The Greatest Teaching

Part One: Er, Me....

It was in the early autumn of 1976 that I left the relative idyll of life in the suburbs of Oxford for the grime and delapidation of north London. Archway, London N19, was squatland, and among those many temporary abodes were numbered a goodly few communities of Buddhists. I never harboured the least desire to live in London as such, but if that was what living the Buddhist life required, then I was up for it.

Living conditions were tough, and by nature precarious. For most of my time there, I was the junior in that particular Buddhist community, everybody else having already been officially ordained and boasting a Buddist name. My aim as I moved was clear: I was going to find part-time work, enough to survive on economically, then devote the remainder of my time to meditation and study. This, it seemed obvious to me, was what I needed to do in order to bring myself closer to absolute reality - which was what the Buddhist thing was all about, as far as I could see.

One day, not long after moving, I was approached by one of my fellow community members. He was in the process of starting a wholefood business, based in the much larger Buddhist centre under construction in East London. Would I like to go over and take a look? I said 'Of course, yes.' And it was at that moment I began to give it all away.

Very soon, I was a full-time worker in Bethnal Green, London E2, spending a goodly portion of the week in a basement mixing muesli and packing peanuts. When I wasn't in the basement, I could be found on market stalls in Brick Lane or Hammersmith, selling the muesli and peanuts which had been packed etc etc.

Things moved fast. Within a year I became an ordained Buddhist, committed to the path of the
Enlightened One. Two years further down the line, I found myself chairman of the modestly-named West London Buddhist Centre. I say 'found myself' deliberately. In the 'What do you want to be when you grow up, son?' scenario put to little boys, I never answered 'boss of a Buddhist Centre, please'. Or boss of anything else, for that matter. In this case, however, the previous chairman was moving on, to set up a retreat centre in Wales. When eyes were cast around for a replacement, they came to light on little old me. And I went along with the consensus. I mean, you do, don't you? Devoting yourself to the cause, the enlightenment of all, that's the name of the game. To do otherwise would be folly indeed.

In some respects, I was not a bad choice. Fairly friendly and approachable, so I'm told. Able to get on with a wide range of characters. Moderately well-organised. In other ways, I was rubbish. Particularly when it came to notions like 'developing', 'expanding', creating a really big, bold, important Buddhist movement. Not my cup of tea at all.

This is not actually the point. For a decade I soldiered on with a job which I did not feel completely at home in. That is not to say that it didn't have its beneficial aspects. It did. But it's simply that: I was not really at home in that role. It wasn't quite me. Eight years in, I resigned, only to be 'strongly advised' by my Buddhist teacher to un-resign, since nobody was at hand who was capable of taking over. So I entered the two most frustrating years of my life, until somebody else was finally deemed up to the job.

It's been a long trip. A decade ago, I moved from southern England to the Highlands of Scotland. For much of the past ten years, I've finally made it: worked part-time, spending the rest of the day studying, writing, meditating, walking, doing whatever else feels fitting to following the sacred path.

It took the benefit of hindsight, many years of it, for the underlying pattern to become clear to me. I had my path envisaged in my mind, only for my intent to be derailed, or diverted onto other tracks. And when I finally made an effort to change direction, that move was postponed in the interests of the 'greater good'.

Nobody actually asked me what I wanted to do - apart from being a Buddhist in a most general kind of way. You might well expect me to feel a bit cheesed off about it: not properly living my dream, blah blah. However, try as I may, I have been unable to get angry with anyone. I haven't felt manipulated or exploited. Other people may or may not have acted dishonourably, that's their problem or prerogative. But the stark and unavoidable fact is this: I was part of the deal. I did it. I brought my body into these situations, if you will. It's the most humbling realisation, bruising to the ego and not at all comforting.

