What Lies Within

What Lies Within

From evil to enlightenment

Gary Hipworth

What Lies Within

Copyright © 2013 Gary Hipworth

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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The information, views, opinions and visuals expressed in this publication are solely those of the author(s) and do not reflect those of the publisher. The publisher disclaims any liabilities or responsibilities whatsoever for any damages, libel or liabilities arising directly or indirectly from the contents of this publication.

A copy of this publication can be found in the National Library of Australia.

ISBN: 978-1-742844-22-0 (pbk.)

Cover design: Holiday Read Publications and Greg Jones: wang@netspace.net.au

Published by Book Pal

and Maverick Solutions Pty Ltd

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www.mavericksolutions.com.au

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I dedicate this book to people who have the courage to step outside their daily survival concerns to improve the world for everyone.

To those who take a stand for the protection of our natural environment, reverence for all life and kindness to our animal friends, our children’s safety, and the rapid pursuit of a movement towards a humanity that is far more peaceful and understanding of the human condition, I dedicate this book to you.

Acknowledgements

I would not be here today if it wasn’t for the dedication and love I received from my mother Lorraine who struggled alone to bring up our family. I also would like to remember my brother Ray for his love and larrikin ways, my sister for her courage and love and my nephew Carl. All my family loved ones died far too young and with too much life and potential left in them.

Many people, including countless writers and thinkers about the human condition and people who have risked everything to help their fellow ‘man’ have also contributed to making my life worth living. I wish to especially thank my wife Jo for her incredible patience and continued love and support which has been tested time and time again.

I am especially grateful to have two beautiful daughters Marnie and Trudi who are great people and mums and wives too. You know what I mean.

I acknowledge my friends who have given me ongoing love and support and constructive feedback for this book including Rohan Merry, Greg Jones, Alan Mann, Sebastian Carvalho, Kelvin Eldridge and Graeme Chaplin (deceased). Christine D’Alessandro was my primary editor who proved incredibly creative and talented in her suggestions and involvement in restructuring my story.

A very special mention to my junior football coach at Albion, the late Roy Evans, who taught me much more than how to kick a football. He introduced me to a sense of the absurd which has got me through some very tough times. One day whilst I was waiting at a bus stop in Footscray, Roy bit my ankle and barked like a dog, and then just stood up and walked away without saying a word. That’s cool!

Finally I must acknowledge the greatest gift of all which I took for granted for too many years. The odds that you or I are privileged to experience human life are so incredibly impossible that it leaves me speechless…well almost.

Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1 Suicide The Only Real Choice

Chapter 2 Lunatic in the House

Chapter 3 Turning Our Children Into Robots

Chapter 4 Violence is Everywhere

Chapter 5 The Sexual Revolution

Chapter 6 Ego Games Not Love

Chapter 7 Love Does Not Conquer All

Chapter 8 We Are But Flies

Chapter 9 Pushed to the Brink No Time to Think

Chapter 10 Why We Need Heroes

Chapter 11 Security is an Illusion

Chapter 12 Blood MoneyFor Veal Schnitzel

Chapter 13 Your Problem Is My Problem

Chapter 14 Make Me Happy

Chapter 15 The Thinker in the Treehouse

Chapter 16 Capitalism′s Dark Shadow

Chapter 17 What We All Have In Common With Hitler

Chapter 18 Stepping Out Of The Rat Race But Still a Rat

Chapter 19 Seven Life-Changing Insights

Chapter 20 Life is Meaningless So Get Over It

Chapter 21 Awakening From A Nightmare

Chapter 22 Living With The Absurd Paradox

Chapter 23 The Challenge of the Present

Appendix I Awareness Denies Thought

Appendix II Mental Health Crisis

About the Author

Foreword

This book is both an autobiography, in which Gary describes a very eventful life, and an exploration into meaning.

After a deprived childhood in a poor part of Melbourne Gary enjoyed some larrikin teenage adventures before his strong ambition to succeed through study and sport led him into a more conventional ways. He describes his early working life as a struggle to maintain a difficult marriage whilst developing a successful business career. A series of tragic events involving his wider family provided a continuously stressful background to Gary’s battle to reconcile the career of a senior accountant and family responsibilities with his concerns about an ethical way of living.

This background of difficulty and tragedy prompted an ongoing, deep enquiry into the fundamental questions such as ‘what am I’ and ‘what is all this about’. He explains his realization that his life story, a tale he lays before the reader with extraordinary frankness, formed the identity which he completely accepted as the entity, Gary, solid and ‘real as a rock’. The awakening to a realization that his ‘self’ was not an entity but a process, largely due I imagine, to the pressures of his unusually stressful existence, came as a life-changing shift.

