Opening up....our new centre 'DEEP CONNECTION'...

Friends of this blog I invite you to look at the new website I have created with my friend Lotus in advance of the opening of the centre 'Deep Connection' on Wednesday 4 November. I am so excited at this. It is the beginning of a dream I never thought I would realise. What is truly miraculous to me is how I ever thought I could be successful in being who I need to be to be successful with adults when what was running me was that I saw every adult as a threat to me and to my safety. I am so grateful to be given that insight before I threw myself fully into being a spiritual leader and teacher. I still don't know whether to laugh or cry with this discovery it has been such a profound one for me. One thing I am clear about is that without this insight or realization that this dream would not have been possible. How could I inspire adults when what was really driving me was a fear of them.

Here is the URL: http://www.deepconnection.net/ Please have a look at it when you have time and any feedback would be useful to have.

I also see why I have been involved with the work that I have up to now. In order for the identity to survive it has to have experiences that reinforce how it thinks. I found myself constantly in environments where adults were threatening in terms of not agreeing with what I was doing, so I felt that I always had to defend myself which was purely this aspect of myself putting me in situations where it could be nourished and fed. I also kept around me friends who weren't supportive so that they could support my belief that I put in place when I was an upset five year old that adults were a threat to me. It all sounds and is completely and totally ridiculous but without any doubt I know that it is how my personality got formed.

A couple of evenings ago I became very angry at this decision I had made when I was a child and the impact it has had on my life. Angry at why I have had to wait so many years and have so much confusion and bewilderment at the mismatch between my ardent desire to make a difference and my lack of results in this area. It is all so clear now. And yet, I cannot be the only adult that is being run by a decision that they made in childhood. There are a lot of successful people out there who haven't got everything sorted and they carry on over whatever their limitations are. For me it just didn't work. My efforts to make a difference and inspire people was not more powerful than my story which lived for me as the truth 'that adults are a threat to me'

Even my very best friend who I have known since childhood, he was a threat to me which as I write this I find so hard to believe. I set up our relationship so that each time we met I provoked him into behaviour which gave me the experience of being threatened. This was always around the training I am doing which he disagrees with. This weekend we spent time together and I felt so different. I think for the first time in all of the conversations we had, I really listened to what he was saying and for the first time I really saw how great he is and his commitment to his friends and his family. Before this, all I saw was that he was a threat and I had to be onguard and defensive. To him and I know that he reads this blog, thank you, thank you so much for always being there, coming back when our conversations have often got heated and personal and for never turning your back on me. You know who you are and I know you are and thank you so much.

It's a busy week for me this week. On Tuesday I have an interview for charity fundraising. What appeals to me about this position is that it has flexible hours which is important because I am more determined than ever to be a powerful leader for children. I am committed that every young person has the tools to be able to separate the events that happen in life from our story or interpretation about what happens so that each and every young person can live a life that is free, powerful, happy and self-expressed....

What this training is giving to me is nothing short of miraculous. If I hadn't been doing this training the chances are that I would still be desperately trying to avoid the adult world by doing everything I could to remain as childlike as I could and frustrating everyone around me.....taken to its ultimate...the prospect...is scary...

The joke.....goes on..

Up to late last week I felt threatened by adults. Till Wednesday night last week I had lived my life pretending that I wanted to make a difference to adults while the truth was that I viewed all of them as a threat to me. This gave me a distance and lack of relatedness with adults that I now recognise was as a protection to me. I have no idea what the event was where I decided that adults were a threat. What I see very clearly is the impact of having lived my life up to now with that running my life. What is so ironic is that the path I then chose for myself involved a path which required me to be authentic and related to people. Whose idea of a joke was this? What is also so frighteningly obvious to me now is how I have kept myself childlike so that I didn't have to enter and play in the adult world. I have never had a relationship that lasted more than a year and even during that year my way of being was more childlike than adult.

Those of you who have been loyal to this blog will have seen this play out in my entries about feeling autistic, separate, different. The source of this has now been unconcealed to me and it is nothing more than me deciding when I was a child that adults were a threat and that I had to be arrogant and superior to protect myself. This is what I did in response to something that happened to me when I was a child and I assert that it is the tendancy of human being to do this that marks human being as different to animals. When Socrates said 'know thyself', it is this he was speaking about. Or Plato 'the unexamined life is not worth living'.

