My mother and father were atheists. More, my mother sneered at (and still can’t believe how stupid Christians are) most religions in a superior tone and taught me to disregard religious belief.
My father taught me ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ he said, just to be on the safe side.. (in other words, in case he was wrong).
I was exempt from religious studies in school (Religious studies - in the 80’s that meant learning about Christians) and spent the religious studies time with a child who wore a turban, a French blond boy and two girls that had their hair covered, sat close to each other and never spoke to anyone.
The revelation
What happened?
I was 21.
It was August 1993.
I was walking the dogs around the small farm property I lived on in Nagambie. I looked up at the sun. It was golden.
I was feeling good, refreshed, relaxed with my lifestyle.
I looked up and breathed the air and felt the world open up before my eyes.
It felt like the blinds were taken away and the earth became heaven and I saw everything merge and become one.
I saw through the individuality of each object and saw, with my own eyes, another dimension of reality.. what seemed obviously the REAL reality, and how every one thing, was actually the same as ALL things.
Tears began to stream down my face… and my heart was too small for my body… my chest felt like it would cave in and I was incapable of receiving the information without a dramatic emotional response.
The impact of that moment, with all of its ramifications, changed intrinsically my relationship with life.
I cried for three days.
I tried to put words to what I saw as the visual unveiling of the world.
And ‘something’ was talking to me. And that something is still always consciously there, when I call it into awareness. But it doesn’t feel like me. It feels like something that is always there, but I am unconscious of its presence unless I open myself to it.
When it first spoke to me, I thought, honestly, that it was the voice of god. (see 'Diary extracts' further down the page if you're interested in what was happening at the moment or revelation. Be warned, it sounds kooky, even to me)
Revelation - then what?
My life was suddenly, most deeply changed. I wasn't sure what to do with my new sight. I felt that people wouldn't understand. I should wait to be approached. I felt my new knowledge was secret, sacred and silent. Not for all ears. So I braced myself for continual learning, experiencing and recalling.
I tired to write about what happened and discovered that as little I knew about Christianity, it was the only language available to me to describe what I had seen and what I was feeling. I used words such as God and Lord because they came naturally to me, from the community and the society I was bought up in.
Information was streaming into my mind, unbidden. I have several theories where it was coming from, but none can really explain the reality. It was merely from a higher realm. Something above and beyond the physical plane.
Learning How to Be Human
Since 1993, I've studied 'being human'. I had been an emotionally frozen figure with too many hang ups to list. And I am using my time to discover humanity through my own experience and by engaging with people in the world. Something I had never done before. (I had been known to take books with me to parties was obliged to attend)
I'm learning about the body.
I study anatomy and train hard physically.
I've competed in Fitness and worked in a gym.
I teach yoga, qigong and basic belly dance.
I studied sex and why we do it and how to do it.
I'm learning to cook.
I learnt about a humans social obligations, and how to small talk. I went to Japan and learnt what was expected of members of society.
I contemplate the levels of responsibility I have. Beginning with my immediate circle, (my body, my son), secondary (my partner and family and friends), then, my neighbourhood, my country, my world.
I study the mind and how it works.
I learn about memories and how to view the future.
I study life, living, being, shifts in awareness, growth, development, motivation.
I study religions and read sacred texts.
I practice meditation.
I practice gratitude.
Positives of Being an Atheist and an Australian
Honestly, I could not be me if I was not born an atheist.
I had no religious tradition to ‘view’ my experience from. I didn’t interpret my experience through any theory on God. All I know is that we are all the same. We are one. I didn’t say Jehovah said, or Mohammad said, or Vishnu said. I just saw the ‘all’. Nothing else. With no dogma, no history, no frame work.
It was just a fact. We are one. All else is illusion.
I could not be me, if I viewed what happened to me from the stand point of being a member of another religion.
It helps me to have an open mind to other people' spiritual point of view. I don't put one religion above another. I understand that we are all doing 'our best' in our relationship to the unknowable.
Of course, being born Australian also helped kick any traditional view in the teeth. A nation who prides itself on being 'new' and a conglomerate of many nations with a tradition of BBQ's and reality TV.
