In the 3^rd grade my parents sent me to the Polytechnic School in Pasadena. It had been a prep school for Caltech. I went there from 3^rd grade through tenth grade, leaving when my family moved to the redwoods in Northern California. In the seventh grade, at the age of 12, a new student came to school, Stuart. Stuart’s father was a geologist with a Ph.D. from Caltech. He would later go on to harness the geothermal energy of Northern California and is considered by some to be the father of geothermal energy. Union Oil would make him their VP of new energy sources.

At Polytechnic, in 8^th grade, one had to give a speech as part of a contest. Mine was about the Mexican-American War. Stuart’s was about the Santa Barbara oil spill. For which Union Oil was responsible. Stu was tall, athletic, articulate, and handsome. He won the contest, providing a forceful defense of Union Oil.

Both Stuart and I attended UC Berkeley after graduating high school. During that first quarter I had a profound spiritual experience, something called nirvikalpa in India, sort of the ultimate spiritual experience. I needed time away from academia and took the next 18 months off, traveling and working up and down the West Coast.

I finally decided to become a writer. I transferred from UC Berkeley down to UC Santa Barbara and entered the College of Creative Studies. I had written much poetry in the intervening months, a kind of surprise talent, mostly inspired by my spiritual experience.

However, the College of Creative Studies turned out to be unhelpful to me and so I transferred into the Environmental Studies program at UCSB. It was a very peaceful place, it allowed me to pursue many different academic disciplines as was my wish, and it allowed me to still focus on writing. Here I had rediscovered an academic path that truly interested me.

The head of the department was an old classmate of Stu’s father at CalTech. The genesis of the program was the Santa Barbara oil spill of 1969. In fact, the Santa Barbara oil spill was one of the primary causes of the National Environmental Policy Act and led to the creation of the EPA. The very subject of my best friend’s Stu’s 8^th grade speech contest, turned on its head.

I had a vision about that time, at the age of 20. I ‘saw’ in the future a train that would be solar-powered and that would save energy. In 1980 I graduated having written a thesis on solar energy in California. For family reasons I moved back to the redwoods and spent the next ten years working on water quality issues.

In 1988 I ran for Congress in the Democratic primary to oppose drilling for oil off the Northern California coast. Two years later I began working for a solar company in Santa Rosa. That year I began working on electric cars.

Within two years we were the largest manufacturer of electric cars in the world. All that happened since, Tesla, the major car makers going electric, were subsequent to our efforts.

Having become VP of Marketing and Engineering, I moved on to commercializing advanced high efficiency electric motors. The company was founded by a South Korean genius, but who had real difficulties running the company.

One day we received a call from a Dr. Dearien from the US Department of Energy, looking for better motors. I soon traveled to Idaho to meet with him and his team. He was leading an effort called CyberTran, short for Cybernetic Transportation.

CyberTran is a concept in which many smaller rail vehicles, about 5 tons each instead of the usual 20-50 tons, operate on-demand and direct-to-destination by virtue of computer control. One of the main advantages is the drop in the cost of construction.  The other is a whole new network of computerized rail vehicles, more convenient, less expensive, smaller, quieter, and using less energy.

Within two years I had helped CyberTran raise funds from the government and build a test track in the San Francisco Bay area, on the island of Alameda. One day I suggested to John that we could run CyberTran on solar energy.  He didn’t think much of the idea. But when a director of the regional rail system, BART, asked the same question, John answered, ‘Neil’s looking into that.’

Within five years unfortunately, Dr. Dearien passed away from cancer. I took over the position of company President and we pressed forward, slowly, but without giving up. The next year we were nominated for the World Clean Energy Awards.

I went to New York City to attend the awards banquet. We didn’t win but I had the chance to meet the judges, one of whom was a German scientist named Ernst Von Weisacker, the author of a book called Factor Four, a book dealing with world energy consumption and included a section extolling the virtues of CyberTran.

Some months later I received an invitation to a conference on the environment, to be held in Santa Barbara and featuring Ernst Von Weisacker. The environment, Santa Barbara, and Von Weisacker was too stunning of a combination for me to pass up.

Now I must digress seemingly, to the subject of my spiritual experience, my nirvikalpa. The effects were extraordinary on me. My mental perception seemed to have expanded.  Poetry was coming to me spontaneously.

While in a metaphysical book store a month after it happened, a found a book called Kundalini Yoga by Gopi Krishna. This described his nirvikalpa and it was essentially the identical experience I had. I read voraciously as he explained the ancient Hindu theories of kundalini, its activation, it as a source of genius and prophecy, and on.

In it he mentioned a German scientist he described as the “scientist of the future”, one Dr. Carl von Weisacker. Apparently, this was someone he had become acquainted with in Zurich. Krishna believed that kundalini was the source of genius and inspiration that would save us all from catastrophe. Krishna also began to write poetry spontaneously, as I had done.

