 
### WINDOWS

### IN

### THE

### SKY,

'BUDDHA

### IS THAT YOU?'

By

DAVID WILFRID BERRESFORD

"...in past lives your interest in the process of learning, in individual struggles as well as wonderful realizations occurred, you have really felt you have understood the mechanics of how somebody grows. A part of you is still very curious about that, even now. To know how, how does it happen that the seed of an idea blossoms within the awareness and consciousness of the soul, and what determines what action they may take on that."

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

The most important ingredient in life is honesty. None of us are perfect. And life is not about perfect. It is about falling down, getting up, and trying again. This book tries to take some of the wrappers off to see what's inside. Life is inviting us all to do the same.

In 2001 I was fortunate enough to play King Lear in Shakespeare's play. It finishes with the line 'Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say'. This is not easy. It is very difficult to speak the truth when all around are telling lies. The most powerful action is to speak up. And this is what is happening in our world today. In a very mysterious way a storm is blowing across the surface of the earth, the earth itself is rupturing itself and saying - enough. Governments are toppling; our leaders are being asked bold questions; the Arab Spring; Occupy Wall Street in cities all over the world; the recent elections in Russia, with maybe 100,000 demonstrators pouring into the street accusing their leaders of election fixing and playing gangster; Europe's woes and the attempt by its leaders to make the problem all about finances and institutions; the United States with Congress and the President at a standoff over principles of government; the constant threat of war in the Middle-East; Africa's poverty; China's muscle flexing: all of these scenarios are the same. They are all about, equity, honesty, fraternity and the freedom to be us.

2012 if it means anything means - remove the pretence, stop playing the games. Everything that is happening in our world is the result of our own actions. There is nobody out there doing things to us. We do it to each other. The only crises are the games we have made up which allow winners and losers and give away our self responsibility. We could solve the problems of the world right now by untying the threads of all the lies we make up that turn us into strangers to one another.

Published by Fantails & Roses Publications

PO Box 109 320,

Newmarket,

Auckland,

New Zealand

Smashwords Edition

For any enquiries about this or any other Fantail & Roses publication contact davidberresford@yahoo.co

Copyright © 2011 David Wilfrid Berresford

DEDICATED TO

the multitude of leads and supporting players, from both sides of the Veil, who have made my stay here such a ball; for my families, all those who have journeyed with me lifetime after lifetime; for the many fine friends I have made on my forays to Planet Earth as well as those who have stayed behind. Thanks to Raman, Yasmeen, Ross, Ian and Francis for the pivotal parts they have played this time around. Thanks to all my family; my children, blood or otherwise. And thanks to my partner Linda, without whom this would mostly still only be an idea in mind. And thanks to the fine intelligence that shines through us all. Thanks also to Linda's father Barry who left the light behind that is mirrored on the front cover when he left this world.

# Contents

1 Other Ways of See (k) ing

2 Spirit Calling from Within

3 Who Am I?

4 Where Am I?

5 Not Making Sense is Non Sense

6 A Guiding Intelligence

7 Authentic Self Vs Acquired Nature

8 Blinking In - Blinking Out

9 A Manuscript

10 A Wakeup Call

11 And if I Don't Know, what I Feel

12 What about the Holy Man?

13 By What Light Do Men Go By?

14 Gaia

15 Knowingness

16 Pinball in the Sky

17 Feeling with the Heart

18 Life as Journey

19 My Inner Child is Wiser than me

20 Black Holes Dark Night

21 Windows in the Sky

22 A Bridge to the Soul

Here in the womb of my mother, waiting to be born,

Already I enter into the grip of Maya;

Goddess of illusion; that in this earthly realm holds sway;

Here in her domain, memory is lost, our true nature is

Forgotten, as is the home we only now just left;

Entering into her realm, true memory is dispelled

With a wraith, not dissimilar to the web a spider spins,

Wherein it traps the prey it feeds upon:

For Maya is much like the spider, she also

Eats her prey, and in so doing our true substance and stature

Is forgotten and in its place a story is fabricated.

Lying here now in my mother's womb I feel the pressure,

As the walls of her womb bear down on me,

Pressing into my tiny chest, painfully;

I hear a sound like the roaring of a steam train

In cavernous depths where sound funnels

To us airily from a great distance, carrying

Memory of former times, lying in similar wombs,

Waiting on other lives; this is, I know, the way;

This is my destiny; I exist to make others happy;

This is my job, and I love it;

I would not wish to be anywhere else;

And yet always there is this trepidation, and it is so clear,

Lying here at this juncture, of this lifetime, why;

Because I lie here, and I sense the woman,

From whose womb I am about to be thrust, is unhappy, lost;

Lost in a dream of disconnection and a life unfulfilled;

I know her; strangely, I know her in her illusory form;

And already I am attached, bound to her and her sorrow.

Six years from now she will be dead, as the living say;

And all my life I will yearn for, and have a sense of loss,

This is the lie, but somehow this lie is important;

It's important because I know the key is to remember

It's a lie, to remember I am immortal,

You my mother are immortal;

I know that wherever else you are you are listening;

And I know for we are made with the same substance;

Lovingly rendered with the same brush; and the beauty

Is that just one of us remembers, once in a while,

And keeps the true story running, in this winter world,

And has these experiences, for everyone's good.

I stand ready; and left and right as far as the eye can see,

All of us little zygotes stand waiting, poised to dive,

Into our chosen wombs; we stand, slightly bent forward,

Anticipating the signal to go; we are not separate,

Neither are we all one, it is like one and many, indistinguishable;

But not one of us, would not be here, poised to lose,

Power, substance, memory, love, constant joy,

For the sake of all: Amen.

Chapter One

OTHER WAYS OF SEE (K) ING

" _The difference here my friend, is that you will find yourself making conscious decisions. The act of making a conscious decision, will allow you to create and support that bridge between your intellect and your soul. Now one of the very best ways to do that is at the point of awareness. If you have a choice to make, it will put you in touch with the feeling. And when you start thinking about or questioning things, I want to encourage you not to look solely for the intellectual answer. Mind you, can I say, that's not going to satisfy you quite as much from now on. And this will facilitate your seeking out how you feel about things. And you will start to notice that there is a great wisdom in knowing, in how you feel about it, that will surpass the intellectual understanding. And it will be only those things that feel right to you, that will make sense, and that will satisfy the mind anyway. Allow yourself to look at life from that perspective."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

What does it mean to be Human? I have always been curious about the world. I have never been able to accept that life is just the way it seems. When I look at the Emperor I see he has no clothes. You may remember how in the story, 'The Emperors New Clothes' by Hans Christian Andersen, tricksters arrive in the Kingdom and convince the Emperor that they have a superior cloth, visible only to very special people. To anyone other than those enlightened ones it is invisible. They set to make the Emperor a magnificent suit of clothes, and to dress him in it, all the while praising the amazing virtues of the cloth, but the Emperor is still naked. As nobody wants to appear foolish all the courtiers and townspeople pretend to see this wonderful suit, and cheer as the Emperor parades through the town, until a small boy calls out - 'but the Emperor has no clothes'. And of course he doesn't.

In 2001 at the age of 55, I had an unusual encounter with a Spiritual Master named Raman Pascha. As a result of this meeting, I subsequently questioned everything I had previously believed to be true. This book is the result. It has taken a long time to work up the courage to write, because it includes a lot of personal material that makes me appear alternately foolish, idiotic, selfish, stupid, and a metaphor for everything that anybody with any integrity would not want to be. It is not easy to expose myself in this way. I believe there is good reason for doing so. I believe that like the Emperor, we all think we know what life is about; what to value and what to believe; but that like everyone other than the small boy we are mistaken. Because of this, like the small boy, I believe if you also were to remove your clothes, you would not look much less foolish than me. Clothes in this metaphor are of course what we hide behind. The Emperor hid behind vanity, pride and delusion.

Whatever else we are, we are embodied being. That is to say, that our experience is much like a shop window mannequin. The clothes that we display are not who we are and each day they are different. Whether we are talking physical clothes or our beliefs, the same holds true. This mannequin is the prop for an everchanging display; the mannequin is not even seen because we believe the presentation. And yet it is this infinite accommodating and chameleon like prop, which is the constant factor in a continuously changing persona. We wear thoughts, ideas and beliefs, and those around us take this to be who we are. Our word personality comes from the Greek word persona, meaning mask. It is about that unchanging one, who wears these ideas and beliefs that this book is about.

Raman Pascha's last embodiment was during the time of the last great Persian Empire under Cyrus the Great, so if he exists, it is where the dead go. What this looks like I have no more idea than you. What I do believe is that wherever it is that the dead go; that this is our permanent home, all of ours; our natural state is not human but Angelic. Being human is just what we do, in a life that is far greater than we generally conceive life to be. Being human, is being on stage doing what humans do. Not so much in our roles as accountants or lawyers, farmers or fishermen, robbers or down and outs, but us, playing our part in Project Planet Earth.

We each know what life feels like for us. We have our doubts and fears and are often run over by our emotions. We all at times feel life to be very difficult. We look about us at the others, and they seem so normal, and act as though they know what they're doing. It is important to understand that none of us is different. The people we live amongst are just like us. If we were to know this, as well as we know the face in the mirror, I believe we might learn to love ourselves and love others. We all pretend we know how to play the game of life and yet we don't.

Life on Earth is not so much about occupational roles, as it is about the scenarios; the goodies and the baddies, and the reconciliation of differences. It is about experiencing mixed emotions, of being lost in the dark, subject to fear, subject to doubt, subject to abuse, to pain, to loss, and finding a way to make sense of it all. And the reason we feel at such a loss is because we don't remember who we are. And this is significant. Because if we did know how magnificently divine we were; what value would those choices have, that we make in the dark, completely unwittingly, but choosing as we do because it is the right thing to do. It is because we have forgotten that gives our choices merit, and mark us as Human Angels. That is one aspect.

We cannot see the afterlife. There appears to be a veil that lies between here and there; - a membrane? The difference between water and steam; water and ice – thought and action? No matter how far we travel in space, in any direction; we remain in a manifest, physical Universe. Dip lightly into consciousness, at any point in space or time, in the moment NOW, and we penetrate something... - Consciousness? - Yes! - The veil? Within myself there is a sense of home. Ensconced there within, I come to rest. It's more than being curled up on the sofa, with a glass of wine, in front of your favourite TV show, with nowhere to go. Because there within, doesn't require the addition of a flickering screen or a glass of wine. In Earth we are bounded by space and time and the illusion of Maya. Stepping into our conscious Self all the constraints disappear.

The word, ' _Extraterrestrial!!??_ ' is normally used to describe alien presences from other planets. I have used it to describe the spirits of the dead, or those who have never been born, or us after we have died wherever it is that the dead go. Angels is another word. But I prefer Extraterrestrial, because angel has so many misleading ideas around it, and Extraterrestrial, says, – this is someone different. Essentially we are talking entities, individualised being. Not really different from Human; which is still only form. Angel? Extraterrestrial? Spirit? Nothingness? Who are we after we are gone?

The word channelling is used in the special context of communicating with our spiritual brethren in our home world, with our more Authentic Self who never left home... It is a means of penetrating the illusory division between us and home. It is also a little like this book: assumed to be the wisdom that allowed Paul the Apostle, to convey to his fellow Christians his experience of God, and a new elevated form of living; the disciples to write about their experiences with Christ; and the Old Testament prophets to write their prophetic insights. Channelling is communicating in some way between here and there. It is communicating the quality of spiritual insight; not through analytic understanding, but through our comprehension that there is something else here. Yet when we talk to people, how many of us stop and think - what do I say now? How do I respond now? Don't we just talk? Don't the words just flow out of our mouths? Maybe life itself is lived somewhere else, and we, as Plato once described, live amongst shadows.

Spirit is our body when we are home on the other side of the veil. It is our essential nature living here on Earth. Although we think of it as a planet, EARTH is more a state of mind. This is perhaps what the veil is; a way of perceiving, as in a dream. Perhaps all we have to do to find home is change the way we perceive. Spirit lives in the souls of trees and other parts of nature. For how can we say that the essential nature of any part of creation is any different from any other part? What makes us think ourselves more intelligent than a tree? In our most subtle part we are Spirit, and this fills our whole physical world with life and vitality. How can we at the end of the day, look from one to the other and say – this is Spirit - and this is God?

We are fond of subjecting each other to IQ tests, and the higher up the scale we score, the more _'Intelligent'_ , we consider ourselves. The simple are not considered, _'Intelligent'_ , and yet in Shakespearean drama, the _'Fool'_ , is often portrayed as wiser than his audience. Of course, _'normal people'_ know themselves to be more _'Intelligent'_ , and laugh at his wisdom. If there is any wisdom in these pages, it is the wisdom of the _'Fool'_. Normal people _'know'_ that they _'know'_. **'Intelligence' is 'God'**. The closer we are to knowing this, the more _'Intelligent'_ we are. Houses that sparkle and are full of the energy of life are _'Intelligent'_. Of course, if everything is Spirit, then everything is _'Intelligent'_. All else is just a game of – pretend I'm dumb.

Apart from acknowledgements in the dedication; to those to whom I owe thanks for guidance along the way; there are no notes or references in this book. This is not a 'HOW TO' book; and my view of the world is no better than yours. Nothing written about here is hidden from anyone who is interested. I have quoted a few excerpts from authors whose books have resonated at times with my own thoughts; and for this many thanks. If this book has a message, it is to take up the threads of your life where you are, and run with them. There is no better place to be, than where you are, and no better place to be going, than where your heart takes you. The world is exactly the way your heart and mind tells you, so don't doubt this. When I sat down metaphorically in front of Raman, one thing stood out overwhelmingly. There is no part of my life not known to him/her and yet I was not just - good enough. For the first time in my life, I felt completely not judged and unconditionally loved. I knew that Raman knew everything there was to know about me and yet still (s) he loved me. This is not a book about Angels or anything particularly extraordinary apart from perhaps our own Divine Selves. If anything, this is a book about being normal. It is a book about a _little child_ who cries out. _'But he has no clothes.'_ That _little child_ is the most integral part of us.

Chapter Two

SPIRIT CALLING FROM WITHIN

"... _as the days unfold ahead, if you should need my help at any time, do not hesitate to call me. Call my name. I will come and be with you, and allow you to know I am present, and where I can, inspire you to the answers and understanding that you need. So I bid you much love. May your heart guide you, and open you to new possibilities of this your life."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

Yasmeen Clark, who channels Raman Pascha, the spiritual master who is the inspiration for much of what follows, once said, that when she was working as a medium for the Spiritualist Church, she felt the spirits of the dead, like a multitude of cold presences, pressing from behind crying, _'me next, me next'_. Kryon, a Master of Magnetic Service as he describes himself in the channels of Lee Carroll, says, that when we return to the other side, there's a great celebration, and we're greeted by all those who remained behind with our true name, and gain colours betokening our achievements on Planet Earth. In Werner Herzog's film, _'Wings of Desire'_ , one of the angels that watched over Berlin, sacrificed his angelic being because he couldn't stand seeing the world in black and white. He needed to feel it, in all its bright colours, with all the urgency of human emotion; even though his choice meant he would have to experience birth and death, sickness, pain, fear, loss of hope as well as human love and all its attendants. Tobias, a Divine Angel channelled by the Human Angel, Geoffrey Hoppe, says that our experiences vary considerably depending upon our memory and beliefs, but that on the other side we have the capacity to know in a way we never do on Earth. But then he says; we come to Earth because we can never experience there, behind the veil, what we can experience on this side of the veil.

What comes before thought? Are we a house for spirit? Truth is we think we know all there is to know about life. What we don't know, is that each time, the life we think we have, and the one we think we want, begin falling apart; it's only Spirit calling from within; that most authentic part of us that is never estranged from home; reminding us that we're more than we think ourselves to be. Catastrophe is potentiality and signals change. To run with it is to take up life's challenge. Each of us is exactly who we are meant to be, doing what we are meant to do, where we were meant to do it, with those we were meant to be with.

This is the truth. We are drawn to the life we were meant to live, because life is not an accidental conglomeration of atoms. It is not the result of haphazard evolution, based on being better than everybody else and hence surviving. Soul is not evolutionary. It comes into being and fills out form. Form doesn't change depending on its environment. Form arises in response to where we place our attention and what we intend to do. The physical world is a response to life, and life enters creation with every breath. There is nothing in creation that does not breathe. To turn away is to be represented with the same truth over and over until we acknowledge it. As Shakespeare has the clown, Feste, say, in his play, Twelfth Night – _"bid the dishonest man mend himself; if he mend, he is no longer dishonest; if he cannot, let the botcher mend him"._ Which is a way of saying; _'if we don't mend ourselves, life will mend us'._

By adjusting the view in our mirror, our world takes on many different hues. Just moving the mirror fractionally to one side, allows us to see life in ways we've never considered. Move it again, and we gain the sense that what we see is completely dependent on our observation and perspective. Life is chock full of meaning. But a meaningful life requires us _'Earthlings'_ , to put the meaning in and we do. Our life is our meaning. Many people don't believe in God. God, they say, would never allow a world full of such inhumanity, violence, poverty, injustice... Well think again. Because the world is exactly the way, YOU made it.

When you or I stop breathing; we, that person, disappear - from this perspective anyway. The body remains until it too has completely broken down. But it's not the person; just a body. Yet it still exists, and therefore in some other way, is still inhabited by spirit. Nothing in this world can exist without Spirit. Spirit is the subtle component from the other side of the Veil, which fills every microscopic part of our physical world, and gives it form and substance. Now think about this. If every atom is full of Spirit, and Spirit is not distinguishable from what lies on the other side of the veil; at every moment, wherever we are, we are, _'that'_ , close to Spirit. How close is that? It's indistinguishable.

A good question at this stage is; what gives each one of us our unique form? But first consider the word _quest_ ion. What is a _quest_ ion? It contains the word quest and we know what a quest is. It's that journey which we specifically take, either to know more than we know now, or to find something. And a _quest_ ion is essentially the process, the action of quest. We can envisage the whole of life as one great question. Some lives seem unique or unusual and others quieter and more private. Yet each life develops and holds the shape of that which lies in each heart. We may imagine a _life_ ; as the reaching out of each individual in their own special way, to complement in their life, what drives them from within. Life can be seen as answer.

What then gives us our unique form? What makes me different from you? Our form is derived, from the meaning inherent in where our quests lead us. Imagine form as a tool. Imagine it as a spade. A spade is for digging in the garden. Of course it may be used for enumerable other purposes. We may use it to prise something up, we may use it to hit something into the ground, we may put it away dirty, we may use it to spread concrete – all sorts of fates are available for a simple garden spade. Its handle may be made from one timber rather than another, one metal rather than another, or be of one design rather than another. It may be fated to lie in the sun and the rain, or cleaned and oiled after use. It may be used as a spade is designed to be used, by someone who knows how to use it, or by someone who doesn't know how to use it. It may be owned by a loving person, an angry person, a happy person, or an unhappy person. All of the above conditions of the life and manufacture of a spade are a part of the life of that spade. Spade remember, is at essence Spirit.

All of the above can be said about the life of a person. Imagine that we each get a standard, off the shelf human form when we are born. Not this time around, but first time around. Then imagine all the passions, directions and misdirections of aeons of lifetimes. Then think of the spade in the illustration above. That is us. When we leave; our use of our _'spade'_ ; is inscribed into our spirit body.

A human being inhabits a form. When we leave, the form is left behind. For the body to be of use, someone must live in it. The more intangible traits, that make us who we are; other than the inhabitant of a physical body; are derived in many different ways. For me to be the person I am; I required specific genetic traits which may or may not be activated over the course of my life. If they are activated they become part of my toolbox. I needed to be born at a specific time, with particular astrological characteristics; which incorporate me into a fairly large astronomical space; the astrological merely being the internal qualities of that time and place. I needed to be born to the parent's I had, because their qualities helped shape me. I was born into a New Zealand culture at a specific time in its history, to be imbued with the qualities of living the events I have lived through in that culture – all of these things shape me. The qualities of my upbringing – where I lived, how my family circumstances impinge; my friends, teachers – all the tangible and intangible aspects of my arriving at this time and place and circumstance; all the above make me who I am. This then is the tool. The physical body is impressed with all these special qualities to make it look the way it does. Its height, beauty, lack of beauty, none of this is chance. And the bridge between this tool and the circumstances of its life, all of which have a part in altering, adding to or subtracting from... There is really no way of distinguishing between how I become who I am – the one that you can see and get to know; and my purpose – my quest, or my meaning; both are so married together as to be indistinguishable.

It often seems to us that the circumstances of our lives aren't right. The partner that we have, our children, our job, our friends, our parents – aren't right. Somehow we've got the wrong bag of goodies; the ones we've ended up with obviously belong to someone else. Conflict in life isn't usually with people outside our circle. It's those who are close to us that cause the most aggravation. And this is exactly what we might expect. No! We didn't get the wrong bag. It's this potentiality for conflict that the world is all about. Christians and Muslims and Jews didn't all end up sitting alongside each other in the same city, Jerusalem, trying to live in peace – for no reason. The powder keg of our lives is what we're all here for. At each moment of time, we're faced with a present circumstance and our take on it; and making sense of each of these moments puts meaning into our lives. There would be no point in our human drama if everything were easy. It is its potential for conflict which makes complete sense of our lives. We didn't get it wrong; we are exactly where we were meant to be. Resolution of all the apparently irreconcilable parts of our life is what it's all about. Some people's lives seem so harsh that we have to question how they make any sense. They may starve as infants, be killed brutally, be treated inhumanely, may come with physical or mental defects, or acquire them by the use of drugs or some other mischance... We have images of lives which we couldn't imagine anyone could possibly want to live. Reflect a little on Spirit coming down into human form. We come for a reason and the reason is clearly not to be found in the outer form of life. It lies within, and nobody lives a scenario they haven't willingly taken on. We all volunteered, and baddies and goodies are just the outer extremes of the roles on offer; this is the interior sense of the rougher side of life on earth. Those lives which we can all personally imagine and ask WHY? Appearances are no clue at all to what may be really going on. How then are some of the ways that life may work other than our usual way of thinking about things? How are some of the ways, life works?

There is _meaning_ in the fact that if we don't have consciousness of something, if it doesn't come to mind, it's impossible to enter the doorway it would have led us through. That's important. I mean, there are millions of doorways of potentiality around us. We only need think, _'I will do this'_ , do it, and we're through. But if we don't think about it, it doesn't happen. That seems a dumb thing to say, but it's true. The entrance is the knowledge that the door is there. If we don't understand a particular way of perceiving, we won't make the connection, and won't go through that particular door. And consider for a moment the myriads of thoughts or perceptions that we don't have. Not roads not taken but roads we never even considered. They were never considered because nothing alerted us to their existence. This means that our defining characteristics are the results of the pathways that have been imagined by us.

We often think of books, pictures, or musical scores, as inanimate objects and reading or viewing as the mechanical actions that give them meaning. But this is such a wholly banal description of a wonderful, quite miraculous experience. These too are magical doorways into realms of other's creations. I mean this in a completely practical sense. They are as tangible as this physical reality. When I was much younger I used to share my life with a copy of the Mona Lisa that hung on my wall at home. I'd look at her during the evening while I read; much as someone would a friend or loved companion. Her presence was meditative and therefore she drew me in, to a place of stillness; and I felt very much myself, when I was in her company. She gave me solace. This led me much later in my life, to make a similar connection with a picture of my father, who died when I was eleven. Any object can be a portal to energetic presence – my father, the Mona Lisa... Walk into a building or any environment, and you walk into its history and all the energy that that represents. In the Chandogya Upanishad, it says, _"If you want the company of your fathers, all you need do is will it and they will appear and make him (you) happy"_. This is also what the Ascended Masters say; _'call me and I will come'_. Is this so very strange, the concept of an afterlife? And if there is an afterlife – it doesn't go away. It is as consistent in its presence, as is our life on Earth.

We are hampered by conceptual thought. Life is not in a sense about anything. And yet contrarily it's about everything. If the world is what it is because - that's what we meant it to be - then where is the meaning we search for? I put it there this morning now where is it. To try to understand from this viewpoint is a waste of time. Yet strangely it's this waste of time that injects life with all the qualities life possesses. In seeking meaning, we start to give our lives meaning, this being the inner quality of the choices we make. There can be no meaning except that which we give. Its only reason for being is that we meant it to be. And yet we labour incessantly, trying to find the meaning of life. Douglas Adams probably got closest to the answer in _'A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'_ : a supercomputer, when asked the meaning of life, gives the answer as 42. Inherently life has no other meaning than what we give it.

We're programmed into the notion of separation and isolation. _Me_ and the world, and the _'me'_ is influenced by, _'the world'_ part of the equation. Hence things, _'happen',_ to us that we have no control over. But is life like that? Is it not rather that we imagine the world? To imagine is to image. The act of imagination enlivens and fills full of stories what appears, _'out there'_. A little like a child going to bed each night, filling their space full of their worst nightmares, looking under the bed and in the wardrobe... We live in and are subject to what we've created. And we're all in this together. So if _'things'_ , are not quite right in _'the world'_ , if our life is _out of sorts_ , – we may need to look a little closer to home to find the reason. We're not victims. There is one important rule in life. It is never the other person, it is never the situation, it is never the thing that is bugging us; it is always ourselves. This makes life simple. If we are to be happy in the world, all we have to fix is us. It's even simpler. We don't even have to alter us. All we need do is change our perception. To perceive the imagined hurt and reframe it as an active, positive instilled meaning. This reframes ' _the world'_ part of the equation. And knowing this, the mantle of that knowledge encompasses our hurt and transforms it. Note: everything above after the underlined, – _'all we need do is change our perception',_ is redundant. It is literally an act of changed perception. Yet it needs spelling out to bring in the requisite intent. A change of perception requires the appearance of _change._

As a community of souls, humans take a very narrow minded view of the physical world. Our common belief is that anything that is not human is not REAL. We think of ourselves as intelligent, emotional beings, but not the world we live in, not in the same way. We know that birds and bees fly home, that fish migrate to spawning grounds. This is intelligence. We know that animals can be taught. Pigs are apparently, after humans and dolphins; one of the more intelligent creatures on the planet, and on being taught something they never forget it. There is evidence that almost all living creatures have the capacity to learn. Yet somewhere we think; if it doesn't talk to us in a language we understand, it can't be intelligent. Just cast your mind to the image of someone who has suffered a stroke and can no longer speak as clearly as they were wont. We talk to them like children, assuming that their inability to seem intelligent, means they are now – dumb. That there's a level of innate intelligence in the animal kingdom is obvious to any animal owner. Dogs and cats according to British scientist, Rupert Sheldrake, know the precise moment that an owner decides to come home. From the moment that the owner makes a firm decision to go home, they are alerted to wait for that person to arrive. There is research on the effect of music. Music played to plants, increases the speed in which they grow, as well as their quality and productivity. Plants have the same biological systems as a human being. Humans can interact with the plant and animal kingdoms. It's just that our ears don't hear them. There is a beautiful story about Raman Pascha in his last embodiment, in that he became an object of some amusement when he became friends with his horse; to the extent that he gave up riding, and would walk around the town talking companionably to the horse - and why not? Who has not sat with their pregnant cat as she gives birth, and not participated in the innate mystery of birth. Who has not looked into the eyes of any domesticated animal, and not melted in the sheer love that pours from them. Yet, although we know that plants, animals and birds are closer to us than our care of them would suggest, we seem as a species indifferent to their fate. As humans we are each the most important person in our life. Outside of us are our family, friends, work colleagues, acquaintances... As the circle goes out our concern grows less, even around humans. This is how we are.

If we leave our house empty for a protracted length of time; if we take the human intelligence factor away; our houses quickly deteriorate. Where there's love, intelligence and care, these qualities work their effect. Spend a couple of hours cleaning your house with care; spend a few hours tending your garden with care. When you have completed the task, look back, and you will see that they appear considerably brighter. Like a smile on the face of a child. Cleaning a window is not just a physical action. We may put the sparkle down to window cleaning products. Manufacturers sell window cleaners emphasizing their ability to bring a sparkle to your windows. Well, they may, but a piece of newspaper and water will do the same. It's the focus of attention on these apparently inert parts of our environment that brings the sparkle, the smile on the face of God. Happiness in this Kingdom is to be attended on by Gods. Emotion, Intelligence and Love are real, interactive qualities, not shadow ideas. I gave them capitals because they deserve it. We're talking here of qualities we normally only allow humans to have. A well kept house sparkles. Cars shine when they are cared for. Animals shine when they are cared for. Not because we've polished them with product but because we love them. All physical things respond to care. Moreover they look more intelligent. They are on a par with us. They are our fitting companions.

I love trees. If I were to enunciate my belief as to what a tree was doing, standing upright in the ground, sparkling in the sun or blown about by the wind; then I'd say I was looking at a visible song of praise. Our myths and fairy tales animate nature. This is not a new idea. It's a thought that has been around for a long time. Greek mythology talks of dryads, as the inhabitants of trees; and ascribes a variety of nature spirits as inhabiting groves, rivers and seas, as well as innumerable others. Our history speaks a belief in fairies. Our mythologies talk of elves and trolls and dwarfs and giants. We think them ethereal, some people respond to these ideas, others don't. We use the term fey for someone we consider a little bit ethereal themselves.

There are stories that old constructions such as the Sphinx and the Pyramids were built by sound, and this is laughed at by the realists and yet sound is a very potent force. The realist – the practical down to earth mentality, places no stock in these ideas. Yet it's known that particular spaces, such as the space enclosed by a golden rectangle, augment sound; and if you use this knowledge for theatres and churches, then the quality of listening is so much easier. Remember the Greek amphitheatre where sound is amplified over an extremely large area.

The sound of our voice affects people, as much, if not more than what we have to say. Speak angrily, and the person we are speaking to; feels and responds to our anger. It's not just our words; it's the quality of the sound. When we're happy, enthusiastic, joyful, sad, spiteful... – all these emotions carry a sound and that sound affects those who hear it. Sound doesn't require vibrations in the air. How another feels if they are experiencing a strong emotion is palpable just by your feeling the emotion itself. Some feelings make us buoyant and uplifted, others down and despairing. Sound can hurt like the sharpest barb. Similarly when we respond to others - smile at someone in the street and they smile at you. It's a simple physical action yet the response is inevitable, - because we cannot not smile back. Now smiles, sound, plants responding to music, the love in our animal's eyes, dogs knowing when their owners decide to come home... All of these are communications, yet we don't think they happen. Yet we will each of us have experiences which validate some of what is being spoken.

Thought and emotion are not just individual. They move through the community – rumour has wings. Media in the form of newspapers, television, mobile phones, the internet and others, all carry thought and emotion. Emotion is attached to the thought. When we read that the government has increased personal taxes, there's a great deal of emotion attached to the news. Yet we haven't always had these media forms, and when your friend says – _did you know_ – you may or may not, but our response is virtually instantaneous, almost as if we knew before we knew. We know that ideas move through a community very quickly irrespective of how, and maybe wind currents are not just physical movements of air, but carry information, emotion, intelligence, love, - all the qualities that we might claim for ourselves. So when we see the trees blown by the wind; imagine they are talking to each other, imagine the wind is communicating with the trees; imagine the wind carries the voices of the trees to others of their kind; imagine that all of these things are possible. Many indigenous peoples have beliefs along these lines. Thinking things one way doesn't make them true. Don't overestimate the power of belief or mass consciousness. Cultural identity is all about the different stories, different cultures, learn from their mother's knees. Reason says, that either we live in an unintelligent, mechanistic universe which has nothing much going for it, except perhaps its elaborateness and complexity; or that it's full of the same qualities that we humans are full of. Where does intelligence reside? Where does emotion reside? They are not mechanistic functions. At a very simple level, who has not stood in a cooling breeze when they were hot and sweltering and not felt restored? Who has not experienced gale force winds that tore through their neighbourhood, and after the wind has died and the anxiety and stress has had time to settle; not felt cleansed and refreshed. Are these not a form of intelligence? When we breathe in, we don't just draw air into our lungs, we draw meaning into our lives. Try and separate the two.

I don't think of my love, my anger, my joy; as a tempest in my brain or anywhere else in my cellular network. But just as trees show evidence of the wind blowing through them, so my neurological system often displays signs of unusual activity. I am at times depressed, elated, joyful, or angry – actions that can be devastating or wildly euphoric for my state of mind. And we assume that we are the source from which all of our qualities emanate. Just as once we believed that we were the centre of the universe and that everything else revolved around us. May it not be that life just blows through our system? And lets extrapolate a little, remembering the old dictum, _'as above so below'_. If each of our cells mirror the whole, and if we are also neurons in collective humanity, then may not plants and animals, mountains, rivers and valleys, sea and land be seen as specialist cells in the organism Gaia, Planet Earth. This makes a lot more sense than that of our present belief of an inert earth that we can destroy with impunity. Knowing the strength of our own emotions, what may not be the strength of emotion felt by our Mother Gaia? And imagine this!! If we are an intelligent organ of an intelligent planet, then, when we drop bombs, and shoot guns, and pollute and destroy other organs such as trees, earth itself; what sort of creature does this make us; running around tearing our own limbs apart? - Barbaric?? - Psychotic???

Who am I? - Nobody special. - Just a human angel like all the rest of you. I am writing this because I believe - _the times are changing_. The world is changing, and new discoveries in science, discussions of apocalypse, the end of the world, 2012, global warming – or read – EARTH CHANGES -. The word is out, that what is happening around us now; is that we are coming into times of higher consciousness and fundamental human change. For this it is time we put away outmoded ways of looking and come to our own personal resolution around a _New Earth_. One perhaps that is intuitive and knowing in relationship rather than analytic and mechanistic. I'm not sure what this looks like and I'm not about to tell you. We have within us, right at our core, the essence of God. This isn't such a big thing to say. In the Christian teaching, which has over the last 2000 years permeated a large part of the globe; the first book of Genesis says, _"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them"_. In the New Testament, Christ is reported as saying, _"I and my father are one"_ He stressed throughout his teaching his sameness with others. What's so wrong with the concept of our divinity? And yet it's not an easy one to hear.

Until we envisage our way forward, the next moment doesn't exist. It always hides in potentiality, just a moment away, and a moment has no measurement. Until we step into it, it is an unknown. Yet, 'NEVER'; do we not enter the potentiality of each succeeding moment. And how is this? Think about this!! Whenever we answer a question, we close the doorway to further knowings, until the question represents itself in some other form. Ask a question if you don't believe me. Find the answer and where has the question gone. Yet we needed an answer to add to us, to complete us. And now it's not important? Yet because life is not about payback but about Mystery and Illumination, the questions never stop coming.

Whatever the truth, know that we can't reason our way to an answer with the rational mind. Nor can we feel out the world through the heart. The analytic mind gets boring and tedious and can be tiresomely anal. The heart can flow all over the floor, touchy feely, so that we just want to shrink inside ourselves. But taking the heart and the mind in each hand and seeking balance we can live a good life. The following isn't a prescription for anything other than to say, - perhaps life process, life on earth, is worth looking at again, because perhaps we haven't quite got it right yet. So what follows is a series of thoughts, of differing ways of perceiving life on earth without saying - this is how it is. That is all. You may read the book from beginning to end, or dip into it at any point. Need and meaning is individual. There are many questions, many answers, many ways of saying so many things that I have struggled all my life to express and like Yasmeen's spirits they are all pressing forward crying – _'me first, me first'_.

Chapter Three

WHO AM I?

" _Much of the world has people trying on different personas, trying on different beliefs, trying many different things. And some are even professional at it. And this is all done in the search for, 'Self'. And most of you learn from a very early age to look outside the Self for whom you are, to look outside for your identity, to look outside for acceptance. You are not taught to be in the Self, or to acknowledge much of what comes from within, unless it can be measured in a way that is in agreement with others."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

There are questions that being born into the world give rise to. WHO AM I? - is one of them. Others might be – WHERE AM I? WHAT'S IT ALL ABOUT? WHERE DID I COME FROM? WHAT IS LIFE? WHERE AM I GOING? These are all natural, basic questions of an inquisitive mind. Curiosity about one is curiosity about all. Right now ask yourself the question; how did you arrive at this particular point in your life? How do you view your life? Do you for instance see yourself as instrumental in the _'who you are_?' Or are you a prisoner of the ' _who you are'_? You may be thinking – well, I am, _'who I am'_ because this is me – who else do you think I'd be? May it not be that – you are _'who you are'_ , precisely because it's _'who you chose to be'_. That we are, _'who we are'_ , because of the choices we've made and continue to make. There's no beginning to this process – well, no discernible beginning. And no end!

The atom has long been considered the smallest unit of matter. But within the atom, lies a world which appears as extensive as the world of our senses. If I were to go to the highest promontory, from where I can see as much of the physical world as possible, the view is likely to be extensive and awe-inspiring. On the other hand if I close my eyes and allow my mind to sink within, and hold to this practise, allowing the sound of the external world, the sound of the internal world of thought, just to be; neither partaking of it nor rejecting it, but continuing the journey within; what happens is that I enter a world far more extensive than any I may see from the highest peak. Within this world; is the seed of the consciousness which sustains both our inner and outer worlds. For centuries, mystics have maintained a view of our world that validates an inner vision of life, over an outer concern with the material. Scientists, during the course of last century, looking into this same world, arrived at conclusions about the nature of reality which vindicate the mystical vision. Many mainstream scientists speak about these things.

The realm, of the quantum world of physics, is described as being made up of infinitely small sub-atomic particles that may wink into existence in one form, wink out of existence, and then simultaneously reappear elsewhere in a totally different form. A world that's a bit like watching the night sky; and seeing lots of little stars, blinking their presence; almost immediately to be replaced by others. They may appear to exist as particles, seemingly separate entities, and then again be completely diffuse and wavelike, defying boundaries of space and time, totally connected with everything. They may seem to have multiple existences; appear in a multitude of different places at the same time; non-locality or entanglement theory says that once a proton or electron interacts with another proton or electron that they will never, not influence each other, whether they are next door, or on the other side of the world. An electron cannot really be said to exist, until it manifests as a particle; not as we normally understand existence. There is only one certainty. That this busy little world of infinite change and appearance will continue unimpeded until an observer enters the picture and observes or measures. As soon as this happens, this energetic charge collapses into a fixed state that mirrors the observer's belief, as though the observer had brought the object into being. That which we see, is our thoughts and beliefs crystallized by desire. It's as though a primordial sea of potent creativity lies behind what we experience; and this is not different from what we call consciousness. The electron, neither existing nor not existing, collapses into, and becomes the world around us. And this world is composed of empty space, flying particles and the meaning we engender it with. Another description might be to imagine a canvas prior to an artist painting it. Imagine standing with paint brush poised and in mind an idea emerges. We move our brush toward the canvas and select where to place it. This is neither a conscious nor an unconscious action. It just happens. In mind and canvas there are two points of emergence. Before the event there is nothing; then something. This is the difference between the electron as wave and the electron as particle.

Consciousness is described in the Indian Vedantic teaching, as carrying the qualities of Sat - Chit - Ananda; which translates as - Being - Knowledge – Bliss - shadowed in our more modern; awareness, information and happiness. As newly born infants, light emanates from us, so much so that we glow; only losing this quality as we approach adulthood. Have you ever wondered what it is that is so attractive about young babies? They don't have to do anything to hold our attention. Baby simply is! A state of being! A state of latent potentiality and wholly conscious! And we're drawn in by their knowingness and unadulterated bliss. As long as we, _as baby_ , are getting our needs met! Otherwise we can be quite demanding; this is the strength of our infantile state: singular, unclouded, focused attention. So here we are; an unfettered, boundless, unconfined nature; and we come into a world that is peopled by beings, who by this stage in their life, experience this same world, as quite inflexible in its physical boundaries; as adults we are equally inflexible in our subtle substance, full of fixed opinions and beliefs.

So the infant comes into this world, made up of our, as the observer's; thoughts. That's what creation is; our thoughts. There is a mirror here; because we're looking at two perceptions of the same thing. The baby becomes confined by the thoughts, opinions and beliefs of all those who have gone before, as well as bringing new beliefs to the pool. This is how it works. As a baby we're told _: 'this is water', 'this is your bath', 'this is a carrot', 'this is a spoon'_ , and so on. This is at a very basic level. Each piece of information has the potential to inform and confine. Yet a _spoon_ in reality is no more a _spoon_ than it is a _gate_ or a _paddock_. These are only names and utilities. But we think – metaphorically speaking - how do our children negotiate the physical world without them. We say – this knowledge informs the child, lending it intelligence in the physical realm. The other side of the equation is that each snippet of information also confines and imprisons us. How does it do this? It ties our consciousness to physical form, with a label telling us what each bit is. Our babies minds, hear our parents and teachers explanations as absolutes. Why would we do otherwise? We rely on those who have gone before to make the unknown, known. Apart from physical objects; as babies we learn who is close; family or friends, and who we appear to ignore and treat as strangers; we learn cold and warmth and where these are to be found; we learn hunger and satisfaction – not just in food, but also around love and affection and other emotions. We all know the ingredients that make up this life. But what we may not think about so much; is that as a thought can fly unfettered, willy-nilly, yet as soon as we own it and say black is black or white is white; that thought no longer has the freedom and unrestricted nature that it had. Similarly our sub-atomic particle that becomes locked into one probability merely by our expressing an - Aha! So that's what that is! And at that moment, that formerly pulsating quantum particle; becomes fixed, measurable, and singular. And as we, the infant and young child, take on the cloak of a human being, so our light fades and we become confined and restricted by the knowledge we've gained. We know who we are. I am Rebekah; I am Russell; I am Maria; I am Linda; and so on. We know where we are: I am in the living room, in the bath, in New Zealand; I know where I come from and where I am going. I was raised in Hamilton, moved to the Hokianga, and as a young adult ended up in Auckland. I am going to Victoria University next year. So the picture is built up, the questions are answered. But are they really? Is it not that the sub-atomic particles of existence have been seen, observed and named and so the world comes into creation? An amalgam of what has gone before, what is, and what we imagine.

The thing is we are enormously vulnerable to being told. You tell me something and unless I know better, unless I have a perfectly credible other story running I'll believe you. Show me food and tell me it's a _carrot_ and what reason have I got to disbelieve you. And of course for simple communication we have to name things. What I'm trying to say, is that a _carrot_ is one thing. When you have got through naming all the things in the world... It's only a _carrot_ because that's what we call it. Meanwhile I have this world full of knowings and believe them to be absolutes. Apart from carrots they may include – Muslims are evil, blacks are not as good as us whites, girls are less intelligent. But even the indifferent – this is a carrot, multiplied a million times – means that we're circumscribed by a lot of names and convinced that this is where we are and this is what we're doing. Our belief in the illusion of becoming, imprisons us. To learn all the names, and at the same time know that these are only names and stories: some of which are good, some of which are bad, some indifferent, but none of which are true – this is different. There is another action taking place here too. Just as we're taught by our teachers the names and myths they believe in, we also select the various beliefs and ideas we wish to make our own. Between what we're taught and what we choose; we become the person we see in the mirror each morning, to whom we give a name, a history and a whole series of stories and characteristics. We mostly live in a cemetery of old bones, old ideas, crystalline forms... Living, breathing creation is ever new, ever vital and immediate in its mirroring of our divinity. The world that would constantly grasp and demand our attention is composed of yesterday's images.

So this is how we're bound! We free beings, that have the capacity to become anything; learn that we're middle class, and not as well off as the family in the next street over, where the father is a lawyer and they inherited family money anyway! I'm so fat and my friend Ally is so skinny and gets all the boys. I've never been athletic. I wish that I could dance as well as Phoebe. She is so good and is going to the states next year to compete at an international tournament. I'm selecting random thoughts here, but as we grow up, these are the sorts of thoughts we fixate on. These types of thoughts which we all entertain, define us and others. Because we reflect our thoughts; we grow to be a particular sort of person. And these thoughts are charged with emotion. Our sense of ourselves is created by what we think and feel. Our thoughts confine us in what each thought is. Like being in a soap bubble! So if I think I'm not athletic; then I'm confined, bound, restricted, literally inside that thought. The thought defines this aspect of my physical and subtle existence. I cannot without a less restricting thought be anything other than non-athletic. And an emotional charge is attached to each thought. There will be a feeling associated with – I'm not athletic. We may describe it as; I don't mind, I'm into art and would much rather spend my time drawing than be a jock like them! Or I'm paralysed by my sense of non-physicality and invent something surly, devil-may-care like; I don't care; I'd rather hang with my mates! There are infinite variations and they pack a whammy of emotional charge so I'm not only confined by thought, but I can _feel_ \- 'who I am'. This is worse, because no matter how much you tell me the truth is otherwise I know you're wrong; my sense of myself tells me this is, _'who I am'_. This is how our unlimited Universe, full of light and love, comes down to what we delight in describing as; reality, the nitty-gritty, the work-a-day world.

There, is the infinite realm of absolute possibility; that in Vedantic scripture equates with the unmanifest _Prakriti_ , which roughly translates as _'unmanifest nature'_. This means exactly what it says. That which holds like a mother her infant; _Prakriti_ , the world Mother, the infinite unmanifest. This world of absolute potentiality, infinite possibility, is the cauldron in which the manifest world exists. The manifest world arises by virtue of our naming things. If there's an expression of our own inner potentiality before we choose, then it is I AM. In Vedantic literature it is the Sanskrit word – _Aham_ , meaning \- _I am_. This is us. We are – the One without a second. Add an action to the, 'I am', and you get the Sanskrit word for ego - _Ahankara_ : _Aham_ plus _Kara_ , their word for action. And in _Kara_ we have the root of Karma – which means attaching to action. What does all this mean in terms of sub-atomic particles? Well, notice the description the physicists give this sub-atomic world. These sub-atomic particles exist in a free state, and then in the act of observation, they are bound to the particular. They are no longer free to be anything - they have become one thing. And what happens to the human being in the process of the day. All day we're subject to thoughts, feelings and sensations. As long as the, _'I am'_ , is not attached to them, we're free, we are the absolute witness. As soon as we attach to any of the thoughts, feelings or sensations, we're bound to that experience. Does this sound familiar? Are then the sub-atomic particles that make up creation no more than passing thoughts? Is thought perhaps the seed form of matter? And is emotion the transforming energy?

We commonly think that our thoughts arise from neural activity in the brain; that they are a product of synaptic connections, the continuous activity of mind stuff or brain matter. We often get things back to front. The St John's Gospel in the Bible begins – _"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God."_ The writer CS Lewis; has a beautiful description of creation in one of his books about the magical world of Narnia, _'The Magician's Nephew,'_ where creation is sung into being. In the Vedantic tradition OM is said to be the primal sound from which everything else emerges. Imagine a line of attention, from the unsounded OM, through our desire and thence into created things. If language is not a product of being human, but being human the product of sound, this makes a lot of sense. _'The Law of Attraction',_ is then the objects of our desires, becoming into our world.

We have a constant moment by moment awareness of, _'noise in the head'_ , or _'circling thought'_. It besets us all and we have little or no control over it, yet, it's not the stuff of grand creations. To learn to sit quietly in the midst of this activity, and allow it to come to rest, opens us up to a different world. Through practise of meditation or contemplation, or to simply 'pause' throughout the day in the midst of our activity, we can quell the activity of mind.

Pausing is easy. Simply become aware of your physical body. There is no need to change your position, although you can choose to sit upright. An upright body allows for a free flow of energy and the unrestricted flow of air. Prana, in Indian philosophy, is equated with air, and is often translated as 'vitality' or 'life force'. Feel the body, its sensations and discomforts, the wind currents that circulate and gently brush our skin... Be aware of your thoughts; the feelings present; not engaging with either but witnessing and letting them go... Allow the attention to move out to include your physical surroundings; connect with the activity in your space and beyond, letting the hearing run out... Practising in this way for a couple of minutes or even momentarily creates a pool of rest. The activity is still there, but it no longer has the same strength to hold our attention.

The activity of mind becomes then, like the exhaust of our motor vehicles, merely the residue of thought. Think of them as the thoughts that didn't make it. Things are thoughts. But what does thought really look like? If _things_ are thoughts then the world we see is embodied thought? And those that didn't make it retain their wavelike activity. Remember they only appear as particles when they become fixed or manifested by the observer's observation. Hence to retain their wavelike activity, is to not be chosen or manifested. It remains in potentiality. Note that it is undifferentiated. By this I mean, we don't find it already manifested - we name it into manifestation!! It is not what it becomes until we call it forth. And if you think _'things'_ , are not thoughts, recall the name of anything you see, and ask - how do I separate an object from its name? How is it different?

If Ego is a description of the _Aham_ , the _I Am_ added to the _Kara_ or action; - it's the sum of all the attachments we make. This makes sense. The world then is made up of all the choices we make. So it's natural that we are an amalgam of the reflection of this. But what makes us select one thought over another. The thing is that an awareness of 'our' thought, suggests that 'we', have thought. We believe that 'our' thoughts are in 'our' head and belong to us. If much of our thought is no more than exhaust gas, let's for a moment, consider the little bitty mental constructs that appear to be experienced in the head. If we're talking a stray thought like – _'gosh it's cold,'_ that may be the end of it. Alternatively it may repeat and each time our experience of cold may deepen. Eventually we may close a window or put a heater on, or some other such action. At this point the idea has achieved a change in our world. Another way to explain what happens is to say, we noticed we were cold, and as the temperature cooled took steps to combat it. One explanation includes thought as a pertinent part of the change. The other explanation sees us in a world we can't control that we need protection from.

The thing is that often our personal feeling is as subjective as that. We might ask and say – _'are you cold' – 'no'_. It's a subjective movement of our emotional world. But then we need to say _– 'what then, when there's snow on the ground and wind in the trees or torrential rain??? Is this subjective?'_ Remember C S Lewis's, _Narnia_ , when the Snow Queen held power over the whole Kingdom. All the land was cold and cheerless. It's reminiscent of the destitute nature of our world, when everything seems to be going wrong and our heart closes down in despair. Is then the changing face of the weather entirely subjective – our creation in group consciousness mode? What then of the seasons? Don't the seasons breathe in and breathe out in the same way that we do. Aren't all the carousing of digestive juices, movement of the blood, pumping of the heart, rise and fall of the lungs and so on merely the weather of our insides. Here too are cycles – digestion, menstruation, and elimination amongst many more. But unusual patterns; cyclones and massive wind after eating; volcanic eruptions and skin cancers, pimples, boils... – note the similarities? How is a pimple different from a volcano - except in location?

So who are we? We are beginning to question basic assumptions in every field of human knowledge. There are those in society who are the pioneers, the seekers; the outsiders and witnesses of current values; those who press boundaries, question current beliefs and ultimately change them. But most humans seek stasis. This is where we're comfortable. There is a myth that the Gods, whoever _they_ may be, don't like humans getting to know too much; and that when any human starts to become a seer in the land of the blind, they do what they can to hinder or destroy them. It's only a myth. And yet interestingly the human body is programmed for stasis. We only have to try to change habitual behaviours such as diet, to consciously take steps to change it; and the body will signal its support systems to alert them to the fact that it's under attack. Even if the new intended regime is better for the body. We humans don't like change. Interesting question: 'who is the God'? The part of us that decides to change our diet or the part of us that slams on the body's brakes and attempts to shut down our desire? Why do we imagine that a God is greater than us?

The religions that different cultures have developed on Earth, give an eternal substance to who we are. They imply a source; not as in – I come from London, or Auckland or Timbuktu. But a fundamental source that lies in a causal realm different from where we exist physically and emotionally. We often picture this in terms we can understand. As a _Super Being_ , that stands outside of us and rules us with a rod of iron. ' _Thou shalt not_ ', is familiar to almost everyone born under the auspices of a local Church, Synagogue or Temple. This picture is loosening its grip, and today in the western world, most people when asked about their fundamental beliefs, would be more likely to express belief in an inner creative force, spiritual in nature; than in a final authority to which they are answerable. It might take the form of an inner consciousness, us more refined; or a higher more authentic self. And scripture as it's been handed down to us does not invalidate that. And yet who is in control?

When we consider the fruits of human action, they don't on the surface look that hot. War, inequity, poverty, violence; this is what the appearance is. Yet this is very much the surface of the world. Within us are our beliefs, our judgements, our appreciations, what is loved, liked, hated or feared, all lie within us. We have a fair idea from the appearance at the surface, of some of what goes on, but not all. We cannot for instance measure the love, the conscious worlds, the relationships, the huge inner landscapes that comprise the whole world's inner emotional self. We exchange confidences, but even those who are closest to us, get just a fraction of the inner content of who we are and what we feel. So that which lies on the surface of the world, is only the faces of people and nature. Nor should we discount the possible whole inner world of plants and animals, of hills and mountains and rivers – the heart of Gaia herself.