I feel I'm in a neutral place.
Only, I know there is a 'all', a 'god', an 'energy source', a deeper reality than we can see.
Yoga and Buddhism
Discovering that yoga meant 'to unite', to be as one, instantly peaked my interest. Its the study of being one. Someone has already seen what I've seen, and they begun to propagate 'methods of unity'. Yoga. To me, its that simple. Yoga offers different methods of practising 'unity'. They either appeal to you, or they don't.
Everything is just a TOOL to use in our search for UNITY.
What makes it different for me? I know we are one. I'm practising integrating my every day life with this spiritual truth. And its here, that yoga helps.
Its the same for me, with Buddhism.
Buddhists study the workings of the mind. And they do it from love. They bring a delicate, light sense of humour to a subject I have always taken too seriously. They practise being one with absolute compassion and love. This can be embodied in a master, or saint, but the point is merging the inner self with the deathless, ever present awareness.
Any renditions I have read about this deathless state seems identical to what I witnessed in my experience.
So I study both yoga and Buddhism above the other spiritual traditions because they seem to ring true to the experience I have.
And now?
Its time for me to talk openly about what happened. I've felt in the past, honestly embarrassed, with the experience. It sounds so far fetched. I sound possessed. I sound like a missionary.
I have enough experience to begin to speak openly and honestly about my view of life. I feel comfortable with myself.
I see my life as a success story. As proof that life can be more than misery, unhappiness, criticism and escape.
And we keep learning.
My Responsibility
Imagine that right now, something extraordinary happened. You honestly believed that a 'higher' power spoke to you, and told you a secret of life. What do you do? Keep it to your self, or tell someone? If you decide to tell someone, who do you tell? Your family? Your friends?
Just because you heard what seemed to be the word of god, it doesn't mean anyone else did. They are still going to think you are kooky.
At first I only told my closest friends and family. Every time I mentioned it, I stared to cry (mind you, I still do). I didn't understand what I was suppose to do with this kind of knowledge. And I was 21. I felt ridiculously young and inexperienced.
Having read about other spiritual traditions, I felt more comfortable and less alone. Being a mind and body teacher offered me a frame work to introduce the topic of spirituality. And now, I accept myself as I am.
I have a responsibility to myself. To live the way I think best, to be available to learn, and pass on information in appropriate circumstances.
What About Other People Who Experienced Spiritual Revelation?
(absolutely controversial and if you know you will be upset about a different point of view, please don’t read any further. The post is open to comment if you want to share your opinion)
Jesus
What actually happened to Jesus?
Jesus was baptised in the river Jordan. This event marks the beginning of Jesus' visions. He then went up into the mountain and disappeared for 40 days (please correct me if I’m wrong) and ‘spoke with god’. He underwent 'tempation'.
Once he had been through the experience (and what really happened, who knows?) and tried to formulate a way to express what he had been though, he came down and started preaching.
Jesus had a revelation of some sort that guided him. He viewed the experience from his upbringing – he was born a Jew. The only thing that made sense to him at the time, was that he fulfilled the great prophesy.
What language did he use to express his experience?
He used the language of his religion.
He used the vocabulary of his forefathers.
He used the language of Prophets.
The experience changed his relationship to life. Let’s say, almost over night, he became a man with a vision. He didn’t hold the same view of life as he did before. He was willing to put his ideas out there, regardless of the threat to his life. He KNEW that what he had to say was more important than anything else. He was driven.
What does Jesus say?
Love everyone (your neighbour) as yourself. (IE – we are one and the same nobody is higher or lower)
Love the Lord God with all your heart and all of your mind.
LOVE. What does love do? It breaks down barriers and brings people together. It promotes compassion and forgiveness.
Siddhartha
I have to admit I love this story.
So, a young man leaves everything he owns. Not just any young man, but a prince. He leaves everything he knows, all of his comforts, all of his familiar things and goes in search for something else. Something spiritual. He was looking for answers.
It is said that Siddhartha was searching for the ‘ truth and eternal peace’, to ‘subjugate his ego’, to ‘search for the ultimate truth’, ‘for enlightenment’ and for the answer to human suffering.
