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100% Living and Working with John-Roger | An Interview with Paul Kaye

 

100% Living and Working with John-Roger
An Interview with Paul Kaye
by David Sand

 

Paul Kaye has worked on MSIA staff since 1976 and has been President of MSIA since 1989. He has co-authored several books with John-Roger, including What’s it Like Being You, The Rest of Your Life, Living the Spiritual Principles of Health and Well-Being and Momentum: Letting Love Lead. Over the years Paul traveled extensively with John-Roger doing MSIA services and facilitating retreats and workshops. He currently facilitates the IHOP class and sound meditations.

NDH: So what’s it like working with J-R?

Paul Kaye: Well, it’s following a call. It’s something that the heart desires, and there’s this tremendous pull. So it’s not something one can feel in terms of what it’s “like.” It’s a sense; a fulfillment of a dream; a privilege—a privilege to work with someone who’s probably one of the greatest spiritual masters ever, in my opinion. I say that not only from experience, having gone around the block several times looking for a spiritual master, but also from everything that I’ve read and considered and thought about and seen.

NDH: How do you know that mastership? What are the indicators?

Paul: In my case, I would say the indicators were a sense of humor, and a tremendous ability to be loving, a kind of radiant joy, a feeling that you want to be with them and that you’re uplifted in their company. However, you could say that for a number of people—but one thing you can’t say about a lot of people is that they really know you. And J-R had this ability to really demonstrate clearly that he knew you, not only through his presence and the way he looked at you, but also the information he would give you.

I had a couple of light studies [personal counselings–ed.] with him and the insights that he would give you were amazing. Many people have had an experience of this, where he would say three or four words to them, perhaps at a book signing or something like that, and it would change their world. He would explain your life path and what you were here to work with, and you’d remember it thirty years later and think, “Oh my goodness, he knew that back then?” You’d still be working with what he said, even in the simplest of areas.

So I think there’s a common experience for a lot of us who came into MSIA in the ’70s—and even though I was involved in England, it very much mirrored the group that was here in the U.S. There was so much talk of gurus and people like that, that most of us said, “Well, look, if you are what you say you are, prove it to us.” I think we all had our own version of that. And in each particular case, J-R did prove it to us. He proved that he was who he said he was, and I think we have a very solid MSIA because of that. People have stuck around because what he set in motion resonates and vibrates to this day and is very alive.

Not that a lot of people haven’t left as well—I mean it’s not just one way—but for the most part we have this stability because he revealed who he was and he was what he said he was. So there was no other place to go. That’s kind of reflected in Jesus and his disciples, where one of them said, “Where else are we going to go Lord?” When I read that, I went, “Yeah, where else are we going to go? There’s nowhere else to go. I’ve looked around.” John Morton and I share an idea that we both came to independently, which is that if there’s anything better we would jump on it. It’s not like we’re married to this unconditionally; it’s just that we’re here, selfishly, because it’s the best thing around.

I did find some other really good things. The poetry of Rumi, or Kabir, and some of the works of spiritual masters. I sometimes quote them, but it doesn’t compare to what J-R has been able to offer on a personal level, because he was able to demonstrate it—when I was working for him, when times were hard, or when I was having difficulty, or when I was making mistakes. He was always there. So when he says, “When you’re at your worst, I’m at my best,” that’s absolutely true, because when you’re at your best you don’t need anyone. I would say that that was exactly my experience. You didn’t want to have to get to your worst to see J-R at his best, but if you found yourself at your worst, you definitely would see him being at his best. And I experienced that on a few occasions.

To me, life is about feeling. I love Maya Angelou’s quote that people will forget what you said and they’ll forget what you did but they will always remember how you made them feel. That to me applies to J-R. He’s said some fantastic things, he’s done some fantastic things, but the way he made you feel is unforgettable. And that’s what one’s left with at the end of the day. Perhaps a few times he looks at you and you know that he’s looking at you beyond the physical form. He’s looking at who you are and you feel that awaken. And then it’s almost like it takes you years to realize, “Well, wait a minute, I can get to what he was looking at because clearly he was looking at something way more than just a body.”

