Monstaville Book I. Chapter 18

18

“Make noise in the east to attack in the west: Through the art of distraction you may often reach your goal. If the direct path does not lead to success, a ruse may be necessary. To distract your opponent you should kiss him on the left cheek so that you can slap him on the right.”

- Chao-Hsiu Chen (The Chinese Art of Winning. Strategies for Success, Diane Publishing Company, PA., U.S., 2002, p.39).

A pre-journal note from September 1994: I’ve got to become strong and impervious to others’ failings and destructiveness towards me. Strong and tolerant.

My devilish neighbours: It takes two to tango, but your daughters have created a negative, menacing energy here, and I am trying to clear it. Shine your light to do just that. Don’t react to their ignorant pestilence.

You should be grateful to Pigsy and the other nasty neighbours for helping you to learn to shine your light. You have to learn to shine always - be continuously mindful of your inner sun, your spirit, and express it, subtly. Don’t hide behind anything. Embrace all.

In Touch with Raynor C. Johnson by Sheila Gwillam (Light Publishing, London, U.K., 1996).

The Nature of Evil.

p.179. It is better to know the Devil - I say ‘the Devil’ but in inverted commas; it is just an expression that is used and is not really a man with horns or a tail. It is the absence of light, the absence of love and the absence of knowledge.

p.180. ...we, as humans, do not really need to apply justice in the punishment sense as we do on earth because the punishment comes round, does it not?

p.180. ...if you make a curse instead of forgiving someone for hurting you, you can end up doing that which you have cursed somebody about.

p.180. So, if you do not try to work through the pain and the understanding that you have when somebody hurts you, or one of your family, then...it will go on and on until one of you can become aware and cut the link.

I am the Sun

You have to be a Sun and shine out positive energy - give everything good away (express the pure being that is the real you) - just like the Sun. It doesn’t get used up. More is found. The more positive energy/light you give, the more you become, and the greater your identity.

Ask yourself: am I doing that? If you are quietly radiating light, positive energy, love, then yes. If you are doing this for much of the time that you are awake, then definitely yes. This is the meaning of life. This is what we call ‘mindfulness.’ It is a conscious awareness of the light that is the real you - even if your personality, your fears, emotions, instincts, desires, dependencies, concerns, needs, circumstances and immediate experiences are, or seem, so close as to be real, so personal and intimate, like the Moon is to the Earth. If you feel deeply enough you can dig for gold in the dark soil of the personality. See the flowers and weeds but do not engage with them. Don’t admire or curse them. Interact with them as little as possible on a personality level and try to replace that by being like the Sun. Digging for gold in the earth, one finds the light of Heaven, the gold of the Sun in the sky. It is the same! The Sun in the heavens is a higher manifestation of the gold in the earth. The fire in the cave. The light in the darkness. It is the same. The soil is the Underworld and the dark sky is the Underworld. In each case, the golden light of the spiritual Sun is found.

Glow.

Be peacefully radiant. Relax and shine.

The Sun is still, centred. It just is. It shines. It has no need to be anything other than light and express it. Identify with the spirit. Speak and act minimally and only use the personal levels as instruments.

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.” - Ben Okri. 

Retrospective inserts.

"Oh, Thou Sun, send me as far around the world as is my pleasure and thine; and may I make the acquaintance of good men but never hear anything of bad ones, nor they of me." - The Prayer of Apollonius of Tyana.

Personally, I was thrilled to discover the story of another Western Master named Apollonius of Tyana, whose miracles and benign influence on the Roman emperors (during the first century AD) whom he had known the Church duly suppressed. Apollonius appears to have lived for over one hundred years and might well have been the most widely travelled man in ancient times (the Nazarene, Pythagoras and Apollonius each appear to have achieved their enlightened state at least in part through spiritual Masters in India).

