Obsessed.....with integrity...and getting more so

Last night I went to my 2nd kundalini yoga class. It was the same teacher as I had on Sunday and she had a beaming smile for me. I told her how I had felt so relaxed after Sunday and she just smiled....maybe she knows more than I have given her credit for. I did bodypump for an hour before because again I wanted to strengthen up my body, but during it I was restless and didn't want to push myself too hard. It was like I was saving myself for the yoga. This is very unusual for me because I absolutely love bodypump but my mind and attention just wasn't there. It didn't help that the person taking it wasn't too sure of what to do as evidenced by him having a manual. So different to the instructor in London who was so confident and made the class such fun. I do miss him. Bodypump over...the kundalini class began and to my delight the exercises were different to Sunday. They were mostly lower body exercises again to awaken the dormant energy at the base of the spine but they felt easier for me to get into a meditative rhythym with. My body seemed to know what to do without any input from me. Occasionally I had my usual thought 'am I doing this right', but immediately let that go and surrendered to the exercise and to where my body wanted to go with it.

In the middle of one of these exercises I suddenly had this flash of insight from where, I don't know that what we call karma is the result of the law of integrity. I am absolutely convinced that there is a law of integrity, where I had been struggling was to know where it showed itself. I knew that there is always an impact when I break my word or don't do what I said I would in terms of how the law of integrity works but didn't know how. Last night it came through very clearly that karma is the result of actions taken under the law of integrity. But again karma cannot be proven anymore than can the law of integrity but the force with which the insight resonated throughout my whole body has left me with the faith that this is the missing piece of the jigsaw for me with regard to integrity. If I want to reduce the karmic affects of my actions all I have to do is be my word and when I can't, clean it up. The end of karma is the end of re-births or what the Buddhists believe being born again into Samsara or a life of suffering which is what the life of human being is before liberation or enlightenment.

Earlier today I met a lady I am doing a seminar with. It is a 10 week seminar and at the beginning we gave our word to be at all of the sessions. When I met her today she announced that she wasn't going to be at one session and I was aware of a thud in my stomach. This thud was the dismay for this person at the impact of breaking the law of integrity. At that moment I had a choice, I could be liked, or I could be a stand for her to be her word and re-arrange whatever she had allowed to displace her word to be at the seminar. I took a deep breath and dived in with my faith in the law of integrity and the consequences when it is broken and as you can guess the exchange wasn't pleasant. I knew when I did this that what was fighting and arguing back with me wasn't her but her identity that knows that whenever we operate in accordance with the law of integrity it gets weaker. This is why all kinds of temptations come whenever we give our word to something. The strongest and powerful temptation is 'feeling', 'I don't feel like it', 'it doesn't feel right to keep my word'. Everytime we honour our feelings over our word, the identity deepens its grip. What is frustrating about the law of integrity is that the results of breaking it are not obvious or visible or even immediate.

For me, I can recognise the effect because whatever I have broken my word for doesn't turn out the way I expected and so as a rule I keep my word or if I can't, I will get in touch with whoever I have given my word to as soon as I know that I can't now keep it and re-commit. But it needs to be something major for me to go back on my word. I live life like this because it keeps life simple and uncomplicated and it also works.

Yesterday I got the design of my poster back and it's absolutely lovely. I dropped it into the shop and asked once again to see the lady who is renting the room to me; once again I got the run-around. I left the poster and said quite assertively that this is what I intend to do and I will wait for confirmation from her. 10 minutes later my phone rang and it was the lady saying that yes all of my dates except one are OK and she would be back in touch to let me know how much the room is going to cost. So now I have confirmed a one hour talk on my book and a six week meditation course based on the three stages of spiritual enlightenment which has come through so strongly on a number of occasions. What there is for me to do now is to meditate on putting together powerful meditations for each stage of this course. Me talking is not going to give a glimpse of what is possible when a space of stillness and Presence is created, it is what those present experience that is going to make the difference.

Life these days....is like being on a rollercoaster...... but I feel so alive.....

What I have to learn more than anything.....is patience

The spiritual path more than any other has events that happen to test just how committed one is. I declared on this blog yesterday that I was going to go to the kundalini yoga session in the gym this morning. Last night I was walking along the seafront listening to a motivational tape on my gorgeous new ipod when I got a phone call. It was from someone who is already doing the leadership course that I am starting in August. The call was to invite me to an orientation day for this course for today. Immediately I was thrown into the dilemma of my burning desire to be the leader for children and young people and the promise I had made to attend this class. I had a momentary panic but then knew immediately what my choice was going to be, I was going to do what I said and go to the kundalini yoga class. I thanked the woman who had generously invited me and hung up the phone. I smiled to myself thinking just how typical this kind of thing is when one is committed to following a spiritual path.

I walked for a long time along the seafront listening to a tape talking about the importance of self-control which is no more than the control of thoughts for achieving success and wondered for the umpteenth time about how I am going to create the inspiring life that I desire so badly. I realise now that desire is not a dirty word, it is the creative force which makes things happen. I returned home and my flatmates cat decided to attach herself like a limpet to me for the rest of the evening.

This morning I woke up before my alarm clock and my first thought was 'kundalini yoga' and I felt a deep sense of apprehension. I meditated for half an hour and then got ready to go to the gym. I was going to exercise before the yoga to build my body up...but for what...I didn't know. There wasn't that many people when I got to the gym and so I started my routine by running. Gradually people started to arrive and go into the studio for the yoga. 10 mins before the class was due to begin I went into the room. I had been told that it was popular so I wanted to get a prime spot on the floor! When I went in I saw the teacher who was very young and dressed in white, with even a white turban which she was rolling around her head as I walked up to her. This reassured me that there was a respect for the amazing fire which would be attempted to be awakened and I felt more at ease. The teacher smiled at me and I went up to her. After the pleasantries of 'hello' I blurted out quite forcefully 'have you experienced the kundalini energy'. She looked shocked and something in me said not to say anymore. I laughed it off by saying that I had tried hatha and kundalini was something that I was curious about. This was true, but more to the truth was that I was incredibly apprehensive of it. She told me she had been teaching for three years and then came the information which made sense. She told me that she was covering for the main teacher who was away for the next two weeks. When she said the teacher's name I was amazed because a few days ago I had taken down the name and number of a lady who was doing three hour kundalini workshops and I had intended to call her just to have a chat. Turns out that it is the same lady who does the kundalini yoga sessions at the gym. There is no need for me to call her now I will meet her in a couple of weeks.

While I was running I had the clear idea that what I want to do is to share my own path of spiritual development, not be just another meditation teacher. Once again the three stages to spiritual enlightenment which came through to me very clearly some time ago were there again. This is my purpose to teach this path through its three stages. I wasn't achieving anything promoting myself as a meditation teacher because that had no definite purpose. Developing meditations to suit each stage of this path and holding courses on this, has a definite purpose and inspires me far more. These stages are definite and real for me and it is that conviction that is going to inspire people to take them on for themselves.

The yoga session started with a chant and then began the exercises. Most of them were to awaken the dormant energy which is said to lie at the base of the spine. Some of them were intense especially the ones that were like sit-ups I was in complete agony and realised that my core stability needs some serious work! I was surprised that there was very little pranayama breathing, it was mostly exercises to shake awake this energy. A few times during the exercises I found myself asking myself 'am I doing this right' which is something I always do in yoga classes because I don't enjoy yoga but when I let that go, I really enjoyed it. I finished the class really relaxed and with a clear and definite purpose and resolved that I would go regularly to the Sunday one and also to the Tuesday evening one.