You remember the feeling in the eyes. The love in the eyes lingers. I’ve had these moments in life where the image lingers for some reason, and the quality of his voice comes alive. This evening, we have a sound meditation and I’ve selected three meditations, which I play constantly, based on the quality of J-R’s voice. The content is important but it’s the quality, particularly “Practice the Divine Presence (1979)” where he’s talking extemporaneously in New York City on the radio and his voice has this almost bell-like quality. That’s really how you know he knows you. It’s a feeling; it’s hard to articulate because it’s like Spirit. If you put words on it, you kind of miss it, but it’s this feeling that you’re able to have in his presence.

It’s alive now as I’m talking. It’s not like it went away, and I think that’s the difference as well. It’s a vibrating feeling that continues. If I remember how he looked at me, it’s like that’s present now, whereas some other past event would be just in the area of memory. But with J-R, it’s an experience.

NDH: What kinds of things did you learn from J-R?

Paul: I don’t think I would have understood unconditional loving if I hadn’t seen it in action. At the end of the day, that’s really what it was about. I think a lot of people saw J-R as a father figure, or an uncle figure or a parental figure. And some people were abused as children and were looking for the love they felt they missed. But I was very loved as a child. It’s not like I was deprived of love; on the contrary, my parents were very attentive.

When I saw J-R in action, I could understand why he represents something much more for some, but for me he was really kind of a wise friend—or certainly a more experienced, attuned friend. It wasn’t like I was looking for love. I was looking for a spiritual teacher. To me his unconditional loving means that when I’m at my worst, so to speak, he’s at his best.

There were two memorable instances of this. At one point I was making a lot of mistakes and had a love affair that was coming to a close, and everything was kind of imploding. It was really terrible. I almost reached rock bottom and I was going to hand in my resignation and say I’m out of here, but then I thought, “Well, look, he’s been so nice to me; that’s really rude.” So I wrote to him and said, “If it’s clear, I’m ready to leave,” so at least I was giving him an option. I was in his office and although I was just really at the bottom, he had a twinkle in his eye and he was very a matter of fact about things. “I read your letter,” he said. “I tore it up.” He said, “Look, we have an agreement to work together and I’m not dropping my end of the agreement.”

I thought that was the most brilliant thing I’d ever heard. I don’t even feel like I’m being hyperbolic, because it just showed who J-R was, which was a life lesson. He was just like, “Look, you’re free to do what you’re doing; I’m not agreeing with it; I’ve torn up your letter so you can decide, but I’m keeping my agreement.” He kind of put me on the spot in a way, but he was also showing his commitment to me, and there wasn’t anything threatening about it. If you look at it, he could have said easily, “Well, if you’re dropping your end, I’m going to drop my end.” There were just lots of ways to go. Or he could have said, “Screw you. I thought you were here forever.” He could have gone about it in so many ways, and he didn’t. So, I was back on, although it took me several months or longer to regain my confidence and get back up to speed. But that was a complete turning point. I was 36 years old at the time, and from there things just got better and better.

The other instance that was a turning point as well was a phone call I had done where I made an error. J-R called me and asked what was going on, and I was a bit flippant about it—and I can be flippant. J-R gave us a lot of leeway with mistakes. He’d given seminars on mistakes, but as always with J-R there was always a lesson in everything, no matter what you thought. There was always a twist in things because he knew you. He said, “Your soul would not allow me to make a mistake with you.” He repeated that my Soul would not allow it, so why was I making a mistake with him?

What can you say to that? That gave me another life-changing moment, but again it was like, “Whoa, wait a minute, I thought I came here to serve J-R, but J-R is actually serving me. J-R’s a servant.” As I rise in consciousness, I’ve found that the higher I get the more the servant I become; it’s not like the higher I get the more crowns and status I get. In a way, you get more into that serving world and indeed serving is the only thing you can do, every day. And if I’m serving him and he’s serving me, then it becomes a kind of mutual service. How can I do more after that? It’s always been that way. I’ve been given a lot. I’ve had a very privileged and blessed life. But that’s the feeling I have. It’s like, what can I do to give back because I’ve been given so much? What’s the point of having a higher consciousness if you can’t serve?

