I was born on Sept. 3, 1943, in Lincoln, Nebraska to my parents Margaret Nixon and Richard Applebee, so being the first-born son my name is Richard Nixon Applebee. Later I was given the name Nick and Nicky.

I remember being so alive and positive as a child, you could say life affirming. At six I started school and everything reversed. I became introverted, uninspired. I don’t remember being emotionally touched by anything in the educational system. For the entire period I went to school I received bad grades. At some early point I remember wanting to learn or study art, but because I went to a very small school it was not available.

I started running away from home when I was 12 years old, was kicked out of school when I was in the ninth grade. I was also homeless a good deal of the time, maybe just wanting to become a juvenile delinquent. Guess what? I was successful.

When I was sixteen I heard a voice for the first time, it scared the shit out of me. It said you will be a painter. It changed my life. I had never wanted or liked to read, now I began reading about the arts and philosophy, and set my sights on this new horizon.

At the same time I was in the process of starting a new career in drug and alcohol addiction. Wow what an order! I hated this little tiny town in Kansas where I now lived, so I came up with a brain storm to get out of town and solve all my problems. I joined the Coast Guard so I could get drunk, get in fist fights and go to the whorehouses just like John Wayne. I didn’t quite make it in the Coast Guard. They kicked me out after three years, the only thing I learned the whole time was that I am a conscientious objector who is opposed to war.

You could say that most of my real spiritual experiences up until this time were in the form of fist fights, car wrecks, accidents, dreams, voices and spontaneous kundalini.

In 1964 I traveled to San Francisco and can say, met my contemporaries; this was when my mind woke up spiritually. Well kind of you know, like going to the picture show, about, guess what ... LIFE!!!!!! So all of the hippies and beatniks were swept away by the glorious rivers of goo ga. I would never say all my experiences with the drugs of those days were meaningless. Having strong cosmic experiences and overcoming fears with the use of various psychedelic drugs is fine, the problem is you can only do this when the drugs are present.

So it’s the same old story, just more bondage. The freedom and self-mastery comes when you find and cultivate these realities from within and practice them from day to day, day to day till the end.