To uncover what those decisions are that we made when we were upset children that are now living our adult lives. And in the unconcealing comes freedom. Until I could see what it was I decided when I was an upset child that had me being distant and aloof when it came to adults no amount of good intentions or actions on my part to make a difference was going to have any effect. I had to get to the fundamental inauthenticity, or what it was I was pretending, realise the impact of it and from there create something powerful which in my case is to be powerfully and profoundly related to adults. This doesn't mean that I have sold out on my dream of being a powerful leader for children and young people, not at all. It just means that now when I am speaking with adults there is such an ease and a comfort. This weekend I saw how the ease, comfort and relatedness I now feel is directly proportioned to the degree of unease and distance I felt before I got this insight.

I saw it in how related I felt to everyone this weekend. I could look at people deeply and really feel connected to each and everyone. Up to now I rarely spoke about myself in large groups and this weekend I shared and spoke about myself and events in my life openly and freely. There was a competition for the person who gave the most vivid share of where something had happened, the impact it had had and the decision we had made and what life was like after that decision and then how life shifted when that decision was unconcealed. 86 people gave their shares and the finalists were whittled down to three.

I emerged the winner. There was a drum roll, music, a standing ovation, crown and septre and looking down at all those adults beaming support and love for me that I could only see for the first time was so moving. I was fighting back tears. One lady came up to me afterwards and said 'if I had to choose one person who would have won the competition today, it wouldn't have been you'. I knew exactly what she meant. Up to then I had made myself invisible so that I could minimise the threat that adults were to me. That invisibility is now over in every sense of the word. I have such a burning desire for people to be free which for me means nothing more than taking on ruthlessly the game of self-discovery, to take on seriously and commitedly that every upset is an opportunity to discover something new about how we have been put together as human being. To access those deep layers of the sub-conscious that are running the show while fooling us that we are in control. I feel so passionately about this.

There is also another reason why I am being much more definite about everything. In many of my blogs I have mentioned how difficult I have found it to meditate. That there was something fundamentally rebelling in me at the suggestion of focusing on the mind on either the breath or something else. I never knew what was behind this resistance and put it down to my mind being just too active. Last week I was in Waterstones browsing through books. I was drawn to the book 'Science of being and art of living' Transcendental Meditation by His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I think many years ago I had dismissed all of this because it had been linked with yogic flying which I had thought was completely barking. I took this book of the shelf and skimmed through it. I put it back on the shelf but for some reason I couldn't leave the shelf where the book was. It was like my feet were rooted to the ground at that spot. I had a few minutes argument with myself about being on the training course that I'm on and being focussed and committed to that and with a stupendous strength dragged myself away and down the stairs. I didn't get very far beyond the bottom of the stairs when a compulsion which is difficult to write about found me upstairs with the book once more in my hand.

I took it to the cashier and bought it all the while having a massive argument with myself about what on earth did I want to buy this book for. I took it home and began to read it and I couldn't believe it when I read about how the nature of the mind is not to stay still focussed on a point in meditation but to find it's way gently and naturally back to the source. The example given was that of the bee. The nature of the bee is not to fly, the nature of bee is to settle where it gets the nectar from the flower. The wandering is just how it gets to the flower. It is the same way with the mind. It's nature is to wander gently back to the source where it rests happily. Forcing the mind to focus on a point puts effort which makes the process impossible. Now I understand why I have been unable to do conventional meditation. It felt intuitively wrong for me to sit down and force my mind to focus on something. The mind, left to itself will 'wander' in search of bliss, pure happiness for no reason except that this is our true nature. If you analyse the reasons why human beings do anything in life - career change, moving home entering a new relationship or going on holiday it will be seen that the fundamental underlying reason for doing anything is the desire for happiness.

I have now finished reading this book and I recommend it to everyone. I was searching for material to assist me in developing the third stage of my three stage model of spiritual awakening 'know THE ONE', in this book I have this material and I understand and resonate with it so deeply. So I have lots of material for two of my three stages. The hunt is on for material for the second but I am confident that I will stumble on this too. What is great for me is that this material complements and doesn't conflict with my intuitive insights. If they conflicted with centuries old wisdom I would be suspicious that....something else was at play....

I have to keep reminding myself that the game of human being..... is not personal...