Things don't 'just happen' - one of the basic truths, but properly understood by few. It's not a case of 'everything being my fault', or of having recourse to fancy theories of karma. Blame, guilt, the whole works. We don't need any of this stuff. It's simpler yet more elusive than this. The universe, it seems to me, works more like a giant kaleidoscope than a massive pinball machine. You somehow find yourself in situations that are congruent with the state of your being; it cannot be any other way. What happens reflects who, how, and what you are at that moment in time. As I said, it's a humbling realisation. All those crap situations, all those dodgy people who you are above and different from. No. You brought it on yourself. It's a magnificent co-creation. And if your consciousness is attuned to 'growth', then another element introduces itself.....

All those humbling situations present as the most valuable learning opportunities. The more humbling, the greater the potential. The lesson for me individually undoubtedly concerns 'personal power' on the path. Don't compromise it, don't give it away. Not even for the most magnificent, transcendental project. Learn, with devotion; sit at the feet of the wise ones, yes. But don't give it away. Not an ounce. This amounts to the real disavowal of ones path, which is individual, unique. Be fierce about it. If there is one thing that I may have learnt in this life, something I can carry forward, it is this.

Part Two: Teachers and Victims

My former Buddhist teacher is ninety-one years old now. If I had my way, he would be left well alone, to savour his remaining moments in this lifetime as he so chooses. But no, it seems not to be. It has been creeping around behind him for decades; now, his past - or selected aspects of his past - has jumped out full face, so neither he nor any of his disciples has a place to hide.

The aspects of his past which continue to snap at his heels - not so much like a terrier (though they can be tiresome enough) but like multi-headed Cerberus dragged up fresh from Hades - concern his propensity for sexual activity with younger male disciples. Over the years, an increasing number of these disciples, a goodly proportion of them ordained Buddhists, have come out of the woodwork and told their tale. Some have been pretty OK about it all, some a bit so-so. While others still have felt confused, hurt, damaged, traumatised, and the rest.

One, in particular, has hounded my former teacher for years. What his purpose is eludes me (though I should make clear that I have not followed the entire blow-by-blow story: I have other things to get on with). But what does he want? Justice? A nebulous and problematic term, I suggest, to the point where it no longer makes any sense to me. Revenge? Well, at least I understand what that is. An uncovering of the hypocrisy of the affair, maybe? Fair enough - but why go to all the bother?

The story was taken up voraciously by those fashionable protectors of victims in the mainstream media, notably the Guardian and the BBC. A few months back, a 12-minute slot on a regional BBC show was devoted to the subject, including reportage and interview with aforementioned particular person.

Now I'm a softie - just this morning I collected a woodlouse from the living room floor, but didn't have the heart to put it out in the rain, so deposited it in another warm, dry room instead. So, putting aside cynicism about how people on television always manage to choke at precisely the right time, I could not help but feel affected by the pain and upset which he (the former sexual partner, not the woodlouse) clearly still felt. Nevertheless, I looked hard: what exactly was the source of the pain which continued to haunt him? Well, I can't tell for sure. But the answer which came through took me by surprise. The pain coming through wasn't much to do with the Buddhist teacher at all, really. No. It was aforementioned person's own inability to accept the most unpleasant of realities: he had been part of it; he had participated; he had allowed it to happen - for quite a while, willingly. So it's not much about the Buddhist teacher, but about the 'victim' and his past behaviour, which he would dearly like to erase.

Part Three (Recap of Sorts)

Life can be tough. It can appear mean and nasty. But for anybody claiming to be following a 'spiritual path' it behoves them to try and look at things from a wider dimensional perspective, not that of the mainstream media and the current fashions in thinking and moral acceptability. In order to do this, a whole load of conceptual and perceptual baggage needs to be let go of. Let go of the hand-me-down concepts, the mental constructs, which serve to manipulate the mind, to cloud its innate clarity. Constructs that most folk don't even realise are constructs at all, instead conferring upon them the status of a given reality.

