A revolution Comes to austin

This past week, I traveled to Austin Texas with one purpose in mind: to launch a creative revolution. That is why I drove 15 hours straight. I was a man on a mission!

On Thursday, February 28, I gave a presentation to IONS Austin entitled, "The Creative Revolution: Reframing Creativity as Yoga." The ideas in this talk mark a major shift in my life's work, where I am connecting the dots explicitly between my research and classical yoga. This link has always been there, as far as I'm concerned. But now I am showing how the breakthroughs I am having in my own work tie back to the writings of Patanjali, Vyasa, and other great sages in the yoga tradition.

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This is not just a link to the past. I laid out a road map not just for the future of creativity but for the survival of humanity and the inevitable transition from conventional religion to forms of spirituality that speak to the human condition in this new millennium. It all stems from what I consider to be the greatest feeling in the world. The creative revolution integrates everything I've ever written about in The Chanter's Guide, The Way of Play, Repose: The Potent Pause, and--of course--Deep Creativity. Here is the culmination of all my life's work, and the connection to the next phase, in which I will be collaborating with my brilliant and beautiful bride (and yes, the love of my life!), Maria Mendola, seen here:

The creative revolution is not just an abstract concept. On Saturday, March 2, we demonstrated the power of these ideas in a retreat called The Yoga of Creative Inspiration. A group of 20 people took part in this retreat, which led them through a set of very specific and carefully-honed activities designed to open up their bodies and minds to the experience of creative inspiration.

These activities involved sound, movement, free-form expression, and simple fun ways to silence the mind. We also incorporated Repose to maximize receptivity.

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​The effects of this retreat were astonishing even to me. I watched each participant undergo a profound transformation over the course of the day and gain life-changing realizations, which they shared with the group in our closing circle. We definitely tapped into something powerful here. And much of what happened in Austin was documented. Over the next few weeks, I will be sharing the video of my IONS presentation and of a conversation I had with Chuck Robison, the co-founder of What If It Really Works, a site that features interviews with "pioneers of the new spiritual culture.

I want to thank Chuck and his wife Karen, who was there with us in spirit although she was not able to make it for the taping session. Also, I am grateful to Bob Price, the kind and thoughtful director of the Institute for Neuroscience and Consciousness Studies, who painstakingly shot and edited the video of my talk. Finally, I can't say enough about Joe and Lynne Lam, who carried out the herculean task of organizing everything and hosting me for five days. Joe in particular did everything humanly possible to ensure the success of my visit. I believe that we will look back at my time in Austin as a key turning point in the launch of the creative revolution that I've been discussing on this blog for the last few months. When you see the videos, you will know exactly what I mean. And to Joe Lam I just want to say: You're my ambassador of quan, man!

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