Life and Mind

The Master gives the acolyte a test.

He must meditate on silence at exactly 12 midday everyday.

After a week of failure the acolyte, despondent and unhappy, comes to the master to complain. 

He says, 'How can I meditate when the monks have to ring the bell twelve times at the very moment I must start my mediation? All I can hear is the bell ringing over and over and I can't stop thinking about it, and this means I cannot find the silence!'

The master smiles. 'Ah...you have discerned why I have chosen such a time! Make the bell the object of your meditation! And when it has come under your control order it to be silent,' says the master. 'Make this a task of your will and your thinking will follow into silence and in so doing you will have passed the test.'

Understanding dawns, and the acolyte soon learns that meditation is a way of life and that silence is a state of mind.

Finding Everything in Nothing.

Show up and do the work,
Though you are inadequate
Though there is no guarantee
That what you do will bear fruit.
And if you kindle the fire
And tend the plant,
Regardless of the outcome,
You will discover, sooner or later,
That this action itself 
Is the achievement

(AK)

THE ABC OF DIVINE BLISS

Sentience is like a man who sits on a beach looking at the world with feelings but no understanding. Everything he sees, hears, senses, impresses him and this evokes deep emotions but although these emotions are 'selfish' he cannot find himself in this world and for this reason he cannot love the world.

Sitting on the sand he notices something sticking out  - letters. He takes them out one by one, they have been there a long time and look quite old and valuable so he decides to take them home, hoping they can tell him something about the world and his place in it.

Intellect is like the man who takes the letters he found in the world to study at home, separating each letter out with great care, polishing preserving and memorising only the form and substance, quality and quantity. Comparing one to the other and making tables of names which can distinguish them so that at any time he can recall them in his memory. When he does this he becomes more knowledgeable about the letters, but he knows they have no relation to him - they are what he is not and for all his work he is disappointed. This is study.

One day while looking at the letters for any flaws he chances upon a discovery.  If he puts them together in a certain pattern they create words, he wonders if their purpose was not to be studied singly but rather in connection with one another. This was a wonderful revelation but no matter how many patterns he creates, the words are still outside him and so they cannot tell him anything about his relationship to the world.

This is imagination.

Consciousness is like a man who decides to swallow the letters so that he might become one with them. When he digests them he can no longer see them and at first he is sad, for he thinks he has lost them. Even so he is inspired to walk into the world and when he does he can feel these letters within him, speaking in his limbs revealing to him, through his movement outwards, that he is always one with the world and that this oneness is his relation to it.

This is inspiration.


Now he understands the truth, that what he felt with his sentience and studied with his intellect were necessary stages for becoming selfless in knowledge. Now he knows how to read the ABC of the spirit, the occult script.

Spirit Consciousness is like a man who when he walks out into the world with the ABC of the spirit in himself feels so much love for the truth he sees, the words in all he sees, that he takes these into himself consciously and unites himself with the spirit in all things. Now begins the preparation of the Philosopher's stone because he understands how microcosm and macrocosm meet in the human being - how above and below meet in the soul to bring about life.

Life Consciousness is like a man who, when he takes in the truth of the world into himself feels no selfish emotions, but rather his emotions are transformed to a selfless love for the truth. The truth of the world is inside him now and it brings him renewed life and he loves this life for its own sake.

Now he can live into the macrocosm, the spirit in the world, not as a guest, but as a citizen of that world.

Human Consciousness is a like a man who in loving the truth feels an impulse not to remain in the macrocosm but to return to the microcosm, to remain a human being so he can turn the truths he has found, through an effort of his will, into a good action, for the love of that action, and the sake of those who have not yet found the truth.

Now does the spirit of world, truth, become through love, a force of individual goodness in the man and once again he walks it into the world doing good deeds for the love of the deeds which are based on truth. Such a man has turned the letters he once found into words and those words into deeds. This is Divine Bliss - living in goodness.

What is the deed that such a man living in goodness can do?

He speaks out new letters and then buries them in the sand for someone else to find.

The Power of Stories

The man Phostismos had been in this room a long time.


He was not alone here. There were others who came here long ago but neither he nor the others could remember how they got here or when it was that they had decided to close their eyes. They only knew what the old ones had always said: that there had been a time before the darkness, before they came into this room when people could experience the light of the Sun.

But all were blind now and what was known about this room in which they lived had come from bumping into the things in it. These things made of sharp corners and straight edges, had created an impression on the blind ones and from these impressions they had fashioned their own individual inner mind-map of the room.

In time they forgot the stories of the old ones. but it lived deep in their hearts, like a little spark.

With time it grew increasingly difficult to navigate in the dark and people chose to stay on one side of the room or on the other, permanently. Human beings are social creatures and they soon formed communities and groups around their likeminded inner view of their side of the room. These views became dogmas and laws which each side fought hard to protect because to let go of them was to lose their orientation.

You see, these dogmas arose because both sides were too afraid to open their eyes. They had 'heard' things bumping about in the dark that they could not see or understand and they were certain these were evil and hideous. Those who created the original dogmas called these things demons which needed no explanation, others came who created new dogmas and called them collectively, science, Science was a way of using the things which they bumped into and which scared them, to explain what they were.

But there was more to it. No one remembered that long ago the decision to close the eyes had been made because the light had been switched off by one of them.

They couldn't remember that a more developed occupant of the room had originally brought them here from the outside to gain power over them, and he did this by enticing them into the belief that they could learn more in the room and without any light. This member shut off the light and told them that just by closing their eyes and developing an inner life through memory of the light they could find freedom from everything outside them. All they had to do was to remember the light inside them.

They did not realise, because they were blind, that this was a form of incarceration.

Another member even more advanced than the first soon jumped on the bandwagon to become his partner in crime - and like all such criminals he was of a mind to usurp the first one one day. Each allocated the other the task of controlling one side of the room for mutual benefit - each had his eyes wide open.

