It was a long journey, within the context of Christianity, that I began thinking about “what about everyone else in the world?”.  Indeed, what if the apparent exclusivity of “Christianity” was actually contrary to its own teachings?

I did become a baptised Catholic, as an adult and from no particular religious background (other than living in the UK and having had a “Christian” upbringing at school with some dreadful arguments in the home between parents who were directly opposed to each other’s beliefs), in the 1990’s after a personal journey of discovery through psychoanalysis whose foundation is based on Christian teachings and Jong’s development.  I was in a crisis of self development, with various neuroses and my world was not behaving.

It is nice to belong to a Church and find acceptance and a set of rules and teachings to abide by or aspire to.  In my own mind to be a “Christian” or a “Catholic” is not a given on being baptised.  It is a journey of discovery whilst using the teachings as a discipline of seeking.  Certainly, I hold the view still, that being a Catholic or an adherent to any faith is not one of exclusivity whatever might be claimed in the institutionalised world and its politics.  The word “Catholic” means “universal” and, if this is the case, then it includes everyone.  My neighbour is the Samaritan, whether or not s/he has my faith and whether or not I acknowledge her/him.

Of course, within the Church that I first joined in Nottingham, I found terms like “cradle Catholics” which included those from birth and not people like myself, who having chosen to take this step, were in some way secondary, but kindly treated like a raging sinner being saved from her folly! As if it were an end in itself.  My own seeking and annoying analytical approach led me into conflicts quite early on, in fact the priest was overtly against my joining, but as my character seems to include controversiality and confrontation (not necessarily blessings nor aspects which allow me to be politically correct), I couldn’t stop posing questions as to exclusivity, as to the Christian message being one of inclusivity but not necessarily being practised in that way.  Aside from inter-faith groupings (which is a laudable endeavour practised in various ways in society but more of a political approach than a fundamentally given approach, but better than nothing) the world shows us sects and rules thereof and we choose to be within one area.  Then we might spend the rest of our lives defending “it” as the “true” teaching, to the hilt.  It can be a lifetime’s work in itself because if we are busy defending a certain set of rules – irrespective of the fundamental teachings – we can take our religious life to be one of defence of it.  Then there is no room for self-reflection, questioning and taking a look around.  Then we can dismiss all other groups in the world and determine that they are yet to be saved. Ah, war.

It doesn’t make sense.  I do love the Jesuit part of the Catholic Church in that they are allowed to be the radicals within the fold;  and they do challenge so much.  They do accept all other teachings, using the central discipline of Catholicism to guide them through;  the central discipline does guide you through and it does include reincarnation, Buddhism, Islam, etc.  – some great works from Anthony de Mello (Jesuit writer and psychoanalyst) touch on all aspects and invite you to question your own set of prejudices about the world.  His psychoanalytical background (Jong based) led him to write many books and deliver many workshops in the UK, India and other places.  One of the sayings I constantly retain from one of his compilation books is this:

“Faith is about seeking the truth.  So it doesn’t matter if you lose all of your beliefs”.

This is my guiding principle.  Seemingly contradictory at face value, but extremely holistic in fact.

Briefly, the background to the Jesuits is wonderfully radical being started by St. Ignatius of Loyola, who was famously impolitic and so founded the “naughty” part of the Catholic family whose originally intended derisory name from the upper echelons of the Church “Jesuits” (as opposed to Society of Jesus) has stuck.  Within the context of the Catholic Church’s family, they are integral, if radical and outsiders – but the Catholic Church on earth has many roles and many facets – like any family – and its political as well as spiritual life seems to come into conflict with many people who take a rather narrow and uneducated view of it.  It, the Church, invites much criticism and bashing and I have had many experiences of finding that people tell me one thing or another about what the Catholics have done, shouldn’t do or ought to do, but when I enquire further of their argument, often find that their knowledge is limited to what is grasped from history, horrid nuns in a school (or worse Catholic institutions that locked people up for years, Catholic priests who did dreadful things to children) thrown around the press, society or what a secular view of the institution at face value, is.  This is not an essay on Catholicism – and I have done stuff about this elsewhere if you are interested, and I shall belt up on it right now – but I was touching on this facet here only to introduce the concepts of “universality” and “holism” and “being holistic” within my own journey.  It merely serves here to introduce “my baby in the bathwater”, I promise.

Belief then (as opposed to faith) is a difficult taskmaster because if our beliefs have been instilled through upbringing, conditioning and givens, it makes it difficult to disentangle what our unprejudiced views might be.  Indeed, to confront our own prejudices and to challenge within our own family or group might well mean being cast out. And we might not like ourselves. And that is a frightening prospect.  And fear is the debilitator so we can seek to avoid it at all costs, and just adhere to what we know and then we will be fine.

Except, we are not fine and that isn’t what it is about.  “It” being our life’s journey.  Our reason for being.  And if I am coming over to you as being “holier than thou” I can assure you that facing myself is the hugest ongoing difficulty that I have in my contrary, arrogant and utterly selfish world.  So when I read Chad Varah’s autobiography entitled “Before I die again”, in my little world of believing that this is it and there is no such thing as reincarnation, it threw me into perplexity.  That he was a priest – a Christian – and he was putting forward this as a fact, a given, something that he knew deeply and without even defending his approach, only compounded my exclamation.  So began my ongoing search to open up to other things, other views of the world.  And I found and find that I don’t have to throw the baby out with the bathwater;  that in opening up to the multitude of cultures and religions doesn’t preclude throwing away a discipline.  In fact, it supports the discipline of learning and seeking.  “Seek and ye shall find, knock and the door will be opened, ask and it shall be given” is holistic.  It invites us to go forward, not to stand still, not to defend something for the hell of it, but to stop defending and to start learning.

So embracing Buddhism, Islam, Yoga, the Bhagavad Gita, energy work (with people like Barbara Brennan) and much more is not against the Will of God, the Source, the All Embracing Love – whatever term suits – they provide insights and a very good evolutionary and historical context to what is.  Secularism and its disregarding of institutionalised religion incorporates a human kind approach with “kind” being a key word.  So I do not have to subscribe to any particular view, belief or prejudice, I can open up in an holistic manner to include and discern.  Every person is on his or her journey so I can learn from them, whatever background has formed their way.

