My last post.....for 2009...

This post is going to be very short as I am sitting in my uncles pub as I have no internet connection where I live. I have had the most amazing, magical Christmas. There has been a freedom and ease that has never been there before. My mother keeps saying that it's the best one that she has ever had. Last night I led an introduction to my friends to let them know about the education I am doing and how it is one powerful access to having a life that works in every way. I was so passionate doing it because of how much it has given to me. What I noticed so strongly was that all of the fear and unease I used to experience was all gone and in its place was nothing but love, connection and relatedness. I don't think I have enjoyed doing anything more. I have support from my family for what I have dedicated my life to and that is something that I thought I would never get. This Christmas I created a way of being that was going to be powerful, excited and playful and from the moment I stepped off the plane, this is what was there.

I was powerful in that I was straight about saying things as I saw them, always asking permission before I did so and stressing that it was just the way I saw them and I took what came back to me without flinching or feeling any need to defend myself. What is there to defend anymore, without fear there is nothing to defend and this has been nothing short of magical. I was excited because that is my way of being now and I was playful because ultimately it is all a game and the important thing is to play the game full out but never to lose sight that it is only a game.

So as I come to write my final post for 2009 I feel so moved with love and gratitude for the way my life has expanded this year. Once I showed some courage the universe did the rest and I just flew. I can't wait for 2010, without any kind of fear and having nothing to protect or defend and clear that it is all a game I am so excited about what's possible especially in relation to me making a difference to children and young people through how I am. From my leadership last night I am clear that the power of the evening wasn't in anything I said but was in how I was being. I was authentic. I didn't say one word that wasn't true and didn't come from my own experience.

So to all my readers of this blog, I thank you and wish you all a very happy new year...

The last post before Christmas....thank you to all of my loyal readers

Well this is my last blog entry for this year and what is more important for me is to begin it by thanking each and everyone of my readers who have stayed loyal to me and this blog throughout 2009. I wish you all a very happy festive season. When I look back over this year it has been such a rollercoaster. So much change and yet in other ways nothing has changed at all. I am still committed to having this blog be a spiritual blog but for next year it has to be more expansive and outward looking. I am still commited to it being a blog that demonstrates a process and is not about me as a person because it is the process and not the personality that is important.

I believe passionately that what runs the show when we are adults are the decisions that we made when we were upset children. I have now returned to be with my family in Ireland and the difference in how I am with people now is magical. I see how it was an upset five year old who was running the show all the years. This is the first Christmas that I am mentally and emotionally at my biological age. Friends are confiding things in me that they have never done before. What has been more fascinating for me though is how I have changed in how I relate to my nieces. I have declared that I am going to be a leader for children and young people and that hasn't changed but in the past my way of communicating with young people was to ingratiate myself with them and want to be their friend...of course I would I was only five.

Now..it is so different. I relate to them as the adult I am now but still with an awareness of what it is like in their world and this is just amazing to me. I have nieces who have been used to calling on me and me dropping everything to do whatever it is they wanted and sometimes I am so ashamed to write this but it wasn't good but the five year old I was couldn't see the harm I was doing and so I wanted to be liked but I genuinely couldn't see any of this. I couldn't understand the frustration towards me of my mum and sister-in-law. Now after all these years I understand what my brother meant when he looked at me one year and said 'you have no idea what you're like do you'. Now I see it all so clearly.

I also think back in shame to last Christmas when my dad was taken into hospital two days before Christmas and all I was concerned about was that I wouldn't be going up to my uncles house on Christmas morning which has been a tradition for as long as I can remember. This has always been the happiest part of Christmas for me and so when my mum was upset about dad being in hospital, I wasn't there for her. I threw a massive tantrum about not going up to my uncles. When I think of it now...it is totally disgusting but it was all operating beneath my consciousness. I am going into detail about this now because this is my final blog post for 2009 and I want to complete everything about the way I was in the past and to really experience the impact of what this thinking and behaviour that was so hidden from my view had on those around me so that I will never be related to in that way either me to me or others to me. I am a bold leader, not a unpredictable five year old.

The other reason I am labouring something that has already been written about is to point out that I am not alone in what I did. It is what we do as human beings. I assert that the reason why there are so many family fights at Christmas is because people revert to type and operate at whatever age they got stuck at. What becomes so strong at Christmas is people being right about how they view each other. It is this human obsession with being right as opposed to being happy which is responsible for so much unhappiness. My deepest desire for 2010 is that some force will operate where people will genuinely see that all views are just that, views, they are not the truth just opinions, judgements and veiws.

The greatest shock I got this year was to hear that the famous spiritual and motivational teacher Wayne Dyer has leukaemia. I listened to a tape recording of an interview that he did and he spoke about the forces that become activated when you enter the spiritual path consciously. I have been thinking about why is it that so many spiritual teachers succumb to these kind of illnesses and I can't get away from the fact that most of them operate in stage 3 of my spiritual awakening model which is the state of bliss and union but what is happening in reality is that the forces of unconcealed drivers are operating unhindered. To think that one can reside permeanently in sat, chit, ananda, peace, joy and bliss without going through the fire of unconcealing all that has been hidden is complete fallacy. I may live to regret writing these words but can't shake the assertion that it is the refusal to do as Socrates said and 'know thyself' which is the cause of many diseases.

I am going to end this blog entry by once again outlining how I think the process works and then it is finished for me. My blog posts for next year are never going to bring this up again but are going to be about going forward. This is how I assert that the consciousness of human beings gets stuck and it can get stuck at any age. Once it becomes frozen at that point then anything that is put on top of it is like putting icing on a mud pie. A traumatic event for me which happened when I was five and which shocked me beyond anything I had experienced up to that point was so shocking that I became stuck at that age. From that point on I grew physically but not mentally or emotionally. Why it has been like that for me - I have no answers for. What I want readers of this blog to take from it is the importance of unconcealing that which is hidden so that we can be both creators and masters of our life. What I have now is mastery. I have an ease, joy and freedom with everyone and in all situations which I have never had before. I look at people and it is like I see everyone for the first time. There is nothing in the way.

When I say 'nothing' what I mean is fear. What was there for me before was a fear for my safety, with that there first there wasn't room for anything else. There is now absolutely no fear and in its place is love, connection and relatedness. I assert that this is the fundamental fear that we as human beings have.....the fear of each other.

So on this Christmas Eve I wish all a very happy Christmas.

The evening on mindfulness meditation.....brought back so many memories...

Many years ago I studied Buddhism with a group in London. For weeks we pored over the complex text called 'The Seven Works of Vasubhandu' by Stefan Anacker. This is a book of the Abhidarma which was written after the Buddha died and goes into great detail about the components of suffering which the Buddha identified. What I refer to as 'not me' or that which seems to us to be permanent and unchanging is simply the interplay of heaps or what is called in Buddhism skandhas. These are form, feeling, perception, volition and consciousness. When all of these are interacting together the illusion is that of a permanent unchanging self. It is this fixed view that human beings have that these heaps are the truth of who we are that is at the root of all suffering.

This mistaken perception is similar to the phenomena of flashing neon lights. What appears to be happening is that there is a continuous flow of lights. What is happening in reality is that one light is going on and off in quick succession followed by another...and then another..and then another. However the appearance is that of flowing lights which create the illusion of permanence and flow. It is exactly the same principle with these heaps or skandhas. The truth is that it is only one of these skandhas that are active at any one time but the speed with which they interact makes it appear like it is all happening at the same time. I remember poring over the texts for hours on a Sunday evening in Camden trying to understand this on an intellectual level which was never going to happen. One evening I was sitting there and suddenly my mind just gave up trying and what was immediately there was clear intuitive understanding which I am now doing my best to put into very clumsily written words.

The evening on mindfulness meditation was very powerful for me because Lotus read from the sutra where the Buddha spoke directly about this. He said words to the effect of 'do not take form, feelings, perceptions, volition and consciousness' to be the truth of who you are. Upon hearing these words I once again returned to the little room in Camden where so many years I pored over these same words trying desperately to understand them on a rational level. Now so many years later, here they are again and there is no learning, just immediate intuitive understanding. It is strange how I once again find myself back at Buddhism. Granted it is the Buddhism of the Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn but it is based on the fundamental Buddhist beliefs that there is suffering but there is also an end to that suffering. Lotus is very clever and the readings she picks for the evenings are deep and profound. I was struck by how much was about owning and being responsible for how we are to ourselves and each other, to commit to becoming aware of this and to resolve to practice the teachings. Every school of transformation or enlightenment seems to follow the same model. A kind of purging and accepting responsibility, and then once the old is cleaned out, a resolve and creating of the new.

