'The great 'I Am' - aware of being aware:

In the first part of this section I explain the doings of society's major mind control orchestrators and institutional 'gatekeepers' who seem to thrive on creating most of the angst, guilt and bad news we experience throughout our lives. These organs of the State define and regulate what we think, discuss and experience within the religious, political and educational spheres of our lives. These woven-thread ideologies of society are carefully orchestrated for us from the cradle to the grave and they appear so 'natural' to our ways of thinking that we rarely think outside them. In the second part of this section, I chart my spiritual journey in detail over the past 18 months or so, and provide links to a number of special people I have met and events I experienced during this period. This bit of my story, however, is not meant to be a biography because it's not, nor does it contain any revelations…it is just me being me.

Society’s gatekeepers

When I look back on my life I observe the same old patterns of Life repeating themselves, only this time around the lies and illusions from our societal gatekeepers become bigger and bolder. We appear to live in a world of extreme behaviours and anything you do now you have to do in a big way. Much of the behaviour we see today is based on ego, control and the centralisation and consolidation of power by the few on the many. The few who control society have historically defined the ideologies we are led to believe in through the paradigms of the accepted knowledge trees of science, philosophy, religion and all the other isms and ists that society thrives and replicates itself on. These isms define our patterns of behaviour which become so natural and real that we unconsciously see it as the way things are, good or bad. In turn the 'sins of the father and the mother' are passed onto subsequent generations. This unconscious walking into the shoes of someone else's makings has to stop. We need a new ‘template’, a new consciousness, a new way forward. We need to think about what is and what is not working and change that which is no good for us. When I think about the societal patterns of war, they are usually initiated by those forces in society who know which of our psyche buttons to press, whether it is out of fear, safety, need or greed. It does not matter which economic or political system that is in place because they are mirror images of mostly unseen political and social manipulators. Essentially, these ideologies and whatever their message, end up being the same stalking horses or mind controllers that define our conscious states from the cradle to grave. It's time we woke up to our individual power to create that which we want and that we stop following what is sub-consciously imposed on us either by pattern of habit, or through the illusions of society's propaganda machines.

Yet, in spite of strong persuasive, pervasive unseen and unheard societal pressures and forces by the few on the many, the tide of consciousness in many people is starting to turn. I think many people today are being more easily awakened to the simple fact that the very structures within society that have defined how they want us to be, do not now have the same defining power they once had; at last a new dawn is breaking. We are finally beginning to see the light and saying this is not working but how do we change it? The first step is objectivity, developing the ability to let go of old patterns and habits of behaviour, discarding or adapting that which is not working and understanding the simple framework of cause and effect. The how and why of cause and effect will be developed further after a brief, oh so brief look at those dark forces within society whose message has changed so little during the past so many hundreds of years.

Religious gatekeepers

Firstly, I am not a religious person and I do not want to offend people who define themselves as Muslims, Christians, Catholics, Jews or whatever term they define themselves to be. However, when I look, hear and see what goes on in the name of religion it saddens me that people 'sign up' to ideologies that indirectly encourage separatism, and elitism. Very few religions in this world say that their ways are superior, rather, they would say that your way is inferior because we hold the keys to the gates of heaven. This implies that if you do not sign up to their ways of thinking that you will end up lost. This encourages separatism based on elitism i.e. the chosen few become God's children. If you then look at specific examples of so-called religious behaviour based on this logic of thinking you see documented evidence of priests blessing the weapons of mass destruction prior to soldiers going into war, pedophilia in the priesthood, the inability of women to achieve high positions of authority within the church, Jihads or 'holy wars', the legitimisation of past and present slavery due to religious beliefs, the inability of women to control their own decisions on birth issues i.e. abortion ad infinitum. The list of examples are endless and one of the more pernicious ways of religious thinking is that it gives people the power to legitimise all sorts of inhuman behaviours on other people in the name of their God. If people worship that sort of stuff, it's their choice but I can only judge the worth of any religious ideology based on its outcomes. From my perspective, most established religions are inward-looking, sexist, closeted, narrow, judgemental, feed on fear and at best, control freaks. Since time out of mind, religious leaders have found find it difficult to adapt, cannot bear criticism, have always been rich money making enterprises, shallow, hollow, out of touch, remote, unforgiving and wedded to state functions and interests, thus legitimating the actions of the state.

