IN THESE COMPLEX TIMES, IF ONE WISHES TO GET ATTENTION, even for a few minutes, one has to be seen and heard on television. Being a criminal, a politician, or a movie star will bring a lot of recognition through newspaper stories and magazine articles, but there is nothing like being on tv and getting a few “sound bites” into the ethers to give you maximum exposure.

The world is going through enormous changes and many people are having their televised images and words broadcast far and wide. Being in the face of extreme publicity takes tremendous poise, and some people fare better with the exposure than others. The press can be merciless in how it chooses to portray its subject matter, often disregarding anything close to a parallel with truth, aiming relentlessly for the spectacular, histrionic, demeaning and outrageous.

Someone who had a profound effect on the world through a deliberate statement made on one of the most watched programs televised to the world, is Richard Gere. On the occasion of the Academy Awards Oscar show in 1993, he commented on, and decried the Chinese invasion of Tibet. Most likely, Richard Gere was aware of the personal difficulties he would face in terms of his career as a result of his bold comments. Indeed the result was that the Academy felt obliged to ban him from future shows.
In this article, we look at Richard Gere’s Design to discover how balanced he is within himself. Is it possible to be an actor and an activist and still have a life?

Richard Gere was born in Pennsylvania on August 31, 1949. He is born into the Incarnation of “Planning”. In this particular lifetime, Richard will find himself caught up in his wishes for the well-being of his community and family regardless of, and sometimes in spite of, any external parameters. “Family” in this sense does not necessarily imply that its members are blood-related, but rather includes people whom he feels relate on the same wavelength as himself. At the same time, Richard will often be aware of standards of ethics, sanctity, conduct and performance in life that he holds in the highest regard. His “family” will necessarily reflect the same high standards.

In his conscious nature, when Richard’s family has a well-aimed future aligned with his perspective of life, then all is well. On his unconscious side, he has a critical perception that can either endorse everything the family does or reject it completely. His great satisfaction comes through seeing that his planning is aligned with the well being of the community.

In his Design, Richard is an “Emotional Generator” being someone who is best served in his life by allowing a “gut response” aligned with “emotional clarity” in his decision making processes. Generators are the powerhouses of energy in this world. They are constantly using their energies to “make things happen” whether it is actually in their power for things to happen or not. Generators have a permanent source of available energy with an inbuilt parameter: that once they aim their energy towards someone or something, they cannot recall it, or “turn it off”. Whatever a Generator commits to, they are constrained to complete, or, if they find themself committed to something unaligned with their clarity, they quit, reluctantly and in disgust. Consequently, generators can experience a high level of frustration when they randomly commit their energies and abilities to people and endeavors that are not aligned with their own truth and clarity.

Projection Field
His Design reveals that, all his life, Richard Gere has lived in a projection field built up by everyone around him who has recognized, sometimes poorly, certain aspects of his personality, talents and nature. The consequence of growing up in such a projected environment will often result in great personal confusion over who one is, and what one personally feels to commit one’s energies toward. In the end, Richard would inevitably find himself compelled to “find himself”, from a vantage point removed from anyone else’s distorted view. His personal journey took him prematurely out of University and into acting, to play out many different parts, both on and off stage, into and out of marriage with “the world’s most beautiful woman”, Cindy Crawford, and firmly towards a relationship with Tibetans, Tibetan Buddhism and meditation.

Along the way, Richard has sustained an interesting acting career, turning down the leading role in the “Die Hard” movie series (a part that was not remotely aligned with Richard’s own nature,) that brought worldwide fame and wealth to Bruce Willis instead. Richard has been named the world’s most “sexy man”, a description that has baffled him in the expectations people have projected onto him in such a “role”. The only real stability for him has been in a cautious, and now enduring, relationship with his partner and wife, Carey Lowell, and in his meditation and commitment to Tibetan Buddhism and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

When all outer projections fail, as they do sooner or later, the only real journey left is a search within through self-love and meditation. Tibetans are old hands at meditation and surviving outrageous changes in life’s fortunes by embracing the inner realms. The real challenge in life these days, is: Can one balance the inner and the outer? Richard appears to be achieving this in his life, but who knows? There is always such a projection field around him!

