About Gavin Hoole - Unlock Your Happiness

This page is about Gavin Hoole - that's me. I'm pleased you've dropped by to check out my Unlock Your Happiness website. I do hope you find something at this site that will resonate with you.

Just so you know where I'm 'coming from' with all this happiness stuff, here's an overview of how I came to set up this website. (This is the longer version of my About Me page. If you want a shorter version, click on
Gavin Hoole - Shorter Version.)

Seeking the truth

For many years of my life I was what one might call a 'seeker', wanting to understand the mysteries of life and my own status and role in this vast universe.

The first inner experience of something subtle and uplifting that I can remember was when I was about four years old.

The urge for 'unity'

Deep inside I yearned for an experience of unity with that from which we all emerge. I looked into, but never became seriously involved in, several schools of thought. Yet each time I knew that the 'path' or the 'way' that was presenting itself to me was not what I was looking for, or needing.

Sunday School childhood musings

I can remember that even as a pre-schooler I would attend Sunday School and gaze at the pictures on the wall - photo-like paintings of angels with wings. And I'd wonder if it were really true: if there were indeed such things as angels.

Similarly, what truth was there in the stories of my home religion (Anglican Christianity)? Did those characters mentioned in The Bible in fact exist in the past?

And if they did communicate with God, how come it happened only then - more than 2,000 years ago - yet I didn't ever hear modern-day stories of a similar nature? Why was everything always in the past tense - the long-past tense?

Three Sea Scouts 'tackle' the Roman Catholic priest

I remember once, as a teenager, I went with two of my Sea Scout buddies to a scheduled meeting with the one Scout's Roman Catholic priest (just the three of us and the priest). My agnostic, almost atheistic buddy, Donald, wanted to ask the priest some challenging questions.

Donald was somewhat of a rebel, and he didn't buy into all this religious stuff blindly. He wanted more than just 'belief'. He wanted facts, proof, logic or whatever else could convince him of what his religion had been preaching during his years as a child.

At the meeting, the priest answered our questions as best he could, often saying - almost as a last resort - that "We know because that is what the Bible tells us".

Almost as the final straw, Donald impatiently asked: "But how do you know that what the Bible tells us is actually true? And the priest replied: "You need to have faith, my son."

That was it! Donald thanked the priest for his time and patience, and got up before he became too angry with frustration. And his two Sea Scout escorts stood up too, and the meeting ended.

Donald was still a devout agnostic; and I was still a seeker. :-)

It's time to transcend thinking

Later on in life I came to know inside me that what I needed and what I wanted was to find a way to 'transcend' the mental processes and experience my own essence - pure awareness, silent consciousness.

I hoped that if I could do that, then I would be that much closer to the truth -- the truth that might set me free.

Truth cannot be had through thinking and discussion. To know, one must experience, I felt.

I get to transcend

On 22 February 1975 I had that conscious experience of transcendence, under the guidance of a trained teacher of the world's most researched technique of meditation.

From that time on I felt I had found the end of my search for the beginning, as I described it then. I felt I was no longer a 'seeker', but rather a 'finder' - a finder of the first rung on the conscious ladder to more happiness and fulfilment in life.

I learn some 'advanced techniques'

I then went on and learned some 'advanced' techniques that built on the same basic transcending technique, culminating in 1978 with the experience of the first stages of what is referred to as 'Yogic Flying' - where I could effortlessly and blissfully hop across a room - sitting cross-legged - over firm foam mattresses which were there for safe and soft landings.

These experiences were, at that time, available through certain specific 'techniques' which I used quite effortlessly per the instructions given during the course that was conducted by telephone between South Africa and Switzerland -- quite an unusual arrangement, I can tell you.

Do we really need a 'technique' ... or a guru?

Even though I slipped easily into the routine of the 'programme', all this time I still felt that if transcendence were meant to be natural, which I intuitively felt was the case, then why was it necessary to employ 'techniques' learnt from an Eastern sage?

Well, one day, when I had finished my session of meditation and the advanced siddhis add-on, I had an experience that confirmed this notion of mine.

I was clearly 'out of' my meditation, just sitting there. Yet, after a while, I spontaneously found myself back in a state of mental silence and bliss; and this happened without using any technique at all. It was totally spontaneous and completely effortless.

Eureka! I now knew for sure that it was indeed not necessary (for me at least) to use any techniques, be they some form of Yogic meditation, the use of recorded sound frequencies, mantra meditation, whatever.

This meant that anyone could learn to experience this without the need to learn a mystical technique from an Eastern guru.

I am set free!

I was set free from having to be dependent on someone else for my own inner experience and outward personal growth.

At last! The experience of transcending the thinking process and thoughts could now truly be made available to everyone, irrespective of culture, religious beliefs or other perceived differences. I had come 'home'.

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
~ T. S. Eliot

Conscious Mental Rest^© (CMR^©) is born

At last too, those people who do not relate easily to Eastern traditions, or using a mantra, or sitting in the lotus position with hands on their knees chanting "Om" - anyone could now enjoy the most natural process I knew of for allowing the mind to move towards stillness. And this experience could be had quite effortlessly. I called it Conscious Mental Rest^©.

