Starting a Blog

I have been keeping a journal since 1969 when some friends and I decided to migrate here from England. The need to travel and expand was the driving force and since the Australian government was offering two years in the sun for ten pounds I thought who am I to refuse an offer like that. I guess it was all a symptom of a restlessness that had started early and was to dominate most of my life. I'm sure I am not the only one to have had that feeling. From an early age I felt something was wrong, or missing. Everyone else seemed ok so I figured it was me with the problem. I've come to realize that the same feelings were common in others too. I wasn't alone - although it seemed that way at the time.

Years went on and the feelings didn't go away. I changed jobs to a mental health nurse in an attempt to understand what made people tick - me in particular. It helped - but not a whole lot. It did, however, lead me to a colleague who had recently attended a 'new age group'. Was that what I was looking for. Apparently it was for I was like a ripe fruit. The experience was amazing and amongst other things showed me that I was a spirtual seeker. A new identity perhaps and a new way of looking at life but it focused my search for what was amiss. Years went by and all the usual new age techniques were tried (many books have outlined them). Life seemed to getting better but that same old feeling somehow just lurked in the background and wouldn't go away.

A long rest from all the accumulated knowledge I'd gained was needed, for clearly more knowledge wasn't the answer. I was introduced to Advaita, or non-duality as it's also called. Ramesh Balsekar, Isaac Shapiro and Bob Adamson in particular helped with the new understanding. Many books later and while reading the web site of John Wheeler it hit me - the sudden and direct intuitive realization of my true nature. The world seemed to light up. This is what I've been looking for - my self! Wow! This is what I've been looking for all these years and missing it by looking beyond it. There hadn't actually been anything wrong - just a wrong identification. For those who know who, or what they are you can identify with these words, I'm sure. Before that moment I was in confusion. Everything I read seemed to be telling me something but I just couldn't put my finger on what it was they were saying. We're so conditioned.

I could go on endlessly talking about my experience but that would be misleading for it would give the impression there is someone here who had the experience. As Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh said when asked if he was enlightened (something like) "if I say no I'll be telling a lie, and if I say yes I'll be misleading you". Advaita is a wonderful set of pointers. It's not for everyone. There are no promises for the ego. But for those close to knowing 'the truth'. It's a pretty hardcore and direct pointing and you have to have a determination, or desperation, to pursue it.

From about two years of age when we first develop the concept of separation, the false identity starts. It's exactly how it is supposed to be so there's nothing actually wrong as such. But the more identity that gets added onto it the more false and separate we feel and more knowledge, money of aquisitions can't help. We need to go back through and understand how it all happened in the first place. We have to find someone who we trust and at a certain point, and for some people the illusion of separation collapses. It's then clearly seen that there never was a 'me' in control. The false 'me' claimed control. What a paradox - the definition of enlightenment being 'the realization that there is no-one to become enlightened'. From then on the seeking stops and peace prevails. A wonderful clarity exists where confusion and frustration had been. Otherwise things go on pretty much as before. The body/mind organism, as Ramesh calls it, carries on with it's same programming.