Blame, fault, unfair, unjust. These have to go. 'Whose fault is it? Who is to blame?' - not appropriate questions for anybody trying to lead an authentic life. 'It's your karma': do we need this? Victim, perpetrator. Yes, especially these: the victim - perpetrator syndrome has to be chucked out. While we consider ourselves as 'victims', whether of an unjust social system, a predatory guru, or a global elite, we remain helpless. The System, Empire, call it what you will, loves victims, and deliberately perpetuates this way of looking at things. Women, blacks, other ethnic groups, gays, transgender folk, disabled people, those mistreated by religious figures: all are cast as victims by the mainstream, and it does them no favours. It keeps them locked into a way of thinking which blocks the individual's unique capacity to unfold. It prevents personal responsibilty for ones life, and sustains a perpetual dynamic of confrontation between 'victim' and 'perpetrator'. Which suits Empire just fine. Divide and rule, geddit?

For anyone seriously trying to 'grow', all this needs to be left behind as interpretative mechanism. It's the most difficult and scary thing: to be able to look, listen, feel, touch, intuit, think directly.

I am not saying that bad things don't happen, or that people who harm others should not be brought to task and punished. Not at all. I am saying that a lot of the conceptual baggage which accompanies such scenarios is not helpful. In fact, it takes us away - maybe is designed to take us away - from our sense of personal power, our ability to live our lives with initiative, honour. It is uniquely disempowering, and is ironically the most abusive thing we can do to ourselves. Play the victim and it is just not possible to walk a sacred path, or however else we choose to frame it. In this case, teacher and pupil - young, confused, impressionable (the media prefers the more emotive 'vulnerable') pupil - experienced a certain confluence of being. And that's it. For both, it's a tremendous learning opportunity, should they be looking for such treasures amidst the pain, conflict, and suffering. A real chance to learn invaluable things that can be taken forward.

It is a cliche, but it is said that, should a person really know what 'leading a spiritual life' involves, nobody would start in the first place. It is a walk on the wild side and into the unknown: by definition, we can have no idea what it will throw up. All our ideas, preconceptions, and book learning are worse than useless when the confrontation with deeper reality properly takes place. Thus it is with the teacher - and with ourself as a student, a pupil, a disciple. The greatest teaching of my former teacher may, indeed, be just that: his brilliant yet erratic and contradictory life. It should force each and every one of his followers, to look within - the deeper the better - to sink into her or his own unique resources and being. What the hell do I make of this? Do I need to make anything of this? What am I doing here in the first place? Where is my life? Why are there no simple off-the-shelf answers? To walk in perpetual uncertainty, maybe, forced back into ones own life. As the Buddhist parable says: the jewel is to be found in the dungheap.

Images: (Top): Cor blimey, it's changed since I was there: Balmore Street, Archway
              (Below): Strength, Anne Stokes Gothic Tarot  
         

              

Elemental Disharmonies

Part One

My most recent post was intended to primarily say something about the importance of images in my life - and I didn't even get round to mentioning Jung and archetypes, and James Hillman's archetypal psychology (I forgot). But it got me thinking - or imagining. more like - around that first trip to Italy......

There I was, chilling out a little in Siena, in the company of Duccio and the licorice-looking Cathedral. Although some of the candles and incense had gone missing, I still had my sights on a solitary meditation-and-writing retreat. I even got so far as phoning up a woman who had a little cottage available in the surrounding countryside. At this point, it is worth mentioning that I hadn't bothered learning much Italian before heading off south of the Alps: it is, after all, a long-held English tradition not to learn  other peoples' languages. 'Pronto' the woman answered. I froze. 'Pronto' she said a little louder, and with a tough of exasperation. I slammed down the telephone. It was only later that I learnt how, in Italian, 'pronto' does not mean 'Quick! Quick! What are you messing around at?' It's the normal way in Italy to say 'hello' on the phone.

At this point I made a bizarre decision. Why, I cannot recall: the memory would probably be too painful. Anyhow, I decided to head south.

Anybody with a modicum of knowledge about Italy and Italians would know that heading south is probably not the smartest move for a person still frayed around the edges from a series of slightly bruising encounters with a new and different culture. Plus the fact that aforementioned frazzled person was showing early signs of an influenza-like illness coming on. But head south I did.