Speaking of clearing out the old. For a couple of days I have had the nagging thought that I had promised to keep in touch with my old boss when I left my job almost a year ago and I hadn't done that. I also recognise that because I was so unhappy with the work I didn't have very much integrity. The spiritual path is all about being authentic and cleaning up where we didn't keep our promises...so I knew that I had to make this phone call to my ex boss and I really didn't want to. I loved the people where I last worked, each and everyone was so kind and obliging no matter what I needed and I just left and only kept in not so frequent touch with a couple of people. I am far enough on this path to know that when I get an inner prompting to act on it no matter how my head feels about it. So...I picked up the phone to call my ex-boss and as I was dialling the number I was saying to myself 'please don't be there'. Sure enough it went to answer phone and I left a message to the effect of 'acknowledging that I said I would keep in touch and I haven't and that I was sorry for this' I left my number and said to call if he wanted. I then promptly forgot about the call. Two hours later my ex-boss called me and we had a great conversation. I even told him about my lack of integrity towards the end of my job but then rambled on quickly to something else. He was great about me not having been in touch and invited me to go to lunch the next time I was around there and said he would tell the others that I had been in touch. I left down the phone feeling so happy, relieved and pleased that I had cleaned up that I had made a promise and not delivered. This is the path of spiritual awakening and it is not easy because as human beings we resist like anything cleaning up when we have given our word to something and not honoured it.

But I understand that by doing that energy has been freed up and I think that is why the evening on mindfulness meditation was so powerful and brought me back again to the fundamental Buddhist teaching of the suffering caused when we hold the skandhas to be the truth of who we are. What I have learned from this is that years can be spent on understanding but it is only taking action that produces results and shifts. Intellectual naval gazing while quite entertaining shifts nothing which is why we have moved so little on the spiritual dimension. What has been doing the navel gazing is the realm of thoughts and feelings i.e. the mind. Actions take the mind out of the game which creates results....

In life....we are only doing one of two things....expanding or shrinking....

Last night coming back late from an agreement I got chatting to a man on the train. When he mentioned that he had a teenage boy I immediately remembered my commitment that every young person and teenager has the tools for creating a magical wonderful life. Unusually for me I started sharing about the things that had happened to me and the decisions I had made and the kind of life that I had as a result. I was amazed at how easy and free I felt to share. There was no fear or uneasiness and my words just flowed. I really saw his commitment to his teenage son and for what he was going through and also his commitment as a father to 'get it right'. I explained that there is no rule book for parents and that as human beings are meaning making machines that his son is always going to have a 'story' about his parents which more than likely is not going to paint them in the best of light.

The power of the parental relationship as the foundation for all other relationships in life cannot be underestimated. NOt being OK with one's parents just the way they are and the way they are not and not making them wrong for who they are and the way in which they show their love is fundamental to how we enter into other relationships. Teenagers have a reputation for thinking that they know it all and are just in the process of forming their view about the world and their place in it. To be able to interrupt this process at an early age with the tools for seeing how they have been put together this far in life gives them a level of freedom power that stays with them well into adult life and beyond. This is why I moved way beyond my comfort zone last night to give this man a business card where he can look on the website about the cutting edge education, training and coaching which is available for young people and teenagers. I am so committed that every young person and teenager who I get to hear about is given the choice about this training. And I also know that it is a game and all there is for me to do is to play full-out by sharing myself and by doing that others will or won't see what is possible for them.

Tonight is another evening on mindfulness meditation which is going to be held at Deep Connection. Maybe it's the time of the year but the numbers are dwindling. I managed to get the ad into Wellbeing magazine for the month of January and February so that is good. My ad on spiritual coaching was refused so I have to create something different. But I am not thinking about it until after Christmas. I was talking to my friend Lotus about setting up a proper website based on the name of this blog and moving the blog over to that. On this website I will also do video which seems to be the way to go. Part of me is so resistant to starting to do video because then I am going to be so visible. Eckhart Tolle felt the same when he started Eckhart TV until he saw the camera as a kind of worm hole into reaching millions of hearts and then he could connect and be authentic. I feel the same. My writing flows and I am happy with this but not much of my being or the experiences that have given me the ability to write in the way that I do comes across. With video there is no hiding and my being and authenticity about the realness of the spiritual dimension will come across or it won't.

So come early 2010 this is going to be my new project. Everything will then be on the one website. I'm not sure if I can just copy all of the posts from this blog over or whether from the New Year I start my blog on this website. I am so lucky to have Lotus who as a film maker is so well up on what is needed to be done and is such a support for me. She believes in me and in what I am trying to do even if like so many of my friends she doesn't agree with the vehicle I am using to do it. And while I don't disagree with mindfulness for achieving spiritual awakening I think that the mind can be fooled very easily with the gentleness of mindfulness meditation. For me, spiritual awakening takes something more. It takes the courage to......go into the fire.....

It's coming to an end..... this rollercoaster year...

And what a year it has been. I have done more in this year than I have done in the preceeding 3o years. How has this been possible? It has happened because of a process of gently and at times not so gently unconcealing all of the conditioning that I put myself as a human being from a young age. Like peeling off the layers of an onion to reveal the core essence from which I came and to which I will return. I have gone through a kind of purification process where everything that is 'not me' and hence not authentic has to be exposed in order to move to the next level. It is a process similar to buring wood, an analogy I have often used. When wood is first burned you don't get the brilliant red, all you get for a while is the acrid smoke. This corresponds to the impurities in the wood that have to be got rid off before the brilliance of the wood can emerge vibrant and alive. It is the same for us as human beings we have to firstly recognise what is our smoke and then transform it.

Transformation is simply another word for enlightenment where the old is transformed to reveal the new. When I say new I don't mean new as in better or different I mean new in terms of the original essence of who we are before we learned language and had conversations with ourselves where we decided the kind of person we had to be to survive in life. The way to enlightenment is take
seriously the study of ontology which is the study of what it means to be a human being and to use yourself as the case study. I know that I am not enlightened but without arrogance I believe that I am on the path that will lead to it. In 1988 when I first heard the Buddhist concept of the Bodhissatva as one who understands the nature of suffering and can relieve others of their suffering I was gripped by an intense desire to be that. I had no idea how it was going to happen. When I look back I see that the intense desire I experienced then was my declaration. It came from nothing because I had no past knowledge and was only hearing the concept for the first time so there was no history and no past. When we are young and we make a declaration then the fact that there is no past makes that declaration very powerful and from the moment it is made it starts to give us a kind of life that is in tune with that declaration.

Making the declaration I did so late in life meant that there was a lot of stuff that had to be cleaned out before the declaration could manifest itself in my life. I see the process so clearly now. And yet I must never lose sight of that it is the process as it is occuring for me, it is not the process that is the Truth. If it was the truth then all spiritually advanced people would go through the same thing and it is obvious that they don't. The great Masters like Sri Aurobindo and Maharishi didn't write endless tomes on the game of being human that I have done. They seemed to reside permanently in what I call the third stage of spiritual enlightenment which is residing in 'THE ONE' where all is bliss and peace. So clearly the journey I am on and the fire I am going through is specific to me. This blog is just an example of one way to arrive at the goal at which the human consciousness is yearning for. For me it is involving the stripping away of everything that I thought was 'me' to reveal that which is 'not me'. Some of this has been easy and obvious and some of it as this blog has revealed has been painful and hidden. But it's all in the nature of how we have been put together as human beings. The challenge for us if we are to move to the next level is to take on the game of exposing the game called human being but this takes courage and a willingness to be ruthlessly and insightfully honest with ourselves which is a challenge.

In the beginning...there was nothing....and then there was THE WORD...

and that word....became human being. This weekend I was returned to nothing. There was nothing before language. Language of THE WORD brought into existence that which had not been before. Forget the big bang....first there was nothing....then there was THE WORD and the WORD created creation. This is why when we are not true to our word and don't honour it we are not honouring ourselves as the product of that creation. This is why integrity and being our word is the cornerstone of having a life that works. The two pillars to having a life that works and is magical in every way are integrity and responsibility but the game of human being is to resist these qualities with everything the identity has so as not to be unconcealed and to operate hidden deep within the sub-conscious.

It is because of this resistance to accepting responsibility that the world is as chaotic as it is. Think of a small child, if you don't teach him/her how to be responsible and to take responsibility the life of that child is chaotic. It is the same on a much larger global scale. When we as a race of human beings don't take responsibility that we are creating the lives that we have then the universe kind of goes crazy in terms of how chaotic it becomes. All it would take to bring about a happy connected world is for each person to take the responsibility for his/her own life. Not to make it wrong for the way it is if it's not the way that we would like it to be but to own that we have created it like that and then to own the power that we have as human beings to create anything. In the begining...there was NOTHING..and then the WORD - the WORD was a declaration 'I AM'. This is why declarations have so much power. When two people get married the priest says 'I declare you man and wife'. Before this was two people, the declaration creates something that wasn't there before. Everything that has power and creates something new comes in the form of a declaration.

I see from my own experience how up until the age of five I was nothing in terms of creating anything. I was one with everything around me. Then something happened which out of respect for those who are still living I am not going to go into detail here and I made the declaration from nothing...that I was unsafe around big people - that was my declaration and after that I created a life where I did everything in my power not to grow up. I kept my consciousness at age five which never developed in line with my physical body. Writing this it is hard to comprehend the power that this has taken never mind for those of you who are reading it but that is what I did. That is the power that we all have available to us when we bring ourselves back to nothing and make a declaration to begin the process of creation. The power that each of us has as human beings is awesome. We are truly made in the image of the creator and this is why we create everything about our lives..if only we would accept the responsibility for doing so. The suffering comes from not owning this power and allowing our identity or ego or personality call it what you will to run the show....this is the both the tragedy and comedy of human being. When I realized that what had been running my life was an upset five year old I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry. I think I did a lot of both. But out of that realization I am now free....

