What lies within

My first weekend of teacher training....

2010-12-05T14:25:00.000-08:00

is over and it was just amazing. What I didn't know before I started this training is that Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan is about balancing the right and left sides of the brain. I couldn't believe when I was flicking through the teachers manual and I read this. From this point on I felt totally and completely at home. I have experienced the Kundalini so there isn't a shadow of doubt in my mind that this energy exists and is dormant at the base of all our spines.

Yogi Bhajan developed this method of Kundalini yoga to enable a smooth transition of human consciousness from the Piscean age to the Aqarian age. At present we are still in transition from Pisces and Aqarius which accounts for all of the chaos and conflict there is in the world. Pisces is largely about control, power, and separation. Aqarius is about harmony, co-operation and sharing experience, expertise and is about expansion. In all of us there are Piscean elements in conflict with Aqarian elements which leads to inner turmoil and conflict. The aim of this yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan is to strengthen the nervous system to make the body stronger for when the shift happens on a global basis. I had thought that the shift was going to be of the consciousness from left to right and I suppose if we see the left brain as Piscean and the right as Aquarian then this makes sense in this way too. However like it's not in balance to live solely in the left bran nor is it in balance to live solely in the right brain so where the consciousness is heading towards is whole brain.

For the first time in my life I am committing to a daily early morning Sadhana practice so that I can be fully prepared for when this shift happens. Some documents put this date at 2012 but this is the date when the consciousness is fully in the Aquarian age. I must stress that I don't know any of what I write to be the truth. The relief for me of this weekend is finding a place where the thoughts and ideas I have had for months if not years have been echoed in a training which I can now give my all to. I want to be a teacher who gives students an experience of what's possible by committing to a spiritual practice.

Writing this tonight I feel a level of peace but also of confidence to finally be who I know myself to be without any apology to anyone, to make a difference to people from the experience and expertise I have without hiding it under a bush and that....is something I am really looking forward to doing.

It's just a few hours before....I begin teacher training to be a Kundalini yoga teacher

2010-12-03T08:46:00.000-08:00

It's finally happening. In just a few hours I will be beginning my first weekend of six to be a Kundalini yoga teacher and I am just so excited. I am settled and at home with the experience I had on a meditation retreat many years ago as an experience of Kundalini energy rising up through energy centres called chakras which are located in the subtle energy body of the spine. I know these exist and are real and for me to be training to be able to have mastery with this powerful transformative energy is nothing but a privilege and a pleasure. It is the energy that is present in all of us and as a yoga teacher my purpose is to work with the energy so that it will raise safely and naturally in my students.

I am doing this training not because I am a chosen yogi or a mystic but simply because I am right brain dominant and I am following the path other right brain dominant people have done over the centuries. For years I have been alone with this right brain theory but just a few days ago to my absolute astonishment I was sent through the email details of a video clip of a woman who was a brain scientist and who suffered a stroke in the left hemisphere of her brain. The damage to the left hemisphere shifted her consciousness to the right hemisphere and she began to have experiences similar to what mystics and yogi's have described. This is just an amazing story and I urge all of my readers to watch it. I am not tech savvy so have no idea how to emed this video into this blog post, so I am just going to post the link here and really recommend that you watch it.

Link: http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

The significance of what happened to this lady is I assert and I don't know for sure what is going to happen to the consciousness of humanity on a global scale. It is going to shift from the left brain to the right. I remember many years ago in the 60s' there was a scientist called Perry who did 'split brain studies' and his work was completely dismissed and I remember that there was always something in the way it was ridiculed which didn't sit right with me. I think something of the power of the right brain was discovered then but because the right brain is very powerful his findings were suppressed. But now evolution itself has taken the lead and scientists can no longer keep the lid on the power of the right brain which is why there is suddenly an explosion of revelations about it on youtube and other sites.

For me all I feel is relief that I stayed true to myself and didn't put myself out there as some chosen yogi or mystic. I am simply right brain dominant which is the result of only having one properly functioning eye. This has resulted in less stimulation going from the right eye to the left brain causing the right side of the brain to work harder to compensate. I don't know any of this to be true but it feels right and authentic to me. There have been times when I have let go of my brain theory and basked in the notion that I may have been 'chosen' but then something happens that brings me right back to earth. When I stay with my brain theory life works and is beautiful and magical which makes it right for me.

So this training is deepening the consciousness of the right side of my brain with a view to being a powerful teacher for others and I am so inspired by it. My plan once I am qualified to teach is to spend six months of the year teaching in England and then to go to India and teach for the other six months. It makes sense for a right brained person to be in a right brained country.

My training starts at 7.30pm and I think although this hasn't been confirmed that it will begin tomorrow morning with Sadhana at 5am which in this freezing cold weather will be something else for me to actually get up and attend. This training is going to test me in ways I have never dreamed off. There are going to be different barriers to overcome but....bring it on...I have never been more ready.

I have made a promise that I will write after every weekend of my training with both the highs and lows. And I promise that I will do that......

How long.....has it been...

2010-11-12T23:12:00.000-08:00

I haven't written for a while because I've felt stuck. Not because my spiritual world has become dry but because everything spiritual I read resonates and I do not know where to start. I am noticing more and more how spiritual reflections of different kinds are becoming more and more common on such social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. The consciousness is definitely shifting that is so obvious to me.

I have also been quiet because I have been reading 'The Spiritual Brain' by Dr Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary and it is without doubt the easiest to read and understand academic book on this subject that I have ever read. The greatest shock for me from all the research done by neuroscientists is that I can no longer get away with that all of the spiritual experiences I have had is the result of any over active right brain. This is not true. Spiritual experiences involve both sides of the brain as every study to-date has shown and this discovery has really shocked me. I do not consider myself particularly spiriutal. I am the most ordinary woman that you could meet so for me to have been given the grace to have the permanent current of bliss, ease and contentment that I have without a physiological reason as I had thought for so long has really moved me and I am now allowing myself to feel blessed and emotional about it all. I am also incredibly grateful to this Divine Presence for its patience with me being like a dog with a bone desperate to prove that spiritual experiences could be reduced down to overactivity in the right side of the brain. I have now been forced to accept by the weight of scientific evidence that they are not.

So now what to do. There is no point in me writing another book. Everything that I can say has been said before. That is the thing there is nothing new to be discovered on the spiritual path. The ultimate revelation that what we take to be real and permanent is not and that the REAL hides within the unreal is not new. I am so excited to be starting my training to be a kundalini yoga teacher in December because it is here that I see a platform for what I know from my experience. I have experienced the powerful energy that rests at the base of all of our spines. I understand and have experienced the energy release from all of the seven chakras. It is amazing that until this experience I didn't believe in the chakras. I thought that they were something made up to make lots of money from and then innocently on one meditation retreat I was on I was given a full experience of energy rising through these different chakras. So being a kundalini yoga teacher where I work with people on freeing the blocked energy in these chakras so that the kundalini energy can move safely and naturally from the base of the spine to the top of the head where in Indian mythology Shiva meets Shakti is where I am going to focus my energies from now on.

When I start the teacher training I will write more often because it is a journey that I will want to document as fully as I can and I just love to write this blog when there is something of importance to say. Training to be a yoga teacher is going to be different to the training I have done to date with Landmark Education. I am an intellectual seeker so I have to reason out my shifts in consciousness. Others are devotees and can do the spiritual path on trust and devotion alone. This has not been my path. I question and it will be interesting to see how my approach to this path goes down with my spiritual teachers. One thing I know from experience of progression on this path is that it doesn't come from sticking doggedly and riggedly to one philosophy or faith. It only comes when one is willing to move from what's certain to that which is uncertain....

I begin my teacher training on the weekend of December 4th so if I don't write again rest assured that I will write following this weekend....

My dilemma.....around being a Kundalini yoga teacher...

2010-10-27T23:03:00.000-07:00

I've sat here for the last 10 minutes gathering my thoughts about how to write this blog entry. I am due to start my training as a kundalini yoga teacher in early December. From my experience of the spiritual path it is not one path for the whole of one's lifetime. Many of the spiritual disciplines have an exclusivity around them which is not my experience of progression on this path. I was born and brought up a catholic and so I remained until 1988 when Mahayana Buddhism found me and I then went onto study and practice that for almost 10 years.

In 1999 I had what I am calling a conversion experience while on a meditation retreat in Southern England. Then in 2005 I found the transformative education offered by Landmark Education and through Landmark I have progressed through the second stage of spiritual awakening which is transformation. I firmly believe that without transformation the final stage of spiritual awakening - Enlightenment is not possible. Transformation is about taking responsibility for having created everything in ones life up to that point. In the taking of that responsibility transformation happens. Taking responsibility is the vehicle for Transformation. Having used the tools of Landmark Education to bring about a transformation in myself and my life. I am now moving to the final stage which is to have mastery over the incredibly powerful spiritual energy that rests at the base of all of our spines called the Kundalini energy by becoming a certified Kundalini yoga teacher trainer.

My dilemma is this, that as a teacher I am going to recommend that everyone I teach do the weekend Landmark Forum offered by Landmark Education. This weekend is so powerful that it can cause conversion and transformation in one weekend if one is spiritually inclined. Landmark is not a spiritual programme but energy will go where attention goes and for people like me who uses everything she comes across in life to act as a spiritual catalyst there is nothing that comes close to the experience of the Sunday evening when responsibility is taken and the past is put firmly back into the past, leaving a future that is like a blank canvass just waiting to be created on.

The way that I have done the spiritual is not the usual way. The usual way is that you take on a practice and stick doggedly at it for life. I agree with this to a certain point. After all I spent almost 10 years studying and practicing Mahayana Buddhism but there will come a point where there is a letting go of all that and I assert that it is because there is so little of this letting go amongst spiritual masters and guru's that there is so little enlightenment in the world. It takes courage to let go and move deeper into the unknown and the uncertain. It is easy to remain cushioned among like-minded people and be obedient and sell out on reason and intuition but to do this is to close on the door on any future enlightenment.

Going for Enlightenment before experiencing conversion and transformation is like a child wanting to run a marathon before it can even crawl - impossible. There have been accounts of people who achieved enlightenment without seemingly going through either of these experiences but I have never met one so can't verify that. From my own experience which is all I will ever and only speak from there are three definite stages to this path; conversion, transformation and enlightenment. All three are necessary to experience fully. The ultimate end of enlightenment is no witness, nothing or nobody to write.....but that cannot come before the other two stages.

Given my declared commitment that everyone becomes spiritually enlightened in this lifetime my insistence on those I teach doing the weekend Landmark Forum is likely to bring me into conflict with kundalini yoga authorities. Spiritual disciplines are rigid in their thinking that their discipline and only theirs can deliver enlightenment. I had an experience of this with my kundalini yoga teacher who I have a great deal of respect and admiration for. I have met many people on the spiritual path and he is one of the most authentic I have met. But even he when I tried to explain about what there is to experience on the Sunday evening of the Landmark Forum was rigid and inflexible about it 'going against his beliefs'. In that word 'belief' lies the trap of rigidity and inflexibility. I never had beliefs just a deep unshakeable faith that when Buddha said the enlightenment was possible in this lifetime I never had any doubt that he spoke the truth. It wasn't a question of belief but of faith. And faith doesn't adhere rigidly to anything...it goes with the flow....for what is possible.

Everything......is grace...

2010-10-24T23:20:00.000-07:00

This is the realization that hit me when I was in the gym yesterday. Absolutely everything that has happened to me has been a gift of grace and I couldn't see it because I was too busy searching for evidence. What I realized ia that whether or not the lack of sight in my right eye has anything to do with the spiritual experiences and insights that I have had that everything is a gift of grace. This realization has left me profoundly humbled. At the moment I am reading Osho's Book of Secrets and everything I read resonates so profoundly. I would like to think that I am the female version of Osho as he writes everything that I think. I can't believe that I dismissed him for so many years because I decided that he was a guru who had feet of clay just because of his Rolex watches and fleet of limousines. But what I also see is that I didn't reject Osho but my identity did because it knew that once I touched Osho and his writings that its days were numbered and yet the identity is never totally transformed, it has layers and layers just like the layers of an onion. The identity put simply is our animal nature. It's sole purpose is for survival. To embrace and be compassionate to this animal nature of ourselves is to be well on the way to freedom.

Many years ago I did a 10 day silent Vippasana meditation retreat in India. I was totally amazed at how when the silence was broken on the 10th day at how difficult I found it to speak. I knew what I wanted to say, but somehow the words wouldn't come. I have thought back on this many times and from it I saw just how powerful silence is but there was something else that I knew was there about silence but couldn't put my finger on it. Last night I read it in Osho's book of secrets where he explained that it is easier to go from sounds to the soundless than to come back from the soundless to sounds. He gave the example of Meher Baba who kept silent for 40 years. At certain times he would write a note about when he would break his silence but he never did. According to Osho if you remain silent for three years then the mechanism for sound is gone and talking becomes impossible. This is the missing piece of the jigsaw for me. I could see this process beginning in how difficult I found it to speak and that was only after 10 days. I would love to know if it is like this in the silent orders that still remain. Of course, I am taking all of this on faith from Osho. Part of it corresponds with my own experience which is so important when on this path. Vigilance about being hoodwinked is one of the most important qualities to have on a spiritual path. To be spiritually discerning.

This brings me on to the subject of the types of people who follow a spiritul path. Essentially they are of two types. The intellectual and the devotee. I definitely fall into the former category. I am always reasoning and trying to fit what I read with my own experience. Not with my thoughts and feelings about what I have read but about what my own experience and intuition tells me about what I read. This is why the writings of Osho resonate so strongly with me at the moment. Yet even my intellectual seeking had humility. I remaining saying to the Divine 1% of me is true and authentic, you make that stronger and let me work on the 99% that is arrogant, superior, out to prove that you are just a mechanism in the brain. I think it is this that has kept me safe thus far on this path.......

The spiritual path....happens in cycles....

2010-10-21T22:52:00.000-07:00

Many years ago after I had been following a Buddhist path for many years I was in my flat one Saturday morning and I remember feeling so disillusioned about this path. I had returned from a trip to India where I had tracked the life of the Buddha and I felt lost and didn't know where to go next. Then I heard either my own thoughts or a voice that said just three words. These were 'give it up'. I couldn't believe it. The pursuit of the spiritual was something that had become a part of me and wasn't something that I did and so to have this thought of giving everything up was shocking for me. Yet I listened and gave up reading any spiritual books, writing or going to workshops/talks. I can still remember the emptiness I felt.

Then I had what to most people is a normal common everyday experience where an emotional situation triggered a reaction in me in a normal everyday setting of a work situation. Weeks later I accidentally grabbed a book from my bookshelf to take to read on a bus journey that I was making. My heart sank when I saw that it was a spiritual book that I had promised to give up months ago but still I opened the book. As my eyes glided over the sentences I realized that I had a different ease of understanding that definitely hadn't been there before. I was so engrossed in reading that I completely missed my stop.

Now why am I writing this in the blog when it has been written in my book? I have seen in myself that events that happened years ago are happening again which is why I say that this path happens in cycles. A while ago I went to see the film 'Eat, Pray, Love' and I really enjoyed it. I was particularly interested in the experiences of the ashram that were shown. Then a woman who I work with asked me if I had read the book and I said 'no' and she said 'I will lend it to you'. She was true to her word and on Monday she produced the book for me.

Last night on the bus going home reading it, I missed my stop to get off. Why did I get so absorbed in what I was reading? The reason is because to my absolute astonishment I read the closest account I have read about the energy that lies at the base of the spine and what happens when it rises. The film was the ideal opportunity to bring this information to the world and it didn't happen..why? Why didn't the film bring this information to the world. It could have been done in a dialogue between two of the actors in the ashram. To me this was such a golden opportunity and it would have shifted how people saw the spiritual. This energy at the base of the spine is common to all therefore it's not purely a spiritual energy. It is a human energy which when it is experienced gives the realization that we are spiritual beings having human experiences.

As I was reading it I realized with a jolt that I had experienced what is called the 'blue eye' in meditation. The closest I can relate this to is the view from a kaleidoscope where the eye suddenly opens up and 'something' is seen. I vaguely remember this happening but because I was so against 'seeing' anything in meditation I didn't give what I saw any importance. This is unlike my yoga teacher who told us that when he experienced this eye that when it parted there was a big spider there. As he was terrified of spiders this broke his meditation. So at every stage of this path there are challenges to overcome.

The writer of Eat, Pray, Love has a Guru and all I can think of is that when she was involved in the making of the film that she consulted the guru who advised her not to mention the powerful kundalini experience she had while meditating. I don't have a guru which is why I'm more objective/scientific about the whole thing. I think that this is such a shame as to have had the kind of conversation about it that she has written in the book would have profoundly shifted the spiritual path from one which is thought just for certain people to a path that everyone has a right to and indeed what is at the root of the profound emptiness that is so often found in the west.

She writes on page 142 'I fall asleep for a while (in meditation. When I awake I can feel the soft blue electrical energy pulsing through my body in waves (the 'waves' is exactly the same experience as I had'. It's a bit alarming but also amazing. I don't know what to do, so I just speak internally to this energy. I say to it 'I believe in you' and it magnifies, volumizes in response. It's frighteningly powerful now, like a kidnapping of the senses. It's humming up from the base of my spine'. There is more but this is the most important part. Over the next pages to page 146 she investigates kundalini but nowhere in the film is there a discussion about any of this and this just amazes me. I was so absorbed in this part of the book that for the second time in my life I missed my stop on the bus. What is also familiar is the process of letting go which came before.

Yesterday I declared that I would let go my story about the right brain and spirituality. I don't know though how I have shifted by reading this book. All I am left with is a huge frustration that knowledge and information that could have been brought to the world wasn't. A couple of my friends who read the book before seeing the film expressed a disappointment in the film but couldn't say why. Maybe deep down they also feel there was......a golden opportunity lost.....

I have had.....a shocking realization...

2010-10-21T00:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I realized with a sickening jolt to my stomach that I am more interested in proving that I am right about my brain theory and spirituality than I am about enjoying my spiritual transformation. This obsession with wanting to be right about this is limiting what is possible for me. What I have been doing though is no different to what we all do as human beings and that is that we all have to be right about our view, opinion and we make being right more important than being happy. Is this why both the scientific and the spiritual community in their own ways have distanced themselves from me. Both communities cannot believe that given the gift of grace that I have without any doubt been given that I should dare to look for a scientific reasonable, rational explanation to account for it.

Yes, there are certain facts about me which can be verified to be true. I have been born with an uncorrected lazy right eye but everything else I have made up as a story and then I have systematically gathered the evidence to support the story. This is also what we do as human beings. We make a decision about something or someone and then the rest of life is spent gathering the evidence to support the story. But the story by virtue of it only being story is not real and yet I have lived my life like my story that the lack of sight in my right eye was the cause of all the profound spiritual experiences and insights I have had was the truth. It wasn't and isn't....it's just a story I made up to give what happened to me meaning. But any story no matter what it is about limits what's possible. It limits what's possible because a story can never be the truth. A story is fiction....it has no basis in reality.

So what is possible for me if I give up my story and stop trying to find evidence in the way that I have? The first thing that comes to mind is complete freedom around the experiences I have had. The experiences are real and I will never deny that they happened but what I can be responsible for is the story I made up about what they meant and then I lived my life from this story. The story limited me because I was always trying to fit it with whoever I may have been writing to or speaking with. If I can let it go and just be with what happened, without making it mean anything then I can be totally myself. I can tell my story from the facts and deal with the facts of what happened and this will give me a level of ease and freedom that up to now I haven't experienced.

Where did I get this revelation. Many readers of my blog will know that from 2005 I have been participating in a transformative education which has been run by Landmark Education. I am presently doing a seminar on Excellence which is where the revelation came from last night. What I saw was that I have a story around why I can't be excellent and that is because I haven't got two proper functioning eyes and therefore I can't be excellent which is a total story. As I said there is a fact there that I have been born with only one functioning eye but all the rest of it is a story and it limits me from being excellent. A story also takes up the space for excellence; the two cannot co-exist, there is either story or excellence.

From my spiritual journey I have identified three distinct stages. The first is conversion and there are many examples of this. It is when the consciousness shifts from the outer to the inner. The second stage is transformation which is why I am so heavily involved in the programmes offered by Landmark. It is the only education I know that offers transformation. It is why I unreservedly recommend its flagship programme the weekend Landmark Forum. And the final stage which I am clear that I am working towards is Enlightenment. Transformation is not Enlightenment, but without Transformation Enlightenment is not possible. Transformation is putting the past back into the past, recognising that a story is just a story, not the truth; giving up the right to be right for what is possible. Transformation creates the space for something new to be created. For me that space is for Enlightenment but I fully appreciate that it's not the space for everyone, nor does it have to be.....

Evidence is mounting.....that my theory about the right brain....might not be the entire story..

2010-10-20T00:25:00.001-07:00

It is slowly occuring to me that the powerful experiences and insights that I have experienced since beginning a spiritual path when I was 12 may have little or nothing to do with my theory that I have accelerated right brain development. That in some way that I still find incredibly hard to believe that my intention made at the age of 12 that I was going to be spiritual and not religious has been like rocket fuel for everything that has happened. It is impossible to underestimate the power of a decision made in childhood and early adulthood. These are the decisions that go on to shape who we become as individuals. They are what make up our ego/identity/personality and they come about as the result of the development of mind. Mind is the structure that holds all the decisions that we made when we were growing up.

