not some
practice that's here and gone.
You know, it's like somebodydoes an hour of meditation and
the next thought is what's forlunch?
That's not going anywhere.
The state of meditation issomething that exists inside of
(55:18):
us all the time, whether we getthe directions through what we
see and hear, or we get thedirections because we're busy up
in our head.
We get the directions becauseeverything is benevolent and, in
the end, in the end, it's allgoing to be benevolent, it's all
(55:41):
going to work out well, thankyou for those words.
Speaker 1 (55:46):
I I needed, I know I needed to hear those.
So thank you for that.
And just to kind of wrap up,we're going to leave for
everybody in the description ofthe podcast how to contact you
and your services, so that waythey kind of have a better
breakdown and know where toreach you.
Have a better breakdown, um,and and know where to reach you.
(56:07):
Um, but just to kind offinalize um, how do you, how
have you come to understand um,the Holy spirit and Jesus, kind
of like?
Um you know a lot of peopletalk about um, you know the way
(56:32):
to the Father or you know thatis through Jesus.
So how do you, how have youcome to understand that?
Or understand the differentforms of God?
Do you see it just as differentlevels of consciousness that
are attainable within oneself?
Do you see it any differently?
How have you come to see that?
Speaker 2 (56:50):
Well, when you say levels of consciousness, there's
no such thing I love that Goahead.
Yeah, the levels ofconsciousness are the times you
experience that Holy Spirit andthe times that you don't is
because the level of the HolySpirit goes beyond your ability
(57:16):
to perceive it in that moment orin that period of time.
The more we get connected toGod, the more His presence
becomes out front and we're nolonger searching in the same way
.
But the most important thing isto understand that.
(57:41):
I remember my, you know theseenlightened masters, you know
again, when people are connectedto the truth, they know it,
there is no doubt, and theybegin to see it at a level where
they experience it rather thanintellectually believe it.
(58:01):
And that's the difference.
My guru used to talk aboutJesus all the time.
He used to talk about him as agreat, great saint, a great sage
, but he used to say that Jesuswas a man.
(58:24):
The Holy Spirit is what we inyoga call the Shakti, or the
Chinese call the key energy, orwhatever.
It's all that eternal energythat flows through a great being
and Jesus always said I and theFather are one Greater works
(58:46):
that I have done you will do areone Greater works that I have
done you will do.
He never separated anything,although it's perceived that way
, because out there people takeadvantage of that and use it,
you know, for corrupted purposes.
I mean, during the Crusades,the Pope said go out and kill in
the name of God.
(59:06):
It was justifiable and theyused God's name as a way in
which to exterminate people.
Speaker 1 (59:15):
They're doing it today in Israel and in what do
you call it Ukraine 100% and alot of the, even like the Mayans
and all the stuff they hadsacrifices to the gods.
Speaker 2 (59:31):
It's going on since the beginning of time.
And you know, god is not aboutannihilation and killing,
although that is one of hisfunctions, because if God is
everything, he begins creation,he sustains creation and he
morphs creation into a differentlevel of consciousness.
(59:53):
Not a death.
Only the body dies.
The Holy Spirit, which is Godor God's grace, whatever way you
want to call it is the sameessence that you and I are.
We're not different from God.
You know, like I remember Ithink I told you this once
(01:00:18):
before, but I remember sittingon the beach with my
granddaughter, brittany she wasfour years old at the time and
we were sitting out there andand we're looking out at the
ocean, it it was a beautiful dayand I said to her I said look
out there, brittany, what isthat?
And I pointed and she saidthat's a wave, grandpa, I said
no, it's not.
And she looked at me liketotally confused and she said
(01:00:41):
yes, it is, it's a wave.
I said no, it's not, it's justwater, it's the ocean itself.
(01:01:14):
The wave is not real, it'stemporary and when it relaxes it
goes right back into the oceanagain.
It doesn't lose anything, it'sall still there.
Only you can't see it in thesame form.
The wave is just water, thestars and the planets, and the
grasses and the animals,everything are waves on the
ocean of God's grace.
Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
That's a beautiful way to explain that and just to
kind of, I think, wrap it up.
I would love to wrap it up witha question for you, and then
you can add to that whatever youlike and finish however it
feels right for you.
I would like to kind offinalize with how you've come to
(01:01:47):
understand the will of God andacceptance in your own journey
for me, acceptance is to beginthe journey till you, finally
(01:02:13):
experience the absolute truth.
That's deep, that's deep.
Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Otherwise, what's that?
Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
That's deep.
Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
Yeah.
Well, what if we're not lookingfor the absolute truth that we
are eternal beings, that we areGod, then this whole thing just
has a beginning and an end andit's no more.
But none of the scriptures,none of the great beings or
(01:02:50):
saints have told us that, andnone of my experience in
meditation, when I connect tothat place, doesn't disclose
that truth.
In my own experience and that'sthe issue If somebody says to
me I believe in God, they haveno idea what they're talking
(01:03:10):
about.
A belief is a thought.
It's here and it's gone.
What's for dinner?
Is my next thought.
When you ask somebody do youbelieve in God?
Oh, I believe in God,absolutely.
I go to church every week and Ipray and I blah.
Well, what is your experience?
(01:03:31):
What do you mean?
What is my experience?
Do you experience God?
Well, I don't know.
I'm not sure.
First, if people answeredhonestly, most people would say
that they had a belief.
Most people would say that theyhad a belief, but their
(01:03:54):
experience is different.
My mentor in my book I wroteabout him Tom Toomey.
He was a Catholic priest and aDominican monk 20 years.
He grew up in a home thatvalued Catholicism and
spirituality as the only thingthat was important and they were
taught to believe in God and hebecame a monk and a priest and
(01:04:31):
he said, after about 20 years ofgiving Mass and counseling
people and doing all thesethings that religious people do,
he said he was beginning to dieinside Because all his life he
had been taught about God andJesus and all of this stuff and
(01:04:54):
he said he never experienced God.
He had no idea other than hisbelief, to have faith in
something he never knew orexperienced.
And so he began going aroundthe priests and the monks that
he was living with and askingthem the same question Do you
have any experience of God or isit just a belief?
And many of them would say,well, you can't question God.
(01:05:15):
How do you do that?
You can't question God.
And he began to realize that hecouldn't live in this way
because it wasn't answeringanything for him, and so, as
reluctantly as he could everfeel the blasphemy and
everything else that wentthrough his head, he said I
(01:05:36):
can't do this anymore.
He gave up his priesthood andhis vows and he left the church
and he wound up becoming apsychologist out in the world.
And one day he got a note abouta psychological conference that
was being held by an Indianguru in New York City, in New
(01:05:57):
York State, and he went and itwas just.
It was filled withpsychologists and psychologists
and social workers.
There was thousands of them andthis little guy, bhaktananda,
he comes walking in dressed, wasthousands of them.
