The Founder's Story: The Call That Pulled Me From The Himalayas

The silence, the stillness, and the beginning of something vast

I didn’t come to the Himalayas to escape the world.

It is the opposite. I love the world. But I have a lifelong desire to stop time—to be away from everything and anything and experience and understand my own nature and existence itself. I came to confront life in its raw, unfiltered form.

Himalayan life is magical, transcending calendars and deadlines. No contact with the outside world. No marriages, births, social media clamor, or Netflix. I’m stepping into a world where time stands still—an ocean of silence and being. Special meditation techniques open experiences both cosmic and real—profound, sustained states of oneness with life. Precious. Transformative.

I’m not alone in this. I’m part of a small group of professionals—people who ran companies, led international programs, practiced medicine, and taught in universities or trained others—leaders in their fields, all of us fully committed to complete solitude. We’re not here for a retreat. We’ve come to stay indefinitely.

However, nothing prepares you for the unending silence in the mountains. Suddenly, we are thrown into a world with no identity or hierarchy, no one above or below us. In that silence we have no name, no career, no future, no plans. Arriving is almost like dying. After ten or twelve months with no communication, we imagine the world has forgotten about us. Disconnected from the news, we know nothing about what is happening in the world. On one hand, we revel in the purity and magic of solitude with life; on the other, we feel disoriented, disconnected, invisible, and starved for the encounters that once nourished us.

There is a deafening silence. Solitude.

Time disappears, but our urges seem to remain.

The story continues—swipe left as I find myself in The Room With No Exit.

You can leave the world, but not yourself

We are thrilled to shed responsibility, relieved not to manage anyone else. We bask in a smug sense of liberation, convinced we’ve mastered the art of letting go. But the habit of advising, teaching or managing others doesn’t disappear just because we want it to.

For the first year or even two, the urge to manage is still strong. The ashram is filled with distractions and disturbances: water problems, monkeys, no electricity, noise from a neighbor—you want a routine a certain way, and everyone seems to be in the way. “My life would be perfect, and I'd be enlightened if that person didn't take so long toasting their bread.” The inability to manage felt disempowering; we were not in control.

Eventually, we drop off the babysitting duties. It’s exhausting, pointless, and not what had brought us to the Himalayas. We also notice a funny thing: whatever habits or quirks drove us crazy in someone else last month, we often catch ourselves doing the next. It becomes obvious: people aren’t just breaking rules or making noise. They have needs. And they’re needs we can all relate to. The real problem, we begin to see, isn't other people. We start focusing more on ourselves. More inward, more silence, more alone.

We settle into the deepest levels of existence—experiences so sustained they extend into sleep and dreaming.

We’re no longer in the world. We’ve stopped managing others—but we haven’t stopped managing., and that is far more dangerous. We’re trying to manage or fix our nature.

And while I would’ve loved to be the exception to this self-criticism—I am not. I want to live perfection. I am hoping that the physical stress release and incredibly divine experiences will magically erase my old nature and replace it with a new one—that my individuality will simply disappear.

That’s often the promise of newfound wisdom, meditation retreats, even some therapies: that by leaving the world, learning about unity, and focusing on the goal, we’ll become some grand, improved ideal. If we dive deep enough, long enough, our annoying urges will vanish. We think we can avoid or override our annoying, unnatural desires and simply lose our bothersome traits.

But regardless of how cosmic the yogi experiences become, I eventually return to “earth” as an imperfect person. Like a few-month fling, taking a drug, or even meeting a great saint, reality sets in. We think we can escape, but we're always pulled back to our fundamental needs and who we are.

The swings are extreme, almost absurd: perfection in meditation… then back to being a small, flawed individual with mundane needs.

I am realizing deep truths. But I am still me.

My nature doesn’t match what I want it to be.

I am stuck in a room with the door closed, with someone who seems to feel, desire, and do a lot wrong.

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I loved the idea of surrendering to nature. “Surrendering” was concept that every ancient text preached. But it soon became clear: surrender isn’t just some spiritual or saintly ideal. Surrender is what happens when you realize you have no choice; you have to give up. It's a necessity. Resistance simply doesn’t work—and it ends up destroying you. Nature runs on fixed laws. You either obey them, or you suffer.

