Interesting times...

Interesting times. Ever since the LSD really. Something seems to have shifted. Joy, like I say, 98% present and at quite a high and lovely level too. Not too much bothering me. Stirrings within and without, shaping themselves up to break through into something, perhaps...

I had those longings to go away, to abandon everything. And then I did the I Ching, did that meditation that showed me I could just toss away all my money and be free from that. The longings subsided. I added a bit of common sense to the mix. And slowly Leeds became wonderful. Frequent and random meetings with young Christians asking me questions about life and not even being that converty. My squash friend Dan coming over with his girlfriend and me excitedly talking about iboga and all manner of things of Dan saying, you should be a sage. And then my dad weirdly one day during a visit to his guitar shop says apropos of nothing, are you a prophet? and talks about wanting to give everything up and become a tramp, his friend Trevor channeling my thoughts to another geezer in answer to various questions - better answers than I could have come up with. Plus many other things besides.

I start to think of all the things I could do. Sharing the techniques I've learned over the years. Creating a little hub/hubbub right here in Leeds. Sufi dancing and meditation. Maybe even wilderness solos and vision quests. Iboga ceremonies, ayahuasca. The voyager returning home with the treasure to share among his brethren. Sharing really is where it's all at. I can tell people enough that there's joy to found, that life is great and groovy and all you've ever heard from saints and mystics and hippies really is actually true after all - but what use is it if you can't give them the experience? That would be something. Something I've started to want to happen.

But maybe it's not something that can be given: maybe it's something they have to work for. But even a taste, a little smidgen of bliss - like, perhaps, what John Milton gave me that first night I met him in Mexico. Or the praying Catholics at the hot springs. Or Lindsay and his electric hugs and undeniable happiness. People see the peace, remark on it, say how laidback and sorted I appear to be - and that's nice - but what I'd really love is to give them an unquestionable hit of it in their boots, set them on the path to something. Maybe that's what I'm doing anyway. Who knows? But words...

I think of mad things. Starting 'The Church of Rory' and just opening up my flat like some sort of weird gathering place/shop in which people can wander by, sample a mind-opening book or have a conversation. On Sundays there's singing and soup and meditation and sharing. On other days there might just be me and one other soul as they lay wrapped in my tent undergoing iboga therapy while I sit and care for them. Perhaps even acid too - been investigating Silk Road - or ayuahasca or DPT. Cracking open the healing again. Lots of ideas. But not necessarily the balls, the brains, the internal/eternal 'go ahead' to do them.

How on Earth does one start these things? Seems a bit tricky to me: so I carry on just meeting casually, randomly, synchronistically, spontaneously and doing whatever seems the thing to do in the moment. The poor soul I met in the steam room at uni one day, lost and troubled and searching and for over an hour we chatted in there, and it could have been Mexico '99 all over again. Just because it's Leeds 2012 and the world is concrete and drizzly and grey doesn't mean there's no magic...

Meanwhile, my attempts to escape have been interesting too. I don't feel it so much anymore - all the above thoughts and my joy and love at the things that are happening here in the day-to-day - squash and refereeing and interactions and still living very much the student life - and there's also a sense that things are being taken care of. I did another I Ching about leaving my flat and I got 'The Well' with changing lines 2, 4 and 6. It basically seemed to point to being in one place - like, uh, a well - and simultaneously, yes, digging deep and striking water, putting down roots - like, uh, a tree - but also being that constant, consistent presence from which people may come and drink. Well, we'll see...

The other thing was - the big thing - while I still wrestling with that feeling that I ought to go somewhere, that I had things I needed to do away from this place, for me, and yet not having the first idea where I should go was - well, one morning a week or two back I woke up and had a vision. Like, it felt, a proper genuine Biblical-type one. I've only had one before. I wrote about that here. It was last year and I was in my bed in London when I woke up and saw, with my eyes open or closed, for quite a few minutes, a scene of high rooftops with distinctive attic-type windows. I wondered what it meant. I thought I happened among a meaning. But it was only a month or two later when I went to Germany to see Mother Meera that I realised it was the rooftops of the houses there. Going to Mother Meera's, naturally, was an important time. I was in transition and I felt seeing her would give me clues as to where to go next. The day I left hers I got the message through that I'd been granted a full fees bursary to do an MA at Leeds. Sending me home. Plonking me here at the uni where I now sit. For all manner of reason. Yeah, Mother sorts it out...

I sent her a letter a week or two back. Can't remember whether it was before or after the vision. Anyway, the vision, such as it was - it kind of felt also like a lucid dream, in that I knew where I was - in my bed - and I knew that I was awake, but that I was still 'dreaming' too, and could 'see' the dream with my eyes open or closed - was of me climbing the stairs in my dad's guitar shop, right to the top floor where I used to live nearly twenty years ago, and where I generally store my possessions when I go gadding off to one place or another. And then when I got there I saw in big letters the word ******* - which I sort of immediately understood to be the answer to my questions/prayers about where I should go, having a dim recollection of it being perhaps a city or a district out ****** way, perhaps. No conscious recollection, mind. Nowhere I can recall, even now in my wakeful state, having come across it before. But almost immediately I googled it and - yup, of course, the ******* of ***********...

And the rest of that - maybe seven or eight paragraphs - has been censored by the toss of a coin. Just don't feel right sharing that just yet. Instead, I posted some I Ching readings I did last week, in the name of completion, and mused further on the last one. Which means I shall be deleting this blog pretty soon. Ho hum. :-)

Amazing jokes

What you're probably thinking right now is that I don't spend time thinking up terribly convoluted jokes that aren't really that funny. But you're wrong! In fact, I once had a very good friend with whom I would while away many a happy hour plucking random words from objects around the room to use as punchlines and then devising clumsy, ridiculous puns. I think by now we've made up hundreds. She sent me one the other day, something about an Australian insult for an Englishman/fruit made out of stone - the answer was "Pomegranate" - of course it was - you see the kind of thing - and that sent me on a whole new tangent of my own.

Highlight the hidden text below the 'joke' to learn the answer (assuming you're not smart enough to figure them out).

Q: What did the French-Australian call the potato he used to ward off Englishmen (much in the manner that a scarecrow is used to ward off crows)? (Don't get hung up on the scarecrow bit.)

A: He called it his POMME DETERER!! A-ha-ha-ha!

Q: What did the French-Australian grapefruit seller shout when he saw an Englishman pulling a large-antlered North American quadruped through the streets of Paris?

A: POMME PULL MOOSE!! A-hee-hee-hee!

Q: What's the difference between a Sex Pistols fan who spends his days campaigning to rid the world of a certain large-antlered North American quadruped - are you with me? - and a Franciscan or Benedictine holy renunciate man, for example, who enjoys nothing more than buffing up and bringing to a shine traditional English watering holes (ie, pubs)?

A: ONE'S A MOOSE-ABOLISHING PUNK AND THE OTHER'S A BOOZER-POLISHING MONK!!

Oh my word: that's clever. That's actually from ages ago but it was too good to let disappear. I bet you never knew I was some sort of comedic genius eh? Of course, it takes a special sort of wit to appreciate the complexity and depth of these jokes. They're working on many levels.

Q: What has a small sweet dessert traditionally left out for Santa at Christmas time (along with a glass of sherry) got in common with the British secret agent Double-O-8 (who is made out of Polos)?

A: THEY'RE BOTH MINT SPIES!! A-hoo-hoo-hoo!!

And finally...this is one of my favourites. I know you can't believe it but it just came to me. Only took like a minute or so to work out.

Q: Did you hear about the cowboy whose wife gave birth to a Docmartin? Even though the boy was a shoe it didn't stop his father from loving him: they were inseperable. In fact, when they were both killed in a terrible car crash all the cowboy's friends agreed: at least it was some consolation that he died with his boot son.

AHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

I'd love to tell you more but I'm afraid I'll get into trouble for causing your very seams to burst - and I don't want that.

God, it's great being amazing. :-)

A comment

Anonymous wrote:

Rory

I very much enjoyed your book, don't take it out of print, you'll be depriving others. I found these blogs because I was interested in the what happened next bit, you're an interesting guy, you remind me of people i met when i was young and studenty. I guess people probably tell you all the time to settle down and be normal, perhaps you make them feel uncomfortable in some way, I don't know. I'd say to ignore such advice.