And this little guy lookedananda, he comes walking in
dressed in orange robes, wearinga big turban, and he sits down
on his chair in front of thewhole group and he looks out and
(01:06:21):
he's just laughing and laughing, and laughing and laughing and
everybody in the audiencestarted to get really confused.
That's what Tom used to say.
And he said and then he did themost bizarre thing he'd ever
seen in his whole life.
He had a set of false teeth andhe took them out, he put them
(01:06:42):
on the arm of his chair and thenhe had his translator, who
later became Gourmet, hissuccessor, and she began to
translate for him as he spoke tothe group.
Without any teeth in his mouth,you would think that the place
(01:07:04):
would go cuckoo and you knowwhatever.
But what happened at the end?
He formed a line and peoplecould come up and he had these
peacock feathers and he wouldhit everybody over the head with
the peacock feathers as ablessing.
And he said when Tom got up andwent in front of him and he got
(01:07:25):
down on his knees and he gothit with the peacock feathers,
he said for the first time inhis life he experienced God.
Wow.
This was a priest for 20 years,at any rate, to end this thing,
because I know I don't want torun it on, but what happened
(01:07:47):
from that point on is he justbegan to follow, you know,
muktananda, wherever he went,all over the world, and his
experience of God became deeperand deeper.
Because he was, you know, hetaught meditation.
(01:08:07):
He came deeper and deeperbecause he was, you know, he
taught meditation and after awhile he got into this place.
When you were around, tom, youfelt your heart just burst.
Just burst with love.
He infected everybody.
It was like you know, and Iremember going up to him one day
(01:08:30):
and saying I don't know who youare or what you are or what
you're doing, but can I pleasecrawl into your pocket and go
with you wherever you go?
I don't want to lose thisfeeling ever in my life, and Tom
invited me to travel with himaround the country and Canada,
teaching meditation and hearinghim speak.
(01:08:50):
It was one of the greatblessings of my life.
Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
Beautiful.
Speaker 2 (01:08:57):
Yeah.
So you know, the thing to takeaway from this is to understand
that when we say I understandsomething, it is different than
when I say I experiencesomething.
When I say I believe somethingor I have an idea about
something, it is all about theclouds rather than the sun.
(01:09:18):
So powerful.
Mind is quiet.
What is left is God, your trueself.
Quiet what is left is God'sself your true self.
Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
Wow, I think that's beautiful to end with that, if
that's okay with you.
Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
It's absolutely fine and I appreciate you so much,
for the questions are great andI know you have a very beautiful
path that you're on and just if.
I can leave you with somethingto take away, is that be still
and know that you are God.
Speaker 1 (01:09:55):
Thank you so much, alan.
It's been a pleasure, a truehonor always to learn from you,
to to listen to your wisdom, to,to your heart, to your message,
message, um, and I know thatyou embody also what you share,
um, so we'll go ahead and leaveon the description below how,
how to contact you and and yourofferings as well, in case
(01:10:17):
anyone's um interested infollowing up with you.
Speaker 2 (01:10:20):
thank you so much interested in a, in having some
sessions and learning,meditation or anything around
holistically around well-beingcoaching and life coaching.
I do all of that and, of course, my book.
They can order that also andget a signed copy.
They contact me.
(01:10:40):
Do you have my email and myphone and all that?
Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
I will leave not your phone but your email, so that
way you're not getting justrandom calls, but your email and
whatever else you want me toput your website, all those
things.
They're going to have itavailable If you want to say it,
just so I can stay on therecording.
You can, if you want to, but ifnot, I'll also be in the
description.
Speaker 2 (01:11:03):
Okay, great, my website is alangomperscom, which
is easy enough, perfect, and mybook is Maximum Security, the
True Meaning of Freedom, andthey can get a signed copy by
emailing me through my agent.
But if you want to call herthat, she's really just a very
(01:11:25):
dear friend.
All of that, she's really justa very dear friend.
But, at any rate, I just wantto thank you again for all the
things that you do in your life,which is beautiful as well, and
I read your book and I reallyenjoyed it very much.
Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
Thank you so much, alan.
I enjoyed your book as well,and the sessions with you as
well have been magnificent.
I keep learning from you.
I'm sorry, and I hope tocontinue to do so.
So thank you again.
It's an honor to have you great.
Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
Thank you, hun have a great day you as well.
Hi Alan, how are you?
Welcome to Quantum AlchemistMaster Podcast.
It's a pleasure to have youhere today.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
It's all mine, my dear.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
You're welcome.
So Alan and I met through amutual friend.
I want to thank a moment to DrTara for introducing us.
So I'm very, very grateful tohave come across you.
Alan, your story is absolutelyfascinating, empowering your
(00:36):
meditation sessions.
I've done meditation with you.
It was so wonderful, beautifuljourney.
But your story, it isabsolutely a testament to the
hero's journey, our humanjourney here on earth, the
(00:57):
journey that our soul goesthrough.
I would love for you to sharewhatever you feel called to
share today about your ownjourney today, to share whatever
you feel called to share todayabout your own journey today?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Sure, thank you for those sweet words, but you know
it's really interesting onspiritual path I'm sure I'm
talking to the choir when I saythis is that the journey is not
something we do.
It's not something we do.
It's something that I find thatwhat we are searching for is
(01:33):
already there and it getscovered up by the machinations
of the mind.
Thought itself acts like cloudscovering the sun, so that the
sun is always there, but theclouds prevent us from
experiencing its light and itswarmth and its love.
And the process of meditationis the way in which the universe
(01:59):
gives us a way in which toconnect with that deeper part of
ourselves, and that, for me,has been the transformational
process of my journey.
And we talk you know I'm goingto talk a little bit about my
experience in prison and all ofthat, but when we spoke the last
(02:22):
time, rosie, I shared with youa letter that I had received
because I started doing a lot ofprison work, going around the
country after myself got out ofprison and visiting inmates in
men's and women's prisonseverywhere in Canada and all
(02:42):
over the United States, becauseI wanted to give back to the
prison system, which had givenme so much, which is kind of an
oxymoron, but it was a placewhere my inner energy, what we
call Shaktipat energy my innerenergy, what we call Shaktipat
(03:05):
energy was awakened in me and Ihad a transformational
experience that literallychanged my life forevermore.
And I believe the first time wespoke, I had shared a letter
(03:26):
that I had received from aninmate in a maximum security
prison, and it was a verypowerful letter.
I have another one that Iwanted.
It's all about meditation, buthis experience before I share my
own.
I think this is a great way inwhich to create an inspiration
for your listeners and for allof us.
I think Absolutely.
I think Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
I would love if you could share that absolutely.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, I'm so happy too, because you know one of the
most powerful letters thatwe've received, and we've
received thousands of them overthe years.
But anyway, this is what hesaid and I'm quoting the letter
verbatim.
I spoke with my attorney today,after 17 years on death row,
(04:14):
and he informed me that the USSupreme Court turned down
everything he filed with them.
I'd expected this, but I cannow approach the play of my
destiny with a smile, knowingthat simply because this is the
last curtain call of thisincarnation, it doesn't mean
(04:36):
that the entire drama is over.