The further one goes on the path of self-awarness.....the less forgiving is the universe.....of mistakes

I have found that now whether it is because of understanding the power of integrity and being my word and also being authentic in terms of saying what is on my mind honestly and openly, I find that if I violate it that the universe comes down very hard on me. It is like I am so far advanced on this path now that any slippage is hammered on fast. This is OK for me, because it acts as a pointer for me about the danger of becoming complacent. I had a drama one morning last week when I thought that I had gone to bed and left the keys in the front door. I searched my room for them when I wanted to go out the next morning and they were nowhere to be found. I always left them on the desk and sought them out with my eyes before I went to sleep. This night I didn't do that. The next morning I had a phone call which didn't go very well in that I was annoyed at something the person had said to me which was meant to be a contribution but which I didn't take very well. Rather than being straight and saying what was on my mind I found myself taking pot shots at his personality and pretending that it was because I wanted to be a contribution.

After the phone call I was over and got ready to go to the gym and then couldn't find the keys. I searched and very slowly went downstairs to explain to the landlady my theory about having left the keys in the door. As you can imagine she wasn't best pleased and we had a tense 10 minutes talking about options in terms of getting a locksmith and having the locks changed and how much it was going to cost me. I went back upstairs more stressed in those few minutes than I have been with all the moves I have had since the start of the year. I turned my desk upside down and then discovered that the drawer of the desk was a tiny bit open and lo and behold the keys had fallen down. Triumphant and relieved beyond belief I darted downstairs to tell a very relieved landlady. I returned back upstairs and at this stage definitely felt the need to go to the gym! Walking to the gym I revisited the conversation I had had earlier with the man who had tried to be a contribution and I saw that I wasn't able to be with his contribution to me which is why I had found a way to find fault with him and call it a contribution. I saw this so clearly and I know that there is no cause and effect in the world, things happen in life, just because they happen but on this occasion the fiasco with the keys which is something that never happens to me was there for me to look at where I hadn't been authentic and it was that enquiry which let me see how nasty I was to someone who just wanted to contribute to me.

This is another element of the identity that hates any idea of connection and unity. It's raison d'etre is all about separation and competition and so any efforts on the part of another to contribute are not openly welcome in spite of appearances to the contrary. As human beings we talk a good game about being connected and related but the truth is that our identity has no interest in operating like this. To operate like this would be for the identity to no longer exist. But it takes vigilance to see this operating. Without being arrogant I am now at a high level in this game and as a result lack of vigilance by me where my identity clouds my self-awareness are hammered quickly. I have learned that when something like an incident with the keys happens that there is something for me to look at. When we are living with integrity and being authentic things out there in the universe work. Most of the battles I have are within my own head, out there in the universe in terms of getting to places on time and having life work everything flows each and every day. The battles in my mind will continue until the day I die because I am a human being and mind with its thoughts is part of the fundamental design of human being. But that doesn't mean that I have to give these thoughts any importance, there are just products of the mind, like the eye has sight and seeing objects as a product and the the ear has hearing as a product, the mind has thoughts.

My training is that once I have unconcealed somewhere where I have been pretending is to clean it up to restore myself to power. This involved calling this person and being vulnerable and honest and telling him what had really been going on in the conversation we had. To his credit he was amazing and said that he had taken what I said to be a great contribution. On this occasion his identity was more generous than mine! After the phone call I felt so different by being honest about where we have been pretending, the energy that was frozen in the pretence is then released. After this I went on to have an amazing day. I have sent my first advertisement of my services as a spiritual coach/counsellor to the monthly magazine and the first issue comes out on 8 January. I found that I was more in action than I have been for a long time after having this conversation which to be honest my identity did not want to have at all. My identity wanted to push it under the carpet and not deal with it but to do this is not to honour my word and what I am here to do.....

I really believe that it is only by an indepth study of ontology which is the study of human being that the consciousness is going to escape from the identity to be able to move to the next level. I don't know how the universal shift of consciousness is going to come about. I had thought it might be through swine flu but that has turned out to be milder than anyone had predicted. But something is for sure....and that is that there are big shifts happening.....

The insights....come thick and fast....but now...so does the action

What is happening to me at the moment is like a house of cards that is falling down. The house of cards is my constructed identity which slowly but surely is falling away. I have realized the decisions I made when I was a young girl that have given me the kind of life that I have. Being able to see failure now in terms of performance and not of my being has lifted the lid of what is possible for me. I see all of my past failures that I had attributed to me as a person being solely about performance, I hadn't taken the actions necessary to bring about a certain result. Now my life is all about action and performance and as a result I have been more in action today than I have for the past two weeks. I can finally be unreasonable for things I believe in and human beings becoming aware of their constructed identity is a non-negotiable mission for me. I have a quiet determination to do whatever it takes for however long I am here on this earth to bring this about. I have on my side the authenticity of being able to speak and write from my own experience which should give me the credibility necessary for people to view me as someone who knows what she is talking about.

And now that everything is solely about performance there is no limit to what I am going to achieve. I was speaking with the editor of Wellbeing magazine and have lined up articles which are going to go on the website/magazine. When I worked for the magazine I left her a copy of my book but she had never mentioned it when we spoke. Today she told me that she is halfway through reading it and will be writing a review which I was thrilled about because I had forgotten that I had given her a copy. Then in January I will begin my business as a spiritual coach and counsellor without any apologies to anyone. I have hidden my light and my power for too long and now is the time to speak and be visible. There is a saying 'those who know...don't speak and those who speak....don't know. But I think that it is time to reverse that. For those who know and are not speaking....to speak and for those who speak but do not know to shut up and listen.

I know that I am going to have challenges with being as direct as I now am because comments to my posts on this blog and other social networking sites have dried up but all there is for me to do is to keep going. As I write this I hear the words of Nelson Mandela that he made in his 1994 inaugural speech in my mind 'your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you'. And this is what I have done for years but up until now it couldn't have been any other way. It couldn't have been any other way because my identity held two trump cards which were always going to keep me stuck. One was a fear or adults and the other was attributing all of my failures to me as a person, failure was an attack on my fundamental being. With those two aspects transformed I have a vision and a goal and for the first time the confidence that I can get there. My mantra from here on in is...it's not about me but about my performance, constantly looking for what is missing that if I put it in would make a difference in every thing I do and take it to the next level. And where I can't identify what is missing to go out and ask people and to take what I get...this is the beginning of freedom.....

Even spiritual people......get swine flu...

Late last night I got a message that my teacher for the Transcendental Meditation training that was to be happening this Saturday and Sunday is ill with swine flu and so the training has been cancelled. The message said that it is the first time ever that he has not been able to do a scheduled training! In the past before I did the training that I currently doing which is giving me the tools to deal powerfully with any situation I would be in such a bad mood about this, having rearranged everything so that I could do it but more so, thinking that it was something that was meant to be because of the inner prompting not to be late in paying the balance that was due but now I can just let it go. It's not now going to happen when it was going to happen and there's no reason for it, it's just one of those things. I am disappointed though because I feel that would have been great to have had over the Christmas period....

I never failed....because I never finished anything....so how could I fail....

These days my insights into just how my identity has been operating in life are both exhilarating and painful. I feel like I have a crystal ball and everyday I look into the depths of myself and see yet another area where I thought the way I operated was down to a Divinely ordained attribute and then to discover it is a strategy used by my identity for its survival and to prevent me from accessing my full potential as a human being. The deeper I delve the more exhilarating the find but also the tougher the process to unconceal the truth of what really lies within. As I get more closer to that which remains when everything else has been unconcealed the more challenges there are for me. Also just because something becomes unconcealed doesn't mean that it no longer operates to sabotage. It is just that there is an awareness about its presence and its modus operandi. This is what is meant by developing self-awareness. Self-awareness is the path to spiritual awakening - without it nothing spiritually is possible. Self-awareness is necessary for emotional growth also as without it our emotions would have free rein.

Yesterday I had the experience of realizing that just because an aspect of the identity becomes known to consciousness doesn't mean that it stops operating. I was sure that realizing that deciding that something was a failure is only a failure of performance would shift my level of performance without me having to do anything. That simply seeing that would be enough...such wishful thinking! I had been asked to bring some important papers to London yesterday and what happened.....I forgot them! In the past I would have been so hard on myself and accusing myself of all sorts....this time...I saw it purely as a failure of performance - I hadn't put in place a structure to remind me or better, put the papers straight away into the bag I was taking. What this has shown me is that it is insight+vigilance+action that creates transformative shifts and not mental gymnastics on its own. I have seen how much of an insight junkie I have been over the years. But insights without action produces no shifts and no elevation in power and performance......how clear all of this is now.

I now understand why I never finished anything in the past. The fact that I have a book is solely down to having an editor who took it on. I remember with everything I did saying 'I'll leave it and come back and finish it' but I never did and so minutes went out not quite finished, in fact in most things that I sent out when I was in my last job went out unfinished in some way or another and then I used to beat myself up that I never sent out anything correct. I see now that I couldn't send out something 'finished' because then if I failed and it was found to be wrong it would be about me as a person and not about my performance and me as a human being couldn't take it being as a failure of 'me' - too many of those kinds of failures and the deep existential fear was that I wouldn't exist. Whoever has put together the design of human being is nothing short of a genius. The rules of the game that the ONE has put in place to make the game with the MANY as varied and enjoyable are really intricate and worthy of a great designer who also has an amazing sense of humour!