He wandered into the world and began his search. For years. He tried different methods that were already being taught by other traditions. What ever it was that Siddhartha was looking for, he didn’t find it following other people. He found it, and this is important, when he gave up the traditions he had been following. He had learnt all there was to learn following those paths, and when he realised he was no closer to the truth for all his searching, he stopped, sat down (under a now famous bodhi tree) and resigned himself.
He stripped himself bare. He had, in a way, given up.
Then, after seeing the futility of his previous struggles, he finally cast away the last of the past, and discovered himself in the ever living moment. And (easy as it sounds) voila – enlightenment!
Now Siddhartha didn’t begin to preach right away. He thought and contemplated and found words to describe what had happened to him. He met a group of his old fellow ascetics, and he spoke to them. He used words they could understand. He spoke to them in the context of their mutual tradition. Remember that Siddhartha was born a Hindu. He used the language of his forefathers, just as Jesus used the language of the Jews.
He had undergone an experience that had no context. Can you imagine how it must feel? To try to explain something that seems to have no living history?
What did Siddhartha discover?
For me, its important to remember, that they say, Siddhartha's first thought was 'Its impossible to teach this'.
He then tries anyway, and puts his revealed state of understanding into language that UNENLIGHTENED beings can understand.
If you see something, and nobody has seen it before, how will you explain it? Probably in comparison with things they do have previous knowledge of.
So, people undergoing a spiritual revelation, must use concepts we can understand.
And even if its close,its not really the same thing.
For a very simple explanation of what the Buddha taught (and i think simplicity is best in this circumstance) , click here
http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/buddhism/pbs2_unit04.htm
Muhammad
Muhammad retired for meditation.
At the age of 40 or so, he began to have visions of God.
Then, think about this, he waited 4 years before preaching. Why wait?
Muhammad and Siddhartha were a bit more canny than Jesus in this respect. They thought about what had happened to them and formulated a teaching that could be easily understood and followed by those who were NOT in communication with 'God' or the 'Universal mind'.
Muhammad says 'God is one'.
Muhammad was born into a Abrahamic religion. (Just as Jesus was.) However, he didn't speak the same spiritual language as those from Judaism. He spoke from the tradition of Islam. So he won and lost different tribes according to the language he used.
Those from Judaism noted that he did not comply with what their ancestors preached and the Christians were similarly sceptical of Muhammad's claims.
Does it mean the revelations did not occur?
Let's keep it simple.
Muhammad had a revelationary experience.
He used the language of Islam (the 'real' truth of Abraham according to Muslims) and preached according to his tradition.
He comes, as does Jesus and Siddhartha, from a tradition where prophets and holy men and healers were part of their every day.
What language, what tradition, what history would you use to express YOUR revelationary experience?
Diary Extracts
9-8-93
The answer is God, but not God. At each moment one must recall God in the supreme sense; being ALL. And one must rejoice in serving the All of God and recall the reason for life. Remember your current life.
With realization of every moment one feels all and singular. Encompassing.
If you recognize a wrong, do not blind yourself to it out of convenience and laziness. This is abnegation of what God is.
Subtle guidance. Never forget. Keep it fresh.
Life is guiding you. Be ready and accepting of death at any time. Have no cause for regret.
It is not love but joy. Joy born of acceptance. Mild or ecstatic. Love is not real in our sense of what love is. It is a false value. We must search and attain joy. So possible. How fulfilling.
At once important and nothing.
At once powerful and less than dust.
To realize is but to recognize life in a purer, higher sense. Can we then say that this is the highest sense? After just stepping on the ladder I must yell NO!!! So much more available for us. Not religion, but All.
It is not love but awareness that is the prime ingredient to human 'being'.
The tarot is not anything in itself. It is only by attaching it with symbolism, learnt signs, that it can be of any use to humans. It is merely a rung on the ladder, a helpful stepping stone. It is but a reflection of ourselves. It reflects our perception, our knowledge, our own higher and lower selves.
It is Buddha who says 'ignorance is the greatest sin'. Ignorance is the root of all evil. Nothing else. Awareness is everything...