After two hours in Naples - plenty - I eventually turned up in Salerno. Located at the entrance to the famed bejewelled coast of Amalfi, Salerno was brash, bold, and balmy, in a bold and brash kind of

way. As was my wont, I headed straight for the cheapest dive listed in 'Let's Go' and got a room at a great price. As I was settling in, I noticed a large hole in the wall above the wardrobe. It was the perfect size for someone to crawl through in dead of night, gas you and take all your belongings. That's the sort of thing people do in southern Italy, I'd been told.

I strolled out into the warm November evening. Just starting to unwind in the Mediterranean ambience, I was suddenly assailed by a group of kids. 'Inglesi, Inglesi' they chanted as their hands deftly touched my jacket and pockets. It was mischief rather than downright criminality, but the magic of the moment was well and truly shattered.

I was beginning to feel really ill. In brief diary form, the rest of the trip ran like this: a) straight back to Rome b) unable to change flight back home without long wait c) take overnight train to Paris d) feel extremely unwell e) robbed of £30 at Gare du Nord f) reach Buddhist community in London the following evening g) take train to Buddhist retreat centre in Wales for non-solitary meditation retreat, and gather disparate bits of self together again.

Part Two

I relate this tale, not because - or only because -  my life is so fantastically important and endlessly fascinating. It is also a story about disharmony, elemental disharmony. In Tarotspeak I travelled to Italy with a rucksackful of wands; swords, as usual, were in plentiful supply. Meanwhile, chalices were leaking water all over the place, and the pentacles had mysteriously gone missing.

Following my recently reported penchant for images, I find it more powerful to speak of chalices and wands than of 'elements'. Funnily, they present themselves to me in a direct and concrete way, while 'elements' is a bit abstract - needs more thinking about. Should a translation into elements be insisted upon, however, I suffered from a surfeit of fire (wand), plenty of air (sword), unstable water (chalice) and very little earth (pentacle).

This magic quaternity can be mapped onto a whole variety of signposts of reality: the four seasons, the four directions of space, Jung's four psychic functions, the four humours of the body. And plenty more besides, I guess. All of this can be used to create a wealth of readings in Tarot for those so inclined. Whatever, it provides a marvellous map for both universe and consciousness (should there be any difference).

Harmonising the elements has been a major ongoing task during this lifetime. As years have passed, its necessity in regard to physical health has become more apparent. A takeover bid by swords inevitably leads to severe migraine, sinus pain, and general misery. But it's always been there uppermost in terms of consciousness. On the basic levels of day-to-day satisfaction. And in terms of direct insight, deeper experience of reality beyond the veils and distortions. Without a degree of harmony between the wands and the pentacles, there is no chance of a more stable, sustained, experience on deeper levels of the psyche.

So it's an ongoing project. It's like bringing all the players in a football team into play, not just the goalie and the centre-back. And it's harmony rather than balance. 'Balancing the energies', 'Balancing the chakras': this stuff is all over the place nowadays. But to me 'balancing' suggests taking a discrete quantity of a discrete number of objects, and organising them so they don't topple over. Whereas the trick is more expansive, more magical. It involves a continual flux and flow, an interweaving of constantly moving pieces, interacting, morphing, taking on new forms and disguises. As somebody
once wrote, 'wisdom' is not about 'no self' so much as 'flow self'. And as Jung wisely pointed out, it's not about having all aspects of equal prominence. We are unique individuals with our unique tendencies. I shall always have more wands in my rucksack then pentacles; I shall always prefer Tarot to decorating the bathroom. That's fine.                  




Images:  Salerno (wikimedia commons)
              Wand energy embodied: The Magician, Gilded Tarot Royale
              The DIY card: Eight of Pentacles, Waite-Smith Tarot

Those Images

'I think images are worth repeating, Images repeated from a painting......'

John Cale and Lou Reed, 'Songs for Drella'.

It was an October in the early 1980s - '82? 83? It doesn't matter - when I first visited Italy. The final flourish of the era when travel really could be an adventure: especially if it was only your third time abroad, and the first time you had gone solo.

