01 March 2012

David Narby - Chapter 8 - Strange Lessons


I had started reading one of the books in the house’s library called the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. The Tibetans proposed a simple technique, the same technique that Mi-Li-Sam had shared with me. Their argument was simple. If we were going to run in the Olympics we would not arrive at the stadium on the day of the race without any preparation. We would have trained and worked hard and would have had to run many races to prove that we were up to Olympic standards. They said to regard death in the same way. Death will be the biggest single event in our lives and we had better prepare for it. To do this we need to catch ourselves falling asleep, because sleep is like a little death.

Every night I did this and only caught myself falling asleep once or twice. But, what was very interesting, is that I was aware of things happening either before I woke up or just after I woke up. I would wake up and keep my eyes closed. Even though I knew I was awake and lying in my bed, I found myself in some strange situations. Where or when I was I had no idea and definitely had no control over them. And then I remembered what Ruishk had said at our first meeting on the bus, that it was my mind that decided when and where I would travel so that I learn my lessons. I had learned to trust the people in GF enough to be able to share these experiences with them and ask them for their explanations.

I was not sure how to bring up the subject on my next visit to GF. As it turned out, I didn’t have to. After our usual greetings and our inevitable chat about the weather Will started talking about strange experiences. He asked me,

“David, did you ever hear about the headless horseman?”

I replied, “When I was a boy I had a grand-uncle P who used to scare us out of our wits telling us all kind of weird stories. He often talked about the headless horseman. His stories were all local and about people we knew. I never had the courage to look for confirmation because P had a reputation for making up stories and making them interesting by pretending that they happened to locals. The other reason I never asked is that most of us are unwilling to talk about our strange experiences.”

Will said, “It’s true we don't like talking about them, definitely not in here and especially not with the staff. But we have accepted that you don’t share anything we say with the staff. Hix and Darukin had a strange encounter yesterday evening.”

I asked, “What happened?”

Will said, “They were standing in the corridor talking to each other, and Clivid thumped into Hix’s back. Her eyes popped wide open and she got a faraway look on her face. She said that she saw something strange but she’ll only tell us if you ask her nicely.”

I said, “She wants me to plead with her to tell us what she saw.”

Will said, “David, give it a try, just ask her nicely.”

I said, “Please Hix, tell us what you saw last night.”

Hix said, “That’s not asking nicely.”

I scratched my head and wondered, Will whispered in my ear that maybe I should try calling her Helen.

I asked again, “Please Helen, could you please tell us what you saw last night, if you don’t mind.”

Hix replied, “Why David, I’d be more than pleased to tell you.”

She was silent for quite a while. I was beginning to think I needed to ask again when she continued in a very quiet voice.

“As Will said, myself and Darukin were chatting. I got this very strong whooshing sensation through my body and closed my eyes for a moment. When I opened them Darukin was gone and all I could see was a huge ball of incandescent rainbow light. It was like a huge bubble with a radiant light in its centre. Then my mind went blank and I don’t remember anything until I woke up this morning.”

Clivid ranted, “Now you’re beginning to sound like David. You had an hallucination.”

Hix said, “Just because you did not see what I saw you call it an hallucination. It was a real experience to me.”

Will said, “None of us saw what Hix saw, but I accept that that does not mean that she did not have a real experience. I suppose it brings us to the heart of the matter when it comes to our experiences outside the realm of accepted consensual reality. Because most of our experiences are subjective we can’t get agreement from anyone else about them.”

Darukin said, “Don’t go looking for agreement, just enjoy the experience and learn from it. We all have dreams that appear very real to us, but when we wake up we realise that they were not real, they were just dreams.”

Annorr said, “What we call our waking reality is as much a dream as what we experience in dreams.”

Will said, “Let’s agree, for the purposes of our conversations here, that any experience we have, whether we are awake, asleep or in some altered state, we’ll accept as a real subjective experience and not go accusing each other of hallucinating or being crazy or insane.”

Darukin said, “I agree, but let’s remember we are in an insane asylum, after all.” As he said this he laughed and we all laughed along with him.

Annorr said, “When I was learning Reiki I had problems using the symbols. Some time after I had become a master, I had three experiences in-between sleeping and waking. In the first one I was looking at a granite wall that had exquisitely carved Egyptian symbols on it. I just watched, and nothing happened. The second one was the same except that the symbols were Japanese. The third one was the same again but this time the symbols were Tibetan. Again, I just watched and was not really interested.

