A Spiritual Conversation-Interview w/ Richard Bach

[Edina]

INTERVIEW WITH:

Richard Bach

A Spiritual Conversation

by Edie Weinstein-Moser, MSW

Without question, Richard Bach is my favorite author. I know that journalists are supposed to be without bias, but in this case, I waive that rule. From the first time I opened the cover of Jonathan Livingston Seagull in the 1980’s, I was hooked. Since then, my bookshelf has held copies of Illusions, Bridge Across Forever, One and Running From Safety. A conversation with Richard is much like reading his books: flowing, laughter-filled and rich with wisdom and insight.



New Visions Magazine: I was just on the phone with someone who said to tell you that he’s a very big fan. I don’t know anyone who’s not.

Richard Bach: Well, there are several out there. I was on a radio show and I’m reminded of my connection with the anti-Christ by a caller or two. It gives me perspective.

New Visions Magazine: I wonder what it’s like for people who are considered celebrities to look at themselves in the mirror and say, “I’m just a normal person and all of these people have these labels and perceptions of who I am.” Is that something that you go through?

Richard Bach: Well fortunately I’m not a celebrity or near celebrity. Sometimes people will say, “You’re famous” and that stops me right there. What does fame mean? I’ve also had that balancing experience where someone says, “I must introduce you to my friend” and they say, “This is THE Richard Bach, the famous author” and they say, “Who?” And so I realized that fame is in the eye of the beholder. There are people for me, if I were to say Nevil Shute Norway, absolutely a famous person and many people I know in aviation. Other people today would say, “Nevil Shute Norway?” And we would say, “Yes, don’t you know: The Rainbow and the Rose, On the Beach? Wasn’t that the one about the atomic... yeah, yeah Nevil Shute Norway.” Each one of those books to me is a huge example of this person’s touch with some kind of magic that has stirred me as reader to profound depths of understanding of who we are and why we’re here and some people have never heard of him. Finally I just relaxed and said, “Ok, if somebody wants to call me ‘famous’, that’s their business. I’m just me, a guy who messes around with airplanes and writes books that make sense to him.

New Visions Magazine: I had the privilege of interviewing you when Running From Safety first came out. Just a little take off on the concept of the book: If the Richard on the line now could speak to the ten years younger Richard that I interviewed back then, what wisdom would he offer?

Richard Bach: I would say to him, “I don’t want to make you nervous, but please don’t change any decisions you are considering making, because on your decisions rest my existence and later on I may not agree with all of the decisions you make, but all of the decisions turned into me. My life is in your hands kid.”<br>

[Edina]

New Visions Magazine: What inspires you, when you write? Is it still the shower fairy and the walk fairy?

Richard Bach: There is a whole inner harmonic of themes that touch me and move me, which I cannot resist. When I finish a book, I will say, “There, it’s done. I have fulfilled my obligations to all those inner speakers who want to have a voice on my stage. Is everybody happy? Yes! Nobody wants to say anything else? No more.” A week goes by and I hear this faint little voice: “Oh I forgot…” and I brush it out of the way. “You had your chance and you muffed it. It’s gone now. Nothing more will I say.” A year goes by and the voice is a little bit stronger and louder and by two or three or four or five years, something comes along that is so much fun that it entices me and I can not resist. It’s an idea that comes along that’s so beautiful and so intriguing to me: for instance Illusions. What would it be like to be the best friend of the savior of the world? That was a study in fascination, which I could not avoid. Wherever I went, it was with me echoing over my shoulder. What kind of strange things would I see? What would I learn from that experience? So, finally unable to hide, I turned and looked it straight in the eye and said, “Ok let’s get this over with. But you promise this is gonna be the last book.” “I promise, I promise, absolutely the last book.” It always breaks that promise. As the years go by, other voices come and other ideas fascinate. Most recently, it’s been this Messiah’s Handbook. People have been saying from time to time, “How come you got to look at the Messiah’s Handbook, but we don’t get to look? What was it like?” and I say: “Look, I told you in the book that it’s bound in what looks like blue suede and it’s got these things…” and they say “Well you just told a few, there must have been hundreds.” “Yes, there were hundreds.” “Well, why don’t we see them? Don’t you like us? We’re your readers. “ There was a long silence and I said, “You know what, they’re absolutely right.”<br>
New Visions Magazine: Do you still find wisdom in it for yourself?

Richard Bach: Absolutely. I take great pride in how ragged my copy is getting. A couple of weeks ago, I left it on a chair. We have a Sheltie puppy and so Harley had his way with a corner of the handbook and added his little mark to it. It’s covered in airplane oil and has been squashed under the wheels of airplanes and its been mutilated and it makes it all the more attractive to me. If I could say one thing to a potential reader, I would say, “Take the jacket off right away and you’ve got the handbook very much the way it was for me in the days of Illusions. Just play with it and you can do all kinds of things with it. You can ask a question and hold it in thought and open the book anywhere or you can start a new adventure and say, “What’s really important for me to remember today?” In the midst of any venture, open it at random; and I do that constantly and very rarely am I unable to say, “I don’t get what you’re saying.” Almost always it’s something absolutely to the point, often to the point where I’ll laugh and it so much applies to what’s concerning me.

New Visions Magazine: I just opened to the page that says: “Every person, all the events of your life are there because you’ve drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you.” I believe that 110%

Richard Bach: And here we are talking on the phone and we’ve drawn each other to each other. And we’re finding out second to second what we’re going to do with our presence in each other’s lives.

[Edina]

New Visions Magazine: I believe that we’re always at the right place at the right time. Every morning I wake up and say, “Ok, God who are you going to direct me to today? Whose path am I going to cross and vice versa and what difference are we going to make in each other’s lives? It’s incredible the people that I meet!