The first one inspired the people on the left side of the room to create other rooms in their minds and to 'imagine' different things with the light they remembered. They need never leave the room, just live in their beautiful imaginations which were far better than the reality of a dark room! It didn't matter that the imaginations had no connection with the things that they bumped into. They could build their own inner pictures through the ideas that the first one gave them and build with these their own reality - and that is how the first one gained power over them - he inspired them.

The second one instructed the people on the right side of the room to grow more and more afraid of ever leaving it, and taught them how to create ideas without light but only from what they bumped into in the dark. He told them there was never going to be light and they had better get used to the darkness. He taught them how to build weapons with the thoughts they had created from the things they bumped into, to protect them from the blind ones on the other side of the room who were surely guided by demons because they were inspired by things that did not coincide with reality.

That is how he gained power over them - he frightened them and kept them busy.

Yes, for this reason the two partners in crime were either called demons or gods depending on which side a blind one belonged to. But the two partners knew that the real gods existed outside the room - and that if they were to be considered gods by their own people they had to protect this secret and so they walked about poking and prodding those with closed eyes to make them do whatever they wanted, keeping them blind, delusional, and busy and thus taking more and more power for themselves.

Sometimes they worked together and sometimes they worked against one another just to make things more difficult for the blind ones, but in the end their goals were the same: to create a disparity between the picture in the mind and the truth outside it so that fear inspired both sides to believe the same thing: there is nothing in the room at all and that to open the eyes is to fall into an abyss.

Those who could not see but were close to their 'gods', joined forces, and began to preach and to wage war against those who tried to develop new eyes, blaming the desire to see on the demon that belonged to the other side. They each warned against terrible consequences should anyone attempt go against the accepted dogma and science. 

Prejudice reigned supreme on both sides of the room. The priests and kings from both sides said the same thing: 'You will die if you open your eyes! For there is truly nothing out there only the annihilation of your soul! You can live a good life by staying put and either creating illusions of remembered light or being satisfied with scientific explanations about the darkness.'

But sometime ago a number of people had seen something through their eye-lids - a flash of light, and a fresh breeze had come with it into the room, as if a door had been opened! It left them with an impression that there had to be more than the room full of sharp corners and straight lines from which they had been forced to create either fantasies or dark concepts. 

Those who could see this light most clearly began to hear a voice, but this time it was in their souls, and it inspired them to look inside their souls. Here they found what had remained from the stories they had heard long ago - a little spark. This spark however, was not a memory of the light, the stories had left behind a living quality which could give birth to a reality! Those who found this new light used it to fashion new eyes but when they were discovered, they were either  killed by the priests or imprisoned by the kings, who needed to keep them from spreading about their knowledge. 

Still they prevailed and gathered together in small groups.

The sightless also gathered in councils to discuss those who believed in this light. They made it an anathema to speak of it, punishable by excommunication from the group, which was, in a way, the same as death. They abolished the light and said that the light does not belong to blind ones for it can never be found by looking for it with their atrophied eyes. This a lie, but because it was embedded in a truth, it was believed.

One could not use the old eyes, no, but one could create new eyes to see!

But he priests and kings fought hard to prevent this from being known, for in their hearts knew the power of those gods who guided them would be lost if the people were to see the room for themselves!

One day the man who called himself Photismos, gathered around him those from both sides who had fashioned new eyes from the light but who had not yet had the temerity to open them to see.  Those willing to go out on their own as heretics groped their way quietly to a place they had been to before. A place where they always heard the voice of the light most clearly. No sightless ones had ever come here for they were too afraid lest the voice of light take them from their gods.

The advanced ones, the gods and demons and their followers put many obstacles in the way of those who worked their way to towards the voice of light but the voice nevertheless lighted the path and their toils actually helped them to see more and more clearly until finally they reached the place where the voice was the clearest. It said to them:

'I AM the true light you have created within you, do not hide it under a bushel! Open your eyes and behold the I AM which is outside you!'

When they opened their eyes to see, they beheld the source of their inner light outwardly! It is was a great and mighty being of light, could it be the same one which the old ones long ago had spoken of in their stories?

The recalling of these stories which had enlightened them now met in joyous celebration of understanding with their source. They recognised that this was the outer Sun which had inspired all the stories of the old ones, the Sun which had entered the room to help them to find a way to the door - this he did out of love for them!

They looked around now and saw the difference between what they had created inside them and what lived outside them. Conversely they saw that the light that was inside them was the same as the light that was outside them! They saw also, how, on both sides of the room, blind ones huddled behind furnishings, fearful, throwing bric a brac at one another, blindly groping, and they knew the demons and gods to be only advanced beings who had once been human but who had not moved on remaining behind through a desire to gain power over the blind ones.

This mighty being, then, who had deigned to come into this room for their sake, to suffer the darkness, to rescue them through love, opened the door. Beyond this door they could see the real world of the gods! They were filled with bliss and a desire to leave!

The sun being said to them that many had gone through the door freely, but that to do so was to leave all one's loved one's behind to suffer in the darkness.

The man who guided them, Photismos, decided to imitate the love the Sun being had shown them and stay to help the blind ones. A few gathered around him. They would remain in the room but with open eyes. They would not tell anyone what they had seen but would work quietly in their communities both right and left. They did not preach or harangue or fight wars. They told stories, like the old ones. Stories about the great being who had brought the light into the dark room, a light that was only waiting for them to feel the inner spark of the IAM. These stories were so full of light that they sparked a light in those who heard them.

No one knew that there were men among them whose eyes were open, they seemed only story tellers who made them feel the light in them differently after hearing their stories. Even the scientists who heard these stories were inspired to seek for explanations about what might lie beyond the room to know if they were true for they had felt the spark!

Gradually harmony arose between left and the right side. Even the demons and gods who had taken advantage of the blind ones began to change now, for they could not help overhearing these stories and they called forth in them a memory of their original tasks, which had been to help those in the room to find an individual and free inner life! They themselves had been blind to their own tasks!