You certainly made me review the decisions I've made in my life and their consequences - I would love to have adventured more, but I've tried to make a happy for home for children, and whilst you can certainly be adventurous with children, you can't do what you want when you want, which sometimes is a bit of a pain :)

I like the fact you do refereeing, you don't fit the character profile that most referees I've come across have - I'm still playing at 46, with lads more than half my age, but I love the slightly surreal, edgy, adrenaline filled experience of a match, it takes me out of the polite, gentle world I normally inhabit, and challenges me not to be the sad old guy, but still a functioning, competent, even talented, cog in the team wheel. I'm guessing you get similar enjoyment (not the old guy bit, just the 'out on the field running about and calming grown men down' bit).

Anyway sorry, I hadn't intended to talk about me, i meant to say well done, you're a good writer, I loved your book (apart from the extremely new age bit at the end - not my cuppa tea but then that's just me), write another book, people will enjoy it and you might quite enjoy doing it.

All the best

Mike


And Rory writes in reply:

Nice one Mike, really appreciate you taking the time to write and post such a lovely message: sure do make the whole thing a little more tolerable. Thanks for the kind words and encouragement: because of that, I will keep the book in print, even though sales are slowly trickling down towards the "zero per month" mark as we speak. But it must be there for a reason. I did have a vague idea that taking it out of "self-published print" might help me find an agent but that's probably just wishful thinking. Anyways, as the maybe-non-mythical immortal Indian holy man Babaji said to his equally outlandishly unbelievable sister one time in Autobiography of a Yogi: "The Lord has spoken his wish through thy lips" - and that's good enough for me.

Which is all just a rather tongue-in-cheek way of saying, wow, I'll take a sign from anywhere. And also to provide a nice segue into my next point, which is that - man, I'm sorry but I reckon if I do write another book - they're two which niggle away at my brain - it'll probably hold no interest for you at all. If you thought the end of Discovering Beautiful was New Agey...well, can you imagine what the sequel'll be? I guess I have a notion to tell the tale of "what happened next" - but it really was all spirituality from beginning to end (apart from the refereeing and squash and women). I think that's par for the course, really: you embark on a search for joy and truth and happiness and love, that's probably where you're gonna end up: meditation and spirituality and some horrendous realisation that, omg, this God thing really is about the best thing there is - 'cept it's nothing like all those crazy religious dudes have told us. Anyway...

I dig that you're out there Mike. Sorry I probably don't have another book in me that would appeal to you (although the other idea is to write a full-out autobiographical musings account of my romantic history and thoughts and ideas around that; probably anonymous) but, hey ho, you gots to be yourself. It was nice being 23. It's even nicer being 36. Contentment and happiness are more consistent. Kids are probably a really groovy thing: at least, that's what everyone tells me. Maybe give it a try one day...

Cheers for all. I shall keep you posted on the books.

All t'best,
Rory

I Ching readings

Q: I called my brother. He's such a frustrating character. He puts nothing into our interactions. Says his life is "terrible" but won't do anything about it. Is obviously unhappy. But nothing I have ever been able to do seems to have been any use and the sensible thing appears to be to wash my hands. But I'm always open to alternatives. Pray tell, sweet I Ching, what is the wisdom regarding my relationship with my brother?

A: 54 - The Marrying Maiden. Changing lines 1, 2, 4 and 5.

"Undertaking brings misfortune. Nothing that would further."

'Nuff said.

Q: What have you to say about my thought of giving away the vast majority of my money? Would it be beneficial or foolish? Is there a purpose for it perhaps in the near future that I have yet to see? Or should I proceed with that idea? Probably you have no preference - but I should like to know: what shall be the outcome of giving my money away?

A: 1 - The Creative. Changing lines 1, 3, 5 and 6.

I thought "yes" when I read the main chapter and that made me happy. But all the changing lines seem to strongly be saying "no".

I'll let it rest.

Q: What is the wisdom regarding the writing of this blog? It used to bring both myself and others a lot of good but now I'm not so sure that it brings it's doing anything of benefit for anyone, and perhaps even does some harm. Once I felt you definitely told me to continue it, and you were right. But that was long time ago and things have changed. What about now? Should it go on?

A: 39 - Obstruction. Changing line 3.

In the main chapter, many recurring themes from both other recent readings and from life. The idea of seeking out "the great man" - John Milton? Mother Meera? some hitherto unknown teacher? - and also of the finding likeminded people. Also, once more "the southwest" appears. Could that be the literal southwest - such as Wales, Glastonbury, Cornwall and England's spiritual, hippy heartlands - or even Mexico, Baja, California - or is it as the reading states, the place of retreat? If only there were likeminded souls, a great teacher to whom I could attach myself. That's long been my dream. But life doesn't seem to bring me those things...

Meanwhile the changing line states once again that "going leads to obstruction, hence he comes back". If I apply this and the main chapter directly to this blog, is it an instruction to desist? At least for the time-being. Seems to be. And seems very much in accord with what life is telling me about the writing I do here: that it's for no purpose; that nobody reads it - or, at least, if they do they take nothing of good from it, as they maybe did back in '98 and '99, and as they maybe do from my book; and that my endless splurging and word- and mindgames don't really do me any good either. I could write forever. Give me a million hours of unadulterated typing, and the arms to do it, and I would still be going. But for what benefit? Just to show that my mind is inexhaustible and unfathomably mad? When one drop of divine experience is treasure far beyond anything my words could bring me.

I know that, but I don't act on it. I keep reporting my worldly experiences, for little apparent purpose. I share everything in the hope that there's a reason in sharing and remembering in it - but the hope grows more faint all the time. And anyway, won't I remember everything that needs to be remembered, whether I write it here or not? Isn't that what I learned from writing my book? And haven't I learned that talking and sharing in the real world is really where it's at, what helps me to grow? The blog once served a purpose - a great purpose - a true purpose - but that time, perhaps, is no more - and maybe hasn't been for a long time.

Maybe I should let this rest too.

Or delete it.

I'll toss a coin...

Better...

Right. Another week, another attempt to blog. More interesting times but...I can’t for the life of me remember any of them! Weird that. What I do remember is: joyfulness and, what’s more, happiness, too. In fact, I’m going to estimate my happiness level as being Extremely High and present I reckon 95-98% of the time. The only time it wasn’t there was when I imagined myself shunned by two close friends – again – and after staying up until 7am last Monday night/Tuesday morning writing the biggest blog entry ever. Eleven hours of straight typing. Twenty-thousand words (a few thousand probably cut-and-paste). And, afterwards, I felt like dogshit. Not just because of lack of sleep, or sitting at the computer pretty much the whole day – I couldn’t bring myself to leave until I’d ejaculated every last damn word – but mostly because of what I wrote, and how. Man, I don’t know how to do it anymore. Or why...

Anyway, the next day my ex texted me and said she’d read a bit and could I take her name off. So I was relieved by that and quickly removed the entries, with a plan to go through, take her out, and correct the million typos I made. Still hoping to do that, for whatever reason. Being an amazing woman, she wasn’t pissed, and actually quite good-humoured about the whole thing. I even ventured to ask her what she thought.

“Self-absorbed,” she said.

I couldn’t argue with that. Maybe like the self-absorption of a crazy-ass jazz musician, or an African drummer, or the avant-garde, or me when I get to going mad and free on my guitar, endless streams of random notes and de-tuning the whole thing and repetitive, monstrous rhythms. Things that feel real good from the inside but are just cacophony and bedlam to a right-thinking outsider. We’re jamming all right but...

That’s not what I want. And I didn’t even feel good myself. I was flying on memories of the mad expunge, of how good it is to get it all out – but I just felt stupid. Like I can’t write anything. Like there’s no reason for any of it. Like I’ve just gone too crazy and free with the whole thing. It’s true, I cared not a jot for my audience, I just wanted the damn thing out of me, like it was a bug I had to scratch, a deadline itching to be exorcised...

But that’s not writing, that’s just typing. And not even very good typing at that.

What is this blog? What’s it for? I know why I started it: it was my therapy. And then it became a place to share my adventures and discoveries, and there was an interaction with an audience. I learned things and the things I learned had uses for others. People used to cry when they read my words, send emails saying they’d found something wonderful, something they’d been waiting a long time to hear. But now...