Astrology is an ancient science which measures and describes people and events in terms of planetary influence. But what if our world is intelligent and alive? We as humans don't stay the same over a lifetime – let alone lifetimes. Why should we suppose the planets would? Are they not likely to be akin to Ascended Masters, and Gods and Goddesses, and also in a state of evolution? Are they not us, aeons of lifetimes down the track? Or maybe they are us next time around? Remember that in one lifetime at least we will be an Ascended Master – next time around! Or are we that now? Because if unity is a universal quality, may they not be aspects of us. May we not be an earthly shadow of some greater being? I am talking here of the intangible world of subtle beings that have no physical form. Or do they? Is the planet Mars, the body of Mars? Is Earth, the body of Gaia? And what is the span of influence. What greater beings may lie further out? None of this should be discounted.

So to the question – WHO IS in control? Is it GOD? Is it us, as an authentic higher being? Is it an Oversoul, a group soul? Can we see it playing out in our own inner worlds? I remember a time in my early twenties when I couldn't get my act together. Of a morning I'd go out, ostensibly to look for work. I'd take my book and sit in my car somewhere, normally by a park where I could relax in the sight of green grass and I'd read. And I did this for about three weeks. And then one day the driver of a passing car had an epileptic fit, writing off my car and giving me a severe case of whiplash. I was also at the time very much _\- getting it in the neck_ – from my partner of the time, and felt unsettled and dissatisfied with myself. So when this car ran into my car - let me be completely honest here - my partner's car; it was a wake-up call – _'David, get off your butt and do something'_ \- and that's what I took it as. You may say that this is hardly an example of some Oversoul getting in on the act! Isn't it? How often have you heard someone say – and it was like the universe kicked me in the butt, saying – get on with it? It may come in different guises. It may be your partner or your boss or a friend prodding you into doing something you keep putting off. Sound familiar? Is it Shakespeare's _'botcher'_ perhaps?

When it comes down to a practical – how does it all work, there are probably more answers than there are stones in the road. As I've said, there are those who have stood apart and validated us since time began. Socrates was one of these; and in answering the questions of his young students; when he had finished a student might ask – _'and is that how it is?'_ \- And he would say – _'well, I don't know, but it's as good an explanation as any. And what does it really matter'_. We're not being marked in all this and nobody is going to be hurt by listening to and imagining possibilities. What's good to know is that life's not necessarily the way our parents, teachers and peers would have us believe. It's worth another look; it does no harm to wonder.

So who are we? My name is David Berresford and to me it has a certain familiarity. I have always liked the name. But no matter how many times I say, _David Berresford_ , over to myself, it doesn't enlighten me further. I might as well be the proverbial Joe Bloggs. It doesn't have any less or more meaning. You'd think it an easy question to answer but it's not. For one, it can be answered on so many levels and in so many different ways. The trouble is that the answers are mainly relative, or rely on beliefs that can't be validated, without perhaps the help of further beliefs. I am a brother, a father, a husband, a son and so on, and these are relative descriptions that describe me very simply in terms of family. I am a good son, a bad husband; an absent father describes me very loosely in qualitative terms around those relationships at different times. I am an accountant, an actor, a writer, a gardener, I am sixty-six years old, all of these start to build a more comprehensive picture, but no matter how many labels I attach to myself, at the end of the day we haven't started to answer the question – WHO AM I – in any real sort of way. When this comprehensively described man dies, _Who am I_?

Well - I am human. There's another answer. But having said this, what does it tell me? That depends on what we understand a human to be. It relies on a whole raft of beliefs as to what being human entails. It may involve biological beliefs - a gregarious animal of the genus mammalia of which a quick definition is - a warm-blooded vertebrate, characterized by mammary glands in the female. Or I may describe a human in Darwinian terms; as a culture-bearing primate, anatomically similar to and related to the other great apes, distinguished by a more highly developed brain and the capacity for articulate speech and abstract reasoning; a creature displaying erectness of body carriage that frees the hands for use as manipulative members. I can describe being human in terms of our being the only creature to develop a prefrontal lobe, a condition marking us as significantly different. But even accepting all of the above and any similar description, this doesn't tell me who I am. I can accept these descriptions as distinguishing me from others. But to say that I am such and such a sort of person by labelling my traits, does not lead to self knowledge.

There are other ways of categorizing human that widen the discussion to a whole other arena, the more imaginative idea that humans come from the stars. We have divided the world into different racial groups identifiable by similar physical characteristics, language, geographical location and culture. But there is for those interested, information on humans having Pleiadian, Sirian and other starseed origins. It still does not answer the question, _'Who am I'_? But isn't it more interesting than, _'I am from Peking or New York. Isn't it wonderful?'_ Next time someone says ' _Hi there where are you from,'_ and you say, _'Well actually I come from Alpha Centaurus' - 'Oh yeah!!!'_ Can't you imagine it? But there's a whole literature describing the human race in terms of starseeds, which may account for the visible difference between for example; Asians, Caucasians, Aryans and so on. I'm not trying to be definitive here; I'm trying to open your mind to other possibilities. We have in science fiction writing, a whole literature about humans in far flung galaxies who have forgotten they were ever human; or who know they are, and are proud of the fact that they are so much better off than when they lived on planet earth. But even if we were able to say – _'I'm from Sirius or the Pleiades,'_ this does not answer the question _– 'Who are we?'_

There's also in both scriptural and other channelled writings talk of our being angelic and/or divine beings, that have for one reason or another been embodied in a three dimensional universe, for the sake of lesson or karma or sheer expression of God. I am God in earthly guise isn't necessarily a possibility to be ignored. What do you believe? What are your feelings around all this? Personally I find a story like this attractive, but what is its meaning? Without comprehension of meaning it still leaves the question – _'Who am I?'_

The subject of channelling often brings very strong feelings to the fore particularly amongst those from established religions. The irony is that scripture is channelled writing. Paul was not an angel in the way that we think of angels. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were men and very much alive here on earth when they wrote their _'revealed'_ writings – scripture – otherwise described as the word of God. - Channellings?

When I consider the whole earth existing in space;

When I think of space devoid of matter;

When I feel the movement of creation,

Of fire and air, of water, earth and ether;

When I feel the swirling energies of creation, making manifest

Where before there was nothing;

When I feel this barren earth swimming in space,

Warmed by the sun and moon,

Bringing forth the first shoots of what we now

See as the trees, the flowers, the grasses of our world;

When single-celled, animate being spills out of nothing,

Takes legs and heads and bodies,

And starts to swim in my waters,

To graze on my grasses, and nibble my trees;

When my forbear grunts to his mate, indicating need or want,

And speech begins to speak;

I discern the hand of God; but I can feel these things;

In the exact same way that I did as I crawled out of the sea,

And eventually came to speak these things to you;

If you were to ask me, I would say that I lived and breathed

In the lap of God, and am God – we are both one and not one.

Chapter Four

WHERE AM I?

" _You will realize that suddenly people come talking to you about the nature of the very things you are experiencing. You will find very tangible openings that give you the green light, or show you the way, or make a way possible. And that is as it needs to be. If it were purely spiritual in nature, then indeed, it would not be as easy, nor perhaps possible, to make it real or tangible."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

So what about the WHERE AM I? We think we know where we are. We think we know what our world looks like. Here I am, David, and I'm just waking up. I lie here in bed, the sun pouring through the window, wishing I could sleep a little longer. There is no doubt in my mind as to my whereabouts. But it's limited to the sensory world, at least from the point of view of my belief system. If I'm lucky someone has been up before me and the aroma of coffee is wafting up the stairs. I open my eyes and I know what I see. I can feel my body on the bed, I can smell the coffee. I switch on my computer, or pick up whatever book I'm currently reading and hopefully will soon taste the coffee. These are the physical contours of my, _'where am I'_. There is more though to my - _'where am I'_ \- than this; because I'm not in a world clinically lacking in subjective and personal qualities. It's not - world - per se, but - _my_ world. Those are _my_ coverings wrapped around me as I lie here in the morning. It is _my_ room, _my_ computer, _my_ book; any smell in the room is related to me and my – _'who I am'_ \- . The world that I believe I live in is full of _my_ story. There is no boundary between the physical world, my subjective feelings, and the stories around them. In fact the actual objects are when you think about it not important at all. It is _my_ story around them that gives me my sense of place. But _where_ is more than place. The meaning we attach to _where_ is spatial but that's because we believe all the stories. If we stand back and say to ourselves – well look, this life is only a story. Then it can be seen that place, is entirely related to the stories we weave into the physical creation. I am not in – hospital, but in – _the_ hospital, and that - _the_ \- selects out for my audience our shared understanding of _which_ hospital and all its history for us. Everyone will have different memories and a different history, and some won't know. So in answer to my – _the_ hospital, a stranger may say – _which_ hospital? Our physical placement is completely subjective and my _where_ is not so much physical as it is placement in my story.

We see it as ' _our_ life' and this attachment makes it very real to us, But it's the connection to the physical world; our relationship with people we've come to know and recognize as family, friends, fellow workers or strangers; our family history, our national story; all these ingredients are layers to ' _our_ story' in one view, and ' _my_ life' in another view. Consider also in this light what was being spoken about earlier: that we, and by extension the world, may be spoken or sung into existence. Speech and song, weave stories.

This is why - _'what is this creation_?' - is a good question. Because to distance ourselves from our lives, and become more a witness consciousness around our life; we have to consider the world as more than; ' _our_ life', ' _our_ world', ' _our_ family'. Then when we ask questions about the nature of reality, what has been accepted at face value takes on other perspectives. Life and death, cities and commerce, different cultures, other religions; all become the potpourri in which our thoughts and emotions play out, and taken altogether are the stage of life's drama's.

The question - _what is this creation_? - allows us to put another spin on whom and what we are. Our perspective changes, becomes larger, by asking bigger questions as we try to make sense of our world, raises the stakes and refines our search. It also turns our world upside down. Go back to the picture of us as an infant. If it's our choice; if what we attend to is the ' _doh_ ' to what is going to happen in our lives; then we're not victims. Life does not act on us so much as that it is acted on by us. My circumstances, the conditions in which I live, are not randomly distributed by fate but designed by me. The colour of my skin, am I richer or poorer, was I brought up amidst violence or drugs, or in a privileged situation with money and position: if all this arises from within then I'm not a victim. If I fall prey to cancer or aids or I'm killed in an accident, it's the result of who I am and the choices I've made. This makes me responsible and blame if there were any would lie within. But there's no blame. Life is, and the explanation lies in our consciousness not in the unknown. Some people find this unacceptable, but the idea that I am totally responsible, is for me a silver lining which tells me – if my actions brought me here, then my actions can take me back. If I made me, I can unmake me. Think for a moment. We don't blame ourselves for entering a physical space that was not what we expected. Why should we feel that we cannot enter a bodily state that was not what we had hoped for? Oops – let's back out of here. On the other hand!

It may at first glance appear unnatural – why, we all say, would anyone choose to enter this life minus limbs, born into poverty, born into a land where we will most likely starve to death in infancy. Why would we choose to be born into a life of great unhappiness, losing loved ones or losing reputation? But take Shakespeare's words, " _All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time_ _plays many parts._ " When we read or hear those lines, we understand it as a metaphor. But if it's not a metaphor, if it's true; then I can tell you that as an actor 'the baddies' are much more fun to play than common old garden parts. If life's no more than a play, albeit one with pretty wonderful qualities; then it ceases to be so strange coming on stage playing cripples and murderers. See it as a life undertaken because it's there to do. When Pilgrim's wife arrives at the river surrounding 'the _Celestial City_ ' in the second part of John Bunyan's book, _'Pilgrim's Progress'_ , she's accompanied by a cripple and a warrior. These conditions – crippledness and warriorness are important qualities of both these men in the story. These conditions alter the way they respond to events. As they are immersed in the waters of the river surrounding the Celestial City at the end of their journey, they lose these qualities and reach the other side as ordinary men. The river is a metaphor for death. These conditions are earthly conditions only.

There are, a wealth of books on karma and recurring lives and on choosing a life. These ideas are not new age or crackpot ideas. They exist in Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and other mainstream teachings. When I was a young man at university, Plato was only then being withdrawn as the favoured philosopher in the philosophy department. Our Western Civilization has been shaped by Christian and Platonic thought and in Plato's, ' _The Republic'_ , he describes people lining up for new lives, and how Ulysses, weary of the life of a hero, chooses to be a farmer. New Age writings speak of contracts to live particular lives, so that we may grow God. For God to find himself in a small dark place and remember for all – that, s(he) is God. It's a beautiful concept. It's a much more affirming concept than that of original sin and being perpetually tossed out of the Garden. Or that we must claim salvation from someone, who two thousand years ago was hung on a cross to die. These ideas work if that is where your love sits. Personally I find Christ's teachings include some of the most beautiful and empowering ideas around. But when he says, _"I am the way, the truth and the life_ ," to me he is saying, 'your, _I am_ , IS, _the way, the truth and the life_ – follow it; not - follow me and I will save you. And yet for the love of all he meant that too. Life really is a mystery.

We experience the world as physical. We can hold it, taste it, smell it, see it and hear it. And because it's physical matter, we think our relationships physical. Yet they're not. When we touch an object, we physically contact it, but the experience of touch is subtle and full of knowledge. Touch anything and begin to watch all the knowings that flow from that physical contact. The same is true of taste. There is a physical contact, yet the knowledge gained is transmitted subtly and our experience is of a transfer of knowledge. This is what a sense does. It allows us to know. In the case of sight, hearing and smell the action is different. These senses connect with subtle emanations. Sound, smell and sight require, in the case of the first two, the connection of two subtle activities – hearing and sound, smell and odour. Sight connects seeing and its physical object, yet the knowledge flowing from the act, is discernment of the object of sight. The more acute and interested our seeing, the more that may be derived from the seeing. There is another question we must ask ourselves. If the inner and outer are different aspects of the same thing, in which direction does a sense work. If we instil meaning, what does it mean to taste something? Tantalising thoughts?

In all of the above, the knowing transferred through the senses is subtle and not at all physical. We need also to be careful of this idea, physical. Science describes the physical as molecular and that there is more space than matter. So our sense of touch misleads us by converting something not at all ungiving to something completely ungiving. Try pushing your way through a brick wall. And yet our knowledge tells us that brick walls are illusory. On the other hand, try climbing a hill. The effort required to move upward, particularly if we are not very fit is considerable. What we are moving up against is of course gravity. Gravity is even more ungiving than a brick wall. And yet because we can't see it, we don't think of it in those terms. The reason, that rockets designed to pierce the earth's atmosphere require the power they do, is that they need to have sufficient force to counteract the earth's gravitational pull. A brick wall doesn't even begin to measure up.

Our awareness can expand beyond a simple linear attendance in space and time. We confine awareness of ourselves to the boundaries of our skin, but there's no limit to where we begin or end. When the boundary of our awareness is dropped, we find our world to be much bigger and far more interesting. We enter the portals of consciousness itself. Physical begins to lose its physicality, to become living matter. How much more alive we are in a living, breathing, universe with no edges or limits.

If the past still exists somewhere like deleted files on a computer, is there a continuum going backward and forward in time? How else can scientists or science fiction writers imagine we could time travel? Time travel requires that a time exists outside our present and that people – possibly even us in another manifestation, are living somewhere, in some other time. Experience of deep meditation and other spiritual disciplines, show that time is non-existent in some states of consciousness. This suggests a layered universe? Like a wheel, with, as its centre, a constant present; and its rim in constant movement, and all the places in between. In deep meditation what is outside slows or even virtually stills. Yet the earth is turning so what is happening? If at certain frequencies time and space don't exist – where are we going if we're travelling in this state? What then is space and passing time from this perspective? When we move through time what is happening. Right here now nothing seems to be happening and yet I know that in a greater period of time a lot will have happened. And if there is a time to return to, or a time to move forward to; is life more like a trip through trillions of computer files that we leave intact? If I visit Wellington am I going anywhere? Is Wellington here now in Auckland?

Lynne McTaggart in her book, ' _The Field'_ , describes the world as a unified field in which the whole manifest world participates both at a subtle and material level. It's a description of unmanifest and manifest prakriti, and the movement between the two is through thought and emotion. Something brings me from sleeping to waking. As I go through my day I follow the inner promptings available to me from my inner world of thought and feeling. Even what appears physical must be processed through my inner world. Unless it is, nothing takes place. We're blinkered by our Newtonian version of reality which denies a relationship between the inner and the outer.

Driving my car I visualize in mind, scenes or situations unrelated to where I am driving; and these images are part of _who I am_. These scenarios are in constant relation to me, as long as I hold them in the forefront of my mind. Or I may change them in my imagination in relation to my constant me. I can have a different thought. Meanwhile I am moving in relation to the landscape I'm passing through. The world I'm passing through appears not to be moving in relation to me, although I know it is. This whole relative world; all knowledge, opinion, taste, memory – all that I consider true about myself and say this is me, I know this, I've been there; is constantly part of me. I can remember it now, forget it, and remember it again later. But these things, these memories continually – wink in, wink out – are in recurring relation to me. I light up on someone's memory board and whether I'm consciously aware of it or not entanglement theory is working – I'm in someone else's world – oops – now I'm gone. In every way the description quantum physics gives of my world rings true. I meet my lover; we kiss – our worlds merge – what previously were seen as separate isolated units, now appear diffuse and wavelike. Reality isn't in the concrete and rationally definitive but in the substratum, the pool in which we ARE CONSTANTLY REDEFINING THINGS.

We know the world to be made up of atoms and sub-atomic particles. We know this, and we've heard of quantum physics and butterflies fluttering their wings and causing storms on the other side of the world. But we have our feet firmly on the ground, and know we live in a physical world of cause and effect. What's here is here; it was here yesterday, and will be here tomorrow, and the only changes possible are changes engendered by physical causality. The wind and the rain over a period of time erode hillsides. In a mechanical universe, the earth's form is changed over time by purely physical forces. And it's there to stay. Any further change is through action and reaction, one thing acting on and modifying another. If I have a stomach cancer today, I will have it tomorrow, this is commonsense; the rest is woowoo. Yet this is not true either. There are too many examples of spontaneous remission to hold these common beliefs with such certainty. On the other hand the quantum world of physics is completely unpredictable. It doesn't involve cause and effect; certainly not as we commonly imagine them. We're used to the concept of say – driving a car, being distracted, running into a brick wall – end of story. Cause and effect!!!???

But cause and effect, if it works at all, works in a vertical line in time, not a horizontal. So when we draw a tarot card, or cast runes, or throw the I-Ching; we aren't participating in cause and effect on a physical level, but at right angles to time; which is nothing less than ETERNITY. Shakespeare in Sonnet 18 writes, - _'Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, when in_ _eternal_ _lines to time thou grow'st_ '. And in that moment NOW; the straws or the stones or the runes or the cards, tell a story. And this is possible because we don't live in a Newtonian world of action and reaction. We live in a quantum world of magic. This is why reading the tarot makes sense. Because, as we lay the cards randomly in front of us; they represent the energy and meaning present at that time. They wouldn't have appeared in so many cultures in so many forms unless they spoke to us in this way. The fact that so many poo poo them is their elusive fey quality. Our preferred belief is in a world that's fixed and mechanical. Yet potentiality changes, the moment one doorway is chosen over another; so what is true NOW, changes - bang - like that with our last choice! Which is why fortune-telling, can be so unreliable.

This line of eternity Shakespeare speaks of is very important. It runs unbroken from our Eternal home like an umbilical cord. Through this cord we are continually refreshed, much like a computer screen, moment by moment. And there is no boundary between one moment and the next. This lack of a boundary; requires the appearance of time, to explain change. If nothing changed, we could have no concept of time. There would be nothing more than the moment NOW. Nor would there be any movement. Movement is merely the appearance of change. It is through this Line of Eternity that Creation rushes in. All the knowledge that allows for the life we experience; runs up and down this moment NOW. The world in which we move and age; is enabled moment by moment, grain of sand by grain of sand, much as imaged by the English poet William Blake in his poem, Auguries of Innocence, "to see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wild flower". The linear appearance is the way we make sense of it \- nothing more. The sense of involvement with others and a life lived in common relates to our common source. At the still point of the hub of the wheel I cannot distinguish yourstory from mystory.

There is nothing we cannot know. What's the biblical phrase? " _And I say unto you, ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."_ Ask the questions and the answers will come; if not now soon, but come they will.

All knowledge past and present, tells of who we think we are. " _Who shall I say_ _I am_ ", Moses asked? " _I am_ _that_ _I am_ _; tell them_ _I am_ _sent you_ ", was God's reply. Such was the instruction God gave to Moses, when he asked him to lead the children of Israel to the Promised Land. Christ said, _"_ _I am_ _the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except by me"._ In Shakespeare's play, 'Othello', the villain Iago, describes himself as, " _I am that I am not_."

I AM. This is a description of you and me. There is nothing outside of this. Who am I? I am myself. Yet it's around this central pivotal experience that the whole world spins as if on a merry-go-round. We spend lifetimes discovering who we are. Yet illusion is exactly what it says. An illusion is not real. All the books in the world explore this single question, - MYSELF. God's injunction to Moses is huge. He is saying – tell them you come from the 'one' who has no attachment, the pure 'I AM'. Christ says – ' _I AM_ ' – that which is pure being, is the way, the truth and the life. That is his entire message. I AM is the way to live – it is the truth of our life – and it's the very life itself. I AM – unadulterated consciousness. The meaning of Iago in Shakespeare's play is clear. I am attached man with all his foibles and petty jealousies. I am not to be trusted because I AM **NOT** THAT I AM. It all comes down to who are you? I AM MYSELF. Then I AM.

Chapter Five

NOT MAKING SENSE IS NON SENSE

" _It is much more about knowing that many different people are at different points of awakening, and that it is awareness which empowers a life, not knowledge. You will come to realize that many people have a lot of knowledge, and yet their lives are not really better for it. And perhaps some begin to chew the tail, round and round in pursuit of the answer or the completion. And that is really the trap of the mind, because the mind will never be satisfied, because the mind is not designed really to be at the full stop. The mind is encouraged to be open and to take in all that the senses of this world can bring._

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

I AM writing down my thoughts to somehow make sense of what seems in so many ways nonsensical. Non sense! Not to have any sense. I believe I live in a world of meaning. I believe this passionately. Yet when I try to write down or speak my meaning, it often eludes me. Non sense! I've always thought I knew everything. Everything that is, that I felt was important to know. But what I believe important, isn't I know what others find important. Ever since I was a young man, as far back as I remember; I have wished to make sense of my world.

When my wife of thirty years left me, I was grief-stricken. For months after this long relationship with another person was terminated in, as it were a moment, I felt as if my cells were tearing themselves apart. I also felt an enormous sense of relief, because for some reason our particular combination of energies didn't work. But then again they did. They brought us to that moment of separation; and over the course of our marriage, a lot of strong ideas that didn't serve me were broken down. Yet the pain I experienced at a cellular level was big. I felt abandoned, not so much by my ex-wife as by the universe. I imbue the universe with great intelligence and understanding. I can't remember when I thought differently. It was not then, entirely the loss of my wife, but a feeling that everything I had grown to believe - so strongly that I couldn't distinguish between the beliefs and myself - suddenly were in doubt; because if they were true, where was the sign post, where was the way forward.

I couldn't accept this state of being. I thought; my life as I've lived it is consistent with my experience; if it isn't then I'm deluded. Not only am I deluded but everyone else is right and this I won't accept. I cannot accept a world where our involvement with life is soulless, driven by self need and blind to everybody else's. A physical existence mired in materialistic dreams. Well that's pretty heady stuff isn't it? It's one of my pet takes on the way people live. You'll feel as strongly about a different belief, but with a similar sense of self-righteousness. That's how we're made. So I took the advice of another extraterrestrial I met in a book. His name was P'taah. He told me four things that have proved of enormous benefit for me:

\- You are he said, a divine being in a limited body.

\- You live on a planet of free choice.

\- You are always safe.

\- When you feel the fear in your gut, give it your full

attention and lovingly transmute it to joy.

And each morning I'd awaken to the most awful fear, lying like lead in the pit of my stomach, and say over and over inside myself: I am a divine being in a human embodiment, I live on a planet of freewill and I am safe. I am safe because no matter what happens to me I shall never be divorced from my divine nature - therefore fear – be transmuted into joy. I repeated this as a mantra for as long as was necessary. And in the course of time – half an hour, an hour, two hours I'd feel the fear recede and joy filling my life.

We are so determined to make sense of our existence, but our existence eludes sense. Life isn't how we assume it to be. Life is multi-layered. There are stories within stories within stories. I want to explore with you what constitutes my meaning or non-meaning and what exactly is this LIFE; because for me there is no more important activity. And as you read _my_ story, remember that you are the same as me. Tell yourself as you read, the parallel, - _your_ story. In this way you will see that content is not important. It is the process of life that matters and how we derive meaning from it. Your outer story is different, but the inner reins of passion and reason are the same.

I was born in the 20th century and brought up as an Anglican. I believed in God, but what that God was, is another question. I don't think I ever subscribed to the picture of some white bearded old gentleman sitting placidly on a cloud, smiling beneficently down on us. As I grew up my thoughts concerning God definitely coalesced around a seed of energy, an essence from which the universe manifested itself in all its varied forms.

So what gives meaning to life? In a real not a theoretical way! The meaning of our life is what gives my/your life meaning NOW. If my wife leaves me, or my son or daughter die; my world will be full of pain. And the knowledge that others have been left, or that other people's children have died is of small consolation. But how I move from that small space, how I make meaning out of meaninglessness; this enables who I am; it is an organic creation from the centre of my being. And an accumulation of many such experiences, and how I evolve from them, gives an umbrella meaning to my life. How I choose to respond to loss, how I choose to respond to good fortune, how big is my compass – to encompass, to take into the orbit of my being... And each of our individual experiences goes out from us to those we come in contact with. How we relate to others has a direct correspondence with, who we are, and the circle of our influence is like flinging a pebble into a still pond; it has no limit. We don't have to evangelize or proselytize, because we're like lighthouses, we can't stop our being radiating out and intermingling with others.

This gives meaning; this is making sense of existence. This is also having autocracy or control around knowing. So that I can look at this byte of meaning; and say, _'aha, so that's what it's all about_ '. In 2001 when I met Raman Pascha, he told me to keep a journal, and that it would help give meaning and understanding around my life. Well, I kept that journal for two years fairly rigorously. After my meeting with him, I'd seen my life as some sort of spiritual pilgrimage. Not that this was a new way for me to view my life. But I had to stop keeping it because my life began to make no-sense. It was like a world run riot. During the period of my journal keeping, I had this vision of people reading it to find out what life was all about. But when my life became completely out of control, I thought, _'David, who's kidding who'_. My marriage of thirty odd years had come apart. I had no job, huge credit card debt and no idea at all as to the meaning of life. I got in my car and I drove. I drove for days on end with no particular destination in mind. I just needed to be on the move. Everything I had believed through my first fifty-five years I no longer believed. Yet nor did I have any idea what I really did believe. I thought at the time that this was this and that was that, but really I still don't know. What was known, absolutely beyond any doubt; was that the world was not the way I and countless others had been brought up to believe. Nor did it resemble the world of the philosophers or the old religions.

Making sense, ascribing meaning, is metaphor. Nothing in this life is exactly what it is. In making sense, in ascribing meaning, we place an image over the top of what is already there. Whether it's our day at the office, a night at the movies, watching pictures of carnage in war on cable TV, or eating dinner; the picture I place over the top personalizes it, gives it my particular meaning. But there comes a time when it seems that ascribing sense to existence is just a game. It's not sense that is needed; but to drop the pretences and the ploys, and start to see that what's in front of our eyes is a divine mystery. We are face to face with our human family, and all we have done throughout history is to seek advantage over them. We set up power blocks and call it life. Our laws and institutions; our public faces, our private faces, all seek supremacy at the expense of others. We call it sound business practice; we call ourselves managers and executives, policemen, lawyers and doctors and so on. And behind these masks of office, we play at lawmaking and health services and public utilities and so on. But as individual members of our human family we are called employees or criminals, patients, clients, customers; and here we lose ourselves. Meanwhile in an age of cable TV and the internet; as the world stage comes closer to home; we have responsibility around what we watch. Maybe we have responsibility around the actions of our fellow human beings?

How we live; our societies, our rules and regulations, our laws and religions, sciences, philosophies; all of these are just stories. At some stage, a person or a group in society convinced enough others of the veracity of their belief for others to take it on as an established truth. But concepts are only perceptions that we've substantiated by giving the perception a name. If we look from one culture to another, or even to different times in the same culture; what people believe and insist on in their daily life differs dramatically.

Two of the greatest stories of our time are the creation myth and the evolution myth. Societal myth is making sense! These two have strong advocates and appear divisionary. There is no particular reason why they should be! Creation happens in a moment and evolution is an act of creation over time. The schism between the two viewpoints lies of course in the images of man from ape and man born of God. So an ape is not from God? Anyway they are only stories.

What is meaning? If I'm hungry because I haven't the money to feed myself, I'm in a less than desirable situation. If I'm hungry because I'm fasting, then I'm happy in part because my state is the result of my desire. If I'm hungry and standing outside a fruit shop with no money, I can reach out and take a piece of fruit, bite into it, and I'll be on the way to being satisfied. Of course the fruit shop owner's going to yell 'thief' and call the police. Meaning? I live mainly in a world where stealing is unlawful, so unless I'm really desperate I'll probably content myself by looking longingly. Meaning? My world meaning is shaped by the laws of the society I live in, which are no more than societal myth. Law is what we've agreed to amongst ourselves, even if it's an acceptance or assumption that, 'that's the way things are'. By what right do I claim something as mine? If I lived in a society where all things were shared equally and no payment was required, I wouldn't at that point be constrained in this way. Meaning? The meaning of my world would be changed by that particular societal myth. My world is shaped meaningfully by the beliefs I'm surrounded with.

A criminal, a law breaker; doesn't not accept society's laws! S(he) accepts the laws but breaks them. To be free of law in a real way is to step outside of mass consciousness. Here anything can happen and our image of a starving, penniless thief becomes redundant. Because that scenario required someone whose entire world of meaning is built on a shared world view. Change the ' _world view_ ,' and everything changes. The boundaries aren't, not necessarily respected, but they are seen as of little importance. Something else, something deeper takes our attention.

What gives meaning to our lives? Are we layers of beliefs piled on top of an essential we? As a baby we manifest as undefined being. As such, we observe life, and begin to imitate what we see. We cannot as infants look out, without incorporating what we see into our sense of, ' _who I am'_. If we didn't do this we would arrive at adulthood as innocent as the day we were born. Our world would be like living in the centre of an IMAX movie screen surrounded by images we can make no sense of. Memory too is reliant on this meaning; and without memory we'd be God's fool, surrounded by images, sounds, tastes, smells that would swirl and resonate about us and life would be no more than a giddy high. But it's not like this. This is not the way that human consciousness is composed.

We come into this world with characteristics of being, tucked away in our purseful of genomes, and this in turn characterizes the way that we as newly emerged beings interact and view our new polarized habitat. In each moment of consciousness; as we see and hear and touch and taste and smell, and engage consciously with our new world, we literally by osmosis indefinably exchange energies. Imagine, _we are_ the world, and what we commonly think of as _us_ , is just the nucleus of our universe. And we live amongst billions of blazing suns. There in the creative source of heart, we stand at our centres and create. Drawing on the potentiality definable in our DNA; we swim in and out of our various manifest universes; altering our genome bank as we go. We add bits that weren't there before, we alter this one, refine another, toss away another. So as creator Gods we play. But because of the 3D nature of living in polarity, and because we don't know ourselves as creator Gods, we believe we are acted upon, not acting on. We seem to be the subject of our beliefs, and our experience is of a universe separate from us, of which we're the object.

No longer then are we aware of how we continually shape our world or are part and parcel of all we see around us; but rather we conceive all these stories! Of how we are born of God, and are dependent on a divine creator. In variants around this we've built up requirements of conduct with huge swathes of guilt and the need for redemption. We have stories of being incomplete, asleep, separated from our divine nature; of being tossed out of paradise for our sins, and of women having to give birth in pain. Other cultures have similar scenarios, of returning lifetime after lifetime wrapped in karmic debt, again the result of wrong action. Of the need to work off our debts if we are to take life seriously, or we will always live in outer darkness. Some faiths imagine they need to convince others of their particular viewpoint, and actively try to convert unbelievers. These are the stories we tell ourselves. And this is how we are drawn into meaningful lives that everybody believes, and yet it is all based on stories, largely made up to explain who, where and why. It is all lies. Not to deceive others, but for mutual deception. Only by individual choice can we turn our personal tides. Only then, like the salmon, swimming back upstream from whence we came, can we raise our heads above the common beliefs.

Who are we? Writing these words I come to a full stop. What do we know? Most of what we think and say to each other; is just a sequence of thoughts that don't necessarily even reflect what we think. What I believe about myself now, isn't what I may think in a moment. I cannot sit down and in an hour give you a synopsis of my beliefs. Sit with me tomorrow and I'm liable to tell you a different story. Moreover if I tell you my thoughts, you will probably derive a meaning I never intended. And as you listen, you'll be thinking an entirely separate set of thoughts that bear no resemblance to what I am saying. So who are we and what is our meaning?

Our consciousness is of a physical reality. That is one consciousness at any rate. We have many consciousnesses. It's as though we are the source of a beam of attention. And wherever this beam alights, that is our world. Our world is a kaleidoscope of change, and what we think and feel is reflected in or colours our view. Our perception, our emotions are primarily related to what we see and hear, or otherwise bring in through the five senses. We can never see the world separate from our knowing. Nor can we divorce our perception from our personal ongoing experience. If we're having a difficult time at work, this will change the quality of our perception. If one of our children is playing up or our spouse has thrown a birthday dinner; any of these circumstances change what and how we see the world. Each moment, each infinitesimal moment in time, our world is literally a construct. And there's no escape from our sensory perception, our beliefs, our thoughts or our feelings. Our experience is like that of a butterfly pinned to a board. That butterfly is us. Moment by moment, my senses, mind and feelings are in constant conscious, relationship to my changing environment. My mind is in constant movement, my feelings change moment by moment, my senses present a stream of information; all of these are alive in me. And as my world changes so I imperceptibly move forward in time. And we call this life. Time is the perception of change.

So what is going on? Within this everchanging and inconstant world such as I've described, what is constant? Who is there, that has a name and personality we can assume a stable relationship with? What do we imagine ourselves to be, and who do others imagine that we are? And is either our imagined self or others images of our imagined self, real? For those of us interested in questions of the who, what or wherefore of existence; we're very sure that who we appear to be, is obviously not who we really are, and so we look for ways or means, or evidence that there's an internal evolution or private journey, we can take back to ourselves. There are those who offer themselves as teachers; there's what we call scripture – illumined sources of divine instruction, or in other words channelled material – there are umpteen books offering New Age versions of channelled instruction, and interpretations of various teachers past and present. There are disciplines of study; psychology, theology, philosophy and many others; all instructing, discussing, arguing, the merits, demerits and so on. All of these have a basic assumption. This assumption being that we aren't who we appear to be, or if we are, we don't know it. What do I think? I think that I am an idea in the mind and heart of God, filled out with his love, and that I am just one story dreamed. And as an active component in this thread of existence I am a little bit of God. When I know myself, I am indistinguishable from myself; I am that I am; Tat sat ahum. That consciousness I am.

How does it work? If we're co-creators, little Gods; why do we fall sick, why do we have wars, why do we hate and fear, and appear to have no concept of our Godhood? If it's not true, and we're not separated from our real selves – how come no one knows it? Think of my description of the beam of attention, that as it were pins us to a restricted view of ourselves. We do literally become at each moment. Our becoming is entire, because there's not a particle that does not dance in the light. But because every little bit of us, is there at the coal face; we literally have no knowing, apart from the storyline that's unfolding. It's a strange and uncanny process; because our knowing is the major component of every experience. Without memory, and without our sense of self, we would like moths, burn in the flame of our desires. Memory is the storehouse that enables us to remember, compare, and validate or invalidate our experiences. It's there at each waking moment along with our storyline.

Like well scrolled sheets, each day we're written over, a relay station for our various pit stops during the day. Most of us, whilst operating in normal operating mode, merely sop up what is presented to us by the newspapers and magazines we've read, television we've watched; what we've heard from family and friends and others we may have talked with during the day; all of which is then imprinted in the outer level of consciousness, and passed on as our personal viewpoints. All that happens is that we act as a memory disc for unprocessed information. I use the term well scrolled sheets because we write over what is previously written down, all the time taking from what has been written last. And this is us in normal operating mode. To go beyond this type of consciousness we need to come to our senses. Coming to our senses, means that instead of operating as a relay station, we start to use our senses consciously. When we come to realize that our senses can provide knowledge, we're recognizing that there's a world beyond the surface world we're used to living in. This recognition is the awakening of the seed, which once germinated, eventually brings us to ourselves.

This seed is inside us, and our inner and outer worlds correspond. This last is an important ingredient because it means we can be validated both inwardly and outwardly. Before we begin to appreciate our senses as anything other than fingers to the physical realm, stimulated in a sensory way, rather than as organs of knowledge, our inner world is flat. Mostly we believe that there's nothing beyond the physical, and that our inner world is just the sensations and thoughts the physical world gives rise to. So if we start to look further, whatever our beliefs may be, we start to change the landscape of _who we are_. And sifting through whatever we are presented with – we may say _\- not this, not this_ ; and following our inner guides search out new meaning.

Because our inner and outer worlds correspond, when we look for validation of our beliefs we always find it. Non-believers in for instance the Christian ethic, often consider Christians, particularly fundamentalist Christians, to be deluded. Nothing in a non-believers world validates fundamentalism. In contrast, a Christian, who firmly believes in the risen Christ; literally experiences the risen Christ. And this outgoing experience that we all see; is duplicated inwardly. And they believe. The same is true of those who are attracted to eastern religion and philosophy. They may practise meditation. And this leads them inwardly to their experience of nirvana. They experience a heightened sense of reality and feel they have crept up the evolutionary ladder and they may have. But despite these experiences in our daily life, we all still experience life as a series of ups and downs and get caught up in our emotional world: we are all the same in this.

I'm not saying there's no way out of the standard experience of life. I'm saying that we'll always find validation, because this is the nature of experience here on Planet Earth. So someone who believes there is nothing outside of the senses; is likely to find a world that mirrors their certainty that nothing lies beyond death. Outwardly life may be hard and unrelenting. Inwardly they may face a meaningless world, offering no hope of redemption. The Christian may inwardly experience joy in the knowledge, that after a lifetime of suffering to be, or quiet joy in their personal saviour, they'll be vindicated in the afterlife. The eastern mystic may contemplate his or her personal nirvana and experiencing synchronicity and ' _what was meant to be_ ', in their physical realm, wait translation to a new plane of being after death. All are right and all are wrong.

In her book ' _A Stroke of Insight'_ , the neuroanatomist, Dr Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D. tells her story of a stroke which incapacitated the functioning of her brain's left hemisphere and led to experiences of boundless bliss. These are her words: _"I remember that first day of the stroke with terrific bitter-sweetness. In the absence of the normal functioning of my left orientation association area, my perception of my physical boundaries was no longer limited to where my skin met air. I felt like a genie liberated from its bottle. The energy of my spirit seemed to flow like a great whale gliding through a sea of silent euphoria. Finer than the finest of pleasures we can experience as physical beings, this absence of physical boundary was one of glorious bliss. As my consciousness dwelled in a flow of sweet tranquillity, it was obvious to me that I'd never be able to squeeze the enormousness of my spirit back into this tiny cellular matrix._ "

However, meditation and spiritual work bring experiences not dissimilar to those we may experience in our dream world, or through drug induced states. In all of these the world as we know it changes: time disappears, everything appears blissful and without definition; swimming in a sea of love a sense of where I begin and end disappears; everything is known to be other than what we commonly experience. Unfortunately there's no particular desire at the time to remember or describe this world for others, or for ourselves in a normal state, because it's so obvious how things are, that we know we'll always remember. Yet as the consciousness returns to normal, the world reverts to what we have come to expect and our memory of what life can be like is gone. What's most significant about the above is that it reflects the goal of the Spiritual adept, the, _'would be'_ disciple and yet is often largely experienced by chance and circumstance.

What's pertinent is that we assume our own experience to be the valid truth. Our Human tool requires us to turn our life into story, our experience into meaning, our stories and meanings into the truth we must share with others, so that they also are redeemed. What's clearer to me now is that all our stories, our meanings, our experience, our knowledge; do exist. They are as real as the chair in which I sit. Our meaning gives everything meaning. Awareness is the substratum in which all the above take place. My awareness is an expansion of my, _'who I am'_ , in a way that is meaningful to me. We can't separate our experience of the world from the meaning we attribute to it. This is because awareness is not pure consciousness – it's full of our understanding of life, the meaning we impose on observation; and it's different for each person. To stop making sense means to detach from our own meaning. Life breathes out; breathes in. Creation flows out from its source; from nothing to something to nothing. Just as we return from our daily activity into the privacy of our home only to go out again the next day. In the daytime we are active, at night we retire to sleep. Within each of us is Spirit, the seed of all. Within this seed is the void from which we come forth. At the end of the day we return, divesting ourselves of the cloak of Ego and the character, of _Ahankara_ ( _Aham_ \- I am – plus _Kara_ – action) to simple _Aham_ – I am. It is a movement from non-sense to the senses and back to non-sense. The outward and the inward breath! Out to the world; - back, to the Self.

Chapter Six

A GUIDING INTELLIGENCE

" _It may be that an offer is made, or some new information may come your way. If it pertains to need, listen; do not discount things lightly because, 'they are not you, not what you do'. The universal energies are making you an offer. Accept it."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

Let's look at it from another perspective. What does a spiritual path look like within our new perceptions? Let's begin by looking at my own life story, through significant actions, that stand out now as defining events, setting direction and character. And as we go, let's look at life differently. How does it all work? What is certain in my mind; is that life is not going to be different from what it seems. What I mean by this; is that it is not that life is different, but that our perception is askew. Life doesn't have to be, flowing robes and jangling crystals. What I am saying is that the paranormal seen rightly is likely to be normal.

_I'm at boarding school in my seventeenth year; it's the end of year exam time, and as the year has progressed I've become less inclined to study. At this latter part of the year it's unlikely I'll pass. Instead of studying, I'm running around the corridors chasing a friend. He runs through a pair of heavy swinging glass doors. They swing shut behind him, and the next thing I know I'm at the doctors, having my arm sewn up as there's a gaping wound in it. I miss the exams and am accredited, passed on the basis of my schoolwork earlier in the year; something that's a blessing in my early years, as it allowed me entry into work places I wouldn't have been accepted into otherwise. While I'm recuperating in bed the house master loans me two books to read. One is Rabindranath Tagore's, 'Gitanjali', and the other's Kahlil Gibran's, 'The Prophet'. Both will become quite significant in my life several years later when I study at the 'School of Philosophy' in Wellington. They were two of four books given me to read as an introduction to my studies. Meantime this is the first major input of other teachings, offering alternative versions as to what life is about. My father had introduced me to the fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen and John Bunyan's, 'Pilgrim's Progress'. He also told me stories from the Bible as bedtime stories. In my fifth form year when I was sixteen, my English teacher had introduced me to Shakespeare. But it was my introduction to Eastern teaching in my sixth form year that in later years was remembered and experienced as the beginning of my spiritual path. We need to know that meaning is imported, it's not inherent. In other words life is what we make it_.

The next step along the way took place early the following year. I made a friend at my first paid job, who invited me to join a group he was secretary for, The New Zealand Buddhist Society. The group was taught by a student of the Russian philosopher Gurdjieff. Gurdjieff along with one of his pupils, Ouspensky, had a major influence in the formative years of the School of Economic Science in London. This was the parent body of the School of Philosophy that I joined the following year, and was a member of for over thirty years. The Buddhist Society held talks twice weekly in a private house in Herne Bay. Here for the first time, I heard ideas which radically altered my perception of the world. The teacher spoke of a divinity that is generic man, and the concept that there has been a teaching since the beginning of time, held safe in monasteries and other repositories of arcane knowledge. That these become available at times of planetary distress, evidenced through wars, violence and obvious physical and spiritual poverty. This all happens through divine mercy and the efforts of a relative few, and awakens us to the knowledge that we are imperfect beings trapped in a body that we mistakenly believe to be, 'who we are'. Realizing that we're more than a body, we make efforts to escape this dilemma. I heard of how schools of esoteric knowledge came into being to remedy the state of society. They connect through the student's effort and integrity, with the hidden teachings, and raise the consciousness of the students and the community in which they live. A few of the more diligent of the students achieve what is called, realization or enlightenment, and this major shift averts the destructive trajectory the world has been on. The school then loses its impetus whilst holding its form. Hence later generations find Masonic lodges, theosophical societies, sweat lodges, and they all have interesting ceremonies and arcane knowledge but it's no longer vital or even completely understood by its members. These ideas set a direction to my life, giving me values around which I would make life choices for many years.

These ideas touched something within me. But as a young man I was torn between enjoying the physical world, and a desire to achieve enlightenment or a state of nirvana - whatever that meant. I honestly didn't really know, but these ideas drew me. So I'd go to the Tuesday classes but not the Saturday, because the Saturday interfered with my social life. This conflict was repeated many times in my life in years to come. Later I was torn, between being an acceptable productive member of society, or dropping out and becoming a hippie. I refused for years to stick a label on myself because I had no desire to be limited or bounded in any way. I've always loved freedom and disliked any attempt to limit it. I hated becoming identified with the establishment because individuality to me has always been more important than the group.

The next significant event in my life was when I decided to go to University. I wouldn't have, except my brother-in-law encouraged me; and not having any reason not to, I did. I chose to study Philosophy and English in that first year. My first class was in Philosophy, and I remember my enthusiasm, as the lecturer discoursed on the morality of keeping promises, when doing so might endanger the life of the person we'd made the promise to. The discussion intrigued me, and as the class filed out, I looked for someone to discuss the lecture with. But everybody was with someone else, talking rugby, parties, girlfriends, and I still remember the well of disappointment I experienced. Later I stood in the central vestibule of the old clock tower outside the doors leading into where the library used to be. And I thought of the Tuesday night discussions and I thought of the University; and all about me I heard chatter about everything except learning and I thought; true knowledge is not to be found in the university. The universities may hold information, but knowledge arises from knowing directly.

From that point on my interest in university evaporated quickly. I still attended the Buddhist Society, but here also I didn't feel completely happy. I was interested but not sure the teaching held by the group was quite right. I couldn't put my finger on it; I was sick of my job, sick of University, sick of Auckland and I decided to leave. This was the first of a series of leavings.

Life as we live, it is like being on the outside, and to communicate we need to penetrate within; but penetrating within is like beating on the doors of perception from the outside to no avail. Life's not as we know it. I AM. This is the salient fact. Before I am David, before I am Linda, before I am human, before I am happy, before I am sad, before I am rich, before I am poor; before any description I can give of myself in a defining, conditional way, 'I am'. And 'I am', before I came into existence. But being does not exist in a vacuum. There are forces which appear to be outside us, which are integral to, and related to that which is inside us. They are not mechanical or accidental, but intrinsically related to the forces bunched about our heart. They have more to do with fate than accident.

Meditation is a technique designed to bring us back to ourselves. What does that statement mean? Right now I am on a cruise ship in my cabin. That's a statement made from the level of the thinking mind. It places me in this discursive description, physically on a cruise ship in the middle of the ocean. To be more precise, I'm reclining on my bed typing. Again this is the language of discursive mind identifying this I; the writer, in physical space. This is the implication. Let me close my eyes. I can still feel my physical body. Within my awareness, my discursive mind knows the outer limit of body where bottom and legs touch bed. This mind is aware of a physical body on the bed. But outside of these thoughts, I have to admit that I'm uncertain of what my experience really is. I can sense the merging of bottom, of back, of the heels of the feet where they touch the bed. I sense merged boundaries. Beyond this I must allow awareness to tell me what I experience. I can imagine in my mind's eye, the cabins beyond the cabin where Linda and I lie. I can feel the ship sitting on the water, and imagine it gently responding to the movement of the waves. It is early morning about 1.30am, and all I can hear with the outer ear is the sound of Linda's breath, and the engine of the ship, pushing through the water. I can picture the night outside. Discursive mind creates forms and shapes. It informs me of the limits of the physical world in sensory images. So as a physical being, I can know myself through this thinking mind. I also feel through my body, an endless world of feeling and sensation. I feel it as boundless and without limits. Within this awareness, the forms, the defining edges of thinking mind and the senses disappear. Here with a gentle action of letting go, I can leave the world of the senses, and enter into an inner world, an interior world. It's different, distinct from the realm of thought. A little while ago I was tired. I felt exhausted. Now there's no tiredness. It's gone.

The world of the discursive mind is out there. There our consciousness seems to interpret everything from the outside, and our descriptions are of form and separation. Things have space between them. They will always appear separate, one from the other, because their boundaries don't merge. I can bang one against the other. It's here that I stand as I bang on the outer doors of perception. The world of awareness I'm describing is inward. Here there's no separation. Linda, your breath might be mine, I can't tell who is breathing nor do I think or experience in those terms. Behind awareness of ideas is stillness and formlessness. This feels very safe, very strong, and very permanent. Here I have a sense of coming to myself.

So I decided two things, a habit I developed quite well over the next umpteen years. I decided I'd leave Auckland, my job, and the University, and travel to Kawerau, a small town in the centre of the North Island, where I'd get a job in a timber mill, earn lots of money, and put myself through university full-time the following year. Despite my disappointment with University, it was still an option. It's about being young. People value education. And being young, part of me heard this. Even now, I am constantly seduced by the idea that others know better. Anyway I left Auckland and all my friends with some bravado. Here I became a wanderer, an archetypal role I still have to a large degree. I've no real sense of an earthly home, or even a desire for one. In almost forty years of living in Auckland, I have lived in over twenty-five different houses. I can if I wish curl up on someone else's floor and go to sleep. So I left. But here is where life got interesting; because, when I arrived at the timber mill, they told me I was too young and to come back in a couple of years. I was desolate. I hitchhiked to Rotorua, found a cheap boarding house and spent the night howling into my pillow. I felt so alone. I didn't know what to do. In my mind I'd burned my bridges behind me. I'd told my sisters and friends that I was going to work in the mill so I could go to university fulltime. To not be old enough seemed ignominious. For the first time in a long time, I really felt the fact that I had no parents. It felt I had no one. The next morning I woke up and walked out onto the number one highway which joins Auckland and Wellington; and I had this question in my heart as to what to do. I couldn't go back and face everyone. And so I turned my back on the past and hitchhiked to Wellington.

What is the truth of our existence? Tonight Linda and I conversed with a couple of friends on board, and we talked about spirit paths, where the dead walk on their way to wherever the dead go; we spoke of ley lines as communication pathways where information is available to all; of Lake Taupo, a large, by New Zealand standards lake in the middle of New Zealand, being a sacred water, where all the souls who come into this world, are dipped prior to becoming manifest; we spoke of the akashic records where all our deeds are recorded, and of an astronaut's experience of flying through these records in the van Allen belt, and the profound effect this had on his life; we spoke of the availability of knowledge to whoever cares to draw on it; we spoke of travelling through the centre of the South Island of New Zealand inside the sound of dolphin energy; we spoke of healing; we spoke of souls on earth being called beyond the veil for duty as greeters to the souls of the recently dead, and how this role is an interdimensional role, concurrent with living on earth. These were a small part of our conversation. The most pertinent part of our discussion; was Linda's reply to Gary's observation on the synchronicity of the company he had attracted on the cruise, and the fact that he had dropped pounamu, a sacred New Zealand green stone all the way across the ocean, emblazoning a trail in our bows. And Linda said that she and I had spent several years of attracting a path of healing energy, one step leading to another. And she wasn't surprised that Gary's dropping stones of peace in his wake should not bring a strong universal response. And I can feel that the act of my writing these thoughts evokes what I need to say and this is an energetic response. This is important, because it's a key to how the world works. Our actions invoke responses, and we get back what we sow. This isn't a fatalistic statement. It means that this evoked response is our intent, held in the subtle beam of our attention. Another way of seeing it is; our world accords precisely with the dreams of the creator Gods that we are. We don't exist independently of our world.

Until this stage in my life, there was nowhere I had felt completely alone. Here on the Auckland-Wellington highway, I was poised to move where I knew nobody. I would do this again and again, but this was the first time. And I can remember the feeling. I felt like an old time explorer, heading out into hitherto unknown lands. But they went generally in company together. I arrived in Wellington at about six o'clock that night. And it was a strange experience, because I was dropped off at the railway station. It was an unknown city, where I knew nobody, yet I walked confidently through the streets as if I'd arrived home. I had very little money in my pocket, not enough for more than a few nights lodging, yet it didn't bother me. I remember thinking, weeks later when I'd got used to the city, how I had walked the main artery of Wellington; along Lambton Quay, into Willis Street, Manners Street and Courtney Place, as if they were the streets of home.