My attorney was sad, but Itried to lessen the blow for him
.
Imagine that he's trying to,you know, help his own attorney
and he's facing the deathsentence.
But anyway, he said, I tried tolessen the blow for him by
telling him that I'd come toterms with this years ago and
(05:00):
that I'm now ready.
I assured him that if theappointed time has come for me
to leave, if God is trulycalling me home, then there is
nothing anyone can do to keep mehere.
I also assured him that Iunderstood how hard he'd fought
for me over the years and thathe shouldn't feel bad or be sad
(05:25):
that it didn't work out otherthan it did.
I've taken this same approachwith my family and other loved
ones, letting them know that Iam ready for him, ready for this
, that we all must leave thesebodies one day.
But when we leave, where weleave and how we leave is up to
(05:48):
God.
But I smiled at my destiny,hoping that it would somehow,
through the grace of meditation,touch all those involved in my
life and soften the blow totheir hearts.
I say this only to illustratethat, if it weren't for
(06:08):
meditation and the grace of myguru, my meditation master, a
lot of people would be hurtingfar more than they are now, and
for this I am eternally grateful.
It is through meditation andthe grace of my guru that I am
able to step to the threshold bydestiny with a smile and enter
(06:32):
the door that leads to the stageon which the next play be acted
out.
I am so grateful for thisblessing, to have this
opportunity, grateful for thisblessing to have this
opportunity to prepare for thegreat transition from this realm
of existence to the next, and,of this I am certain, with great
(06:56):
love and joy, james.
Wow, that was so powerful.
Wow, that was so powerful.
And you know, what's amazingabout this is the geography
where this took place.
Most people that I've comeacross and maybe you have as
(07:16):
well look at prison as a placeof punishment, of oppression, of
loneliness, violence, whatever.
And the people who have foundmeditation one way or another in
(07:38):
prison have found a way inwhich to transform their lives.
And you know, when you lookhistorically at all of the great
beings that ever walked theplanet, from Gandhi, from Martin
Luther King, from Mohammed Imean the list goes on and on
(08:00):
they all served time.
From Mohammed I mean, the listgoes on and on, they all served
time, they all found themselvesin prison, even the South
African Mandela 28 years, andyet he came out and he
(08:25):
transformed his whole countryand his people that the place of
prison can be a place ofsanctuary with the right
understanding.
And that's what these inmateswho found meditation found out
for themselves the grace ofthese beings that they connected
to while they were in prison,who introduced them to
(08:45):
meditation that is so beautiful,alan, thank you so much for
sharing that letter.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Every time you share a letter with me, I feel almost
like as if it had a healinginside of me.
I don't know if it makes anysense, but it's just very
powerful.
So thank you so much forsharing that and I hope that it
can change in the positive thelife of some of our listeners.
(09:21):
It's a very, very powerfulletter for some of our listeners
, um, it's a very, very powerfulletter.
Thank you so much, um.
Are you able to share a?
Speaker 2 (09:34):
little bit about your journey that does it feel like
a oh sure, absolutely.
Um, how much time do we havetoday?
Speaker 1 (09:39):
well, there's not, you know, a set time.
Typically our episodes aresomewhere anywhere between, I
guess, 30 minutes to an hour,but there's no a set time.
Typically our episodes aresomewhere anywhere between, I
guess, 30 minutes to an hour,but there's no actual set time.
We can just have a conversation, kind of see where it goes and
when it feels right to kind ofend it.
It doesn't have to be yeah,scripted or set on stone.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Okay, well, I think you know, on the spiritual path
they refer to these great souls,these great beings, these s
pain and suffering, and theyconnected to you.
Know that word God can beinterpreted?
You know, if you asked ahundred people what the word
meant, you'd probably get 50 to100 different answers.
(10:39):
Everybody seems to have theirown take on what it is, but the
masters are not.
They're very, very finite inthe way they describe what the
word God means, and they talkabout it in terms of
enlightenment, liberation, oflove, of wisdom, of empowerment,
(11:00):
whatever that is not temporarybut eternal, and that every
living being on the planet, insome way or another, is
connected to the same energy andthere is no other.
So that when we use the termGod, we are all that.
(11:22):
We're not part of God.
We are all that we're not partof God.
We are God, and that's adifficult one to understand
without the experience that wehave.
Through the spiritual path,through meditation and through
the grace of a master who'salready attained it, they easily
wake up that energy inside ofus, and the issue is all focused
(11:45):
on the mind, which I'll getinto in a moment.
That quieting the mind is theanswer to tapping into that part
of us that is forever.
You know, I had a guru.
He passed some time ago and wasreplaced by Guru Mai, who was a
(12:08):
.
She took over for him, but asan enlightened being she
received the same energy.
But anyway, he always used tosay that God dwells within you
as you.
There is no other.
In all the spiritual texts fromthe East the Yoga, vashista and
(12:31):
the Guru Gita and all of thesegreat texts they all talk about
the word God as an eternal beingthat encapsulates everything
and everyone, and that we areall part of that, not only part
of it.
We are that and that's thewhole.
(12:54):
Idea of the spiritual path isto connect with it.
And I remember, rosie, when Iwas a little boy, I was left
alone in my house.
My parents had gone out and Ijust kind of like began to, you
know, snoop around, something Ishouldn't have been doing, but I
(13:16):
did.
And there was always in mymother's room.
She always had a drawer whereshe kept all kinds of stuff, I
would call it, and it was kindof a sanctuary for her and she
didn't want anybody to look inthere, but I did.
And when I opened the drawer Ifound at the very top, a whole
(13:36):
bunch of black and whitephotographs.
And at the top, the photographon the top was a little boy,
maybe four or five years old.
His shoulders were all slumpedover and his face was, all you
know, contracted in the saddest,loneliest expression that I
(13:59):
could have imagined.
And as I stood looking at thephoto, tears began to well up in
my eyes and I realized thatthat little boy was me and that,
even more so, that the feelingsthat were projected from my
face as a little boy completesadness and unhappiness and fear
(14:24):
was the way I had felt all mylife.
And at that time, maybe, I was12 or 13 years old and it scared
me to death to think that Imight spend the rest of my life
living in those horrendous,insidious feelings, those
(14:46):
horrendous, insidious feelings.
And as I looked at that pictureagain, this fear welled up
inside me.
And you know, rosie, the wordfear is always looked at, as you
know, a very contracted,powerful, you know, negative
feeling.
But what I came to learn inthose initial phases of my life
(15:09):
was that fear was also a verypowerful driving force that
moved our lives, when we weren'taware of where it was coming
from, because it all comes fromthat same place, of where it was
coming from, because it allcomes from that same place, and
in that moment I wanted to finda way in which to end those
(15:31):
horrible feelings.
And so, as a preteen, what youdid in those days is, you know,
I grew up in the Bronx andeverything centered around your
friends being accepted, beinglooked at and having recognition
.