Then, I had a fourth experience where all the symbols were lying broken on the ground and a guide took me through the wall. We tunneled for quite some time until we came out in total blackness. I couldn't understand what they were all about until a psychic reader told me I was dealing mainly with primeval energy.”

I said, “That’s funny because in some of my recent experiences I was opening ley-lines around Ireland, Britain and Europe. One of the really vivid ones was that I was digging through a huge rock blockage between France and Germany.”

Hix asked, “What are ley-lines?”

Darukin answered, “They are channels for energy flow on or near the surface of the earth, just like acupuncture channels in the body. Stagnant or blocked energy in the body can be moved by activating acupoints. For the Earth the same affect can be achieved by placing large obelisk stones at nodal points on the ley lines. All these nodal points were identified by megalithic structures such as standing stones, dolmens or, the inappropriately named, burial mounds.”

Will asked, “David, what was the feeling you were experiencing while you were digging.”

I said, “I was feeling very frustrated and wondering would I ever get through to the other side. That same feeling of frustration permeated the experience I had of carrying the pope on my back for thousands of miles across a desert with the aim of getting him to the Pyrenees.”

Will asked, “And when did that one happen?”

I answered, “A couple of weeks before I broke through the rock blockage.”

Will asked, “And did you get him there.”

I said, “Yes, I did, much to my relief. I was delighted to get him off my back.”

Will said, “It may be that these experiences are mirroring some blockage in your life, some source of frustration for you. But, in both cases, you achieved your objective, you broke through the rock blockage and you did deliver the pope.”

I said, “I have made, as you probably gathered, a major life changing decision recently.”

Will said, “I think that the pope represents your ego, and your life work is a process of dropping it. The other thing that the feeling of frustration might be showing you is that it might be time for you to give up your stubborn endurance.”

I was tempted to react to this until I realised that I had always been like a dog with a bone. Once I got my teeth into something I’d never let go until the job was done. And then I remembered another recent experience on waking up.

I said, “I was flying all over the place with a few of my friends and then I realised that I had to get up. In my mind I could see myself reluctantly putting on a heavy rucksack that was very full of garbage.”

Annorr said, “Poor David, you really are getting triggered to drop your ego.”

Charlie said, “We are slowly but surely drifting away from the headless horseman and Hix’s experience of the rainbow bubble.”

Hix said, “Thank you Charlie.”

Charlie continued, “On one of your previous visits, Annorr used the phrase ‘we first make fragments of the whole, and then reassemble them without regard to all their true relationships’. In the teachings of the Shamans of Ancient Mexico this was seen as the function of the Assemblage Point. They saw the functioning of this point as key to how we perceive the universe, and getting control of it as giving us Mastery of Awareness. Their basic premises were

  • The universe is an infinite collection of energy fields, resembling threads of light.
  • These energy fields radiate from a source of inconceivable proportions.
  • Human beings are composed of a vast number of these same threadlike energy fields, which form an encased amalgam. This manifests itself as a ball of light the size of a person’s body with the arms extended laterally, like a giant luminous sphere.
  • Only a very small group of the energy fields inside this luminous ball are lit up by a point of intense brilliance located on the ball’s surface.
  • Perception occurs when the energy fields in that small group immediately surrounding the point of brilliance extend their light to illuminate identical energy fields outside the ball. We only perceive the energy fields lit by the point of brilliance.
  • The point of brilliance can be moved from its usual position on the surface of the luminous ball to another position on the surface, or into the interior. When it moves to a new position it immediately brightens up new energy fields, making them perceivable.
  • When the point of brilliance shifts, it makes possible the perception of an entirely different world – as objective and factual as the one we normally perceive.

So, when we are having these strange dreams or experiences, what we are doing is moving our Assemblage Point or our point of brilliance from one position to another.”

Hix sighed and asked sarcastically, “Yes, Professor Casey, but what has all that to do with my experience?”

Will said, “Maybe, Charlie, you could explain it in simpler terms.”

Charlie replied, “OK, OK, we all think we perceive the world the same way. We have a fixed frame of reference for looking at the stuff of the universe. When Clivid bumped into Hix he changed her mode of perception. She shifted into energy awareness and saw Darukin’s energy emanations as light. All the rest of us continued to see Darukin as a body.”

Hix asked, “Are you saying that I was the only one that seen Darukin that way?”

Charlie replied, “Yes, your heightened state of awareness was unique to you. How long did you stay in that mode?”

Hix answered, “I don’t know, as I said already, my mind went blank...”