Thus, I define most religions as one of society's major gatekeepers because they impose a way of life or ideology which is suited to the interests of the few on the many. Out of all the stuff I have read, Buddhism is for me, the only religious thought that also weaves a way of living into its doctrine. It is cause and effect in motion e.g. the inside defines the outside. If we understand what we are supposed to be doing and alive to the fact that we are not in a position to understand everything, we remain unattached and objective of mind, knowing that Life will unfold based on our free will actions.

I believe there is Something out there much greater than us but that we are also a small part of that Something. This something is the antithesis of everything established religions are not. It's a Something force which is not vengeful and requires nothing from us nor expects anything. It's all about our free will and choice and us having the balls to think logically when confronted with Life's little idiosyncrasies and challenges. Above all, it's about taking responsibility for what we do.

Political 'gatekeepers' and so-called democracies

Many people do not vote in so-called democracies today because they are fed up with the actions and intent (mostly covert) of politicians saying one thing and doing another. A current example being the Bush-Blair axis, saying the actions they perpetrated in Iraq were peaceful, although they had to bomb, kill and maim to achieve that which they said they wanted to eradicate. There are very few people in politics who I look up to simply because the whole system that is in place is in a moral and ethical mess and stalemate. The stuff we believe in and think is right and proper to enact is the same stuff we believed in hundreds of years ago e.g. the use of war and violence for ‘solving’ disputes. Nothing in our philosophical approach has changed and we are still wedded to the old ideas of national sovereignty, nationalism and a basic fear of almost everything else that is capable of moving, breathing or living. Politicians and the people who control the politicians feed off our fear and unless and until we wake up to the simple fact that there is nothing to fear we become easily manipulated and easily-mobilised cannon fodder to be used in the theatres of war at the whim and call of history’s monsters.

Educational gatekeepers

As a product of the education system I suppose I should not have too many gripes because I can read, write and add up. However, as a former teacher of chemistry and general science to children aged between 10 – 17 years old I have seen and been part of a system which is deeply flawed. To start with, teachers are over-worked and under-valued. They also work under conditions of great stress with a population of sometimes indifferent and de-motivated children. I shall not mention how league tables have turned our schools into pass /fail exam factories, nor the stresses on children caused by the proliferation of exams they have to get through before the age of 16 years. There are so many issues in education that my mind is ablaze in setting it all down but I guess for now I will just detail briefly my experiences and explore the link between cause and effect as manifested by what we as adults impose on children in a future update.

To begin at the beginning, if you want to become a teacher you need a teaching degree. The one I did was a one year course for the post-16 sector. However, when starting a PGCE (post graduate certificate in education) you come out of university or college with a good but not specialised knowledge of your subject area. One of the first things you are asked to do on a teacher training course is to specify a second subject to teach. Thus, if you have a chemistry degree you are expected to teach biology and if you have a physics degree they expect you to teach mathematics or some other ‘related’ subject. Clearly this puts many would-be teachers at a disadvantage and leads to stress during the one year teaching degree. About a third of the way into your course you start teaching children. The problem I found and many other students found was standing up in front of the class to teach a subject for which you are not really familiar with. To put it mildly, this situation compounds a very difficult learning situation for would be teachers and its effect is not good on the children who they are supposed to be teaching. Superimposed on this are the attitudes of some more ‘seasoned’ teachers who see PGCE students at best as a pain in the arse, because if you can strut your stuff better than them, they can get fearful for their jobs: a big time weirdo situation. Some teachers I have met, observed and listened to, exhibit racist and sexist behaviour in and out of the classroom.

Finally, the curriculum itself is more to do with stuffing children’s mind with facts and figures rather than giving them a true understanding of subject matter. The value systems that children are taught are also upside down because they learn to compete against each other in their learning and thus pupils who are able to repeat what they have just been told a few minutes before go forward at the expense of kids who are unable to repeat ‘parrot fashion’ what the teacher previously uttered.