The first hint that we were going somewhere properly different was when the plane landed in Rome. All the Italian schoolkids on board shouted, yelled and almost threw an impromptu party at getting home. This would never happen with children from Chingford touching down at Heathrow, I mused.

Soon we issued into the tiny arrivals area of Ciampino airport, host to a small number of budget flights. Soon the luggage arrived, and soon everybody was on their way. Apart from me. Where was my baggage? I waited and waited and waited. Finally, my rucksack came bouncing up the steep slope of the luggage conveyor,  - only to go bouncing back down again. I eventually alerted an airport worker to the situation. He found a fish-hook kind of implement, and caught my rucksack like a helpless. floundering ocean-dweller. During the course of the struggles, one of the pockets of the rucksack had come undone, with the result that candles and incense which I had carried from London in readiness for an anticipated solitary retreat in the Tuscan hills were flying everywhere. The airport official handed over my rucksack and a couple of candles, and shrugged his shoulders. Welcome to Italy, dear friend.

I staggered out into the Roman evening. It was deserted. Eventually I found a bus that would take me into town. Soon we were bouncing along the arrow-straight streets at breakneck speed; the suburbs of Rome flew by. A short time into the journey, one of the few other passengers, a middle-aged man in a grey coat and trilby hat to match, got up from his seat and began speaking to the driver. Soon there was an almighty argument taking place at the front of the bus: hands gesticulated wildly before generally flailing around all over the place; voices became ever louder, and we nearly ended up in a ditch. Welcome to Italy indeed.

My purpose in heading south of the Alps was not to see Italy at all, really. It was to see the art of Italy. In fact, it wasn't to see the art of Italy in general: it was to see the art of the Italian Renaissance. And if truth be told, it wasn't Renaissance art as a whole. It was to see the art of Michelangelo.

I went to Italy for Michelangelo, and Michelangelo alone. Such was the focus, the single-minded direction, the depth and narrowness that has characterised my life (I feel that it has become tempered in more recent times, but that may be wishful thinking). It has been boon and bane in equal measure.

Michelangelo. The power of the image was nothing new to me. A decade beforehand, my attraction to Buddhism had been fuelled by a book. It was not a conceptual book, about the rational basis for Buddhism - impermanence, suffering and the like. It was called 'Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism' , written by one by Lama Govinda. Centred around the magic and the mystery of the Five Jinas, focal 'archetypal Buddhas', it pulled me irresistibly in. I didn't understand very much of it, but knew that it was onto something very important. It spoke to me. A few years on, now as a fully-fledged Buddhist, I had bestowed upon me a sadhana, a meditation practice centred on a particular Buddha figure, complete with verses of petition and invocation, mantras eliciting Voidness, and so on. While some of my contemporaries
struggled with this manifestation of higher realities, I took to it like a duck to water, practicing daily what was typically the high spot of the day. There were many occasions when, while everything else in my life seemed to be falling apart all around me, the Buddha/Bodhisattva visualisation practice kept me intact.

It was through the influence of my Buddhist teacher that I first started looking at pantings. He insisted on the connection between art and spiritual life; I felt he was onto something there. I began with Monet, Van Gogh, Turner, all relatively accessible I felt. But I soon graduated to the art of Renaissance Italy, where the resonance that I experienced with images (and by 'images' I mean those of 'forms', be it of humans, goddesses, Bodhisattvas, gods, angels, denizens of the underworld, or whatever) once more came into play. Through an image wrought by the hand of an artist in touch with 'Soul' so much could be said. In Michelangelo I sensed the coming-together, the synthesis, of archetypal universal forces which normally stood in oppostion. Heaven and hell; Apollo and Dionysos; light and dark; reason and emotion; water and fire; masculine and feminine: for all these, a transcendent element was invoked, conferring upon the attentive student a higher state of consciousness and of being. All of which was precisely what I craved.

Three days in Rome was more than enough, thank you. Life there was crazy, chaotic, hellish noisy, and precarious. What's more, there's not a lot of Michelangelo to be seen in Italy's capital anyway. I headed north, to Florence, in search of calm, and of David.