10.8.93
Why say 'Amen'? Why ever finish a prayer? Should not our entire life be a type of prayer, acted out for the supreme consciousness. The all is fully aware, anyway, surely?
I have to fight against over enthusiasm. Its difficult to refrain from jumping around and screaming in a kind of Dionysian Ecstasy.
It is very strange to try and get used to this queer feeling. Continual prickles on my arms, running at all times to my scalp. Rushes of warmth in my chest. A pure delight in colour, shape, breathing, light. All. Always so close to breaking into tears of rapture. As now.
I'm 21 years old. I feel so grateful and so full of love and joy for being given this blessedness now. Thank-you. How can this consciousness be taken from me?
I understand The Fool symbolism now, more than I did. I feel as though people will see my whole head glowing with blessedness. It feels glowing. Radiance. Not illumination. I am offered up to the All.
11-8-93
My God consciousness has sunk beneath the surface. It can be called into being but it has faded so that I can continue learning and forging my way. I need to be in tune with the material, to be able to create something fresh with my writing. The All is acting on acute wisdom and goodness to me.
11-8-93
I was again entranced by the All, just now. Refreshed, blessed. Reminded of first hand experience. How can this be? All.
'But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord.' (Numbers 14:21)
The day began sky blue and warm. Within moments the mist had risen to become clouds over the blue and over the sun.
My body swayed. I was drowned in my own tears. Tears to cleanse. My burning secret locked inside of me. How will I be able to communicate with anyone? I offer myself. Vividly, my body, my limbs, are electrified by All's love.
While I write, and through the past few days (the only important days of my life?) I am visited by a smile. Shining out. I have no way to still it.
Its very cold today.
I feel as though people will stop me and ask me why my head is ablaze. I wonder if anyone can see me, or rather, what is springing from me.
Must guard against falseness. I'm here to learn how to control myself. Watch over-enthusiasm. Must hold my tongue. The power is from within. So blessed!
I am being driven to give up all religion. I had thought Churches were a stepping stone, to awaken God consciousness, but it seems the All does not agree. No religion. Just love of God. No more diversity in belief. What I'm suppose to do about this I don't know. My Lord is being cautious, knowing that 'prophets' are hounded and brought down to suffer. This is no longer acceptable for the future. How to unite the world in love of God and without religion?
It is up to the Lord. I am at your disposal, of my free will.
I know that there are others out there, suddenly being enlightened. We shall come together.
12-8-93
This morning I awoke early. Sixish and I lay in bed communicating, in my vague way, unto the All.
It is so:
All is illusion.
Nothing is real. Literally. Everything; the beauty, the terror, the joy, the horror: all is such a false value of reality. It is untrue.
I questioned.
Yes, we must enjoy, fear, love, hate, strive, yet recall that all is but a reflection.
I gave my worship to the sun and immediately the sun was covered to remind me that if I interpret the All as beauty, then I must also interpret All as misery as well. For if God is All then it is truly everything that is. Then there is no good or bad, it is just an interpretation of events. Humans make good and bad.
Place nothing on a higher value but receive it all. I shall be delivered. Always remember the true value of this world: nothing. It is transitory and a fast fading illusion.
I'm going into the town tomorrow. I'm most hesitant. I know there must be a balance, but I almost cringe at the thought that I must think of my physical self. I am trembling with unease. My self is so new. Hard to know how to behave. I'm unsteady on my feet.
Already I have laughed loud and nervous, excused my flashes of 'insanity'. Quite painfully shy. Distressing. And then, I remember the All. (Found out that All is Pan in Greek) and I smile and nothing matters. I must not disclose my secret to anyone who does not ask to hear.
If any old weariness or dissatisfaction comes upon me I merely think and bring to consciousness the 'dearest freshness deep down things' and I am smiling!
13-8-93
Last night I was beginning to doubt my sanity. I wandered 'perhaps all this illusion is only an added illusion to my life'. And then, seemingly with no reason, I selected William Blake's poetry to read.
Thank-you, again, for this. Once Blake was obscure, but I see more clearly.