I lived in Wellington off and on, for eight years, almost to the day. And off and on during these eight years, I would leave and return, and whenever I caught sight of the city on my return, my heart would leap with joy. I spent about six weeks working as a porter at Wellington Hospital during the day, and my evenings at the library, studying eastern scriptures, and the writings of Ouspensky and Gurdjieff. I lived and breathed Wellington. But in my studies, I couldn't find my way through. I couldn't reconcile eastern and western philosophies, and yet my teacher at the Buddhist Society in Auckland; had said that all religious and philosophical teachings were the same; it was just, that they were written for different times and different places. So I decided to hitchhike back to Auckland and see him. It was the Easter long weekend and I took extended leave. I left the city after work. It was dark within an hour of leaving, and eventually I found myself outside a small town called Bulls, several hours north of Wellington on Highway One, fingers up, hitching for a ride. I decided to walk rather than stand on the side of the road, and I was quite sure someone would come eventually. I walked and walked and it began to rain. There was a steady stream of cars passing and the rain got heavier. I saw to my left what appeared to be a deserted house, and decided to shelter there overnight and try hitching again in the morning. It was an uncomfortable night. At first I tried to sleep in the backseat of an old Model T Ford. Eventually the springs got to me, and as the night became colder I went inside. There was an old bed without a mattress and a fireplace; and I'd seen some firewood in the shed. I lit a fire. Then I tried sleeping on the bed, but finally gave up sleep as a bad job, the fire didn't take strongly and eventually I went out into still pouring rain, on a deserted highway, at about five o'clock in the morning. And I waited. Cars went by intermittently but no one stopped. I became more and more drenched.

Often, throughout my life, I have felt myself forgotten by the Gods. At other times, I've expressed the fervent belief that I have been very well looked after. Timing often seems beyond endurance. But the truth is that I've never been left. What however do I mean by 'the Gods?' Knowledge of what lies beyond the senses is never certain, but is I believe an indication of where the truth might lie. The Greeks and the Romans had, as is well known, many Gods, as did many of the peoples of the old world; the pre-Christian world, the pagan world, also the world of indigenous peoples. The advent of Christianity with its insistence on one God seems antagonistic to these older beliefs. But a pantheistic view of the world, which is quite consistent with the Christian insistence on one God, isn't at odds with these views. Because the concept that the universe is nothing but God, is singular, yet also open to the idea that there may be a myriad of beings included within the framework of God as universe. Nobody for instance argues, that if the universe is singularly God, then neither we nor any other of the myriad creatures, plants, birds and so forth exist; because everything is God. We are encompassed within this. To me the concept of being looked after by the Gods means that this manifest world of God has another aspect, a causal or spiritual nature; just as each one of us has life force within. And we're not only human but also dog and bird and flower, so the other aspect that is unseen will have similar divisions and undoubtedly responsibilities. And this I refer to in a rather loose fashion as the world of the Gods.

_And so at last a car pulled up and a lifelong friendship was formed. There was a man and a boy in the car. The boy I knew for a little less than a year. The man became a friend, and he was instrumental in my attending the School of Philosophy. Ian and I started talking and didn't stop until we reached Turangi, about three hours later. Nor did it stop then, because I stayed in Turangi that night. All the questions that I had accumulated were answered by him._ And this is my meaning; but who the players are and whether they can even accurately be called players I don't know. _There is no doubt that the school was a very formative influence in my life. Then almost forty years later, a chance meeting with this same man, was instrumental in the next profound shift in direction when I met Raman Pascha through the gift of a human channel. That Ian personally dislikes channelling is beside the point. Anyone can be seen as a conduit to a truth, whatever their own beliefs._

I have a strong sense of synchronicity around many things in life. I don't believe things are foreordained, far from it. I believe there's a strong probability that many events and many people's lives develop as they do because of their innate nature. There is therefore a strong likelihood that they'll make particular choices. But the possibilities inherent in any moment of time are incalculable. Where there's apparent serendipity or synchronicity around events, it works I believe like this. There's an action that could usefully take place. Like for instance my neighbour struggling to start his car and I happen to have a set of starting leads in my garage. So I see my neighbour struggling, perhaps as I'm on my way to work, and offer my assistance which is gratefully received. In the same way I believe that we are always under the watchful gaze of divine intelligence. And owing to our presence in the cradle of the divine, we are nurtured by the divine. Therefore a nudge happens. Man sees hitchhiker on side of road, is moved to stop and events unfold.

Is it that particular qualities are required of a benefactor? It cannot be just anyone who stops? It may be that there are inner connections that we don't see. Perhaps in a divine aspect – the pair of us, confer as higher selves. There's no doubt that the view from the aspect of a higher self would be different. Arrangements could be made ahead of time. Am I then saying that my friend Ian set out on his journey; not to holiday at Turangi, but to pick me up from the side of the road? And is there synchronicity at work here? Was my friend also served in his development? Are we all servants to each other? Is this play to which we give one meaning, capable of other interpretations? If I were an artist and conceived the desire to make a sculpture I would acquire tools, chisels and hammers and so on. Somewhere along the way I will also have acquired the particular skills I need to use the tools. I also require to be honed as a human being, so that my nature is refined enough to hold any vision I wish to share. What sets one human being on that road? And what and how do the universal aspects of this action of becoming an artist arrange themselves? Is it all completely mechanistic? Or is there an artist within?

Given that there's intelligence at work in the world, how does it work? Many people believe in God but don't necessarily think of the possibility of God at work in the world. Many appear to believe that, yes, there is a God, and yes, we are born through his/her instrumentality; but once the initiating action is taken we are left to our own devices. How then are we honed? How, metaphorically is a human being cut and measured, planed, fitted and polished. Is it that I come filled with a particular desire that can't be fulfilled, so that I'm motivated to take other actions to arrive at what I'm really here for? Now do you see why it's not easy to say who the Gods are? We have stories we tell ourselves. I can make the following statements about my life. I began my training as a teacher because there have been so many teachers in my family. I eventually became an actor, primarily a Shakespearean actor because my high school teacher in my fifth form year had been a professional actor. I spent many years as an accountant probably because I was born under the sign of Virgo and have a tidy mind. I have worked as a gardener because my father loved to garden as do my brother-in-laws. These stories however are true at only one level. They describe me in terms that we're familiar with because we are born into and live in the age we do. The following statement holds more truth. I was born into the family I was born into, because my parents had agreed to die early deaths; so that I would look on life with the eyes of someone who had been left, and this made me yearn for that which would never leave. And was this done, because our age needs people who will remember life has a divine aspect, and isn't just a dead and mechanistic universe? That they left early is not primarily for me or my sisters needs, but for something personal related to their own development. But like the spokes of a wheel, we all serve each other's purpose. Once you start to ask questions all you can do is follow.

I spoke earlier of the experience of grieving at a cellular level. I described it in the way I did, very consciously, because I wished to emphasize a distinction between the grief of the heart or the mind, and cellular grief. If a baby loses a birth parent and the remaining parent gets a new partner, the baby realigns its cells in relation to the new caregiver to create a bond between them. So, two people living together for a long time, align their cells to each other's, that they may better work as a couple. This isn't an intellectual exercise. The brain doesn't order each cell to align itself. What happens is that each cell has its own intelligence and acts in concert with all the others. So if there's a physical and emotional divorce of the couple, the cells tear themselves apart. We live at the level of the individual, yet not everyone does. In China, descriptions of who you are is in terms of the group, so in a physical address the individual's name comes last as the least important description. Maybe then, where we habitually see life lived from the level of the individual, it would be more accurate to say it's lived cellularly, and that the individual is the least important part. As above so below!

Where is life lived? This is a very real question. Biological science has demonstrated that innate intelligence resides in the human body at a cellular level. Decisions around the health and welfare of the body; operate independently of the conscious mind, and yet we generally consider ourselves as sentient beings that have arrived where we have on the evolutionary tree, because of the development and capacity of our brains. If we, as individuals, tried to use the mind to override and act in lieu of the body's defence and healing systems, we would be dead in the blink of an eye metaphorically. So my question, where is life lived; is asking, where is our intelligence? Does it reside in the brain alone, and are the body systems only highly evolved programs that act in a purely mechanistic fashion. It seems not. Our medical brethren often act in ways that interfere with or shortcut body systems, and not necessarily beneficially. If you consider the intelligence displayed by the body in creating an antibody for something it considers harmful to the body; or the way a fertilized egg commandeers a woman's body until the baby is born and even afterward. Recently there has been a great deal of scientific interest in the discovery that the activity of mind and the interchange of information throughout the body is a little like a huge city – there's no less activity in the body and brain when we sleep than when we are engaged in relating to the activity of the world. Our system is constantly monitoring and tweaking itself, outside of the influence of the conscious mind. Comparatively, our conscious mind, is like an infant who has stumbled upon Mum's computer, and is having a whale of a time pushing buttons with goodness knows what disastrous consequences. And yet, if we consider how life evolves from one decision, to another decision, to another; we have a sense of growth and maturing. At sixty odd, I look back over my life and wonder at the evolution of understanding around so many questions and concerns that life has presented over the years. I ask: – where is the guiding intelligence? Both Shakespeare in his plays, and Plato in his dialogues, consider the individual and the state as composed of mutually interdependent systems working on behalf of the whole. But if I think of my mind and its knowings, I'm impressed more with what I don't know and haven't the capacity to govern. Yet I feel governed, and I feel knowing; so my sense is that if I have a guiding principal it is both within and without. I feel guided. And I know that I am minded both by systems within, that act perfectly, without which I wouldn't have a body to inhabit; and I feel guided also by an intelligence outside that seems much more refined than my moving mind, that places me where best I can proceed.

It's funny. In talking about my younger self, my cognitive mind knows that that boy is me. But something inside me tells me that's not so. It's more like he was a version from another lifetime or an alternative universe. My explanation for this is that I seem to have moved so far from that young boy's awareness of his world. I feel true understanding lies in our intuition and that this knowing is available to us all. But our rational thinking minds won't even go there; because this type of insight flies in the face of the sense the world has chosen to make, of who we are and what is possible.

Yet if we are a conglomerate of hundreds of lifetimes that somehow coalesce into a single being, it makes more sense to imagine parts of us playing at different times; different aspects being prominent at one time, and then another aspect coming forward; all the aspects being us. It makes more sense than saying – this is my zillionth lifetime, and all those others are past and gone – now what was I there? We are not compartmentalised NOW. One moment we feel one thing, the next the exact opposite. So it makes sense to look back at what reason says is an earlier part of this life, and know that we have moved on.

And we can conceive of this in many different ways. Our passions are not accidental. They are the embodiment of what is of fundamental importance – not for the characters we play but for the real being; the constant player; the one who comes back over and over, picking up many parts. Always remember, we are not good or bad. We play baddies and goodies. And just as no matter what part our favourite actors play, in each part we can see their enduring qualities, the little tricks they use in their craft; so it is for us. We have enduring qualities, and a wealth of experience and knowledge that we can plug into at anytime.

This is important to remember. When, in any lifetime, we undertake study or pursue particular skills, often we appear extraordinarily good at what we do. Well? Why wouldn't we be? It's not the first time. So it is with a Mozart or a da Vinci, Shakespeare, Bush, Gaddafi, Obama... But it is equally true for those of us who live unseen; our names and characteristics known only to our family, friends and colleagues. We all have our areas of expertise, and nothing much is hidden. There is a very beautiful corollary to this. What it means is that it is never too late. If a passion stirs in your breast and you come to love something that you really are not very good at - don't, - not pursue it! If you discover a new way of expressing yourself, but feel you are too old and it hardly seems worthwhile, \- don't, not do it. What you begin to practise now, you can pick up again and again and again. A little like Bill Murray's egocentric weatherman in the movie, _'Groundhog Day'_ ; who finds himself in a time warp, and is able to repeat actions over and over until he has perfected them. So it is in life. If we don't get it right this time around don't despair. We are not a limited, random, accidental product of evolution. We are highly intelligent, high functioning Gods and Goddesses who have descended to earth, and we have eternity and infinite space as our playground.

What is important to know and remember is that what has once been known cannot be unknown. And if it can't be unknown, then all that's been learned in all our embodiments, as well as anything we may come to know between embodiments, in times spent in some other galaxy or transpersonal universe; all of this knowledge is available to us whenever we need it. That's an awful lot of knowing. Think about it.

Chapter Seven

AUTHENTIC SELF VS ACQUIRED NATURE

" _At this time in the life of humanity more than any other, there is such spiritual hunger, and many want to make it relevant to their lives. They want to know, that they don't have to give away their power to a doctrine, or a religion. Some want that for security. But some really don't want to be disempowered; and they don't want to give up their individuality or their own self-authority, but they are looking for a way."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

We must be authentic. It's not possible to live with integrity and play at life. And yet we do just that - play at life. We look to others for cues on how to behave. We evolve as social beings by learning from those around us. We don't so much, come to an understanding and knowledge of things, as that we come to the accepted knowledge of things. To step outside of conformity, is to be an enemy of the established system. But our conforming often requires us to reject our own inner knowing. When I was born sixty odd years ago, it was a big thing to stand outside of the mainstream, and have ideas and beliefs different from the 'norm'. If they were as different as some of the ideas I hold these days, I'd probably have been locked away in a mental institution and given shock therapy, electric shocks to the brain to dispel my wrong thinking. Today this is no longer true, as western culture, in fact all cultures, at least believe themselves more embracing of differences of thought. And yet basically nations still run on old ways of thinking. It has a strange effect in society, because many pay homage to the thoughts of our parent's generation, whilst others struggle with and begin to embrace new concepts.

We live in earthly bodies; very vulnerable, soft, defenceless... We live on a planet spinning quietly away in space, surrounded by countless other planetary bodies and suns, yet appear to be alone. When I look at you, I know who you are, if you look at me. Otherwise you may well be a stranger. We are _known_ to each other in unfathomable ways that fly in the face of reason. I know you because we all come from the same place and return to the same place! And in our beginnings we are known to each other as well as we know the face in the mirror. Yet this is not part of our shared beliefs. We don't even think this type of thought. Who knows seven billion people? And that's only the ones embodied as human? What we know and what we accept as fact is what we see, or what those we trust tell us. We believe facts are verifiable and non-negotiable. Facts come as a package and are updated on a regular basis. Yet even verifiable and accepted realities differ depending whether we are Russian, American, Christian, Buddhist, rich, poor, male, female...

How to be honest? Honesty is the most difficult action in the universe. To know what is, and stand by it! Even in my most honest moments I find it difficult to stay completely truthful. The images we carry of our lives are a fabrication, a pretty picture no matter how philosophical. Truth is often blunt and defying of rationality.

We are busy telling each other, stories. Some of these stories are large and involve a significant part of the planet. Some are small and only involve myself. For instance, the story of the Second World War is like a conglomerate of stories. And depending on who you are, the story will be different. If I'm a German war widow, my story will be significantly different from say; a French collaborator, a child evacuated from London, a New Zealand soldier fighting in Europe a whole world away from home. I've chosen randomly here. But you can appreciate that there's not one story of World War 11. There are as many stories as there are people that experience them - at least. There are as many stories as there are times that we remember.

Consider the breakdown of a marriage. Each time we think of it our perspective will have changed, and we will see and remember the breakdown a little differently. Different parts of the story may come to mind. Or a memory may tie into a particularly painful emotion. We may have recollections of good times and experience both happy and sad memories around them. We may lay subsequent ideas over the top because they are a preferred truth to the real one which wasn't the truth either! Not only is there not a single story from one person, but the various participants all remember it differently. The husband and wife, the children if any, the neighbours, colleagues, friends, public officials; all have a completely differing perspective on this one story. And their version will change, expand or contract, be sadder or more or less dramatic each time it is told. There is no single unchanging form for any of our stories. Not only is there no single unchanging form, but nor do many of the stories equate with the physical reality. Memory is subjective, and parts based on fact, will be remembered differently by each person involved. The factual matter can change with time as memory alters, and the subjective nature will be different at every single moment. The mind doesn't know all there is to know about an event all at the same time. We appreciate events as lineal but this is not how we recall them. I may remember a dinner the night before at a friend's. I am unlikely to remember every, or even most moments of it. I will remember from what was most significant for me, and I will shift back and forth in time as I recount the dinner. I will also be influenced by what's happening now; and memories from other times reinterpreting more recent memories. Think of ' _fact_ ', as an abbreviation for ' _f_ _ixed_ _act_ _ion_ ': a crystalline form of the past and this is our, _'physical reality'_.

Despite this being the common experience, we pretend this isn't the case. We act as though there is a fixed final account; and if we could only be precise enough there would be no moving from the best possible précis of each event. We assume in recounting the first time you and I met, that what we remember was real. It is more accurate to say that our memory is of something imagined. The image I bring to mind may be quite clear, and depending on my power of observation and memory for these things reasonably accurate. Where your car was parked might be reasonably accurate, what was said close to perfect. But what did we think as we spoke. And what did the words really mean. Even such a simple sentence as, _'my name is David'_ , will be loaded with meanings that will not be in mind as I speak. When I was a child, my father told me Bible stories of King David of the Psalms. Of his days as a young shepherd, his friendship with Jonathan, and his courage on the field of battle. I also read as a young man how David sent a young soldier out into the forefront of battle to be killed, so that he could enjoy the soldier's wife, Bathsheba. And because of this he was punished by the Lord, and was not allowed to raise a Temple to the Lord, although his and Bathsheba's son Solomon did. But note this that the pearl, Solomon, came from the mating of David and Solomon. I read this story as a young man and thought of my own life with all its imperfections, betrayals and failures. I often identified myself with King David. I may not remember this as I say, ' _my name is David'_ but it is there, hidden behind the words.

We imagine we exist in space and time. And although we always think of the future as unpredictable; it has in our minds quite a strong predictability. If I'm sitting in bed chatting while reading the Sunday paper, I don't have any expectation I will find myself sitting in the middle of the Sahara in the next moment. This is because we believe that space and time are extensions of our environmental consciousness. I live with the belief that the room next door or the street outside my front gate; is an extension of where I am in the dining room. And time is a rational continuum whose surprises are more to do with other realities impinging unexpectedly. Like driving along, and another car loses control and careers into mine and my whole life changes. But all the realities that make up my life, are remember, only stories. If I have a strong belief in a space time continuum, I also have a strong belief in my continuing story. I have such a strong belief in my continuing story; that as I stare into the future from where I stand, in my known present, with a valid past; I know who I am, I know where I've been, and I've a fairly good idea where my immediate future is likely to take me. But remember; this person who has such strong knowledge of himself, changes his stories each time he comes to them. There's as much validity in thinking that the world outside my door is as it is because I have such a strong sense of it, as that it exists in its own right irrespective of me.

Where is the proof in all this? The head and the heart appear to stand at opposite ends of a spectrum. Scientific truth is like running around with a rule and a pair of callipers and measuring the dimensions of our dreams. But the scientifically unverifiable is like a red rag to a bull to the empirical mind. I've no more idea than you as to how life really is. What I do know, is that it's not as current wisdom would have it. And maybe, just maybe, reading this book will give you the courage to accept there may be more exciting and more empowering versions of reality. Because, what does society do? It cultivates little flowers. It wants us all to be the same, to uphold the preferred values. It believes there is one answer, and that one answer fits all. It likes to ' _get it right'_ , and then makes us all conform to that model. But societies; ' _got it right'_ , changes every week. Yet society doesn't see itself. And Law and Religion are fine sounding names but law isn't always about justice for all. Often it's society in punitive mode. Mercy doesn't get a look in. Religion is often moral stricture about ways to behave, with the biggest stick of all a jealous and vengeful God. Because we want everyone to conform there's a powerful impetus in the community to force people into a mould.

But emotion is that which moves us in the direction of our life's passion. And when we force our children and each other into particular modes of behaviour, we stop the arteries of emotion, so that our passions go unvoiced and stifled. Our emotions may then become expressed in ways that are abusive and harmful. They may be expressed as antisocial behaviour; as criminal, drunken, drugged out and unhappy. It does this because its proper expression has been stopped. We are divine beings, who have forgotten who we are and why we are here. This isn't by accident. It was the way we planned it. Each of us believes at some level that we have absolute power and absolute knowledge. But because we don't embrace the belief that we are divine, it manifests as - everyone else needing to be helped, because nobody knows quite as much as we do. And so we start to look after each other. We start to tell each other how to behave. If I am known to you, how can you want to hurt me? Yet we make rules for each other through our governments, churches, town councils, family structures, all working on the assumption that we need to be empowering on behalf of others and its okay in the process to disempower them. We find it acceptable to divide our nations in ways that allow some to have and some to not; to tell each other what is acceptable and what isn't; to enable us to make war on each other; to kill and torture, and generally misbehave. All of this is perfectly okay. But there are things we do to our families, we wouldn't do to ourselves. There are things we do to those in our community; we wouldn't do to ourselves or our families. And so on... Who hasn't heard of politicians both local and national, who pass laws they personally break with impunity. Or of evangelists who preach sexual moderation yet don't practise it. The less you are like me the more okay it is to treat you as the object of my theoretical beliefs. Yet if I look into your eyes I see only myself.

We live with a series of images which we call life. At every moment we are poised between what is past and what is to come. We are each of us aware; but what we are aware of, differs from person to person and from moment to moment. Most of us communicate shared beliefs. But there are other realities, and other ways of expressing reality. Who are we? And what is this world outside? Scientists describe it as a bunch of atoms, bound together in specific relationships to form structures such as hydrogen; one of the basic building blocks of nature; oxygen, and other elements. When we look out through our senses this is not what we see. Just as when we look at an oil painting, we see the painting, not the paint.

Looking at our world from the outside, we see ourselves as physical bodies, enlivened with intelligence, apparently interacting with our environment. We have this conceit that we are aware interactive human beings, experiencing thoughts, feelings and sensations; consciously aware individuals in charge of their lives. What does in fact happen? Looking more closely we may acknowledge that the practical reality isn't as we picture ourselves. For instance in walking from one place to another, part of our attention may be on our surroundings, but not a lot. If I'm aware of myself as I walk, I may notice that my inner eye is directed to my inner world of thought. I may be walking across the road to attend a board meeting, and running through my mind the facts I have assembled for my presentation. Or I'm thinking of last night's dinner party or my plans for a new house. A constant stream of thoughts will be passing through my mind, as it flicks from scenario to scenario. It's nearing lunch time and I feel a hunger twinge in my tummy. My knee's paining me from a rugby game in the weekend. What I can't stress enough and what I feel isn't understood; or if it is, not in a practical, common garden sort of way; is the extent to which the physical being is in cruise control. All the sensory input that allows me to cross a busy street, keep moving in the right direction; the act of walking, seeing, hearing; all of these work in a very mechanical way. My attention seems to be directed outward, but it is in fact more involved inwardly. As often as not, we have an introspective glaze. Our world is quite often not the physical environment our body inhabits. Of course we engage with each other. But when engaged for instance in conversation with a friend or colleague; there's a whole world, that any outside observer's not party to. There are secondary levels of unvoiced commentary running through the conversation. There may be more than one stream. The mind has enormous capacity and can carry on a conversation; have several running commentaries about the conversation, commentaries about how the other party looks or acts; and yet be in another world completely. The brain responds to the imagination in the exact same way it responds to the physical environment. It cannot distinguish between them. Both are just as real and of equal importance to our ongoing cognitive journey through the world. We are a compendium of mixed emotions; of regrets, griefs, resentments, beliefs harbouring self-doubt and low self esteem. Yet we act and talk, and never let on about our true state; assuming most of the time; that everyone else is what we know we aren't; absolutely normal.

The subject is I think simpler but less simple than the scientists, philosophers, theologians and others would have it. We cannot put our finger on the great unconscious and say – there it is. Picture for yourself, the Universe with all its galaxies, its planetary systems; umpteen of everything; and go back to what was said earlier, that no matter how hard we search for ourselves – no matter how much I, David, ask the question – ' _Who am I'_ , no answer is really sufficient. So looking on this imagined map of the Universe ask yourself, - where is memory? Where is my sub-conscious? Where is the great primordial stew from which we all emerge? Where is God? Where is nature and unmanifest nature? Now look between the stars, between the planets; between whatever manifestations of universal matter you wish to picture and what do you see? Nothing! Nothing everywhere! And this is the primordial stew. It cannot be pinpointed. But when you say; ' _Where were you last night_?' I reach into this nothingness and I say – ' _Oh I was such and such a place._ ' our mind can be likened to universal consciousness in service to a pulsation in the primordial stew which is us.

One of the most important things to know about each of us is that we are _who we are_. The _'I am'_. But the ' _I am_ ' of an acquired nature. There isn't really anything else. There are different knowledges, different opinions, different stories, different beliefs; held by each one of us, held by society, held by our culture, held by other cultures. But none of them has any real importance in comparison with our own experience of US. We do what we do because we feel compelled by our nature. We say, people or events make us do this or that, but this is only an accepted illusion. We never do anything except by conscious choice. Yet the apparent reality says otherwise. This is part of the mystery of life on earth. And it is in its unravelling, that we begin to understand our part in creation. This simple, single fact of our autocracy is probably the most overlooked fact in the whole world. My beliefs about this world, I experience out there, moment by moment, and it holds my world in place. And it holds me in place in relation to everybody else in the world. The gradations, the differences between my belief and others beliefs; my sense of myself, and other peoples sense of me, are very finely nuanced. The beliefs that hold me in place, that make me act in certain ways, the feelings I have for you, that I feel about others; these are extremely subtle. They are what they are, and they are not one iota different. And there is no way that I can act any differently than the way that I act. There is no way that you can act any differently than the way that you act – because our experience tells us it must be this way.

Now how we are prepared to act, what we are prepared to do, changes moment by moment. So even though at a specific moment, I can act only as I do – five minutes later you find me prepared to act in a manner completely contrary to how I acted formerly. This is not cantankerousness or unpredictability. It's that there has been a shift in my consciousness. The shift may be from new information. Or I may have opened up to a part of me that has always been there, has always been an alternative, but that five minutes ago wasn't. That's one thing. Picture visually a windswept, cloudy day. One moment we look up and there is a particular arrangement of clouds. The sun may be shining – and then there is a shift. The sun is obscured and the sky looks different. We are exactly like that.

The other thing is that I can change fundamentally or I may not change at all. There are parts of me that don't appear to change. One day you see me walking along the road; you catch a glimpse of movement and although you haven't seen me in years you say – aha! – That's David Berresford. You have spotted the idiosyncratic features, the way I hold myself, the way I move... Now we are in constant relation with our world; and our world is in two different places. One part is inside of us and one part outside. We cannot however, look at either the inside part or the outside part, separate from our thoughts or emotions. We cannot divorce ourselves from these, and therefore we cannot see ourselves as separate from them. If we appear to be disassociated and neutral, know that the disassociatedness and neutrality is as chock full of emotion as any other persona. The impervious front is held in place by intense emotion, blocking us from too close a scrutiny of our own feelings. Nobody looks at the world divorced from their beliefs or their emotional ground.

We have a sense of ourselves as belonging to a much larger entity that we may call ' _our life'_. It is much more than ' _our body'_. Even if our belief system includes – I am body –our identification is primarily not with the body. Even when we're shivering with cold, it is us, that identity we identify with, which is shivering with cold. And that's not a body. It incorporates all we know about ourselves without really spelling it out. The clue is, anytime we discover something about ourselves we aren't really surprised. And the reason we aren't surprised is that we know who we are when we find ourselves. That may appear a strange sort of statement. When we wake up in the morning we know who and where we are. We awaken to what we think of as ourselves. An extreme example of this identification is having an allergic reaction to penicillin for instance, so that our face blows up like a ball. When we look at our image in a mirror, we'll be completely disorientated because we are so fundamentally different, that momentarily we don't know ourselves.

In the same way when we discover something about ourselves, it's not really surprising, because it is, - ourselves, it's US, it's ' _who we are'_. And this entity ' _our life_ ' has an ongoing relationship with the world and the people in it. Of course we get caught with what is happening in the moment, we all do, all of the time; but when we come to ourselves; it's to this quite large Self, full of hopes and fears, doubts and misgivings. And we have a picture of how we see ' _our life'_ , or how we would like to see ' _our life'_. And this occasions a lot of dreaming, so much so, that much of the time our consciousness is of the life we would like to have.

Now this identification we make is with what we might call an ' _acquired nature'_. It is recognizably us. It is the role we have contracted to and been born into. When people point you out, they are pointing out the, ' _you_ ', the acquired nature. David Berresford is not my real name. It is the name I am known by in this lifetime. Only by being lost in an acquired nature can the concept of ' _lesson'_ or ' _journey_ ' or concepts of ' _enlightenment_ ' or ' _liberation_ ' have any meaning. It's because we believe that we are who people say we are; and that we live in the world others describe: only from this situation does it make sense that we might one day question our – ' _who we are'_ , and ' _where we are'_ , and desire to know the truth. And this is why we are actors in a drama, and as such our nature is _acquired_.

It is acquired because – remember – before the attachments, there is the, I AM. That I AM comes without baggage. The nearest we have to knowledge of it are those moments when there is no impression on the slate. Like waking up and not knowing where we are. Or deep meditation; and when we come out we look about, momentarily nonplussed, not recognizing where we are or what the time is; or just disappearing for a moment like taking a quick dive within. And this we can call our _Authentic Self_. We don't know it. We think we are the _Acquired Self_ and it's this we claim as ME. And when I say, I live here, or I do this, or have this belief or that belief, it is the _Acquired Self_ that is being spoken of. Our _Authentic Self_ is the person who comes down and takes on a cloak of mortality. Is that _Self_ more real? Or is it in turn the ' _Acquired Self'_ of another plane of knowing like peeling an onion?

What can be said is that this ' _Authentic Self'_ sometimes referred to as our ' _Higher Self'_ has an unusual relationship with US, in our ' _Acquired Nature'_. It is not manifest and yet it is never disconnected from us. It informs our every thought and yet we are in charge. This last is important; because if our ' _Higher Nature_ ' was in charge there would be no illusion, nothing we did not know, and nowhere that we weren't. This is a description of God. This may be why in the Bible it says, we are made in the image of God. Is this Soul? But it is not our experience. Our experience is of illusion created by the stories that we weave into the stuff of creation. Yet we behave like Immortals with infinity at our elbow. A constant cord of connectivity between our _illusionary being_ and a ' _Higher Self'_ answers all the questions of the Philosophers and the Seekers of Truth. Metaphors for our situation are abundant. Any action we can think of has as a basic ingredient, control. There is a relationship of control in everything in our life; a little like a leash to a dog. We don't let go. So why do we imagine that we have been let go? When as children we grow up and leave home we don't forget each other, we maintain connectivity; we maintain links with each other's world. When a bus company sends its buses around the city, it's not a haphazard action; every bus can be pinpointed to a fairly accurate degree. So it is in all our actions, with our attention in the absence of any physical leash we maintain connectivity with our world.

The birth and subsequent journey, then, of our _'Acquired Self'_ , can be seen in a similar context. We are not abandoned. And the conglomerate of all those ' _Higher Selves'_ altogether in a place of non-illusion, must sing like we imagine a choir of Angels would sing. And this would account for so many of the images of the ancients in art, literature and music. The common emotion springing from our place of ' _spiritual awareness'_ , to the _common awareness of daily life_ , is one of respect, and conversely we respect the elders, saints and sages of the world. We don't have to know, to know.

Chapter Eight

BLINKING IN – BLINKING OUT

"... _you have begun to feel your heart, to feel its stamps, its movements towards openness. Now this is a process of healing for you. And can I say that you are being given permission to be for yourself, that which you have needed and desired. That is, to be loving toward your Self, to be acknowledging of your Self, to feel good about whom you are. Because underneath what you call your closed heart, there has been a very young boy who needed to know he was loved."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

An awful lot of our world is what we might call, _blinked out_. It's not that it doesn't still exist. Or does it? If quantum physics gives a real description of the world and isn't just a theoretical model, then we should be able to relate to it. Entanglement theory says that atomic particles that have once experienced each other, will always affect each other. By inference then, the world we have experienced from birth onward will always be in relationship with us. It makes sense that once we've experienced something it's a part of who we are. We have memories in which they are included. At a practical level we can say they're incorporated into our history and personality. Each moment of our history, has a mostly indefinable but obvious effect on our subsequent life.

We live in a narrow window of time and space and eternity. Right now, at this moment, I'm sitting in my room typing these words onto my computer. The words that lie behind me I have no memory of. If you ask me I can stop and look at my text and tell you what I wrote. But as the words arise and are typed in letter by letter, those that are past are gone – those that are to come I have less idea about as they only exist in the future. They don't even do that. They are still unformed ideas in primordial nothingness. That is probably not quite right. It's maybe truer to say they await manifestation with the energy of potentiality. As with synchronicity, their potency relies on my maintaining connection, like being continually plugged into the same radio station. And unless I continue I'll lose the thread of this particular discourse. When next I decide to write, the words available will be quite different.

My sense of who I am right now is based on my most recent feelings, thoughts and experiences, all of which are completely subjective. In a few moments it's likely to change, and then again, and again. And again tomorrow I am likely to be very different. I am in the room from which I work, and this gives a background to my existence. All the above is _blinked on_. This is my window of existence right now. We might add to it various activities planned for the weekend; memories I can readily bring to mind because they have been recently accessed. The rest is _blinked out_. It, the blinked out portion, is a significantly larger portion of who I am. In fact if we deleted all those files that aren't active right now – there wouldn't be much of me left. But that begs a question. Because to remove all that history would be a little like if we were to pretend I am a paper bag full of air and letting it all go. Poof gone! And with all that history gone, I as you know me would be gone also. Because behind all the bits that we can see – are the parts we can't see, and they are a substantial part of me.

Do we understand how little of me, and yet how much of me is here now. The iceberg tip! And hidden, but integral, the other eight ninths that lies under water. And engaging with the visible portion, you, if you're a stranger to me, will have to question and draw out from me, ' _who I am'_. There is a part you may infer. The rest you must work for. But as I've said before, most of ' _who I am'_ is a series of stories. And these stories may be very different in the telling depending on which day you ask. And if you were to put twenty people in the same room with me and have them tell you ' _who I am'_ , you will get at least twenty different answers. Because each one; will see me differently. If you're lucky you may mine treasure beyond value. Another may walk away with nothing. THIS IS A DESCRIPTION OF HOW IT IS FOR EACH ONE OF US.

Now we can say more about this present world. We can look at the obvious. When I see the furniture in my room here now - this is my world. It takes an effort of the imagination for me to place me, somewhere else. And because of the proximity and realness of where I am, you will have a hard time convincing me I am somewhere else. Yet the place doesn't define me. Yet I'm limited to some degree by place. If I put strong requirements on what place looks like, then I may feel very uncomfortable in some places, and always be trying to change them to make them more like what I think place should look like for me.

Doubts, fears, hopes, enthusiasms, passions, loves, restricting belief systems are the agencies by which we experience. Doubt may be a thought form experienced in the head, a feeling in the stomach that says, hold on – I'm not sure of this. Fear can be experienced as a sensation throughout the body; perhaps tactile on the surface – in the stomach or in the heart as pain. Our being may be buoyant and full of enthusiasm so that all our pleasure centres are firing at once and make us feel really good about things. Love of our job, love of people generally, can be of such magnitude as to flow from us with every action. We are used to associating serotonin with the brain but it is found throughout the body. Intestinal nerve cells hold more serotonin than anywhere else in the body and when we go with our ' _gut_ ' reaction this serotonin is released. Hence, the euphoria we get from following our ' _best_ ' feelings.

What does a belief system look like? It's important that we know what is being talked about and don't agree out of politeness. It's important if we are to take an evolutionary path that we have a better idea of what the world looks like. There's nothing we believe or disbelieve, that's not a belief system. And a belief system modifies our world in direct proportion to the strength of the belief. Everything you read here's a belief system.

I can rest my eyes on the living room table. Just rest them there. And as they rest, without commentary or doing anything other than rest, I begin to penetrate surface as in meditation. What does this look like? It means that my eyes rest, and my being rests in my eyes rest, and instead of table, what becomes important is the rest; non-activity in the midst of activity. As I penetrate rest in table I penetrate not the realm of table but the realm of God. I feel restfulness of spirit in the non-activity of allowing my eyes to rest with table. It's very fulfilling.

Now penetrating eternity in a moment, in this way: – what then, does or doesn't constitute our immediate world? Our window of space and time which is blinked in is quite minor, and that which is blinked out is quite large, but in comparison to that 'rest' which has allowed us to penetrate time and space, all that large blinked out part is as nothing. In comparison to the peace and the largeness of that 'rest', that large blinked out portion of life is nothing. Although it comprises our whole world it is nothing. In fact it doesn't even exist. Now there's a mystery.

We have a body we know to be fully intelligent. For instance, say that you run a hundred metres as swiftly as you possibly can. You finish and feel really tired. You're so tired that you can't imagine being more tired. It feels as if you're absolutely exhausted. Experiencing this, were you to ask your hand or your foot if they feel the same, you will know absolutely that of course they do. Now this might seem an unusual way of expressing this thought. The thing is normally you'll think – wow! I am so exhausted! The fact is you are completely exhausted through and through. But you take the experience to, ' _a you'_ ; that actually marginalizes the experience of your parts. You don't think of your parts as either intelligent or having feelings, and yet it's through the experience of your parts, that you're able to have your overall experience. We are a singularity; we can't really divide off the mind and say, this is where I reside. We now know that more messages pass from the heart to the brain than from the brain to the heart. It's always been assumed there would be messages out there in the boondocks; messages from the hands and the arms and the legs and various other parts of the body with a matching response from the brain as it monitored what was happening. What appears more the case, is that the heart is the central clearing place, and the heart informs the brain. This is different. What does it all mean? Our myth of preference has always been something like this. Brain in charge. Organs playing their role, governed by the governing organ the brain. The heart in literature and mythology has always been seen as a metaphor for that which is most important, that which drives our passion, the very heart of passion. Biologically we always knew this to be a myth; - it's just a beating heart. Perhaps the myth is the truth and we need to give away this idea of a rational universe where everything, ' _makes sense'_.

We experience life as linear because of the way it looks after we've been through a portion of it. We look back and see that there's an appearance of one event leading into another, leading to another, as far back as we wish to remember. But if we take on board what was said about the existence of doorways into which we step, then at any particular point in time, there are numerous possibilities from which to choose. Picture this _point_ , this moment NOW, as a honeycomb with all these cells into which we could step. We step into one after another, and each selection makes sense of our life, makes sense of our present emotion. We can imagine, as we stand here now what this looks like. We can name some of them. And many of them appear imperative. Children, parents, job decisions, being lawful... And yet many doors we would be hard put to name. Many are closed to us because of our emotions. Our fear of looking unusual, fear of being thought a bad parent, fear of speaking out at work in case we lose our job, fear of change because living with what we have is comfortable... And for each doorway we step into there are a myriad of doorways we don't even get to view the outsides of because of our fears and beliefs. Our linearity is a little like a snail trail. Look at where a snail has been. Looking at it we see a line, a trail of slime, and it's the same with life. But really it's that our mind creates order in a linear fashion. Look again at all the intersections and understand that there's not a single path. At each point there's this intersection in time and space with innumerable opportunities. We select one, and looking back see all these choices as a straight line. Yet each intersection of our time line is infinite and immeasurable, being but a moment; uncounted possibilities of which the greater number are mostly unseen. The tidiness of our mind disregards the roads not taken and makes a coherent story about the roads taken; creating what appears to be a line of causality about which we have little or no choice. Causality doesn't work in a linear fashion however. There's no connection between different points on the apparent timeline of our life; other than that which lies inside us that give rise to the various emotions, thoughts and belief systems; which inform our choices in life. Our choices are in ETERNITY not TIME. I've spoken of a timeline, but again this is a diversion. It's more correct to say that there is an impelling force which we call time that has several faces. Let's examine in more detail what happens in life at the intersections of so called time.

An intersection of what I've referred to as a timeline is what is commonly thought of as the moment NOW. The moment NOW has no dimension. Space can be seen as the awareness of everything that forms our world at the intersection of what appears to be passing time. We see movements, and interpret them as events or phenomena on a line of time, in a given space, existing outside of us irrespective of our presence, and it's fixed, it's permanent. It's a stable point which we can remember and anchor our life to. Our life is fluid; it's in constant change and requires grounding. That's not an unreasonable description as far as it goes. There are several observations that can be made about it however. Time is measured by phenomena larger than a life span; which stand outside of our phenomenal world; the regularity and measure of which, like the quality of space, seems to hold the form of our life. We live out life in days and weeks and months and years. We can divide our day down into hours, minutes and seconds and these both sustain our sense of reality and press hard upon us, impressing us with a sense of urgency and insufficiency. Our body, the space we fill, and time, all contribute to our sense of having physical form and of being a unique entity. The other quality which helps to embody us is memory. All of these make us feel real. Thoughts, emotions, feelings and sensations are fluid and passing and if all we had was these we wouldn't have a sense of existence.

However within all this lies the, ' _I am'_. The, ' _I am_ ' has been spoken about earlier but here I want to show clearly, its relationship with the phenomenal world which exists in space and time. In a deep state of rest the ' _I am'_ is pure and free, full of happiness and very knowledgeable. Knowledge is said to be a reflection of the unwritten Veda, the source of all knowledge. It is a state of absolute positivity and is unmoving. And it can be imagined to fill all the crevasses of the phenomenal world described above. It is ' _Still_ ', and completely unmoving. There is no limit to this ' _I am_ '. In deep rest and meditation, both of which can be experienced in the midst of activity, this ' _I am_ ' is our substance and it is not different from love. Now this _'I am'_ acts as a witness of the entire phenomenal world. There is no requirement for it to play a part. If it does play, it still rests in its witness state of being. What happens more often than not is that as it lies at rest, the world arises in and about it, and it, the _'I am'_ , starts to play. It calls itself names, invents locations and activities to which it attaches a sense of reality. And this is creation. It steps forward to play, and as it does so it is seen to be multiple. It talks to its various selves and creates journeys and meanings, and everyone assumes it's real. Which it is! All the situations that exist in our consciousness are nothing but an expression of the love of God.

We think of memory recall as something that happens inside our mind (read brain). There are many theories as to how this works. If we consider our computers, we have a lot of information stored on our hard drive. If we go onto the internet we find oodles and oodles of information, way beyond our capacity to store or utilize. And beyond that there's all the information that isn't there yet but will be. It exists in potentiality. It doesn't exist yet, but if we go on tomorrow we might find it does. We may participate by sitting down, writing a blog and putting it on the net ourselves, thus contributing to that greater mind.

In Vedantic Philosophy, the Veda's; are the knowledge of everything that exists and what makes them tick. And this Veda is written down in the Upanishads and other books of knowledge. Then there's what they call the unwritten Veda which is available to a fully realized being, a sage or a saint. Universal knowledge is available simply by reaching out and extracting it from the stuff of creation. Ask a wise man a question and he reaches into the bag of universal knowledge to give his answer. Even in our own Christian tradition, the priest was seen as an intermediary between God and man. This was the traditional view. Christians are not so comfortable with this idea these days. And this unwritten Veda is available to anyone with an enquiring mind. All that's required is that we ask the questions. Jesus alludes to this in the Bible when he says. _'"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened"._

The apparent linearity of life is more to do with perception of process. We exist in the moment, NOW, yet as I am speaking, a process is going on, and from the moment that we are born, we are taught that we are dying. The appearance is that we are growing. From the foetus to the grown adult, we increase in body size; we learn about the tool we come into creation with - the body; which we don't describe as a tool, but as, ' _us_ '. And this, ' _us_ ' is mortal, we have a ' _use by date_ '. Both descriptions are of process. So we appear to exist in a world of process and all sorts of events seem to happen to us; one, two, three... events, camera, action and we can enumerate them, but this is a very surface way of looking at life. Because what we're not observing is that at every point in passing time is the moment NOW. And that NOW, never disappears, that NOW is constant, that NOW is not measurable and when we choose to identify with that moment NOW rather than with passing time, then our life takes on a completely different quality. Our life no longer carries the quality of – ' _where did all the time go_ '; it no longer carries the quality of – ' _there's not enough time_ '; it no longer has the quality of aging. The present has no edges; everything exists in its compass and there are no limits. And if we choose to identify with this eternal moment, then instead of observing events in passing time, we observe them in the freedom of timelessness. Nothing that we can choose to do moves us from that moment.

Experiencing ourselves in passing time, means that we only get to see things much like a computer byte. We only get byte sized chunks of each other. For those of you not completely savvy with computer jargon, a byte is a unit of information on a computer. Like a _bite_ of food during dinner. Seriously! Take a byte out of context and it's meaningless. Similarly our passing perceptions give a false picture of our world.

Most of us have experienced what it's like to fall in love. When we fall in love with someone we see them through different eyes. They are transformed from what they were and become bigger, brighter beings. It is as if time stops and there's a sense of depth, of stillness; as if we existed in an eternal moment. It becomes transforming of the world around us, allowing us to see this world differently. Meditation or a beautiful scene, similarly entrances us. Imagine drawing a fine line of no breadth through passing time, very fine. We perceive a place of great expansion and timelessness – that just is – and that is the moment NOW. It places everything, the perceiver and the perceived in a different light. Our ordinary experience is that we see things in passing. Life has an appearance of movement and seems very much to be a surface experience. Right NOW, here NOW on that fine line of no breadth intersecting passing time, there is no movement.

The quantum world is described as made up of infinitely small sub-atomic particles that may wink into existence in one form, wink out of existence and then reappear in another form. They may exist as a particle, seemingly a separate entity, and then again be completely diffuse and wavelike, defying boundaries of space and time, and showing a total connectedness with everything. They may apparently have multiple existences, or non-locality; appearing in a multitude of different places at the same time. There is only one certainty. That, this busy little world of infinite change and appearance; will continue unimpeded, until an observer enters the picture, and observes or measures. As soon as this happens, this energetic charge collapses into a fixed state that mirrors the observer's belief as though the observer had brought the object into being. Is it not the same for us? My sense is of some greater observer; God, Us in our Higher Authentic Self, an Over-SOUL, looking into a Sea of Potentiality and going, AHA! And there we are, you and I, in a moment of time - observed, fixed. My sense is that whatever or however that it happens, it happens through the centre of our being, making us complicit. I look out, part of me reaches in. And there we have it; ' _the next moment'_. I am not seeking an ' _other_ ', as an explanation of, 'Being'. I am seeking a truthful way of stating what appears to be. Life is like this. Winking in – winking out. That is a description of my life, of your life, taken moment by moment. An analogy is the night sky. The stars blink in and out. They appear and disappear, and depending on the time or type of night they may do so - more or less. The same is the nature of being human. Our thoughts and emotions our sensory impressions and sensations are no more fixed then the night sky.

I lie in the womb of my mother; but my mind,

My feelings, the sensations of touch, hearing, sight, are

Turned inward; it is as though I am the mind of God;

And in this rapt place I contemplate ecstasy;

Forms, images, move across my inner sight,

I watch them with intense interest, unmoving;

I am not moved to claim them, or place one above another;

With Godlike indifference I watch the passing show;

My sense of myself fills out my fetal body;

I do not sense my body, so much as within the confines

Of this finite form, I rest in bliss substance:

It's like being encompassed of the stuff of orgasm;

And here in silent contemplation of eternity,

I listen to the silent music of the spheres.

Out of this meditative repose, I stir;

Time moves on, and the moment of eminent

Departure from this cocoon of Godliness arrives;

I have not been entirely indifferent through this sojourn;

I knew already of course, the soul, whose womb I would

Inhabit; I knew every nuance of her soul story,

Just as I am aware of my father, sisters, my friends and lovers

That I will meet along the way; there is nothing I don't know,

But don't be fooled into thinking I am saying,

Life runs a predestined course, and every grain

Falls precisely as fore-ordained, no such thing;

Think more of absolute potentiality;

The greatest story teller in the world gathers

All the ingredients he can call to mind;

To write in living stuff, like a potter would tell a story;

As the first word arises, already (s) he has stepped forth

Into manifestation, it's like there is no space between

Thought and fact; and why should there be;

So as the story progresses, it's as if the story teller

Steps forth into the story, and as the plot becomes more

And more complex, so the world is created

In which this drama unravels;

And as it reaches its summation;

It retracts itself into itself;

So that at stories end, it is as though nothing remained,

But the still point in the eye of God;

And moreover it is as if that still point had never moved.

Chapter Nine

A MANUSCRIPT

" _You will also find that there could be a manuscript of information that you will come to feel very strongly about. That can become a way for others to explore for themselves. Now this is not necessarily something you will feel absolutely comfortable with. The more you start to see, and you will from here forward recognize this very same process and need in others, you will realize there is something here you can contribute, something here that you might be able to assist others to know."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

Now I want to present a little of life's mystery. The following account is a journal I kept after my meeting in 2001 with Raman Pascha, which had such a major impact on the direction and quality of my life. There's more than one way of looking at life. I'd say that there are at least seven billion ways – as many as there are people on the planet. Now I want to say something which to many may appear heretical, but which is the closest that I can come to expressing what is inside of me. I am picturing in mind right now a flaming synapse. And it's not in the brain, it's me. And I am one of many. Seven billion right now are human; in addition many more of us are grasses, some bushes, some trees, sheep, cows, elephants, rocks, mountains, planets, stars, suns, Ascended Masters, Gods and Goddesses, innumerable forms and all are in the mind of God. And as we grow in understanding, grow in knowledge, grow in our capacity for happiness; so I see all these synapses as contributing to the greater body, the body of God; the ' _All That Is_ '. And all of us are in constant movement and play many parts. And as we grow in being, so God becomes more God like, and yet in another sense it's all a play of delight. There is one thing more to bear in mind about this picture of you and I as synapses. If you or I tried to govern our own bodies, we'd fail dismally. The cells of which we're made are far more intelligent when it comes to caring for the body than we are. Similarly God is only limited by his / her/ its inability to be or do the smallest thing without his / her or its parts or synapses.

The following is a slice out of the life of a synapse. There has been much talk in these pages of beliefs. I've spoken of their limiting qualities – that they place a boundary around consciousness. If we look at the construction of the word, it is be – lie – f. Also be – life. I believe it has both meanings. It is a lie if considered in its limiting capacity, yet for all that, it works. Calling it a lie characterizes its limiting, relativeness. In its other sense it creates the forms and ideas. This is what life is all about. A play of beliefs! Life is experienced if you like through limiting beliefs. It is more however. A belief can be seen as a tool of consciousness. What it allows for is the transformation of one thing into another. If we're limited by jealousy for example, then it is by knowing our jealousy in all its permutations and not being belittled by it, that the light of God is augmented. Like walking out in a furious storm, and maintaining our poise, in all the drenching and buffeting that we experience. If we as angel in human clothing, come to earth bereft of our knowledge, bereft of our angelic nature, and play an abusive part on the stage of planet earth, and in the darkness of our forgetting, rise above ourselves, and understanding our crime, know God; the lights go on all over heaven; like striking it lucky on a giant pinball machine. This is the play of creation. Think of belief as that which ties and that which can be overcome or - undone.

I am a fairly average Joe Bloggs, normally self-centred and egotistical as we all are; a man who sees himself on a journey to the Land of Self Knowledge, but he's no Siddhartha or Don Quixote, although he probably dreams he is. In comparison to other men of the same age he is unlikely to be considered terribly successful; owning no home, having few possessions and no real job. He has never qualified for anything as we talk of these things on Planet Earth, a long term relationship with a wife of thirty years was let go when she could no longer bear his lack of money or even any concern for it. After he walked out on a good job, with nothing in the bank, because he wished to follow his passion for some nefarious creative life; she had had enough. I want to say that the following is a mixture. As I reread some parts, I feel embarrassed, yet I've left it alone as much as possible, only removing or changing what may hurt others. This, you see, is our story. It's your story and mine. The embarrassing bits are the bits you don't want me to know, \- yet if we're to be truthful we have to speak the truth. Because by telling the truth we find heaven on earth.

His story is different. He, if asked, will tell you that he has lived a life full of Grace. That he considers he has always been looked after, and that nothing that has happened to him has been anything other than good; even when it has had all the appearance of being otherwise. When he met an ascended Spiritual Master, which he says he did in 2001, see what he does with it. Ultimately of course he is attempting to tell you what it's all about. This is the nature of life on earth. Beliefs are ultimately transforming agencies. If you have ever watched a thought come into being you will know that it arises out of nothingness, the great potentiality of nothingness: that we may remain detached from them, be belittled by the worst of them or thrust on high by the greater. The thoughts are indifferent being merely tools in a great play. Emotion drives life and at the same time informs us through our feelings of what is happening at the coalface.