Yesterday wasn't a good day which is why there was no blog entry. My Dad who will be 87 next year is not feeling well. He is complaining of pains in his head. As an only daughter I have always felt very close to my dad. He has been the one person in my life who has always been consistent in the way he has treated me. He is the one from whom I learned the importance of integrity and of being your word. I know that I have been so lucky to have him still when the parents of so many of my friends have lost theirs, that for me to still have both of mine alive has been a gift and I can't expect to be spared the pain that all of us go through when we lose a parent but somehow maybe there is still so many childlike elements there in that I don't want to be without a father. For the past couple of years as a result of a stroke he hasn't been able to speak a lot but yet he still manages to have an active voice solely by his presence. I will soon be home for Christmas so am creating that we all have a great Christmas together. But as my Dad said to me the last time I was home 'it could be one day, one week, or even one minute' and as he said this he looked me directly in the eye and I said simply 'I know' as I looked deeply into the eyes of the one man who has loved me unconditionally even if he has never said it...

I am also re-working my article for the website and feel really motivated now that I can look at everything in terms of performance and what I put in and what is missing in how I perform across every area of my life. The freedom that is in that for me is difficult to do justice to in this blog but I hope by the energy that comes through in this blog that readers are getting an insight into what makes us tick as human beings.....the next step is to unconceal these aspects for yourselves.....don't take my word for it...because anything I write is not the way it truly is...it is just the way it is occuring for me....

Slowly but surely......I am uncovering the game of ...human being

I had such a brilliant weekend. Before this weekend I was so restless and resistant. I felt that I couldn't focus on anything and when I did focus it wasn't for very long. There was a part of me that did not want to do the training that was going to be available this weekend. I met my friend early on Saturday morning and we travelled up on the train together. Once again I was struck by how relaxed I was. I can so value now being in the company of people and I only see them as there to contribute to me and for me to contribute to them. I have such compassion for people now. The vietnamese monk Thick Nhat Hahn says that to be happy we have to 'learn to look at people with the eyes of compassion' and I can put my hand on my heart now and say that I genuinely can do that.

But what is quite tragic is that a good intention to do this, like say you read this and think 'yes, this is really what I want to do' but the truth is that earlier in life you have had an experience where the identity made a decision about not being safe among the very people who you want to be able to look at with the eyes of compassion and feel connected, then no matter how deep and strong the aspiration is, it's never going to happen because of the unconscious driver of not feeling safe. So where I am left now is wondering about what the point is of all of these self-help books and also dare I say it spiritual books that promise such a lot but don't always or often even give the tools by which to realize their promises and claims. This is why to be free as human beings it is so important to do some training in understanding what are the decisions I made as a child which is making me the adult that I am today. There are lots of training schools around that do this. I am with one and it is working very powerfully and effectively for me but there are many others. The important thing is to begin this process and to have enough humility to recognise that the way we are constructed as human beings means that we cannot do it by ourselves. Why....because what is doing it is the mind, this is the structure which has caused us to suffer in the first place. So to use the structure that has caused suffering to then use it to relieve it by understanding is never going to work.

What I saw this weekend was that when I was given the results of an intelligence test when I was 15 and they were bad that I made it mean that I had failed as a person. My being, who I was, had failed. This weekend I learned that I hadn't failed, but my performance had failed. That is now a huge shift for me. I understand now why I have struggled with performing and being effective; it is because I have made every failure be about me, and not about my performance. When I made it about me, I became smaller and less visible with every failure. I am clear that this is yet another tool that the identity uses to keep us playing small. By being programmed to take every failure as a failure of human being and not of performance we don't want to perform to our full potential because of risk of failure should we fail is too threatening to our being which the identity would make it mean had failed.

I had noticed this in myself in that when I thought I had failed that I closed down and I had often wondered about this. Why did I close down from sharing with people openly and freely everywhere and anywhere what I have observed and experienced from my years of being interested in the spiritual line of development of human beings. I knew that I didn't care what people think of me, so what was the block. Now I understand the block was in me making every so called failure be about me as a person and not about my performance. When failure becomes about performance then it is not threatening. It becomes about being curious and looking to see what was missing that could have elevated that performance. It becomes about the game that it is...looking for what is missing...not what is wrong.

I stayed with my friend and at the training was a guy who had travelled quite a distance to be there. He also stayed with my friend because he had no accommodation booked. It was late on Saturday night when we got back and I was tired and as nights are not my best times I excused myself and went to bed. I got up early the next morning to do the assignment that we had been given the night before and shortly after my friend and this guy got up. We had such a good conversation and for me it is so refreshing to see younger people doing this training and young people who are doing it not to fix or change anything about themselves but really to make a difference. The lady I stayed with is a psychotherapist and she had never met anyone who was doing this training to make a difference and to bring about a compassionate, loving and connected world for no other reason than just to do this. This totally shifted her context and I saw her for the first time more happy and relaxed and confident about what this training can offer for all people no matter what their history and background. Once again I marvelled at the design of life that puts people and events in our path for us to learn and grow from and the only thing required of us is to be open and receptive.

Coming back on the train with my friend we had some wine and some hot cross buns and at one point there was a lull in the conversation so I took the opportunity to gaze out of the window and just really connect with that force that is allowing me a little insight into how it works and my heart filled with such deep love and gratitude and absolutely humility.....who am I that I should have been given such a gift of grace as this weekend. I went to this weekend committed beyond anything not to return until I had an answer as to why I felt blocked in my ability to be effective and to perform to my maximum potential. I am clear that it was the courage to declare it and also the willingness to take responsibility for what I have made failure to mean in the past and to begin again is why I received the gift that I have....

What has been missing for me up to now has been nothing, absolutely nothing in who I am as a person. What has been missing are structures, rigorous planning and taking action. Performance is about action....nothing else......

Tomorrow....starts another week and I feel so excited and happy.

Very short post....as it's the early hours of Saturday morning and I am getting ready to leave...

There's one good thing about leaving home at the age of 11 to go away to boarding school and that is that I am an incredibly quick packer. Although how much is there is pack for an overnight! I tend to leave all of my packing until the morning because use the time sleeping to have strength for the morning which is always better for me than at night for writing and everthing. I am so lucky in that I do not have any trouble sleeping which is not the case for lots of my friends and I wonder why that is. Being unable to sleep is the result of an overactive mind one that cannot switch off. I suppose my mind now is so empty and there are few thoughts in it to keep me awake. I never worry when I go to bed. I can switch off simply and easily.

Yesterday when I was surfing the web I came across a website criticizing my hero Eckhart Tollle. I couldn't believe it but being open minded and not holding fast to any view I read it. There was a lot of what I call mind chatter in it that he is using his mind to understand a no-mind experience but I let that go. But one thing that did resonate was that he criticized Eckhart for going beyond the insights that his experience had given to him. In other words he added to his story claims that were not part of his experience. This resonated with me because it is always something that I am aware of - the danger of making the experiences mean all kinds of things. There is a danger in this. For me I also know that I have done this in the past. Now I am only going to speak about the experiences I had and what life was like for me before and after. This is the only thing that I have any authority over and it is the only thing that this critic couldn't touch Eckhart with. The mind is always going to criticize, that is normal because it cannot have the experience that Eckhart has. I have often written that the days and weeks following a powerful experience where the consciousness shifts is the most vulnerable time for the evolving consciousness. It is at this point with the shift from the external to the internal that the ego also shifts from being a materialistic ego focussed on things external to an internal ego, whose life becomes about sabotaging the emerging soul or spirit.

So finding this website has been a good thing for me. By being rigorous and vigilant and only sharing my experiences and the transformation in my way of being I cannot add anything. I can make assertions and claims but I can never claim to speak the truth about anything....except my own experiences and my own observations. For this I also have the late Manual Schoch to thank who was also rigorous about only speaking from his own experiences and observations. I still miss him and can only imagine how life would be if he was still alive in terms of having a teacher who I could really expand with as he was a mystic, neuroscientist and psychiatrist - the whole package for me and I still miss his loss so deeply.

Now....I must away and go for my train. I will nto be writing another post until Sunday evening..

I got it.....the shift of consciousness that is coming is the shift from left brain to right brain.....

Lying in my bed with an empty mind looking at the sky from my window I was suddenly hit by the realization that the shift of consciousness that is coming is from the left brain which is rational, doing things in sequence, logistical - in short the qualities of mind, to the right brain which is wholistic, works as a synthesis pulling everything together, starts with the big picture and works back. I assert that this is what is going to happen and the shift is going to give rise to a raft of different experiences. It is the shifting of consciousness from left to right brain that characterises the development of a human being. When we begin life as babies up to puberty it is the consciousness of the right brain that is dominant. The development of language stimulates the left brain but it is not until puberty that the consciousness shifts from the right to the left. Then traditionally the left brain dominates and it becomes the mind with its emphasis on reason, logic, doing things in sequence to arrive at the end picture, that becomes dominant. Then into old age the consciousness once again shifts to the right brain as people prepare for death.