NDH: What are some things you learned from J-R about being the president of MSIA? Did you get any guidance about doing your job?

Paul: I don’t know if there was any specific guidance; it’s just more kind of a happy coincidence, if one could call it that. When I left home to come to Prana, it wasn’t a big change for me. I lived at home until I was 26 years old. I was an original millennial. So it was just a move from one loving environment to another, really. J-R’s values matched my own, so it was easy for me to adopt his world view, for want of a better word. It was not really an adjustment that I had to make. The way he went about things was very much like my boss at my job before I came here: “How can we do this?” rather than, “tell me how we can do it,” or “tell me how we can’t do it.”

He was always into possibilities, rather than into lacking possibilities or cutting off possibilities. Let’s see…I came on staff in 1976 and became president in 1989, so I guess it was only 13 years, but it was long enough to be involved in the finances and operations of MSIA and to observe how J-R did things. That was an easy transition. I’ve never really identified with being president. It’s not part of my self-identity. I’d much rather see myself as a loving human being who is the president, so if you took away the president, it wouldn’t matter to me. I would still be a loving human being.

There’s nothing romantic about me being president. I joke around and people say, “Oh, you’re the president,” “Yes, I’m the president, call me President, call me Mister,” just joking around with all the things that people put on it. And I realize that people do put big stock in it, and many people have problems with authority figures. I don’t really see myself as an authority. I see it as a role, much like an acting role, where the actor can take off the clothes anytime they want. I’m not identified with it. It’s a job that I look at as a service, one that J-R appointed me to and I said, “Okay.” It wasn’t like I was being groomed to be king. When I came on staff, it was to serve. I didn’t really have anything on it. It even surprised me that I was doing aura balances and things like that. It wasn’t like, “tell me how I can do this or that,” it was, “tell me how I can be of service.”

NDH: How did you start doing the IHOP classes? What was the motivation?

Paul: Well the motivation for the IHOP is simply that the MSS and the DSS classes had completed a cycle, and I didn’t want people to just drift off and not be participating. I felt that there was space for another course that would keep them involved and yet be lighter. I saw it as just an adjunct course. I’ve always been very clear that I feel that the MSS and the DSS are the jewels in the PTS crown and that they are essential courses. I would never think of IHOP as being anywhere near replacing them. So it was an opportunity for people to participate without homework, without a Friday night class. One of the difficulties in any city is a Friday night class because you have to leave early in the afternoon to get across town, whether it’s New York City or any city in the world.

But eliminating Fridays was problematic because it always felt like Friday night sets the tone, so that when people come in on Saturday morning, they’re more ready to go. But we had the idea of having no homework, and also the idea of there’s nothing really to get. You’re just here to be in a retreat environment and to be in the energy. That was the motivation. And I felt that it would also help PTS with their income stream as well. Since then we’ve had MSS and DSS online so there aren’t really the same considerations, but IHOP still does offer an alternative for people. Because of its nature, it gave us an opportunity to explore areas in more depth that hadn’t been covered before.

At first it was the principles of health and wellbeing, and then it was the nine or ten tenets of MSIA. I use the word “tenets” because J-R uses that—loving, caring, sharing, prosperity, abundance, riches, health, wealth, happiness, and touching to others. It’s a nine-month course. And then we realized touching was really important; J-R really emphasizes it. I mean, at one point we were quoting him saying, “Without touching, all the rest are irrelevant or of no use.” That’s a really strong statement. So we added a tenth month, and we gave it free of charge, kind of as a way of touching. And people were good sports as well—we had a couple of power outages—but we had 200 people in the classes and it got popular and had a nice energy to it.