So there I am in New York City at the World Clean Energy Awards, coming to the realization that my vision of many years ago, the solar train, was CyberTran. Of course I went to the conference in Santa Barbara where I had a chance to speak with Ernst von Weisacker. I had to ask him, “Are you by any chance related to the Carl von Weisacker that Gopi Krishna wrote about?”  I asked him in a quiet moment.

“He was my father.”  The circle of irony was now complete. Energy, my best friend growing up, the head of my department in college, the Santa Barbara oil spill, my spiritual experience and vision – it was all connected!!! Connected by Ernst von Weisacker and Gopi Krishna, and ultimately by me, for I was the interconnection to all these pieces. They all intersected with my life. CyberTran and kundalini, and the environment, and energy.

Neil B Sinclair

MLH

10/12/21

Invited to a wedding at the Nile Hilton,

A famous newscaster came up to me at the reception and shook my hand.

I had learned not to project my personality at people. I breathed.

‘You don’t seem to understand. I am a famous Egyptian newscaster.’

I breathed.

Achmed, the pyramid climber, invited me to climb the Great Pyramid of Giza the next morning at 5:30. I passed. Finally I went on the tour.  I lay in the stone sarcophagus in the king’s chamber.  Afterwards, all the skin on my hands dried up and fell off.

The war in Kuwait soon started. Egypt spent all its solar money on tanks. Ra, the sun god, breathed.

NBS

10/10/21

BRG Prescott

As we examine the causes of pollution,

The steel mills, the oil wells, the land fills,

Whenever we use something,

When we mine or log or plow,

Everything goes somewhere.

Nothing just goes away.

Fly ash from coal mines,

Plastic waste goes to oceans,

Smog from tailpipes,

It all accumulates on the earth,

In the air, in the water.

How can we be so thoughtless and inconsiderate?

So irresponsible!

History has shown that

The circle will close,

The cycle will be visited upon

The next generation in the form of

Pollution, waste, ecological disruption,

Economic disaster, even the rising of oceans,

Floods, drought.

Responsible analysis must become part of

Human conduct at all levels.

NBS

10/4/21

BR Gallery

Dark energy, dark matter, the Great Spirit,

The medium of the Universe,

God’s palette,

Breathed into being,

Chi, prana, spirit coursing through the body,

Coursing through the environment as feng shui,

Dorothy Parker said ‘The secret to a long life is to keep breathing.”

Adnan Sarhan said, ‘As long as we keep breathing, we cannot have an evil thought.’

NBS

9/26/21

BRG

Meditation is ultimately the contemplation of nothing,

Or at least the crushed and atomized energy of the spirit that resembles nothing,

Like the Tao, no feeling,

Or perhaps the feeling of nothingness.

Deserving of no name, no image, no scent or taste, 

We rise to the surface of our being and there

Feel the egoless, identityless being,

Just ourselves and the whole Universe.

NBS

9/26/21

Bell Rock Gallery

Between mountain ridges lies a valley.

A river wanders through it,

Farmland on both sides.

Who will control this fertile landscape?

A rich, abundant soil,

Capable of growing fruits and vegetables,

Grains – wheat, corn, and rice; beef, pork, and lamb.

A civilization can sprout between those mountains,

Families, homes, gardens, factories, and schools,

The water flowing through it, its source of wealth,

Churches, markets, roads and more.

This valley is but one of many.

Empires are supported within its means.

Taxes, soldiers, scientists, and scholars,

Create advanced civilizations, and

Vie in competition with each other.

Great cities where there is adequate water,

Rivers and lakes, oceans providing fish,

Each region benefitting from its resources,

Societies become stratified,

The wealthy ruling ruling from the top.

These economic centers begin to trade,

Each selling its surplus to somewhere else,

But none can deny that human evolution

Has created diversity across the planet.

So there are six continents and three oceans,

Excluding the poles which are uninhabitable

For any but the hardiest breed.

Each continent developed its own humanity,

Varying in color, shape, and size.

From villages to cities, to nations and empires,

Each region developing its own culture,

Language, art, science, and religion,

But then, having conquered the earth’s nature,

Wild predators falling under domestication,

Agriculture around the world,

The cradles of civilization-

From Mesoamerica and Peru to Europe and Mesopotamia,

To Nigeria, India, and China,

Having been unified through war and peace,

Through rivalry in strength and intelligence,

Femininity and fecundity,

The planet is finally getting full.

Each civilization standing up for itself,

While globalization interconnects,

The United Nations and the World Bank,

Religions taking root across the world,

Separating and uniting in equal parts.

