The nature of enlightenment teachings

The nature of enlightenment and possible ways to reach it

 

David Howard LLB (Hons) Dip Counselling

 

My interest in enlightenment began when I was introduced by a friend, after already being interested in the supernatural and higher levels of consciousness for as long as I remember. When I discovered the possibility you could raise your consciousness permanently to its ultimate level I was quickly hooked. So I took the normal route of visiting teachers, reading books and trying whichever practices I was shown hoping sooner or later to see a result. I’d already just learned meditation from one of the biggest groups worldwide but could see whatever that offered it wasn’t likely to produce enlightenment so while continuing with that for its own benefits also continued to go for the ultimate change.

 

Rather than find a single teacher and stick with them I went to whoever was around in London at the time, and if I liked them and they returned may go and see them again. Most gave fairly similar methods and ideas, although some gave no methods at all besides satsang- listening to them and sharing their presence hoping something in you would shift as a result. Most others did some form of focusing on what was happening in the present as their techniques. There was also Ramana Maharshi’s dual methods offered by his own school of teachers, adding to this self enquiry and a mantra which are also offered in many similar groups. Since I began learning directly in 1997 I have yet to find much more than these three methods plus the potentially most powerful one of receiving the master’s power directly through the transfer of shaktipat. A relative few offer this, and it is not usually enough on its own to cause enlightenment in one or more applications, although can be capable of causing a permanent change. But it does show the recipient a direct experience of what they are to be aiming for, when it is felt, but it only works at the level of readiness the student is.

 

My own enquiries showed me I preferred the simple methods of putting my awareness in the present, with a number of variations. Self enquiry is basically asking yourself who you are and waiting for the answer to come. Some teachers have taken this as a vigorous and exclusive method but others say you only need methods to show you directly without needing to actively chase the answer in that way. But in the end the techniques themselves are numerous and the persistent use of your chosen ones is far more important than the methods themselves. As in yoga the reason there are so many different methods is that they are all designed to suit the individual rather than a one size fits all, whereas if a single one worked the best it would probably be well known throughout the community already. So the best method is to look around and find a teacher and teachings you resonate with and stick to them, and if necessary (as many teachers themselves did) move on when you find someone more suitable, as one teacher isn’t always sufficient to take you the whole way.

 

Focusing on the present, as with mantras, can be done formally or actively, meaning you both choose to sit and practice for a given time, and then when you think of it practice while doing whatever else you are doing as well. You can always be aware of what you are feeling regardless of your activities. I believe I may have found a teacher who has discovered the solution to the age old problem of dedicated students who may follow teachers and practices faithfully, often for decades, with little or no results. He spent some time investigating this and found ultimately they were using effort to practice the methods as an end in themselves rather than a means towards something else. His solution was to relax and only follow the methods in a more passive way and not use the mind and try and reach the result yourself. So rather than become an expert on concentration, mantra repetition or breath following but possibly in a tense way which blocks any changes, you passively carry them out in a relaxed way simply because they are doing something that’s good in itself. All meditation can be likened to sleep in this way, in order to become enlightened you cannot make it happen directly, any more than you can sleep at will, but create the best possible conditions for it to take place.

So overall all the different methods do not compete but go from the toughest and fullest regimes to the most passive and undemanding depending on what suits you as an individual.

 

The next barrier to enlightenment is the mind. I believe I have overcome my own doubts that enlightenment may not even exist, which would have stopped me progressing, as well as learning that we do not need to understand the process at all mentally for it to take place. Many teachers use complex technical and intellectual lectures which tend to do little more than confuse. Gangaji summed this up well. What they are doing is describing the world from an enlightened perspective which no one can understand until they are enlightened, as before then it means nothing. Telling you your pain and suffering is an illusion and you are never alone does not compute in duality and is pretty much superfluous information to give a student besides as an inspiration to what you may receive, but as that’s the experience of an enlightened teacher they tend to forget it is not universal and may do more harm than good when it does not chime with the students’ own experience. For me my only issue there was not believing enlightenment existed as a true state, as unless you find a master to give shaktipat and feeling a result, it is only a nebulous and unknown state almost impossible to imagine and not a lot easier to describe. I use ‘master’ in the sense of anyone who is enlightened, while not all teach when I use ‘teacher’ it does not guarantee they are also enlightened. My clearing came when a newly enlightened teacher came online and described his own feelings which were totally new to him and constantly changing as his enlightenment grew and sank in, and could at last relate to something which was indeed as good as what I had been hoping for and never described anywhere near as clearly and directly until that point. Until then I’d simply relied on the phrase ‘Whatever it’s like it’s better than now’, which meant I had something to aim for but not a clue what. Now I have a pretty good idea now and dare I say it may even have had fleeting moments when I may have spotted an element of it myself.

 

So the next point gained here is enlightenment is like a rebirth rather than a switch to a higher consciousness. This is because it is a new beginning where like a child you learn and grow but as an enlightened individual rather than within the illusion of duality. The shift isn’t from black to white but once enlightened you continue to evolve but in enlightenment. Louix Dor Dempriey, a shakti master in California describes enlightenment both as a shift and experience as the point where love takes over from fear. When your being is driven by more than 50% love or loses more of its fear to leave the love you cannot return to the fear. It is probably a fairly poetic and idealistic description but would certainly encourage me to find it. You can still learn once enlightened, take initiations and retreats and all the other methods used by students, as it continues to expand throughout life. Evolution appears to be infinitely built in all aspects of existence. Adyashanti describes it as returning to your natural state of conciousness from an altered state of the illusion of duality. There are in fact two stages towards enlightenment, as there is for many a transitional state of oneness before you get there. This is where you lose the boundary between you and outside, but there is still a you to experience it. True enlightenment or liberation only occurs when there is no illusion of a separate person to experience oneness, hence the Sanskrit ‘advaita’ – not two. That specifically does not refer to one as that leads to the idea I am one. Otherwise there is still an individual who is able to suffer. Some mistake oneness for enlightenment while others are happy to stop there and not go further.

 

There is also the kundalini explanation used by certain branches to describe the spiritual process and related changes involved. The life force within us all is normally restricted to perform survival alone, and the chakras along the meridian of the physical and associated energy bodies are solely carrying out their physical and emotional functions for that basic level. The yoga practices (as describe virtually all aimed towards enlightenment in that tradition) safely awaken the dormant power in the first chakra at the base of the spine, until once complete all seven are opened and with the final opening at the crown enlightenment occurs. The powers arrive with each chakra opening but are to be watched and passed by while on the journey to open them all otherwise you can get caught in one and not progress any further.

 

Knowing who is qualified or entitled to be a teacher is a tough question. There are two clear views here, either the conventional one that only an enlightened master is able to teach, and in the past many required many years under a master after enlightenment to allow it to settle and learn how to teach before being approved to yourself. As I pointed out, as it is impossible to show someone what it feels like to be enlightened it is also technically impossible to prove you are. Yet their masters claim to always know when a student is or not as they know exactly what to look for and will so far accept their better judgement.

The other view is anyone with the knowledge to teach and who can create results in students should be able to, and besides not being able to speak from the true state if you can still move people on then you are performing the function perfectly well. There are also many teachers who either became enlightened spontaneously or used so many methods they simply don’t know how they got there, so may be talking from the correct position but not have the theory to pass it on adequately. To me whatever works should be permitted- I am probably one of many students authorised to pass on at least one teacher’s work officially as he knows me well enough and I clearly get his work well enough to be trusted to spread the word and do work on his behalf in places he would be unable to cover additionally. I can always refer back to him if required and if uncertain would get him to fill the gap so not working alone anyhow. But there must be many teachers some of whom do not even realise they are not enlightened and I’d be interesting to know if their own results are any worse than those who definitely are.

