Avalokiteśvara and this thing called free will…

The process is strange even to me. I tell people I write books but I’m lying. I’m just damned lying. They sit me down, plug me in, and make my fingers type. I don’t write books; books write through me.

When I wrote Climbing Maya, it was like this. I was on the 91 freeway, stuck in traffic, when it hit me so hard between the eyes I thought I was going to scream. The connection between Kundalini Yoga and Maslow came so powerfully, as I drove up the 5 freeway (seriously, they could just hit me while I lounge on the sofa… I wouldn’t mind…) that I called Vicky immediately and had her take notes.

And it’s happening again.

I got the idea to write a book on free will after a droning in my head bugged me for days, until I realized that it was a voice talking to me. Free will is a construct much like behavioralism but it’s… well… after a few months of batting that around in my head, I realized that isn’t news. So what? It’s no big deal. There’s no book there.

Then, yesterday, something hit me here at work. It was like pushing an ice block through a keyhole. (I was going to write pee hole…) In physical pain, I heard it growing louder and louder, pushing me to read, research, move, act – until I found it.

Avalokiteśvara.

The paradigm of bodhisattvas.

Tibetan Buddhists believe in his divinity, much like Christians believe in Christ – but there’s much more there. Because it turns out you can follow a direct line from free will to Avalokiteśvara. Your free will… you…

And so, it turns out I have my next book. If Climbing Maya was about how you as an individual can find success, the new book will be about how the human race can use free will, with an explanation of how it exists, to become… It’s pretty broad in scope, I guess.

I’m going to write it as fiction because I learned my lesson. Climbing Maya hasn’t been turned down because it was a bad book. It’s been turned down 90% of the time because I don’t have celebrity backing – and if that doesn’t make you want to spit, I don’t know what will.

… good thing I finished the play…

Oh! And I finished the play!