Meanwhile the human race pushes out Nature,

While simultaneously altering the climate.

The global ecosphere reels in shock,

Reeves bleached and Arctic tundra melting,

Releasing methane and making matters worse.

Thus the competition for resources goes on,

Waters flowing from glaciers that are melting,

Rivers running dry from super droughts.

How will the various nations divide the rainfall, and

the snow that falls in the mountains and on the plains.

The races of the world mix together,

Whilst nations fight each other over land.

Historical claims of adjacent property,

Hitler’s Lebensraum, Austria and Czechoslovakia,

In Africa borders were shifted by colonialism,

In India the British created Pakistan.

Empires come and empires go,

Borders vanish and then are absorbed

Into the latest expanding empire,

Another great general at its helm,

A Pharaoh, a king, an emperor,

A Caesar, a Charlemagne,

Alexander, Moctezuma, Santa Ana,

Napoleon, Stalin, Genghis Khan,

So many more going back ten thousand years.

The Soviet Union, a huge empire,

Lasted until it collapsed, internal borders disappearing.

The United States, the People’s Republic of China,

The European Union, the OAU,

The major supernations of the world

Cooperate with each other,

Mining the resources of the Earth.

So what happens when those resources

Shrink in size and kind?

When overpopulation burgeons at the seams,

Drives diversity to extinction,

When rivers run dry or course through towns,

Causing unprecedented floods, 

When refugees are driven by war and famine,

By fears of totalitarianism,

To Greece and Turkey, Spain and Italy,

Texas and Arizona, escaping poverty,

From El Salvador and Honduras, escaping crime,

While cattle ranchers burn down the rain forests of Brazil.

What happened to the old world when

Population and technology have driven

The human species to the edge of every ecosystem,

To invade and dominate

Every last refuge of birds and butterflies,

Of wolves and prairie dogs.

When nations and empires

Compete with each other for resources,

Economies fail and war returns.

When religions and ancient values,

Crossborder hatreds and mores conflict,

The questions are to human psychology and sociology.

Then philosophy and religion must do

The job they were invented to perform.

Where are the values of the prophets?

The Ten Commandments and the 8-fold path?

The Holy Trinity and the seven deadly sins?

When greed and lust lead to narco-governments, 

Human trafficking, private armies, and

Ecological destruction, there must be a change.

There’s nothing sustainable about resource depletion,

Mass extinction, pandemics, and superstorms.

The time has come for global cooperation,

Cultural integration and religious tolerance.

Every religion believes it has a monopoly on truth.

None does.  ‘Tis a bitter pill to swallow, pride.

You spend your whole career saying that you have the answer,

The best solution, the absolute truth,

While stuffing your ego with feathers,

Only to find that you are a victim of foolish denial,

Yet that it the secret of greatness, humility.

Only by tossing the ego into the fire

Can one see truth unclouded, unvarnished.

Humility is the only way to save the human race, and

A good portion of life on Earth.

Christianity is not the only way,

Mohammed is not the only prophet,

Jews were not singled out by God,

Hindus, Sikhs, and Jains are not devoid of truth,

Buddhists have no right to burn Muslim villages in Myanmar,

Religion is not the opiate of the masses.

All religions have something to teach.

Hatred is never justified.

Clinging to values that don’t work anymore

Is unreasonable, unwise, and unkind.

NBS

9-21-21

MLH

The ego is the armor of pride,

The greatest fiction ever told:

That we exist as an exaggerated image for the sole purpose of

Believing that God created us to make itself feel important,

That we are what is important about life,

That our planet, our nation, our family, in fact

That I am somehow, in the grand scheme of the Universe,

Important.

Yet,

As a parent to a child, to that child,

We are indeed super important.

Life’s balance between humility and responsibility necessitates that

The ego is seen in proper perspective.

The ego is best washed away in the next flood.

NBS

Bell Rock Gallery

9/17/21

The clock synchronizes all human activity.

Adhere to management’s agenda, schedule of events.

But flowers synchronize to the sun.

 

NBS

9/17/21

MLH

Contemplation,
A new dimension,
Sheer sensation,
A frothy elation,
The mind disappearing,
A poem emerges,
Divine attribution,
The cool fascination,
Truth manifesting,
New concepts forming,
Realization.

NBS

8/14/21

Bell Rock Gallery, Prescott

Sent from my iPhone

“No one gets out of here alive.”

We all must face death,

Not if, but when and how.

We dance our dance,

We live our life,

Shiva smiling,

We fight our battles,

Each one a struggle,

Until finally we face death.

That one we may delay,

But in the end we must lose.

We dance our last dance,

Until our soul slips loose,

Passes through the Van Allen Belt, and

Rejoins the Great Spirit.

NBS

MLH

7-27-21