Then after we did the tenets we explored the disciples, and we were able to do a 12-month course for the first time. Then we were exploring the body, and then we did the journey to the sound current of God, which was another 12-month course. Normally, these classes would be nine months, but we wanted to continue to tap into the subject area. So as much as I’ve been involved in this field, in the creation of PTS courses, and being in this energy that we’re living and working in at Prana every day, I still find myself needing the reminders. And when we did IHOP-4, the journey to the sound current of God, it was a revelation to me because I hadn’t really given it that much attention in the 45 years or whatever that I’ve been in MSIA. I hadn’t fully acknowledged that MSIA really is a sound current teaching.

I mean, I knew it intellectually, but not in the fiber of my being. So I found IHOP-4 to be transformational because it was something new for me. Now I’m almost evangelical about it and when people say, “What is MSIA?” I say, “Well, it’s about and the sound current of God.” The business of MSIA is of course Soul Transcendence —but the practice is the sound current, the spiritual exercises. In the past, spiritual exercises didn’t convey for me the feeling of the Sound of God, as they do now. In the beginning was the Word. I felt almost like I’d discovered something completely new, even though it was obviously there from the very beginning.

In the IHOP promo, I was wondering what to say about the sound current. At some point it kind of popped out of me when I was writing it that we were going to explore sound in all of its dimensions. And since then sound has become one of the main focuses of my life.Twice a day I do a 20 minute sound current meditation for visitors to Prana. I start them off with the breath and then we go to the sound, the HU, and then we go to love (the devotional energy) and then we go to the Mystical Traveler to guide us on our inner journey. And then I play some instrumentation for people to follow the harmonics inside until the outer sound disappears and then they’re connected to the inner sound, and they’re riding that sound current back into the heart of God. I say this to new visitors, but in a way it’s so gradual that by the time they’re there it’s pretty profound for the majority of people. Not that everybody’s going to like it, and as they start chanting HU some people are going to find that a bit unusual or weird, but for the most part people really enjoy it. We do that and then we do the sound meditations on Tuesday evenings.

What I love about sound is that to me the sound and the Spirit are very alike. The sound meets you where it finds you, so it’s just like the Spirit. When I send the Light to you for the highest good, the Light is going to go to where it meets you, and that’s where you need the Light for this moment in your life. It could be an emotional thing, it could be something coming down the road. We just don’t know, but the Light is going to decide that. It’s the same with the sound. When I hit a gong or a bowl, asking for the John-Roger energy field—which is essential to me, asking for the highest good and for the Mystical Traveler— that sound is going to go out and, given the person’s openness or what’s going on, it’s going to find them where they need it most. It could be something out of balance in their physical body, it could be a disease, or maybe an organ is out of balance.

The body hears more than the ears, so when you vibrate, the body is picking up all of those vibrations. When it’s a vibration that the body needs, the body is going to take that in like nutrition. The sound can also reach us emotionally, or it can vibrate an upset away, if you’re open to letting it go. If you want to hang on to something then the sound is going to let you hang on to it and then go somewhere else, almost like a river confronting an obstacle. It’s going to pass through to another state.

And then mentally we can certainly demonstrate the effect of sound through encephalographs. In IHOP, the sound therapist Alexander Tannous showed us how what he calls the discursive mind (or the monkey mind, or the chattering mind) immediately calms down. When I’m playing instruments for everybody—and this is without me patterning them, without me even saying anything—everybody says, “My mind is quiet.” They’re kind of amazed.
Of course, spiritually we know that the sound current is what we’re after, so I say, “These are not spiritual sounds; obviously they’re physical realm sounds, but they can lead us harmoniously as our mind is quiet and as we follow the vibration. Then we can take it inside and forget about the outer vibration, and then connect with the inner vibration, the sound current.”

So that was the IHOP-4. When we got to IHOP-5 we were exploring the fascia system of the body. It was just an adjunct class really, and it could still go on as we get more ideas about the body, but not everybody is interested. Then IHOP-6 became about living love and laughing into oneness, and finding out that the two are very much involved in each other. It’s an opportunity to explore living love, and what J-R said about it. The opportunity to explore laughter has been tremendous and once again we got a couple of hundred people signing up, so it’s got a momentum to it.

NDH: What’s ahead for IHOP?