I have made no secret on this blog of my desire to make a difference to children and young people but the training programme I am on requires me to make a difference what matters to the adults I come into contact with and in what they are dealing with. My reluctance to engage with adults is in the way of what I ultimately want to do which is to make a difference to children and over the last couple of days I have been looking at what is it about being related to adults that is so threatening to me. I can see the difference in how I am when I am around young people. There is an ease and a freedom and also a connection. With children and young people I feel profoundly related to them very easily and quickly, it is a different story when it comes to adults and there is something in the way of me being profoundly related to adults which stops me from feeling comfortable and at ease.

I assert that the whole purpose of human being is for the Divine to play the game of hide and seek. It is a game of hide and seek of the ONE with the MANY. This game like all games has rules. One of the rules is that part of the ONE has to appear different so that a game can be played. This difference shows itself as our identity/personality which gives the appearance of difference between human beings. The range of attributes which is chosen for the identity is not very extensive or very creative for that matter. There is a range and within that range an attribute is chosen. It most often follows on some event and then a decision will be made which the identity will grasp on and use it to form an aspect of the personality so that the ONE looks different to THE MANY.

What I have recently seen for myself and which has been shocking but not completely devastating is that I am fundamentally arrogant. It is this that is in the way of me being able to relate deeply to adults and to get into their world and be present to what it is that they are dealing with and with what matters to them. My arrogance is not the usual kind of overt arrogance but is more subtle and covert. It occurs as feeling superior which is covered over by being distant. To see this insight without understanding the bigger picture would have been completely devastating to me. But I understand that it is the coat of arrogance that I wear which gives the illusion of separation and distance from others. For someone else it is something else. The identity in selecting attributes is not creative. What seems to be important is to select attributes that are on the surface directly opposite to the Divine and then to have the game being to see that these attributes just cover what is underneath which is the Divine essence. The human attributes have to appear different to the Divine because otherwise there is no game.

The other night I watched a programme on the brain which was totally fascinating. The researcher was asked to make a decision (shown by pressing a button) and a scan was taken of his brain. What they found was that certain areas of the brain activated 6 SECONDS BEFORE the researcher pressed the button signalling his decision. 6 seconds is such a long time for the brain to be active before a conscious decision is taken. This proved to me so clearly that a conscious decision to do something is the last stage in the process and not the first. So....if the consciousness is not in control... then what is......

How to access......the portal of NOW....

I haven't written this blog for a while because I have been trying to sort out what my life is about and where I am going. I have seven dates booked at the new centre - Deep Connection which I am really excited about. The first evening is November 4th when the centre opens. The evening is going to be run jointly by the owner and myself and I will be able to see from this how much interest there is in my course on the three stages to spiritual awakening and ultimately enlightenment.

There is a lot of interest in the centre. One woman is charging £125 for a course which promises that at the end each person attending will have dissolved all their karma. I couldn't believe it when I read the promotional material. Given what I know I have no idea how this lady could make such a bold claim. More amazing to me is that there are people out there who will pay this kind of money for such a claim and believe it. The frustrating thing for me is that I know without any doubt that NOW is the portal to spiritual awakening but I do not know how to access that portal for others. The concentration of the consciousness at a point in the present creates the access portal NOW which acts as a kind of vortex through which the energy of awakening rises. This is as clear to me as the fingers on my hand but how do I get this across to others in a way which is meaningful and inspires others to commit themselves to accessing this portal. No-one can do it for another, it is the journey by the alone to the alone.

This morning I received a friend request from facebook. I didn't recognise the person but he sent me a message saying that he has just finished reading my book and seemed to query whether my story was an honest account of the experiences. I had to read the message a couple of times before I could take in the implication. The implication I saw was that he didn't think the account of my spiritual awakening was honest. It's almost laughable given how much integrity plays on the spiritual path that I could write something that wasn't 100% honest. I know the cost of what being less than 100% authentic on this path brings. To go the whole way on this path requires nothing less than 100% honesty and authenticity. Even with the amazing experiences I have had and the way that life flows and is in harmony I still struggle on a daily basis. I struggle with what to do with all this knowledge and experience, how to package it in a way which will move and inspire people. I struggle with bringing my consciousness into daily life, it would much rather be somewhere else. I struggle with the frustration of knowing that the portal of NOW is the access to awakening and not knowing how to give others the key to access this portal.