What I have intuited is going to happen is that there is going to be a universal shift of consciousness from the left to the right brain and it is this that is going to cause an explosion in spiritual consciousness. I feel so excited as I write this. The insight has come through so clearly this morning and was perfectly formed so there was no working out on my part. So what is there for us as human beings to do to get ready for this shift so that it doesn't overhwelm us? The most important thing is to stay steady. The more we approach 2012 the quicker that all of the institutions that have been created by the left brain consciousness are going to break down. This is not something to be worried or concerned about because what is coming in its place will be unrecognisable in terms of the peace and harmony there will be in the world. The left brain was all about separation, competition and scarcity. The right brain consciousness is all about unity, co-operation and abundance and I for one just cannot wait to be part of this new paradigm. For months now I have been enquiring into how is this shift of consciousness that I know without a doubt is coming, how is it going to manifest and this morning I received my answer.

The potential of the right brain is relatively unexplored territory and I can see it leading to all kinds of amazing discoveries that make life richer and more magnetic for human being. Although whether there will still be the race called homo sapiens after the consciousness has shifted universally has yet to be seen....I believe there will but then again I don't know for sure.

Taking action....is what produces results....not waiting for thoughts and feelings to be favourable before acting...

Instead of waiting until after the weekend to send an email to the online freelance journalism site requesting progress on my article I sent one early afternoon. I didn't want to do anything yesterday except lie in bed but I forced myself out to the gym and once again was very lucky in that there was a bike available due to someone having booked and then not turning up. This time I chose a bike where I had a view out of the window and that made such a difference. I felt so connected to something so kind and strong and also much nearer to me than I have felt before. Whatever this energy is it is definitely becoming more visible...at least to me.

I came home feeling so much better and then called a friend who has been very good to me in the past and shared with her what I was up to. Again the conversation flowed and was great. It is so great for me to compare the quality of my conversations with my friends now compared to what they were in the past. It's like I really hear what they are are saying to me now. I know that this blog is labouring this point but I feel such freedom since I realised what it was that was causing me to feel tense around adults. I've started to receive comments again to my posts and I have suggested that the only thing that is going to shift the consciousness from mind to no-mind is sharing about our experiences not talking about mental concepts. Sharing experiences is something that the mind doesn't understand because it is not the mind that experiences it is the consciousness. This is why the sharing of experiences is resisted by the mind. But it is only by sharing that we will realise the common unity that underlies the illusion of separation.

I have also suggested this as a way of discerning genuine teachers from those who are clever intellectually with regard to mind spirituality. This is in no way meant to be a criticism because deep down, in the heart of everyone is the desire to be happy. For many money has been equated with such happiness and by having elaborate websites which have video footage that pan retreats showing lots of people present there is a danger that the image masks scrutiny over the substance. I am bombarded these days by emails inviting me to this webinair or that about making huge amounts of money and this is just what it seems to be about. It seems to me to have gone crazy and makes it difficult for people to focus on one thing or maybe that is just me because I have so much stuff being thrown at me at the moment.

Just a few mintues ago I received feedback on my article....aagh...it's like I never did a journalism qualification. There is definitely some block on my performance and doing things thoroughly and completely. It's like a fear of doing anything too well but this is ridiculous but in the feedback I see that I just rattled something off quickly, didn't check it properly and then I'm surprised when it comes back as not ready to publish. What is this fear of mine I have around doing something to the best of my ability. I always know after I have done something that I could have done whatever it is better but I have no idea of what it is that is limiting me. Perhaps over this weekend I will have a realization into this as the weekend is all about performance and what it means to perform effectively. I will leave tweaking my article until after the weekend. It means I have less time available to write the other nine articles that are part of each three month contract. Sometimes I would love to be less heavy and write about frivolous things like how to have a pleasant shopping trip or what to put on your hair for it to be healthy. Instead I torture myself writing articles that are so abstract for people. Very few people will put intuition into a search engine. Why? because it doesn't really have any practical purpose for people in life. People are busy enough looking on the internet for tips to make their life easier they are not going to surf for abstract concepts. This is so sad but I understand it is the way life is today and I have also to adapt.

It is going to be a challenge for me to write about the spiritual in a way which is easy and engaging given how complex this area has been in the past. The closest I can get to the way I would like to write and topics I would like to cover is the magazine 'Psychologies' I really like this magazine and as an investment into my online freelance journalism will take out a subscription for a year as it works out cheaper than buying the edition each month. It will also give me lots of ideas for articles which I can then make my own for this Canadian website. I have been impressed by the feedback which has been given to me.

To end this post....I am convinced that it is only by us opening ourselves up and being vulnerable and sharing ourselves and our experiences that the shift of consciousness which is trying to happen is going to happen easily and effortlessly. For too long the mind has held sway with its focus on lofty concepts and intellectual navel gazing it is now time to shift the balance.....we confuse intelligence and intellect....at our peril.

When I lose sight of.....I suffer

What a different day today was. The minute I got to the gym and started to do my warm-up all of the restlessness that I wrote about disappeared. I was so lucky in that 15 mins after I arrived there was a group cycle class which wasn't full and so I joined and gave it everything I got. I could feel the release of the energy from the base of my spine. I can see now the effects of not taking regular exercise. When I don't I start to have strange thoughts and feelings. My comments about 'dark forces' was the result of this energy turning destructive when it doesn't have an outlet for too long. With this energy there is a fine line between awakened/enlightened and psychotic. This is why the only difference sometimes betweent the mystic and the psychotic is who they spoke to! This is because the rising of this energy stimulates areas in the brain which have been dormant which can result in some strange thoughts unless watched very carefully. I must also be aware of that like Gopi Krishna and BS Goel I am living with a risen kundalini and while my symptoms are not as severe when active there is the potential there for the energy to turn this way. Without vigilance I believe that this energy can turn destructive. Hitler had this energy also but maybe because of a lack of awareness of the need to steer and channel this energy through exercise it took a hold of him in such a way as to cause destruction instead of creation, but to Hitler he was engaged in an act of creation - his own.

I don't know for sure this is true but I know how dark my thoughts were getting until I had the release of the exercise. The restless and dark thoughts started when I realised that because of the evening on mindfulness meditation that was already planned I wouldn't be going to the kundalini yoga class and the darkness was a strong message to me not to neglect the necessity of not letting this energy build up without being released. I remember reading among both Gopi Krishna's and BS Goel's book how both of them felt the need for regular exercise also. I forget or neglect this to my peril and I am determined that I am not going to let it happen. I can't the consequences for me would be too painful. This is not giving me a relationship of fear to this energy and its power, its a relationship of responsibility. I have been given the gift of something so precious and I have a responsibility to do all I can to nurture and nourish it so that it acts creatively for the good of all and not in any other way.

Last week a friend called me to say that she was training to be a natural facelift therapist and wanted some people to practice on and asked me if I would be willing. I immediately said yes because this is a lady who used to give me a lift once a week to a seminar we were both doing. The drive back from this seminar was always the same way she would make a point about something and I would argue and while it never got personal I always felt a strain and tension but we never fell out and we parted good friends and had kept in touch by email. Yesterday when I saw her, it was like I saw her for the first time which is how I notice it is with all my friends. What I also saw though in our conversation for the first 20 mins was how on her guard she was and I thought 'I have made her like that with me, nervous and on edge' yet wanting to have me as a friend and my heart somersaulted with compassion for her. Driven by my need to have an irrational belief that I was in danger in the big people's world confirmed, I trained people around me to be defensive and yet the five year old consciousness which I had was endearing to people which is why I have never been short of friends. I felt such love and compassion for her.

I lay down on the table and she started to massage my face. In the past I have had massage but have never been able to let go and trust. This time I let go so completely that I fell asleep!...totally unheard of for me. She made me a cup of tea and the conversation was so different. I danced with her in the conversation, for me anymore there is nowhere to get to, nothing to prove. I can just be with people loving and connected and the experience for me is so lovely compared to what I have been putting love and connection on top of which is fear. Putting something else on top of something else doesn't work and just left me feeling exhausted and in a permanent state of tension. Discovering what is at the base and disappearing that means that what is then created is new and fresh. I have created the 'big people' now to be my best friends and this is what friends and strangers are beginning to be'.

I came back home, checked some emails. Found still no response from the online freelance journalism site to my article. This has confused me a little because they were so quick in approving my application and gave a commitment to get back within 12 hours and I haven't heard anything. I am away for the weekend so if there's nothing by Sunday night I'll get onto it on Monday morning. I then set off for my evening with Lotus on mindfulness meditation. Following the face and neck massage I was so relaxed and the evening was great. There was a lady there who was a committed Christian and was very much in the 'God provides everything' thinking. For some reason I was uneasy with this. I am the first to say that the gift of spiritual awakening is a gift of grace. But from God I'm not so sure. This doesn't feel right for me. From the Divine yes, but from God hm. God to me is a description of the process of creation. It is an acronym (if that is how you spell it) for how the creation is maintained. G - stands for Generation - so a form is generated whether this is human, animal, plant etc; the O - stands for operation in that the form has a limited life during which it has a number of experiences whether consciously or not and finally D- stands for destruction or the demise of the form. This is just an insight I have had, I don't claim it to be the truth but when I feel uneasy about something inside I always look at this. I think that the Divine uses GOD to carry on the creation and maintenance of life. So if this lady had said The Divine in place of God then this would have sat easier with me.