It didn't matter how goodlooking you were, how much money
(15:55):
your parents had, it was thegame, was basketball of all
things, basketball of all things.
And when you got out onto thecourt wanting to gain that
recognition and acceptance, itmattered how good you were.
Everything else just fell away.
(16:15):
And I tried so hard, I competedso hard to be good, to win.
And that was the first time inmy life that I realized that, in
the act of wanting to competeto win, it became a.
(16:39):
It actually stopped my mind andI became extremely focused on
what I was doing.
And I went into this state wherethe fear was gone.
I wasn't afraid and I had noall I, all I knew was I focused
everything on what I was doing.
It was kind of a wakingmeditation, which I didn't have
(17:02):
any idea.
Um, but it was bliss, it wasabsolute.
I just loved doing it becauseit made me feel so good and it
also got me accepted with myfriends and family and everybody
else who came out to watch.
But at the end of the day I hadto go home.
(17:24):
But at the end of the day I hadto go home.
When I got home and I got intomy house, all the old feelings
of loneliness and fear anddepression and unhappiness came
roaring back and I would climbinto bed with covers over my
(17:48):
head and cry myself to sleepevery night.
Wow, it was.
You know, so I would.
You know.
Naturally, the game ofbasketball came for me, a
sanctuary of sorts, and so Ibecame addicted to wanting to
play, wanting to win, wanting togain that sense of feeling, you
(18:10):
know, happy and free.
But invariably the minute Istopped and left for the day, it
all came back again.
There was nothing lasting in it.
And I remember one day, as Iwas walking home, I lived in a
place called Parkchester in theBronx, and it was a 60,000, you
(18:33):
know population of familiesmiddle, you know middle class
families, and they wereconnected building by building.
You know 12, 15 stories.
And I remember walking throughthe hall connecting two
(18:54):
buildings.
One day, as I was on my way homeand as I walked into the hall,
it was like a giant soundstage.
You could actually hear my feetas they clumped on the floor of
the concrete.
I had these leather shoes andas I looked up, at the end of
the hall there was this group ofteenagers, maybe five of them,
and one of them raised his handand as he brought it down, it
(19:17):
was like him leading a symphonyorchestra.
But then they began to singFive-part harmony, a cappella.
No instruments, just voices.
It was the most beautifulmelody and harmony and sound I'd
(19:38):
ever heard in my life.
I was mesmerized.
And after I heard them sing,they sang a song called A Sunday
Kind of Love and the lyricsjust blew me away.
The initial words were I want aSunday kind of love, a love
that will last when Mondays arecold.
(20:02):
And those words they just thehair on my arms just stood up
and I said I've got to find away in which to continue
listening to that kind of music.
I'd never heard anything likeit before.
I'd never heard anything likeit before and I began to realize
(20:31):
that on the street corners inthe Bronx at that time, back in
the 50s, it seemed everywhereyou went groups like that were
forming.
They called it doo-wop rock androll, but it was all about love
and harmony and relationships,and it was just.
I just couldn't get enough andI longed to form my own group
(21:00):
and several months later I foundfour other guys who were
interested in doing the samething and we formed a group
called the Montclair's and webegan to, you know, make records
, perform in shows around townand, um, when we would be on
stage, I would hear the peoplein the audience.
They would applaud and and andstand up and cheer.
(21:23):
They just loved the sound.
And it was another way.
It was like playing basketball.
It was another way in whichthat feeling of ecstasy just
welled up inside me and thehappiness that came from it.
For the moments I was doing andsinging, all the unhappiness
(21:46):
and loneliness and depressionjust evaporated.
And one day, one of the guys inthe group came over to me and
he said hey, alan, we just gothired to do a show at a Sweet
Sixteen party, and you won'tbelieve it, but the girl whose
Sweet Sixteen party is, she'sabsolutely gorgeous.
And we sang at the party and,as it would happen, the girl
(22:15):
fell in love with one of theguys in my group and that guy
was me.
Two years later we were married.
We had our first baby.
Life was me.
Two years later we were married.
We had our first baby.
Life was sweet.
I was living in a place where Iwasn't lonely anymore and
frightened, and I felt connectedfor the first time.
(22:37):
And it lasted for two years andthen one day she got up.
She left the baby with her andit was almost two years before I
saw the baby again and then 20years before she came back into
(22:57):
my life.
Wow.
I thought I was about to diebecause back, as you know, back
came all of the pain andsuffering.
Fortunately, somehow one of theguys that I knew, I decided to
go back to school.
(23:17):
I was teaching at the time andI went back to school to get my
master's degree and I met acouple of guys I grew up with
and they seemed so carefree andhappy and it was infectious, and
they used to make fun of me andtell me you're sorry now,
(23:39):
you're always unhappy, what'swrong with you, life's great.
And they would cajole me intowanting to change my life.
And when I was around them, itmade me feel good and again the
good feelings would come back.
And what would happen was oneday we decided to enter the
(24:06):
world of finance.
They were saying that if wemake enough money, all our
troubles, all our unhappiness,everything will disappear and
we'll be on top of the world.
And we can do that.
And two years later, rosie, theskies opened up and millions of
(24:28):
dollars this is back in the 60sbegan to pour down all over us.
We started a brokerage housethat became one of the largest
brokerage houses in the country.
Over-the-counter brokeragehouses in the country,
over-the-counter brokeragehouses and just you know I
(24:50):
couldn't even begin to tell youhow incredibly amazing our lives
had become, so beyondeverything else.
After that, I got into realestate.
Then I became a boxing promoterand everything they seemed to
(25:12):
touch became successful and mademore money than I could ever
dream possible.
But instead of being happy andsuccessful which I was
materialistically I fell intothe deepest state of depression
I had ever been in my whole lifeand thoughts of suicide
(25:34):
actually rained through my head.
I'm familiar with that.
What's that?
Speaker 1 (25:42):
I said I'm familiar with that.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, I hear you.
And it just kept spiralingdownward and I didn't know what
to do.
So what happened was it led meto drugs and and as I began
using drugs, it led me todealing drugs because I was no
(26:07):
longer working or making moneyor anything like that, but I
still had made a lot of money inthe market and real estate.
But it was about the drugs gaveme a feeling of being high and
took away temporarily again thefeelings of despair and
(26:30):
depression and fear.
And it got to a point where Icame home one night and I
started selling drugs too.
And I came home one night andthere was the police waiting for
me.
They came pouring out of thewoods, stroll cars with their
(26:52):
lights blaring and sirensblaring, pulled up behind me and
surrounded me and a handreached out and drew me down on
the hood of a police car.
And I remember the voice, rosie, as clearly as I remember the
voice, rosie, as clearly as Iremember anything in my life,
and it said into my ear you arein more trouble than you've ever
(27:20):
been in your life.
I felt the energy just drainout of my feet and into the
ground and I lay helplessly onthe car, I was taken to a police
station down in Manhattan inNew York.