You can’t override your nature. Your nature is nature. You can’t suppress it, bottle it, or bend it to your will. You can’t control or manage a hurricane. You can’t defy gravity. Trying to control yourself, correct yourself, or fix yourself only makes you feel managed, dismissed, and hated.

And yet, when our group began to admit we can’t manage our nature, it was only the beginning of something incredibly important. We begin to see that our urges aren’t intrusions or mistakes. Our underlying yearnings are intelligent. Every pull, every craving, is a Drive—a critical force guiding us toward exactly what we need. They are essential to our health. This is why a drug addict can’t just snap their fingers and make the impulse vanish, because the pull signals an essential need that isn’t met.

Our Drives are never harmful. But they’re powerful. And the more we try to avoid or compromise them, the louder they become. We don’t suffer because we have Drives. We suffer because we don’t understand them, block them, shame them. The craving is a cry for something real. And it won’t stop until it’s heard.

Something has started to shift. We no longer see our desires as flaws. We are no longer always correcting ourselves. Stopped reacting to the parts we didn’t like. And what emerged wasn’t chaos—as if we were suddenly out of control. It was clarity. What we wanted was what we should want. Every urge pointed to what was critical.

I think it was only then—after three or five years—that we truly arrived in the Himalayas. Everything was exactly as it should be.

Our group begins to see the beauty in people unabashedly being themselves. We are no longer disturbed by inflexibility, noise, or deviations from routine. What seems off now is when someone is unnatural, straining, not true to themselves.

The joy comes not just from dissolving into some cosmic vastness, but also from being Matthew—with all my passionate, quirky humanness. It is a clear, unbroken unity, reflected in my own nature.

With awareness of perfection and no need to control, we are more innocent, enjoying being—years fall away.

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In the summer of 2014, I made a rare trip from the mountains to support my father for his surgery. While there, I received an unexpected phone call—a psychologist I hadn’t spoken to in over twenty years. It was a jolt. I thought I had mastered the art of hiding from the world. “How did they find me?”

The psychologist, calling on behalf of colleagues, was seeking my expertise to help create a new psychology program at a university. The university sought a degree program that went beyond the typical approaches seen in other institutions. They wanted to promote real psychophysiological development and at the same time develop the spiritual element. 

The psychologists had reached out because, in the fall of 1994, I had taken part in a series of intimate meetings exploring psychology and Vedic counseling with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the late Harvard developmental psychologist Charles Alexander. Maharishi, widely considered one of the greatest exponents of Vedic Science, rarely discussed psychotherapy. However, during our meetings, Maharishi shared key principles, and wanted me to move forward in developing this field. As the meetings came to an end, and I was preparing to leave early in the morning, Maharishi emphasized to me what always seemed to be his general theme: 'The main thing is you dive deep in meditation. It’s from there, in the transcending process, that the principles of healing and counseling are revealed.” After Dr. Alexander's death, I was the only one left from those sessions. So now, the psychologists see me as a vital resource.

But while I feel honored they reached out, I have little interest in it. I appreciate their goals—but I decline. My life is different now. I’m no longer part of that academic world—or the world at all.

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I discover there’s an urgent reason behind the initiative: the university wants to address the alarming spike in suicides across college campuses nationwide. Prestigious schools like Harvard and Cornell are scrambling to create mental health programs to tackle the crisis. Yet they fall short—unable to address the deeper issues and underlying yearnings students are grappling with. Even students deeply committed to spirituality and holistic health still need help. This university wants to create a new therapy that can take on this urgency.

Hearing about the suicides strikes me deeply. The university isn’t simply chasing new revenue or engaging in abstract discussion—it is grappling with a critical urgency. They are facing the rawness of life and death, the very essence of human existence.

Something unexpected happens when I hear about the suicides—it feels personal. I don’t quite understand why this affects me so deeply. Tragedy isn’t new to me. Even in the Himalayas, I have long been aware of the world’s suffering—wars, suicides, and other traumas are just part of life. But now this is different. It isn’t only the loss of life, as tragic as that is.

In hindsight, I realize it is the image of these students—eager to grow, help the world, and reach their highest potential—hating themselves and their lives. It strikes a deeper chord I haven’t felt before. Their struggle mirrors the experience that came upon me when I first settled into my life in the ashram, alone in the Himalayas trying to manage or fight my nature. I know, on the deepest most intimate level what this issue is about, even though I can’t fully articulate it. It isn’t just a passing recognition; it is a deep, unshakable sense of connection and understanding.