I want to tell you that I love life, I love Planet Earth and I wouldn't be anywhere else, doing anything different. I do see my life as a life of Grace, and consider myself upheld by love. This is part of my story. It lies in stark contrast to what you have just read, because our mind can lovingly describe how we see reality. But what it is like, to be us; to be you, or to be me, is very different. To be human is to be vulnerable, to be prone to error, to be wrong much of the time. But it is also to have wonderful passion, wonderful single-mindedness and drive. To be human is to be a part of you, a part of me. To be human is an incredible experience.

Chapter Ten

A WAKEUP CALL

" _When you can understand, that the feeling, is what lies at the heart of all of life; then it becomes a very simple matter my friend; to slow down, to stop, and to see it. And you will realize that you won't want to analyse so much as perhaps contemplate. And contemplation is another form of meditation. It is perhaps, a more surface form; but it is simply a very important process, whereby you can expand, and become aware of the feeling, as well as the thought that is connected. And contemplation can allow you to be aware of these two parts of self at one time and so it does not mean that you have to be in one area, and not in the other."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

2001, Saturday, 31st March

Fantail

Fantail came into my room today

I found her trapped

On the window ledge

Between two panes of glass

She could see either way but

The glass offered no vision

To her it was just cold hard

She beat her wings struggling in vain

Fantail came into my room today

It was a day for rejoicing

For the cold hard panes

Against which she beat her wings

No longer lie about my heart

Fantail came into my room today

And I went to lift her up

By her tail feathers

But my heart was clumsy

And my hands fumbled her escape

Fantail came into my room today

And I almost fed her

In my ineptness to Ginger the Cat

No Ginger Cat - leave her alone

Fantail - Up here - Be careful of Ginger Cat

There is your path to freedom

See - through the open window

Fantail came into my room today

Another came in too

Now blissful laughter fills my breast

I shepherded her

Past the glass to freedom

And left her in the garden

Body bruised - little short hops

Were all she could make

Fantail came into my room today

Another was there too

And my world is filled with

Joy welling in my breast

No longer confined by

Panes round my heart

Rippling down the East Wind

For the whole world to hear

Fantail came into my room today

I found her - beckoned her

As she flitted from tree to tree

I said - Come here little bird

I will not harm you

She laughed and flitted some more

I stood beckoning her in the garden

You by my side

I said - I am going to flit

Just like fantail

And there was joy in my heart

And together we will fly

Laughing laughing laughing

Down the breeze down the East Wind

See me little bird - See me fly

This morning, - yesterday morning I was invited to go on a journey. How can I tell you in a meaningful way, the story that began the night before I met Raman, and that I feel has been going on forever? How to convey the sense of a life turned head over heels so that I am no longer the man I was. Because of the events of a few hours, I have since examined each of my beliefs with dispassionate eyes, and little of how I believed the world to be remains. And yet I went to see my friend Ross, believing I was doing him a favour, wanting to repair thirty-five years absence. I had been playing the part of King Lear, in Shakespeare's play of the same name. It was the most wonderful experience of my life, but during the course of the play, I learned that an old friend that I hadn't seen in thirty-five years, was living in Christchurch, and had been in a wheelchair for twenty years.

Dear Ross

Ian told me of your misfortune and I am sorry to hear of it. I have often wondered where you were and what you were up to. It is nearing midnight. I'm performing the part of Lear in Shakespeare's play, and shall be doing so for another six nights. As I work during the day I don't have much time to myself just now. I want you to know that you are in my thoughts, and I will write more fully next week. Meanwhile go well.

David Berresford

Dear David

If I've been on your mind lately, or at all, as much as you've been on mine, then it's no wonder we've made contact at last. As you can imagine there is much to share and mull over and it would be really good if we could do this in person. My address is ........................... There are 16 hectares here and a large homestead with plenty of accommodation. I have the homestead and its associated livestock to care for and can't visit you. Not that after all these years we are likely to be rushing towards each other like lovers on a sun setting beach! I have grown up a little since 'the good old days'. I am sure there is enough there for you to recognise and relate to, for me to not be an entire stranger. Ian wrote that he found you completely changed. I have very clear images of you and would be surprised if I couldn't recognise you. Just to hear your laugh. Don't be concerned about me and my being in a wheelchair. I have had to take my body less for granted and that is an important part of my development. Great to be in touch again, as much as it is great that you wanted to!

Love Ross

Dear Ross

... _It's interesting that what was in fact a very brief friendship over 35 years ago has always in my mind assumed great importance. For me our friendship was part of a time and place, where everything converged to set my life in the direction it's taken. I continued as a student in the School of Philosophy until about three years ago when I left to pursue acting. Eight years ago the School in Auckland, developed various cultural activities, including a drama group. Initially I had two small parts in Shakespeare's, 'Twelfth Night' and fell in love with theatre. This falling in love was of the utmost importance. I discovered in rehearsal that being inside my head was like being inside a three dimensional spider web, I couldn't remember lines, and suddenly I realized it affected how I lived. I can't explain it more, than by saying that before I tried learning Shakespeare, I was unaware of this stuff in my head. After rehearsing for a few weeks, I felt as though my head was a cotton wool world of dreams - and I'd been unaware of this. Shakespeare opened a space in my mind that has never closed. And when I spoke the lines on stage, it was as though everything that I conceived myself to be disappeared. I found that David Berresford was only skin deep, and in the sound of the speaking lines was the whole world. It was like being at the coal face of creation and this space was full of love. And twenty-nine years of lectures and practical work was shown to me in an instance._

I acted in four further plays with the School until the drama group was discontinued. At that stage, I successfully auditioned for a part with a local theatre group in Chekhov's 'The Three Sisters'. For me, making theatre part of my life felt like stepping out of the chrysalis into the butterfly. I felt like a grownup, and the world has never appeared so vividly to my senses. What was peculiar was that when I was a young man I had wanted to act, but it never happened.

My 55 years doesn't scare me but it does seem imprudent tossing in a good job and betting all on the benevolent fates, but that's what I have in mind. I suspect if you recognized me as you're so sure you will, it won't necessarily be the physical appearance so much as the nature, which I suspect remains largely unchanged. For me this period of our friendship was the doh of my life. Until next time God bless. Love David.

Dear David

Norman Vincent Peale says somewhere something about throwing your heart over the bar allows the rest of your life to follow. Of course tossing everything away to tread the boards is irrational. But then life is irrational, exuberant, abundant, fecund and juicy to a fault. Don't be rational, be sensible. To stick and wonder what life could have been is to remain behind bars, with the keys in our hands. 'We are all prisoners here, of our own device' – was that the Eagles? I can remember your quotations and analyses of Shakespeare and our discussions of what it all meant, when you biked, fixed wheel up to Trentham. It's in your blood, it feeds your being. Stop looking at the feast and eat! Follow your bliss. Ask yourself, 'Are my actions in line with my true self?' The correct answer to this is the correct answer for you. It's not the correct answer for anyone else. Neither is anyone else's answer the correct one for you. The conditions set for our earthly experience involve choice; the universe will support whatever choices you make. Love Ross

David Berresford wrote:

I am leaving Auckland Saturday March 24 and should arrive in Rangiora Monday/Tuesday. David

Friday March 30th

I can still picture our reunion. For my part it was a series of recognitions, disappointments and affirmations. A little like witnessing a couple of dogs meeting for the first time. Humans when they meet are usually reserved. Normally we may exchange greetings and confidences, depending on the degree of comfort we feel with the other person, while a part of us hangs back. But watch a couple of dogs greet each other. They're far more adventurous and involved. They prance about each other sniffing and shoving in their eagerness to explore the other being. So it was in a metaphoric sense with Ross and me. I experienced such intensity but we had a whole history of course to reveal and re-explore. And it had the amusing corollary that I was there out of concern for, and wondering how I could help my friend, insisting on seeing infirmity where he felt none. Whilst Ross believed I needed help spiritually and emotionally, and felt he had the answer. Sufficient to say that he was the conduit to a series of meetings with an enlightened Spiritual Master called Raman Pascha, channelled through the medium of Yasmeen Clark. Yes, he had been dead a few centuries and I'm not sure whether he can officially be called a ghost, ET, disembodied spirit? I felt enormous scepticism when Ross first spoke of him. You know the sort of thing – impassive face, mouthing platitudes of interest whilst attending to a more pressing, unvoiced commentary, wondering how your friend can be such a chump. I went to listen to him one evening with Ross, out of a mixture of curiosity and concern for Ross's welfare. ' _If I knew more_ ' ran my inner conversation; ' _I could figure out a stratagem to save him from himself'_. At the back of my mind was stuff I had read and heard about mediums and Ouija boards and it was these I associated channelling with. I felt myself going cold and judgemental as soon as he said – channelled master. What I was to discover was that a channel isn't a medium. Mediums contact and interpret spirits. A channel is literally that, an agency for spirit to speak through. This was not something I was clear about at the time. Nor in all honesty are mediums necessarily fraudulent. Times have changed.

There were about twenty people present, seated on cushions on the floor in as semi a circle as the venue had space for. Yasmeen sat very relaxed, while people adjusted themselves to some degree of comfort to the sound of gentle New Age music. Eventually the activity subsided, the music was switched off, while Yasmeen waited, completely relaxed; until suddenly another energy seemed to fill out her body, pushing it into quite a different posture and Raman began to speak. I don't recall the details as my attention was mostly taken by a strong desire not to be duped; but he spoke of strength of mind and strength of spirit, subjects I feel comfortable with, so I relaxed. I went through degrees of scepticism, watching Yasmeen like a hawk, asking myself, is she acting or is this real? At the end of the evening I thought – it may or may not be real; perhaps she's a consummate actor but so what. What was said was pertinent, responsive and wise so what did it matter where it came from. I went away happily and began to plan in mind my trip home.

Saturday March 31st

The next morning when I awoke everything had changed. I could not say how, but I felt very much at peace. Since arriving in Christchurch I'd felt okay in the normal way of things. Today I felt okay in a different way of things. This was Thursday the 29th. When I met Ross in the kitchen he asked after me with questioning, knowingness. I wasn't very forthcoming until he spoke of his own experience after first hearing Raman. And he said what I couldn't. _'It felt'_ , he said, ' _as if he was played with in a very gentle way. As though some energetic intelligence moved through his subtle world, as he slept, unloosening this, tightening that; and his awakening was like awakening to knowingness and rest'_. His words helped me formulate my own memories. As I tried to describe some aspect of my experience, he asked me why I always referred to myself in the third person. I explained to him, not defensively, but matter-of-factly, as a teacher to a rather backward pupil, that I did this because the self is the observer, the creator; we're not this body, but the final observer; that the body, mind, feelings, desires and sensations that make up our manifest world, are just the being of _God_ , or the _Absolute_ , whatever we want to call it, at play; the _Creative Principle_ under observation! That although I realised that the whole visible world was but a manifestation of the Self, Myself and therefore is ostensibly God!!!! And there I stopped... And I looked at Ross. And I laughed and laughed and laughed... and I cried and I cried, the tears running down my face until my heart cracked, I clutched my hands to my heart which felt rent in two, as if something deep inside of me broke open, light pouring into places that had not seen the light for a long, long time. And all that morning I felt silly. Like a little boy inside a grown man's body. I realised that all my life I had chosen to lock myself away deep inside. And that deep within this safe recess I had pronounced judgement on the world. I had allowed a few people close, but within was reserved space where I lived alone. My family and friends, acquaintances and strangers had all suffered under this arrangement. And my world was shattered. – What a mess! – There was nowhere to go and nothing I could do, I was at a loss. I also realised that Raman, untouched by my scepticism and indifference had brought me to this place. I had journeyed all the way to Christchurch to help a friend and he and Raman between them were helping me. And I didn't even know I needed help. I asked Ross whether he thought I might be able to meet Raman, because I had read in a pamphlet the previous night, that Raman gave private sessions. Ross said he was normally booked months in advance but there were cancellations at times. He was slightly off-hand and not very helpful. Suddenly it was the most important thing in the world and I rang and found there was a cancellation the next morning.

And so as I said when I began this account – this morning - yesterday morning I was invited to go on a journey. That night, before the meeting with Raman, I went to bed after a day spent, in a somewhat unfocussed way. It was like protracted butterflies in the stomach before a performance. And a fantail! The events in my poem took place that afternoon. At dinner that evening I told Ross's partner Valerie about the fantail and she told me it was a symbol of laughter and the release of the old for the new – of rebirth. I was struck deeply. Since waking up that morning I had moved from interested spectator to determined protagonist. I wrote the poem _'Fantail'_ , but it is totally inadequate in describing this new dawn. Trying to save ' _fantail_ ' resonated with my own desire for personal freedom. The night was fitful, not restless but alternating wakeful anticipation with the most wondrous dream state. In my dreams I swam in an ocean of bliss, a sea of love and sang out the praises of my beloved. I couldn't tell which was me and which my beloved. I wish for your sake I could describe what these words mean. I know you will read them as metaphor. I assure you that what I've written is not even close to what I experienced. The following morning I had my first conversation with Raman. That conversation created a major change in my life. I sat in front of a Master as s(he) answered all my questions. I use a composite gender pronoun because gender is an earth condition, not a given. I became aware, that I didn't have to explain my life to Raman, s(he) already knew all there was to know about me. The greater meaning of this was that I knew myself to be completely known by all the Masters, Saints and Sages, all of the Wise and that I was enough. They don't judge me no matter how imperfect my actions appear in my eyes. That is the most wonderful gift anyone can ever receive from another. Who knows where this will lead, already I feel it working, very simply, very practically in my life. I know it to be a wakeup call.

Chapter Eleven

AND IF I DON'T KNOW, WHAT I FEEL?

" _The process of extracting yourself out of the past, of always being and doing, occurs on many different levels. The first one that you'll really feel it in is how you feel about where you are. It will feel as though you are being called upon to put on an old coat that you have just been taking off; and really, it doesn't fit, it's not comfortable anymore; so it will affect you emotionally, alright? Now, there is an adjustment possible here. This adjustment means that you can be in the old and familiar environment, acknowledge the change, but learn to support the difference in the known or in the old and familiar – even if you don't feel you fit there, alright? Let the emotion out, growth and adjustment will occur"_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

2001

Monday April 2nd

The last few days have been mostly quiet days with my friend. My mind is so active and there's so much being held there and in the body from old premises, old ways of working, yesterday's old clothes. And it's one thing in these surroundings to allow the physical to be inactive but that's not contemplation. At the moment Raman and old concepts seem to be at odds. I've now transcribed our conversation and I know I must take this one step at a time. And there is a change, a dramatic change. I've resolved to follow the direction, which has opened to me. And in this resolve is a determination to listen and learn and not allow my mind which is so analytical and judgmental, to bring this to naught. A lot of things don't happen in my world because they all happen in my mind. I must allow myself to be fed.

Thursday 5th April

Last night I went to listen to Raman and took some notes.

' _Need requires an internal response.'_

' _If you think you need it, you want it, and will pay for it.'_

' _All the fruits of your wants – all you acquire as a result of want, will be taken from you at death.'_

' _Attend to the needs and the wants will be provided.'_

' _Need is not normally external to you.'_

' _Meeting the need releases you.'_

' _You struggle and find difficulty because it gives a sense of purpose.'_

' _If needs are not met they repeat.'_

' _Listen to yourself.'_

' _Need is the constant theme. It is lawful.'_

' _Self-responsibility is the foundation of spiritual growth.'_

' _NEED WANT BALANCE'_

' _Response to a need is simple and unconditional.'_

' _If you have what seems an unreasonable compulsion – rename it – as a hunger – turn it into a need. Look upon it with acceptance.'_

S(he) spoke of certain primal physical needs. Rest – sleep – nutrition – water – attention to movement in life – touch – physical exchanges that lead to intimacy. By providing for the above all their attendant needs will disappear.

' _There is emotional need. It is necessary to permit the highs and lows. There are needs at each end of the spectrum. Permit feelings of self.'_

' _Mind's needs must be met or it will invent. Provide it with the tools or information it needs.'_

' _The Spiritual gives reason and purpose to our lives.'_

' _There may be a need to grow, but you cannot without a desire to grow._

' _We need peace, we need to know love, to allow change, to accept a concept of growth.'_

' _Wherever you put your attention will give results.'_

' _Step out of the way and it will happen. Ask yourself. What is the condition attached?'_

' _Vow to support myself._ '

I do.

Thursday 5th 10.30 pm

The last couple of hours since coming off the Picton ferry have been a lesson and a half - two hours? First an overwhelming desire to go to a movie and have a meal that took me into central Wellington in a rush of anxiety! Ian, my Wellington friend was expecting me - or was he? My cell phone was dead and his phone number was only on my mobile phone directory - or was it? There was, is, this crying ' _need_ ' inside me to be fed. A _'need'_ ; it seems to be a 'need' for simple human intimacy, a ' _need_ ', to be loved. I have a wife but does she love me or doesn't she? Whether she does or she doesn't is beside the point, I don't feel she's fulfilling my ' _need_ ' to be loved. Nor do I think I fulfil her ' _need_ ' to be loved. And it doesn't matter what I do or say. Therefore we're not providing for each other – a basic human staple – companionship. Can we? But Raman says: " _Need requires an internal response._ " Therefore if I don't ' _feel_ ' loved – what is the internal response and how can, ' _another Lynn,_ ' – answer that internal hunger? Is it that I don't, ' _love' –_ 'myself?' And how do I not, _'love,_ ' – 'myself:' by not _owning_ , 'myself?' How then do we, _'own'_ – 'oneself?' At the Raman, evening, we were given cards with brief descriptions of that which needed to be addressed or the quality that needed to be remembered. The cards are given colours. My card was yellow and reads: _"The energy of yellow is inviting you to choose love in your life instead of fear or worry. To look lovingly at the barriers that you may face. To give permission for your feelings to speak to you with the knowledge that you will be open and loving as you listen to yourself. Be lovingly aware of the choices that you have in facing yourself and what you feel."_ _Raman Pascha_ This has nothing to do with others Raman, teach me how to love myself.

Friday April 6th 8.30 pm

I've had breakfast and thus fulfilled my basic need for food. Now I don't know whether to find Ian or travel north. I had a strange dream last night that seemed to go on and on and on. I asked Raman to help me to love myself. But the dream was all about my finding as a new partner, a young girl that I knew briefly for about an hour when I was seventeen. I remembered her name in the dream. I can't picture her. I can't remember whether it was the girl or the name I found most attractive, Deirdre. There is an Irish play, ' _Deidre of the Sorrows._ ' So perhaps it is my complete regret around life. What I am aware of is that I am driven by the need to still this ache in my whole body with the experience, 'out there,' in the physical world, of some being other than myself who will offer companionship and love. Yet Raman says, " _need is met by an internal response."_ Also he says, " _If you think you need it, you want it and will pay for it further down the line."_ How can two such opposite ideas both be true? I'll sit and be quiet and then I'll move.

11 pm

I'm home. It's as if I was pushed up the highway from behind. What is it you say Raman? " _Get out of the way and it will all be done for you"_? Driving up today I considered the way I bury my head in a book or a film. My attention will be taken by some piece of new information or an inner compulsion to read about a particular person or subject. And this impulse results in a dozen books on the subject being brought into the house until my attention is taken by something else and four weeks later back they go to the library unread while I pay huge overdue fees. Meanwhile over the same period of time I'll read a dozen novels. I suspect that this is one of the ways this man, – I – myself, me, – hide myself. My fear of coming home is the fear of losing my identity. Yet between I, myself, and me; what identity?

My friend, it is as though a great weight has been lifted off my life and a real journey has begun. Through all the anxiety, doubt and turmoil, which has marked my way home, runs a parallel. For through this day of quiet activity, the words you spoke to me begin to make sense. Information, the currency of my mind is no longer enough. Knowingness, a simple direct inner prompting has guided me through the day. Those doubts relating to what mind believed it understood; have begun to melt like the winter snow. I can see now that intellect has been so proud in what it thought it knew. And it's as if it took the rudder that's properly the preserve of the heart, thinking it could guide my life. But it could only do this in a very restrictive, dualistic way. The heart itself doesn't entertain duality. On hearing what you said to me through the grace of Yasmeen, a voyage has begun. I feel your presence and know I have a constant friend and companion. And as I listened today to my wife and son, love listened. A great weight is gone and I wait with interest to see what will reveal itself. What presents itself to me is now of intense interest. There's other stuff – the currents and eddies within carry more dubious qualities but they can be seen for what they are, and no longer – Inshallah! ( _Allah be willing_ ) – have the power to rule. Choice, as you said to me, is conscious. But the greatest miracle of all is that, the tremendous battle that drove with me through the night, and seemed to make the rest of my life futile before it started; my desire for a companion! One waited for me at home.

Monday 8.30 pm

I emailed Ross the following.

Hello,

Thank you for the time I spent with you both. It was certainly a wake-up call on an unprecedented scale. My life will not be the same again and already the fruits are being gathered. My marriage, which I did not speak to you much about, has not for several years been in very good shape, so much so that despite all that took place for me in Christchurch, I wasn't much looking forward to returning to Auckland. As it turned out, Ian was on a Quiet week, and so I continued travelling home on the Friday. And despite my unwillingness, it's as though I was driven against my will, for no better reason than it was the right thing to do. And my weekend with Lynn has been like a second honeymoon, constantly guided with the memory of and the presence of Raman. It's as though all my actions are, as s(he) would say, permitted and permeated with his/her presence. Life has become an adventure with a very constant rudder.

And all because I wanted to see my friend! Life is grace abounding. Yet travelling back on the Thursday night and Friday, everything looked so black. And I recalled what you had said about not loving yourself and realised that it was true for me also! So I kept bringing Raman's words to mind - to look to the need, and overwhelmingly it was to love myself for what I am and that was so releasing. So thank you once again. It was a visit such as I shall ever have cause to remember. And thank Valerie because I know it was not always easy for her. As for my work, this is something that time will I'm sure correct, how, what, or where, we will see. I've found where Raman tapes are available in Auckland but will take it all step by step. As Raman said to me, it is the time for finding that, 'knowingness', within; it's not the time for information for information's sake. So! Love to you both. David

Wednesday 18 April

It's been a long time since I wrote in this journal. Life since my last entry has been a, ' _more of the same_ ,' experience. You say for me to connect with how I feel, to know how I feel, and to allow that energy to, ' _play in the life_ :' – not in an undisciplined fashion – _'feeling all over the floor_ ' – but with balance...? But what I'm beginning to discover is that mostly I don't recognize feeling. And if I don't, _'know_ ,' what I feel!!? I'm going to bed. I wish with all my heart that I were in Christchurch. But I guess that's not my way. I guess it's in Auckland that a breakthrough of the heart is needed, but I miss you Raman.

Thursday 19 April

My mind can't get a grip on what's being presented, but that's the whole point of what you said: _"to allow what is felt to be experienced and for the heart to guide me._ " I'm so used to _'thinking life'_. Last night I listened to one of your tapes and hearing the sound of your voice gave me strength. Mind plays because it wants things to be different, to be other than what they are. And this movement of mind brings disquiet. I found a book of sermons in a second-hand bookshop in Wanganui called, ' _The House of Quiet_ '. I find that reading them or listening to Mozart brings me rest.

Monday 23 April

Lynn is on her way to England. I sense that, some of my difficulty with my marriage comes from my unwillingness to embrace the future. I'm constantly looking for new experiences, and this restlessness is very old. This evening with the freedom of an empty house, I picked up feijoas – fine, – put rubbish from the trellis into the rubbish bin – fine. – Played on the computer, made dinner – watched a movie – always thinking: - Raman, Raman! I wanted to listen to your tapes, but a part of me resisted even though my whole being wanted to listen to your voice! The desire to listen to your tapes - pulling me – pulling me to a future I desperately desire with all my heart– but equally resist.

Working in the garden today I thought how ignorant twentieth century man is. We commend ourselves on our progress, but we've built around ourselves, a brick wall. Standing in the garden I saw that everything is divine, the whole of nature is composed of living souls. Yet we've used our intellect to construct a world bereft of God. We think we are so much more knowledgeable, and have command over so much technological achievement, yet we're unaware of the living forces and living souls that inhabit our world. We live on the periphery of life, playing with dead matter; yet the energy that moves within is not only beyond the reach of our power, but also beyond our imagination. And so we live in this emotionally bereft world. We take the outward forms, the living souls, and enslave them for our use. Not only do we allow this sterile existence, but the cruelty and greed that are the overriding essence of our actions is incomprehensible. I begin to understand Edgar's line at the end of Shakespeare's, ' _King Lear'_ ; that we should - " _Speak what we feel; not what we ought to say."_ This isn't touchy-feely all over everyone, but allowing a natural expression of our feelings in moments of need. Thank you, Raman.

Tuesday

I feel a mess. I felt strong enough earlier, but when I came home I kept finding frivolous things to do. I wanted to transcribe your tape on intuition, but it's like I house a two-headed hydra. One part of me wants to follow your path as fully as possible, the other wishes to ignore what I know. The feeling is strong, and not following it has made me distressed and agitated in body and mind. These are all very familiar and very old feelings. I will listen to the first side of your, ' _Body Consciousness,_ ' tape.

Wednesday 25th April

I am so distressed. I am as you know going through this exercise of stopping smoking. I had cut it down by half. But then within ten minutes I'd had three cigarettes, and then fifteen minutes later another. My whole body was in a state of turmoil as was my mind; and all from the simple action of total resistance to pursuing this journey. At the same time that the cigarettes were flaring, a plate of potato and salmon I'd prepared for dinners during the week was consumed in great mouthfuls; talk about overreaction. As I listened to your tape a relative calm returned. Since then I've drunk gallons of water and am still calm. I feel like a Christ being offered the world – in my case I give a loud no to the world; then plunge headlong into it for some hours – staggering forth; then back to your words – again finding peace. _'Vow to support Myself!_ ' What a wonderfully exciting and worthwhile concept, yet what huge fears are within. I'm going to listen now to side two as a doh for the day.

1.20 pm

I have just listened to an old Roy Orbison track – how, ' _the real world has real goodbyes_.' And my whole being renounced the sentiment. Reality I've long felt, and feel more and more is not the apparent world of happenings. The world of happenings is more akin to Orbison's, ' _world of dreams'_ , That which is REAL is fuller; is more substantial, and turns our; _'reality'_ , into a world of shadows. But that's not right either; the uncovering of the real, strips our world of shadows; making it more real, more substantial, and a very different place. And this reality is real through and through, within and without. It's about being and entering into yourself, so that whereas previously things, _'happened'_ , to you, suddenly they are you. The inner and outer become one. I'm off for a walk. Thank you, Raman.

I've listened to the exercises from the ' _Body Consciousness'_ and, _'Intuition and Feeling'_ tapes and practised them during the last two days. To bring our attention to the seat of pain, and let it rest there in love and allowance is so beneficial. One result of practising awareness of body feeling is that at any moment so many different feelings can be perceived. I had an unusual experience when I went to a café the other night after the movies; I found myself ' _feeling_ ' the room. And a young waitress was aware of my action, just as I was aware of her knowledge. I knew this because _'feeling_ ' the room was like subtly picking up a chair – a waitress? And in this case also the room. I feel I am barely testing the waters.

Sunday April 29th

I'm scared. I know I didn't wake up scared. When I went to bed last night, I was tired, but there was energy around that was a little scary. Sexual energy that was full of desire and disconnectedness and anxiety of mind. As I lay waiting on sleep, I called on you Raman as I do when I feel weak, as I do when I feel glad. And my sleep was restful but lacked focus. I listened to your tape, ' _Loving Relationships'_ ; and it struck a chord. But I kept thinking of Lynn and my relationship, and the spirit went out of me. And for most of the rest of today I just wanted to sit, I ended up watching three videos on romantic love. My daughter came to visit but I was just waiting inside myself for her to go. I lacked the energy to fully relate with her. Some days, I feel such a general malaise of body and spirit. I know that a great deal of care and observation, right working, focus, patience and perseverance is needed to really hear and feel within myself; and with unalloyed love, to identify and consciously work with whatever presents itself. ' _Need requires an inner response_ '. It's obvious that to follow this path, certain basics need to be nurtured. I still have a – I have a habit of not recognizing feeling as it arises. For example, for breakfast this morning instead of fruit and muesli and yoghurt I had an overwhelming desire for the salmon and potato and onion patties I'd made earlier in the week. Each time I've eaten them I feel depleted; body, mind and spirit, as if I'd not fed at all. And in choosing this desire I chose the result – further depletion. I remembered this as I prepared the patties, yet a little voice inside said it wasn't an issue which it clearly is. This is important; knowledge of the fitness and direction of an action is presented but mostly it's experienced as, ' _me_ '. Intuition is mistaken for my ' _who I am'_. This is ' _who I am'_ , this is ' _me_ ', and this is what I do. It isn't recognized as instruction. How to deal with this experience is spoken about on your, ' _Intuition and Feelings'_ , tape, which is why I'm transcribing it. Because to follow this path of self-discovery requires signposts; knowledge of what is happening. And for this instruction Raman, thank you.

14 May

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to keep my journal yet there is I'm sure increasing need. Lynn arrived home after three weeks in London. I have felt a need, that that in my heart which sets my direction in life must find a firm basis for my journey. Without a firm basis I won't find rest, which I know to be fundamental to any exploration. Already there's huge change in my life, yet how did this change occur?

When I left the School of Philosophy to act on the stage, in one way it seemed as if I moved away from the love and pursuit of truth for something much less. But in retrospect, during my time in the SOP I often felt I was pursuing something that was more; ' _my idea of a path to truth_ ', than a path to truth. Relinquishing the School for something I was passionate about – acting - allowed me to see more clearly what had been happening. The SOP teaching has during my years in the School been like a father and mother to me. It's fed and nourished and indeed brought into being that man, me, that writes this. Everything is right for its time.

16 May

I'm constantly beset by a persistent buzz in mind but am sure it's similar for everyone. It's not easy to just be. Sitting in the park this lunchtime! I came here because it offered a peaceful environment to lunch in. List of possible activities! – Read a book? – Easy. – Listen to a tape? – Easy. Consider in mind principals of being? – Easy. – Write in this journal? – Easy. To sit and look and listen, \- a feast for the whole being? – is incredibly difficult.

17 May

It's not only agitation of mind. Something inside pressures me to procrastinate and find alternatives to real work. By real work I mean, that which I passionately want to do. Instead I find alternative actions that waste time, take away from who I really am, and leave me feeling empty and neglectful. These feelings carry a quality of anti-life and they drive me in exactly the same way the mind does. I must own the mental activity and feelings; find what causes them to arise and a way past them. I already know the answer of course. It's to go with feelings that are positive, life-affirming feelings - and smile on the others as on old travelling companions that I can do without. Life is divided by do's and don'ts – good and bad – guilt and affirmation. It's time to move past these.

18 May

The universe is a wonderful place, full of paradox. Where yesterday I complained of old travelling companions – of dualities and divisions, today I'm aware of the positive, driving force of creation. I've reread the first two pages of the transcription I made of our conversation, Raman, and all became much clearer. The enemies are within. They lie within mind in the form of judgements and, ' _my knowing'_. They use the power of my consciousness and mechanically arise in relation to the situations, or types of situations which formed them. They are ' _my truths'_ , and are of course not true at all. It's like setting up macros on a computer. Once activated they mechanically follow the progression they were designed to follow. And as, ' _I know'_ , or, ' _I understand'_ , or whatever sensation fields they work in, they fill in for truthful observation in the moment now. The key is to ask the questions, bring them into the light. Then like the guardians of the treasure, in the myths and legends, that shrink away to nothing as you approach them; so with these ideas and sensations. To be here now, unafraid, open to whatever cares to present, makes the world suddenly a different place.

A pen is intelligent. Where it acts with less intelligence is when our personal manner of holding it or writing with it, imposes, ' _our_ ' control. And just as the pen is intelligent so all creation is intelligent! Generic Man, women and men both, are indeed Masters of the Universe, just as described in the Old Testament with oversight of the birds and the beasts. Today this concept is considered arrogant and untruthful. Yet in the actions of battery hen owners, salmon farmers, wheat growers, or any steward of the land where the plant or animal's lifestyle is altered dramatically for the sole purpose of extracting greater profit for the steward, here lies true arrogance. For we've become cruel and greedy and forgotten that we are indeed, only stewards. It may be we're much more, but we're also stewards. And we complain and insist there can be no God because if there were he wouldn't allow the world to be as it is; and here lies the great irony. We are Gods and yes we do allow things to be as they are. And this is the; 'Fall' of Adam and Eve. And who is going to acknowledge it, because we're all at fault. There is a lot more to this paradigm and it's unfair to cast blame, to throw the first stone, because this is the creation. And one by one we ancestors of Adam and Eve turn, and listening to our own hearts, realize what we've done, and begin the journey home. Thank you Raman and all you great souls out there that I cannot name because I've forgotten you. Thanks to my ancestors whom I know watch just as closely. We are all here together, and indeed I know there's no division, there never was and there never will be, and just as we all love a good story, so does God. Thank you. What strikes me about this is that the above is known, yet not constantly or in its fullness. And all that the journey home is; is to remember.

Chapter Twelve

WHAT ABOUT THE HOLY MAN?

" _So, in order to eradicate the fear of self-doubt, it is important to realise that there are myriads of perspectives in this world. For every human being that exists, there is a slightly different view of life and what it's all about, according to where they are at in their own journey. There is a collective reality that you can all agree upon; there are some consistencies in the universe that you can begin to trust. Those are the premises that you base your existence upon. Once you have that foundation set, then self-referral is essential, alright? This is when you really give power to being yourself, and you get to be and know who you are by the amount of freedom you give to express all of these parts."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

20 May

I've been reflecting on your tape, ' _Persian Mystic Rose_ ', where you make the observation, that a rose bush doesn't produce absolute perfection all at once. That to do so would result in an almighty blaze of glory, and then nothing. Reflecting on my life as a whole I can see this. Many diverse activities take place at any one time but they are separate and at different stages. There's _work_ , work which can be viewed as an activity, although it's also diverse. There are my relationships with my fellow workers, with my family, my friends and acquaintances. With Lynn there is shared domestic activity, life in the theatre, life following the tendrils of the journey. And all these activities appear separate and yet all are underpinned with the one consciousness, and all are underpinned with love.

21 May

Sometimes I get so enraged with Lynn. It is hard to pinpoint what it is that precipitates it. To be honest, all my life I've often found myself becoming filled with what on reflection can be seen as unreasonable anger. Outside events appear to be the causal factor but they are only the catalyst that gives vent to what lies within. At the unexpressed core of me, I get tweaked and explode. It's about repression as opposed to expression. I hold myself in, instead of allowing myself to have a voice. This weekend I got really angry on several occasions. We were going to read ' _Romeo and Juliet'_ together as preparation for performing it this Christmas. I had to wait for Lynn to do other stuff, and felt she didn't attach sufficient importance to the play. In the past I wouldn't have spoken, or maybe I would. No matter, on each occasion we made up, and on the second occasion I read the Raman transcript to her in its entirety, and the subsequent peace was worth it. This is important.

Today, Lynn is away at a Philosophy Study Day and I spent my time cleaning the house. The sense is of wishing to clean up the physical. The whole weekend has had a sense of purpose. Today I understood that activity and consciousness define the possibilities. Activity isn't limited by the circumstances. Soul driven activity, creates the conditions in which work takes place. There is no need of poverty when the heart is truly followed.

22 May

Today began well, moved into disaster mode, and recovered itself as of now with a significant shift in perception. It's important to trace the movement of the day and what it has shown. What was very significant for me after staying with Ross in Christchurch; was that a change took place in certain key elements. And it demonstrated clearly, although this is only now appreciated, that a change in the way we view reality, produces immense change in us. For instance, although as a younger man I toyed with vegetarianism, I was never really a vegetarian. All my life I have loved meat, the smell of it, and the taste of it. And yet my experience as a young man was that meat didn't seem to be needed by my body. It moved quickly through the body and I didn't figure there was much to be gained from eating it. But I didn't act on what I knew. I hungered after meat and was not at all prepared to give it up. But in Christchurch with Ross, everything changed. He and Valerie were vegetarian and I just accepted the food they ate. With the advent of Raman, a whole host of elements appear to have been released, almost like a host of demons. So that since returning from Christchurch I've not had any appetite for meat. The important point here is that, I now know that it's possible to change a desire to which I'm deeply attached. This was something that I haven't in the past properly appreciated. Not just to let go temporarily, or subject to temptation, and having to make that decision over and over again, but to give something up completely.

This morning I awoke, and went out on the porch for my first cigarette of the day. Recently, I often think of stopping smoking, generally each time I light, or have a desire to light a cigarette. This morning was no exception. I smoked a little over half and threw the rest away. As I left for work I reached for a cigarette, my second of the day, a perfectly normal routine, and my lighter. Damn! I had left my lighter at home – continue tomorrow. Impulse – rejection – anger – disaster – equilibrium –attention to others – watching of impulse and desire – temptation-– memory of meat eating. Take the moment and go with the flow.

24 May

You'll get the idea from the scribbled note at the end of yesterday's entry. I bought another lighter. I left it in the car when I got to work. So when I wanted another cigarette I had to go to the car to get the lighter. I started reading Gary Zukav's web site instead of working. The day declined disastrously. I felt weak and debilitated. I felt like opportunity was being wasted. When I got home in the evening we had a visitor who was staying the night. So I had to make polite conversation until he went to bed, fortunately quite early. At the first opportunity I returned to reading Zukav's, ' _The Seat of the Soul_ '. I was reading this beautiful passage about temptation and how it is an opportunity to face karmic situations in a very tidy, non-spilling-all-over-the-floor-way. Its common sense so struck me as to bring me strongly into the present moment.

I was smoking a cigarette and in the middle of this description of temptation I looked around and saw the cigarette burning in my hand. It was as if I saw myself. And I underline this – I really looked and saw myself in an infinite span of time. I put the cigarette out, took the remainder of the packet and threw them in the rubbish bin along with the lighter and said: ' _that is the last cigarette I will smoke_ '. And the memory of having successfully stopped eating meat added strength to my action then, and in what followed. At the back of my mind was the knowledge that major changes such as this were possible. I was working in the sun room and when Lynn came in a few minutes later to say goodnight, I told her. I knew that to succeed I must reinforce my action, that I needed every bit of help I could get. I also knew that my thinking of quitting every time I smoked a cigarette was an invitation to stop. I've never had a problem with smoking: I don't believe people die from smoking. It may be seen, if you like, as an agency enabling dying. If it weren't that it would be something else. People die, when it's time to move on. But I knew I was being invited to change a habit I had outgrown, that it was important for the journey being undertaken. And I thought; 'if I cannot follow this very simple instruction what can I do'. So I did. And it was a profound decision, far greater than the action appears in itself. I took my lighter and the remaining cigarettes and threw them away. The following evening I scrabbled through the rubbish trying to find them. I did, and secreted all but one away. The one I kept, I took around to the back porch and furtively lighting it, drew in a mouthful of smoke, - and then I stopped, expelled the smoke and stood there – caught in my knowing. I'd been thinking; ' _if I allow a little nicotine in, it will assist my giving up_ '. Then I stopped and took a good hard look at myself. And I threw the remainder of the cigarette down the drain... But you said; _"this is the last cigarette I will ever smoke_ ". And that action of mind was very powerful. ( _Edit Note: the cigarettes I put in the car pocket remained there for about six weeks. I looked at them regularly but never smoked one. I smoked herbal cigarettes during that period about six daily, and the day I stopped smoking herbals I threw the cigarettes in the car away. Although I am not at the moment vegetarian I haven't smoked since._ )

Last night I attended a meditation group at the _'Chrysalis Effect'_ , in Birkenhead. It's a ' _New Age_ ' store where I'll be meeting with Raman again next month. About eight of us were led in meditation through pillars of white light with which we were asked to protect ourselves and the group. We were then invited to, ' _astrally project'_ ; first to see ourselves, then the rest of the room and then wherever our heart's desire took us. I didn't appear to travel, but there was no doubt in my mind that I entered an inner world. That there is an inner world, as expansive if not more expansive than the outer world, I don't doubt. I guess it approximates to, or perhaps more accurately is the space where dreams take place?? But the benefit of exploring the inner landscape in this way I've no idea. Yet I heard myself speaking of it last night. I said that the external world was the boundary of the internal and therefore you could not choose the causal or subtle over the physical because they were all the same. Each one permeates or forms the boundary of the others. What this means in reality, I've no idea.

What happens will happen. " _Just get out of the way_ ", Raman says. I find myself talking and listening in a way I never have before. As if walls are coming down and I can see right in. I feel more open and more compassionate. It's like speech is spoken and there's no fear of following wherever it leads, even when it has the capacity to embarrass or surprise. The key is to follow speech. Free unchecked speech opens the heart and allows love to flow and unity to be achieved. The topic doesn't matter. What's important is to let it flow uncritically free from any bias.

26 May

There is no evolution of the soul! The transmigration of the soul is! We're not a different soul now from yesterday's or the day before's. It's just that we forgot and now we're remembering.

28 May

Perhaps there is to be a major shift in the world, a new civilisation. And just as the Soviet Union disappeared overnight, a new type of age will come upon us. This, accords with my understanding of how change takes place. Like a kettle, a great deal of boiling and then a change in state. Whatever the soul entertains is possible without any danger of failure. Human intent is a path, which if taken is supported by the universe in every possible way; the equivalent to the emergence of a rose from its bud. I've had countless experiences of, _"Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you_." The universe is arrayed behind the seeker, with every penny down on the table in his favour. The key is in our moving forward. The optimal path of your soul is the choice of awareness, the vertical path.

29 May

The heat is piling on. I don't seem to have much if anything to do with what is happening in my world. A question I can't get out of my mind these days is; what is the relationship between – let's call it, the path of the extra-terrestrials – as opposed to following the teachings of an Indian sage? I have this inner fear that there's no sacredness in what has picked me up, but that's bunkum. That which joins me to Raman or the Mona Lisa or any part of this world is full of love, reverence, sacredness. – But for all that mind goes – ' _What about the Holy Man'? 'All men are holy'_ , comes the reply. ' _You know what I mean'_ ; comes my rejoinder'. I don't know what? Or where? Or why? It's just that this world's becoming illumined. And although a lot goes on in mind, the reference point is the heart. This brings rest and surety.

Speaking about meditation, Raman says, that when the mind is completely identified with one thing, that this is meditation. There is no good or bad. It's been said, that when meditation is fully part of us we never don't not meditate. Might this not be true? Isn't it the object of meditation that is different? In a sense, meditation is only a form of hypnosis. So - it serves many purposes? To hold the mantra in mind gives enormous clarity and singleness. Yet this world is even more expansive still. Because it has an inside, that is as definable as the outside. I always thought that if you close your eyes and for instance see red, that this was a chance combination of light and other qualities. Yet Raman, you would have it different. Because you ask us - what colour do you see now? And then derive meaning from it. There is much to discover.

30 May

The conversation's that take place these days are so natural and unhurried and take place anytime, anywhere. I love them. They're not necessarily particularly philosophical, nor of great seriousness. What is beautiful about them is that they dissolve barriers and create happiness, yet may only be about the weather. In the past, conversation often had a competitive edge. I think it's that I don't have as many axes to grind. And this enables conversation to develop and penetrate in ways not previously experienced. I no longer come armed with special knowledge. That there is knowledge of the bricks and mortar of the universe I've no doubt. But knowledge of bricks and mortar isn't necessarily useful in itself. It can close conversations down rather than encouraging them.

2 June

Today I went to a café on Ka Road called, ' _Live Poets Café'_ , to listen to my son David read, and I took the poem, ' _Fantail_ '. We ended up sharing the prize for best, ' _open mike poems_ '. Everything that was read was so wise, each in its own special way. This opens up a whole new world.

6 June

The outer form of life on this planet, characterised by events and daily occurrences are not in themselves of great moment, at least not in their outer form. It's the inner content of an action that gives it interest. Remembering myself – specifically – feeling and experiencing – ' _who I am'_ , as I drive through the city; - movement and passing forms come to rest. Not that there's no semblance of movement, but what engages the attention is the living intelligence within. It fills all. The bushes, trees, flowers, roads, houses, fences... all the forms of creation are seen to be in silent attendance as I drive or appear to drive by. And in this silent attendance is great love and devotion. It sounds very egocentric but they appear to bow down to me. I think they bow down to all us humans. It is a song of praise, complete unison and harmony. They bow down because they know divinity when they see it. That's all. All is in willing service. When the paper on which I write has served its purpose and is tossed without further thought into a bin, it's a dispassionate act. For why should not the paper sacrifice its paperness, and allow itself to break the boundaries between itself and its death – as paper. Truth is; it never was paper. As unadulterated self it spreads itself beneath my pen and holds for a time the form of my thoughts. And then it's gone, function satisfied, and breaks down into its component elements until called forth anew.

Things are not what they seem. They never were; but nor does it matter. All experience is God experiencing himself. In a sense it's like a game. It depends how it's viewed and no one way of viewing it is any better than another. But we have a homing instinct. So once the bait has been laid and we the hunter, the errant soul get a whiff, we're on the scent. And this same action is played and replayed over and over in different ways. In each case, it is the good we find a trace of and the good we chase. It's only that for each of us our perception of what constitutes the good differs. And even in one person, from moment to moment, the good is everchanging. Yet beneath this everchangingness there are constants. There is a constant desire to know myself. Everything is referred back to the heart. And everywhere I look shows the same absolute connection, - between me – and what I observe.

7 June

I don't know where I'm being led. Last night when I returned home, my physical actions seemed overly energetic. They didn't match the fineness I feel in my heart and mind. I'm holding the pen too hard so that it presses a corrugation into the side of my finger. It's strange, I'd have expected a shift in myself to be reflected physically but that's not what I'm experiencing.

I've lost interest in my job. I have so many questions. The world appears so rich and none of the stuff that's commonly given as an explanation of life and how it works seems right. I want to find the answers to all the questions that keep arising on what has all the hallmarks of a significant journey, - not a quest. A quest is different. On a quest we look for something; we have a goal to find something we believe we don't have. On this journey everything is important both for its own sake and for the sake of the journey. There's no longer a dual aspect of mind asking, ' _will I attend or won't I'_ , there's now no alternative but to attend. Nor is there a desire not to.

Whatever presents, does so for a purpose. Yet the purpose isn't necessarily known. In the meditation group we were discussing good and bad aspects of ourselves, and I found myself saying that as God I pursued the bad so that as God I could turn around and choose the good instead. When I reread the above it sounds like a justification for almost anything. It's not meant to be.

June 9

It's a difficult thing to keep track of significant signposts along the way. But perhaps this is because the important ones only strike when we're ready... I started the last sentence five hours ago. I suddenly felt so depressed without really knowing why... I wanted to be alone. So I put on Raman's tape on Sunyatta. It is a system of knowing through colour. And I saw the colour of indigo. And suddenly the malaise of the day was gone. I had been worrying about my diet. I felt out of sorts and that it had something to do with something lacking in my diet. And it kept worrying me. I should also explain that for the past few weeks I've been trying to discover what indigo looks like. It's the colour associated with the third eye or pineal, and is the chakra or energy centre related to spiritual insight. For some reason I couldn't picture it in mind, or recognize it in anything I saw. On the tape, Raman was saying, that to see in the mind's eye the colour indigo, was a sign that information available through intuition was not being listened to. As he said this, my mind was suddenly filled with indigo. And I stopped the tape because what came into mind was that during the last few weeks I'd been aware of being presented with intuitive knowledge and of pushing it away. And I knew that what I had heard was right and concern over diet vanished, I felt better than I had in weeks.

I'd been listening to the tape in Devonport on the way to a movie. As I sat in the cinema I had the most extraordinary experience. It was a small cinema seating less than a hundred people. There were about twenty people there, and I felt intimately connected to each one of them as I would to my dearest friends. I experienced ethereal light filling the whole theatre and connecting everyone there. We smiled and spoke to each other before and after the film. It was a remarkable evening.

17 June

We're hidden behind a mask, and can only know about each other what we choose to reveal. But the converse is also true. What we reveal about ourselves becomes a window to our soul. As soon as we put ourselves on display, we're there for all to see – in our entirety. We cannot hide from the world, and nor can we hide from spirit. If we think we're not seen by the Raman's of creation, think again.

It occurs to me that our connection to the, _'real world_ ', has to be nurtured and established in the heart. To hide what we really feel is wrong. Yet generally we practise uttering meaningless words and phrases to each other; disguising our true feelings. The thought of saying what really happens in my world, feels too intimidating. I don't want to be looked down on by others, and so I lie. And yet what I really feel inside is that other people's worlds are just like mine; and when they appear to say or look in a way that makes me feel unsafe, they also are lying. Because, what they don't let on to anyone, are the actions of theirs which are not dissimilar to others. In this way we manage to have power over others. I know now, that to hold onto what I love, to hold to my passion, is the key to real happiness. And not to be afraid to speak what I feel. Sticks and stones will break no bones.

18 June

I spoke to Raman again on Friday. It's funny, because I imagine a constant connection between Raman and me, yet he is less often in my thoughts these days. I still invoke his name, mostly to share some absurdity or foolishness with him, or to ask his help with some particularly strong emotion. And I've no doubt of his presence at these moments. To speak with him physically through Yasmeen is different; speech is more often channelled through the mind. Yet speech can be heartfelt. We have heart to heart conversations. The quality of listening to Raman is that of experiencing unconditional love. But to ' _think_ ' of a ' _heart to heart'_ with Raman! It conjures up an exchange at a level wholly different to that we normally allow ourselves.

25 June

It's Monday evening. I've spent Friday morning, evening and Saturday afternoon in Raman's presence, and felt incapable of putting pen to paper. I've always known life was other than what we normally accept. This is what these pages are speaking about. But I never really connected with the ' _reality_ ' of what this means. What I'm trying to say is that there is ' _reality_ ' within ' _reality_ ' within ' _reality_ '. And the discovery of each new step makes one's previous perception inadequate. The following are a series of quotes I made from the Friday evening session. The evening was entitled:

' _Spiritual living'_

' _To live for the divine requires the right perspective.'_

' _Trust yourself.'_

' _No one is going to step forward for you. Learning to live spiritually lifts us out of the common way.'_

' _Think of trust as energy.'_

' _Trust that your need will be met.'_

' _Abundance is the creative form of life.'_

' _Energy, thought and feeling are all here in abundance.'_

' _Wherever you put your focus; that is what you will nurture.'_

' _Abundance is not measured out.'_

' _Give what is needed when it is needed.'_

' _Live in spirit.'_

' _Love and attention produces new growth and recovery.'_

' _Learn the rhythm of life.'_

' _The rhythm of life has changed in the last two hundred years._

Time used to be measured in parts of a day. Now it is measured in milliseconds.

' _What is needed to trust in my own life?'_

' _Where am I standing back and playing wait and see?'_

' _There is a need to respond to life.'_

' _If you face your fear the face of fear will change.'_

' _Where do I feel I have a lack? What type of limit have I placed upon this? What condition is put on the healing of that which I lack? What am I waiting for, someone to act on my behalf? What kind of action or belief will remedy my lack? What kind of unconditional action, belief or faith will allow me to heal? Is there enough love in my life? If not, why not? What needs to be opened to allow more?'_

' _Beauty is love manifest. It is love. It is divine. Reflecting back in your smile, is love, is divinity and is yourself.'_

' _We need to take the uttermost care and feeling in our actions. Love is unconditional.'_

' _Our lives are a feeling experience. Feeling asks for a response and this is a natural flow.'_

The above is a précis of the evening. The attention of the group was total.

This world is peopled with souls and we're all on a journey. Sometimes we get so caught in life, we forget what we're about. Look at the living beings around you. Like you, they're gentle vulnerable creatures. Inside each of us is divinity. Everything that appears to be outside of us: from the front gate, the picket fence, the trees in the garden, the grass, flowers, bushes, dogs and cats; they're all part of us. Everything's jammed full of consciousness, divinity and love. The question is how to live knowing this.

5 July. Midnight

Since the last weekend with Raman things look different again. Going through life achieving the fruits of a variety of desires isn't enough. In the past I measured my progress through life by; meals consumed, books read, movies seen... My interest now has shifted, is less in the outer than the inner meaning of life. Movement in the accepted sense is now seen as only a change of scene. It's in the inner journey that there is real movement and this is probably also an illusion. I suspect it's more like standing on a hill in a deep mist. As the mist clears the view expands. It would seem that there was a change and there is in fact. Mist has gone. Well, mist has gone.