I suddenly realised that the dates I had tried to confirm with the shop were for Tuesday evenings. Is this the reason why the shop had not got back to me, that I am not meant to do this course on Tuesday evening. I know that this might be stretching the bounds of imagination and I can just imagine my good friend if he is reading this sighing and saying 'oh for God's sake, stop reading into things' but on this path and without a teacher it is what you have to do if you're not to miss the next opportunity. So if it's appearing like this to the reader, have patience and stick with me! I also need to learn patience. I was so impatient, angry and annoyed that the lady of the shop hadn't returned my call that the thought that the time was not right never entered my head. Now, I saw the possibility for why Tuesday evening is not going to be a good evening to do this course.

After breakfast I went for a walk and passed the shop. On impulse I went in and saw another woman. I explained about all the messages I had left and she was great. What I saw is that they are waiting for me to decide the dates and put them on a poster and they will rent me the room for those nights. Me making this big drama about having to have the dates confirmed before I could do anything else was all in my head. Or was it also a case of timing. Having the insight into the new spiritual course I have developed that I can now run a course on this instead of doing what has been done before and running a standard meditation course. This has shifted something for me. I had to re-visit this three stage road to spiritual enlightenment and own it and become enthused about it before doors could once again open.

So now I have put together some wording for the poster. I have changed the evening of the course to Thursday evening and I have sent it off to someone who has agreed to design the poster for me. I think what has made the difference is that when I woke up this morning I created the possibility of abundance being easy and quick and that is definitely what has showed up so far today.....and the day is far from over. I was also struck by a Tweet yesterday which I am going to reproduce here. It came from Steve Nobelious who I have known for many years ' Do not follow where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail'. With the route to enlightenment I have devised, there is definitely no already existing path and in this lies its excitement for me.

I am also really happy and excited for another reason. I have received an email from Harry who I have often acknowledged on this blog and he has told me that he is going to write up his experience 'Opening the heart - life training experience' and post it on this blog. This has just made my day and I can't wait to read it. I feel privileged that he is going to post it here and I feel sure that it is going to touch, move and inspire all of us who read it.

Sometimes.....I really feel like I am going mad

I was very down after my talk and I think I have realised that this is not as easy as I thought it would be. I'm slowly waking up to the possibility that the powerful experience I had on that meditation retreat in Devon was a gift of grace for me alone and I am not expected to do anything with it except to be me. I thought for such a powerful experience which shifted everything a grand gesture was expected of me in return which was to give up a job I had no integrity with to do what I thought had integrity. I know from how much I enjoyed the evening that I had integrity but this is not going to pay my rent so I now have to seriously consider a job and within that to have integrity regardless of whether or not I like it. I think I can do that because the nagging thought of having this experience and not doing anything with it except playing safe in a safe job is not there anymore and I feel much more free.

I am going to do one more thing and that is to make a video of this experience and upload it to You Tube. I met with a friend for lunch who has a small film company and explained to him what I wanted to do and to my delight he has agreed to do it for me. So I am going to write the script and he will record and upload it for me. He is away for the next couple of weeks and then I am away in Ireland for two weeks so it will be almost the end of August before it happens. Having agreed this I felt a great sense of peace and calm come over me. There will be a record and people can make of it what they will. I think video records are very powerful. I came across a You Tube clip of Jane Roberts who channelled a non-physical entity called 'Seth'. Years ago I read all of these books and gained a great deal from them. Actually seeing Jane Roberts channel Seth was a fascinating experience. It was obvious to me that she was channelling unlike some of the modern day people who purport to channel non-physical entities.


After I said goodbye to my friend, I went on a trawl of all the recruitment agencies and everywhere I went, it was the same story. It's grim out there. One agency showed me an A4 page of vacancies and that was all they had. Within that though there was a vacancy for a telephone fundraiser for a charity. This appeals to my sense of wanting to have a purpose and make a difference in my next job. It asked for a 'pleasant telephone manner' which I think I have and with all the training I have received am aware of the human tendancy to make people wrong and so this training will stand to me if I get as far as an interview. Feeling more positive I returned home and emailed my CV over to the agency. An out-of-office response reassured me that the silence would have nothing to do with my ability to do this job. What is also important is that I can have flexi hours so that I can commit to the training to be a leader for children and young people. The study support manager position won't happen because I called up and explained that I would be away for when the interviews were scheduled and would they be prepared to make my interview a week later if I was shortlisted. The lady was very nice but the answer was no so that door shut firmly.


Walking home I saw a gym that is only a couple of streets away from where I live. I have often seen it as I passed by but this time the urge was strong to go in and inquire about membership. Since leaving london I haven't gone to the gym even though I have run along the seafront which is beautiful but I don't feel that it's enough. The lady took me through the facilities and I asked to see the studio timetable because my interest is mainly in spin and bodypump. When I glanced at the studio timetable I couldn't believe it when I saw listed among the classes was kundalini yoga - is this why I was drawn so strongly to come to the gym. Is it time for me to put myself in the dragons den because the kundalini is the fire of the dragon. It is what I thought I experienced up to recently. It is unusual for a gym to be doing this kind of yoga and something in me was very strong to sign up. I asked about membership rates and was delighted when the lady told me that there was no joining fee and they were doing a special offer for £50 a month. Living so close I will get the use of it and it will be a welcome release when not so positive thoughts appear in my mind. It will also be very interesting doing the kundalini yoga also. I signed up and requested an induction as soon as possible. The inducation was yesterday and afterwards I spent two hours there, running and doing a bodypump class and I felt so good afterwards. I did another bodypump class this morning and will be doing my first kundalini yoga class tomorrow morning at 10am.



When the fitness instructor took my body weight and percentage of skeletal muscle she was shocked at how fit I am. I can't take credit for this I know that the experience on that meditation retreat renewed me physically. If I hadn't had that experience I am sure that these readings would be the same as the national average. The power of that experience strengthened my body and calmed down my nervous system. As an example the average percentage of skeletal muscle for the average female is 28%, for the average male it is 37%. My percentage is 37.6%. The higher the muscle the more energy that is burned. I take no credit for this it is as a result of the energy that rose from the base of spine on a meditation retreat, went to my brain and came to rest in my heart. It is to this that I give all credit. I haven't been to the gym since I moved from London which is six months so there is something else at play that this has not become fat which is what I think happens when muscles are not exercised


I have some fears about doing the kundalini yoga tomorrow morning but something is also driving me on to do it. It is interesting that the class is first thing in the morning. From my experience of this energy it is more like a fire than an energy and my reservations up to now to not deliberately raise it is that it is incredibly powerful and unless the body and mind are ready and strong enough to receive it, it can lead to all kinds of uncomfortable symptoms. What this rising energy felt for me was like the unblocking of all emotional energy so that life began to flow and had an ease and a grace and my communications with myself and others were magical. I suddenly had an immediate understanding of spiritual truths and there was no longer any learning involved. But nobody has ever told me for definite that this was a kundalini experience which is why tomorrow morning is going to be very interesting.



My apprehension comes from the awe and respect I have for this power. But I must also trust that there is a reason why I am being drawn to it. This is what I mean about the title of this post. Without a teacher or guru and committed to this path I have to be aware and vigilant over messages that come to me from the universe. It is no co-incidence that I live so near this gym and it is offering kundalini yoga as part of the membership. If I had a teacher or guru chances are that it is what would be attempted anyway because it is the quickest way to shift consciousness. What I must be careful of is not to interfere with what the teacher is doing. I may speak with him/her afterwards to see how much direct experience he/she has had. I really can't understand how someone can teach something that h/she has had no experience of. I think if people really understood the power of this energy and what happens when it rises in the mind and body of someone who is not mentally or spiritually strong enough it wouldn't be as common as it is now in the west. The first book I read on this subject was by Gopi Krishna called 'Living with Kundalini' and what I read in that convinced me that this wasn't a fire to be messed with lightly. So.....tomorrow morning will be a test for me.