Maybe I’m not learning anything useful anymore. Maybe the therapy has come to an end. Maybe the things I want to express just aren’t expressible in words. Maybe the time for sharing through this mechanism has stopped.

Maybe it stopped a long time ago.

It was useful for me once. I needed to get stuff out of me and in sharing it with the world, and in having the world accept me in all my badness and idiocracy, I began to feel accepted and healed, not so alone and crazy after all. I came to realise that we were all kind of the same, that “I’m not okay and that’s okay.” Then there was the voyage of discovery – the traveller sending back his tales, getting it out of him to make room for more – and then...

Well, where are we now? No feedback. No learning. No heartfelt emails saying this or that. No joyous discovery.

Nothing new, really.

Oh, that’s not to say I’m bemoaning anything – the end of anything is just the end, and all ends are good – but it is food for thought.

I took that acid the other week and against my better judgment, knowing full well that words could do nothing to convey even a fraction of such an experience – and knowing that there was nothing new to say on that front anyway – I gave it a shot.

I felt kind of sick, to be honest. Like I’d smeared shit on a friend, laid pearls before swine – and the swine was me.

I took something beautiful and mangled it out of myself in an effort to...pursue something I know not even what. A compulsion? An ego-driven need for attention?

An old habit that I hadn’t noticed no longer served me?

It was a beautiful day. I’ll try and recapture it more soberly, more briefly. Touch on the things that mattered, and then move on. ‘Tis the problem with amazing, inexpressible things: they’re so amazing you just long to share. But they’re inexpressible.

Anyways...

Acid. I felt like I touched infinity and infinity was good. The “kingdom of heaven is within” and all that.

My mind, I feel, was changed for good, and changed in a positive way – which, for me, is what it’s all about. There’s no point doing it otherwise. I’m not interested in baubles or visions or some temporary high, I’m interested in long-term benefit and genuine healing and growth.

I believe that I got that.

One way I got that was by seeing how tiny and insignificant everything of this human life truly is when placed before the majesty of infinity. It made me laugh, and made me wonder how I could ever get bent out of shape about anything ever again.

Falling out with people.

Caring about who was sleeping with who.

My lifelong disagreement with my mother.

That’s the biggest thing I’ve ever had to contend with really, when you get right down to it – and in that mindset it just made me giggle.

Right now, I can’t even remember why I was cross with her, or comprehend why I would be again.

We haven’t spoken in something like eighteen months. But at the end of LSD-Day I sent her  an email feeling happy and free.

I’m still waiting to hear back. But that’s okay – I’ve got all the time in the world.

I saw things, that’s true – the stereotypical, larger-than-life colours and impossibly complex geometric patterns – and heard things, also – beautiful, ethereal notes gently rising and falling, lushly overlapping – but...well I’m not sure they were important, other than in the sense it gave me that there was a whole amazing universe within myself, and it was a universe that was good.

It’s amazing that that experience can feel so much more real than ‘actual life’. I really got the sense that life wasn’t hardly anything that I’ve been told it was. There’s a saying of Amma’s that goes something like, “We are like one who goes to a king prepared to give us everything – his throne, his palace, his billions of jewels – and ask only for a speck of dirt.” I never understood that before. But I now believe it’s true.

I had this sense that we were born to be kings and we have made ourselves paupers.

I thought of the grand vision of life as it has been sold to me – word hard, buy a house, pay your mortgage and do some interior design – and I just laughed and laughed and laughed. Not in any snobby, anti-materialist way, but in the sense that it was a million miles from what life is actually about, and so much more niggardly in comparison.

And in the middle of all that ecstasy and shuddering visions and seemingly evident truth and gladness was perhaps where another few percent of any recent unhappiness found its root. Because even in the middle of it I was readying to leave my whole life behind and go off again in search of a more permanent excursion to the kingdom. I mean, Leeds is lovely, but even the highest achievement in life here wouldn’t be but a gnat’s turd on the toe of a billion-mile high statue of some indescribably awesome goddess when compared to that.

I thought it. I believed it. There was no denying it at the time. And the next day I wondered back into the world smiling at everything and making my plans...

To shed my possessions.

To give up my flat.

To jettision telephones and email and all dreams of being a writer.

To go out once more into the world, free and eager and toss myself again into the stream, much as I did twelve or thirteen years ago, in the best and most glorious years of my life.

I had no idea where to go, I just wanted to –

“Perform my one holy function of the time: Go.”

When I picked up the phone in the morning the first message was from a squash buddy: my phone shows a certain number of letters as a ‘text preview’. This one said: “Rory, just go.”

Really, it was, “Rory, just go[t your message...] but’twas sign enough for me.

But then I got scared, and I’ve been scared ever since.

In fact, I got real scared. I couldn’t let go of this life. I was terrified I was doing something stupid.

I put a half-assed ad up to sell all my possessions and let out my flat – but then I never really went through with it.

I walked into a travel agency and asked about tickets to Bali – very reasonable, as it goes – but then I remembered that I had no passport.

I started to go a bit nuts with it. The remembrance of times past when I’d taken that irrational, faith-inspired leap into the unknown and it’d worked out beautifully, the rewards coming unexpected and true – but also the remembrance of the times I’d done foolish, irresponsible things, and suffered in equal measure for them: most recently when I’d attempted to flee Leeds in the summer.

Timing is everything. You can’t make the grass go faster by tugging on it.

I did an I Ching and the chapter I got was number 7, The Army. It said:

“Organisation. Strict discipline. Not by force. Not resorted to rashly, but, like a poisonous drug [!], a last resort. Quite definite aim. At the beginning, order is imperative. A just and valid course must exist, otherwise the result is inevitably failure.”

I breathed out at that. Nodded and relaxed. Good old I Ching: always right. It’s one thing to take a leap of faith – but quite another to up sticks and walk out my door without any plan whatsoever.

It’s also...

The nagging feeling that I ought to be able to find what I seek anywhere. In Leeds, in India, in Mexico in the company of shamans. It is within, after all.

I often wondered whether I couldn’t have found it in the first place having never left Yorkshire.

A makes a man scattered and confused to have so many links to so many different people all over the world. Especially in these days of internet and telephone, where, as I’ve said before, old acquaintances from times long past are never allowed to fade away as they once did, in beautiful memory, but are forever kept alive and revisited, as though on life-support machine.

For me, the world is too much distant from where my physical body is – too many thoughts leaping out over thousands of miles, dragging me from where I am – and I struggle to bring it back. To be in Yorkshire...

Eve emails me and says, “come to India.”

And then she tells me that John’s teaching in Bali next week and maybe we should meet there.

John who I think about a lot. Who was perhaps the best spiritual teacher I ever had.

And that of course gets me thinking of Mexico, and of my canyon, and of his place there, and all the times we shared all those years ago...

...and of how sunny it is, and beautiful and warm...

Plus all the million, billion other amazing places I could go too.

I’ve said it a thousand times before: it’s no easy thing when you truly know the world’s your oyster and you can go and be anything you want. Because, like an amazing restaurant with a truly mouthwatering and exhaustive menu, it’s a case of, “where do you start?”

And how do you choose, when you know everything’s so incredible, but choosing one thing will deny so many others? And I so long to make the right choice...

It was either before or after the I Ching – I know I was still feeling mighty frazzled, so maybe it was before – that I sat down and meditated and tried to find some peace of mind amongst all these desires of leaving everything behind and pursuing that glorious vision, which I just knew to be true, while so keenly feeling my attachment to the life I currently have. Really, I was not enjoying it at all – so it was surprising how quickly once I sat to meditate that my peace and contentment returned to me.

In fact, my meditations have been better since LSD-Day than they have been for years.

It occurred to me somewhere in there that my problem was money – in that I had too much of it. I’ve got about two and a half thousand pounds in the bank, which is more than enough for me to fly to anywhere I want to in the world and live quite handsomely, Rory-style, for at least six months, if not substantially longer. And, of course, once it ran out, I wouldn’t be worried about that, I would just keep on going, for taken care of I know I always am.

I’ve had that two grand-plus in the bank for well over a year. Originally it was what I was going to fund my MA with, before I won the bursary. Then it became my security for moving back to Leeds, just in case I didn’t get or didn’t want a job while I studied. But I found the refereeing and the cheap flat and I’ve been able to live quite handsomely, always making more than enough money each week to fund my modest yet non-frugal lifestyle.