He disappeared without a trace, so no one knows if or how he eventually died. The same is true of Pythagoras, it seems. Indeed, “eleven centuries later there lived in Spain an Arab philosopher named Artephius, who claimed to be Apollonius of Tyana.” (Apollonius of Tyana by Reginald Merton, www.alchemylab.com/apollonius.htm). Madame Blavatsky wrote in The Theosophist, June, 1881 that “Apollonius Tyanaeus was the most remarkable character of that period, and witnessed the reign of a dozen Roman emperors.” (Robertino Solàrion, 1999, www.apollonius.net). However, he was eventually the target of persecution by those for whom his popularity and influence was a threat. Blavatsky explains: "At Rome, Apollonius was accused of treason. Brought to examination, the accuser came forward, unfolded his roll on which the accusation had been written, and was astounded to find it a perfect blank...When nearly one hundred years old, he was brought before the Emperor at Rome, accused of being an enchanter. He was taken to prison. While there he was asked when he would be at liberty? 'To-morrow, if it depends on the judge; this instant, if it depends on myself.' Saying this, he drew his leg out of the fetters, and said, 'You see the liberty I enjoy.' He then replaced it in the fetters. At the tribunal he was asked: 'Why do men call you a god?' ‘Because,' said he, 'every man that is good is entitled to the appellation.’” (Robertino Solàrion, 1999, www.apollonius.net).

I confess that I laughed hysterically and jumped for joy when I read the report that Apollonius’ trial was concluded with a death sentence at which the sage who possessed the Philosopher’s Stone (immortality), simply laughed and said, ‘You can’t kill me - I’m not mortal!’ Whether the story is true or not, it is perfect! For me, this is better than anything in the Bible. As Oscar Wilde pointed out, “Whenever I’m in doubt, I ask myself, ‘What would Jesus do?’ And then I realise Jesus got crucified, so maybe his decision-making skills weren’t all that great.” But, then, Jeshua, to his credit, came to demonstrate that it is possible to raise one’s consciousness to such a high frequency of Light (to activate and identify with one’s Light body) as to transcend suffering, to be beyond harm, regardless of what happens to one’s physical vehicle in this illusory plane of experience. [Retrospective note: Well, well well! Wonders never cease. It turns out that I myself was Apollonius in that lifetime. Sick!].

“Yeah, I tell the Christians…I say, ‘I don’t believe Jesus died on no cross.’ ‘Sacrilege!’ I say, ‘Well, wait a minute. He could walk on water, feed a thousand with a loaf of bread, raise the dead, but you telling me this nigger couldn’t handle three nails?’ I know brothers with nine bullet holes still walking. His name is 50 Cent. You telling me 50 Cent is taller than Jesus? Maybe you delusional, motherfucker!” – Eddie Griffin, American comedian.

On the subject of attaining immortality through “actively and consciously taking part in the evolutionary process” in our given lifetime, one cool Christian writing in the early 60s explained:

“The positive purpose of the universe is with us. Time (card 14) ever tries to weave us into a state of perfection, but as we see, the devil (card 15) stands there in her way influencing us always to deny our greater possibilities. He does this by playing upon our fears and doubts. Little wonder that Jesus tells us we must go without fear. Denial is the great power of the evil. Gurdjieff observed that the denying force was humanity’s strongest. This is to be seen at so many levels of our behaviour, starting at the simplest of invariably denying unfamiliar concepts the first time we hear them.

                Faith in our great future must be rekindled so that we may rise above the fears that hold us in bondage. We need to purify ourselves by not always seeking mundane advantage, and by becoming aware that all ill we do is ill to ourselves resulting over and over again in our death. Once we truly realise this, then no matter what earthly power we wield we would know that to abuse it was certain death. This realisation could produce some wonderful people! A great change from the present where everyone wants to be king or queen of the castle of death. A more glorious existence could be that of one who swept the halls of the castle of life.”

                - Richard Gardner (Evolution Through the Tarot, Samuel Weiser Inc., U.S., New York, 1962 and 1970, p.146).

“I come to you now in this form so that you may change your image of who I AM." - Jeshua ben Joseph in expression through Judith Coates (www.oakbridge.org).

Thomas Merton adds: “The world, for the spiritual development of which he worked so enthusiastically, has not done Apollonius full justice. He was surrounded with hatred as well as with admiration. He made too many prophecies, even though they were precisely realised, performed too many marvellous tricks. The mediocre minds that create the reputations of great men insist that virtue shall be muffled in tedium and that it shall not be illumined by anything of the marvellous. If a man lacks the audacity or has too much sincerity to present himself as a god, he must be content to remain within the limits of honest humanity. If the philosophers glorified Apollonius, the Christian world contrasted him with his contemporary, Jesus. While the ecclesiastical historians for centuries, even down to our own times, have made his name a synonym for charlatan and trickster - with such a tenacity that should suffice to prove his greatness of soul!” (www.alchemylab.com\apollonius.htm). The same is true of St. Germain.

