Monstaville Book III. Chapter 33

33

“The test is not about strength. It’s about purity of heart.”

- Highlander: The Source (directed by Brett Leonard, 2007).

During the Autumn (2009), yellow water started dripping down my bathroom wall rather keenly and splashing on the windowsill, making it difficult to avoid since, from there, it sprayed into the room. At first, I thought it was urine (reminds me of the Young Ones sketch in which Vyvyan opens the window and holds a pint glass out in the rain. ‘It’s only spitting,’ he announces as he closes the window again and looks at the glass which is now filled with yellow gob)! However, it did not smell of anything. It was a few days before anyone came to take a look. The initial diagnosis was that an old septic tank in the loft might be leaking but there was no tank up there. As it turned out, El Phaba had started using a detachable shower hose without making sure the sides of the bath were properly sealed. In fact, there was no sealant whatsoever! Consequently, the water was forming a large puddle beneath the bath and finding its way down to me! She was informed that using a hose on the taps is too much for the water pressure anyway. It didn’t take me long to realise that this was highly symbolic of the emotional negativity she was sending me with her clogs.

These neighbour conflicts represent an energetic situation as much as anything else, as all conflict does. The aggressor applies force, or pressure, and, if you just do nothing, they keep pushing you over, as it were. All I have done is delved a bit more deeply and explored the psycho-spiritual level of consciousness in this context. By relaxing and clearing out our own emotional ‘stuff’ we become less affected by others’ behaviour. It becomes a matter of preventing negativity from starting to build up within ourselves than heaping more onto the existing pile of negative energies. By evading the pressure psychologically, by yielding and surrendering, we are able to deflect or brush the attacks aside thus remaining free and powerful so we can make our move as and when we choose.

I am, not surprisingly, thinking of tai chi sparring now. The opponent pushes until you collapse. If there is anything in you that resists they will injure you. Their ‘positive’ force beats your rigid stance. You need to apply pressure to put them on the back foot. If you do nothing, your opponent will grow in confidence, believing that this time they have you licked. If you resist or react, whether internally or externally, you are unlikely to win. You do, however, need to display power to make your opponent realise that they are not succeeding, to shatter their confidence and shake the foundations of their pride and faith. They are probably targeting your weak spot and, likewise, instead of using up energy by reacting and protecting that area, you need to find and target their weak spot so that you can apply the principle of achieving maximum effect using minimum effort. Ideally, at all times, you will be empty, flowing and yielding, unaffected by anything, enjoying the dance playfully. Until you reach such a level of mastery, however, where you are always on top of the game, allowances must be made for your own blind spots or idiosyncrasies! In other words, you must have your wits about you because you could be required to respond to a threat in order to maintain your own balance and stay in the game.

"Whenever you are able, have a >look= inside yourself to see whether you are unconsciously creating conflict between the inner and the outer, between your external circumstances at that moment - where you are, who you are with, or what you are doing - and your thoughts and feelings. Can you feel how painful it is to internally stand in opposition to what is? When you recognise this, you also realise that you are now free to give up this futile conflict, this inner state of war." - Eckhart Tolle.

“I was struck with the similarity between how aikido experts connect with their opponent without unnecessary force and the methods I had been using to connect with a difficult person. I had been using all the techniques that I describe later in this book: removing my characterisation, visualising the person surrounded by clear light and imagining the person without fear. I further imagined the two of us having an ideal conversation. By silently connecting in my imagination with the person being difficult, what began in my mind eventually became a reality with the person. What started as a visualisation of clear light surrounding us both, including us in its warm glow, became an actual connection of trust between two people solving a problem…

                To aikido masters, a conflict is not judged as right or wrong. Instead, it is seen as energy. The warrior blends his energy with his opponent’s energy. By going with the momentum and force of the direction, leading the attacker to fall off balance. If you remove your concept that ‘so-and-so is being difficult’ and accept the situation as it is, you don’t need to use up so much energy. What if there were no such thing as the idea of a person being difficult? What if when someone was in a state of fear manifesting as anger, the most important thing another could do is be with that person until the anger ran down?”

- Betty Perkins (Lion Taming. The courage to deal with difficult people including yourself, Tzedakah Publications, CA, U.S., 1995, p.22-23).

Ideally, your actions need to be subtle but potent rather than blatantly offensive. But, hit them hard if necessary. I mean don’t be afraid to employ sterner measures when required. But, always, always, as a last resort. I have found that if your experience and responses, for the most part, resemble the softly flowing movement of the tides then this can be likened to the lashing of waves against rocks on the shore. In other words, it does not grate against your conscience but retains an element of smoothness and buoyancy that allows joy to continue or quickly return after a brief interruption. It might be necessary to take such action over and over again for days or weeks so that your tormentors get the message and see what you can do. They have to know and they might need occasional reminders. Otherwise, you are simply making yourself a sitting duck in their eyes and they will take pot shots at you even just for amusement because they can, because some people really don’t have anything better to do; they are that ignorant of their own beauty and potential. They may just have trouble understanding the law of cause and effect because they are so self-righteous and self-absorbed. Your positive power then decreases theirs. Potentially, it weakens their position and places them in a negative, more fearful energy where they are more unsure of themselves, confused about what to do, more reflective, more pessimistic, self-pitying, dejected or disturbed.

It is all just a game of chess. Your opponent is attacking and you do not want to waste all of your mental energy on defending yourself. You, too, need to focus on winning. You need to prepare for attacking in your own way and at the right time too, independent of their offensive. Intend to win!

"Make today a breeze not a battle. Never fight. Nothing is worth fighting for. Wisdom never fights, it waits patiently, speaks positively, releases easily, sees benefit in everything and envisions a future of abundance...knowing that all needs will be met at the right moment, in the right way. If you think life is a struggle you will always be struggling. If you think life is a breeze, your attitudes and actions will convey lightness and easiness. And that's what attracts everything you need, and much more. Make today a breeze not a battle.” - Unknown.