Truth is, I kept it with future travels in mind. But another truth is that: a) I’ve begun to cling to a bit, as I always do when I have a decent amount (so much easier to let it go when you hardly have any!); and: b) it wasn’t really even mine to begin with. Probably most of it came when I wasn’t working in London from June to September last year and so got the government to pay my rent and council tax. I did look for work but...well, that’s something I generally don’t believe in. Or didn’t, until I started paying London prices. But if you work it out carefully, that was probably about two grand I managed to save by having them fund my rent for me, and I’m not sure I feel so great about that.

I try to give to charity fairly often, but haven’t done for a while. I gave some to Amma’s charities when I was there last month – but not nearly as much as I usually do.

Anyway, meditating that day I realised what a beautiful solution that would be to, well, just about everything. To give the whole stinking lot away. I mean, I don’t need it. I’m always taken care of. It’s been sitting in my bank for ages, untouched. And a man of my beliefs should be giving to charity anyway. Plus, it wasn’t mine to begin with. Perfect. I felt perfectly at ease with that, and was back to the peace that I know so well, and cherish.

Not that I’ve done it yet. Easier said than done, I suppose. For then there are more questions – like, how much of it should I give away? All of it? Most of it? And to whom?

And should I spend some first, on myself, on my friends? Should we go out for the big meal I hardly ever go out for? Should I at least furnish my flat with a few fripperies that it so desperately requires? Why not buy all the things I would buy if I was a millionaire, given that I’m going to get rid of it anyway? (They would amount to, perhaps: a new squash racket; a cheap second-hand laptop; a tyre for my bicycle; a new pair of refereeing shorts; some socks; and...perhaps the gubbins to construct a long-dreamed of weird homemade hot tub in my front garden. That’s pretty much it. And none of those things are necessary if I ‘go away’).

And what of the travel fund? Should a man keep at least five hundred or so in reserve, just in case a plane ticket to somewhere is required? Or would that just confuse matters still?

I’m convinced that if I need to be somewhere, the money will come. It’s happened many times before. And I’ve jettisoned my savings plenty of times before too – four grand or so back in 2000; every rupee I had in my pocket while on travels in India – and it’s always worked out great.

Just faith, that’s all it takes. And knowing what matters...

Travel. Leeds. Mexico. My life here...

My life here is so wonderful, as far as the material existence goes, and I don’t think I’ve ever had it better. I’m right back where I was aged 13, except about a billion times happier. I’ve got a great little flat all to myself, quiet and self-contained, and it certainly doesn’t break the bank. My work is satisfying and fun, totally flexible and non-committal, and so far full of opportunities for growth and psychological interaction and career prospects. Other than that, I’m free to do what I want, whether it be umpteen games of squash a week, or amusing myself at home or about the town, or interacting with students and maybe planting a few seeds here and there. I love Leeds and I feel no restlessness or urge to get away, save the occasional twitch when I feel the weight of the concrete and the materialism – but, to be honest, that was all pre-LSD-Day anyway.

I do have to wonder: why would I even contemplate giving this up? I feel almost physical pain when I imagine not playing regular squash. When I sit in my flat and listen to how quiet it is. When I think about being out there and not knowing what’s going on, uncomfortable and perhaps longing for the life that I currently have, irretrievable, perhaps, and...

Last time I went away was to Israel. It was lovely – but I was ready to leave after ten days...

The time before that was my five months across Mexico. Again, a really nice trip – but sandwiched in the middle of two six-week periods ‘on the road’ was a couple of months in Mexico City where I lived a fairly normal and sedate life among day-to-day people and I loved it.

I realised: two months is about long enough for me these days, I didn’t want it to go on.

But...

It’s that thing, isn’t it? The kingdom within. The idea that I can’t let go of: that it’s out there somewhere. Even though my teaching tells me it’s within and attainable everywhere, always.

Ah, but I counter that with: environment. The effect of environment is strong. It’s difficult to be the only guy trying to tell everyone the emperor has no clothes.

Well maybe my will should be stronger. I don’t have to say anything. I don’t have to pay the emperor no heed. I could just go home and chuckle at him – forget that he exists – and get on with the real work.

Ah, but then I need a teacher. Someone to show me the way. John Milton or Mother Meera, the woman who I came to at the end of my pilgrimage and who extinguished in me the intense desire I felt at the time for a guru. Mother Meera who...

Who implied I ought to settle down, get married, work a job.

But that was then: back when I needed to do those things for my own grounding and mental well-being. And it worked. And I made it safe back down to Earth.

And now? Now what would she be telling me. Maybe I should ask...

I think about writing Mother Meera a letter. I think about asking her if I could live with her and learn from her. Work my way towards the Divine under her tutelage, with her help. I went there once – in November 2001 – penniless and at the end of a road and ready to do anything to be with her – clean her toilets, whatever she wanted – and the next thing I knew I was on a plane to Canada – miraculous plane ticket, see! – and in pursuit of a girl. The girl took me to uni. And uni took me to...

Well, I’ve finished uni now. Fulfilled my traditional education. Reached the end – surely – of that particular road...

The girl. Still no girl. Still no woman. Though there have been plenty.

Who could marry me? Crazy as I am, telling about “werewolf bathtubs and forked clarinets...in my velvet suit.”

One of the best things that ever happened to me came a few months ago care of Yahoo! Answers, if you can believe that. Finally I said, there of all places, “But how do you choose a woman?!” – having exhausted myself over two years of solid thinking about it, from every possible angle – and the joyous little answer came, “You don’t. They choose you.”

Ah, blesséd relief! So then no more work for me on that front. Permission to be free and easy until the day someone makes me their own. Impossible for me anyways, I tells you, to figure out how on Earth you commit to a person.

So now I don’t need to try. But where was I?

Mother Meera. Thoughts of writing to her. Remembrances of when I have done in the past – and how, instantly, before the letter’s even been posted, the answers and solutions and movements and changes have come.

And thoughts of John Milton, of writing to him. Asking him what he thinks. Picking his brain/psychic power for direction. And wondering once more if I’ll see him in Baja, maybe stay at/take over his place there, as I once suggested many years ago. For if one is going to do inner-work it may as well be in paradise and sunshine, and not the great grey cold of belovéd Yorkshire...

And a million other things besides – almost all of which were thoughts from before LSD-Day – but which I have allowed to live, for purpose of writing them down here. Such as (there will now follow an example of my conflicting and simultaneous desires):

Make a baby. Move into a shared house. Leave Leeds. Jettison everything. Buy a new squash racket. Get a proper job. Stay as I am. Leave the country. Buy a new passport. Trust that I don’t need a passport and life is better and more centred without it. Never leave Leeds ever again. Give up my bicycle. Walk everywhere. Refuse public transport. Stop coming to the university. Buy a laptop. Give up writing. Take a vow of silence. Get a job at the university. Give away all my money. Buy lots of guitars to sell and make money. Fly to Canada. Stop using the computer. Rejoin facebook. Take my book out of print. Give up the internet. Delete all my email accounts. Get rid of my mobile and just have a good old landline. Take LSD again. Buy a hundred hits of acid and give them to people. Form a band. Give up all my sports admin stuff. Go on a trip to the Southwest. Stick a pin in a map. Call people in America. Forget about old friends. Get an ‘urban commune’ going. Spend more and more time alone. Sublet my flat. Stop reading books. Write some more books. Get...

Actually, there’s not as much as I thought there was. Such as it always is when you get the things outside yourself.

And, like I say, that was mostly from a few weeks back. Now everything is calm and content and my days are 95% happy ones. The future will reveal itself. And the I Ching and the dice will help me on my way.

I hope that was a better blog entry. I hope it made a bit more sense than the last six and was somewhat useful and not so self-absorbed.

I just don’t have anything new to say. It’s all true, you see. All the things that the hippies and the mystics have been telling us.

Neale Donald Walsch?

I don’t think I could ever top that. Not in words. Why read me when you could read him?

The only thing left to do is find it – experience it – taste it – and live, breathe and be it.

Be what?

Be whatever you want, I suppose.

Peace and happiness and harmony to all.

Love (whatever that is!)