In the event, Florence was less of a disturbing experience than had been the capital city. The Michelangelo was fine, but I was moved more completely by the Botticelli. With nerves still feeling jangled, however, I decamped to a yet smaller city, tucked away in the Tuscan hills, Siena. No Renaissance giants here: both art and architecture predate Leonardo and co. A curious peacefulness and grace exude from the buildings in this beautiful place, and in bucketloads from the images painted - we can only imagine with love and devotion - by Duccio and Cimabue. Madonnas, saints, even dodgy Ducal tyrants seem to radiate a supernal quality. They won me over.

The magic thread of the image has woven its way into and through the phases and disparate elements in my life. A couple of years down the line I fell in love with the art and images of the Venetian Renaissance - Giorgione and Titian above all - and I even gave a series of illustrated talks at the Buddhist Centre on the theme of Renaissance art and its imaginal significance in spiritual life. Some people liked it, anyway. A decade on, I undertook an intensive period of shamanic journeying, during which a host of wizards, princesses, animals, and the occasional demonic figure, appeared as companions, guides, teachers, and tormentors. And the thread leads inevitably to the present, and the Tarot. I feel at home with its multiplicity of images.

An image, whether in a painting, a meditation, a shamanic journey, a Tarot reading, or seen walking down a mountain hillside, can communicate far more than words. It bypasses (without necessarily negating) the conceptual mind, and speaks directly. Its language is not that of the solely rational, but touches what can be called our Emotional Intuition, or our Soul Intuition. Direct transmission of secrets, mysteries, hidden treasures, through the medium of the image.  

Images: Delphic Sybil
             Daniel

Both from Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling                

The Problem With Blondes

A few months ago, something unexpected happened with this blog. An article that I had written began to get a far larger number of 'hits' than is normal. There was nothing ultra-exceptional about the piece - just written in the usual excellent gripping style -, so I assumed that there must be a word or words that were being put into search engines which brought up the article in question. I could only think that mention of a slightly unusual Buddha figure was the reason: this Buddha has relatively little written about him on the internet, so the article was registering unusually high in peoples' searches.

Intrigued, I tried a small experiment. Soon afterwards, I published a piece on the subject of an experience I had with the plant psychedelic ayahuasca. Cognisant of how ayahuasca is a hot topic nowadays, I was careful to include that word in the title of the article. Sure enough, viewings were well up on what is typical, though they didn't attain the lofty heights which I surmise 'Dorje Chang' can invoke. Since then, I sadly have to report that hits have returned to a more normal level.

It occurred to me that this could all be put to my great advantage. The next time that I come up with a turgid piece on some obscure piece of parapolitical history, I shall entitle it 'Naked Girls'. The article will in this way get the mass attention it surely deserves.

Furthermore, I realised that I could produce an entire series of parapolitical blockbusters. 'Naked Blondes', followed by 'Naked Brunettes', and so on. At this point, however, a potential complication arose in my grand plan. Ask most men, and I suspect they will confirm my suspicion: 'Naked Blondes' will get more hits than 'Naked Brunettes'. It's just a perverse fact of male life. This being the likely scenario, I could do a service for the greater good. I would catalogue the results, then send them to some Equalities Commission or other, filing a complaint about the victimisation and humiliation of brunettes through the needless prejudices of men. Our own local patron saint of the victimised and downtrodden, Ms Sturgeon, will surely take it on. She is big on social justice - or should that be Social Justice?

I suggest government legislation be introduced, making it compulsory for all blondes to dye their hair to a darker colour, so as to prevent unfair discrimination on the basis of hair colour. We can have 'hair guardians'. They will be a bit like traffic wardens, roaming the streets and handing out on-the-spot fines to any woman displaying a disagreeably light shading of her hair. This will boost employment, as well as bringing in much needed government revenue, and prove that, when it comes to prejudice and discrimination, we are being serious.

