About the Author, J.R. Van Buren

After watching Russ Van Buren endure a string of bad relationships and get fired from his job, a friend encouraged him to sign up for a “leadership development” course, which included experiential self-awareness techniques such as holotropic breathwork and guided meditations. The author dismissed the experience; but shortly thereafter, he began dating the woman who has now been his wife of more than 25 years, and at work, he began what would become a 20-year-pattern of successes and promotions for companies like General Electric Company and Bank of America. Over the years, he read voraciously and wrote poetry, short stories, and other fiction whenever he could.

Everything in life seemed to operate more effectively, and Russ experienced more joy.

However, it didn’t last. Approximately four years later, issues surfaced at work, and Russ’s personal relationships began to unravel. He realized he had become ensnared in subconscious behavior patterns based in a false and limiting belief system.

So Russ embarked on a journey to figure out just what had improved his life so much after the leadership development course. Studying the Human Potential movement and familiarizing himself with terms such as Consciousness Evolution, Russ learned the value of non-ordinary states. Starting with subjects modern science has explored—such as Western psychology, physics, brainwave synchronization, diet, music, exercise, and lucid dreaming—he studied how to improve his own life performance. Then, slowly he began to embrace traditional and ancient teachings, including mediation, shamanism, mysticism, and the like.

One of Russ’s many teachers, the late Dr. James Farr, warned him that there was a side effect of pursuing human excellence: “You might develop a spiritual life.” With slow and nearly imperceptible progress, this is precisely what began to happen. Given a chance opportunity to hear the Dalai Lama speak live, Russ heard the spiritual leader say that to find what you are looking for does not entail changing religions, but rather starting where you are and digging in, as “there are many fingers pointing to the same moon.”

The journey that began as a movement outward to understand the limits of human potential and evolution of the mind led the author inward, back to his source—to his roots, to his heart, and to God, the universal source that moves us.

Right in the middle of this spiritual exploration, Russ was present to witness the most devastating terrorist attack of our time, simply known by the date it happened: 9/11. Amidst the worst of humanity, the author witnessed the best of humanity. Following that tragedy, Russ was influenced by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Tich Nhat Hanh, who after experiencing war in his native land was moved to teach peace to the world.

Russ continued to read, seeking clarity, from Stanislav Grog and transpersonal vision to Joseph Campbell and meditation. From Houston Smith and comparative religion to Aldous Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy, and then on to ancient classics, such as the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, and the Bible. Russ read nearly everything he could find, including the Dead Sea Scrolls and scriptures found at Nag Hamadi.

Influenced by all that he had learned, Russ found his writing taking a different turn as his experiences during and after 9-11 began emerging in words. As he struggled to become comfortable writing about such a difficult personal trauma, he realized there was light showing through the darkness in everything he wrote. After sharing early drafts and talking the topic over with trusted friends, he found that he had a tremendous opportunity to contribute to others’ healing. Many drafts later, Falling became a redemptive story with essential messages for anyone who has ever lost the way, lost in love, or felt unequal to the challenges of meeting expectations of the world.

Russ lives in Charlotte, NC, with his wife and three children. When he’s not working at his day job in finance, he can be found writing or chatting up strangers, gently prying their stories out of them. He is now at work on a volume of light-dark dreams and a book inspired by the father-son bond between Oglala Lakota Native American Leader Crazy Horse and his father, who was a tribal holy man.