Rory

6. The end of everything

It’s a shame that words fall so short of describing divine bliss. Oh well: it is what it is. I feel like that was a rather moribund attempt to report on my experience, and I’m not sure the joy of it came out. Then again, being artificially induced, perhaps the joy wasn’t real anyway – not the joy of Shasta, for example, which I always feel and relive when I think of it, read my accounts of it, and share.

Inner experiences are difficult to show to the world: they’re not like penises. Those, it’s easy to display, and get people to know what you’re on about: you just flap them around and the world can use its eyes to see your wares. Sigh: if only sharing this inner world were as easy as flapping one’s penis in the breeze.

In a nutshell: taking them nine tabs of acid was: a) a really good idea; b) actually totally in accordance with what I feel is ‘my spiritual path’ (I had some pretty cool contemplations of that issue which convinced me of that); c) very, very useful; and d) probably long-term beneficial and without any unpleasant side-effects whatsoever. I woke up the next day and I felt totally normal. And I’ve definitely been happier and more free ever since. Much less bothered by things. More pleasant and interactive with strangers in the supermarket and in the street. Smiling tons and laughing too. And perhaps the best bit of it – the realisation of just how small and mundane and not worth bothering about (don’t sweat the small stuff – and it’s all small stuff) – seems to have stayed with me. It’d be hard to forget a thing like that. It was just so convincing. Ah, to think the time I’ve wasted sweating over such piffling items as money and whether to buy an avocado at the price, etcetera! What japes.

And then: the next thing. For...

Like I said, in the midst of that acid experience I wanted everything to change. I wanted to stop wasting my time in piffling matters – buying and selling guitars to make twenty or thirty quid here and there; anything that squandered my mental energy – and, yeah, beyond all that...get rid of everything I owned, and leave my flat, and abandon myself on a quest for a more permanent realisation of that divine kingdom within and –

Oh! I just remembered the most important thing: the reason for the whole of existence and everything. Should I write that here? Muscle-test says yes.

Well, basically, when I was right there in the beautiful heavenly realms and overwhelmed by the ecstasy of it all I was like, why would you leave this? And, ultimately – there was more to it than this – the answer I got was that so we could have the joy of sharing it, of rediscovering it, and of coming together. I felt like that was the answer to the whole cosmos. Oneness is nice – but having someone to share it with is even better. And so God invented Twoness – and Tenness – and Infinityness. And the whole point now is to experience that coming together that wasn’t possible in the beginning.

I felt like that changed me too. I felt like that’s kind of what I’ve been doing but now even more so. It’s all about harmony. It’s all about coming together. Every meeting of two souls is, at some level, about them wanting to reach a place of harmony – about touching that point that exists midway between them where they join. Isn’t that all anybody wants? But man, in his lost and unknowing ways, fails to see it, and so has arguments and wars instead.

Well, not me: I don’t want to argue with anyone. I just want to find the point where we both feel good. Where we meet.

To bring harmony to the world, simply be harmony in the world. Something like that.

And touch everyone with that part of yourself.

There’s no need for arguments. Nothing to be gained. I –

It was very powerful, that experience. And made me want to get away, to revolt against the world that I inhabited before I went on my journey. Thing is, now that I’ve been on that journey, the world I’ve come back to has changed. It doesn’t irk me as it used to. I don’t perhaps need to get away from it. Could, even, be a light that remains in it – if you can dig that.

In the midst of it I was making plans for my escape. And when I came out of it I started to put those plans into action – advertised my flat and stuff; started wondering about where to go – and, really, that was when the only bum part of the experience got to me. I got afraid. And I got confused. I didn’t know where to go or whether going was the right thing to do. But I wasn’t sure whether my reluctance to go through with it was just my fear. Is this the mind afraid of the end of one reality? Or is this just silly whim getting the better of me again?

I persevered. I decided it was the mind. I reminded myself of times I’d done mad, irrational things – like give away all my money in India, to prove my faith – and how they’d always worked out. And when I mourned for the potential loss of my awesome life here in Leeds – finally, making it work in the material world, in a job I love, that takes up so little of my time, with great hobbies, in the best big city in the UK – I told myself it was just attachment, that the rewards for giving it up would be far greater.

Ah, but what of that voice that said, but it’s all within anyway. It’s all where you are.

But then – the effects of environment, of the people around you. A hundred thousands souls staring forlornly at a brick and pointing and saying, this is what life is – and the one lonesome man who knows it’s not, but who gets tired of arguing.

The joy of like-minded Amma arena, where everyone knows they’re souls.

The knowledge that great though this life is, it’s still a turd in comparison to the jewel-encrusted kingdom within.

And yet – the life is good. The squash, the refereeing. The intermittent moments of...happiness (in sport) between...well, mostly happiness, but sometimes boredom and wondering.

The...yes, a place elsewhere, with different people – people not staring at bricks – and the knowledge that they’re out there, in California or Hawaii or maybe Wales or Cornwall or Mexico.

And then: the this-moment realisation that everything is changing even as I type this. My duty becoming fulfilled. My life in Leeds, perhaps, approaching its end. Will fate decide without me having to force my hand? Will my passport be returned? Will –

I did an I Ching. It was specifically about my passport – there are certainly pros to not having one (it keeps me from flying away) – but the answer I got seemed more specific to the situation in general, and all the acid inspired decisions I’d made to just toss myself – thirty-six-years-old! – into the river once more.

It was the chapter called ‘The Army’ (7), changing line in the first place:

Organisation. Strict discipline. Not by force. Not resorted to rashly, but, like a poisonous drug [!], should be used as a last recourse. Quite definite aim. At the beginning, order is imperative. A just and valid cause must exist, otherwise the result is inevitable failure.

Wow. How right do you want something to be. All my thoughts of getting away were built on hopes of “it all working out” and “answers coming when I need them.” Sure, that’s true – but if it’s not the time for going, nothing’s gonna come – just like back in the summer. I had no definite aim. Just willy-nilly. Certainly resorted to rashly, and by force. No real just and valid cause. And when the I Ching says “failure” – well, you’d better sit up and listen.

And so I let it settle. And instantly my fear – was it fear? – vanished and I went back to being happy. To singing to myself. To having nice experiences. Random songs with the Christians, and dinner. Getting shouted at by men on a football pitch and smiling at them. Running the squash league and playing squash and contemplating adventures of a different sort. Like 4-HO-Mipt, perhaps. Or the discovery of Silk Road and the purchase of a hundred hits of acid. A couple of weeks as a psychonaut. Exploring the best of what that world has to offer and seeing what’s there that’s good.

Who knows what the future will bring? Everything changed on Monday – while some things remain the same. But my desire to get away was based on my feelings about a world that ceased to exist while I was tucked up safe in my tent. When I emerged, the world was born again brand new. I needed to see how I felt about it, and not how I felt about its previous incarnation. And once I got over going away fears and confusions and inner tensions I saw that I liked it pretty good. I ate today, for example, a hearty lunch; bought a man part of his drink in Home Bargains to save him waiting in the queue; went out last night to the Cockpit with my friend Carl, and enjoyed our talks; went out on Friday also and finally got to natter with the Elmsall Jimi Hendrix, Jilly Riley, and that was pretty groovy too. She’s a far out chick. There’s plenty I could do here. And even the noise and grey doesn’t bother me at the mo. Maybe losing my passport was one of the best things that ever happened to me. Although it’s hard to believe that I would have lost it if I hadn’t been so dumb back in the summer. ;-)

In any case, when a man stays up all night writing up the last four months of his life, one thing’s for certain: that reality will have changed at some point during the night and that he’d better be prepared to set foot into a brand new world. Random lights will shine the way. Chance and fate and the divine blissful ecstasy what done be leading me home will guide me. Tomorrow is a whole new day. It’s 6.22 and the sun isn’t even up yet. I’ve got plans to go to Accrington, and dice-instructions to buy a new laptop, for projects incomplete. Yep, the writing dreams still live on, despite surely proving to the world tonight that expression, and not coherence, is my game. Quantity not quality? Well I suppose it all depends what you’re after.

Anyways, I did it, and – as I was singing gaily and triumphantly on the way home after completing my Masters’ – I did it my way.