Why have I suddenly gone less than certain on what was for me a definite reason for why I was the way I was. Well the strongest reason is that I have come across the work of Dr Mario Beauregard who has written a book called 'The Spiritual Brain'. In it he suggests that mystical/spiritual experiences involve the brain but are not limited to it. In my theory I had completely limited what happened to me to the workings of the brain and more particular to increased activity in the right side and nothing else. A couple of weeks ago I put pen to paper and sent him an email briefly outlining the experience where I experienced the rising of an energy from the base of my spine to my head and the transformation that happened afterwards. I explained about the lack of sight in my right eye and the link between the eye and the brain and asked him about the possibility of having some brain scan done on my brain to see the level of right brain activity vis a vis the left. He replied to me the next day which I was really grateful for and told me that spiritual activity involves both sides of the brain and gave me some advice on how to go about getting a brain scan. There was no indication that he wished to be further involved with me.

I am used to this reaction by now because of all the experts in this field I have spoken to and I have a great deal of respect for Dr Beauregard. I have only just begun his book but I want to copy a sentence which has resonated. There is an old Sufi saying that says 'I thought about you so often, that I completely became you; little by little you drew closer; And slowly but surely I passed away' What this is saying is that to be focussed continuously on something is to bring it about. Now in Dr Beauregard's book, he says on page 33 when he is speaking about the field of quantum mechanics 'Experiments have shown that because the brain is a quantum system, if you focus on a given idea, you hold its pattern of connecting neurons in place. The idea does not decay as it would if it were ignored. But the action of holding an idea in place truly is a decision you make' So here we have a sufi and a scientist saying more or less the same thing. I think this is why also that when we focus on what we don't want in life, we get more of the same. The key to effortlessly manifesting is to focus continuously on what we do want.

For me from the age of 12 I wanted nothing more than to be spiritual. I had no idea what that looked like. I was born into an Irish Catholic family so I knew religion but I had no idea of spirituality yet I knew that there was a fundamental difference between being spiritual and being religious. I could also look at it like the continuous focus on being spiritual has driven my brain to develop in the way that it has. In this way we have a chicken and egg scenario, what came first, the brain development or my desire to be spiritual? The truth is that I don't know. One thing I am committed though is to be true to myself no matter what the experts try to tell me.....

Had my kundalini class.....and now I'm irritated.....

2010-10-12T05:44:00.000-07:00

Irritation seems to be a common and lasting feeling at the moment. Am doing my practice of being aware of it but I feel like a coiled spring in danger of springing out. I am feeling a build up of tension which is increasing in pressure and intensity. Regular readers of this blog will know that things that can't be seen with the eyes, I don't have much time for. This goes for reincarnation, past lives and stories of people appearing in subtle energy bodies. I deal with what I observe and experience and that is all. I feel this gives me a level of groundedness when so many in this field don't seem to me to be connected to reality. This goes also for authorities in this field.

Today in my class the teacher started speaking about it being the birthday of a famous guru over the weekend and how he (the guru) appeared many times in his subtle body after he died. The woman who was with me was really fascinated with all of this and I listened to it with mounting irritation. Finally when I could bear it no more I said 'surely if the mind wants to see something enough, a form will be created, desire will create a form in the imagination'. There was this uncomfortable silence for a minute and then my teacher who is so great started to speak about the field of quantum mechanics which is something I have trust in. That this phenomenon of a particle appearing in two places is a recognised and proven phenomenon. This stopped me somewhat in my tracks but I still found it too much of a leap to go from the qantum physics to an actual human being. That awkward moment passed and we got on with the class but all during the class I was irritated. The length of time I had to hold my arms up at an uncomfortable angle irritated me. I know that this is the purpose of these exercises to feel the pain and go beyond but I was just irritated. What was revealing for me was that the last meditation was one to do with cultivating trust and it was this exercise that I found the hardest of all to do. I had to stop many times to have a rest during the exercise. I think my teacher was trying to show me something in a very subtle way.

After the class the conversation moved onto reincarnation and past lives. This was just too much for me. There is so much to uncover and create in the present life, what on earth is the point in going back over past lives. What purpose can it serve. I see it as just more attention to that which is not-self. The conversation came up because of a fear my teacher has of spiders and he found that in a past life he had been killed by a spider!!! How on earth am I going to train to be a kundalini yoga teacher if this is the way I am about common spiritual conversations. And yet if there was nothing for me to learn I wouldn't be having this reaction around these conversations. I have been on this path long enough to recognise that anything where the behaviour is a react and not a response is an area where I am not being totally honest with myself......hm.....more work to do.....

To take on a spiritual path it is not necessary.....to take oneself away from the world..

2010-10-11T13:12:00.000-07:00

What I am realizing more and more is that the spiritual is not a path as such but a way of being. It is a declaration that I am a spiritual being who is having human experiences. When this is the context then everything that happens is fodder for spiritual growth and development.

To pay my bills, I work as a fundraiser for a number of charities. Each call presents itself as an opportunity for me to choose who I am going to be on each call. As you can imagine given the nature of the work some calls are more harmonious than others. What is invaluable about this job for me given my self-declared path towards self-realization and enlightenment is that when the energy of anger is there I can watch it impassively, like an observer. I don't get identified with it and I certainly don't project it onto the person I am speaking to. I just watch it rising up. Everything is energy and anger is just one form that the energy takes. In another instant that same energy can transform into love or compassion. What is important is not the form that it changes into but to be aware of its presence and to watch its rise and more importantly its fall. To follow it back until it dissolves into the formless. Only then will it result in a deep and abiding peace.

The person who caused me to get angry has no part to play. The anger was within me and it is only when we take responsibility and own that we have anger, but anger is not who we are that a level of ease and freedom can be experienced around anger and indeed around any energy whether this is hate or love. It is all the same energy but the form in which it is expressed is different. But the principle is the same for whatever form it takes. Become aware of its presence, don't act out or project and follow it back to its source.

I feel blessed that at least once each day I am given the opportunity to engage with this process and it has led to deepening peace and calm. In this way there is no need for me to take myself to an ashram or even have a teacher. The willingness to take myself on at every moment is enough.....

10th October 2010 - 10.10am - highly significant for humanity....

2010-10-10T03:12:00.000-07:00

Some weeks back I received notification of a workshop which was being given by a Clairvoyant called Edwin Courtenay who I rate highly. He says this about this date today 'On this day, at 10 minutes past 10, the masculine and feminine Christ energies will descend strongly on the planet downloading their codes and energies into the hearts of those ready to receive them. Some people have these already but even they will have their existing Christ Codes updated!

Now I had completely forgotten about this until just before I fell asleep last night. This morning I found it very difficult to wake up and when I did had this overwhelming compulsion to meditate from just before 10am to 10.30am. Since then I have felt this incredible restlessness and agitation. I am writing now because I have a strong inner urge to do so, it seems important. Wearing my right brain hat I can speculate that what may have happened is that there has been more of a shift to the right side of the brain in which case I don't think I can be any more brain lateralized to the right than I am! What I would have hoped has happened is that new neural pathways have been built between the right and left brain. There is no doubt that some more left brain activity for me in terms of going out and making things happen for myself either personally or professionally would be a good thing, but for those who operate solely from the left brain consciousness the shift today is going to be welcome for some and bewildering and unsettling for others. Ironically I seem to be in the latter category!

However this is also a golden opportunity. I wrote a few days ago about being a witness of everything that happens, just like a rock is steady when the waves are crashing around it. Well in my mind everything is crashing, there are crazy thoughts, agitation and yet there is also that which is watching all of this going on. I know all there is to do is rest in that which is watching but then why do I feel like there is something I should be doing. And why doesn't this shifting of my consciousness to that which is watching disappear all of this agitation and restlessness. But this is the test of the spiritual path to have trust, faith and most importantly surrender to that which watches.

I must also issue a word of warning about pursuing a spiritual path seriously. Firstly the spiritual is real and achievable I hand on heart can state this from my experience. Yet one must be careful because on this path certain experiences happen whereby it's very easy to lose one's perspective. I was reading the story of a man who for years was a life and business coach and a very successful one at that. However on the side he had been pursuing some powerful spiritual practices without guidance. Then he had this experience which I cannot write too much about and his third eye opened which gave him supernatural powers. However when he tried to speak to his landlord about all this his landlord said to him 'I don't care what happened to you, you are two weeks late with the rent'. For some reason this resonated very strongly and shows the paradox of this path. The experience of bliss and all knowingness that comes along with this kind of experience is a lonely experience because it is for oneself only. Ultimately the experience cannot be explained or shared only hinted at and in this is the acute aloness of the spiritual path. I say 'aloneness' and not 'loneliness'. There is no loneliness, there is much uncertainty. Experiences of this nature throw the consciousness from the known to the unknown and the unknown is always uncertain but there is no loneliness - how can there be the consciousness has come home to itself....the search is over...in fact it never was...

I will be one year living where I am at the end of this month and it is time for me to move on yet the thoughts of all that 'doing' just makes me want to curl up and retreat into my spiriutal books and writing but life is about balance and so finding somewhere else to live has to be my project for the next couple of months. My conventional life in London seems so far away now. I will be starting my training as a yoga teacher in December. Maybe it is this that is at the root of my restlessness. The inner energy bursting for the kind of expression that can only be expressed as a teacher.....my right brain.....is demanding expression..

Go.....where there is no path.....and leave a trail....

2010-10-07T14:04:00.000-07:00

The spiritual path is a tried and tested path where everything hinges on the words of sages and gurus who have left this life. These sages and gurus are dead and have taken their enlightenment to the grave. There is little to be gained by following dead sages. All these writings can do is provide a guide but the guide is not the experience. In every field new paths are blazed. I'm thinking of quantum mechanics and nanotechnology in science and yet in the field of spirituality everything has stayed the same and then we wonder where there are so few enlightened beings.

I assert that the grace of the guru is only obtained by following a living teacher. By writing this I am going against the grain of my beliefs because unashamedly my most influential teachers have been Sri Ramana Maharshi and Osho and of course beloved Buddha and from these I have learned so much but if I am to achieve the ultimate goal then I have to go where there is no path and leave a trail. This doesn't mean re-writing spiritual literature. The goal has always been the same spiritual enlightenment but all the past teachers have done is to offer devices or techniques to reach enlightenment.

Enlightenment for all is not an 'if' but a 'when' and I am a hundred percent sure of this. What makes me so sure? Every one of us born a human being has an inner centre which connects us to the whole of existence. No training can be given to develop this centre it has to be discovered or uncovered. Every enlightened master uncovered this centre and then taught from another centre which they developed. For some the centre they taught from was the heart and so the teachings contains the importance of being devoted. Others developed the head centre and then taught from there so the method that was advocated was self-enquiry or reason. But all first uncovered and immersed themselves in this inner inborn centre and from this centre everything else came. The really great thing abut this and what is to be celebrated is that this centre cannot be developed it is inherent to all of us. So there really is nothing to do. This is why for me the advocates of the thinking, we are already enlightened we just haven't had the experience yet is so true. I have to stress again because it is so important and I am so excited that I want to repeat that this centre cannot be trained or developed, only discovered.

One way of looking at this centre is to think about the Witness consciousness. The Witness is that which watches everything that goes on in the mind dispassionately and objectively. To see this - consider what is it that knows you have a thought or a feeling. When you say 'I have a headache', who is it that knows you have a headache, something is watching you have the headache. If you were the headache, you wouldn't be able to see it as something separate to you. But the fact is that we do see a headache as separate to us which is why we reach for nurofen.

This inner centre is like the rock in the ocean. In the ocean waves crash around the rock, but the rock remains stable, unattached and uninvolved. For me this rock is the same as our inner centre. When we operate from this centre, events of life happen but we don't lose our balance and also from this center we respond and not react to these events.

I have allowed for comments on this post and apologies I always mean to but often I forget....

Why be special.....when you can be yourself..

2010-10-06T01:13:00.001-07:00

In May 2010 I went to Satsang with a teacher called Mooji. I had a specific question I wanted to ask him which was around a woman ever being a spiritual master. My belief is that a woman can be a devotee, mystic, even spiritually awakened, but a Master..no, no that's a job for the boys. It took me two hours to get to ask my question and when I finally did I was amazed at Mooji's response to me. He totally understood where my question was coming from and he spoke about the desire to be a Master and the title of this post is one of the most profound that he said to me. Being myself is something I have now taken on and am so committed to.

So what does it mean to be 'yourself'. It means to be completely natural. To live in the present and to be self-expressed about your feelings in each moment. The latter is a challenge for us as human beings because for the most time we hide behind 'I'm fine' when asked. But to be natural and authentic demands that we are honest about our feelings in every moment and are honest about how experiences with ourselves and others are for us. This is also to live the way of the Tao - effortless action.

My spiritual journey has moved from effort where I put so much in when I was studying and practicing Mahayana Buddhism to now being completely effortless. I have a spiritual practice which I do every morning now not because it's effort or I feel I have to do it to sustain the state of peace, calm, bliss that I have permanently but because I enjoy it. The mornings that I don't do it, I acknowledge that I didn't do it and am straight with myself about why - I don't hide behind excuses, reasons and explanations. To be authentic and natural it is vital that the consciousness is always in the present. Past and future do not exist. The past was once the present and the future will one day be the present so all there is the present, THE NOW. With this naturalness with nothing forced the state of enlightenment will reveal itself in the way it is meant to....naturally and effortlessly.

Tuesday.....is my kundalini yoga class...

2010-10-05T09:11:00.000-07:00

I just love Tuesday mornings because I have an hour and a half of kundalini yoga. One thing I have learned about the spiritual path is never to be definite about what one will or not try. I never thought that I would train to be a kundalini yoga teacher never mind to be so committed to my regular Tuesday morning class but I really am. Mind you each time I am doing kriya's (set of exercises designed to have a specific effect) I am still in the conversation about is this just only about the right side of the brain or is there more... For some reason I am so reluctant to move away from my view that my spirituality has more to do with me being right brain dominant than that it is the result of good karma.

I have decided to train to teach this form of yoga because having experienced the powerful kundalini energy it makes sense for me to train with this energy. However I know what I'm like also and I have a real dislike for the show-manship/woman-ship that often goes along with a spiritual path. This is why I cling to my right brain theory because how can I be a show-woman over something that is completely natural to me. I have no desire to be anything other than ordinary. My hope is that I can start and complete this training and then with a mixture of my training with a powerful personal and self-development company which I have been doing since 2005 I consider that I can be a powerful kundalini yoga teacher. But already I have had my first point of tension and that is in buying a spiritual name which is what all yoga teachers are advised to do. My view is that I already have a name which I like and which means pearl in Latin and I have no interest in getting another.

I once knew someone who made a great deal out of the spiritual name she was given and I found her to be so false. Now I am willing to accept that perhaps her willingness to throw herself hook, line and sinker into this aspect of the spiritual path triggered me because even with all of the powerful experiences I have had I am still so reluctant to do this. Again I come back to the same point. Why should I have a spiritual name for something that is just so natural to me. I can see my frustration deepen as my training to be a kundalini yoga teacher progresses. I am not going to be silent about my view about my spirituality being more to do with an overactive right brain than it is to do with anything else and I can foresee conflict in the months ahead. Oh well....what is that famous quote 'to thine own self be true' and this is all I am trying to do in this blog as well as in life.....

When the shoe fits.....the leg is forgotten....

2010-10-04T05:46:00.000-07:00

The title of this post is also the title of the book I am reading by Osho. It is so strange how I dismissed him earlier in my spiritual journey. And now, I just can't read enough of what he is written. It is such a shame that he died at 54. For the past couple of years I have engaged in an enquiry with myself which is about the need for continual practice. Why do monks/nuns anyone who takes on the spiritual journey have to do continual practice. Why doesn't the altered state of consciousness last. In this book Osho gives me an answer which I have recognised intuitively but never seen in print before. That is because....the holy grail of enlightenment will never be achieved by effort!....All effort is a projection towards some desired state. For that reason it may be experienced for the time of effort, i.e. meditation, spiritual practice but if the practice is not sustained then neither is the experience or the state.

In his book Osho meets a man who has been doing a continuous sustained practice for over 30 years and he asks him to 'drop it all'. The man has full confidence that the state will remain without effort but on the fourth day he runs into Osho's room at 4am claiming him to be an enemy because he has now lost the state of consciousness that he had. In complete calmness Osho explains that what there is to do now is to be a witness and then the state will return naturally and permanently. This really resonates for me because of an experience I had. I had been studying and practicing Mahayana Buddhism for almost 10 years. And before that on and off since the age of 12 I had been following a spiritual path. When I returned from a trip to India where I tracked the life of the Buddha I was in my flat one Saturday morning wondering what my next spiritual step was when I heard either my own thoughts or a voice which said 'give it up'. I remember this as clear as if it happened yesterday. I was filled with dismay because interest in all things spiritual was something that was who I was and I couldn't imagine life without my spiritual books, going to talks, workshops. But I listened and gave up and then some six months later I had an experience which on the face of it wasn't spiritual at all. But when I accidentally grabbed a book from my bookshelf and started to read it, to my astonishment I had a complete and total understanding that I know wasn't there before for that book. From this experience I once again entered the spiritual path.

There seems to be something in 'letting go' or 'dropping' that results in an expansion of consciousness. Trust and surrender is required for 'letting go' and this is rewarded with a permanent experience of an altered state of consciousness. I remember also reading a sentence from a book called 'from onions to pearls' where the author said something to the effect of 'I had been on every workshop there was to go on, tried every spiritual practice there was to try' and it was only when I completely gave up everything that I got everything'. The challenge is to know when is the right time to 'drop', 'let go' because the timing is right and the next stage must happen without effort and when the temptation to let go is just resistance because the spiritual practice is too challenging. This is where intuition comes in and learning to trust the inner process. It is very much an individual subjective thing and I can offer no definites here in this blog. It really is a question of trust and surrender.....

The shift....from left to right....will not be easy...

2010-10-01T10:37:00.000-07:00

It appears that what I have been saying for years about consciousness shiting from the left brain to the right is gathering momentum. Just today I received details of a workshop which is being held next Sunday. The workshop talks about spiritual ascension and the alignment between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Now the possibility of alignment is not one that I considered. I had the idea that the consciousness would do a direct and dramatic shift but if the shift is towards alignment then that is just brilliant, taking the right and left and aligning the consciousness. It is the polarity between the right and left up to now that has manifested itself in the outer conflicts. With alignment we can expect to look forward to a peaceful harmonious world.

Yet my feeling is that there is more polarity to come before the consciousness aligns. In particular I feel there is going to be a loss of left brain abilities. In some way we have already seen this with the banking crisis. The thinking and logic failed here and it still hasn't recovered. One could view this as the first major failing of the left side of the brain. On the other hand I have had correspondancce with someone who I knew years ago when he was president of a public speaking club. He has obviously had some kind of spiritual experience because now he quotes the bible and is so evangelical proclaiming what he says as 'truth'. I don't deny that he has had an experience of some kind for him to be like this but if the experience involved a vision as I believe it did I want to issue a warning. It is from the book 'A Course in Miracles' and those readers who are familiar with the book will know how many pages are in it. Out of all those pages one sentence stood out when I read it and that was 'perception is always of the ego'. The mind is very cunning and the spiritual path is the biggest threat to its existence and so it will do everything to throw the consciousness off the path. Having a great desire for something will have it manifest. This is why a Christian would almost never have a vision of Buddha and vice versa. There is no desire associated with an idol where there is no feeling.

I took this sentence from the book very seriously and so when I hear of people 'seeing' angels, visions I remain far from convinced. The state of sunyata or emptiness has no form, there is also no witness because everything is ONE. There is no longer a subject/object; seer/what's seen - all duality is gone.

More evidence.....for the power of the right side of the brain...

2010-09-29T02:49:00.000-07:00

Now I am like a dog with a bone because after so many frustrating years speaking about and getting rejected and villified for my right brain theory, it seems like the idea of the shift of energy from the rational, logical, sequential left brain to the intuitive right side is gaining momentum. I feel like Osho who also intuitied something similar and didn't have his ideas taken up. I've come across a paragraph in a book written by Osho called 'Intuition' and this is what he has to say about the right side of the brain.

'Your brain is divided into two hemispheres, the right hemisphere and the left hemisphere. The right hemisphere is joined with the left hand and the left hemisphere is joined with the right hand - crosswise. The right hemisphere is intuitive, illogical, irrational, poetic, platonic, imaginative, romantic, mythical. The left hemisphere is logical, rational, mathematical, Aristoltelian, scientific and calculative. These two hemispheres are always in conflict. The left hand is concerned with the right hemisphere - intuition, poetry, myth - and the left hand is very much condemned. The society is of those who are right-handed - right handed means the left hemisphere'. He speaks about how in the past children who had a natural tendancy to write with their left hand were forced to write with their right hand and I remember this very well. This leads me to believe that the powers of the right side of the brain has been known about and kept secret for many many years. Osho continues 'Children who are born left-handed are basically irrational, intuitive, non-mathematical, they are dangerous to society so it forces them to become right-handed. It is not just a question of hands, it is a question of inner politics: the left handed child functions through the right hemisphere which society cannot allow, it is dangerous, so he/she has to be stopped before things go too far' Osho Intuition page 123.

