I'm a mixture of apprehension and excitement....

I'm almost ready to leave to catch my train to Bath for this 'Beyond the brain' conference. Sometimes I have no idea why I end up doing some of the things I do. What is this force that is going to take me into a lions den of neuroscientists, mystics. It is amazing how separate I can feel in a room surrounded by people. I was at a similar conference to this three years ago in Wales. I remember being frustrated, talking to people trying to get somebody to see where I was coming from. I had a strange experience with one Consultant. I was explaining about the lack of sight in my right eye and my conviction that this is resulting in the insights and intuitions I have. He held up a finger and asked me to follow it. I did this. I don't know what he saw because he suddenly saw someone he wanted to speak to across the other side of the room and legged it leaving me standing alone. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, I was just so shocked. I caught his eye a couple of times during the conference but he quickly looked away. This kind of reaction to me was unsettling then and to be honest it still is when I recollect it to write about it now.

I realise that at that time I was very intense. I had had an out of the ordinary experience. I was desperate for a rationale explanation. I am ordinary. I don't consider myself particularly spiritual. I haven't spent years meditating, there had to be another explanation. That is why I latched onto the fact of me not having equal sight in both eyes which could mean that one half of my brain is being more stimulated than the other. I also consider myself to grounded. I find that sometimes when I am speaking to spiritual people that I don't have a lot in common. I don't sign off my emails with 'love and light' and all of that kind of thing. I seem to be much more I don't want to say real, because that makes me sound like I am putting myself above others.

Gosh I'm stuggling writing this. Let's see if there's anything in the work of Alice Bailey which says it better than I can.... Ah yes, here on page 145 is what I am trying to say ' Human beings are apt to be primarily concerned with their higher group relations, with their return to their father's home, and with the trend which we call 'upwards' and away from the phenomenal world. They are principally occupied with finding of the centre within the form aspect we call the soul, and having found it, with the work then of acquanting themselves with the soul and thus finding peace. This is right and in line with Divine intention, but it is NOT ALL of the plan for man, and when this remains the prime objective, a man is dangerously near falling into the snare of spiritual selfishness and separateness' - Alice Bailey - Quality of Soul. I feel so reassured when I have a thought like this, which are strange, out of the ordinary and then I find something which confirms it. I am happy when my insights and intuitions confirm and build on ancient wisdom. I would worry if they were to contradict it because then there is something else at work. There is only one Truth but a myriad of ways to get to it.

I think part of my fear about this conference is that it is going to be full of mystics who are ungrounded and I'm going to end up feeling frustrated. I fear I am going to be the only voice of reason and as a result I am afraid that I am going to be exhausted at the end of the conference. Maybe this is too harsh on my part....only time will tell. I think I understand how Richard Dawkins must feel when he goes in among mystics and those who have abandoned reason in favour of experiences. I'm not saying realizations. These are different. To abandon reason because of a powerful experience is not very clever.


The driver for me to attend this conference is integrity. I feel like a spiritual fraud because I haven't done all the things that monks and nuns do. I haven't cut myself off from the world. I guess I am looking for an answer as to would I have these insights, intuitions and the life of expanded awareness which I have if I had two properly functioning eyes - this is what this search is about. The search for the Truth. It would also be great if I could have a brain scan to see whether or not there is more (or less)activity in the right side of the brain than the left. This would give me some answers. Unfortunately my GP won't refer me for a brain scan!

Almost time to leave.....what is this sickening feeling in my stomach...