Slight madness!

Europe 1981 on.

Stepping back again to the time after I had completed my journey around the South Island of New Zealand. This is not an autobiography but I wanted to give a taste of what was happening for me at the time. This is about the spiritual journey with a brief description of the events that form a “background”

I find it hard to say that the next few years of life were anything special or had anything progressive in terms of the spiritual journey. I worked, I had girlfriends, and spent my spare time rather aimlessly and drank quite a lot of beer

In 1981 I became a staff nurse in Nelsons psychiatric hospital and stayed for eight months. I then was a Youth Hostel Warden in the Southern Alps village of Mount Cook, nestled under New Zealand’s highest mountain, in the land of glaciers snow, and much rain.

I spent a year as the House Director of a community for the recovery of the mentally ill in the South Island city of Christchurch. I travelled the length of New Zealand again, this time with a campervan. I forgot about my spiritual self, especially about my time as a monk almost completely, as I became enmeshed in the particular life experiences that I was living through. I guess my spiritual spark was still there, but it was veiled by the outer activities.

I left New Zealand in 1984, and I returned after travels in Australia to England, and went to Wales for a summer to live with my girlfriend, who had accompanied me on some of my travels in New Zealand. This period I see as completing another cycle of 10 years, after 10 years in India, with a return to some spiritual endeavors.

My life at the time in Wales consisted of lazy days spent on the beach, with travels around Wales, and many evenings in pubs. Consequently I was starting to put on weight. Until the age of 36 I had been a skinny as a rake in spite of eating anything and everything. The practice of seven years indulgence since my return from India took effect.

Also without realizing it, I was starting to rely on alcohol to provide the happiness of my days and evenings. I had not meditated or practiced any yoga for years. Still my physical health was remarkably robust, but level of fitness was becoming pathetic. I was reasonably intellectually active, and had some culturally inclined interests.

We drove to the south of France and found opportunities for work immediately in Monaco. A very wealthy English lady required assistance with her elderly husband who had Alzheimer’s. Free accommodation, food and a salary! We had our own car and went skiing a lot. Otherwise food and especially alcohol was very cheap at that time. We were able later to travel in southern Spain and have two weeks skiing in Andorra.

We returned to the UK, but came back soon as my girlfriend had a teaching job in Andorra, where we then spent the winter. We had full season passes to a ski field, which was “down the road” from our accommodation. This is when I wrote my book English-Man, Beggar-man. Holy-Man, about my time on the road as a hippy from England to India, and about my 10 years in India as a Hindu monk.

This book never got published, although I tried briefly in the UK. Then I felt incredibly restless and I left my girlfriend and England and went back, planning to go to Australia via New Zealand. I embarked on a new future of work, career, marriage, getting money. I still never really dropped my Eastern philosophy, even when it was mainly at a subtle level. I could say therefore that I have a twin personality, rather than a split personality.

Rajo Guna was predominant?

The Gunas

I try not to repeat the extensive use of Sanskrit words, as in my previous book, which was after all focused around my spiritual practices as a monk in India.

There is however an interesting description in Sanskrit about three qualities or Gunas of nature.

If you are into healthy activities, healthy diet, and engaging in spiritual practice, our nature has some “purity”. This is Sattva Guna. (Sattva means “pure”).

If we are in engaged in the world of pleasure seeking, or engaging in life for material benefit mainly we are Rajasic and in Rajo Guna.

If we are living in darkness, addictions, suffering deep mental health problems, we are Tamasik. Stuck in Tamo Guna. In the darkness

Therefore there are three qualities of nature, and three types of food, and three types of activities, and so on.

Have a guess which Guna you are sitting in!

A lot of us plough our way through this world through our respective careers, marriage, relationships, social experiences, hobbies, interests, and especially desires. So Rajo Guna predominates.

More History…..

Throughout the 80,s I was not engaged in a spiritual journey or a programme. However this was to be a space in time, that changed dramatically back to full acceptance of my spiritual being, my essential Divine Nature, that is also all the Truth of all existence , and certainly attainable by all human beings. (That is if this view is accepted and surrendered to through your chosen spiritual pathway and practice).