Like everything I write and reference I am not claiming that this is the absolute bona fide truth but it mirrors a feeling I have had since a young girl when I knew that I was different but never understood why. My mother paid for me to have grinds in mathematics but the teacher gave up and left because there was no left brain ability there. Years ago I submitted the outline of a book to a publisher called 'right brain woman living in a left brained world' which got a deafening silent response. But I really do feel that the day of acknowledgement for the power of the right brain is fast approaching helped along by 3D films such as Avatar. When I was watching this I was struck by how the consciousness is being exposed to greater depth perception. Normally our consciousness is two dimensional, films like 3D Avatar give the consciousness the experience of 3D which is where evolution is shifting our consciousness to.

So with all of these developments I should be so excited and yet I'm not. I am quietly calm and confident that sooner rather than later spiritual awakening will be undeniably linked to right brain development....

Such a powerful energy....rests at the base of the spine

2010-09-28T05:39:00.000-07:00

Today is my Kundalini yoga class. Kundalini is the eastern name given to the energy that lies dormant at the base of the spine. It is said to be coiled like a snake three and a half-times around the spinal cord. Even though I had studied Mahayana Buddhism for almost 10 years the idea of energy at the base of the spine was something I had never heard of. So when this energy rose naturally and spontaneously when I was on a 10 day silent meditation retreat in 1999 I had no idea what was happening. Afterwards I was and continue to be so in awe of this magnificent secret that the body holds and that's for all of us. This for me....is the energy of spiritual awakening if not enlightenment. I know what I was and what my spiritual understandings were before this energy rose and I know what I am now and what I underwent was a spiritual transformation.

And yet I am also a spiritual scientist who wants to investigate objectively what this energy is. At a certain level everyone has experienced it in its crudest form which is the energy of orgasm but experienced in a non-sexual setting it transmutes from the sexual to something much higher and powerful. The challenge becomes one of how to have this energy transmute. I believe that as the consciousness shifts from the left to the right side of the brain that this energy is going to transmute in a more intense way. Therefore, it is important to prepare the body to receive this by doing a certain amount of spiritual practice to strengthen the body. My experience of this energy is that it is not so much an energy as a fire that burns away a thin web of energy that separates the emotional from the mental resulting in a harmonious personality.

When this energy erupts and the body and brain is not ready to receive it what happens is what is called a 'spiritual emergency' and I assert that psychiatric hospitals have many people who have had this but nobody has known what it is. I assert that the only difference between the mystic and the psychotic person is who they spoke to. That is why when one first experiences this energy it is very important to know when to speak up and when to shut up. Because this energy activates areas in the brain that are normally dormant very strange thoughts, ideas can come and it was my training as a Buddhist to use the concept of the Witness which enabled me to integrate the experience into my everyday life. The experience shatters consciousness which is why adopting a witness mentality which is watching everything that is happening as a dispassionate observer is so important and then gradually the experience will be integrated. I remember in the early days of this experience feeling very manic having rapid and intense thoughts and having all kinds of conspiracy ideas and then a few days or a week later feeling very low. In medical terms I would have been diagnosed with possible manic depression. But throughout all of this I watched everything that was happening to me as an observer and gradually it all calmed down.

Hazel Courtney who used to be Health editor for a well-known newspaper experienced a spontaneous awakening which she has written about in her book 'Divine Intervention'. This is the most moving account of a spontaneous spiritual emergency that I have read and it's made more authentic because of how normal she apparently was before the experience. The energy will never rise though without some practice being engaged in beforehand which is why not doing any form of this yoga alone is so important. It is why I am now going to train to be a teacher so I can work with this energy safely and naturally. One of the first books I read after my experience was called 'living with kundalini' by Gopi Krishna and I resolved after that not to have anything to do with this energy. However I was drawn to yoga and had tried every kind but none of it resonated. Then I joined a gym and I couldn't believe it when one of the classes was a kundalini yoga class. With great reservation I went to my first class which I think I wrote about on either this blog or the other one I had and from that moment felt like I had come home. Since then a weekly kundalini yoga class is part of my lifestyle and now instead of being scared of this powerful energy I am now looking forward to working co-operatively with it.

But this has been a journey and I have been lucky in that my consciousness didn't have to shift from left to right for me to have this experience. It is my feeling and is something to be celebrated and looked forward to rather than feared that many more examples of people having this shift are going to be reported. There is going to come a time when the logic and rationalism of the left brain is not going to work...this will mark the most fundamental shift of all.....

My writing....is not polished enough

2010-09-27T05:46:00.000-07:00

The title of this post was the response I eventually received to the two articles I submitted to the 'No 1 Premier Enlightenment Site'. I have my suspicion that the refusal to publish the articles had more to do with the reference I made to the right side of the brain in spiritual awakening then that my writing needed to be 'polished'. As a result I am now going to focus on putting all of my unpolished writing on this blog. However I really must stress that nothing of what I write I assert to be the Truth. In fact there is no truth there are only points of view and in that way one point of view is just as valid as another.

Why I am breaking away from the spiritual supermarket is because I believe that spiritual development is solely to do with the right side of the brain. What is my basis for this? It is how much I have struggled all my life with what I call left brain abillities like logic, mathematics, problem solving, map reading and on the other hand how intuitive sensitive, perceptive I have always been. The former are left brain qualities and the latter are right brain qualities. It was only when I was studying psychology and learned about the connection between the eye and the brain that I put together the possibility and I must stress that this has never been verified by science that because I have had no sight in my right eye from birth that the left side of the brain has not been stimulated causing the right to take over and to give me more spiritual insights and intuitions than is possible where both sides of the brain function equally.

I subsequently found out that Gordon Brown has a glass eye in his left eye which was caused by a rugby accident when he was 11. Diminished sight to the right side of the brain could have been compensated for by more activity in the left side of the brain so is it any surprise that he was Chancellor of the Exchequer before beooming Prime Minister and the reason why he lacked the charisma associated with the right side of the brain.

In 1988 on a meditation retreat in Southern England I had a profound experience of energy rising from the base of my spine, going to my head and descending. My assertion is that this is what happens when the right side of the brain is at a certain level of development and has absolutely nothing to do with spiritual rituals and practices. Many years ago in response to many exasperated people who told me that if I didn't stop looking for a rational explanation to account for the ease with which I could understand spiritual literature and the experiences I have had that I would lose the joy, bliss, oneness with life which is a constant presence for me. I abandoned all of my brain theory and threw myself into living the life of a mystic only to have it all come crashing down.

When I recovered I once again took up the mantle for recognition of the right side of the brain in spiritual development and I will not abandon it again. I remember always being struck by the line in the bible 'he is seated at the right hand of the father', why is it the right hand and not the left if this wasn't a veiled reference to the brain. Why in the past were children who were natural left hand writers made to write with their right hand. I assert it is because the left hand and right brain are connected and society values the qualities of the left side of the brain more highly. And up to now everything has conspired to keep consciousness located in the left side of the brain but this is now shifting at a phenomenal rate spurred on by all the discoveries in the field of quantum mechanics. I made this point about quantum mechanics acclerating the shift of consciousness from the left to the right side of the brain and I was attacked verbally for it.

So...you can imagine my surprise this evening when I received an article from a man who I had spoken to about the shift of consciousness from the left to the right in the run-up to the major and most fundamental shift in 2012 when in the middle of his article he wrote 'These are all things in which we are all going to experience this will occur simply because as the energetic shift takes place so do our mental hemisphere’s in other words from left to right'. This from a man who when I wrote to him something similar months ago completely rejected it. This leads me to ask why has he now suddenly introduced the idea in his article. Perhaps the evolutionary shift which is happening is way stronger than the conspiracy of the past which kept the power of the right side of the brain a closely guarded secret. Is the right brain the holy grail. What I want readers to take away from this post is never ever to give up on something you believe in. Keep being a stand for it even if everybody says you are wrong. Don't ever sell out on something you feel is intuitively right....

I had forgotten....how much enjoyment I get from writing...

2010-09-25T12:41:00.000-07:00

Recently I came upon the writings of Osho and it is a measure of how much my spiritual journey has shifted in that I now read his work. In the past I had dismissed him when I heard about this fleet of Rolls Royces and his Rolex watches but now I see that what he was doing was making a statement about materialism and consumerism Oshos total philosophy was that anything that is repressed in consciousness is a barrier to enlightenment. This is why the free attitude he had to sex has been so heavily criticized. But one only has to look at the effect of the repression of the sexual energy in the Catholic religion and see how destructive that was in terms of the men of God who have been convicted of paedophilia. The sexual impulse is one of the strongest because it is driven by instinct. Instinct is animal and has as its motivation the continuation of the species. To deny the expression of the impulse and to twist its nature so that it becomes something to be ashamed or guilty of is unforgiveable but this is what the Catholic religion has done down through the ages.

Desires and attachments are not disappeared by fasting, austerity, denial. In fact they grow stronger when dealt with like this. These can only disappear when they have been fully experienced. Buddha was only able to give everything up when he had experienced everything. This is why we have been born as humans to enjoy to the full everything that life has to offer and then to 'see' the emptiness of it and realize something higher. This is what is meant by surrender. It is having it all and realizing that 'all' is empty. All of us at one point will have this moment but unfortunately what so many choose to do is to 'stuff' that moment rather than to 'see' clearly the moment and the opportunity that it brings.

So for one day, enjoy and participate fully in all of life, the next day there may come a moment when the realization dawns that things material can never bring the holy grail of enlightenment and then surrender is not forced but a willing and joyful letting go.....

I received a comment.....which has prompted me to resume this blog...

2010-09-24T23:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday someone thanked me for a post I had written in August 2007 and it has prompted me to return to my old style of writing on my old blog. Yes, I know that it's not as sophisticated as WordPress, but it is where I started out writing and the site I am most comfortable with. My spiritual journey continues. Although I am convinced that more than being spiritually chosen I am right brain dominant. And I assert, that what is happening out there in the world is that the consciousness which up to now has been tied up in name and form of the left side of the brain is now shifting to the right. I don't make this statement as the truth only an idea to be considered and one that fits with my own experience. At the end of the day that is only always what I will write from and that is my own experience.

Another trigger that has sent me back to writing my own way and publishing what I want to write is that I joined a 'premier enlightenment site' to write articles and because the articles were to do with the involvement of the right side of the brain in spiritual awakening they weren't published. We live in a democracy, my words as I am always keen to point out are not the truth just ideas and I personally think that if spiritual awakening could be linked to right brain development then more people would see the state of enlightenment as much more achievable than they do today. For most people living from an enlightened state is the preserve of saints and mystics and I say 'no', it's not. It's simply a function of the consciousness shifting from the left brain to the right which is an evolutionary shift. Yes, there are certain spiritual practices that can be performed but if the consciousness is not ready to shift then these practices will be absolutely useless.

However, when the consciousness is ready to shift then nothing on earth is going to prevent an experience of spiritual awakening and then depending on the depth and scale of the shift the experience of enlightenment. So let's get straight about the spiritual path and how it develops. Yes, my writing is threatening but only for those who have such an inflated spiritual ego that refuses to accept or acknowledge the involvement of the right side of the brain. This is the highest of spiritual fraud and something I will not take part in.

I have had powerful spiritual experiences but I also only have sight in one eye and the eye and the brain are connected. Everyday I ask myself the question 'if I had two properly functioning eyes would I have had the profound experiences I have had and the automatic intuitive understandings and insights' and I feel absolutely sure that the answer is 'no'. I haven't spent years meditating or getting a spiritual name and going off to spend time in ashrams. I am so ordinary in that way that to attain the state that I have without having to have put in years of practice, says to me that something else is at work. However, the spiritual powers that be fail to acknowledge this or even to give me a platform for my views, so I am once again falling back on my trusty blog that has been with me for most of my spiritual journey.

If I still have readers on this blog, then thanks very much for staying with me and my commitment is to once again write regularly on this blog.

Am no longer....writing this blog...

2010-02-17T23:39:00.000-08:00

For entries to this blog please go to"http://www.whatlieswithin.co.uk" I am going to focus on becoming super brilliant at managing this new website! Apologies to anyone for whom this change inconveniences.

Spirituality is all about.......choice.....

2010-02-06T02:06:00.001-08:00

It took everything I had to honour my word and do what I said I would do yesterday. Every fibre of me was screaming to go to bed and not get up for the entire weekend but I know that feelings and thoughts don't produce any results. What produces results is performance and action so I dragged myself out of bed. Forced myself to pack a bag with some kind of clothes because I would be staying with friends for Friday and Saturday night. Dawdled around my room but in spite of all of this blackness I still caught the train that I intended to. Once at my agreement it was picked up immediately that there was something about me that was distant and cut off and the enquiry began. I know that the training I am currently doing to be a bold leader one who listens for and reliably delivers what it is that people care about and what matters to them has nothing to do with being spiritual. So when I tried in my clumsy way to explain how the spiritual Presence which I have grown so used to has now gone it was met with a blank stare. I didn't feel any frustration about this I listened to what was said to me about not dwelling in the past but to create something powerful for the future.

All these were just words for me at this point but I must have put on a good enough show because the attention turned to someone else who was also dealing with something else. I did my agreeement but still couldn't shake the blackness. At the end of the time, a woman who is on the same training course but who I haven't spoken to very much at all came up to me and said 'I can understand exactly where you are at'. I couldn't believe that there was someone who could see' and I just looked at her with eyes wide with surprise and she said yes. And in her lovely soft Welsh accent she explained that as a little girl I had that spiritual consciousness as a gift of grace. I didn't have to ask for it or make a choice about whether or not to have it. It is like a fish swimming in water but doesn't realise the water it is swimming in. With this shift I can now choose powerfully to continue along this spiritual path. I have often written that the spiritual path is solely about choice but the truth was that while I kept my consciousness spiritual I wasn't choosing, I was just hanging onto what I had.

Now...I can choose. I know by choosing it is going to require more generation and creation from me because it is not there naturally anymore. It is only going to be there if I create it. These words of hers said so simply and with such love and joy resonated and I looked at with eyes so full of gratitude. I was also grateful to the universe because in that moment this woman became my teacher. She also explained that the little girl and that spirituality will never fully go. It is that part of me which is going to make it possible for me to move and touch people very deeply but I will also be an adult...steady in everything that is said to me and how everyone is to me. I had never looked at it this way. I had seen the loss of the spirituality I had which I can only compare to being wrapped in an electric blanket as in some way a punishment now I see it as me being asked to consciously choose this path....and I do.....unreservedly.....

What was quite funny and ironical was before I went to do my agreement I was early so I went to my usual cafe to have a white coffee that they make especially for me. I had just been given my coffee when the door opened and in walked a nun and a little girl. It didn't look like the nun was used to coming into the cafe because she flustered a bit with all the cans of drink. Then she ordered what she ordered and then spent ages faffing through all the layers of her robe to find her money. I watched all this happening with curiosity. When she finally produced her £5 with a flourish it wasn't enough and there was a conversation about her returning with what was owed. Then to my horror she took a look around and I saw without any hesitation that she was heading over to sit beside me. She then tried to open the box of ribena she had bought for the little girl who was with her and then couldn't find the straw and I had the realization that if I hadn't shifted would I have turned out like that nun. Is that the product of not growing up....would that have been the ultimate outcome for me if this shift hadn't happened.

I know it doesn't mean anything that this nun came to sit beside me and I could see just how much she struggled with simple practical things and for a moment I could so see myself in her......she was also Irish as is my bood!

The game is up for the little girl.....but she doesn't want to let go...

2010-02-04T10:54:00.000-08:00

I am struggling to keep it together these days. I feel such inner turmoil and conflict going on. The little girl has been exposed but she is still hanging on. I am struggling to understand how this process could be spiritual. I think now it is only psychological. This leads me to ask if there is anything about the process that I say is spiritual (and the purpose for this blog) is really spiritual at all. This is a dark place for me and the last thing I want to do is to write this blog. As I write it is slowly dawning on me that everything I have taken to be spiritual may in fact be psychological. My ease with spiritual literature was not because I am a mystic but because I made a decision not to grow up and by so doing I preserved the consciousness of the right side of my brain. What is spiritual about this? I am reeling from this at the moment and it is a crisis point in my life. I feel so unsure and uncertain and have no-one to talk to about it or nowhere to go.

I am also re-editing my book to get it ready for the India translations and it is adding to the uncertainty I am feeling. I see now so clearly how it is written in the style of a five year old child and now that I have moved on all I am feeling about it is embarassment. It is like the rug has been well and truly pulled out from under me. I feel exactly the same way as I did a number of years ago when something else I thought was spiritual turned out not to be. That time too I was devastated but I picked myself up and continued. This time it is deeper. In some ways I should be celebrating as I have proved to myself the fact that the consciousness between the right and left side of the brain is different but that is poor consolation when I have staked myself and my life on the spiritual dimension. What if there is no spiritual dimension, just the workings of the right brain which give certain experiences and the left which give others. Gosh, I so miss Manuel Schoch. If he were still alive I could speak to him about all this and he would understand what was going on.

That's going to be it for now....it's been an effort to even write as much as I have it's like I see for the first time just how vulnerable I have been in my writing. It is like I have been naked and not able to see it and now that my consciousness has shifted I see it. It's like I was in a state of grace whereby I was completely vulnerable and now I have fallen from that state of grace..similar to Adam and Eve being told not to eat the apple and then they did and then they realised that they were naked. What I have experienced feels somewhat similar....my fall from grace happened the moment I unconcealed the decision I made as a five year old child not to grow up because the adult world was unsafe. The moment that decision was unconcealed...I fell from grace.

Now I understand what my friends who read this blog used to warn me to be careful about what I wrote. In the past I could see none of that because to write openly and honestly and fully is so natural when the consciousness is located in the right brain, the tendancy is to be open and vulnerable and not hide anything. Once the consciousness shifts this way of being no longer feels right. I am feeling a distance now to things spiritual which I haven't before. I still have my memories but the actual experience of that powerful Presence which was always close to me is not there anymore. I don't know if this also applies to spiritual literature because all of my books are packed away. I suppose I could go on the internet and start to read something and see if I still have the same resonance....but to be honest I am a little scared to...

I am truly at a crossroads...maybe the time has come for me to let go of this journey...spiritual or pscyhological....only time will tell

Had my blood pressure checked......GP says it's that of a 15 year old!!!

2010-02-02T13:54:00.000-08:00

I had confirmation from my GP today that my horrifying realization that I decided when I was five not to grow up into an adult was confirmed by the GP today who told me that my blood pressure reading was similar to a 15 year old. This makes sense given the shift of consciousness I have had where finally my consciousness has shifted from the right to the left brain. I have now officially entered puberty! Even now it is so hard for me to get my head around and walking around today I felt myself being dragged down into the impact of that insight and how so much about my life and how it has been for me in the past is making sense. What it is leaving me with is terrible restlessness and inner angst. I feel a sense of urgency and I don't understand why. I am so lucky in having had the right brain consciousness for the length of time that I had it and I am sure that I can bring a completely new and fresh view of the spiritual. I have already started working on the re-editing of my book.

I was delighted to get the news from my publisher that I have had the first sale of my book in the Czech Republic which I never expected. The promotion of the book throughout India and the two translations is also going ahead. It is a strange feeling reading it again with a view to re-editing in that I can see the childlike way in which it is written. There is a limit to how much editing I can do on this edition but I intend to take bits out and bit more bits in for the India translations.

I have been restless and uncertain today. I recognise these periods of black as the dark before the light of a powerful insight into something. I never run and today I decided to go on a 20 min run on the treadmill to have a breakthrough into why I will not work under pressure. I set myself the target of running continuously for 20 mins which is something I never do I have always given up in the past. This time I started running and after 16 mins gave up when my shoelace became undone. I left the treadmill and went on other equipment. Then something snapped and I said 'no, I am going to run for these 20 mins'. I started running and at about 16-17 minutes everything was screaming at me to give up but I continued running and then at 19.50 I couldn't believe it when the runner ground to a halt. I am in training not to make anything that happens in life mean anything and all that happened was that the runner broke down but for a moment for me I made it mean that there is still more for me to learn and go through before transforming this refusal of mine to work under pressure and for now I must be patient. I understand this process from how restless and uncertain I feel a few days before the insight comes. It's like it is working itself up from the depths of my subconscious, to come into consciousness to be transformed. Then the energy that was trapped is free to create something new which in my case will be the material for a new book. I have gone through the process many times that now it is so familiar but each time it doesn't get more comfortable it is still a mentally and emotionally exhausting time.

I see all of these shifts like some kind of initiations that I have to go through if that doesn't sound really weird given that there is no teacher or guru giving me any initiations. I remember reading once in an Alice Bailey book about the initiations that are given on the metaphysical realm. Each initiation occurs for me like an expansion of consciousness where the depth of my spiritual understanding and experiences intensifies. But again this is not the Truth just how this unfolding is occuring to me.....

Am writing this blog.....at 11.30pm...unheard of for me to be up this late..

2010-02-01T15:33:00.000-08:00

I've had such a busy weekend that I haven't had time to write this blog. I was assisting at an event for the entire weekend. The hours were long from 7am - 11.15pm but we did have breaks. I woke up early on Saturday morning and did my 20 minutes of TM and felt great. I was staying close to where the event was so didn't have far to go. I couldn't believe it when I woke up on Saturday morning and peered out of my high window to see a blanket of white on the ground. 'Not snow again' I inwardly moaned. I donned my coat, hat and scarf and set off for the event. The morning was so crisp and fresh and the moon still high in the sky. I felt such contentment as I saundered along without a care in the world. I got to the event at around the same time as everyone else and there was great atmosphere between everyone. 10 minutes before everything was to begin I was asked if I would take on a supervisory role due to the supervisor not turning up. The moment this request was made of me I felt a sickening feeling in my stomach and everything in me screamed 'say no'. Instead I pushed this feeling down and covered it with the reason that I couldn't let people down and so I said 'yes, I would do it'.