What is strange also is that after the meditation evening I had half thought that this journey was over. I honestly didn't know what else to do and now here...the next step has presented itself.....or else that is the way that I am now interpreting this strong urge to sign up to be a member of this gym.....

When the past and the present collide...

Before my talk I visited the local library to try to borrow Eckhart Tolle's book 'The Power of Now'. I wanted this because the experience he recounts of his bedroom epiphany is the closest thing I have read to my own experience. Unsurprisingly the book was already out and there was a long reserve list for it. Browsing the shelves my attention was drawn to a book entitled 'Introducing Buddha'. Feeling a strange compulsion I took it to the automated book borrowing desk and after some frustrating minutes managed to ascertain from the slip which emerged from the machine orifice that leaving the library would not set off every alarm in the place. When I got home I started to read it. I was amazed when one paragraph in particular grabbed my consciousness and I thought to myself 'it is the same realization in the day of the Buddha and for me today. I am going to replicate this paragraph.

Buddha says 'People are ignorant of their true nature and that ignorance causes them to suffer over and over again. I too have been caught up in the same mechanical process. The being which I believed in was a fictional construction. I have a name, a personal history, memories, thoughts, emotions, dreams; but when I look they are quite illusory. What I have been looking for has never been lost, either to me or to anyone else. There is nothing to attain and no longer any struggle to attain it. The projections of my mind are in essence empty. It is like a raindrop merging into the vastness of the ocean. Or like a cloud disappearing in the sky, arising from space and dissolving into space' .

This to me is the clearest explanation of the identity which I have asserted human being mistakes for their real self. Freedom comes when the consciousness is freed from identifying with the identity (if that makes sense). What is it going to take to have human being realize this not simply intellectualise it. Writing this I feel such frustration that Buddha realized this and yet the world continued as it was.....feel like really giving up tonight....

There was one person....at the talk last night...

And that person was as important to me as if there were 100. I saw also how much I enjoyed leading a meditation and how relaxed I also became in the process. It was very rewarding seeing how calm and relaxed the lady became. The toughest part of the evening was when the mind awoke sensed the danger to its survival and started plying me with questions about the different traditions and the different kinds of meditation. While I understand how threatening the mind finds this and the way it copes is to try to make something simple complicated, I really had to bite my tongue and give theoretical answers to theoretical questions. In her struggle I saw all too clearly the struggle of human being. I was filled with compassion and gratitude for her. The trust that she gave to me last night, to a stranger, to take her through a guided meditation and be with everything that came up for her took real courage and I acknowledged her for that.

Where does all of this leave me? The only reason why I ever took on this path was to show that I wasn't ashamed of an experience I had and that I would have the courage to share about it. That I wouldn't stay in a job that I felt I had no integrity with and I would stop playing safe and give up everything to take a chance because of the amazing physical, mental, emotional and spiritual transformation this experience provided. I have done that now. Does it mean that my path in life is to share this experience daily on an on-going basis, maybe not. Maybe all it means is for me to be myself and trust that the state of mind will impact on people without me actively going out to make it happen. Does this mean that I am giving up, not at all. The lady last night gave me her email details and I will begin talking to people and see what develops. Maybe the time is not right and what I have to focus on now is getting a job that I will have integrity with and enjoy. That is more important to me than anything, to have integrity in the work that I do because I understand integrity to be the foundation for power.

But I am returning to Ireland for two weeks in August so there is little point in me looking for a job before that. Yesterday I had a look at the Council website and saw that there is a job going for a study support manager to be part of the children's and young people's team and I am going to apply for this. Because I am soon going to be starting my training to be a leader for children and young people it makes sense for me to try to get a job with young people. I feel that I would get good job satisfaction from this kind of position. I will complete the job application today. The interview date is scheduled for 18 August which would be a problem if I was to get selected for interview because I will be in Ireland. But that's a while down the line yet.

I also got the results of my NCTJ exams and I got all of them. A little disappointed with the result for the news exam because it was the module I always performed well in, in class but at least I got it which is a big relief. The choice for me now is whether or not to knuckle down with the shorthand and take the exams again in six months time. At the moment the prospect is not attractive. Finding a job that I have integrity with is the priority now. I can also consider taking up some freelance work, if I put my mind to coming up with some issues for articles.

I haven't heard from the lady about confirming the dates for the meditation course either but now instead of the annoyance I felt yesterday, this morning I feel an ease. Maybe this is not the way I am to use the experience, maybe it is solely for me, a gift of grace which is with me always and which others can feel. If I am to be honest I do feel uncertain and unsure...a kind of dark night for me so it was really reassuring when I read a Tweet from Harry which I hope he doesn't mind but I am going to reproduce here because it lifted my spirits this morning: 'claiming the dark times as grace is the work most of us fail to do. That is the reason there is so much darkness, we need the practice'. And this is so true for me....thank you Harry

Feeling both...scared and excited about tonight

Tonight I give my first talk here in Brighton. I've been so restless and unsettled all day today. Yesterday I tried to get hold of the woman who suggested using a room above a shop for a meditation course to confirm the dates so that I could get a poster designed. I left countless messages and visited the shop three times but the silence has been deafening. What I am getting a sense of is that while Brighton is a good place for things alternative, most have their own clients and I am seen as competition. I supposed I should have expected this. I think what I have to do is to begin to build up a database from giving one-off talks and not saying too much about myself when I book rooms and then when I have enough people interested, then to start a course. It doesn't look like I am going to be given this room above the shop for a course in September.

All this has left me wondering what my purpose is now down here. I'm not going to make any choices yet until I see how this evening goes. There are at least three people confirmed to be there and my commitment is for them to experience a deep inner peace and contentment. I have planned out the format for the evening which is going to be largely experiential because it is experience more than words that shifts consciousness. The only thing words satisfy is the mind and tonight I am committed that each person who is there experiences a glimpse of no-mind. I have no idea how this is going to happen but I am creating that the possibility that those present will experience something they have never experienced before. To be honest I don't even want to do this evening but there is something deep and persistent driving me on. I was going through some stuff earlier and I came across a testimonial page I had for a website I had years ago. Reading again what people said gave me fresh courage. And yet what do I need to have courage about. I had an experience where I touched the presence of love and that is all there is to share. What I have made the experience mean is that the spiritual/mystical path is as real today as it was in the days of Buddha. Why should I need courage to give this encouraging and empowering insight.

I know what is at play here, I still want to play small and not stand out but there is something bigger than me.....that is not allowing that to happen....at least not this evening.....

I don't cry.....last night I cried....

Last night saw me take my foot off the numbing down of emotional expression. Since getting the insight into how I have confused desire with attachment and have spent many years numbing down desire because of my misunderstanding that it causes suffering, all kinds of other feelings have now been showing themselves. For years I have been unable to have a really good cry and to feel deep pain and sorrow, last night I felt it in all its strength and intensity. I cried for all the years where with desire I could have created such a lot and I cried for how my identity used this to ensure that I wouldn't create anything big or make a difference. Then the feeling changed to one of incredible anger which was also unfamiliar. From it I learned that these feelings are there and it is not necessary for me to do anything with them only allow myself to feel them. They are the energies of growth and by suppressing them in the way that I have over many years nothing amazing or extraordinary has been created. It has all been ordinary because this is the way that the identity has wanted it to be.