He has been touched with the same hand as myself. He knows the All and knows much more than I...so much to discover. He has a tingle of fanatical desperation, but I tell you it is because of the era he was in. Sanity is in the eye of the beholder.
14-8-93
Its an overcast, nothing sort of day.
I feel very strong.
The glory is below the surface but I am receiving the benefits of my last few days renaissance. Hard to know how to live. I can only breath encouragement into those who fail. A helping hand. If I am so strong inside, I have ample for others, if they want it.
I had dinner with the neighbours. Nice enough. They did eat chicken. Society will not give up the convenience of meat. When one talks about it they say, 'Sh, don't mention it.' 'Don't think about it.' is another phrase frequently used. Ignorance. Deliberate, lazy ignorance. But I do not yell this in bitterness. It is a fact, so not subject to emotion... A still day. Its hard for me to live.
Is nihilism the way? Destruction before pure construction? Is it only myth?
People will still be people. They will murmur. It can only be individuals, meeting together in love and joy of the All.
19-8-93
Life is peculiar! Strangely enough. I know all the craziness of living and I can still be caught up with silly bits of life. Why? Inevitable. My eyes are aching. Too much reading.
Oh but life is a labyrinth....
23-8-93
Reading Blake I feel I can keep perspective of my ideals. I must not make those try to see who can not.
To find one who can guide me! I feel pressured by my boss to stay here, but I must have a change. It's the balance thing.
I know that I can easily be swept away with false living but underneath I know it is a facade. It is a joke. I just need more time before I can continue writing.
25-8-93
More beauty.-'Vibrating heated innocence.' Something so unbeleivably pulsating. It holds its own warmth in those words. I will write again that I am ready for death at any moment. Death of my body. I live being aware of each moment, and accepting death. Not pessimistically, just naturally. Life is good. But I do not clutch it, either indignantly or righteously. Love. Too full a word. Love is death. Too full. Love. Rounded curves and full. Over indulgent.
Only occassionally do I hear the silence. The black vacuum of silence. I realized its because my brain is always so full of questions and probable answers and memories and imaginings. My brain never stops to hear the silence. I can't literally hear nothing. Its just a feeling. An atomosphere, rather than actual.
My ears always have a humming ring muffled in them. I don't like it. I'm anxious to be moving around people again.
26-8-93
Capitalism is basically a test. Not in the old Christian sense, but it offers people a choice. Which god will they chose? Not only does Capitalism and its effects (marketing, consumers, banking fanaticism....) help conglomerate all material aspirations, but it adds the respectibililty and 'worth' to rise to. Money is a traditionally held virtue. Society created this, not the All. Jesus didn't want everyone making false images of him and worshiping him in golden palaces. Sociey did this for what ever reason. Jesus spread the word of God, not the worth of money. False values. Capitalism offers people a choice.
I do not renounce material things, but there is a falseness in clutching at this mirage. Why else do I come to the country, with poverty as my life, and then find the way?
I don't wish to leave behind my human excitements and impulses and desires. That isn't my aim. Its basically to acknowledge the truth of the All, or the wholeness of Everything. This realization brings its own advice.
A certain excitement and anticipation for unexpected events is missing. Nothing happens here. That is why I must leave. I am passing days. Yes, with appreciation, but time is laughing at me while I am here. I will not regret a stage in my life, knowing it had to be, but I do ask for change...
Just the feel of another human being. Solid feeling to touch another person. Substancial. Real life force. Obvious life force, not the intangible life that I am keeping company with. It drives me tight with desire to touch. To hold onto something throbbing with life. I know that I am alive, but to touch reinforces the reality. Makes me more aware of life.
29-8-93
Having my knowledge of the All doesn't stop the silly or unreasonable desires. I can see through them and they aren't so persistent, but it doesn't stop them from happening. This is a reminder from Temperance, that everything has a balance. There are ups and downs, and one must know their true worth and then go about living through the obstacles and deliverances.
I can feel madness creeping up to me, laughing with delight at my unstable state. A tick of a clock could have me falling in a moment.
There is no such thing as evil. It is man made.
To know is to take away the question. To understand life is to take it away.
