I like to believe that I was born under a huge old oak tree on the moors in the middle of a raging storm. Thunder and lightning crashed and a gale was blowing, which made reading a newspaper impractical, so I don’t know what was really in the news that day. Darkness engulfed all, and the tree was split asunder by a lightning strike; to this day the tree remains split and a local landmark where it is known as ‘the oak split in two by the lightning strike’. A gentleman rode by in the storm and his white stallion reared, shocked by the lightning, throwing him from his mount and damaging his hat.

Whatever I like to believe, there was no storm, no oak tree and no gentleman riding a white stallion in an undamaged hat. The rest, however, is true.

Many people have asked me how I managed to survive such a difficult start and I can only shrug my shoulders, gaze wistfully into the distance and whisper, ‘providence’.

What remains undisputed is the fact that I was born, in England, just before the Beatles had their first number one, in the Chinese year of the Dragon. So my introduction to the world was in the heady atmosphere of the 1960s and I was washed with the optimism and new found freedoms of that time. I lived through the peculiar era of the 1970s and started to develop a greater awareness of the world around me. I witnessed terrorist attacks and social strife at first hand and experienced a shift from the optimism of the preceding decade to a sense of ‘where to next?’ I, like many of my peers, began to question the fundamental principles of the society I belonged to and tried to understand the jigsaw puzzle of the world within a broader context.

I received a somewhat questionable education, delivered by old school imperialists and the graduates of the class of ‘68. Those well-meaning left wing radicals who came to the inner cities to teach us urchins how to be revolutionaries. The history teacher used to wear a Russian fur hat with enamelled red star and hammer and sickle badges on it, the English teachers used to drink red wine from early in the school day and slur through their monologues on Dickens, Shakespeare and the kitchen sink dramatists. Meanwhile, mountains of rubbish stank in the streets and bodies went unburied in morgues because the council workers were on strike. The cradle of the Industrial Revolution rocked and fell leaving a whole society confronted by an uneasy future and my generation watched, unimpressed by the example we were being set.

I experienced so many things that made me question the ethos of our Western values and realised there had to be a deeper meaning and purpose to living that simply joining the rat race couldn’t satisfy. Unashamed hedonism didn’t hit the mark and nor did the wasteland of nihilism.

I began a quest that lasted many years and took in many parts of the world; with the objective of finding a truly enlightened teacher who could instruct me in the art of living a purposeful and fulfilling life. I met a great many people – charlatans, fakers, conmen and swindlers among them – however, I met the learned and the wise too. Those who could pass on their arts, abilities and skills; some of whom I studied with and gradually formed an understanding of myself, the world and the Universe which I believe is, though still unfolding, far reaching and precious. I studied formally and informally,  and made myself open to an education that would always be enriching.

The adventures I had, the blessings I received are far too numerous to place in one volume, this is a start.  We are each the authors of our own destiny, the catalyst in our own affairs and the keepers of something rare and exalted. We undersell ourselves hugely and limit ourselves, understandably, as a result of the flimsiness of our education. Given the right circumstances and appropriate guidance, we are capable of extraordinary things and may attain heights previously unimagined.

Some of what I have discovered I offer now in the pages of these seven books contained in one volume. To those who find themselves estranged at times from their calling, facing only the Wasteland and removed from the inner state of grace,  The Mechanics of Happiness is a catalyst for the journey which brings us to the starting point of a meaningful and responsible existence. Personal emancipation, to be free, liberated, illumined and pursuing enlightenment while helping others along the way is the only path to follow, there is no other goal worth aiming for. All other objectives are supplemental or detrimental to this supreme motive.

I commend my own chaotic scribblings to you in the hope that you may find one or more keys hidden within their content.