Charlie interrupted, “Are you sure you can’t remember anything else?”

Hix said, “Is this an interrogation? I don’t remember...”

She went silent for quite a while and then she continued, “The whole place looked very weird. I could see blobs of light around me...”

Silence again. Charlie was getting impatient. Hix looked terrified. Charlie was about to ask another question as Will interrupted him, “I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere with Hix, let’s leave her alone.”

Hix said, “It’s all right. I can talk about this, now. I seemed to be moving through time and space. There was a lot of flickering lights that I passed through. They may have been doorways. I came to an open door into a room that was filled with red light, like the red of a Valentine’s rose.

“The feeling in the room was intense. I was very frightened. There was a bed in the room with two figures lying very still on it. I looked and looked at them and began to wonder who they were. Slowly it dawned on me that they were my parents. I tried to pull myself closer to them. I could not move. They were too still, no sign of breathing, no movement at all. My sense of dread was mounting. I was beginning to panic. I collapsed.”

Hix started sobbing, “My parents are dead.” I went over to her, and very uncharacteristically for me, gave her a hug.

Charlie said, “You just had an intense recapitulation experience.”

Will said, “Charlie, I don’t think this is the time to get into explanations. It’s getting late. Maybe we can get into it the next time we meet.”

Annorr said, “Whatever you call it, Charlie, I think Hix was ready. If we just live our lives, everything we need to learn will be presented to us when we are ready.”

Hix got up and as she left the room she said, “I don’t think I need this any more.”

23 February 2012

Peace of Mind Healing 6. Allo-path, Homeo-path or No-path

In Wikipedia the following definitions are given in very technical terms and complex sentences:

Allopathic medicine refers to the practice of conventional medicine that uses pharmacologically active agents or physical interventions to treat or suppress symptoms or pathophysiologic processes of diseases or conditions. It was coined by Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843), a homeopath, in 1810. Although "allopathic medicine" was rejected as a term by mainstream physicians, it was adopted by alternative medicine advocates to refer pejoratively to conventional medicine.

Allopathy from the Greek ἄλλος "other", "different" + the suffix, páthos πάθος "suffering"

The basic principle of homeopathy, known as the "law of similars", is "let like be cured by like."

Homeopathy: coined in German from Greek hómoios - ὅμοιος "like-" + pathos πάθος "suffering".


"Caveat patientem"  - let the patient beware. Patientem translates from Latin as "one who suffers."


If we see ourselves as patients, we have made a decision to suffer and it really does not matter which "path" we go with to relieve our suffering. Allo- and homeo- look at the body as the source of our suffering and ask us to put something in our mouths to relieve it.

Dr. Edward Bach maintained that emotion was the cause of disease. Even though he was a homeopath, he realised that treating emotions with the same emotion would not work. A greater fear does not relieve fear. The only way to treat fear is with love.

Taking Bach's idea one step further we realise that emotion must have a cause. The cause of our emotions is thinking. We see people misbehaving, we ask them to stop, they don't stop, we get angry. The misbehaviour is not in their actions but in our judgment of those actions. Judgment is a thought process, it is something we do in our minds. And having made up our minds that they are wrong, we are right to engage in a righteous emotional outburst. But, what are the consequences?

Dr. Wilhelm Reich used the expression "muscle armouring" to describe how long held emotional tendencies affect our bodies. Try a simple exercise:
  1. Get a bag with handles.
  2. Fill it with stuff until it starts to feel heavy. (Maybe your handbag already)
  3. Grab the handles with one hand, palm down, and squeeze tightly.
  4. Stretch your arm.
  5. Lift your outstretched arm up until bag is level with your shoulder.
  6. Hold it there for as long as you can.
  7. Don't overdo it - when it starts to get uncomfortable gently place the bag down.
The muscles in your arm, shoulders or back may have got tense and may be sore.

We have just tensed our muscles for a short while and they feel sore. With muscle armouring we learned to do this with many muscle groups. Some of the key ones are the throat, the diaphragm, and the pelvic floor. We learned this in absorption mode and it is more than likely that we have lived our whole lives with some of our muscles armoured.

In Chinese Medicine, emotions are seen to be stored in the body, with the different ones being lodged in specific organ energy systems.