For sensitive souls like myself cold weather (particularly when I cannot afford to heat my home enough), constant struggle to survive and other difficulties in life can make it hard to find the will to live. In response to this vibration of stuckness life may send experiences that challenge one’s will so that we have to fight to survive or defend our space and preserve and even place more value on our own peace of mind. One might say that the inner strife is reflected on the outside, that we attract circumstances that threaten to push us over the edge but have also been sent, or invited, to make us stronger. The state of the world is but a result of all the wars going on inside each individual human being’s heart. Polarisation (between spirit and matter, higher and lower, masculine and feminine) has led to duality (good and bad, likes and dislikes, us and them) which, in turn, has led to conflict. Resolving the opposites, the masculine and feminine qualities within ourselves, leads to balance and harmony, and to cosmic unity. A crisis is often what is required to persuade us to change. [An earlier thought: Crises transform us (but they can also fuck us up ‘permanently’!]. I do believe that, at a soul level, we chose to make our way to the cliff edge. Deep down, we want to grow; we want to learn to fly; we’re tired of crawling around on our bellies and settling for less than we deserve as the angels we truly, each and every one of us, are. ‘Change your mind.’

“When harmony and balance is obtained then love will prosper and prevail on the Earth. Deep focus and concentration must be placed on mastering the mind to create only positive loving thoughts.” - The Community of Ascended Masters (transmitted through Natalie Glasson, 10 September 2008, www.ditrianum.org/English/Channelings/AscendedMasters/0001.htm and www.wisdomofthelight.com).

I am all for love and I feel that I have had a ‘love upgrade’ (since 9 September 2009) and that I am consciously moving in the direction of filling my heart with more and more love. However, I feel that I am also retrieving my power now after sacrificing it completely at birth in order to let go and surrender more, to sacrifice control in order to open and grow, to allow the petals to finally emerge at the top of the stem. I still maintain that the Monstaville series is about using intelligence and awareness to manage conflicts with people instead of either lashing out at them physically or verbally or feeling helpless and yielding to victimhood, which results in depression and repressed anger. In my case, it is really the latter that I have been working on partly because I am shy and vulnerable in some ways and partly because I do and always have put love first in my interaction with others. My own sensitivity and depth of feeling has, for this reason, paralysed me on more occasions than I care to remember. It could be argued that this has prepared the soil for me to discover and explore new ways of managing conflict. I have learned that reaction only serves to summon my ancient barbarian which only really serves to dig a deeper hole for myself. I believe, personally, in a foundation, or core, of love combined with balanced awareness that accommodates raw power yet trusts in tenderness by default. “Tenderness as a way of life,” as Dreaming Bear Kanaan puts it I think. This enables me to express power when required and then let go, to step out of tenderness briefly and then immediately return to it for my own sanity and wellbeing as much as anything! I have learned to define my boundaries more clearly rather than reacting unconsciously whenever they are pushed. I cannot say that my boundaries have changed but I can now see other people’s weaknesses for what they are which, really, is like saying that I am simply older and wiser. I make allowances for most types of behaviour that I do not find unbearable!

“All conflicts eventually lead to harmony. Conflicts are but alienated expressions of the One meeting each other again and finding ways to reach a state of harmony. Once you realise and recognise the One within everything and everyone, you will no longer feel the need to express disharmonious feelings like discontentment, jealousy and hatred.” - The Hierarchy through Frank Hoogerbeets (‘The Energies of Light and Dark: Finding Harmony Within,’ 11 November 2008, www.ditrianum.org).

 

Extreme experiences are both testing and challenging. There is a cut-off point where my boundaries are reached and where I have needed to develop greater wisdom and strength. Also, I believe, this life has been focused on breaking the eggshell of rigid boundaries in order to work on the feeling side of consciousness which has included a form of breakdown that taught me how valuable feelings are. From there, I have learned that it is also vital to release and transmute negative and repressed emotions from the past for which I have needed special assistance from higher beings in the inner planes. By the way, it is useful to know that you can only transmute emotions when they are there (something I learned through the teachings of P’taah and which I have subsequently observed in the way that St. Germain works with people). They can be brought to the surface by angels and masters but, generally, they rear their heads in response to the experiences that tend to trigger them.

My Light body, like a butterfly, has then been empowered, accompanied by the lesson that love is the key to freedom and happiness. Mixing power and tenderness ought naturally to produce a degree of love although they do not always seem compatible. I mean, as a concrete example, blessing or gratitude followed by asserting one’s power and then the restoration of blessing or gratitude is not the tidiest experience around but, then, what is neat and tidy in the third dimension? Until we achieve true self-mastery, we must inevitably move between dimensions. Sometimes, all that is required to encourage the neighbours to turn their television down is a subtle reminder of my presence. Inconsiderate people are often selfish or ignorant to the point where they are not even aware of one’s existence even though it was only yesterday that another noise battle kicked off.

“Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.” - Erich Fromm.

“If every human being recognised the power of the love and forgiveness principle, all consciousness on Earth would change instantly.” - Quan Yin (channelled through Lena Lees).

“It is the supreme elixir that overcomes the sovereignty of death. It is the inexhaustible treasure that eliminates poverty in the world. It is the supreme medicine that quells the world’s disease. It is the tree that shelters all beings, wandering and tired on the path of conditioned existence. It is the universal bridge that leads to freedom from unhappy states of birth. It is the dawning moon of the mind that dispels the torment of disturbing conceptions. It is the great sun that finally removes the misty ignorance of the world.” - Quan Yin (from A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life, a famous Mahayana Buddhist text circa 700 A.D.).

 

Egocentricity equates to limited intelligence. The mind cannot expand without energy from a deeper source than the physical personality. Admittedly, however, I am recalling this observation at a time when my next-door neighbours have turned up the volume of their TV in reaction to me talking to a friend on the telephone at the other end of the house. They take such actions out of hatred. What would love do now? Love would make them aware of my presence to give them a chance to turn their television down. Unfortunately, they appear to be so stupid or bloody-minded that they have forgotten how I need only put the radio on in the kitchen again and they will then acknowledge on some level, at least, that they needed only to turn the volume down a bit to avoid having to listen to garage music in the background. Or, perhaps that does not really bother them as much as I think it should do. I find it to be effect enough, generally, however. For me, it is very important to balance love for others with self-love. The question, ‘What would love do now?’ applies simultaneously to what is in my interests as well as that of my neighbours. I have to find a balance. I have to judge according to the good of all and that, to me, means to endure to a certain point and then take some form of action that is effective without being too destructive either to myself or others. That usually requires a degree of creative intelligence. The bottom line these days, however, is that I am not prepared to take on real stress on account of others’ behaviour. As soon as I feel it getting to me I have to get up and do ‘something.’