To call a person by a name seems wrong. They are not that name. They are a myriad of names. For social reasons they are used, but otherwize, no names. Or take your own symbol. This is you. Not a name. We try to pin a label, but if you do not recognize the label, it isn't yours. Its only what is recognized.
There is a large elongated oval in front of my vision. It is darker, than on the outside of it. I can not see the lighter bits clearly. People put significance on objects, ideas, visions not on anything divine. WAKE-UP. Remain true to yourself. Do not batten yourself down under routine or expectance. You have been offered something more, something more real than all of the illusions around you. Grasp it! Take life and do as you will!
Life is this continual struggle to support both spiritual and physical health. If one is well, the other is sure to be tortured. Must keep the light of All within our breast to help guide the way. Starlight and future.
'For where your treasure is,
there be your heart also.'
St. Mathew 6:21
'Therefore, by their fruits ye shall know them.'
St. Mathew 7:20
It is imperitive to renounce Christmas and Easter. Any rememberance of Christ should be personal and not ordained by a government. If there is any celebration it should be of the New Year. A regeneration.
How to keep within my heart the massive amount of teachings? How to be true at all times? But this is false. It is from within and will always change. Nothing is lasting....
Whatever is recognized as wrong is wrong. Each for each person. We all contain our own Orisis in our heads. As soon as we fly against our natures we are suffering. Judge yourself. There's no need. Just listen and be guided by the inner self. If it is 'right' then you will know. Accept change as natural, not something that you must fight. If you must fight change, you must begin with trying to hold the earth still.
If I could explain this tingling awareness. But it must remain unexplainable to be passed on. A feeling, a power. Not dominace over me, but a steadiness of being.
Love of all. Nothing, for me, should be above this.
That is the folly of preachers, to make everyone, even those who are not ready to know, pretend to a higher life. So you enforce religion and it becomes hypocricy.
It is true that what we do should be between ourselves and god or All.
'The outward ceremony is Antichrist.' William Blake.
The same as Jesus telling his disciples to wash when fasting, for it is for the All to see, not for humanity to praise us for our 'holiness'.
7-9-93
There are two main lessons for me to learn.
1. The surface, material beauty isn't truth, real or important.
2. Relations between people should be balanced and not overly emotional. If one can leave all behind without becoming involved then one has learnt the lesson. Transitory. A key word to understanding.
'This is a warning. Heaven is watching.' Front 242.
Why do we not learn before?
Because we are not ready to accept and learn. When the time comes the doors open and show another world. And then more doors. Always more to travel through. Very important.
I'm not patriotic or nationalistic. But I want to join this country. For the first time I feel a sense of unity with the rest of humanity.
I want to join society.
There must be a group of people who live from the basic goodness within. To be involved, positively, with the concerns, with the joys of life. To recognize the All, and to rejoice. First in that which is good. Learn to live.
Make a concious effort.
Accept All and find the way.
22-9-93
Life is depressing me today. Wake-up, wake-up. Stop this troublesome worry. Relax. Admit people are necessary and accept that you must return to live with them soon.
Be glad you have learnt what a dark place lonliness can be and rejoice in being able to know yourself.
23-9-93
I am fighting this dispair. Really. I'm doing my damnedest to keep sane and moving so as not to let this creeping madness overcome me. I recognize the All in a swift thankfullness. It is only the knowledge of love that saves me from too much darkness. I do need company. Only another pair of human eyes.
The neighbours are avoiding me. Its my intensity, and nobody wants to wake up. Violence lurks. My body is tense with supressed anger. I will write then read, and then sleep. Relax. Deep breath. Its this damned Women and Fiction that spoils my brain. Too emotional, too stabbingly deep and personal. It seems as though I take every pain into myself, feeling each hurt, each fall. None of the stories want to lift me up, to be joyous. Just my mood or just women writers?
24-9-93
I closed my eyes to the morning sun and saw 'The Fructification of the Pyramids'. The Egyptians believed themselves the highest civilization; a pinnical of success they had alone reached. This is the true /\
The sun ¤ is also a pyramid. But it is evolving. changing, develping from a /\
to a (), to a 0, and eventually a pure O, a perfect circle. Its the global sign. The more world conscious we become the more we will learn the cycles of life and begin to ready ourselves for the next stage.
