Families and relationships 

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The light of love shines in your eyes

Let me tell you a story...

The light that comes from love can be seen in the face of lovers; it shines in their eyes.  When they are with each other, they have a wondrous glow as the light of love fills their hearts and their faces, and when they part, the light dims and they have sadness about them.

The light of expectation
When we arrived at the ashram, my good friend Naz was filled with that light of love.  He was planning to meet a lady again, called Stephie, who had travelled a while with us just a few months previously.  They had formed an attachment though, at the time, John Ironbridge, our other travelling companion, had remarked the classic, ‘It will all end in tears’.  And although I thought he was probably right, I simply said, ‘Emm!’ and maintained my stance as eternal observer.  Stephie was as fickle a butterfly as Naz, and consistency and commitment did not appear in her vocabulary.

The glow of longing
On the day that we had arrived, Stephie had been in retreat, fasting in silence, so we had not seen her for the first week.  Naz was palpably disappointed.  It was then that I began to understand the ‘light of love’ issue.  On the journey from the river, Naz had been talking non-stop about Stephie, to the point where John asked him to ‘give it a break’, but I could see that it was becoming a love thing, though I doubted Naz could or would ever admit that.

It can be hard to admit to yourself that you are in love
It made me laugh inside, because Naz always played the part of the cool dude whose heart was unobtainable to any one woman, and so he always played the field, but without commitment.  But I could see that there was something in Stephie that had hooked him in.  He was, in my mother’s terms, ‘smitten’.  I was aware how difficult their parting had been for him though, as John pointed out, not for Stephie.  Stephie had things planned with other people who she had been travelling with before, that she was committed to, and although both John and I had given Naz our blessing and said it was ok with us if he went with Steph, Naz was set on staying with us.  He said, ‘No, we agreed when we set out that, come what may, we would see this through together and I will keep my promise.’

The light of commitment
This declaration by Naz was a bolt out of the blue.  I had never seen him be committed to anything or anyone and I guess I always suspected that there would come a time when he would find another path and move off.  I kind of just expected it to happen at some point.  And I was moved by his statement and realised what a strong bond the three of us had developed. 

The light of knowing
They say that you never know someone until you live with them.  Maybe there is something beyond that and you only know someone when you travel with them.  Our travelling had not been holiday travelling; we had walked, hitched, trained and trucked for over three-thousand miles and we had many miles yet to go.  We had been safe and easy, in danger and threat, in love and laughter, and aggressions and tears.  The road we travelled was really the road of life and, like in the story of the pilgrim’s progress, each mile and each day had new lessons awaiting us that tested us individually and together. 

The light of friendship
The fact Naz had bonded with John and I made me realise just how much we had been through together.  I realised that we were now brothers in spirit and in fact, and that, whatever happened now, we would always be that way for the rest of life.  In that bonding, that was a bonding of love; we had a concern for each other and a desire that we should each achieve what we really wanted from our journey, but also from our lives. 

As we travelled and talked, met people and experienced life, it became clearer with every step that what John wanted was to find a master who had both the knowledge and wisdom that he could respect and to whom he would become a devotee.  Naz was looking for something, though he did not know what it was, but was sure that when he found it, it would all become clear.  So it was vital that he experience everything that he possibly could, whenever he could, just in case he missed it.

The light of realisation
For me, the more we talked into the night, the thing that I saw in the darkness beyond the fire was my need for the light of understanding; I needed to know, in the fullest sense of the word, about people and about things, about God and about life.  I needed to know why my childhood had been as it was; I needed to make sense of my life.  I knew that I would not find it in a guru and in becoming a disciple or devotee, though I was sure that many teachers would each give me their bit of the mosaic of life, so that I would end up with a picture of life that made sense to me and made my life worthwhile.

When the light goes out
Looking at Naz now, I had a fear that he, my brother, was about to be hurt in a very big way.  On the journey from the river, John had felt it too and tried to address this with him.  John was, in many ways, parental and he was concerned that Naz would be hurt by Steph.  Naz was so busy being cool and acting like nothing mattered that he would not address it.

We had been in Satsang, when Steph came in and sat on the other side of the hall.  Naz began to glow and, as we chanted, I could hear a deep passion in his voice that had never been there before.  He was looking towards Steph, though I noticed she was not looking towards him.  John caught my eye and I could see his concern. 

