David Narby - Chapter 1 - Runaway Awakening

On the 26 July 1997, David Narby disappeared. One of the top journalists of all time, he had interviewed more Presidents, Religious Leaders and Heads of State than all other journalists combined. This is because of the interview style and unassuming manner he adopted while researching and interviewing his subjects. His preparation was meticulous and he and his research staff worked on location with his subjects. He absorbed their culture as much as was possible and took weeks to complete his interview. He became familiar with his subjects, but more importantly, he allowed them to become familiar with him. This allowed him to bypass the usual antagonism that journalists experience when trying to extract important information from reluctant informants. His approach is described as "little and often" because he accepted two or three minute slots in his subject's busy schedule.

His textbook "Interviewing Greatness" is still required reading for aspiring journalists at all the best schools worldwide. To use "David Narby said" in conversation is still regarded as the equivalent of quoting from the bible or other holy book. It is regarded as almost miraculous that he interviewed leaders from diametrically opposed parties, sects, or factions. In fact, he knew no frontiers, social, cultural, political, or religious when seeking people to interview. As his reputation grew, he was sought out by leaders and potential leaders. It was rumoured in many circles that getting interviewed by him was regarded as a sure guarantee of becoming the next leader.

There are countless theories as to why he disappeared. These fall into three main categories, Abduction, Abdication, and Wilderness. The abduction theories seem very unlikely since no individual or organisation has claimed responsibility or looked for any reward. The unlikely scenario of alien abduction, while holding lots of followers in the lunatic fringe, is given no creditability. Some credence is placed on abdication because of what he left behind him on that fateful day. Also, all his affairs had been left in order. Before every assignment he had always updated his last will and testament. The Wilderness Theory takes the evidence of the abdication theory and adds the concept of "walkabout". David was aware of the need for some major change in his life and took the opportunity presented to pursue an alternative life. In the light of his most recent report, received today, it looks like the Wilderness freaks got it right.

Let me recap the relevant facts regarding David from 26 July 1997. David's last report, The Vatican Report, was sent from the base of the obelisk in St. Peter's Square. David then returned to the Hotel St. George, Roma. He paid his bill, packed all his gear and left it with the concierge. He gave the concierge a generous tip, as usual, and told him that he would collect it after he had finished his business at the Vatican. What was unusual was that he packed everything, his personal phone, his pens and notebook, his watch, his wallet and credit cards. He literally left the hotel with only the clothes he was wearing. The hotel and staff were examined and re-examined and all of this has been verified. He then took a taxi to the Vatican, which is unusual because he preferred to walk. At the Vatican, he confirmed that they had received his report, met with the Pope and senior cardinals, all very amicably, and left.

He was last seen at the obelisk, talking to an older man. This he confirms in his RA report. The older man has never been identified. All the photographs taken of them talking together have been analysed in depth, but while the image of David is clear, the image of the older man is always fuzzy.

We are publishing this new report out of our high regard for David. We have not seen or heard from him in more than 13 years. We still have no evidence of his whereabouts, his welfare, or even his state of mind. What he talks about is a complete turnaround for him.

Runaway Awakening (RA) Report

As I left the Vatican I bumped into an older man. He was vaguely familiar, but I had never met him before. He took me into the shade of the obelisk; and I'm not sure if he even said hello. He asked me to close my eyes and tell him what I saw. That I did so surprised me, because I don't take kindly to passes from random strangers, usually telling them rather impolitely to get lost. However, his penetrating, totally serene eyes held me rapt. I said I saw nothing. He replied that to see nothing is quite an achievement, maybe even a miracle. He put his hand on my back between my shoulder blades and told me to look again. This time I saw a blank, black screen. After a few moments it began to change and I could see three dots of light, like stars. I watched these, transfixed, and eventually they began to spiral away. I opened my eyes to tell him and get an explanation, but he was not there any more.