Paul: I have no attachment to IHOP as such, but as long as people are interested, I’m happy to explore these subjects. I have the privilege of exploring subjects that interest me, and that apparently are interesting to a group of people. So, I don’t know what’s next. I don’t know if there’s an IHOP-7, but each IHOP is cumulative. In other words, in IHOP-6 we’re exploring sound and the Christ and the health, so the learnings from previous years accumulate.

NDH: How did you go from the sound current to the laughter? What was the bridge there?

Paul: J-R has said that laughter is a sign of the presence of the Spirit. I felt that we weren’t laughing enough. I like the multi-dimensional nature of things, so if something hits just one level, to me it’s not worth exploring. Laughter hits the Spirit, and that is why it’s essential, but it also hits the physical level and then everything in between. And living love would be the same. It’s also interesting to me because I haven’t explored it before, and I think it’s important as a facilitator that the subject be of extreme interest to me—not just like passing interest, but that this really matters to me because I’m facilitating it. Dr. Mark Holmes, an Oriental Medical Doctor and long-time minister and initiate is co-facilitating IHOP with me. Sometimes we have guest facilitators, but since we are directing the primary thrust of the material, and it needs to come across that this matters to us, and why it matters, and why we think it’s important for other people too.

When the election results came along I was just shocked to see how partisan everybody was, how upset everybody was and how serious everybody was. And then I thought that we went from needing to laugh more to it’s essential to laugh more, because it’s like people are forgetting the joy that they are as spiritual beings and putting that below these worldly affairs, which we’ve been taught to look at neutrally and send the light to. My attitude is that if you have a concern, go and do something about it and move on it physically, or let it go. Just to be concerned and be negative about the concern is a karma-producing situation.

I think it’s much better to find the humor. So, we did the first class and it was really well-received. I think we need to approach it philosophically because there are things that we don’t perceive as funny. To me it’s not funny that elephants are becoming extinct, or giraffes. I love those animals. Having ben on safari, having had a connection with them not just in the zoo but actually in the wild, particularly the elephants, where I had the opportunity in the Maasai Mara to be driven by one of the guides in to the middle of an elephant herd that was walking across the plains…to me it was one of the most extraordinary experiences in my life. I have this affinity with these beings, so stuff like that is not funny to me, and there’s no way I could be laughing.

Nevertheless, crying isn’t going to help them either, so we’ve got this philosophical dilemma of what are we going to do? It’s worthy of exploration, since we’ve been confronting it every day, given climate change and all the changes in the world. We explore it philosophically, and we also explore the idea for laughing for no reason at all. In IHOP-6, we’re going to be exploring how everyday events can be perceived as funny.

For example we resurrect the Seinfeld skit where he describes being at a breakfast buffet at a hotel. It had me laughing out loud. He was describing what people do at buffets—the absurdity of the combinations on our plates and the confusion of walking around in circles. And then when you finally get your plate completely full, you see that someone else has something you didn’t know about and you’ve got to have that one thing. You get so excited and impatient.“WHERE DID YOU GET THAT?” As if you needed the food. You’ve already got enough different food combinations to give you indigestion. What is it that makes that funny? It’s something that’s difficult to teach but at least people know that you can take an ordinary event and make it funny.

As J-R often says, if it will be funny later on, it’s funny now. Later on you’re looking back and talking about it and putting twists on it and laughing about it. There’s a perceptual twist involved so you can learn to make it funny almost immediately, in the moment. In the excerpts that I have from J-R about laughter, I see him doing that virtually all the time. He’s sitting back there, laughing at what’s going on, and that’s the great twinkle in the eye that I talked to you about. It’s as if when he’s looking at you, he’s seeing something else as well, and he’s mesmerized by the fact that we’re so caught up in all of this, and yet he’s in it with us. That was the funny thing with J-R. He would just get in there with us but he’d be laughing and we’ be crying.

NDH: And I’ve heard you’ll be doing some improv in IHOP-6.

