After having my first interview with Scott Olson (the lover of the wild spinner dolphins), I also learned that he had a very distinct way of approaching life from the spiritual side of it. So I invited him to continue our conversation. I learned that he does not only swim with the wild spinner dolphins, but he also paints, is a carpenter and landscaper, and his lifetime experience is something that many people could resonate with and find a piece of themselves in it. I found a piece of me there too... I appreciate the words he said: “Integrate the good things from your old life into your new life, because your old life is what has brought you to this moment.”
Awakened to the spiritual side of Life... How did this transformation happen to you?
Awakening to the spiritual side of life was a gradual transformation that happened over many years. The first inclination I had that a spiritual realm existed was when I was seven years old. I was at my family's cottage in Ontario, Canada getting ready for bed when two bald men in orange saffron robes appeared in my bedroom. They were actually physically there and it scared me, so I ran to get my mother. She came into my room and did not see them and said that I must have been dreaming. They remained in my room looking at me until I fell asleep. Later in my life I recognized that they were Tibetan monks, because they came to me in a dream and did some energy work on me.
Do you know what their message was?
I didn't get a specific message from this experience, but it did open my eyes to the fact that there are many ways of experiencing reality. Because this experience was so profound and out of the ordinary it fuelled my desire to know more about life: what is life? was there a specific purpose to living? why are we here? I believe these are questions most people ask during the course of their lives.
When I was eighteen I read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yoganada. His stories were so unusual, mystical, synchronistic, and made sense. I started longing for Guru, whom I soon met - Master Subramuniyaswami. I became a pre-monastic and lived at his ashram on Kaui for three months to see if I wanted to become a monastic. During puja ceremony to Lord Shiva I felt the palpable flow of darshan energy. Because I was close to my family and liked being in the world and not living away from family in a monastery, so therefore I decided that the monastic life was not for me.
Shortly after returning home Trungpa Rinpoche began teaching Buddhist philosophy in Boulder and I studied Vipassana meditation with Joseph Goldstein. This helped me to learn how to witness thoughts and feelings arising in a larger field of awareness. The benefit for me was seeing how there is a continuous flow of phenomena arising in an interconnected way that was spiritual because there seemed to be an underlying force that held and united everything together.
A few years later I got married, had children, and worked for a number of corporations. I spent many years leading what would be called a fairly normal life being with my family, loved ones and friends.
Then in my late 30's I had another unusual awakening that involved dolphins. Simply put they came to me energetically and telepathically, communicating to me many things about life and that they were also a species that could know their spiritual nature. This was quite a surprise to me because I believed that only humans could know their spiritual nature. They confirmed the truth of our communication by synchronistic experiences. As an example, the day that I recognized the dolphins enlightened state happened to be my birthday and the first birthday present that I opened was tennis warm-up suit with a dolphin logo embossed on the jacket. Shortly afterwards I met a channel named Jonah that confirmed my dolphin experiences and connection. I decided to start a new career in the holistic field taking people to be with the dolphins. The dolphins benefited as people recognized they were a species that was highly evolved and should not be harmed or held in captivity. People benefited as they all said that they felt better physically, emotionally, mentally or spiritually from being with the dolphins. I took many trips and many people to be with the dolphins and we all had wonderful personal healing experiences. Even so I wasn't making enough money to support myself and family.
The financial stress was affecting my emotional and mental health and this led me to attend an introductory meeting with teachers from the Diamond Heart spiritual school. I became a student, began attending their regular gatherings, and have now been with this spiritual organization for 18 years. Practically, the teachings helped me to recognize that I needed to do other jobs as well as my dolphin retreats to make a living. I now work as a carpenter for a living and facilitate retreats a couple times a year. And most importantly, their teachings are what really woke me up to my spiritual nature as they taught correct knowledge about the nature of reality unified by spirit along with the understanding of developmental psychology- how we lose touch with our true nature by becoming identified with the Enneagram of fixations, and then how to re-awaken to our true spiritual nature.