EmotionEnergy System AffectedPhysical EffectsMental Cause
AngerLiverTendons, cramp,Judgment
FearKidneyBones, head hair, dandruffLack
ElationHeartBlood vessels, stammerExcited
GriefLungSkin, sinusitisSmothered
WorrySpleenSnivel, musclesRound and round
HatePericardiumAsthmaRelationships
GuiltTriple BurnerTinnitusAccused
ResentmentGallbladderItchingSelf delusion
SpiteBladderBackacheBetrayal
NervousSmall IntestineDiarrhoeaComparison
BlockedLarge IntestineConstipationHolding-on
AnxietyStomachUlcersRejection
Very few of the physical effects associated with the emotions are listed in this table. They are included to give some idea of how thinking manifests in the body.

From the medical perspective the body is the problem. However, the condition of the body is determined by the state of our thinking. The body serves the purpose that we give it. If we see ourselves as here to suffer, then the body will suffer. We can change the purpose that the body serves by changing what we think it's for.

Accepting the ideas that we are mind and that all minds are joined can make us wonder if there is any beneficial purpose for the body. It depends on where we think we are within the potential range of humanity

Physical matter______emotional______mental______spiritual______purely mind

If we see ourselves as purely physical then we are totally determined by the laws of physics. If we see ourselves as purely mind then we are probably unaware that there is such a thing as bodies. I guess most of us see ourselves as embroiled somewhere in the body-emotional-mental-spiritual spheres, cycling through various states of attachment to or detachment from them.

The body, under the beneficial guidance of mind, is useful for two things. It is a means to communicate to minds that are totally convinced they are bodies. And it is a learning device for our egos. It helps us realise the effect that our thinking has on us. (There will be much more on this in later posts.)

Remember we are mind, all mind. The body is an indicator of the state of our ego attachment to it. Even though our thinking can never be neutral, we can get our bodies into a "body neutral" state. We use observation to help get us into the present. When we become present we get "access granted" to the infinite range of mind.

Exercise - Watch this space

Look around you and find a blank space. Watch that space. Don't look for anything, just look at.

Exercise - Watch the screen

Close your eyes. When the afterglow fades you'll see a screen. Watch the screen. Don't look for anything, just look at.

Exercise - Scan the body

Take your awareness and go through your body. Describe, don't analyse, the sensations you are experiencing throughout your body. Repeat until your body is neutral, until there are no sensations anywhere in it. Three scans are usually enough.


We are not here to suffer. Welcome to the No-path.

16 February 2012

Peace of Mind Healing 5. Ending this SAD Game

In his book, "Function of the Orgasm", Wilhelm Reich used the analogy of a bladder to explain how our bodies behave. The Shamans of Ancient Mexico, as reported by Carlos Castaneda, seen us in ancient times as luminous eggs. Modern man, they contended, looks like spheres.

I prefer to see us as bubbles.

God is everywhere. God is Love. Love is everywhere.

The Shamans of Ancient Mexico seen love as a glue that held everything together. A Course in Miracles stresses that Love is all there is.

In our first month as babies all we are is Love. It flows freely in and around us. As we begin our attachment process to our parents we begin to identify with them as they see themselves. This process leads to the development of our senses and to our identification with images, sounds and body sensations. By the time it is complete we are totally convinced that we are bodies.

We see ourselves as separate entities subjected to encounters with other separate entities. The nature of these encounters varies depending on the nature of our childhood circumstances. If we were brought up in a caring tolerant environment then, most likely, we will be caring and tolerant. If we were brought up in an angry, argumentative and belligerent environment its highly unlikely that we will not have absorbed some of these traits.

Even though we see ourselves as separate, there really is no such thing. We can convince ourselves that we are isolated and alone, that we are worthless, or that no one loves us. Not only can we, we are totally convinced that we are these things and much worse.

We see ourselves as subjects of attack and abuse who need lots of protective defenses. Instead of bubbles of Love we see ourselves inside a dense encrusted shell. A shell that lets nothing in and lets nothing out.

To end this game we need to change our thinking. "Easier said than done" is the most frequent response I get to that idea. We need to become aware of what we are thinking at any given moment. To do this we become present.

Presence techniques are primarily based on observation of what we perceive with the senses of the body. Perception and observation are qualities of our mind and are determined by our thinking. What we look for we find! To observe is to pay attention. An observation is just an observation until we decide what to do with it. We can blame-game-guilt-trip or we can learn.

To Observe Truly

  1. First suspend all belief and thought systems.
  2. Then switch off any pattern recognition systems.
  3. And then when we've become rightly (or leftly or wrongly) confused we may begin to know reality.
  4. Having observed, accept our observations for what they are, our observations. Do not go looking for agreement for them; do not go looking for approval for them. No-one else will have switched off our belief, thought and pattern recognition systems and they will not want us breaking down their defenses.