Having experienced this outpouring of emotions this morning I woke up scared and uncertain. Not feeling emotion gives a certain level of safety and protection but it achieves nothing. Now I have a choice I can choose to experience every emotion as it comes without numbing it down with food or something else. In my case it has mostly been food. I will feel an emotion and then not want to experience it so I will numb it with chocolate. What I realise now is that I will grow and expand more quickly if when I feel the emotion whether it is happiness, sadness, anger, pain I then choose to feel the emotion and engage fully with it, I will feel fully alive. The idea is to get to the root of every emotion which is a sadness born of unexpressed love. What underlies anger is fear, what underlies fear is sadness and what underlies sadness is love. The purpose of every emotion is to experience love. Unfortunately fear and anger are two emotions which are difficult to be with but unless we can be with them we can never touch the presence of love. When we can sit with and experience fear then we have the experience of sadness, when we can sit and be with sadness then we experience love. This was something which Manuel Schoch my dear friend, mystic and psychic and neuroscientist who died in October 2008 used to say regularly. That the burning desire of all human being is to have the experience of love.

For years I numbed all of these emotions down. The experience I had in Devon with the rising energy opened and awakened my heart so that I had the experience of the presence of love but without me choosing to experience the entire range of emotion which characterises a human being I never had a similar experience. I am clear that in that instance when I experienced the presence of love it was by grace. As a result of this weekend and of choosing to desire and desire openly and intensely I now feel that I will experience more often the presence of love and most importantly that others (which is the sole purpose for any kind of expansion of consciousness) will feel it also. I will see how accurate this is tomorrow night when I give my presentation.

Yesterday a good friend of mine gave to me an ipod on which he had uploaded 26 audio-books on achieving success. This moved me more than anything and was the reason for why finally after years of suppression I allowed myself to cry more deeply. It was his belief in me and what I can achieve which moved me. Running along the seafront this morning listening to the book by Napoleon Hill - Law of success, I realised the importance of courage. I would be lying if I didn't say that I was scared about going out among people and sharing my story but I also understand the importance of courage and of doing what feels right. I don't have anything to teach but I do have something to share. What is going to matter tomorrow night and every night where I share my story is not my words but what experiences those who come to hear me have. For that reason I have decided that I am not going to speak much but offer guided meditation and provide a safe place for people to share their own experiences. My promise is the developing and deepening of inner peace and calm and what I have found is that when people feel listened to and acknowledged that the relief of this begins the process of developing inner peace and calm.

I am also going today to finalise the dates for the meditation course in September. Once I have these then I can put together the different flyers that I need and take it from there. The motivator for all of this is the urgency to begin my training to be a leader for children and young people. I don't need the light for the whole of this journey, all I need is the light for the next few metres ahead. That light will be in the form of actions I will take and in never taking my eye off where it is I want to go and what it is I desire more than anything else.......

What an amazing weekend....to make a difference in the life of another...is rewarding beyond words and money

This weekend confirmed for me my intention to train to be a Landmark Forum Leader for children and young people. I saw one young adult who without the training was more than likely heading for a life of violence and trouble. What turned this young person around was getting that the way other people behave has little or nothing to do with the person who is being hurt whether that is physically or emotionally. Our mechanism called our identity makes someone hurting us personal. It does this so that a disempowering view can then be formed which stops the person being powerful in life. The thinking goes I suffer, because there is something wrong with me. The life is lived through the filter 'there is something wrong with me' and witholding expressing love to people and situations. The rest of life then becomes about developing strategies to survive, not to be powerful which is exactly what the identity wants. This is so tragic because the truth is that there is never and has never been anything wrong in any situation. Shakespeare said 'there is nothing right or wrong, but thinking makes it so'. I saw once again so clearly the battle that is played out in human being. The identity as a reaction machine and then something else, that isn't reactionary that doesn't hold and nurture grudges. That sees life is as it is and accepts life just the way that it is and just the way that it isn't.

This weekend I got afresh the power of this training. I saw how easy it is for my identity to make stories out of the events that happen in life. I became present again to how it is that things happen in life, they have nothing to do with me. I didn't cause them, they just happened. It's so easy to go into 'I caused this, that by something I said, did' and this weekend I became aware once again that there is no cause of effect in life, strange and counter-intuitive as it may seem. It was good to reconnect to that, but the real power for me was in seeing just how powerful this training is when it is available for the young people. This is the way that I am going to make a difference in the world by being the most powerful Landmark Forum Leader for children and young people that I can be. I also believe that the power of the experience I have had together with the ease and rapport I have with young people and how authentic I feel around them that I can make a massive difference. If I was privileged to have the opportunity to do what that Landmark Forum leader did this weekend for one young person it will give me so much satisfaction and fulfillment.

I know though that the road is long and tough. It's going to involve me being more selfless and committed than I have ever thought possible. I am going to have to dig deep into this purpose many times over the next few months and remember it when I feel like quitting and giving up. If I give up, I'm not available for another young person for whom I could make a difference. And yet I am also aware that I am not God and everyone has free choice about how they live life. All I want to be able to do is to be so highly trained to offer this technology so that young people get that they have a choice about how they interpret events that happen in their life. The events are fine they are just events, it is the meaning that is added that determines whether or not life occurs as easy or a struggle.

I'm giving my first talk on Wednesday night and I have had one confirmed booking which I am thrilled about. With a definite purpose for life, things happen....without a definite purpose...one drifts......

My first week....of trying to free my consciousness.....

It's coming to the end of a very strange week. I've been busy without a whole lot being accomplished and yet I feel so happy and at peace. I have been consistent in my meditation practice both morning and evening but I'm not so sure about my consciousness being freed. I feel so much resistance writing this blog and I don't know what this is about. Last night I went once again to the meditation group and once again this morning I am feeling restless and unsettled. I am reviewing the Landmark Forum this weekend and I have felt a strong need to go for a run on the beach every morning which I have done. It is like my body is getting ready for the profound experience that this weekend is going to be.

My memory of when I did this weekend back in 2005 was experiencing that suchness, emptiness that Buddhists speak about. I remember so clearly that profound moment when there was nothing, and in that nothing was everything. It's like my consciousness has a memory and it is ensuring that I am as mentally and physically as strong as I can be for this weekend. This is the reason for the intense meditation and the running and watching what I am eating. Once again following a spiritual path is all about trust and surrender. I am surrendering to every inner impulse I have, trusting that this is my next step. And yet, this weekend is not about me. It is the first step in my training to be a Landmark Forum leader for children and young people. For the first time I completely accept myself for who I am and what I have achieved. From here on, anything I get is within the context of being a powerful leader for children and young people so that they have the tools to be powerful in the face of every circumstance of life and the identity formation doesn't have such a stranglehold of a grip in the way it does with adults when this process doesn't get interrupted. The earlier the process is interrupted the stronger the consciousness is in being more of a match for the identity - if this makes any sense.

I think this is part of my reluctance to write this blog in that what I form in my mind just seems to be so clumsy when it appears on the page. I am also aware that it is also just my view of how human being develops and evolves but the force and intensity of the insights I receive on a daily basis now is resulting in me being far more committed to disrupting this process as early as it is possible to do so. In the past I have assisted on one of these weekends for children and young people because as I don't have children I wanted to see what went on before I spoke to parents about what is possible for their child. What I saw on that weekend inspired me so much. I saw the process being interrupted and as a result young people who had made events that had happened mean something, could see that this wasn't true. I remember especially one young teenage girl who said that both her aunt and teacher had died. The event will never be dismissed. The event is real, however what we make it mean is only a story, an interpretation. The woman asked her what did she say to herself about life, what did it mean about life. She said: 'that life is tough and hard', the woman then said 'does it really mean that'. There was a silence as the girl thought about it and then smiled and said 'no, it doesn't mean that' and in that moment I saw her little face transform as that burden that she no longer knew she was carrying was lifted.