In April of 2001, I had another spiritual awakening. Mother Mary began coming to me daily sharing prophetic knowledge about this Apocalyptic time we are now in. It started with a dream that I had about Pope John Paul II being kidnapped. At the time he was physically in Damascus, Syria retracing the fourth journey of Saint Paul. As I read about Paul's biblical journey Mary informed me that our civilization is currently chronologically following the Book of Revelation of Saint John the Divine. We have gone from the light into the dark night and are waking up to the light again. Her main message is that there is a Divine plan unfolding and as more people wake up to their true spiritual nature, which is the nature of all beings, we can potentially live peacefully and in harmony with each other, the earth and her species. I have written a manuscript about my Mary experiences and her messages. It is available as a free e-book at www.mothermaryprophecies.com .
The other very important aspect, which was actually a thread that tied many of my life experiences together and convinced me we all have a spiritual nature, was my sleeping dreams. Over time I began to realize dreams can be actual spiritual experiences that we are having in our astral body. I know this because I had pure rejuvenating light body experiences where I felt ecstatic joy and deep peaceful contentment with the earth, angels, dolphins and other astral beings. My dreams would also help me heal an earthly situation or reveal more about what was occurring in my life.
How would healing express itself through you? How would you do that healing?
The healing often was a release of difficult emotional feelings like sadness where I would cry in my dream and then feel better in the morning having released the pent up sadness. When I was making the transition from the corporate business world to dolphin swim retreats I had many dreams with the dolphins whose presence in the dreams gave me the confidence and steadfastness to persevere. I also cried tears of joy as I was so happy to have realized my connection to the dolphins.
I am aware that often when we choose to make drastic changes in our life, we also eventually need to let go of all that we knew or were accustomed to, so to start anew. What did you lose, what did you release, what did you drop from your old life so to be where you are now?..
Going from working in a well paying stable job in the business world to starting a new career taking people to be with the dolphins was a drastic change. I had saved money but did not realize that it would take more time than I imagined making enough money to support myself and my family. I lost financial stability. I was able to financially make ends meet but just barely and there wasn't a safety cushion. I sacrificed the support of a comfortable predictable well paying job and a sense of belonging to a community of business friends to having to go day to day financially and develop new friends in the holistic field. The financial stress also led to a separation from my wife and eventual divorce. This was very painful as my ideal of living as a family with a wife and children was shattered. I missed living together as a family and felt badly that we all suffered.
Do you have any regrets? Is there anything you would have done differently..?
Over the years I have wished that I woke up to my spiritual nature earlier thinking that if I had then I would not have had to struggle as much financially while making the transition from the corporate business world to the dolphin holistic world. I have thought maybe I could have kept in touch with many of my business friends and that if I stayed financially secure then I may have stayed married. And the truth is I really don't know if my life would have been different. I have learned to be present with and accept how things are now. I appreciate what I do have in my life. I am aware of my spiritual nature. I have beautiful children, family, friends and now a grandchild. And I continue to feel passionately connected to the Cetacean realm.
If someone came to you and told you that they wanted to give up their old life and start all over again, what would you say? What kind of advice would you give?
I would say integrate the good things from your old life into your new life, because your old life is what has brought you to this moment of embracing a new life. Your old life has value. It supported you and was the life that you chose to live based upon your best wisdom and understanding available to you at the time. Focusing on creating a life that brings you the most fulfilment in this moment doesn't mean you have to start all over again in all respects. Maybe it is time for a new career, relationship, or creative endeavour. This is part of growing. The old leaves fall away and new buds spring forth.
How has an interaction with the wild dolphins affected you, your life, your way of living, feelings, thinking and being?
Interacting with the wild dolphins exponentially increased my passion for life. The dolphins are such an alive and vibrant species and swimming with them ignited my aliveness. I felt such deep love for them and love from them. I found my purpose for living, which is to be with the dolphins and take other people to be with them. When people are with the dolphins they become very happy, they have more energy, and they are more loving towards others and themselves. If we humans do reincarnate, then I want to come back as a dolphin, because I like the way they live life. They live peacefully with each other, are very social and loving, spend a lot of time playing with each other and are not harming their environment. Humans are causing so much harm to each other and other species and cannot settle their differences. My dream is to put them all in the ocean with the wild dolphins, as I bet they would soon forget about their disagreements, because they would be having too much fun playing with the dolphins and each other.