“Holism” is a word I first encountered when studying “Systems Philosophy” because a key fellow called Count Von Bertanlanffy, in its development (as a management science) once pointed out that “systems” was the wrong word to use, that it had been a huge mistake to adopt it because whereas “systems” is exclusive and on a straight line basis (as in information systems and computers), the philosophy was not thus.  It was a way of approaching the multitude of facets in organisational contexts in an holistic manner. So that Holistic Philosopy, which was correct, unfortunately got mislaid.  That is, to say that looking at the way things work requires an approach to include the soft facets (holisms) of life including culture, and not narrowly defined which “system” tends to imply.  Still, it is the word “systems” which has remained and indeed means that the academic institutions have shoved this philosophy below the Information Engineering heading and therefore subjected it to the ego of the hard, engineering orientated world approach of defined narrowness.  The world’s ego can get rid of uncomfortable openings by subjecting all to a more narrow methodology that sells systems and makes companies rich and viable.  And fits us into square or round holes from where we can fire arrows at each other.

Of course “holy”, “whole” and “hole” lead me to “holistic” and “holism” and I find no discrepancy of bridging between them all.  “Holy” implies to me to “become whole” or aspire to becoming whole, complete.  Falling down our “holes” may help us towards becoming “whole”.

“Holistic” is not a brand, it is an approach which is all inclusive and wide, requiring an open mind and an open heart.  So then, is being “holy”.

Gandhi once replied when he was asked if he was “Hindu”, words to the effect of “Yes, and I am Christian, and Muslim…” because he had realised that the source was the same;  he also pointed out that when we find some ritualistic pronouncement within any apparent “teaching” at odds with the overall search, then it is to be discerned, with intelligence, and discarded if it implies exclusivity because it is not right and an interpretation loaded with the prejudice of a narrow approach.  As in anything else in life, we use our own discernment to determine what is what.  And we can be mistaken, change our approach over and over, and so we can learn from our mistakes as an ongoing fundamental search.  Flexibility, not rigidity, then.

Healing and spirituality lead us into many avenues that might put us at odds with our original conditioning or views, whether secular or religious.  Then so be it – spirituality and becoming aware of the other dimensions around us, the process of healing as an ongoing journey to becoming whole – requires us to challenge ourselves.  The world of angels, ascending masters, quantum physics even, opens us up to more of the dimensions in the universe, the realisation that karma and sin might be one and the same and are not for ever damning.  That the balance of karma and sin (think of Michael the Archangel with his scales) is the same message perhaps.  To feel uncomfortable in the context of “holisms” and to move forward in an “holistic” manner is good.  Outside of our comfort zone is where we actually learn;  inside it we are protected by our prejudices (to pre judge) and conditionings.  We can argue until Kingdom come that this one way is right and that one, that one over there is wrong, because we believe it to be so.  And that takes all of our life and effort and, whilst keeping us comfortable and argumentative, wears us out with narrowness and division.

If we consider the time context of Buddha and Christ and Islam (to name but three for now) there is no conflict either in history or in truth.  If we choose to see the divisions, then we are choosing to subscribe to the illusion.  If we choose to see the compatibilities, then we are choosing to throw away the illusion just for long enough to see some light.  If you are happy with “Jagadamba”, “Queen of the Universe” or “Mary the Mother of God” or “Maternal Love”, or none of the above then so am I, why waste valuable learning time shouting the odds of what our objects – as in names which are so inadequate in defining what we might allude to – mean to us?  Objects define the undefinable, just to give us a way of expressing the inexpressible.

Like most of us, there have been keenly difficult times in my life, when my perspective has been shifted radically.  Times, when we question what it is all about.  When we are thrown off our pedestals, when chronic misfortune comes knocking on our doors challenging all that we hold dear, whilst wanting to run back inside and hide away, it offers us a way forward.

Having angels or spirits or guides and holism in our lives is not an easy way.  This wise poem from an ancient, Persian, Islam, Sufi in the 13^th Century, called Rumi says it all:

This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A Joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honourably.

He may be clearing you out for some new delight.

(Rumi’s importance is considered to transcend national and ethnic borders – from Wikipedia)

So being “holistic” is not having found the beginning and the end, it is about having found my way forward.  And my ways forward have come usually through some crisis, often through pondering upon (as opposed to “thinking about”) spiritual ideas, mistakes, grievances, behaviour, politics, anecdotes, humour, the devil, the demon, the sacraments, icons (visual prayer as opposed to verbal prayer), meditation, the angst of life’s joys and sorrows, my own disgust with my prejudices and those of others, or sheer bloody-mindedness.  It isn’t about being “nice” it is about challenging the status quo and suffering exclusion, being cast out and learning to be alone whilst never being alone. Crisis and joy are great teachers and being holistic in our approach leads us forward.  My allegiance towards being told what to do and what to think, within the Catholic faith and by someone who knows better than I, has gone; but to listen to what is being told by anyone, at an inclusive level and with an open heart, might teach me something and help aid my journey.

A friend that I met on a past life regression course in America told me the following story about a friend of hers who’d gone to a Buddha Master in India for enlightenment. After a long while waiting in the queue, he approached the Master in sombre and serious mode, and sat in front of the closed-eyed Master waiting for his sublime message, with due reverence and a deep crease in his brow.  Eventually, the Master looked directly at him, and swiftly poked his finger into his forehead saying “Lighten up, asshole!”.

(© 2011 Eileen Baker)

I was in some desperation;  my son’s illness had come back again.

So, I asked him “What do I have to do?”  I was desperate for instructions.

And I startlingly got an answer.  From somewhere inside – but they weren’t mine – came these words:

“Eileen, it is not what you must do, it is what you must be”.

That was a bit of a shock. My name was spoken, it was a direct response to my question.  It made me wonder what on earth it meant.  But, I had asked and I had got an answer.

Quite startled that these words came up inside of me, I was left dumbfounded.  So away I went and pondered for a long time on this message.  What did it mean?  I mean, living is about doing isn’t it?  Isn’t it about what we do?  Blah, blah etc. etc.  but I began to realise that there is a very clear distinction between doing and being.  Easy to confuse are they and I hadn’t really discerned the difference between the two verbs before.

