Affirmation

I am called by love, inspired by love, full–filled by love.
I am a vessel of love in the world, giving freely what I have received.
Love is my whole being – and what I feel is love.
God is love – I am love.

Going beyond your limits

"To exceed your self you would have to step outside your own control system – to allow the elemental forces of your psyche to work throu you without restriction. That would be so-o-o scary. You'd get where you really want to go in double-quick, but it would be a roller-coaster ride. If you think you can hold onto your faith in what you really want throu this, do it. "Everything will appear to go wrong, fall apart, even the dream itself may appear to wither: BUT if you hold your faith a fabulous new harmonious reality will ultimately form, purged of all that made your previous situation unsustainable. And you will rejoice as you have never known rejoicing.
"Paying close attention to the interaction between your inner & outer worlds is the key. Hold to your inner vision even when there are powerful reasons to doubt – not clutching it obsessively, but in a warm reactive relationship dialog."

The narrow path is quickest in the long run

"What discomfort you gave yourself by deviating from what you knew to be right. You wanted to learn? Learn you did.
"Now then, the straight and narrow path … Imagine a tube with yourself as a ball – the straighter and narrower you are the quicker you reach your destination – but the more you yaw and veer the longer your journey. Taking an 'easy' route can allow your pathway to become so wide it /you lose coherence, and your ball may end bouncing /ricocheting /spinning so that it loses the way or comes to a halt.
"Increase your realisation that nothing matters more than hearing my voice. Surrender control of your intellect. How wise you would be if you listened to your own advice!!"

*The darkness before the dawn is the womb that yearns to create

"In everything there’s a lesson. The lesson isn’t designed to make life easier, harder, better or worse. It’s designed to increase your wisdom (balance). When the unawakened human intellect seeks to define itself it differentiates things & experiences into categories. But this isn’t the way holistic consciousness works. Of course you need to make sense of the experiences surrounding you – but you should try to do so inclusively, not by focusing on a tiny area of knowledge and excluding everything else. At first the all-ness of everything swamps your awareness, and holding one part steady when all is in motion can be a real ordeal – but then slowly it dawns on you that everything is meant to be in motion. And you discover that the only way you can only make a contribution is by joining in the dance, and so balancing and coordinating your own motions as a dancer within the all-ness of everything."

In The Grail Legend (p133) Emma Jung & Marie-Louise von Franz express a similar idea
> In the dreams and fantasy pictures of modern man this hidden, invisible something is occasionally depicted as a meaningful and numinous void. Thcre is one picture in which an egg-shaped void, from which rays stream forth, forms the centre of a world or of a mandala with an empty centre. The words of Meister Eckhart beautifully express what is meant by this image: "Everything must be lost, the soul must exist in unhampered nothingness," or "Whosoever would come to God must come as nothiug." Or, expressed in Eastern imagery: "In the purple hall of the city of jade dwells the God of Utmost Emptiness and Life." The Confucians call it "the centre of the void:' A nothingness, a void, is therefore the inescapable condition for the emergence of the Self. The outer and inner realizations of a life lived to its end. For this reason Jung has likened it to the "crystal lattice' present as a potential form in a solution which first becomes visible in the process of crystallization, although crystallization does not necessarily take place. The Self is therefore not complete. but is prescnt in us as a potentiality which can become manifest only in the course of a specific process. Certainly, the Self is not invariably realized through the unfolding of the natural biological life processes. There appear to be many lives where this does not come to pass.
> Then how and by what means can thc Self become manifest? It is realized to that extent in which it is lived in the experience of daily life. It is not achieved, however, when it appears in symbolic form in dreams and inner images, nor is it when consciousness acquires a specific degree of clarity, nor yet when a psychological function has attained a high degree of differentiation. Important as consciousness undoubtedly is—and rightly utilized consciousness is an invaluable means of help for the realization of the Self—it is not by itself the determining factor. For it does not depend so very greatly on knowledge and ability or upon some degree of intelligence, but rather upon the use which is made of these attributes and above all, on the psychic attitude a person adopts in the face of the various circumstances of his life and fate. As the threads of fabric are woven into a pattern, so the Self as the living garment of divinity is woven out of the many decisions and crises, in themselves possibly insignificant, by which we are affected in the course of our lives. Such occasions present themselves at every level of life and intelligence and in every milieu. Whether or not they lead to a manifestation of the Self depends solely on our own response. Many of us have observed that children, even small children, when faced with some difficulty, possess an attitude which many adults could only envy. That "something," the lack of which we experience as soullessness, is a "someone" who takes a position, who is accountable and who feels committed. Where this higher, responsible ego is lacking there can be no Self. Ethos and the Self are therefore mutually interdependent. For this reason, too, an attitude of "beyond good and evil;' such as has been commended in many quarters in modern times and especially since Nietzsche, is the best way to prevent the emergence of the Self.
> From the foregoing we can see that a fascination can emanate from something empty. It longs for completion like an invisible form which calls out for substance; the individual is conscious of the existence of this summons and of the growth of this attraction, but without knowing what it is that calls to him. The influence , emanating from the hidden Grail could be likened to such a summons.