Paul: The improv is less about laughter. It actually turned out to be about honoring another person, being with them and connecting with them and listening to them, and making what they’re saying important, even when it’s not, because it’s a way of connecting to the divine in them. It became a whole different practice. I found these improv teachers, and it started out as “we’re going to laugh” but it just took another turn, and the whole purpose changed to something that had more to do with connection and listening. And the laugher may well be a by-product, but we’re still working on it and we’ll see what it evolves. It’s a big unknown right now.

NDH: What was interesting to me taking the experimental improv class as IHOP-6 was being designed, was that being funny or being spontaneous was directly related to the ability to empathize with the other person, and listen, and go with whatever the other person was doing. It wasn’t like we were projecting energy out. It was like we were receiving and participating, instead of trying to come up with ideas. We were participating in a flow.

Paul: It’s fascinating, isn’t it? It’s exactly what J-R is saying—the value of listening. To me it sounds like this is the spiritual nature of things. You’re really taking in the other person and being with who they are, rather than projecting your own agenda on them. That’s a big skill. You don’t see too many people do it. When you’re in the presence of someone who is doing that, you feel good. One of the more valuable things I’ve seen when I’ve gotten in to that space—and I’m not always in that space—is that people feel heard. When they feel heard, it’s healing for them.

NDH: It seems to me that what you’re doing with IHOP, and also the sound meditation classes, is that instead of just going straight into meditative practices, you’re doing things in the physical world that vibrate in harmony with how the Spirit manifests on the different levels. So whether it’s through the gongs, or improv, or health, people have an introduction through the physical, emotional and mental levels, and then they go into the higher vibrations. It’s very much like the way sound works, where you put out a fundamental tone and then other tones, or higher octaves, start vibrating in harmony. It’s almost like what you’re doing is in the classes is harmonic, even if the class isn’t actually about sound.

Paul: That’s beautiful. I hadn’t thought about it in those terms. In a sense, where it has been conscious on my part is the point of view that it’s it’s all about the John-Roger energy field. So in every class that I do I ask for the presence and the energy of John-Roger to infuse everything we’re doing, for the highest good. We’re calling ourselves forward into that vibrational field. And we also create a context, and then without telling people to do SE’s, or without telling them to live a healthier lifestyle, people start to vibrate naturally towards a healthier approach or doing their SE’s or whatever the practice is, without anything other than starting to vibrate towards that. Changes take place, and I think that’s the nicest thing about it.

NDH: They’re great introductions for people because they present the teachings in a way that they can absorb or feel or vibrate with, on a lower level, if they can’t consciously be aware of the higher level. You bring it to them through the different levels, and you say, “See, this is how spirit vibrates physically, this is how spirit vibrates emotionally, mentally and unconsciously.” It’s like a path.

Paul: That’s why I look from a multidimensional viewpoint. So laughter is not just laughing like, “Hey, someone is amusing us.” It’s like, can the laughter be emotional, mental, unconscious, and through all the levels? Eventually, it’s the sign of the spirit, which becomes almost like the pure joy. First we may have to fake the laughter and make ourselves laugh, but eventually it primes the pump for a bigger joy to come forward. And that’s my point with people who are upset, particularly with worldly stuff. We’ve all got our buttons. (I think that now they’re called triggers.) My point of view is, “Wait a minute. I understand, but that’s not who you are.” Who we are is joyful. So while we may not be able to access that all the time, it’s important that we know that the laughter is there. It’s one thing to be deprived of water. That’s a real panic. It’s another thing to say, “Okay, well, I’m not going to take the water right now, but I know it’s there if I need it.” There are more people getting ultra-serious and my attitude is, “Have you forgotten that there is a joyful basis to who you are?”

NDH: Is there anything you can describe about the process of learning about sound that’s been interesting to you?

Paul: What’s so fascinating is that I didn’t expect to be here. This is now the beginning of 2017, and in the beginning of 2016 sound wasn’t even really on my mind. I was just looking at how was I going to do 12 months of the sound current of God. So I started desperately seeking people who could talk about sound. Then as I heard about it, it started to kind of interest me in ways that totally surprised me, and now I’m completely in love with it. We were recording a gong for the new spiritual exercises app that we’re developing, and it was so interesting to me—the resonance, the way the sound comes off of it, and the vibration.