Ah, what a choon that is! :-)

5. LSD-Day

But, I imagine, what you’ve come here to read is not New Age gibberings or strange tales of plump holy Indian women with apples, or long ago pointless love stories, or even of sheep-chasing Israelis, but of my strange and curious re-acquainting with the world of what I’d love to call “edible spiritual tools” but what pretty much everyone else calls “drugs.”

And so, ladies and gentle rugs, I give you...

But wait: there’s got to be a back story – there’s always a back story – and where does this one begin? Yes, with the infamous – to me, and maybe two other people – mad five-tab night running round Wembley in my boxer shorts going acid crazy. I’ve thought and talked about that a lot over the years. For a long time I described it as “the best and worst night of my life.” I guess it had a pretty big impact on me, changed something in my reality that perhaps bore fruition several years later, after some pretty dark times, with my so-called ‘spiritual awakening’ down in Mexico. Indeed, Shawn once told me he thought that was the first time I experienced God and I do believe he was right. If that was the case: powerful stuff.

Anyways, I tried LSD once more after that, in New York, but by ‘99 I was all into my spiritual path and had sworn off not only drink and drugs but also meat and caffeine. These days I’ve also become abstinent from all refined sugar products and chocolate: not through any spiritual reason or anything, just that they don’t work for me, the pros far outweigh the cons, and they no longer feel good. The more I’ve got into this path – of spirituality, of a life lived with awareness, in the pursuit of happiness – the more I’ve realised what a great guiding principle that it. Saves a lot of hassle and wonderings. It’s just what works at any given moment. Things that worked in the past stop working further on down the line. Things that work for other people, that make them feel good, maybe don’t work for me. And vice versa. Personal choice and it varies from person to person, from time to time. Nothing writ in stone or pronounced down from up on high.

But that was me: I’ve built a nice sense of identity out of my straighted-edgeness. It’s healthy for body, mind and soul – and maybe for ego too. I suppose it could be said I became a bit rigid in it – but then again, I did try alcohol and meat every three years or so, to kind of update my feeling about them, but I could never find the appeal. Alcohol just made me feel giddy and off balance and then a little bit woozy and sad. Meat tasted – surprise surprise – like dead animals, and eating dead animals feels a bit weird to me. I don’t miss it one bit. Though I did miss fish and eggs during my year as a vegan. My body definitely thanked me when I got back onto those.

Drugs, on the other hand – well drugs were a whole other matter. Seemed to me like a loser thing to do. Born out of misery and a desire to escape. Bad habits and mental degradation. People I certainly wasn’t attracted to and didn’t want to emulate. Pot-smokers all seemed quite dark and dull, and being stoned didn’t look like anything appealing. Just makes you stupid, dulls awareness and probably has some long-term ill-effects. I did meet some people maybe ten years back who took acid and mushrooms – this was down in Canterbury, a bit of a hippy hotspot – but though I kind of interested in the substances, given past experiences, again the people weren’t the kind of people I wanted to follow, a bit messed up and dark. I figured that was sign enough to shun it and left it well alone.

Things changed for me with iboga, I guess. It was 2008 when I first heard of it but not till 2011 that I actually got around to trying it. I dilly-dallied over that for a long time, really reluctant to dabble with ‘an artificial substance’, even though it was purely in the name of spiritual exploration. Everything I read seemed good but I’d been so against that kind of thing for so long I found it hard to let myself go with it, even though something about it felt very right. In the end, I suppose you could say I prayed over it: though the reality was that I just thought about it lots, and then believed that signs and synchronicities were telling me it was okay. I kept seeing the words “root” and “root healing” everywhere. And I had a dream about encountering iboga in a really wonderful way. I took it as a green light and did it. It was great.

Still, that was iboga. And, sure, maybe I’d give ayuahasca and peyote a go now – that door had been opened: a door that I’d kept closed when given the opportunity to try both a couple of years before – but everything else felt somehow different to me. Weird, then, that I went from that place to necking nine tabs of LSD in just under eighteen months...

It starts with coming back to Leeds, and a two-pronged attack. Number one, I befriend these two students – squash buddies, initially – who have dabbled in a number of different substances. They’re pretty clean-living, switched-on guys. Very aware, very happy, in touch with their emotions and interested in the possibilities of spiritual realities and we really click. I like these guys. And though they go out and take ecstasy they still turn up for squash the next day and play a decent game and there doesn’t seem to be any comedown, any dependence, any of that darkness. They’re doing it sensibly. They’re not trying to run away from anything. And we talk about these things a lot.

Number two, I get all obsessed with the Beatniks, and read tons of books, and then move on from there into the early hippy days and in particular Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters. And, of course, LSD is a big part of their trip, and really, perhaps, the prime driving force behind the whole hippy movement. I read the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test again and start to wonder. And then I watch the movie Magic Trip and it really fires my imagination.

There’s a scene in there where they’re off by a lake in Canada, I think, and one of the women narrators is talking about them taking this drug called IT-290, “even better than acid, very calm.” Kesey calls it, “the Rolls-Royce of psychedelics. Well that piqued my interest: I’d never heard of IT-290. Some months later I googled it and found that, wowie zowie, it was a legal substance you could still buy online. These days they call it AMT. And then I looked into it further – mainly reading Erowid reports – and I figured it must be something different. People were describing horror trips – hospitalisations – freak outs: AMT didn’t sound like IT-290 at all. Disappointing.

Still, I couldn’t get it out of my head and a few months back, on the toss of a coin, I thought, what the hell, and bought some. At the very least I could test it on my friends. But then on the toss of another coin I ate a fairly healthy dose one evening – about 42mg – and to my pleasant surprise I found I liked it. It was calm. It was mellow. Nothing much happened really, except a general feeling of happiness, of focus, of contentment. I took it at 7.30 and by 11 I was tired and went to bed. Then at midnight I woke up to a gentle pattern of visualisations in front of my closed eyes – very organic, yet geometrically, mathematically perfect – and lay there for a few hours having nice thoughts and feeling good. Nothing mindblowing. Nothing scary. A good introduction. But –

“We’re gonna need a bigger dose,” as Rob Schneider said to Bobby Short in that film about the fish.

I tried it another time – same amount; didn’t want too much as it was fairly late in the evening – and it had the same effect: nothing unpleasant or different to how I normally operate, just a general feeling of contentment and quietitude. I tidied my flat and then sat and sewed for a few hours and then went to bed. Didn’t keep me up this time either. Kind of odd because that’s far from what the people on Erowid were describing. But I have my theories to explain that...

1. The thing about mind-expanding drugs: It’s all about the size of your mind to begin with, right? Listen, I’m not gloating but the fact is that I’ve done a whole bunch of stuff in the spiritual and the psychological and the emotional realm of things and, among many other wonderful effects that all that has on you, making your mind expand is certainly one of them. When John Milton told me after my 28-day vision quest, “you won’t need drugs where you’re going,” I don’t think he was telling me that I shouldn’t take them – at least, I don’t think that now; I thought exactly that for years – I think he was merely pointing out that they wouldn’t have much effect. About one of the wonderful stories one can read on LSD is this one, told by Ram Dass/Richard Alpert about one of his first meetings with his guru, Maharajji:

“In 1967 when I first came to India, I brought with me a supply of LSD, hoping to find someone who might understand more about these substances than we did in the West. When I had met Maharajji (Neem Karoli Baba), after some days the thought had crossed my mind that he would be a perfect person to ask.

The next day after having that thought, I was called to him and he asked me immediately, “Do you have a question?”

Of course, being before him was such a powerful experience that I had completely forgotten the question I had had in my mind the night before. So I looked stupid and said, “No, Maharajji, I have no question.”

He appeared irritated and said, ”Where is the medicine?”

I was confused but Bhagavan Dass suggested, “Maybe he means the LSD.” I asked and Maharajji nodded. The bottle of LSD was in the car and I was sent to fetch it.

When I returned I emptied the vial of pills into my hand. In addition to the LSD there were a number of other pills for this and that – diarrhoea, fever, a sleeping pill, and so forth. He asked about each of these. He asked if they gave powers. I didn’t understand at the time and thought that by “powers” perhaps he meant physical strength. I said, “No.” Later, of course, I came to understand that the word he had used – “siddhis” – means psychic powers.

