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Searching for the Truth

Satish and I did not talk very much on our flight from San Francisco to Bangalore. After we landed, we sat for a moment for tea at the edge of the terminal where we had a fine view of the surrounding area. After some cordial conversation, Satish asked me what my main objective was in Bangalore. I told him that the principle reason I was here was to speak with the programmers to try to uncover the mystery of Excalibur. With a wry smile, he wished me good luck. Then he got up, shook my hand, and walked off towards his rail connection. As he moved away, I sensed that he was still in a state of shock after the incident at Masonic.

The media had a field day with “the fluke event” that unfolded at Masonic Auditorium. It was not just in the print press, but on the Internet too, where people were snickering at us in blogs and discussion groups. Though some defended us, they were easily drowned out by the legions of debunkers. Only a sympathetic article from the religion writer in the San Jose Mercury was truly positive. She suggested that perhaps there was a mystical aspect to these strange events.

When I thought about it, I was reminded of Jody Foster’s character in the film Contact, when she returned from her mind-bending journey across space and time. When she arrived “back” from her journey, the empirical evidence indicated that she never left in the first place. It was only years later that the facts against her were proven to be flawed, and that she did indeed make that fantastic journey across the universe; and did make contact with a supernatural alien species. So perhaps there was some hope for us after all!

 

When I entered the offices of OzCom, I was greeted by Muhammad -- a friendly young Java programmer from North Africa. He escorted me down a long corridor, through double doors, and into what looked like a secured training room. There at the front of the room was the very same tablet that Satish used for the demonstration at Masonic Auditorium. Excalibur was now going through its inscrutable paces. After some interesting conversation about his African homeland, we turned to the issue at hand:

“Muhammad, could you please tell me about the brain wave technology incorporated into Excalibur. Satish Chandrasekaran tried to explain it to me at the airport, but I didn’t really understand.”

Muhammad took out a yellow pad and began to draw a model of that subsystem of Excalibur that interacted with the user via the web. He explained that this part of the program sends out a pulse that can detect a major problem in the subconscious of any user who logged onto the application. If the user has such a problem, then the specific frequency of that issue is “copied” from the individual and is sent via the web to a back-end computer, where it is added and then analyzed by an advanced expert system.

Excalibur then calculates a response from its knowledge base, and comes up with and sends an answer as a pulse back to the person, where it enters into his subconscious. The vibration that is received by the individual reverses the very negative problem or quality that the person has, and thereby evokes a sudden positive response from life.

For example, if the person is hesitant to take an action in his life because of some fear, the program absorbs this signal, brings the information into its expert system, and then broadcasts a return signal with the solution, which enters the subconscious of that individual. That in turn untangles the knot of the problem in that person’s subconscious. As soon as that negativity dissipates, a positive Life Response is generated – i.e. sudden good fortune comes to that individual.”

Muhammad paused for a moment. “You know, we never intended to evoke these life response events through Excalibur; yet that seems to be what is happening. We merely intended a feedback mechanism back to the person. We expected nothing from the outside world to respond to that person’s inner reversal, however. In other words, it was to help the person move to the right consciousness, not to evoke a response.”

Muhammad then told me that he had surfed the Growth Online web site, www.growthonline.org, and had read that positive Life Responses occur in specific types of situations -- such as when we change a wanting attitude; or remain calm in the face of a difficulty, or intensely aspire for something to happen in our lives. Muhammad explained that he, like Satish, had experienced this phenomenon several times over the last several months. And yet Excalibur now had the ability to do the same for a person on its own.

At some point in our discussion, I asked Muhammad if he thought that what Excalibur was doing was ethical. He laughed and said that we had now entered a new domain, and all bets were off. No rules had been devised because the phenomenon of Life Response -- at least as it related to technology -- had never existed until now.

I then argued that a person should be able to initiate his own change of consciousness. That an external compulsion by a computer was not a true inner change, but a mechanical one, even if it did evoke a positive response from the environment. Muhammad countered by saying that perhaps there really is a soul in this new machine -- paraphrasing the title of the famous Silicon Valley book, the Soul of the New Machine, which described the quirky atmosphere around the building of the first mini computers nearly a half a century ago.

 

Fascinated, but tiring from the debate, I walked over to the voice interface and asked Muhammad to show me some of Excalibur’s programming code. Muhammad nodded his head in agreement, and swung the voice interface over towards his mouth. He then tensed his lips, and called out:

“White knight, holder of the Grail, go into break mode, and allow me to pass.”

The program’s view screen opened and dense coding appeared. And yet nothing else seemed to be happening. Muhammad smiled, and said, “We are in break mode, not runtime, so the program isn’t really executing, though you can still look at the code.”

Not being a serious programmer, I couldn’t make heads or tails out of it. At 23 million lines, it would take an eternity for someone like me to understand. Flustered, I turned to Muhammad and asked him point black where the fundamental ideas behind the program came from, and what was the underlying technology that made it all possible.