So I started searching. A strange calmness had come over me since looking at the three stars. I was not too concerned that I could not find the older man. I started to wander, and allowed myself to be guided, if that is what it could be called. Whenever I came to a junction I would ask myself, left, right or straight ahead. A small voice would repeat the direction three times and I would follow it. So there I was, walking around Rome with a voice in my head going "left, left, left" and "right, right, right". After a few hours I came to a bus. The engine on the bus was running and I climbed on board.

In the back row of the bus sat three of the largest black women I had ever seen. They were so big that I could not imagine how the seat was able to hold them, and I definitely had no idea how they got on the bus. Beside them was an emergency exit and I thought that they would never fit through that door. All of the seats were occupied. One of the three ladies called to me..."Hey, shining little white man, you come down here and sit with us." From the look of the women and the state of the bus I had not been expecting anyone to speak English. As I went down the aisle I wondered where they would squeeze me in. As I got closer, they pointed to the back of the seat in front of the emergency door and said "You sit there, shining little white man and be a good boyo." There on the back of the seat was a pull-down stool like the stewardesses use in aeroplanes.

I sat down. "Oh my God", I said in a patronising tone. "When God said go forth, increase, multiply and fill the universe, he did not mean that you had to do it personally." At this they all laughed uproariously together. I asked them if they were triplets, they looked identical and appeared to be exactly the same weight, size and shape. They said that their appearance was just an act to put me at ease and that they were more like a trinity. They came from totally different backgrounds but had achieved amazing abilities over their bodies and their environment. I asked them what their names were. They replied, "No use for names, but to make your mind easy, you can call us Mi-Li-Sam or Li-Mi-Sam or Sam-Li-Mi or indeed any one or combination of Mi, Li, and Sam that you wish. David Narby, we know all about you. We read you like a book, well, more like an open space. When you entered the bus, it became populated with your past. You carry everything about yourself around with you and we can see it all. You may fool yourself and everybody else, David Narby, but there's no fooling us"

The bus had been moving for some time now and I had no idea where we were going, except that we seemed to be moving in a general easterly direction. I asked Mi-Sam-Li where the bus was going.

"Bus is going to begin your real education" they said. "You have been living in a world populated by phantoms. Nothing you see is real. We are going to change all that."

I asked "And what if I don't want it all changed".

"We've gone way beyond that. When you walked onto the bus you sealed the door on your past. There's no going back. You will have lots of work to do. You have been living your life braced for impact. We are going to prod you and poke you until you learn that you are free, that you are a powerful creator. How much pain and suffering you endure is entirely up to you. What we teach is simple and easy. Your reluctance or resistance to learning it will make it extremely difficult. The world you see has been a very complicated one and you will probably over-complicate the simple lessons we will be giving you."

I began to protest that I had interviewed some of the most powerful people on the planet. I was rudely interrupted. "Those people have no power. They are puppets. They are controlled by their schedules. They all have job descriptions. Not one of them can do a single thing they want. If it is not in the script for their day it does not happen. Even their so-called 'free' time is tightly controlled." The sham Jamaican style of speaking had been completely dropped. They asked "So, world renowned journalist, what did you learn from all those 'powerful' people." I remained silent for quite a while. There was no sense giving these people my usual socially acceptable response. I did not want to lie, but mainly, the question took me by surprise and I had never thought through what I had really learned from all those interviews.

"Now that you ask the question" I said, trying to buy some time, "All of the leaders I interviewed were very similar, like they all came from the same mold. Their thinking was hierarchical. They all saw themselves as being in the top echelon of power. And if they were not the alpha-male, they soon would be. They all used aggression as a means of getting their own way, even though they appeared to be charming and courteous. To stay in control they encouraged conflict in all levels beneath them, and were not averse to using violence to eliminate rivals. Their leadership style was based on the divide and conquer principle. They showed a complete lack of compassion for the people they ruled, seeing them as totally beneath them, almost as if they were animals. And they had an overwhelming need for ritual in everything they did, even down to their ceremonial approach to offering cups of tea or drink at every meeting."

