His Spirit was so HUGE: It filled the Entire Gym!

"Treat everyone you meet as if he or she were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness, and understanding you can muster, and do so with no thought of reward. Your life will never be the same."

-Og Mandino,"The Greatest Salesman in the World"Via Gratefulness.org

I just *came back from my gym where everyone who knew him
is in SHOCK!

There he always was...larger than life. Standing about 6' 10", tanned,
blonde hair and a mustache. Before you got to know him, you thought
when looking at him, that he looked pretty "fierce." This was simply based
on appearances.

He knew this, too, so the first thing he did (or so it seemed to me) upon
encountering a new person is to smile and put him/her at ease.

I remember that this is exactly what he did about two years ago, when
I first saw him. He wiped down the machine and excused himself and his
buddies for taking so long on the machine. From that day, whenever I saw him, he was always so respectful and loving.

About six weeks ago, he, his buddies and I got into a discussion about a topical issue of the day. Then when they started about girls turning into werewolves and vampire movies, I moved away.




"I love those movies," he said.
I smiled.

The last time I saw him was exactly two weeks ago.
I asked him for his buddies. He smiled and said they weren't there that day.

Today, as I came out of the locker room, I instinctively looked over to where he liked to work out. He wasn't there.

At the time, I wondered why I'd thought of him, since there were so many other people I meet and greet at the gym. My times at the gym are so inconsistent, he's not always there whenever I'm there.

But I looked for him today, and he wasn't there.

I was nearing completion of my workout when my friend, with whom I'd had a lengthy discussion earlier about the recent elections and the political happenings, called me over.

He said, "You know about Mike right?" He had a smile.
"Which Mike," I asked... My friend then described him.
I said, "Yes. I know him."
"Well, he's dead," my friend said.

I realized then that his smile was a cover for the shock he and ALL the folks at Bally's in Fremont are currently experiencing, once they hear the news about Mike.

Apparently everyone knew him! Aside from his height, he stood out, too, because he sometimes wore red/yellow workout shoes.
Apparently everyone had a wonderful story to tell about his gentleness. And whenever his friends talked about him (a few others came over to join us), they were smiling...

They were smiling because of shock and, yes, they are incredulous that someone with so much life...so much spirit...could suddenly be DEAD!

Many people recalled seeing him at the gym on Friday. Then Monday, he fell over and died on the construction site where he worked. His supervisor found him on the ground. No one knows what killed him...yet.

Meanwhile, everyone is wondering...how could a guy so loving...in such good shape...55 years old...suddenly be no longer among us.
I wanted to tell them:
"He's here...he's here...he's STILL HERE!"


I'd FELT him draw me into his spirit upon exiting the locker room and entering the gym floor.
I know... he did.
I know... his spirit still lives.
I know ...his spirit is still connected to each and every person he encountered.
That's the oneness I blog about so often.

Yet, it's so hard to imagine because we're no longer going to see him.

Yes, his friends and all the folks at the gym can't stop smiling, though he's dead. The memories of the JOY he brought can never ever go away, whenever people think of him.

That's just the type of guy he was...he always found a way
to make you smile. Always.

Even those who don't claim any spiritual knowledge now
know there was something special about that guy, Mike!

God...I will miss his Presence.

But I know that every time I go to the gym...
I will remember; I will smile, too.

I will remember that beautiful spiritof Mike Winslow.

We all are waiting to hear about the funeral services.

You know...we all plan to go...so many of us...
his gym "friends."

We'll all be there...
And yes, we'll be smiling.

You see that's the legacy he left with the world in his 55 years:
Always leave people with a smile.

R.I.P. Mike Winslow:

Your spirit has so touched mine today.
I can't stop thinking about you.
I can't stop loving the memory of you.
I can't stop knowing that you were a Presence sent
for a short time...
..to teach us all... friends... strangers... gym mates...
how to let our spirit expand and cover the world
we inhabit ... with love.


Thank you, Mike Winslow, for teaching us the lessons of
love so very well.

We'll miss your Presence.

Namaste',

Che'
*Editor's Note: Original note written on Nov. 16, 2010

Book Review: "Muhammad: A Story of The Last Prophet" by Deepak Chopra

"Wisdom is like hot coals," Waraqah, the Believer, said. "People enjoy the glow, but they're not stupid enough to step in."


Waraqah, the Believer, is one of several characters Deepak Chopra uses to narrate his tale of "the last prophet."