“’How do I learn to love unconditionally?’ ‘Be aware every time you criticise, judge or condemn anyone, including yourself. And stop doing it. Apply the discipline necessary to demand from yourself, a positive, loving outlook. Never let yourself get away with a negative thought. You may like to look at the following possibilities. 'Everyone is doing the best they can, with the data they have at hand'. 'Everyone on the planet is helping everyone else.'’” - Sandy Stevenson (‘Is Ascension really happening?’ 9 September 2007, www.lightascension.com/arts/isascensionhappening.htm).

Truth must be balanced by tenderness as well. Ultimately, love and truth are one. As St. Germain cautions, discernment is required where people are not ready for certain truths. He says we do not have the right to convey truth if someone is choosing a certain experience and does not want to know. I have been struggling with this matter personally. It is time for truth to return but gently, not imposed on people whether they like it or not even if this world has been plagued with nauseous belief systems for far too long. Truth ought not to equate with tyranny. I have yet to find a way to blend truth and kindness. In the meantime, silence appears to suffice since humour often makes matters worse. So many people are just so scared of themselves that there is so much they do not want to know.

“How sweet the words of Truth, breathed from the lips of Love.“ – James Beattie.

"We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart." - Martin Luther King, Jr. (Strength to Love, 1963).

This trilogy, this Monster, is but the beginning of a journey towards self-mastery. It is a valuable addition to our cultural library because more and more people are being born again as spiritual infants taking their first steps. However condescending that may sound, to an Ascended Master, that is a cause for celebration. You know, finally, after so many lifetimes of denying and resisting, of simply yelling and crawling around in the dirt, we choose to leave our comfort zones and risk trying new ways of ‘getting around,’ higher forms of behaviour. Oopsadaisy! Eventually, we will achieve a new level of social cohesion, of unity and maturity akin to the infant that walks on its own two feet and talks the language of the greater universe. Humanity itself is being reborn into Light, awakening from this dream of ego separation.

”The energy of love is abundant, waiting to be called upon.” - Thich Nhat Hanh.

Dreaming Bear also suggests that we approach the ego with a sense of compassion. “We talk about ‘killing the ego,’” he says. “What if we hugged it instead?...If we embrace our pain and out joy, we give them both permission to become bliss.” (Bridging Heaven and Earth Show, No.237, www.heaventoearth.com). The ego is always negative, according to St. Germain. It does not know how to be positive, he says. (AFW, 31 December 2009). Hence, the term, ‘negative ego.’ The ego is limited, fearful, needy and insecure because it is the product of one life, or one childhood. We are so much more than this but as long as we remain identified with this small ‘I’ we do not allow space for more Light to enter from our whole Self which has watched us repeat this pattern time and time again. Expanding one’s consciousness simply means opening up to know and express more of ourselves as we really are, as beings of eternal Light, love and intelligence, beauty and power. Since we are all One, these gifts are shared freely with our brothers and sisters; starting, perhaps, with those whom we love most easily and naturally.

"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them." - Thomas Merton.

Love lurks in the action that gives other people space, or a chance, without yielding to frustration or anger. It is a degree of love shining forth because we have invited and welcomed it, because we feel good about it, because, as St. Germain also says, ‘Love is self-fulfilling.’ It is the mind, when expressed without living from the heart, that constitutes ego separation and its subsequent tension and negativity. Open-hearted precedes open-minded just as turning on the headlights precedes driving safely at night. Once there is Light and once the mind is illumined by it, once the ego opens to receive Light, Divine Love, a degree of faith, of safety and of joy is restored within, without depending on external sources. We are healing the ego, as Salem puts it. He adds:

“Yes you are fortunate and blessed. You have chosen a path that has opened you to higher understanding and you have attempted to incorporate some principles in your life to help heal your ego. And yes, the more you do that the more you change mass consciousness and the more everything changes. Why do you think that those who have fortunes are suddenly becoming more socially conscious again? Do you think it is an accident or they were always that way? You are allowing that you see. You are healing and transforming the ego fears…It is a fascinating and exciting time. But trust, really trust that your good is of the utmost importance and there is not any good that is to be withheld from you. You stop the good because your ego is afraid of its own demise and you are afraid of the powerful being that you really are. When those two things feel safe then miracles happen. Nothing is withheld from you. You ask for something and it is there. You are going to see that more and more and more. Just do not be afraid of your own good and for goodness sake don’t sabotage it. You get a little bit of good and then you become afraid that it is going to be taken from you somehow because that is what has always happened. Don’t do that to yourself. Give great thanks for every moment of life that you have and embrace it no matter what it is and just love it. Know that everything is going to be better, more wonderful and expansive.” - Salem (on Redistribution of Wealth, channelled through Diandra, October 2008, www.inwardjourney.com/articles/arttemp.php?article_id=2001001).

Expressing one’s higher nature is the key to waking up from the illusion of separation and the shadow, the nightmare, that is cast as a result. Now that all of this has been made absolutely clear to me, it has most certainly transformed my beliefs and given me hope for the future even if the ideal of self-mastery and full awakening seems out of reach. 

The following is a prayer that I adapted from some advice which St. Germain gave to someone else but made sure I overheard and a few other phrases I’ve picked up along the way:

Beloved God, Goddess, Source of all existence

(or whatever you prefer)

Show me that I AM Love

Show me that I AM Loved

Show me what the Love I AM can do –

For me, for others and for this world

Show me the beauty and humour in everything

Show me that All is Love and All is Light

Show me that Love is all there is

Failing that, you could try this (not that it will do any good unless you are counting your blessings perhaps and therefore flowing graciously into abundance rather than creating more resistance):

Show me that I AM loved

And shower me with money!

[Retrospective note: Actually, this meddling resulted from not realising how profound this advice from St. Germain was at the time. We need to feel that we are loved by the Source/higher self in order to overcome the sense of abandonment that the ego insists on repeating in reaction to the ways things appear to be but are really just a dream. ‘Show me that I am loved’].