26-9-93
I have been forgetful. I have felt anguish and frustration, and found peace within myself. I didn't do the obvious. I didn't tap into the light, the divinity, within my heart. We all have this channel of pure cleanliness inside our bodies and the catch is to remember. Its time to learn how to exercise this ability.
It is a beautiful morning. The kind of beginning to a day that perfects part of your heart.
New fresh leaves jostling, twinkling, rustling in the cool breeze. Blue, blue sky with a faint mist on the horizon and thin insubstancial clouds.
So green! And the daisies yellow a springy carpet, a faint sheild over the earth.
Its the breeze, the air itself that is so special.
What I catch the most in my heart is the broken, curved, straight, purely white bark of the redgums. So pure straight noble. Hardly of this world.
Unrecognizable. Queer how the young fresh apricot tree looks more familiar than these sparce, dominant redgums. And their indifferent foliage! The light slashes the bark, blanching it bright, ghostly, with its shadow too.
And it wasn't until the delicate white cup sat in a stream of sunlight that its strark reality came upon me. Its outline, its full body, its reality. So much sharper, more distinguished in the bright sun, than in the pasty, pastel shade. Its shape was lost. And then the dark glitter of the tea. Rocking smoothly in the cup as I softly move my pen across this page. The darkness says 'I am a hollow! In this cup I am the hollow!' To remind us that a cup has a purpose and is not really only pasty white, but filled, a darkly black inner, and a shine of pride, a holding, used cup. It stands so distinguished with this dark liquid.
A most facinating drawing day today. Absolute. Freshening. A caress upon my anxiety for newness. Its smooth soothing calmness. Nothing intense. Nothing forced and brooding as when clouds cluster to hamper the sun and blot the sky. Just clearness and fresh bright life. An enjoyable, sweetly scented day.
8-10-93
Jimmy just ate one of those little, special dancing birds. At first my bewilderment was too intense to understand and I felt a tear in my heart, unable to consider.
And then I hope I passed my first test in death. The death of a little bird is cruel, but my horror was awakened by its flesh being eaten, especially since Jimmy has plenty of food. So it is killing for killings sake.
I feel ghastly. A mixed up madness.
This anxiety is bursting in little sharp pangs and ripples of physical madness. It is upon me, as it used to be, three years ago, in Auburn Rd. Rock the baby rock, madly swinging, the mad, dead, crying child. Baby is dead. Must fix it. I must try to keep awake and up and light, light.
Self! A search for the essence of self. There must be a protective veil over the found parts so that the pain of regret is not so often. Its not so bad as it was. A finding of self, and then to live. No wonder people don't think if it is going to lead to this unease.
I'm still half here. I am here. A mist is over me, that is all.
Must must stay tight to self ideal, for what else is there? After recognition of the All, and recognition of the All in self, how can one betray it?
Has it entered your head that this is hell? That we are actually here and must do our best to get out or live with it.
I am not so slack as this. If I have learnt anything here its a sort of discipline. I shall use it right now. I will determine to sleep and rest.
10-10-93
My head is aching. My turmoil hasn't passed. Strange. It doesn't usually last this long. Last night I was called for. A light flickering, as a strobe, though dimly came, and my body was preparing itself to give up the spirit and I had to fight and yell for my life. I'm surprised in a way to be awake.
I'm beginning to find delight in little things. My body is very cold. I'm fairly drained of colour.
A torture of twisted, scrunched senses in my mind.
I so wished to begin this notebook with a brightness to recall the gift of my 21st year; the divine gift of awareness of the All. And here I am communicating to this book because no one else will understand. They force a false situation, a flaseness over my anguish.
Returning to Society for the First Time
I find it difficult to keep up with it all. I have tried today, to join myself into the general jovial spirit for our new adventure and I find that I soon fall low and find a distaste in my mouth for the empty joys of mindless living.
‘Girls just want to have fun.’
‘All I want to do is have some fun.’
Insanity.