Following a period of retreat in the countryside, he identified seven insights in the process of searching for the truth about who he really was beyond his social conditioning and how the understanding of these insights provided the basis for his eventual escape from the ego-trap.

For many years my primary interest has been the restoration of ‘first nature’ to everyday consciousness. By first nature I mean the state of being which prevails before the conditioning of our socialization takes place, the awareness prior to the deep identification with ego, in other words a child-like innocence. It is a progressive not a regressive shift and not to be confused with childishness. This has resulted in an interest in a range of people and activities related to what might be described as moderate or western non-dualism. By this I mean a broadening of the spectrum of what is regarded as the secular to include aspects of being that have been pushed aside and regarded as mystical or inaccessible; an awakening to the underlying wholeness of life and an experiential shift from my everyday sense of being an observer, with a strong sense of separation, to an engaged participant in or an aspect of the process. The challenge is whether it is possible to break the stranglehold of deep identification with the ego process. Since I learned about Gary’s background and experience I have always considered him to be an example of the sort of shift I am trying to describe.

In the early 90’s, following the visit to Australia of Douglas Harding and with the encouragement of John Wren-Lewis we started a regular bulletin based on contributions from the subscribers. At about the same time we started regular dialogue meetings at our home based on the work of David Bohm, theoretical physicist and the author of Wholeness and the Implicate Order. It was in connection with these activities that in 1998 we heard about Gary’s involvement in what seemed to be a similar or parallel line of enquiry. We invited him to come to Sydney and lead a workshop in which he told us about the background to the discoveries which constitute the content of this book. I asked for feedback after that workshop and summarized the responses as follows:

Gary speaks from his own experience. He is interested in exploring truth and is one of the few people involved in Krishnamurti studies who has seen for himself what Krishnamurti is talking about. (Jiddu Krishnamurti was an Indian speaker and writer on philosophical and spiritual subjects. In his early life he was groomed to be the new World Teacher by the Theosophical Society but later rejected this mantle and disbanded the organization behind it.) People who attended felt that it is more fruitful to dialogue with someone like Gary who is established in his own understanding than to listen to talks from so-called enlightened masters. They considered that Gary, someone who has had suffered serious trauma in life and undergone a shift of consciousness, speaks with the authority of experience about what is important and that what is important is near at hand and accessible, not obscure and available only to the so-called enlightened, he is not searching he is observing—concerned with what is, not what might be.

Since the workshop, Gary has become a regular and significant contributor to our NOW letter, an occasional paper which was a forerunner of today’s blogs, a forum in which the readership provides the content.

In reading Gary’s detailed life story we follow the assembly of an identity, its constant affirmation by others through success and failure, with the result of Gary’s complete identification with the image of himself that socialization has created and which he adopted - and finally, its collapse. In following this thread we get a chance to see it as a mirror of our own development of self, and the reason for our collective disease.

In an early contribution to our correspondence Gary said about the search for miraculous experiences, ecstatic epiphanies and so forth:

What I would really like to see is a group of people jumping for joy simply because they are alive. Why is this actual reality that confronts us every moment of our existence so difficult to grasp or appreciate for its intrinsic value?

It is this down-to-earth approach and the honesty with which he recounts his successes, failures, insights and mistakes that makes this such an interesting and compelling record. The reconciliation of what he describes as his discovery of the bliss of being nothing, psychological weightlessness he calls it, with the demands of everyday pressures is combined with a determination to work it out for himself. That is what makes this such an authentic story and a touchstone for our own experiencing.

Alan Mann

Introduction

The purpose of this book is not an exercise in catharsis, or an attempt to garner sympathy, or even to go about the business of getting out the ghosts (though my family seems to have more than its share). My goal is simple and clear: to find some meaning for my life that would make it worth living because I think I may have landed on the wrong planet.

It should be called planet violence. I was beaten regularly by my father from the age of eight months. I repeatedly witnessed my mother being attacked by him too, and my brother. I never knew when it was going to happen as he was totally unpredictable. He was a lunatic.