Eventually, during the same year some months later on I was back at the abbey and I went to the shrine and I said this:  “Ok, then, I have pondered the differences between doing and being, so what must I be?”  And this answer came back:

“Be still.  Listen.  Be a vessel.”

Dumbfounded, off I went again and just pondered upon this message for a long, long time and I remain pondering on both messages to this day.  But, gradually, it came through to me that by being still and listening I was actually becoming a vessel for presence.  This means that without interfering and “doing something” about something, I was just becoming aware and being there without thought, without judging the situation and without providing a solution.  Just being there and being aware.

Part of the changes in my life included taking positive steps towards keeping in contact with people that I had hitherto dismissed;  that is doing but it is directed from the source, the spirit, the real being of who you are and when this facet directs your actions, it is different and not judging, not trying to persuade someone to do something different, but just by being in contact, listening and speaking of things of common interest.  No, if and then, just being.

Similarly, with the whole situation around my son, I began to detatch from the situation insofar as not giving opinionated thoughts and judgements, I just was fully there in the present and lived each moment thus whilst being aware that I was following the discipline, the messages which came via that shrine.

So there I had it.  A fundamental shift in my ‘being’.

God speaks to us;  we just have to listen.

This occurrence was so baffling, so new to me that I have pondered it ever since.  But I know that it happened and I know also that I could not have come up with either response.

Miracles are not necessarily with divine lights and seeing images and witnessing a change from the normal order of things around us. They are subtle, gentle avenues to changes in our perception.  Mine began to change after I’d desperately sought an answer.  but I had thought it would be an answer of “do this, that and the other”.  And it wasn’t.  It was a call to reflect inwardly, to ponder, to be.

The miracle remains.  I am changing in a way that having read such a thing in a book might not have “spoken” to me.  But in the way that I have been encouraged to look further within at my own being, at my own witnessing and at my own presence being a conduit to the sublime, as opposed to blocking it by my “doings”.

To be; to recognise oneself as being without doing.  To come from the being and not from the doing, elicits ultimate enlightened doing instead of thought-directed doing;  as in cause, effect.  If I do this then that.   It is about learning to be still within instead of trying to control through action and doing.  So the quotation from Descartes “I think, therefore I am” is challenged and overcome.  ”I am” is about the being, and “I think” is about the doing.  Thinking is of itself the beginning of the problem, the process of thought as in philosophy leads us down to sorrow and depression.  Being takes us to the place of quietness, stillness, the place without doing or thinking.

It is a hard lesson and one which continues; I often fail, but I keep trying and I have those words within my heart  for ever now.

Thanks be to God.

(© 2010 Eileen Baker)

I am with the sinners. Straight up, might as well face it. That is, to be aware of being a sinner and that being saved has nothing to do with how good we judge that we are, or can become. In the gospels: MAT 10, 9-13 MRK 3, 15-17 LUKE 5, 27-32 Matthew (also known as Levi) the tax collector was an outcast in his own community and he frequented with other outcasts (sinners). He knew that he did not live in the ways of God; neither do I.

But it is not something that you can gain overnight, it takes time and discipleship and, anyway, there will be the element of not having that completeness – we remain  imperfect – even if we spend all of our lives trying; if we ever judge ourselves to be what Christ asked us to be, then we have already failed because we do not have the God given right to judge ourselves or anyone else on earth. And that means anyone from any family, village, city, race, nation or religion.

Matthew felt that he was an outcast because he had done wrong in the eyes of other Jews and they judged him to be a sinner; I feel this way but I also am guilty of judging others. And Matthew did that too. The others – who judged him -were sinners too but they didn’t judge themselves that way, yet they judged Matthew and his crowd. At a behavioural level we judge people and let ourselves off the hook with our comparisons. Christ saw Matthew’s self-honesty.

Herein lies the truth then. It is in becoming knowledgeable that we are living without  God in our Spirit , we are aware of some of our flaws, so we can begin not to judge others. This truth is liberating to ourself and to others. To put it into practice though takes time and patience with oneself. Yet, herein is the path, the way.

There is absolutely no religion, including Christianity, that requires anyone to “defend” it. By forcing views or forcing arms we pretend it is our defence of something Holy, but it isn’t. All we have to do is live it out. Live it. Instead of telling everyone else what to “do”, we become our own best teacher and pupil and save everyone else from hearing our boring views of the world including our damning judgements.

By doing this, we become aware of our own block to God  and thereby are given a lifeline and a life time to heal the disconnections. That’s it. We do not need to turn into the Christ or even into a Saint, or into even an orthodox Holy person. We simply are required to look within, to try hard to be honest with ourselves and to allow the honesty and its truth to work within. There is no need to judge anyone else according to our behaviours and our opinions – upon whose prejudices indeed, do we base our opinions? Picking out the plank in our own eye, is preferable indeed to seeking to pick out the splinters in others eyes.  We have more than enough for a lifetime’s work in attending to ourselves.

So Saint Matthew gives all of us the hope of personal honesty, truth and the beginning of becoming non-judgemental. To judge is to sin and yet we do it all the time and make our excuses. But still, when we become aware of what we are doing , then we are becoming honest with ourselves. That is a great act of the beginning of healing and wholeness. Even though we may still fall a thousand times a day by finding ourselves judging again, but that we are aware that we do this, is part of the healing process. To be aware. To be honest with ourselves and not to pretend that we are good or Holier than thou or him or her.

In this then, I feel a unity with Saint Matthew; I can be a right mess; highly misguided; fallen; in denial; pretending to try to be “good” in my own judgement; defending my behaviour by comparing it with others. But still enabled to find my way, however many times I might make another right mess of it. Just being aware is an enlightenment. A small flicker of light that might now be enabled to grow.

So I’m with the sinners.  On fear of death?  No.  On accepting life as it is. Yes, and a right bloody mess I am too!

(© 2009 Eileen Baker)

At some point on our spiritual journey we have to meet and conquer what is sometimes referred to as “the dweller on the threshold”.  It is a reference to the “being” or “entity” that is sum total of all the negative deeds that we have performed during our many lives, and every act of suffering that we may have caused.

All of this is built into this “shadow”. In one of our incarnations, when we feel strong enough or supported enough, we have to face this vision of darkness, which is of our own making. It is perhaps the most courageous, the most awesome, the most barrier-breaking, the most freedom-bringing action that our energy, our being has to do.