It becomes unmistakably clear: mental illness is rooted in a tragic misreading of our nature—a failure to recognize the intelligence behind our urges. In trying to fix or improve us, psychology and spirituality bury these drives in shame, leaving people convinced their deepest impulses are the problem.

Suddenly, this program they want to create seems to be calling to me. At the same time, I know this isn’t possible: I have absolutely no desire to leave the Himalayas. You don’t abandon a life like this—not for anything.

So instead of saying yes or no, I suggest we simply sit together so I can hear what they have been doing.

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While the meetings with the university deeply resonated with me, by the time I followed the winding road from Dehradun along the Ganges and climbed the trail back to my mountain home, the suicides felt like a distant memory from decades ago. The stillness quickly reclaimed me.

During our meditations, a unique experience was blossoming in many of us within the group. In Sanskrit, it's called Brahman, where you see yourself everywhere. It was a profound experience—beyond words—feeling completely at peace with all of life.

There are countless stories of people going to the mountains and discovering profound truths about life. As cliché as it sounds, when you spend years alone practicing effortless, powerful techniques, it happens—not because a gift-wrapped bag of wisdom descends from heaven, but because of your sustained focus on existence itself. Like a botanist who spends endless hours studying flowers and petals, gradually discerning the nuances between them, when you dedicate 10 to 12 hours daily to exploring your own consciousness, you uncover its subtleties and laws.

While our group in the Himalayas shares the same experience of all-pervasive unity, what each of us discovers within it depends on our lens. A businessperson might see management principles. A doctor, physiological systems. An artist, light and form. For me, with a background in psychology and my unique history of problems and challenges—what emerged was something different: the mechanics of healing and growth. Not as abstract ideas, but as precise processes embedded within consciousness itself: how our conflict with our nature creates shame, binge-watching movies, identity confusion, depression, anxiety, and even different kinds of addiction.

This understanding—how we are always with ourselves, our relationship with our nature, and the exact nature and intelligence of what drives us—is essential to any real understanding of existence and psychology. What begins to emerge encapsulates the essence of the solitary experience in the Himalayas: how we face ourselves, how we process experience, and how we truly evolve.

At one point, I suddenly recall a moment from those early meetings with Maharishi, when he said: the principles of healing and growth would all be found in meditation—in the process of transcending. At the time, it sounded like general advice. But now it’s obvious. Where else would you understand anxiety or depression, if not at the subtlest level of who we are with ourselves?

We are always alone with ourselves, or with the forces of our nature. Our urges aren’t intrusions or flaws. They’re intelligent. Our Drives aren’t obstacles to overcome—they’re the very currents pulling us toward our next stage of growth.

We can’t manage our nature—nor would we want to. We are driven by it.

And that’s what makes nature the therapist. Not because it offers comfort, but because it doesn’t let us escape. It is the guide. Left alone with nothing but the force of our own consciousness—its pulls, its laws, its demands—we begin to see: what once felt like interference is actually instruction. What we tried to control becomes the way forward.

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Clients often describe the experience as almost magical. The techniques work, and they work quickly. In a few years, over 150 clients move through their issues and return to health and passion.

But when therapy ends, many are left wondering what even happened—feeling as if they hadn’t really done anything. I hadn’t asked them to work on themselves or change their thoughts. On the contrary, I promoted the precise Drives at the root of their neediness, procrastination, lying, and anger. Often they say their problems have become unrecognizable, something they can’t even relate to, like remembering being afraid of the dark as a child. They wonder if their transformation was less about the techniques or process, and more about something special in me—my consciousness, or the years I spent in solitude.

But it’s not magic. And it’s not because I’m the one guiding them.

It feels magical because the growth follows a law you can’t see—happening on its own, automatically, naturally. Like gravity pulling a river down a mountain, the client’s Drives take over—precise, unrelenting, and purposeful. When a challenge is overwhelming, the growth can be hard to see, which is why technique is essential—to clear the obstacles so they don’t stand in the way of what’s already moving inside them. It’s the same principle I learned in the Himalayas: not advising, not managing, but honoring—and never interfering with—someone’s nature.