Blame-Game-Guilt-Trip
  1. We make an observation.
  2. We analyse and compare our observation with our memories or with what we think is right.
  3. We look for someone or something to blame.
  4. We start trying to make the offender guilty and whether that works or not we end up making ourselves feel guilty.
  5. Our guilt trip locks up one or more energy system.
  6. This locked energy leads to disease or decay.
  7. Eventually we drop the body in a ritual called death.
Learning
  1. We make an observation.
  2. We use our intellect to understand what it means to us.
  3. Based on our understanding we appreciate what we have learned.
  4. Appreciation leads to Love.
  5. Love leads to eternal life, to Heaven.
At any stage in the blame-game-guilt-trip process we can convert to learning. At step 2, for example, we can change from analysis and comparison to synthesis and learn, or at step 3,4 we can realise that all we are all here to do is to learn.

Note: The text from presence techniques onwards is taken from this site with slight editing.

15 February 2012

Peace of Mind Healing 4. Becoming a SAD Gamer

SAD, as an acronym, usually stands for Seasonal Affective Disorder, a type of depression caused by lack of sunlight in the upper reaches of the Northern Hemisphere. In this blog it stands for Suffering And Death, the game we all engage in here.

Unfortunately, we don't see it as a game. We see it as all there is.

During my Catholic religious education, some might say indoctrination, there were many sayings we had to learn off. One that stuck with me was "Unless we become as little children, we cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven." (Matthew 18.3) I thought about this a lot and tried to figure out what it meant.

In A.H. Almaas's book "A Pearl Beyond Price" he talks about child psychology and how as babies we develop and absorb our behaviour patterns. He stresses that the period between one month and ten months is critical since during this period we form a "dual unity" with our primary care giver, usually our mother. He references the work of Margaret Schönberger Mahler.

The irony in all this is that while I was busy trying to figure it out, there were child psychologists out there who had been studying it for years. And they had the answers.

Also, I had wondered about our eyesight as babies. What do babies really see? The answer to this may never be known since as babies we have no verbal ability to tell anyone what we are seeing.

"When a baby is born, although her eyes are physically capable of seeing well, the brain is not yet mature enough to interpret all of the visual information, hence things will remain pretty blurry for the first few months. As the brain matures and becomes more complex, the baby’s vision will improve." (Wikiparenting)

"From the day your baby's born, his eyes will aid his physical, mental, and emotional development by allowing him to take in information — a little bit at first, and eventually much more — about the world around him." (Babycenter)

Although these sites differ on whether your child is a boy or a girl, they both agree that our eyesight is fully developed by eight months old. Walking and talking usually develop in the last quarter of our first year. As one grandmother put it to me, "Aren't we terrible, at six months we are busy encouraging them to walk and to talk. By the time they get to two or three we are shouting at them to sit down and shut up."

Our first year is very critical to our overall development. We are absorbing the stuff that will be with us all our lives. This absorption period continues until we are seven or eight, but is mostly complete by the time we are three. It is the most intensive learning period of our lives. And it is a period that we have absolutely no control over.

We are taking everything on board without any ability to discern whether it is good, bad or indifferent. We are absorbing the mental and emotional patterns of our parents and alloparents (individuals other than our actual parents who act in a parental role - grandparents, brothers, sisters, relations, minders and carers).

And, curiously enough, we are trying to heal them. When we are born we have no sense of separation. We are one with everyone and everything. Innately, we share our parents and alloparents mental and emotional states, their ups and downs, their pain and their suffering.

We replicate these states within ourselves, just like our parents did and their parents before them. They become our behaviour patterns, and even though as we get older we learn that some of these may not be useful, they are the ones that we resort to in times of stress.

The big problem is that, as adults, we are not aware of them. They are, seemingly, not under our control. They are buried deep in our minds and rise to take us over with alarming speed and with little concern for their consequences.

They all hinge on our identification with our bodies. We believe that we are bodies and that our bodies control our minds. In fact, it's the other way round. Our thinking controls our bodies.

That our bodies control our minds is the basis of all allopathic medicine. The idea that putting something into our mouths or injecting it into our bodies will fix our problems is based on the belief that we are chemical beakers. Something has gone wrong in our bio-chemistry and chemical intervention is required to put it right. While the body is perceived as a bio-chemical factory this may make sense. Once we see the mind as the root cause of all our problems, we realise that all we have to do to heal our mental and emotional problems as well as our physical one is to change our thinking.