It is the ultimate search for our soul, the ultimate purpose or goal for our moving forward, for our growth, for our freedom and to find our truth;  and in the releasing/discarding, to be filled with the love and light of unconditional love.  But each one of us has to do it on our own.  To become aware that the light and the darkness are but two sides of the same coin.  The yin and the yang.

This “darkness” of negativity is particularly fuelled by fear, but love and compassion are key words to its disintegration. Love, unconditional love, is the most profound, the most powerful vibration to conquer all negative frequencies, like fear, hate, anger, guilt, envy, jealousy. . . whatever negatives we cling to. Turning to face our negative dark self, with pure love, is the important preliminary step, the most courageous of steps. We can be assisted, guided, supported, strengthened by others around us, but we have to take the steps alone. Alone.

Conquering this, releases our negativity and allows the love and light to flow through our system, enriching us and, as the light flows from us, enriching others. It is our awakening, our re-birthing, our recognition of our Eternal Self, often referred to as the part of us that has never left the side of God. It is our earth energy and our star energy, it is the completeness, the “whole”, the “holy”.

It is who we are.

]]> http://www.thewhiteparasol.com/2009/08/coping-with-karma/feed/ 0 http://www.thewhiteparasol.com/2009/06/130/ http://www.thewhiteparasol.com/2009/06/130/#comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 08:15:08 +0000 edb http://www.thewhiteparasol.com/?p=130 Early 2005. Driving along in my yellow mini on the way back from town to my house I was pondering on the illness of my son.  He had been cured we thought and now it was back with a vengeance. It had shown itself by appearing above the clavicle so now we knew that we would be thrown back into radiation or worse and all the surrounding effects.

I was, yet again, beside myself with fear. With fear of what to do and how to do it and, above all, how to get complete healing. Is it not a very deep and natural thing for a Mother to want her child to be cured and happy and strong and well? Yes it is. And all of my attempts hitherto had not succeeded then; all my endeavours, trials and praying and going to multiple practitioners of various disciplines – we had tried everything on earth, or so I thought. We were long not over this period but I did not know this at this time. I remember the sunny, clement day and looking out of the window at the trees and the countryside not caring that it was beautiful because my world was not.  There I was voicing these concerns whilst driving– as you do – speaking out loud to the heavens that for God’s sake, what to do next? Why was this thing coming back now? Why had it not gone? Feeling that fear which grips the very base of the stomach and that permeating angst of being thrown into helplessness with time running out was with me and I wrestled back and forth on the steering wheel and, using my motion to deliver the crescendo I was building up to I shouted out words to the effect of :”Look, here, please God help us and for goodness sakes why has it come back to my son? What more can I do? What is this thing that keeps striking at him? I know that I am not perfect and a sinner and all of that waffle but for goodness sakes he cannot take anymore. Let ME take on this burden, this illness because I AM STRONG ENOUGH TO FIGHT THIS SO GIVE IT TO ME!”. . And then I got a huge thwack on my right clavicle; like someone had struck me hard in answer to my question. Blimey, I bounced up straight and rigid. What the hell had I done here? What Mother wouldn’t take on the burden for her child? Was it a question with huge risk? Immediately I shouted out loud again something like “But I need Michael the Archangel to help me in this!”.
I startled myself at these strange words which emerged from my own mouth. Then stunned silence whilst concentrating on the road home and trying to understand my own words. To this day, I do not know why I called on that particular high Archangel, as I hadn’t really thought about angels as such, even if I am religious/spiritual in some ways.

On reaching home I went straight into my study and went through a file where I keep some cards and letters received over the years and I pulled out a beautiful icon postcard upon which is Michael the Archangel. A very beautiful and ancient icon in which Michael is depicted as a very strong, hard, rugged, grim but beautiful character whose eyes show clear strain, whose chin is set, whos being comes over as so powerful but beleagured. I looked at this picture for a long time; I checked the date written on the back; the postcard had been sent to me as far back as 1992. I realised that I hadn’t looked at this card for perhaps many years. But now it sat in my hands with great significance given the events in the car. And then I recalled buying miniature pictures of a depiction of the Archangel (amongst others) whilst being in Mount St. Bernard Abbey for a day during the previous year – those small prayer cards with a chain – which I’d picked up really without applied thinking but it had occurred to me then that that huge, powerful being as he is portrayed in those cards was something to be quite frightened of, dressed up as a warrior, a very aggressive stance with his huge sword – quite threatening really. Now, after the events of this day and staring at my postcard of him, I sent one of those small prayer cards to my son – who probably thought I was going loopy – without explanation except that he should keep it with him.

I knew that I was being thrown a line, an indication of what it was I was asking and doing; right or wrong it really didn’t matter because I had put my life on the line for this and that is how it felt. I remember thinking that if I now had the illness because I’d asked for it, then so be it, let’s get on with it.

I was in a strange dimension being aware of things around me but it was as if they were not quite there. It is a spaced out not-part-of-this-picture-and-if-it-is-a-film-well-I-do-not-want-to-be-in this feeling, I never asked for this feeling of desperation. But it was also a crystal sharp focus on the present.

Here was a help line and I was going to use it, come hell or high water, carrying this icon with me wherever I went, along with other prayer cards, feeling that I had asked for help and it looked like I was going to get it; emboldened with my daring, but shaking at my roots with the potential consequences. Even I knew that the answer might not be what I “wanted”. This idea of “want” and “need” that we often confuse in the hopes that well everything should just go back to “normal” right now. So I had to begin to come to terms with the fact that if you ask the angels to come in and help you, then you had better be prepared for the way forward. They are not there to bring you precisely what you want all dressed up with ribbons on, they are there to aid you in your universal life search, so it requires a gearing up of the core of the being. “Be careful what you ask for” is an old saying and I was patently aware of this right now. Being a verbose person who always has something to say, by nature, I was now completely silent and for some considerable time.