This disruption to the process is important for another reason. If it hadn't been interrupted then that view 'that life is hard' is what would have attracted events that reinforce the view that life is tough and hard. The point of view that we form about life will also be consistent with the events that happen. It has to be that way if the point of view is to survive. In the case of that little girl the process was interrupted and so that point of view that life is tough and hard didn't get any deeper and in fact dissolved. The truth is seen and in that seeing freedom is had. In adults it is harder to dissolve the point of view only because of the many years that it has operated without being discovered. Once discovered it loses some of its power but it never disappears not like if it is got when the young person is forming his/her identity. Having this technology at that stage of life, is powerful and it is where I see most clearly that I can make a difference.

I'm also promoting talks on my book. The first one here is on Wednesday but I am meeting such resistance in terms of the venue not being willing to put up a poster. But it's strange this is only strengthening my resolve and my commitment each day is to take two actions to progress this.....

The power of generosity.....

Secret Millionaire was on TV last night and I was so moved by what happened. Gary began his scrap metal business with a £100 loan given to him by his grandfather who was in the marines. With it he built up a business and became a multi-millionaire. He returned to his native city of Blackpool to look for good causes to give something back. What he said at the end of the programme really resonated with me. His joy when he gave a cheque to a hostel for the homeless and for parents to continue with their dream house to give holidays to kids who are terminally ill and their parents was real. He said that it was 'this generosity which had been missing from his life'. He had made all this money but had not given any of it away in this way and that had been the missing for him. At the end of the programme he had transformed how he was going to be with his family and had resolved to spend more time with them and he realised that what they wanted was him and his time, not material things.

In this programme is the fundamental secret for happiness for a human being and that is generosity. In the act of being generous, the consciousness is no longer concerned with me and what I have but connects with another to produce those feelings of joy and fulfillment. One of the ways in which the machinery of human works so that we don't do this is it produces thoughts of lack and scarcity and these thoughts of lack and scarcity stop us from being as generous as we need to be to be happy. It doesn't have to be money, it can be time, listening, doing something kind for someone that is totally unexpected. What is important is to do it and then observe the uplift of happiness.

When I returned after my visit to the society of metaphysicians and found a parking spot where usually it is impossible, I gave back by giving £5 to a homeless guy who was selling the big issue. I know that it is not a huge amount but the amount is not important. It is the giving that affirms to the universe that there is abundance and as a result abundance will come. If you look at all the millionaires they all have done or do some big charity work. Bill Gates set up a charitable foundation. Giving back in gratitude for what was been given if more is to become available is a fundamental law of the universe, as real as gravity and integrity. When thinking about what we really desire to have in life, we must also give some thought as to what is it we will give back in return when we get what we desire. To just have money without giving anything back is the reason why lots of people with money are not happy. The money becomes all about them and not about how some of it can be used to be of contribution. When thoughts or money become all about us our world is small and ever shrinking. The consciousness is designed to play big in every way, the constricting and restricting of it is what causes unhappiness in a human being, I assert. Generosity expands the consciousness, meaness shrinks it.

I spent this weekend with my friend who has adopted a beautiful baby girl from an orphanage in Gautemala. I was struck by the self-lessness of my friend, and in her, and the way she was with this little girl I saw the principle of generosity in all its strength and force. My friend is also happier because life now is no longer just about her but about how she can shape and train this little soul into being happy and it was so inspiring for me to spend the time with them.

I am determined this week to do some serious meditation and to let my consciousness free. I have no idea how it is going to work. Something has shifted though and I don't feel the fear around doing this that I did in the past. I also have to turn my mind to things practical and call up some people and ask them about doing the flyers that I need to get the meditation course of the ground in September. These days I have such freedom and ease that I know that those who come to this course will feel some benefit. My intention is to be of contribution by designing a course that will at least provide a glimpse of spiritual awakening. It is a huge request I am making to the universe but I believe with the strength of my desire for this that I can create it to happen.

For the first time I recognise the importance of desire in making anything happen. In the past I had thought that desire was at the route of all suffering. This was something I took from Buddhism. As a result I wouldn't allow myself to desire anything which has led me to the kind of life that I have. What I realise now is that it is not desire that is destructive but the attachment to that desire and so I have now shifted my consciousness so that I feel the emotion of desire and am now going to channel that desire into producing something tangible. This has been a major insight for me and has given me clarity around such a lot of things. I see once again how the mechanism of the identity that doesn't want me to play big gave me the thought that desire had to be uprooted if anything is to be achieved. When I uprooted desire, I uprooted my own ability to play big. The energy of desire galvanises the universe to put into place events and people that are needed to manifest that desire into something tangible. Without that desire, I was numb and the universe much more unresponsive than it wanted to be. I am aware though that having spent so many years dumbing down my desire that it is going to take some practicing on my part but I am more than prepared to put in the effort for what is possible.......

First case of swine flu victim to die....without underlying health considerations......must stay steady

I woke up this morning to news that I have known deep down is inevitable and that is the first death of a swine flu victim in the UK without the person having had any underlying health issues. Now more than ever it is going to be so important to the consciousness to remain steady and to hold nerve. I have spoken about the profound shift of consciousness that I assert the universe is gearing up for and I see this as part of the continuous onslaught of uneasy news that is such a feature of life these days. By staying steady the consciousness also remains calm so the shift when it comes will be easy and smooth. If we allow the mind to generate thoughts of fear and panic then this is going to effect the consciousness and the whole process will be more fraught than it needs to be.

It is also important in these turbulent times to have faith. That the world is perfect but is in a state of becoming, it is not a finished product and that everything that is happening is perfect for this time of evolution. Last night I had the privilege to watch Jonathan Ross interview Vivienne Westwood and her passion for the dangers of climate change for the entire human race really resonated with me. Her passion and her willingness to risk her privacy by appearing on Jonthan Ross to appeal to people to do more to reverse this process was so inspiring. Her passion for the cause was more important than the risk of what people might think of her for doing it. It acted as another wake-up call for me. It is this passion and inspiration that sees me at this computer when I should be on my way to catch a train to go to a friend's party. I have proclaimed this blog to be about the expansion of spiritual consciousness and so from where I see it, it's more important that people really get to recognise and acknowledge that there is a machinery driving the human consciousness. Once that machinery is seen, and accepted it no longer has the power and ceases at that point to be destructive. I would assert and I really don't know this so it is really my own opinion and view which is just as valid as every other opinion and view but I assert that it is this mass ignorance of the underlying machinery of human being which is creating all of the disharmony and the breaking down of old established structures that we see happening now.

You can ask why is it happening now.....I think it is because there are more people aware of a deeper inner impulse but they are ignoring it. The consciousness wants to shift on a mass scale to get ready for the next stage of evolution and it is not having an easy time because of peoples reluctance to really take themselves on. To be really honest and authentic about themselves and their lives, to do as Socrates said so many years ago which is 'know thyself'. But this is not wilful on the part of the person, it is the underlying machinery which is creating it this way, see the underlying machinery and that seeing will set the consciousness free. But it starts with doing something that will act as an obstacle to the machinery. A force going in one direction will continue until it meets something that stops it. Meditation or anything where a person can break free of the machinery acts as that 'something'. We are so inextricably bound up with our thoughts and feelings and think that these are who we are but it is not, they are part of the underlying machinery that drives the phenomenon of human being.