Muhammad nervously responded: “You will have to ask Jason about that.”

“Yes, but he sent me here to find out!” I said.

“I think Jason wanted you to see what was going on here in order to understand things a bit more. I’m not sure at this point he wanted you to find out the secret of what makes Excalibur tick. He told me that if you really wanted to understand the principles behind the technology, then you would either have to either speak to him directly, or experience the phenomenon of Life Response yourself. I mean without a machine. I don’t mean to be harsh, but that’s what he told me.”

 

In the days that followed, I made an effort to understand the phenomenon of Life Response. More specifically, I tried to come to grips with my own limiting attitudes and reluctances that if overcome could trigger such a response.

As I confronted this reality head on, I began to ask several questions. E.g., was I truly ready to probe my soul, and look into the depths of my being in order to understand my strengths and weaknesses as a person? Was I ready to acknowledge that I have certain wanting attitudes toward others, and towards life? Was I willing to come to grips with my reluctances, procrastinations, and other faux pas?

In the days ahead, I plunged deeper into the matter. I began by trying to understand the concept of Life Response by reviewing the articles on it at the Growth Online site. Once I had a handle on the phenomenon, I began in earnest to plumb the depths of my own being to examine what was lacking there, what needed to change in me in order to evoke these miraculous-like results.

Quickly I perceived several patterns in my life that I hadn’t seen before. In addition, I began to perceive the correlation between my negative habits and opinions and corresponding negative circumstance I had encountered along the way.

 

One day out of curiosity, I made an effort find out what really made Life Response possible -- i.e. what was it about life itself that enabled this miraculous-like phenomenon to occur. In short order, I found the answer. It was the principle of “Inner-Outer Correspondence.” This is part of what I read in an article on the subject:

“Has it ever occurred to you that whatever is happening to you on the outside is a direct reflection of your attitudes, beliefs, and feelings within? If you take any situation where something difficult or bad has happened to you in the past, you will be able to correlate it to a corresponding weakness or limiting quality within yourself. Even if there doesn't seem to be any direct cause on the surface, if you look a little deeper, you will find a corresponding limitation in your being that triggered the sudden onset of the negative event.

The same holds true for positive experiences. If positive conditions suddenly move towards you, then you can be sure that it was due to some positive change in consciousness on your part.”

I then thought about my own situation. I wondered why was I running around the world like a chicken without a head, and feeling so alienated. Was it a reflection of a bad attitude on my part? And if so, what was it?

After mulling over the matter, it suddenly occurred to me that I had been reluctant to be involved in Jason’s project from the very beginning.

But why was I so reluctant? It wasn’t for lack of money, because the pay was good. And it certainly wasn’t for lack of excitement. In fact, that’s all there has been! Then what was it?

I then closed my eyes, and let the world fall away. After a moment, all thoughts ceased and I felt a deep peace envelop me. Several minutes later, I felt compelled to call out to the spirit; gently asking for its help and guidance to resolve my problem. I then fell into an even deeper state; and a profound richness and stillness enveloped me. Then everything disappeared, and there was only a white block of infinite peace.

I remained in this state for half an hour.. Then slowly I came back to the surface, and felt the first glimmer of life around me. Slowly and with difficulty I opened my eyes -- for I longed to remain in that blissful state forever. Gradually I became aware of my surroundings -- the room, the writing bad, and my own physical body.

I then looked around, and felt my mind re-engage. I then acknowledge to myself that I had just returned from an incomparable, blissful, timeless meditative experience.

A moment later, as I was struggling to come back to reality in full, it hit me. The fact was that I hadn’t enjoyed my involvement in the project because I never resolved that old conflict with Jason. I just let it fester all of these years.

Over the next several minutes, I methodically went through the circumstances that took place some thirty years ago. At one point, as I was making serious headway into the root cause of the issue, the phone rang. My first reaction was a slight irritation, since I was deep in thought and had just begun to perceive the source of the trouble. I somewhat reluctantly picked up the phone.

“Hi, it’s Sushan! How are you?”

“Hi. Uh, this is not the best moment to talk.”

“Listen I have some good news for you. I got today’s mail and I believe you received a letter from Arcadia.”

Arcadia Construction was an organization that my project management company had done a lot of contract work for over the years. Unfortunately, in recent months they had left us high and dry, when they failed to pay on a very large invoice due to us.

“Sushan, can you open it.” I said. I could hear her opening the letter through the phone.

“It’s a check … my God … it’s for several million dollars!” cried Sushan.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, yes! I’m looking right at the numbers!”

“No, that just sounds impossible.”

“No, that’s what it says. It’s actually for 7 million!”

I took a deep breath and continued. “Listen, I’ll be home in a few days, and then I’ll see if this is real or some hoax. In the mean time, please don’t say anything to anyone.”