Mont Saint Michel is on the north Brittany/ Normandy border and about four hours’ drive from where we live and I did go soon afterwards with my husband – who became aware of my desire that he and I should go and didn’t even question it – and it was a true pilgrimage – even if he perhaps thought that I was going round the bend and going along with me in the way that someone might give in to a quaint but harmless lunatic – because here was a woman who might do herself some injury if left alone – it was all part of a true, desperate, daring but humble search for help. And no, I didn’t see it as an end in itself as a conditionality of my going that then my son should be healed; I knew it was part of a much longer journey and conditionality had to be thrown away, which was probably my biggest fear. I mean promising to be good for the rest of one’s life if we get this or that.. . . is at least part of us all but it was certainly part of me and I knew that I could never promise that. But this does make me think of Oscar Wilde’s words: “we are all in the gutter but some of us are looking up at the stars”. At least if I know that I am in the gutter, then that is looking upwards and outwards for help, beyond me. If I know that I cannot promise to be good for ever more then I might as well face it, especially right now as it was no time for pretence.

Amazed by its magnificence alone, the story around the building of this huge Church to Michael the Archangel, on a huge rock in the midst of extremely contrary currents just off that wild, northern coastline which is the Channel is both miraculous and novel. More than that, it is extremely funny as in humourous. It is this in a nutshell: in the eighth century the Bishop of Avranches (that region edged on La Manche/ Channel) had a dream in which the Archangel came to him and said that He wanted the Bishop to build a Church to him on that rock out there in those waters. The Bishop was very startled by this request – it being a quest of impossible not to mention impassable requirements – I mean akin to the joke that goes around relating to the favourite Anglo-saxon word and our appreciation of its earthy humour in what Michealangelo (the painter) might have said upon the request to paint the ceiling of the Sistine chapel in Rome: “You want what on the f***ing celing!?”. So I could imagine the Bishop’s response, which was along the lines of, “..eoh my God, no way! That cannot be done” and the Archangel bonked him on the head and created a hole in his skull! He really did, or as the story goes, he poked his finger into the skull of the bishop and, to this day, the skull along with the said hole, is on that rugged island in its museum below the actual structure of the huge and imposing Church. This story I did not know until we made arrangements to go and I had looked up on the internet the background and it made me laugh out loud. I’d got thwacked on the clavicle and here I was reading about a Holy Bishop who’d got a hole in the head! So, I thought, blimey, I got away lightly.   And I laughed and laughed out loud in the midst of my agony and pain – raw humour is within misery and hopelessness and the “black” humour of life which serves to lift us somewhat. I suppose any onlooker might have said “Pity that poor woman, for she is clearly off her trolley”. And I didn’t care how it looked either so it was a new way forward for me and an insight akin to comradeship with madness.

So there we were. True pilgrims in search of the way forward in and amongst my state of navel gazing and considering the whys and wherefores, as we do (why me, why him, what did we do to deserve this type of thing, what about bad karma etc.) and a thought, amongst others, came to me. It was this: Listen here woman, if a policeman had just come to your house and told you that your son was dead, how would you cope with that then? At least right now I had very real opportunity to be a part of helping this situation, however hard it seemed, to become positive whatever its eventual outcome even if it were death. And for those who have ever received that news I felt a deep and ongoing sympathy for their plight; never would I not feel another’s pain in that kind of situation again. I would have true pity, not token acknowledgement.

Even today, seeing that huge monument, let alone its sophistication – I mean this is a whole village complete with hotels and cafes and shops – wrapped around this huge, unyielding rock in the midst of currents going every which way – it occurred to me that this is an architecturally impossible thing actually. But there it is. And it has stood the test of time, for sure. Winding up its path towards the towering Church above is heady enough and then we came to the huge Church and went in. There were many tourists around and we went to the front of the Church to the altar and I noticed, to the left, that there was a small notice tied to the stairwell bars that a Mass would shortly be celebrated in the crypt below. In fact, a Nun was standing there just taking the notice down and I went to her and asked if we could attend Mass down there. She was a very beautiful and kind young lady who beamed at me and told us to go down the stairs; my husband followed on in the manner that an indulgent but wary Guardian might, not even daring to question my impetuous behaviour. So down we went and there, in this tiny crypt beneath the main Church area we came across not more than about fifteen people including the Priest and his monks and nuns ready to celebrate Mass. It was cramped and we were all sitting close together; there was no music so we sang without accompaniment and went through the most powerful Mass in my entire life; I thought that the whole Church was going to be ripped off that rock and shot into heaven whilst sinners like myself who had no place in that most beautiful and sacred area were picked off and thrown down into the fire and brimstone below. To this day, the memory of that Mass fills me with awe, fear and tears but also with a deep conviction and overwhelming beauty of acceptance and healing. I looked over at my husband and saw his tears. “Here I am then”, I said to the Archangel, “I have come”. I decided against saying :”you know why I am here” because I thought that I might get a hole in the head so I just gave up the whole mess of our lives in one big blobby picture because it would take a lifetime to speak it out and words were beyond me.

I am as self-preserving as the next person and even in my temporary holy (or holier than thou) state of being, the notion of giving everything away and keeping nothing for myself is still not part of my state. But at least I don’t create any illusion about this to myself anymore. It occurred to me that everything offered from God is given without a price tag; it is given without conditionality. The profundity of this realisation left me depleted and empty because I realised that I had absolutely nothing of value to offer from myself; the only thing that God wants is the very core of your being and your brokenness. He wants those parts that the way of man or the way of the world has no use for.  Those parts where Heineken cannot reach!

And so my pilgrimage to that great monument and to that great Archangel ended; it had a pronounced effect on everything I did after that in the ongoing search and endurance as comes with family illness. My journey goes on;   my life and my behaviour have not undergone the blinding light, stricken down, throw off all my possessions and run to help the poor in Africa-type change. I am still learning and still seeking; it is a journey of huge magnitude and taking small steps is the way forward. I remain a person with a huge number of faults; with the selfishness, the opinionated stance on life and considering what everyone else should “do” to make things better. But the difference is that I know it. And knowing is awareness. Not having to change immediately in one fell swoop because it is impossible anyway as we know from our endeavours to “become better and stop doing this or that, er next week”. Just being aware that we are with many faults and with many limitations and recognising our behaviour, following our own reasoning to nowhere and knowing that underneath our polished exterior which we present to the world, we are imperfect and we could better stop telling everyone else what to do and look to ourselves. Quietly and without even announcing it to anyone else; just becoming aware of oneself, one’s intent, one’s jealousy, envy, hatred and narrowness. To face this truth is to take off our own mask to ourselves. The saving grace is that you can do it in private. Leave the outside world alone and witness for yourself what happens without you having to pretend to the world that you are a good and generous and wonderful person. Be quiet.