The logical nature
In Design there are a number of different “circuits” that relate to the way in which we interact in the world. These circuits are made up from a succession of the 36 channels in a body graph. There are three circuits that predominate and between them involve each channel in the body graph once only. These are the “Individual”, the “Community”, and the “Collective” circuits. Some people, for instance, Cher, Sir Lawrence Olivier, Jimmy Carter and Ted Turner have defined channels that are purely “individual” in nature, allowing them to write their own “rules” in life as they go along. Others like JFK are more “Family” and community oriented, seeking to engage and align with the “community as one”. Other people, like Laura Schlessinger and Elizabeth Dole are “Collective” in nature, following previously endorsed “tried-and-true” guidelines to describe “their own” beliefs and ideals in life.

It is important to remember that we are a whole and that no one has the possibility of a “better” chart or experience in life than anyone else. But we can appreciate that “Collective” and “Individual” and “Community” values often appear at cross-purposes. Each of us has exactly what we need to fulfill our life’s journey, and each one of us is unique and essential for Existence to be complete. The only vital thing for us is to honor, allow and be ourself, whoever that self might be!

Commonly, in a personal chart, there is a smattering of parts of different circuits, allowing us a broad-based spectrum of life’s viewpoints, and an ability to interact and relate more closely with others who have differing viewpoints than our own.

In Richard Gere’s chart, he has a predominance of “Collective” circuitry, particularly of a “logical” nature. Logic is something that has been engrained in the human consciousness since the times of ancient Greeks and the genius minds of Socrates, Plato and others.

The collective “way” is the way of democracy, averages, 50+% majorities and “provable” science. In its essence, it is the continuing refinement of rules and systems that carry humanity towards what can be perceived as a healthy future. Richard will be continuingly careful and particular about the roles he chooses for himself, often visualizing for himself, right at the outset of an undertaking, exactly where he would like that undertaking to carry him.

The Family-Spiritual Man
Logic, democracy and forward-looking growth for oneself and humanity are all fine, but even the greatest achievements on the Earth plane are useless if the Spirit goes unnourished. At the heart of all things, Richard is a Community, Family Man, and the Community offers one of the doorways for spiritual growth. Overriding everything in his nature will be the compulsion to find, honor and embrace his spirituality, whether that comes through his delight in wife and children, or through his embracing his “Higher Self”.

In Design, the 37 - 40 is the Channel of Community, giving a nature of being in continuous search for, and participation in one’s “family”. Community is an ancient heritage, older by far than the collective perspective. Community is based in ownership and property, goods and chattels and 100% commitments from each member, in exchange for inclusion, protection, access to wealth, food, support and many other of life’s offerings through human contact. When a community is strong, it can support its members to grow as individuals. The ultimate growth that an individual can achieve is self-realization.

In Design, the access to self-realization comes through the channel 51 - 25 that runs between the Ego, Heart Center and the Self, the “seat of the soul” Center. In Richard’s chart, he has the 51 Gate in the third line with his conscious North Node destiny. Somewhere in his being, he was going to recognize his spiritual search when he reached his mid-life crossroads, at the age of around 40. The third line of the 51 hexagram is called “Adaptation", and the potential to find a way through impossible, impassable situations”. Tibetan Buddhists have had enormous difficulties in adapting and being accepted in the world. Their science of religiousness is staggering in depth, but almost untranslatable into the Western psychology. As part of his own initiation to grow spiritually, Richard is holding open a doorway for Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhism to find access to, and respectability in the 21st century world.

In conclusion
As a wise saddhu once told me in Nepal: “There are many lives, Baba! This one is the most important!” In one way or another, we can often drop into and out of, consciously and unconsciously, perspectives held in other lifetimes. For Richard Gere to dress in Tibetan Buddhist robes and commit himself to a life of a monk would be a little comical. What he can achieve as a famous Westerner who relates to the essence of the Tibetan tradition is tremendous, not only in growth for himself but also in expanding the wisdom of the Tibetan Buddhist ways into the world.

Many of the Tibetan Buddhist ways will remain in Tibet where they belong, being associated with Tibet’s history, climate and isolation more than anything else, but the West can absolutely afford to embrace the radiance, presence and love that the ancient meditators of Tibet bring with them. Being around someone who has been meditating since childhood is a deeply moving experience.

In the way the world moves, we are all being called to honor our personal reality more and more. The old ways of war, ignorance and stupidity are going, and the new ways of peace, community and intelligence are approaching. It all begins with the recognition of who we are designed to live out in this lifetime as an individual being, and then associating that recognition with our higher nature. Thank you, Richard Gere, for trusting in your nature and encouraging the Tibetans into our world!

Next Month: Osho, formerly Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (the guru with 96 Rolls Royces): Spiritual terrorist or futuristic genius?

© Chetan Parkyn, 2002