Create your own reality - be harmless. La Grotte de Rouffignac

"Perfect stillness is not the human’s natural state. It’s a gift, given yet earned, from the same source as peace. On one level it’s a withdrawal from activity, but on another it’s an engagement with all that is.
"For everyone different issues emerge every hour of the day: the active person responds with further activity – thereby ensuring a karmatic sequel: the peaceable person first examines whether hir involvement is desirable.
"A person who looks only at exteriors decides whether to become involved on the basis of what is attractive: but you must look at the heart, and offer only what help is appropriate to the heart.
"The world grows & unfolds throu each person. Let yours be a balanced contribution, that best moves forwards the interconnected situations of which you are the centre.
"What to do when someone means you harm? Best is to walk away rather than compound the other’s negativity. Have you been wronged, or cheated of money? Your currency allows you to gain what the cheat loses. Not all rich people are cheats, but don’t envy their physical comfort. You already have, if you choose to claim it, far greater assurance than the rich ever acquire. If you continue to be preoccupied by earth matters, you’ll never grow to Heaven.
You can create your own reality. You can create peace or war; greed or cooperation; excess, sufficiency or revival – choose which world you wish to inhabit."

> Right at the point where the publisher had pulled out of my fledgling magazine CataList & given me the whole set-up, & I was mulling over whether I should /could continue, my wife was designing a production of Purcell's The Fairy Queen at Aix-en-Provence. So I & the family went there & then holidayed in a cottage on the Loire. During this latter period I took myself off for a day alone.
> I let myself drift & ended up at the Grotte de Rouffignac. This is a 'throat' opening from the underworld, a natural cave which descends slowly over about a km. The floor is formed of petrified mud from the first ice age, & is cratered by mammoth hibernation pods (as shown).
> In 1956 animal carvings were discovered at the extremity of the cave in a space where the 'tongue' of rock-like mud almost reaches the roof. Now, after substantial excavation one can stand & view these carvings (which are by no means as clear the photo suggests) spread out randomly all over the roof. Parties descend in a little electric train, which takes about 20'. Banal as this might seem, nothing can detract from the numen of the place.
> For me, alone in a throng of holiday-makers, this was as profound a spiritual experience as it must have been for those who made the perilous descent over the vertiginous floor in total darkness millennia previously. It must then have taken a good day each way & I cannot believe they would have had a means of sustaining light. My sense was that the descent & carving could have been a rite of passage for young men in which they attuned to /at-one-d with the spirit of their prey. Led by elders, whose knowledge of a safe route over the pothole-strewn floor must have been a source of authority, they would have arrived at the end & as part of some arduous ceremony someone would have created one of these extraordinarily realistic images of their 'life source' lying flat on his back in a claustrophobic opening barely large enough to wield the graving tool – which, the 'graduates' would have been invited in singly to trace with their fingers & engage with some mystical act of union before returning to the light as 'made men' of the tribe.
> When I came out blinking & transformed after just an hour, my car had been broken into & my beloved Minolta stolen. The police caught the thief, who was without a car to leave the remote hillside!! It turned out that he had only been released from prison the day before, & so I had to spend the afternoon in a Gendarmerie filling out forms while they gloated on their success … tho I never got my camera back.

Dig deep for the still water

You and me together: that‘s all it takes. No grand designs. Dig deep for the still water. Allow it to rise slowly to the surface. Don’t boast of your strength, you’ve been given it for a purpose, use it with respect for yourself and toward others.