And so, Conscious Mental Rest^© could become available to all. I just needed to find a way in which everyone could have access to it, in its original state, without confusing it with techniques of contemplation, concentration, mind control, chanting, mantra repetition, induced brainwave synchrony or any of the many techniques or paths being offered under the generic term of 'meditation'.

How could I share CMR^© with others?

I was concerned, however, that if I taught others to teach it, so that they become teachers themselves, something might get lost along the way, some of the subtleties.

After all, it was my very personal 'baby', and it would be good to share it in its original innocence, without any misunderstandings and distortions creeping in along the way. This has been referred to in some organizations as "maintaining the purity of the teaching".

And, anyway, it would be a real 'mission' for me to start such a management organization to run teacher training courses and coordinate the whole organizational setup and quality control, administration and so on. I wanted to keep it all very simple, just as the process of CMR^© itself is.

CMR^© Home-tuition via CD

And so, for the locals in my city of Cape Town I created a home-made 'Home-tuition Course on CD'. I offered it to some friends and members of the local community.

Then somehow a few people outside Cape Town got to hear about it (Europe, USA) and requested a copy of the course too.

What is Conscious Mental Rest^©?

From my own experience, Conscious Mental Rest^© (CMR^©) is a 100% natural approach to reaching the goals of traditional meditation techniques - an approach that will bring life-changing benefits that anyone can start experiencing from Day 1.

Twice-a-day CMR^© is the foundation of my personal two-edge strategy for increased happiness and enhanced wellbeing. It is the first of the two do-able 'keys' for unlocking the happiness that dwells within each one of us as a natural and integral part of our human physical make-up.

The other side of the personal growth coin

Complementing the holistic life-enhancing benefits of CMR^© is a simple and profound approach to using one's attention most naturally in daily living in order to create the kind of happy life one truly desires. I refer to this simple approach as Conscious Mental Attention^© (CMA^©)

CMA^© is, in a way, what is alluded to in the many books and CDs on the subject of the "secret" law of attraction. But CMA^© is simpler, totally natural, and in my opinion less mind-based than the popular law of attraction methods widely promoted these days.

Whereas Conscious Mental Rest^© involves allowing the mind to rest from its incessant mental chattering, Conscious Mental Attention^© is about making effective use of the mind during activity.

CMA^© is just as simple and natural as CMR^©; but more about that in another section of this website.

I plan to make the knowledge of Conscious Mental Attention^© available to others in the same way that I am working on making Conscious Mental Rest^© available worldwide -- through downloadable course files.

Click on the link to find out more about Conscious Mental Rest^©. If you want to learn how to experience CMR^© first-hand, take the downloadable course offered on this website.

How original is 'orginal'?

CMR^© and CMA^© are both 'original', in that they came to me in my own consciousness and not directly from reading books, attending courses or scouring the Internet.

However, I do acknowledge that all books, courses and life experiences I've had in my life have without doubt sewn seeds that have enlivened and expanded my awareness and insights. So I am grateful to those authors and teachers whose paths I have crossed.

With that rider in mind, these two life strategies - CMR^© and CMA^© - are for all intents and purposes as original as anything in life may be called 'original'.

Ultimately, however, they all belong to life itself. I just happened to have had the fortune to recognize them and put pen to paper to structure them in a way that I could share them with friends in a coherent way.

I am grateful too that the meditation technique I learned in 1975 came from a man of such wisdom who had such profound understanding and insights into the nature of life and the mechanics of how the mind-body system works.

I am not the 'guru'; you are your own guru

For the record, I don't in any way see myself as a 'guru'; nor do I aspire to be one (although in jest my friends sometimes fool around and call me His Hooliness Guru Gav (with "Hooliness" being based on my surname) - in a similar way to my calling my herbalist friend His Herbalis Guru Dave).

Seriously, though, I believe we each have all the knowledge we need, inside us. We are indeed our own gurus.

On the domestic front

I was married for three decades and have three children, all of whom are now happy adults.

I worked for decades in the corporate world, and later did some management consulting before becoming semi-retired.

I now live in Cape Town and do what I enjoy most -- experiencing and exploring consciousness, and being as happy as I can.

I include two sessions of Conscious Mental Rest^© in my daily routine to help me unlock and experience my own inner source of bliss, dissolve deep stress and generally enhance my quality of life.

If you're interested in reading about three of my profound experiences, starting when I was about 4 years old, click here).

My publishing work

In recent years, since leaving the corporate world in the nineties, I have busied myself with writing and authoring various books to help people master certain knowledge and skills in practical life.

These books cover a range of skills - such as obtaining a learner's and a driving licence; learning how to use a computer; learning digital photography; creating a family tree; building a website; doing online buying and selling, and so on.

My personal website (also new and still being developed) has more info on that aspect of my life, if you're interested.

I hope this resumé gives you some insights into the voice behind the words on this website.

Subscribe to my FREE E-mail Newsletter

If you’d like to receive my (free) periodic e-mail newsletter advising you of new content or insights that I’ve added to the site, use the mini-form in the left-hand menu bar to activate your free subscription.

Best wishes,

Gavin