At the end of the session, we all tipped out into the sun. Naz was pushing ahead to get to Steph, so he was just ahead of us when we got to the door.  There, framed in the door, was Steph in the arms of a man, who I later was introduced to as Peter.  Watching Naz from behind, I could see his shoulders drop as he crumpled.  Steph turned and waved at him and pranced off with her man.  By the time I got to Naz, tears were running freely down his face, tears that extinguished any light that had been there before.

When you have a yappy dog, there are times when you just want it to shut up and be quiet.  But when you have had a yappy dog, yapping for a month, that is suddenly silent, it feels as though something has died, that something is missing.  I had never known Naz be quiet and it was like a death.  Following any death, there is bereavement and that is a process that needs to be worked through organically and cannot be hurried.  And so, for what turned into many weeks, John and I attended to Naz as he recovered.

The Sun will always rise again
Naz was seeking to learn from experience and the universe had kindly provided the lesson.  From that day on, his relationships were very different, and, as John said, ‘He is much more responsible now’.  I didn’t see the light of love in his eyes again for many, many years, until he finally met someone who was the ‘the one’ and then he shone like the Sun and that is a light that never goes out.

How is your light?
In your life, is there a light of love?  Have you ever had your light put out by another person?  Have you ever put out another person’s light?  In the month of light, we need to let go of negative associations and feeling for those that have done us wrong in the past, and we need to turn to the future with the light of love and enjoy it.

So, who is it that you can the shine the light of your love on? 

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Sunshine month takes me away

We’re all going on a summer holiday
As I write this blog, the lads are loading the car, checking the oil and water in the engine. All I have to do now is to finish this, press send and then, as is my habit, check that the water bottles are full, back the car out of the drive and head for the horizon and the rising Sun. I love that feeling, the freedom of the open road and the wonder of not knowing what is around the next bend. I have Canned Heat playing in my head ‘...I’m on the road again’; it brings back so many good memories.

The dawn is such a magical time in all senses of the word. We use the image of the dawn to describe newness, breakthroughs, and new horizons: the dawn of the technical age, the dawn of the industrial society, the dawn of understanding. I see clients every day who experience that sense of coming into the light when, perhaps, for the first time in their lives, they can see things with a hitherto unknown clarity, as the truth dawns on them for the first time.

The person who is awake is always learning
In Ayurveda, my original training, it is acknowledged that the purpose of life is about learning, and that our body’s senses, mind and emotions are all designed to enable this to happen. Learning is a life-long process, though people may stop learning and growing at any age. Some people will cease development while in their childhood and may exhibit the emotional maturity of a seven-year old when they are seventy. However, the reverse may also be true, so that a seven-year old may possess the wisdom of a seventy-year old.

What is dawning on you?
If you are a growing, waking person, and I guess you are or you would not be reading this, there will be dreams, challenges and developments going on in your life that will represent new dawnings of understanding for you. I think about this a lot and review where I am up to. I use the contemplation part of my meditation sessions to do this, so dawnings are...

Time waits for no man
I often heard this one, but it is dawning on me that time passes quickly and it is easy to procrastinate; there are things that I want to do before I turn up my toes. I was reading something by Jack Canfield that suggested writing down the one hundred things you would like to do before you die. That got me thinking, so I have set myself some goals.

Things to be done

My top five are...
 
1) To develop my life and my relationships in such a way that they benefit not only me, but all those that I interact with, especially with my Rie.
 
2) To develop the courses so that I have at least one thousand people a year doing the Ten Steps Program
 
3) To get all the books written that I have in my head
 
4) To record more music albums and maybe do some performing
 
5) To create a purpose-built environmentally-friendly building that is used as a centre of learning, therapy and respite for those on the path of self-development
 
It dawned on me many years ago that the only way to achieve these things is to be focussed on the task and to be consistent and persistent in all that I do to achieve my aims.

What are your five?

You may be able to go for the hundred, though five is a good start. What are the things that it is dawning on you that need to be done? It is time to get them done. Try not to put off till tomorrow what you need to get done today.

Hey ho and away I go
But task number one is to go and enjoy my holiday. Tomorrow, I will wake in Lille France and then heading down through Belgium, Luxemburg and Switzerland to stay in Basil. Then the Italian lakes for a while and then back up through Mont Blanc and Dijon. Watch the site and I’ll keep you posted on progress and try and use this wonderful technology to post some pics on the site.