If you are anything like I was, you are sick of Band-Aid approaches to fixing your life problems. You have tried all the usual suspects such as pills, alcohol, shopping, TV, movies, a thousand Facebook friends, over-eating, talk therapy, walk therapy and only feel more sluggish, empty, bored and brain-dead. You have read hundreds of self-help books and tried visualisation techniques, watched your breathing, breathed on your watch, become a workshop junkie, and walked over hot coals without blinking, but then realised with a scream of agony that you have two very hot souls, not one. You have set goals that you are passionate about and kicked goals in your favourite sport and driven everyone crazy with your six step formula-created life purpose. Then you suffered another let down. Nothing ever lasts.

So there I was. All my senses were on high alert and tuned into my mother’s bedroom next to mine. I would lie awake all night hoping I would not hear my mother crying and begging my father not to hit her any more. Then I would go to school the next day and try not to fall asleep during lessons. Then the next night the screaming and violence would start all over again. Something inside me died a little every night.

At some point in all this terrifying chaos I remember making a commitment to find out why this was happening, and why parents didn′t always love and protect their children. If possible, I wanted to understand the causes of this violence and then find a way to tell the world how the problem could be fixed and how our children could be protected and feel safe and loved in their own home.

Needing to escape and search for a better understanding of the purpose of life and the true nature of humanity, I found myself repeatedly confronted with senseless violence and further disillusionment well into my adulthood. I found violence in the sporting arena, in the workplace, in my marriage, in myself, and in the world at large. But it was not until I reached middle age, when my brother was murdered that I found myself truly devastated and shattered. For the first time in my life I was at a loss to know what to do. I lost all motivation and fell into a deep depression. I could not see the point in going on.

My own mortality was now a big problem too. My brother′s tragic death had made me excruciatingly aware that you can be alive one minute and gone the next. Therefore using simple logic, this meant that life was meaningless. Our fate is the same as a worm or a germ. I love learning. I also love setting goals and making a contribution in the world. What was I to do now that I understood the inevitability of my own death? My university education was pathetically useless when it came to dealing with this dilemma.

I began to switch my focus (some who know me well would say it was an obsession) from the causes of violence to the absurdity of the human condition. For many years I studied philosophy, psychology, spirituality, religion, the mystical tradition and anything else I could get my hands on. I went around in circles until I thought I was going crazy. Then one day I stumbled upon a fundamental question, ′Who Am I?" I took it for granted that I knew who I was. I thought I was my personal history, with a name, possessions, relationships, an Australian citizen, an accountant, and a past filled with good, bad and some ugly memories.

I pursued that one brilliant question for many decades.

After decades of forming my identity in the world and becoming more and more disturbed, and having exhausted all other possibilities I turned my attention around and pointed it at myself. That′s when things really turned bizarre!

This story is not for the faint-hearted but you already know that by now. The inner journey is the darkest place I have ever been. It is also where the light shines brightest.

Let the journey begin…

Chapter 1

Suicide the Only Real Choice

Some memories are clearer than others, existing as blurred images of people and places folding into years I struggle to place. There are moments of complete unlooked for happiness, moments of dogged disappointment and frustration, and, of course, darker moments that haunt me still.

For me, November proved the cruellest month and provided the clearest memory.

It began on a Sunday night when I was sitting at home in Cockatoo, a small peaceful country town high up in the Dandenong Ranges, worrying about something I can’t specifically recall. Life hadn’t been right for some while, and so this particular worry probably had to do with my brother Ray, or my daughters, or the always precarious state of my ex-wife; needless to say, that same worry also kept me from answering the now ringing phone, which, given the time, was likely sounding the advent of more bad news.

As the familiar voice greeted me, my shoulders slackened and my jaw unclenched. Despite the recent rockiness in our relationship, the sound of mum’s voice never ceased to provide some degree of comfort. How are you, mum? I responded, redirecting all my concern to her.

Our conversation touched on the usual topics of interest, including my sister’s current whereabouts, the most recent troubles with Carl, and her own health. By this point, my questions were as predictable as her answers, and we effectively maneuvered around the obvious mines that bore the names of my brother, Ray, and my father, Len. It didn’t take long for the conversation to come to a close.

Well, alright mum. Perhaps I’ll come by for a visit this week then? I suggested, eager to see how she was really holding up and by what means.

Oh, that would be great, Gary. I’d love a visit, she responded, her voice sounding both hopeful and frail.

Right, then. Goodbye, mum. Pleased to provide some happiness, my spirits felt a lift and I began to replace the phone on its receiver when my mother said something that absolutely jolted me.

I love you, Gary.

There once was a time when my mother would utter those words to me several times a day; always affectionate, always doting on me, even more than her other children - Cheryl and Ray, and I was always aware and comforted by her love for me. However, with far too much time and tragedy behind us, it had been a very long while since I’d last heard those words.

