He was constantly living for the future and only bearing the present. He was waiting to be taken away into paradise. During the few times I saw him sing and heard him play, he was living in the past. He was never living in the now. Only the realization that he had wasted his life for the last forty years brought him to the present and gave him the opportunity to let go and start over. He hadn't really wasted his time, but is terrible that he couldn't find this truth some other way. I think that the important thing for human beings who are seeking to grow mentally, physically, and spiritually, is to make sure they don't have to go through as much as he did to find truth.

It is very important to be able to find it using our heads. We can learn from other people's mistakes without having to make them ourselves. If we are intelligent and observant we can figure what results our actions are going to bring. We have a brain so that we can visualize things. We can imagine various scenarios sometimes and figure out exactly how a course of action will turn out if we pursue it. We will still make mistakes, of course. It is only human to do so, but taking forty years to learn is horrible. I think, therefor, that it is good for the human being to work on how to learn faster.

How do we learn faster? By being willing to let go of belief systems that don't work. We learn faster by washing away the false, the ideas that feel good to us, or support our egos, so that we can begin to live in reality, no matter how frightening or painful it may be. The Taoist speak of this as shaking off false ideas and illusions like panning for gold or jade. While looking for jade or gold we run the water over the pan slowly and shake it lightly. We shake off the stone and the loose gravel carefully and purposefully, and then all that is left is the gold, or the jade. Where did it come from? It has been there all the time, but hidden by the dirt and gravel.