The most joyous part of teaching is to see the penny drop and the knowing look in a child’s eyes when they suddenly realise they understand something they previously had difficulties with. The worst part of teaching is to look into the eyes of a child who has completely switched off and resigned to just getting through to the end of the school day. Much of what I was asked to teach was and still is completely irrelevant to most kids. The school curriculum knocks the creativity out of most kids by age 12 and they rebel in the only way they can, by opting out completely or going along with the ride just to keep the peace. It’s a sad state of affairs but this is what we do to kids when they go to school. This area of our lives needs a major re-think simply because we are forced to spend so much of our formative years at school.

Ideally, school is an ideal forum to teach kids something of life that does not involve this relentless push to pass exams. Understanding is much more important than knowledge because understanding implies context of any factual information that is being put before you. When I was teaching, many times I was asked by kids why are we being taught this or that and I could not answer because I knew at the time that this question which is so simply asked, is so difficult to answer. From my perspective, past and current educational establishments are no more than a tool of the State that is used to define and mirror the interests of the few on the many i.e. society's unseen gatekeepers and 'string-pullers'. Consequently, if we are unable to hold the fruits of this particular human endeavour, i.e. the education of our children, to the mirror of our common sense logic i.e. is it working, what we see is someone else's distorted reality and consequent dysfunctional actions if young people - the future leaders of our world. We have done this and there is no excuse to our acquiescence to the brutalising of our young people.

The way forward

I believe that a clear message is being felt within society by awakening individuals. The simple message is that the social, cultural, economic, religious, political and philosophical structures of current thought are not working. Therefore, we need to find out why and change or adapt our current ways of thinking. We need to examine all of that we do at the level of ideology. In other words, it is at the level of ideas out of which behaviour arises. The behaviours we see in life e.g. wars, personal greed, mind-less consumption are not the problems of Life, rather, these behaviours spring from imposed ideologies which are not working. If we examine the chain and logic of these ideas, determine why they are not working, and are willing to adapt these ideas to a new way of thinking, as sure as night follows day, a change in behaviour will automatically follow. A simple example of this is rather than keep building more prisons to house the people who commit crime, find out why they commit crime in the first place and deal with it at that level, simple cause-effect scenarios.

Interestingly, the level of analysis of this issue from the mainstream media (i.e. organs of state propaganda and cultural definers) is to focus on rising prison numbers, tagging of prisoners, drug mis-use and abuse within prison i.e. effect. Rarely do these organs of the state focus on causes and if they do, its usually in a fragmented and piecemeal way. We can and should ask simple questions of the state on the cause(s) of these issues e.g. why are prisons full of people from a particular socioeconomic /racial and /or age groups. This requires a quantum leap in perspective of the problem. Its all to do with the values we have and if our value system is not working a typical scenario ensues e.g. the hideous situation where Roman Catholic priest(s) are able to systematically abuse young boy(s) in his /their care for many years. If they are caught and prosecuted (which is a very rare event) they usually receive a short custodial sentence in an open prison, serve half their sentence for 'good' behaviour and released into society to more or less carry on where they left. Yet, a young black kid snatching someone's bag can be sent to prison for up to 7 long years. Its all about what we believe about people and so-called groups within society that allow these injustices to be perpetrated; why not chat about cause rather than focus on effect?

This is only possible if we open our eyes to what is happening around us and for us to take responsibility for our own actions. We can do this in many ways e.g. talk, write and discuss these issues, do a web site, share our thoughts, open meaningful dialogues, find out the true cost of things (financial, environmental etc.) and explore why we feel the way we do about things and other people, especially people we would not normally associate with. Ask questions of the politicians and the teachers and the religious gatekeepers. Above all, when you are satisfied that you have done all you can to find out about a particular situation or association, and it feels good, go with the flow and just do it. At the end of the day, Life is also about free will and choice and this implies a recognition that we live in a world of duality i.e. we can choose from a spectrum of possible choices from within the yin and yang continuum for every single thing we think, say and do. The important parameter here is full knowledge of how things work and that everyone become transparent to everyone else. Its possible but somehow, we do not think it is possible so it becomes just so, a life of masked intention and tissue of lies, missed opportunities and possibilities, or not, as the case may be.