Well it was a complete disaster. I have made no secret in this blog of the fact that I am challenged by things like organisation, structure etc and this was organisation, structure, being thorough taken to its ultimate degree. Suddenly people were looking to me to find handouts, put together packets, make sure everyone was taken care of and ensure that everything ran smoothly. I was so challenged and I resisted everything that anyone tried to say to me. I had all kinds of rants going on with myself and what was most frustrating was that I didn't seem to do anything right. How I missed out a whole row when I had to collate handouts was just a mystery to me. At 8pm on Saturday night I was feeling so tired and had my usual irritability. Then I remembered that I hadn't done my 20 mins of TM in the early evening. I requested an additional break which was agreed to and I went off to find an empty room to do my meditation. I did my 20 mins and 5 mins after the usual drowsiness of meditation I was wide awake and came back into the room much more alive and awake and ready to make things happen. But while I was more alive and awake my enthusiasm for putting together packs and arranging chairs was still zero.

Sunday was worse and I spent the say in confusion and bewilderment wondering why I find things like organisation and structure so challenging. At end of the evening everyone who had worked to make the event possible was thanked. To my horror when we were all on the stage the leader singled me out and acknowledged me for stepping in and taking on a role at the last minute. I wished the ground would open up and swallow me I was just mortified. At least I was awake which was thanks to the TM which I had done earlier in the evening. This morning I woke up and I was in such a black space. I knew that me not being thorough in the work I did over the weekend was down to the destructive part of me that sabotages everything when I feel I have been pushed in to it. But I wasn't pushed, I had a choice. I took on the role when I didn't want and then made it mean that I was pushed and then I set out to sabotage. I was reminded of when I was young and my mother made me dry the dishes. Mysteriously two plates just fell out of my hand! My mother was so angry and said 'you did that on purpose' and sent me off. At the time I remember wondering how I could have dropped the two plates but I saw the exact same thing happening this weekend. It's like my way of getting out of things that I but don't want to do but lack the courage to say 'no'.

What I have realized about this is that I sabotage because I haven't been straight. Agreeing to do something because I don't want to let someone down has no integrity and therefore will never work out. I see that now and from now on I will choose powerfully yes or no because I now realize that if I choose and want to then whatever I take on will work. In the past the only reason I had for saying yes when I wanted to say no, was 'to say no might upset the other person'. This is really spineless on my part and I am stating in this blog that from now on I say yes or no depending on how I really feel because now it is a question of integrity. The only reason I wasn't thorough this weekend was because I hadn't chosen freely to take on the role. I sabotaged it because I felt pushed into it and this what my mechanism does everytime. Now that I have been able to see it, I know that it won't have the same hold over me.

The TM meditation is absolutely amazing. I did my 20 mins at 6pm this evening and it is now almost midnight and I feel like I could write for hours. But over the weekend I got hit by an insight that may have nothing to do with the meditation. It suddenly hit me that because up to November 2009 I was still emotionally aged five, that staying up late at night was never going to be possible because five year olds are not up working late at night! But five year old children love to get up early in the morning. These days I keep getting flashes of insights like this. With each one that comes I feel a sense of relief because I am released from giving myself a hard time about not working late at night in the way that I used to. There may be no substance to this claim but when I got this insight it seemed so loud and powerful that it rang true for me.

This evening I met the lady that I lived with when I first moved here and I was aware of how well I could listen and really understand what she was saying and the things she is dealing with. I have created a new way of being for myself which is powerful, exciting and playful. What being powerful means to me is being straight and taking what I get and when there is no fear or nothing to protect or defend I can take and be with everything that is said to me. In the past it wasn't possible for people to be straight with me because I got upset and drammatical now when I share my new way of being it is an invitation for all my friends to feel that they can be free to say what they want to me without fearing my reaction or upsetting me. I have to accept that as a leader I am going to upset people and I have to be OK with that. The only way that I can be OK with that is that it is in line with my Boddhissatva vow and I am accountable for my actions inside of that vow......

So now...even though I am not in the slightest bit tired....I'm going to end this blog for today.

Beneath anger.... is fear....beneath fear.. is sadness....beneath sadness is love....

2010-01-28T13:47:00.001-08:00

Since I started practicing my 20 Min's of Transcendental Meditation in the early evening my attitude to everything late at night has completely transformed. Yesterday I was travelling to London with a colleague for a commitment we both had. When we were planning our journey I had a thought that we were going to be travelling at the time when I usually do my evening meditation. In the past I would have sold out on myself by not doing the meditation so as not to make it awkward for who I was with. Not this time. I realize that this selling out on myself was the five year old child's need for approval. That child is now an adult and doesn't sell out on herself in the way that she used to. Finally my consciousness has shifted from the right brain to the left and with it I have a clarity about people and life that I never knew existed. I gave my friend the option of me either meditating in the same seat as her or going to another seat and joining her after 20 Min's. She opted for the former which was OK with me. We chatted for a little while and then I announced I was going to do my meditation. It felt strange and I felt a little awkward but my friend was great and immediately buried herself in the newspaper she had brought along.

When I started meditating I was conscious but then something must have happened because when I looked at my watch there was only 5 Min's left of the 20 Min's....where had the time gone. Now that I'm not beating myself up about the wandering mind or am concerned with taming the monkey mind allowing it wander back to the source of its bliss I have no idea what goes on. I am aware at some points that I am no longer mentally repeating my mantra but I also have the deepest peace and joy. When I finished the meditation I was a little tired but within 10 Min's had perked up no end and was ready for my evening. At one point in the evening I did something which was irresponsible and it brought forth a fierce anger from a woman towards me. Hand on heart I have never been spoken to so angrily and yet it didn't phase me and I didn't flinch from it. I didn't feel any need to protect or defend myself and when there is no fear and nothing to protect or defend then it is possible to be really with the person and what they are saying. Without fear I could really see her commitment to the situation I was very close to sabotaging. It is only fear that makes us protect and defend.

But...what is it that we are protecting and defending? It is the irrational fear that anger directed towards us is in some way a threat to our survival. Anger is never just the expression of an emotion it is made to mean that our very survival is under threat. When that is the context through which anger is viewed is it any wonder that anger creates such fear in human beings. Beneath anger is fear, beneath fear is sadness, the sadness of not being able to express love, or receive love and beneath sadness is love; ultimately love transforms fear. Where one is the other cannot be. Without any fear for me in the situation last night what was there for me was love. After last night I know that I can be with anything anyone is going to say to me in the future and that for me....is freedom. When my consciousness shifted with the realization that I had made a decision to stop myself growing up, all the fear I had lived with up to that point transformed to love. Did someone say that it is impossible to live a life without fear....I am living proof that it is.

That is not to say that if I was walking along the street and someone produced a knife or a gun that I wouldn't feel fear. I probably would, a health fear for my survival. That kind of fear is not what I am referring. I am speaking about the irrational psychological fears that are a part of what it means to be a human being. I am free of these. Or at least I think I am! But I have travelled this path too long to be definite about anything when it comes to the path of spiritual transformation. I just put one step in front of the other, slowly and mindfully ever vigilant of the chameleon type nature of the ego that is always and ever hiding in the shadows waiting for that one opportunity to sabotage the consciousness from its ultimate goal which is the transformation of self. This is achieved when one realizes that life is inherently empty and meaningless. It is only human beings that give meaning to life. Life itself has no inherent meaning. Really getting this at an experiential as opposed to a conceptual level shifts the consciousness so that the transformation of self as that which is 'not self' is realized.

Whether it is the effect of recently practicing TM but I find it so easy and effortless now to think and write from the aspect of the Transcendent. What I write is not channelled because I am consciously aware but I do feel that now it is coming from a deeper part of me. It's the ease and effortlessness of the practice and yet how effective it is that has completely surprised me. Now my most sacred parts of the day are those 20 Min's in the morning and 20 Min's in the early evening....

Today I had a lovely surprise. One of the tenants who I am renting out my flat to called me to explain that the standing order for the rent had mistakenly been cancelled and re-installed but wouldn't be received by me on the usual day and the tenant was calling me to explain this so that I wouldn't be concerned. I was so moved by this that the tenant would take the trouble to call me and let me know. This is the magic of life....when we allow it be just the way that it is and just the way that it isn't.....

What a truly amazing weekend....there's always something else to learn...

2010-01-24T14:51:00.001-08:00

This weekend I had my re-scheduled Transcendental Meditation training. It was meant to have happened in mid-December but the trainer got swine flu. He told us today that it was the first time in the 25 years he has been teaching that he had to cancel a course. The course happens over three days. I arrived on Saturday morning 10am as requested. Before this course even started there has been some amazing co-incidences (or are they!) I have written in this blog that I have been doing kundalini yoga and am on the mailing list for classes and workshops. Among the list of events I get sent regularly is an early morning mantra session that starts at 5.30am. Every time I receive it I push down an inner desire to go using the reason 'I don't know where the place is'. When I got the details for where the TM course was going to be held I couldn't believe it when I saw that it was at the same place as the mantra early morning sesssions! So now there is no excuse for me not to go to these mantra mornings, that was the first surprise.

The second surprise I got was when I arrived at the course and was shown into a room. There was a picture of Guru Dev. This was amazing because my only knowledge of Guru Dev was that he was the Guru of Yogi Bhajan who is the Guru of the kundalini yoga that I do, so all of these synchronicities were quite amazing. The course began with the trainer doing a ceremony which has always been kept secret and giving me my own mantra which I would be meditating with from that morning. While he was doing the ceremony my inner voice was on the familiar rant it goes on when I find myself in situations like this, a rant that went something like 'what are you doing here at something like this AGAIN...particularly emphasis was laid on 'again' because it was the same thing I felt when I found myself queuing up to kneel at the feet of Mother Meera. There was the exact same inner resistance to this as well. I pushed these thoughts away and gave my full attention to the ceremony and my part in it. Then when I was given my mantra my first thought was 'that's not very sanskrit!', how did he arrive at that one for me' - but for some reason I didn't ask him anything about the mantra I had been given.

He then gave me instructions on how to meditate with the mantra and I was struck by how everything that would happen was perfect and the way it was meant to be...whhhaat....where was the discipline the monkey mind, watch your thoughts, concentrate - there was none of this it was all about letting the mind wander back to its source of bliss using the mantra. He said that he would stay with me for a while to meditate and then would leave me on my own and come back to check in a while. I began meditating, furrowing up my brow in my usual effort to concentrate but instead of concentrating on a candle or my breath I used my mantra. Total disaster as the first thought I had was 'is it x or y', 'did he say it like this or that', then the usual self-derogatory inner voice having its rant at my inability to recall a simple mantra correctly. All of this was exhausting for me so that when he returned and handed me a form to fill in I told him that I had a headache. He asked me had I been trying and putting in effort and I looked at him dumbfounded - of course I had, what else were you supposed to do in meditation! He then explained how there is no force or effort involved in TM. He then said he would leave me to complete the form and would return. When he returned he collected the form, looked briefly through it and confirmed that it was all 'as expected'. I waited expectantly to hear more and he said 'I will speak more about it this evening'. This was my cue to go.

Slightly bemused at everything that had gone on I left. I felt very tired and during the meditation I had felt myself falling off to sleep and then jerking awake. But then suddenly that tiredness lifted and I had an amazing energy. The reason I was attracted to TM is to increase my creativity and productivity so that I can work more under pressure. I left to meet my friend and go to London for my agreement and then later on we were going to a Hungarian classical music concert. My friend is just amazing. She told me the moving story of her great grand aunt who had been a hero in the Vietnam war. I can't recount all of the story but it was just amazing to hear it and I was reminded again about the greatness of the human spirit. It came through so clearly in what she told me about the life of her great grand aunt. We met after my agreement and went to the classical concert which wasn't to either of our tastes. I like music which has some melody. I didn't find any melody in this and whether it was my morning of TM which as finally catching up on me I found myself falling asleep. We left and finished off the evening with Dim Sum in Chinatown then we took the train back to Brighton.

This morning I was awake at 7am and was aware that I was excited. I did my 20 mins meditation with my mantra and was amazed at how quickly the time went by but I still had all of these thoughts which gave me the familiar frustration. I got ready to go to the next part of the course which was going to be with all of the other people who had got their mantra the day before. I arrived early and shortly after other people arrived. In total there were about eight of us. The trainer explained that this session would be 2 hours and he would explain the principles of TM and give us tips for how we would know that we were doing it right. I found the whole thing so fascinating. It was clear, made sense to me and I felt comfortable with it all. Even my inner voice which usually has a continuous rant when I'm at things like this was quiet and absorbed. The session ended with a nine minute video of the Mahariishi and his serenity and humour resonated very strongly with me. The two hours of the course also included a session of meditation and then people saying things about their experiences. I was in a conflict with this system which appears so easy and effortless and the traditional meditation of discipling the mind through concentration and I asked a question about it. He told met that this would be covered in the evening session.

Afterwards I felt so renewed and vigorated and more importantly I had ideas of things that I wanted to do and felt more motivated. Then my phone rang and it was my friend suggesting a couple of hours in the gym. Before I would have felt too tired or it would have been too much to fit in before going back again but instead I found myself really enthusiastic about going to the gym. We met up and I ran for a bit on the treadmill and did some cycling before walking the four miles back to the centre for the evening session. The evening session contained gold for me. One of the main reasons I had stopped meditating was because of what I called 'thought assault'. Everytime I sat down to meditate after a few seconds I would have nothing but thoughts and I made this mean that I wasn't doing it right and therefore it wasn't effective. So rather than face being a failure in meditation, I stopped meditating. I did take on the practice of mindfulness and being mindful at every moment but there was still something missing. Tonight the trainer explained that when the mind relaxes with the mantra, the body also relaxes but then the body begins to release blocks of stress to calm down the nervous system. As mind and body are inextricably linked the mind cannot be inactive when the body is active. So in response to the body being active the mind also must become active and it does this by grabbing hold of thoughts, any and every thought. This was a lightbulb moment for me. I suddenly saw thoughts in meditation not as bad or wrong but as an indication that my body is active in healing itself. This shifted everything for me.

As a result of this understanding when it came to doing some meditation there was absolutely no effort involved and I felt so free and easy. Then the trainer said that he would check the mantra that everyone had been given to ensure that we all had it right. Even though I had had some confusion with mine I was sure that I had it correctly. He took each of us to a room and asked us to repeat the mantra and to my complete astonishment I had it wrong. Initially this was devastating to me because it looked like my identity had said 'I'll remember it my way and make my own of it' but the trainer said that this was a good sign that it meant that the mind was already quite settled with it when it didn't have it perfectly. For a moment I was caught in the dilemma of two conflicting explanations for the same event and I realised in that moment that there is no truth to what happened. I can make either of those stories fit and I chose the explanation that empowered me which was that having to correct my recollection of my mantra was a good thing.

I was so happy leaving the course this evening. I got more than I thought possible from it. Out of it I have got the confidence to begin meditating again. But this wasn't the last surprise I was given. The trainer then spoke about Deepak Chopra and how he has been practicing TM for many years. He talked about how he had met the Maharishi by chance at a TM conference and that they had become good friends and Maharishi had given to him the system of Ayurveda which is so common in the west today. He then said Deepak Chopra was interviewed on an Irish television programme called The Late Late Show by Gay Byrne and I said to myself 'no way'. This programme was sacred television when it was on and Gay Byrne or Gaybo as he was affectionately called the only authority in Ireland for those few hours on a Friday night. I sat there amazed at yet another synchronicity this weekend and then up came the familiar voice and personality of Gay Byrne interviewing Deepak Chopra who was amazing in his knowledge and benefits of TM. He said some startling things among them was that people are responsible for their own illnesses and as they are responsible for creating them they can also cure them. This is so in line with the breakthrough education training and coaching I am doing at the moment. I am so clear that I create everything in my life. I am responsible for everything...

Afterwards I walked home so happy and grateful. I can't believe how much energy I have to write this blog at almost midnight. This is unheard for me because I had it that I don't put myself under pressure and writing this at this time at night would have occurred to me as pressure before I did this weekend and got my mantra and was released from my long held belief that thoughts are in some way detrimental to meditation. What is tragic is that for a couple of years I have been pondering on TM meditation but had dismissed it because I thought it was about yogic flying which I had and still don't have any interest in.

But now....even though I'm not tired I'm going to bed because 6.30am won't be long coming around and now I am adding an extra 20 mins meditation morning and evening to my schedule. Life is so exciting...when you have no idea what's around the next corner...

I have been......completely exhausted since the weekend...

2010-01-20T23:37:00.002-08:00

Something is definitely happening within me because since Monday I have been laid low with exhaustion. Last night my friend had her evening on mindfulness meditation and even though I was exhausted I went. During both the meditation and the talk by the Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh I was drifting in and out of consciousness. And yet when I go to sleep at night I sleep like a baby until an acceptable time to get up the next morning so I have no idea what is happening at the moment but like anything on the spiritual path the way through it is by total trust and surrender and saying 'yes' to the present moment. My present moment is exhaustion and I am saying 'yes' to that. The distinction 'Transformation' has still got me. I am NOTHING but the space from which everything arises. But what is the 'everything'? It is what goes up to make up the identity and to make it appear different from the self. But in transformation that identity falls away and what is unconcealed is the shining diamond of the self expressed however one creates it to be expressed. The identity disappears when it is investigated and found to be empty and meaningless. The only meaning that has been given to it is by our minds and in this way is a story..not the truth. All it takes to be transformed is to recognise the possibility of this. I am not saying that it is the truth of how transformation or seeing into the emptiness of everything sets human being free from their suffering but I invite consideration that it may be.....

I am careful to never make assertions that are not either based on my own experience or my own observation. I thank Manuel everyday for being the example that I now follow. I do this also as a protection that I don't then begin to build up great theories that are not based on my own experiences or observation. It was that moment on Sunday afternoon when I experienced that I was NOTHING and in that moment I knew that I could create anything I wanted for myself and my life....in that moment....I was free.

When I gave the link to the Youtube link in my last post to Paul's kundalini awakening experience when he was 13 I meant to ask for some comments because I found it powerful and inspiring but I wanted to ask readers of this blog how it came across to them. What I found particularly interesting was what he said about the ego or identity when it re-appears having found itself disappeared for the time of the experience how it emerges much bigger. It's like the identity has had a shock and for a moment the game of human being has been exposed but then the ego/identity quickly re-asserts its dominance once again covering the SELF but now becomes bigger and in some cases transforms into a spiritual ego. I am convinced that if I didn't have the vigilance that I had and I thank my childlike quality which meant that when I had this experience I was emotionally only 5 and it is this grace (that is another realization I had over the weekend) that has allowed me not to have it fragment my consciousness in the way I have seen it do to others.

I wanted to begin writing again because I've been too exhausted for the past few days. The spiritual path is all about willingness to go there. In my experience there is always the invitation. On Sunday I was invited to experience Transformation and I said 'yes'. Yet this is not easy and involves purification which I think is what the exhaustion is about. Again if I had a teacher that would understand because he/she is further along the path than me then it wouldn't feel so hard but then again this is my story that it would be easier if I had a teacher or was part of some established spiritual organisation. What is so at this moment in time is that I don't and all there is for me to do is to surrender to each moment just the way that it is and the way that it isn't. Suffering is the result of refusing to accept what is wanting it to be someway different. What there is for me to do is to bring some fun to it. It's only serious and significant if I make it so. It is like this for all of us. We all have a choice about how we interpret the things that happen to us. No interpretation is the truth so why not put an interpretation on an event that empowers us and maybe even inspires.....

I also had another shock over this weekend which has also played a part in the exhaustion I am feeling at the moment. All my life I have hated being pressured. I have a way of being that gives out the message 'push me and I'll kill you' which you can imagine was a lovely thing for me as the enlightened person I consider myself to be to discover! This way of being has been very strong to the point that when it came to putting myself under pressure to get my shorthand exam I engineered a shake in my hand so that I didn't have to put myself under pressure to perform and I won that game hands down when I actually left the shorthand exam. Up to now this way worked for me. When I was working I would always have left the office early, there was no working until late at night for me unless I was going somewhere afterwards and it was too much bother to go home. I always left myself enough time to get places so there was no pressure and I certainly never put myself under pressure for deadlines or did any kind of pressurised job.

I have taken exactly the same attitude to this training I am doing which has been 'I'll do it my way, in my own time the the sub-text of 'push me and I'll kill you' which as you can imagine has meant it has been a brave soul who has dared to challenge me and as a result I have been left to go at my own pace. All of this was no problem until come Saturday I was separated from my group because my performance was not at the same level as the others in the group. This totally shocked me because in my head I had put myself at the same level of performance of at least three if not four of my group so to suddenly see them all leave to go without me really hit me. In that moment doing it my way and in my own time wasn't so appealing when the impact was being left behind. For the rest of the weekend I found it difficult to be present. All kinds of thoughts came into my mind 'you don't belong here, you're different, and then a kind of smugness, 'nobody is doing it like you so don't worry' and while in the past that kind of smug thought would have been comforting there was nothing comforting about it this time. This time I didn't want to know. This experience has created a shift that nothing else could do, not coaching, not endless talking to. The only thing that could shift that and have me realize that there is an urgency in life was the experience of being left behind.