(27:40):
I was booked and then somehow Iwas released on bail.
I got an attorney, I got out onbail.
An attorney, I got out on bail,and a year later I stood in
front of a judge as he sentencedme 15 years to life.
I had absolutely no idea, otherthan the word life, what I was
(28:01):
facing, and when I first arrivedin prison, I found myself out
in the prison yard facing over2,000 inmates Most of them were
lifers.
Rosie, I was scared to death.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
How old were you?
If you don't mind me asking.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
What's that?
Speaker 1 (28:22):
How old were you when you first went in?
I was 40.
40, wow Okay.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yep, yep, and it was like those first 40 years in my
life was a horror show.
It was like everything that Ihad ever touched in my life.
I became successful at Money,sex and rock and roll, whatever.
(28:49):
It all worked on the outside,but underneath those feelings
were these horrible feelings ofloneliness, despair and fear,
and they played over and overand over like a broken record
inside me, no matter how muchmoney I made, no matter how much
love came in my life, no matterhow many friends I had, it
(29:12):
didn't matter.
The outside seemed to becompletely disconnected to the
feelings I had inside.
When I got busted and I was sentto a maximum security prison,
upstate, with a sentence of 15years to life, there was over
(29:39):
2,000 inmates, most of themlifers out in the yard, most of
them with nothing to lose, andI'm scared out of my mind.
I don't know what to do.
And I remember walking to thefarthest part of the compound
where there was a building andit was as far away from the
mainstream media inmates that Icould get, and I sat down up
against the wall, I closed myeyes, my legs crossed and
(30:05):
spontaneously I fell into astate of meditation.
Now, the thing was.
I had absolutely no idea what Iwas doing.
I never meditated before.
I didn't even know whatmeditation was.
And after some time maybe 20minutes, half hour, I don't even
(30:27):
remember my eyes opened.
I looked around and I realizedthat word realized became a
mantra.
It breaks down to meaning beingwith real eyes, being the truth
.
You know they call theseenlightened masters
self-realized.
They see the wisdom and thetruth beyond anything that
(30:52):
they're faced with.
And I realized that myexperience of the prison, my
sentence, my inner state hadcompletely changed.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
The fear was gone.
I felt lighter and freer beyondanything I had ever experienced
in my life before.
Could I ask a couple questionshere?
Sure, sure, sure, thank you.
So meditation I don't know ifyou concur or not, but you can
answer after.
In my opinion, it varies theway people experience meditation
(31:39):
.
For example, did it differ whenyou first started meditating
versus your meditations now?
(32:01):
Um, any form of I mean sourcesyou know, I see it as all that
is, but you know, any form ofconsciousness that was able to
come forward with any messagesthat were guiding you um through
this challenging part of yourjourney?
Um, if you're able to shareanything like that, or how, how
has your meditation evolved umthroughout time?
Speaker 2 (32:27):
your meditation evolved throughout time?
Oh, that's a great question anda profoundly important one,
because the the expectations ofpeople and perceptions of people
are so varied and so different.
But I, you know, you knowthere's a great saying in yoga
(32:51):
that you can only get as high asyour teacher and that the truth
is not something that varieswith time.
Truth is absolute.
Amen.
That when we touch it, when weexperience it, we know there's
(33:14):
nothing else.
It's like that with love.
When you fall in love, you knowthere is no other experience,
there's nothing else going on.
Love just encaptures everything, it's all-encompassing.
And you know, to understandwhat meditation truly is is to
(33:38):
let go of what we think it is.
And again, that word think isthe mind getting in the way of
the experience.
And that word think is the mindgetting in the way of the
experience.
And what meditation is is not apractice, it's not something we
do.
Meditation at the ultimatelevel is the state of being.
(34:03):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (34:06):
I love that.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
I love that.
Well, it's also the truth,because, you know, when we
experience love, there's nothingelse going on.
When we have an epiphany,there's nothing else going on.
When we fall in love, there'snothing else going on.
It's the times that we are notin that state that we say, well,
(34:31):
meditation takes us only so far.
Meditation has nothing to dowith that.
Meditation is the state of God,it's the state of the self, it's
the state of the universe.
It's the state of the universe,it's the state of the eternal
presence.
That is everything.
There's nothing that's not God.
(34:54):
And so everything that we seein yoga they call the material
universe maya, which meansillusion.
And they call it maya illusionbecause it is temporary, it has
(35:16):
an expiration date and therefore, no matter how much we use the
external world to gain happinessor freedom or love or success
or recognition or anything, itis here and it's gone.
How can anybody find anythinglasting in a place that's
(35:39):
temporary?
The material world around us?
But when we get in the state ofmeditation, when we get in the
state of love, when we get inthe state of wisdom, when we get
in the state of liberation,they're all synonyms, they all
(36:03):
mean the same thing, and thatGod, the Guru, self, truth,
wisdom, love.
They are all the same.
They arise out of the sameplace, which is everything.
Speaker 1 (36:22):
That is absolutely beautiful.
Could I?
Speaker 2 (36:25):
ask you, go ahead.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
I'm sorry well, I love that you said that
everything is God and there'snothing but that, and I love
that.
But just for the sake of ourlisteners and to kind of
(36:47):
brainstorm a little bit when itcomes to, I guess you would say
you know I don't know if that'sthe word I want to use but you
know more of the shadow side,the negative, the devil, the.
You know that, that otheraspect, if you want to, that
(37:08):
other polarity, um, how wouldyou, how have you come to to
understand or reconcile withthat opposing force?
Speaker 2 (37:24):
Well, you know that's .
That's wonderful to hear yousay that Because, again, it is
very difficult to understand thetruth when you're living in a
perception that's conditional.
(37:45):
Mm-hmm, love is unconditional.
Mm-hmm, in a perception that'sconditional Love is
unconditional God isunconditional.
And you know, muktananda, myguru, used to say if you're not
giving love in the world, whatis it?
that you're giving.
Wow, and if you're notreceiving love in the world,
(38:05):
what is it that you're receiving?
So when we receive somethingthat's negative, it has to be
conditional, because it's hereand it's gone.
It's temporary, and when we getmarried and we fall in love, we
want it to be forever.
(38:26):
Our dreams as human beings iseternal.
We don't want it to end.
We get afraid because we'reafraid it's going to end,
because we have no experience ofwhat is lasting, other than the
moments that we have noexperience of what is lasting,
(38:47):
other than the moments that wehave those experiences.
We think they're coming fromoutside, when they're not.
They're coming from within us.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Could I, sorry, go ahead, go ahead.
Well, I was going to say aparenthesis in that, because
you're saying they're comingfrom within us.
So, for example, with theseconditioning, just to kind of
stay in the realm of that othernegative polarity which should
(39:21):
also, in my opinion, place apurpose yeah, absolutely in my
opinion, plays a purpose.
But yeah, to me everythingplays a purpose of the whole
ecosystem to kind of.