Then he held out his hand for the LSD. I put one pill on his palm. Each of these pills was about three hundred micrograms of very pure LSD – a solid dose for an adult. He beckoned for more, so I put a second pill in his hand – six hundred micrograms. Again he beckoned and I added yet another, making the total dosage 900 micrograms – certainly not a dose for beginners. Then he threw all the pills into his mouth. My reaction was one of shock mixed with fascination of a social scientist eager to see what would happen. He allowed me to stay for an hour – and nothing happened.

Nothing whatsoever.

He just laughed at me.

The whole thing had happened very fast and unexpectedly. When I returned to the United States in 1968 I told many people about this acid feat. But there had remained in me a gnawing doubt that perhaps he had been putting me on and had thrown the pills over his shoulder or palmed them, because I hadn’t actually seen them go into his mouth.

Three years later, when I was back in India, he asked me one day, ”Did you give me medicine when you were in India last time?”

“Yes.”

“Did I take it?” he asked. (Ah, there was my doubt made manifest!)

“I think you did.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh! Jao!” and he sent me off for the evening.

The next morning I was called over to the porch in front of his room, where he sat in the mornings on a tucket. He asked, “Have you got any more of that medicine?”

It just so happened that I was carrying a small supply of LSD for “just in case,” and this was obviously it. In the bottle were five pills of three hundred micrograms each. One of the pills was broken. I placed them on my palm and held them out to him. He took the four unbroken pills. Then, one by one, very obviously and very deliberately, he placed each one in his mouth and swallowed it – another unspoken thought of mine now answered.

As soon as he had swallowed the last one, he asked, “Can I take water?”

“Yes.”

“Hot or cold?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He started yelling for water and drank a cup when it was brought.

Then he asked,” How long will it take to act?”

“Anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour.”

He called for an older man, a long-time devotee who had a watch, and Maharajji held the man’s wrist, often pulling it up to him to peer at the watch.

Then he asked, “Will it make me crazy?”

That seemed so bizarre to me that I could only go along with what seemed to be a gag. So I said, “Probably.” And then we waited.

After some time he pulled the blanket over his face, and when he came out after a moment his eyes were rolling and his mouth was ajar and he looked totally mad. I got upset. What was happening? Had I misjudged his powers? After all, he was an old man (though how old I had no idea), and I had let him take twelve hundred micrograms. Maybe last time he had thrown them away and then he read my mind and was trying to prove to me he could do it, not realizing how strong the “medicine” really was.

Guilt and anxiety poured through me. But when I looked at him again he was perfectly normal and looking at the watch. At the end of an hour it was obvious nothing had happened. His reactions had been a total put-on. And then he asked, “Have you got anything stronger?” I didn’t. Then he said, “These medicines were used in Kullu Valley long ago. But yogis have lost that knowledge. They were used with fasting. Nobody knows now. To take them with no effect, your mind must be firmly fixed on God. Others would be afraid to take. Many saints would not take this.” And he left it at that.

When I asked him if I should take LSD again, he said, “It should not be taken in a hot climate. If you are in a place that is cool and peaceful, and you are alone and your mind is turned toward God, then you may take the yogi medicine.”

I didn’t read that until after my recent acid experience. I wish I’d read it before though: it says so much about LSD, and the ways to use it, and the reality of the saint. His mind is already stretched to the infinite: it is like dropping a large rock into the middle of the ocean: it causes no noticeable effect on the whole. But our minds are like puddles, small and cute, and would be obliterated by that rock...which is basically what happens.

Still, spiritual practice has given me something. Which takes me to my next point:

2. Man, those people on Erowid are some major first-class nutters! I mean, there are one or two that talk a bit of sense but, almost every single one of them is some combination of: young; American; troubled; and totally reckless when it comes to mind-altering substances. I swear, it doesn’t matter what they take, invariably half-way through they will either “smoke a bowl” or try to go to the store to buy some beers. Half the time they’re mixing drugs anyway – just throwing in a casual bit of ketamine or something for good measure. And almost always they’re hanging out with friends, at some party, buzzing around in cars, up all night. It’s no wonder they have some bum trips and end up in emergency rooms. They’re just not doing it right.

Here’s what I wanted to do with the LSD: take it alone; not go outside; not interact with others; not look at things and get into hallucinations and visuals; not get silly; not listen to music; not write or play guitar; just be inside myself in real observatory and internal way and do it calmly and soberly and try and let it give me something wonderful and long-term and real. I wanted to take it early in the morning, so I wouldn’t mess up my sleep (he says, now typing at 3.45am!) and to mainly just sit inside a nest I had made in my tent, which I’d put up at the end of my bed. Honestly, all that other stuff – watching your hand leave trails and giggling with your mates – is just a waste of good LSD.

But I digress: the main point is the quality of one’s mind. The guys on Erowid seem like they’ve got a lot of shit going on inside. Personally, I’d want that shit worked out of me before I did something like this. Or maybe it helps: I dunno. But I’ve come to the conclusion that substances like LSD aren’t scary, it’s people’s minds that are scary: all you get is your own mind coming back at you. People get paranoid and afraid and freakout because they’ve got paranoia and fear inside themselves already. Also, it’s powerful medicine and you have to have a real strong and collected mind to deal with and understand some of the things that arise. I had a moment where I could see the floor start to form itself into bugs – and I just knew if I had a different mind those bugs would have come alive and maybe started crawling all over me. But because I had no interest in that sort of thing, and knew they weren’t bugs anyway, just visual distortions, I looked a little closer, watched them all disappear, and got back to my meditations. That’s where the real gold is. Because of the work I’ve done over the years there wasn’t a single moment of bad in the whole thing. Which is in stark contrast to what I experienced some eighteen years ago. Just like when I went to the monastery and spent a week in my own head and saw that it was all good, taking that acid really does appear to have shown me that my psyche is pretty much cleaned.

I think the old heads had a term for all this: “set and setting.” Set being your mindset and setting being your physical location. It all depends what you’re after, I suppose, but a calm and clear mind is a must as far as I’m concerned. I even held it in my hands and said The Twenty-Third Psalm over it and asked for good and kind angels and spirits to be with me, nothing of bad, only light and love. Why not? It can’t hurt. And maybe there is something in that setting your intention stuff after all. As for location: well, yeah, it’s a bit kind of duh to be away from “bad vibes” and not out there on the street with scary stuff around, etcetera. But, then again, it’s not like I didn’t do that in my silly boy youth. ;-)

And so we go to the trip. How it came about, I don’t recall right now: it was, I guess, a gentle guiding rope of hippies and AMT and modern-day students that drew me in, finally, after all these years, to that moment of sitting in Harry’s kitchen, after many conversations over many months, knowing full well that he had nine hits in his refrigerator – and all the talk about me saying, “I think I’d need a lot” – to finally a week ago on Sunday him saying, “well do you want it?” and me saying, “yes.” He gave me six. They were in a bit of tinfoil. I took them home and tossed a coin and the coin said, “no.” Fair enough, I thought: I was tired from reffing and it was past dark. And then in the morning I sprang out of bed, 7.30am, tossed the coin again and when the coin said, “yes,” without hesitation popped them in my mouth.

Six hits. I guess people usually think twice before doing that. But I knew I’d need a lot. And I knew I’d done five before, way back when. And I was pretty sure that it wasn’t as strong now as it was in the nineties. But mainly: if you’re going to do something you might as well do it right. I’d seen Harry and his friend maybe six hours after they’d had one each and it didn’t look like anything. Not zonked out of their gourds at all. For me, I’d rather have it big and strong once every ten years than mild and easy and frequent. Like the iboga: double dose or not at all. So six went in and then I got to tidying my flat and awaiting the onset. I felt it pretty quick.

This, now, is where I should get wildly typing (and typing wildly, if you will have it, James Joyce) after that rather tepid and overly long build-up which I hope you’ve all skipped over anyways. What boring words for such a wonderful experience! The thing was...well the thing was, in a nutshell, it was one of the best days of my life. I saw colours and patterns and shapes I’m flabbergasted to know exist somewhere inside myself. Spirals and unfathomable geometry and Inca-style shapes stretching out into infinity, the colours so deep and bright and alive – standard acid colours, really – incrementally and gradually moving through the spectrum and flowing along the whole intricate rollercoaster patterns of lines and shapes. It occurred to me that these colours and patterns have really only been widely seen since computers have been around – so how much more amazing must they have been for people in the fifties, first seeing them, such as the adorable housewife in this video.