As a result of this and in spite of my exhaustion since Sunday I have caused it so that I am now with all of my group. I've also noticed an aliveness and an alertness and am feeling the energy of velocity which is something I had not allowed myself to feel before because my identity would not let me put myself under pressure to see what I could create and cause out there in the world. This is how subtle our identity works but how powerful it is in sabotaging the inner urge that is within each of us to make a difference to people and the world. Now..more than ever do I need to bring fun and no significance to this major shift that I have had. This is the problem with me. I'm like the pendulum on a grandfather clock - for years I am one way and then weee....over to the other side I go. A result if I'm not careful is that I become unbalanced but I am aware of this and being aware is the key to journeying the spiritual path successfully...so rock on and bring on what's next......

After a quite incredible weekend.....I took yesterday to let it all sink in...

2010-01-18T23:51:00.000-08:00

Wow...where do I start with this blog post. Friday night I stayed with a friend and I met this friend in Calcutta when I was travelling around India. We had actually met in a tea shop in Bodh Gaya but I didn't remember that. We became friends in Calcutta and when I became really ill and didn't want to eat anything she was there by my side. I have never forgotten her for that and for a while she came to live with me. For a little while we lost touch but now we are once again very good friends. With there being no fear for me anymore when I am with people the quality of my communication with people has transformed. What do I mean by transformed? What I mean is that the fear has totally disappeared so that what I am now is pure connection and relatedness. It is not 'me without fear' - my self has transformed. In the moment I realized that there was 'no thing' to protect or defend I touched the presence of love and it is only love that can transform. When we touch love we are transformed. Or said in another way transformation is touching the presence of love. We had a lovely meal and then chatted in front of an open fire. Then we decided to go out and check out the local talent. It was so lovely going into a pub and sitting down with two pints of lager just like we used to do when we lived together.

We came back and started chatting and before I knew it, it was 2am. This completely amazed me because I have never been up just chatting with another adult until 2am. I could have been out at a pub or somewhere but never just me and another adult it would have been way to scary. I can remember thinking when my friends would say that they had been up until the early mornings just chatting feeling quite horrified and wondering how they could do that. The difference for me is now that I could do exactly the same thing and be really happy. This is not change, or improvement - this is transformation - the disappearance of that which is in the way of touching the presence of love.

I had an early start the next morning and was amazed when I woke up feeling so refreshed and awake after having only four hours sleep. This is another thing that I have noticed is that I am never tired. In the past I used to get so tired but once I realized that my tiredness was only an outer symptom of inner resistance and I applied myself to the enquiry of what was I resisting that made me so tired and I realized that what I was resisting was my own power. Then that realization and that seeing transformed being tired and in that transformation tiredness disappeared. When we experience that life is meaningless in terms of the only meaning that events and people have are what we put on them ourselves and return to nothing, in that space of nothing anything and everything is possible. I realized that the only reason I was tired was because I was resisting and what I was resisting was a story that I had made up that being powerful was dangerous. Nobody had put that meaning on power only me. When I saw that the only meaning there was was one I had made up, I was free. Transformation results when we realize that as human beings we are meaning making machines. To see that is to transform.

I had the most amazing weekend and I want to be a leader that embodies the distinctions of integrity, responsibility, transformation and peformance. I want these distinctions to use me to be who I am. I returned back late on Sunday night and on Monday felt so exhausted. This wasn't tiredness, this was exhaustion. On Sunday afternoon I really got what it means to have consciousness transform and in the moment of that realization I knew without any doubt that I am NO THING except my WORD. It was clear to me as the fingers on my hand. For hours afterwards I had nothing in my mind, no views, opinions yet I knew that I am the space within which all of these happen and get created. Even as I struggle to write what this experience was like I can't. But I will never forget the blinding flash of clarity as everything fell away and I experienced being everything and nothing.

Of all of the distinctions that make up a leader it is the distinction Transformation which speaks to me the strongest and loudest. When SELF realizes that in Buddhist terminology that the skandhas which are form, feeling, perception, volition and consciousness when it realizes that all of these are empty and meaningless then in that moment it transforms. But in order to transform it has to arrive at nothing. It has to take all of the 'something' out in order to arrive at 'nothing' and the power of the realization of 'nothing' is what causes the transformation of human consicousness and shifts it to the next level which the universal consciousness is working towards anyway. Behind every face....the eternal goes on...

I recognised my need to stay in bed for most of the day Monday as my incubation time. Something incredibly powerful had happened to me and it needed time to settle down. This morning I have woken up and am so ready to write. I got up for a little while last night to check emails and had the thought once again about the kundalini energy. This was strange because what happened had nothing to do with the kundalini it was a shift in my mental consciousness not the experience of the kundalini energy that rises from the base of the spine. But the urge to go onto Youtube and see what was there was very strong. The moment I did it I saw a trailer for the story of a man who had experienced the movement of this energy when he was 13. I watched this video and what I loved about it was how normal this man is. The video was so inspiring for me and and I sending the link for all my readers to view it. I want to make clear that I am sending this link to inspire others not to be afraid of taking on the spiritual path seriously. I am just so happy to know that there is someone out there who has had this experience and is so grounded with it. Having it so young has meant that he didn't have the fear around it that adults usually do and so was able to integrate it. I am also inspired by the fact that he didn't go off and proclaim himself a guru and get followers and in this video he speaks of this very danger when one experiences a powerful kundalini awakening. He now works as a spiritual counsellor in California

It's called simply 'Paul's Kundalini Awakening and it is just 9 mins long. You can view it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smg5ZHAl8X4. It has also inspired me to make a video about my own experience...so watch this space...

So today... aware that I am nothing but the space within which everything happens and creating from that space of nothing I am going to start my day by going to the gym. I may not have felt the energy physically but I trust that the power of what happened is down to this energy and in order for me to continue to remain grounded I must respect its need for release....Later I am on a train to London to be my WORD around a commitment I have made and then returning late this evening. But as I am now only space I have absolute trust that everything that I need to do will be done with freedom, grace and ease.

Yesterday......in my inbox...was a 'flirt'.....

2010-01-14T23:56:00.000-08:00

I went to the gym early yesterday because with the snow I haven't wanted to do anything except those things that I gave my word to. The irony is that I gave my word to go to the gym and to re-start my kundalini yoga class and I didn't do either. What I am noticing these days is that when I don't keep my word to myself that it's beginning to have the same impact as when I don't keep my word to others. I get restless, agitated and don't know why. Yesterday I woke up and for the first moring I could see the pavement in the street outside. Experienced the usual thought 'do I really want to go to the gym this morning' but immediately brushed that aside and got myself ready to leave after my call with my morning buddy where we create the kind of day we are going to have and how we are going to be to fulfill on that creation. This is similar to what Neale Donald Walsh speaks about in his amazing book Conversations with God part 1 which I have read seven times and absolutely adore.

In it he speaks about the human tendancy to think that if I do enough, then I will have those things that I want and then I will be happy. Neale turns this on its head and says that it is from who we are being, that we then do the actions that are in agreement with that way of being and from that we will have all the things that we want. So each morning me and my buddy create how we are going to be and then from that what we are going to do and what we will have at the end of the day and then each morning we hold each other to account and see what was missing in the way we were being that had us do or not do the things that we had promised. I have learned that in life there are really only two things that causes results out there in the world and they are performance and action and both come from our way of being.

Went to the gym and really enjoyed it and realized again just how much I need exercise to manage the intensity of the awakened energy within me. I did a great workout on all the machines and had a really hot shower. Tried to wake up my skin with a shot of cold but that wasn't too successful so went back to almost scalding myself. Walked home and walking home I was filled with this intense joy and bliss. It always amazes me when these feelings emerge without there being any reason for them. Yes, I had been my word and gone to the gym but to be rewarded with the intense feeling of joy that welled up from deep within was both unexpected and beautiful. I took a couple of minutes out to acknoweldge and be grateful for this. In my experience it is when we acknowledge these little glimpses of what Maslow termed 'peak experiences' and don't be attached or crave for them to happen again that they get more frequent and this is the way it has been for me.

Returned home and re-started the computer.....and there it was....a flirt from a man...my first thougtht was 'who the hell is this man'...and when I clicked it said 'a secret admirer'...This is completely new to me and I was soo excited. I have never received one of these and so didn't know what the etiquettte was in responding. Should I send a message or return the compliment with another flirt. Before I did anything though....I just had to look at his profile. He had obviously gone to a lot of trouble in writing his profile and out of all of it the bit that resonated with me was his desire for a woman who had done some personal development. Now.....this is different. Granted I haven't read many profiles but none of the ones that I read had ever mentioned this. He also mentioned integrity and honest communication. I read the profile to my friend Lotus and she was really impressed proclaiming that 'this man is gold dust'. One other concern was that he didn't have a picture. When I said this to Lotus she explained that in the profession he said he was in he couldn't upload a picture. I didn't fully understand this but was willing to go with it. All of my investigations completed and validation received from Lotus (how spiritual is that!) I returned his flirt with one of my own! Quite a subtle one because that is my way.

Now comes the nightmare (a bit of an exaggeration) of internet dating waiting for the reply. But what I got from the experience was an overwhelming excitement that I haven't felt for many years. And yet I didn't feel there was anything missing because I was so young emotionally. When you're five you're not thinking about men and relationships so I was quite happy throwing myself into the spiritual. I was going to write that when you're five you're not thinking about the spiritual but that is not quite true because if I go back to the right and left brain. A five year old is very much functioning in the right brain. What has happened to me is that finally my consciousness has shifted from the right brain to the left brain so that finally I am now an adult. Bizarre as this sounds to write and probably it is even more bizarre to my readers, this is the only way I can use to account for what has happened. It is when I am in this kind of an enquiry and don't have a teacher that I really miss Manuel. He would understand in a minute what had happened and be there as a support. But the spiritual path is definitely the path by the alone to the alone and I must journey it alone. The difference now is that while it might be alone, it is no longer the lonely path that it was. This is because of my new found ease, joy, love, connectedness and relatedness to adults.

Last night I went out with a group of people and had such an amazing evening. My friend and I were given a lift home by this man and while we didn't speak together for the entire evening in the car home he asked me a lot of questions about myself and my life. My friend got out first and inspite of my insistence that I would walk the rest of the way because it wasn't far insisted on giving me a lift. In the car I spoke about my unsureness and what was behind it. I ended up telling him about the decision I had made when I was five that the adult world was unsafe and I wasn't going there and the kind of life it had given me and that this was the reason that I was not super confident. It was great being this vulnerable with someone I had only met and as a result he shared something about himself that had him be the way he was. It was a really great conversation and I was so conscious that I felt no fear and there was nothing else in my mind only listening to him as powerfully as I could and being of service and contribution. He was on his way to visit his girlfriend which is why he gave me and my friend a lift home so we gave each other a hug and said bye. I let myself into my house and the first thing I saw was the landlady's cat who has adopted me as her mum. I immediately bent down and picked her up and was so happy.

So today I am going to London. It is the final weeekend of this training course I am doing. I am so grateful to this training. I came into it a five year old child and I am finishing it (it's not officially over until end March) as an adult. This is nothing short of miraculous for me and I now live the distinctions of this training. They are with me in every conversation I have with people and as a result I can be staight and of service and contribution in the way that the Buddhist teachings mean. While fear is present, service and contribution cannot be..... And finally...what I realize now is that all those years ago when I was gripped by the deep desire to be a Boddhisattva what I was really gripped by was the desire for enlightenment. Not as a concept but as an experience that is as real today as it was in the days of the Buddha....

I should know.....never to be definite...

2010-01-13T00:14:00.000-08:00

No sooner had I declared that this blog would lighten up on the spiritual when in the door popped the details for my re-scheduled course on Transcendental Meditation. It is like I might have one idea but the universe has other ideas and once again the spiritual has come to the forefront. The weekend course was cancelled before Christmas because the tutor had swine flu. It has now been re-scheduled for the weekend after next. Like Pavlov's dog I immediately sought out the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's book on Transcendental Meditation that I had felt on overwhelming compelling urge to buy in Waterstone's and once again began reading it. I was struck by the ease of understanding that I have. And yet with that ease in understanding comes a frustration that I'm not producing anything concrete out there in the world with it.

My good friend Lotus called to my house to collect me when we were going out the other evening and she met my Landlady. Lotus is building up a business in mindfulness meditation and her warmth really touched my landlady and she asked me to email her with her details because she wants to do a meditation course with Lotus. Lotus had never met this woman before and when she was leaving gave her a huge hug. I was gobsmacked as this is something I only ever do with close friends and family. But Lotus is living what I am proclaiming. That I have no fear and yet I wouldn't have done what Lotus had done. So there is still some inauthenticity when it comes to me and the spiritual world and what exactly I want to do within it that is frustrating for me. But I know the way out of this is to accept and not resist the way things are because they are the way they are and all that is required of me is firstly to accept this and then secondly to take action. It is only action that shifts things not thinking. So today I am returning back to my kundalini yoga. I have really missed it and can feel the familiar build up of energy that I have to be so aware of and channel appropriately to ensure that it gets released.

I am off to a meet up event tomorrow night and this morning did a wardrobe scan for what is going to give off the right message. I found a dress which is both comfortable and stylish so that will take me through tomorrow night. It's funny now that I have declared that I am going to find a rewarding satisfying relationship all kinds of invitations are coming my way. I got an invitation to a charity speed dating walk which is four miles long and is in aid of Alzheimers. It sounds like fun in that we change partners every so long along the route. This appeals to the gemini in me that doesn't like to get stuck for too long with one person. Then at each stop you fill in a rating card and hand it in. For some reason I am really attracted to this...

Am looking foward to my kundalini yoga class this evening.....

Earlier I received a comment.....to the blog post I wrote when my dear friend and teacher Manuel Schoch died...

2010-01-11T11:59:00.000-08:00

I was both delighted and saddened to receive it. These days I feel him very close to me. The words that he said to me about 'if I could stop being so aggressive towards myself that there is no limit to what I could achieve' have been echoing around me for the past few days. If only he was still alive I could learn so much now that I have let go of all the aggressiveness I had towards myself. What allowed this letting go of the aggression I had towards myself was recognising that I held a wrong view about what it meant to be an adult. Shifting this view, ended my suffering and has given me the deep connection and relatedness I feel towards everyone no matter who they might be.

Today for the first time I found myself with time on my hands and started to wonder about life post this training course that I am doing. Once again I feel at a crossroads and I don't seem to have any clear indication of the way to go. I know that I am passionate about being a leader for children and young people and I am very close to achieving everything I need to complete the first part of this journey successfully but I don't have any idea how or where the next stage is going to be. I have also decided to play the game of finding a fulfilling and satisfying relationship this year. Up to now because of how stuck I was no man had a chance. Now I understand why relationships didn't work and why if I hadn't had the insight into how I formed a view which limited everything that was going to be possible with men every attempt was doomed to failure. All that is gone now and I just wanna play!

So....last night I joined a dating website....shock..horror as I have never rated this vehicle for finding one's soul mate very highly. I did join once and arranged to meet this guy in Leicester Square. When I reached Leicester Square there was this tall man standing in the middle of the square and all I saw was his black trench coat. As I was looking the wind blew and it lifted up his trench coat so that he looked like Dracula and I just wanted to run. Needless to say after that the evening wasn't the most successful. He had a list of qualities that he wanted a potential partner to have and as he was saying 'I want this and I want that' my inner voice was having a rant saying 'I want the exit'!

Afterwards I got on the tube and vowed to myself 'never again' but one thing I have noticed is that whenever I have said 'never' it's never been never so these days I am very careful not to state anything definite in any area of life because there is nothing definite in life except taxes and death. So back to my story about my new foray into the world of internet dating. I registered on this site and am much better this time in terms of having a photo which I didn't have for the last one. I steeled myself to be disciplined to write something enticing and mysterious in my profile but when I read it I thought it sounded boring. However it had taken me almost an hour to write it so I left it.

In my new mood of action in this area I then sought out the search button and saw all the drop down menus of the kind of man that I want. Shifting my inner moan to inner curiousity I put in some requirements and then hit search. The computer did its thing for a minute or so and then came up a list of eligibles. I quickly scanned the list put my beady eye on two and pinged off two emails. Got up expectantly this morning to find a message inbox that gleefully pronounced 'you have no new messages in your inbox'. Now I'm wondering if dating is an age thing. As you get older it gets more difficult to meet someone. Doesn't the world know that now I am ready. That I have come out of my self-imposed celibacy. Where is everybody......

But all is not lost. There are a group of us singles on the training course I am doing who like me are creating the perfect relationship for this year and we are all going to get together to plan events and hold each other to account for promises we make of things we are going to do to create the relationship. The relationship is only going to come by action not by me sitting in my room and navel gazing!

So my dear readers can't promise that this blog is going to be purely spiritual over the next few months cos I'm about to have some fun out in the world....

This evening....was a sad evening for me.....

2010-01-10T12:12:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning feeling really excited and happy and for no reason at all. It is my natural state since the veil of fear that I have lived with has gone. I got up and had breakfast and then set off to have coffee with a friend. It is a friend who I used to live with and who was bringing some post for me which I hadn't been able to collect before Christmas. When I lived with her I had always felt vaguely uneasy for no obvious reason but this time when I met her it is like it is with everyone now an ease, lightness, joy and ability to be with whatever is said and to also be straight in terms of me not withholding saying something because of a concern that it will upset. I've also realised that when we withhold something from someone and we rationalise it by saying 'it would only upset them', I assert that this is inauthentic and a pretence. It is hiding the fear that would be triggered for our own safety if we upset another. This is what is really behind 'not being honest for fear of hurting'. In truth it has nothing to do with the other person and is solely about ourselves but this is not a nice thing for human being to recognise never mind to accept. But acceptance is the only way out of the trap.

I came home and opened up all the Christmas cards that I didn't get before Christmas. Among them was a card from the husband of my friend Tracey who died last September. In his handwriting he thanked me for how kind and good I was to Tracey and him through her illness. I couldn't hold back the tears of remorse and regret because the truth was that I wasn't there to support her through her illness. I had moved away and never even given her my new contact details. Sitting holding the card from her husband which he had signed from him and Tracey I felt the most unbearable loneliness for my friend and fresh regret for not having been there. I still really miss her and have found it hard to come to terms with the fact that I am never going to see her again. Another person I often think of who I have written about on this blog is the Swiss mystic, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Manuel Schoch. How much could he teach me now. I am sure that with the fear gone that I would be able to read auras under his teaching. But he too is gone. He went in October 2008 and I still miss him.

Also among the post was a copy of Paradigm Shift and a compliment slip telling me that the issue contained a review of my book 'Journey to Self'. I'm not going to print it here but it is uploaded to both Google books and Amazon.com under reviews. My opinion about the review is that it should stimulate curiosity. So it has been a strange evening going from sadness to a kind of elation. Also among my post were cards from people I had lost touch with giving me their contact details which I am delighted about because I was sad about losing touch. Tracey's death has really made me value my friends and now I can be there for them in ways I could never have been in the past.

I have managed to put a 'subscribe' icon box and I would be grateful if people could submit their email addresses. The idea is to have a newsletter later on in the year which would be fuller and more expanded than what this blog is. I am so lucky in having a good friend who is so web savvy. This has made all the difference...

These icy conditions are an ideal opportunity....to practice walking mindfully!..

2010-01-09T00:53:00.000-08:00

I must confess that in the last couple of days I have practiced the deepest mindfulness walking meditation. The stakes have been high which is why it has been so focused. Those stakes are to do with my own safety and not breaking a limb while walking. I have been so aware of the heel and toe of each boot as it connects with the earth but the fact that I have been primarily doing this to ensure my own safety means that the power of the awareness is not as great as if what I had at stake was the holy grail of enlightenment. The fear for the safety is real which concentrates attention. Enlightenment for most people is simply a word that has been bandied around. We are aware of the consequences if we slip on the ice and break a bone but as humans we are not aware of the consequences of living a life without achieving a state of awakening or enlightenment (I'm not sure that there's much difference between the two).

I remember once reading somewhere that it is only when a person wants enlightenment as much as a drowning man wants air that there is a possibility of it happening. The trouble is that very few today are willing to want something that badly and want it paradoxically without attachment. It is attachment to anything that kills its beauty and freedom. On the spiritual path it is easy to get attached. The consciousness gets a glimpse of something 'other' and immediately seeks for that experience again. I see this in the posts of one man on Facebook who has obviously undergone a profound experience. There is an attachment in his posts to understanding why it happened to him so that (and this is my opinion it hasn't come from him) he can cause it to happen again. But this is something that can never happen with a spiritual/mystical experience and this is both the beauty and the frustration of such peak experiences as called by Abraham Maslow. They shift the consciousness but unfortunately leave a memory which creates craving and attachment. If as human beings we had no memory then I assert that there would be no suffering. It is the memory of a perceived hurt or injustice and then the feelings of resentment that this creates which keeps the state of human being as like the Buddha said 'in a state of suffering'. Yet I am not so naive as to believe that the world can human beings could function without memory.

Memory is necessary to have a world that works but memory is like the tail wagging the dog. It should consist of a memory of an event not a memory of what we decided that event meant and the story we put on it. It is the story that we put on the things that happen to us in life and not the event itself that causes the suffering. Separate what happens from the story we tell ourselves about what it means and the result is freedom from suffering. I do not agree with conventional therapies for the simple reason that in many cases they simply indulge a persons story about an event that happened and this far from liberating the person from the suffering caused by their story just sucks them in deeper. My commitment from this blog and for everyone I meet is through my way of being and not so much from things I say that people will be able to separate the events that happened to them from the story they told themselves about that event.

