BARBARA MARX HUBBARD: HER PERSONAL TRANSFORMATION

Barbara: Ever since I was a little girl, I was expecting something more. I had a sense of anticipation and that something great was coming and that I desired it. But I had no words for it. I couldn’t find it in books, I couldn’t find it in go in the movies, I couldn’t find it in school. So, I had suppressed it, a feeling that probably it was a wrong feeling and because I had suppressed it, it was a kind of nagging since every day when I get up that something was missing in my life. And I suppressed that too because it didn’t seem apparent as to what was missing. So, when I had an experience that affirmed my expectation of something more, which showed me that it had been true and real and something that I could trust, it was like a release from within of everything that I already am, springing into being. And one way I expressed it is I had been like a shadow, and I became substantial. If I had been a very pale blue person I became brilliant blue. It was an affirmation and a realization of potential—that’s what conversion was for me.

And secondly it made me sense that my own life was needed, not just to survive and make myself comfortable but for the evolution of the world. And I began to get excited, that that suppressed creative capacity could be used in the world. And creating felt good. And I’ve always said it’s the next step after sex. Sex is created by attraction—the unknown child. Giving a gift to the world is creating at the next level the unknown future. And for me the greatest source of joy is in the act of creativity, whether it be through the love of a man creating a child or through interaction with other people, each expressing their gift to create an unlimited future for the human race.

Marty: How do you know you’re not kidding yourself?

Barbara: One way, it’s like it says in the Bible, you’ll be judged by the fruits of your work. I judge it by the fruits. First of all, I’m healthier. Just in a very simple way, before I had this experience, I used to get sick all the time. I had head colds and stomach aches and bronchitis, and since the day I had that cosmic birth experience I haven’t had one single cold. I can literally feel it getting to my throat and I remember what excites me and it goes right back up and never gets to the chest. I have a, I can verify in terms of energy. I don’t get tired. I wake up like an airplane taking off, and I, the only time I have an energy drop is if I have to forget that I have this involvement in life and then I could get tired. But I have a tremendous amount of energy.

Third, I seem to be able to be helpful to other people. From what they tell me I have been able to serve them in some way by giving them new insights, by giving them some idea of their own potential, by presenting a positive image of the future and stimulating hope. So, I get feedback that’s positive rather than negative. What excites me about everybody is that each of us is so underdeveloped. My feeling about each of us is that we have barely touched or tapped our full potential. Anybody who is beginning to develop their own potential is a stimulus to anybody else to do the same. I literally got turned on by a few people Abraham Maslow was one, Jonas Salk was another, Teilhard de Chardin, a few people I met and a few people I read. And they affirmed this in me. Everybody I meet, I know, has untapped potential. So, it’s exciting to me to try to discover what it might be, by sharing with that person what I discovered. And then the person discovers it for themselves. And I love to see it because it excites me, and I know it’s needed for the world. So, the answer is everybody’s got it, but not everybody knows it.

Marty: It might appear that you certainly had the luxury for dissatisfaction, and that many people out the world don’t have the luxury of dissatisfaction. They’re too busy plodding along, and what was that before dissatisfaction for you what was the Barbara before?

Barbara: Well, the before Barbara was somebody who had a deep feeling of loneliness. I felt disconnected and not—I felt a misfit, even though I was apparently doing the right thing raising my children and serving my community and joining in community activities. I never felt at home. I felt that, alone. And somehow the sense that there was something that I was supposed to be doing that I haven’t discovered. So, I felt a failure, even though in many ordinary terms I was I had a lovely home it’s true and I took care of my children and loved them, took care of my husband and loved him, and he loved me. But I had this nagging feeling of failing. And I would say, but what am I failing at? and I didn’t know. So I felt alone, a failure and frustrated by that. That was the Barbara before.

The Barbara after no longer feels alone. Because I have found that there are thousands and thousands of people—and ultimately everyone—who has untapped potential, who need each other. And I’ve connected up with hundreds of people around the world. And that’s a great joy. It’s a bonding, it’s a communion. It’s the feeling of an intentional family worldwide. I don’t feel failure anymore, not because I’ve succeeded but because I’m rewarded in the action that I’m doing because it’s full of love. And I don’t feel a misfit because I’ve found that these very characteristics of love of the future, desire to connect, wanting to learn is what’s needed. And I’ve met others who feel the same and even if other people don’t approve of me, I have experienced myself as being useful.

It depends on how sensitive you are. Some people have to go right to the brink of destruction before they try something new. Other people are much more sensitive to their own growth needs and do it painlessly. I know people who have a feeling, act on it, keep growing, and never had to go through this kind of deep despair. Others of us don’t listen to the inner signals. And then we go we get sick, and we get into problems, and some of us don’t even make it. So the key there, I have found, is the capacity to listen to your intuition. Everyone has continual signals and the signals for me have been pain and joy. When I get a joy signal, even if it’s just that little flick of joy, I say something happened that was right go that way. It’s like a little light in the dark. Then when I get a signal of pain, I say thank you, tell me what I did wrong. And it’s a useful thing, I usually get the pain in the solar plexus and the joy here.