Ironically, clients dedicated to living in alignment with nature—from holistic health care enthusiasts to Buddhists, Christians, and yogis—often feel the deepest shame about their yearnings. For example, the desire for recognition or intimacy seems to betray the enlightened self they aspire to embody. Yet, they learn that these seemingly bothersome needs are, in fact, the critical Drives responsible for the very spiritual growth they seek.

Gradually, I begin to see how little we trust the intelligence of our psychology. We admire the precision of the nervous system, yet doubt whether the mind—with all its neediness and fluctuation—operates with the same magnificence.

My sole focus becomes proving, beyond doubt, that our spontaneous, innate needs—our Drives—are intelligent. This means grounding each Drive of consciousness in neuropsychological and biochemical research, and showing the counterintuitive ways we grow through them.

After returning from the Himalayas and witnessing the sharp rise in psychological disorders, substance and phone addiction, and widespread loneliness and anxiety, I see just how critical this is. We’ve always needed a psychology that understands these pulls—the Drives that propel us toward specific types of growth—but now, it’s more important than ever.

I find myself fiercely defending nature. Not abstractly, but concretely: our craving for ice cream, our reach for cocaine, our need for likes on Instagram—each reflects a different Drive: precise, biologically purposeful, never pathological. That difference becomes the method—promote the right Drive, fulfill the critical need, and the unhealthy behavior falls away.

Our Drives aren’t harmful—they’re as vital as breath or digestion. Only when misread or blocked do they lead to suffering.

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Within days of returning to California, I had a team of psychologists ready to edit and review material. Word spread quickly about a therapy marrying principles from the Himalayas and ancient Vedic Science with modern psychology. I gathered seasoned psychologists nearing retirement, aware of the limits of traditional therapy, alongside fresh minds unbound by convention. The mix paired decades of experience with unfiltered, fearless challenge.

The work took form—translating the subtle, abstract, remoteness of the Himalayas into therapy for specific, real-world disorders. Eight major manuscripts, including diagnostic and training manuals; the founding of the Institute for Emergence; specialized training in conflict mediation, couple’s, and corporate therapy; and the development of AI to apply the Drives to diagnosis and therapy. Together, they form a body of theory and methods grounded in neuropsychology, mapping how each discomfort or problem marks the precise stage of development we are entering.

It was clear to me and my team what this approach represented—the way it merged the timeless knowledge of the Himalayas with the concrete realities of modern life. In the most meaningful sense, this was Vedic psychology. Veda, in Sanskrit, means “knowledge,” a many-thousand-year-old system underlying both science and philosophy, which has influenced fields as diverse as mathematics, surgery, architecture, and astronomy. Due to the time I spent with Maharishi, and the insight I gained from my background in Vedic Science, the work emerged in harmony with Vedic principles, and with Ayurveda’s integration of physiology and mind.

However, I didn’t want to label this system as “Vedic psychology.” The label may be accurate in essence, but I didn’t want to tie the knowledge to a particular philosophy or culture, making it seem like a technical offshoot of an ancient tradition. I also didn’t want this knowledge to be relegated to a small mystical section in a bookstore, next to books on Kundalini, yoga, and tantric sex.

This knowledge is psychology, and it belongs to the modern world as much as the ancient one. It is grounded in definable laws and research, deeply integrated with the detailed findings of neuropsychology, neurochemistry, and the past 150 years of psychological research. It brings valuable insights into personality, cognition, development, and abnormal psychology.

One weekend, I visit a friend in Santa Cruz. He mentions that a small group is curious about the work I’m doing, and quickly arranges a gathering of about 20 people. When the evening winds down, a couple approaches me, deeply moved, and thanks me for leaving the Himalayas to help others. I smile and thank them, but inside, I am startled. I’m not here to leave my precious Himalayan life to help others — this is just a brief trip home.

Suddenly it hits me—something much bigger is happening. The work is already affecting so many people, but I am simply being myself, continuing on the same path I’ve always followed.

That’s what this psychology is about: understanding what truly drives us—beyond what we think we should do and feel, beyond philosophies and rules. It’s about understanding why I did exactly what we advised each other in the Himalayas not to do.

I came out of silence and wrote a book.

I had to. I was driven.

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