The ladies were not in the slightest put out by what I said and all I got in response were some gentle nods of their heads. They seemed to know what I was talking about. They said,

"You left one thing out. They always see 'attack as the best means of defence'. Their attack usually takes the form of an accusation and this puts their opponents on the defensive, as well as getting them into fear and guilt. So, David, do you think that your description of these leaders might represent your own life so far?"

What a question. My anger flared up instantly. Who did these people think they were to accuse me of being like those tyrants?

They fell around the place laughing. My anger turned to rage. I was getting really mad. That made them laugh even more. "What's so funny?" I bellowed. After a while their laughter died down. "Well, your reaction proves that we hit the nail on the head. You don't have the position to be a real tyrant, so lets call you a petty tyrant." I heard a sharp popping noise and something clicked in my head. My tantrum ended instantly. I looked at the three colossi and realised that they were pushing my buttons. That I reacted so dramatically was witness enough for me to know that they were right. They started laughing again and this time I joined in.

"Anyway," they said, "we are not really interested in these leaders and their position power. We want to teach you about your personal power. But before we do that there are a few things we need to straighten out." At this, Mi-Li-Sam assumed a professorial approach and began to lecture me on 'what it was all about'.

The key points are as follows:

• We are always thinking. Your thinking has been predominately attack-defend. Your life for the last forty years has been spent in the who-where-when cycle of accusation, interrogation, sin confession and penance, action reaction and retribution. You have bought into 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth', hurt and revenge. You have climbed the ladder of fame and success and have reached as far as you can go. You were not born into the right family so you could never have achieved the position you wanted. This period is over. And even though you do not fully realise this yet, deep down you know that it is true. When you stepped on the bus you started your 'great escape'.
• You are now entering the what-why-how period of undoing all that you have learned. This has been referred to as 'a mid-life crisis' and 'the dark night of the soul'. You have woken up to the real purpose of your life. 'Crisis' and 'dark night' imply that we go through these phases quickly, but sorry, the realisation may be quick but the process of undoing is going to take some time, years and decades rather than weeks and months.
• The world of everyday life is not real, or out there, as we believe it is, it is only a description. As children we learn to perceive the world as it is described to us by everyone around us. We have no memory of the moment we accepted the description, because we had no point of reference to compare it to anything else. From then on we make all the proper perceptual interpretations. Our thinking conforms to that description, and so validates it. We identify with it and define ourselves in its terms.
• The reality of our day-to-day life consists of an endless flow of perceptual interpretations. This reality we share with everyone else. We are slaves of our consensus thought system. While we may be able to think outside the box, it is impossible for us to deviate from the prescribed behaviour patterns. Our thoughts and our actions are fixed forever in their terms. Our lifelong habits unavoidably make us stick to our old patterns. We have a habit of making the world conform to our thoughts. When it doesn't, we simply make it conform. Whatever is happening, we are doing it to ourselves.
• We are carrying an awful lot of baggage. We've learned to see things in black and white, right and wrong, good and evil, and that the only way of ridding ourselves of the black-wrong-evil is by severe cruel methods. However, we can simply let all this go. We need to let the past go through the process of being sorted, of keeping what we regard as useful and dumping what is not...

I found myself falling asleep. Everything they were saying made sense, but their continuous drone made it difficult to pay attention. I vaguely remember them saying that I should pay attention as I wake up. I fell into a very deep sleep and have no idea how long I was out of it. When I woke up I kept my eyes closed and looked at what I was seeing. The background was a radiant blue black colour, like the sky behind a full moon. In the foreground was the most beautiful, calm face I had every seen. It looked at me with total acceptance. I opened my eyes, and for a moment I thought that I saw the three as one. I blinked and the three were restored.