Consciousness seems to be the reward for the development of homo sapiens but the cost has been this tension between the light and dark. If we look back, first there was the mineral phase, then plant, then animal and now human and I assert that the next stage will have something to do with consciousness and perception. I think that perception will be expanded so that the consciousness will be able to perceive more than it does who knows perhaps altered states will become natural and no longer need to be drug induced...maybe other realms which are denied to the consciousness now by the limits of our perception......it is all very exciting which is why it is important to stay steady.

Now...I have to catch that train. A good way to practice staying steady is to begin not to react to little things that happen. By staying steady when little things don't work out it is training the consciousness not to panic when bigger things might come. This blog entry is in no way meant to scare. The advice everywhere is not to panic and I say exactly the same thing..... Anyway, what's the use of panic.....never solved anything and it's not likely to do so in the future....

Standing.....on the shoulders of giants...

My consciousness was awake early this morning because it sensed an important meeting. I was going to meet the founding member of the society of metaphysicians a 91 year old man and I was so excited. Not just about my book and what I could do with it but also for me. I felt that in this man I might understand something more about what happened back in 1988. I would have a scientific explanation and not some new agey one. Me and my trusty sat nav set off early for the over one hour drive. The night before I had located my car from where I had parked it miles away from where I now live because there is limited free parking where I am so I knew that I wouldn't start the morning pannicking walking around unfamiliar streets for a non-existent car. Car located I sat in and rigged up my trusty friend. There was nothing to tell me that it was going to take my control and get me to where I needed safely and on time until I turned on the engine to charge it up....then I heard some welcome words about 'turning left' when I switched the engine on. Words can't describe how grateful I am to have this gadget. It has revolutionised how I feel about driving. I have zero sense of direction so driving was always a nightmare. Even going on holiday, because of this lack of a sense of direction, it has always been stressful. India, especially. I must be the only traveller that has a smile on my face when we hit back on a England terminal.

I arrived at the society in plenty of time with only having a dispute with the sat nav once which won and was in the right! The place was desserted and when I looked at my watch I realised that I was 15 minutes early to meet with this doctor of divinity. A little while later a grey car pulled up and a lady got out. I got out of my car and introduced myself and she said 'yes, he is expecting you, let's go in'. She opened the door to this small office that had books and papers absolutely everywhere. Then a man turned up. They asked me what my purpose was in being there and with a flourish I produced my book from the depths of my bag. What is it about having an actual book that changes the whole energy in the room. The moment I produced the book and spoke about the possibility of spiritual expansion and awakening for the ordinary there was an attention and a stillness. I gave a mental thanks to my publishers ki publishing who had published it without any financial input from me. The man picked up the book and started flicking through it. Then they said that they had promoted a book for a woman about how animals are friends of humans. Then the man himself arrived with a remark about being 91 and not getting up so early now.

My first impressions were of a man where the body might be old but his eyes were bright, alert and intelligent. I experienced this deep relief in that if anyone is able to explain what it is that lies at the base of the spine that when it rises and descends causes such a shift in consciousness, I would find it here. He looked at me keenly and said 'why have you come'. I explained about the book and took it out but I then said 'but it's not just about ways of promoting the book' , 'I would value your view on whether or it is appropriate for me to continue to speak about this experience and the shifts it created, or if now that the book is written, to trust that I have played my part and to settle down into life and look for a job. He then said 'can you feel the mentals around'. I was a bit confused and said 'do you mean other entities and as I said it I could also hear my inner voice go oh no, not another that sees angels etc'. But even as it was saying this it had no conviction because there is something deeply trustworthy about this man. I have respect for his lifetime of work for the society. He wouldn't have given his life's work to metaphysics which is that which is beyond the physical if he hadn't touched something. He then went onto explain that he has been a psychic and a mystic since a young boy and that he could feel the presence of other entities around as we spoke.

As I spoke about life after I made a decision when I was 11 to follow a spiritual and not a religious path he was thumbing through the book, rapidly scanning the pages. From it he picked up on my experience with the hallucinogenic drug STP and without feeling any embarassement or in anyway like a fraud I explained that event. He stopped reading, looked at me with these piercing blue eyes and said 'I don't recommend drugs it interferes with the natural expansion of the consciousness'. While I agreed there was a part of me that knows just how much my consciousness has expanded and I assert that the shift of consciousness so that it doesn't revert back to where it was requires something stronger than prolonged meditation. The test is if the drug use is continued solely to achieve that altered state of consciousness. For me, it was a one-off taken not for a mystical/spiritual experience but to try to understand another problem I was having in relation to a guy. But I didn't feel the need to defend this view to this man. I bowed to his many years of experience and was quiet and listened intently.

He spoke about the consciousness being one. When he came to the label of kundalini which I had put on the experience he said that splitting off the consciousness by putting a label on any of its movement limits what possible for the consciousness. This resonated because ever since the experience I have been so reluctant to label it as kundalini. I hadn't been able to explain this reluctance until today. Now I see that by labelling it I am reducing its power. He then spoke about the unlimitedness of the consciousness and told me stories about how his consciousness regularly leaves his body. This hit at the nub of my fear around this part of spiritual expansion. I am obsessed with having control of my consciousness and my identity is using this control to keep my consciousness limited by the constrains of the body. This man spoke about letting go of that control so my consciousness can be free. Manuel Schoch before he died often said the same thing to me, you have to let go of the control. I think subconsciously a deep knowing that nothing else is going to shift until I do let go of control is what found me at the emotional freeing technique treatment. Within the limits of my control of my consciousness nothing new or different is possible. He then looked around him, stood up and brought down this dusty old tome which dated from many years back. He said that it was written by chanelling, which is where the man went into a deep trance and typed it out on an old typewriter. He then looked at me again keenly and repeated 'nothing else is possible while the consciousness is constrained'. I felt this shiver as if I had come to yet another point at where I had to make a choice. I can be content to be where I am at or I can take a risk for what more is possible for others through me. It was like he read my thoughts because he said 'but be careful, if you just want this for yourself, you won't get it, you have to want it for others because the consciousness is not yours it is universal consciousness. I knew this from my study of the concept of the Bodhissatva in Mahayana Buddhist.

The lady who had let me in then came into the room and asked me if I would like to have a coffee. There was a few moments of silence and then a cat came into the room. What is it about me and cats these days. My flatmate has a cat, the woman I had the treatment with has a cat and now there is a cat in this room. He jumped up onto the table and arched its back to be stroked which I did. The man said 'the cat feels something from you' and when he said this I felt tears sting at the back of my eyes. And I said 'so you believe me and this experience' and he said 'yes, but remember the absolute operates by universal laws so do not label it kundalini, what happened to you is that you touched love, this is why the cat is so happy to sit there beside you and why you have such an openess and aliveness to life, call what happened to you the experience of love'. After he said that there was the most exquisite silence.

He then broke it by talking about the help the society could give me with promoting my book and we spoke about some practical matters. He then said that he was going to look for examples of the kinds of leaflets I could produce for the book which the society would then sell on my behalf. When he came back he had a bound A4 notebook and he gave it to me explaining that it was a condensed version of the new metaphysics which basically says that there is one universal consciousness that operates in accordance with universal laws. I was moved and delighted and asked him to sign it which he did. When I looked to see what he had written he had put 'to Margaret, a fellow seeker'. I knew then that he could see that I was genuine and not a time-waster that I had something to say, a story to tell and that I was also at a cross-roads. He told me to now give my next step to the universe, that I would be shown that the way. At this stage I had been speaking with him for over an hour and I realised that it was a long time for a 91 year old man so I said my goodbyes and left him with the book.