Several years spent in Europe threw up for me the issue of alcohol and weight gain. I had three cycles of putting on 10 Kg. and then losing that after two months of a low alcohol and low carb diet. That time I never drank to significant drunkenness, nor remember any hangovers.

In Europe at that time alcohol was extremely cheap and I drank sometimes daily to 1 to 2 bottles of wine at a time. I had no thoughts then about alcohol as a problem, other than causing weight gain and increasing my appetite. This was to be a key issue for me later in my life! Interestingly when I returned to New Zealand in 1987 my first work position was with a community alcohol service. At that point I was keen on returning to a purer or more spiritual life, and so for some years I remained more interested in meditation than going to bars.

I think in 1987 I felt the dormant yogic flame that had been slowly fading, coming back into my awakening awareness. The sleeping mantras begun again to revolve in sluggish brain cells. I even took to sitting down to meditate for brief and infrequent periods.

So as 10 years had gone by in India as a monk, now 10 years had passed in the West in the material net. Now I was back at the beginning of a new phase. The next 10 years were practical because I learnt about my own mental instability, marriage, fatherhood, relationships and career. Even though I was strongly negatively affected at times, (and quite dramatically), I feel lucky to have the great fortune to experience life in such depth of highs and lows, the fascinating and the stimulating, and the painful. Yet so much in development lessons.

Seems to me it all just happened. One of my customs has been a devotion to the Goddess, since India, where I turned to Kali, Lakshmi, and Saraswati. All actually forms of the Shakti, that manifests in our bodies as Kundalini and works through the chakras. (This is covered in depth in “Om Divine Grace”). For me what happens and in Life and the Universe is Goddess driven, and thus my writings are also Goddess inspired.

I am playing a role in whatever turns up and I’m sure it will continue to work that way in my best interest. So: “its karma man”. Destiny is all, or the will of God is paramount.

But which God?

I was essentially happy with any spiritual “thing” which presented before me and I investigated it all. He or She, God, or Higher Power. I am Multi-faith and have freely participated over the last forty years in Christianity, Buddhism, Baha’i etc. etc. Whatever now helps I do that. (Which is now very refined and also espoused in my writings). I have no issues with anyone’s faith or spiritual path. None!

I could not say that I was then self-realized but now my philosophy is that a native natural state is to be Divine and from that perspective it is relevant to talk about being realized as our true state within Cosmic Consciousness. In this space it is not necessary to attain anything with regard to the soul and the outer world.

Gunas – continued

At this point meditation is spontaneous and does not necessarily involve sitting in a quiet room. However it becomes also natural to enjoy contact with spiritually minded people, who also meditate, or have some devotional philosophy. The realized person doesn’t feel the need to journey to anywhere on this plane or even to follow any rules that spiritual practice usually mandates.

Nevertheless the qualities of nature still exist.

Going down dark roads and you’re sick of it all? It means you’re in Tamasic mode

When we are in Sattvic mode we are pure, and we like activities with health giving outcomes, both mental and physical.

This means also we eat simple healthy food and avoid Rajasic food. (Think coffee here!). Alcohol is Rajasic, but alcoholic drinking is Tamasic, when it becomes destructive.

From a realized souls perspective the Gunas act at all times but the soul is the witness of those activities. So from that perspective technically we can be Enlightened, and yet behave in the mode of any of the Gunas. E.g., “the drunken master”, as described in some Tibetan texts. (Its theoretical)!

Rajasic persons like the pleasures of life: good food and wine, with “life in the fast lane” a popular goal. Then consequently we suffer physical problems from the minor, such as indigestion, to severe, such as heart, money loss, addictions, and depression/anxiety. We are high sometimes and depressed sometimes. We rage and rant, fueled by desire, and aim for own personal gain.

If we are in Sattvic mode we cope with life in equipoise.

The Tamasic road is dark, and we may be deeply into addiction, but now at a painful only level. Violent, stupid or destructive become descriptor words.

In Sattvic mode though, we may not even be seeking self-realization or engaged spiritually as we maybe are just happy and satisfied enough, and we are lucky to have this personality.

Strangely I have felt more urge to turn to the spiritual side as a result of some destructive, negative, depressed, or addictive periods! However life’s journey gives us experience of all the Gunas.