per year, a luxury lifestyle and even some friendships. He’d been asked to give it all up, his entire life, so he could go off and try to discover the truth about life and uncover a message, which might help millions of other people to become happier, more fulfilled and live peaceful, meaningful lives.
And who had called upon him to do all of this? Some inner voice which spoke only to him? Was he mad to have listened to this voice from within? Would any sane person have done it? Had total faith that everything in life would be taken care of, if only you followed the path this voice recommended to you?
Any normal person would have refused to follow such a voice. Even if they’d accepted the need to find out about the truth of life, they’d have questioned the need to travel to the other side of the world to do so – why couldn’t he find the answers by staying in Ireland?
But he’d trusted the voice without question and embarked on a three-week journey of self-discovery in Thailand, leaving behind his wife and children. He hadn’t planned anything on the trip, trusting instead that everything would be looked after by someone, or something. He’d just started travelling, listening to his inner voice and waiting for signs and messages to be sent his way. All the time, the voice assured him that these messages would reveal to him the truth about life, the next evolution of mankind and the path to hidden treasure, which lay within him.
And then it happened!
He was given the perfect message, a sign that he was on the right track to discovering hidden treasures. On the side of the road, he spotted a statue – an amazing statue. It had to be a sign, a part of the truth he had come to Thailand to discover.
Right there in front of him – by the side of a back-road in Thailand – came the clearest sign that he had been right to follow his inner voice.
He pulled over, turned off the bike’s engine and let the sound of the machine tail off into silence. Removing his helmet, he looked with amazement at the sight before him. Was it a figment of his imagination? A mirage in the heat of the Thai afternoon? But the statue before him was real. Standing 5 foot 11 inches tall, and sparkling with all the glory you would expect from such a figure, was a statute of an Oscar.
Chapter 1 The Journey Begins
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
The journey to that statue by the side of the road in Thailand had been a long and difficult one. Two years previously, Ethan’s life had been transformed during a trip to Spain. One night, in the family’s new villa in Southern Europe, Ethan lay in bed, wide awake. It was his family’s first night in the holiday house of their dreams and he should have felt euphoric but, instead, he was unsettled, miserable and close to tears.
Natalie lay beside him. Glancing over at her, Ethan hoped his restlessness wasn’t disturbing her, but she was fast asleep. The clock on the bedside table showed it was 2.30am, exactly two minutes since he’d last checked.
This three-week break was the family’s first visit to their new holiday home and they’d travelled over from Ireland with their three children and Natalie’s parents.
A holiday in the sun! How many rainy days in Ireland had he consoled himself with the thought that, one day, he’d own a place in Spain where it hardly ever rained?
And he’d done it. He’d worked so hard in the previous twelve months to achieve this goal of owning a villa in Spain. He should have felt ecstatic, but he wasn’t anywhere close to it. He felt down and empty. What was wrong with him? Why wasn’t he happy? It didn’t make sense.
A year earlier, he’d gone into goal-setting overdrive. He set goals to achieve all kinds of things: buying a property investment portfolio; owning a beautiful 5,000 square foot home on an acre of land in the Irish countryside; making €250,000 in income; owning a new Porsche; achieving €100 million in sales; opening a chain of retail shops in Ireland; becoming a millionaire; having an outstanding relationship with Natalie and their three children; reaching twelve and a half stone in weight, and taking a three-week vacation with the family. And he’d done it all, hit every target he’d set himself.
So what was wrong? Why was he lying awake the first night in the dream holiday house, unable to sleep?
Ethan rolled from side to side, tossing and turning and wondering why he couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t a normal feeling of restlessness: it was a feeling of non-fulfilment coming from deep within the centre of his soul. He’d thought that, when he’d reached his goals, he would feel happier than ever before, but he didn’t. Yes, he had been happy for a while, but it had been surface-level happiness.
He was surrounded by beautiful material things and knew he could buy anything he wanted, go anywhere he wanted and do anything he wanted. Yet he felt unfulfilled.
Tears welled up in his eyes as he stared at the ceiling above him.
“What is happening to me? Why am I crying?” he wondered. He had everything he wanted in life but, above all, he had three beautiful children and a wonderful wife.
The connection between Ethan and Natalie had always been so close they could almost read each other’s thoughts. At times, Ethan might be thousands of miles from home, but Natalie could pick up on what he was feeling and thinking and would later tell him on the phone what had been on his mind. The relationship they had was not man-made – it was a pure, unconditional love.
Thoughts and images raced through Ethan’s mind… goals, achievements, money, houses, cars, travel, things to do, places to go, deals to be done, a better life to achieve, helicopters, business ideas to create… On and on his thoughts raced until finally, he could take no more.
“STOP!” he urged himself. “Just stop. For pity’s sake, give me a rest!”
Mercifully, the torture ceased, but Ethan was no closer to understanding why he felt so low. He’d achieved what he’d set out to achieve. What more was there to do?
Maybe it was all too easy. Perhaps the challenge wasn’t there anymore. Maybe he was finding getting what he wanted, achieving his goals, too easy. He had the ability to set his mind on any goal and, like magic, he would achieve it. It had been a long, hard slog to get here. He’d spent his earlier business career working 14-hour days. Back then, he believed the secret to successful living was to work hard and, if that didn’t produce exceptional results, then he figured he had to work even harder and longer.
His attitude hadn’t gone unnoticed by family and friends, and it wasn’t always welcomed. On his wedding day, Ethan’s father, who Ethan didn’t get on with, warned Natalie: “Watch that guy, he wants everything now.”
It was an insightful comment from a man with whom Ethan had no real relationship. His father had described exactly the type of person Ethan was: he wanted everything immediately. He wanted the great things in life: to be wealthy and successful – whatever successful meant.
He knew there was another way to live. He’d often heard people talking about the power of the human mind with their mantra that, “whatever you believe, you can achieve”. But he dismissed their beliefs out of hand, describing them as ‘mind games’ and ‘mumbo jumbo’. He preferred to concentrate on sheer hard work to get ahead and believed the secret of success was to work on one thing while thinking of the next five things you were going to do.
“Move fast, work hard and just get on with it,” was his maxim. “Drive things,” Ethan told everyone he met and, in the beginning at least, that approach seemed to work.
But when Natalie became pregnant and gave birth to their first daughter, Angelina, things changed. It became harder for Ethan to justify working