I asked who the face was and they said "That is the feminine side of your nature. That is what you will be uncovering for the next period. This is a more gentle, nourishing and compassionate side than you have shown so far. Up till now you have been a 'macho' man, driven, and driving yourself as hard as you drive everyone else. Anyway, let's have a look at you, now that you've had your little snooze."

I stood up and turned around in a mock-model sort of way. The rest of the bus was empty, except for the driver. I reasoned that everyone must have got off while I was asleep. "As we said earlier, you are living your life 'braced for impact'. You hold your head and shoulders as if you are expecting a blow on the back of the head at any moment." I could feel a tightness at the base of my skull and a slight headache coming on. One of them tapped me on the top of the head and I felt better.

"So," I asked. "Where is everyone gone."

They said "Gone off bus, boyo. Stop trying to change the subject. You never liked anyone looking over your shoulder. You get nervous if someone is standing close behind you. You think they are going to discover something about you, something that will expose you."

I could feel myself getting angry again. I have never liked anyone pointing out my faults.

"Now, now, David, no need for that. We are showing you that what you have been afraid to see, or allow others to see about you, is another side of you. A side that you need to develop to become whole. You have developed your intellect at the expense of your emotional life. You have planned your life in a cold, hard, calculated manner and we refer to this as your right-hand path. Now you have to travel the left-hand path - walking gently through the world, enjoying the view, smelling the roses. Rather than being a leader or a follower, you have to learn to walk side-by-side, together. Rather than seeing authority figures as your teacher, you must learn from everyone you meet. Rather than doing what society has dictated to you as your existence, you become the author of your own life."

What they were getting at was difficult to accept. I had always quoted sources, gaining authority for what I said from the important person who had said it. Mi-Li-Sam said, "You have been 'stealing thunder'. You now need to speak from within yourself, develop your own wisdom and say it in your own words."

I asked, "You mean that I have to internalise my message rather than being a delivery man."

They replied, "Yes, David, you must speak from your heart. Speak only what your really believe to be true. Stop 'parroting' what others have said."

"Wow! that's going to take some doing," I said.

"We are coming near the end of road and before we go we have a few last messages for you. Getting you to look at the screen is just a way of getting you into the present. You can just as easily keep your eyes open and look at anything. What you'll see will depend on the ideas you have about what you are looking at. Another way to become present is to take your awareness and scan through your body. Let's give that a try."

"Where do I start?"

They said that it didn't matter, that I could go from my head to my feet or from left to right, anyway I liked as long as I went through my whole body and overlooked nothing.

I scanned through my body, and was surprised that I couldn't feel anything anywhere. I told them that I felt nothing and they said that I was experiencing a state they referred to as 'body neutral.'

"We are helping you and you have released all the blocked energy in your body. This will not last. As you start thinking in your old way again your body will revert to its old patterns. Nearly everything that you have learned has to be looked at and turned around. You will have to do a complete thought reversal of the way you think about the world.

"The world is neutral, your body is neutral, but your thinking is never neutral, and it can never be neutral. It always produces form. But the world and your body can be used as learning devices. What you see happening in the world, what you feel going on in your body are the effects of your thinking. This is the primary cause and effect relationship. You think and what you think causes effects. Through these effects you can see the state of your thinking. Peaceful thoughts and your body will remain neutral, attack thoughts and your emotions will cause effects in your body."

"And now, David, we need to change. So could you leave us alone for a while."

I walked up to the front of the bus. It was completely empty, even the driver was gone. I sat on the steps and waited. I watched the sun set over mountains and really began to enjoy the view.

From the back of the bus Mi-Li-Sam said, "In the past whenever you were waiting you would spend your time reviewing your previous interviews or rehearsing the upcoming one. From now on whenever your are waiting, just become present and enjoy the view. In fact, one of the key things you need to learn, is to do only what you enjoy, and if you think that something is a chore, change your thinking about it, and enjoy what you do."

There was a subtle change in their voice. "Now we are leaving."