Stillness is at the heart of it

"Just sitting still, and being still is so important. If you would focalise the great enterprise you dream of, you’ve always got to be half outside it. Time off is never wasted. You may value yourself according to how much you get done: we value you according to how you are. Time & resources can never run out for the person who is on the path of life. There may be tricky periods, but these are growth periods. Don’t worry or feel you wont be supported because you may make errors of judgment. Your higher self is simply leading you into a growth area. Ultimately, what matters more – pleasing others, or growing towards your personal destiny?
Don’t think of yourself as a machine: you’re a person, with all the rights that that implies.
Be easy on yourself, you’ll accomplish nothing extra by being tough.
In the transformation of your will, you must retain a sense of purpose while detaching yourself from the need to produce results.

Go: grow. Love: live. Obey: overcome

Go for it

"Yes, yes, leap! Know that the bad experiences are just as important to your growth as the good ones. Nothing inappropriate can happen to you. Fly as only those who truly know the laws of gravity can."

Swim in the warm currents of love.

"Aren’t you excited? So many opportunities for growth … but only if you don’t try.
You’re struggling again. Striving for results.
'Results' will defeat you every time, and turn to powder under your hand. Just follow each step as it appears. Let others have the grand design. Don’t be psyched into running with the pack. Concentrate on bringing love into the situation where you are. And we do mean love in its fullest sense; that is to say you need to feel love physically even if you don’t make sexual display. For the advanced soul it should not be targeted sexually upon individuals, but transmitted as a feeling, an atmosphere for all to experience – just as the warmth of the pool aids swimming, and the superiority of the piano promotes music–making. Take a lesson from nightclubs or places of popular resort where the unawakened expect to find love of a materialistic kind.
Be open. Let your openness be your defence. Grow! Feel the air against your wings. Leap off into the great freedom of the skies. Swim in the warm currents of love."

You're luckier than you know

"You don’t know how lucky you are. You could enjoy these moments of freefall; but no, worry, worry, worry! Why won't you accept the gifts you’re given? What you do have to do is to stay minutely attentive. Remember where the source is and stay connected."


> What's interesting to me, reviewing these messages as I upload them 15 years later, is that for all my terror of imminent dissolution & disgrace we survived. Yes, our family ship went throu a tremendous tornado – yes, we did eventually lose our house (tho not without the extraordinary intervention of Sai Baba whereby we received £13,000 more than our asking price, which exactly covered the losses CataList had by then clocked up!) BUT we bought another, cheaper house in the country where we have been far happier, and where I have been able to develop a teaching which brought me great joy – and now brings me to the point of planning a new music publishing venture, with all these lessons onboard.
> I am still married to the same wife & my children don't hate me (I think). So if you're reading this at a point of personal turmoil take personal encouragement that sometimes these storms are necessary to break you out of an existence you have outgrown, but may be finding hard to let drop.

Feelings are what is paramount for you at this present time

"The small craft voyaging over the ocean must follow either a chart or the captain‘s instinct. If the skipper is solely concerned with hir terrestrial occupation s/he’ll pore over the maps, and so by science deliver the vessel to its haven. But if you want an organic experience of the sea then accepting the danger and fear of non-arrival is a key part of learning to feel the contour of the ocean.
"Feelings are what is paramount for you at this present time. Your senses make sense of your experience. This doesn’t mean you need to surrender your emotions to them – rather that each should be balanced with the other so that any element can help to absorb a deficit in another.
Stick to the inner core of truth at all costs, for that is the navigation system that will bring you at last to that fabled port which all seek, and from which noone need depart again.
"Don’t imagine that you’re there when you’re only sleep becalmed, riding at sea–anchor. Until you dock, be always alert. There are storms which cannot always be avoided, and people with power to harm or mislead the unwary. Don’t be deflected. Try to form an accurate awareness of your 'ship's' capacities, and if you join a flottila, join one that is going at the right pace for you; lest misunderstandings and misdirections arise. If water, food or fuel run low, then use all your inner energies to draw more to you. Love is the fuel, a self–generating, self–renewing, non–polluting energy source."