 

I will try and explain what I have learnt now directly, and show the readers some methods (none my own as I am far from a master myself) that may point them in the right direction themselves. From my own enquiries enlightenment involves direct experience of our true nature. The exercise for this is for someone to ask you who you are, but you must answer before the mind comes in to answer with a name, a body or all the things we’ve learnt to associate with being a human individual. The direct answer before the mind and personal history comes in is ‘I am aware of this’, or variations of. You are only truly aware of your present experience and any more has to come from memory or external knowledge. If you look ahead or close your eyes can you see a body? No. You see whatever is in front of you or relative darkness. Where are you? Here. How old are you? No age, just now. Without a birth certificate reference or memories of years with numbers how do you know your age in years? Are you your name? Again, how can you have a name before you are given one? Or your job or profession. Are you doing it now? No. What are you doing now? Nothing- looking- feeling-  thinking. Who is doing this looking/feeling/thinking? No answer, if you eliminated the name, age, body etc already all you have is the awareness now of what the senses are providing with passing thoughts. That’s all there is and that’s all there ever was. Once this becomes apparent it is not so easy to slip back into the thought of duality unless you either choose to or stop reminding yourself every now and then before it becomes natural. This in itself is not enlightenment, but an exercise clearing the first blockage from it, the identity with the body and its associated history. But you are not your CV any more than the paper it is written on, you are just the awareness, as what is within that awareness changes the only thing that is constant so can be permanent is the awareness itself. So it pretty well covers the point of the illusion of ego, the separate self as a body-mind organism, as when you look directly it simply isn’t there. There is therefore no need to ‘destroy’ the ego as there was never one in the first place, which makes it a lot easier as a result.

 

The religious description of enlightenment is ‘God Realisation’, as it is equally impossible to experience God outside the individual’s awareness, enlightenment itself is called by many schools such as God is not a being outside us with a will of its own, but our own being once we become aware of it, as is all creation which we create while we are aware of it and which vanishes when we are asleep and not dreaming or unconscious. Some go as far as to say we can also create consciously, like waking up in a dream and becoming lucid. Yogananda and Sai Baba are the main current proponents of this view as is prevalent in and around India. In fact nearly all religions aim for enlightenment through their mystical branches, while Buddhism has this as its sole aim the mystical branches of Judaism- Cabala, Islam- Sufism and Christianity all teach the same thing but has ended up on the relative fringes. Jesus never set himself up as a special or superior being above others but said everyone could be as he was if they followed his path. He also demonstrated the siddhis or powers, and oneness is said to produce them as once we become aware we are all one we are then able to manipulate all around us as no longer separate. But you are taught not to linger or revel in this as it is the penultimate stage and not the end in itself. Buddhism in particular emphasised the long time it took for most to become enlightened, and as such used reincarnation as an explanation to continue the process over as many lifetimes as were needed. Liberation was therefore both from karma and reincarnation itself, although the bodhisattvas postponed their final enlightenment in order to stay here and teach.

 

I am in very little doubt this is a clear state we are all equally able to reach. The fact many teachers know the exact time and date it happened to them tells me there is a line which is crossed and can only trust the teachings of millennia that it is indeed genuine despite only affecting a relative handful of people and impossible to prove to outsiders. I have used the clues I have picked up over time to maintain my own trust and I like all hope one day as I continue to practice will know directly myself.

Academic versus intuition

My global warming campaign has taught me one simple truth beyond the subject in question. I spent weeks on a site of scientists committed to persuade the world we are guilty of fucking up the climate (my paraphrasing) and punishing us with huge fines and restrictions, while I am not a scientist beyond O level and simply using the formulas of marrying cause and effect like a jury. I also know many people partly or not qualified at all who are geniuses at science by nature, can build a plane or engine in their heads and then make it and it works, and see others' plans and know if they will or not. Benjamin Franklin was one such person, and in the end innovation is created more by those who are born to innovate whether or not they go on to qualify as well. They can always work with experts, but the experts may be great at repeating courses on paper but very narrow in their awareness, missing whole points completely while sticking to their own small areas.

I will never care again about my subject qualifications now while taking on all comers. The only difference is I can't explain why they're wrong without help, but they bloody well are. That is a valuable lesson and one outside whether they win the fight on killing civilised society in the name of the climate or not.

Otherwise it's almost business as usual, I'm following more spiritual practices and will announce if and when results follow. They can't all be wrong and have also learnt how not to abuse any power if it comes. Psychic power is the same as authority, you musn't take advantage of it, and can rebound if you do unlike normal power. Knowing you're right regardless of the ability to prove it is also behind both intuition for understanding outside ideas and how to treat other people, and is really the best force behind all others. I pick up people who have either dodgy foundations or high ones, and am usually proved right sooner or later (wasn't I Roger, benefit of the doubt for over a year and you failed majorly), and have seen others screwed over who didn't believe me and trusted some of the lowest scum I've ever come across. It's only like a play, we have heroes and villains and possibly the villains just haven't learnt enough to know better yet, but are all part of humanity. If you are true to yourself and others it's not your problem if others aren't, and should never drop to their level if they aim it in your direction. Being human none of us can be perfect but only have one rule to make the best of ourselves.

I'm no longer interested in spiritual teaching either, that was the ego and am purely interested in advancing myself, and would only ever teach if I reached my own goal and people asked me to. Otherwise it's for me and that's quite enough. I'll teach everything else I know as people need driving lessons in life the same as on the road, the hazards are just as clear and predictable and have strategies to avoid them. That is my job and although founded on intuition going back to childhood (I have the library here to prove it) I am qualified there as well. I may not always get it right as no one can, but the chances are until I've seen the same thing work over and over again I won't pass the results on. And I don't recommend anything I can't do myself either so teach by example. Thank goodness I have enough money so I don't need to go out and about trying to make a career out of it, and quite happy to pass on whatever I can to whoever needs it. Anyway, I'm getting there and am now aware how academics operate and am no longer scared of or in awe of them when outside my own fields. One difference between law and science is you can't get law wrong as it's written by people and if uncertain we know it is and why, while science is the best they currently know, and as you can't stick a thermometer up the atmosphere's arse to take its temperature then the arrogance of the climate camp they think they know what's going on is no more than an ego the size of the universe.

If I was god

Being a born collector I'm always happy when adding to any project, including women as well. Now my road signs have nearly all been found according to the map my next photographic project will both keep me adding new ones and get me as far away from home as I can possibly manage. This new year I've been taking photos to add to the Geograph map of Britain, adding a red square for each added. That is compulsive and done about six fairly local trips already where I found gaps on the map. Once the clocks go forward I've got a few further ones planned and will see how it goes. Otherwise it's business as usual, pursuing global warming education of the masses (deprogramming) and now working with some of the top guys in the country who have come to the same conclusion and met online. My intuition is such, much as the great Lord Monckton who had an hour's programme on TV last night despite them trying to make him look like an amateur, we have the intuition and no science to back it up. The scientists on the other side know half the science (no one knows much more around the climate as it's chaotic and barely measured thoroughly as it would be almost impossible to do more than random sampling), and have absolutely no intuition as my latest small part of science tells me one simple thing:

CO2 was 280ppm before industry and is now 390. The paper expectation to double to 560 is 1C. The IPCC maximum (way on the edge of probability) is 6C, one used by nutters worldwide as if inevitable. However, CO2 has almost doubled already, so adding about 40% has corresponded with a 0.7C rise. That was in a rising period (there's always one or the other, the ice age cycle guarantees them naturally), so double that and a bit and you get 1.5C, the 0.5 being quite close to the expected rise otherwise. If you extrapolate a century long trend the same distance ahead then unless some unknown (as this has never happened before) mechanism no one can think of kicks in between 390 and 560 then it will indeed become a 1C rise or so, which is not a problem for anyone as a normal and safe change known from history. So why don't they use this as a benchmark as we're already half way there?

Theme 2 is someone on Facebook just asked to name one good thing about God, and I said sycnhronicity and love, another said we only have bad things happen as we don't realise our own power to change it. Creation has always been said to go in hand with God, so one way or another it is happening already, but if I realised who I was (as in Yogananda's book) I'd fix so many things it would be heaven on earth for me and presumably anyone else who wanted it. Although it would also involve knowing the universal law of how much you should do for others. So sticking to my own world I'd probably do the same as anyone else. I already realised it is not cheating to fix the world as it feels just as bad when it's bad whether you do it or someone else, so the relief of ending it is just as good whether by another's hand or your own. How we feel is the bottom line, and removing causes of spoiling that is the first priority. I'd remove my own health problems, at least the worst I know of, and that would be the main barrier removed, and then start fixing outside.

