This book (My Journey) recounts the principal stations of a life that is far from the ordinary—and already this may prove to be of interest to its readers.  But the book in your hands is meant to be more than entertaining reading. There is a message here that is important for the readers and should be spelled out at the start. The gist of the message is not, as might be expected, to impart insights and conclusions the author has reached in his adventurous life, but  to convey a belief that is central to the life of the author. It is the belief—the fundamental conviction—that seeking the purpose of life is a significant, indeed a vitally important, endeavor. Success in this quest, and already the quest itself, endows our life with meaning.  

I manintain that there is purpose underlying my life, as also your life and all life on the planet. The evolution of life on Earth is not a meaningless accident, something that just happened on this fortunately located blue-green planet. The purpose of life is not something defined and commanded by an external Spirit (although the possibility that such a Spirit exists canno be excluded). Life’s purpose is within and not beyond you and me and the world. It is encoded in every cell of every living being.  … 

The Kosmos appears to have—or perhaps to be—an all-encompassing intelligence. This endows the processes that unfold in our universe with the tendency—the “tropism”—to create complex and coherent wholes. These wholes—dynamic natural systems—range  in size and complexity from groups of quanta in atoms to groups of solar systems in galaxies, and groups of galaxies in the metagalaxy. 

This hypothesis suggests a meaningful concept of purpose in life. Searching for it is perhaps the most meaningful endeavor we could adopt in our life. It could help us align ourselves with the rhythms and balances of the universe. This is saner and healthier than pursuing myriad artificial goals of questionable validity and benefit. 

CONTENTS

A Word to the Reader

Introduction by Gregg Braden

THE JOURNEY

My Musician Incarnation

My Scientist Reincarnation

My Activist Reincarnation

REFLECTIONS 

A Closer Look at my Reincarnations

Pursuing my Quest

The View from the Mountaintop

Afterword by Stanislav Grof

Expanding the Quest

Fourteen Thought Leaders Comment on Why We Are Here
Contributions by Allan Leslie Combs, Jude Currivan, Amit Goswami, Jean Houston, Riccardo Illy, Emanuel Kuntzelman, David Lorimer, Masami Saionji, Michael Sandler, Karan Singh, Michael Charles, Tobias Frederick Tsao, Neale Donald Walsch, Gary Zukav.