You're valuable - accept & enjoy

"You’re just as valuable to us, even when you’re not feeling valuable. Everyone has a function. Everyone belongs. When you’re in a caring family relationship you no longer question – it seems natural. Even if there are ups and downs you still accept the relationships.
"So it is for you. Altho your feelings may define your perception, the reality of the interrelationships between you and existence remains unaltered. Accept and enjoy."

Be constantly aware of walking in love

"It would have been good to get that letter sent yesterday, but you did what you could. So do it tomorrow. You write in the dark: so others can read in the light.* Therefore they underestimate the problems, but like all pioneers you have your own satisfaction. Sure, the cards are stacked against you, but you know better than to be daunted by external appearances. What will you do?
Be constantly aware of walking in love. — Yes, and earnestly."

* A reference to the fact that all these pieces would come to me during semi-waking in the dark.

What gives the greatest opportunity for growth? Problems.

"Turn your life on its ear. Cease to look at survival: look at growth potential. What gives the greatest opportunity for growth? Problems. Don’t struggle, go calmly to the eye of the storm, and rest there. Let your eye be single.
"Have you been dogged by a recurrent problem? Not until you admit it openly for the gift it is, can you expect to overcome it – and then you may not want to! Love, not ambition, is the key to progress."

A step at a time

"What is the point of our communicating if you don’t listen?
"You think this is all about finding money – avoiding the embarrassment of your peers. It isn’t – its about the kingdom of God. You are a messenger – a rare role given to few, for the needs of every epoch are unique. All is well. Allow the process to unfold. Don’t hamper it with your mind. A step at a time – no planning! Remember I AM with you. Don’t concern yourself with minutiæ, you have excellent people for that.
"Oh, wouldn’t it be nice if we told you what the path was? & why don’t we? Because with your temperament you’d immediately start planning. You must try and resist ‘knowing’. Stand firm in your own voice. Toughen your surface. Just attend to your inner voice. You speak for us – isn’t that enough of a privilege? Just keep following – simply a step at a time."

In humiliation we see the stars

"Well, well, you find it easier to hear my voice when you’re down. Is that why you bring yourself down? Why not practise keeping on a level keel? Live within your inheritance. Don’t judge yourself.
"You’ve got to put some real energy into solving this problem.* You’re well able to do it. Just get up from your comfy chair and draw down the solution. Why do you think the problem‘s been given to you?
"What is your next step? Then take it. Pay no heed to whatever may follow."

* See other posts (10&19/7/92)

Turmoil & Topaz

"Yet of all things Love is the most precious, compared to topaz. This is your message for the magazine.* Don’t worry about knowledge, just keep pegging away at this. Have one article in each edition about love and you can’t fail. Practise love in your life too. Don’t work out what things mean or what is the best move, just ask act in love.
"Follow up more about crystals. They’re extremely important, expressing inner, hidden, truths. Don’t ask questions; still your mind. It doesn’t matter what you agree with [the publisher] – it will be irrelevant. Just don’t step beyond your faith. You can have anything you want, but keep a sense of proportion. Reality. It is your energies that draw things into existence. Don’t step beyond your faith, or you will test yourself to destruction. Concentrate – don’t diffuse your mind. Try and carry one thought at a time to some sort of conclusion(!)
"We in the spiritual realm are well able to help you – and you can attend to our voice. That’s why you’re right not to take artificial stimulants. Natural ones are okay. Your body will pass throu walls easily when it/you need to. Remember … Respect any forum where love rules. Don’t ask. Just go – do as your inner prompting suggests. Don’t empire-build – don’t plan.
A step at a time, remember.
"… That’s alright, you can go back to sleep now. I needed to wake shake you up a bit – hence the accident.** Nothing is ever ‘wrong’, it's for a purpose – to shift you to higher ground."