It's a 50-50 split, if you're improved then what happens outside isn't so important. I've already arranged many things somehow so the biggest demands have already been removed from my life, and would then introduce a few more friends back here, and one rule is you can't choose specific people as they have free will, so anyone who fits the requirements will do. Then I'd move some blockages in as many areas as I can. Watching the slow or even backward pace of progress on issues which are dangerous or unnecessary regardless of the evidence is like watching people heading for a car crash and being unable to stop them. As the laws are already in place regardless of lack of evidence, we need quick data to arise to finally show they cheated so much whatever they can show to be true (as the devil's work, the hiding a lie in the truth so people won't see it) will be worthless as they lied to fill the huge gaps. Then people would suddenly realise the corruption at every level and may cause revolutions which are happening in the Arab world as a domino effect (ie one engineered by Islamists to take over as many countries as possible, but still happening). But realising our leaders are corrupt will be all that is needed to stop them in many countries. No one likes to look an idiot, and quite happy to name names if required, government lackeys like David Attenborough and Lord Winston who have quite a bit of clout will metaphorically tear the crap out of the politicians who made them look like morons as their pride will be wrecked.

That dealt with I'd then blow apart the corruption of secrecy, and any information on aliens and free energy would be released for the benefit of all. We've had hints for decades and still no further along than the day it started. I have no idea about aliens but certain about free energy as I know people who have found it themselves. The shots and death threats etc inevitably followed as did removal of funding and the usual ostracising by companies worldwide. As we have a real energy crisis now with record prices and taxes it can't take any longer to release this information to catch it before we are all rationed by income. I would then open up the apology energy. I have recently read everyone who hurts someone removes their bad karma and takes it on themselves, but it still hurts when they do that. I actually got what passed for one today so may have started already, but that list is already beginning to fill a page and I knew what I'd done wrong at about three years old having been taught properly. Instead of fucking up and having to apologise I was simply polite to people, until global warming which stole so much of my own money the diplomacy vanished. That's returning now as only fuels divide a rule but cost me a 45 year friendship already.

Then I'd speed up my general career. I've reached the first level of the media, ie being used, but the second is being known. It's a lot harder to get there at all so have broken through, but have to get employed by the right people who are seen by nearly everyone to move up properly. At my age it's too late to hang about any more. Of course once you see the outside improve you react accordingly and feel better as a result in itself. Finally (for now) I'd open the psychic channels I know I have at will and continually, as there is a lot more to see and know than we can most of the time. I'm not freaked out by it and if there are spirits standing around me I'd rather see them and communicate, they are just as natural as insects or other people in the room and they don't freak us out besides the spiders. I'd rather have a house full of spirits than one of them thank you. And to tie it up, the god inspired information comes to the greatest geniuses, who say they are not creating the music and art themselves but it comes through them. For me a lot of data comes through me rather than anything physical, but would like that to fully open as well as having read about it am now no longer likely to abuse any power offered. Ultimately we are all one so hurt another and you are hurting yourself as well.

Mass hypnosis

Here's the formula. Decide on world policy, place each major country with your people programmed to deliver it, and watch the carnage from a distance. Obama's latest speech confirmed every aspect of this, the empty emotionless tone, full of predictable empty words told me he is not thinking and aware of much of it, but just told to recite a prepared speech in order to have a very good life after he retires from office. Around the world other leaders in the UK and Australia have already given almost identical speeches regardless of party or official policies, which should not actually happen if each is voted in independently to carry out the wishes of its own voters.

Instead we have the same plans imposed worldwide, one country at a time, regardless of who voted for what, meaning the rules have been planned in advance and whatever we choose within the major parties the people have been hijacked by the same source. This is no longer a theory or a projection, but now a reality. If he spends the US pot on 'clean energy' that's another country heading the way of Zimbabwe, and the land of the free will become the land of the broke. Let's hope now the shit has truly hit the fan a few people will suddenly realise and rise against it.

I've been a hypnotherapist some time now, and if you see someone in a trance mindlessly parroting someone else's material, that's Obama, Gillard, Cameron, Bang-Ki Moon, and all the rest of the buggers who make the orders for us ordinary people, speak from a single voice. That's programming, the empty eyes and faces of them all, Ed Miliband the Tony Blair graft, cut from the rib and grown in a petri dish. All cells and no heart or mind. They all seem like they're on morphine and answer like machines whenever questioned. And since when has radiation been clean I wonder? Possibly in Obama's own dimension it us but when he brings it into ours even his body will suffer the same effects if exposed to it. This man has now said CO2 is a pollutant, radiation is clean and he's the fucking president of the world's most powerful country? If you don't stand up and fight as a result then you are as programmed as them.

Being too clever

Of course putting your life out there for all to see opens it up to full scrutiny, and of course judgement. However unless someone's actually hurt someone else then what's to judge? If people have problems they're suffering already so judging them as well just adds to it. Enough said.

Back to my reality. Not having a life is not actually a crime, and I share it here partly not to share it with people directly as I know they have to listen and readers can simply stop. You do have a choice unlike poor sods on the phone who can't keep inventing doorbells ('don't worry, I'll wait'), meals ('carry on eating, I'll be OK'), places to go ('OK, I'll go in a minute...') etc. You can't hold it in, and however bad it sounds it isn't. Other than that I'm learning loads of spiritual practice and philosophy, and even these little trials are sent partly to learn about them. Once you master any new situation it's off the problem list. I suspect I'm reaching the PhD end of the problems, ones so tough if I can crack that then I can crack anything. At almost 51 it's about bloody time as well thank you. I'm on Facebook standing up to the professional scientists responsible for your taxes and mine being raised to levels last seen in the feudal system, and despite nothing beyond O level science believe my logic can beat their maths any day. In the end intuition and logic win over everything, I noted yesterday that their behaviour told me instead of computers becoming so intelligent they could start thinking, intelligent people are getting so good at science they're stopping thinking and people are becoming like computers and not vice versa.

Once all loose ends are tied up I'm dropping that mission. I've fired all barrels at them and unless one or two who haven't commented actually challenge any of their own concepts as a result all I see are 'It's already settled, why are you wasting everyone's time?'. All I can say is it's better than wasting everyone's money. At least it's isolated my intuition, I had no scientific reasons for doubting global warming, but after a short time the reports I read conflicted with what I expected to follow. Guesses were getting further into the future, old ones were being altered, etc etc, and soon realised if they weren't right they had to be wrong. There is no grey area here. As you can't prove a negative, they have to prove their case and no one needs to try and disprove it, but the way they operate if you can't at least show they've got it wrong somehow they stand firm, so I scour for hundreds of studies, any of which could pull a few foundations from their case if true even if the rest proved 'discredited' as they claim all are. By professional scientists who disagree with them. It doesn't say much about their field if it's so easy for their colleagues to get it wrong, there shouldn't be the scope for it if you're so sure of your area it is used to make world policies.

I reckon these scenarios are here to teach everyone involved. If you have a bug to be fixed, you need something to raise it to the surface. Judgement is a pretty heavy bug to carry, and one which spreads around you like the shadow of a huge storm cloud across the sun. It covers up all your other qualities, as however clever, funny or caring you are, once you pass judgement all of those are gone. And just pointing out other people's problems doesn't make me judgemental, as we all have them, and only improve by discovering them and hopefully fixing them when we do. As I seem to have reached the toughest ones I am doing what I can to fix the final bugs I discovered in myself, but don't see that willingness in everyone who keeps reminding me I should to do the same for their own. I saw them long ago but wasn't my place or business to point them out unless they were aimed at me directly. I give the benefit of the doubt as well but as my intuition spots them before I do it is rarely wrong and see whatever I suspected is nearly always proved correct. I don't expect anyone to change though as people rarely do, but at least accept the observation and keep being judgemental, uncaring, undiplomatic, tactless, whatever, but at least know you're doing it and either revel in it and carry on or decide it's not getting you anywhere and learn to let it go. At least I am able to do that. Spock Out.

Time off

It's hard to blog when you've got a visitor staying with you, my ex was kicked out of where she was staying last week and been here on and off ever since, which is more a responsibility than anything else but mops up a bit of time when I'm not actually alone in the house for a change. I'll appreciate the freedom more afterwards as well. Otherwise it's been raining most of the time and into week 4 uploading photos to Geograph, I hit 1000 yesterday since Christmas Eve and is really addictive.

No other plans or ideas as such, just looking forward to my freedom and a few photo trips set up for when the clocks go forward. I've also spent a couple of weeks trying to sow a few seeds of doubt on a scientific global warming propaganda site, and gave up as they are no less certain the climate is already affected by us as the sun rising. What a bunch of narrow minded dogmatic idiots. The world is being wrecked by policies to save the climate from fuck all and destroying civilisation from every angle. I've done my best and can only hope now someone else better informed and connected can take over as I won't be able to get through to them. I no longer care about trying though as I've done all I could and now know I've done my total best. None of the new data that arises has any effect, they just say 'it's been discredited'. No, theirs has and is still used regardless. Not my job any more.