There also many legends of a white healer and ‘prophet’ who taught throughout the continents of North and South America whom some say could have been Jesus:

“The Shawnee told the author that this came from the Prophet...’Do not kill or injure your neighbour, for it is not he that you injure; you injure yourself. Do good to him, thus adding to his days of happiness even as you then add to your own. Do not wrong or hate your neighbour; for it is not he that you wrong: you wrong yourself. Rather love him, for the Great Spirit loves him, even as He loves you.” - L. Taylor Hansen (He Walked the Americas. Legends of Jesus (Jeshua) In America, Amherst Press Wisconsin, 1962, www.wovoca.com/he-walked-the-americas).

Coordinator (Michael Palin): Crucifixion?
Prisoner: Yes.
Coordinator: Good. Out of the door, line on the left, one cross each. [Next prisoner] Crucifixion?
Mr. Cheeky (Eric Idle): Er, no, freedom actually.
Coordinator: What?
Mr. Cheeky: Yeah, they said I hadn't done anything and I could go and live on an island somewhere.
Coordinator: Oh I say, that's very nice. Well, off you go then.
Mr. Cheeky: No, I'm just pulling your leg, it's crucifixion really.

- The Life of Brian (directed by Terry Jones, 1979).

In the early 60s, Vietnamese Buddhists felt it was time to resort to more extreme methods of protest in the form of staged suicides. On 11 June 1963, a Buddhist protest march in Saigon involving around 400 Buddhist monks and nuns suddenly came to a halt. They quickly surrounded a light blue Austin that was part of the procession and had its hood raised as if the car had engine trouble. Thich Quang Duc, a 66 year old monk, who had evidently been meditating in the vehicle, calmly stepped out and sat on a cushion in the centre of the circle to continue meditating in the lotus position. Two monks poured a mix of petrol and diesel over him, having discovered that this “would burn hot yet burn long enough to guarantee death.” Quang-Duc then lit a match at 9.22 a.m. and was instantly engulfed in flames. He burned to death whilst remaining in meditation 13 minutes later, his spirit having been liberated from his body which he sacrificed in protest against the establishment and the war it was waging. It was a way to make a point about the persecution of Buddhists as well as demonstrate the power of life over death.

This theatrical event was designed to make use of the media to show the world that there is a higher path, that the spirit lives on, that an individual can lay down his life and still be alive. This was the first of many suicides in Vietnam in which both monks and nuns doused themselves in fuel and set light to themselves. Most Western reporters had given up waiting for the rumours to manifest in such a display. Malcome Browne was the only one who was present to take a picture of the monk on fire. When John F. Kennedy saw the image he was heard to remark, "Jesus Christ…This sort of thing has got to stop!" This marked the beginning of the end of American support for the Ngo Dinh Diem regime. “The Buddhist protest exposed the hypocrisy of the American policy in Vietnam. The question of how could the White House claim to be protecting freedom by supporting Diem when the government practised such severe religious persecution was not answered.” (www.famouspictures.org/mag/index.php?title=Burning_Monk). Jesus Christ indeed! Zen style!

In Search of the Miraculous. Volume 2 by Osho (Chapter 4, ‘The mysteries of the seven bodies,’ 7 July 1970, Rajneesh Foundation, Pune, India, 1992).

If you go to the seashore you experience greater peace, if you go to the forest you experience greater peace, because the other is not present there and so your I remains firm and strong. If two men sit in a room, there are waves and counter waves of tension there even though these two may not be fighting or quarrelling or even talking. So even when they are silent the I of each is constantly working. Aggression and defence are there in full swing. These things can go on silently also and there is no need for a direct encounter. The mere presence of two people and a room is filled with tension.

                If you were to gain full knowledge of all the currents that come out from you, you would see clearly that a room containing two persons has been divided into two and each individual has become a centre. The energy vibrations from both stand facing each other like armies on a battlefield. The presence of the other strengthens your I. When the other leaves, the room will become a different place altogether. You relax. The I that was on edge will let itself go. It now leans against the cushion and rests, it now breathes freely because the other is not there. Hence, the significance of solitude is to relax your ego and to help it to let go. It is for this reason that you are more at ease near a tree than in the company of another person.