11 July

I must be more assiduous in writing in this journal. Life is incredibly full. It feels more fulfilling. Is it like this because of the focus being brought to bear on it? Undoubtedly it is. And if this account is to prove useful to other aspiring souls it must be as complete as possible.

It's Wednesday and Meditation group night. Tonight we practised a guided meditation. I can see how little attention I give to the physical. My physical form as experienced during the meditation appeared to propel itself by pure energy. Talking about this afterwards, it became evident that this inattention to physical detail is quite habitual. I admitted that if asked what colour the meditation room was, or what clothes people wore, I wouldn't have a clue. Another member of the group said, that if I were asked about the emotional state of anybody in the room I would probably answer accurately. What a nice observation. I've not really looked at things this way before.

17 July

Sometimes it seems as if there's a hand on my chest pushing me away from this journal. At other times I come to it easily. Perhaps process requires space much as life requires space. I'm busy. But it's not as if I'm rushed from activity to activity. It's just that there's so much to look at anew. Through the Gary Zugav site on the internet I found, ' _New Dimensions Radio_ '. They also have a large number of articles by a lot of different people looking at the world in different ways. Last night I wrote a poem called, ' _Astar_ ' from the aspect of our being starseeds, hence the play on the word, star.

Astar

A poem's a reaching out, a grasping hold,

from a special place in the heart;

it's a parceling around, a passing on

of a feeling you just have to share.

A poem describes, for all to hear

a moment – 'when'- from deep inside.

Open heart surgery doesn't just take place

on a hospital operating table.

Although sometimes there's the same sense

of being on display.

Also it's teaching day – lots of students out there,

watching, listening.

Laying your heart on the line;

reaching out to those around and saying,

you are special to me, you are my

family, listen to me, - we're all here together.

Once life was a lonely place

but not now, – now I can see;

that the beings that inhabit this world

with me are all from the same stock.

We get confused about ourselves.

But we are star children.

Little dis-asters:

aster meaning star, – dist-, to be without.

So - star with an e;

if I star – e at you it's because;

I knew you once, we're kin.

Don't be star- tled – let's go home.

Let's begin again, – lets have a new star – t;

I have been star –v-ing here too long.

It is not in error we call - those amongst us that shine;

Stars – it's not our illusion.

So let's form star clusters – lots of brothers and sisters.

All re-member-ing, putting it all together,

Reaching out, reaching in, touching star – e – ing,

this is us; and we're all in this together.

Imagine how the whole world would

slip away from our feet, as eyes locked

to eyes, locked, star – e – ing, oh yes! star – e – ing,

at our own image – shining each from each.

And bright eyes – star lit eyes – glistening,

leaning into, and hearing, - listening brightly;

world reeling, feeling, eyebright, swimming,

the whole globe swinging off its axis in wonder.

And Star brothers and Star sisters;

star – ting homeward, glad, sad, all

those contrary emotions; as we mount

the star case to our home

I feel bound to a place from which there is no escape. My whole being's on fire. Reading Judith Orloff's story in her book, ' _Second Sight'_ , she recounts how during her medical training she had the job of preparing people for death. And of the immense stillness and love she experienced in the course of her work. And I thought, if as the spirit is released, there is this great surge of love, palpable to someone tuned in to this release – what occurs on a field of battle? What occurred at Hiroshima?

We look out from where we stand at a world of name and form. Our understanding of this world is limited. Imagine clambering around the walls and roof of a house, scrabbling to get in and not quite understanding how. We don't even know there is an inside. Like a child in a garden, running around with a big stick having imaginary sword fights with the flowers. To a child the flower is just something to translate into the world of the imagination; it becomes an imaginary friend or foe. Like this child we have no idea what we're up to. We look at the surface of life, having no comprehension of what lies behind, or what its meaning is. And our story of life on earth is moulded by this limited perception. And to stop a nation in its tracks, we developed a bomb. A bomb to kill thousands and destroy a city in one bang! Like so many flowers. And many of us are horrified at the inhumanity. But what has happened? If on the other side, thousands upon thousands of souls are released all at once, what would a Judith Orloff sense at the moment of release? - A great outpouring of love? I believe so. So what brought the war to an end – love or fear? And what affect does such an event have on the human journey. What does it look like from the other side; where not limited humans, ignorant of who they really are, you and I; but divine beings burst forth in jubilation? ' _Hi folks, we're home. We did it!'_ For make no mistake, nothing happens for no reason.

And where does this end? When I clean my house it glows. The material world shines when work takes place in it. When I wash the outside of my house, dig the garden – this physical work brings about a subtle change quite apart from any physical rearrangement, as though light was poured into creation. There is a relationship between work and dying. Both involve a change in the physical medium of life. To wipe a surface is a death and a rebirth. Each and every waking moment, there exists the possibility for each of us to connect with the activity of our embodied self and participate in life and death, death and life.

It doesn't stop here. At work when a job arrives on my desk, I have varying degrees of knowledge around it. But mostly it would be true to say that until it has my full attention what is needed is unknown. The action of directing my attention to the job invests it with intelligence. This allows understanding of what the need is and how to deal with it. The intelligence can be seen as the light of God pouring in and allowing change. The crooked is made straight. Again it is a deathbed scenario. Change is simple. All it requires is effort. Until we're prepared to make an effort nothing happens. We can invoke change by turning on light switches, heaters, dishwashers all very simple actions, but they each require effort. And behind each tiny effort lies intention. It may be the intention to blob out in front of a television. Or it may be the intention to write our opus. Intention shapes and gives meaning to our actions. So with intention our actions are born and go to shape our world.

And what is becoming clearer is that within this being – I, me, myself, - enormous emotion, enormous feeling is being generated. When I returned from Christchurch and first considered feeling, I couldn't feel what I was feeling. Well, I know what I am feeling now. It is compassion stirred to great depths by all the information which has presented itself with the advent of Raman into my life. For it seems the facts go something like this. There are umpteen billion people on this earth .And each one is a very precious, very special life form. We are human and come in male and female and other indeterminate packages. We move from life to life. Moment by moment we practice life and death with intentions of every hue, yet seem to be an enslaved species. We are enslaved by the most difficult of bonds. We are enslaved by our own cognizance, our own agreement to a pitiful life in many cases. The pity of it is that the perpetrators of actions that are often cruel, greedy, and abusive are you and I. Each of us has held our children in our arms and gurgled at them in love. And in that moment we are definitely human by intention. But the poverty of our actions in what amounts to a dream sequence of, ' _what life is all about,_ ' is appalling. We create rules and regulations we consider realities and inflict these upon each other in ways that are inhumane. Law and Order! Road rules! No one is here arguing that rules of the road are not necessary. If we all acted, moment by moment with complete integrity, consciously aware that those we related with were all our kin; there wouldn't be a need for rules because we'd always act with love and care, - unconditional love, unconditional care. This isn't the case. But it's useful to hold in mind that rules are put in place in an attempt to render activity as close to the ideal as possible, to prevent us from killing and maiming each other. Driving into central Auckland late one night, I was signalled to pull over by two police officers. I stopped, got out of my car, and waited quietly for them. They walked over and in very aggressive tones told me to get back in my car. There was no please, or thank you in their language. Now there is no law in this land requiring me to be subjected to that type of authority. It is abuse of office? Yet we have no defence against it. Who questions the custodians of civil order and gets away with it. We pride ourselves on living in a free country, a democracy, with rule of law. Rule of the people, by the people, for the people. This incident doesn't quite fall into this category. Of course in comparison with other countries we live in a paradise. But this doesn't negate my observation. There is continual debate over our right to freedom from restraint on the Queen's highway, and efforts to keep the peace, in times when violence and dishonesty are so prevalent. But ask this question. Look for the intention in human action in every scenario; in the workplace, on the streets, in your home, in government. I am not an advocate of anarchy. Indeed I've not really been an advocate of much until now. But we all of us need seriously question what we are about in this world of ours.

18th July 2001

Today at work I had a little window of realization. A few weeks ago I read Gary Zukav's partner's description, of entering an uphill race. She runs marathons and had entered a marathon which turned out to be all uphill. And she didn't know it was all uphill; and as she ran she became extremely agitated waiting for the downhill part of the race. She spoke of the moment she accepted that she was in, 'an uphill race', after enduring enormous stress, expecting the race to be some uphill and some downhill. At the moment of her acceptance of this salient feature; she was able to give her attention wholly to the race, rather than being preoccupied with this considered basic unfairness. For several years now, I've been unsettled at work; wanting to move, but with no clear indication of where to, or to what. And this morning I remembered Linda's uphill race. And I thought, here you are David awakening to a most profound change in perception and direction, and yet you begrudge your 'job' your full attention because it's lost your interest. Yet your job is where you will spend almost a third of your life, for the next few years anyway. Therefore, what integrity are you giving a third of your life that doesn't suit your notion of where someone with your reflections and interior world should be? And with that thought the fullness of that inner world was allowed into my work life.

Chapter Thirteen

BY WHAT LIGHT DO MEN GO BY?

" _But there can be another growth, and it is the possibility of this growth that allows the most exciting journey; not across the outer forms of physical matter, however audacious, but a journey within. And once this journey begins there is no end to the possibilities of this our life."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

25th July

I lunched with a friend from work today. Walking to the coffee shop, watching the people on the sidewalk as I went, I was fascinated. Everyone appeared to be happily investigating their environment, as if it was something new to them, and full of mystery. It felt like observing from an altered state of consciousness. I asked myself the question – what is the state of nature? If we are God, then our structures are the works of God also! During lunch my friend was describing to me the wonderful advances which were being made: that allowed blind people to see by the use of an implant in the head; of devices you could point at people and change their emotions; of transferring memory to a mechanical field, so that people could be immortal by the preservation of their memories; feeding information into people's minds so that they began life as Einstein's; and devices that allowed us to perceive Dryads. I became quite heated and said I found it a frightening world; and that to contemplate a soul inhabiting a body and mind of lesser intelligence, implanted with the knowledge of an Einstein, was like feeding rocket fuel to a lawnmower. I responded that we have the capacity already to change the emotions of those in our vicinity, that meditating in a forest enables us to perceive dryads without assistance, and that to use a mechanical device to pry into their lives, is like playing Peeping Tom to another's intimate moments. That to maintain a being alive by mechanical means is to enslave them in this world, and that one small step through the curtain, marks the boundary between life and death. Taking that step will reveal love and eternity, so why then would we wish to be marooned in the physical world forever. I spoke very passionately. What he spoke of frightened me. – Are these the works of God?

Tonight Lynn and I went to listen to a pianist David Ward who specialises in playing Mozart. He is an English pianist of some repute, and also a member of the School of Economic Science in England; the parent body of the School of Philosophy, in New Zealand. He performed at St Matthews-in-the-City, an old central city church with a very high interior. Tonight he played a range of music, which included Bach, Schubert, and Beethoven as well as Mozart. He made an error in a particularly complicated opening riff and stopped, smiled gently at his audience with no sense of embarrassment, and said, he thought he had better start again. As a fellow performer I shall never forget that action. He plays and speaks from the heart. It is so important to speak what we feel. It frees the emotions and connects us one to another. Sitting in St Matthews listening to David Ward, I closed my eyes. It was very still in the church, and listening to the music, was like hearing rain falling through stillness, onto nothingness. I thought. Where do the souls of the dead go when they leave? Where are Schubert, Haydn and Mozart now? There are so many questions. Why are we locked into a physical world? For in the physical locked we are.

I am growing to love Neale Donald Walsch's, _'Conversations with God'_. And Judith Orloff, I am so in love with her. She has her picture on the cover of her book. But her picture is underpinned and made substantial and beautiful by her writing. ' _Your description, Judith; of the alter you created in your home; your meditation, ritual and prayer is very moving._ ' She has made her life an authentic life as Gary Zugav would say. These days as I move through life, I feel the whole world vibrate with great energy and unconditional love.

27th July, Friday

My brother-in-law Trevor rang this morning, and told me my sister Josie had had a heart attack last night. It shook my world. I was... concern arose in my... I didn't question Trevor much about Josie, I asked him about himself. He told me a little of his difficulty coping; picking up telephones, and Josie's concern about moving house. Trevor has motor neuron disease and they need to move from the house on the hill where they live, to a house on the flat to make it easier for the pair of them – my mind was on hold. I just... – well that's not true, I said I would come over tomorrow. As soon as I got off the phone, the implication – the possible loss of my sister – hit me. It was like existing in a space I had no knowledge of; one moment I was in my work world and now this... I was out of there so fast; went home, grabbed some clothes, told Lynn, and now I'm on the road to Thames. I'm dictating this. Talking brings in such conflicting emotions of intermixed joy and sorrow. Joy, because personally, death holds no fear for me; yet sorrow, because those with whom we walk are close to us, and to lose the physical reality seems to be to lose them. And yet each day I look at and talk with my father who died forty-four years ago. I've pulled into the side of the road to read some of Neale's, ' _Conversations with God_ ', to try for a sense of calm. There is so much turmoil inside. And Josie's image comes clearly to mind, not only her image but 'Josie' at essence. I know with absolute clarity that it doesn't really matter whether she's, ' _Josie in the body'_ , or ' _Josie in the spirit_ '. Because really, it's just a body for the sake of as Neale's ' _God_ ' says, _'life experience'_. Last week, a friend, Neil, from the Wednesday meditation group had coffee with me. We were talking about the length of a life and why it should be longer or shorter. If we choose the moment to depart, why choose now rather than later? Neil figured living longer allows the experiences of the lifetime more time to be experienced. _'And this makes complete sense Josie'_. But then still born babies don't even draw breath. I was also thinking of David Ward last night and a piece of music he played by a composer, Stoll, who wrote music to a piece from the Upanishads. The question is asked, ' _by what light does man go by_ '. And the answer is, ' _by the light of the sun'_. The questioner then said, ' _when the sun is gone by what light does man, go by_ ', and the answer is, ' _by the light of the moon'_. And he says, ' _well when the moon is gone, what light does man, go by_ ', and I'm not sure what was said, I can't remember – _'a candle, by the light of the candle'_. ' _But if the candle is gone what light does man, go by_ ', ' _that was speech, because when we speak to each other, we become a light to each other'_. And the questioner says, ' _well, when the speaker stops speaking what light does man, go by'_. And the answer was, ' _that within, which knows itself – that's the light that man, goes by_ '. I was picturing Josie and Trevor and my sister Sonia and her husband Bryce and my wife Lynn. I was picturing, picturing? Is that the word? Picturing is I suppose an image. Mind went to each being, and each one of them carries an image. _'We are not limited, Josie, Sonia, Trevor, Bryce – we aren't limited by space and time, we're not limited by the physical world – we're all here now. It's only that the memory isn't sufficiently strong so we don't know this_.' I have to stop.

28 July Saturday

I'm trying to remember my dreams, particularly after reading Judith Orloff, who sees dreams as a means of connecting with soul wisdom, but I can't. I dream, but I forget. So this morning I determined to remember. When I went to sleep, I wrote on a piece of paper beside my bed the words, ' _teach me'_. On awakening, still having forgotten, I put a tape recorder beside me and thought; next time on awakening, I'll keep my eyes closed and speak my dreams onto the tape. Again - nothing - so then I thought I'd see what Raman had to say about it. But what came to mind was - why wish to rely on a dream which then requires translating, when a question in mind can be answered directly by the soul – or Raman. But then, to use the whole broad band of possible experience, including the dream world, can only add to the richness and integrity of life. The thing is – if you don't remember your dreams what are you going to do about it?

Sunday, 29th July

I've finished the first chapter of Neale Donald Walsch's, ' _Conversations with God'_ , I quote. " _So go ahead now. Ask me anything. Anything. I will contrive to bring you the answer. The whole universe will I use to do this. So be on the lookout. This book is far from my only tool. You may ask a question, and then put the book down. But watch. Listen. The words to the next song you hear. The information in the next article you read. The storyline of the next movie you watch. The chance utterance of the next person you meet. Or the whisper of the next river, the next ocean, the next breeze that caresses your ear – all these devices are mine; all these avenues are open to me. I will speak to you if you will listen. I will come to you if you will invite ME. I will show you then that I have always been there. All ways._ "

Yesterday, Josie was much better. Yet I'm aware that this isn't a guarantee of anything. Because the surface of things is only the surface of things, and who knows what is working itself out behind the façade. Jo and Trevor aren't people who easily express their emotions. But who is? We talked about it. Josie understood exactly what I was saying. At one stage I went to get something from the car and when I returned found them holding hands. But when they became aware of my presence their hands parted. Trevor I know would be devastated if my sister died.

It occurs to me that the veil which lies between us and the next world, the curtain of death is an illusion. When I said before that, ' _the surface of things is only the surface of things and who knows what is working itself out behind the façade'_ ; even as I was writing those words I could see what lay behind. Although it is the physical world which keeps presenting itself to us, all our thoughts and feelings take place inside. We can't see thought; not that we recognize as such. We feel emotion physically, but not in a way that shows us its shape or form. Our experience of the physical is in mind. Touch something and ask – where is this experience? To meditate or contemplate connects us with the unseen, when we are _still_ , within ourselves; the only barriers are constructs of the thinking mind. We can range where we wish.

Our thinking mind can envisage the physicality of our bodies. The heart as a beating mass of flesh, pumping blood throughout the body, physical lungs like fleshy bellows, drawing air in, pushing it out, the stomach a fleshy bag lying in our gut chomping away on our last meal, a mixture of half digested food and body juices. In the normal course of things, physical eyes cannot penetrate bodies. Outer surfaces are barriers to vision. The world is a myriad series of boundaries. But close your eyes and the barriers disappear. Speak to your neighbour with your eyes closed and become aware of the energy force of all the beings that make up this creation. When we communicate mind to mind, heart to heart, even with the physical senses wide open, there is no space between us. When there is no space between us we inhabit the same space.

Meister Eckhart, a thirteenth century German monk well known today for his spiritual sermons and treatises was once asked, " _Where do the spirits of the dead go_?" His answer was, " _Nowhere, where should they go_." And if we close our eyes and inhabit the stillness within, it's obvious there's nowhere to go. It seems as if the newly departed stay initially, in a fabrication within mind of, ' _here_ '. Then we speak of their being released and leaving. In this way we give a sense of spatial awareness to the inner world. And in a sense this is true. - Two things. We can close our eyes and imagine being in another physical, ' _whereness_ '. At work, at a friend's, somewhere we have visited or lived in another country. When we do, this there is a sense of difference within the inner world. Close your eyes and imagine yourself somewhere else. That somewhere else can be reproduced in detail here, now. Close the eyes and allow all your ideas to go. As images arise let them go. Listen. Maintain this awareness, this receptivity, and as the inner world comes to rest, there is the experience of peace, of stillness, of being. Here, there are no images, no barriers, no walls, no sense of here and there. So mind to mind, heart to heart, we maintain and inhabit the same space, there is nowhere to go, even though we can imagine here's and there's. So we can go and not go. At the end of the day all is immediately available to us from here to the outer expansion of the universe. Maybe the Elizabethan theological argument as to, ' _how many angels can you fit on the head of a pin_ ', was not as silly as it sounds to our 21st century intellect?

Death is the Merciful Transition

Death is the merciful translation,

Of one thing into another;

The walls that seem to separate,

Divide off life from death,

Are just gossamer curtains

Like osmosis, the movement

From life to the grave,

Is a gentle passage

From the dark to the light;

How could we get it so wrong?

Death is the merciful transition

From here to here;

Where has that wall gone?

If I take just one step to the right,

I can almost peep through

Those gossamer curtains swishing in the breeze;

Everywhere we look

Proclaims the simple fact,

An eternal pilgrimage

Of God, multiplied out a million, million times;

God, on his hands and knees,

Checking out his world,

Then back through the mouse hole,

Phut; Gone.

Death is the merciful transcription,

We are all souls in mourning,

And if I could just step off my hands,

I might be able to make some sense, in this

Phantasmagoria of the night,

And dance with those same gossamer curtains;

Tick, tock;

Night, day;

Now sleeping, now waking,

Rising, falling,

In, out, up, down, on, off,

Yesterday, tomorrow,

Birth, death;

Death is the merciful transmutation;

We are all alchemists in the School of Night,

A little lead, if it's legal,

Transmutes to silver, if I can hold on to it long enough;

But it spends itself, trickles through my fingers;

And here I am stranded, in front of those same,

Gossamer curtains, golden in the half light;

Cows drop their calves, horses their foals,

Seeds haphazardly blown by the wind fall,

Next season's flowers bloom,

Death in life, life in death, is such a simple action;

Death is the merciful transportation,

Of all these shining souls,

Back to the club captain;

Soul six trillion and thirty-one club captain,

Reporting for duty mam,

I quite like it mam; if you don't mind may I,

Slip back through those gossamer curtains mam,

Give it one more bash.

Today's concerns, tomorrow

Lose their meaning,

Tomorrow's interests, have no time,

For yesterday's,

Laws pass, fashions change,

New cultures are born;

The currency of thought changes,

Civilizations rise and fall,

Worlds appear and disappear,

Death life, life death;

Death is the merciful translation,

Of one thing into another;

The walls that seem to separate,

Divide off life from death,

Are just gossamer curtains.

30 July

I still can't remember my dreams, but I feel there's a strong connection between the dream world and the conscious waking state. This morning when I awoke it came into mind. Make the connection to the inner world of stillness often enough and you will learn to go there easily and often. And this is what Raman spoke of when he talked about building a bridge between the heart and the mind. Because in the midst of activity; it is possible to find the seat within, and remain there. And in that state, activity arises naturally from within; eternal, fresh and full of love and absent of any malice or judgement. And this is very different to our normal state which is better described as somnambulant. Gurdjieff describes the normal state of mankind as asleep.

31 July

I am still reading Judith Orloff's, ' _Second Sight'_. I've been reading her description of psychic events such as deja vu and clairvoyance. The world she describes appears to be connected across the gestalt of the inner and the outer. We don't just inhabit a physical world. We inhabit an _inner_ and _outer_ landscape. And by allowing all the tools available to us to be part of our life, and by adding the inner aspect, life will begin to look different. The trouble is we pay cursory attention to everyday experiences, all the while imagining the world the way we think it is.

I am writing this on a tabletop in the patio at the Rialto Cinema complex in Newmarket. The table top has a black, flat surface flecked with white dots. I'm not sure what it's made of, but it's hard. If I hit it, it's firm. I can rest on it. I've a visual and tactile appreciation of it. The thing is, science tells us the table is a combination of molecules and atoms and sub-atomic particles, full of space and whirling electrons and yet we ignore the implications. We cheapen experience for ease of living and from laziness of mind. Did you know that if I were the size of an electron and decided to walk to my next nearest neighbour I would have to traipse hundreds of miles before I even caught a glimpse of them? And this is what we sit on. I am right now resting my book and my arms on this responsive force which if the plug of the universe was pulled out would disappear. Don't we have an extremely simplistic notion of our environment?

3 August

I am chortling over, _'Conversations with God'_ , waiting for coffee. I love the story of the little girl drawing a picture of God, and the mother saying; " _well you know dear, no one really knows what God looks like_ ", and the daughter's reply, " _if you'll just let me finish_ ". It evokes the emotional simplicity of childhood and this is our natural condition. To enjoy a naturally expressive relationship with everyone and everything, and in so doing to explore and enjoy the simplicity of me, ' _who I am_ ' is the whole of life. The world isn't dark or complex, yet to say so is completely contrary to the way life is commonly perceived. I am not saying that there is no ' _shadow_ '. Only that it's more like being caught in a thunderstorm or a light sun shower. Shadow is the local condition brought about by the pain of mistaking a condition for ourselves. And there is no entity out there that can be more malevolent to us than we can.

Right now I am behind at work. I am trying to keep this journal up, and interest people in a summer production of, _'Romeo and Juliet'_. I have budgets to draw up at work and at home. I'm mostly working till after midnight and still getting up for work on time. It's strange. I've never been so constantly busy. I have the sense of some divine force driving through my life, making sure all my waking hours are filled. I keep thinking how nice it would be to have space in my life.

Sunday 5th August

Last night was hell. This morning is heaven. Who says there's no God? This weekend we've had thirty to forty people around who were interested in our plans for outdoor theatre and there were others unable to come. And I'm still busy at work. Maybe as ' _God_ '; in Walsch's, ' _Conversations_ ' would have it; I should rephrase that and I won't have a problem. I find myself telling myself and others, - ' _I've never been so busy at work'_. I am saying it all the time. - It's hard to let go.

Our email at home isn't working properly. I keep downloading interesting ' _demo_ ' programs off the internet. One of them swallowed, ' _Outlook Express_ '. So last night, I tried to sort it out. At midnight I went to bed dispirited, angry and upset; at Lynn who isn't well, but seems non-supportive and critical. I've not felt so low in a long time. I've felt like this all day. At some stage the thought came to mind, ' _I'm creating work for myself wanting to act_ '; I countered this with – _'I'm expressing what I love_ '. I drew a, _'Raman card'_ ; (these are a set of cards you pick randomly similar to drawing tarot cards). It said; " _You are beautiful. And this beauty is reflected all around you. Allow this beauty into your life, actions, words and deeds; for indeed you will have more beauty in your life when you bring this energy into all that you create_ ". One thing Raman has going for him. He certainly knows how to flatter a fella. Seriously! What is most beautiful about Raman's responses are that they go to the nub of the question. The question was; am I doing the right thing. His response was not, ' _yes David; you are'_ ; which was the response I was looking for. Rather it was, - ' _you are David, in your being beautiful, therefore express this natural beauty. How you do it is completely up to you_ '.

As can be gathered from the above I'm not hearing him. At midnight if I had expressed myself to Lynn it wouldn't have been beautifully. I did express myself. I shut myself up. And it did hurt her. So I lay in bed and I guess I prayed to Raman. By that I mean that I directed my attention to _Raman_ and silently asked him for a way out. In the morning I dreamt. As I've said before I have great difficulty remembering dreams. But I remember the opening of this one very well. In my dream I turned on the computer, and it opened in black and white to a sort of montage of images including John or Bobby Kennedy. A bit like an image version of Billy Joel's song, ' _We didn't start the fire'_. And the email worked. And when I woke up, Raman reminded me of something he had said on one of his tapes. When life feels rushed, it's because you're not centred. Meditation is the key. So I got out of bed and turned the computer on after telling Lynn of my dream, still doubting it could be that simple. ' _And we opened Lynn's email where the previous night I couldn't'_. Mine? No! I guess I need to clear the doubt out of my mind – 'this _is my message from God – don't doubt David -'. 'God'_ , in Neale's, ' _Conversations_ ', says Jesus always thanked God in advance when performing miracles and there was absolutely no doubt in his, Jesus' mind, that the miracle would work. This morning is a beautiful demonstration of - _the miraculous, of the power of dream, and the power of doubt_ in the mind. I can palpably feel your disbelief as you read this. Our belief in the physical is so strong, and it says, if there is a glitch in the mechanical, it requires a mechanical response.

6th August

Life sometimes seems like a passage you pass down merely for the sake of – what? So much is happening right now. Such richness I could not have guessed possible once. I'm still working as an Accountant. But as much as I enjoy my job its days are I know numbered. The only thing that keeps me from resigning is money. At work these days I have a deepened awareness of those I work with. I've been here now for over ten years. One day they might read what I've written. That's scary. This evening after the others had gone I stood on the porch and looked out over my favourite rose bushes. For the last two weeks I've been picking a rose and putting it on my desk. They're white, and remind me of Raman's Persian mystic rose. And they help bring me into the real world, grounding me in the role of witness rather than caught in the activity of mind and the banalness of the physical. But this week I haven't picked one. There's been a withdrawal into activity. Maybe there's a natural seesaw between the inner and the outer; being and doing. And the time spent in each is natural.

I've been reading excerpts of the ' _soul story_ ', guests Gary Zugav has on his website. What a varied cross-section of people. And I feel a strong desire to connect with these people. I felt as I read Jean Houston and Debbie Ford's offerings to Gary's site, a strong emotional resonance. ( _Edit note: Gary no longer has soul stories on his site._ ) There are people out there who care tremendously. I want to acknowledge these meetings. Our age is so very sophisticated in its ability to connect us with each other. True communication however is mind to mind. And when another mind touches mine; it seems wrong and insular to hold back, and right and expansive to speak out soul to soul, yet I don't.

There's the growth of the physical body. Additionally there's the growth of acquiring skills and gaining knowledge through the senses. But then there's another area of growth that's different; growth, not in the physical world however ambitious, but an interior journey. Once this journey begins there's no end to where it may take us.

I'm not sure whether it's related but there is something I have observed throughout my life. And that is that no matter how stupid my decisions are, and what vicissitudes I experience in my fortunes; as I grow older, I grow wiser. That's pretty special. Behind my words is a whole unknown world.

When I open my heart to you, you may hear my words and conjecture from them what my world looks like, but it's only conjecture. And so it is with our life; it is by and large a universal mystery to others. The outer form is just a covering. Covering what?

Dee Hock, the founder of Visa, speaks of process as an idea having its own genome, its own genetic makeup; and that all we need do is get out of the way and allow ideas to germinate. And this is exactly what Raman says. Do they need tending? I'm sure they must. Otherwise they would remain what they were; ideas, dormant from lack of what makes ideas grow.

We deserve more than we have. In New Zealand and I believe the same is true all over the world, we are right now threatened with something inimical to life. I thought the other day, New Zealand lighten up. Our leaders are so serious, and unfortunately in a funny sort of way they care for us. But this caring is the death of the spirit, because it knows better than we do, and wishes to regulate and guide us. I'm scared sometimes, at the strength of others virtue. True virtue should not impinge on another's soul. I'm not talking anarchy. Raman speaks of the need for us to be properly bedded, as in bedding a plant, setting it firmly in the ground and supplying all its requirements. He uses the example of a rosebush because the rose was sacred in his culture. It needs he says, food and water and space to grow to its full potential. Governments need to provide for their people in the same way. When a government's actions, inhibit the ability of an individual to grow to their full potential, they're failing in their job. If I'm inhibited from procuring food, by economic structures and regulations, I'm subject to tyranny. If I'm inhibited in my soul's choosing, or if the state tries to make my choices for me, I'm subject to worse than tyranny. The community is subjected to tyranny. Governments believe they have a right and a duty to shape the characteristics of their people, much as though we were barnyard animals.

Life has become a series of discoveries; veils removed, embers stirred, energies released. A votive force moves me, loosening the heritage of things past, not as in my youth when my father's world was ruthlessly destroyed overnight. During my childhood the bonds of institution, tradition, the past; were all held up to the light and mostly cast to one side. Like children searching, - what will we find next to dismantle? But now the bonds under threat are within; the bonds of soul are being explored and this is different. When you raze an institution, those forces it was set in place to contain are loosened, their boundaries broken, and on the whole, the destruction of the forms or containers often brings misery. Those physical bonds were untied in a very ignorant fashion. But the soul's work is gentle, full of love and knowledge; and should be untied, not in haste but with surety and care for our universal good. The soul claims nothing for itself, but gives, like a good actor, the accolade to all.

6 August

I believe that life itself in some way upholds our beliefs around ideas such as – _'I have too much to do'_ – Or if we are moved to connect with a need, and put it to rest with the appropriate action; it will support this too. Life rushes in and supports whatever version of reality we care to entertain.

When Kay, in Hans Christian Andersen's, 'The _Snow Queen_ ', sits at the North Pole, fitting pieces of ice together, trying to dream up ways to spell _'Eternity'_. And Gerda, his childhood sweetheart arrives, and breathes love through his being, he cries; and the glass in his eyes which had made the whole world appear ugly is released very naturally in the water of his tears. His heart melts in her love, the ice around his heart is dislodged, and the blocks of ice in front of him, with which he had futilely played, rearrange themselves to spell the word, 'ETERNITY'. This is life as it can be.

Chapter Fourteen

GAIA

" _Love knows no boundaries when love is truly sought, and when love is truly sought, love knows no boundaries. And you will find that everything is interconnected, and can be seen; the same thing from many different perspectives. And when you start to see the whole, and are not distracted just by one view, there will come a time when words will feel like great limitations, great iron doors; because in the realm of the soul some things transcend the human world, and therefore can only be entered into through direct experience."_ Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

The earth beneath my feet

An Anthem to Life

Our world! Our world! Our world!

I shout out to the sky;

Our world! Our world! Our world!

I stamp my feet against the earth,

In rhythmic - Beat! Beat! Beat!

I clap my hands I stamp my feet;

Our world! Your world! My world!

My earth! Your earth! Our earth!

This earth beneath my feet,

This sky above my head,

Sky blue, earth green,

Flowers of every colour and hue,

Sway in the breeze, sway in the trees,

Plant and bush and every tree,

Colours on bushes and grasses and trees;

These are the spectrum of my mind,

These are the colours of my world.

Our world! Our world! Our world!

I shout out to the sky;

Our world! Our world! Our world!

I stamp my feet against the earth,

In rhythmic - Beat! Beat! Beat!

I clap my hands, I stamp my feet.

Our world! Your world! My world!

My earth! Your earth! Our earth!

I look about see animals of every kind,

Walk the earth;

I look at the sky; see birds of every kind,

Fly the sky;

I bend, and dig my hands into this earth,

And find;

Bugs and lizards, worms and little crawling things

Of every kind,

Creeping and scurrying,

Through the underpassages of the earth;

I stand and in my mind join hands,

Arms akimbo, with all the creatures,

Of the heavens, all creatures within and on this earth;

And we all in tumultuous cry of one accord,

Cry out, beat out; shriek to the four quarters,

Our refrain:

Our world! Our world! Our world!

We shout out to the sky;

Our world! Our world! Our world!

We stamp our feet against the earth,

In rhythmic - Beat! Beat! Beat!

We clap our hands, we stamp our feet.

Our world! Your world! My world!

My earth! Your earth! Our earth!

The earth that feeds, the wind that blows,

The sun that warms, waters that bathe;

My earth;

I feel the breeze cool against my cheek,

I feel the sun warm me through and through,

I lie down on my earth,

And press my face against her breast;

I draw air into my nostrils, deep into my nostrils,

Breathing in all the smells and perfumes;

I lie on my back and breathe deep breaths;

The songs and speech of all the inhabitants of the Earth

Are blown to me on the breeze;

I turn and press my face into your face,

I beat my hands against your breast,

I kick my feet, pummelling every sod,

And cry deep into the hollows of your heart.

Our world! Our world! Our world!

I cry into your breast;

Our world! Our world! Our world!

I kick my feet against the earth,

In rhythmic - Beat! Beat! Beat!

I pound my hands, I kick my feet.

Our world! Your world! My world!

My earth! Your earth! Our earth!

And deep within the bowels I hear,

The birds and beasts and crawling things of every kind cry:

Our world! Our world! Our world!

They shout out to the sky;

Our world! Our world! Our world!

They stamp their feet against the earth

In rhythmic - Beat! Beat! Beat!

They clap their hands, they stamp their feet.

Our world! Your world! My world!

My earth! Your earth! Our earth!

Their cry joins mine.

And as I lie fingers desperately clasping,

Yearning to embrace your very core;

I feel the hairs prickle

At the base of my neck,

A light breeze ruffles my hair,

It grows in volume fear gnaws at my entrails;

The wind grows wild shrieking in my ears;

I try to clasp my hands to my ears but can't,

Need to grasp the earth lose my grip,

My body lifts spinning, spinning, spinning,

A wild exaltation grips my every pore;

I leap to my feet, I can't keep my feet.

I 'm swept away, the roaring, roaring;

Spinning, spinning, spinning;

I reach out for tree; reach out for cow, goat, worm:

I'm loosing you, where are you;

Gravity, gravity, gravity;

I need you, I reach out to:

Rivers, mountains, hill and dale;

Where are you, where are you.

Mountains touch my feet, I leap

From peak to peak;

Rivers tickle my toes,

I dive into your depths;

And my earth is spinning, spinning, spinning.

And all the creatures in it are, spinning, spinning, spinning;

This great globe is; spinning, spinning, spinning;

And from every hill and vale,

From out of the seas; fish leap, dolphins honk, whales spout;

From the forests; lions roar, elephants trumpet, hyenas laugh;

From the fields; cows moo, sheep baa, crickets chirp;

From the air; hawk and sparrow, jays and fantails sing.

Little worm faces peep out from the soil;

And gentle whisperings join the growing swell;

As spinning, singing, hanging on for grim death;

This mighty globe turning on its axis,

We all with mighty chorus yell:

Our world! Our world! Our world!

We shout out to the sky.

Our world! Our world! Our world!

We stamp our feet against the earth,

We splash our fins against the sea,

We beat our wings against the sky,

In rhythmic - Beat! Beat! Beat!

We clap our hands, we stamp our feet,

We splash our fins, we beat our wings.

Our world! Your world! My world!

My earth! Your earth! Our earth!

Earth mother, father sky;

Man woman, female male;

Earth holds me, enfolds me;

I feel warm against her,

Leaves press into my face, my eyes;

Press harder; feel them indenting my skin;

Sky is distant, more distant, but canopies my soul;

Resilient blueness gives sense of clarity and vision;

Sky does not threaten,

Sky is not harsh;

Clouds race across my sky,

Black clouds; deep, black, threatening;

Thunder booms, lightening flashes,

Bright lights, rain falls, soaking,

Soaking, parched earth, opens its mouth, and gulps great,

Gulps of rain;

Tree cleft by lightening, stark image against stark sky;

Water pours down trunk;

Comforting, comforting, comforting;

Rain runs down my face into my every pore;

Earth turns to mud;

Rain stops, wind and sun between them dry out every leaf and flower,

Bud and stem;

A dance, male female;

Woman man, dance through time;

Man envelopes woman,

She turns and runs, beckoning over her shoulder;

Through countless birds and beasts of every kind;

Insects and spiders, crawling things;

Trees and bushes;

She runs through them all;

He follows after;

Whatever shape she assumes,

He also assumes;

Propagating kind;

Little birds and beasts and crawling things;

Little bushes and little tree babies;

Dancing through time,

Gods chasing Goddesses;

Propagating species;

Dancing through time;

Dancing in and out;

Weaving patterns, weaving faces;

I see me, staring back at me;

Reflective surfaces, mirroring me;

Twenty centuries hence;

Over and over;

I grow bigger, I grow smaller;

Now woman, now man;

A dance, a dance;

I leap to my feet; she leaps to her feet;

We join hands, we clasp; we push against each other;

Exultation, now, now, now, now;

Our world! Our world! Our world!

We shout out to the sky.

Our world! Our world! Our world!

We stamp our feet against the earth

In rhythmic - Beat! Beat! Beat!

We clap our hands, we stamp our feet.

Our world! Your world! My world!

My earth! Your earth! Our earth!

We fall down to the ground;

Much pushing and shoving,

And clasping, enfolding;

Much gasping and grunting,

Much whispered endearments,

And kissing and hugging;

Closer, closer, closer;

My seed, squirts into her womb;

Oh blessed relief; oh God, my God;

I pull her to me, oh to be able to climb right in,

Exhaust myself inside you;

She holds me, all woman holds me, holds me;

Great rest, great rest, such comfort.

No wonder I chase you through the ages;

No wonder earth spins, and sun shines, and rain falls;

No wonder kind clasps kind;

No wonder earth, sky, flower, stamen, bee;

Images, images; love, sex, comfort, warmth;

Beat the drum, beat the drum,

This is life, this is life,

Life as we know it.

Our world! Our world! Our world!

We shout out to the sky.

Our world! Our world! Our world!

We stamp our feet against the earth

In rhythmic - Beat! Beat! Beat!

We clap our hands we stamp our feet.

Our world! Your world! My world!

My earth! Your earth! Our earth!

Chapter Fifteen

KNOWINGNESS

" _Learning to listen to the information that comes from within, allowing yourself balance, is something that indeed your soul does desire. So the answer is that which you can allow yourself to feel, to relax with, and to be fed upon. You see my friend; I see that you have a spiritual hunger and this spiritual hunger is not about doctrine; it is not even really about religion; it is about knowingness. It is about getting to the point inside of yourself where you can simply relax and say; that is it, the same kind of satisfaction that you may have at the end of a very good meal."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

7th August

I don't feel in control of my life. Yet Raman implies that I am, " _what you will find is that the more you are aligned with your own dear self, the more assistance spiritually you will apparently experience_." Which implies personal input, right? He also said that the energy will feed and stir me to greater exploration. And since my first meeting with you, Raman; so much change has taken place in my inner world. I don't feel I do much, and yet I live in a continuing paradigm of change. Raman also said; _"and can I say to you, you can relax because, the door has opened and it will not close. Not unless you really decide to turn your back and go the other way. And then it will dog you like an annoying conscience perhaps."_ What I'm trying to convey is the consciousness and immense strength of whatever it is that works within us, bringing a totally other perspective to, and different appreciation of life. The joy of walking in the street and feeling the pulsating intelligence, beauty, and presence of the flowers, the trees, the ground on which I walk; none of which is different from myself, and yet all is totally individual. Right here now I feel integrity and knowing, precise and pervasive. And while I sense strongly that there is nowhere to go and nothing to do; my awareness keeps becoming more realer if there is such a word. If there isn't there should be.

9th August

Writing in this journal seems daunting, as does meditation. I really have to try and focus to maintain my equilibrium of mind.

Saturday, 11 August

It's interesting reading back over the journal. I find myself re-experiencing the feelings present when the entries were written. I have a clear impression of how my world looked – inwardly and outwardly. Just as an image is retained in a photograph, so do my words evoke in me the inner emotional and outer circumstance of me as I was then. It helps me to understand, how you Raman, only have to bend your attention in my direction, to know all there is to know about me. I feel more like a hieroglyphic than a person. Perhaps that's a truer representation of ' _who I think I am'_. The whole world though isn't like this. I've been to the local breadshop to buy bread. And while I waited along with three or four other customers; apart from a rather alert young lady who was serving me, it was clear that everyone's world was drastically circumscribed by their dreams. Their connection with their physical reality was minimal. Yet despite this, the love that was present was as palpable as the loaves of bread on the shelves. And I sense that my own world too is very circumscribed. I am locked in here by physical barriers and patterns of uncontrolled thought. My father stares at me from his photograph on the wall. I hesitate to address him. He seems to be there and yet not be there. _'I must ask you. I always act as if you are there father. Where do the souls of the dead repose? On my wall?'_ I am experiencing very conflicting energies. Am I myself, my son? Or my father?

Monday lunchtime 13th August

Yesterday I ate something that disagreed with me and took myself to bed. I slept for several hours in the early evening and when I awoke decided to stay where I was. I just wanted to remain curled up in bed. I read a few pages from Judith Orloff's, ' _Second Sight'_. I'm quite close to finished, but then I decided to go to sleep. When I closed my eyes I had the most vivid images. They were very precise boxed images, which I was able to enlarge, bring closer, or push further away, as you might imagine an adjustable television screen. I was looking at scenes that were taking place or were about to take place. Is this the precognition Judith speaks of? What was strangest was that I was as wide awake as I am now. So it wasn't dreamt in sleep.

I am puzzled as to what is experienced when I see a pretty face. In the past looking at an attractive female, I assumed when I saw _her,_ that I experienced her. But what did I mean by that? This is all very confusing because; - where do our feelings reside? Is feeling an inner response? We feel something subtly and call it a feeling. Is it an experience of what's out there, but still a feeling? Like putting my finger on a hotplate and getting it burnt. If I see an attractive female and feel attracted, may the experience of her attractiveness, be a little like a finger on a hotplate. Is the finger of my attention feeling her energy? Or my energy? Or both our energies? Is the feeling out there or in me or in both? The Vedic teaching says that senses are organs of knowledge. Is this response the knowledge?

15 August

I've not said anything at work about being vegetarian. I'm not sure why. At morning tea I removed the ham from a couple of sandwiches, yet still ate some bacon and egg pie. 'Oh David'! I didn't want to and I don't think I will again... I've lost all desire for red meat, fish, chicken or any flesh - except bacon??? Last week I ate chicken a couple of times but didn't enjoy it. But then I've never been that fond of chicken. It's not easy trying to trade belief systems. Gary Zukav wrote somewhere that the important difference between meat, fruit and vegetables was their differing vibration. As we refine, so the food we eat will refine, and meat is a coarser vibration. And this appeared to be my experience last week, watching the various types of food that I was eating. And yet we can be quite vain when we - think we are raising ourselves above the common herd. No offense intended. It's just something I've noticed.

The question is; is all life sacred? I've never thought before that eating my fellow creatures was a violation of life. I just assumed they were put there to feed human beings. I don't know now. I know at the moment I feel repugnance at eating any meat. ( _A note for anyone picking up on the meat eating; it didn't last long, did it? Being vegetarian! Let's see how it goes this time_.) I remember also that Pythagoras says somewhere, if you want a life of study, your diet must refine itself, but if you want the life of a soldier, nothing beats roast meat. Maybe I'm a soldier of the heart.

I have been spending most of my Sunday afternoons reading poetry at the Live Poets Café in Ka Road. This is my latest effort penned would you believe, in the Café.

Reflections on the Practical Realities of Entertaining the Notion of Past Lives

I sip my coffee,

And listen idly to the sound of the guitar player,

His young, resonant voice,

Belts out sounds not unpleasing,

But I drift, not really hearing;

Listening runs out beyond sound,

Listening, listening runs out, memories;

I thought, if I had a pen I could write now,

I always enjoy writing in cafes;

To write against the background of activity,

The clink of cup, spoon, saucer;

The whooshing sound of the espresso machine,

Makes me feel at home;

Idly I glance up and am caught;

Eyes momentarily lock glances,

Then avert from the intimacy;

Eyes caught in public places,

Take many shades,

Some carry anger, hardness,

Feelings bounce off such eyes;

Others reflect curiosity,

A friendly overture to conversation,

But no strong connection;

Others carry strong bonds;

There are those that might explain

Such strong immediacy of response,

Such strong sense of,

The familiar, to some chemical reagent,

Hormonal harmony sparked by the full moon;

I have no time for academic debate,

When I feel, soul strong pull,

It smacks of shared lives;

Days or lifetimes spent together; and I think,

Those who walk together are eternal companions,

And smile at shared memories;

Old friends I know, sit beside me,

Forgotten,

And I don't feel alone;

There are some here, I know,

We shared brief encounter long ago;

With others, lover's vows once were exchanged,

Forgotten now,

And I no longer know your name,

And as hard as I look,

No longer does your face evoke those memories,

Dear to loved ones;

The possibilities of kinship are endless,

The answers lost, in the vagaries of minds

That won't remember, or even conceive loss;

Perhaps you bent down on some

Other planet who's names now lost,

And scratched my ears, and whispered

Sweet platitudes like good boy, good dog Dave;

Chasing every phantom of time past

Could make for crowded rooms;

How many husbands and wives,

Daughters or sons, lovers,

Cockatoos, cats, dogs, or white mice,

Over several hundred lifetimes;

Can you fit in a phone booth?

Yet in some strange way those lost

Yet eternal companions of times long past,

That strode universal highways, over aeons past;

Are not lost;

We don't have to physically reach out and touch

Another to remember, for these eternal

Companions lie in our heart;

Memory is a strange commodity;

It has a substance of thought and feeling,

Yet in itself, requires nor thought nor feeling,

Memory is just as strong in silence,

With all passion subdued,

Quietly at rest, with days well spent,

Here in the latter days of an eternal lifetime.

The conflict, I initially experienced, between the meditation I was initiated into in the School of Philosophy using a mantra, and meditation as taught by Raman has gone. Simply to let go, and allow myself to acknowledge who I am; sink down into myself; through the physical, emotional, and mental layers, and rest within is a powerful action. Meditating with a mantra, it became easy to be mechanical, and assume meditation had been taking place, by spending a half hour in repetition of the mantra. I'm not saying mantras don't work. Mine served me well. But they're not necessary. Not right now at any rate.

After meeting Raman, for a long time I felt guilty. I had spent such a long time in the School of Philosophy and the strength of its culture was very much a part of me. I felt I was breaking the spiritual bond of disciple and teacher. Although I had not attended for three or four years, I still felt dependant on the school for my spiritual wellbeing. This feeling has disappeared. The guilt has gone and I know it won't return. At the end of the day I felt impotent in front of the power of the school hierarchy. This calls for a lot more reflection and understanding. The nature of the relationship between student and teacher in the Vedic tradition is one of obedience. The school stands in the Vedic tradition. It is obedience which holds the form, and allows transmission of the teaching. It is part of the framework of all religions. It is our relationship with God as perceived in the Christian Church. It is the form of modern governments, where the populace is seen in relationship to a higher authority. The same is true in the workforce, with workers and bosses; in marriage, where the man has long been considered the head of the family. At the end of the day it's an idea which pervades our whole life. Yet it's only an idea. And in the presence of unconditional love it melts. Society, our society, is full of guilt. Whenever we think we have a good idea, we want to find someone to share it with. If the person we share it with has another idea, there is potential conflict. One of us is going to try and inflict our idea on the other and these days there are many, ' _correct_ ', ideas as opposed to, ' _incorrect_ ', ideas.

In the paper the other day a major power company was reported as saying they would penalise people if they used too much power. The reason being that at present there is a shortage of rain, and it's therefore antisocial to have a high power usage. There was absolutely no commentary in the newspaper on the proposed action. It's as though the media shared the same culture to such an extent that it saw no reason to comment. It conceived what it reported as ' _good_ '; as socially conscious. And yet this isn't just about looking after ones neighbour, there is a barb in it. Over the last few weeks we've been entertained in our daily newspapers, with consumers of electricity being asked to identify with their local rugby team, and beat the other guys at saving power. Step out of this reality for a moment and think of the concepts – God, Soul, and Communion, Loving relationships with those around us. And what a bizarre picture is created of these characters with long sticks, beating on the door of common women and men, and creating a world myth of socially appropriate power consumers as savers, so that cities aren't plunged into darkness while Power Companies maintain their profits. Media in alliance with Big Brother! I'm not trying to belittle or make light of unusual lack of rain, and the fear of not being able to provide the power necessary to drive our industries and light our homes. But why is it, that so often our public relations are aggressive and vindictive.

Tuesday lunch August 21

I am beginning to understand Raman when he says _'I know_ ', and exhorting me to trust myself. Sometimes I'll have the most interesting thoughts and think - I should write that down. Interesting, illuminating thoughts, the very stuff journals are made from. But I don't. Life runs me over a lot of the time, and things don't happen. Yesterday lunchtime I was editing some work on my computer. In the evening I went to finish it and found I'd lost the document. I've felt somewhat stretched for time lately, and initially felt physically sick to my stomach. But then I stepped back. A space appeared, and I knew it wasn't the way it seemed. There is time. The sense of stress is only an idea creating a feeling of lack. What then has to happen to remedy the problem? What keeps coming in for me is either, ' _David, let go of the sense of being responsible'_ , or let go of ' _I know how to deal with this'_. It's like there's these two warring parts; - one knows the answer - and the other keeps butting its head against the impossible. The reality of my emotions swamps me. I feel out of control and at their mercy. And yet a still, cool voice within, says, I am just holding onto an idea. But how do you teach yourself this?

I have often felt something actively stops me writing in this journal, some sort of malevolent spirit? I've never really thought much about what it looked like, but I suspect it's the part of me that can't be bothered making an effort. And isn't that a demon. Any quality within that can act for or against us, will have characteristics that we can lend intelligence and personality to. Kryon says somewhere that there is no more malevolent force in the universe, no Demon greater, than that which we may create from within.

During the weekend I wrote the following. I had been thinking of my brother-in-law Trevor and the fact that he had begun physically falling, which is a progressive symptom of motor neuron disease.

Grieving

Grieving comes in many guises.

When the kids were young, I remember stuffing

Few weeks old pet lamb into rubbish bag;

Far easier than digging holes.

Guinea pigs normally rated a private ceremony and a stick,

Sticks didn't last, but neither do memories.

One guinea pig blurs into the next,

Down the years, pet rabbits, budgies and goldfish

Have to take their chances with the family cat or dog.

Longevity generally wins the day; as does interest;

Dogs and cats win hands down in the interest stakes;

Guinea pigs and fish seem very self-sufficient,

Not a lot of relating here;

Humans are not high on the scale for a guinea pig,

Fresh grass and a tolerable mate rate higher;

Dogs trot around at the heels,

Always willing for friendly pats or a rub between the ears;

Even cat seemingly so self-sufficient and self-reliant,

Goes to pieces when her mistress is away a day or two.

Last week my sister had a heart attack

And things haven't really been the same since.

Sisters rate high on my Richter scale,

Over the years distance and other interests

Have relegated these family ties, to compartmentalized ritualism;

A card at Christmas, and a visit or two in a good year;

They formed a part of a mental landscape of hearth and home;

But let mortality come knocking on my sister's heart,

And the whole wash of childhood swamps over me;

Habit and formalized attitude crumble in simple bond;

Emotions and memories stir,

The imposed image, motif of the busy life

That the years have used to veil memory,

Is gone as though it had not ever been.