Politically however why anyone besides one who has developed the equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome through religion or oppression would want an authoritarian government restricting their every move god alone knows. Governments are there to serve and protect, telling people when and where they can travel is totalitarian and completely immoral, and these wankers are choosing to vote for them over and over again. They will cry as loud as everyone else when the power cuts arrive and their grandparents die of cold, but they asked for it. People can be so thick and deluded that nothing gets through until rock bottom, just like alcoholics. This is a worldwide political disaster and can only either win or lose and with nothing like it before can't see a thing ahead, like the IPCC if they'd be honest about it.

So just taking each day as it comes at the moment, I haven't had too much time to stop and think and have plenty of housework to do next as well as finish my paintings and a few more jobs delayed by having a visitor. It makes a change but ideally would like to choose the person as well.

2011 plans

The first story is one which is literally a casualty of global warming. Divide and rule is how the totalitarians work, Hitler being the best example. Make some people hate others for an invented reason and it actually works. This guy is a nuclear physicist I've known for 45 years, rediscovered on Facebook and have now been dropped as a friend as I refused to accept his superior knowledge on global warming as I have something else called common sense. That wins every single argument and no PhD or lifetime of published work can beat that. My sociology marks doubled when I realised the ego of the writers made them try and create the impression their theory explained everything. People still do the same in counselling while in fact the insiders will tell you the easiest way to cause harm as a therapist is to stick to one theory regardless. No discretion means no thought. If you simply direct people or make mistakes they will see and walk out most of the time or correct you, but use someone else's work without any discretion and you can't actually adapt to reality.
Now of course this person revealed a hitherto unknown mean streak, which he aimed at every single person who disagreed with him, as of course he knew better. So who lost, him or me?

Otherwise I am mystified about if I'll end up totally alone in the future as I'm not about to revive my dating antics at nearly 51 for a woman who prefers entertainment and gifts to a person. That's not something I was ever that keen on for long, it's the person I like being with and doesn't really bother me where else we go as if you ever manage to live with someone you spend more time in than out and if you don't like being with them then it's not worth getting that far if they get bored with you when you stop taking them dancing and dining etc. No bloody thanks. There must be women around who are fed up with all that as well and just want to settle down directly, maybe that'll be the theme of any advertising as it's one way to deliver the message. I've only met two women successfully from a good few solid years of advertising so not expecting that to deliver much whatever I write to try and improve my chances. Speed dating is a new innovation and if I discover one local rather than in London where not only can I get there but stand a chance of meeting someone nearby that's the other chance. Plus if they had singles bars here things would be a lot easier but the British would do what they did at the discos I went to as a teenager where all the men and women lined up on opposite sides of the room. The organised scene is very small and specialised, and tends to attract a hard core and once you've been a few times realise there are only a small group of people locally who basically go to everything and most are still older than me after 20 years of going to them after graduating from the synagogue discos.

So that's probably the most pressing project this new year, the media takes care of itself and tend to write an article in a few hours without a pause once I get an idea. If even half are published that'll keep building slowly and anything else comes to me from enquiries when someone is making a new programme. I have a couple of other things on the system I won't bother with unless they happen, but quite profitable if they do. I would like to do some sort of lecturing eventually, I do know that I can answer many people's questions and no doubt will discover what I can and can't answer once I begin. I think that needed decades of learning myself and seems to have ripened now so I'd feel capable of handling it. Most people's questions boil down to the same handful of problems which has always limited the amount of thought required as the same things tend to repeat themselves and the answers never change. Currently most people only trust people in their own professional field for answers, but part of my work is to teach people they can know literally anything. Being qualified isn't everything as I've caught many out myself or seen by others and if you know much about their job realise how many mistakes are made by those we are meant to trust. Most are because no one is infallible but expected to be, while a small group are deliberate to collect more money. Either way a good mind will beat anything else as many geniuses have been both self taught and experts in many other professions besides their own, true polymaths. Once you've tested yourself a few times you will soon discover what is reliable and can stick with, and no one can ever tell me that removing CO2 from the atmosphere will help the planet, except we can't really do it anyhow.

So there is a plan, and to complete the circle anyone who treats me or anyone else badly is doing it to themselves as it is their loss and their bad form. I would prefer to know someone who is rotten in the centre so I don't waste my own time on them any more, so if they show themselves up that's one less around. Again it's intuition, once you see the alarm bells no matter how many times someone appears to redeem themselves that has been revealed and is part of them which is never going to go unless they undergo an epiphany of sorts, which is the exception to the rule. One such fellow genuinely threatened to kill me after turning nasty a few years after I got to know him. That of course is the worst possible level but maliciousness is maliciousness and all mean that person is going to turn on you sooner or later. But one thing I do know, if they dump me someone else will be next, as it's in them not me.

Two fingers to 2011, three to 2010

2011, it's only a number mind you but maybe it will help organise my mind here. I've just been accused for however many times it is of knowing nothing about science, while in fact what they are telling me is the climatologists whose work I am daring to share as the media prefer not to know nothing about science. Now what makes one scientist better than another and qualified to say so? I know that one, nothing. They are wasting their energy and my money.

I had the usual people over for new year, with such competition I always ask a few more but they have their preferred venues so with my birthday a month later some come then instead, and one at least is on their way even sooner. I have no new (or even old really) projects for 2011, I'll keep taking photos and see if I can get to many new places after 5 years digital, and overcome the energy barrier of an hour's distance from home which kicked in with the virus in 2005 which knocked me back for two years. Photography was the one thing that got me out again and thank goodness for that, and may help even further in the future.

I will reply that there's no difference between the internet and the real world though, having had that pointed out yesterday. People are the same whether met on screen or in person, and many are now both anyhow so no difference at all. We nearly all had pen friends in the past, some we met, some we didn't, but were just as real and important as any others. This is only a wider version of it and only as most people online are thousands of miles away it's very hard to meet as many as we did in the old days. Of course everything in moderation, and nothing should take over our lives and if I had no other life I'd have nothing to blog about. And of course you have to spend time on the internet to go on and complain about others doing so. Just look in a mirror in future.

One thing I do know, none of us are going to change. If we kept this going another 30 years we'd probably learn a few new things and drop a few old ones as we all do sooner or later, but few by design and mainly by natural evolution. We seem truly elastic, you can pull someone way out from normal in any direction but they spring back pretty quickly, I think the DNA wins every time.

More than meets the eye

I will reiterate two replies to yesterday's comment here, god is not religion and I do not believe, I don't know. That means all believers are also agnostics as if they don't know they have no basis to believe. If you're not enlightened you have no direct knowledge of god, and even they may have it wrong. But the synchronicity in my own life and others tells me that as everything frequently fits together so exactly it would need a scriptwriter, then either I'm creating the lot like a dream or a force which can create and control everything is, and that's a pretty good definition of god. That doesn't make god good or bad, the good part isn't even in the bible as god is a moody bastard and so was his son Jesus, so if you expect the existence of god to mean it should be like heaven then you haven't read enough to demonstrate god is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. No one said he's a decent guy really from many official sources, he smites, creates ghastly illnesses and all the things the atheists use as a reason he can't exist, while in fact no one who does believe ever thought the opposite but still believes despite all the nasty stuff.

So god existing won't stop all the usual crap happening or not, if god made bogies and periods it means he has a mean streak and like all dictators may well enjoy the power a bit too much, or it could be a test for us and we do indeed move on to better and better places. Who knows, but at least I've learnt one lesson here is that god existing has never meant heaven on earth.

My goal of enlightenment is the escape from the effects of the crap, as that crap is always the same and as that won't change only we can. I have extended all my own feelings and senses through meditation already to prove what we start with is only the basics, and all can be improved, but unlike my weightlifting all but the clairvoyance die down very quickly and can't often be recalled at will. But once you've seen you can see auras, feel way better than normal, and hear others can do the same for every other area then we are designed to increase and improve our resources indefinitely, and enlightenment is the spiritual equivalent of a PhD. Having spent 13 years using pretty basic methods to reach that level I got basically nowhere, and only discovered a couple of teachers who used the god analogy as a route rather than a goal, as by personifying the force you get in touch with it better. That's where the mind is dropped as there's no point trying to understand the mechanisms as I said last time, just trust the teachers and any results you get. How and why isn't important. But I'll never get religion, that's nothing to do with god and just a spiritual version of politics.