                This is why, in countries where tensions between man and man are becoming deeper, people tend to live with pets. It is easier to live with animals than with men, because they have no I. Tie a collar to a dog, and he goes about happily. We cannot tie a collar to a man in this way, though we try very hard. The wife ties the husband, the husband the wife, and they both go about happily - but these collars are subtle and cannot be seen openly. Yet each tries to shake off the collar and be free - but the dog walks happily along wagging his tail. So the pleasure the dog gives no other man can give, because another man at once brings your ego to your attention, and then the trouble starts.

                Gradually man tries to break his relationship with others and establish relationships with objects because they are easier to handle. So the bulk of objects is increasing day by day. There are more articles in the house than people. People bring disorder and confusion; objects give no bother. The chair remains where I place it. If I sit on it, it creates no trouble. The presence of trees, rivers, mountains, is not troublesome; therefore, we feel at peace near them. The reason is only this: the I is not standing in full strength before us; therefore, we too feel relaxed. When the other is not there, where is the need for the I? Then the I too is not. But the slightest inkling of the other, and the I jumps to attention. It is worried about its security, about its lack of information as to what the next moment may bring; hence, it has to be ready all the time.

                The ego always remains alert until the very last moment. Even if you meet a person of the seventh plane, the ego is alert. Sometimes it becomes excessively alert before such a person. You are not so much afraid of the ordinary man, because even if he hurts you the injury is not very deep. But a man who has reached the fifth body or beyond can inflict deep surgery that reaches up to the same body of yours that he has reached.

                Thus, your fear becomes more, because ‘God knows what he might do.’ You begin to feel something unknown as if unfamiliar forces are watching at you through him, so you become wary. You see an abyss all around him. You become alert and on guard. You begin to feel the experience of the deep valley, and you are caught by the fear that if you go within him you will fall into this abyss.

                That is why when men like Jesus, Krishna and Socrates are born we kill them: their very presence causes great confusion among us. To go near them is to go wilfully near danger. Then when they die we worship them because now there is no fear. Now we can cast their image into gold and stand with folded hands before them calling them our beloved master. But in their lifetime we treat them differently. Then we are very much afraid of them and this fear is of that which is unknown to us: you do not know for certain what is the matter.

                The deeper a man goes within himself, the more he becomes like an abyss to us. Then it is just like when someone is afraid to look down into a valley because it makes his head reel. Similarly, to look into the eyes of such a person will also create fear: our heads are sure to reel.

Extract from an email to a friend who said that some people were attacking her for a Pleiadian message she put on the Internet:

“The truth movement is full of personal biases. Semi-conscious people (who don't meditate or know their spirit) react and oppose what exists outside of themselves instead of shining from within and creating from their own being. Basically, they are interested in truth but they don't LOVE the truth...

                Loving truth opens us up to a higher perspective, to universal truth beyond what we might be prepared for as human egos, and to trust the Source (e.g. the Pleiadians and Sirians etc). It's very hard...when you're near the top of a mountain and sensitive to those who can only see the ridge before them lower down and they want to bring you down to conform to their level of awareness. The challenge is to climb up further and stay focussed on the Sun, to become more like the Sun, to know the Sun and to feel how it shines its light on all equally, smiling down on all who prefer the shade and don't know that they started this journey to find the Sun themselves.

                You have served by shedding light on a shadow, and planted a seed that may or may not germinate one day. They may have rejected that part of the jigsaw but when they are closer to completing it they will be looking for it! And their soul will tell them, 'Ah, do you remember that piece you threw in the cupboard believing it didn't fit?' Ding dong (rushes to the memory cupboard!). 'Yay!' Haha. :) It might be in another lifetime even but now that slither of light has peered into their consciousness through the door opening just slightly.

                So...LEO doesn't give a hoot what others think! That's why the Egyptians always chose Leos to be their generals...and why Obama is President in a time when the advisers are used to controlling the U.S. govt. A Leo attuned to God is incorruptible and will not be led astray in his heart. He might appear to go along with things if it is necessary but the centre remains and the light of the Sun will shine when the time is right, when old patterns and processes have run their course.

                Stay centred and keep smiling...like a Leo Sun.”

“Always remember, there is more strength in you than you ever realised or even imagined. Certainly nothing can keep you down if you are determined to get on top of things and stay there.” - Norman Vincent Peale (www.quotelady.com/subjects/strength.html).

“When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth.” - George Bernard Shaw.