I was in the outside office chatting to the woman when he appeared waving the book and saying 'you haven't signed this'...aagh...I'm so not used to signing books what do I say to this man who has spent his life's work trying to make real and tangible what is in essence a presence. I felt so humbled that he would want a signed book from me. I wrote something about the privilege and pleasure it was to have met him and when I looked at him once again we had a deep connection. As he said once when we were talking 'we understand each other'. This validation coming from such an established doctor of divinity was more than I had dreamed of.

Driving back I was thinking about how my next move is to let go of the control of my consciousness. Gosh I really miss Manuel Schoch who would understand just how I could do this as he was a mystic and a neuroscientist who could show people how to do this but I'm aware that nobody not even Manuel can do this if there is not a willingness on my part to go there. I am clear that I am going to remain at the place where I am unless I am willing to let go of this control and it starts with taking on seriously a meditation practice, whether this is group or alone. I saw the effects of the meditation I went to on Thursday morning after Wednesday night something had once again got stirred up. I should know that developing the consciousness and awakening is not something that is tacked on at the beginning or end of the day it is all encompassing. All of the great guru's spent hours in meditation to expand their consciousness so that when they spoke their words had power and could shift the consciousness of those who were around them. This is not a part-time activity. This man said that my next way would be shown to me. He then said enigmatically: "It is no co-incidence that you have come here today". I wanted to ask him what he meant but didn't because this would be my ego wanting some kind of certainty. This path is all about dealing with the uncertainty. I heard once that a car can travel 200 miles in the dark, it only needs the light for 20 metres at a time. Today was my 20 metres and tomorrow another 20 metres will show. I don't need to see the light needed for the whole of the 200 miles, just the light for a little way ahead.

But I also have to be realistic and have to make a living while being committed but not attached to this process which has begun and which I have faith will continue. My next step is to find a designer who will design some leaflets for me. A leaflet for the society about my book, a leaflet about the six week meditation course I will do in September and another leaflet about the book. This is a dilemma because even though I studied design on this course I couldn't get to grips with it and I don't have the package on my computer. So Monday I am going to think about who could put together these leaflets for me.

When I returned I had this strong urge to bring the car back to where I had parked it even though the odds were so strong that the parking spot would be taken because it is the only area of free parking in the city and is always taken. Deciding to go with the strong impulse I drove to the area and really wasn't surprised but was incredibly grateful when I found a spot even closer to where I live than where I had parked. I met up with a friend who is the same woman I had the treatment from and told her about how strange I had been after it and the raging headache that I had and she empathised. She didn't mention having another treatment and neither did I. After we said goodbye, I got a phone call and it was my interview to be accepted to train to be a leader for children and young people. I was amazed at how easy and powerfully my reasons for wanting to be this came from my tongue. I was asked about how I dealt with things when they didn't go my way, what strategies I would use to get out of my commitments, not to be in integrity and I had a clarity about all of this that I didn't have before. I realised that I am beginning to understand myself so well. Manuel Schoch said that enlightenment is nothing more than fully and totally understanding yourself, understanding others is intelligence but understanding yourself is enlightenment. This training programme is the quickest route I know and I accept there are other trainings out there to understanding and having power over the mechanism that drives human being.

The meeting with this man was so well worth it. He wouldn't have dedicated his whole life to the study of that which is beyond the physical if he didn't have direct experience of it. Direct experience is what drives him and me on. My last thought tonight is of 'fellow seeker' and what exactly he saw in me that gave me that accolade......I don't know and anyway.... it's only my ego asking.....

The tiredness continues....and at the end a raging headache

The tiredness was all encompassing today. I compounded this by having a treatment called EFT or emotional freeing technique. I know the lady who does it and she suggested that it would help me release any emotional blocks that I had. I'm always sceptical of this kind of thing but am also clear that to be as powerful as I can in making a difference in my own life and that of others I cannot be arrogant. And so meek as a lamb I took my tiredness and me to this woman. When I walked into the room I was firstly struck by all the certificates on the wall, there was no doubting this woman's qualifications. We began to speak about my childhood which is where inevitably all emotional blocks are formed. She explained that the technique would unblock my meridians and then picked up a blue pen and asked me if I minded if she drew where the meridian points were on my hands. I agreed, hey why not....

Then we engaged in a bit of finger tapping, me mirroring her and me saying words that are designed to remove emotional blocks. When I arrived I told her that feeling different and unconnected to people while loving them deeply and this was the reason why I was here. This disconnect was causing me to feel lonely. Then she asked me on a scale of 1 - 10 how painful were the feelings. Now this is always something that causes me to think because I'm not sure exactly what pain is, I'm generally happy and certainly very healthy so the principle of a turbulent mind coming out through the body is not true for me. It is more like a nagging 'why do I feel so different to everyone' and the kind of isolation thinking like that produces, more than I'm feeling the excruciating pain of loneliness. So...with all of this dilemma going on in my head I proclaimed that I was feeling an '8'. But then I had to fess up in the interests of being authentic and having integrity that I really didn't know what an '8' felt like. At this point she looked a little confused but continued to soldier. We engaged in a rigorous and rapid tapping of meridian points at different points on my hand and I had to repeat certain words and phrases that were designed at tricking my conscious mind into letting the sub-conscious emerge to see what was really going on...ah...ah.

Try as I might I couldn't stop my mind from wandering. My computer had blown up earlier that morning and I had it in my bag to bring to get fixed so part of my mind was on that. My inner voice, that has always been so sceptical of this kind of thing was really on a rant 'what are you getting from this' yada...yada.....but I persevered. At the end she asked me how I felt now on a scale of 1 - 1o and when I said 'a 4' she looked disappointed and said 'let's carry on, I want to get you to zero'....aagh....why didn't I say zero, I had no idea that this was the purpose of the treatment and at the moment I felt this fear and I wanted 'out'. We continued again with this tapping and with every tap I felt more and more foolish. Eventually I had had enough and I said "I feel much better, definitely at zero! " The truth was that I didn't feel any differently to the way that I did before I went in. I think this practice like all alternative practices works on faith and maybe as always even though I am drawn to these, once there I can't get rid of the feeling that I shouldn't be there, it is not there that I am going to find answers.

The lady was very good and kind and believes passionately in what she does and the results she has produced for people and I can't fault her in anyway for that. I went away with a bottle of Bachs flower remedies designed to treat 'proud and aloof'! On the way home on the bus an overwhelming tiredness which added to the tiredness I had woken up with came over me and then I got a headache. I never get headaches and this made me think. Has this treatment done something. I went into the shop with the computer to find that there's nothing wrong with it and could be the fuse in the plug socket at home....by the time I got home the headache was raging and I was so tired I could barely speak.

My flat mate came home and I told her what had happened and she just laughed to see me stretched out on the sofa barely able to speak let alone move. She has a cat who must have sensed that I was feeling quite strange because she lept onto my lap and stayed there for most of the evening.

I am going to bed early to try to recover some energy. I am so excited about tomorrow though because I am going to see a Doctor of Divinity at the Society of Metaphysicians. He is 91 and founded the society and so I feel that he might understand something of what I have been through and more importantly what if anything I am to do with it. It's been a most strange kind of day.....