I suppose I'm pretty lucky I've found a small crack in the seal anyway, not big enough for me to get through yet but enough to have allowed a little more through when it opened a bit. There are other clues I notice which imply there is a bit more than random chance behind the lot, but my goal is simply to feel good as is everyone else's. Labelling it isn't as important as getting there, and also if I see things happen around me which aren't supposed to then it is my duty to investigate. Synchronicity is written about throughout history, and basically a tiny minority of people want to know more so will not be interested in getting any higher than they already are, but that doesn't mean it's not possible. But the few motivated to keep going beyond the boundaries of existing knowledge can't avoid doing so and is not necessary for anyone else to want to follow. Many predictions say we are all headed there eventually, but some have to start although everyone will follow in the end. It's the same evolution which affects everything else and if we're still evolving then our consciousness will do so too.

So basically most people can't get this, and the few who do know pretty much exactly what I'm saying and our only problem is getting there. We can't do much else as it promises so much more than we could get otherwise.

Talking to God

Having come across two teachers who cut out the middle man (ie themselves) and ask you to talk to God yourself, I felt this was probably the best route myself, my screenname of satguru replies to the god within that tells you what it knew before you as an individual discovered it directly. I had a few questions and the first thing I switched on today was a film where the main man was saying how he heard God's voice directly and didn't tell many people as although many others he knew did most people would assume he was potty. That's clearly timing as usual for me. The synchronicity works but the gaps (apparent) in between make business a far longer chore than the possible pleasure to follow. I'm still caught in the illusion of having to suffer for my benefits.

The two threads of finding God within are transcending all outside events and changing them to fit. The two schools claim either it's better to be peaceful whatever happens regardless or to make things the way we want as we already create them but have to learn how to control it. In the end both are presumably accurate and purely up to the individual which appeals more. This goes way beyond changing your thoughts as my thoughts normally reflect outside rather than vice versa, that is they record rather than influence. Teaching grandma to suck eggs has always applied, if you tell someone something they don't know it's a gift, if you tell them where their shoes are, or the local shop they already know, and if you go a step further and say although you've been going shopping locally for 15 years they know a quicker way of getting there you'd probably say they were taking the piss. It's nearly as cheeky as my clients telling me how to do my counselling or challenge the method I'm using. I know people want to know more than others but that is arrogance or bossiness and not actually helping even when people think it is.

I am designed to teach and communicate, and only share when I'm pretty well certain what I know. That's the result of a law degree as anything else gets put in the bin by the lecturers. Once you've been trained to work things out before sharing them you are sorted. However, in true Buddhist tradition I only aim to offer teaching when asked, unless simply writing to the world as I do here. One thing I do know is not to treat the pupils with any judgement, as you don't learn like that, you rebel. Challenge someone's personality rather than their learning and it becomes a fight. Patronise or interfere where it's not your business and you are not teaching but on an ego trip. I also recommend people find their intuition, test it over and over again, and then realise as I did that you can know many things without actually experiencing them in any way previously. If someone seems wrong, check, and if you find they are then you can probably tell more or less instantly. You don't need to know or care why any more than how your TV works. We don't need the circuit diagrams in life, just the TV guides. Pick a topic and tune in.

People also all learn and respond in different ways. I either get something instantly if simple or on a long and winding route if complex. You can't speed it up unless you can cut the corners of the teaching. But if the teacher loses patience it is their weakness and not the pupil's, and in life unlike school there are no deadlines to pass. And some people take what I write here about myself far too seriously, as I don't mean it as such. I report the daily activities intentionally as an outsider rather than personally, stating direct facts rather than my opinion on them. It reads like a diary as it is a diary, and half the purpose is to sort out my own mind by emptying it out and looking at it. It gets it out of me and allows me to see where I am. As I enjoy reading other people's diaries I do it in public but aren't really expecting anything to change as a result of doing so.

Finally hold up a mirror. How would you react if someone 'taught' you the way you teach others? Would you like it, learn from it or kick them in the nuts? Well if you'd do the third option that is how you make other people feel by your own version of tough love. It's confrontational and teaching isn't a competition or a punishment, if anyone wants to teach at any level or capacity they have to learn the rules first.

Tell the truth or your nose will be cut off

I think we're not all that different, regardless of other things, the one time I was suddenly swamped with visitors here was when I had a troll for a few weeks and the visits made three figures on some days. I to love watching other people's arguments as in life most is so controlled that if you're watching a race or a discussion it's only really fun when it goes flying out of control. Short of suffering arseholes like that more frequently you'll have to make do with my own material the rest of the time, and as I combine real life with inspiration when both tend to come to a halt although my writing doesn't clearly its appeal does.

Of course half the benefit of the blog is my own. Many people have journals, so as you'd have written it anyway then I'm writing mine here. You don't care about the quality of your own as no one else reads it (as far as we know) so hard to remember sometimes when I'm going over material to try and learn something from it everyone else has to suffer at the same time. And not everyone gets my jokes. There is a funny side to most things, usually when we aren't responsible for the laundry, but that's the same as watching a fight or being in it. Schadenfreude seems to be almost universal, partly as life is usually dull and partly as it means it's not our turn today. One thing I have learnt this year is how easy it is to manipulate people by authority, and how hard it is to undo such effects. The reasons and excuses I've seen why commonsense is ignored while anyone with a few relevant letters after their name can basically say whatever they like, provide evidence like Dr Who's psychic paper (nothing written on it, it just makes you believe there is) and refuse to dispute a word of it.

I hope it wears off. We do wake up from all dreams and trances as that's their nature, so even if no one tried teaching the zombies facts one by one they'd wake up and think 'How did I manage to believe all this crap?' for crap it is. My life has been so wasted the last year or two learning all I can about how they invented global warming, and then being ignored when passing it along to the unconverted. Thank goodness the first paper reported James Hansen's unique temperature figures for the year so I no longer have to share it, and once it's known they make it up then one by one the followers have to both notice it and realise if their great rulers make it up then they aren't able to prove it really happens. The prosecution case is a fitup. You can't lie about anything forever as the truth is always there to show you're wrong. You can hide it, delay it and swerve around the challenges almost indefinitely, but when the first fact or two sneaks through a crack then it's quite hard to stop more following. Will 2011 be the year people quietly move on and leave the nonsense behind or will it go on and on and on?

Well that's the sermon for today. If our hopes have been falsely raised on the UFO leak ahead then so be it, although the leak itself seems hard to block at this stage only its quality remains to be known. But remember no one needs qualifications to assess others' material. If you find you can originate it yourself than you don't need tp be qualified either for that matter, as many inventors demonstrate. But don't let anyone tell you if you're not qualified you can't understand anything technical. Just because you can't pass their exams we are all able to grasp individual points. Commonsense and intuition are above outside learning and should be the test to which wrong academics are put. That's why we use a jury in every civilised country of the world, who have the power to kill without it being a crime. Having the power to see a liar is something we are all qualified to do if we use it.

Answering the questions

Just to continue the last entry I suspect I've got a jigsaw with a bit or two missing. Although I've checked this stuff out for half my life and can confirm this changing your thoughts stuff is not common knowledge besides simple corrections in cognitive therapy, but appears to be a genuine formula regardless of how little known, but I'm still missing a bit. No doubt as I have most of it if that is the case and I find the final piece I may find it works. But no one can work with a partial formula so I'll just wait and if it happens then I'll try it out.

Otherwise it's slush or ice except on the main roads, depending if day or night, I can get around but limited to safe and essential travel. For flyover fans I'm surrounded bu not one but two tier bridges all round me, so used the short amount of daylight to film the major junctions around the North Circular, and hope to get to Highgate next weather permitting. Just to address some of the previous comments a bit more, my friend situation was like watching water slowly drain from a bucket. As most of my friends arrived over 20 years ago making new friends had never been anything I needed to do as I kept my old ones. One by one they vanished one way or another, and although I see them occasionally if still around London (none are local now as they all went elsewhere except me) I can't just pop in or vice versa. Without being too condescending there is always a hard core of what I can only call mental patients (most met and socialised through the local hospital which is how I was introduced in one case, and they nearly all know each other) who can't work so call me as I'm around and have to make the best of seeing them when it's impossible to wriggle out. The only reason I point this out is they are usually dominated by their symptoms which although entirely beyond their say not exactly the best company as a result. Plus the ex who is little different but my current female activity. People will constantly turn up and go throughout life so I just have to get a new one locally to replace the spaces. I had never gone out to 'make friends' in the past, it just happened, and is not something you can treat like going shopping for a person.