But there was no mistaking the joy in her eyes and voice when she talked about giving her life over to God. She said something that really resonated. She said 'it's not about me, but God'. Take away the last two words and this is exactly what I believe also. It was only at the point where I gave up that the training I am doing is to make me better, different and is about me being powerful so I can make a difference to others, this is when everything shifted and I got the amazing insight into my tension around adults. While it was all about me and wanting the benefits for myself there was only so much that was available. Shift the context from self to others and everything shifted. This isn't surprising really because ultimately we are all connected. It is only the illusion of separation and so when we make it about others, it becomes about us, because of all of us being connected. But it is stronger when it comes about others and being of service and contribution to others before identifying what's in it for me.

I returned home last night tired but feeling so peaceful and at ease. I will go to the gym tomorrow because I know that this is what I have to do to keep healthy. And then I have some homework to complete before I enter into my third weekend of this training which is genuinely not about me anymore. It is not about my performance for me and to make me more effective. It is about my performance in relation to being effective with others to be able to listen and to reliably deliver support for what they are dealing with and what they care about and in the process leave them with more power, freedom, peace or mind and full self-expression. This it me is what it means....to be of service and contribution.....

Still eerily quiet......out there.....

The problems in the world today are because somewhere each of us is failing to take full responsibility for ourselves - Joseph Ryan. The first sentence of this post came from a man who sent me a copy of a paper entitled 'Paper presented to the World Congres on Psychology And Spirituality, 2008 New Delhi, India, 5-8 January 2008 by Meera Sharma & Dr. Joseph F. Ryan - Mind-East&West - Bridging the Gap.

There was much food for thought in this paper. The opening sentence is one I took from this paper because as human beings the one thing we hate to do above anything else is to take responsibility. To take responsibility that we are the creators of the life that we have. This is the ultimate responsibility and is the one most feared by human being. But until each and every one of us can take full responsibility for ourselves nothing else is possible. And taking full responsibility does not involve judgements as to what has been created in the past. Taking responsibility is not about judging or making ourselves or others wrong it is simply about taking responsibility.

Spiritual awakening starts with taking responsibility. When something happens and I get upset it's about taking the responsibility that I am the creator of that upset and looking to see what was missing in me and my way of being that brought about that result. In the past when I used to try to explain this process to people what would come to me were comments like 'ah, you're too hard on yourself' and I think looking back I was because instead of stopping with the simple yet courageous act of taking responsibility I would then go into making myself wrong and this is where I lost my power. There is no loss of power by accepting responsibility, in fact power is gained when we take responsibility.

Call me a bit paranoid but I'm always nervous when I begin to make myself visible because things tend to shift. This morning when I logged onto Facebook there was a letter from the owner about 'proposed changes' to tighten privacy amongst other things. In the past I used to entertain thoughts that everything I write about is known at a much higher level and the Queen once famously referred to 'dark forces'. Every so often triggered by something like this or unable to get into this blog I have a few moments entertaining these kinds of thoughts. But I'm sure that these changes were planned for a while and it's now time to reveal them to the Facebook world community.

My only message is that to awaken spiritually we have to find a way to come out of the mind. As you can imagine what has been reading this over the last few days is the collective mind!...so I have a formidable challenge. The no-mind has not reached a collective mass yet and so I shouldn't be surprised when my comments are not being greeted with open arms. What I write is a challenge for the mind and having operated unfettered for thousands of years which is why we have moved so little spiritually it's now behaving like an angry dragon. It was created to reflect the Self and as a route to Self but somehow it has become distorted from its original purpose. How this has happened and more importantly why I really have no idea. All I can see how the effects of it in terms of the escalation in the suffering which people are experiencing at the moment and the breakdown of structures that were considered permanent, safe and secure.

Waking up again this morning I was restless. I will go to the gym later and see if I can get some relief from this awful feeling of urgency. Then later I have my evening of mindfulness meditation which I will go to. I have to remember that it is only a game...but oftentimes...it feels so much more....

It's all gone really quiet.....on Facebook!

Today has been a strange day. For some reason I have been feeling restless and unsettled since early morning. I haven't received any feedback on the article I sent to the online freelance journalism website but yet they have sent me an email explaining how the site makes its revenue which was very interesting. It appears that it contracts with Google for its adsense facility. This is great because while I had thought of trying adsense on this blog I didn't have the faintest idea of how to go about it. So as long as my articles are up to scratch this will be done for me and any revenue made, I will get a percentage of. This suits me so well given how much I love the unpredictable!

I'm amazed at how quiet it has got on Facebook. I joined two groups - metaphysics and ascension and satsang and spiritual teachers and wrote quite passionate posts for each. So far there have been no comments to anything I have written. I have done a trawl of the websites listed in the satsang and spiritual teachers website and I have been struck by how many of them are long on words and short on experiences and extrapolating from experience which to me is the only proof of authenticity. I came across a website from a Guru who was a bodyguard to Osho in the past. His website lacks nothing in terms of the latest video and audio technology but watching him something just didn't feel right for me. Yet it says in his websight that he experienced a profound inner transformation and clarity which he says 'rearranged all his wires'. It is language like this that frustrates me like nothing else. What exactly does this mean.. How was he different after this experience. Rearranging wires means nothing to me. This is why the only person I consider to be an authentic spiritual teacher is Eckhart Tolle and this is because he is clear about his experience, before, during (to a point) and afterwards. It is this clarity that speaks to me because it is the same clarity I have for my own experience. This is not to say that if Eckhart's experience wasn't like mine that I would doubt Eckhart. I never would because it is the simplicity and the genuiness that resonates with me as being authentic.

I feel a real frustration because I have had the experience but can't seem to write in the way that those I assert have not had powerful experiences can write. They write from the mind, so the words are right, impressive sounding and correct in that I intuitively resonate with them but I can't write in the same way and I am frustrated about this. My writing vis a vis the spiritual is so simple and it is a simplicity that is losing people. I can feel that this is what is happening. In my writing I am trying to bypass mind and get to no-mind but it's naive of me to think that I can do this without the mind getting irritated and I think that this is what has happened with the replies I have posted. Perhaps I have been a bit too straight and a little ego massaging might have been a better way to go. And maybe if the world had more time this is what I would have done. But the stakes are too high and time too short to be anything but straight and direct and take what I get back. But that is the thing at the moment I ain't getting anything back fair or foul.

I posed the question on one of my replies that if all the answers are to be found in the mind when it comes to spirituality how come there has been little or no movement in this area since the days of the great spiritual masters...the silence has been deafening. By posing this question I was trying to see if a bit of logic might create the shift that is necessary for the mind to lessen the control needed for the consciousness to shift. I was sitting at my computer earlier when into my head came the insight 'it is the transformation of ego that results in an awakened consciousness'. This is the reason why when spiritual awakening happens there is 100% consciousness and no ego, the ego has transformed into consciousness so ego is nothing but untransformed consciousness. I don't know that this is true but the insight that came through was so strong that I have to trust that it is.

It is strange how it came through when I am so uncertain of whether or not my approach to dealing with comments on websites is really effective in bringing about the difference I want to make. I had been sitting here wondering whether it is my ego that is the most inflated of them all and feeling really unsure when that insight came through so now all I feel is gratitude that this insight came through at this time. I take it as validation that what I am doing is right for me. This is the nature of the spiritual path when one doesn't have a teacher. Osho's bodyguard went off and found a couple of teachers for himself but this is something I am so reluctant to do. I have the attitude of I've come this far on my own (not quite true, I have my inner guru!)and I am reluctant to seek out any external source who will only give me nice words and phrases for things I already know. There is so much written about the spiritual path on so many websites that it gets really tiring intuitively understanding everything that is written on all of them and not able to write that way myself.

I'm aware writing this that I am very stuck at the moment. I have my third weekend of this training coming up and I am also resisting that. The theme for the weekend is performance and unconcealing what is in the way of being a powerful performer in life and I can tell by the deep feelings of unease and dread that something is awaiting me. I am long enough on this path to recognise the pattern of intense resistance and then freedom. The resistance I liken to an inner battle that is going on which I am not aware of. All I am aware of are its effects as I become tired, irritable and incredibly restless. But I watch all of this with the witness mentality. In that way I don't get absorbed into it and lose my sense of self. This has been important for me to do in all of these kinds of experiences of which I have had many at this stage of the journey. I know that the ultimate aim is the stripping down and getting rid of that which is not, so that that which is can be revealed but it's not an easy process.

Tomorrow is another day and having said that I would go to my kundalini class I realised that my friend Lotus is having a mindfulness evening at Deep Connection which I promised I would support when we first opened the space. I have mixed feelings about mindfulness. It is a much safer path than meditation I feel in that it doesn't cause premature spiritual emergency like meditation can so is better in that regard. But I feel that progress on the path of minfulness is slower but then again...I may be wrong and anyway anything I write in this blog is only me navel gazing I claim none of it to be the objective truth but it is the truth for me based on my experiences....