The common womb where sperm and eggs once mixed,

And incubation done, from which we both were tossed,

Rudely into this same world;

The same mother, the same father bore us;

Sister and brother;

How can we let something so rudimentary,

Be forgotten?

Only recalled, as death reaches out a hand,

And tapping on my sister's heart,

Reminds us both, that this foray

Into kingdom earth, is only for a brief time.

And so whatever shape or kind;

Human, dog, cat, rat, or bird, or lamb;

We cared to assume, or maybe

Someone tossed a cloak of particular being over us,

As we scrambled around some Ariel home,

Looking anxiously around for suitable clothing for

A quick earth excursion:

"Is it going to be wet or dry –or will we need coats,"

We cried, as we raced out to find ourselves a womb

Lunch time, 22nd August

In Judith Orloff's book, ' _Second Sight'_ , she finishes with a chapter entitled, ' _Honouring the Gift_.' When I read this heading last night it struck a chord. This is the story of the distribution of the talents in the Bible; because in honouring what we have in our hearts, what more is there to do. It infers a special attitude to life; that life is not accidental, not mechanical, but sacred.

More and more these days I see the importance of standing in my own ground, strong and implacable. When we make a stand we support those around us. When we cave, they cave. This need not be seen as dualistic. Supportive is steady and unifying, not divisive.

Friday morning, August 25th

There are parts of me I have difficulty talking about even to me.

I'm being made over. I thought it was Raman, but suspect it's my own authentic higher self. I checked my conversation with Raman because I remembered a comment he made. " _You will discover that although the human man didn't quite know why you'd made certain decisions your soul did. And therefore your soul is going to guide you and encourage you to keep on this process until you see signs of the sun rising above the horizon."_

Last night I cried out to Raman to help because I felt a deep need for solace. And I dreamt, and in the dream I was guided to an answer. The only way I can describe it is that the dream was a manifestation, or the theatrical performance of the answer, and this answer was implicitly known in mind. And right now I have to confess two things. One is I have no idea now what the knowledge was in any form that I can write here on this page; and two that the knowledge of the dream is so much a part of me, that I can't distinguish it from myself. In other words I know completely, yet do not know at all. This isn't the first time that dream has instructed me in this way. Earlier when I was writing in this journal about dream I would go to sleep and say aloud before closing my eyes – 'teach me'. And then my attention would get caught with something else and for a week or ten days I never even thought of dreams or dreaming. But then for several nights in a row again I dreamed. And these had the same quality as last night's dream of instruction.

When I first met you Raman I always talked directly to you, as I did the Mona Lisa on my wall at home and my father on the wall in my office. And these dialogues could take place at any hour day or night. I would address questions or comments to you in my head, and the answer was known immediately. I never heard you speak to me. Or very rarely, and my feeling on those occasions was that you used my voice. How do I describe the indescribable? I don't know who is writing this or for whom?

In a theatrical performance, the meaning is implicit in the play. This is my experience in Shakespeare's plays. When I played King Lear as I spoke his final words on stage with the dead body of my daughter Cordelia in my arms; within my obvious senility, I heard from my lips each night: knowledge, resolution, self-validation, and self-discovery; and experienced complete affirmation of the spirit. And night after night as audiences filed out with smiles of hope on their faces they'd say, _'thank you'_. Despite the fact that the play ends with a stage littered with bodies, they found it an uplifting and joyful experience. I find the play a testament to the greatness of the human spirit. And when I started to watch Brooke's film interpretation, I felt a stifling and numbing of my spirit. The mind cannot delineate everything the heart knows because, _'knowingness_ ' is not the same as knowledge.

27th August

The School of Philosophy, describes karma, as the results of our actions from former lives; that it manifests as coloured crystals through which the light of the heart is refracted and either darkens or augments reality in bright colours, in this way creating our variegated human nature. And this individual, crystalline being reflects outward into the world about us; the world being, the boot to the foot, of whom and what we are. This combination of us and the world, acts out in the present life, and together they create the life to come. Kryon says, that in the intervals between lives, we write contracts in consultation with others of our soul family to decide on future life choices. That right now all the contracts are void and that we may live the life we choose: if we wish to pick up the work available in this creation now – to rewrite our own contract, that's fine because it is between us and us. Again I suspect it's how things are perceived, not what they are.

September 3

The bridge between heart and mind is crossed when we acknowledge the truth about me and you. That we're not limited beings done unto at the mercy of a world over which we have no control. We don't live in ignorance, unknowing and unaware. We are created in our own image and are immensely beautiful.

Fantails and Roses

Fantails and roses are like,

Chocolates and champagne,

Me for the high life;

Fantail presages new birth,

I have been reborn amidst laughter and tears;

I follow the flight of my Fantail,

Darting like he does,

Eyes alert, I flit thither, hither,

Fantastic,

Me for the high life.

I live high on fantails and roses,

I drink the essence of roses,

And inwardly drink up the world;

I lap it up,

Flit here, up here fantail,

Me for the high life,

Life is all, inside out;

We live amidst forms and shadows,

Shadows and forms;

Hovering here on the outside,

Me for the high life;

Come on in,

Don't just stand there in the street;

It's so pedestrian.

Fantails and roses,

Rosebeds,

I fling my whole being,

On beds of roses;

Strew me with rose petals,

And fantails, laughing, laughing, laughing,

Me for the high life;

See me, I am all inflated and lifted,

Lifted, lifted, up, up by the East Wind,

See Fantails and cocktails and champagne and chocolates,

And rosebeds; and thousands upon thousands of rose petals,

Blown by the East Wind up and up and up and up.

Life is all inside out,

We take ourselves so,

Very seriously;

Don't just stand there in the street,

It doesn't become you,

You were made for more than that,

Find yourself a fantail and a rosebeam,

And strew yourself with rose petals;

Follow fantail, up and up and up and up,

And find your ancestral home.

September 7

A perennial question mostly unspoken is - what happens when we die. Is there oblivion? Is there a maker? Are we our own maker? I have never gone to bed wondering whether I would be alive in the morning. I am absolutely sure of my own immortality. And I believe this to be true for everyone. This is for me the most absolute proof of the eternal nature of being. We have no concept of finality. We may have strong beliefs about our mortality but this does not stop us from going to bed in absolute certainty of another tomorrow. And someone has to live this tomorrow whether in an earthly body or some more intangible or completely other mode.

September 10

I know, Raman; \- you have told me often enough that knowledge is within, and I know it's true. But conversely knowing requires an unknowing. It requires emptying the mind of all its fears, doubts, and old clothes. And of course there are huge swathes of time when one simply doesn't seem to know very much at all. And I realize that the greatest weapon in my arsenal is undoubtedly meditation.

It occurred to me tonight that the concepts we live by; the notions, philosophies, certainties, uncertainties, religions, types of government, are all just tools of creation. The hammers and shovels of creation. This is how it takes the shape it does. And to say that any god or demi-god made this or that is a tall story, a myth. And there will be more stories and they will assume shapes which at the moment are unknown. And they will be the shapes our children's children and their children's children will live with. And they will spring from their hearts and minds. And they will become the faith by which they live; the subject of study in their universities; the subject matter of the story-tellers and poets. And one day they in their turn will be refuted.

Chapter Sixteen

PINBALL IN THE SKY

" _This idea that if you care for yourself, if you are aware of what you need, that you are self-serving, and should you not put others first? I want to encourage you to become aware that a part of the ills of the world, a part of the reason why many are so cruel, and in pain in this world, is because so much of the self that has sought acknowledgement, that has sought validation, has been denied."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

2001 1.30 am 12 September

1st Voice

I float on a burning sea.

Out from an island called Christmas;

And my soul burns;

For I cry out for humanity;

I just want to live,

To have the right to live,

A citizen of the earth, free from strife,

Myself and my family;

This is all I ask, and so I sit out here,

On Tampa, amidst filth and poverty,

In the searing heat of a high noon,

No room to move; waiting, waiting,

Waiting out here on the high sea,

Off an island called Christmas.

2nd Voice

I live in a land of plenty,

World's smallest continent – biggest island;

It's a rich land, bursting with mineral wealth;

Cattle, sheep, forests;

It gets hot in parts,

Desert right through the centre,

But it's a good land;

My great, great, grandfather,

Came here in chains

For poaching salmon on some Lord's estate;

This is my land now,

Best country I know, and I'm not sharing it with no bloody,

Asians, Mongols; don't care what you call them,

Ruddy Abo's bad enough;

You can sit on your fanny outside Christmas,

Till hell freezes over; I 'm not sharing

My land with you.

3rd Voice

I come down in the morning skies,

My knife wet with the blood of some skinny bitch stewardess,

Cunt! Watch me! I hate you! I hate you all, but I'm flying straight

Through, your bastard, sky scraping, edifice to Capitalism,

You, Jew loving, mother fucking, American you;

Straight through I fly, into the arms of my beloved Allah,

Allah alone be praised;

I see the building now; it's in front of me,

There in my screen; closer, closer, closer, soon,

Straight into your living rooms, you cock sucking,

Capitalist pigs, Allah be merciful! Oh my God!

Thank you! Thank you! Thank y.....!

4th Voice

Oh God! What was that? What was that?

I can't hear, and my whole world's shaking,

Dust and debris, suddenly fill my world;

I must get out of here! Oh God my world is full of flame!

What's happening! What's happening to me?

Running to the window – nothing there;

Flame! Oh God my head!!!

My hair! All aflame...! Ahhhh...!

I'm falling, falling, falling, my limbs are flailing;

But peace, peace, peace, peace! I'm free;

This is my second home; I worked here;

Funny how small and insignificant it seems from here;

Seems...? Is. Is so small and far below;

People, lots of people looking up,

At me; they seem... worried;

Getting closer, but no matter;

Love is all; it's true what they said;

In the end it is all so – significant.

And a great peace fills me from head to toe.

My wife and children will worry but they're okay.

Great wife great kids...

5th Voice

I see them falling from the sky;

I can't understand it;

Surely they know to wait;

That help will be on the way;

I'm just standing here watching them fall,

People, they're appearing in the windows and just leap,

Out into nothing;

There's nothing I can do but bow my head,

And hide my eyes.

6th Voice

Are you all right lady?

Oh my God, the skin is peeling from your face;

Your clothes are tattered and in flames,

Here let me help you,

Can I help you?

I was a priest but lost my faith;

Please lady, let me minister to you,

There... there... sit down;

Your husband won't know where you are?

Let me... There's a man with a cell phone... Perhaps he can help?

Kabir when he died was blessed by Hindu and Moslem alike;

They both wanted the right to harbour his body;

For they both, both peoples revered him as a saint;

Kabir says...

"But where is the use of this, when I

am floating adrift, and parched

with thirst, and burning with the

heat of desire?

To no purpose do you bear on your

head this load of pride and vanity.

Lay it down in the dust

And go forth to meet the Beloved

Address him as your Lord."

Writer

I also live in a land of plenty;

It has lots of names though,

I suspect it's just a local concern

With identity... The Pavlova paradise...

Gods zone... The land of the long white land,

Aotearoa, New Zealand, if you've heard of us,

We're some way off the coast of Australia,

If you've heard of that,

And somewhat in her shadow;

You probably haven't heard of Christmas

Island, at any rate;

While your city falls on my television screen,

And I see your faces, and I hear the news,

And I download off the internet,

Trying to make sense,

Trying to compute,

I'm 56 and my world is falling apart;

It fell before the first plane,

Hit the world trade centre;

It fell before I had to bear the shame of,

Being the same race as a man,

Who suffered, _His_ _children_ , to swelter in a burning sea?

Before my national airline crashed,

And those who I elected to care,

For my greater needs, wrangled;

Trying to gain some slight edge,

In some commercial sense, that I

Truly have no conception of;

My world began to fall,

As I grew into manhood,

And through natural events,

First lost a mother,

Then a father;

It fell not through the love my sisters bore me,

But fell as I tried to make some sense,

Of this world in which I seemed,

Very much, set adrift;

I find this hard to say and keep

A straight face;

My tendons, four of them, broke

On four of my fingers in my teenage years;

I had heard that Jesus, when he

Was laid in the cave;

Though his hands bled,

Was perfect in every respect;

And I looked at my hands,

And wept;

I fell, as I mated, married, and had a son;

And saw my marriage fail,

My wife and son lost to me,

I fell, as I could not keep a job;

Found it hard to settle,

Could not understand myself;

It fell as all about, revolution

Hit the streets, hit the airways;

Love was all around;

And this was my world, my century,

But I yearned for a world I saw, fast disappearing;

I fell, but now when I look about me;

Look at the dress, the speech, the substance,

And I can find nothing, nothing;

That one young boy that I once knew,

Would really recognize;

Yet as all the floors,

Pass by me, and I glimpse within

This kaleidoscope of broken dreams,

This life from the dreaming aspect of man;

I stand here now, for all the

Images, that filled one life,

Churned in my breast, and

Over the years, found and formed,

A response within, a searching,

An attempt to make some sense, of all

This strange pattern,

What does it mean?

Who is God? Who am I?

Where did I arise? Where will I find

My rest? Where will my sun sink?

Over what horizon?

I questioned, questioned, questioned,

Seeking no easy answer, no smart arse

Answer, but finality;

So as my world fell, so it rose;

And in this rising, some calm, some

Sense links were formed, and

So as my world fell, so it rose;

I never needed to,

Do the clever deal;

Put one over on my neighbour;

Questions, questions; who is my neighbour?

I am my neighbour in my neighbour's skin;

So I searched and searched;

Now here I am;

And as my neighbour rocks on an ocean blue,

Under a harsh sky,

Tears of rain wash down my face;

As the sky rains buildings and bodies, so

The deep ocean of my compassion,

Lies here in my heart; and the more they fall,

The more I open to receive;

Infinite compassion, infinite love;

7th Voice

I don't know where to go;

My lover was there one moment,

When I turned he was gone,

I came down the stairwell,

Now I'm afraid to stop,

Afraid they might...

Come again?

I don't think I can ever sleep again;

Oh God, look! The building is falling, falling.

I'm rooted to the spot.

GOD

Come to me, Come to me, Come to me,

Come little children.

Come to me and I will give you rest.

13th September In the early hours of the morning

I've had the most amazing dream. I've been reading Judith Orloff's, _'Intuitive Healing_ ,' and in it she talks about health dreams. She suggests we ask specific questions like we did when we were children and asked wishes from the tooth fairy, cheerfully tucking our tooth under our pillow. I wrote a question on a piece of paper and tucked it under my pillow. And I had a very special dream. I'm writing you here, dream. Do you hear me? All these creatures started dancing for me: dragons, gargoyles, statues, wonderful plants of every shade of green. Made of paper with faces, features, intelligence and in my mind's eye I held a clear picture of you little creatures. Then this little green man stepped forward. You were about half my size and smooth, almost featureless, my sense was your eyes were slightly slanted and quite large perhaps, no eyebrows, and so smooth... If I seem doubtful, it's because your reality was your being. And you touched your forehead to mine. And my forehead melted in your love. From that point, where your forehead touched mine, warmth spread across my life. Then you were gone. That was as deep an experience of love as I've ever known. It was every bit as beautiful as being with Raman in the Rose Garden. Thank you little green man. Come back one day.

All the other little creatures continued to dance and gyrate, and I looked and looked trying to understand. You knew I was looking. I knew you were trying to tell me to exercise – and if I wasn't going to walk, then I should dance. And of course Lynn loves dancing. But then I asked you about Lynn and you shook your heads and clipboard in hand, pencil ready – you pursed your lips and looked very grim. I know you don't know but I know there is something seriously wrong. I don't know what is needed. I'll go back to sleep and I will ask on Lynn's behalf again and perhaps someone will come that knows. Thank you. I love you, you wonderful creatures. I would like to see you again but perhaps that's not possible. Thank you Judith, thank you Raman, thank you Universe, Sun, Moon and Stars, little Green Man, thank you Little Creatures you are wonderful.

14 September 11.30 pm

I went downtown today especially to buy, ' _Conversations with God, Part 2_ ,' but I can't. I keep thinking - the answers lie within David. I snuck a look at his latest, ' _Friends with God_.' And read; " _your soul is the best friend you will ever have._ " I remember when I was preparing for the role of, _'Lear_ ,' I watched quite a few film versions to get a sense of Lear's journey. Eventually it was like having indigestion; I had a surfeit of watching and needed to sound the words myself, to step into the water. There comes a time when there's nothing to do except leap... I feel a constant need to explore. It's not just sticks and stones. It's more like ones arms and legs. But how to move them!

Tonight I felt tired and just wanted to relax. So I sat in a movie called, ' _The Princess Diaries_.' It's ironic, because she didn't know she was a Princess. And I guess I don't either. But now I know the only place to go is in. This is _'home'_ , and everything I need is there. I know it's imperative that the Princess accepts her robes, and speaks out. Our true state is more than the common lot. By accepting the common lot we do ourselves an injustice. We have the tools at our command; we have the talents and abilities to comprehend our world in its entirety; within and without. Body, mind and spirit are one. These different names are only perspectives on life. To take this journey all that's needed is that we're willing. _'Home'_ , is not some distant planet; _'home'_ is not another state acquired after death; _'home'_ is not found within or without. If anywhere, it may feel within, but in a world of – no space? When we find, _'home'_ , speech and action belong to us; all else is just appearance.

Friday evening 22 September

Raman was coming to Auckland today but Yasmeen is sick. On first hearing this I felt shock and disappointment. But then I thought – what if it was impossible to meet Raman again through Yasmeen. I know that his knowledge is always available; there are daily exchanges between the spirit world and me. Exchanges in the world of dreams; Judith Orloff's guidance through her books; the living space that exists between me and the actors in rehearsal... And I realized - I don't need to spend time with Raman. And that realization has brought a strength and willingness to consciously engage with life more fully. And this was missing before I heard Raman wasn't coming. Life is so special. I've written a slightly irreverent poem called, ' _Windows in the Sky, Buddha is that you_ '. In childhood we're told that someone watches over us. Who'd have guessed the whole sky is looking in. It is important to remember our relations with each other are Spirit to Spirit. If we remember this in practise, it will transform our daily life beyond our wildest dreams.

Windows in the Sky, 'Buddha is that you

One by one, the lights switch on in your world,

Windows open, as the sky comes peering in;

On September 11 lights blink out, in New York City Blues,

As beautiful free spirits stepped right in,

They stepped right out; they stepped right out, of this world;

They step right out, but really step right in;

So in synchronistic time, now, just you take your time;

Step in time and whirl about,

We're home again the red carpets out,

The heavenly sucking pig is on the spit;

So twirling, twirling, step in time,

Take your time, take your time;

Twirl your partner all about,

The baddies are playing pinball in the sky,

Got two, step in time, stay in line.

One by one, the lights switch on in our world,

It's getting to be like the Milky Way out here,

Unconditional love is in and looking our way;

So stay right there, there is no need to fear,

Step in time, and as the crime, is perpetrated right now;

Just step right out, for St Peter's shout,

And have some skittles and beer;

So step in time, and whirl about,

We're home again the red carpets out,

The heavenly sucking pig is on the spit;

So twirling, twirling, step in time,

Take your time, take your time;

Twirl your partner all about,

The baddies are playing pinball in the sky,

Got two, step in time, stay in line.

One by one, the lights switch on in our world,

Everyone's getting awfully twitchy down there,

The hot shot boys are gonna have a field day,

There's gonna be heaps more lights blinking out down there,

But don't you worry, there's lots of room in our world;

Room for Muslim, Hindu, and Christian alike;

You might just be in time to catch

Allah and JC, doing the Chattanooga

Two-step, stayin' in line;

So step in time, stay in line,

There's going to be such a party going on up here;

So step in time and whirl about,

We're home again the red carpets out,

The heavenly sucking pig is on the spit;

So twirling, twirling, step in time,

Take your time, take your time;

Twirl your partner all about,

The baddies are playing pinball in the sky,

Got two, step in time, stay in line.

One by one the lights switch on in our world,

And earth! Well! Very special place down there,

Cause all those kids, those oh so heavenly sprites,

Stepping right out, stepping right out,

Cause they're in training there;

And this darn play, it's hotting up in your town,

You guys and gals, expect some pretty special shining now,

Gonna be a whole lotta partying here mighty soon,

So step in time, stay in line;

Right now Buddha's having a pretty fundamental debate,

He's caught it from both sides now,

JC to the right, Mohammed to the left;

Swing that girl ain't she pretty,

Wow, if it ain't Mary Magdalene right;

So step in time, and whirl about,

We're home again the red carpets out,

The heavenly sucking pig is on the spit;

So twirling, twirling, step in time,

Take your time, take your time;

Twirl your partner all about,

The baddies are playing pinball in the sky,

Got two, step in time, stay in line.

Chapter Seventeen

FEELING WITH THE HEART

" _That, which you have been seeking in your life; that, which will make life make sense, and give you understanding, that, is your heart. And your heart my dear one, has been needing acknowledgement, has desired fulfilment, and indeed is the key to that which will allow you to make sense of and create balance within this world. It is in permitting self-experience of your feeling, of entering into and allowing yourself to feel life and all that you perceive, that will allow you to make the most sense of the knowledge you have gained in this world."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

2 October

It's been ten days since I wrote in this journal. It seems like a lifetime. Change is taking place but I don't quite know what it's all about. Perhaps this is the way life is. Perhaps we exist in a cauldron. And we're cooked like an Irish stew. And transformed out of all those individual ingredients into something new? Food metamorphosis! Human metamorphosis! I still feel out of control and yet I feel change happens because I allow it to happen. I believe we're in transition, and that Earth is going to change in ways we can't conceive. This is the end of an epoch; just as when a kettle boils and water turns to steam, so our world is going to turn to steam. And nobody knows what that will look like. So we can't have any ideas about it because it's never happened before, at least not within our present memory. Well that's not quite true. Remember the USSR and the Cold War? There one day, gone the next.

3 October

I'm about to put twenty-five poems into print and on the 13th I'm guest poet at, ' _The Live Poets Cafe'_. Work is still very full. Lynn is changing before my eyes. She is softening and the relationship between us reminds me of when we were young. The love between us is becoming palpable. This world is mutable like clay, able to be molded into fresh shapes, and this is how it should be. When life becomes fixed and rigid it is tantamount to death. Mutability, vibrancy, change, this is life. It's the fire that ripples through the trees as I drive to work. It's the intense openness of the heart that allows little green men to slip into my dreams, that allows Raman. It's like being in relationship to such a degree that no boundaries exist between us, and with no boundaries between us we enter into our own presence. And this presence loves me so much, that I melt in it. The key is willingness. All the edges of the world are melting and I look forward in anticipation to what lies ahead.

MY DAILY MEDITATION

I sit comfortably but erect,

Close my eyes and taste my world,

Gently feel all my body components;

Toes, feet, calves, thigh, bottom, torso, chest, neck, head, arms;

Each in turn gets my attention; lingering,

Now here, now there, feeling slight body tensions, adjusting;

Relax big toe, no need to stress out,

Just checking everything in order;

Then listen, actively letting the awareness expand,

Allowing all of creation at this moment,

Into my world;

Feel the breath, moving in and out, in and out,

Lengthen the breath, drawing air deep into the body,

In, _hold_ , out; in, _hold_ , out;

Then relax, allow attention to roam;

What is my body telling me today?

What feeling, glad or sad, residing where,

Do we have here or there today?

No great mental pother, just checking out,

What do I feel?

Allow myself to know what I feel, then

Listen, listen; hear the heart beat;

Beating out the rhythm of my days;

Beating out the hours and minutes, unfaltering,

Timeline of my soul;

Checking in, checking in mind, you agitated in any way;

Don't do that mind, settle down,

Gently, gently, mind;

What thoughts about – not engaging;

Just checking out, checking out,

All the points; body, mind, and heart,

Begin to sink, sink into quiescence;

Body is quiet, total relaxation, stillness,

Mind is very still, not a cricket chirping,

Heart is at rest, profound rest;

Here is the rock on which I build my church;

Attention refines, refines, refines;

Here is nothing to do,

Nowhere to go,

Who wants to go?

Where would they go?

Yet twenty minutes to half an hour later,

Gently emerging, the whole world has

Undergone such total refreshment, cleansing transformation,

As I engage gently,

The new day.

Walk to the car, feel the ground beneath my feet,

Feel the breeze gently touch my cheek,

Clothes against my skin;

Bit sticky – hot day out here,

Eyes drink in creation

In all its forms;

The trees speak to me;

Fine fire like colour, leaping and dancing,

Fire like splashes of colour, dancing in the sunlight;

Bushes speak to me,

Each individual flower speaks to me;

Nodding gaily; hello brother, hello sister;

The grass beneath my feet,

The sky above,

Hill, dale, mountain, stream, ocean;

Air gently whispers;

I go giddy on the love, that every form of nature gives back tenfold,

For my loving attendance, simple attention.

The works of men and women,

The houses, fences, roadways, paths,

All very intelligent of form and being;

Works of many hands, at many times,

Bearing to the nth degree, the mark of their creators;

This form is sound of heart and mind;

Its elegance testament,

To the mind that conceived and hands that built it;

This form is not so hot,

It shows in every ligament,

The crude greed of those that;

Refuse to believe that every breath they draw,

Every act of the tool God gave them;

Holds up for all to see,

Every nuance of their soul;

We lie unprotected from the eyes of our neighbours;

And they speak to these works, these fences, pathways,

Houses, bridges; speak the inner world of their maker;

And do you know what?

In all the trees, the bushes, grass and quiet stream;

The houses, roadways, gates and fences;

Do you know that not from any of the works of God?

Or from any of the works of us, you and me;

Not one critical reproach, no;

Even as the bulldozer moves,

In complete indifference, plowing down this old,

Rarified specimen of house for motorway,

Apartment, or office block, whatever;

Does one word of censure escape one lip?

No, even as it falls its every fibre;

Lovingly acknowledges what is;

This is my daily meditation.

Monday 15 October 11.30 pm

Life moves forward in leaps and bounds and it's all I can do to keep up. Suddenly all this information has presented itself to me from the internet. Material on angels, spirit guides, extra-terrestrials and my created world has expanded from this earth to a whole galaxy. I have as many questions as answers but will start from where I am. Thought creates intention; this from the Pleiadians channeled by Barbara Marciniak. So today I looked at my overflowing desk and said - I'm going to clean out my intray. Now I only had half an hour before I was due to leave work at this point so, no, I didn't empty my intray; but stating that intention brought a completely different energy into play. The Pleiadians say to start the day with intention. Thought is what the created world arises from, so we must take care what we think. I will go to sleep with intention.

Sight is only one sense. We touch the world we see, we can taste that same world, we can eat up the world, so hungry are we for it; we can hear't; it can smell good or bad. What occurs to me is that there aren't five worlds only one. The five senses give five different descriptions of one thing. A little like the story of the blind men describing the elephant; each one interpreting what it was like by the part of the elephant they touched. Each one described a quality of the elephant, but none of their beliefs even approximated to the truth of what was. Think about this story in relation our senses. How do our senses mislead us?

24th October

I live in this world with enormous wonderment. It's like being on an eternal merry-go-round, a perpetual high, but where this arises from bemuses me, it rises up like bubbles from within. A Pleiadian transcript I read the other day said, – _"you cannot realize how everything you touch, every word you speak, and every look you offer is full of love; so that the world is transformed by your every action, word and deed_ ". I do understand. If I were to express my inner state in words I'd cry out – I love, I love, I love – to all and sundry: to the earth beneath my feet, to the sky above, the plants and trees, the people I meet... All is an act of love, even if sometimes it seems misguided.

30 October, lunch time

I don't know what to write or not to write. I'm still reading a lot of material off the internet – channelled material, writings on meditation, chakras and so on. You would think that after a lifetime of studying, enough would be enough. But I keep thinking there is one more piece of information to hear. I know the key is to go within; to teach myself to meditate – to teach myself to comprehend my inner world. I know that in the space within the heart everything is there. The whole energy of the universe; all beings past, present and future, not just dwellers on earth, but from the whole galaxy – all galaxies: nothing is - that can't be found within. And greatest of all, - within each one of us is love, unconditional love. And we're there too. And these are the two most important ingredients in creation. You and your love!

31 October, lunch time

All of my life I've been scared. I feel inept. Leaking tap washers and such in the physical world turn me off. Give me spiritual development anytime. In the physical world I feel lost. Yet pushed hard enough I can change the washer. It's not that hard. It's just that with the physical world I don't want to know. The silly thing is that I've spent most of my life in the SOP changing tap washers. There is irony here; is life about restoring balance, healing lacks. I suspect we're all a mixed bag when it comes to underlying reasons for action. Something has changed. I'm not afraid to look anything in the face, and not afraid to rest in what I know to be true. And I believe that this is quite something.

November 5

I am in bed day two. On Sunday night my whole body became fluey. I slept a lot but also spent time reading P'taah, a Pleiadian channelled by New Zealander, Jani King. I have a deep sense of disallowment. On one hand I know my inner world to be full of love, to be knowing, and not limited in any way by the physical. Yet side by side with this vision is a sense of division. And I feel that my work at the office which I'd gladly relinquish along with all the other physical restraints in my life, debt, lack of funding for the play; all of this is an outward manifestation of an inner dislocation.

November 6

I'm still in bed – day three. I am reading Lyassa Royal on sovereignty. I've always assumed that even if we are an expression of the divine that the divine part is somehow separate from the real, tangible world. I assumed society existed with its own rules, which we were governed by irrespective. Our minds are like children's. Put an idea into them and we're paralysed by it. It's like agreeing that; ' _okay let's play, who'll be King of the Castle, and you be King._ ' I always thought I could influence society to some degree, like a stone thrown into a large pond, ripples, rippling out, but not very far. But ideas presented by some of these other world intelligences say that society is the way it is because I hold it in place; and that I only have to change my mind to change society. This is different.

November 6, midnight

I love Mary Chapin Carpenter, and am listening to her sing while I read through Capulet's lines. I am forgetting faster than I remember. I am to play Lord Capulet, Julia's father in the forthcoming production. I had a chat with Ross tonight. The spiritual ET's go on at great length about creating our own reality and how if we don't like it we need only change our mind. The trick is of course the complexity of belief's which sustain a particular creation. Or is that just a cop-out? Tonight I was thinking about my constant indebtedness and I can see that I can wish for a million dollars, but if my inner world is one that supports debt and extravagance, then to that quality of mind that attracts indebtedness, a million dollars will not sit comfortably. Particularly if coupled with this is a strong belief that reward is the result of effort. Reason says at least one of these oppositional beliefs must go. Don't get me wrong. There is nothing wrong with a belief of reward for instance through effort. But it is only a belief and as such produces a result. What is held by the mind to be so becomes an agency or conduit which produces the result. This is why placebo works. A sugar pill becomes the agency of result.

27 November

I'm beginning to get a taste of the nature of reality as we experience it - but all its implications...? Goodness knows! It may seem a trite observation, but when I roll over in bed, my body rolls over. When I lift my foot, my foot lifts. That is a graphic, physical description of this world of change. When I intend harm to my wife, my wife is harmed. Didn't Christ say that adultery is committed in the heart? This is like a manual of the mechanics of life. Life rushes in to support our every wish, our every desire. The thing is... We're not very careful as to what we believe in. It's no more complex than that.

Theoretically I should be able to get up from this table and drive off into the sunset. But I am bound by a wife, children, an occupation, the need to earn to support myself. Yet in the Bible it says; " _take no thought for tomorrow_." And the ties that bind. They are not, will I, won't I, choices. It's as if there were mental constructs that put walls around us that stake us to the ground. We can't just walk out of that which we invite into our life. Our choices come with subtle elastic bands.

Perhaps it's true and there are those in this universe whose intentions towards us are evil. But more likely those beings are us. Our shadow self and ' _ownership_ ' on our part of our shadow self is the way out. It's a neat conundrum that we live in. There are laws in society. They differ from country to country. We, you and I, are supposed to accept these. If we don't, we may be fined, jailed, institutionalised, - shot if we live in the wrong country... There are rules, and their acceptance is the selling point of each particular society. Also the word, ' _evil_ '; have you ever noticed it is ' _live_ ', reversed. And what is ' _live_ ' reversed except maybe not living. Is this what ' _evil_ ' really is?

We are universal beings of great power. And like Gulliver, in Lilliput we're bound by little people with little thoughts. But these little people are us. We hedge around each other and around ourselves with little thoughts of no consequence. We live mechanically – look for easy options that enable us to sleep away our days. Is this not EVIL – We are the little people chaining ourselves. Personal freedom is to free ourselves, knot by knot. Just to see them is enough. Perception changes everything.

19 December

I don't recall any period of such totally focussed attention as that of the last month; unrelenting activity from waking to bed time, - 7am until midnight – at least. Always in the past there have been moments reserved for myself. Now that I think about this, for many years my concern was – where is the space for me? I had forgotten about it. On meeting Raman my life turned and the ego has had little or no place in it since. It has certainly no longer been in the driver's seat. Don't get me wrong, our cells are the CELLS OF EGO. This is not bad, just is. But there is a difference between being driven by the cells of our body –EGO – and being in the driver's seat – WITNESS to EGO. There is a difference.

Raman says there is a point where personal well-being comes before the needs of others. P'taah's advice to en-trance pain and turn it into ecstasy is very practical advice. And this has been practised through wet weekend after wet weekend, - lack of money and concern for the ' _Romeo and Juliet'_ production are the drivers! So every weekend I get amazingly stressed, but embracing it all, I come out the other end dog tired, but full of vim and vigour.

December 31

I am in Christchurch again. It's close to nine months since I first talked with you Raman. I met you on the 28th of March. Numerologically speaking today is a one, the beginning of a new cycle although it's also the last day of 2001. It has been a year of the most tremendous change; of everything thrown into the air and down again \- all higgledy-piggledy. This is the way to live life. I must learn and learn and learn to live life higgledy-piggledy. Why? Because I feel as if I've woken from a dream and I don't ever want that sort of sleep again. I've awoken in love and would explore this new landscape.

When the blinkers come off, and the clasp around the heart is loosened, there's a great sense of relief. I look at the pavement at my feet, I can feel the seat beneath my bottom, my back against the wall, the roses in my vision as I lift the line of sight – the blue sky overhead, sun beating down on my shoulders. And I know these things. Yet everything I have described is an appearance only. It's not the thing itself. So what is the thing itself? Most things are hidden.

Government and being governed; worship and being worshiped; agriculture, manufacture, entertainment, service, - all grand concepts planted in my mind most successfully. But what are they? All of these concepts appear in different cultures but they look very different. They're related to our perception of humans in society. And what do they mean? If we were to land independently as free beings in a completely empty space on Planet Earth, how might we organize ourselves? Our economy only gets into trouble because we make a game out of it. If it were just a matter of feeding each other and occupying ourselves, we don't have to do it as enemies. And yet government and governed, producers and consumers are in competition. Or look at it from this angle. If it were your son or daughter in trouble wouldn't you reach out a helping hand? We are each other's sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives.

I read a lot, yet have always believed books secondary in that they lack consciousness; subtle crystalline scribblings from the past. It's what I've been taught or inferred from those around me. But words are alive, no matter when or where they are written. Books, paintings, musical compositions are windows, portals to their creator. Whether on the printed page, a wall, a computer screen, the millionth copy, still they connect us to their creator. We are eternal beings. Therefore what I write here, I write for all time. I write energetically and you can if you wish share my energy, NOW, each one of you reading these words can come to me, NOW. There is no other time. You can share my thoughts, feelings and sensations and know and feel what I know and feel. There! I've broken a barrier of the mind. Because if you and I believe these words and yet stand aloof, how are we to reach out and touch one another.

You asked me Raman, nine months ago, to go within; - that I _know_ , and that this _knowing_ is inside of me. I must discover in practise what you mean. I _know_ but I don't _know._ I no longer believe the world that others would have me believe, yet a part of me is still bound to it. I know that, that world only exists in their imagination. Fear and trepidation of all the nasties of war; disease, poverty, abuse... It's not my life experience. I hear whisperings, but I don't believe it. It is collective unconsciousness bound together by belief in a Godless world.

This world is a world sustained by, driven by, and resting in love. There are only two states to live our lives by – fear or love - and if we've chosen fear we will be uncomfortable. We don't live in a state of sin – karma is an old energy paradigm that says actions that are not completely resolved by us in this life are carried forward into other lives until they are resolved - for the sake of lesson – nobody has ever suggested that karma was a way of making us suffer or to pay for our sins. Sin is a Christian story, and the correct translation isn't about doing bad things but of simply missing the mark. Like bowling a cricket ball at a wicket and missing. Suffering to be is only a belief system. Christianity has a lot of strong beliefs around good and evil and punishment for getting it wrong. Well we can't get it wrong. We may not step up to the plate – conceivably there are actions we may have pursued, or works that were neither pursued nor begun but this isn't good or bad. If a child learning to walk fails at their first, tenth, twentieth, one hundredth, one thousandth attempt we do not make them bad. Our journey through this life is a little like that.

2002 4 January

Today I sat down and watched two videos. One was of Barbara Marciniak channelling her, ' _Pleiadians_ '; and the other of Jani King channelling _'P'taah'_. I found them both illuminating. Both confirmed the direction my life is taking. They both have the same message. What I found most heartening was their insistence that our world is a reflection of our inner state. And if we are unhappy with the life we live we need only look at our beliefs. But most of all P'taah says to ' _let your heart sing'_. And Barbara's Pleiadians said, ' _we most love human beings when they meditate with a straight back, and when they orgasm._ ' What can be more beautiful?

P'taah says the body has nothing inherent in it which subjects it to aging, sickness, or death. We believe that it does because this is what we've been taught. What the body does have is no mechanism to protect it from our beliefs. It could hardly be other, in that it's the shoe to the foot of belief, and will conform precisely to the universe of our imagination. Disease is a response to the trauma we experience in just living. I almost said trauma of the soul, but the soul is perfect. We die, P'taah says, of a broken heart. We age and subsequently find death because we believe death is going to happen, and at an appropriate time we develop the appropriate signals of old age, bodily decline and eventual demise. The reason these things are so powerful of course, is that everyone believes them. Try not believing something you know to be true. Then multiply that out by the sum of those who agree with you – seven billion times. Then look about and see your parents and colleagues as they grow older and tell me you can't see them stepping into and picking up the attributes of old age. Are you then not going to do the same?

We've been taught by our parents, schools, religions, laws; – the whole shebang - untruths that because we haven't tested them, we conform to and perpetuate. There is a story I recall about a man who dreamt he was a butterfly. On awakening he was for a moment uncertain whether he was a man who'd dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly who'd dreamt he was a man. This journey is taking on some of the characteristics of that story. The boundaries between waking and dreaming merge! If I close my eyes in meditation, or to pause for a moment in my day, or on going to sleep at night; it's like entering the portal of a world that is very desirable and full of purposeful activity. P'taah said in the video I watched today, that our dream state is the realm of the multi-dimensional self and is the real world, and that our waking life is a dream. And that is what I now see; our waking world is just a dream acting out the rich, interior night of the soul – acting out our dream life. Meditation, and remaining open to our star brothers and sisters, who are here to help; this is the key. How can our scientists measure the dimensions of a dream?

6 January

I am going for gold. I intend to devote my life to the life of the soul. I need whatever knowledge you out there in existence or non-existence are able to share with me. I intend to live my life with integrity, and to express universal truth through whatever agency is of greatest benefit. I intend that my actions benefit both myself and others. I need a publisher for my story so any publishers out there please come to me when I am ready. I wish to devote myself full time to this adventure so I need money to keep body and soul together while this exploration continues. So any money out there please come to assist me! I intend that my work whether in this journal, plays, or poetry shall reflect the changing energies, and mirror these changes for the benefit of human kind at these times. I need somewhere to live, so please direct me to the best place to live over this coming year; whether it's in Christchurch, America, England, Auckland, Australia or wherever, I don't mind. I just don't wish to be bothered with triviality. Thank you universe – one verse! If you hear this and know of anyone who can help, send them to me so that I don't do unnecessary things or use my energies in unproductive ways. Thank you, David.

9 January

I stand on the threshold of the new. All my desires to lead a normal life are fast evaporating. I want a natural life. I don't want to speak lies or live in false relations. I wish to speak and act out what is truthful.

I am travelling back to Auckland. My time with Ross has cleared both heart and mind. I've started reading, ' _Conversations with God, Book two_ ', - at last -and find it a perfect reflection of ' _where I am now'_. There is of course a special energy in being on holiday. It provides the space that quite often evades us. It's important we learn to bring this space into our working life.

It's no use thinking life through. Thought is a tool in its own right but it's different from emotion. Thought is cerebral and doesn't seem to connect with our life force in the same way as emotion. Feeling connects and shapes our life force. It uses thought, to construct an inner structure in mind, which it then transforms into matter. It constructs the bodies. Thought also has the ability to make pygmies of us by stopping our flow of energy – read passion. Raman says we need to create a bridge between our heart and our mind. What is this bridge? What is thought?

15 January

I feel that my present lack of direction – lack of a sense of ' _who I am'_ – is an ongoing quality. I sense a peeling away of the feeling of attachment to, _'who I am'_ , or rather _'who I thought I was'_. In the past I've had a very strong sense of 'self'. And things happened in relationship to that, ' _self_ '. Now without recourse to any philosophy or adapting myself to any way of doing, I'm happy to do what presents to be done. And this, ' _presents to be done_ ,' is so obvious. There's no good reason not to do it. Whether it's working back at the office, producing another play, writing poetry, cleaning the kitchen cupboards! The interior quality of all possible actions is of cleaning up the universe! Sometimes I'd like to leave the city and go to some idyllic place to meditate, commune with nature, write, do nothing... But events such as cars breaking down, putting me further in debt, hold me where I am. And that's okay. Because I'm never divorced from the path that I've taken, nor wishful of any other! And this willingness, this contentment, this abiding love is all that one can want from life. – All I wish for! God damn it! It's paradise!

16 January

I was thinking today of how we talk about creating our own reality, and yet it's generally just an idea – ' _this is how the world works_ ' – but we don't really believe it. It's a nice idea we would like to be true. Because so much obviously happens that's beyond our control. And we are divorced from our natural other, the world in which we live, by the way we think about it. It, the world, which is like the husk to our seed, appears separate and outside of us. We know it was here before we arrived, and will be here when we leave? Parts of it we call alive or sentient, and parts we consider dead or lifeless. A little reflection, a little connection with what is out there, a little less being such a know-it-all; can show a completely different paradigm. It can show that this world reflects our emotions. Rather than being separate, it is more easily seen as the cocoon of our being.

22 January

So where has all the beauty gone? ' _Romeo & Juliet,_' is a beautiful play because, within a rather crude framework of benighted lovers, is the intrinsic love we each possess for the beloved. And this is beautiful. I was walking down the street today, checking out my fellow humans. Stripping them of their rather crude cloth coverings, thinking, we are these rather beautiful sprites and yet we cover ourselves in shame. I am sure that our climates have developed to make us shiver inside our love affair with shame. Why are we ashamed of our bodies – why are we ashamed of our sexual identity, which is beautiful and yet we hide it? We avert our eyes from each other as though we were afraid! Our lives are private, as are our thoughts! There's a fear perhaps of ridicule, of being invalidated by others. A desire to hold onto our private world, because there we feel safe and autonomous! What a strange world!

I feel I have a life behind me and a life in front of me; and I can't quite get from one to the other. So many questions, sometimes bizarre, but they feel right. For instance, if we are outside time and there is no real space - why do I? Why do my legs move through space? Move in time? As I walk? Our rational structured universe isn't just a bore. It's destructive of who we are. And I have to break loose. But our sovereignty has been well and truly given away and must be rescued. Life isn't working for a living! We have a promise and we ignore it, _"Consider the lilies of the field how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these._ " We think it some metaphoric reflection of an impossible, ideal world, not a description of the real world. But the world that we've constructed relies on forgetting the lessons to be derived from Christ's passion, - seeing ourselves as limited, not limitless beings.

27 January

Today sitting in the park watching, 'Romeo & Juliet,' I reconnected with that seed that led to my desire to produce it. There is a huge gulf between the world of the rational mind and the world of the heart. And it's the world of the heart that needs to be opened. The single overriding element, I feel this afternoon is love. The play is stuffed full of love. It's about every sort of love imaginable – offered in love – played from the heart. There has been no conscious attempt to interpret the play. The actors received minimal instruction. They were asked to find and fill out the character – in themselves and in relationship. An opening of the hearts of the actors was invited.

29 January

All we need lies in our hearts. To access our heart, all we have to do is connect. This is both simpler and harder than such a bold statement suggests. One problem is that we mix thought and feeling, mistaking one for the other and hence take off down one-way streets. You may ask - how can anyone not tell the difference between a thought and an emotion? Memories are accessed most easily by the degree of emotion attached to them. The stronger the emotion is, the stronger the memory. Because of this, the element of emotion that was strong enough to create a powerful memory will have a strong attachment to the thought form of that memory. Hence we may confuse the two.

Scripture isn't unsound – it's just that it's a record of the past and as such has more in keeping with museums than life. Scriptures are markers left by us in former lives, to remind us HERE NOW of what we already know. The thing is that life isn't prescriptive. It has very high probable universe's, but at the end of the day is entirely dependent on the choices we make.

It's not only the physical landscape that is altered by our progress through life but also the inner landscape. Life is a Universal Dance on just the grandest scale going. All that happens when we choose the rational over the exciting inner whisperings of our soul; is that we plaster over – build concrete monoliths around the heart. If we dismantle those gargantuan structures and follow the stirrings within and the imagination without, then we shall see the stale workaday world vanish, and life will be as joyful as it was when we were children.

5 February

Whilst meditating this morning, it came to me that in going within, I go nowhere but into my Self. How can I move away from myself, when all I ever see is me? It is so apparent that mostly we live in our minds, buffeted by doubt and distrust. This morning I prayed to be free of doubt and to know myself better.

6 February

What also came to mind yesterday; was that underneath the more obvious belief structures, there must be others that are less obvious, but that probably have an even greater effect in our life. For instance there is a hardcore of _'realism_ ,' in my nature, which says that divine imperative makes it impossible for me to win the lottery. By divine imperative I mean that an outside force would prevent it. Yet reason and knowing tell me that this is not true. It's probable that strong forces, eddies of creation as it were, swirl about and make my winning more or less easy because of the ideas I hold concerning money and luck. So many of the _'other worlders_ ;' speak of our reality as being a direct reflection of our belief structure. I hear them and credit what they say but to ask the universe for money I find very difficult. At base level I have an anathema to the action. Strange! And my affairs are not good. Not only does the universe not offer me money but it does its darnedest to take most of what I have. Murky waters! And to cap it all, I know I am about to walk out of my job. I can't stop thinking about it as I work. Now if I had the same certainty about money! I guess I feel deep in my being that it's not done? But isn't that only an idea? Come to think of it who in their right mind walks away from a good job with no savings? Yet that's easy for me! Daaah!!

13 February

I decided today to quit the job I've worked at these last twelve years. I'll give notice at the end of the month. I'm going to pursue theatre, poetry, this journal and play-writing. I know that, with the universal forces that bombard me with assistance, I've nothing to fear by putting myself into their hands. I may not recognize my hopes and desires by the time they have done, but that's another story. I'll give notice at the end of this month. That will give me time to tidy up my desk for the next person. Raman said that when I left it would be like walking out of one activity into another. And you were right weren't you Raman? It's strange that even a week ago it didn't seem possible. But last weekend, watching, ' _Romeo and Juliet_ ,' I knew within the texture of the play, that grace is just another name for love, and that going out to others rains blessings on all. When I bend my attention to the drama I feel relaxed, alive, and focused. When I read books these days no matter how illuminating, I somehow feel I'm procrastinating. And working at my job I just wish to be somewhere else. – I find it hard to restrain my attention to what is in front of me. So I will trust and go.

14 February

Writing in this journal with the knowledge that one day I'll publish it, presents interesting aspects. There are thoughts I find hard to put on paper and haven't. As a fifty-six year old man, I am far more relaxed and happy than when I was a younger man, but still have very rigid ideas of right and wrong. For instance it's okay in my mind to talk of beings inhabiting regions other than earth. But that I should listen to someone like Maria Duvall, this medium I foolishly purchased some literature from and who has since inundated me with spells and charms and lucky numbers makes me feel slightly embarrassed, foolish and vulnerable. I feel uncomfortable that she sells occult powers for money, and I feel like a chump paying her for them. I feel that I am being had. But then there's a rather lovely story the Shankaracharya tells; of a woman who loved God, and wanted nothing more than to see him. A charlatan heard her praying and approached her. He said he could show her how to see God. If she gave him all her money there was a tree in the forest, and if she allowed him to tie her to it, God would he said, come down to her from on high. So she gave him her money, he tied her to the tree; and left, feeling very pleased with himself. She waited, and she waited, and she waited; unwavering in her faith. After some weeks the Gods in heaven were in great consternation; and taking pity on her misguided trust, one of them came down to rescue her. And so it didn't matter that the agent of her freedom was a thief; because her intent was pure. I feel similarly about Maria Duvall. And yet to the extent I put my faith in her, to that extent, her honesty is not important.

Aside from all the charms and magic potions, Maria Duvall said, _"write to yourself. Write about your life. Own and explore your life and who you are. Own yourself! Be in your body as a person. Write to the people in your life. Make your life real. Connect anew with and have a strong conception of who you are._ " Now what can be more practical than that? I have as I said earlier not always told all the truth. Now I want to tell the truth. I feel a new life is in store for me, far more directed. And I'll write each day – non-selectively. At one stage she committed me to contact her at a specific time. When the time arrived there she was in my mind's eye as real and as vital as if she occupied the same space that I did. I saw her in my mind's eye and could feel her energetic presence. At the time she was living in England.

16 February

I was watching Lynn playing Juliet's nurse today and thought how pathetic she looked on stage. And an actor acquaintance of mine was laughing at her because they couldn't see the honesty of her performance. And I thought. It takes courage to be so pathetic. Mostly people lack the courage to experience real emotion and so they bolster their performance with platitudes to appear true to life. What a load of crock. It springs from the fear to experience more deeply. Lynn is brave, because she isn't afraid of the reality. The dishonest performance is to create an approximation. It may be played with great intelligence and integrity to all appearances but if it's not the truth it will fail to command our emotions. Juliet's nurse is a silly old woman devoutly attached to her mistress and Lynn plays her to a t.

18 February

I am operating completely in the dark - Lynn is fearful of the future because of the insecurity she feels with me. Because she loves me and is afraid of losing me! I am beginning to see, though it's a hard lesson; that we really do have to stay away from the negative and focus on the good. Lynn's approach to puppy training is a wonderful example. When she sees that Romeo and Juliet; (our two mixed Staffordshire terrier cross with something), are unhappy, or that they are acting inappropriately; she finds something to turn their attention to. She doesn't growl but just diverts them. Compassion is a wonderful word and a wonderful action. To move into the world with compassion is quite a different action, to reaction. Ask yourself, where is the negative when you leave it for the good? Slumbering within? I don't think so - unless perhaps you haven't really left it for the good – just tucked it away for a rainy day.

My life is full of change and I'm not sure how. It's like glancing in the mirror and not recognizing who's there. I'm certainly far removed from the young man who on being initiated into meditation in Wellington, wrote on the initiation form that he wished to be enlightened as opposed to liberated. The thing is that without an iota of knowledge as to what was being chosen I chose what sounded like the biggest and best version of what was on offer. Not that there's anything wrong with choosing the best. Nor is there anything wrong with young men being ignorant. And after a lifetime of exposure to this type of information I still have no idea what difference there is between enlightenment and liberation. In fact I'm not even sure that there is such a thing. This isn't meant to be derogatory or otherwise. I really have little idea about anything anymore. I think that having an idea is just that. Having an idea! And when the life starts to move and change, the role of the thinking centre as explainer of the universe, begins to die as the mind wishes to conceive rather than deceive.

21 February

I'm sitting here asking myself – what is the focus of my attention? Where is my world? Because although the physical has all the qualities I've associated with it in the past, yet my attention seems more inward, and therefore the physical seems less – physical. I can't identify spirits; I can't point and say – there's Kryon – there's Raman – there's P'taah. But I feel in good company; despite their having no physical presence as we normally consider physical. Having said that, their energy fills my universe in a more tangible way than my physical bed or dresser or bookshelves do. Raman and P'taah say that the dream world is real and the apparently tangible physical world of the senses is a dream. I believe that.