These now became the benefactors of the community and helped to lead the blind towards the being of light and the door to true freedom.

Photismos remained behind until the very last person could see.

Nowadays, in many a dark room, stories are still told by wise men of  Photismos, of the being of the Sun who entered into the darkness to help men to find the light, and of those who remained behind through love.

Now you have heard the story, if you feel the spark...follow the voice of light with me...together we will find the door.

Meditation and Work, Faith and Knowledge, Spirit and Science.

The young acolyte went to his master feeling despondent and anxious.

He said, 'How must I meditate when my mind is taken by the work that has to be done in the world, and how can I work, when my heart longs to be one with the spirit through meditation. These opposites tear me apart, so that I am never happy. When I meditate I am thinking of the world, during work I am thinking about meditation.

'It is simple,' said the master, with that smile which always denoted his wisdom:

'If you make it so that your meditation becomes as practical as life you will learn what is best for your work.'

'How is that possible?'

'Only if, when you meditate inwardly, you observe how the spirit of the world enters into you. Listen to what it is telling and you shall be directed to the best way to perform your tasks in the world.

'Conversely, if you allow your practical life to become like a meditation you will find yourself.'

'How is that possible!'

'It is possible if when you work in the world you seek how every movement you make creates an imprint not only in the physical world but also in the spiritual world.  If you seek to find yourself in your deeds and how they are either in harmony or out of harmony with the spirit in the world. This is self knowledge. You will learn to see how well you have listened to what the spirit has told you about your tasks in the world.'

'So I am to make no distinction between the contemplative life and the practical life?'

'By making Meditation  as practical as life, and practical life as spiritual as meditation you are uniting all polarities, life and death, right and wrong, inner and outer, above and below. This is the cause of all the wars and strife both in the world of men and the world of spirit. You have the power to bring harmony into both worlds. Then you shall find happiness in everything you do, for true happiness is being in harmony with the spirit.'

The acolyte was amazed. 'What is the power in me that you speak of that can unite all things?'

'It is the power that long ago divided all things inside you.'

The acolyte left his master then, and practised his advice and in time became a great and wise master.

He died and was born again a Dominican Monk. He was together again with his reborn master and he now asked him the same question only differently.

He said to him, 'Master, how must I reconcile  Knowledge and Faith? I am never happy for when I am learning about the world through your teachings I cannot find myself, and when I pray before the cross I feel like I am a blind man believing something I can't see!'

His master a man known for his angelic nature said, smiled for he knew this dilemma. 'This is what you do:

'When you are working with knowledge observe how everything you know is gained from the world of nature around you, from what you see with your eyes. But you cannot find yourself in nature, can you? If you were to rely only on nature, you would always set limits to your knowledge, because you would only see half a truth, you would never see the spirit that is in yourself in the things you see.  Train your will to enter the world through the power of devotion, and your will shall become a light that perceives itself and finds its likeness in the spirit of the world - you will see your spirit because it enlightens the spirit in the world. The difference between the two: your spirit and the spirit in the world, this is true self knowledge. Sending out the light of your spirit of the self into the world brings you knowledge of yourself.'

 'In your prayers unite lovingly with what your knowledge of the world in the self, use thinking honed by this knowledge to understand that all you see has its counterpart inside you, and you will understand how this counterpart is the spirit in the world. In this way thinking becomes the power of a Faith that is not blind but which enlightens the spirit of the world in the self through knowledge - this spirit in the world can only be seen because you have a spirit in the self which attracts it.  This is what it means to be faithful - attracting the light of the spirit into the self to give you knowledge of the world.'

'By making  knowledge a power that leads to faith and Faith a power that leads to knowledge you will reconcile all divisions, for in our time heresy and orthodoxy is merely knowledge and faith seen from different sides - one must see holistically - then there is no quarrel only understanding.'

Many lives later that young Dominican Monk was born a Teacher. One day a young pupil came to one of his lectures. He felt he knew this boy, something drew him to the boy. Afterwards when the boy came up to him and asked him:

'How do I bring Science and Spirit together?'

The teacher, now remembering his old teacher, fell at his feet, 

'You need only remember all that you have taught me, my dear teacher!' he said, 'My task shall be merely to remind you of what you already know.'

That young pupil became a great teacher himself. He united the practical life with mediation, knowledge and faith, science and spirit. He taught many how to find a scientific way to spiritual experiences, and how to bring knowledge of the spirit to explain the world around us. He said, 'Look inside yourself to find the world, look into the world to find yourself!'

Many lives later they met again, this time as peers. They both remembered one another and were filled with joy.

The one who had been an acolyte twice an only once a teacher said, 'How can we bring together the Sophia in our souls with the Christ?'

The one who had been twice a teacher and only once an acolyte said, 'We must awaken knowledge and faith in one another!'

CONVERSATIONS WITH AN ALIEN: When two or three are gathered in my name...

A being from a distant planet came to visit me to ask me this question:

'Why do you eat food?'

I answered thus:

'Before we were like you, we were whole. In those days we did not need material substance to survive, we lived on spiritual substance.'

'What happened to you?'

'We were tempted to create an inner life in order to have freedom from the gods.'

'An inner life that is free from the gods! You mean, you are not open to the wisdom of gods when they wish you to be?'

'We have learnt to cut ourselves off from the gods, to gain wisdom without them, but we had to split into male and female to do this, for we needed to create a distinction between outside and inside, above and below so that we could lie.'

'What is a lie?'

'We can experience something inwardly that does not correspond to what we see outwardly. In other words, our perception sees something different to what we sense and this has created thought. Thought is a lie because it is based on a half truth. Only what we see in the physical world.'

'This is a lie - for there is spirit behind the physical!'