So pop by Wednesday and have a wonderful week.

Sean x

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In the month of light and Sunshine, there is something that you need to know...

You are the light of the world
Albus Dumbledore famously created his deluminator that could take the light from a lamp into mini storage and then put it back at the flick of a button. And the Dementors were able to turn lightness into darkness and happiness into sadness. If you have ever experienced the vampiristic feelings of real evil, or extreme badness, you will begin to understand what J K R is getting at, but in her images it is the light of the Patronus, extreme goodness and happiness, that banishes all darkness.

Shine a light
Light always illuminates the darkness and the brighter the light, the greater the effect. The funny thing is that it is possible to shine a beam of light into darkness and turn darkness into lightness, but the same is not true the other way around. It is impossible to shine a beam of darkness and turn the light into darkness. Because of this, the image and concepts of darkness and light have been used again and again to explain religious and philosophical ideas for thousands of years. Light will always overcome the dark, goodness will always overcome badness and love will always overcome hate.

Good always wins in the end
It is the embodiment of the fact that you cannot shine darkness into lightness that creates the metaphor that the light will always win, or that goodness will always win over badness, in the end. This concept is hard to take on in a human culture that believes that force should be met with force, badness with badness, violence with violence, and hatred with hatred. All these things are dark things; they do not represent the energy of the light.

Shining light into the darkness
There are a few people who have been able to do this magical thing in our society. Nelson Mandela did it when he was released from prison. He had the power to create heaven or hell and he chose heaven. Gandhi did it when he used love and non-violence to stand against the entire British Empire. Yet these are big acts and, in the matter of lightness, no act is too big or too small, no one greater than another. To show kindness to others that are needy is the same thing. We can all shine a little light into someone’s darkness and change their lives with the smallest of acts, every day of our lives.

Forgiveness is a beam of light
When we hold any negativity, we are inviting darkness into our thoughts and feelings. We know that without light, crops will not grow and we know that in darkness, the world turns into winter and all nature goes to sleep. The only thing that will change this is the coming of spring and the light of growing the new season. It is also true of us. When we hold hates and hurts, resentments and disgruntlements, we maintain an inner darkness that makes us as stuck and as stagnant as nature in the depth of winter. If we want to change, grow and develop, we will need a bit of light to promote our growth and that comes from forgiveness, letting go and adding a little love. Those that do not understand this have an abundance of darkness within them that they often share with others everyday at home and at work.

‘I am the light of the world’  - Let me tell you a story.
John, Naz and I arrived at the ashram and were greeted with courtesy and respect. We were refreshed and shown to a place where we might sleep. Having unpacked, we went to the well to draw some water to refill our bottles. John was pleased with himself because the water that we had carried from the river, three days earlier, had lasted, though only just, and he had been right that we would not find water on the way. Naz was put out that John was right. He would have been so happy had we arrived with plenty of water to spare. It was not that Naz was ungrateful; it was more that he just enjoyed a good argument. To him, it was a good game that he would play with anyone willing to take him on, but John always provided such a good target because he was easy to wind up so that he would react, and Naz knew it, though I am not so sure that John ever did or he would not have kept on taking the bait.

The question
During the last few miles of our journey, we had been discussing what consciousness might be and we had been referring to the things we had been told about light. John kept quoting that Jesus had proclaimed, ‘I am the light of the world’, and was therefore declaring that he was God. Naz was at odds with that saying, ‘No, Jesus said he was the son of God’, but, as I recalled it, Jesus had claimed to be the son of man. We decided between us that when we had a chance to meet with the master, we would ask him for some clarity so that if Jesus did say these things, what had he really meant by them.

The master
We saw the master several times over the next few days, mainly in Satsang sessions that offered us no opportunity to talk with him. Our chance came for us about a week later when the three of us were granted an audience with him to ask questions. The master sat on a raised dais flanked by saffron-robed devotees. Before him were three empty cushions on which we were indicated to sit. The master greeted us with Namaste and asked us our names and where we had come from and, eventually, what was it that we wished to know. John bowed and spoke in his firm, deep voice explaining our dilemma. The master, with a smile in his eye, slowly watched us each in turn as though he were trying to read our minds or perhaps our souls. If I am honest, it made me feel rather uncomfortable, as though at that moment I had no secrets and was, in all senses, naked. After a good few minutes, he spoke again.