I wondered how they were going to get off the bus. Right behind me I heard them say "Excuse us". I stood up to let them past and got the shock of my life. The three huge ladies were gone and in their place were three of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. They bore no resemblance to each other, or to their previous form.

Each of them in turn gave me a great hug.

Mi, now looking European, said, "This is the beginning of your real work."

Li, who looked Asian, said, "You will become like us."

And Sam, who looked Native American, said, "Let your thinking, your talking and your actions be consistent."

And then they walked away. As they moved into the distance I heard them say together, "We are always with you."

And then they were gone.

Ego, Mind, Memory, Emotion

In keeping with the idea in the "About Me" section, that all the world's a stage, we can divide our lives into three acts - childhood and parental influences, adult family and work, old age and retirement1. When I am on holidays, in Kerry, walking the beaches and watching the scenery, I find myself looking back at my life and trying to make sense of what has happened and what is going on.

One of the major transitions happened 24 years ago. I was sitting in a house in Glenbeigh, overlooking the beach with the Dingle peninsula in the background. I had just come through a very rough time at work and had spent too much time in the pub trying to forget it. The thought occurred to me "that there must be more to life than survival". The conclusion I came to was that, rather than being about survival, life is about changing state.

After the holiday, when I got back to "the real world" of work and routine I made a lot of changes. I went on a very strict diet for two years, gave up drinking, smoking, and a host of other things that I was advised were not good for me. The results of this were great. I had boundless energy and I seemed to be in control of my life. My career started going the way I wanted it to.

At Easter, this year, I sat in a house in the Maharees, overlooking a beach, with Brandon bay and mountain in the background. Many things have changed since my realization all those years ago. I've left the day-job in the corporate world, I do some part-time teaching, some healing, some volunteer work in the local psychiatric unit and some walkabout. Most of what I do is about delivering a message. The message reflects my goal in life of being in peace and being happy.

I "retired" 13 years ago and now, when I talk with my friends who are still in jobs, I ask them to stop thinking about retirement and instead ask themselves what their next career move is. When we retire at 65 we still have 55 years ahead of us. Not knowing what we are going to do for those years can be soul destroying. In my own case, I have decided that I am a teacher and a healer and that is what I'll be doing for the rest of my life. But, then, we never know. Sometime in the future on that beach in Kerry I may decide that there is yet another role for me.

I see myself in the "Undoing Ego" phase of my life and sometimes I like to think that I'm farther ahead than I really am. That's ego for you. I have noticed recently that I don't deal with resistance easily. I'm inclined to react when someone does not agree with me. If something I'm working on isn't going the way I want, I'm inclined to use anger as a solution. I realise that there is no problem with this reaction, that I'm still learning.

In a couple of dreams in the last week or so I have thrown a temper tantrum and been attacked by a raging animal, probably a bear. My interpretation is that there is anger or even furious rage buried in there somewhere. At least, it's on the move, it is being released in dreams and some body sensations rather than remaining sealed in some dark corner of my mind. And I am accepting it rather than denying it.

"And you have every right to be angry. Look at what is going on in the world" my friend tells me. And of course she's right. I have every right to be angry. I am entitled to judge what is going on and what has been done to me. But I don't want to go there. I believe I am responsible for the world I perceive, and that I am not responsible for what is happening in the world. The singer-songwriter Paul Brady wrote a song called "The world is what you make it, baby." And this I go along with, so I look for peace and I find peace most of the time. When I can't, I enjoy the view or use other techniques to get me present.

Where does this anger come from? I grew up in a large family where seniority granted authority. I was sixth in a line of seventeen. This meant that I learned to be both victim and bully. I could be bossed around by older people and I could boss around younger people. When we were asked questions it was always the oldest that answered for us all. We argued a lot and when we knew we could not win the argument we would resort to anger to get our own way. When we were forced to do jobs that we did not like our initial reaction was always anger. We never questioned this reaction, we took it for granted that that's the way it is. It was only when we moved out into the world that we realised that anger is not regarded as an appropriate response.