'Yes, but this lie gave us thinking and thinking gave us the possibility for freedom, but this freedom from the spirit in all things means it cannot feed us. We cannot eat what we are not conscious of! And so we have had to eat material food instead. Eating plants and animals is the result of the development of our thinking and thinking has led to death - a division between consciousness here in the world and consciousness in the spirit. If we don't eat we can't think and we die, we lose consciousness of the world, but because we never found the spirit in the world, we also have no consciousness of the spirit after death! We must return to earth again to gain it. To begin everything again in another life. This is called Reincarnation.

'How awful! This reincarnation must take up all your time!'

'Yes, but we eat to feed the body only so that in between meals we can work creatively and freely on the soul to perfect it and to find something greater than the 'I' that we gain through thinking so that we can be born again, that is the only way to love.

'What is this higher thing you wish to find?'

'The I AM. It is for this reason that we work day and night in order to feed ourselves, but some of us have forgotten this. Some have grown to enjoy the act of eating for its sensual pleasure and think only material things as a result, these people cannot truly love. They cannot think in a way that will lead them to the IAM - which is the highest manifestation of love. 

Then they are doomed to live and die, to eat only matter and perceive only lies and never return to the spirit!'

'That would have been the fate of such people had a being from the world of spirit not descended to help them remember the IAM and bring the truth of the spirit back to our consciousness so that we can love through freedom. 

'Firstly he gave us a gift, he taught us that eating, specially when we join together with others, can be a spiritual experience when it is in His name.'

'How?'

'Sharing a meal in His name has the power to bring consciousness of the truth of the spirit that is in everything that we take into our bodies - not only food, but also all our sense experiences of the world and of each other. When this truth of the IAM enters the soul it changes the physical body and death is overcome and we are born again, because we bring female and male, inside and outside, above and below together.This way what is outside and what is inside are perceived and sensed as the same - we become like you but with a difference.'

'What is this difference?'

'We come to this wholeness again through the IAM, through freedom and love.'

'What is this freedom?'

'The being from spirit worlds showed us how to free our souls so that the spirit of truth can enter into us, and find our IAM, only then can we truly love.

'What is love?'

'The being showed us how to allow another soul into our own so that the spirit of truth in us can feed the soul of the other and help the other discover their own IAM. 

'The being who descended could do this for us so that we could observe His example and follow it. That is how He taught us to overcome the problem of who has more and who has less food  - through the power of His IAM. 

'And that is what He meant when He said that 'When two or three are gathered in my name the IAM will be among them! John the divine, the greatest follower of Christ before he died told his followers - Love one another! That is what he meant. Find the I Am in one other and the spirit of truth will always be among you and you will feed one another!'

'Who is this I AM?'

'Christ.'

'I know this being you call Christ! He was once in the sphere of the Sun but he left and we lost consciousness of Him - he died to us!'

'Yes, but in this conversation I have loved you, and so He is born again for you!

'I see him through you!'

'That is because my spirit has fed you. Now go and tell others the good news: Christ, the IAM Lives again through freedom and love and he can be perceived in the soul of every human being who has found the spirit of truth in freedom and who truly loves!'

The Paradox of True Love and Selflessness

The Alchemy of true love
Is:

Allowing another
To write their story inside our hearts
So that we can read it there
Again,
As if it were our own.

The Alchemy of true Selflessness
Is:

To write the story in our hearts
Inside the heart of the world
So that we can read it there
For the first time,
As if it were not ours. (AK)

Painting by Christian Schloe

GOING WITH THE FLOW!

I am a strong swimmer. I have always been. Near where I live there is a rip in the ocean which takes you out to sea but brings you back to another beach, and the locals call it an 'express lane'. From above you can see how it gently takes a person around the rocks out a little and then back again to shore. 

People who don't know this rip, or this beach, and get caught up in it, struggle to swim against it and often drown. Those who allow it to take them out and back to the beach survive. Occasionally there are the clever ones who can swim across the rip to get out of the flow, but people rarely see that it is really just a narrow band of water that pulls one out to sea for a little while and then returns them to the shore again. They are not conscious of the big picture.

Life is like that in a way and writing for me is always like this; like trying to survive in a rip. It is not always a fun process, particularly when one is sensitive to the requirements of the spiritual world. 

I set my deadlines, I think I am writing the book I think I'm writing, the water is fine and it is a beautiful day and then I find myself being taken out to sea!

How did that happen? Who created that rip? How will I get out? That was not the plan! Ah but this is the point exactly: There is a plan!

The rip one could say, is the flow of inspiration - the flow of life, and it is created in my sleep in consultation with my angel every night. In the day I may resist it because I forget that it exists. I get caught up in what fun I'm having and suddenly realise I'm being taken out to sea! At this point I think can get out by swimming against it. But I tire myself out - I am resisting myself! I feel sorry for myself, my limbs grown tired. Meanwhile the shore is further and further away and the feeling of being out of control, causes panic and despair to rise up - will I ever find the shore again or will I
drown?

Yes, my heart sinks when I hear those helicopters which fly over our town looking for those who have been caught in the rip and have felt powerless against the force of it.

If I am wise I do a retrospect of the past books, as I have just shared with you. It always brings me to something that I have forgotten: I know this rip. I have been here before, and I can do three things: I can drown by continuing to swim against the flow of inspiration - which means I will burn myself out and the book too; I can be 'clever' and swim across the rip and get out of the flow of inspiration altogether which means the book will not be what it was destined to be; or I can allow the flow to take me out to sea knowing it will bring me back to shore at some exact right point. 

I have freedom. 

Now there may be a handsome life saver coming out to save me and I think this happens all the time, but I refuse to listen - 'I'm alright mate!' I call out, 'I know what I'm doing!'

Do I?

This is the agony I go through with every book in one way or another, the agony of forgetting my past books and the agony of remembering that I can create new ones! 

In the end, the more I trust in the big picture, the more of the book I remember and the closer it will be to the truth I created with my angel. 