But anyway, you know, to me alot of these things could also
be perceptions, not only of theindividual conditioning, whether
(39:45):
it's fears, limitations, etcetera, or the collective belief
of any particular identity orkind of like, like, kind of we
we feed into that idea or intothose we feel the fire of,
(40:07):
whatever form we perceive thatother thing could be.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
What is a belief?
Speaker 1 (40:16):
Oh, I love that.
I've never been asked that.
A conditioning, an illusion.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
Well, of course, it's a thought, it's a thought, it's
a thought.
And the mind has no basis inanything lasting.
That's why beliefs are Sundaymorning breakfast and Monday
morning's lunchtime.
They change, they have no power, no lasting quality to them and
(40:47):
, as a result, we cannot rely onthem and therefore we become
frustrated.
And you know how the spiralworks after that Frustrated
despair, loneliness, depression,fear.
And the list goes on and on.
And, as all of the great sagestell us that the mind is the
(41:08):
only thing in the way ofexperiencing the eternal quality
of who we truly are, and whenthe mind is quiet, what is left
is God.
I love that what is left islove.
Speaker 1 (41:24):
You know I was just going to say A Course in
Miracles says something to theeffects of nothing, but love is
real, it's true, yeah, so kindof like everything.
Like you know, a lot of peoplewant to have their truth or
(41:46):
their God, be the one universaltruth or the one God, and just
focusing, rather than aparticular identity of whatever
form or thought you imagine thatto be more just to focus it on
love in general.
More just to focus it on lovein general, kind of like values,
(42:10):
virtues that we can kind offocus more on as a species.
You know the qualities of God,rather than if you're right or
I'm right or you're God, my God,type of thing.
You know.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
Well, you know, it's so important to begin our search
by saying to ourselves nomatter what comes up, we begin
our dive into the inner being byunderstanding and saying to
(42:50):
ourselves I begin by saying I amGod.
In the scriptures it says I am,that I am, I am God, there is
no other.
Once you say that, everythingbecomes benevolent.
And that is such an incrediblyimportant perception, Because
(43:13):
when you say to yourself and youbegin to understand that, you
begin to realize that no matterwhat comes to you, no matter
what is happening, no matter howyou perceive it, it is all
based on God's grace.
And think about this for amoment.
(43:35):
When something gets too hot,what do we do?
get away from it yeah, if, ifyou turn on the uh, on the flame
in the on your stove and youstick your hand in, what's the
first instinct?
(43:56):
you have to take it out exactlyso the pain that we call uh
suffering or pain, becomes theopportunity, because it prevents
us from staying asleep, becauseif we're asleep and we don't
(44:16):
experience the pain, we willlight ourselves up in flames.
And the universe, beingbenevolent, says I'm not going
to let you do that.
I have created the pain andsuffering so that you take your
hand out of the fire and youbegin to move from your head to
(44:39):
your heart.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
That's beautiful.
Yeah, throughout my journeyI've come look at um even the
hardest challenges asopportunities, kind of like um
changing the perception and it'sa little bit too of what the a
course in miracles shares tokind of change the lens of how
we look at life and the eventsthat happen to us.
Um, so definitely kind of likeshifting.
(45:06):
That at least makes the journeya little bit more enduring, a
little bit lighter.
So let me ask you this oh sorry,Go ahead.
I was going to ask for how longwere you actually in jail for?
Like how many years?
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Well you know, can I share a little quick story with?
You Sure sure, Go ahead.
One day I'm out in the yard andyou know I'm meditating out in
the yard, which I did every day,Whether it rained, whether it
snowed, it didn't matter.
I just that was it.
And you know, after a while theinmates cleared out an area,
(45:52):
Believe it or not.
They cleared out an area whereI used to sit for meditation and
nobody would put a blanketthere because it was like a big
athletic field out there and youknow, they would, you know, put
their blankets out and they'dtake out something to eat or
(46:12):
whatever they did on a nice dayor whatever.
But when I started meditatingout there, nobody put a blanket
within 20 yards, 30 yards ofwhere I used to meditate.
It became a spot.
It wasn't that they wereavoiding it, they were honoring
(46:35):
it Because the energy wouldbuild up.
And when I would come out ofmeditation and stand up and
begin to move around, they wouldall kind of look at me and
smile.
For the most part that theywere, they were just
acknowledging that somethingreally magical was going on for
(46:56):
me and it was making them feelgood.
And I and it was confirmed bysome of the inmates would come
up to me and go hey, what is itthat you're doing?
It looks so peaceful, you lookso happy, blah, blah, blah blah.
And these guys are doing life.
And I began to realize thatthey were all looking for the
(47:17):
same thing, Even if they wereornery characters, that when
they came, you know, in contactwith that grace, with that
Shakti it wasn't me, it was theShakti that I was getting closer
to.
That was kind of radiating out.
It's like being around somebodywho's very loving, you feel
(47:39):
really good.
When you're being aroundsomebody who's angry and violent
, you want to get the hell outof there.
Absolutely.
And I was getting that kind ofvibe from wherever I went and I
started a meditation class andthey gave me a room in the
school and I had 50 guys on thewaiting list and 25 was the
(48:00):
limit that they could work.
And the warden of the prisongot wind of what I was doing and
he came over to me one day andhe said you know, whatever
you're doing, keep doing it,because it's having an impact on
the whole prison.
And it was, you know.
(48:21):
When he said that to me, I was,you know.
I felt really glad that he saidthat, not so much because I
realized that what I wanted todo is I wanted to help people.
It was something that washappening spontaneously.
Anyway, one day I hear my namecalled over the loudspeaker and
(48:42):
it said Gompers, ada 2139.
That was my number.
Please report to the warden'soffice.
He wants to see you.
And I said, my goodness, whatdid I do now?
That was my first thought and Irealized that I had no
skeletons in my closet anymoreand that I couldn't conceive of
(49:04):
being called for.
You know, some negative thing,although I had no idea what it
was and I wasn't afraid at allbecause I felt very clear about
who I was in those moments.
And when I got up to thewarden's office.
There he was, rosie standingoutside of his office pacing up
(49:25):
and down like he was about tohave a baby.
And the minute he saw me, hisface lit up and he made his way
over to me.
I didn't even walk towards him,he just ran over to me and he
held out his hand.
He said, mr Gompers, so good tosee you.
Come into my office.
We need to talk.
And so I went into his officeand I sat down down opposite him
(49:48):
and he looked at me and he saidhow long have you been in
prison?
I said at the time I'd beenabout three or four years.
And he said you know, you'vebeen granted executive clemency
by the governor of New York.
Wow, and he stood looking at me, anticipating me jump out of my
(50:15):
seat, scream and yell and jumpup and go into an ecstatic
moment.
But you know I wasn't lookingfor anything, nor did I feel I
needed anything.
I acknowledged the fact thatthis was a good thing, but you
know, it didn't matter to me.
(50:35):
I felt completely relaxed andat home with who I was and I
wasn't looking for anything.