Richard Bach: What a brilliant attitude and way to open the day.

New Visions Magazine: I have a friend who tells me that this freaks him out when I tell him about all these cosmic coincidences and says the next thing you’re going to tell me is that we ran into each other in 1977 at this particular place. And I say, “How do you know we didn’t? We just don’t remember.” It happens all the time.

Richard Bach: You can tell him that there is no such thing as coincidence that it happens so often that it’s now a reliable principle. You can count on it. By definition, a coincidence is not a reliable principle so it will take all the fear out of the word. He can count on it.

New Visions Magazine: You dwell in possibility and a sense of “imagine if…” Is there anything you know for certain, any unshakeable truth that you hold?

Richard Bach: Unshakeable truth is that we are One. Somewhere along the line, we playful entities of life had decided that we would believe that we are separate from the Infinite Is, that incandescent Love that is us and unites us, that existed before the idea of time ever existed and will ever exist. We being free creatures said, “ Well, let’s pretend we are separate and let’s pretend there’s such a thing as space and time and let’s have adventures in space and time and let’s pretend that we can be born and that we’re not eternal creatures. Then let’s believe we can die and then we get caught up in conflicts and the next thing you know, you blink your eye and your in this world right now. I’m absolutely convinced that this is a world of appearances, not reality. There’s one reality and that’s that Light and that Love. When some say, we create our own reality, I always demur and say, “Please, would you mind adjusting that a little bit? We create our own appearances.” We become master of appearances and as we change our thought, we will see the appearances around us change. That gives us this huge sense of dominion and power and control over our world. If what I hold in my thought comes true in my experience, I’m a lovely master and our opportunities every day with our life and our consciousness demonstrate that and show it forth and as we play with this intriguing idea, then we see all these things that we thought were coincidences; our meetings with people, our unusual connection of our networks with other people’s networks: “Oh, I’ve been looking for someone just like you to take a position that you say you’re really interested in. Maybe you’d like to stop and take a look.” How many of us can look back at our lives and say that the most important events were not brought about by coincidence? So often the most important things: intimate relationships, romantic relationships where we are expressing love day to day, those meetings were almost wildly coincidental and our lives are radically changed and elevated by those people we just so-called ‘happened to meet’. I’m utterly convinced of the One-ness of that Love and we as its perfect reflection. I am absolutely convinced that the world around us is a world of appearances and anyone who wants to can practice it. Change your thought and your environment will change. It’s not instantaneous and sometimes we have to work very hard to make what we want happen. Working hard and holding that thought, it will change.

New Visions Magazine: Is there a favorite book you have written or is it like deciding which of your children you like best?

Richard Bach: It is very much like that. I think I side with underdogs, when I know that books like Jonathan Seagull and Illusions are out there in the world and they can really take care of themselves. Right now, one of the books of the ‘ferret series’ is called Writer Ferrets Chasing the Muse and it’s everything I know about writing in the most playful way I can imagine, set down in that book. It’s a story about two little ferrets and one wants to write the great ferret novel. He really wants to be a sophisticated literary writer and his mate Danielle has exactly the opposite thing. She wants to write just for the fun of it. Just a little divertismal, she thinks, from her experience as a paw-ticurist as she’s buffing the claws of her ferret clients. They would tell her all these stories. It’s showing the two different approaches to the great secrets of writing, which for me are three-fold: have fun, don’t think and don’t care. That book is all the background for why this works so beautifully for a writer. At the moment, they’re my little darlings. The Ferret Chronicles is about this whole culture that came to the planet 10,000 years ago and each of them lives to their highest sense of right. They have withdrawn their consent to the idea of evil, malice and crime. All that energy we use for destruction and hatred, they use for positive things. They love action and adventure. We love action and adventure, but we use it to go out and start wars and kill people. They found other ways. The first book is called Rescue Ferrets At Sea. When a ship goes down, there’s always the Coast Guard there to take off the human beings, but who’s there to take off the mice, rats and cats? Well, the Rescue Ferrets of course. They go out in their powerful little boats through all kinds of storm at risk of their lives, put all the mice on their little orange blankets and bring them home to safety. That’s action and adventure for you, but it’s in the service of life itself. The story so moves me that there are parts I read for an audio version that I could not read without bursting into tears. I love my little ferret books and what they stand for. The neat thing about writing is that if you don’t like the world, just invent a new one.

New Visions Magazine: One of your books that really touches my heart is There’s No Such Place As Far Away and it includes a beautiful quote: “I can not go to be with you, because I’m already there.” I’m moved by the idea that once someone is in our hearts, it doesn’t matter how often we see them, we are always where they are and vice versa.

Richard Bach: And it doesn’t matter whether they are on this planet or not on this planet anymore. Once something is bound by love, as long as that love exists, there is nothing that can separate us. There is the appearance of separation, but the heart, it always treasures and values that.

[Edina]

Source: www.newvisionsmagazine.com/january2005/bach0105.html


Rev. Edie Weinstein-Moser, LSW is a social worker, interfaith minister, writer, speaker, Reiki Master and clown. She can be reached at 215-249-9190 or via her website: www.liveinjoy.com.Together with Peter Moses, she offers workshops entitled Happiness Is Just The Icing, Joy Is The Cake, Wellness: Longevity and Quality of Life and Creativity...Yes!

[Grave]

Thank you

[Bluebird]

Thank you so much Edina! It was wonderful to read.

[karaboudjan]

Thank you for this transcription and greetings from Spain!

[Edina]

You're welcome.