Now my angel has to trust also. My angel has to trust that sometimes the 'truth' of the spirit can only find its way to human hearts through a human voice and this is not always what the angel can foresee! 

I trust that my angel knows what I should be doing.
My angel trusts that I know what I should be doing.

Oh dear. smile emoticon

THE WATER OF WISDOM, AND THE WATER OF LIFE: A discourse on Morality and how it can be taught.

A pupil said to his master. 'What can I do, master, to be as wise as you?'


The master said, 'You must climb that hill.' He pointed to a steep hill with a winding path. 'And carry two buckets of water without spilling a drop, you must do this every day until you have gained wisdom.'


After some days, months, and then years of carrying water up the hill the pupil came to his master and said. 

'I have not learnt any wisdom at all, I am almost middle aged and I am still the same. Carrying that water up the hill has not made me wise for I cannot even prevent myself from spilling water. I have learnt no skill! At the top I am the same as I am at the bottom. Then I have to descend and take more water up the hill again.'


The master said. 'What has changed? Are your legs not stronger than when you began?'

'Yes.'

'Is the path more worn?'

'Yes.'

'And did you not see further at the top than at the bottom?'

'Yes.'

'Is the path now more alive with plants than before?

'Yes.'

'But you have not yet learnt how not to spill water, is that it?'


'I still spill water all the time. The trouble is, the stronger I have become, the faster I can walk up the hill and the faster I walk up the hill, the more worn the path becomes, and for both these reasons it is harder not to spill water!'


'So you have found the paradox.'

'The paradox?'

'Ideas that are contrary and must live side by side....this is the path to wisdom.'


'I don't understand!'

'Wisdom is not found at the bottom of the hill for this is ignorance, nor is it at the top of the hill for this is knowledge. The greater the knowledge, the harder is the task to stay balanced and to contain what one knows, but the paradox is this, the containment of knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom must be carried but it must also be released.'

'So, you mean, that wisdom is knowing that the water I have spilt on my journey is really wisdom?'

'Wisdom is life. Your journey, each day, each month and each year has created new life along the path. You have become a creator, you have changed yourself and in doing so, the world. You have used the faculty of transformation! When one realises that one walks the path of change for the sake of the world, one is wise.'

'Then what is love?'

'When one consciously walks the path, each day, each month and each year, knowing one already knows the view at the top, knowing the changes to the soul have already been made...why does one do so?'

'Merely to water the plants, to bring them life!'

'This is morality, my son! Morality is the greatest wisdom of all...for it is the fruit of a path to wisdom which is life and in bestowing life, becomes love. That is what this means: to be a lover of wisdom.

Now you are wise...go and take life and love to the world!'

HOW THE SPIRIT OF GOETHE ENTERED A CONVERSATION ABOUT OPPOSITES AND GAVE BIRTH TO INSPIRATION.

The artist stands by his painting pondering it when a woman comes to stand beside him.

'I never understand your paintings. To me the colours and forms do not seem aesthetically pleasing.'

The artist considers this and says, 'Perhaps it is because what you find aesthetically pleasing is merely what corresponds to the world of nature and I try to convey not nature itself but my soul's experience of nature.'

'Is that why you paint roses green?'

'When I see a red rose, and I look within my soul, its imprint is green and this to me is the essential nature of the rose - its counterpart, or hidden spirit. This one might say is the truth of the rose, what is hidden from physical eyes - the green seen only by the eyes of my soul! For me this truth is more beautiful than the red you see with outer eyes, and which is only it's outer material counterpart.'

The woman looks at the painting and closes her eyes. She opens them excitedly. 'I see what you mean! But for me it is a different experience.'

'How so?'

'Well, the moment you painted that rose green on the canvas, it acquired a material substance which is seen by me as green with my eyes. Your soul's spiritual experience when made physical is a physical experience for me until I look inside myself and find the red rose again!'

'I hadn't thought of that, but I suppose you are right! When you look at the green rose, inside you, you now have a red counterpart which corresponds to what I have made physically perceptive! How odd!'

'You have added something to creation, turned spirit into matter through your soul.'

'And you have turned the matter I have created into spirit in yours! The cycle returns, the rose is red but this time it is red in your soul!'

'I have learnt something now...!' says the woman, 'I have learnt that I must pay more attention to everything I see and note its counterpart for its truth!'

'And I have learnt that whatever I create, no matter what it is will always bring the spirit down into matter and by doing so take the spirit truth out of it!' he says dejectedly.

'Unless you show both!' she offers.

'How do you mean?' the artist asks, almost breathless.

'When you look at a yellow bale of hay, do you not notice how its shadow is always purple?'

'Yes! Indeed! You mean one can show both counterparts together and in this way the experience in the soul of the viewer will always be complete, no matter whether they are seeing it physically or spiritually?'

'When I look at your green rose now,' the woman says to him, 'I see the red hovering all around it...is this not the spiritual shadow? I see the activity of both physical and spiritual!'

The painter smiles widely, so widely it fills the world with warmth.

The woman has never seen this young man, who looks so old in his eyes and so tormented, smile this way before, and she walks away from him smiling too because the world has changed for her now. The world will never be the same and her soul will also never be the same. For she has realised what it means to free the soul so that it can find its wings!

The artist now contemplates his painting in a new light. He realises that in expressing the spirit of the red which is green, he has created a physical green, whose spirit is red!

'So that is what old man Goethe was trying to say!' he says to himself, almost with a chuckle. 'I have been trying to understand it all my life and now I do! If I only show one side of existence, be it spiritual or physical, it will never speak the whole truth and it will, therefore, never be beautiful! I must show both and not merely that! I must show how they interact - how they converse. To perceive this one needs a higher faculty than the faculty of imagination, which knows only the image of the opposite. One must be able to observe the conversation of opposites that goes beyond words, a form of seeing which is a hearing! A hearing that does not need ears to perceive it - and yet, and yet! Which has been inspired by words, just as red in the eyes, inspires green in the soul, and green, red!