Let us not continue to ignore all that we have learned about the mind. Let us not continue to see ourselves as limited, powerless and doomed bodies. Let us give up the idea that "someone knows better". That there is some expert out there that can fix us. The body is an amazing design that will heal itself the instant we stop playing our SAD game.

14 February 2012

Peace of Mind Healing 3, The Game of Sickness and Death


An idea has been troubling me for the last few weeks. It's an idea that I am very reluctant to talk about because it causes so much emotional upset upon its victims and their survivors. And because I am going to talk about it in a different way, I fear I am going to be ridiculed.

So, what the heck, that has never stopped me before, always putting my feet in it, and while I think I'm being brave, others think I'm reckless.

The idea is that all the pain and suffering, the chronic disease and death that afflicts us, is caused by our thinking.

And now that I've said it I realise I've said it before but not in the same words.

When I was studying Western Medicine as part of an Acupuncture course I did in the '90's I was often surprised that the causes of disease were unknown and that the emphasis was placed on contributing factors and the relief of symptoms.

And even though the causes are unknown the recommended treatment option was to use something that kills it. This always reminded me of the line in police dramas - "shoot first and ask questions later".

By the time the information gets from the text books and into the public domain it has been "doctored" as this example from Wikipedia shows.

"If a person who uses tobacco heavily, develops lung cancer, then it was probably caused by the tobacco use."

and in the next paragraph

"Tobacco smoking is associated with many forms of cancer and causes 90% of lung cancer."

In the first sentence "probably" is used because the text book says "cause unknown" and that tobacco is a contributing factor. But in the second sentence it's now 100% certain that 90% of lung cancer is caused by tobacco smoking.

In Chinese Medicine, as I learned it, the major cause of all disease is emotional. It's the emotion that causes the disease. This was also the view of Dr. Edward Bach, who developed the Bach Flower Remedies to heal disease based on the emotional state of the patient.

In a A Course in Miracles, Workbook Part 2, Section 4 it states, (slightly edited)

"We play a childish game... that we have become bodies, prey to evil and to guilt, with but a little life that ends in death...How long will we maintain the game of sin? Shall we not put away these sharp-edged children's toys? How soon will we be ready to come home? Perhaps today? There is no sin. Creation is unchanged. Would we still hold return to Heaven back?"

The emphasis in A Course in Miracles is that all our suffering and disease is caused by our belief in "sin" and the guilt that follows it. We have so identified with ego-body states that we can't see what we really are.

"Sin is insanity. It is the means by which the mind is driven mad, and seeks to let illusions take the place of truth."

When I was a child I was always getting into trouble. This meant I got a lot of smacks, and when it was serious, some right thrashings. These I did not mind too much, I'd get over the pain and get on with it. I took it as part of the natural order - we do something we are not supposed to do, we get punished. And punishment went corporal punishment.

In first class in primary school I was introduced to the idea of sin and guilt. Now, the behaviours that I had got smacked or trashed for were sins that I should feel guilty about. The game had changed. No longer was it simply misbehave, get caught and get smacked. It had become more sinister. I was guilty, I was a sinner, I was evil.

Many years later I was talking with my father about the state of discipline in the schools. He was advocating the return to corporal punishment. I agreed with him, which shocked both of us, since we seldom agreed on anything. I explained that my worst moment in secondary school was when I had been given a mental and emotional dressing down rather than my usual "six of the best" caning. After the caning I would walk back into the study hall with my head held high and showing off the welts forming on my hand. This time, I wanted to crawl back into the study hall, I felt so ashamed. I had been caught lying.

My father asked me what had I been lying about. I genuinely could not remember, I had buried it deep in my mind. Up until that day I had not known the reason for my humiliation. He probed a bit about what year it had happened and then he remembered.

I had been in boarding school a few weeks and hated it. I wanted to go home. So I made up a story that my grandfather had died. The dean called my home to offer condolences to my parents and to ask about the arrangements. My mother had answered the phone. She went to my father and asked him what were they going to do. My grandfather was mad alive. My father decided that they could not play along. He informed the dean that grandfather was alive and well and maybe the young fella (that's me) was just feeling homesick.

He then explained that they thought about going along with me, but the chances of not getting caught out were slim. Especially since the college owned the farm beside ours on the island and sooner or later they'd be bringing their cattle through our yard and would see grandfather.