One of the things I’m learning in the sound events that I do—I call them sound immersions—is to honor the silence more. I’m starting out with the sound, but there’s no sound without silence. So tonight I’m going to say, “There are going to be moments of silence, but it’s not the end.”

So I need to set it up so people can just be in the silence and then let the sound fade a little bit more. I used to start the events by saying, “Look, I’m not a musician and this is not a performance. It’s about sound. People would get upset with me afterwards saying, “You are a musician,” “No, I’m not a musician.” So now I don’t say anything. It’s funny that people could see me that way.

NDH: Are you primarily visual? I was interested in the way you described discovering sound as though it was something new for you, and you hadn’t thought of it so much until you studied it in connection with IHOP.

Paul: I’m definitely primarily visual. I’m visual/kinesthetic. My auditory sense is very much my lowest. That’s what surprised me about doing the work with sound. When I took to it, I really took to it. It was so interesting. I did a sound event and someone came up to me and said, “It must have taken you years to learn this.” It had only been like two or three months. I was a bit embarrassed actually. People were getting results from it, but that had nothing to do with me. I was just going along. So that kind of interested me.

NDH: I’ve heard J-R say you are not here to do what you know; you’re here to learn what you don’t know. It’s interesting to me that I’m doing all these visual arts, photography and design, and I’m primarily auditory. When I was 20 or 25, if you’d told me I’d be doing music or sound engineering, I would have said, “Yeah, that’s reasonable.” If you’d told me I’d be doing photography or visual arts I would have been really surprised. To me it’s part of what J-R does. He really stretches you out in this lifetime, and anything that’s incomplete gets completed.

Paul: To me, the metaphor for everything now is sound. The vibration J-R set in motion that is still going on. I play the Heartfelt meditation at every IHOP and at sound events. People get up afterwards and go, “Wow, that was amazing.” It just really is. I think it’s because it’s so alive. It’s more than just a meditation. The work with vibration has also affected my speaking, and singing, voice. I have received positive feedback about my voice that I haven’t gotten before. So something’s changed, and I don’t know what it is, and I can’t say that I woke up with an epiphany or anything like that. It just seems gradual – just like everything else at IHOP.

NDH: Any plans for the future of sound events, or incorporating sound into IHOP?

Paul: Just continuing with the events as long as people enjoy them. I am interested in the idea of sound baths, which are becoming increasingly popular. Let’s just take a piano piece like the Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven. It’s a simple enough piece. Whoever plays it, it is going to be beautiful, but everybody is going to bring a different feeling to it. It’s the same with the sound. If I do a sound bath (I call it sound immersion) it’s going to be completely different from the way someone else does it. Your vibration is going to hit certain people and my vibration will hit certain people. I feel in many ways that it’s my life’s work, funnily enough—sound. I can’t even give you a reason for that, but I think that for the rest of my life I’ll be exploring that.

It’s got enough depth in it, because it’s the sound doing the work. You can’t be ego-attached to it, like “Look what I did for you.” It’s just like, “You didn’t do anything.” It removes the ego, and if there’s an ego element, it’s purely in the pleasure of sharing it. When I play a gong, then the sound gets to work, and it’s the same thing with the Light. The Light gets to work.

When I talk about anything these days it seems to be in terms of the John-Roger energy field. I look at that energy field as an aquarium or a pool, and it’s the only pool or aquarium I want to swim in. It’s not like I want to go outside the aquarium. So I’m being very sensitive to the energy underneath what I’m doing, and I’m always asking myself, “Is this being spirit-directed? Is this John-Roger’s work—or compatible, or in alignment with, or in that field?” If it’s outside of the field, I really don’t want to be involved.

To me John-Roger is alive and well and expanded as an energy field, in all of us. I think a lot of people feel that way. It’s not unique to me. But it’s not for the world, and it’s not for everybody. I’d love it to be for everybody, but it seems that it just doesn’t work that way. And now it may be that J-R’s not actually in the room, but J-R is the room. In that sense, I feel that this work is just amazing.

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