Pursuing our Passions and Consciousness, Glenn Perry | 2024 Float Conference

[Music] When I was 31 years old, I worked for the best mainframe computer manufacturing ing company writing state-of-the-art systems software. Though I had the best job in the world, I was so shy. I could not talk to any man unless they were alone. And if they were a woman, that was even worse. My boss knew how dissatisfied I was with my life and he gave me a book he thought might help me. It was written by Dr. John C. Lily called Center of the Cyclone. Hopefully you know who that is since he invented the precursor of the device we're talking about this weekend. In case you want to better understand parts of this talk, you might want to read our recently published book, Floating in Quiet Darkness. Or if you float or are introducing others to floating, you might also want to read it. Although we included numerous remarkable testimonials in the book, I want to share one I just recently heard. A young woman woke up and decided to end her life. But since her friend had scheduled a float for her, she didn't want to disappoint her friend. So she went to her appointment. She came out of the session with a different different outlook and is still with us. I was so impressed by Center of the Cyclone that two weeks later when I saw an ad for a five-day workshop led by him, I immediately signed up. In the workshop, I was the first person to spend an hour in the light proof, soundproof, and gravityfree isolation tank he had invented. At the end when I climbed up the ladder and opened the door of the shack to the outside, the whole universe was a shimmering shining energy system. I was in an extreme altered state. I had never been in before. My mental chatter had stopped. And although I did not know it at the time, I was in the heart space. In a couple minutes, I will say more about that. After lunch, John asked me to share my experience with the group. During my share, I was completely at ease and present without any fear at all. As you may imagine, at that moment, my life completely changed. Why did it change? And what does this have to do with you? It has to do with consciousness. John spent his whole life researching consciousness. In his book, The Deep South, he wrote, and I quote, "Starting very young, 7 years and younger, up through the present, I have been concerned with the problem, usually annunciated as a question. What is reality? Almost as soon as I could read, I pursued the writings of Emanuel Kant, James Jeans, Bishop George Berkeley, and any other authors I could find who had something to say about reality. At age 16, I wrote my first article on the subject, reality, published in 1931 and reproduced in full in appendix one of simulations of God, the science of belief on pages 199 to 20. End of quote. In the beginning of the next two years, I made a prototype of the isolation tank and started floating every day. During those two years, John invited me to attend half a dozen workshops that he gave some MDs about consciousness. As a consequence of attending all of those workshops, I developed an intention. No matter what else I might do in this lifetime, I bow to expand my consciousness. That was by far the best intention I ever made. And I now invite you to do that. As I said, every day I was floating. By the end of most floats, I was touching the heart space. The meditation teacher Shinszen Yang says both the Chinese and Japanese words for heart actually mean the heart of the matter and that is their same word for consciousness. The spiritual traditions around the world resonate with that including those of Judaism, the Islamic Sufis and Christian mystics. Shinszen suggests that that word also means sensory experience. It is also what we know as being present, being in the flow and the now. The reason I focus on consciousness is because I see it as the basis of the other benefits of floating. The more things you can find in life that touch your heart or spirit, the richer your life will be. If you decide to make that intention in life to expand your consciousness this lifetime, you will probably find that magnetizes you to be drawn to other things that touch spirit. It has sure done that for me. Spirit can also be used when we need help. When I had been in stress, I realized I was daily cycling through coffee to get me up in the morning and later beer to calm me down. Spirit drew me to a book, The Diet Cure by Julia Ross, which helped me get out of that cycle. Both floating and meditation helps us be more conscious. We all revert to going on automatic and rarely are we able to intentionally become present and stay present. The more we float or meditate, the more we become present in our life. It takes ongoing work and that is why I say daily do one or the other. Meditate or float. I have a friend who finds people who want to invest in Hollywood movies. My friend says he has a huge secret power. And one of the reasons it's so powerful is because it's so rare. Can you imagine what it is? He is a great listener. If we walk around unconscious, we are not great listeners. If we're conscious or present when people are talking to us and we hear and retain what they say, we have a superpower. Being far more conscious or present in life allows for us to be more successful in life. This is why I am so interested in consciousness. The more we float and meditate, the more we are able to be conscious and present and successful. In last year's talk, I encouraged you to float daily or whenever you couldn't float, meditate. If you followed up on that, you have been daily touching spirit and you may be finding that spirit is entering your life more. You may also be finding that floating makes your meditations better and your meditations make your floats better and it all makes your whole life better. Busier I am, the more important it has been to float and meditate. It is critical to occasionally get away from everything. When I'm very busy, I get lost in the forest. That is fine for a period, but occasionally I have to get above the trees and look around. There have been things I needed to notice so I could do something about them that significantly handled my stress. When we're totally stressed out, we have to occasionally get our bodies out of a state of constant tension. Without this we develop chronic conditions. This is where floating be is so much better than sitting meditation. While floating we can meditate by focusing on rest. It is the perfect kind of meditation to be doing inside of a float as suggested to me by one of Shinszen's assistants. I listen for whatever part of the body seems easiest to relax. Focus breathing on that one area of my body at a time and feel the stress and tension leaving with the out breath. After handling the physical body, we can work on our emotions, our mind and even the spirit. We also need to float and listen to our mental chatter. What are the things that hold our attention? What things are problems to us? If it is hard for us to meditate because we're in a constant state of distraction that tells us what we need to work on or what we need to let go of. Asking spirit to help us or give us answers can be a very useful approach to problems that we cannot handle otherwise. I've been asked to talk about dealing with stress when we're pursuing our passion. At one level, I just did that. But there's a much simpler answer. To me, we are pursuing our passion when we are following our heart. I have just shared with you that beloved by floating in John's isolation tank, I became much more conscious and all fears of people left me. That inspired me to start the first float tank manufacturing company. That sounds like developing a passion and following my heart. I thought if it could help my fears disappear and I could become more conscious and successful, it could help others do the same. In other words, it could help others achieve what I achieved. This helps people on the planet. When we pursue something that the heart or spirit wants, we can trust that we are going with the flow. If we simply keep this in mind and let it guide us and ask for its help, we can let go of our stress and trust in spirit and sense what we're supposed to do. Floating is a very powerful solution to so many things. Are you making complete use of it in your life after 52 years of floating? I still find it incredible because I still use it almost daily. For me, living with more presence and openness to spirit is the best aspect of being alive. Lee and I had a particular philosophy regarding how float center employees could interact with people. We believed that the ways people were introduced to floating and how they were interacted with when their float was over greatly enhanced their experience and increased their desire to float again. This was all based on the power of listening to others and to our own needs, concerns, intentions, and desires. To this day, I am reminded of how lifech changing this superpower can be. Thank you for listening. It is a gift for which I will always be grateful. [Applause]