* Re-reading this in 2006 I googled topaz & was amazed to find that it is a November birthstone. I had no idea – I am a scorpio!
> At the time I was editing & publishing a fortnightly magazine called CataList which was being financed by a well-known specialist publisher. The concept of a new age listings /networking magazine had been conceived while I was at Findhorn in 12/91, following my resignation from the the Junior Royal College of Music. This must have been around our second issue, when I found out that we had very divergent ideas about what 'new age' meant in editorial terms. Whereas I had assumed that the owner's interest in the subject was ethical, I discovered the hard way that all he was interested was selling to air-heads who wanted to party! This ultimately led him to pull the plug on the venture, tho he very decently gave me the whole thing, including the computers he had bought, to carry on.
> We had a staff of 3 & operated from the basement of the family home in Peckham, S London. Carry the whole enterprise, as it were on one leg, led to incredible levels of stress – hence the injunction to follow throu one thought at a time. I was desperate to keep going & find a source of funding to underwrite our development. I didn't, but we continued anyway for about another year until 2 events occurred whose conjunction knocked the other leg from under me!
> CataList was, tho I say it myself, an excellent concept – but alas about 5-10 years before its time. I have realised subsequently that what I had conceived really required the web in order to work. To make it the printed hub of a network as I envisaged in the days when the web was fundamentally a medium for text-only email (dial-up modems were 1200baud!) on a fortnightly, or even monthly, turnaround would have demanded full commercial production, with appropriate staffing levels & production values that were far beyond our capital base – or indeed my experience.
> It's salutory to be reminded of this (in o1/06) & the need to create a clear & viable thought-form as I contemplate a music publishing enterprise. I certainly wouldn't want to go throu the CataList experience all over again!

** I've no idea what this was, it could have been as trivial as knocking over some water beside my bed. The guidance recorded on this blog has generally come to me in the very early morning, before I'm awake. It must have begun, I think, while I was writing my play The Watcher in the Rain in 1989/90. I would wake extremely early with a clear idea of what scene needed to be written & broadly how, and would then go down & compose it (on my Amstrad PCW!). I suppose, because I can't remember, that that quite-specific kind of 'inspiration' gave way to this more profound ethical insight /guidance.
> I'm quite at ease with the idea that actually this all originates inside our selves but, to me, all this shows us is how limitless what is inside us actually is.

If you trust the Universe, help will appear.

"You have all the time there is. Allow the sense of wonder at the beauty that surrounds you to grow, accept all nature as a gift. If you trust the Universe, help will appear. You’re lighter than the elements that surround you, » allow yourself to float free.
"To learn to float is an important part of learning to swim, but actually progressing requires a deeper level of concentration and commitment. Just as a power guides migratory wildlife to its destinations, so too will you be led if you remain sensitive to your inner guidance – which you can only do by staying emotionally unattached to the outcome. Walk within the pool of light that surrounds you. Don’t concern yourself with what lies ahead (which you can’t see anyway) your own intuition gives you light and time enough to see ahead as much as you need.
"So go your way in peace, and let love be your guide."

Love is the very air you breathe

"Love is the guiding principle in the Universe. This doesn’t mean that everything that happens is love or that nothing can happen apart from it. For as love is the flow tide of the spiritual universe, so there is also an ebb tide which purges and cleanses, sweeping away debris. Because of the presence and power of love as a force among humans many make the mistake of thinking that it can only be found within relationships.
Close relationships, especially sexual ones, are like the purest honey -hence the association with sweetness- and like honey can become addictive. (Sexual relationships with the goodness taken out are like refined sugar and have all the same implications for the heart – complete with binges & mood-swings!) Juvenile taste naturally desires more of this passionate and rewarding energy, but as you become older you‘re able to appreciate subtle flavours which don’t depend on so much sweetening. Then you’re ready to understand the pervasive and all-satisfying nature of the love that exists within the universe beyond human power. This is an underlying sweetness that doesn’t require artificial processing, and is open and available to all who rightly divine it.
Only by becoming aware of the dimensions beyond the limited planes of the physical world can you have any inkling of the amount or quality of this love in the universe. It is like the very air you breathe. It surrounds you and pervades your whole being. You have only to cease to strive to begin to become aware of it. Don’t compete to be what you already are, allow yourself to transform naturally into that glorious person you know your inner self to be.

Don’t seek peace, be it

"If you are peace you will spread peace – so don’t seek peace, be it. That is what distinguishes you from other people. If, as someone on the spiritual path, you cannot bring peace, what is the purpose of your journey?
"Wars, novelty management techniques, political factions – people have enough already! All implying movement, change and busyness: what is needed as a counter–balanceis the gentle assertion of stillness that transcends change.
"If you don’t express it, who will?"