I think most people just do not realise how much creative power we have and more importantly, how to mobilise and use that power. Its all about the individual and collective decisions we make. I stress here the individual choices we make because eventually, what we think inside is made concrete on the outside. If that is so, our decisions are based on what we as a society value, if we are buying stuff which produces harm, examine the beliefs surrounding that 'product' and change it. Why not exchange nuclear powered electricity generating stations with wind farms and other alternative methods of generating electricity? At the same time, why not increase our standards of insulation in our homes so that we do not need to turn the heating up 10 degrees for half of the year, Why do we not think more holistically about the consumer decisions we make and the always consequent wastes we produce and its environmental effects? Make the switch in perspective for what you want and these decisions and ideas will ripple across the universe and be picked up by other people. Individual thoughts create real life situations e.g. matter. This can only occur if you want it to happen If you are stuck in the mire of saying "I am just one voice in the wilderness" you become just that 'one voice'. Since changing my individual perspective on Life, I have and am making all sorts of connections with people I never knew existed and its great!!

The above is the background and context to my awakening spirituality. Much of it is to do with concrete individual introspection and analysis. Before we can change that which is not working in society we must first change ourselves at the individual level. We cannot change the world collectively unless we are first prepared to change who we are now, in this present moment. I now detail what rings true with me, what and who influenced and guided me to where I am today (wherever that may be).

Spiritual Journey

I met someone about 18 months ago, whose example reminded me of where I was as a kid. I was reminded that nothing happens by accident, that there is something in Life much greater than I, and that my intent in Life can only be found within. I was also reminded that any experience, good or bad, happens for a reason and that we constantly have an opportunity to learn from these experiences. I was further reminded of the Buddhist concepts of cycles of birth-death, karma and the practice of meditation. In short I was re-introduced back to myself. Much of what happened after this point in my life confirmed that which has always rung true for me with a few unacknowledged truths as well. I also describe my join with this other person or awakening from the material world within my perspective only, for I can only speak for myself. These events occurred in a synchronistic manner, one followed the other and each step opened me to the possibility that almost everything I had ever learnt about Life was in fact, nothing more than an Illusion. The journey began with Tantra.

The world of Tantra

I was first introduced to the world of Tantra. Tantra is a celebration of the true essence of who we really are, that is pure Love and everything else which comes out of this condition. In order to discover that which we truly are, we first need to get back in touch with ourselves. This involves an acknowledgement that the body is important to us because it enables us to experience our sexuality; it is seen as ‘the temple of our soul’. However, from a pragmatic and spiritual point of view I see the body as a vehicle to enable us to do the stuff of Life - those tasks we set ourselves to do from a previous spin within the karmic wheel of Life.

Tantra was a nice gentle introduction to the de-construction of who I thought I was, as experienced, seen and felt through the prism of the body. That is, we were able to celebrate our individual sexuality, acknowledge our similarities as well as our differences, at both a group and individual level. In this initial opening to spirit process I realised that many of my feelings of separation at the level of society were illusionary and meaning-less. Once I awakened to the simple fact that I was a complex, intricately-designed bundle of feelings and emotions it made me realise that, by True Design, we are really One, always have been and always will be.

The Tantra workshops I attended helped me get in touch with my true feelings through the routines of dance, song and meditation. We were also invited to go even deeper within to feel and experience what is there. Suffice to say that this allowed negative as well as positive feelings to surface. Once identified, I could then deal with them, or not, as the case may be. The people who ran this Tantra course can be contacted here. All I can say is that Tantra worked for me in that I witnessed and experienced several unusual experiences at the emotional, physical and spiritual levels. My life then began to change at a phenomenal pace and all sorts of opportunities materialised and slotted into place as I eagerly partook this new journey back to Source.

During this period I was introduced to a series of books, written by Neale Donald Walsh, called Conversations with God (CwG). Walsh is a guy who reached the absolute pits of his despair regarding his Life Situation and asked God for help. What followed is a fascinating conversation between Walsh and God and these books are absolutely grounded in pure love and ageless wisdom. They have written about 6 – 7 books together and you can access their material and get further information from the web site.