I can honestly say that it had never occurred to me in my life before that day, a being so high and glorious – if he did indeed even exist – would come into my life upon my request. Upon my shouted and very direct request as it was, but he did. And that is something that still fills me with fear but mainly with awe. We are dealing with the unknown, the unbelievable and the beyond worldly comprehension, powerful and Holy things here and if I have any word of warning at all, it is to say go and ask and be deeply humble and truthful in yourself in the asking, do not pretend. But you do NOT have to be a good person, whatever that is, to do it.

Michael the Archangel is shown to us as a great and powerful fighter, complete with sword and requisite aggressive stance; against whom the power of Hell cannot compete. If there is a question that I have asked and pondered ever since it is this: how can such a violent depiction be commensurate with Christ and meekness and mildness? And the answer, I believe, is this: taking on the ills of the world and all its vileness is indeed, a huge fight and there is a very real war in the heavens and beyond going on in ways that we cannot begin to visualise. This war is not one that we can relate to creating war on earth in the way that we do, with tanks and missiles and bombs and suicide bombers. This war is against the very things that we are doing on earth to create such misery, want and pure hell in killing and stealing and controlling. Power on earth is owned by whoever has the politics and trade to determine our own national or personal interests; and we give them the power by being who we are. The Holy War of heaven, depicted by Michael, is against these things. But its policy of action is through each and everyone of us in ways not of this world; through bringing awareness of what it is that we are actually doing. Christ’s meekness and mildness should not be confused with being a pushover; the most powerful thing that ever happened on this earth was Christ allowing himself to be the ultimate sacrifice to the folly of man. This is allowing the power and strength of heaven to overcome that which we live by. Whatever is happening in the heavens and around us – unseen – but felt often when we go out and seek it (or through being bonked on the head or punched across the clavicle), is to allow each of us, in our individuality, to understand the truth of the world around us. We each are creating the badness and the madness, it is not “someone else”. I have witnessed much in the crises that I have been through and that angels will deliver to us when we ask for their intervention. These interventions take us into sorrowful realms, not “nice” ones. Herein lies what their effects are upon us. They fight to release us from our illusions about ourselves. The Holy War of Heaven is to overcome this hell on earth by enabling us to lay down our arms and begin seeing the “others” as ourselves.

The way I am creates the wars and want on earth. What I give out goes into the local, national and world psyche and these effects give power to war mongering, shaping national and international politics. So the best thing that I can do on earth is to stop blaming everyone else including the terrorists, the immigrants and the politicians. All I have to do is to endeavour to sort out myself. I do not have to support a cause for one warring party against another, giving them the ability to keep on killing with “justifiable” intent. Taking sides and having opinions on the “others” gives the world the divisions, this allocation of who is right and who is wrong that fuels the wars. I am learning.

And, if I don’t want a hole in the head, I had better learn fast.

(© 2009 Eileen Baker)

(© 2009 Eileen Baker)

There is the greatest of difficulties for me to understand myself.

I am full of contradictions.

My Mother said once that I was “…so contrary” when I was a small child.

I never forgot this even though I did not then understand.

Now I know that she is right and it has taken me most of my life to figure this one out.

I am a person of extremes.

All or nothing.

Nothing in between.

No indifference to passionate witness even if I can now be indifferent to where my path leads.

I believe in heady beauty, caring, soulfulness, journeying, seeking and casting out the blockages on the way.

I have found much in myself over the years of human-based limitations including selfishness, vanity, pride, derision of others to increase my self-esteem, seeking self-aggrandisement, money, career (didn’t do very well anyway as they shoot away from me like animated beings), hastily seeking elevation at the cost of others and because I thought that life was too short and that we had to have everything in our thirties, narrow-minded prejudices or beliefs, arrogance and much more so it is no wonder that I was deeply unhappy. Awareness of this state leads me through, but recognition of my inadequacies leaves me desperately sad as I realise that it is no good pointing out the shortcomings of others without facing oneself and one’s own disabilities (which is what they are) full on.

Awareness of another side of me recalls even now that the most beautiful moments have been selfless ones whose vibrations have remained with me as a comfort and pricked my conscience during the full on war of my psyche (our deluder the ego) rushing to save its own life through its human limitations. Such painful awareness.

But that awareness is also liberating and enlightening and it is always a joy and an unfathomable wonder that I am brought to tears by the sight of a bird busily enjoying the contents of a camellia’s bloom (right now out of my window) and by seeing things through a spiritual eye.

Like the wisteria’s main stem and shoulders on the terrace’s structure – it looks like Christ on the cross.

Like the mandarin oranges with stalks and leaves in the tubular steel’s skeletal fruit bowl, whose shadow casts Christ’s crown of thorns.

Like the beautiful shell which I put into a glass vessel in its vertical length and becomes quite miraculously an image of Mary with Christ on her lap when I light the candle beneath it.

Like the object across the road through a window from my flat some years’ ago whose dark evening shape reminded me so much of Mary looking towards me and not letting me go even whilst I pursued something entirely selfish; eventually I realised that it was a fire extinguisher on someone’s wall and hoped that they hadn’t seen me straining to work it out!

And then again, the highly witty and sarcastic comedy programmes on the television are those which I thrive on too, like “Have I got news for you” and “Black Adder” and “Father Ted” (to name but a few) – that direct, no beating about the bush humour on the truth of a political matter.  Is that contrary?  Possibly, but I wouldn’t want to lose that type of humour which allows fun to be poked at The Establishment and myself – who take themselves too seriously anyway.  It requires facing the truth of a matter, its substance and the greatest of humour is that which takes you into its darkness, its shadows of the reality on life.

Like so many shadows cast across the pathways, the roads, the gardens, the seaside; shadows of light and of dark showing me other insights, other dimensions and knowing that all of these are the whispering and teasing of the Spirit calling you back, calling you to come, to live for ever to come back to forever and for everything and everyone and not for yourself.

And the wonder and pain of recognising that one has been a complete fool for so long (and still is one) that it hardly bears thinking about, unless I can laugh about it and have my wine and my cigarette!

If I judge myself under my own, careful, highly analytical scrutiny, I shall surely be guilty and lost and my conditional ongoing life would be a huge burden. In fact, it is a huge burden.