I still have longer term ambitions but unless I get a shift on them little point in saying 'no news yet'- but includes a second article on the system, although I think silence is rejection with the fourth one I've sent off to the other people. I still constantly see that the watched pots rarely boil, it's when you take your attention off anything it may shift simply from your lack of attention. That means we do interact with our environments which in turn must partly be projected or at least affected by us. If I'm looking for a specific item I rarely find it, but the act of looking means I often find one of the previous items I'd lost instead. So to extend it to nebulous and hard to pin down areas like friends then the more you aim to find them the less likely you will. That's not science but experience. Again more missing bits of everyone's jigsaw as I challenge every single person to know how we are able to influence our surroundings with our minds. But throughout history people say they only get what they really want when they give up trying. I did that long ago, and as far as business is concerned do my bit of creating new material, but accept that it's out of my hands what others choose to do with it. That's my part of the deal, I create what I can, send it to as many people I can think of and that's my side covered. Business has pretty simple and direct rules so haven't had many problems with it as quite easy to follow.

Other than that I am finding that whatever I write here ends up as a means to learn myself, as of course if I've got problems then laying them out for the world to read means they get pointed out even if I didn't know some were there. Knowing the enemy is over half way to killing it. Had I not written it then no one would have seen it and I'd never have even been aware of it, so any suffering caused to the readers is more than compensated if it actually helps me fix the problems. Who wants problems? If someone points one out with me you can be certain if it's recognised then I do everything I can about it. If it was easy to fix then it wouldn't be much of a problem, but mine are guaranteed to be the knottiest complexities as I've had plenty of years to sort out all the others already. I'm now reaching the toughest leg of the journey, one we don't even know if it ends let alone where, but have to trust others to tell us it has a destination, and as a student of anything the final tests are always the hardest (except in my degree as we knew more after three years so didn't get so confused, but don't let exceptions ruin my point), so my biggest demons are now coming out and being faced, as anyone can deal with the everyday stuff but if you want to be a master of your circumstances you have to be able to handle the lot. A good teacher never sets their students tests beyond them, so we are told we get nothing in life till we can handle it. This isn't a big one as far as living with it is concerned, the issue is its sheer weight and complexity. But I'm aware of it and the last person to want to live with anything I can sort out if at all possible. I expect some time I may go into some of the hurdles I've had to cover in the past, I am certainly familiar with it.

Changing my thoughts?

I hope I'm slowly finding my way. Firstly, when I hear advice and criticism I always check it out. I suspect either I'm missing a bit with the changing your thoughts formula or it's not as it seems. All I know is our thoughts and feelings come first, we can't change our feelings for the better directly, we can learn to get more information so we understand what we're doing, but changing your thoughts to me is about learning and no more. Breaking habits is not exactly changing but suppressing your thoughts, as if you see negative thoughts they're no more your fault than a headache, but do have a choice to act on them. In fact even negative thoughts are only based on a lack of information and if you knew the full picture would either go away on their own or know the unfortunate truth and have to live with it. Only meditation is the indirect way besides drugs to make yourself feel better, but without poisoning yourself. That tends to be slow, intermittent and unreliable so unless you go on antidepressants, which won't make you happy either but stop you sinking too low, that's just how it is. Enlightenment is the only escape and we can't get that quickly or easily either but all I can aim for ultimately as the next level above our lower level of emotions.

Logic aside, just knowing I am awareness doesn't get you or me enlightened, but is a doorway to it in seconds. I am aware of this, it changes nothing for me but focuses my being from the body to the space in the present. The more you focus the further you go through this doorway, and you can do it anywhere. It's not based on understanding but persistence and direct awareness as a result.

Back here the snow came today and stopped me going anywhere besides walking around to see the carnage, one total anus was driving his van down a sideroad while continuing to use the phone as he would on a motorway or other road in normal weather. The trouble is in a van he's far more likely to kill someone else, blame it on the snow and get no consequences whatsoever. Not my problem or business as I well know but they are everywhere and we can only ignore them as we do the dogshit all over the same streets, and just avoid it when we see it. Other than the live chat christmas quiz not letting me in tonight, the normal one has worked weekly or more for seven years and the one new event I can't attend and join in, but not the worst thing that could happen. The snow isn't expected to go in a hurry and may not be able to carry on what I normally do for some time. Even the main roads are unusable so unless that changes suddenly without the temperature rising above zero that will continue.
I have also started Falun Gong, having found the exercises in the book are online so no need to turn pages while exercising (I presume they expect someone else to do it for you), and will continue as long as I can now. It looks like good stuff and although I'm not yet sure how you get your initiations without the master no doubt will discover more.

Last week demonstrated what a waste making plans is. The builders never arrived despite tying me up for three days waiting to hear from them, whether they went yesterday when it was dry is anyone's guess but don't have to go back now as far as I know. I had plan Bs every day, even if only thought of on the spot, but collected videos, photos and more quiz victories online and did a little work as well. Last night I actually heard a piece of music from the 60s in a dream I'd forgotten about over 40 years ago, and now posted it in the usual places to see if anyone knows which TV programme it was from. Needless to say it was impossible to get the car serviced as it was on standby each day, and no call back from the barber as usual, in fact nobody except the Open University who informed me why they don't sell videos. But they may now add some on Youtube so may still get to see some again. Anyway, I will sum up the changing thoughts situation I have so far, if I know exactly what's happening then I can do the right things about it, if not I'm not sure, and without information our minds tend to try and protect us and assume the worst. That can be ignored but not prevented as it's natural, and our feelings only react either to events or completely at random. Often they barely react to thoughts so whatever you think or do that is how you feel till it passes, just like the snow. Now if I'm missing a bit I want to know what it is as I'm a bit lost here.

Working it out.

My latest theory- the more people do the less time they have to blog, so unless you're a born writer like me I think you're going to find many people blog as they have too much time on their hands. Maybe I'm wrong. I had plenty today, just before I was going to leave I had the call the builders couldn't work as it was raining so with maybe an hour of light left had to think what I could get to I hadn't done already (five years with the digital camera) and realised I can make videos anywhere, and did a quick circle to Wembley Park. I then dropped in at the Co Op and as luck would have it the resident comedian actually liked the idea of being filmed so ended up with him as well. He's been entertaining customers longer than I've lived here this time round, although I remember when the counter was the bank and the tills were somewhere else. So for the third day running I'm meant to be meeting the builders tomorrow and working in the evening.

Thank goodness the Falun Gong originally in a book is now online so I can do all the exercises properly and easily, as you can't turn pages while learning them as well. It's one more thing to do and work on and may do as much or more than anything else I try. Meanwhile we've been put in the ridiculous position of being told something will happen within a few months (randomly) with the Wikileaks ufo reports, but not when exactly. The speculation is growing and with the poor bloke being locked up without charge (remember this is Britain, not Cuba or China, so can now see how little difference there is when pushed) makes me worry that his organisation will follow, and possibly before the only possibly valuable item has been released. Do they really need to flood the media with what is now considered meaningless and irrelevent unfiltered guff the media have now quite rightly stopped reporting while he's already said he's got something people actually do want to know. I carry on with business as normal as no alternative but is a bit of a mess.

Regarding the earlier comment about changing thinking, as usual when faced with what can only be interpreted as a cliche, I've worked out that our thinking is nearly all based on information. The only way that can improve is when we know enough to understand what's going on. The only faulty thinking besides a few easily identified bad habits is based simply on not having the information to know what you need to so naturally worrying about it as a result. Blaming the wrong people (especially yourself) or blowing up the possible chances of disaster a millionfold (my personal favourite) would instantly vanish should we know the truth. That's not a fault with the person or how they think, it is just not possible to know what they need to to relax. That includes what is and isn't possible and what does and doesn't work. Meeting women for instance. Outsiders happily assume you can meet a woman simply by doing something about it. What actually happens is you can share a room with women in almost infinite ways, but one where they are right for you and single is down to no more than chance. Using dating sites normally eliminates the majority who are not single but as for quality forget it. Just one example. I've been analysing this stuff as long as I remember, more or less bagged the business side in my 20s which I've proved in reality since, but the pleasure side isn't within our direct control. Meditation is the only indirect method without poisoning yourself with drugs, as all others require other people who we can't control, let alone trying to improve how we feel directly which is the same as trying to lift ourselves off the ground by our own shoelaces. That's not faulty thinking not to try, but to think it can be done.