Lower image: weknowyourdreams      

Checking out the narrative

Part One

I was born in 1953. For me, the 1960s couldn't come quickly enough (curiously, they eventually turned up on January 1st, 1960). From an early age (about five), a most urgent priority was escape from the culture of my parents' generation, and the generation before it. It was, seen through the lens of my infant eye, a culture that was restrictive, negatively conventional, devoid of possibility, crushing of the human spirit, and productive of little happiness and joy (yes, an infant mind can perceive such things).

I exerted great energy in uncoupling myself from the grasp of this fruitless way of life that most adults around me seemed to embrace only too willingly. The gods had looked upon me favourably, bringing me into life just at the right time to benefit from a decade impeccably suited to the shape of my daemon, the 1960s.

Expanding horizons. Possibility. The promise of magic and goodness. These were some of the attitudes which infused my soul as I grew up. Every week, it seemed, brought something new, something wondrous. This was particularly so in the realm of music, experienced through the media of grainy black-and-white television and, rather later, a crackly dansette record player.

They may appear commonplace nowadays. But I vividly recall first hearing the opening chords of 'House of the Rising Sun' by the Animals. What rich, deep resonance to those chords, with more than a hint of menace. Never heard anything like it before. Then, a couple of years later, the Beachboys' 'Good Vibrations' getting its first airing on Saturday's 'Juke Box Jury'. Was this really the same bunch of smiley-smiley surfing dudes who, just one year before, had brought out happy-clappy nice-boy songs like 'Barbara Anne'? This could not be possible.

For many years the story told by the mainstream media about the 1960s was generally favourable. It was about freedom, good living, a kind of healthy hedonism. The Swinging Sixties, new cars, new fridges; it was the Beatles, miniskirts, martini-shaking James Bond, sex without AIDS. It seems to me, though, that in recent times the flavour of the narrative - the story that's being told, by the way to mould our idea of reality - has changed. It wasn't such a good time after all. Reckless, dangerous, irresponsible. Sexist, demeaning to women. These are some of the themes which now prevail.

To investigate this topic a little more, I shall have to turn to the story of a most unpleasant, unsavoury person: Jimmy Savile.

Part Two

As an aside, which is not completely irrelevant, many folk could have been saved life-damaging trauma by listening to the young people. By the mid-60s, Jimmy Savile was a regular face on the television. If you had asked my sister (then aged eleven) and me (fourteen years old) in 1967 whether we would like to meet Jimmy Savile, you would have got an unequivocal response: "No way!" I would have run a mile, and my sister two miles. Through the still relatively undistorted perceptions of our young minds, it was clear that this guy was no good. It was not a question of being 'weird': it was 1967, and my heroes - Syd Barrett, Jim Morrison, and Jimi Hendrix - all came soaked in weirdness. No. there was something creepy, scary, not-human about the guy that was transparently clear to us. Why so many 'people in high places' didn't see it - or chose not to see it - for decades I will leave with you to ruminate on.

What is interesting from the viewpoint of this piece is how, around and following the time of the public oncovering of the Savile affair a few years back, suddenly a flood of allegations appeared. Soon half the DJs on Radio Two were embroiled in accusations fair, false, or in between, of pedophilia or some other form of sexual abuse. Other celebrities were indicted. 'Everyone was at it' ran a headline in a mainstream 'newspaper', although if you actually cared to read the article it wasn't talking about pedophilia at all. Amidst all this was the insinuation that these were people from a bygone era, and good riddance to that era, of the 1960s and 1970s. Even if the accusations dated to more recent times, the implication was that these were people from that era, that culture. Thankfully, the story continued to infer, we have moved on; things are better today.

The question remains: why did all this stuff suddenly pop up, out of nowhere it seemed, in such recent times? "Ah well, you see, sir. We have now developed a culture where the victims of abuse feel freer to come forward and tell their story. Without fear of being rejected or ridiculed." There may be something in that. But I don't buy that as the whole story. Things don't 'just happen'. That's a lie put about to befuddle people's minds; to clothe and justify all sorts of malevolent behaviour. As Buddhists are fond of telling us, everything arises upon conditions.