'My conversation with that woman has reconciled the opposites in my soul and I have come to something higher! This must be what happens when the gods converse with their creations, they learn something and rise higher! The creator learns from His creation and His creation becomes creative, in turn a creator who again learns from His creation! And the cycle continues...

'But how to express this mystery without using words! Using only colours, shadows, light and lines? How to show the weaving movement of inner and outer, darkness and light, image and after image, colour and counterpart, spirit and matter, matter and soul, soul and spirit? After all, to show what inspiration is, I must first be inspired by God! I must enter into His soul, just as the red rose has entered into mine!'

Thinking such deep thoughts Van Gogh leaves his paintings behind and with a frown and fitful purpose goes out into the starlit night, in search of inspiration...

...And he finds it by listening with his eyes.

Love unites with all it sees.
And by its very nature
It reveals
The Truth
That those who do not love
Do not see.

So it is that those who love
Love because they see the Truth.
And because they see the truth,
They are be-loved
By Christ,
Who is love and truth combined.

The Riddle.

'What is a light that is more radiant than the sun?' The youth asks the dragon. 


The dragon being clever answers before he thinks. 'A light born from out of the darkness of the human soul!'

But upon saying this the dragon is immediately enlightened!

'So, is this the secret of the demons then?' I ask the dragon. 'That consciousness turns darkness to light?'

The dragon now answers readily. 'Yes...when the light of the sun, the Word, entered into the darkness of the earth, the sun weakened but a seed was laid in the earth for a new sun. This new sun is the Light born from darkness. This is Christ Himself. This the demons would keep from the consciousness of men and so from the understanding of the gods: The way in which evil can be used against itself so that it can be transformed into goodness, through consciousness.


The human being,
Standing between heaven and earth,
Carries the light of the spirit
Into the darkness of matter
Where even angels
Fear to tread.

Two Reasons why I wrote The Sixth Key and Fifth Gospel - A Novel.

There were two reasons why I wrote The Sixth key and Fifth Gospel - A Novel and I would like to share them with you.

In actual fact, Fifth Gospel - A Novel was written first though it came out last. I had a desire to bring it out this year to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Fifth Gospel Lectures by R. Steiner but I found incredible resistance to publishing it through 'regular' publishers. Random House didn't want it and my agent sent it around to other publishers who didn't want it either. I realised that I had to write The Sixth Key first, as I was committed to write a book for Random. On researching it, I understood the wisdom of the spiritual world - according to Emil Bock the Apocalypse had to come before the Eternal Gospel because it was a foundation for it, because the eternal Gospel given by an angel at a time of great tribulation was found in the Apocalypse. Yes these were the original names of the two books - Apocalypse and Eternal Gospel.

The Sixth Key may seem like an adventure story, but I followed Rudolf Steiner's indications regarding the impulses that led to the First World War very closely. I had a sense that this too was going to see it's 100 year reflection. In the Sixth key I wove as much information as possible on the work of the secret brotherhoods, keeping the book light and entertaining but informative, so that, when it came to it, a feeling for the work of the brotherhoods would come when we were all faced with their work again in the world. (Having taken very much to heart what Rudolf Steiner said when he made the comment that if Schiller had finished his play Dimitri then Kaspar Hauser would not have been killed because a precedent would have lived in the heart of too many people and they would have recognised the work of the brotherhoods.)

The Sixth Key was a warning to the world based entirely on The Karma of Untruthfulness.

Only after The Sixth Key came out could I then bring out Fifth Gospel - A Novel, late last year, and as you know I published it myself.

It is not enough to banish evil through recognising it, but we also have to heal. The Fifth Gospel Lectures were given to the world by Rudolf Steiner a little prematurely because according to Peter Selg Rudolf Steiner would have liked to have given them at the Goetheanum, where the right atmosphere would allow them to enter into the hearts of the listeners. The impulse however to give them was too strong as the war was on its way. Rudolf Steiner gave those lectures to small groups hoping for their understanding. According to Peter Selg, for the first time in all his lecturing life, he read from notes, because he had intended to write a book, he wanted it to be like a story. It was not received with the right soul mood and so he stopped giving the lectures and finally stopped talking about the Fifth Gospel altogether.

The Fifth Gospel cost him the Goetheanum and his life. It was the last straw, the brotherhoods could not tolerate the mention of karma and the unveiling of their work as well as the truth about Christ Jesus to come out!

Why am I telling you this? What are my two reasons for writing The Sixth key and the Fifth Gospel? Am I just blowing my own trumpet?

No.

We are living in Apocalyptic times - Fifth Gospel was given to the world 100 years ago! We can measure where we are in the Book of Revelations by this very fact! The two gifts The Karma of Untruthfulness and the Fifth Gospel lectures, given to us by Rudolf Steiner are incredibly significant right now and I wanted to underline them as they can help us to not only understand what is going on around us but also, to find a way to heal the world.

For it is not enough to banish the devils from the physical body through wakefulness, if we want to bring about healing, we have to then work on the soul, which, free of the devils can now begin to balance itself. What is the balance that brings healing?

This is Christ.

So that is what I, in my own imperfect way have consciously tried to achieve for those who are not Anthroposophists with those two books. To bring them the work of Rudolf Steiner through the artistic element that they might develop concepts other than those they see on TV every day.

Those of us who have Rudolf Steiner's lectures can and should read them at this time, just to reacquaint ourselves with his indications for we need both consciousness of evil and a living experience of Christ if we are to really navigate the fetid sea of lies and propaganda we are experiencing. Those who cannot come to his lectures will hopefully find their way to them through the work we do on their behalf in the world.

