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Old Bill

Old Bill's mother was a Christian Scientist and a father was a Jew.  His dad sent him to a military school for his high school education, thus it was that, 18 years old, he was a lieutenant in the US army attached a as liaison to the Chinese troops fighting the Japanese. It was there that he met a Taoist Master (who was his translator) with whom he studied after the war.   He also traveled around the world and spent two weeks sitting in silence at the place of some unnamed Indian holy man -- some say that it was none other than the Fool on the Hill, but there is no way to confirm this. During the Korean War he was a captain in command of a regiment.  During a battle that lasted four days and four nights (where they were pitched against the very same army to which he had been attached a few years before in China!) -- it was during this battle that he had his first experience of the immanent reality which enfolds what we think of as the physical -- and only -- reality.  In the early 60's he had an experience that stayed with him the rest of his life which he spent, writing, speaking and teaching. What did he teach?  That Awareness IS, that Love IS, that Presence IS -- in short, that God is what IS

There is a Presence

 This audio file was taken from a video of a seminar Old Bill gave back in 1993 at White Ga.  His speech is a bit slurred at times because less than two weeks before he stood here talking for two days, he suffered a major stroke and should, at best, have been lying on a hospital bed or pushing up daisies. Slurred or not, he is worth a listen - and as he says, "listen to him gently", "listen for the overtones" in what he is communicating.

Another story: there was this old man who had the rug pulled out from underneath him, that is he had a seizure and doctors did not expect him to live. He is lying there on the hospital bed with tubes sticking in and out of him all different places. A nurse comes to his bed, bends down and whispers in his ear, "Does you know what love is?" 
The old man wondered for a moment, he had been talking about love for thirty years, but still he answered truthfully, "No, I don't know what love is."  The nurse bent down and whispered again  in his ear, "It don't matter, 'cause God loves you!".  From that moment, the old man started to get well and as he later told the story he would say, "No, I don't know what  love is -- but I know that love IS!"

Much more information about Old Bill can be found here and for what one might call first aid for the spiritual equivalent of sucking chest wound, here.