Despite my efforts to turn it off, my internal weirdometer continued quietly ticking away. For a long time, I couldn't join the dots. I didn't try very hard, if truth be told, since the topic is so unpleasant. Then, recently, I came upon an article (in the mainstream media, as it happens) about student activism. Students have always been hot on protest, activism, putting the world to rights. What this article pointed out was how the aims of much student activism nowadays is different to that in the, ahem, '60s and '70s. Then, it was about freedom. Demanding freedom of expression, freedom of
speech. Now, a good chunk is about the polar opposite. Some students are extremely vocal in squashing freedom of speech: they protest vigorously against certain people being given a platform to air their views; people who they don't like, especially people who don't follow a globalist, multicultural agenda. Oh, and they want to knock down statues of people they don't approve of. A bit like the Taliban.

What has happened over time is very clever. Student protest has been successfully co-opted by the elites. While it was once vehemently anti-establishment, it now stands up for the values of the status quo, while still believing that it is being radical. You have to admit that is clever. Just like all those modern 'liberals' who think they are the radical. leading edge, while they have, in reality, simply been repositioned into doing the dirty work of the elites.

So this is the message for modern times: freedom is bad. Giving people too much freedom is dangerous, irresponsible. You end up with a society full of pedophiles, sex abusers, and other abusers. It's in the news, on the television, every day now: pedophiles, child abuse, sex abuse. The world is full of it. Incredible. So we need to be able to control life, for the greater good. We are all potentially victims of the predators roaming around out there, and we need to be protected. The ethic of the 1960s was very bad, and should be rejected wholeheartedly.

The model human being created from this message, this narrative, is of a person far from their own authenticity. It is a victim. It is a person full of fear, worn down, their own vital spark reduced to the smallest flicker. It is a person afraid of their own spontaneous energy, their own natural instincts. They live in a world which constricts and inhibits, with ever more controls, ever more protection for the 'victims', the 'helpless'. It is a world in which, as I learnt while working in retail, an adult male dare not smile at children, for fear of being considered a pervert, a predator on the groom. Where, should a child fall over and hurt themself, you must not lend a hand, must not touch. It is a nightmare fantasy world, the product of a nightmare narrative. And created deliberately: remember - things don't just happen.

Part Three    

This, for me, is the focus of significant fascination with the Trump World. It is not about individual policy decisions: as with most politicians, the majority are either devious, silly, misguided, damaging, or any combination of the above. No: it is the subtexts, the underlying messages. When Trump recently banned the BBC, CNN, the Guardian, the New York Times,and a bunch of other neer-do-wells from a White House briefing, this was huge. There was the predictable bleating about freedom of speech, etc. Bullshit. What the Trump was saying (how conscious of it or not I do not know) was this: "You guys are not in the business of communicating truth and reality. You guys are in the business of creating and sustaining a narrative. And, you know what? - your narrative sucks."

Never in my life have I seen a national leader put out this truth so transparently. We've heard about spin doctors before, but this is a big step further. Media weaves a web, spins a dream. The notion that it seeks an objective reality to impartially report is gone. The genie is out. It's the first and necessary step in human beings taking back their own powers of narrative, rather than having it handed to them by other, generally rather ill-intentioned, beings. Without seeing this, and to a degree at least breaking through it, the individual is severely compromised in any attempt at self-determination. And thus they remain far from their divinity (or their potential, if you're squeamish about divinity). A person needs to throw off the grip of the dream; and while many folk who follow traditions of oriental origin see that spinner of illusion, Maya, in their personal life, they avoid its manifestation in the human world all around them.

To hang loose to all narrative, be it social or personal, is the place to be. Create your own narrative, and don't take that very seriously either. Take back the power of narrative into your own world, then shatter its power completely. 'Get out of the way', as some traditions put it, to allow the real power of the universe to guide and inform. And anybody still mired in the fabrications meted out by media, school, and other officially-sanctioned organs of story-telling, just can't do it.