If I can give an example. If my friend is late meeting me - she is just late meeting me. My story in the past around this would have been 'she doesn't want to meet me, that is why she is late'. The truth is I don't know why she is late. The only thing I know for definite is that we made a definite time to meet and she is late. If every human being could live life with just this distinction then the level of personal happiness in the world would shoot up. All this is going to take is people seeing this for themselves and sharing it with others - this is causing the transformation of human being from a life of suffering to a life without suffering. The Buddha knew this that is why he said 'I teach only two things suffering and how to be free from suffering'.

I'm looking at my window as I write this and to my absolute amazement it is snowing again here. Everywhere looks so white and pristine and I have now accepted that this ice and frost is not going to stop me from doing anything else that I have given my word to do. I have enough experience to know that honouring my word and being responsible to have my word happen when circumstances are going against me is the way to be the bold leader that I have aspired to be since 1988....

When we take the time.....to stop and stare.....

2010-01-07T23:22:00.000-08:00

I braved it to come to London yesterday because of a commitment I had given my word to. With my trusty little netbook the train is now a valuable time where I don't get distracted by email and I can dedicate an hour solely to writing. At one point I was writing so intensely but felt an urgent need to look up from the computer and out of the window. The beauty of the site that greeted my eyes took my breath away. My eyes were treated to the beauty of the pristine whiteness of the rolling hills and the snow covered branches of the trees. I was immediately spellbound by the grandeur and awesomeness of nature and it confirmed for me what I have intuited for many years that nature is the form of the Divine. It has to be - what else could be so perfect in its simplicity and also its perceived complexity. The grandeur that I saw humbled me greatly but it also gave me an immense joy and freedom. I often feel these deep feelings of peace, calm, joy and bliss well up from deep within me without there being a concrete reason for them. They just come for no reason.

I arrived in London and went to a cafe where I used to go quite often but haven't been for a while. When I walked in the man there who in the past had never been very friendly had a huge smile for me and asked me where I had been as I hadn't come in for a while. I was both surprised and delighted. I noticed that he had made the cafe bigger and I asked him some questions about how he had done that. Once again I was aware of a complete ease and freedom where before there would have been that nagging unease that I had lived with up to the end of 2009. It is so great to be able to compare and then to appreciate. It reminds me of the necessity of the relative comparable world in order to experience. If everything is happiness then there would be no sadness to contrast it with. If everything is up then there is no down to contrast it with. The relative world is necessary for human beings to experience different states of consciousness. The reason why we resist sadness is because of not knowing how long it is going to last and as the Buddha said human beings are obsessed with obtaining pleasure and avoiding pain but yet pleasure and pain are necessary to experience the richness of life.

I ordered a jacket potato in the cafe and I was so grateful when he brought it to me and I saw how carefully he had done it. I acknowledged this care to him and it brought from him such a wide smile. I must admit to becomming a little alarmed at this stage as to 'why me' for all this care and attention but then I let it go realizing that there is still that element of fear small as it is. I thoroughly enjoyed my jacket and acknowledged him for it and then I left. Just as I was going out through the door he said 'see you again soon'. It is this element of life that makes it so special for me.

I made my way to the commitment I had made which I had been determined to honour and I was speaking to a lady and I said something. She immediately said 'you are not listening to me'. In the past I would have gone into myself beating myself up about being a failure at listening but what it would have been hiding was the fear of the imagined threat that there now was to my safety by her acting in what I would have seen as threatening. With that gone, it was natural for me to lean into her (in the past I would have backed away), apologise authentically and request her to repeat what she had said. I did all this while all the time looking her directly in the eye. Something in the way I did this resonated with her and she gave me a huge smile and repeated what she had said and I said 'right, I understand that now, thank you'. We finished the conversation with freedom and ease and I was left once again so grateful to the forces which act to show me just how far I have come over the last few years.

I walked gingerly back to my hostel where I am staying and even the real fear of falling on a spot of black ice wasn't strong enough to stop the spring in my carefully placed steps....

Humbled....by the great power of nature....

2010-01-07T00:12:00.000-08:00

I like many others yesterday was humbled by the great power of nature in terms of not being able to carry out the most carefully laid plans. When we are forced by circumstances beyond our control to change what we had planned to do it can bring up lots of different feelings. It is so useful to examine what came up when we realized that we weren't going to be able to do what we wanted. What was there for you...anger, annoyance, frustration or were you able to accept the circumstances and as the famous saying goes 'turn lemons into lemonade'. I ask these questions not to make any reaction right or wrong but to get an insight into ourselves and how we react when things don't go to plan. This is the what the spiritual path is all about being steady in the face of everything that is thrown at unwavering in not making any situation or event wrong for being the way it is.

I have been incredibly fortunate in all of the weather chaos in that I managed to return from my Christmas holiday without any delays or changes to my schedule. This is just another example of how life is working for me in ways I never dreamed were possible. Another surprising turn of events is that I have always wanted to learn to cook. As I said in another post practical things like being a good housekeeper and learning how to cook were not on my priority list when I was obsessive about the spiritual path and how to make it just as real a dimension as our physical and intellectual, emotional and social dimensions. Practicalities were then to me a waste of valuable time that I could spend reading, studying, writing.

But learning to cook is something that I have committed myself to doing. Where I live at the moment is not ideal and I don't like to do it alone so I couldn't believe when a friend who is on the same training programme as me who has recently bought and moved into her new flat told me that she wanted to set up a cookery course and asked me if I would go around to her flat and we would cook together. This is just amazing. I agreed and last night we cooked a lovely butternut squash soup, scones and fairy cakes. I was so aware when we were doing the scones and fairy cakes of once again being five. But then again I suppose that when we all bake it brings back memories of licking the bowl and the spoon. But for some reason it was very poignant for me last night. I was aware that I didn't have as much interest in the butternut squash soup! even though it was delicious when it was cooked.

So early on in 2010 I am truly creating the life that I love. I have shifted in my way of being and it is so noticeable to me as well as to others. I am now convinced that the default position for human being is fear and that enlightenment is nothing more than the transformation of fear into love. What I don't have yet is the key to that transformation. I am being bold enough to state that up to my profound realization that shifted the ground of my being I was living life from an awakened state now I think that I am pretty close to enlightenment. This is a bold claim but my final thought last night was the insight 'enlightenment is realization of the fundamental fear human beings have of each other' and seeing into the ridiculousness of this. I think Leonardo Da Vinci realized this and this is why Mona Lisa has that enigmatic smile on her face.

And finally I received confirmation from my publisher of the details of the translation of my book 'JourneyToSelf' which I was delighted about. She confirmed: 'You might be interested to know that JOURNEY TO SELF is being translated into both Gujarati and Hindi for sale across India and locally within the UK. The translation is being sponsored by the High Commission of India in London, and being undertaken by Mr. Madhav Bhan at Amita Abbi Prashan'

This is fantastic news because it had all gone very quiet on the translation front. But and this is important to state but I think that readers of this blog will realize the process of getting to where I am now at is like going through the eye of the needle and it takes unwavering courage, trust and above all surrender. It is not a path for everybody but paradoxically it is everyone's path...by virtue of us all being spiritual beings with a human dimension and we think that it is that we are human beings with a spiritual dimension - no, we are spiritual beings with a human dimension and the path of the spiritual is to unconceal the human dimension so that the spiritual can emerge bright..

Love is...the absence of fear.....

2010-01-06T15:29:00.001-08:00

I travelled to London yesterday to do an agreement and on the way back there was train disruption due to what is called 'adverse weather conditions'. What this means in truth is that frost and snow is not allowing train services to run as normal. I have a number of options for getting back to Hove so wasn't unduly worried. I heard a woman ask the estimated time of arrival for a train to Hove and thought to myself, that is the person that I am going to sit beside and get a taxi with when we arrive in Brighton if we can't get directly to Hove.

I made my way to the lady and asked her directly about travelling to Hove. This is amazing for me as it is something that I would never have done. I'm getting astute at reading people and speaking anyway. The difference is that in the past I was astute in reading people in that I could intuit who I would find it easy to make conversation with and who I wouldn't and would limit myself to those people who either spoke to me first or who were overtly friendly. This woman neither spoke to me first or was overtly friendly but for the first time in my life I wasn't stopped by the thought that 'she's not very friendly, she's probably not going to want to speak to me'. I was amazed to find that all of my negative self-talk around fear in situations regarding people has totally disappeared. In it's place is deep love and connection.

I guessed from her aloofness that she does something in the field of self-development. In the course of our conversation it turns out that she does but she didn't tell me straight out and I didn't ask straight out. I know that she started her own business just one year ago and it appears to be very successful. On the train I shared with her the phenomenal results that I am getting from the breakthrough education, training and coaching I am doing at present and she was interested. It was then natural for me to invite her to an evening to hear about it and how it could take her business to the next level. In the past I would never ever have extended an invitation to someone I had firstly met on a train and secondly wasn't the friendliest woman in the world. But without fear it just seemed such a natural thing to do. I invited her, she wasn't sure but gave me an email address for me to contact her. I was elated that I had invited her and it really doesn't matter if she can make it or not on Monday night. I pushed myself beyond what I thought I was capable of and I finally see that this is what this training is all about - going beyond where we are usually stopped and as a result having a profound realization that the only thing that stops us from going after everything we want is ourselves. Nothing else, there are no forces 'out there'. Everytime I have been stopped from doing something it has been because of a decision I have made in the past that is hidden from my view and is impacting my future. It is impacting my future because that decision that should be in the past, is not in the past, it is sitting out there in my future and comes at me every time I am in a similar situation to a past situation. Bit by bit I am taking all of these decisions and putting them back into the past and this is leaving my future with nothing but a blank canvass on which I can create whatever it is I want.

When we got to Brighton we queued up at the taxi rank and it was bitterly cold. Our taxi pulled up and we got in. The lady explained where we wanted to go and then asked for an estimate of the cost. The taxi man was unneccessarily abrupt to her and I didn't understand why. We were driving along and she then said her address was 'the other way'. This incensed him no end to the point that when she gave me her share of the fare she said 'don't give him a tip'. I was a little bemused about all of this. The lady went saying how nice it was to have met me and shared the journey home and I said the same - not because I had felt particularly comfortable because I hadn't but because I had the experience that I can go up and speak to anybody now and how they are will have no effect on me and that is freedom so from that perspective it was a great journey and meeting her was a vital part.

I continued on with the taxi and he started on a rant about the lady who had just got out and at one point I wanted to establish who he was ranting at so I said straight out' are you having a go at me' and he calmed down slightly and said 'no, not you'. In my training I have learned that no matter how anybody is to me that I leave them satisfied, complete, appreciated and respected, so I didn't rush out of the taxi when we got to my home, I listened, then validated his frustration, then thanked him for bringing me home and gave him a tip. He went off smiling and I felt happy.

I let myself into my house and as it was very late went straight to bed. My final few moments were thoughts and feelings of immense gratitude and in that energy I dropped off to sleep. I woke up this morning to the thickest and deepest snow and the most unimaginable disruption to train services. I am so close to becoming a leader and this week was to be the week where I had planned to do many more assignments to ensure that I earn the right to be a leader. It is looking now like at least the one this evening....I will not be able to make happen.....but it's only early morning....

Living life....without the film of fear....

2010-01-04T13:13:00.000-08:00

Today I met with my good friend Lotus who developed another website for me over the Christmas break. Here is the website: http://www.whatlieswithin.co.uk/. It will give me more scope than my other website which was limited. Not only that it was controlled by Google and at any time could have been taken off. This limited me in how controversial I dared to be! I haven't figured out a way of transferring all of my old blog posts to this new one so for now they will have to stay where they are.

I'm beginning to sound like a parrot but today was a really amazing day. I woke up with such a deep feeling of peace, joy and happiness which is so rare for me the morning after returning from spending some time at home. I woke up feeling satisfied that I had done everything I possibly could have to ensure that my elderly parents had a good Christmas. The only downfall was that I am not as good as cook as my mum and so my mum ended up doing a lot of the cooking but this is something that I am working on for my next trip home. After all cooking is nothing but practice. In the past I was way too spiritual to waste time cooking. All of my time was spent reading spiritual books or else sitting on my sofa thinking spiritual thoughts. As a result the practical side of me has been neglected for a long time.

But at the start of this new year I have found so much energy. I am excited and passionate about what this year is going to bring. I know that I can use the power of this blog to link with other similar blogs as well as other social and networking media. A good friend who I stayed with over Christmas and who I lamented to that after I leave a post nobody follows the thread explained to me that my posts have an intensity which makes it difficult for people to carry on a thread. There was a lesson in that for me to lighten up and not to be so serious and significant if I want to open up conversation about the realness of the spiritual path and spiritual awakening.

I am going to take this advice on board and have these blog posts be light and fun in the way that it used to be. I can do that now because I have absolutely no fear about anything I write. I can see this disappearance of fear everywhere. In the airport yesterday I started up a conversation with the man who was stood beside me in a never ending queue to the departures area. At some points there was a lull in the conversation and after a few minutes either he or me would say something else. I was aware at just how comfortable both the talking and the silence was. In the past I would have felt a kind of anxiety to either keep talking or else not speak at all. This time all that was present was freedom and ease whether he or I were speaking or not.

Today waiting for my friend I looked deeply at everyone in the street. I looked without fear and with the eyes of compassion. Up to now I thought I looked at people with the eyes of compassion but I realise now that when fear is present compassion is not possible. In fact nothing is possible when fear is present. The joke is that the fear is totally irrational yet there is nothing irrational or fictional about the power it has. So many people in my home town said to me that there was something different about me. I looked the same but there was something that was very different. That 'something' is the lightness that emerges when fear disappears or is transformed. I'm not sure which. It feels like it has disappeared rather than transformed.

It is fear that is at play every time we feel the need to protect or defend ourselves, the fear of some imaginary threat which in that moment appears very real. To be able to catch the fear before reacting and realizing that it is only fear which is causing the reaction and to be mindful and hold-off will elevate the consciousness to the degree that is required for spiritual awakening.

I have been asked when I share about this realization whether it is possible to have the self-awareness of a behaviour which is limiting but to take the actions and not be stopped by it. I am sure that many have and do and can conquer it but for me I had to have the event where I made the decision that I wasn't safe around adults to come to my consciousness be remembered and experienced and then disappeared. All of my actions up to that point, while well meaning and good intentioned never brought the desired effect because they were put on top of fear and so were inauthentic.

When I shifted everything around me shifted; but I had to shift first.....I now understand those profound words of Ghandi 'be the change you want to see in the world' . I am going to add something to that which is and yearn for the grace that disappears everything that is in the way of being this change...

My first post of 2010......begins with the deepest gratitude...

2010-01-03T11:16:00.000-08:00

I have returned to England after what has been the best Christmas and New Year of my life. Usually I come back feeling bewildered and hurt with a view that I wasn't included by my family. When I look back now it all seems so ridiculous. What was different for me this Christmas was that I had no fear. I had no fear and there was nothing to protect. I believe that it is only when there is no fear that one can truly look at people with the eyes of compassion and see into their souls to the suffering that lies there. I was so aware of this with everyone I met. I listened to them deeply and through that listening was able to connect and relate to everyone in such a way that our house was full of visitors this Christmas.

The highlight for me has to be the acceptance by my family of the training that I am doing and which has given me the breakthroughs that I have written about. I never dreamed that my mum would be speaking about it and interested in its power to transform life for human being. I was so aware of this when I was giving an introduction. It was such a sacred space for me and without any fear present it was a powerful introduction so much so that those people who came to hear me have seeen what is possible for themselves and are thinking and talking about it. They came to tell my mum how brilliant I was! I wasn't brilliant....I am committed that no human being suffers and the training I am doing and what it is giving to me has proven to me that it can make a difference to everyone. In the past I was a bit reluctant to speak and share openly but not anymore. I can't begin to imagine what life would have been like if I wasn't able to unconceal the source of a decision I made when I was young which was giving me a life that I am sure I wouldn't consciously have chosen.

What I saw also is that a strategy decided upon to survive in life while beneficial the first time also acts as a kind of straight jacket as the person gets older. Maybe because I had my insight into how common it is to make a decision about controlling life and then the kind of life that gives that I see control being so strong in most people's lives. The need to control or be in control. When we are young this need for control can drive people to be high achievers and become very successful but the problem is that as the person gets older the control aspect doesn't get weaker and then this causes problems when it comes to trying to control others. When the strategy of needing to 'control' gets adopted and forms part of the identity there is no brake; it develops and deepens in line with the development of the child into adulthood and then old age where it really becomes a problem. The tragedy is that that which serves initially becomes a master at the end and causes so much suffering to human being.

The frustrating thing about it all is how it operates below the level of consciousness. It is only when we put ourselves in some kind of self-development training that these decisions and hence behaviours that were adopted to survive come to the consciousness and can be transformed. It took me being told that 'it was like having a five year old (interesting that, given that was where I stopped mentally and emotionally) in charge of a team' and I was asked to stand down' that I saw how deep my need to control was. It was so strong that at one point I thought that I could be mildly autistic (absolutely barking now I now) but I am trying in my clumsy way to demonstrate a process which I believe that all of us as human beings go through. I saw that my obsessive need for control to the point that I would never consider anothers point of view and I got really upset around change stemmed from a decision I made the first time the universe let me down. At that moment I decided that I had to control life and what came out of that emerged a personality whose life became about being in control of every area of life.

I am so grateful that I had the insight to see this and the act of seeing transformed it to the point that I surrender to life now in every second and every moment. As a result I am very mindful. With mindfulness, comes concentration and with concentration comes insight. The gift I got just before Christmas was the gift of no-fear. While fear is there nothing else is possible. I assert that it is human beings fundamental fear of each other which lies at the heart of why looking good and having to be right are ingrained behaviour patterns of humans. If we didn't fear each other we wouldn't be concerned with looking good or having to be right. The having to be right is a sublte form of control. To admit to not being right is to relinquish control which is to be liberated from human suffering.

I was given a beautiful book for Christmas from my friend Lotus by the Vietnamese Master Thich Nhat Hanh called Peaceful Action, Open Heart which is really beautiful. In it he speaks about looking deeply into everything. This is similar to what I write when I say look beyond the appearance to the essence and in that looking something else emerges. Sometimes I feel so frustrated that I can read all these books and there is no learning for me in them. But what I am always left with is the how....how do I teach others to access this ultimate dimension that is always and ever behind the historical dimension. In the book it says that those who can touch the ultimate dimension for a duty to go and teach but what good is words. All words leave is a frustration for me and those I would attempt to teach to. And yet the book also says 'don't be content to abide in your own peace, joy and bliss' so as I write this I am feeling just a tad stuck.

As I start this new year the two qualities that I assert are essential to live an awakened life are surrender and no-fear. It is an interesting development on my spiritual path. I have written in many blogs about the profound experience I had on a meditation retreat in Southern England in 1999 (or 1998) I honestly can't remember which started me off in earnest on this path. Before that experience it was all theory and concepts. That experience made it all so real to the point that it has now become my life's work - breaking the cycle of suffering and being living proof that the spiritual dimension to all of us as humans is just as important in fact more important than the physical, emotional, mental and intellectual dimension of us as human beings. It is the essence of all of the dimensions though it appears to look differently....

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

2009-12-31T04:24:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

2009-12-24T05:51:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2009-12-16T22:41:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

2009-12-15T23:40:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

2009-12-14T23:22:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

2009-12-13T22:34:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

2009-12-11T21:53:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

2009-12-10T13:44:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

2009-12-09T23:51:00.000-08:00

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

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

2009-12-08T21:52:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

2009-12-06T22:01:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2009-12-04T22:13:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

2009-12-03T23:33:00.001-08:00

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

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

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

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

2009-12-03T21:26:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2009-12-02T23:05:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2009-12-01T23:51:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2009-12-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2009-11-30T23:45:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

2009-11-30T14:22:00.001-08:00

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

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

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

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

2009-11-30T00:39:00.001-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

2009-11-29T11:24:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2009-11-27T22:16:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

2009-11-26T22:36:00.000-08:00

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

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

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

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

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

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

The hard shell of the identity has transformed......leaving the soft underbelly of vulnerability

2009-11-25T23:22:00.000-08:00

I woke up this morning feeling incredibly sad,lonely uncertain and insecure. I know without a doubt that the hard shell of my identity which kept in place a

fear of adults has well and truly transformed and in its place is a softness and vulnerability. I have found it very difficult to motivate myself and what was important today was to be my WORD and honour my word and not my feelings or thoughts. The latter were very black but I know that I am not my thoughts and feelings and therefore the only way for me to come through this eye of the needle that I am going through is to be my word.

I had given my word to have a coaching call at 12pm and so I had that. In the morning I went downstairs to make myself a cup of tea. My landlady called me into the room to tell me that she had realised for the first time that she had a choice over how she was feeling. She could choose to be depressed or not. Her face as she told me this totally lit up and I am just left looking at her totally confused. She had seen for herself one of the major distinctions of the training I am doing without participating in the training. It was like the act of just putting the pen to paper and starting the process of registration was enough to create the shift. In the past I would have been so free with an explanation or opinion for her as to what this insight meant for her life but there was nothing there for me, just a numbness an emptiness but also great delight that she had distinguished something that would now give her a power over how life occurred for her that shd didn't have before. I truly understand now the old saying 'that less is more'.