A love emphasis in one’s life is cool but not when it is shallow and homogenous like Christianity often is. Then it is imbalanced. A heart at the centre flanked by the wings of power and wisdom to any degree that does not diminish the core of divine love would appear more balanced. Love is a wise choice not a moral obligation that makes you feel you have no free will. The flip side of this, as we have experienced with the Christian religion, is fear and guilt. It is important to know that love is simply our original being beyond this realm of illusion in which we have been sleeping for so long. THAT is what we are expressing, our higher nature. It is simply the best choice on offer, the best choice that we have. It is the ultimate choice and the ultimate goal to which we are all evolving. And now that this quantum leap is upon us it really is time to wake up.

"Whatever the question, love is the answer." – A Course in Miracles (Jeshua channelled through Dr. Helen Schucman, The Foundation for Inner Peace, CA., U.S., 1976).

"Just as light changes when viewed through a prism, a situation can be completely transformed when viewed through the prism of love. When we see the world through a prism of love, all aspects of our lives will be transformed and made more beautiful." – Paul Adkins.

Imagine that we are now in the presence of a huge guru or angel, in his/her aura now, and we can hear a subtle buzzing sound if we attune ourselves to it; and this acts as a siren for the soul.

“…And you are all Buddhas, howsoever fast asleep and snoring. That makes no difference. Let me be your alarm. Open your eyes. You have slept long enough. It is time to awaken. The morning is knocking at the door.” – Osho.

“Presently you are like children whose parents are waking them in the morning to get dressed to go to school. The children are saying ‘Not yet! Just five minutes more -PLEEEEESE!’ But you are not waking up to go to school! You are waking up to go on the most exhilarating and exciting holiday of a lifetime that will never end! Stop resisting and allow yourselves to awaken into eternal joy!” – Saul (channelled through John Smallman, ‘The illusion is disintegrating around you,’ 30 June 2010,
www.johnsmallman.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/the-illusion-is-disintegra\ting-around-you).

However cosy people feel staying asleep in bed and denying the truth, anyone who knows what’s good for them and wishes to be happy will respond to the alarm clock sooner or later. First we take the risk of moving. GASP! Then we remember that we are not dead and set the intention to get up out of bed! HORROR! Once we are up and about, once we have had a wash, had ourselves a hearty breakfast (of divine love), kissed the wife - or husband - (Higher Self) and made our way out of the house we feel energised, joyful, enthusiastic and alive. We can’t wait to get on with expressing our true purpose and exploring our potential further. And, in actuality, having woken up to our true nature permanently, each of these things, the love, the freshness and clarity of mind, the joy, the intimacy with our Selves, the confidence and power, we carry within us throughout the day; indeed, for eternity.

"The Universe is waking up. Stop hitting snooze. Love awaits you.” - Levi Logan.

“There is already peace. All we have to do is love each other without shame. All we have to do is love each other without shame. All we have to do is learn to love ourselves and each other without shame and there will always be peace when that begins to happen…What happens when we begin to say to every heart we meet, ‘unconditional love.’ What if that were the first words you said to everyone you met from now on: ‘unconditional love.’ If we begin to love the world without conditions, despite the different colours of our skin because our hearts are the same colour…we are one people…the truth is we are each other…And everyone you meet, with joy in your heart, you say, ‘I love you and I don’t need anything from you except just let me love you without conditions.” – Dreaming Bear (Earth Day Maui 2008).

"Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart." - Marcus Aurelius.

"Even after all this time the Sun never says to the Earth ‘you owe me.’ Look what happens with a love like that, it lights the whole sky" – Hafiz.

“Jesus came not to start a religion, but show by his example the way Man should live. He was the perfect example of One who lived his word, and when he preached love that is exactly what he was - Love Incarnate. There is nothing else in your lives that is of such importance, and it starts by loving Self and then others. Since you are All One, why would you treat another part of yourself any differently from anyone else. Your principle lesson is to be able to express Unconditional Love, and when you can do so you can claim to have found the Way. We know that it is not easy to suddenly view life quite differently to what you have been used to, but if you are to progress you will need to change your beliefs.” - SaLuSa (channelled through Mike Quinsey, 5 April 2009, www.gfbymikequinsey.blogspot.com).

In an interview with Sri Mata Amritanandamayi, Delia Gallagher asked, “What do you think people are in search of?” Amma replied: “Fundamentally, what everyone needs is mental strength and self-confidence to manage the mind just as we manage the outside world.” We keep trying to learn one important lesson here on Earth: that of remaining positive amidst illusory negativity, to remember the Sun in overcast skies, being true to our spiritual Selves, our true, eternal Selves. This is one lesson the Self could not resist learning. It is the greatest challenge and its rewards the highest. When we succeed in purging ourselves of negative emotions we have the power to clear negative vibrations elsewhere. This is self-mastery. Identifying with the spiritual Sun within us, the clouds are unable to close our minds and others may be drawn to us and awaken to the power of the Self, of Reality, within themselves. Conscious power reigns over habitual unconsciousness, reality over illusion, truth over ignorance, Light over darkness. I guess, to achieve self-mastery, it is necessary to endure a negative environment as I have done for over a decade, to learn to transform the negative both within self and others into positive energy.

“I am learning to understand rather than immediately judge or to be judged. I cannot blindly follow the crowd and accept their approach. I will not allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation. Fortunately for me, my self-knowledge has transcended that and I have come to understand that life is best to be lived and not to be conceptualised. I am happy because I am growing daily and I am honestly not knowing where the limit lies. To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude.” – Bruce Lee.

Experience is always temporary but the self-awareness obtained through it is enduring and even eternal. “In India,” says Osho, “we define truth as that which continues forever and forever and forever. The eternity of it is its essence. That which begins and ends is 'maya,' a dream, an illusion.”

“Bad things are not the worst things that can happen to us. NOTHING is the worst thing that can happen to us.” – Richard Bach (One, Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, New York, U.S., 1988).

True, because when nothing happens we are neither learning and growing nor loving, creating or serving.