From our conversation it has become clear that your chosen path took a lot from you in the past. How are you now?
Yes, choosing the dolphin path did mean giving up a traditional business lifestyle and led to a separation from my family. This was very painful and yet it is what led to my spiritual awakening. My life quest has been to know if there really was a Divine reality and now I know there is, so it does give meaning and purpose to life. To the best of my ability I live my life with loving kindness towards myself and others. The way I live, like dolphin retreats, carpentry work, acrylic painting, are ways of expressing the beauty of our Divine nature. This is personally fulfilling.
Could you share a bit about acrylic painting that you do?
I paint nature scenes and Cetaceans with acrylics on wood. Life is so beautiful, so this is one way that I creatively express the love I feel for life. My hope is that when people view my paintings it also evokes a sense of wonder and awe for the beauty of life. When I paint, I feel very relaxed and in a meditative state.
Are You Happy?
Knowing that we are all sparks of the Divine and that our nature is good makes me very happy. Sharing this marvellous life of existence with my loved ones and people who are awake makes me very happy. I occasionally become depressed and sad from observing the current human and species suffering or from having personal longings that are unfulfilled. And yet I trust that there is a Divine plan unfolding that is for the highest good of all, even if at this time it doesn't appear this way. My greatest happiness and fulfilment comes from serving our Divine nature expressed in living colour through people, Cetaceans, other species, and nature.
If you could make any changes in life, especially your past, what would that be? Would you make any changes in the first place?
At the present I am living in Colorado. My family is here and I have been fairly busy as a carpenter. I plan to spend more time, maybe six months out of the year, in Hawaii to be with the dolphins and whales and hope to be living there full time within a few years. I will continue my retreats and can work there as a carpenter, handyman and landscaper and maybe sell a few paintings. My past was rich and full with love and blessings. I also had my difficult down sad and lonely times. This is all part of being human. And it was all of the past experiences... good and bad that led to me waking up. So I wouldn't change my past because now in each moment my appreciation for the mystery and marvellous beauty of life deepens.
Why has it been so important for you to know your spiritual nature?
I wanted to know the nature of reality because it is really such a mystery. I wanted to know or at least try to find an answer to how I and everything else came into being and the purpose to living. Scientists and philosophers ask these questions constantly, and for me it is the spiritual realm that ties everything together and gives meaning to life. If I knew that there was indeed a Divine presence that could be known, then perhaps I could have learned much more about the significance of living. I did not want my life to be 80-90 years of being with loved ones, having uplifting experiences, and then poof it's all over. So knowing that we all have a Divine nature that connects us all together in love makes each moment full of blessings and grace.
What have you discovered about your spiritual nature?
That it is not easy to discover. It took me a long time to really know my spiritual nature. I had lots of beliefs, and now that I do know I have a spiritual nature, I realize how much of a mystery it is and there is so much more to know. I do know that I have, you have, and everything has a spiritual nature that is an expression of the Divine. The Divine, often called God or Goddess, is a universal presence and force which has always existed. It has created, sustains and continues to manifest everything in our world. The Divine is in everything. There is only the Divine, so nothing exists separately from the Divine. So we are all connected through our unity in the Divine. And our Divine nature is good. You can see this in newborn babies. They are full of sweetness and evoke feelings of tenderness, love and joy. All humans want to be happy, to live peacefully and to share the wonders of life with loved ones. This is proof that our Divine nature is good. All human conflicts and harmful actions to our environment are the result of not knowing our Divine nature. When one truly knows their Divine nature they recognize all life is Divine and so they take action to support, take care of and nurture all life.
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INTERVIEW with Scott Olson – The Lover of Dolphins and Mother Earth
Copyright © Jolita Kelias, May 2011
All Rights reserved
"I would say integrate the good things from your old life into your new life, because your old life is what has brought you to this moment of embracing a new life. Your old life has value. It supported you and was the life that you chose to live based upon your best wisdom and understanding available to you at the time. Focusing on creating a life that brings you the most fulfilment in this moment doesn't mean you have to start all over again in all respects. Maybe it is time for a new career, relationship, or creative endeavour. This is part of growing. The old leaves fall away and new buds spring forth." - this is one of the best parts of this interview. Insight of great wisdom.
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