The colours and patterns, though, for me – as well as the lovely, lush, whale song-type sounds – were just the beginning, the basic level of the experience. The background music, as it were. The real thing was the inner journey: the voyage into the infinite. This is where words fail me: this finite, limited computer of the brain – wonderful though it is – unable to describe the depth of the ecstasy – the bliss – the realisations – the – goddamn, I almost typed truth there but –

Well what is it about that acid reality that feels so much more real than everyday reality? That sense that even though you’re going out of your mind, what you’re experiencing is what life is really all about. I got the sense of –

Everything was so small, and so big. Everything I could think of – if I stretched my mind to its limits and encapsulated everything that it had ever experienced and held and known – it stretched to the edge of the universe – and then shrunk right back down again and I saw that it was an atom in a grain of sand on the toe of an unbelievably tall statue of a goddess who was in herself –

This whole universe of ours. It was just as I’d imagined it as a child. So big, so small, so –

And all the things I’d ever done. And all of the above just imponderables, really – but what stays with me, and seems of lasting benefit, was how small in the vastness of infinity was everything I’ve ever got bent out of shape over. All my huffings and puffings over women. All the palavers we make about sex and who’s sleeping with who and how we want to keep people and things all to ourselves. It was all so unbelievably funny! I laughed at it as though it was a grain of sand that I’d somehow made the most important thing in my life. I laughed a lot – not silly laughing, on the whole, though there was some of that – but because it was like I was getting the cosmic joke all over again. That this life we’ve all bought into and had sold to us since the birth of our bodies – about what it’s supposed to be, about what we’re supposed to do – well, that it just wasn’t anything like that. But no sadness in how wrong we’ve gone, just hilarity that practicality the entirety of a supposedly smart species could make such a mistake. I knew in that moment that we were born to be kings and that we’d made ourselves paupers. I understand then Amma’s parable about how we come to the king (God) who will give us everything – all his treasures, the whole kingdom – and ask only for a lump of coal. To be honest, it didn’t even seem as grand as a lump of coal: more like a turd. But no judgment in that, just humour. Ee, it really was grand.

I remember contemplating the goal of current British life – to buy your own house; to pay off the mortgage – and it seemed so tiny and ridiculous in the face of all that shining jewellery. I creased up and chortled wildly at the irony of it all.

Everything I was seeing – the shapes and colours – I felt were echoed by man in some way or another, in the delicate stonework of churches, in fireworks, in geometry and paintings, in crowns and jewels and gold – but it all fell short.

The music I was hearing was so perfect, so harmonious...at one point I did pick up my guitar – but even the slightest sense of disharmony was so unappealing, so lacking in comparison.

Harmony was a big part of it. It seemed to me that the natural world, and the inner world – was it the kingdom of heaven? – were so full of harmony, so untainted...and that nearly every man had done, had put into the world, lacked it, was devoid. Such internal beauty and such outward ugliness. War and arguments and concrete and traffic. Everything covered over in brick. And why so much grey when you have such a range of colours available to you?

But not real time for negativity: I was overwhelmed with the sheer physical ecstasy of the whole thing as well. What an experience! Gratitude poured from my being. What a gift. Such ecstasy and bliss. Such...

Well, words, of course, are failing to do it justice. I don’t know why I’m even trying – but I guess I can’t help it, there’s something in me that’s still drawn to this. In fact, even in the midst of it I was struck by an urge to record, to share, and even though I tried – well, I was quickly taken to the realisation that it was impossible, reminded of the experience of the Buddha upon enlightenment: “man, I’ve gotta share this with people – but, wow, they’re never gonna believe it.”

It’s true. I don’t feel it now ‘cos it’s a week ago and I’ve stayed up way too late and it was artificially induced but, holy cow, I really believe in that internal world of ecstasy and bliss and beauty and love. It was all right there. Right here. There was nothing bad about it. And everything in this life that I’ve hitherto known absolutely paled in comparison. I saw my life as a turd – lovingly, gently, ‘cos I didn’t know what it was, I was a growing boy – and I saw how I’d been trying to polish it all these years. Trying to fit in. Trying to make what seemed unworkable work, because that’s what everyone else was trying to do and what was expected of me. I’ve polished it to some extent but – well, “it’s no measure of mental well-being to be considered sane in an insane world – and all I’ve been doing is polishing a turd and, as is natural in such an occupation, I’ve ended up covered in shit. ;-)

In those moments of infinity and overwhelming beauty and ecstasy and the ever-spiralling realisation that even that was just the beginning, that there was no end to this infinite reality of growth and experience and bliss – wow, did I want to make some changes. Nothing meant anything to me. I wanted out of my flat, my life, my possessions. I wanted to be off there somewhere in the world again, away from things, concentrating on the real job in hand, perhaps at the feet of a guru or perhaps just in my canyon in Mexico – me and my navel and the search for that paradise within. Why dwell in greyness and sniffling grey cold when you can be anywhere you choose?

Well, Christ, everything I thought and felt and experienced was just the wonderful hippy parody. Everything was funny. But I’m not talking my thumbs or the pattern on the wall: I’m talking consensus reality – the world – everything I’ve ever thought and every thought of everyone else I’ve ever heard. Now I know why the gurus smile so much: what occurred to me, right there in the middle of my greatest ever physical ecstasy, was that whatever I was experiencing was like 0.000001% of what they felt ALL THE TIME. No wonder Amma’s happy. Good God: it boggles the mind. It was such a really good day.

Sex. Sexual energy. Felt it lots. My ex came over later and we slept together. If anyone had walked in the room they’d have thought she was the one who was high. I felt pretty normal by then – but then when I was with her I got a sense of just exactly how much acid had been coursing through my veins, and I guess she got a contact high off that or something (I had three more at about 2pm, just feeling like I needed to go a bit deeper). She told me she had clarity and peace for like two days after. It really did get transmitted. But earlier in the day, man: wow, anybody coulda had me: the sexual energy was enormous. Blokes could’ve bummed me and I wouldn’t have cared, would have loved it. Everything was wide open and all my paltry notions of boundaries and limitations were gone. I feel like trying everything I ever dreamed of. I feel like bringing the infinite into this world.

All this does no justice to any of it. It was heaven. It was bliss. It was staggering and startling and just so, so amusing. And, really, it was just the beginning. I tried not to call anyone but I couldn’t help but want to reach out. But then everything I said did nothing to express it – like this – and my words collapsed under the impossibility of it all. I did feel, somewhere in the middle of it, that I squandered an opportunity to reach an even greater depth. It was probably just at the moment where reality was really about to go bye-bye – and being on my own, and being unsure, and being filled with silly stories about death and irresponsibility – I know better now – I turned back and wasted time and precious experience in phone shenanigans and confusions about how to leave the door. I wasn’t sure what would become of me – my body locked away and rotting behind a door no one could get into? Or my body comatosed and exposed in a flat left wide open to marauders and criminals.

So, yeah, despite best intentions I squandered it a bit and maybe didn’t go as deep as I wanted – to reach that place of ‘dot-ness’ that I reached in ’95. To re-understand the totality of that long ago experience: the dot-ness being the ultimate and the ultimate puzzle too. I went beyond – and maybe beyond the beyond – but I didn’t go beyond that, didn’t step outside infinity.

I think I need to do it again. Maybe stronger. Maybe nine or ten in the beginning. Good ones. And be away from all phones, all people, all things to distract me from the task in hand. No eggs or guitars or windows to stare through. Best thing would be a cave. Total dark retreat. Or my tent on a windless moor. Reaching out is all well and noble – but it does stop one reaching in. And now I know for sure that all those urges of wanting to share, record, preserve are just poppycock. There’s nothing you could say, nothing that could really impart. All I’d say is do it. Really, you’d be mad not to. As long as your head’s in the right place, of course. Or maybe not. Mine wasn’t the first time and I do think, ultimately, it brought me good. Just...

Well, typing it hasn’t been perhaps the smartest thing I’ve ever done. But it is what it is. I’d guess you can’t put a dampener on anything truly wonderful and real. But as time goes by...

Yes: I’ll get onto the next bit now. The last bit. The bit before I finally go to bed. It’s 5.14am. It’s kind of strange that I’m still doing all of this...