No magic formulas then, I've spent time and money checking for 20 odd years, some work once quickly for a short time (hours maximum) but like drugs try again and mysteriously nothing happens. With meditation the key is only persistence, and quite possibly using a few methods at once attacks from different directions as well. Add to that some teachers say do nothing, just by listening to them it'll happen naturally, contrasted with others who can have you chanting and breathing odd ways all day long. In the end enlightenment comes to people who simply pursue it and unless stick with one teacher from start to finish (many who do get nothing as well) can't even tell what did it or not. But that's separate from real life as you don't really see the benefit till you're almost there, and have to deal with everything else till that happens just as you were before. You can't cheat the mind, it is always stronger so the only way to win is to move your awareness beyond its effect. You can try every trick in the book to wrongfoot it but it's our master if we pay it any attention at all, so better to leave it to its own devices, be aware of them, and expect little better from it. Once you become the master then it won't matter how many habits it has, it will only be used to organise your life and no longer rule it.

As my friend says (as I can't take credit if not me), we didn't design our minds, and all the reactions and thoughts come like the weather, we can only decide whether to act on them or not. You can't do a damn thing with the feelings (anyone who tells me they can and how can go and swap Al Gore and Barack Obama's Nobel prizes for themself as they'd deserve two at least) and till then STFU. If not then if you feel good you're lucky, not clever. Everyone else is not, end of. Nothing overlooked or avoided.

The world is a mess but we could fix it.

I am never going to question the value of the internet again. I came home last night and it was down, I spent the time I would have been on phoning India (ie over half an hour waiting for an answer) and if they sent the engineer today as arranged apparently can now fix many faults in the box outside and not even come in to see the result. The fact the operator checked the line for me today and said it was intermittent but if I can watch video to leave it as it is was good enough, I am able to get on with my life. The research alone I do would be almost impossible otherwise, before you add in the quizzing and social side. So a definite asset, any downside is no different from any other excess in life, nothing is designed to be overused, even your women...

So I think the question was using the internet both excessively and ahead of real life, which I always answer if I didn't have a real life first I'd have nothing to come back and report on the internet. It's my wife and family, which I either don't have or have intermittently depending which of the two I refer to. But neither are at home so hence the internet. It's similar to when people lived in communities and had family all around so didn't need professional counsellors, the role was always there but now requires strangers as most people don't have a proper community to support them now. And I suppose if it can change to the minus instantly it can turn back pretty quickly as well when the person arrives.
The trip to see the builders at my late grandma's was delayed another day so had it to myself unexpectedly today, I only managed a quick walk round the park before it got dark but then continued to catch up with phone calls and the like before anything came on TV to watch a lot later on.

I think it's about time Wikileaks released their UFO story, the rumours grow every day and as no one outside the group actually has a clue what the story is then the longer they wait the greater the chances they all have of being bumped of and having the information destroyed, let alone everyone wasting their time speculating. Meanwhile the latest claim that 2010 is the hottest year ever (they mean 1979 but as there are no laws to stop people lying per se then you have to check that independently) is shown to disagree with every other measurement, and prove how easy it is to create climate reports to order and not be challenged when discovered. The fact no one has been questioned on the latest revelations besides any other since the hockey stick and a possible case in New Zealand demonstrates far more that there is an agreement to keep the story going at all costs as otherwise people would be answering questions in enquiries around the world, with consequences once discovered for sure. But no, the authors are free to continue turning out what are now openly manipulated pictures, while their peers produce different unrelated versions as if this was the most normal thing on earth, while no one outside a tightly knit group of concerned citizens online gives a flying damn. As there is no law to snare these bastards with as yet (perversion of science isn't even a sacking offence if it attracts funding) then the fake climate graphs will continue to cause power cuts in the future, as well as massive travel restrictions and taxes we've never seen the like of.

Of course with the Royal Family and X Factor (take away the titles and the personnel are almost interchangeable, except the Royal Family aren't known as singers) people don't want to be concerned with their governments' activities as long as the TV is on and the Royals haven't been deposed. If the alien claims proved correct I doubt many people would even care, but if their favourite celebrity is kicked out of Strictly they'll dress up in sackcloth and ashes and sit shivah for a week. With such priorities they will basically get away with everything they want as people worldwide barely seem to vary when all are free to share their views online (outside the communist bloc of course). The fact that we are heading the same totalitarian way, familiar to anyone who's studied politics, is no more real than a cartoon film to them, but will suddenly wake up the day their computer cannot power up as there won't be any power. And their granny dies of hypothermia. Then it's too late. We can't predict the climate as it's too complex, but politics give you previews and trailers so we know exactly what they've got saved up for us. In Australia, as the UK, people chose to vote for 'green' policies, which is more or less asking to destroy your society in under a decade. The greens are yesterday's socialist workers and worse, and will do their best to bring capitalism and civilisation down, with your help if you vote for them. There are alternatives, and the US is the first country in the world who have voted some of them in, so there is a crack in the armour but it has to be widened before we can kill the giant.

Watching paint dry

Every part of our lives is subject to a natural change, and probably pretty well even between positive and negative. Focusing on the improving areas, I do like to see if any have improved from time to time as there's always a list of stuck areas impossible to change directly which may or may not shift more or less independently, like our current congestion charge or what time it gets dark. All seeing things change from negative to positive. The few I have control over directly are how my house and garden look, while most others tend to change like the weather only a lot more slowly. They range from what's going on outside, like car designs, or my own life like being published or on TV. The outside news it totally outside my control, like a TV script, but the personal stuff mainly depends on my doing the start and other people marking it like an exam, pass or fail. This covers anything I create, sell, write and asking women out or contacting old friends. We are not able to cover whole jobs on our own in most areas of life, so whatever ambitions we have the only thing we can do is persist when we are turned down. It can get boring when on a losing streak but that is the nature of change itself, it happens apparently randomly but for me more in phases of specific similar happenings.

So it's like seeing a sideways bar chart of lots of different issues, changing from red to blue when they shift, and one small pleasure I have is when I see one that's been stuck for ages and apparently never to change finally move without me doing a thing about it. It could be an old friend getting in touch, getting money paid that was owed to me, having something published, that type of thing. The ancients created the rain dance to try and end the drought and probably killed a few women and peasants when it didn't work as well, now we either carry on with our normal business and wait or use The Secret and see if it's any better than a rain dance. I'll work on another couple now, it's time the drought was broken again.

Going with the flow

I started today with not a single plan. I didn't need it as two work bookings materialised soon after, and filled the gaps with the TV and tidying the house in preparation beforehand. I've got tomorrow covered by family duties so no need to think there either, and still covering the spiritual teachings online as they are really the only way to get where I need to in life, the rest is just keeping busy until then as I've pretty well realised you can't find it in the real world.
Meanwhile I hear (aren't rumours wonderful?) the Wikileaks UFO revelation will be the downed craft and crew in the 70s. If so then the attention will leave Wikileaks, realise the truth and then realise what total arseholes governments are for hiding this and presumably every other story they knew about for ages. I found the other day all US energy patents for more efficient generators are instantly made secret by law, so the very fact they openly remove anything which would improve our quality of life proves already what they think of the people they are supposed to serve.

To remind myself more than anything my current understanding is on the enlightenment front is:
1) Before we think who we are, that is what we actually are. If for example, you wake up disoriented and take a few seconds before you remember who and where you are, that is the real you before the human added identity comes in. Basically it's awareness.

2) As my awareness is the same as your awareness/everyone's awareness it is quite possible it is the same awareness. Not the same AS yours but the only one there is.

3) However many methods you use or theories you hear most are a part of a whole picture. They are aspects rather than the sole qualities or there would be a different version of enlightenment for each teacher. I don't believe a single teacher is guaranteed to produce results from anyone (from personal experience) and better to take what you need and add it from each. The actual result is more down to persistence and chance than following any single method, most people who have don't seem to have got anywhere while their teachers nearly all have either moved from teacher to teacher or awakened on their own.

4) All I currently know is enlightenment is the level of consciousness directly above this one. It loses any identity with an individual and as such is infinite in its awareness. There are too many people claiming the same thing to all be inventing it.