I've written my first article......as an online freelance journalist...yippee!

This morning I got up so early and wrote my first article for the online website. Just before I dropped off to sleep I had the idea to write the article on intuition. What is it and how reliable is it. Then when I woke up this morning I felt the resistance I always feel when it comes to me writing something new. I am much better replying to posts. I am copying the response I got from a guy to a couple of the replies I posted on Facebook. He says: I have met many other enlightened souls in my life, especially in the current phase of my journey thru this "reality", you are very exceptional among those that I have encountered. You possess a strong depth of understanding of spiritual matters with a high level of spiritual energy.' It is feedback like this that will keep me keeping on

I didn't write to the word count deadline because I want to see the kind of feedback the article will receive and I know that my picture suggestions were not good. This is an area that I struggle with how to find and download pictures. It was part of the design module of my journalism course and the design part was what I struggled with the most but my friend Lotus is brilliant on finding pics so I will go over to her and get some extra tuition. The online website has great tutorials also which I can study to get myself better and up to speed. The rate of pay is 2.5p a word and this morning I wrote 500 words in less than an hour which resulted in a huge degree of satisfaction. I am getting paid for doing what I love and it's not coming out of ordinary people's pockets, this to me is integrity. The challenge for me now is to up my game for every article. I have been guaranteed feedback on the article in less than 24 hours and I cannot submit another until the feedback has been received so it's run quite tightly which is good.

I had a look at the articles that are already there on spiritual stuff and was disappointed when I saw a recent one on kundalini and the chakras. This means that I have to wait a while before submitting a similar article so between getting together ideas for my at least ten articles for three months, and scouring metaphysical and spiritual websites to leave comments on to expand my profile I'm a busy little bee. But I have never felt so fulfilled and happy.

I am aware that I haven't been to a kundalini yoga class in a while and am beginning to miss it. I know that there is one close to where I live on Wednesday evenings and as there is no toastmasters evening tomorrow I am going to schedule it in my diary to go. I feel this energy moving spontaneously within me and want to get back into a proper context for it to be at its most strongest and powerful. The comment that was made about my 'high level of spiritual energy' is not me but this energy that is moving through me.....I never lose sight of that..not for a moment...

Things are moving now....really quickly....

Today was such a wet and miserable day that I spent all day on computer research. I did a trawl of online freelance journalism and came across what I thought was a professional site called suite101.com. I got the application form and I had to submit two 400 - 600 non-fiction articles and some blurb about me and then I would hear whether or not I would be approved as a contribution writer for the website. I did all this and sent it off. One hour later I got an email confirming that I have been approved as a writer for this site. The rate of pay is not good but it is a start and if the articles are good enough I can apply for a position as a feature writer in my area which is in the area of spiritual awakening so I am very excited. The terms of the contract are that I have to provide 10 articles over a three month period of between 400 - 800 words including pictures and captions.

I will have an editor who will review what I submit and give me feedback and will be building up a relationship which is good because this site doesn't accept one-off articles. I like this because it means that I can build up a reputation as an expert in this field. On my profile on the site I put a link to my blog but I cannot link the articles to the blog. The copyright for those articles remains with suite101 - it's a good job that I'm not precious about my work. I can write more than 10 articles so obviously the more I write and are accepted the better I will be financially but what means far more to me than that is that I will be earning money doing something I love and am passionate about which is writing. So with that and writing for Wellbeing magazine although this is unpaid at present....things that have never moved for me in this area are now moving.

It is amazing how all of this has happened since I discovered the irrational belief I had that big people were a danger to me. Before I saw this it was ridiculous to think that I could ever have been successful in the land of the 'big people'. Now all of that is gone and it's like the energy that was blocked has now been freed and big things are happening for me. From this discovery I also see just how powerful is that part which doesn't want us to be powerful or self-expressed, hence the importance of 'know thyself'. Without such self-knowledge human beings are no more than pawns on a chessboard.....

Ive been causing quite a stir.....on Facebook...

I can see the difference in how I think and write when I am writing this blog without any goal other than to interest my readers and when I am writing on Facebook in response to a post. There is an energetic aliveness in my writing. I am sending the Facebook link to posts where I have commented. http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=572649381&ref=ts. I hope this works because I haven't done it before.

I am also in conversation with a man called JC Mac who had a completely unexpected spiritual emergency as he was hanging up the telephone. I particularly like responding to his posts because he resonates to me as being more authentic about what one goes through on the spiritual path to awakening the consciousness. I heard him speak in London about his experience which he has written about on Facebook and I was struck by just how bewildered the whole experience has left him. This is the danger with an unpremeditated, unexpected profound spiritual emergency, it shatters the consciousness and what there is to do is to integrate the experience back into the conscoiusness so that there is a completeness and a wholeness not the kind of dissociation that I saw from JC Mac. I feel such compassion for him because he is going through it the hard way.

Eckhart Tolle was very lucky in how smooth his shift of consciousness to spiritual awakening was. But he stayed steady with the shocking thought to the mind of 'I cannot live with myself any longer, am I one or two, who is I who is myself'. He didn't push this away and the result was a loss of consciousness for him and a spiritual transformation when he woke up. Others like JC Mac are not so lucky in that their way seems to be more torturous. But this is just what it appears like. HIs consciousness has also shifted and is going on its journey naturally. It is the mind that has the memory of an experience which it senses is a threat to its safety and this is why it is obsessed with finding a reason for why it happened so it can defend itself should it happen again. But the irony is that there is nothing to protect or defend. This is the ultimate realization - there is nothing to protect and defend - why? because there is nothing. I don't mean nothing in the sense of annihilation. I mean nothing in the sense that all the awakened consciousness is is a space where anything can be created. In the beginning there was nothing and then there was the Word and from this came creation. I am not religious and I don't know why that biblical quote came to me but it seemed important so I have included it.

I think it is the importance of the Word which makes keeping our word and having integrity so important for the development of the spiritual consciousness. We are not our thoughts and feelings, they come and go. What we are is our WORD, we are solely what we said we would do when we said we would do it. And when we can't keep our Word we go to those affected and explain that we can't now keep our word and we re-commit. In this way we are being true to the essence of our creation which is....THE WORD...

How life alters when the context within which it is lived shifts....

KNOW THYSELF
Seek not outside yourself for what rests quietly within.
Look to no one else to tell you what you are.
It is sufficient to know what you are not.
Ask but this, What Am I?
Notice that you Are.
Abide in That.

I came across the first paragraph and it resonated so strongly with me that I just had to put it in this blog post. I have spent most of this afternoon going through all of the blogs that focus on spiritual awakening and I have been amazed. Firstly that there is only 67 blogs dealing with this topic out of a total of 853,799 blogs circulating. Of these 67 more than half don't have up-to-date posts. But I don't think this is an accurate picture as there is no mention of this blog! But what has struck me most are the number that are 'invitation only'. This has both irritated and intrigued me. I was reminded of the secrecy around the Freemasons and there is something in the human psyche that gets a little more interested when you're fully expecting to gain entry and you get a message saying 'invitation only' especially if the blog title is particularly appealing as in the case of one - journey of spiritual awakening. I haven't finished going through them all yet but of those I have gone through I have been struck by all the advertising and marketing there is on them. I think I am beginning to understand the real power of the internet now.

I have some ideas of where I am going to take this but until they are more definite I will continue with this blog in this format for the time being. One thing I have noticed is that as I thought there aren't any blogs that are as personal as this one. I came close to one which is similar and that is http://intendawakening.blogspot.com/ and within that there is another link 'journey to happiness'. Given the small amount of research I have done I have a number of options available for how me and this blog could go forward. I will be meeting my friend Lotus to discuss options. She is doing something similar to see how many blogs have as their focus mindfulness. I have also been active on commenting on spiritual posts on Facebook and have received a number of 'friend requests' as a result which is good for me in building up a profile.

For this blog to be seen as an expert in the field of spiritual awakening it has to stop being all about me. I am trying to show a process but some blogs are doing the same solely by using quotes from well known spiritual teachers and nothing else - a lovely designed website with quotes. I think I'm doing well I've finally worked out how to upload an image so am going to experiment with layout and making it more visually attractive. I have a loyal following on this blog and I have done for many years which I am very grateful for and I don't want to lose one reader. I want this blog to be what YOU the reader feels is worthy of the time you spend here. If you have ever thought 'I wish she would do x or y or wouldn't do x,y!, then please send a comment back and when I am putting together my list of options, I will consider all comments. There is no obligation on anyone to do this so don't feel under any pressure. Having seen just how little there is around that is understandable (is that me being arrogant!) I am really excited about what is going to be possible.

I am so clear now and incredibly grateful that my context for how I communicated with adults has shifted. Last night I was out with friends who I hadn't seen for almost a year and I was so relaxed and happy. We all went to a jazz club and the drummer was just amazing. I used the power of the band to be quiet and to really thank whatever process I am going through where I am slowly but surely being returned to nothing. All that is 'not me' is being peeled away and soon I will be back to nothing where everything is possible. After the band we all went to another pub and I got chatting to this guy who I had never seen before and there was none of that tension or unease that I have often written about in this blog. The conversation flowed and was easy without anywhere to get to. I was so amazed at the difference. It's also showing itself in my writing in that there is nothing to protect anymore and so I can be and am! fully self-expressed when it comes to a view on spiritual awakening and the shift of consciousness that characterises spiritual awakening.