At any rate, he stood lookingat me like I was out of my mind.
He expected me to go crazy andI didn't.
And I just walked up to him andI said Warden, thank you so
much, I appreciate this.
(50:55):
And he handed me a letter and Iwalked out the room with him
scratching his head and as Iwalked back towards my cell, all
of a sudden this wave of fearcame wafting up inside me,
something I hadn't experiencedfor almost two years since.
(51:17):
I started the meditation and Irealized that I could be going
home the next day.
You ready for this?
I?
Didn't want to go the next day.
You ready for this?
I?
Didn't want to go.
I wasn't expecting that.
(51:38):
It wasn't the prison that Iwanted, it was the time, which
was another oxymoron.
Oxymoron, imagine most peoplethat I knew, and especially
myself, grew up with theunderstanding that time was the
worst enemy, because one day itwas all going to end.
I was behind it all, but timewas always a beginning and an
(51:59):
end.
And I had this time in prisonthat was no longer my enemy, it
was no longer punishment, buttime had become my friend and I
realized that I wanted more timeso that I could continue to
work on my meditation, so that Igot to a place where nothing or
(52:22):
no one could ever undermine myfreedom again.
And when I got back to my cell,I sat down on my bed and I
opened the letter and theclemency order said that I had
been granted not a pardon but areduction, a reduction from 15
(52:45):
to life to six to life.
Wow.
And as I sat on my bed and Ijust pondered it for a moment, I
realized that I had just beengiven a gift for three years.
Not a sentence, but a gift,because it gave me the time
(53:07):
where I, when I finally wouldget out, I would be in a place
where nothing could take it fromme and as I sat there looking.
My cell had a window with barson it and it overlooked these
beautiful mountains.
If you ever saw my book, thatwas the picture I saw.
And.
I'm looking out over themountains and I hear this voice
(53:30):
and I close my eyes and thevoice said Alan, it is not about
getting out, it's about gettingfree.
You're not there yet.
Behind these walls, you canhear my voice.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
That's beautiful and, as I understand it, also, after
you got out, you stillvolunteered in some of the
prisons to continue teaching.
This Is that plus your book,yeah to this day, this day.
Speaker 2 (54:13):
Okay, yeah, I still go into prisons and I still, um,
you know, I, I still teach, Istill have a well-being and a
life coaching practice,meditation teaching practice.
So, um, and it gives me so muchjoy to have people who are
looking for some kind of respitein their life because, whether
(54:34):
they're suffering biologicallyor psychologically or
emotionally or whatever, orspiritually, you know, it gives
me an opportunity to share withthem what we're talking about
today and to teach people youknow what meditation is and how
(54:56):
to meditate, and what the objectof meditation is, and not some
practice that's here and gone.
You know, it's like somebodydoes an hour of meditation and
the next thought is what's forlunch?
That's not going anywhere.
The state of meditation issomething that exists inside of
(55:18):
us all the time, whether we getthe directions through what we
see and hear, or we get thedirections because we're busy up
in our head.
We get the directions becauseeverything is benevolent and, in
the end, in the end, it's allgoing to be benevolent, it's all
(55:41):
going to work out well, thankyou for those words.
Speaker 1 (55:46):
I I needed, I know I needed to hear those.
So thank you for that.
And just to kind of wrap up,we're going to leave for
everybody in the description ofthe podcast how to contact you
and your services, so that waythey kind of have a better
breakdown and know where toreach you.
Have a better breakdown, um,and and know where to reach you.
(56:07):
Um, but just to kind offinalize um, how do you, how
have you come to understand um,the Holy spirit and Jesus, kind
of like?
Um you know a lot of peopletalk about um, you know the way
(56:32):
to the Father or you know thatis through Jesus.
So how do you, how have youcome to understand that?
Or understand the differentforms of God?
Do you see it just as differentlevels of consciousness that
are attainable within oneself?
Do you see it any differently?
How have you come to see that?
Speaker 2 (56:50):
Well, when you say levels of consciousness, there's
no such thing I love that Goahead.
Yeah, the levels ofconsciousness are the times you
experience that Holy Spirit andthe times that you don't is
because the level of the HolySpirit goes beyond your ability
(57:16):
to perceive it in that moment orin that period of time.
The more we get connected toGod, the more His presence
becomes out front and we're nolonger searching in the same way
.
But the most important thing isto understand that.
(57:41):
I remember my, you know theseenlightened masters, you know
again, when people are connectedto the truth, they know it,
there is no doubt, and theybegin to see it at a level where
they experience it rather thanintellectually believe it.
(58:01):
And that's the difference.
My guru used to talk aboutJesus all the time.
He used to talk about him as agreat, great saint, a great sage
, but he used to say that Jesuswas a man.
(58:24):
The Holy Spirit is what we inyoga call the Shakti, or the
Chinese call the key energy, orwhatever.
It's all that eternal energythat flows through a great being
and Jesus always said I and theFather are one Greater works
(58:46):
that I have done you will do areone Greater works that I have
done you will do.
He never separated anything,although it's perceived that way
, because out there people takeadvantage of that and use it,
you know, for corrupted purposes.
I mean, during the Crusades,the Pope said go out and kill in
the name of God.
(59:06):
It was justifiable and theyused God's name as a way in
which to exterminate people.
Speaker 1 (59:15):
They're doing it today in Israel and in what do
you call it Ukraine 100% and alot of the, even like the Mayans
and all the stuff they hadsacrifices to the gods.
Speaker 2 (59:31):
It's going on since the beginning of time.
And you know, god is not aboutannihilation and killing,
although that is one of hisfunctions, because if God is
everything, he begins creation,he sustains creation and he
morphs creation into a differentlevel of consciousness.
(59:53):
Not a death.
Only the body dies.
The Holy Spirit, which is Godor God's grace, whatever way you
want to call it is the sameessence that you and I are.
We're not different from God.
You know, like I remember Ithink I told you this once
(01:00:18):
before, but I remember sittingon the beach with my
granddaughter, brittany she wasfour years old at the time and
we were sitting out there andand we're looking out at the
ocean, it it was a beautiful dayand I said to her I said look
out there, brittany, what isthat?
And I pointed and she saidthat's a wave, grandpa, I said
no, it's not.
And she looked at me liketotally confused and she said
(01:00:41):
yes, it is, it's a wave.
I said no, it's not, it's justwater, it's the ocean itself.
(01:01:14):
The wave is not real, it'stemporary and when it relaxes it
goes right back into the oceanagain.
It doesn't lose anything, it'sall still there.
Only you can't see it in thesame form.
The wave is just water, thestars and the planets, and the
grasses and the animals,everything are waves on the
ocean of God's grace.
Speaker 1 (01:01:21):
That's a beautiful way to explain that and just to
kind of, I think, wrap it up.
I would love to wrap it up witha question for you, and then
you can add to that whatever youlike and finish however it
feels right for you.