These books stimulated and stiffened my resolve to understand more fully what was going on in my life. For a period, I also dipped into a number of esoteric teachings, talks, seminars and workshops on spiritual stuff. One word of warning here is that partaking or ‘sampling’ ‘spiritual stuff’ in places like London is very expensive and beware of charlatans and false teachers. There are a lot of people riding this particular niche and making large amounts of money. There is nothing wrong with making money but its also about the intent behind every single thing you do. In essence, you need to be very discerning as to who you see, where you go and what you do. Basically, one visit is usually enough to make you realise whether this particular part of the journey is for you, or not, as the case may be.

I also attended several weekly talks at a place called Alternatives held in a church called Saint James’, Piccadilly. In truth, the quality and content of much of the material presented by outside speakers is of a variable nature and about 80% of the talks I attended had a ‘did not ring quite true for me’ quality. That said, I attended one talk there, where I listened to a speaker who managed to weave a presentation involving the lost city of Atlantis, science, religion, philosophy, spirituality and extra-terrestrials, almost all in one sentence. This stuff resonated with me at a very deep level. The name of the speaker is Patricia Cori. She lives in Rome and has co-written a trilogy of books with the Sirian High Council on the antics of the ‘dark forces’ or US-led ‘Secret Government’. These missives provide channeled information from beings of a higher dimension, and explain the reasons why the majority of Homo Sapiens live out their lives completely lost in the imposed realities of Other People's intents. Her website can be found here. It was whilst reading the first of the trilogy of these books that I got interested in crop circles and decided to delve into them a little deeper by visiting an area not too far from here which was mentioned in her book. By the way, Pat Cori recently published a third book in this series called "No More Secrets - No More Lies" which is all about our spiritual awakening and it is one of, if not, the most powerful book I have read thus far in making me realise just what we are capable of becoming and achieving - its a powerful read and as a prerequisite you must be open to new ways of thinking, or not as the case may be.

Crop circles

My girlfriend and I set off to a place near Aylesbury in Wiltshire (UK) and arrived in good spirits in fine weather in the summer of 2002. Wiltshire has an reputation amongst those people looking for different perspectives on life. This is largely due to the conglomeration of religious sites, unusual land formations including crop circles and the sightings of UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects), There are a number of good sites on the Internet where a lot more of this type of information can be found here. As a scientist trained in logic and all the trappings of a ‘right-sided brain approach’ to Life, I was naturally excited about what we would find and more importantly, experience a different reality originating from an awareness and opening to, the left-sided part of my brain, i.e. at the level of intuition and feelings.

The first surprise of the morning was the sheer size of some of the crop circles and the precision and intricacy of the markings made by the flattened corn. Some people say that crop formations are made by human hand but the fact that they have such exquisite designs with pin-point precision scale, appear overnight or within a few hours with no tracks leading to them make this unlikely. Alternatively, some people argue that these things are made by non-human hand e.g. extra-terrestrials. Whether you believe in this stuff is immaterial because I judge outcomes from a five sensory approach and also by what I feel. None of it made much sense but then I argue, very little in Life ever does (check this out (Oliver's Castle) and it purports to show an actual formation, 800kb).

Our next surprise was that we managed to find a crop circle that appeared that very morning and it was in pristine condition with few visitors. This was really good because the previous crop circles we visited were quite old and it was difficult to assess whether the crop formations were made by human hand or something else. When we managed to get into the middle of this new crop circle there were a few other people present. Some meditated whilst others took measurements of the circle itself. One of the strangest things about the crop formation was that the stems of the crop were flattened at their base, but not broken. To me this ruled out any idea that anyone human could attempt to carry out something like this. I have no idea who or what is able to fashion the crop formations in this way, suffice to say that at a particular moment in time, all will be revealed and it is best just to feel and not rationalise too deeply.