But God is not so hard, forgiving you without condition. The Christ took everything upon himself including the humiliation, the mockery, the violence, the scheming, the politics, the degradation, the pain (everything that we give to each other on earth for our own narrow ends) and ultimately this ego-linked human state was crushed and only wide eyed clear seeing love was left. That was the sacrifice, to redeem our human, ego-directed narrowness and its ultimate evil of self-deceit.  And leaving us with a sense of humour to handle our own inadequacies, at least enables us to see the funny side of ourselves and others, at the same time.  Is this irreverent? To hold sorrow, joy, hypocrisy, betrayal, inadequacy, false witness, misjudgement and huge sacrifice alongside great humour and self-awareness, is it really possible to face our own self? To see the truth of the matter?

Is the act of facing God the act of facing ourself?  Do we avoid our own judgement on our own true state?

I am unable to understand myself at all.

Physical, outward, behavioural manifestations of my own internal conflict is that I believe passionately in good, healthy food and good, healthy exercise and yet I love to smoke and drink, deeply, the beautiful red wine to a heady, enjoyable state. It these are not contradictions then I do not know what is! I live within such deeply divided boundaries that it is often a constant wrangle with myself. I can argue with myself and provide every, single reasoning from both sides and make no absolute decision for longer than a day. I can ignore my own advice and be liberal in advising others what to do, so that I have to stand back at my utter hypocrisy. I believe in goodness and peace and not in war and yet my very living actions are not contributing to this state however much I might seek to pretend that they are not. Pretence is a good companion and allows your ego to walk forward, head held high whilst deep within you know that it is not a true external presentation of yourself to the world. It is false but it helps me function in the world. “Contrary” is the very word and I marvel still how my Mother fathomed that one at such a very, very young age.

I didn’t work it out myself until relatively recently and am now wrestling with it but at least I am aware. Perhaps that will lead me forwards. . . .honesty develops and liberates you (and hones your sense of humour) but equally it makes you a huge outsider because you cannot function any more in cliques or in clichés -, always feeling the narrowness, the group demands, the restrictive codes. And often putting your foot in it by offending sensibilities and not doing what is “expected” or “socially acceptable” because you are not seeking approval any more. Does it really matter that you are “liked”? Or “accepted” on certain conditions? Is living a life where we seek approval and admiration from others a life worth living for those ends?  Don’t ask me, I am too busy struggling with myself.

To walk a long road with few local companions. Is that preferable to a cackling crowd?

Perhaps the other side of my nature, the pleasurable one of drinking and smoking gives me some respite, like they are my crutches in life. Yes I am as disabled as anyone who is crippled. But sometimes I soar to the heights of laughter and resonating with the good earth, its land, its yield, the air, the sea – I can be heady with the joy of living of high hope and utterly devoid of the darkness.

These two extremes then am I.

(© 2009 Eileen Baker)

Perhaps the Power of the Not Quite There Yet (towards Eckhart Toll’s “The Power of Now” that is) will do – for now?

Sometimes we feel and know that we are behaving in a way that is not true. Then we feel guilty so perhaps our conscience is telling us this and that is at least a power in itself.  Not perfect and not in “the now”, but a start maybe.

We cannot seem to overcome our behavioural ‘norms’ because it is too embarrassing to do something completely spontaneous, without prejudice and yet with a feeling of knowing it is the right thing. That is why we feel guilty.

Throughout a lifetime of going and being part of ‘our’ groups we become institutionalised or programmed and why not? It helps. It helps us to ‘function’ but it doesn’t help us to grow.

What if someone comes over to us (a stranger) and offers a welcome, or wants a welcome? What if they are someone not like us, what if they are different to our ‘norms’ and they are the type of person to whom we feel a dislike, a prejudice? Do we discreetly snub or just ignore them? Or what if a stranger is not acknowledged and we feel that they are not our type of person so we won’t bother. Well, they are not like me, so it’s ok. But there is the guilt.

Over the years this gets compounded and, despite our inner knowing of disharmony – for no other reason than being confirmed in our behaviour and adhering to our ‘norms’ – we carry on. But there is the inner guilt.

Thinking of what people might think of us is the key dark hole. We stay there because at least we are accepted in this with others who think the same. Thinking and thoughts can control us and they do.

We will often not do something overtly different to our set of norms because we are too frightened to leave them aside. It is frightening to be exposed. To be left without our protection.

So thoughts rule us. The personal thoughts of what ‘our’ people are thinking about us can govern us and keep us within the boundaries.

These boundaries are our prejudices. We might argue that they are not ‘prejudices’ that they are ways of living and functioning and getting us through life and along our way.

But our true nature is nothing to do with our race, our nationality, our family, our friends, our politics with a small and a capital ‘p’ and our thoughts are from our ego and they are dangerous. That is why we carry guilt. Because we know our true nature deep down. It might be so deep that we do not recognise it for what it is so we just feel uncomfortable and carry on.

What is our true nature then?

Our true nature is to be free of all boundaries and restrictions and prejudices. This is the essence of life.

I cannot make this mean anything of sense without declaring a fundamental understanding of what life is – at least in as far as I can make sense of it, not in the comprehensive sense of knowing the whole universe and the ultimate meaning of life. But in order for me to make sense of what it is exactly that Christ was teaching and what other religions and/or spiritual directions tell us, I realise that we are one being, but that we must reincarnate on this earth and live out different lives, like an actor on a stage. And if life is but a stage (as Shakespeare famously said) then we can also say that a stage is life. In this way we take with us our prejudices and play out our lives but with the underlying divine direction to learn to rid ourselves of these, to let go. But our conscious mind or our ego doesn’t know that. It is a bit like being thrown a huge puzzle to put together but with lots of pieces missing. Or like the Irish joke that goes like this: When I asked the Irish man how to get from here to there, the Irish man replied that, if I wanted to go there, I had better not start from here then!