I accessed this portal through a moment of deep shame on a meditation retreat. Eckhart Tolle accessed this portal through having a thought which shocked the mind so that the access to the portal became available. I had no idea it was going to happen and I'm sure he didn't either. Eckhart speaks about NOW in his book the Power of Now but the power is not so much the NOW but the portal it opens up. Is it simply enough to let people know that this portal is real and so worth going in search of or is it something I should simply forget. Once the portal of NOW opens up life is never the same. So in that way great care should be taken It's a bit like taking the genie out of the bottle, it can never be put back. I think it was Ghandi that said 'do not approach the spiritual path if you are afraid'. When I started I had no idea the path held the experiences that it does but the demand for these experiences is the complete surrender and lack of control for anything to do with 'I'. The deal as I see it, is these experiences in return for being a vehicle for something.....as I write this I do not yet know what....

Give me a fish ...and I eat for a day.....teach me to fish..and I eat for a lifetime

The title of this blog entry is the dilemma I find myself in at present. Plans for the healing and holistic therapy centre here in Brighton are progressing at a rapid rate. Unbelievably all of the material I had prepared when I thought I was giving my presentation on spiritual awakening and the course to experience the three stages to spiritual awakening can now be used for evenings at this centre. I have started reading and listening to the words of the Vietnamese monk Thich Nhat Hahn and his emphasis on mindfulness. This appeals to me because it is relatively easy to sit down to meditate (I say relatively because in truth it is the hardest thing in the world for the mind to be quiet to meditate) but the danger is that when the period of meditation is over the mind goes back to its monkey nature flitting here and there, this way and that. Mindfulness is a stronger discipline for the mind. Mindfulness demands the mind and consciousness to be ever present. When washing one's teeth the focus and attention is on washing one's teeth, when drinking tea, the focus and attention is on on drinking tea. The mind is not somewhere else with thoughts about something else, it is right here in the NOW in the Present. This takes more effort and concentration than to sit down and meditate but it results in a deep and abiding peace and calm. The NOW is the portal to spiritual awakening.

Thich Nhat Hahn has identified 'wrong views' to be at the root of why human beings suffer. This is like giving a fish to someone. What I want to do is to teach people to fish in terms of people realising how these wrong views come about and it's not that the views are wrong it is that these views are taken to be the truth about the way that life is. The wrong view is that there is any single view of life, there is no life, there is only life as it occurs to human being and that way is different for all of us. But we take on a view and defend it to the death. For years I have pondered on one sentence from the Buddha which I have often quoted in this blog. It is 'hold fast to nothing'. This sentence has been like my own personal koan which I have used like a dog uses a bone, tossing it this way and that, looking deep into what could the Buddha have meant by this statement. Reading the statement from Thich Nhat Hahn (known affectionately by his students as Thay) I saw once again the truth in the statement. Instead of 'nothing' it can also read it as 'no thing'. To hold fast to a view of life as being the truth about the way life is, is to hold fast to something and that is a view. Spiritual Awakening is not possible while views to 'some thing' are held. I see this with such clarity now. It was always there, kind of bubbling away under the surface but now I see clearly. And yet, this seeing of mine is also a view which I must also let go of.

I am so excited about the potential of this centre. I am getting the space to really develop the three stages of spiritual awakening which I have intuited. The skill for me is to take the fish which is made available in the great spiritual literature and for me to work back so that I can teach people how to fish so that they can experience the energy of spiritual awakening for themselves. My greatest challenge is to moderate my right brain consciousness so that I connect with people and with what matters and is of concern to them. I know that the first of the stages to spiritual enlightenement - Know Thyself - is the longest and most challenging to human being. So many do not progress through this first stage. It is the stage that I also know the best. It is the stage of agony and ecstasy, despair and elation, confusion and clarity. It is the stage where the vehicle is purified for the next stage. Much like wood buring. It is the smoke from the impurities from the wood which has to be removed before we see the brilliant red of the burning wood.

Years ago when I first heard of the Buddhist concept of the Bodhissatva I was gripped with an intense desire to be such a person. To be able to understand the causes of suffering and show people how to be rid of suffering. Slowly and gradually I am beginning to see how this dream is being realised. It's not being realised with great drums and cymbals but is a slow, gradual process. I see it in how I am able to work back from the views contained in the works of great Buddhist writers and see how all of it is nothing more than the development of human being. Knowing how human being develops or more specifically studying intensely the subject of ontology which I have spent the last four years doing has enabled me to do this. Such study and thinking is available to everybody...not just me......