I just got back from a two week tour of the west coast with Robert
Young. I created and manged the trip and we met some beautiful,
open people along the way.  My good friend Geralyn Gendreau was
very taken with Robert and traveled with us part of the way through
Califonia. Below is her description.  -Alan Steinfeld, founder of NR


I just came home from three days on the road with Robert Young
and his wife Barbara and feel to share an insight I had while
driving back to the bay area yesterday. But first, a bit of context
and a quick catch-up...  

I met Robert Young just a week ago and have spent 6 out of past
8 evenings hanging out with him. His 9 March talk at Open Secret
Bookstore, Marin County's undisputed new-age hub, was
qualitatively different than those I'd heard him give for several days
before. He started slow and seemed to go down a meandering,
unremarkable side road into the story of the head-on collision that
started all of this back in 1986. I sat in my chair, squirming. A special
friend (code name: Whitey, short for White Leopard) sat beside me;
he was bored and unimpressed. Whitey is a Ph.D. physicist that
I have been in cahoots with ever since my inner eye gave me a
peek into the future wherein he receives the Nobel Prize. At my
insistence, Whitey had driven over an hour in heavy traffic. He
was none to pleased but doing his best to be polite. Eventually,
he quietly excused himself. Only then did Robert's talk begin to
sparkle. What's up with that? I mused.

At the end of the evening I spoke with my dear friend Rob Calef,
owner of Open Secret. Rob has seen it all where spiritual teachers
and shamans are concerned. He hobnobs with the best of 'em from
David Deida to Martine Practel and Caroline Casey. In other words:
his evaluation has some weight. I was pleased to see his eyes
ablaze. In his estimation (which is only partly accurate) Robert
is a bit like Jill Bolte Taylor the neuroscientist whose TED talk
has had more views than almost any other, see
http://blog.ted.com/2008/03/jill_bolte_tayl.php.

 "That's the right brain talking..." he raved. Rob has declared
Open Secret "home" for the Youngs.

Still, I was puzzled, because my honored guest found Robert's
presentation a ridiculous waste of time. So I questioned Robert
as to why he'd spent so much time telling his story. He said:
"Now I'll never need to tell the story again." I immediately
understood the bigger picture: having told his story among
the well-connected tongue-waggers of Marin, the tale will
go out onto the grapevine and be told a thousand different ways.

"Oh, my God," I said, "You'll be an urban legend in no time.
It'll be like a game of telephone, just you watch. In a week
that story about your instantaneous healing will come back
around... they'll be saying you grew an amputated leg!"
Robert just nodded and smiled that crazy grin of his.

Wednesday night Robert spoke at the home of Lilly Bright
near the Getty Museum in Brentwood. The group that
gathered were open-minded but doubtful, so the talk had a
certain mellow flavor. I began to understand that each time
Robert sits with a group of people, the information he shares
is precisely calibrated to those in attendance. He is required
to match the lowest vibration in the room so as to avoid blowing
anyone's circuits. That night a gorgeous, loud-mouthed blond
set the level. By the end of the night, she was hanging on
Robert's coat tails.

The next night we headed up to Ojai where Robert spoke
to a room full of hand-selected people at my friend Darakshan's
gorgeous estate. Those who gathered were not lightweight,
New Age beginners or onlookers, but people who have been
on the path for decades. Thirty-five of them sat rapt for a solid
hour. Our host was so moved that he offered to put us up for the
night.  Rather than drive back to our Venice Beach accommodations,
our 6-person entourage agreed to stay.

The Ojai group sat around asking questions and laughing until
after midnight. The following morning, Darakshan hugged me
and said: "Thanks, Geege, you really delivered on this one.
I was prepared to be impressed, but this completely
exceeded my expectations."

Reflecting on all of this as I drove home to San Francisco
yesterday, it occurred to me just how powerful the mind of a
skeptic can be. Talk about creating your reality! My physicist
friend actually narrowed the aperture on the clearest being I
have ever met. And while White Leopard's know-it-all view of
the omnipresent intelligence that surrounds us at every moment
may be accurate in the scientific sense, it is utterly futile in the
human-guidance-system sense. Watch Robert Young in Ojai
on youtube, and you will understand. And if it doesn't blow the
blinkers off right away... just hang tight. It won't be long until you
see the light.
Dim lights

This morning I send this personal note to Whitey: In the perfect
world where everything unfolds as it should, I want to
acknowledgethat your "end of the runway" scenario may very
well compel you to jump out of an airplane and not pull the ripcord.
If you do, please REMEMBER: in the world of perfection, you are
invincible. Right up until your final breath, you can make the
crossover move, flip your happy switch, and turn toward your
creator. When you do, no matter where you are in your "fall" to
earth, you will feel a gentlebounce, stand up, and walk away. Then
all of your problems will vanish. The shit hole of depression will no
longer suck you in to its whirlpool. All the greedy, ignorant delusions
that interfere with who you are and subvert your mission will
disappear. You will know that you are home when your heart starts
to sing. Then you can take your heart's song to the bank and tell
those venture capital mongrels to shove it.