The next surprise of the day happened in the next crop circle we visited. I entered the middle of an old crop circle with just two ‘New Age’ type people in the middle sitting and “in-joy in-themselves”. As soon as my girlfriend walked into the middle of the crop circle, however, both of us smelt the incense of Sai Baba. We both looked at each other and then around the place we were in to find the source of the incense. We could not see it anywhere. The how and why of ‘where’ the smell of the incense came from is in most respects irrelevant because we both realised at the same instant that whatever was happening here was a bit unusual. In any event, my girlfriend has had previous connections with that Holy Man of India, Sai Baba. I also think that Sai Baba watches over her and the waft of the incense was a signal that his presence was there in a protective way. When we both got past this stage of trying to rationalise too deeply and before leaving the crop circle, we meditated in that special place to cement between us what had happened. Information on Sai Baba can be found on numerous websites (see LINKS page on this site) with photos of a recent trip to India where we slept in the ashram of Sai Baba at Puttaparthi.

Spiritual adventures in India

We went to India recently and we stayed at the ashram of Sai Baba in Puttaparthi. We also went to see another spiritual person called Somanantha Maharishi who has a keshatsham in Hyderabad. Before I describe these experiences however, I will briefly describe what ashrams and darshans are.

An ashram is a place devotees, worshippers, the curious, the poor and the rich go to see their particular guru or God-realised person. People often come from all over the world to take part in spiritual celebration and receive a blessing (darshan) from their guru.

Sai Baba is a special person and what he does is legendary. A conservative estimate of how many people gather just to see him must run into many thousands. The grounds on which the ashram is located are large and I think it is fair to say that it resembles a small village with all the necessary amenities. For instance, you can find a supermarket on the grounds of the ashram and one of the nicest things that I liked was the fact that almost everyone who wanted a bed could find one. There are individual 'en suite' rooms and also huge dormitories that can sleep many families. In short, whatever your income, perceived status, whether you are pig-ignorant or well on the way to enlightenment, there is something and somewhere to accommodate you. The room we stayed in was quite spartan by western standards with just a bed, ceiling fan, somewhere to bathe and mosquito grills on the windows. But, it was more than adequate and it was home for about 6 – 7 days.

Sai Baba's darshan, where He comes to meet, greet and bless people, takes place everyday, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Within the ashram is a very ornate temple where the people gather to await the presence of Sai Baba for darshan. When I was there, we used to get up between 4 o’clock – 5 o’clock in the morning and join a huge queue of worshippers. The snaking lines of people were slowly led to a place inside the temple to await Sai Baba. He made his appearance usually between 7 o’clock and 7.15 in the morning. Thus, most people would wait for about 2 – 3 hours for an appearance and blessing by Sai Baba that usually took between 20 – 30 minutes.

Before I get to the darshan bit I would like to describe the feeling of being part of a spiritual community of people from all over the world who were brought together in this spot for one specific purpose. That purpose was to be in the presence of Sai Baba. It was an amazing sight to see people of all colours and creeds come together in unison. Imagine being in a place where many thousands of people have come for years to worship. These practices imbued the whole place with a very positive energy. You can feel this energy surging through your body and its quite an emotional experience. At this point of my spiritual journey I was well into meditation and before I go further I detail what has worked for me to give context to my experience of the practice of meditation.

Meditation is an exercise in stilling the chattering mind and going deep within. It is, at the same time, so easy to think about yet so hard to do. I’ve part-read a number of books on this natural process and rarely finished any book on it. At the very least, it is experiential. You must do it before you can experience it. The point of meditation for me is to let go of attachment and any expectations you may have. I start off by taking a few deep breaths to clear my body of any negative thoughts and energies and visualise my crown chakra (found at the top of the head) opening like the blooms of a lotus flower. I then visualise a stream of white light shooting upwards from me and connecting back to the All That Is (some people call this God, Prime Creator or Grand Architect). I then try the contradictory practice of remaining focused on nothing yet remaining alert to everything. At first I did not find this easy and it took me some time for my mind to willingly let go and do something it was not used to doing. In other words, I was so enmeshed in the trappings of my present reality or mind-set that I found it almost impossible to not think about that which was, had or would occur. Eventually, however, I managed to let go of all my fears, worries and all the little niggles that had accumulated in my conscious thinking. I then began to taste the fruits and remembrance of just being.