I love you too, mum, I replied, my words an awkward stumbling, unsuccessfully masking my uncertainty. A brief silence followed before our quiet goodbyes ended the call. I felt unsettled, and was more anxious than ever to see her.

Unfortunately, I spent the week overcome and exhausted with the needless requirements of work and the endless list of obligations that seem as pointless as they are expected. My visit to see mum kept getting pushed back as I allowed everything else to take priority and, before I realized it, Wednesday found me buried under a pile of papers and oblivious to the time. Once again, I was startled by the ringing of my own phone.

Gary?! a frantic voice asked. I struggled to place the caller, while also giving myself a moment to wonder what trouble Carl may have entangled himself in this time. Unsure of both, I confirmed myself as Gary. Oh, thank goodness, the woman sighed, This is Judith, your mum’s neighbour.

Oh, right, Judith, I answered, while the image of a tiny, slight, nervous older woman who loved to chat with mum over the back fence came to mind. Why would she be calling me? What is it? I asked, suddenly realizing that the reason for the call must have something to do with my mum.

Gary, I’m a bit worried about your mum, she began, sounding unsure and tense. Usually she raises her kitchen blind every morning as a signal that all is well. I noticed this morning that her blinds were not open, so I went to her front door to check in on her and I thought I smelled gas coming from the house. I called the gas company, of course, and, well, I’m sure your mum’s okay, Judith stuttered, speaking her words as though she were thinking out loud. She’s probably just gone to the shops and forgot about opening the blind. But, I thought I better ring you.

Judith! Call the police! I shouted, Now! My chair fell backward onto the floor as I jumped to my feet. I’m coming over straight away, and I’ll call you when I’m on my way. My reaction had clearly frightened Judith as much as it had me, though I again shouted, Hurry, please call the police! With that, I dropped the phone, grabbed my keys, and ran out of the office. I must have been quite a sight as everyone quickly stepped aside to let me pass, a flurry of papers and worry left in my wake. Jumping into my car, I quickly sped out of the parking lot, unable to ignore the distinct feeling I had done this sometime before: a frantic rush, a knowing suspicion, and a horrible dread.

But I had done this before.

When I got myself headed in the right direction, I fumbled for my phone and the slip of paper I didn’t at all remember writing Judith’s number on. The numbers were a jumble of scratches that I was left trying to decipher, paying no mind to the road or my fellow drivers. I pinned the phone between my ear and shoulder as the other end began to ring and I let out an exhale. Had I been holding my breath the entire time?

After what seemed like an insufferable wait, the line finally clicked, but Judith did not answer. I could only make out the sounds of muffled voices and the screech of a distant siren. My heart was now racing faster than my car as I began to shout into the phone, Hello? Hello! Somebody answer me! I pushed down on the accelerator and the car quickened to a dangerous and dizzying speed, other cars and road signs became a noiseless, blur of colour. I could only hear the muted sounds of voices unaware of my desperation. Hello! I screamed again.

Yes, who is this? the gruff voice of an older man demanded.

This is Gary Hipworth, I hurriedly said, I’m trying to find out about my mum. There was gas. Judith called me, my words were a scramble of eagerness and worry. Do you know…?

I’m sorry Mr Hipworth, the man responded, his tone now somewhat softer with the realization of who I was.

Sorry, why… I blurted, not wanting to hear what I knew might be coming.

When your mother didn’t answer the door, we were forced to break through the back with an axe and the smell…the gas was overpowering.

I don’t understand, my words slowed as my hands tightened around the steering wheel.

I’m sorry, Mr Hipworth, we found your mother too late.

The phone slid down the front of my shirt and onto the car floor. My foot gently pulled back from the accelerator, causing the car to slow to a coast as my body went numb. I swallowed deeply, my eyes fixed on the road ahead.

Too late. Too late to save her, too late to get to her, and too late for a visit from her son. This was not real. This could not be real.

I don’t remember much after that moment, but I somehow managed to arrive at her home. The street was swarming with police cars, an ambulance that had no need to rush, and a gaggle of curious onlookers hoping to gain some information that they could then spread with authority to others in the neighbourhood.

I stepped out of the car, my movements slow and my face expressionless. Again, I must have been quite a sight as the sea of people began to part for me as I made my way to a group of police officers collected by the front door. As I neared them, a young, baby faced officer looked up and, surmising who I was, whispered something to the other men, which led them all to stare gravely in my direction. The oldest, most seasoned looking man of the lot took a step forward and identified himself to me. Though I can’t recall his name, I clearly remember his grip on my arm as he carefully escorted me away from mum’s home, where the faintest odour of gas was still lingering.