I do assert though that what I write is not the truth just how it occurs for me but it's really fun to go to long deep philosophical posts that are unintelligible (at least to me) and cut through them with a couple of short succinct sentences - it's giving me a strange kind of thrill and challenge.....

Tomorrow I must write an article for Wellbeing magazine on mindfulness promoting the evenings and my evenings on spiritual awakening. What is still lacking for me though on the spiritual awakening evenings is a structure that people can benefit from. I don't feel authentic in that I don't have the means to rise the energy that enables spiritual awakening so I'm asking myself is being practical really my niche or is my niche really focussing on writing ebooks that break new ground in spirituality. Although there is no new ground to be broken in spirituality because it is the one ancient Truth but maybe there is ground to be broken in making it accessible in a way that it hasn't been before. What this is going to call on me to do though is to be a spiritual leader.....and come out of the shadows....

Am feeling so...calm and connected now...

I woke this norning full of joy and delight for the coming day. I went downstairs to make a cup of tea which is my ritual first thing in the morning, forget your tea and lemon and my landlady was in the kitchen. The glow that comes when one has a powerful insight that shifts the context within which life occurs was still there - she was beaming and it was the early morning!. This from a lady who told me that she had never woken up one morning happy. In line with my new policy that 'less is more' I just greeted her with a smile and she did the same. She told me of all the plans she had for the day and was so excited and alive with life. Slightly amused at this totally unexpected turn of events I carried my tea back upstairs.

I sat down at my computer to write my daily blog as I feel my writing is far clearer and sharper when I write in the morning. I seem to need a good seven hours of sleep so I rarely write my blog at night. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the second of the landlady's cats come into the room. Millie is a shy cat who doesn't usually bother with anyone so to have her in my room and even though she was scared and kept looking at me in quite a nervous way I felt quite privileged. I finished my blog and while writing it realised that I am quite at the mercy of blogspot who provides the space for this blog. I made a mental note to speak to my friend Lotus about putting together a proper website where I could have a newsletter about all kinds of insights I get from other sites as well as my own. I have also realised just how limited this blog is in terms of knowing what other blogs are out there that deal with the same subject matter than me. Although I can almost see my chiildhood friend smirking and saying to himself 'there is no other blog like this out there, this blog is barking'! and that is also something to be proud of.

I realise also that in the past I didn't want to make myself visible because my unfounded perceived threat I had towards people. Now all that is gone I want to be as visible to as many people as possible. That is why I have started making comments on spiritual/philosophical posts and this morning I was so surprised at the number of comments I got back including one from a woman who said 'I've only just realised you are an esteemed author'...wow...this is amazing and I now have the confidence and self-assurance of one who has found their niche and has the credibility to use my insights, intuitions, knowledge and experience to make a difference to the spiritual dimension of peoples' lives - everything else will follow. I feel sure and certain about that now. The ease of my writing and how well I understand what others write convinces me of this.

I packed up my case and went to see my friend Lotus who gave me a link to a really good website for writing blogs. I began reading it and it's from there that I got the idea to research other blogs of this nature and identify where the gaps are and to develop a website that would be a magnetic one-stop shop for those seeking to develop the spiritual dimension. I am so inspired by this and by having Lotus as my friend and partner. I know though that her path of mindfulness is not the way that I am going to go. Spiritual awakening and the shift of consciousness is what speaks to me. This morning when I woke up I had the urgent thought that I had to pay money for my day of Transcendental Meditation. It seemed important to find the information and my inner prompting wouldn't give me any respite until I found it. When I looked to see the balance due date I couldn't believe it when I saw it was today. I called up and paid the remainder and now am set to learn the technique of TM. I had some concerns that it might conflict with the training I am already doing and which I am committed to finishing and I don't want to do anything to dilute that power. It is like the sun is most powerful when it shines on one spot and this is how I view the training I am currently doing. I sent an email to be clear that to do this day would be in integrity with my current training and I didn't receive a response which I am taking to be a YES.

I arrived in London for what was a very powerful classroom last night and tomorrow is going to be a full day as I do some of the presentations which are going to go towards whether I make it to go on to be a leader for children and young people. Then I have a nights socialising as it is my good friends birthday so it's going to be a lovely night which I am really looking foward to..so there is likely not to be a blog entry until Sunday night......I promise...it will be worth the wait....

Follow your heart....and your dreams will follow....

The title of this blog post is the business card of a woman who makes her own jwellery out in Ibiza. We got chatting on the platform while waiting for the train. From the moment I saw her I felt a strong connection. She was the same age as me with long striking auburny/chestnut hair. She told me that she had moved to Spain 18 years ago with her husband and two daughters because she wanted her daughters to have a childhood and to have their innocence for as long as possible. Speaking with her I was so inspired with her vision for what she wants to create with her jewelry expecially her move into making spiritual jewelry of the angels. In the past I would have been sceptical of such a move seeing it as a purely commercial and materialistic gesture. But I have shifted so far in the speed at which I form views and opinions that all I want to do now is to listen to people and be connected and related to them, My station stopped arrived and I said goodbye and walking up the stairs to get out I had the warmth that only connection and relatedness without there being anything to get can bring.

Today was such a different day to yesterday. I woke early and felt a deep gratitude for the next 24 hours which are given to me as a gift every day. I had a call with my buddy who told me that he has just lost a very good friend to a heart attack. I know the pain of that having not so long ago lost my good friend Tracey. Instead of giving him platitudes I listened to the contribution this friend had given to my buddy and was struck by the deep love and sadness. I am sure that I have been spoken to with love and compassion but I only feel like I am really hearing and connecting very recently. I finished my call and went to the gym. Once I am exercising I can visibly feel myself relaxing and it appears that I have more space to think. There has been a lot written about the power of exercise for releasing the feel good chemicals called endorphins in the brain and it could be something to do with this but I find that living with a risen spiritual awakening energy that I can feel a build up of pressure that sooner or later I will find myself in the gym. I am particularly lucky in that the gym I joined has a sister gym (the only gym in the area!) so I could transfer my membership quickly and easily. I also like this new gym more. The weights area is not so testosterone filled!

I returned home and as I am away for the whole weekend went to the launderette. This is a completely new experience for me and the first time was a challenge as I tried to work out the machine, settings, money and time. Today when I went in there was a lovely old woman in there who the minute she saw me started to complain about how dirty the machines were. I just listened and allowed her to speak. She was drying some sheets and after a couple of minutes opened her dryer and asked me if I would fold her sheets with her. I was reminded of folding sheets with my mum, holding it out full, then folding it and then folding it again and then walking towards her. There was something hugely comforting in being a contribution and helping the woman to do this. She then started talking to me about how she doesn't see her grand-children and with a glint said 'but I have a will, not very much money, but I would rather give it to charity or friends that are good to me then family who don't appreciate me' and as she spoke her face became sad and bitter. I thought again about the First Noble Truth of the Buddha - that everything is suffering and was reminded anew at the truth of it. Everyone is carrying something, the nature of life is suffering. To accept this is to take the first step to have power over it.

I came home thinking about how productive my day has been up to then. OK I am not working in an official capacity but I have never felt so happy and at peace with myself. The days fly by and I enjoy every moment and that to ne is being in integrity. I know that in time I will make a living by being in 100% integrity which is what my vision is. I am meeting my friend tomorrow to discuss ideas for a couple of e-books which I can do very quickly now that the lid is firmly off my self-expression. I already have a couple of ideas and I have been given the website addresses for people who can make it happen. I have had confirmation that my book is definitely going to be translated into Hindi and Gujerati and so the next book is going to be an e-book which will be more practical. My days are full and I feel vibrant and alive. This to me is living a life that is in integrity.

I am doing a presentation on Saturday and so I did some work on that. Then I went onto Facebook and a couple of weeks ago I read a comment on reality by someone who I think has quite a following. The comment was quite complicated and so I commented breaking it down to be more simple and easily understoood. The result of this was a short conversation on chat on Facebook which I soon gave up on because I couldn't see where he was coming from and it occurred to me as all mind chatter. Using the mind to understand spiritual truths is never going to be effective. It is like the thief turning detective to catch a thief and now everywhere I find it operating I challenge it by writing short and succinct comments. I did this yesterday to a comment he had written on the nature of reality and after reading it felt compelled to write simply that 'reality is a series of moment by moment events whereby we can choose our responses' I wrote some more but it was much simpler than what he had written. The result of this has been two responses from people I didn't know saying that they liked what I had written in response to what I gather is a kind of guru type person. It takes vigilance not to be taken in by long, philosophical words and terms that while sounding good only satisfy the mind. I am trying to shift the consciousness from mind to no-mind... that is where the holy grail of enlightenment is to be found.

It's late now and I have written a lot in this blog post but it is important for the purpose of this blog to be honest about the way the spiritual journey is occuring for me - it is as this blog demonstrates....a mix between the profane, the profound and the ridiculous.....