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! :-)
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