The uniqueness of individuality
‘If a being of great wisdom uses the word ‘I’, he does not usually refer to himself as an individual or an ego. No, he uses this word to mean ‘one’, the unique ‘one’ that is all things. In your language, you use the word individual to mean ‘I’. The word individual means undivideable. That which is undivideable is that which can never be split or broken; it is all one. The undivideable is the source of all things and is the essence of God. If someone were to say, ‘I am the light of the world’, perhaps we should hear that ‘The One’ undivideable energy that is God, the source of all things, and is the light of the world.’
We thought about what he said and the silence lasted some time. ‘But master, what about the light. What does he mean by it?’ asked Naz.

Light and consciousness are the same
‘Light used this way means the conscious awareness of Self. When a man is pure and his energy, his prana, flows freely through his body, his light will shine and when his light shines most brightly, that it is truly the light of God, he has become enlightened, he is full of light. He has become the light.’

The master looked at me to hear my question. It felt that this was an opportunity not to be wasted, so I chose my question very carefully and I asked, ‘If someone is enlightened so that they have become the light, do they cease to exist as a person?’ The master smiled and came down from his dais and stood before me. ‘A good question brother Sean. Let me use these good people to draw you a picture.’

He then directed John to stand on the far side of the room. He then chose seven devotees to stand in a curve on the other side of the room. He then directed Naz to stand between them in the middle. Finally, he directed me to follow him and we stood together at the mid-point between Naz and John.

‘John, you are the Sun.’ John smiled. ‘Naz, you are the rain.’ Naz looked sad. ‘Our brothers and sister over there are the phenomenal world of experience.’ They all laughed and waved. I got the feeling that they had seen this routine before. I was enthralled. ‘You, Sean, are the observer, you are Arjuna on the battlefield and I, if you will permit me, will be your charioteer.’ I said that I would be honoured.

We cannot have an outer world without having an inner world, but one reflects the other
‘Now we know that the physical outer world is simply an expression of the inner spiritual world. So that by looking at one, we can see the other. Let us imagine that John, the Sun, shines his light on the world.’ John instinctively raised his arms as though they were sun beams. ‘When it rains...’ he pointed at Naz who was looking very much like a wet weekend. I could imagine the voice in his head saying, ‘but I wanted to be the Sun’. ‘... the pure white sunlight is split as it passes through the rain into the seven colours of the rainbow.’ The devotees all danced and waved and sang out aloud, being the rainbow.

To be in the world, we tend to turn away from the light
‘Sean, as the observer, what do you have to do to see the rainbow?’ I was not sure how to answer this. ‘I look at it,’ I said. ‘And to look at it, what do you not look at?’ Well, behind me was John. ‘The Sun,’ I said. ‘Exactly right,’ said the master. ‘This is a great lesson. To see the world of experience, to become involved in the world of matter, to be alive, we turn our back on the light. When we grow in spiritual understanding, we turn away from the world of things and turn back to the light; this is evolution.’ He turned me around so that I was facing John. ‘So what do you see now?’ ‘The Sun,’ I said. ‘And what can you not see?’ ‘The rainbow,’ I said. The master nodded and then got us all to sit down again. Then he spoke.

To see the light, we need to turn away from the world of possessions
‘The light of the world is pure consciousness. But to live in the world, we do naturally turn our back on the light as we become involved in the world of matter and attachment to things and people. It is only when we give up the need to own and possess the world that we are able to turn our back on attachment and turn towards the light and allow the light of consciousness to flow through us. When we turn fully to the light, we turn our back on the material world, and, in turning to the light, we become enlightened.’ He looked searchingly at each of us in turn. ‘This is your life task,’ he said. At that, our audience came to a close and we went out into the sunlight, bemused at what we had just heard and full of questions and ideas that remained, for the time at least, unanswered.

In my life, in the world and indeed in my mind, I have found much darkness. As I have learned and grown, I have become more able to shine light into darkness for both myself and for others, and even in organisations and businesses. The ability to live in the light, to be positive and happy, is a decision. Once the decision is taken, the path and the direction become obvious to each of us. The only decision that is important is the first one and that is, to take the first step and to get on the path; after that it all flows.

Food for thought!

Have a wild weekend.

By Monday, I will be on the road in France, but I will be blogging on the way so drop by Monday and I’ll see you then.
Take care.

Sean x

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