I don't know if this strategy were the best, as it made the story of "Muhammad," very complicated and hard to follow. [Even Chopra admitted that his dropping in and out of characters could be "confusing."] Obviously, it was the only way Chopra could "lessen the impact of our modern-day judgments," and accurately tell the tale of this "last prophet," who left a legacy of both tremendous strife and tremendous compassion.

Orphaned at age six, Muhammad did not in any way seem destined for greatness in seventh-century Arabia. He grew up in a large extended family of uncles, cousins and other males who belonged to the Hashim clan. The society he grew up in was that of fierce tribal rivalries. Muhammad's struggles started when he tried to educate the various clans that there is only ONE God, and that is God, Allah, not the many "gods," they paid homage to in their daily lives with sacrifices.


Muhammad's awakening and teachings led to bloodshed. Although he came out of the Middle Eastern desert, like Jesus and Moses, his struggle for recognition as a great prophet is even more pronounced today when members of the Muslim-based Jihad commit atrocities in his name.

Despite the circuitous way of telling it, the story of "Muhammad" is a fascinating look at a man who was way ahead of his time by marrying a widowed woman, Khadijah, 15 years his senior. The fact that Khadijah was a rich widow and liberated, yet made Muhammad a keeper of all her goods as a merchant, made her stand out in stark contrast to the other women in the Arabian society who were much more submissive to their husbands.


The liberal stance Muhammad maintained towards women certainly could have been nurtured at the breasts of his fiesty "wet nurse," Halimah. Despite her poverty, Halimah was a woman of great integrity, wisdom and insights.

Muhammad's awakening came through the archangel, Gabriel, who also had appeared to Mary, and who urged him to "recite," even though Muhammad could not read or write, a level of illiteracy not uncommon even for "well to do" at that time.

Gabriel's persistence for Muhammad to "recite," even embracing him three times to give him confidence, is ultimately the reason Muhammad and the rest of his community knew that he was being called to serve from a higher place.

With this sudden ability to "recite," we then become witnesses to the transformation in this man, Muhammad, who would be ordinary, had it not been for the "extraordinary" occurrences he encountered throughout his journey.


Chopra grew up in India, so was a first-hand witness to the riots and mass murders that resulted from the partition in Pakistan in 1947. The thing that intrigued him about Muhammad, though, was:

"my fascination with the way in which consciousness rises to the level of the divine. This phenonmenon links Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad. Higher consciousness is universal. It is held out as the ultimate goal of life on earth.

"Without guides who reached higher consciousness, the world would be bereft of its greatest visionaries--fatally bereft, in fact."

I was drawn to this book, too, because Deepak Chopra has been a great guide for me throughout my spiritual journey. I saw him first in the late 1980s, when he was just emerging publicly as a spiritual teacher. Since then, I've been witness to his evolution, as I've also been witness to my own.


What is especially fascinating to me about this book, "Muhammad: The Story of the Last Prophet," is its TRUTH of the journey of Spirit.

Indeed, if God were looking for a last messenger to deliver to us a message of Hope, he chose the right personality.

Muhammad himself felt that he was an ordinary man who had an "extraordinary experience."

Aren't so many of us experiencing this very thing, today, when we receive that first stirring of Spirit?

We begin very tentatively, doubting that we are hearing anything but our own imagination going wild.

Eventually, we settle into following the path we're being directed, despite our humanity and personality protesting all the way.



Then, we reach a certain plateau in our journey, where we must choose sides: the ways of the world or God.

It becomes that simple:

"No man shalt thou serve two masters, for either he will love the one and hate the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." Matthew 6: 24


That's what happens to us along the journey.

This plateau.

Decisions.

Decisions between our spirituality and our humanity (personality).


Decisions between the Good within us and the Evil that also lurks within.


Those are the battles we fight, until the end: battles of the Soul!

These are the battles Deepak Chopra so clearly demonstrated through the complicated figure of "Muhammad, A Story of the Last Prophet."



So, if Jesus were the first "messenger of Truth," as many of us believe, and came to reveal to us the Spirit within us, we clearly can appreciate God's need to send other messengers along the way, then a last "messenger of Truth" about the "Human" within us as well.

That's why the wisdom of Waraqah, the Believer resonates with many who would be oh...so Human:
"Wisdom is like hot coals. People enjoy the glow, but they're not stupid enough to step in."



May God Bless you on your journey of Truth!

Namaste',

Che'