“Remember where you came from, where you're going, and why you created this mess you got yourself into in the first place.” – Richard Bach (Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, Arrow Books Ltd, London, U.K., 1977).

The choice of entering Maya is to polish our character and become more conscious. For many it is to overcome weakness and fear. For others it is equally to further evolution but through service. I think we all agree on a soul level at least that getting sucked and falling this far down the sewage pipe was not such a great idea. Hence, whoever goes first, which is irrelevant, we will awaken from the dream in due course.

“That’s what learning is, after all; not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we’ve changed because of it, and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games. Losing, in a curious way is winning.” – Richard Bach (The Bridge Across Forever: A True Story, William Morrow & Company, New York, U.S., 1982).

“In this deeply embedded quest for light, those of you who have been the grid anchors, divining rods and bridge builders have had an immeasurable amount of karmic energy to sort through.  With much other-worldly experience, you have had the role of expunging, cleansing and filtering the outworn energies from the earth's grid and ley lines so that new energies could replace the old and so all others could experience the infusion of new light through a greater expansion of love.

On your journeys, you have experienced much...you have released much...you have realised much...and you have begun to recognise your divinity in ways that others will begin to marvel at. You will remember things of your human history that will support the building of a new world and you will come to a place of comfort and confidence within yourself that you have never experienced in your human journey.

This comfort results from the reuniting of your internal twin flame, your omnipresent god-self with your created human-self, the absolute divination that you were promised at the start of your selfless travails and in service to the One.

                [From Warrior to Creator] What is most important that you realise through the opening of these powerful celestial gateways is that your role as warrior has definitively expired. In truth, you retired from this role many gateways ago, yet many of you are still shedding those skins in search of your new ones.

Beloved counterparts, we say to you specifically...release yourselves fully into the bosom of divine creation now, for you no longer have a need to fight for your countenance...countenance is securely upon you…

                For those in service to the One through paving the path of the heart, you have seen and experienced great struggle. The struggle of misfortune, deep loss, and even the waning of physical health as you worked within your own sacred vessels to release and transmute many eons of collective mis-creation. The road has been long and at times, unforgiving, and though we are well-versed in your accomplishments, en masse, we have yet to share with you how your earthly abundance will come to be.”

- The Spiritual Hierarchy (channelled through Lauren C. Gorgo, 14 July 2010, ‘Your Powers Are Returning Exponentially,’  www.transmissionsfromhome.blogspot.com/2010/07/your-powers-are-returningexponentially.html).

22 June 2013. Thought I would add a final update here. Life in my little corner of this little village where I now live has developed more character over the past six months. From about the beginning of Spring (not that we had a real Spring here, just one long, cold winter), someone decided to dump their dog shit (in black plastic doggie bags) in my dustbin, which has no lid and often fills up to a quarter with rainwater. I would have to turn the bin upside down and empty the contents into the street next to my house, which is a little tricky since the bin was tied to a drainpipe. In fact, the very first time, I remember, I put it in with my trash and put the bin bag out. It happened several times after that. Eventually, I thought of removing the bin and keeping it in the cellar. However, I decided to keep it there upside down, to see if that would put them off. It didn’t. The person continued leaving these bags of pooh on the upside down bin every few days. I would hurl them off into the street by kicking the bin but sometimes whoever it was would pick the bag up and put it back on top of the bin. So, in the end, I gave up  and took the dustbin down to the cellar and just stored wood in it. Was it the scouser’s kids with their bassett called Humphrey? Or was it the ‘kickboxer round the corner’ she indicated as a candidate. OR was it the ‘lesbian-with-a-kid’ who hates not just me but everybody? The latter option only occurred to me a couple of days when I passed her in the street walking a sheepdog. I never knew she had a dog and walks past my house with it. She used to drive right up outside my house to reverse back into the parking space outside here and turn the car stereo up full blast if I happened to be outside. Not quite sure if she stopped or if I just haven’t been a visible target for a while.

One suggestion I was considering was that of putting a sign up. Here’s the ‘final draft’ I had prepared for the occasion:

PLEASE DO NOT

LEAVE YOUR

DOG POOH ON

THIS STREET

CORNER.

KINDLY TAKE IT

HOME

(YES BACK TO

YOUR HOUSE).

THANK YOU

I was reluctant to do this because I did not want every dog walker in the area assuming I might suspect or be accusing them.

The family next door are bearable. I have only heard the couple argue once so far - when they were getting into their car. They were accusing each other of being a bad person, saying that a text one of them had received was implying this. This house does not have proper, modern double-glazing so I hear everything that goes on in the street. The neighbours do not disturb me at all. They are a little rough though and the mother shouts at her daughter pretty much every time they go out as well as at other times. Perhaps they have moved from a tougher town and aspire to fit in by being more civilised. There’s always hope! It’s such a relief to live in the end house and only have to worry about one set of neighbours though I have to say.

On a positive note, my friend who lived down at the end of the street adjacent to me, was thrown out by his landlord who initially claimed that the house was being repossessed. It turned out that the guy wanted the house back for himself and/or a family member. My friend and his partner have two children so they couldn’t force them out in just a couple of months. There was eventually a deadline. By that time, however, a neighbour happened to know the guy who owns the abandoned house opposite me and he agreed to do the house so they could move in and the young family would have a garden. The work went very slowly and, after some pressure, it was rushed at the end so they just about made it. I helped them to move and the scouse lady gave me a leather sofa she was throwing out which was very helpful, making my front room cosier. Her father happened to be visiting that day and without him we would never have succeeded in shifting their large sofa through the front door. It’s cool to be neighbours with someone you actually like and can talk to. They’re both thoughtful Sagittarians but he’s 24 and not open to all the weird shit I know about. Not many bohemian people in my village. In fact, however, I know at least four artists, including myself, live here and we’re about as boho as it gets in zee village. It’s a nice quiet place, generally speaking, with a little drama here and there, largely revolving around the alcoholic down the road. But I won’t go into that.

