John Burnett's primary background is science and engineering specialising in electro-acoustics and education. www.LenardAudio.com  The quest to understand human consciousness began in childhood and continues to this day.  

John Lenard Burnett

John studied formal psychology and philosophy and was part of the NLP movement when it first began in Australia.   John also studied Transactional Analysis, Mythology, Jungian psychology and taught psycho-therapy at the Perspectum Centre in Sydney during the 1980s.

Acknowledgments

Many personal and professional associates have directly and indirectly contributed to the ideas in this site.   The primary principles on consciousness are in line with the works of J Krishnamurti.

Personal acknowledgments

Personal background

  "In the early 1950s many children (including myself) without supportive parents were placed in institutions from which there are three general outcomes.   (a) The child's spirit is crushed.   (b) The child becomes absorbed within the system.   (c) The child escapes psychologically or physically.

It is simple to control children by limiting food; consequently the majority of us kids had runny noses and covered in sores.   Many masters were compassionate and cared for the children as best they could.   Others were sadistic and clearly displayed erections when beating a child.   Young children are naturally free of moral constraint and become street-wise quickly.   Sexual interaction as fiddlies was traded for food; this was how the system worked.   The tricks we played to obtain cream buns and bananas were ingenious and daring.   Us younger ones protected each other, insuring never to enter a masters room alone. The best survival skill was to be invisible, some older children were not so lucky.

The institution was surrounded with beautiful gardens maintained by the children.   How could anyone on the outside know, or want to know.   The daily ritual began with Mass.   Catechism was the first lesson of the day and Rosary each evening.   Saturday morning was for Confession.   What could kids confess?   Each Wednesday night was Benediction and afterward a macabre re-enactment of the 14 Stations of the Cross, gruesome details of a poor soul unduly tortured and nailed to a tree.   Betrayal, torture, murder, cannibalism as Communion all being worshiped behind the alter rail.   None of this made sense, who invented it, what purpose does it serve to subjugate kids to an insane nightmare. But, by comparison to the millions exterminated in Europe a few years earlier, we were lucky.

The world today is the same as it has been throughout human history.   Institutions of authority including corporations and family homes often display a facade of order on the outside.   But, behind the facade, variations of compassion and cruelty are a daily occurrence.   Many in authority including parents are caring.   Others are addicted to their desires and get turned on by the power and cruelty they can impose on others.

Sometimes we would escape to the swamps and meet with Aboriginal kids to gather pippies and yams in rusty tins and boil up a feast, then return for the nightly Rosary before being missed.   Once a month we marched in procession to town to see a Saturday matinee.   One afternoon as we were about to leave I saw the new kid (who was musically gifted) crying.   He was abandoned by his destitute mother a few days earlier and was unable to come with us because some older kids (bullies) threw his hat out of a buss window the day before.   I took him to the headmaster and explained the situation.   "Well! that's too bad, he can't go." stated the headmaster.

The point of knowing we are in a world we do not belong, is when we find ourselves appealing to authority where reason and logic has no meaning.

It was 1953; the film was Titanic which starred Clifton Webb and Barbara Stanwyck.   This was when the decision was made, "not to leave this planet until I know why", unlike those who scramble to save only themselves and escape understanding as quickly as they can.

Periodically my mother would visit after recovering from Electric shock therapy.   This time she arrived with an ex German Panzer commander who was also a deep sea diver.   Years earlier, he with many of his comrades deserted from the Eastern front, never able to return to their homeland.   For the next few years we lived a life of adventure scouring the Great Barrier Reef off North Queensland for illicit sunken treasure.   We were the first to discover the SS Yongala and had to keep it secret, avoiding authorities.

Indigenous culture

  Living among Aboriginal and Islander communities revealed the in-humane Government practices of dividing indigenous families as an attempt to breed them out of existence Stolen Generation.   The search for sunken treasure soon became a cover for retuning escaped Aboriginals and Islanders back to their families.   Under the cover of night, the Islanders guided us by the stars and sensing the movement of water through the reefs narrow openings.   Bio-luminescent glows flickered from the breaking bow and propeller YouTube Bioluminescence.   The stars in the Milky Way appearing so close you could climb the mast and touch them.   Coral atolls (Michaelmas Cay) teaming with nesting gulls expressing no fear of humans.

The remote parts of northern Australian and surrounding islands were havens of isolation for many who lost everything including families in the previous war.  Among them were academics from the finest universities in Europe and engineers who could fabricate almost anything imaginable from limited resources.  Noel & Kitty Monkman are among many forgotten names who researched and photographed the reefs, attempting to bring social awareness to protect this natural treasure GreenIsland.

My mother found peace among Aboriginal communities, but when this was no longer possible, she decided to end her life.   The fear of re-facing the brutality of electric shock therapy or being lobotomised was undoubtedly the deciding factor.   Many years later, I discovered that she was also from a European family who were traumatised by the ravages of war.

To compensate for limited schooling I read anything I could find.   A chapter on Euclidean geometry in a discarded high school text book captured my imagination and opened the door to a logical universe.   Years later after completing studies in Electronics, I became part of the entertainment industry manufacturing and supplying sound equipment for musicians, concerts and rock-festivals.   1964 - 1974 was the era of sex, drugs and high-energy blues Lenard Audio history.   The humanistic ideals of the Hippy and anti-Vietnam war movement for a liberated free world were later overshadowed by corporate globalisation, consumerism and economic greed.

Direct involvement in the entertainment industry provides an intimate understanding of social behaviour and problems with drugs.   A close childhood friend (from the Institution we were placed) was a talented musician who became overwhelmed by addiction and ended his life with a shotgun, age 23.   Why some, who are traumatised, particularly in childhood, spiral into psychological disorder, and others who perceive it as an exciting and sometimes frightening adventure, are minimally effected, became a primary clue in the quest for un-ravelling the mystery of human consciousness in the following years.

Academia

  Through the 1980s and 90s I changed direction to education, contracting to the Federal Government to re-train vast numbers of unemployed in technical skills for the electronics and IT industries.   It is during this period that the quest "not to leave this planet without knowing why" allowed time for study and research.   The content of this site will reflect this outcome when many more subjects are added.

An interesting observation from a scientific/engineering perspective is that there is little respect for the faculties of Humanities particularly Arts and Psychology which are seen as soft options for those who have limited cognitive marbles.   Faculties in Humanities including Economics, Politics and Business Management can be justifiably criticised for lack of rigor, allowing un-substantiated subjective information and plagiarism, to be accepted as valid within its text.   However, this is balanced by the few outstanding academic intellectuals in Humanities whose work is nothing short of genius, equal with the hard sciences.   The resultant paradox of Humanities is that it requires a skill in scientific method to be able to see truth within a sea of farce.

The year of 1993 was devoted to resolving the works of J Krishnamurti.   My three children now adults were also deeply interested.   My son was about to return from a military exercise overseas, eager to hear the results.   5am the phone rang, my ex wife, "John";   the words came slowly,   "Chris has been killed".   I heard the last word before she said it.   Within the next few moments a clear realisation that everything I understood was now being put to the test.   A shared experience of every parent in this position is when we find ourselves praying to a God (whether we believe or not) to take our life and return our child instead.   The drawing below which appears as the watermark on each page was on the rear of the last letter Chris wrote.

The joy and suffering of life is shared by all humanity, including those of us who are driven by the quest to discover who we are.   I am simply a catalyst of expression representing this vast collaborative effort throughout time that will continue long after I am gone".

Chris Burnett pic