I had been due to meet my friend who I am running Deep Connection with to go to a Toastmasters public speaking meeting. When I lived in London I was a regular member at the West London club and gained my competent communicator certificate before I left. My friend called and explained that she had overbooked herself and was not going. I had a moment of wavering but I felt a compulsion to be my word and to go. I looked for directions on the internet and set off. It was my first time outside and walking along in the brisk wind it felt good and for the first time I didn't feel quite so numb and disconnected.

I arrived at the hotel where the meeting was being held and walked into a room where there were not very many people. I was met by a lovely friendly woman who held out her hand and gave me a firm and warm handshake. Gradually other people trickled in and I was reminded of how friendly these meetings are. The meeting started on time and because there wasn't many people there the few that were there doubled up on roles. As a guest, there for the first time I was asked to stand up and say something about myself. I was amazed at how easy and free I felt when I stood up. I remember all the other times feeling nervous and self-conscious. There was none of that last night. I talked about writing my book and then when the break came I was surrounded by people who wanted to ask me all kinds of questions. There was a lady there who spoke about having the wish to be self-realized and afterwards she gave me a card which is for a charity which works in this field.

What all of this brought home to me was how much I need to network and how good I am when I do it. I am good now because I have no threat of adults. There was also a guy there who specialises in network marketing and after the meeting was over we spoke in the bar and I was more direct and straight asking him how exactly to do things on the internet. I explained about this blog and what it's purpose was and asked him for ideas on how to grow and expand it. In the past I would never have done this. It was rare in the past that I would have gone for a drink after. There would have been a point where my subconscous always present nagging fear of me being in a threatening situation by virtue of all the adults that were there that would have found me giving my apologies and going home. The freedom I feel now is just magical and I can't do enough justice to writing about.

I hope by now that this blog is a good demonstration of what we think are inherent qualities are simply the product of decisions that we made in the past when events in life happened. In that way this blog has served its purpose. The reason these decisions still hang around and impact life in the present and future is because they are not in the past. They lie around until they are distinguished. At the point of being distinguished they are then put back into the past and no longer impact the present. I have had first hand experience of this in the decision I made that adults were a threat. I know that I have laboured this insight in my last few blog entries and I apologise if I am beginning to sound a bit parrot like but I think those who have known me since childhood especially my one special friend I have had since childhood will recognise the significance of this for me.

Walking home afer the meeting I felt so alive. The weather was terrible, it was sleeting rain and yet there was a deep peace and contentment within. I have come through the eye of the needle in terms of the transformation of my identity....and I am sure that there is more to come.....this is why courage on the spiritual path is essential.....

Every moment...is a moment of NOW...and every moment of NOW is....perfect

2009-11-24T10:50:00.000-08:00

Coming back on the plane today I was hit by the insight that it as a result of leaving my family to go away to boarding school and never really going home again that I am neither known or understood within my family. How could I be when I left home at such an early age. My parents who thought that boarding school was so good for me made the decision to send my two brothers who didn't want to go. This decision is still having a ripple effect almost three decades later. On the plane I was hit by the unrealistic expectation I always have when I go home and that is that I will be included and not feel like an outsider. Every time I return disappointed that this didn't happen. What I have seen now for the first time is how on earth could I expect this. Inclusion whether it is with family or friends has to be earned and I just haven't earned it. Writing this I feel shame about how uncomfortable it is when I go home. Instead of being grateful for their love and friendship I wade in with questions and opinions and intrude without invitation into their lives. This has been such a sobering insight for me and has shifted radically how I am going to be when I go back again at Christmas.

Once again I am left asking myself why do I get these insights so late in my relationship with my family. If I got this years ago then my visits home could have been much more pleasant. I think there is also something about not living in Ireland when all the rest of my family are. I don't think they can understand why I choose to live in England when everyone is in Ireland. I can't answer this question either. At one point I had made plans to return to live and went to a leadership conference in Dublin which I have written about in this blog. After this conference I shelved my plans for returning to live in Ireland. But if my resolve was strong enough what happened at that conference wouldn't have derailed my plans to move back.

I have taken on in earnest the title of my blog post and it is true that in the moment of NOW there is nothing but perfection and every moment is a moment of now and is perfect. Suffering only comes when we allow the mind to go into the past or the future but in the eternal moment of now which is all there is....all is perfect.

How is it possible to be surrounded by family...and yet feel so alone

2009-11-23T09:22:00.000-08:00

The day I decided when I was 11 to leave the family and put myself into boarding school was the moment when I became an outsider in my family. It is a decision I have always regretted but the impact of it is still very much present when I return home. My family have an unease and a warriness about me and I have to take responsibility for this. I came home with a special mission which was to deliver invitations for a home introduction I am hosting for the training I am doing. It's not been easy to give these invitations. Those members of my family that I most want to share this work with and what the work makes possible are the ones who won't even allow me to share or allow me to make a contribution. It is so frustrating and I have to remind myself that it is only a game and that it is empty and meaningless. Everyone has the right to choose and to choose no and the lesson for me is not to make it mean anything. No is not personal, it's not no to me as a person, it's just a no for what I am inviting people to.

It is also harder because in the past I needed this resistance and antagonism to feed my belief that adults were a threat to me. I no longer need this so now I am feeling deep hurt and such a lot of confusion and uncertainty. I know that my identity is taking a battering here at home this time and I'm not sure what is going to emerge out of the fire. I stood up to my brother in a way I never have done before. I was amazed at how I could do this and feel no fear or dread like there was in the past. Going around giving the invitations to my relatives I was struck by how simple and straightforward their lives seem to be and at one point I felt a stab of envy for this kind of life. At this point in time I feel like some kind of plaything for the Gods. Yesterday was a tough day going around with the invitations and then this morning when I woke up I was planning where I would go with the invitations today. I'm like something possessed about giving out these invitations. My feelings don't come into it. I gave my word to come home to do this and I am not leaving until I have them all given out....

This is exactly what I am being trained in....to be a bold leader in the face of no agreement....now it's for them to see what's possible for themselves and their lives from this breatkthrough education and training but in the future it's to be effective in compassionately challenging the identity to enable a mass awakening of consciousness and ultimately a compassionate and connected world. This is my empowering context that I keep close to me at every moment. Without it I would have given up a long time ago.....

The importance.....of not getting stuck..in an opinion\view

2009-11-21T23:45:00.000-08:00

On Friday night I stayed with a woman who is doing the same training course as me who is a psychotherapist. We stayed up late into the night chatting over a bottle of wine. I was ranting about how much suffering our ego/identity causes us. She listened to me patiently for a while then said quietly 'can't you see that if it wasn't for the ego/identity that we wouldn't be able to experience life'. I was completely stunned as I hadn't considered it in this way. i had been stuck inside my view that the ego/identity is a thief that robs us of experiencing our Divine essence. Her comment has really made me think and as a result I am feeling much more compassionate to the ego/identity. I will still challenge it when I see it operating but now from a stand of compassion for what is possible than in a direct confrontational challenge which is what I have been doing up to now. The path of spiritual transformation is so fluid and one of the traps on it is to become stuck in some point of view. I am very lucky in that I listen intently to everything that is said because without a teacher, the people I meet and what they say to me become my teachers.

I am writing this before I leave to catch a plane to go and see my family in Ireland. I am going home with the intention of delivering invitations to an introduction I am doing in my home just before Christmas to give my family and friends the gift of being in the environment of the energy of the training programme I am on. I am a mixture of nervousness and excitement. I understand now why I was initially drawn to this training. The training is leading edge training in leadership by the education and coaching that is provided. However, because it is so leading edge it is often greeted with scepticism. This scepticism that I used to meet fed my ego/identity and kept alive the belief that adults were a threat. Nothing gave me the experience of being threatened more than when I shared about this training and invited others to come along to evenings to find out what might be possible for them from this training in areas of life that are important to them.

I have noticed since I have discovered this that I am so able to be with anything that is said to me. There were a few occasions this weekend where things were said to me that in the past I would definitely have seen as a threat that had no effect now only to make me smile. There is nothing to protect therefore there is no fear anymore. I am creating my way of being when I go home today to be playful, excited and passionate and I am going clear in my mind that my family and my friends are most important and I want them to have anything they want for themselves and their lives from the education and training I am doing and I have experienced that what this training promises......it delivers......it has for me and for over 1.1 million people worldwide who have participated....

I called my mum yesterday when I was on a bus to let her and my dad know that I was coming because I didn't want to shock them by just arriving on the doorstep! My mum was firstly shocked and then delighted and it was great to hear her. When I finished I caught the eye of a man who was sitting opposite me. He said how hearing me speak to my mum brought back memories of his mum who he had lost in Italy 10 years ago. I was so aware as he was speaking about his mum and the Alzheimers that she had that I was so present to him and what he was saying. This was a stranger who in the past would have been a threat to me and who I would never have struck up a conversation and here I was on the 29 bus speaking with this man like we had known each other all of our lives. When he got off he thanked me for listening and told me to enjoy the precious time I was very lucky to have. It was a really lovely experience speaking to someone without experiencing any fear or threat....

Now....am off to catch the plane. I will try to keep up this blog while I am away but am not going to promise....

Technology and me....who would have guessed it...

2009-11-21T00:51:00.000-08:00

I have joined the 21^st century in terms of having mobile technology on the move. I now have a lovely light netbook which travels everywhere with me now. Earlier today I was in a battle with the identity of my landlady as it worked on her overnight drumming up every possible reason why she shouldn’t do a weekend which gives an access to freedom and happiness. It is so frustrating for me and I have to remember that it is all empty and meaningless and the important thing is to play full out. To confront the identity of human being at every opportunity and not to be afraid. To be straight about what I think and to take whatever I get. I am so steady in this now that even in the midst of what was a very vicious verbal attack from that part of her that is hell bent on keeping her small and ordinary I could see what was going on and I held firm. There was nothing for me to protect therefore there was no threat to my own survival. In the end she spoke to her therapist who said that she was far too vulnerable to take on the first part of the powerful training that I am pleased and proud to be doing.

I have also seen that I can still keep my childlike consciousness in terms of being excited, passionate and playful about life and what it has to offer. The combination of playfulness and excitement is infectious. All I have to do is recreate the excitement shown by children when they discover something new and their natural inclination to share and show whoever is around what they have discovered. This is the way of being that I am going to adopt. It’s not going to be difficult because it is what I already am. The difference now is that I am consciously adopting that way of being and it will be in combination with being in the adult world. It won’t be a playfulness and excitement that irritates which is what it has been in the past. I am committed that it’s going to be a playfulness and excitement that inspires and moves people to rediscover the lost childlike consciousness in themselves.

I wonder if it was the decision I made not to enter the adult world that is responsible for me never being able to decide on and work towards a career. I said in an earlier blog that what I thought was spiritual was just a decision made when I was an upset five year old... but maybe that decision was the Divine gift.

I am a mixture of caution and impatience....not a workable combination

2009-11-19T23:23:00.000-08:00

I am preparing for my second workshop on Thursday and at the moment I have nobody booked to come. What I can see is that having resisted doing this work for many years I am now impatient and also cautious for it to happen quickly and to take-off and I find that this is not happening. I think my lack of conviction in the existence of the subtle energy centres called chakras just because it hasn't been proved is limiting me. In truth the only gift I have to offer people is the sharing of the powerful experiences I have had while on meditation retreats and how life transformed as a result. Everything else I say, teach or share is just an opinion or a view. I am also going to look at doing on online certificated course in spiritual counselling because I realise that I am lacking a framework or structure within which to teach/share.

I went to see my good friend Lotus who set up Deep Connection to share her commitment to and practice of mindfulness. How much easier would my path be if I set myself up as a Mahayana Buddhist and started to teach about the sutras which I understand so well. But something in me is resisting this. There is a force which is not letting me give up. Lotus is great in that if nobody turns up then I don't pay her for the space. I can also use the space for one to one counselling which is great. I find myself speaking a lot about the two parts of us that comprise human being and how one side wants to keep us small and ordinary and the other wants us to be powerful and to reclaim our Divine essence which is hidden underneath the constructed identity. I find that when I am speaking about this that my words flow and have power. Yesterday I was engaged in one of these conversations with a colleague who is on the same training course as me and also wants to be a leader for children and young people. She called me because she was challenged by what such training is going to involve and demand from her. As she spoke about all her concerns I was so aware of the efforts her identity was making to throw her off course from experiencing and being her greatness.

What was amazing to me was that I was fine with everything that she said. I realised that all my years fighting not to become an adult has left me quite childlike. It is ironic that I used to think a lot about the sentence 'unless you become like little children you cannot enter the kingdom of God' and so what I thought was a Divine gift - i.e. my childlikenss was in reality the product of a decision I made when I was five that adults were a threat to me and the only way I was going to survive was not to allow my consciousness to grow up. The result of this was that up until a few weeks ago I had a five year old consicousness trapped in the body of a mid 40 year old woman. No wonder my brother said to me in exasperation one day 'you have no idea what you're like'. It must have been so frustrating for my family and friends and once again I thank them through this blog for being there for me.

Last night I went to the gym with the girl whose room I took and it was lovely. I had never done this when I was younger preferring to be on my own. She is so much younger than me but swimming in the pool and chatting in the steam room and then coming back to hers to have dinner and give ideas on the new flat that she has just bought I was aware of a deep and profound gratitude that I could be as happy, relaxed and playful as I was. Gone was that nagging tension that had always been with me and that I couldn't put my finger on. Now I look forward to meeting and speaking with people. I was in the launderette the other day and I started chatting to this guy who told me that he had been a Hare Krishna for many years and we had an amazing conversation about Krishna consciousness and what it meant.

The power of seeing the event which shaped the constructed identity cannot be underestimated in terms of being able to peel away the layers of the constructed identity like the layers of an onion. I had often heard this onion analogy but hadn't really understood it or how it happens.....now I do and every morning I wake up so utterly and profoundly grateful to have the freedom I now have.....to be excited and playful about life and who I am going to meet today......

I completely understand.....what Plato was trying to get people to see with his allegory of the cave

2009-11-18T22:44:00.000-08:00

I have felt so frustrated today. This evening Deep Connection held it's second evening on mindfulness and once again I was reminded of the old saying about giving people fish and teaching them to fish. Yes, by being mindful and aware of all of our thoughts, feelings and actions you do enter the here and now and do touch life deeply, but there is a long way to go to get to that point. Last night I listened to people speaking about how they have anger, judgements and opinions and I can't understand why people would prefer to put up with them rather than to understand how they came about and disappear them. This would then free up the energy that is blocked by keeping all these aspects of their identity in existence. This was the frustration that was with me for almost five hours last night.

Not to sound arrogant but I think I understand how the prisioner who escaped from Plato's allegorical cave must have felt. The story of the cave is that there are a group of prisioners tied together, sitting on the ground facing a wall. Behind the prisoners is a fire and the shadows of people passing by the fire makes shadows on the wall which the prisoners take to be real. One prisoner escapes and then realises that the shadows are illusory and sees the brilliance of the daylight. Excited he runs back to his fellow prisoners to tell them......and they kill him.

Mindfulness like meditation has been around and practiced for many years. Has it made any difference to the amount of love, peace and compassion in the world? No, in fact it could be argued that the world has got worse. Why is this? I assert it is because the ego/identity has been left to develop and deepen in human being without being confronted. There was nothing in last night that was confronting to the ego identity of everyone that was there and this was my frustration. I said a couple of things about becoming aware of what is it that causes meditation to be so difficult, to sit for an hour in meditation as opposed to sit for three hours watching TV. Unless the ego/identity with its various components is directly challenged and given up spiritual awakening and achievement of the holy grail of enlightenement is going to remain a concept not attainable in this lifetime.

What is also ironic for me is that there is a lot of talk of global warming and doing more to save our planet. People are so caught up in the suffering caused simply by being human and by refusing to look at how human being is made up there is no more energy available to do what is going to be necessary to save our planet. The ego/identity is operating strongly and unfettered and cares about nothing else only its own survival. I don't know what is going to shift that if people don't take it on for themselves.

And what I say and write about can be verified by everyone from their own experience. Everyone is aware of that inner voice that is always commenting on what someone else is saying 'I agree with that, not with that, I like that, that's not right'. When I mention this to people there is a wry smile of recognition so what I am saying is not unfamiliar. People are just asleep. They are unaware that it is this part of themselves that is in control and is responsible for the suffering in life. It is the creator of what the Buddhists call maya or delusion and ignorance.

Ironically I have found that the worst offenders in terms of going into the mud of how we got put together as human beings are those who are on a declared spiritual path. From my experience the ego/identity becomes alive and active far earlier in these people than those who declare no interest in their spiritual development. The spiritual ego is more clever and devious than the normal ego. Although there is only the one ego/identity it is chameleon like doing whatever it has to to survive. Sitting for two hours in mindfulness contemplating the here and now is completely pointless while the ego/identity is operating unfettered and unexamined. Sitting in meditation or being in mindfulness without knowing the underlying machinery of the identity is like the ego/identity deciding to turn itself into a detective to catch a thief which is itself the thief. You can just imagine how effective that is going to be.

I remember once being on a meditation retreat in Devon and sitting in one of the large chairs in the library when I was suddenly gripped by such a powerful anger that I wanted to pick up one of the plants that was there and throw it out of the window. I didn't of course but I wasn't just satisfied to see that there was that anger there I wanted to find out what was it's source so that I could have equanimity. I accepted that it was there because acceptance is the first step to transforming anything. But after acceptance I thwn went into a rigorous enquiry as to what purpose my ego/identity was using the anger for. I assert that without this rigorous enquiry into that part of us which is not us, we will never experience what we really are.

Without the mud the Lotus flower does not bloom. It is the same for human being. The tragedy and my frustration is that so many people don't know that the mud of human being exists never mind to transform it. The ego/identity keeps the consciousness away from this enquiry by having it be resigned and cynical.....that this is just the way that I am and that life is and it's as good as it gets. Me and this blog says......NO...it is so, not as good as it gets.....but to be free takes being willing to have the consciousness go into the mud....

I also heard yesterday that Wayne Dyer who ranks among the best in terms of motivational and inspirational speaker has Leukaemia. This has just added to my frustration that the ego/identity is now operating like Frankensteins's monster. It was created for one purpose but has now grown to dominate in a way which was not its design.......

Everything...seems to be speeding up....or is this just the way it is occuring for me...

2009-11-17T21:59:00.000-08:00

I walked around my new neighbourhood yesterday and was struck by how friendly everyone is here. Or maybe this is me with my new found love and compassion for human being I feel so connected to everyone. I know now without a doubt where my life is going and what it is going to be about until the day when I too go into a box and dirt is thrown on my face before I am lowered into the ground. It is going to be about raising awareness of the two parts that make up human being our identity and our soul. The shift in consciousness that I am absolutely positive is coming will happen when the identity has been unconcealed and the game of human being revealed. All of my meditative and intuitive insights tell me that this is what is meant by 'revelation' the unconcealing of that which was hidden.

My work to directly challenge the human identity as a collective through the individual people that I meet and communicate with started yesterday with a conversation I had with my landlady. As I have often written about in this blog it is not what happens in life but the story or interpretation we make up about what happened that is hallmark of human being. And it is this story that determines the kind of life that is lived and experienced. My landlady has had many tragic events happen which have happened and are real. However what she has made them mean or her story is so limiting what is possible for her. I had a really straight conversation with her about all of this and the result is that she has now registered to do the first stage of the training that I am more advanced in. The first stage is all it takes to begin the process of disidentifying the consciousness from the identity so it can be free. I was amazed at how well I was able to take all of the resistance she showed towards me in the conversation. I could take it and be with it without being reactivated because I knew that it wasn't her speaking, it was her identity that feels threatened and is now fearing for its survival.

And yet such fears for survival are unfounded because when the identity transforms so that the consciousness shifts to the next level there is present and experienced such peace, joy, bliss and a life that works and is magical in more ways than I can write. When the caterpillar becomes the butterfly does it want to return to the caterpillar. I don't know because I don't have the consciousness of the butterfly or caterpillar but my gut instinct is that 'no it doesn't'. The only difference between the process in the caterpillar and the process in human being is that we have the capacity to be self-aware and it is this self-awareness which the identity uses to manifest fear and resistance when it perceives any threat to its existence and survival.

Now when I look at the behaviour of people I see it all as the identity and I look beyond that to the inherent essence of people - their greatness which is hidden beneath the identity and yet which paradoxically the identity arises out of because ultimately it is the game of the ONE WITH THE MANY as I have written about many times. The waves appear separate to the ocean for a limited amount of time but they have arisen from the ocean and will return to the ocean so it is also with the human consciousness which comprises the identity. The game for human being is to disidentify or dissociate the consciousness from the identity to be free....

My work in making this happen for people is the closest I think I can get to in fulfilling on my Bodhissatva vow which I took silently in 1988 to understand the nature of suffering and not to rest until every sentient being is relieved of their suffering. As I write this I realise what a massive undertaking this is going to be and especially on my own and without any agreement from the human identity to do this! I am an active player in this game and am well aware of the power and viciousness of the identity solely for its own end.....that of survival.

I am busy now preparing invitations for a home introduction for my training for my friends and family in Ireland. I am committed that all of the members of my family are aware of the two sides to themselves and can begin this process. I am creating for it to be a lovely evening just before Christmas. I have unwavering faith in the power of the energy of this work and want it in my environment over the Christmas period. I am though treating it as the game that it is. I am so committed to having at least ten people with me on the evening and am now going full out to make this happen but if on the night there is just my mum, dad and me that is still going to make it such a special evening. I have never been this bold before..but then again.....there has never been as much at stake.......for human being before.......