We both laughed at how naive I had been. But, the damage had been done. I now believed that they were right. In retrospect, it was probably the end of my innocence. I accepted the game as reality.

It's only a game. A game with very serious consequences for those of us who believe that we are only bodies. We are not bodies. We are minds that have convinced ourselves that we are bodies.

If we can accept the idea that we are minds and that our minds control everything that we perceive, then we can start to change our thinking.

We all suffer from Paranoid Schizophrenia, not in the clinical sense, but in the simple English translation of the original Greek and Latin words - "walled mind, split mind". We all see our boundaries as the boundaries of our bodies. We can only know what we perceive with our bodies senses. We are all separated from each other.

But, no matter how separated or isolated we feel we are, we still have access. Our minds are still part of the oneness of all minds. The part that believes it is split off can change its thinking and recognise its oneness with all of creation. We can recover and reclaim our true identity.

31 January 2012

Peace of Mind Healing 2. History, an exceptionally brief one.

I am going to use the word "God". I am reluctant to do so, because the word has been used and abused so much. Too much damage has been done in the name of God. So, maybe, I better start with what I mean by God.

God is the totality of everything, and as such is everywhere. That makes all of us a part of God.

God created...

We are part of God's creation.

God created us with exactly the same qualities as Himself (See note 1.)

God is Love, We are Love
God is Light, We are Light
God is Life, We are Life
God is Peace, We are Peace
God is Joy, We are Joy
God is Truth, We are Truth
God is Power, We are Power
God is Strength, We are Strength
God is Free, We are Free
God is Safe, We are Safe
God is Open, We are Open
God is Holy, We are Holy

God is... We are...

This is the only Real State. It is timeless, spaceless, eternal.

We believe we are separate, and have based everything on the perception, or extended perception, of our senses. This belief I call ego. Ego is an illusion made up of illusions. With our egos we take this timeless, spaceless, eternal creation and make something of it - lots of things, lots of separate things, that appear to be happening outside ourselves.

They appear to be happening in a time sequence from beginning to end. But it is all illusion. God's qualities are all there is, and when we realise this, all the illusions just disappear. They never were.

It depends on our perspective
  • Ego-based - what we see as the world, the universe and all their apparent history.
  • God-based - all is ours. We are all.
So the exceptionally brief, simple history is
  1. We separated ourselves from God.
  2. We realised that we were separate.
  3. We returned to Oneness with God, the Source of all Creation.
History over!


Note 1. The use of He, Him when referring to God is purely a convention. It has nothing whatsoever to do with gender or even bodies.

21 January 2012

David Narby - Interlude

All four of them called to my house, Mi-Li-Sam and Ruishk. They didn’t engage in any small talk, no conversations about the weather, or enquiry into how I was, they just got straight to the point.

Ruishk said, “David, you have been in the doubting doldrums. You haven't written anything in yonks.”

I replied, “That’s right, I’m not sure that I want to write about this stuff anymore. I’m stalled. After my initial burst of strange and exciting experiences nothing seems to be happening anymore. It seems like they happened years and years ago. When I sit down to write about them I begin to doubt that they were real. And yes, I know, you all warned me this would happen. And I do remember your warnings, but it’s not the same when I’m actually experiencing this state of ‘ennui’. I’m listless and dissatisfied.”

Mi-Li-Sam said, “David you’re missing the buzz, the excitement you had when your previous occupation took you all over the place. You had well established routines, your work was provided for you, you were constantly on the go. Now, there is no boss looking over your shoulder, no public waiting for your next story and you have to motivate yourself.”

I said, “Don’t I know, there are times when I sit here and berate myself for giving up my great career.”

Mi-Li-Sam said, “Wow, David, you really are in the depths of doubt. That’s not unusual. We all go through this. Why are you having so much trouble writing about the experiences you had?”

I said, “I’m not really sure. They don’t seem so relevant any more.”

Ruishk said, “But, you can still remember them. You still think about them.”

I replied, “Yes, I do. Sometimes I purposely recall them, but most of the time they just pop into my head.”

Mi-Li-Sam said, “Because you still have something to learn from them. Pick anyone you like and tell us about it.”

I began to think about which of my experiences I would like to recount. And then, one just popped into my head. I said, “ I’m walking in the desert carrying someone on my back...”

Mi-Li-Sam said, “Woah David, sorry to interrupt. Please be specific, you were not just carrying anyone.”