I've heard many people of great integrity speak, and I read extensively. And no one that I've heard or read before today has impressed me with the quality I ascribe to Raman. With Raman I feel completely known and loved for who I am. – And that relationship remains. And other relationships have been formed - and I know I am not hidden – not one infinitesimal cell of me. Planet Earth opens out to a thousand, million, billion, zillion windows and each window I know to be a window into my soul, and I love and am loved. The actions of humans that are described in our newspapers aren't true. My life stands in relationship to myself. And so it must be for all of us. When some boy soldier shoots merrily away in the Afghan hills, he lives in his heart and his soul and his every breath is in self-relation to himself. We are none of us mechanical wind-up toys. Therefore our life is the life of the soul, not the blind, mechanical, accidental meanderings of some dumb object. Like Shakespeare's character Shylock, in his play, ' _The Merchant of Venice'_ , says " _if you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die_?" The illusion that we hold about the nature of reality is an illusion. I live in a safe universe full of love – not in a Godless desert inhabited by sex maniacs, child abusers, nor politically incorrect politicians who would enslave me. The worlds are not the same.

22 February

The key is to push our awareness outward; if there can be such an action, into the phenomenal universe and let life happen.

27 February

Three days ago I gave my notice at work. It was the hardest action. Writing my letter of resignation was difficult. But walking with it from my office to my boss's office was a very long approximately twelve feet. I wrote that I was giving my notice, to take Shakespeare into schools. After the deed was done the weight of the action lifted from me – the lead left my legs, and I felt relatively normal. The response from others has been wonderful. " _Are you following your dream_ ", I was asked. " _Yes_ " I replied. " _That's good_ ", was the response. And that has been the response generally; people are glad for me. And that's why we need this type of action. It's time to put considerations of comfort and economic security aside and come down firmly on the side of life. This is the choice that everyone would so much like to make, but are afraid to do so. We've been taught a lie. We've been taught that two and two equal four and we believe it. But it's not so! Christ went into a wilderness and was sustained for forty days and nights. Ramakrishna as a child went each morning to the feet of his graven Goddess with equal faith and was sustained. Look at the clouds and what do we see. If they are black - the potential for rain. If they are dense enough they obscure the sun. How long has it been since you last looked up to see fairy palaces, mansions in the sky, great beings at play; and light – so much light and love and blue and white? Life is beauty, life is joy and fun and childish laughter. But beyond this our world is explained in terms of physical fact, measurement and law. It's all explained away. And not one word is true. Scientific explanation is not our world, scientific explanation is dry boring old farts and we believe it.

28 February

What is? Each of our individual worlds is circumscribed, bounded, enclosed. They are separate and essentially frozen. That's why the world appears solid, although science herself is aware that it's made up of atoms and molecules, electrons, neutrons and so on whirling through space – large tracts of space. But our subjective world translates the physical world so that it metamorphoses into something which corresponds to the quality of our inner world. When we are rested inwardly, when we are happy and light-hearted, the physical world is still solid to the touch, but not as solid. It is as if it loses its hard edges. But when we are dark and gloomy and lost in difficulty, doubts and fears, the world is harsh and every edge hurts. We are wedded to the idea that God is an illusion beyond proof. But it's not true. There is all the proof in the world for anyone who cares to look for it. But don't believe me it's no skin off my nose. We are each responsible for our world view: we are therefore each responsible for what our world looks like.

Our practices confine us in a world of others, imaginings. – Not our imaginings. Because although we're full of imaginings, we doubt them, and let others tell us how the world is and then we believe them. And in this way everything turns grey and predictable and the child and the passion aren't even guessed at. But doubt and questing for the ' _how-it-really-is'_ opens things up; we begin to be presented with vastly different alternative worlds. Here again care must be taken because there are many accounts of, ' _how-things-really-are_ '. The world believes one thing, religions, philosophy, astrology, geography, astronomy, sociology, mathematics; the various sciences; - all present their world views. – And who else? Right now all the portals are open and in the world of mind the whole universe seems to be streaming into our space. Many of these visitors say that the planet earth is over-populated terrestrially and extra-terrestrially, now, at this point in time, because right now Earth is the happening place in the galaxies – there is, at the moment, no more interesting place to be.

30 April 2002

The extra-terrestrials say that all the parts of our lives are present NOW - interconnected as I exist here NOW - that I exist at all points NOW - that I live in other realities NOW, a multidimensional being. These may include other probabilities here as well as in other universes; and my actions here NOW affect all my existences. Quite a concept! But what strikes me most significantly is my inability here NOW to experience this multidimensional being. It's as if I lived in a box cut off from a large part of myself. But this it is said has been done for a reason. It's an exploration of consciousness designed to expand the boundaries of our appreciation of God. A little like putting blinkers on a draught horse to allow him or her not to be distracted whilst going about its allotted task. And the nature of this reality is the sum total of whatever intention we bring to bear here NOW. We do not live in a pre-scribed world. It is written here NOW at this point right NOW before the next moment NOW. And HERE what I said above is no longer true because HERE we do know.

Wednesday 5th June

I have so much to say and it's not being said. It's all in my head. When I first started writing this I wrote something about a journey. It was rhetorical and had a hint of cleverness about it. That's David. The truth as I am beginning to see it; is that life goes no further than where we are right now. And the journey is a moment by moment pushing forward into nothingness and transforming creation. We are all co-creators. And here now on Planet Earth this is the game.

At present Lynn and I are producing and directing Shakespeare's, ' _The Merchant of Venice'_ , for schools. It's a lovely exercise. I can see so clearly how by connecting with Shakespeare's language anyone who cares to speak the words transforms others and are themselves transformed; new experiences are experienced, new feelings are felt, new thoughts thought; and this energy is capable of moving like osmosis across cell walls imbuing people and places with its energy so that everything and everyone who is touched by its magic is changed.

12 June

I am so angry. I am angry with myself, I am angry at the Gods, I am angry with my wife, my dog, the nature of creation or certainly how I experience it. It seems that I've been down this track too often. The notion of man as victim! I never thought of myself as a victim before. But when you can't control your environment, your world, or the emotions that course through your body, let alone your thoughts! And so I am angry; but I'll not be a victim. People are wrong when they speak and act from the assumption that there is no relationship between them and their world, that chance brought them here. It's not a mechanical world that we live in. Our world is formed by each one of us, there's no chance or accident and seeming lack of control is merely evidence that we haven't yet got the hang of the controls. But it's important what I've undertaken under the observation and the full support of the wise. I have to learn why there is this appearance of being done unto when every fibre of my being tells me that I am looking at things the wrong way around. Today with all this anger and despair and my feelings of impotence and potential failure I received a pamphlet from Yasmeen in Christchurch. And there was a quotation from Raman saying: " _There is an answer to every question you have within you. The question is the beginning of the answer. Knowingness and action is the result."_

Well, the question here is, why, when there is integrity of purpose, willingness and energy to devote myself to the creative life, every possible obstacle seems to be placed in the way and I appear isolated and systematically stripped of the means to maintain myself? Perhaps I'm deluded. Not in my vision of what the world really looks like, but in thinking of myself as devoted. Maybe I am but surely not to the degree to which fortune seems to be conspiring. Right now I am in danger of becoming bankrupt, my wife seems to have her head buried in her work, and a useful activity is in danger of being scuttled by a teachers strike. One clue perhaps is that when I went to write, ' _devote myself to...,_ ' a part of me wished to say spirit, but I couldn't because I baulked at it; it seemed too strong an emotion. Yet spirit is what is being shied away from here. When I think of people like Lee Carroll and Jan Tober, I see integrity of purpose that I can't find in myself. I have too many imperfections. But then I think just possibly they also have their weaknesses and peccadilloes. Except that is sort of begging the question. Because if I have stuff inside of me I am not entirely comfortable with then a light needs shining on it. Tobias says that we must not be afraid to acknowledge our own divinity. That our life should be lived as we conceive it. He also says we shouldn't feel guilty, that we are not about to be failed by God. P'taah says we take ourselves far too seriously and should hang loose a little – to paraphrase. All in all it's good advice. But this doesn't change my predicament, or my feelings.

20th June

A momentous thought came to me the other day. I thought of how important the physical is in our relations. More often than not, we choose acquaintance from a physical perspective. Yet all our relationships are in the mental and spiritual realms. You don't have a relationship just by shaking hands, kicking a ball, engaging the body in sexual congress with another body. The impetus of sexual desire may well appear physical but we are impelled by subtle being. And to be honest although many assume relationship to be fulfilled by the physical; deeper more enduring relationship relies on the varied subtle engagements which take place at more refined levels of experience. So then I asked myself – What if I loved another, so much so that it hurt. And what if that other died! And what if that other returned at another time and place in a body I found repulsive. Or in the body of a cat or a son or daughter! This is what has been said happens. What is the nature of relationship? What is this love that in another time and place is so easily forgotten?

23rd June

I'm having a lot of difficulty. I've spent three days in bed feeling not so much physically ill, as heart sick. I am afraid to go on. I feel trapped in a bad dream with no way out. It all started when I realized that I had run my credit cards to the hilt, was unable to meet the biggest of them, had no income and didn't seem about to generate any more. And all the heart went out of me. It was only my ringing Ross and telling him what was happening, that gave me the strength to get up. I cleaned my room and the house and the physical activity helped. It seemed that everything I had heard was wrong. I know it isn't, but it seemed to be being proved so. I find it hard to find a tag, a place to start to unravel the universe. The trouble is, if one and one make two, then an observed causal link, like, muddy shoe – dirty carpet is, ' _factual_ ', and therefore evidence or proof. To turn around and say stop, it's not true, it only seems to be so; so flies in the face of the way we are programmed that an alternative isn't acceptable. We are creator Gods and our word counts. Even though we're in the dark about this, I know our word counts. So the world is demonstrably what we conceive it to be. – Note the language - conceive or give birth. We dream the dreams of a God and our dreams weave themselves into being and this being is our physical world. Its fragile and illusory quality is that if we change our mind our world changes.

NOW as it is lived, is different again. Consider this. We dream ourselves into being. And our mythical creations which are nothing but moving images so wraithlike that we could blow them into oblivion; take on what for them is a physical reality which they believe to be true and to have a life of their own. And a story is invented to explain the images this all gives rise to. And so we have ourselves a world within a world. The things that we believe and the actuality of our experiences are so at odds as to be irreconcilable. The creation is like a play, whose meaning derives not from its content, but from its creator's desire, and hence our so called attempts to become enlightened, are in fact only a story. But the truth is so much greater and is another story altogether. The whole content of our lives is the stuff of dreams. To seek the real meaning of our lives we have to wake up and see what is really there. What is the illusion?

July 22

There has to be a way out of here but I don't know how. It is as though every universal force imaginable is pushing me out of where I am. I keep referring to those I trust. Walsch's, _'God'_ says to acknowledge the isness. Not to deny it. But what does that mean when I am afraid. Jani King's, ' _P'taah_ ' says to embrace the fear. To focus here now! That's fine but I can't stay here. I can acknowledge the pain but where does that leave me. Because the lockout is day after day – on my terms at a level that does not threaten my control - my way.

July 30

I find it more and more difficult to speak. There is a process to life and I know it's helped and directed by my journaling and then offering it up. I can't find the place to take a grab at reality and pull. Like these modern plastic packages, which may do a great job at protecting their products but at what cost to the fingernails, teeth and simple integrity of person; – one feels so stupid, like trying to fight ones way into a paper bag. But it's a beautiful analogy of the nature of reality.

As simple an exposition might be that, God, wishing to experience himself in all his glory, attends on himself, and each ray of attention is a soul. And each soul wishing to experience the glory of God, attends on her, and this ray of attention is, you and I. Soul embodied! And as souls embodied we live in a freewill universe which also is nothing but ourself. And we are eternal, blissful and full of knowings. And to expand into the furthest reaches, pushing into the boundaries of creation, we wish to experience ourself but forget who we are, and end up with millions of other souls in the same boat, - walking about believing this limited being to be us. – And that death will end all. Except the story is only a story on a human level. On a universal level it's something different again. Because it's us inside these modern wrappings tearing ourselves apart, trying to find the heart of us.

Chapter Eighteen

LIFE AS JOURNEY

" _Feel the need. It is okay to go with what you have. How can it be wrong to deny some part of yourself, whether it is intrinsically yours or something you have gathered? Everyone is different, and therefore everyone starts from a different playing field. It is not by acquiring something new that we are able to pursue the journey, but by sorting through what we already have."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

2002, 4 August, Sunday

I don't know what's going on. I have no idea. I have been rereading the entries from a year ago. And I have to admit that I was more in control then, than now. The conditions of my life seem to obliterate me. Raman is coming north in September. That is good.

19 August

This morning I woke up petrified. We have agreed upon, and negotiated all these theatre venues to try and encourage secondary schools to see ' _The Merchant of Venice._ ' And I am terrified that we don't have the lead time. But it seems we're committed. So I looked about me to see what help I could find, and picking up, ' _Dr Judith Orloff's Guide to Intuitive Healing_ ' opened it at random to a section headed, _'Ask for Inner Guidance'_. I read the section and felt a little better. I went within as she suggested. I was relatively relieved, but not much less terrified. I then pulled off the bookshelf, Kryon's, ' _Alchemy of the Human Spirit'_ , and opened it up to a section headed, ' _Responsibility_ ', where Kryon speaks of the mistaken belief, that if we were in the right place, doing the right thing, we should necessarily be happy and comfortable. God give me an inner connection to guide my life because I can't do it.

9 September

I feel a strong reluctance to continue this account. Since meeting Raman, my life has been one of continual change and growth. It has since my last entries changed profoundly. And it's not all bad, but honestly, sometimes I embarrass myself. Last Monday when I awoke I was afraid and remembered how much of my life I've lived in fear of my fellow humans. There was a reason for these thoughts. I've been delivering flyers for the play into letterboxes. I'd done two previous deliveries of flyers, and intended doing another. I decided to deliver 500 flyers to each area we're to perform in. Lynn suggested libraries and shops. Now, I've delivered advertising material to shops and libraries before, but always painfully with great trepidation. By contrast letter boxes are easy. You can plonk it in a box while there's hopefully no one around. I've never known why I've been so afraid. Well I have; I hate being seen doing anything in case someone thinks I'm doing the wrong thing. That's pretty powerful isn't it? Of course I've always added the rider – well this is who I am. Last Monday as I sat in the car, there was a silent acknowledgment in my heart that I delivered flyers to boxes to avoid the fear I feel when meeting people. And I knew I was afraid. I knew in exactly the same way as I did, when I decided to give up smoking. And knowing this, the fear disappeared. And that day I drove to Papakura and went into shops and libraries without fear, and I haven't been afraid since -well, not of people.

But there is no question I do live in fear. It resides in my belly and I am sure its fear of myself – of who I am – where I'm going. P'taah speaks of this fear, as the infant within that needs us to comfort and surround him/her with love. And he says this infant is us. Kryon also speaks of the child within, and how we need that child to find peace. And he also says that when we come to a state of peace we will recognise it as a place of good health. I can't wait for that time. Daily I feel within me a steady intent for God, a desire not to compromise. I so want others to know the truth, to know their truth. And I'm unwilling to turn my back on what I see as my life's work. How it will finally manifest itself I have no idea, but I feel a burning need to make as many people aware of the possibilities as I can.

14 September

Last night Raman was in Auckland which was really nice, because my good friends Judy and Francis and Vivienne were there, as were Lynn and I. It was an introductory talk on 'Intuition'. The following are the rather sparse notes I made.

" _Intuition is the blending of the spiritual with the human. It's an inner guidance system. An alternative to the common way we make our way through life, which is to be driven by externals. It's how we know the truth of feeling. Intuition is the bridge between thought and feeling which allows us to be guided by the soul. To avoid intuition means to avoid part of ourself. To allow intuition is to come forward and engage in life. Intuition not only guides our choices but gives knowledge of the preparation needed for a task to proceed. Obstacles often stop right action in its tracks. Seen rightly, obstacles become stepping stones to higher things. We live in a freewill universe and need to learn to trust our own nature. Intuition is the doorway to the soul. Listening to intuition, we are listening to feeling. We often get caught by obstacles instead of taking the next step. The answer to each obstacle is right next to the obstacle. What does it feel like to be open? Intuition not heeded often results in unpleasant detours. Ask yourself. Does this fit with how I want to live my life? Between a life driven by externals, to a life lived in intuition, there is a period of transition. In transition it's important not to give up. Keep going back to the point of departure. There may be a compulsion to act because of pressure to decide from outside. Intuition is the only thing you can trust in life, beyond doubt. There is a difference between feelings and thoughts. Feelings lead to your highest good. Thoughts tend to be weighty and determining. Determining between different actions often brings up fear. Ask why - go deeper – keep going deeper and find the true motivation – the core will then be open to view. Always go deeper. We are unfathomable; in the heart there are many answers, in the head there is only one. Then there will be a decision to match the inner to the outer; a decision to be more spiritually than humanly driven. It's important that we intend an action, even an action to do nothing, rather than that we simply do nothing. The act of moving forward and of growing is of prime importance. Be open to the dynamics of result – the experience of self – allow. A movement, any movement, brings expansion. It's important to know why you want change and to what because this allows intuition to guide us. Take an active participation in life. Are you a shadow or real? There is not much call for mechanics in the afterlife. The most important action is to learn to embody spirit. An unexpected bonus of working intuitively is that it expands the intellect, allowing it to work more effectively. It's important that you have the right 'value standard', to measure yourself with. We are all in our own ways appropriately talented individuals, and it's important that we recognise and value our own self worth. It's important that the steps are filled in the right sequence. Writing things down will help get the sequence right._ '

I recall as a child,

The wonderful world of the circus;

The noises and smells, the sawdust,

The pain of the laughing clowns,

The lions that roared and leapt

To the snap of the lion tamer's whip,

Reluctantly being stood on stools,

Or jumped through hoops of fire;

Of the racing white horses,

Beautiful riders in tight bodice

And flounced white dresses,

Just like the ballerinas wear;

Or the men in slim white tights,

Effortlessly standing, or leaping

From side to side, sometimes

Three or more forming pyramids of white;

And the high flying trapeze artists,

Whose feats would at times bring

The whole audience to their feet,

In sheer marvel at their audacity;

As first one, then another

Would defy gravity, leap one over another,

As we, hearts in mouths, watch in awe.

Now I am an acrobat of the heart

An art every bit as audacious,

Nerve bending, skilful, as death defying

As any I saw in my youth;

For now I live life in trust,

I step out over the abyss

Of this world,

Without hesitation.

18 September

I admit to some trepidation. I never thought to find myself in the middle of something I now can't turn my back on - it falls into the category of Paul Bunyan's, ' _Pilgrim_ ', in _'Pilgrim's Progress'_ , leaving his village in search of the Celestial City. Or our forbears, setting sail for some mythical future home on the underside of the world, never expecting to see their families again. But I need this to make sense. Hopefully, the transcribed notes I made at the second Raman session on Saturday, will help.

The second session was entitled; ' _Living Intuitively, Free Your Intuitive Self'_. These are the notes I made during the day. ' _To refer our actions to intuition encompasses the whole. The act of referral will bring up a mix from the past and we may be presented as a consequence with actions we were not prepared for, being presented for us to do. It brings with it a sense of being tested. Life throws up all sorts. Intuitive action is a way of setting intention. The answers may not always be acceptable. Having set the intention, we may constantly refer back, so that like the rudder of a ship we appropriately adjust our course to it. It's important to be true to the act of intuition. Things may be thrown up, which are not a part of the original intention, but which turn out to be the required action. Tangible outcome isn't necessarily the most important aspect. The spiritual movement that arises can usefully act out the soul's intention. The soul is not interested in results. Mind and intuition have a relationship; here is the bridge needed between the heart and the mind. There is a need for the mind to fall in line with the soul's purpose. There is the need for us to have a clear relationship with ourselves. If our vision is very big, the pressure can be great, and it may seem that our needs are not apparently met. This is because of the size of the chunk of the apple we are attempting to deal with"._

In the afternoon session I made the following notes.

_Rhythm of life – there is a need for our focus to be outwardly directed. How do I feel? What do I feel? There is a need to slow down and to get in touch. How does my inner voice sound in a practical sense, so that I may recognize it? Where do I go for an answer? Am I now thinking, i.e. going to my head or am I responding intuitively and going to my feelings. How do I feel about this? What do I need for support? What is my body feeling? Listen to intuition or our body will get harsher in its attempt to get our attention. Not listening – overriding our intuition allows other beings to override us. To go with our feelings brings truth speaking – speaking out. It is important for us to stay with what we feel is right. When we're soul guided, anticipation triggers intuition, assisting us on our way. It's important not to go with our conditioning, with the stories the world tells us. Authenticity requires us to be ourselves in the world. Intention declares direction – this gives us a compass point to keep us on track. It also alerts our soul to work with us. How is this achieved? The soul will guide us through life by means of the intuition. Serendipity comes from the soul working in our favour. Paying attention to present needs allows for appropriate movement_.

Raman's admonition is to: - _'never stop asking questions – the answers will never stop – peel them away layer by layer. Remember our mind has only one answer our intuition many._ "

Raman said at the weekend that if you consult intuition, don't be surprised if it throws you a curve ball, and you find yourself being asked to do things you never thought of. What a way to live! Sitting here, writing this, my heart overflows with love. I want to read poetry throughout New Zealand. I don't know where I'm being led. I can't pretend I'm not scared. But I feel blessed in my endeavours and guided every step of the way. I said to Raman, ' _What of Lynn? I feel what I am being asked, may be very hard on her._ ' And his answer had a touch of admonishment, and he said _, 'that type of consideration should never be allowed to sway my actions.Lynn is only truly concerned when you don't follow your passion_.' And all these intimations of intuition are now to me like rocks on which I can rest. I feel as if for the first time I have found true direction in my life. Even if I'm not fully cognisant of where it will lead, or how it will work.

19 September

I have no defence, as I have no idea where I am being led. But that I am being led I have no doubt. Lynn vacillates between subdued fear and anger in trying to find a way forward. I call on all the help available to quieten her doubts and fears. Over the last few days I keep finding examples of husbands held back from their passion by the fear and conditioning of their wives. Whoever suggested that man was all powerful? He quakes in the presence of the female of the species.

22 September

Last night we had our final performance of, ' _The Merchant of Venice._ ' It was a wonderful performance but very disappointing as far as numbers are concerned. And now it's very hard for me. I'm at the end of my financial tether. If there's meaning here I can't see it. Raman says it's about healing. I can't see how. There must be some action I don't recall from which all this springs, but if there is it eludes me. What Raman did say was that it's pointless to question, what has no obvious answer. I am so disappointed. I've drawn two Raman wisdom cards. I can't see why I must have absolutely nothing which is what I have; less than nothing. The first card says: " _We fear when we forget love. When we remember love we feel courage. Draw from the centre of your heart the strength within you. Feel your love._ " I do trust Raman. I trust myself in a way I never have before. Despite all Lynn's and other people's comments as to my intentions around my life, I feel strong and sure in my Self. The second card says; " _Trust your intuition; your strongest feelings. And stand tall with an open heart in the face of everything. Follow your strongest intuition. Dare to trust yourself."_

September 23rd

The Universe is nothing if not amazing. But the lessons she teaches are humbling. This morning all seemed black and impossible – again. Yet unlike in the past I was not scared or depressed. I was a little irritated that life could not be more straightforward, - like a wind-up toy – predictable. When I realized the difficulty I was in financially; the emotion experienced was – why can't I comfortably act and write poetry and be looked after? Why must it be so hard? Truth to tell I suspect this may be exactly what we can do. I thought, ' _David you really do like to experience the nice emotions don't you'_. At the coal face where this being, this I AM, this Isness in creation, interacts with creation in macro – emotions are generated. And life doesn't, always deliver comfortable emotion. So this morning I stoked my inner fires, drew upon my creative force, and prayed to all those celestial beings I am becoming more and more familiar with. Archangel Michael, Tobias, Raman, Kryon, my special angels and guides, my own Authentic Self, and any other celestial being that may have overheard. And then I set about my tasks for the day. And in the doing, discovered a retirement fund I could probably cash in on the grounds of hardship, which would alleviate my financial difficulties in the next few months if used wisely. I have just read in Julia Cameron's, _'The Artists Way,' "Leap and the net will appear._ "

1 October

On awakening this morning, what came to mind was that although it's now two weeks since my last meeting with Raman, and almost a week since the play finished, I am no nearer reading poetry throughout New Zealand. I get the sense of being on hold as though the direction is still uncertain. Lynn doesn't want me to leave. And I'm obviously not completely resolved. I awoke this morning feeling out of focus, and remembered Barbara Marciniak's, ' _Pleiadians_ ' and the stress they place on expressing specific intention. So I expressed intention for today. And throughout the day all my activity has been from intentionality. It is time to put what's known into practise.

This morning after greeting Raman and the others, I directed my attention and questions to myself. It just presented - the need to be self-directed and not rely on others, even if we consider them superhuman beings with all the answers. It was refreshing reading your questions and answers this month Tobias, and your wish that sometimes we might remember you, without necessarily wanting something from you. Just to exchange greetings. It also takes away that me, me, me drive and focus of attention. So meditation this morning was very much, sitting in front of myself. I was my own alter; I was the beloved and the object of my affection. It was very unusual and very strengthening.

Tonight at, _'Poetry Alive'_ , wasn't very encouraging. Half a dozen people and I didn't feel really connected with any of them. I think Lynn is right, and I live in an unreal world. I find it hard to see my way forward. I have no idea how I will live or what I will do. My debts swallow me alive, my circumstances bind me, and I don't know how to extricate myself or to what. I'm at a loss. I guess I take it a step at a time because yesterday was an eye-opener. Yesterday I understood, that one of the reasons I have so much credit card debt and no income, is because I rely on the credit cards to look after me. And by the action of allowing an item to be paid by credit card, I'm saying to the universe – ' _don't worry, I'll take care of this one._ ' And with this action I stop up the possibility of any other source of income.

3 October, 9 am

Yesterday I continued my resolution to live with intent and drew up a list for the day. I didn't do badly. Last night, and this morning on awakening, I realized that an expression of intention can go beyond a physical list of tasks for a day. It can also express more subtle nuance of mind; such as holding a question like, ' _today help me to understand more clearly the direction I am to take'_. My present interpretation seems to be causing Lynn undue distress. I still get the sense I need to leave, but what was perfectly clear, sitting in Raman's presence, has lost its clarity.

10.20pm

If anything my life has less clarity tonight than it did this morning. What I'm doing or not doing doesn't make sense! Yet I know that I'm right. Question: if I ask Raman and Kryon and others to help me but I don't know where I'm going, or what I'm asking them to help me do...? It seemed like a good thing to read and write poetry on the road. But I feel for my wife and she's right. I have no idea what is next. But I'm right about my choice. The Shakespeare will box me into an expectation that will be as much of a prison as the church office. And I won't learn to write. I've been approaching intention as a question. So today's intention is – ' _okay I knew, but now things are murky, so help me understand_?' Understand what? If the intention sets the direction, how can you Raman, know the path? I must step onto the path and then it becomes clear. But Lynn is right. What do I expect of her? To hang around waiting to see if I'll come back, when I never said I was leaving? It feels a little like walking on water. When you figure out how it's done it's easy. When you don't know how it's impossible.

Friday 4 October

I'm sitting in the park with our cross-bred Staffordshire bull terrier come American pit bull? Tonight, some clarity came to mind in a quiet sort of way. I _feel_ that Intention can helpfully be spelt with a capital to stress its importance. I believe that Knowing and Intention arise from within like hand and glove. A truthfully orientated intention that expresses us faithfully, must spring from inner knowing. I see the intellect as a sort of errand boy that we use to run hither and thither, to bring us whatever our intention requires. I'm full of doubts and misgivings. And that's the Achilles Heel that holds us all in place. We hear of the power of intention and throw our heart at it along with our misgivings. Then we turn around and say, ' _No, it doesn't work; it sounds good but it doesn't work_ '; pointing at the result, a sorry mixture of desire for change and doubt that it's possible. The key is to go within and gently, but oh so gently, allow change to arise naturally with courage.

Raman doesn't need to be summoned, he isn't distracted from some other activity, and he is perfectly capable of attending on you and me, and whoever else calls on him. You, reader may call on him now, as you may call on me. That's an interesting twist! But what I'm discovering is that I can call on me with the same trust as I can Raman, and with the same truthful response. We are knowing, divine beings. We exist here - Now. We have only to call out and any one of the ascended masters, angelic beings or 'we' in our authentic being will come running. And although it's true, that I personally find it difficult to discuss divine politics if they exist; or rattle on about galactic weather patterns, I don't doubt that it's possible. And when I remember, I act as if I can. Because we're all one family, we're good friends and go back a long way. And it seems to me that the Universe is a very small place when all is said and done.

7 October

I've been reading Peter Erbe's, ' _God I am'_ , which is very particular in working through the processes involved in moving from separation to unity. It's not easy reading. It's very much from the intellect rather than the emotions, and requires total concentration. But it feels complete in what it says and I was able this evening to appreciate the need to own every part of what we experience, our emotions, our relationships, and to not sit in judgement on anyone or anything. I've also purchased Kryon's, ' _Partnering with God'_ , and read the first two channels. They talk about understanding, closeness, and appreciation of family. And reading them, I experience a strong depth of love and stillness. He speaks of family in the largest sense, and says; (and I am paraphrasing here to make it particular), Kryon, Raman, Archangel Michael, Tobias or any extra-terrestrials must equally be my family as much as Lynn and the children and the rest of my earthly family and friends? My experience reading the channels was quite different from usual. It felt more as if I channelled Kryon through Lee Carroll with the agency of the printed page, rather than that I just read Lee Carroll.

These two books give a broad span of appreciation and understanding. Inwardly I feel myself the object of my attention, revered by myself, and come to a state of stillness and love. In the past I've only assumed this to be possible by attention to the words of a Christ or a Krishna. Outwardly I know that every object of my attention, whether pleasant or unpleasant, is no other than I, myself; existing in love and connected to me in love. Quite something! Thank you, thank you and thank you! Thanks Peter Erbe, for your loving and detailed exposition; and Kryon, for your loving and simple affirmation. The referral is within; this is where life begins, and holding to this, our life will unfold for the good of all.

8th October

It's a strange paradigm, the story of Celestial Beings of immense power, entering dense matter, forgetting who we are, and becoming caught up in stories that are on the whole drearily banal; believing them to be the rationale of existence. Scoffing at the suggestion that we're either imperfect beings in thrall to a jealous God - who just might let us back home if we behave. Or that we're an accident in a universal soup kitchen, here for a short span of finite existence but bound to live a humdrum life, largely doing as we're told. Even if we were just beings; finite or infinite, adrift in something we know not what; why are we so cowed by myths that we let dictate our lives? Why is it that we accept a joyless life, working for relatively nothing while we contemplate the bounty of a few?

9th October

Last night I began to read Kryon's channelling, ' _Partnering with God_ '. Not the book, but one of the channellings in the book. This morning I reread it. It's very powerful reading. Each step on the path to self-discovery is profound. Each step brings me closer to an understanding of myself. I experienced God, taking me by the hand, and assuring me by his wisdom and presence of my own reality. It's the stuff of dreams. And what was most miraculous, was that I already knew what was being spoken of. I knew this was the way life was to be lived.

He says that our belief that God requires anything of us, or wishes us to come, hat in hand, imploring assistance is nonsense. God sits in a golden throne in the heart and we are him. And it's natural to be overwhelmed with our own magnificence, for we are so beautiful. But it's you and I who are so beautiful. We don't have to scrape our knees to our own image.

Kryon says it is useful to express the intent to bond with our Higher Self, much as in a marriage ceremony we take vows; because by this action we cement the connection. When I expressed intent as you asked, I was aware of images on the other side of the veil, witnesses to our vows.

So hand in hand with the Higher or Authentic Self, we clear away the old karmic aspects of our life. And all we have to do is speak our intent. The melting pot is stirred, and out of it arises, the potential for co-creation with our Self. Another aspect is the peace it brings. He stresses the need for continued good health. Why bother understanding spirit and how it works only to wave goodbye in death, and then wait another twenty years to grow to adulthood. In the action of partnership there's a possibility of karmic clearing and a new embodiment, undertaken without going through the time consuming process of death and rebirth. This requires our conscious intent.

The next aspect Kryon speaks of is fidelity. Those emotions at odds with a divine life; such as worry, anger, self-doubt, must go. But then again to be in partnership and find ourself overcome with anger doesn't negate partnership. It just means we step out of our anger, smile at our partner, and try again.

And then with good intent we need to communicate with ourselves. Kryon suggests we meditate, and visualising our golden self seated in the heart, that we speak to us. We ask the questions: ' _Where do you want me now? What can I do to help our partnership? How can I have this or that take place? What can I do next? Show me the synchronicity that gives me the answers to make me aware that there are no accidents in life'_.

So I made my body comfortable with my back upright, closed my eyes and fell still. Surrounded by light I saw the Golden Throne. And I spoke to spirit about what concerned me and asked for help or illumination. I spoke of my overriding intent and willingness to raise the vibration of my being, the vibration of humanity and the vibration of Planet Earth, Gaia. I prayed to the Spirit within. And I sat bathed in love and perfect peace. And I have no idea of the direction my life will take, but I have total trust, a complete absence of fear and absolute confidence.

14 October

I'm mentally counting the number of times I fall into the depths of despair. So often I feel fearless, courageous, and capable of facing anything and anyone. Centred within whatever activity is taking place I feel a profound sense of existence it seems could never be otherwise. But then I'll wake up the next morning, my belly tight with fear, so full of doubts on the way forward and afraid that I don't even know what I'm doing. I suspect it arises from the fact that what I'm doing with my life has never been done by me. I imagine that in many of our lives, we may be quite unconscious and mechanical in our actions. And many lives must be similar and repetitious. In this lifetime I don't have that sense at all. I think that what I am doing now is new and different and carries a lot more consciousness. It is new territory. Because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt, although every experience suggests the contrary, that I am and you are creator Gods. We've been around since time eternal, and will be here for time eternal; and all we have to do with our time is to prove over and over and over, that love is all. And having proved it once, do it again.

21 October 2002, 7 minutes after midnight

There is a significant change in my life right now. Whereas I have in the past called on Raman, or Kryon or others in my despair I now stop and address myself. Because I know that all knowing lies there. I wanted to say that before going to bed.

22 October, mid-morning

I have in mind, Kryon's image of how each and every morning, the birds awaken; they have no special source of food or drink, yet they begin their day with song. They are fearless in their knowledge that the day will provide. I'm also thinking of Lynn and how much I love her. I began by recalling that life is a play, but that that doesn't limit the passion with which it can be lived. This is the beauty of my experience on the stage. On the stage any suggestion of less than complete absorption into a role is a failure to get it right. The concept of life as a play isn't to suggest anything less than serious participation in it. If as human beings, we're less than passionately reflected outwardly, we're offering less than our all. I keep experiencing fear, and look for justification for it. I look to see where I've gone wrong, but nothing inside or outside offers respite. And I know I have to go on and that there is great learning here for all of us.

31 October, nearly midnight

Deepak Chopra speaks in, ' _The Way of the Wizard_ ,' of our not recognising each other, because we're hidden in layers of mask, layers of ego. And in my relationships I sense this masking of who we are and sometimes it bothers me, my inability to connect with the real you. Equally I'm masked from the real me – but this doesn't matter because I know I have the opportunity and the means. And this gives me the key to connection. I need only address you, and keep addressing you, and somewhere I will hear me, and you will hear me, and there will be a joining. What a wonderful description. To look out and know the person you look at as well as you know yourself, without judgement.

Chapter Nineteen

MY INNER CHILD IS WISER THAN ME

" _But the loneliness is most destructive when you are apart from yourself. And so these doors that open you to a new and deeper experience of yourself, will invite you into a healing period, where you can begin to feed, and fulfil your own personal need, and you have permission. This is not selfishness. And indeed, you need to fill up and feed yourself first, before you will be able to reach out to others."_ Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

5th November

Yesterday I left my home in Auckland and am writing this on a hilltop in Raglan, a small seaside town about forty minutes from Hamilton. It's a town better known to surfers than others. But it's a town that has always appealed to me for its peace and tranquillity. Yesterday was an 11 with a 4 on either side. 4 – 11 - 2002. I love number. 11 is a master number. That's the importance of 9 / 11 because eleven is a master number, and - 9 - is a number of completion. The two together, point to new beginnings full of great potentiality. 4 is a number of balance and grounding; two 4's equal 8 the number for infinity, and also the number of fate. All the numbers play, and adding them together we get 1, which is a new beginning and a primal number which in this case also includes 0 the number of potentiality. It may seem silly but all meaning injects meaning into our lives and if I choose to think that a day has all the above qualities it's not a question of right or wrong. Giving life meaning is a far greater action then looking outside and thinking – it's sunny, it's wet – and then just carry on with life. Inject meaning into life and life will have meaning.

I have no idea why I left my home, nor where I'm heading. It feels like a journey and it feels necessary but when anyone asks me what I'm doing the answer is always vague and diffident. Perhaps it's because at some level I'm still afraid of speaking the truth. As I left Auckland I voiced out loud as Kryon admonishes; the intent, ' _to raise the level of my vibration and humanities vibration for the good of all'_. Today I went to a movie called ' _The Wild Blue_ '; and felt anew, through the acts of great courage and comradeship the film depicts; the importance of what I'm about. When I remember myself, wherever I look I see human action to be full of love and lesson. And it is beautiful, and to describe life in more banal terms is to strip away humanity's greatness. I am in and out of a dream world these days, and I don't know what to make of it. Kryon has the angel who visits Michael in his extended parable, ' _The Journey Home'_ tell Michael that in dream the veil is thinnest and that there we're closer to our true self than in our so called real world. Elsewhere he stresses the importance of our dream time.

I have been reading about my night in the Rose Garden with Raman and have been struck by the similarity between that experience and what I've experienced in the last few weeks with Lynn. There have been times we've resonated together at a frequency different to normal. One morning I awoke and I felt as though I had spent the night swimming in bliss, being rained upon with love. Much finer than physical orgasm it reminded me of my night with Raman. And rereading his answer I was struck with the words he used because he never spoke of experience with another but rather lessons with myself. What lessons lie about us!

Raman observes that there are many levels of consciousness being experienced, all together here on planet earth. And that this being so, we should feel more compassion and love for each other, not judgement. It occurs to me that I'm like Hercules, Ulysses, Drake, Cook, Scott, Amundsen; an adventurer; but unlike them and despite being loosened from my home and wife and family, I'm not an adventurer in the realm of the physical, but in the realm of spirit.

We have this belief that we carry burdens of sin or karma and this weighs us down and detracts from the beauty and grandeur of our human experience. We live our life as victims, fearful of our general predicament and fearful specifically of our fellow humans. We believe the world we perceive through our senses to be real. We believe it to be completely other than us. Many of us believe in a God that has laws we must follow and expectations around our conduct. And we mostly see that we fall short of what (s) he wants which is probably why we suffer as we do. Even the millions who profess no belief in God are bound by inner concepts of duty, lawfulness, moral codes and other tendrils of Godliness.

We also have beliefs – very strong ones around our gender – male and female, and we have names, families, occupations, lovers, friends, enemies, bosses, priests, politicians and so on. We believe society has a structure imposed from outside, with irrefutable laws that must be obeyed. We believe that it's okay for some to have power over others; that it's okay to beat the defenceless; be imprisoned for our _crimes_ ; that our religions will work for us; and that we must work for our living; that it's alright for people to claim property rights over land, goods, wives, children, husbands... We believe it's okay to pay for that which belongs equally to all but is withheld by privilege; that it's okay for some to have so much wealth they can't possibly spend it and for others to starve to death wanting. These are some really kinky ideas.

I could go on, for what I'm describing is the world we live in. That we are Bright Eternal Beings magnificent beyond description; that Ascended Masters and the Hierarchy of Angels stand in awe of us, and that we come to Planet Earth on purpose and that part of that purpose is, _'forgetfulness'_ ; and Neale's, ' _God_ ', would say we are here to become the most wonderful version of us that we can possibly conceive.

8 November, Upper Hutt

Mostly I don't know why I'm here! But when I do a reality check, it only brings me back to where I am. This morning I awoke with a sense of rudderlessness. I felt adrift in a world of my own imaginings! I have been reading Kryon's, ' _The Journey Home'_ , and am unsure who is parodying who. Michael the hero of the narrative is literally journeying home to God, and this is the myth underpinning my life. I use the word my, objectively. What is the use as Ross had me demonstrate, not to own, ones self. At this moment in the story; Michael Thomas has lost all the belongings left over from his past life, and I can feel the weight of all the paraphernalia I carefully packed into my car before coming away. Now even the car seems an unnecessary burden.

So this morning I thought, David – reality time. My good friend Francis, very kindly gave me, ' _The Parables of Kryon_ ', for my birthday, and last night as I selected what to bring into the caravan where I'm staying, Kryon's _'Parables'_ , kept jumping into my hand. This morning, as I reached for something to read again the _'Parables'_ leapt into my hand. I opened them at, _'random'_ , would you believe, to a story of ' _David the Indian'_. David lived on an Island completely surrounded by fog. And the Islanders knew that anyone who ventured into the fog never returned. This told them that the fog was evil, and that it was wise not to venture into it. Well of course David penetrated the fog. And it turned out to be the fog of fear and ignorance that holds us prisoner; and penetrating it sets us free. So much for reality checks!

Monday 11th, Upper Hutt

I have been thinking my journey a very hit and miss affair, and wishing for some instruction to give me some idea of what I am about. In Michael Thomas' ' _Journey_ ', he visits seven houses. In the second house, he is given very precise instructions and throughout the book, is looked after each step of the way. Where is my instruction, and where is the care lavished on me? That has been the direction of my thought, as I read of his time in the second house. I decided to spend the day in Wellington. I love wandering around cities. I love wandering full stop, and when I lived in Wellington as a young man, I thought it the most wonderful place in the world. It's funny how experience is always several steps ahead of me, so that writing here in this journal; it's his - story that is being written. Anyway I love reading, and never knowing what I may want to read I always take several books with me. I also take pen and paper in case I want to write. I decided to buy a bag to make it easier to carry everything. I went to the Wellington Market and discovered it was only open Friday, Saturday and Sunday. In the window however was an invitation to a weekend course by Patricia Jepson (Crystal). It read, ' _The Opportunity of a Life Time!!!!! Healing the Earth and Humanities Heart'_. And it was only $40 for the weekend with evening meditations thrown in. Given the parlous state of my finances this looked like a bargain.

Well, talk about it!!! Instruction books don't leap out of windows every day of the week. I booked myself in and now here it is - Monday morning in the camping ground. The weekend was very up and down. I loved what I heard but in the evenings after I left the company and returned to the camping ground it was not easy. Last night after two of the most wonderful days of material, I bought some fish and chips on the way back here, but then it was as though I closed the door on myself; I reacted very badly to the food, my body burned for several hours, and within there was very much a – _'I don't want to know – someone please look after me'_ , response. Everything that was spoken was an affirmation of my soul. I didn't keep notes, as that would have been like me writing to myself, instructions on how to walk from my bedroom at home to the kitchen; it was that known to me. Crystal spoke of inner guidance, the inner child, to be connected within, so that life is lived without doubt and without fear. She has a dog named Delphi, and is starting up groups and schools, directing Delphi's energy to the children of the new world; getting adults to reconnect to the child within, to facilitate a direct, simple connection with Planet Earth. Delphi is an Angel embodied in a Golden Retriever and the teaching is Delphi's, channelled by Crystal. I rejoiced in Crystal's presence, because she was so vital and penetrated my every sense. And she has laid down her life for Christ, not in the way of the Churches, but with a living connection to the ascended Christ, St Germaine, Kuthumi and others. And she spoke from her heart, from her own inner child because she was determined to be a living Avatar, not just a conduit for the words of the masters. And this is the direction that Raman has pointed me – to go to the knowingness within. Michael Thomas' has a map – a map that tells us where we are on our journey, precisely when we need to know. And now I do too. Sometimes I feel so blind. Crystal had this wonderful little exercise. To feel for the child within and then to breath that child, so that you and the child breathe in unison and become that child. It is so simple. And then all there is to do is remember, remember the breath and breathe in the child, remember the child and go to the breath – breathe in that child. So simple and direct! And Crystal's teaching I saw arose from her simple connection with herself – inwardly.

The weekend showed me so much. Sitting here now, I know I can at last move forward; not in the dark, but looking to the light I know to be within, except it keeps disappearing on me; I'm fragmented, driven, disconnected; seeking the connection which I know is there but I can't quite hold on to. I've spoken before of my fear of people. During the weekend I felt like the little boy David that I can so clearly now remember. I always as a child felt so awkward, I crept into the shadows with a sense of unworthiness, like the Scorpion hiding from myself and others. And on the weekend there were all these wonderful people and I felt myself mostly drawing back – again I sense it's because I cannot own what I'm about, and who I am. But what I'm about is the most glorious activity that I could undertake – it is the sole (soul) reason of our existence. And as I lay on my bed prior to seeking sleep, I picked up, Ronna Herman's channellings of Archangel Michael, in her book, ' _Wings of Light'_ , and read a paragraph and put it down; I picked up Kryon's ' _Don't Think like a Human_ ', read a passage and put it down. And what I kept reading was my own thoughts, what I knew in my heart. Wherever I look I'm presented with what I know to be true: I complain about not being looked after, but I'm looked after every step of the way, - just like Michael Thomas. And I prayed to Kryon, Raman and whoever to help me. Instead of being rejuvenated or more knowledgeable or more enlightened or any other possible dubious result from the weekend, I felt estranged, lonely, in the wrong place, time and whatever. And so I prayed as I surrendered myself to sleep.

11 – 11 – 2002 would have to be a very special day and it has been. 11 is a master number. 11 plus 11 two master numbers equals 22 an even more master number. Remove the noughts in 2002 gives us two master, master numbers. And nought is where it all comes from. This morning as I awoke I felt more at peace. I felt as I lay in my bed, happy. Now I've always had a little trouble when it comes to getting out of bed. As a boy I was dreadful. As a man I do eventually get up; it's just that I like to hang onto that warm, comfortable emergence into the day. Today I awoke and lay there swaddled in peace and happiness. And what came into mind was – intend today to act from the inner child; allow the inner child, be directed by the inner child. Immediately I was afraid. I didn't want to. I was afraid I would be exposed, that I would lose control – give me a journey, but let it be one where I'm in control. And this is the voice of ego. It is ego who is afraid, because if I live my life as a child, he must depart. If I don't do this, I will always be driven, never in control, always in the wrong place, because here is the key to freedom. You are so full David, of wonderful thoughts and desires; ever since you were a child; and now here you are a potentially disappointed old man, because you haven't the courage to follow your passion. Look at Patricia _(Chrystal_ ) – all the wonderful magical things she brings into the world in the twinkling of an eye. Because she has the courage to step into the void instead of living other people's dreams, Patricia dreams; fresh, vital, revitalising dreams for Mankind and Planet Earth.

And so as I said; I annunciated out loud, ' _today I am going to be guided by my child within'_. And with that I was rolled out of bed, have eaten, spoken to people, washed clothes, dried clothes, tidied away and at the end of the day sat myself down to put on paper what is true. What I have discovered is that my inner child is wiser than me, is more conscientious, has greater perseverance, is more still, more intelligent, more aware, more loving, more fun, more outgoing, more everything. I found that, whereas I'll stop what I'm doing, read a book, drink coffee, because I can't find what I want; as soon as the decision was referred to my inner child, he prodded me to look a little further. My inner child sent me back to the car to get what I'd forgotten. He questioned the shop assistants intelligently, rather than just accepting what was mechanically put forth. And I'm still happy, I'm still at peace; I am no longer poor: like the birds I may not know how I will live tomorrow, but see how I am looked after today. When it says in the Bible; " _take no thought for tomorrow, for tomorrow will look after itself_ ", it isn't lightly spoken. The world is magic, the child is the magician. _"For when I was a child I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then I know even as also I am known_."

13 November

I feel different. I know there is a bridge ahead that will carry me over the abyss. I don't know where it is or what form it will take but ideas are bubbling away inside of me. I can't settle. And I have to stop and get on with what is important. But what's important for me isn't important to my golden child. I've given my life to the child within except like all children he seems perfectly content to watch me fritter away the last vestiges of my credit and then what? Michael Thomas just discovered he's responsible for all the dreadful things that have happened in his life. Bully for Michael Thomas. I'm thinking of a living Shakespeare series – one hour plays pertinent for young people. Or I could do a series of inner child presentations. Meditation techniques and games could be used to demonstrate aspects of the child. Lynn tells me we already have two schools wanting the Shakespeare. Except how do I fund it? I really must sit down somewhere and do some homework. So it seems. Meantime, inner child of my heart!

19th November

What a sense of completion! I've been with Ross and Valerie since last Friday and in the weekend I had another session with Raman on intuition. It wasn't very satisfactory. I couldn't understand what he was saying. I'm concerned about my finances and don't know why someone won't help me. I have the sense more and more that somehow I choose to set this drama in place. I didn't feel uplifted by the day. Truthfully I feel I shouldn't be here. That's scary. Meantime I've been reading the _'Star Seed Transmissions'_ by Ken Carey along with ' _The Journey Home'_ and Patricia Jensen's, ' _Godself_ '. And this has been uplifting. Well, I completed both _'The Star Seed Transmissions'_ and ' _The Journey Home'_ the day after the session with Raman. And as I completed the two books, and with Michael Thomas, returned to earth in the operating theatre and the physical reality he had thought he'd left, a sense of completion came over my being; an ' _ahhh_ ' experience that brought a wonderful sense of rest. I felt fully grounded. And at last I understand, that this changing, mutable, reality earth, is not something to be disowned, but something to own. It's full of love, and it's mine. And yours and yours and yours; ours - but not to be denied! And with ownership, fear goes out the door; because if it is by my will that I choose to procreate this world, where is the place for fear.

Unfortunately the nature of this reality is defined from the heart, and I don't know what my heart's telling me. So again, I feel a frightening, tightening as my financial straits pull in on me and I don't know what to do. I'm getting the inkling that I've not quite assimilated the truth of what's going on. I sat myself down for a couple of days to listen to some _'Bashar'_ tapes that a friend of Ross' lent me. And this is what I learned. I learned that this life is conceived by me. It is not like a rock rolled down a hill subject to the vagaries of the hillside, but a life conceived in all its highs and lows by me. And not only do I dream these events, but how I choose to respond to them is also my choice. From this viewpoint my predicament looks very different, because to trust that what I know to be so makes it so, transforms it. If I believe myself to be a victim, subject to some malignant fate, then the only person to whom I can be so subjected is me. The inference to be drawn is that I can be rescued from my own folly as soon as I decide enough is enough. It's not a question of will I be better off here or there but rather where my heart calls me to be - go, because that's the place to be. And when I get there, do what I wish to do; because that's the place to do it and that's the thing to do. And I already know what I wish. I wish to work in integrity with Shakespearean drama and inner child dialogues to assist particularly the mothers and children of the so called indigo, crystal, solar or new children for the good of the earth. It's an exciting concept. It's just that I find it hard to hold on to the man who has the capacity to fulfil such a contract. And if this is so, then I need to give birth to him. How else will it happen? I still think of myself as the victim and want to cry out for help and assistance because this world is proving too much. But how many ways do I have to acknowledge that this life is my choice and just gets richer and richer and that the difficulties I labour under are only me not being true to my dream. And the teachers teach that, that which is played out now is perfect. It may not exactly reflect my preference yet it is perfect for now. And next moment is also perfect. And if I prefer next moment to this moment it's because I have looked at the last and said – I can do better than this – and I have. Yet it's all perfect.

Monday 2 December

I arrived home in Auckland last Friday. I seem to have had a whirlwind tour around New Zealand, and now like the children who went in search of the Bluebird of Happiness, I've arrived back where I started. And yet my whole world has changed. There is no end. My trip was like an initiation, and strange as it may seem, all I did was drive around in a car. I've said it before, and the meaning will become obvious to whoever cares to take up their journey. The outside of things is so misleading. The journey is within, and as the landscape within changes, so the world without takes on a completely different aspect and meaning. It's like if you can conceive of it, a potter potting within the pot, rather than from the outside; and as the process of the journey works itself out through the potter, the pot being worked upon is brought into being. As I was driving home from the city yesterday, I realised that things are as we see them. That seems like a simplistic statement and it is. But think about it. It's true. What's equally true is that everybody sees the same world differently.

Another important aspect is that we can also see for others. It's our strength of vision that's important. If you commit to life, commit to the light, the truth, the eternal; the strength of your vision uplifts the whole community, and that's not just your immediate community. We're all part of a whole. Everything in your, in my world; is substantive intelligence, blissful, and chock full of consciousness. Nothing is excluded. We all exist in our own right but we also exist as a part of other wholes. In this room where I am writing are many ' _wholes_ '. I give birth to everything that falls within my sphere of being, and I suspect this to be way bigger than I imagine. Similarly each kind exists through numerous paradigms. I am human, chair is chair, dog is dog; you follow. In the simplest reading we are all of our kind. But through all the various ways in which artificial distinctions may be made, we all end up in the mind of God, Supreme Creator, Absolute, All that is... There are many names to describe it.