3 July. I am preparing to go camping and fasting locally and have discovered that the draconian knife law in the UK means that responsible people cannot afford to buy a decent knife unless they have middle-class money. The custom appears to be that of purchasing knives made by specialists. I found that people from most countries can buy good folding knives, bowie knives, etc. cheaply on Ebay and Amazon but they are unavailable to inhabitants of the United Kingdom. I could find only crappy knives with plastic handles that are OK for sharpening pencils. It made me feel impotent, like the nanny state treating us like children. It take it as another sign of an oppressed people. Criminals evidently continue using knives anyway and in Pigsy’s case a kitchen knife from the cutlery drawer will suffice. They may even get a buzz from it because it’s illegal and they are possibly better off taking their chances with the Police than the more hazardous threat of their victim also having a knife about their person. As far as I remember we can be done for having lockable knives or knives with blades longer than 3 inches in public unless we have a good reason, such as needing them for work. But this law restricts purchase. Another case of the few being allowed to spoil things for everyone else. This is certainly the bane of British society. I’m not impressed.

“The Love flooding into all your hearts so enticingly and irresistibly is successfully encouraging you to release all that is not in alignment with It. As It does so you are finding that your hearts are not just small receptacles where you hold your fears, worries, anxieties, and the sometimes relentlessly fading memories of happier times. No, they are vast spaces, infinitely large, into which endless joy is about to flow as you release all that has been troubling you. Intend – determinedly intend – to open your hearts fully to be embraced by and enveloped in our Father’s divine field of Love, and bring yourselves and humanity forwards to your awakening.” - Saul (channelled through John Smallman, ‘Your hearts are vast spaces into which endless joy is about to flow,’ 10 July 2013,

www.johnsmallman.wordpress.com/2013/07/10/your-hearts-are-vast-spaces-into-which-endless-joy-is-about-to-flow).

8 July. Two nights ago (Saturday), I ended up in the local pub that has just re-opened after the previous landlord ran off with the money. I met the guy with whom I went there the night before and we stood talking to a friend of his at the bar. A very athletic Marine who showed up is the ex of my new acquaintance’s new girlfriend and he does not like or approve of him. The guy was scared and glum in contrast to his usual modus operandi. Consequently, we ended up talking a bit about martial arts and fighting and I shared snippets of my story, about Pigsy and internal martial arts. The other guy told me I’m too nice and he came across as being quite hard although possibly just stuck in his ways as a northern redneck. I caught the Marine staring at this man who was his ex’s new boyfriend from the side of the pub and he eventually caught me staring at him and quickly turned away. Anyway, it was the guy I’d only just met that evening who I walked home with since he lives round the corner from me. On the way home we approached nine or ten kids hanging round a bus stop shelter. My companion told me that there could be trouble. I just laughed and said, ‘No, they’re only kids!’

As we walked through (rather than around) the group of teenagers, on the pavement, a few of them asked about my beard, which I have dyed red, and there was a little teasing but I just went along with it and had a little laugh with them. They were just curious, I thought. I didn’t mind. They were a hundred times more civil than kids hanging around on street corners in the scummy little village in Essex where I was brought up! As we carried on walking past them, however, this larey, hyper kid ran up behind us and yelled at me, ‘Where did you get that beard?’ Startled, I stopped to turn around and look at him. He was grinning and I noticed he had quite a dense ‘coiffure’ so I said, ‘Where did you get that hair?’ He didn’t know how to reply to that (or didn’t know what I meant) and I just turned and carried on walking, expecting the guy I was with to do the same, especially since it was nothing to do with him anyway. Alas, a little way on I suddenly heard him talking to the teenage boy. I watched and waited for the boy to calm down and return to his friends but he didn’t. Instead, he continued answering back or whatever (I couldn’t hear what was being said) and my companion walked slowly towards him and then towards someone else who had started to get involved.

This was in the middle of a main road at about 00.30a.m. The first boy was still talking and yelling and that guy then held his hand out about 18 inches to the side of the boy’s head and slapped his face, quite hard it appeared. The boy cried and shouted that he shouldn’t have hit a 15-year-old. He wanted to attack the man but his friends held him back on the other side of the road. By that time I was calling the guy, saying, ‘Come on let’s go.’ He responded when I said his name loud enough. Two older boys on bikes cycled past, found out what had happened and then came by again with one saying, ‘You’ve been drinking haven’t you?’ I do think that the boy felt that he was safe with his mates there and too young to be hurt so he could do as he pleased without any repercussions. But I also think he was just being playfully cheeky albeit in his loud, rude, hyper, hot-headed way. On the surface, it did sound insulting but so what? It is possible that he was simply responding innocently to my being a southerner and was simply taking an interest in the fact that I was different. Hopefully, he learned a lesson from the experience. I mean, he did not appear to understand the risk involved whereas his friends were much more polite and careful.

We walked to the end of his street before parting company. I reminded him that they were just kids and said what he did was uncalled for but he told me that he has been taught that you respect your elders and that kids today are not doing that. People never used to put up with that kind of behaviour so it did not happen as much. I said that kind of attitude had gone decades ago down south. And, of course, kids now run riot and rule right across the country although it is the adults you have to watch for more up here! Oh yeah, and I also said that it is ultimately a good thing that we have more freedom, that this is just a transition and is leading to greater awareness and harmony.

When I was living in London I often said that English people do not take themselves seriously unlike most other nationalities who identify more with external institutions (English people behave more like servants). What I have realised, however, is that this does not apply to people living up north who do take themselves too seriously and are therefore more like foreigners. In fact, they resemble Germans as much as they do southerners and there is a definite affinity there. Redneck males here do not seem to like kids at all owing to resentment resulting from the way they were treated as children. It seems to have been an inherited intolerance then. I also said that someone like me who dyes their beard red doesn’t give a shit what anyone thinks. And I don’t, of course, believe you can go around hitting kids just for mouthing off and being rude. If I did, I wouldn’t have done it. I do wonder if he would have acted in the same way had he not been drinking. I think he would and we had only had a few beers so he was far from being pissed. I also wonder if that guy smelled blood and just used this incident as an excuse to enjoy taking his aggression out on someone. The solution he had come up with when I mentioned my old Pigsy dilemma when we were talking in the pub was to whack him in the face with a frying pan or something while he was sleeping although he didn’t seem to have figured out how to break into someone’s flat without waking them up.