The Hibernian Initiate

'Aye!' said, the Hibernian initiate to the postulant, 'This is what you must undergo:'

When you enter into your inner coldness
You will see a vision of Old Moon
And you will understand:
In the mineral substance of your bones
There is Wisdom.

When you free this numbness to the outer warmth
You will see a vision of old Sun
And you will understand:
In the-streaming light that now enters your organs
There is Goodness.

When you experience this sense warmth
You will see Old Saturn
And you will understand:
In warmth perception
There is evidence of Life.

When you learn to out-stream this warmth
You will see a vision of new Jupiter
And you will understand:
Human warmth on Jupiter will issue forth
As a love for the spirit.

Then when you can overcome your lower ego
You will see future Venus
And your will understand:
Only by loving the higher spirit can my warmth begin to shine
As a source of spirit light.

When this spirit light enters your heart again
You will see a future Vulcan.
And you will understand:
The spirit light of thought in you resounds as Word,
To become world comprehending.

Aye! You will work to know Christ, my son,
Before Christ comes,
To unite the Cosmic Word
With the human soul.
And when he comes, you will need no outer evidence,
For you will know: the human word in you
Does recognise the Christ, the Word of Worlds!

THE BLIND-FOLDED DRIVER

What is the cause of the epidemic of fear and anxiety we see in the world today? We live as if a calamity were just around the corner, that every step we take might be our last. Why is this so? Has the world become more dangerous than ever before? Is time speeding up out of our control? Not essentially. It is because we are moving closer to the spirit, we are speeding up, more than ever before but we are blind to it.

Imagine a blind-folded man riding a motorbike on auto pilot.

He can't balance himself well nor can he control his forward movement because he can't see where he is going. This causes a particular illusion to arise in him the faster the bike goes - he doesn't so much believe that he is moving forward but that the air is rushing toward him at ever greater speeds and that it is threatening to engulf him. This causes a dreadful fear and anxiety for what will happen, for what he will lose, for the calamities and accidents and wars, famines and injustices that are coming towards him that he can't control.

But the blind folded man is the point of resistance for that air. He can't see what is behind or what is ahead but he feels he is present because of this resistance he gives to this air. This resistance is important for living in the world. That is how the man knows he is alive, present on that bike despite the fact that he can't see himself. But he can use this resistance to balance himself and to find his hands, which are the will that can take away the blind fold so he can see where he is going.

In ordinary perceptions and the thinking that arises from them there is no free will. We are taken for a ride out of our control and we feel we are headed for doom because our thinking, we suspect, is really a kind of death. But if we find the will to free ourselves of the blindfold of ordinary thinking and perception we see where we are going, we see what is behind, ahead and all around and because of this orientation we realise that our forward movement is the reason the air feels like it is rushing towards us. We realise that the air is really the spirit, that the driver, our souls, is seeking! We see that the bike is the physical instrument of this quest. We are moving forward seeking the spirit blindly!

We must become the drivers of our own destiny if we are to dispel fear and anxiety and we can only do this by freeing our will. When we can see what is behind us, the causes of our feelings, impulses and thoughts that live in our will and we unite this freely with the spirit that is ahead of us, then we are truly in control and free - we can enjoy the ride!

So you see...higher consciousness does not arise without free will. We need to find the hands of the heart to release the head from its blindness or we will grow more and more anxious and full of fear. Those who can see the truth do not fear.

THE GAME (my version of Herman Hesse's Glass Bead Game)

'Magister Ludi what is the goal of the Glass Bead Game?' said the postulant.

'To create a new science and art.'

'What are the rules?'

'There is to be no competition with others, all desire for reaching the goal will prevent you from doing so, and the end becomes the beginning.'

'What are the steps?

'The first step:

Remember that science only tells you about everything you see with your senses, these are sensations, feelings. It tells you only about what has 'become'. But this, you see, is only half of 'being'.

You must learn to will your thoughts out of you to meet what is 'becoming' without feelings. That is how you find the spirit. Then you shall know the counterpoint of everything thing - this is a new science.

The Second step:

Observe how the counterpoint makes an impression in you. Allow yourself to be moulded by the spirit in the world. This is the very essence of finding the Art in the game and the game is nothing without it. As long as you try to impress your self onto the spirit of things, you are wounding the spirit - or rather removing it from the things themselves so that they lose their objective truth!

Allow what has entered you to exist and die away without making any image of it. It is only from the silence that the new art is born.

The Third step:

Allow the warmth to fire your limbs to creative deeds - when you have reached this stage in the game you have brought science and art together.

'What is the glass bead?'

'You are the glass bead.'

'What do you mean?'

'A glass bead is completely individual and beautiful alone, but it can only contribute to the beauty of the game when it joins with other beads. The secret is this: it joins the other beads not out of desire, not out of competitiveness, but to create new games. Even so, it never loses its individual beauty and shape. What it becomes is what it was always intended to be. That is how the end becomes the beginning.'

THE BEGGAR THE SHOPKEEPER AND HIS ANGEL

The beggar boy went to the Arab shop every day to steal food.

He was an expert. He waited patiently until the owner was busy serving and he would slip a loaf of bread or a hunk of cheese into his coat, to quieten the hunger in his belly.

He was a pitiful sight, he knew it. Sometime ago he had glimpsed his reflection in a glass and it had startled and disgusted him. An unwashed, skinny Jew with the look of a wild animal, an orphan of wars. Discarded refuse. Unwanted. Unseen. Untouchable. Unloved. Before his parents had died he had been well educated, well fed and had a home. He had believed in angels. Now he didn't believe in anything but hunger.

He stood thinking on it this day, behind the tree as was his custom, as he waited for someone to come to distract the old man. 

The boy fidgeted. His belly growled. He was annoyed at the greedy old Arab who sat each day outside his shop to read the paper as if he had nothing but time. Arabs hated Jews and so he didn't feel bad taking this man's wares. Even so every night he would feel a pang of conscience and taking a branch from the tree opposite the shop he would sweep the footpath outside it as penance. Every morning the old Arab would open his doors and look around him with a smile on his face as if he had seen heaven.