When I meditate nowadays I feel ‘something’ around my throat similar to a pulsing feeling similar to ants running along the outside of my neck and throat. My hands feel ‘charged up’, I see what I define as cascading silver blobs on a black background light-show and a feeling of comparative peace. I define myself as a beginner in this and look forward (although I should not think about it) to going even deeper into myself. These changes in my body are as real to me as the nose on my face. The cause of these feelings are immaterial. All I can say is that at times I come out of a meditation with a sense of remembering of what I am capable of becoming. It is both an individual yet collective experience because I began to remember the interconnectedness of any single thing to every other single thing. At times it is a very humbling experience and at other times frustrating, because of my inability to ‘switch-off’ and get away and out of my mind. I suppose to the experienced meditation practitioners these stages of becoming are well known but when you experience them yourself it is something that is wow and unique.

What I can definitely say is that if you meditate in a group the whole experience is so much more powerful. I think its because we are part of a collective effort or 'Oneness' which feeds off itself. During those long hours waiting for a sight of Sai Baba I would often meditate for about 20 minutes or so. Looking back to those times in the ashram I remember that my head and throat felt swollen and bloated with much ‘activity’ felt. I also felt as if a small fan was whirling above my head because I could feel blasts of cold air. My hands also felt as they had swollen and when I put my palms together it was as if there was something tangible between them but according to my five sense reality there was nothing there! Unusual, yet I put all this down to the exceptional circumstances of where I was in joint focus with thousands of other people in the home of Sai Baba. Even though I do not define myself as a Sai Baba ‘devotee’, I know He is everywhere. That is enough for me and I do not need any further validation of what I felt at a physical, emotional and spiritual level. That said, I think these sorts of experiences are akin to a motorway service station where you stop to refresh, fill up and go on your way again. In other words, the trick is not to give yourself over to anyone because that is not the point of our exquisite journey. Deep down I know that, that which I am seeking is inside. It always has been and always will be, it’s the nature of who we are.

My final bit in my initial awakened spiritual journey was an introduction to a book that was ‘recommended’ by a couple of nice people (Mike & Angie) we met whilst in Australia. It's called the ‘Power of Now’ and was written by Eckhart Tolle. This book describes the simple fact that if we are in the presence of Now we alter our perspective on our reality i.e. its causal aspect which automatically transforms the outcome or its effect. I find that Life now takes care of itself, providing I stay in the present moment of Now.

He explains that Time as we know it is an illusion. We cannot alter that which we have done in the past nor can we alter that which we can do in the future. That leaves the present moment as the Power of Now. He explains further that we invest so much effort dwelling in the past and the future that we dilute the joy of being in the moment of now. This made perfect sense to me because at one stroke I was able to change my perspective of what is going on around me. In other words, by being in the present now, you truly experience yourself from moment to moment within a ‘tabula rasa’ perspective. Being in the present enables me to experience a lot of stuff without pre-judgment of what may or may not happen. An understanding of who I really am has freed me to just be who I am, without notions of ego, front or arrogance.

For much of the time I am able to escape the daily grind I previously imposed on myself by just letting things be, yet at the same time being as aware as I allow myself to be. It's also about taking my responsibility back to where it belongs: inside. This is where I am now for most of the time but whether I am in the moment or not, my Life is a fantastic journey of two steps backwards and three steps forward but it is and continues to be, a most amazing experience. Most of all, I am aware of being aware. This in itself is a very satisfying place to be because you are by definition, able to go beyond the surface explanation of things and hold them up to the Light. I take time here and ponder what is going on and more importantly, why. This is my present reality and it is very different to anything I have thus experienced. Finally, the essence of our being is love and happiness and it all begins by loving yourself first. This state, being or perspective, transforms your everyday activities into something which is both manageable and enjoyable. It has not sorted out all the issues in my life but I can say with honesty that it has grounded me much more into the sometimes inextricable experiences I create for myself.

Finally, Life for me is about creating happiness for myself and out of that comes happiness for others who cross my path and with this understanding comes the knowledge that we are all truly connected and inter-dependent on each other. This is a fantastic time to be alive because we are all undergoing dramatic changes in our spiritual perspectives, awareness of what is, and why we are here. I truly wish I knew what my task in Life entails but I know that all will be revealed in the fullness of time and that reagardless of our path, they all lead back to the Source, The Grand Architect, The All That Is, Ever Was and Always Will Be; however She is defined.