It just so happened that I had been offered a free listing weekend by Ebay as a ‘valued customer.’ I had a dozen items to sell and had only managed to list half of them. So I started listing the five t-shirts since I needed some cash to compensate for the camping equipment I had purchased. One of the t-shirts was the black goth one I purchased from the website Sophie Lancaster’s mother Sylvia set up after her daughter’s savage death (www.sophielancasterfoundation.com). I had always wanted to wear it to support her cause and display the cool logo on the front and message which reads: S.O.P.H.I.E. stamp out prejudice, hatred and intolerance everywhere. The t-shirt has a very wide neck which I just did not like at all and that prevented me from wearing it more than three or so times. Anyway, I visited the website in order to collect a little information to add to the listing and, to my surprise, learned that Stubbeylee Park, where the incident had taken place, is in Bacup, which is only a few miles from where I live (I always thought it was nearer to Leeds). Not that I have ever been there because it is just over the border in Lancashire and everything I have heard about the people there has been very negative. Someone once told me that this town has appeared in several episodes of The League of Gentlemen, which I never watched personally. I am told that the reason this series features Bacup is that many people there are renowned for being rude and offensive, and are therefore well suited to its character. Literally anything can get their ‘backs up.’ According to an article I found online (www.chavtowns.co.uk/2005/04/bacup), Bacup is a ‘chav haven’ and I was not surprised to find one commenter linking it to severe domestic violence since the psycho couple who lived next door to me when I first moved here were from Bacup.

I am thinking now that if it does not sell on Ebay I might take it to a charity shop in Bacup as a reminder to the community. I’m sure that Rob and Sophie volunteered at a soul level to make that sacrifice and teach the local community about the effects of prejudice and violent attitudes. One hopes that the experience opened a few hearts anyway. I am also glad that I decided to dye my beard! It is certainly challenging redneck attitudes in these parts. A guy I know in the pub over the road was sneering hatefully at me right in front of my face on Friday. Good! I do not go to local pubs very often, by the way. For one thing, I can’t afford to, but drinking alcohol is just not compatible with my spiritual life although I do often have a pint if I go out to play a few songs. I’m not hanging round with aggressive rednecks anymore! The more I think about it the more I feel sure that boy did not mean any harm and was simply a bit too excitable and simple or something. I think he just wanted to join in or had a delayed response and wanted some communication with me. What worries me is that he was actually responding to my spiritual vibration at a soul level and was innocently following his intuition, to connect and possibly learn something; in other words, sharing love. Then again, perhaps he missed the earlier ‘jibes’ and that was his spontaneous reaction, in which case it was extremely careless and dangerous. [Retrospective note: 5 February 2014. I now have some friends who live in or near Bacup and they are a delightful bunch of people. They rarely hear of any trouble and, from what I gather, the troublemakers comprise a few Irish families who live at one end of the town. As I have now added to Book II, the press conveniently left this fact out. However, I get the impression that there are a couple of rough council estates there that give the place a bad name].

“Polish yourself every day. None of us are perfect and we can’t change what we did or said yesterday but we can choose to modify our behaviour today.” - Gary Bate (from ‘7 Principles of higher conscious living,’ 2012, www.whatstress.com).

Speaking of reactionary retards…

5 August 2013. OK, so last Thursday, the (middle-aged) Irish guy who moved into the flat above the alcoholic (probably because they move in similar circles) had a few friends over, two young Irish lads and a girl. I met the guys on the way home from the woods. I was carrying some wood back for the fire and they were carrying beer in plastic bags and commented on the wood. One had a long scar, presumably from a knife, right across his face from his forehead down to the bottom of his nose or thereabouts. He asked if I wanted a hand and, while I politely declined his offer, I made it clear that I did not welcome the intrusion since they looked like rowdy ruffians. The (Asian-looking) lady who lives at the back of this unfortunate dwelling (the houses here are all back-to-back, built for mill workers long ago) has already endured bouts of loud music from the downstairs flat. I am not sure if she has had problems with the Irish guy before but, anyway, she had evidently reached a point where she couldn’t take anymore and went round to politely ask if he would turn the volume down. The reply was no. She is pregnant and due in a month’s time so going round to this wasp’s nest was not such a great idea.

‘Don’t come round to my house and knock on the door’

That’s what law enforcement’s for

After that, she talked about the situation with her sister-in-law on the phone and it appears that she sent her husband or someone round to deal with it. So, this guy knocks on the door and they all come out and hurl abuse at him, holding cans of lager, threatening violence and shouting at the tops of their voices, for about twenty minutes. I am not sure if they actually hurt the guy but he eventually got in his car and instead of driving off...well, I’m not quite sure what he did. I think he stopped outside their door and got out for some reason or it could have been that this was when the two younger men and the girl came out. They threatened to smash his windscreen and allowed him to get back in his car although he had to pull the door hard because one was holding it. Then, foolishly, he drove up and down in this flash newish car trying to scare them, pretending to run them over. Ridiculous behaviour but he was understandably angry. I think what happened next was that seconds after he drove off the police arrived. My friend’s partner had called them because the violent shouting in the street had woken their little daughter up and she did not stop crying. The Irish people went back in their flat and turned the music up again. I know that the police banged on their door but I don’t think they were able to enter the property. The woman over the road told them that her two girls, aged five and seven, were ‘scared shitless.’

Apparently, the crazy lesbian woman who lives between those two houses, on the corner, had reversed her car earlier in the day (she is a mad driver, at least when parking and setting off) and crashed into another car. My mate told me their was a full-on brawl in the street because a guy got out of her car and they all ended up losing it! I told him that perhaps the heavy rainfall and flooding we have had recently may have released some negative energy, bringing to the surface to be cleared, and they had responded to it. He said I told him it was a quiet, peaceful place. Well, it was last year I said, except for the psycho neighbours I had had but the new ones were not so bad. Then he reminded me that they are always arguing and that they can hear the woman shouting at her kids when they sit in the garden during the nice weather. We have also had some long-haired guy in his 30s move into a flat dead opposite this street, on the main road, who made himself at home by playing loud dance music all hours of the day. That appears to have stopped so perhaps someone succeeded in shutting him up. Or perhaps he is away on holiday! I have no idea what’s going on but can only ask Archangel Michael to assist in bringing people of the Light rather than destructive forces to the area and, preferably, to somehow get rid of these troublemakers who belong in rundown, urban ghettos with like minds! These hooligans are certainly not welcome here.

