Conversations with Avant-garde Sages - The Wizard LLC

Conversations with Avant-garde Sages
TRIP: Well, like for example was there a change in the quality of
your relationships with others, did your work take on an effortless
nature? Did things just seem to happen that before you maybe
had struggled to make happen? Those kinds of things, I don't
want to put words in your mouth, or has it just been gradual?
NICK GANCITANO: It's been gradual really. There was always a
sense of ease with action, and generally whenever something
didn't happen very easily, there was a tendency to just naturally be
drawn away from something into something else. There wasn't a
lot of resistance to the fact that it didn't work out, like for instance
the professional football career that was cut short. There was not
a lot of resentment or disappointment with that, which was very
easily left behind. And so there hasn't really been a lot of
resistance here, which I feel was intergrown in that in staying
there, just to be willing to flow with life, and to not be attached to
the outcome of circumstances. Whether the field goal was made
or missed, whether we lost or won. I remember being yelled at on
several occasions by Joe Paterno, because after games that we had
lost, not really giving much attention to that, or not even really
acting as though anything had happened. And so in this regard,
I've never really cared whether or not I've won or lost. It was more
about the enjoyment of being in that state while the, I guess you
would say, the competition was going on, but there wasn't really a
sense of competition, there was just a sense of enjoyment. And I
really feel like what you were saying about the effort is very true,
because when you're enjoying yourself there is no effort. In fact I
don't think you can enjoy yourself while there is any effort.
TRIP: Speaking of that pleasure of turning the attention inward,
you say, "Lose interest in everything other than God, the mind
turns inward when there is nothing more enjoyable than attention
on the Self". I think that's a really critical point you make there.
NICK GANCITANO: Yes, that was the only thing that really made
sense, as I evaluated what was occurring. Because there were so
many desires, things that needed to be fulfilled and they just were,
and then once that occurred after the incident with Ramana
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