Tom: And now I was sitting with this man and telling him about
myself and it was as if my life was in some sense at a major crisis
point that last year at such a young age. I was composed and very
direct with Franklin. I was really straight forward and it was
natural. He just listened and nodded his head acknowledging that he
was listening, not saying much, just sitting there, listening
occasionally asking a question. At one point I suddenly looked very
directly at Franklin as he sat a few feet from me, looked at him and
said, "Some how Franklin, you already know all of this about me."
Franklin simply responded with the word or sound now associated with
his Blessing Acknowledgment, very softly spoken "Tcha".

At some point during our dialogue and exchange everything quite
suddenly stopped. All speech and dialogue ended. In fact my mind
stopped! I was now suddenly and very mysteriously opening my eyes. I
had 'disappeared, vanished without even noticing it, for about 20
minutes or so. Now, my eyes were opening again. I'm thinking "What
the hell just happened, did I just fall asleep in front of this
stranger?" All thought forms were vanishing as soon as they arose.
There was nothing, no me, no mind, no him, no nothing.

Franklin was sitting before me, right there about 10 feet from me in
his chair. I was on the carpet sittling cross-legged and upright. We
then must have sat together for another 5 minutes or so, just
sitting in Silence, no one spoke, there was no physical gestures of
any kind, just open eyed meditation, without any thought! There was
no necessity for any thing other than that Full Silence, it was
complete, completely!

At some point he spoke and he mentioned that he had recently
completed a book called The Knee of Listening that was at the
publishers and would provide me a manuscript of it to look at and
told me about a study group he was having.



Question: Did he invite you to the group to study with him?



Tom: Yes. At that time he was meeting with a few people once a week,
I think, on Wednesday nights. He would get together and meet with a
couple of people to discuss the contents of the manuscript of The
Knee of Listening. He told me I should come to that. He also told me
that he and a friend had just recently rented a storefront on
Melrose Avenue that was either going to be either a restaurant or a
bookstore and he invited me down to help them get it ready. Before I
left, a friend of his, Sal Lucania, came by. Franklin introduced Sal
to me and we talked briefly.



When I left his house that afternoon and for the next 48 hours was a
remarkable time period. I left Franklin's house. I remember driving
past his house and all of a sudden this overwhelming joy overcame
me. I just remember this joy coming up out of the depths of my body.
And I started laughing for no apparent reason. This joy started
bursting through me in all directions and it brought laughter to me
and I actually laughed aloud. This, coupled with the arising of joy
out of the depths of who knows where, I just exploded 360 degrees in
different directions. I was driving a car and I remember laughing
out loud as I drove past his house and I remember actually rolling
down the window just sort of subconsciously as part of it. I was
filled with laughter and that burst of joy came out of me and I was
rolling down the window to let it out somehow and I drove down the
hills and back home to Hollywood. It was as if he offered this joy.
It was given. I had no thought about it whatsoever. I had no second
thought about any of this. It was beyond any reason. Something
beyond me was taking over. All of it was totally spontaneous process.