There are many more small points, most of which I've mentioned before, but to me it seems maybe it'll all fall into place one day like a puzzle rather than see a bit change here and there. I actually find I feel closer to it when talking about it to others (as one teacher recommends) as it's the same as Jesus saying when two or more people join to talk about me they shall become closer to me. I share everything I know by nature, so whatever I know I tell people about. When I was a teacher I even got paid for it, until six years of the identical routine became too much and stuck to private pupils till the demand ran out. I could teach survival methods now, as I do in my articles, and would like to lecture in them as well but it's not really an academic area or one where ordinary people would be that interested. And enlightenment transcends all lower issues so better to look there than the details of specific problems. My mind still can't quite understand it, as it wasn't designed to. Enlightenment can only be understood after the event so only removing concepts from it can help rather than adding any. I am an individual person is the main one to go, I can see that very clearly now but it's only stage one.

Another bloody week isn't it

OK, here we go. Change the bloody record. If I can. I've just read for £7000 you can now get a genuine looking hair transplant. Besides the number of tranquilisers (probably IV would be required) I'd need to stay put for however long they make you keep still I still reckon I could get nearly as many women (1) than I may if I had more hair (2 possibly?). Now if they could come to me and do it (how much more would that cost) I'd go for it, had the money been available of course.

I really believe life can present you with locked doors from time to time, with no visible way through. Nearly every one then gets opened from the other side, and the nerves aren't quite up to visiting anyone new yet as that would require a lot more time and gradual exposure. I could have invited myself to a few more people otherwise but always better safe than sorry with panic disorder. So remove the areas covered by my current limitations and that's what I've got to make the best of. It's like reading a menu and eliminating the ones with mushrooms, seafood, raisins and then whatever's off that day. No one wants a surprise prawn in their rice if they can help it. I have, and would like given the chance to use my material on stage somehow. That's one reason I come here, it's the nearest thing plus my youtube blogs to what I always liked doing. From the homework what I did over the weekend essays onwards. Despite having over 20 already, Streetview found three more no through road signs on a mile or so of road nearby. Each was under the road name so had three different roads attached to the same sign like the old days when that was what they all had. There are older ones with catseyes (I have a couple), usual iron or steel ones, painted ones and older plain ones with a different font so not all identical, but no new versions left for me besides the almost (and possibly) unique one pre-1953 with a red triangle on it.

I don't think I've got anything left on the possible system besides the next article, I can't see any joy from the second magazine though but will have another go once I get an idea what to write next. The Friends Reunited and similar are mainly curiosity value, but the odds of getting an old friend back are higher than any other way despite being astronomical it does happen. Admittedly not to me, I met one girl from school after a year or so and that was the lot. Facebook is now gradually adding more 'real people' simply because they've joined, and it does work as they meet each other there like they would at my parties although many would live too far away to meet in reality. But only enhances life rather than replaces it.

So of course you can't change who you are any much inside as you can outside, you pull a few strings but it tends to return to normal sooner or later. But I am aimed in a different direction which is really the only way we can get anything outside the business side of life. Nothing more direct has been discovered although I may teach myself falun gong now from a book which is not that simple to remember and need someone to turn the pages of the book or copy them all as each series of moves covers five pages. That's one way to pass the time anyway.

Got the message

I must have got in a rut as just pointed out, the fact the snow and ice made going out a dangerous ordeal (loads of people have had car accidents and falls etc) and it gets dark at 4pm so little worth doing outside after that till March made whatever situation was here come into real focus. I remember there used to be plenty of humour, and do have a number of people who ring me up every day or two with their problems, and my work which is only that, and seems like nearly everything I've heard for weeks have been other people's problems on the phone while just nodding and listening. You can't boot people out of your life, especially a specific few, so if they're on a roll for weeks, months or even years in some cases you just have to take it as they'd either become very upset if you mentioned it (too old and set in their ways to change believe me) or take no notice and carry on. And the few who do see me are usually the same people so just get it directly instead when I do. No wonder I've been joining in, and deliberately not to any specific person as I know just what it feels like and nothing can be done to help.

I do also talk about enlightenment, which of course is the only known escape from any of this, ups as well as downs as they tend to cancel out over time. But life brings phases for much of the time so I hope this is just one more of those, and as I know from experience, once you become aware of one then it has to go as a result. Hopefully that's mainly what was required. But unlike the friends I had here who have made themselves partially or totally unavailable until the last regular was gone, the people on the internet are like them but unavailable in person purely from distance. Over the years I've gradually met some when they've been in London, and met my last girlfriend online. Even my neighbour who used to borrow me for anything he needed help for is now divorced and miles away, and not speaking to me over a business matter where he expected me to go along with his plans without even telling me, and is now calling me a liar as he's pretending he did. The fact I worked for him for 11 years and know his routines means trying to bluff his own employee who dug him out of similar situations for years means he clearly thinks I'm as much of a moron as he considers everyone else he deals with. But one less person anyhow.

So let's see what happens now. Energy is a neutral driving force, like radio frequency, and when it becomes a low level then everything else reflects it. It's really outside our being as it's actually the fuel that drives our lives, and have yet to find a single way to change it by choice. It is much like the weather and unlike the IPCC I accept we can't change either by efforts, however expensive or complex. But seeing it and knowing it is half the job, things definitely haven't been as bad as it sounds, but realised the high spots that do come are no more than that and while peaks do return back to more or less the same place however high each may be. That is more of an equation to solve than anything else, and so far have mainly see these things change on their own than by anything we try and do to fix it. I'm quite used to being able to solve most problems so don't like it when I finally come across one that doesn't even seem to have a way in to start. That's a challenge and although I trust it will change naturally if there's a rain dance or something I can do to help (like the IPCC are trying) I'd probably be as deluded as they are.

Got nowhere so far

Before I go to bed I felt I must come here. Few read any more, even fewer comment but it's my best method of conversation currently so stuff the details. I managed to get out in the car again once I realised my road was the only one left with snow on it, although the ice on the pavements wasn't a good idea to walk on for long. I ended up getting nothing but a free paper in the shops (the one item I wanted to find is apparently no longer being made) but got quite a few photos of the snow and other things so wasn't a total waste of time. I then began my watercolour after being asked about art deco houses, it's looking OK but for some reason I got one window a panel too high and can't really go over it as not oil or acrylic where you can get away with anything. It doesn't ruin it but no longer quite accurate.

Because of the snow I've been mainly indoors besides the quick food trip yesterday and the wander around today, it does become a bit of a cliche when the most interesting parts of the day are deciding what to eat, but you have to find the entertainment where it lies, and also last night did a full circle of online satsang, and realised it's the same as many academic areas where each teacher claims they have the sole answer when in fact each has a part of the picture and I reckon I've put them all together now, although the effects or otherwise are yet to be discovered. The snow's due to melt in a couple of days officially, unless it just stops but stays as ice like last year. So without going back and thinking about it I can't even remember if anything interesting's happened this week. The Test Match began a few hours ago and saw England get three wickets in the first three overs which is always entertaining and extremely rare against a decent team. Besides the usual parent visit in the evening tomorrow is still totally blank, and most of the things I'd like to buy on the way there will be closed by the time I get there so not sure if I'll fit anything like that in as well, and not if it's still icy.

The bottom line of enlightenment is of course what goes on outside is pretty irrelevant as you are no longer affected by it. But till then it's business (literally at times) as usual. I suspect the story may just go on forever unless you get off the train, and how many people honestly manage that? One guy who explains it pretty nicely actually believes it happens when it's ready and nothing we put in in the way of effort makes any difference, but then gives you a pile of things to do so presume it does work like the rest as expected. I'm sure he knows what he means but I'll keep working at it in case something happens.
So my actual plans are now being used up. The builder will be fixing the roof at my late grandparent's next week at least, although my own builder is now ill and may have to get the other guys to do what he was planning as well, as long as someone does I'll be ok. To the enlightened mind you don't care what happens as it's not even real to you and you're fine regardless, but to mine something decent would be nice. I'll keep producing more material for the media to accept or reject and anything else I can think of, and I agree talking about it doesn't change anything either.

It's time for more inspiration, where it comes from I don't know but beyond my scope. The Friends Reunited messages is up to five now, three down and two to add soon I expect. One woman who ran a mile from me and another who only met me when she was engaged to what she described as unstable but is still happily married. And it was a blind date. I do spend a lot of my time helping other people, paid and unpaid, and sometimes it would be nice for some back besides from my family. It's not too much to ask but too much to expect.