I would like to kind offinalize with how you've come to
(01:01:47):
understand the will of God andacceptance in your own journey
for me, acceptance is to beginthe journey till you, finally
(01:02:13):
experience the absolute truth.
That's deep, that's deep.
Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
Otherwise, what's that?
Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
That's deep.
Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
Yeah.
Well, what if we're not lookingfor the absolute truth that we
are eternal beings, that we areGod, then this whole thing just
has a beginning and an end andit's no more.
But none of the scriptures,none of the great beings or
(01:02:50):
saints have told us that, andnone of my experience in
meditation, when I connect tothat place, doesn't disclose
that truth.
In my own experience and that'sthe issue If somebody says to
me I believe in God, they haveno idea what they're talking
(01:03:10):
about.
A belief is a thought.
It's here and it's gone.
What's for dinner?
Is my next thought.
When you ask somebody do youbelieve in God?
Oh, I believe in God,absolutely.
I go to church every week and Ipray and I blah.
Well, what is your experience?
(01:03:31):
What do you mean?
What is my experience?
Do you experience God?
Well, I don't know.
I'm not sure.
First, if people answeredhonestly, most people would say
that they had a belief.
Most people would say that theyhad a belief, but their
(01:03:54):
experience is different.
My mentor in my book I wroteabout him Tom Toomey.
He was a Catholic priest and aDominican monk 20 years.
He grew up in a home thatvalued Catholicism and
spirituality as the only thingthat was important and they were
taught to believe in God and hebecame a monk and a priest and
(01:04:31):
he said, after about 20 years ofgiving Mass and counseling
people and doing all thesethings that religious people do,
he said he was beginning to dieinside Because all his life he
had been taught about God andJesus and all of this stuff and
(01:04:54):
he said he never experienced God.
He had no idea other than hisbelief, to have faith in
something he never knew orexperienced.
And so he began going aroundthe priests and the monks that
he was living with and askingthem the same question Do you
have any experience of God or isit just a belief?
And many of them would say,well, you can't question God.
(01:05:15):
How do you do that?
You can't question God.
And he began to realize that hecouldn't live in this way
because it wasn't answeringanything for him, and so, as
reluctantly as he could everfeel the blasphemy and
everything else that wentthrough his head, he said I
(01:05:36):
can't do this anymore.
He gave up his priesthood andhis vows and he left the church
and he wound up becoming apsychologist out in the world.
And one day he got a note abouta psychological conference that
was being held by an Indianguru in New York City, in New
(01:05:57):
York State, and he went and itwas just.
It was filled withpsychologists and psychologists
and social workers.
There was thousands of them andthis little guy, bhaktananda,
he comes walking in dressed, wasthousands of them.
And this little guy lookedananda, he comes walking in
dressed in orange robes, wearinga big turban, and he sits down
on his chair in front of thewhole group and he looks out and
(01:06:21):
he's just laughing and laughing, and laughing and laughing and
everybody in the audiencestarted to get really confused.
That's what Tom used to say.
And he said and then he did themost bizarre thing he'd ever
seen in his whole life.
He had a set of false teeth andhe took them out, he put them
(01:06:42):
on the arm of his chair and thenhe had his translator, who
later became Gourmet, hissuccessor, and she began to
translate for him as he spoke tothe group.
Without any teeth in his mouth,you would think that the place
(01:07:04):
would go cuckoo and you knowwhatever.
But what happened at the end?
He formed a line and peoplecould come up and he had these
peacock feathers and he wouldhit everybody over the head with
the peacock feathers as ablessing.
And he said when Tom got up andwent in front of him and he got
(01:07:25):
down on his knees and he gothit with the peacock feathers,
he said for the first time inhis life he experienced God.
Wow.
This was a priest for 20 years,at any rate, to end this thing,
because I know I don't want torun it on, but what happened
(01:07:47):
from that point on is he justbegan to follow, you know,
muktananda, wherever he went,all over the world, and his
experience of God became deeperand deeper.
Because he was, you know, hetaught meditation.
(01:08:07):
He came deeper and deeperbecause he was, you know, he
taught meditation and after awhile he got into this place.
When you were around, tom, youfelt your heart just burst.
Just burst with love.
He infected everybody.
It was like you know, and Iremember going up to him one day
(01:08:30):
and saying I don't know who youare or what you are or what
you're doing, but can I pleasecrawl into your pocket and go
with you wherever you go?
I don't want to lose thisfeeling ever in my life, and Tom
invited me to travel with himaround the country and Canada,
teaching meditation and hearinghim speak.
(01:08:50):
It was one of the greatblessings of my life.
Speaker 1 (01:08:55):
Beautiful.
Speaker 2 (01:08:57):
Yeah.
So you know, the thing to takeaway from this is to understand
that when we say I understandsomething, it is different than
when I say I experiencesomething.
When I say I believe somethingor I have an idea about
something, it is all about theclouds rather than the sun.
(01:09:18):
So powerful.
Mind is quiet.
What is left is God, your trueself.
Quiet what is left is God'sself your true self.
Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
Wow, I think that's beautiful to end with that, if
that's okay with you.
Speaker 2 (01:09:35):
It's absolutely fine and I appreciate you so much,
for the questions are great andI know you have a very beautiful
path that you're on and just if.
I can leave you with somethingto take away, is that be still
and know that you are God.
Speaker 1 (01:09:55):
Thank you so much, alan.
It's been a pleasure, a truehonor always to learn from you,
to to listen to your wisdom, to,to your heart, to your message,
message, um, and I know thatyou embody also what you share,
um, so we'll go ahead and leaveon the description below how,
how to contact you and and yourofferings as well, in case
(01:10:17):
anyone's um interested infollowing up with you.
Speaker 2 (01:10:20):
thank you so much interested in a, in having some
sessions and learning,meditation or anything around
holistically around well-beingcoaching and life coaching.
I do all of that and, of course, my book.
They can order that also andget a signed copy.
They contact me.
(01:10:40):
Do you have my email and myphone and all that?
Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
I will leave not your phone but your email, so that
way you're not getting justrandom calls, but your email and
whatever else you want me toput your website, all those
things.
They're going to have itavailable If you want to say it,
just so I can stay on therecording.
You can, if you want to, but ifnot, I'll also be in the
description.
Speaker 2 (01:11:03):
Okay, great, my website is alangomperscom, which
is easy enough, perfect, and mybook is Maximum Security, the
True Meaning of Freedom, andthey can get a signed copy by
emailing me through my agent.
But if you want to call herthat, she's really just a very
(01:11:25):
dear friend.
All of that, she's really justa very dear friend.
But, at any rate, I just wantto thank you again for all the
things that you do in your life,which is beautiful as well, and
I read your book and I reallyenjoyed it very much.
Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
Thank you so much, alan.
I enjoyed your book as well,and the sessions with you as
well have been magnificent.
I keep learning from you.
I'm sorry, and I hope tocontinue to do so.
So thank you again.
It's an honor to have you great.
Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
Thank you, hun have a great day you as well.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.