Relocating to a nearby police car, the officer spoke softly and evenly as he recounted the events following their arrival. They got to the house at the same time as the gas company, trying both the front and back doors before having no choice but to take an axe and break through the back door. The gas was overpowering, the officer explained, though his eyes struggled to hold mine as he stared out at the sky and down at the dusty gravel.

After a short wait to allow for the gas to clear out a bit, they entered my mum’s home to see if she was there. They called to her, they searched for her, and then they found her lifeless body in the kitchen. Revealing the details of her death, I stood motionless, unable to comprehend the reality of his words.

An officer had called out as he first caught sight of her in the kitchen, her frail frame lying in an unnatural repose. Half her body lay on the floor while the other half was propped awkwardly against the stove, her head, neck, and shoulders jammed between the top of the oven and the oven door with the gas turned fully on.

Her quieted head rested gently on a small cushion.

The officer offered some awkward condolences before explaining to me that her body had already been transferred to the hospital, and then the morgue immediately after. He informed me that, when I was ready, I would have to go to the morgue to identify her body. He offered to drive me.

I nodded slowly, still disbelieving his words, the presence of the people around me, and the now well-trafficked home that had once been so quiet and kept. Settling into the police car, my eyes remained fixed on the little home where her last moments were spent, appearing smaller and smaller as we drove away.

I sensed a burning sensation in my eyes as I finally became aware of my own tears. The disbelief was gradually fading into anger as the reality of my mum’s act began to take hold. How could she have done this? Was she trying to hurt me? Was her life so horrible? After everything she’d survived, why would she choose to give up now? It was just so senseless. I was struck by waves of emotion coupled with nausea as we neared the grey, formidable building where the morgue was housed. As I began to digest the task that lay before me, I was once again confronted with the feeling that I had been here before, that I had done this before.

And I had.

As one memory seemed to be recreating itself into another, the profundity of the moment was as overwhelming as the reality of what my life would be like from here on out. Having travelled so far and overcome so much, I had actually let myself believe that the worst had to be behind me when, in fact, this moment was by far the worst to come. This would be my clearest memory. Why did I feel so angry about what mum had done? Did she have any other choice? Obviously she did not think so. Did my mum really love me to end it like this, without giving me a chance to see her one last time? Or am I only thinking about myself? Too late. My mother is gone forever.

Chapter 2

Lunatic in the House

The slap to the back of my head must have been forceful as it managed to propel the remainder of peas from my small mouth onto the plate before me. Apparently, I had earned this punishment for spitting some of the peas out on my own volition, though I have no memory of this. It was my father’s doing, embarrassed by his son’s thoughtless actions during a dinner party hosted by friends. I imagined that the other dinner guests must have been appalled by my father’s senseless, violent reaction, but I cannot know for sure.

I was only eight months old.

Though I have no memory of that abuse, my mother would mention it from time to time when she recalled the early signs she should have considered before allowing my father to remain in her life. My mother and Len married in December of 1946, when she was already five months pregnant with me. She was twenty-two years old and my father was only eighteen, though the birth certificate he managed to falsify claimed that he was twenty. The event concerning the peas marked the first occasion my mother left Len, relocating the two of us to her parents’ farm in Lancefield, north of Melbourne. That brief separation lasted until Len’s letter arrived begging her forgiveness and pledging his promise to never let it happen again. It was an uninspiring start to a marriage, but my mother, again pregnant, felt that her choices were limited and decided to give him another chance.

My earliest memories of childhood not dependent on my mother’s retelling go back to 1950, when we lived in the back of a pie shop at Newmarket, an inner western suburb of Melbourne. By this time, there were now three Hipworth children: me, my two year old sister Cheryl, and my brother, Ray, who was but a few months old. The pie shop operated as a bakery until closing time when our family of five packed into the two small rooms in the back, save for the one adult who would sleep at the front of the shop in the window box area where the cakes, pies, and pastries were displayed during shop hours. It was a bakery by day, sleeping quarters by night, and a home only by definition.

This was the life for many post-war families who were faced with scarce accommodations and scarcer job opportunities. Though I was too young to fully comprehend what it meant for times to be tough, I can vividly remember the hard, dour expressions on the faces of the people passing by as I watched from my daytime perch, the front steps of the bakery, which were also situated directly across from the Newmarket railway station. Throngs of people would pour out of the station at regular intervals, all in a