While studying Acupuncture I realised that I was almost totally unaware of the effects of our emotions on our bodies. They always seemed to blow over or to pass on with no consequences. From the Chinese perspective, most of our long term problems are caused by our emotions. Anger affects the functioning of our livers, fear the kidneys, grief the lungs, worry the spleen and anxiety the heart. Dr Edward Bach, who developed the Bach Flower Remedies, based the remedies on the idea that by dealing with the underlying emotions we deal with the presenting symptoms.

Over the years I had watched myself to determine what the major contributor was to how I felt at any moment in time. I tried many experiments with food and exercise, but never considered emotions. I thought that what affects the body is what goes into the body or what we do with it. Emotion is much more difficult to experiment with because we are not really willing to admit that we suffer emotions, and the effects on the body are more long term. I have come to accept that I do have emotional episodes and that they effect the body.

The challenge became to stay in control of my emotions. This was helped when I studied "A Course in Miracles". This emphasised again and again that emotion can only be controlled by changing our thinking, and that there is a cause and effect relationship between our thoughts, our emotions and our bodies. The cause of everything is our thinking and its effects are our emotions and our bodies. There was a lot of stuff in it that I did not understand. I came across Almaas's "Pearl Beyond Price" and this filled in the gaps as well as explaining a lot about how we absorb our behaviour patterns in early childhood. I decided to call these absorbed behaviour patterns "memgrams".

Thinking affects our emotions, which in turn affect our bodies. Some people are convinced that we are what we eat. This may be so, but our problems have more to do with our memgrams around eating, rather than any factors that result from the food we eat. There are thousands of people living today who do not eat food. They refer to themselves as breatharians.

So it all comes down to thinking. What we think about, we are. There are no neutral thoughts. We can see a random world of random events over which we have no control. Or we can see the world as what we've made it. We can change our thinking. We can see our minds as being everywhere or we can see our thinking limited to our brains. I refer to these as mind and ego.

To show the difference between ego and mind let's take television as an example. The word is taken from Greek and means seeing at a distance. An image, or a series of moving images, is taken with a camera. Later this gets broadcast and we pick it up as an image on our television screens. The ego works like a television. There is a technique called remote viewing that allows the mind to see anywhere, and any time past, present or future. We all have the potential to do remote viewing.

There is only mind - everything is an idea, and our thinking controls everything. However, we all tend to see ourselves as separate, alone, and isolated. This is ego's way of looking at ourselves. Ego sees scarcity, mind is abundance. Ego is limited, mind is boundless. Ego sees the world in terms of words, symbols and images. Mind knows. Ego divides time into past, present and future. Mind is eternal. Ego stores everything that we have learned and all our experiences in our memories. Mind is total recall. Ego is, for the most part, how we think of ourselves.

We think in terms of what we recall from our memories. The first time we see a tree, we store it in our minds as an image and the next time we see a tree we compare it to the stored image. "Yes, that's a tree," we say. And as time passes we stop seeing the tree and just work from the image stored in our brains. Everything we see and hear is interpreted against what we have stored as memories from our previous experiences and from what we have learned.

Our egos have learned, and will continue to learn. Our minds, knowing everything, have no need to learn. Our minds know everything already.

At its simplest - egos learn, mind creates. While we are caught up in the ego's learning we cannot create - egos can't create, minds can't learn.

First Post Testing

In thinking about this blog it seemed like it would be no problem to sit here and type my fingers off. Now that I'm doing it, I've got stage fright. Anyone can read it. My ideas are now subject to scrutiny by anyone and hopefully everyone. A few basics to get me going:

• We are always thinking and what we think affects everything in our lives
• This blog uses words, symbols and images. All of these can be interpreted in many ways. I give the usage of key words in meanings 
• I share ideas taken from many sources.