7 August. A neighbour invited me round to his house this evening along with a mutual friend. I lasted about an hour. I just remember this guy from Rochdale, in his mid-40s, who had been drinking beer, attacking the Jews – all Jews – and blaming everything on them, adding that he did not have a bank account or buy newspapers because Jews own them all. He also explained that the only reason he has a TV is that you do not have to pay for a licence because it is not the government but the Jews who want us to have a licence but we have not agreed to it and no law has been enforced to make us. So, when they come knocking on his door he asks them what they want and tells them that there is no law that says we have to pay for a TV licence. He was saying that all Jews should therefore be gassed and told us how he and his mate got out of a bus near a Jewish memorial and pissed on it. I said you can’t paint all Jews with the same brush and endeavoured to explain that the people controlling the world are not real Jews but merely exploit the Jewish population, many of whom readily sell their souls for money. I told him the story of the Mongolian tribes migrating to Eastern Europe, creating the empire of Khazaria, how they were kicked out of Britain and then other European countries because they established themselves as money lenders and took everyone’s money. And how they had then mixed with the aristocracy and royal families and from there, taken over the world with a view to enslaving humanity (I did not add ‘with help from some destructive ETs’).

He kept trying to interrupt me but I just continued talking. I’m pretty sure he didn’t listen to a word I said anyway. He told us that 250,000 Jews moved to America (during or after WWII I guess he meant) and that they now own everything. I was saying that the Elite had tried to persuade Jews to move to the Middle East to establish Israel but confiscating their wealth and persecuting them in Germany. I said that those who lost their lives in the Holocaust had done so because they had not cooperated or they were being used to scare and manipulate others. I was met with a quick retort that it was right that they had been gassed to death. The sole reason behind this argument, it appears, was that this nutter believed it! Or claimed to. Ether way, it was too much for me and the guy did not know when to stop either being or behaving like an asshole whether he found it funny to do so or genuinely believed everything he was saying. I mean, there is a small chance that he may have been trying to impress me by being witty and entertaining, neither of which I found him to be for a moment.

He said that if we had not, as a nation, gone and attacked, robbed and enslaved other countries we would not be ’where we are now.’ I laughed and said that Britain is nothing but a crappy war machine that has been controlled by the same people who now mainly bully the world through America but that it is not ‘us’ but the Elite conning and pushing us around. He said that China is dangerously powerful and could be a big problem. I also tried to explain the role that China had played, how the Federal Reserve Bank in America had taken their gold and made a deal to return it after 60 years.

I told him that it was irrelevant that we had invited foreigners to do the nightshifts and other jobs we did not want to do. They had learned how to do everything themselves, he said, so they could set up shop and compete with us in industry and take over. He was also insisting that we are heading for bloody revolution as a result of all of this. He did not listen to what I had to say about all of this being history and that the bloodbath is not going to happen. That was new information he was not prepared to take in. The very idea that a new world might be on the horizon could not be in any way valid because then he would have to shut up for a minute and admit that he does not know anything. I told him he is just looking at the way things appear and not seeing the subtle activity behind the scenes or aware of the psycho-spiritual dimension of life. When I said that he needs to do some research he responded by stating that he has done the research. I then said something like if he looked on my website he would realise that he has not. But, of course, he would just say that it was all nonsense.

And then he started trying to tell me that I must be a Jew (after asking me a few times if I am Jewish). Oh yeah, and before we had reached this point in the conversation, he showed us various parts of his head – mainly at the back - and face where he has been bottled in the past. When I asked him why he said he didn’t know and that it ‘just happens.’ I’m not sure how he has managed to remain on this planet to be honest! I remember his wife holding a debit card in her hand for ages, waiting to pay for the wardrobe that had just been delivered. Haha.

This guy told me that people in Bacup do not like change, which includes anything different. He blamed the murder in the park on that and his wife said that there are Goths living there and they seem to manage. They both agreed that people have woken up a bit in Bacup since that fateful day. My friend said he always behaves outrageously and stupidly when he drinks.

8 August. My friend told me he stayed out till 1.30 in the morning last night and that his host ranted on and on all evening and even got his dick out! Apparently, he said he used to ‘own’ Rochdale like some kind of gangster. I said that hating Jews and calling complete strangers Jewish is the reason why he has been bottled eight times and that he must be here in hiding. Anyway, I also told him that I am here for the peace and quiet, being close to nature and the good people I find. I said that guy is a nutcase and I don’t want anything to do with people like that. I was telling another friend that, even if it was mostly the guy’s sense of humour, in a rude, crude and reckless kind of way, he might be compared to Bernard Manning. Manning always professed to be sweet and innocent and assured the public that he was just doing his job as a professional comedian, making people laugh. Mrs. Merton, a.k.a. Caroline Herne, however, caught him out when she interviewed him. He turned out to be a fascist bully after all! Underneath all that…fascist bullying!

An online friend in America sent me an encouraging comment on Facebook yesterday: “Telling it how it is, not how it may be.' Keep kicking ass on all planes of existence.” I told him, “Where I live now all men know everything already apparently! i.e. they're a bunch of fascists!” I then responded: “Well around here many men are philosophers with all the answers they can squeeze out of their assholes. They wouldn't know what Google was if it hit them over the head and flushed them down the toilet backwards though! We're talking major philistines here!”

“It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.” - Dale Carnegie.

“Don't waste a minute not being happy. If one window closes, run to the next window - or break down a door!” - Anon.

“Existence is hilarious! If you just have eyes to see the hilarious points you will be surprised: in life there is no place to be serious. Everybody is slipping on banana peels - you just need an insight to see. One just needs a little alertness to see and find out: Life is really a great cosmic laughter. Those who become silent and happy join in the laughter. Laughter is my message. I do not ask you to do prayer. I ask you to find moments, situations, in which you can laugh whole-heartedly. Your laughter will open a thousand and one roses within you.” - Osho (Laughter is my Message).

“Never be afraid to laugh at yourself. After all, you could be missing out on the joke of the century.” - Dame Edna Everage.