“OK,” I said, “I was carrying the pope. We were crossing a desert. I had the pope across my shoulders. He felt like a dead weight, we never spoke a word to each other. I kept walking and walking. It seemed to go on for days. I didn’t get thirsty or hungry. Despite the fact that I was feeling tired and hot I just kept going and going.

As time went by the pope seemed to get heavier and heavier. I felt that no matter how heavy he got I’d keep carrying him. After what seemed like forever I began to see the outlines of mountains away in the distance. Even though I had no idea when or why I set out I was convinced that the mountains were my destination. I had to get the pope to those mountains.

Eventually, I got to the mountains and found a way inside them. I went into a room which had windows with wonderful views facing in all directions. Immediately I dropped the pope with a big sigh of relief.They were other people in the room and they all congratulated me on dropping the pope. I thought it was strange that they didn’t congratulate me on the daunting trek I had just endured.”

Ruishk asked, “Why did you think it strange that they didn’t praise you for your trek?”

I replied, “I thought that they would be delighted that I had carried such an important personage all the way across the desert.”

He asked, “And how did that make you feel?”

I said, “I was disappointed, I thought I had done a great job despite the hardship of the journey.”

Mi-Li-Sam asked, “What did you learn from this experience?”

I replied, “Not to be expecting reward or recognition for my endeavours.”

Mi-Li-Sam said, “And that’s all.”

I nodded as I began to wonder what else I might have learned. I had always known that when I get an idea into my head or when I become committed to a project I just won’t stop until it is completed.

Mi-Li-Sam continued, “Look at the characters in this experience. First there’s you that is limitless, without food or water you kept going for days and days in a scorching arid desert. Then there’s the pope, a dead-weight you were carrying on your shoulders.”

I interrupted, “I didn’t see the pope as a dead weight, even though that’s what it felt like. I was carrying a very important person to the safety of the mountains.”

Mi-Li-Sam said, “That’s how your ego wants you to interpret it, as something very important that you cannot and should never drop. Remember, though, that all the people in the mountain congratulated you for dropping your burden. The way they saw it, you were carrying a load of useless baggage.”

I said, “The pope is not a load of useless baggage.”

Mi-Li-Sam said, “To practicing catholics the pope is neither useless nor baggage. In your experience, however, the pope represents an authority figure that keeps you doing things that don’t necessarily make any sense. You keep doing what it wants you to do, not what you really need to do, nor what is most useful in achieving your goal of peace and happiness.

Then, there’s the desert, a barren wasteland in which apparently nothing lives or thrives. Just like your ego-induced life of toil and servitude. A life that keeps you searching for things that you think will make you happy or get you recognition from other egos.

The mountains represent a higher state, a place where you can get above and beyond the ego’s wasteland. Did you recognise any of the people in the mountain?”

I replied, “No, but then I never do. Names are never used. All the people looked radiantly happy and peaceful. They smiled at me and I felt right at home. They all seemed to be more advanced than me and I remember thinking that they might be aliens.”

Mi-Li-Sam laughed as they said, “Egos are the aliens. You and all the other people in your experience are real radiant beings. Egos deal in images which all have names. Beyond ego-land there is no need for names because people “know” each other and realise that they are all one.”

There was silence for a while. I was thinking that this was a much deeper interpretation of my experience than the one I had come up with. They looked at every facet of it and put it into the perspective of my new life and what I was up against in becoming free.

I said, “Thank you very much for that interpretation. As I see it now, the experience was about dropping or undoing my ego. I have faithfully followed my ego all my life and it really has got me nowhere.”

Mi-Li-Sam said, “That’s right. Don’t be too hard on yourself. Use the guys in GF to help you with a deeper interpretation of some of your other experiences. They will help and they will really appreciate you talking about your experiences. It might even prompt them to tell you some of theirs.”

Ruishk asked, “What happened to the pope when you dropped him?”

I answered, “I don’t know.”

Ruishk said, “We’ll leave now, David. Close your eyes and think about what became of the pope.”

Mi-Li-Sam said, “Bye David.”

When they had left I closed my eyes and re-entered my experience. I was standing in the doorway of the room looking around at the people in it. I knew my task was done. Rather than consciously dropping the pope, I could feel him slipping off my back. It felt as if he was melting away. I turned around to look for him. He was gone.

David Narby - Chapter 12 - Full Circle

 In the beginning, I had reluctantly followed Mi-Li-Sam’s advice, but as I got into the spirit of ‘touring’ I really began to enjoy myself. ...