The point is that acting on behalf of the whole we each, redefine the whole. We, God, literally make ourselves in our own image; and that us, is not just the immediate physical body, but everything within the scope of our consciousness which makes for a fairly large everything. And it does vary. If we act small and mean spirited, then our sphere of action will be small and mean spirited, act whole heartedly and there are no boundaries.

The barriers that we set around ourselves needs melt for healing to take place. All the barriers must go, otherwise there is no unison, and it is the nature of God that she be whole. The barriers are the ego – when there are no barriers our nature is God's, is Universal, and includes all knowledge, consciousness and bliss.

In this ' _space_ '; I use the word merely for illustrative purpose; for how can there be ' _space_ ' where everything IS; in this space, duality is seen for what it more surely is, the mirror in which Narcissus gazes in awesome self love. In this _'space'_ , it is known that I AM, and that any phenomena; are like clouds crossing the mind of God. It is in fact, ' _our', 'God's'_ love in attendance on the eternal; his infinite delight in seeing himself in as many guises as possible. It is the outward flowing creative act which we partake of every day. Creation isn't mechanical, not in a real sense. It may seem to be so, but in truth it is a beautiful dance that goes on and on and on, and we, each divine aspect, define our creation as it pleases us. The greater, the richer, the more beautiful our actions; the more resplendent if that's possible is this creation.

In the space between the crass experience of individuality, ego, poverty and loss; which sits out there on the circumference of existence, and the still mind of God, there are varying scenarios, from mammon to absolute being. As the light increases and the dark recedes; more and more our experience is that what's outside us is a mirror teaching us who we are. And it is a loving mirror, unconditionally loving. This description arises in creation, as a movement toward the centre.

Chapter Twenty

BLACK HOLES DARK NIGHT

" _But when you start to grow and develop and change; and you want to explore other parts of yourself, it will at times seem at cross-purposes to other parts of your life. And this is where many get stuck. They find it's difficult to reconcile what they feel, with what they believe, or what they have been told. You will find for yourself, that to make this balance is absolutely important. And it takes a lot of courage to be an individual."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

Jackboots are marching

Jackboots are marching again, and this time they're ours;

Thud, thud, thud, on this dull earth they fall;

Marching across the landscape, looking for the bad guys:

But there are no bad guys, not anymore;

There is the huge potential to destroy most of planet earth;

In the desire to pursue a vendetta, against a man,

Who pursue a vendetta against a man;

Jackboots are marching again, in pursuance of the right;

And a terrible wrong is about to be visited upon humanity;

In the name of justice and vengeance, the powers

Of the Lord are visiting wrath upon the cities of Gomorrah:

But Gomorrah lies buried in dust, in a tome that reads

Like a history text; Sodom sacked Gomorrah;

Sodom sacked Gomorrah and the walls came tumbling down;

Or was that Jericho, and was that the same trumpet that

Satchmo played in my youth, tumbling our walls.

Jackboots are marching again, thud, thud, thud,

The two lions of the west have joined hands;

Richard de Coeur, lion hearted Richard would be proud;

Except this is not a Holy War, no; this is a crusade,

Just not a Holy War; the trouble is that terrible deeds are being dreamed,

And the dreamers are heroes in the eyes of half the world:

While the leaders of the civilized world,

Bow to the warlords of the west;

Their peoples either swear Jihad to America and all its allies;

Or flee starving into the hills,

Pushing against the borders of their homeland,

Pressing, pressing, seeking some escape.

Jackboots are marching again, thud, thud, machine guns cocked;

Primed, ready to fire at friend or enemy,

Who can tell anymore?

The borders are manned, guards patrol the perimeters,

But the enemy is already within;

Violence breeds violence, answer violence with violence,

And beget violence; Sodom begat Gomorrah,

And Abraham begat Cain and Abel, brothers, and they fought;

Judas found Abel when he buried his thirty pieces of silver

In the Potter's field, and then he hung himself.

Jackboots are marching again but this time they're us,

They march swiftly in the dawn before the light,

And we stumble from our beds in the dawn light,

Gunned down in the half light,

Rubbing sleep from eyes that strain to see a reason,

In all this; the truth is it is easier to rape the earth than to plant:

And we have come to a day of reckoning,

Towers do not fall from the sky,

Precipitated in their fall by hijacked, natural,

Bullets, full of people, victim and aggressor alike,

Pressing on, pressing on, pushing buildings over like ninepins,

Not all for sport – these young men hurt, they hurt;

Boys, youth, young men, family men;

Leave their boyhood, leave their youth,

Leave their young manhood, leave their families.

Jackboots are marching again; the cry has gone out;

If you're not with us you're against us,

The borders are locked up tight, guards patrol the perimeters,

But the enemy is already within;

In any street, in any town, they look like you and I;

They are you and I - and why?

The enemy lies within, it's that close,

It lies in our breast; yes, yours and mine;

Not his or hers or someone else's,

Yours and mine my friend, it's here and here and here,

In the eye, in the tongue, in the heart, in the hand, in the foot, everywhere;

In the eye it looks over our neighbour's fence,

Coveting his house, his car, his wife, his life;

In the tongue, it speaks ill of others,

Discrediting their lives, discrediting their wives,

Discrediting the way they slice their bread,

The way they part their hair, the way they talk,

The way they look, the way they walk;

In the hand, it grasps our neighbours land,

Grasps his wife under the table; his hand,

Look me in the eye and hope to die;

Wrests off him all he can,

All in the way of business; please understand;

In the foot, we tread all over each other's

Beliefs, likes, dislikes, taste, lack of,

Walking all over each other's lives.

The jackboots are marching again, and in their

Progress, leave a mutilated landscape;

Littered with others beliefs, families, children, livelihood,

More victims - is the list endless?

A pallor is about to rise over our earth;

We have not, even if our course were just, is the trouble;

We have not, even the means to protect ourselves;

Because the enemy burst through our defenses long ago,

And we are him, yes we are him;

That's our jackboots my children,

Resounding in the street; thud, thud, thud;

Pounding in the streets; stepping on our own hearts.

12 December

I keep not writing in this journal and yet my inner life never stops. It is up and down, up and down. This morning I felt so depressed on awakening. My finances continue to worsen and still there is no end in sight. I'm applying for accounting jobs which I swore never to do, but what else is there. Even if I could sell my writing or start some classes, it's not about to happen now, not at Christmas time. Yet I understand Raman's " _you allow the momentum to drop_."

What I've discovered in the last couple of days, is that in dreaming sleep, knowledge is present. And it is accessible. Because, even if it's not remembered by the conscious mind, as long as the connection is strong, somewhere it will be known and therefore available for decisions in the so called real world. Except if this world is not that real then what is going on?

We do get things back to front. I always believed we went to sleep, to allow the body to be rested, and cleansed of the dross of the day. And I still think the accumulated toxins from the day are cleansed, - but rested? The body is inert! The soul is ever the same, but it's the soul that reunites with itself, and lives a completely other life; while the body is left. So if there is strong attachment to the body; then the respite for the soul will be less, and this must be very dispiriting.

I've arrived at a very different place in my life; because I want nothing more, than to be available to assist souls in any way I can, to raise them in this three dimensional world. But having said that, here I am worrying about sustenance and debt. And it doesn't fit, but where is the meld? I don't know, except I can't believe my circumstances.

December 18

If I were sitting outside myself, I'm not sure that I wouldn't doubt my sanity, particularly within the paradigms by which we live our life. But I live inside myself, and inside I watch this world I'm a part of, and wonder how it could have become as it is, without acknowledging the wrongs uttered and acted out, every moment of the day. It seems we live in a world where the baddies have won and hold all the aces. The baddies however think they are goodies, and there are other baddies out there who are so much badder, that the not so bad baddies; are a little bit right in their estimate of themselves.

I have been reading material on the usefulness of our making individual connection with Gaia, Earth. As to what a great being she is; and that as part of her, we should get to know her better. But it's a bit like when Raman spoke of the importance of connecting with feeling. At the time I couldn't even feel feeling, which is a strong commentary on my previous paragraph. Perhaps humanity is, certainly in the west, largely divorced from feeling. The other day I lay in my bed and thought– 'this is Earth, this is Gaia'. Because I keep thinking, I have to reconnect with the primal state. But everything physical is primal, is earth. The earth, the trees, the flowers, birds and beasts, you and I are earth. So are beds and fridges and houses and aeroplanes. We distinguish between the natural, and the unnatural man-made world. But believe me, in experience both are primal, unadulterated, mother earth. How else could it be? We cannot contaminate the earth any more than the soul can become impure. Gaia lends of her substance and allows it to be transformed. But she is in control. So I lay on my bed, and I said; _'here I am, and I have a physical earthen body, and I am cradled by earth in the form of bed, let me sink into, merge into you Gaia, Mother Earth I love you, hold me, show me how to honour you._ ' And I felt profound rest. Sometimes I remember how I felt.

This is a simple reconnection. Our life – out there – is contaminated with mind and goodness knows what else. There is so much confusion. And it's the quality of that confusion that produces poverty, hatred and violence in our communities. We accept wrongs and wrong doing on every level. We accept a disparity of opportunity. We recognize wrong-doing and have rules protecting the wrong doer if processes are not properly followed. So for instance, if I'm apprehended in a wrong, but the police officers who apprehend me don't properly inform me of my rights, when I come to trial I may be acquitted. These types of ' _Rules_ ' allow people whom everyone knows have committed wrongs, to remain at liberty continuing their wrong actions. We say this is necessary to protect individuals from the law? But where does wrong-doing stop? Land and goods and the means of exchange in our economic system, are held for private profit, because of the way we decided to arrange our community. For no other reason! It isn't like this because of a natural law that says it should be like this. We don't stop to ask why this person who earns millions from some merchandise; and the labourers who create the merchandise, may not be able to pay their rent or care for themselves properly. Common humanity should tell us that we all have an equal right to a good life, and any society that creates rules which encourage inequity is guilty of wrongdoing. I'm not espousing communism, or some form of socialism. These are just names which confuse us into thinking we are talking about something real rather than something invented. Our mistake is that we're born into a system and assume that the way things happen is perfectly okay. We can't see that the wrong-doing is so wrong that to try to remedy it within the system that's operating is just playing games. And life isn't that sort of game. Every human being has a soul! Every human being has the right to the same as every other and if we have so arranged our world to make it otherwise then we're not thinking right, and to accept this scenario is wrong. How do you remedy wrong doing on such a massive scale?

2003 January 20th

It's over a month since I wrote in this journal and I still find it difficult to write here. Change and new information continue to flow at a prodigious rate. So many things are banging on my door that I must give voice to, to keep the way open. Things that I've spoken of or alluded to in the past few years clamour for hearing. I keep wishing for control and discipline in my life which seems haphazard, whereas others seem to live disciplined lives. But maybe this is just a dream. Maybe I will always be this way. Maybe it's just me. I also keep thinking that I've such a lot to offer, that the universe should so arrange itself to see that my endeavours such as they are, allow me to do the things I wish. Write books, go on retreats, and meet others with similar interests; but instead I seem cut off, poor and ineffective. But perhaps this is my window of opportunity. That it is from the obviously impossible that great actions take place. Perhaps a great action may be small in itself, big in consequences and yet invisible even to the doer. It is impossible to understand the consequences of a courteous hello or a genuine smile.

I've started reading one of the Tobias channels by Geoffrey Hope where he talks about the process of channelling. This afternoon it came to mind that all the information that streams into human consciousness is called into existence by our needs. As little parts of God we're both singular and unified, and what comes with each pulsation is that which is necessary now. And whether it proves useful at that moment is beside the point, because it is recognizable and strengthens memory, so that on a future occasion it may be utilised to greater benefit. A greater wisdom, which in each individual's case may be claimed as ' _I_ ', looks after us, so that at every point in time we are provided with as much or as little as we want. All this is closer to channelling than to what we imagine it to be. It pours in, it is our authentic voice.

Truth! What has changed for me? Here are a few of my truths. When I die and cross the veil that appears to separate the living from the hereafter! What an interesting term here – after. That which is here now, after??? When I cross this boundary, I will not anticipate contemplating oblivion, but will welcome a Passover – there's another of those words – pass over - from a state of duality and forgetfulness, to a state of full consciousness, knowledge and bliss. And in this new state, all beings will be known to me, better than I now know my nearest and dearest. And I will know them all as my universal family.

Truth! Here, now, I look about, and know that although I have no memory of the fact, all of humanity are members of my family – they are all my nearest and dearest, whatever their colour, or hue, of whatever persuasion or other. And as such, in all my dealings with them, I owe them all, equal love and respect.

Truth! The air that I breathe, the earth that I stand on, the rain that falls on my head, the sun that warms me, the night that cools me, the wind that blows on my brow - all are my friends. They are indivisible in themselves and not separate from me and this knowledge nurtures me.

Truth! At times my body aches and my teeth feel about to fall out, and at the periphery of my consciousness, there arises a notion of illness or disability. But I put this from mind because I know that to entertain a dinner guest is to invite him into my house. This is how disease is born. I know this as clearly as did Job of Old Testament fame; and even if my body exuded boils, and cockroaches crawled out of my body's orifices, I'd still believe it. At the coal face of creation there can it seems, exist confusion and misinformation, because this is the nature of the cutting edge of existence.

January 31st

Truth! I know I am not alone, and I know that that which we need is presented all in good time. I know that my life is in process, and that all I have to do, is heed the signals in creation, and my every need will be cared for. The Universe is energetic. It isn't mechanical, even if it appears so. It is all we believe it to be. What I conceive to be the truth is so. Let it be so. God supports our desires and dreams because he is the heart and soul of us. Each of us is a variation on a theme and the theme is God.

16 February

Lynn bought me the last Kryon book for Valentine's Day. It was timely. I was on the last channelling of the previous Kryon book, where he talks about ' _interdimensional being_ ', a term I've not previously come across. Last night I read the first channelling in my Valentine's present. And throughout the night, and this morning when I awoke, I knew in a way I never have before, ' _How life works'_. That's the easiest way of saying what I knew. It's funny. When I drove down south life seemed to unravel itself for me, just as if I was on Michael Thomas' Journey in ' _The Journey Home_ '. What comes to me is that my experience is an exterior rendition of a journey I need to take interiorly. Last night and this morning I pictured in my mind's eye the stuff of creation. If I close my eyes I look on nothingness that is mostly full of colour, light, images... I imagine that this nothingness goes on forever. If I see it from the outside as form only I am separate from it. When I close my eyes I merge into it and there is no difference between the nothingness and me; I am it and that is my reality. Life is to come back to this which is undifferentiated, and be content.

There is of course another side to life, the creative process. Resting with intent in the undifferentiated substance of creation, and not being different from it, is like dropping a stone into life, and sending ripples out for all to see. The direction is to move back and be a witness, just as, as an archer, we draw our bow string before allowing our intent to fly forth with unerring accuracy. And so it is. Thank you Kryon and all you facilitators, guides and angels who form his entourage.

8 March

I'm scared. My personal situation is so difficult and I can't see a way ahead. But I know that if I fail to penetrate these seeming difficulties, I won't so much have failed, but that my situation will represent itself again and again, until I rise to the challenge; and matching the energy of my personal demons vanquish them.

12 March

Lynn arrived home yesterday from Canada, and a homecoming that had been looked forward to with eagerness, quickly turned to sand. Sitting here now, I don't even want to type the words onto my computer. Lynn is leaving me for another man. I have been staring into space trying to find the right words. Since she told me, so much has passed through mind. Over the years there have been many times I'd cheerfully have murdered her, at other times I have devoutly wished she would disappear. But at the end of the day, I have always felt bound to her. And over the last few years, it has seemed that something enduring has been developing. The feeling of unconditional love in Lynn's company has at times, been like a return to paradise. But when I left last year, I strongly believe she experienced it as, my leaving her, whereas in my mind I was always just pursuing my chosen path. But I can see now that she felt rejected in herself; and how many more of my actions must also have been experienced by her in this way. And I understand that commitment is important, and that many of my actions can be interpreted as the actions of a spoilt child, with no seeming sense of survival. My circumstances go a long way to proving this. I feel like a child who has just taken a wakeup call. I worked all day mowing lawns and each time I thought of Lynn and myself during the day, which was constantly, I howled. It felt like a Tangi, where our indigenous people grieve for their dead.

18 March

It is time to start writing, deciphering, and pushing forward into the void, or others will be there first by default. And it's we who will live in their world. I've been looking over my shoulder, rereading what I've written in this last year. And my considered opinion is, that any spirit of integrity must be rolling around, laughing themselves silly over this specimen of human angel. The time of childhood is over. Bush gathers his loins, to march willy-nilly into Iraq without the consent of most of the world, or even of his own people. It is a time to remember that the baddies get the same pay as the goodies and that this soul Bush has his contract as we have ours. But it's also useful to have an overview. When soldiers of the free world stare down their gun sights, they are staring into the eyes of their divine brothers, and the being that will be knocked off their feet won't be, ' _just an Iraqi soldier'_ , but a member of, ' _that soldier's divine family'_. Which is exactly the reason Arjuna, in the ' _Bhagavad Gita'_ , gave to Krishna, for not wanting to fight on the plains of Kurekshetra. And Krishna told Arjuna, that as a warrior it was Arjuna's duty to fight. Strange!

We are under constant scrutiny. We are never the subject of judgement, because we are all powerful creator Gods; and when that American soldier reaches for his rifle, one of his spirit assistants, places the gun in his hands. At Dachau as the Jews; men, women and children, were herded into the gas chambers, spirit guides were there on the one hand comforting the prisoners, and on the other helping the soldiers fill the ovens. This may be an unpalatable thought, but it is the reality. It isn't blind indifference, but the love, unconditional love, by our spiritual counterpart that never judges and looks for ways to assist us in our path. We stretch multidimensionally.

Saturday 22nd March

There is as usual so much to say but when I sit here to write nothing comes to mind. The trouble I think is, that life develops at such a pace, that what amount to developmental steps to God are passed over in the course of a day satisfactorily, and of course when things fall out as they should, then it's immediately put out of mind.

I've not said much about my separation from Lynn. There's so much that can be gleaned from this. Both Tobias and Kryon along with others have commented that for those who heed the wakeup call, life rearranges itself around such an event. The reason for this type of change is similar to the changes we experience with our planet. The subject is large, and although I have some thoughts about it, I'm not sure how to approach it. I guess the best point of departure is to remember that we are; you and I, immortal and divine. And being immortal and divine makes us quite large in an interior sort of way. The body of God is not different from God, nor is it different from you and me. The body of God is full of God – stuffed full. So when things get jammed up the nostrils, or in the eyes or mouth, we weep or blow our nose or spit to remove the rubbish causing the irritation. So when God's nose on planet earth gets jammed up (s) he shrugs and there's an earthquake, or blows her nose and creates a high wind or spits out molten lava. When a single life starts to become self directed toward the current intention of that particular pulse of God, its life rearranges itself. Our body goes through changes, biologically, mentally and spiritually. Marriages may fail not from any reason of being wrong but just to allow the uttermost realignment of self. Jobs may change, geographical locations may move and so on. A gentle rearrangement, to allow the best for those lives involved.

So I believe it is with Lynn and I, because the relationship since we separated is easier, more carefree and perhaps more caring. There is no longer a stake involved and it is freeing. I admit it must in the light of what is valued in the community, seem an uncertain prospect to at almost sixty have no proper job, no money, no wife and no home. But you know what? It doesn't faze me in the least. I look at the life ahead, and am happy to live as though I had a hundred more years in perfect health. And who's to say I won't. I don't believe the word impossible. ' _The times are'_ , in the words of a 20th century troubadour very dear to my heart – ' _changed'_ – and as yet we don't quite know how they are changed. Explanation arises from within. I'll steer as far clear as possible of that which I know nothing about. There are plenty of sources for reading about Mayan Calendars not going past 2012, of prophecies of the end of the world, and how they have been superseded by the spiritual evolution of humanity over the last fifty years, and more significantly the last ten or twenty. A common perspective in society at present; is that society is run down, its values lost, traditions overthrown and so on. But in the same way that Gaia may have good reason to shrug her shoulders and send a ripple of instability throughout the earth, so with our institutions and social practises; a similar perspective shows, how attitudes and practises that are no longer helpful, may topple, thus enabling the new. The Iraqian war is similar; it may be seen as a cleansing of the Aegean stables, every bit as much for America and her allies as for Iraq. All the political posturing and redefinition of responsibilities in the world; are the twitching of an age that has effectively gone. Just as physically, we can visit Stonehenge, or the Acropolis; and see physical evidence of past civilisations, so the Church, our present forms of government, our ways of conducting business; can all be seen in a similar way. They are no more than ruins – still breathing, apparently living and active, but they work from an energy which the universe now barely sustains

There exists then, side by side, old and new energy. And it is this new energy which produces the tremors in the earth, in society and in individuals, prompting new directions. Where does it come from? Good question. But perhaps at the end of the day there is only one God.

Nothing is certain. God is eternal, immortal and all that, but at the working face of creation who knows what this next moment holds. On stage, an actor allows a moment by moment unfolding of the script to define her/his performance, but in this case there is no script. And the Gods in heaven along with us Gods down here have no idea what the next moment will bring. But this new energy tickles the memory of the players and provides the fuel for change.

March 29th

It's a beginning day again see the 11 above. And a nine but March is 3 and 2003 is a 5 and they all add back to one which is a beginning day. I awoke with a song in my heart. The rain has gone and last night I wrote a first draft for a letter to business' offering meditation and conversation to solve their woes. Imagine spending my life meditating and talking and teaching others to do the same. Who knows what will come of it but the sound is right. This is in answer to the call of the Angel Gabriel to step into divinity and teach others that they are angels in disguise. So how can it fail? Has not an action of this calibre all the backing of the ' _hear't', 'he art', 'heart'_ , and the whole angelic host. And not only does it answer the call of the divine, but it may allow this being to be financially empowered and enabled, something that at present is sadly lacking. This will allow me at a later date, to begin working with larger groups with theatre. I suspect this also requires redefinition to make it more apposite for this age.

Didn't Raman say that I'd learn in discussion with others, and didn't he stress the importance of meditation and contemplation, and isn't that what I find so difficult. So I have my first meditation evening this Sunday and in preparing for it, it seems as though the resonance of my being has deepened, and become more sharply focussed. This is a salutary lesson, that the tools are at our command, and that we define our world if we care to. I give thanks to the divine world, because I know that it stands shoulder to shoulder with me, and that the differences suggested by name and location; that's to say, God in heaven and David on earth, is truer in appearance than reality. Thank you heavenly hosts; thank you, thank you, thank you.

Danse Macabre

I know that this danse macabre

Being played out in the desert,

Being played out in the streets of Basra,

Being played out in the streets of Baghdad,

Being played out in our newspapers,

Being played out on our airwaves,

Being played out in our houses of debate,

In the canteen, and on the factory floor;

Is just the rattling of old sabres;

We have heard it all before,

And amidst stories of carnage,

Amidst stories of joy,

As half a nation make like

Mafia bank robbers in their balaclavas,

With sawn off shot guns,

Little Al Capones of Iraq,

The little Italy of Arabia,

Fight till we die;

And children, old men and women,

Sprint crying for freedom from a regime of hate;

As the soldiers from the west,

Ride in, much like the cavalry in Custer's time;

Except Custer's cavalry at Little Big Horn,

Helped imprison a once proud nation on reservations,

Retired humans of the wrong skin colour;

Made crushed and spiritless, by the greatest nation spawned in this century;

America – throbbing with industry and vibrant with charisma,

Waves of new culture through every other nation on earth,

Oh to be American!

And this flagrant spark is just a dance of life and death;

And today my wife of thirty years flew out of my arms,

Into the arms of another,

Wars in the desert of married bliss,

Of children that we love and that love us,

Of dirty nappies – broken bones – bruised knees, bruised egos;

Of prayers on bended knees as one son falls from the Piha cliffs

Twenty metres onto cruel rocks every bit as sharp as desert sands

Thank God to live;

Of proud moments of motherhood, fatherhood,

Quarrels and making up,

Marriage, a dance of life, now death.

I know that while the boots of marauders clump the streets of,

Unlikely sounding towns, in far flung desert lands;

Whistling songs of freedom in a hail of lead;

With one hand tossing projectiles of death,

With the other tossing some gap toothed boy,

Dying for the sight of freedom in western boots

Onto victorious shoulders; protective arms of peace;

Sobbing women greet this army of liberation,

Feeling the weight of years, lift from bowed shoulders;

I know this scene; it's the danse macabre;

A dance of life and death.

The Danse Macabre,

The dance of life and death,

Plays out in every human breast;

The dance on the factory floor,

The dance in the boardrooms,

The dance in the bedroom,

The dance in the playground,

The dance at the dinner table and over the washing up,

The dance in the hotel bedroom,

The dance on our roads,

The dance in our bars and discothèques,

The dance of life and death.

Chapter Twenty-One

WINDOWS IN THE SKY

" _There is an answer to every question we have within us. The question is the beginning of the answer. Knowingness and action is the result."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

We have a discombobulated way of looking at the world. It arises from our belief of separation and isolation. And it creates a planetary consciousness that mirrors this belief. We experience this in many different ways. We feel separate from each other. In cities filled with millions of people we feel isolated from each other. We also feel isolated from ourselves. A happy person; someone completely accepting of themselves, with no lack of self esteem; doesn't require others to bolster their sense of self. A happy person; doesn't feel alone when they are by themselves; because their sense of self is fulfilling. An unhappy person is alone in a crowded room.

Apart from personal isolation, we are isolated as a planetary consciousness. C S Lewis depicted this in the first book of his science fiction trilogy, ' _Out of the Silent Planet'_. The reason it was ' _silent_ ', was that it was naturally closed off to all the other inhabitants of the galaxy by the ' _Earthlings_ ' low level of consciousness. The rest of the galaxy cared for them, but were unable to be seen by them until a sufficient level of consciousness was achieved. This is the promise of 2012 and beyond.

In the introduction to her channelling of a Pleiadian called _P'taah, 'An Act of Faith'_ Jani King quotes him, speaking of the time following the first decade of this millennium: " _The words you have will not describe the ecstatic explosion of consciousness, nor can you imagine how you will be in that time, when every atom and molecule upon this planet, and the whole planet herself, will radiate with divine light. Such exquisite beauty is beyond imaginings. And when the transition has taken place_ _there will be beings flocking to your planet to sing the wildest hosannas, in joy, in jubilation, in thanks, in blessings. And those beings will be the unseen ones, they will be the beings from other worlds_ _who do not appear as you do, and yet you will be able to perceive the divinity in all things. It will not matter the shape and the size, you will perceive the Godhood in all. It will be the most magical"_.

' _Windows in the Sky, 'Buddha is that you'_ , is my personal tsunami. Imagine those blinking lights in the night sky as windows of consciousness. A voice calls to me through one of these windows, awakening me to vigilance, and a reminder that we are not alone. The voice of _Raman_ is a window, the voice of my ' _Authentic Self'_ is another window; my ' _father_ ' occupies a window as does my ' _mother_ ' and of course so many, many others including da Vinci and his Mona Lisa. The poem, ' _Windows in the Sky'_ , is not written tongue in cheek. I know that this is the reality. Consciousness is not limited to this earthly frame. Bring to mind any one of the many not physically present on earth right now, or even those present; and a point of attention flies to the mark to make that connection. Our attention doesn't search around in the dark, dismally trying to find where that 'other' consciousness is out there. It flies as true as an arrow. We all know if we stop and reflect; that even when talking to someone in the same room; it is not just our voices that bridge the gap. Our attention directly connects us one to another, both seen and unseen. ' _Call my name. I will come and be with you, and allow you to know I am present, and where I can, inspire you to the answers and understanding that you need'_. Those were Raman's words to me when I spoke to him in 2001.

In that same year we saw the planetary event now known as 9/11. It became a defining event - a line in the sand. At that point the western world stood up individually and in concert and metaphorically said – Enough! We are not prepared to be bullied out of our convictions any further. And a new consciousness grew from that point. One that recognizes injustice in whatever forms that injustice appears, whether external to us or within. Enough is enough!

The other day I had a deep moment of, ' _aha_ '. It pierced right through to my core, and for a long time afterward, I sat, mesmerised by that ' _knowing_ '. I was reading the beginning of Lee Carroll's co-created _Kryo_ n book where he speaks about a twenty-six thousand year cycle of the earth within the Milky Way, said to be depicted on the infamous Mayan calendar that ends in 2012.

He was putting together two sets of thoughts. One thought was that the Mayans who put the calendar together, knew along with many other indigenous peoples; the Aztecs, Chinese, Egyptians, Druids, Aborigines, Maori to name a few; enough about the earth that we live on and the galaxy in which it exists to know that the earth moves around the sun, that it is a sphere; they knew the movement of planetary bodies in relation to us... They knew that our whole solar system travelled around the central core of the Milky Way. And the Mayans, had recorded this particular cycle having taken place four times and about to take place a fifth time. They had to have known this to be able to create artefacts of the like of the Mayan calendar and western science does not dispute the movement of our solar system around the galactic core. The Indian Veda's describe even longer cycles called Yuga's in their descriptions of the ages of Man, the Egyptians have their own descriptions and who knows who else. And yet our ' _vastly superior civilization'_ , historically imprisoned a reputable scientist for suggesting that the earth was round and moved around the sun, and at the same time our sailors were taking their courage in their hands to discover new lands all the time believing that the earth was flat. Our scientists still genuinely believe that civilized man goes back no more than 6,000 years...?

The 26,000 year earth cycle hidden in the Mayan calendar, is said to bring earth changes that result in stresses to the earth, that bring about a regular occurrence of major disturbances at the end of each cycle. I read the description and was bemused. It put our history into a very parochial perspective. It makes sense of Gregg Braden at the ' _Celebration of Life'_ event in Phoenix last year (2010) where he recounted speaking to a woman in Tibet; who told him that her grandmother had told her; _that when she stood at a particular spot and reaching out could no longer touch the face of a particular glacier, that it was time to move for the earth changes that were to come_. She told him this at the face of the glacier. At the time of _'Katrina'_ , the hurricane responsible for the near destruction of New Orleans, a young Indian bank teller in Auckland, shared with me the fact that her family in India understand from their shared oral history that strong winds would devastate the planet in the early years of this new millennium until about 2016. It gives a new perspective. In the west our conservative history of civilized man goes back about 6,000 years.

Our consciousness is insular but it is what we are familiar with. There is much talk nowadays of _changing belief systems_ ; that we don't have to live with the beliefs we have and that our experience of life at any point in time is completely coloured by our beliefs. Shaking with flu symptoms; now hot, now cold, sniffly, sore throat, headachy, ask; – what belief created these feelings? How do I change it? It is not easy. So how do we expect each other to change the viewpoints of a lifetime? It is not easy. Logic may help. Reading the thoughts précised above from ' _Kryon's - The Twelve Layers of the DNA'_ ; innate logic rushed in as I said, with a huge, ' _aha_ '.

Quite a lot is being said here. I will encapsulate it by spelling out clearly my understanding. We are more than we appear to be. Because of the particular ideas we as a western world have chosen to believe, we are an isolated group consciousness on earth, an isolated group consciousness in the galaxy, and we have a very narrow vision of what life on earth is all about. We as a western group consciousness are separated from what was well known by our forebears but is not known to us. It is known also by many indigenous peoples, but because we consider ourselves as the civilized, knowledgeable ones, we discount any information that comes our way from the indigenous, because ' _they_ ', don't know what we know. They are less civilized and misinformed. Even, ' _we used to think like that, but now we know better_ '. And what is this particular knowing?

It is, that human life on earth is much older than ' _our_ ', science, tells us. It goes back a very long way and much of the knowledge that the indigenous have retained is forgotten by us. Life on earth appears to have been broken at many points by cyclic events that are well known by the ancients but not by us. The breaks are sometimes of such a nature as to completely disrupt history and give those who survive the cyclic catastrophes a false sense of the past. We are entering into the latest of many such interruptions in life on earth and this one promises to herald a revolution in consciousness that has never been experienced before or at least not for a very long time. There have been civilizations that are the subject of myth, such as Lemuria in the Pacific area and Atlantis in the Atlantic, which once were home to great civilizations now gone. There is ample evidence that this is so: in ancient writings, in physical evidence under the sea, and memories within our own recorded history. We come and go, lifetime after lifetime. For dying read; – (returning to our Eternal Home); being reborn; moving down the ages... Our DNA, the record of our past is carried with us through countless lives and countless historical periods... We are our own ancestors, a huge cast of actors and we play many parts. And tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes such as those experienced in Christchurch, New Zealand and Japan; fights for liberation throughout the Arab world; Occupy Wall Street; these are all a part of the shrugging off the old and stepping into the new; new energies, a new consciousness. This is the promise. Not Armageddon but a New Earth.

Right now there are two energies present on Planet Earth. There is an old energy that requires much thinking and planning, much red tape and measuring and proofs, a bit like walking through quicksand. It tallies the cost of disaster while compassion deals with it. Then there is a new energy which makes use of the light and magic of the quantum nature of things. It is the energy of the young that right now stands in front of the established world throughout the Arab countries, Europe, America and says – we will not lie down anymore. Your tyrannical rule is greedy and self-serving and we want you to stop, even if it costs us our lives.

There will be no peace on earth until the old guard step aside and stop thinking success in life is counting the stars. Whilst there are those who think to profit from others there will be no peace until there is justice and compassion for all. Whilst the peoples of South America, and Africa, and Asia, of Polynesia, Melanesia – anywhere that doesn't share the prosperity of the west remain in need, there will be no peace. Recovery requires everybody to share because there is no reason why many lack while others hold the purse strings. But this sharing doesn't mean the westernisation of the world. Where unique cultures once existed, and have been replaced largely by western models of shopping malls, capitalism and private ownership the result is boring, clinical sameness; so that wherever you travel, you may as well have stayed at home. And there is awareness that it comes at the cost of robber barons, feeding off the carcass of native peoples, whose lives remain untouched by western progress, the only ones that profit are multi-nationals.

And all this happens under the compassionate gaze of those who have gone before, each one of us soul guiding ourselves and others. There are many, many – ' _Windows in the Sky_ '. And we scurry about down here thinking ourselves invisible. We carry so much guilt about stuff the wise don't even blink at. And we have the ability – here now – through our intuitive faculties to ask and answer the right questions – leading us to the right answers. My mind is not separate from your mind. My heart is in constant interface with and communion with your heart. Thought, feeling, sensation is not primarily physical. They are inter-dimensional. That is all.

Chapter Twenty-Two

A BRIDGE TO THE SOUL

" _And the bridge from the place of the mind, in a culture that puts a lot of weight on reason and logic, that weighs up the physical world quite beautifully, and that has been a very necessary and important part of human evolving: but the bridge to go from there into that which is in the spiritual realm of the self, is quite a leap. And so many do not believe it can be done, nor know how."_

Conversation with Raman Pascha 2001

2003 Friday 5th September

Emotion makes us happy, makes us sad, makes us fall in love, fall out of love, become angry and vindictive, passionate and driven, disappointed and isolated, overwhelmed with sudden laughter and so on. We can all name emotion, but in a funny sort of way, we none of us really know the extent that our life is driven by it. It is hard to distinguish between us and our emotions. Me, and what I feel are inseparable, and what I feel, I believe to be me. Emotion is so close to home it is an imperative there is no doing anything with except follow.

What then are some of the qualities of emotion? Emotion as we mostly experience it is not still. It is _in motion_ , and it's tempting to say that whoever first used the word knew a thing or two; because essentially it is e-motion, energy in motion. We might describe it as an _idea_ or _belief_ that in the moment NOW we swamp with vitality, with movement, with life; because it is connected to something that is of vital importance to us.

When I face emotion internally I often want to turn away. I feel an overwhelming need to pick up a book or watch a movie – any distraction from the painful emotion I feel right now in my breast. What I feel is a sense of failure. If life has no inner coherence, then it is as though it is not whole... More than this, it doesn't feel the rightness which I believe accompanies right action. If this is true, what have I done or not done, or left unresolved.

I feel like a child right now. But I don't always feel like a child. Sometimes I feel very wise and a witness of life as play. When I feel like that, I feel whole, not wounded. When I feel as I feel now, I feel a lot of regret.

We are always positioned in ourselves in respect of how we think or feel about things and each has a component of the other. What this means in practice is that as we move through our day we are, moment by moment repositioning ourselves, taking various stances and utilizing the power of emotion to shape our thought, and influence others, as we relate to them over time. This can be a conscious or an unconscious action. Emotion is a powerful force that is never indifferent. It can sustain memory over time, it can impel us to follow one thought or set of thoughts over others; it can so flood the system as to make us incapable at the point of flooding of any useful action; it is capable of influencing others not just through the words we say, but through its filling our being, often to the extent of causing great bodily agitation; flushing, affecting our breathing... But at a less obvious level it still acts on others, and it has within it at any particular time, story lines, that we feel compelled to run with, and try to force others to run with. It's like a substance that takes the impression of our thoughts or dreams and empowers them into reality; a primal soup out of which we suddenly find that - _oops_ \- this is our world. One moment we were one place, the next we are somewhere else. And those around us, believe what is prevailing at that point, and mistake it for reality, which of course it is. But the thing about reality is that it is only as real as our next breath. What is misleading is that we are all in the same boat in thinking our world is real. By this I mean, that we take a momentary state to be the truth. To be non-reactive and respond to life, merely as a part in a play allows us to bring a witness mentality to living. This is not to be without emotion, just to be able to witness it. Arguments between people; whether they are couples in relationship, friends, or colleagues in the workplace; are fuelled by momentary emotion which disconcerts and brings conflict, yet emotions subside as naturally as they arise, and life is all about resolution.

There are many examples in life, where we repeat an action which we have played before and when we have acted it out on previous occasions, we've thought – ' _that's a dumb thing to do; I must never do that again, it's a stupid action_ ' – or something along those lines. But within no time at all we find that we are back in the same situation doing the very same thing, and again we get angry, and again vow never to do it again, and so on. The thing is that we forget and go back and do it again. The numbers of times we do this sort of thing is uncountable, so what's not happening is that the mind is not remembering. Mind makes a san culpa, a resolution... It says – _'This is something I shall not do again_ '. And sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't. What happens is that there is a memory, but we are washed with emotions that we learn to love, and when a particular emotion is running, the markers in our brain – the memory markers, are not sufficient to withstand the turmoil of these strong currents. We have to find ways to withstand these emotions if we are to move forward in our lives. If we keep repeating these actions, then we remain at a place in our life that our emotions hold us to. There is nothing wrong with living around particular emotions. There is a difference when something inside us wishes to move on. The person, who would move on is the essence of a more mature us, who would do more in life then live out particular emotions over and over. Human is us, in a form that presents us, through thought and emotion with lesson. It is commonly believed that the thoughts and emotions that we express are evidence of who we are. They are not who we are; rather they are the seas and weathers in which we voyage. They may come to have our voice but in their primary form they are only life lesson.

It is the inside of a thought that is important. All the things that we ignore, we say to ourselves – _'well that's how I feel', 'I need to be ashamed of myself', 'I should know better', 'I need to act like everybody else, I need to be my own person, 'I need to straighten out my act'_. All of these things that I feel – they are and they aren't – feelings I mean. They are ripples on the surface of the water. Inside them – beneath them, there are no ripples, only stillness. And it is in here that the real emotion is that drives us through life. These peripheral movements – their inside may be real, but their outside is pretty meaningless. They are things we forget almost as soon as we say them. So when we say more emphatically – ' _be still my heart_ ' – what we are saying is – _'it's okay, it's okay, everything's going to be okay_ ' – we are comforting the source of those ripples. It's the inner disturbance that is the most important. Whether I can connect or not connect it doesn't matter. ' _If I know you are here little child, you are here. This is real. I am real. Be, calm little child, all will be well. We are all going to be okay; my darling child; my beautiful, lovely child_.' Human life has its vulnerable side and it's got its hard side. Without a veneer of hardness we would be like a snail without a shell, a beetle without its carapace, a human body without a skeleton. We would not manage in life.

All our own particular foibles are really nothing more than ego; an, I, attached to a position. And emotion is our life energy getting in behind whatever - I position - is playing NOW. This is neither a good thing nor a bad thing. A lot is written about ego and a lot of what is written suggests that having an ego is not a good thing. But without EGO which is I guess all our, I, positions put together; nothing much would happen. It would be like having a body without bones or muscles. How would it move? We need an impetus and a direction and EGO, gives direction and body to our movements in this world.

There are I suppose better and worse ego's but this is really only from any particular viewpoint. Of course there are behaviours which are difficult to understand or even forgive, but this is always from someone else's point of view. What I may find wrong or inexcusable may from the person in question's point of view be perfectly okay.

Every idea has emotion attached to it and this emotion prompts us to act, even if it is to do-nothing. There is decision around each and every action. What often seems mechanical or unconscious is at some level conscious. Because of the way mind binds similar memories into clusters, the emotion around a particular subject or idea will more than likely be an aggregate, not singular. So if your daughter acts up and causes you as a parent to be angry, the response won't just be around the action that has stimulated the anger, but all the hurts and anger from the past. Which is why our relations with those close to us can be so bruising and so messy. The sheer volume of interfaces guarantees this.

I had a dream. And in my dream all these daffodils were growing in my garden. And I had to pull them up because they were evidence of my wrongdoing and people were coming to where I lived to establish my truthfulness. So I removed all the green but every time I walked out in the garden I found whole swathes of daffodils I had forgotten. And I was aware that next season they were all going to be back, and they were not going to be less but more. Because beneath each dab of green lay more bulbs and they would multiply as bulbs do; and so on, and so on.

Now in wondering what this all meant, I realized that the daffodils represented my emotions; and that what was true for me in the dream was true for everyone and that was that not only are our lives packed full of emotion, but that our lives are packed full of our dreams which are a product of our emotional lives. And for each of us the expression is different. It represents our inner world of needs and doubts, of how we view life; how we think it can be solved. And whether we work a nine to five job, write books, shoot films, run soup kitchens, are farmers, entrepreneurs; these are all expressions of our inner world. If I am crooked, my life will be crooked. If I am full of humanity I will express this, and those of us who work in unskilled work as clerks and dogs bodies, express our servant status.

Life is full to the brim with dream. On another occasion I was dreaming that I was being suffocated by all this earth and clay falling down on me as I walked along this track in the bush. In the dream I was struggling to get out, and my consciousness was at that place on the border between sleep and awakening. And the knowledge came in, that rather than struggling to be free of the clay and the soil bearing down on me; which had already submerged half my body: that rather than struggling to be free in the dream, all I had to do was to move from the dream state to the waking state, and doing so I would be free. Because not being in the dream state I would no longer be submerged under all this clay and soil. So that was a very instructive experience. It was instructive in that it didn't just tell me that all I had to do to free myself was to wake up. But it also told me that just as I can wake up from the state of being submerged in the dream state, so equally I can do the same thing anywhere. The same knowledge will free me in any experience. In the dream I struggled to wake up. I did so and was free.

As the world clarifies in our hearts and minds it becomes happier, more intelligent, and more conscious. There are two basic principles that lead to this happy state. One is to turn our attention inward, to know ourselves, who we are, and as much about what that means as possible. The other is to learn to love who we are, to not pass judgment. To begin to know who we are, to laugh and cry at our antics, neither taking ourselves seriously nor deprecating ourselves. This is the start of a new way of being. What I know is that the world is changing. We are not about to experience Armageddon, we are not about to sink into barbarianism. All the conflict, all the natural disasters that appear to threaten our being and the being of our planet are the dark polarity of a new renaissance and whoever wishes to jump on board will share in a new way of life. We appear to be threatened with perpetual tribal warfare of one sort or another; we appear to be threatened with environmental disasters; we appear to be at the mercy of an economic maelstrom engendered by greedy, self seeking individuals that is to the detriment of all our livelihoods. But all that is taking place is that the caterpillar has been incubating and the skin of the chrysalis is being shed. We are the seed of a new way of living and the husk of the seed is being pushed aside to allow the new growth to force its way through. There are so many different ways of expressing this. Whatever way it is said we are in for thrilling times and the thought of what lies ahead fills me with love.

Underlying our belief systems there is something that I will call here emotional ground. By emotional ground I really mean the coloration that is us; it is outside of thought, outside of belief, outside of the feelings that pass through and often swamp us in various ways. It's like a direction finder, and it sends us off in various directions. The direction often appears a very haphazard sort of affair. It's related to conversations, arrangements, often it's within a family, so we are moved in particular ways apparently outside of any decisions that we might make, but essentially all these things are found in this emotional ground. I use the word ground because it is the basis of our identity, the basis of being us. If we took all the beliefs, all of these ideas, all of the concepts that govern our life; then they all sit in the substance of, _'who we are_ ' – our emotional ground. And when we move about our world, it appears as if our choices are governed by thoughts and sensations. In fact they have very little to do with it. It is more like an essential, natural and implacable movement of the ' _who we are'_ – this emotional ground. We have no resistance to it. It's not thoughts or beliefs or sensations but this overall sense of identity. It has a past and a future. We know it through and through. We know its likes and its dislikes and we find it really hard to resist. It's not ego. Ego is formed by it. Nature may be a good word to describe it. I was once told that contrary to popular belief a sage or realized man is different from every other realized man. The reason for this is that Universal Truth is expressed through his nature and colours what he has to say.

2004, 18th April

To engage in life is to participate in the swirls and eddies, the times and tides. It is to engage energetically. We see things always in terms of forms. This is because we live in a world of forms. So when we consider the world of ideas or emotions we look for where they become a subtle form such as relationship, or sitting, lying, weary, happy, excited, all subtle forms, nebulous intangibles, experienced as an end. A chair exists longer than sitting but sitting exists for a time. It is energy in momentary stasis. And this is how we see our world, as moments of stasis. In relationship we hope for a happy relationship. This happiness is a desired end that we hope will have some stasis. Hope is an emotion we see as good and we wish to live in hope. To hope for happiness is a momentary conjunction of energy. But life is fluid. Even Everest which seems so huge and indestructible will in the very nature of things one day turn to dust. It is not eternal but merely has greater longevity.

It is two minutes into the new day. I've felt moved in the last few days to pick up the journal where I left off except that, that's not really possible. I am a different being from the one that finally stopped keeping a journal, almost out of sheer embarrassment. My image of myself at the time was definitely becoming tarnished. I could no longer understand how there could be any spiritual value in the maunderings of someone who seemed to have completely lost the plot.

It would be true to say that my excursion into 'practical spirituality', as I would like now to define what has been taking place in my life for the last few years, has resulted in all of the following: I've lost a stable means of employment, I've lost a wife, I'm indebted to a level I could hardly have appreciated was possible prior to this ' _spiritual journey_ ' I've undertaken for want of a better word; I am seen as a failure by many and I see now in the mirror an aged body.

How then can I presume to find value in my actions over the last few years let alone give them a grandiose title? The answer lies in the losses I've sustained. Everything which supported the person I believed myself to be has been stripped away. Without the sustained effort that I make each waking day, even my good name would disappear, and perhaps this is on the cards.

30 April

A lot of the time these days I seem to exist with this ache in my heart. I am as P'taah has said, literally heartbroken. I am of course heartbroken because I put my heart in thrall to other people and things. It's like having my heart in hock all the time. A good sense of self worth is the way out. If I love myself then it's not my heart that's given so much as that the heart expresses.

Sunday, 2 May

I feel I'm in a half way house. It's as if I'm neither here nor there, with no 'where' to call home. But what is home? Unless it is our eternal home then it is only a temporary abode anyway. Our eternal home is always with us but we don't know this unless we're at home to ourselves. If I'm at home to myself what am I describing? I'm talking about complete ownership of all the qualities which describe me. Accept ourselves and we've begun the process of reclaiming the whole. Otherwise we're at outs with ourselves. Isn't language beautiful? It is so descriptive. The more I am at home to myself, the more I am myself. When you are yourself, you are not for a start hindered and constricted with ideas related to not being yourself. I'm not trying to be obtuse here. Being me is freer, is expansive, and is not dependant on others. When we feel ' _ourselves_ ', we're happy as though released from something which has previously hindered us. Sometimes people come up to us and ask us if we're all right, or what is troubling us; and we say something along the lines of, _'it's all right, I'm just not feeling myself today_ '.

I was talking the other day of self worth and being in control of our life. Self worth is directly related to what I'm talking about here, because if we're feeling needy, we want something from outside us to complement us. This desire to be complemented argues a lack. Now if our needs are supplied from outside us there is for a start, two of us. But if our needs are satisfied from within by our own understanding, then we are the master or mistress of our life, and we are indeed singular. This is why we are all God. And why at the bottom line or indeed any line everything is okay. What does it matter if my need is supplied by a friend? God to God is okay too.

I want to be more specific. The more I reflect on this the more it seems emotion is not inside us, but we are inside emotion. It is like the placenta we were born in except it has no beginning, it has no end. It is the primordial goo; the whole world swims in it and there is no boundary saying, this is my emotion, here I am God, here I am different from you. We are talking of the same stuff. And our soul pulses; names it here, names it there; then it is gone and something new is true. It is love, it is God, it is me, it is you; it is all how we perceive it here and now. At our most perceptive there are no differences.

You might wonder and think, well, that's all a bit of a waste of time! You haven't exactly accomplished much, have you? But as I have said, we are you and I; both hidden behind a mask and open for all to see. Life is polarity. These days I look at the things about me and am bemused at what I see. I see very plainly now, that we are not our life. This is big. I am saying that, that within; which watches and maintains equilibrium, whilst all about including an outer us; reacts, is anger, laughs, forgets, remembers, is obscured by clouds, emerges, is still and meditative... There are no boundaries except the ones we impose and therefore our notions of how the story runs is lost in the nature of perception in a 3D world. Any idea we entertain, no matter how grandiose is just a dream. Meanwhile life goes on and we are cared for, guided and we have an end. But to speak it is to dwell in a lie.

7 Oct.

This house we live in called Planet Earth is seen as form. And as form all of us who live here think in terms of forms. We see ourselves as forms that can be trusted to be the same all the time. Our life here is based on this particular way of perceiving. So we assume a person to be only what can be measured in terms of their physical reality. Yet all world cultures have beliefs around soul and God. Thought is intangible, feeling is intangible, and sensation is intangible. What I'm saying is that there is very little evidence for a belief in a separate reality that doesn't have blurred edges disappearing out of our physical paradigm. This is the bridge between the seen and the unseen.

THE END IS JUST ANOTHER BEGINNING

Coming Home

Within the heart there is a space,

And in that space resides the whole world;

Past present and future is there,

Galaxies and multiverses are there,

God and the angels and ascended masters are there,

Earth is there,

Sky is there,

Mother and father is there,

Sea and land is there,

Air and fire is there,

Ether is there,

Childhood is there,

Innocence is there,

Love is there,

Nothing is there that is not good;

And I am coming home.

In a sea of compassion, I am coming home;

And within this compassion I envelope all the earth,

Within this compassion I envelope all the peoples of this earth,

Within this compassion I sustain life on and in this earth,

Within this compassion I nurture and restore Gaia;

And there is a flow as all the creatures of this creation,

Who have made their home here, come to a great healing;

This is what it means to come home;

And I am coming home.

For on coming home, there resides in my heart,

Who I really am;

I have the face of God and am God,

And this is known,

When I come home,

Looking out from this space in the heart,

Pure being;

Here it is stiller than still;

But once heard,

It is louder than the sound of drums and cymbals,

Trumpets and tambourines, woodwind and strings;

All the instruments in the world sounding forth together,

Cannot drown out the stillness of the heart;

This is my home,

And I am coming home.

And to be home here,

Is to be home everywhere;

Here no hearth is a stranger to me,

Because residing in the heart I am,

A friend to all, a lover to all,

No hearth is a stranger to us;

Here all hurtful things lose their power to hurt,

Here all harmful things lose their power to harm,

Here all hateful things lose their power to hate,

All that was separate joins together;

Neighbour forgives neighbour,

Wives forgive their husbands, husbands forgive their wives,

Son and daughter forgive their father, forgive their mother,

Father and mother forgive their son, forgive their daughter,

Nation forgives nation, lays aside nationess,

Race forgives race, lays aside raceness,

Gender forgives gender; he forgives her,

She forgives him, lays aside sexness;

Here are no closets because love is not deviant,

Where there is love there is relationship,

All this is healing and perfectly natural,

Barriers and boundaries that separate

One from another, melt in the healing power of love;

This is coming home;

And I am coming home