My experience of life.......has transformed..

2009-11-16T22:11:00.000-08:00

L ife for me these days is so vibrant and full. The key to this is my complete and total surrender to the way that life is and to be happy with the way that life is. It is the way that it is and wishing that it could be another way is never going to change the way that it is. Acceptance is the first step in transforming any situation. The Buddha said the same thing in the First Noble Truth when he said that all life is suffering. When I first heard this my immediate reaction was 'no, that is not true' and I resisted this. What I understand now is that the Buddha was saying that acceptance of life as suffering is the key to transforming it. Unless we accept people and situations exactly the way they are and exactly the way they are not, suffering and resistance is what human beings experience.

The moment that we can accept the truth of the reality of suffering both for ourselves and our fellow human beings then the resistance is gone and a space opens up for something else to appear. This is the first dis-identification of the consciousness from the identity of being human. All other insights build on this first one. Without acceptance nothing else is possible. I have completely accepted my life just the way that it is and the way that it is not and this gives me a transformed experience of life. On a mundane and practical level I went to a shop to buy an iron, came home, plugged it on looking expectantly for the red light and heat that would signal me being effective in my ability to choose something that works....and nada......no red light and no heat. In the past I would have ranted about the inconvenience it is going to cause to me but yesterday there was none of that. The truth about buying the iron was that it didn't work. Any upset around it would be around some story I made up about it meaning that I am not effective in choosing a working iron never mind being effective in inspiring people to really take on that to be a human being means to be embroiled in a game that we don't even know we are playing. That is the game of the ONE WITH THE MANY...

My commitment to my fellow human beings is for as many as possible to experience this game for themselves. Many already are. Yesterday I found someone who shared his story of spiritual emergency. Reading it I was reminded anew why I continue sharing the insights that I have, it is to have the consciousness prepared so that when the shift comes it will be possible to integrate the shifted consciousness into the new paradigm effortlessly and easiily. I feel a frustration that my way of being at the moment is not able to do this. Eckart Tolle writes and speaks about the power of now, I am going to begin writing about the power of surrender. It is the power of surrender that brings one.....into the power of NOW - the portal of spiritual awakening through a shift in consciousness.

Happiness is.....taking things as they are....

2009-11-15T09:58:00.001-08:00

If ever I needed to have the title of this blog post as an empowering context it was today. I moved again from living in the centre of Brighton to now living on the outskirts. This is my third move in less than one year. This is hard to believe given that I have spent most of my life living in the same flat and working for many years in one job. What is amazing to me is the freedom and ease with which I can move around. I really have no fear. Up to last night when I arrived back from my training in London I had very little packing done to move today. As well as the training I had to go to my flat to sort out some problems with new tenants who have just moved in. I had finished my training yesterday and one of the women who is on the training course with me saw me in the office and asked me what I was doing later. I explained that I had to return to pack because I had nothing done. She then invited me to an evenings chanting with her. I have heard her before and that time her voice was so deep and resonant that the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. The 'YES' that came from my mouth had nothing to do with me, it came from that part of me that misses an open spiritual connection. She was delighted with the immediacy of my response and said that afterwards she would give me a lift to the station.

I went with her to set up and the evening was just amazing. She plays something that looks like an accordion and also the drum and this together with her deep voice honouring Shiva made the hour and a half so very special. I really got lost in the chanting. I have chanted before but there was always something holding me back from fully participating. I realise that it was my identity constantly reminding me that wherever I was and whoever I was with, were a threat to me. Now that is all gone, I can let go and be free in a way that is nothing short of miraculous. I just love to see the transformation when I am with my friends now. I met a friend on Friday night and I was newly amazed at how much more connected to her I felt and how I could really listen and be there and not have any concerns for myself. Usually when I say goodbye to this friend it is me who usually says 'I'll call you' but when we left on Friday night she said 'I'll call you and she did to say what a great evening it had been'. If I never get anything else from this training I have more than I ever dreamed of.

What seems also strange is that my mad desire to be a leader for children and young people is not as obsessive as it was. Now that it is not to avoid the adult world I don't feel the same compulsion. There are certain results I have to achieve on this training in order to go further and in the past I wouldn't entertain the notion that I wouldn't get these results, now it doesn't seem so important. I will still play full out for these results and I believe passionately in what this training can offer and I will continue to share myself and what I am getting and intend to inspire others to look at it for what is possible for them but if having done all that I don't get the results then that is the way it is meant to be. I am so unbelievably happy.

I returned last night and spoke with my flatmate. Then I went into my room and looked around and had a moments dread as I really saw all there was to do to pack everything up. My inner voice told me to go to bed and get up early this morning and this is what i did. I set 2 reminders for 5.30am and when both went off got up and was so intentional and focussed to get every thing done for the removal man who was coming at 10am. And all without any stress. All of this is amazing and surely it can't all be coming from having the integrity of not being in a job I hate and building a career doing what I love...it can't be....but it sure feels like this is the way to live a life that works.

But life is life and has the rough as well as the smooth. What I am finding though is that I am growing in my ability to have equanimity with both the rough and the smooth. The only time that I do get very stressed is when I can't get an internet connection or I think that I don't have a signal like what happened to me when I first got to this place today. But writing this everything has been sorted out.

Tomorrow I have to think about more promotion for my next evening on spiritual awakening through the chakras which is on 26 November. I am already....so excited.....thinking about it...

My life...as a spiritual teacher....began last night....

2009-11-12T23:38:00.000-08:00

Five people came to the first of my workshops on spiritual awakening and it was a great evening. My words flowed like they have never done before and I could tell by the attention and interest I felt that what I was saying was being recognised by the deepest part of those who were there. The chakra system makes such a lot of sense to me even though I cannot vouch for the physical evidence of the chakras. I only going to specialise on the chakras as taught by Alice Bailey who channeled such information from the Ascended Master Djwal Khul. When I was being trained as a Reiki healer many years ago it was this Master's card I pulled when we were all asked to pull a blind card from the pack of Ascended Masters. It is his photograph I carry in my purse and it is him that I feel close to. If I was a bit less scared I am also sure that I could be a channel through which he could channel but somehow I don't want to go down this route.

I feel such a great relief to have a framework within which I can place the powerful experiences I have had. One thing is for sure and that is that if I hadn't had these powerful experiences I wouldn't be teaching. I don't know how teachers set themselves up without having an experience. I was drained enough after last night and that was with the authenticity and credibility that comes with experience. Teaching the spiritual on the basis of concepts and without any direct experience must be so difficult. And yet having experiences is not the answer either because then those who hear about the experiences want to have them themselves and this is something that I can't yet do. It may be that I will go to India and spent some time with a yogi master and become initiated in a lineage that will allow me to give what is known in the East as Shaktipat initiation. This is an initiation to have the kundalini energy rise from the base of the spine safely and naturally. At one point last night when everyone was meditating on a powerful chakra I had the fleeting thought 'what will I do if this energy rises spontaneously in one or more of the people here'. Then I immediately let it go and trusted in the innate intelligence of the energy or to be more precise the fire that burns away the etheric web that separates the physical from the emotional resulting in harmony in mind and body.

Having finished my first one, I am so excited at the thought of doing my next one which is on 26 November. It is so great to have a permanent space that I can advertise. My partner is very reasonable also just renting it for £6 per hour. Money and spirituality is a funny thing. There seems to be a belief that the spiritual can be had for nothing but that is the farthest thing from the truth. Giving is a fundamental law of the universe if we want to receive. That is why I had no qualms about explaining that the suggested donation for the workshop was £5 but if that was too much then whatever they had would be great, the important thing is to......give something....in order to receive more.....

What has really happened......is that my throat chakra has opened..

2009-11-10T22:57:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning I woke up and whether or not it is because I have been working on my unified theory of spiritual awakening through the chakras but I had the clearest intuition that what has happened is that my throat chakra which is the chakra of self-expression has now opened. I had myself caught up in some childhood drama which could have absolutely nothing with what has happened. If this is the case then it means and I don't mean to sound egotistical or arrogant that five out of my seven chakras are now opened. This is so unbelieveably exciting to me and demonstrates to me without any doubt that the I am no longer walking the path of chakra awakening I have become the path. I am like a child who has discovered a self-expression and it is just amazing. I walked around looking at people with so much love and compassion.

Bookings for my workshop on spiritual awakening through the chakras have taken off to the point that I have had to close the poll. I know how powerful the evening will be now that all of the limitations on my self-expression have been removed and this chakra is active. I also understand why I haven't been able to see these chakras energetically - this seeing is going to come when the 6th chakra - The Third Eye opens. I think this is the reason why I now have to teach. I have gone as far as I can on my own and now it is about sharing and giving what I know and have experienced myself to others so that my consciousness can shift to the next stage in preparation for the awakening of the final two chakras. What has struck me is the time it takes for these chakras to open. The powerful experience I had on a meditation retreat in Devon where my heart chakra opened was in 1998/9 (can't honestly remember) so that's a nine or ten year wait between chakras...aagh....at this rate I'm not going to have them all open and activate before I shuffle off this mortal coil but one thing is for sure I am going to end my life working towards this goal to show others that it is possible in one lifetime.

Any hesitation I had about developing myself into a chakra expert as the access to spiritual awakening has totally disappeared. The only concern was that I was speaking about a system which has never been scientfically proven or that I haven't seen and one thing this blog has been careful to do is not to speak about anything that I haven't personally experienced. So while I have experienced symptoms that seem very like chakra awakenings I don't know this for sure and this has been my reluctance in taking up this mantle. All of these concerns are now gone and I know without any doubt how the process of spiritual awakening and enlightenment happens and I just can't wait to get out there and share it with as many people as I can.

These days I am awake and so alive in the early hours of the morning. Yesterday sitting and having coffee I had to be careful not to stare at people because I just can't seem to take my eyes of them......there is nothing to protect anymore therefore......there is no fear....

I know people...are still the same but to me now...they are so different...

2009-11-09T04:45:00.000-08:00

I cannot believe how different I feel with people now. Gone is the nagging unease and tension that I always had and the need to leave after a certain length of time. I can be with people in a way that I never dreamed was possible. I understand now that what I have had for people is a distinction called 'already always listening' and that is the assertion that all of us listen to people through a filter of our views and opinions. My already always listening for adults were that they were a threat to me. Given that it was this that had priority and dominance over any efforts I made to make a difference it is a miracle that I have managed to achieve as much as I have and to have as many friends as I have. How much communication and connection is possible when I was consumed with protecting myself from a threat that didn't exist. I am so grateful to them for sticking by me when I must have given new meaning to the word frustration.

Life has speeded up enormously since this realization. I placed an ad in a local paper for my unified model of spiritual awakening through the chakras and over the weekend I had seven people call and book a place for Thursday evening. What struck me was that I found it so easy to write the ad, the words just came so freely. Now there is nothing between me and what I am passionate about and want to do as a living. I am so unbelievably grateful for this training I am doing. I know that without the rigour that this leadership breakthrough education, training and coaching provides that I would probably have got into old age wondering about the underlying unease that was always there for me with adults and not understanding why. I was speaking with a friend about how the nature of human being is to make things mean something. She told me that she had discovered something similar to me but many years ago when she went into therapy. She had been hurt by her dad but she had generalised it to all men and surprise surprise found that she wasn't able to have a relationship. I did exactly the same thing except I widened it to all adults which sounded the death knell for me being powerful in the adult world up to now.

The training I am on promises that things that have never moved are now going to move and I can see this so much in action. Just yesterday I received a phone call from the people who run the next stage of the training for becoming a leader especially for young people and teenagers to ask me if I was still committed. I nearly jumped into the phone with the intensity of my response absolutely, more now than ever but this time it comes from a place of authenticity not as a pretence to escape the adult world for a bit longer. I still believe that I can make a difference to children and young people and that is where I want to go. It's going to take something from me though, I am very aware of that.

Things are also moving on the journalism front. I will be writing for Wellbeing magazine on a regular basis and also having the events that are being run by Deep Connection featured in it on a regular basis. I am so excited about all of this. I see now that my reluctance to pitch to editors my ideas in the mind, body, spirit field was down to firstly the unreal threat that I perceived in all people. The freedom I have now is difficult to do justice to. I think the best proof of it would be to speak to the friend that I stayed with for the weekend. She and me are very different and in the past I kept her around because my machinery or identity needed her criticism and impatience to feed the belief that adults were a threat. It was all so different this weekend, we laughed, joked. I had stayed with her before and it never entered my head to make tea for her in the morning. This weekend it felt like the most natural thing in the world to do. She has an beautiful adopted daughter and slept in the room with her to give me her bed. On Saturday morning both of them came into me and we all laughed and joked until 12pm. It was so special and would never ever have happened in the past.

As a result of this experience I am so committed to everyone identifying the machinery that is limiting their experience of life and of what is possible. I still feel that something major is coming in 2012 and interestingly there is a film soon to be released which will really bring it to the forefront of consciousness. I feel so strongly that the shift is going to happen when the machinery of human being is unconcealed. Interestingly I think it's the last book of the bible 'Revelations' and revelation means the exposing of that which was hidden.

The next couple of days I am going to spend preparing my workshop on spiritual awakening. Now it feels right to delve deeply into the chakras even though there is no scientific evidence for their existence. My experiences and how life transforms matches what the psychics have said happens....when chakras open......

Last night was just so special......

2009-11-05T06:15:00.000-08:00

Last night I opened Deep Connection with my friend Lotus. 13 people came and it was a great evening. Three of the people booked up for my spiritual awakening workshop next Thursday. What was most miraculous for me though was that at 11pm I was still sitting with everyone and I was so relaxed and connected to everyone. In the past the unconscious driver that adults were a threat would have been at fever pitch at about 1opm and without my awareness would have driven me to leave everyone. I see everything so clearly and for me it is like being born again. To have such an ease and love and connection to everyone. Another effect of this is that I wasn't in the least bit self-conscious. Now I see that the self-consciousness was there to protect myself. When there is nothing to protect all that there is authenticity and that was what I was last night completely authentic and in integrity doing what I love and am passionate about.

The evening was an evening about mindfulness and I was struck again by how easy it is to hold an evening when it is based on the teachings of somebody else. My three stage theory of how the consciousness arrives at an enlightened state is mine alone and as I am still unknown in this field I realised that I have to find a way to hang this theory off something that is already established. Walking back home last night I was hit by a way to do this. The two awakening experiences I had involved the freeing of blocked energy from the chakras. I can relate my experiences to these chakras and I can base my spiritual awakening workshops on awakening these chakras and then at the end speak about the three stages the consciousness goes through to become awakened and ultimately enlightened. This has inspired me so much. I know so much about the chakras and with the faith that they do exist in the subtle energy body even though there was been no scientific validation for their existence, the system is well enough known for me to be able to make it my own and provide a powerful chakra meditation for those who come next Thursday evening.

It is going to take a while for me to become established but I know that with my new found ease and comfort around people that I now have, it is going to happen. I've just looked at my emails and found one from the publisher of my book from the India High Commission saying that it will cost 3500 Euros to translate and edit my book into Hindi and that they are going to go ahead once she gives the confirmation. This is quite incredible and yet on another level it's not at all. I can't help feeling that once the book is translated into Hindi that things are going to move very fast for me. I realise now why I didn't make the request to go with my publisher to the High Commission when she met with the head of the cultural division, I didn't want to because of my unconscious fear of adults. When I first got the news that the book was going to be translated I felt a minute of elation which was closely followed by this sense of doom and apprehension which I knew wasn't anything to do with anything I have written being found to be fraudulent or dishonest. I couldn't put my finger on just what the apprehension was, now I know exactly what was there operating beneath my consciousness. What was there for me immediately and although hidden from my view was an unconscious thought of 'oh no, yet more adults to be a threat to me'. I can't bear to think what life would have been like if I hadn't unconcealed this unconscious driver.

I am also very lucky though in that I have been on this path for so long that now when something is about to unconceal itself I have a certain inkling consciously that something is not quite right. I had begun to think that my obsession with making a difference to children and young people and ignore adults was a bit skewed in some way. I was uncomfortable with the stand I was taking for children and young people and I didn't know why. To be free of all of that and to be excited at the thought of going out to all people as a spiritual leader is worth everything to me. There is more to be unconcealed I am aware of that because identity formation is long and deep but as long as I am vigilant and not projecting anything onto others or circumstances but taking it on inside and looking to see what is missing then this journey will continue for me.....but it does get exhausting...

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

2009-10-31T09:16:00.000-07:00

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..

2009-10-26T09:53:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-10-23T00:47:00.000-07:00

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....

2009-10-21T03:35:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-08T23:13:00.001-07:00

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......

Death......has left its mark on me....

2009-09-30T10:36:00.001-07:00

Firstly I must say a huge thank you to the brilliant person who invented sat nav. That little piece of gadgetry has given me freedom to travel and be independent. For someone like me who has no sense of direction and would go into orbit when being asked to read a map that little piece of equipment is the same to me as the blind man is about his white stick. It's really improved my quality of life.

I got up early yesterday morning and keyed in the name of the church where my friend was being burried. Delighted I got a postcode so I knew that the sat nav would be accurate. I set off in plenty of time and it was a brilliant sunny day. I felt so at peace and I knew deep down that Tracey has forgiven me for being such a lousy friend. I knew that the church was in Abbess Roding but for some reason when I put in the cost code and Loughton came up I completely forgot about Abbess Roding. I arrived in Loughton at what I thought was the correct St Edmunds church and it looked really quiet to me, but then again I was extremely early. I wanted to be early to make up in a clumsy way for not being there. I wanted to be there early so I could be with her coffin when it was taken out of the hearse.

At about 2.25pm when the funeral was due to be there I began to panic and the horrible thought dawned on me for the first time that maybe I was at the wrong place. I saw a couple of workmen and said to them questioningly 'St Edmunds, Abbess Roding'. One guy said I've seen you around here for a long time, there's nothing happening here today and anyway this is Loughton, not Abbess Roding. I went hot and cold and glanced quickly at my watch...noooo....it was 2.30pm and I was nowhere near where I had to go. Not getting to that church was not an option so I raced back to my car. Rigged up the sat nav typed in Abbess Roding which I should have done in the first place and put my foot on the accelerator and sped off. Luckily the roads around there are similar to the ones in Ireland so I was safe in my manic overtaking. I arrived at the church and was shaking like a leaf. It was a small country church with the entry to go in right in the middle so when I made my grand entrance a myriad of heads turned to look. I stood there awkwardly taking in quickly that there was no-where for me to sit.

Then I caught the stern eye of my former boss who motioned to me that I could squeeze in beside her. She felt me shaking and said 'where were you'. I said 'don't, I've been in the wrong church'. I don't think I have ever felt so stupid in my entire life. I was just in time for the final hymn and the burial of the coffin. I read the tributes that were paid to Tracey in the memorial booklet her husband had done and they were so moving. After reading this the whole enormity of not being there for her even for her funeral was just too much and I broke down and cried. I had wanted it to be so different....or did I. Had I said to myself that I didn't deserve to be at her funeral and then went and sabotaged it. The truth is that I don't know. What I do take from the fiasco is that I am creating being more responsible in the future. If I had been responsible and made sure that I knew where I was going that wouldn't have happened. I was struck as the coffin was being lowered into the ground by the shortness of life, 48 short years, where she made a difference to a few people but in the end was put in a box and dirt was thrown on her face and then we all went and had a drink. Put this way, I know that it sounds callous and doesn't make death glamorous but that is truly how I saw it. Is this the lot of human being, is this the only thing we have been put on this earth for. Surely there must be more.....

I went with the others for a drink and it was lovely meeting some old familiar faces that I hadn't seen for a very long time. After a while I said my goodbyes and left because I had another commitment that evening in central London. Driving to London I suddenly felt so drained and tired. I arrived at the place where I had to and parked up. My mind was still thinking about how I could have been so stupid as to spend an hour and a half at the wrong church. I was still reeling from that. When I finished I came out to the car to find that a kind parking attendant had slapped a parking ticket on my windscreen for parking in a residents bay....it was yet another lesson to me about not being responsible.

I arrived back in Brighton at 2am tired and dejected having set off in the morning feeling like I could do anything......

I woke up this morning with the humiliation of yesterday still uppermost in my mind. I dragged my carcass out of bed and into the shower. I was meeting the lady I met on the train who wants to set up a meditation centre in Brighton in the afternoon and wasn't feeling in a great space for the meeting. But I had given my word and more than anything I know how life works when I honour my word and do what I said I would do instead of honouring my thoughts or feelings. So at 3pm I was ringing the doorbell. The woman came down the stairs and opened the door and when I saw her again I was really glad that I had come. She brought me upstairs to a small but lovely decorated room and we sat down. She explained that she wanted to base the centre on the work of the Buddhist writer Tich Nat Hahn. I had heard of this Buddhist man but haven't read any of his work. She brought me downstairs to show me the room that she is having done up as a meditation room and I could see that while it was still very much in a building state that it had lots of potential.

We went back upstairs to discuss how the centre would happen. The woman came up with a name for it which I liked very much which is called 'Deep connection'. We talked about the importance of setting a date by which the first evening would happen which would give a reason to have everything ready which is Wednesday 4 November.....thank you Tracey...all of this has happened between the days of your death and your funeral.....you will always and forever be in my heart...