This day there was no opportunity to steal anything for when the old man was busy there were too many people outside and he was afraid that someone might see him and call the police and when it was quiet the old man sat again with his newspaper, looking over its rim as if he expected something to happen.

The boy left to look elsewhere, dejected, hungry.

In the night it was windy and he couldn't sleep from hunger. When the wind died down he went to the shop again and took a branch from the old tree and began to sweep the leaves from the steps when he saw a loaf of bread there, sitting on a napkin. Too hungry to care why it was there, he took it, but before he could tear it in half he saw that something was written on the napkin.

“I waited all day for you. Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?'

The boy was filled with panic. He thought he could see the old man's shadow in the window of his shop waiting to snatch him and to take him to the police and so he ran away.

Later that day he returned. He wanted to confess and to ask the old Arab for his forgiveness but his shop was closed. It was closed the next day and the day after that. On the third day the boy asked the lady who lived next door what had happened to the old man.

'Why do you care? He died on that windy night from cold sitting by the window waiting for that angel of his.'

'Angel?' The boy was amazed.

'Yes he said that an angel from Jehova came to him every day to take bread from him and every night he returned to sweep his steps. Imagine that! An angel of Jehova eating bread and sweeping the steps of an Arab shopkeeper!'

Choking back tears the boy walked away, thinking that there must be an angel in every one for that old man had been his angel! He had always known of his stealing and had done nothing! And, the boy thought, if there was an angel in him too, then he had better make something of his life, that way the old man's death would not be in vain!

Years later he was a man valued in his community as honest hardworking and kind. He always left a loaf out on the steps of his house. When they asked him why he said -

'You never know what angels are about..'

The Blind Novice

The young novice, full of unhappy sentiments, asked his master, 'Why do you say I am unfree! Just because I criticise brother Amius for taking more food than he needs! He was ashamed of it himself for I saw him scurry away with it to eat alone!'

The two, the older master and his novice were on their daily walk. Every afternoon they set off to collect medicinal herbs from the woods neighbouring the monastery for the herbaria. This day was chilly and the blueness of the sky signalled the onset of Autumn. The master walked with purpose, his old limbs accustomed to these walks kept a rigorous pace while the novice was cold and found it hard to keep up with his master.

'Every criticism is a judgement of the intellect in your soul and your soul is subject to error, to lies,' he said, pausing to stroke a flower that pleased him.

'But master, I saw it with my own eyes! He took more food than he needed.' The boy hugged himself to keep warm. 'Nearly twice as much, at a guess!'

The master straightened and looked at his charge. 'And your eyes are your measure, this what you are telling me, you believe only what you see? Well, your eyes only see half the truth and half a truth is merely a lie.'

The body frowned indignantly. 'Why is it a lie?'

'Look at the world around you my son! Do you believe that this which you see only with your eyes is all there is?'

'Is there more?'

'This is only one half of it, the dead part.'

'What do you mean? These herbs we have been picking are living and because they are living they heal!'

'Yes, but that is only half a truth. They are only alive because the wisdom of God, the spirit of Christ, the will of Christ, penetrates them and weaves about them. That is why they heal, not because they are alive, but because of what lives in them. Christ lives in us too...in the warmth of our blood and this gives us the possibility for rising above the errors in our thinking.'

'I must confess I do not see His spirit.'

'Perhaps not, but are you so arrogant as to think that just because you can't see something it doesn't exist? Consciousness is not reality. For instance, have you ever visited the Notre Dame in Paris?' his master asked, as he bent to inspect a fern.

'No, but I have heard tell it is beautiful.'

'The Notre Dame does not require your consciousness for its existence and thank God the spirit does not rely on you likewise! The subtle error of the intellect is that it judges only what it sees and binds the soul to all that is dead and this is what makes the soul unfree.'

'So, you say we should never speak the truth?' the boy said defiantly.

The old monk straightened again and sighed. 'Oh you are a silly, silly boy! We speak only when we see the 'real' objective truth, we withhold our imperfect judgement because the truth comes from a living understanding that is higher than the intellect since it is born not out of death but out of the living spirit. Only when we can move freely and objectively out of ourselves to SEE a thing can we know it is true and in so doing we overcome ourselves and we are freed from the power that binds all earthly beings...death.”

'What does this have to do with brother Amius, after all?'

'You say he took more than he needed?'

'Yes, far more, and I would say further that the abbot is foolish for allowing it!'

'And yet you do not take account of what you do not see. This herb I have just picked, it is a poison and yet you and I know that it also heals. The truth is often the opposite of what the ordinary intellect can know. The truth is that Brother Amius was not taking more than he needed at all. He was, in fact, taking less.'

The boy remonstrated, 'I am not blind I saw it myself!'

'But you are blind, blind because you do not see the spirit of Christ in this herb and blind because you do not know that the food Amius took this morning was not for him, it was for our ailing brother Gabriel, for whom we seek these herbs. Amius has asked that his portion be added to Gabriel's portion until he is well.'

The boy felt a sudden emotion rise to his throat. 'Oh Lord! I was wrong!'

'Yes yes!' The old man said enthusiastically. 'You were!'

'How can you be so glad of my error!'

'Because at this moment you are truly free!'

'What do you mean!' the boy let go of his basket and fell to his knees, his head in his hands. 'I am damned! I am damned!' he lamented.

'No my boy, you are not damned! There there,' The master soothed. 'It is only through error that we can learn to know who we are, and it is only by learning who we are that we can be free of ourselves to become who we are meant to be!'

He helped the boy up and together they collected the basket and herbs that had scattered about, and thus they continued their walk in silence.

But now the boy was no longer cold...a warmth had entered into his heart and a new enthusiasm fired up his limbs.

He wondered if this could be the spirit of Christ.