The power.....of meditating in a group

This morning I woke up feeling more tired than I have in a while. Last night I did an hours meditation with a group of people and I can really feel the effects this morning. I am tired but it's not a tiredness where I don't want to get up. I'm excited about the day but also very calm. The session last night was divided up into two parts. The first one which lasted half an hour was a guided meditation on the Buddhist concept of loving kindness or metta as it is more often called. This was for half an hour and then there was the opportunity to share whatever was there for people. This is different to how this school of Buddhism practiced it when I belonged many years ago. Then there was no sharing of experiences after meditation practice and it was something I longed for. But now, I see that my longing for it then was for the mind so that it could have the distraction from the silence that thoughts bring. I see now that my desperate wish for some talking was the actions of a mind deeply threatened by meditation and by what it makes possible.

The sharing started and one man wished for all of us present peace of mind. My heart lept in compassion for the turbulence he was obviously feeling. I remember so well that turbulence and the inability of the mind to be still and I wanted to go up to him, give him a hug and say 'keep at it, it will come'. But of course I didn't do this. I was also struck last night by what the mind will latch onto to prevent the consciousness becoming still. I found the voice of the person who guided the meditation to be soothing and relaxing but for another person that soothing voice was too low and so the mind latched onto this and created thoughts of frustration and agitation as the words were trying to be grasped and so there was no stillness available for that person on this occasion.

The purpose of meditation is to still the mind so that something different can arise. What arises when the mind is still is the language of the soul. Intuition, insight and illumination arises when the mind is still. Meditation is not easy because the mind fights with everything it has not be still and then we blame ourselves for not being able to meditate. There are two parts to us there is our personal identity which uses the mind to keep things the same and predictable and then there is the deeper part, what Buddhists call 'the witness' that watches all of the antics of the mind with a deep compassion. The aim of meditation as I see it is to make stronger the witness so that at a certain point the mind surrenders. It is this surrender that it is terrified of but the truth is that it is this surrender that is its liberation.....

Another day today.......what will this day bring...

The excitement of the unpredictable.......

These days I feel like I did when I was travelling around India and I never knew from one moment to the next what would happen. It is exactly the same now except for unlike India I know where I am going. I have such a pathetic sense of direction that it was only when some shopkeeper said 'hello again Madam' to me that I realised I had been in the direction before! This added stress to unpredictability. These days I have the unpredictability but without the stress because I know my way around here.

I must be honest and say that since the course ended I have been cruising. I've been travelling a bit to sort things out with my flat and I am so surprised at the freedom and ease with which it is all happening. I have given up all attempts to control life and as a result life is carrying me easily and effortlessly. I've always known intuitively that being in integrity is the key to living a life that works but I never thought it would result in the ease, peace, calm and inner contentment that I feel. I moved into a flat in the centre of town and it's been just great.

I left my job to be authentic in my desire to share my story of spiritual awakening and have had interesting results. The trouble with the experiences I have had is that they don't fit neatly into a mold and the other thing that is kind of going against me is that I don't have a teacher or adhere slavishly to one tradition. So when I knock on the door of Buddhist organisations requesting a room to promote my book I am given the third degree as to my Buddhist practice and school of teaching. When I explain patiently about spiritual expansion and awakening not requiring any dogma, Buddhist or otherwise there is a noticeable shift in tone and demeanour which is not in my favour. Another door shuts and I slink away. And yet what is this drive that keeps me going on. I tried a couple of book shops today and one was interested in what I had to share and has asked me to put together a flyer for a 6 week meditation course later in the year. So it is more of this that I must do and to be honest I feel more alive and happy doing this. I finally feel true to my purpose in life but it remains to be seen whether what I feel is my purpose and what the universes purpose is are the same......only time is going to tell on this one.

I have to trust that the power of the experience I had which was explained to me as a kundalini experience is to be shared, not taught and certainly not risen before its time and and to trust that when I am speaking with people about what I want to do. I had a taste of this tonight when I found myself at an open meditation evening. Even though I wasn't the facilitator for the evening two of the people there came over to me and asked me questions. When I explained that I was giving a talk based on the experiences in the book one immediately asked me for the details. So I have to also trust that the way that I think things are going to happen is not like that at all and relax a bit around all of this.

I also haven't forgotten about my declaration to be a leader for children and young people and that training starts in a couple of weeks time when I review the forum. This will be an interesting experience as it was 2005 when I did it and didn't understand much of what went on. Now I am so much more aware of the basic concepts so it will be interesting to see how expanded or not my consciousness has become.

I'm aware that I haven't written much. I'm on twitter and I find the limited characters, only allowed - 140 quite freeing. Having said that I have enjoyed writing this post, I just hope that I haven't lost anyone due to not having been consistent. Part of this is my obsession with wanting to look good on this blog and to have it all sorted and arriving where I want to be but the truth is.....that I'm not there yet....

The start of another phase of life.....

My journalism course is finished. It was an invaluable training and one which will benefit me in the next stage of my spiritual journey. I am declaring myself as a spiritual writer and coach. I had the first US sale of my book 'Journey to Self' the other day and it signifies to me that the time is right for me to take on seriously sharing my journey with others to touch, move and inspire them. I moved out from the family I was living with and into a flat in the centre of town. It was time for me to move. I love the family I was living with dearly and they were very good to me. But if I am to carve out my own spiritual niche I need more independence and to be in the centre of town which I am now.

I am choosing powerfully to promote myself as a spiritual coach - my tool being meditation leading to spiritual awakening, - that moment or glimpse when the truth shows itself before once again being covered by the veil of illusion. I have spoken about this idea to friends and the feedback has been positive. I am privileged in having had a number of profound experiences through meditation which will help to establish me as a credible teacher/coach/guide. I have joined a business link to give me support with those left brain things I have traditionally struggled with and as a result don't feel like I am doing it all on my own. I am also aware of having had the idea of breaking out and doing my thing for many years but also being scared of not having what it takes. I find now that I have ideas and insights about how I could do it that were not available to me when I had a back door of having a safe job and place to live. Now that there is no backdoor I have the peace that comes with finally saying 'yes' to something that has nagged at me for a very long time and being focussed on the one thing which I have tried to forget by doing other things but somehow it was always there - the idea of being a leader in the spiritual world.


My plan is to begin with a number of evenings promoting my book and seeing how much interest there would be from people to begin four week meditation courses with the intention of bringing about the experience of spiritual awakening. This is a very tall order and I am very aware of the power of the kundalini energy and the consequences if it is not respected. But I believe that a glimpse is possible without the full blown kundalini experience of awakening which I experienced. In time I may return to India and get trained in giving shaktipat awakening but for now I am going to focus on preparing the body and mind to be strong enough to withstand the power of the experience when it arises because I believe that sooner rather than later this is going to happen as the consciousness shifts to the next stage of evolution. I am a stand that people are prepared in as much as they can be for this event.

I have already booked one evening and today I received a call from another woman offering me a room in another venue and saying that she has had requests for the centre to offer meditation. This is what I mean about doors opening that before I jumped off the cliff of security and safety had been firmly shut. Is it a question of timing that these doors are now opening or is it a question of integrity of finally closing off any backdoor and commiting myself to what I know is going to be the work for the rest of my life. I know that this is not going to be easy because of the identity and how it will operate not to have the person delve into the deeper more spiritual essence but I can see that is not the person themselves that will be resisting but the identity which is scared and senses a threat to its existence. My job will be to deepen the inner urge whilst acknowledging with compassion the threat the identity senses.

So once again this blog is going to be the place where I will record the highs and lows of the next stage of my journey to self, the journey never ends, all that ends are cycles on that journey....