Then it comes to out an out stupidity and I feel my whole body freezing over in coldness and lack of understanding.
Not only is alcohol an evil tempter but it distorts reality and allows a life to pass without thought. There has to be strength of mind to resist the illusions of what seems to constitute joy and pleasure in this society. I must try to keep my goals in a firm grasp. The outside gaieties are so false and finally repulsive and depressive. Joy of life and the supreme being. I try to wrap myself in rememberance and try to live each moment in awareness.
A little background information
(putting my state of mind into some sort of context)
When I moved to the country for a year, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life. I'd finished my degree and decided that English Literature not what I thought. It seemed Literature was about having a vast understanding about Marxism, feminism, post modernism, psychoanalysism and all those kinds of isms. I’m not complaining, I wouldn’t have it any other way, but English Literature was too difficult for me to follow. I could talk to five people about the same text and they'd all have a fixed way of reading the book. It wasn’t personal and insightful, it was learning to read through a blind of theories. To read the book from a theoretical point of view. I was bored by it all. It seemed to me, if you didn’t get the right tutor who sympathised with your pet theory then you may as well have study accounting. So I moved to the country and tried to write a book.
So I started writing a book.
Writing stimulated self analysis in a way I wasn't prepared for. For the first time since living it, I began to remember some of my early childhood. I'd accepted my beginnings in life with what I considered a relaxed mind. Basically I forgot most of my past. I was living with a short term memory. I was living on the moment, but I was balanced precariously between my nerves and my focused study mode. When I was studying or writing I was perfectly stable. At other times there was the feeling of simmering hysteria. It wasn't until I was half way into the first draft of my novel that I realized the impact my childhood had made upon my current mental state.
I didn't know that I had repressed everything in an attempt to live a stable, normal life. I didn't know that my sometimes hectic behaviour was little spurts of hysteria slipping out the sides of my cocoon.
As I was writing about my youthful heroine Sonorah, I began to realize the grip the past still had on me.
So I wrote about it. I wrote down everything I could recall, everything I remembered people speaking about.
Writing brought the atmosphere of those early years back to me. I realized why a slammed door could freeze my stomach, why raised voices could make me feel sick and why the smell of a beer soaked breath made me want to vomit.
I was depressed, but at the end of every day I felt my eyes opening more. My life wasn't quite so narrow and I was willing to admit that the parents treated us badlly and we had a right to feel angry and aggressive or hurt at their behaviour. What we saw and felt was not our responsibility. We were children, buffeted by the course of our parents and their problems. But it was time, I was 21, to take full responsibility for myself and my actions.
I began meditating for ten or so minutes every day. Just relaxing and trying to release the hold the world had upon me. I read alot about many different religions. I was searching, looking for an answer. Looking for something that would make sense and hold the world together. I was looking for something that would make life worth living.
I'd been in the country for about six months, helping the family I was living with in the garden for board and lodgings.
My mind was wavering between 'determined to produce better happy times for myself' and 'sometimes I really can't help my depression. It just happens and I can't lift myself our of it.' I wasn't sure at all how to go about making life better. I was, to say the least, ill-equipt for my search.
And it was in exactly this frame of mind when it hit me.
Something to think about in the middle of it all
I’ve been watching people. I’ve been trying to interact with them. I see behaviour, speech, movement and little real fundamental change.
We’re learning, trying to see more clearly, trying to live better lives. But all I see around us seems to be disintergrating.
Its okay, our parents survived, but its just not good enough to survive any more. Our vision is clogged by what we see.
I can’t make out anything. And then in a flash there is something greater, some higher instinct that guides my mind to a new plateau of thoughts and concepts. Yet I have to frame my new vision in the cloth of my old experience. To understand. To grasp it in terms I’ve been familar with.
But why? Why does this have to be the answer? Why can’t I open my mind and let the light shine and let it be without interpretation, without soiling the vision.
I can’t see a new system. I can’t see truth and beauty being expressed in innocence. There is only tradition, expectation, well played patterns of behaviour.
But here I am, I have the courage to fly against the walls. Fill me with ease of expression. Fill me with love! And let it be enough.
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