The thing is that we have to start from here. We have nowhere else to start from. But that joke is not as silly as it seems as it holds a deep truth.<!–more–>

Often, I have pondered the words of The Lord’s Prayer. Actually, it is a lifetime’s work to understand it. It is related to why we are here (again). It is not a set of words put together for ‘worship’, it is a key set of words put together for enabling us to grow and to understand why we are here; it is about asking for help in our current predicament – our life – whilst we are travelling this incarnation; this is the journey. I am not speaking about ‘the meaning of life’; I haven’t got a clue and I haven’t got much of a clue about ‘the meaning of this life or my life but as the universe is a huge place and there are billions of unexplained things going on and I have got just my one person, I reckon that if I start with ‘what is the meaning of my life?’ then, huge as it is, it is not as huge as trying to figure out the unfigurable. And perhaps it is as good a start as any.

Our Father, Who art in Heaven,

Hallowed be Thy Name,

Thy Kingdom Come,

Thy Will be done on earth,

As it is in heaven.

God is in heaven, so we can reach him only by praying or meditating (praying is contacting the God outside of us and meditating is contacting the God within us – wonderfully explained in the book “The Magic Road” published by The Seekers), by looking into ourselves and by contacting him for help from our deepest being, our soul. We can speak to him from our soul, not from our ego. This is because our soul has no barrier to him. Our ego does. Our ego uses logic and barriers whilst our soul uses knowing and love (that is why we feel guilty when we act from our ego and our soul is made unhappy).

We direct him to send his kingdom. We do not ask him to. We tell him to.

We direct him that we want his Will to be done on the earth, just like it is in heaven. Which implies that at the moment his Will is not being done here in its entirety, unlike in heaven where it is being done.

Give us this day our daily bread.

We direct him to give us what we need to progress through this life, day by day. Which implies that we need to be aware of the present, of the now, to understand the lesson or the food for thought as well as having the material food we need.

And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

This is one of the most puzzling lines of the prayer. If you read it in the way that we are asking God to forgive us in exactly the same way that we forgive others, we might realise that this ‘forgiveness’ is a bit baffling. We rarely forgive, that is why. Which means that if we rarely forgive then we ask God rarely to forgive us. That is what we are asking. But why would we ask that? Why wouldn’t we ask to be forgiven anyway, even though we might not forgive?

True forgiveness is to live your life in such a way that absolutely no grudge, prejudice or injustice affects the way that you feel at your deepest level and in the way that you behave towards people. That you feel constantly at one with everything around you – not because everything is good, but because everything is not good.

So how on earth do we get out of this one?

Chronologically speaking, there is no true differentiation between all of the great religions of the world. Buddhism was around long before Christ came to earth. What Buddhism teaches is to find awareness and that re-incarnations allow us to go through all of the lessons that we need in order to achieve this. When Christ came there was no contradiction, just a move forward because he actually provided a way out of continuous re-incarnations to achieve the ultimate with divine intervention. His sacrifice on earth was to take upon himself all of those guilts that we feel and enact out of human nature; living in Sin is living without God, that is all. His way was to give us heaven sent Grace to enable us to find our way forward beyond the constant karma and re-incarnation as Buddhism teaches by giving us a direct and unconditional foregiveness from God.

In a Buddhist depiction there is an analogy about receiving something (a package) from someone else that we do not want; perhaps it is hate or jealousy or anger. Buddhism teaches us to send this package back to its sender with love, so that we do not carry this and so that the sender will work out those issues his or her self. In Christ’s New way the story changes though: Christ teaches us to take the package upon ourselves and then let it go upwards to the Divine, to God. In this way, both parties are relieved of the burden and both experience foregiveness as the sin is taken away.

This does not contradict Buddhism, it merely takes us all on to a different way forward with the Christ himself intervening on our behalfs. He is giving us a way out and a way forward.

And lead us not into Temptation, but deliver us from Evil.

Still pondering these! Well, I am only human you see and definitely not quite there.. .. .;

(© 2008 Eileen Baker)

Happily, I really do not think that it is necessary to feel inadequate or incapable when life’s material presence intervenes and drags us back down again; when we feel like we have totally missed the point so we might as well give up.

There are many saints who have grappled with the struggle between what I want and what God wants or what we think God wants. Those normal, everyday feelings when we feel anger, bitterness, jealousy, desire, selfishness (and witness these things from others and actually enjoy them) and plain can’t be bothered will keep intervening because it is normal and human. Our addictions to whatever substances, our cravings for certain circumstances for a bit of a jolly, a bit of respite are part of who we are. Whether ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in whoever’s perspective they are part of who we are. And most saints were not aware that they were saints, remember; this title was given many years after their death, after deep consideration of their lives by other people, many years beyond their life.

I really do find the company of people with acknowledged and embraced shortcomings and vices far more comfortable and even elevating than the company of people who seem to have no vices at all. The reason for this is that they are more likely to accept you as you are, with your vice or shortcoming. To be with someone who seems to have conquered all desire, all attachments to this world whilst you struggle on can be daunting. I am not saying it can’t be elevating and create aspirations but after a good read through a chapter of The Power of Now, I would still like to pour out some wine and have a cigarette to reflect on it. Well, I haven’t got very far with letting go then have I?

Probably not.

But I do believe that a very practical way of moving forward at all, is to live from where we are right now. We cannot possibly start from anywhere else can we? As the Irish man said to you when you asked the way from here to there: “well, if you want to go there, I wouldn’t start from here!”. But where else can we start from? Indeed, do we want to go anywhere at all?

Realisation over the years of times of grace, enlightenment, some visions, signs, dreams, ponderings and changing perspectives within the context of the very hard reality of every day life and how I fall short most times, including creating very difficult circumstances within that context, actually helps me just try to be content with who I am right now, in the present reality including what I think it is, which might, indeed, be wrong. But it is all I have. And I shall start from here even if I get stuck.

Like any multi-faceted stone, a diamond, some facets are highly polished and some are very rough and dull but they each make up the whole. We are like a diamond; there is a desire to live through the highly polished facets and appear to be all that way. But outsiders will see those other facets too, even if we refuse to and that is arrogance. I know all about arrogance, selfishness, cowardice, haughtiness, lack of compassion as I have them all in huge measure. That’s a lot to come to terms with but maybe whilst I am doing that, I will leave other people’s shortcomings alone. Perhaps by trying to address the huge plank in my own eye, I shall not endeavour to take out the splinter in someone else’s. And a diamond is for ever, remember.

It’s a start anyway. The power of being not quite there is quite substantial, in itself.

(© 2008 Eileen Baker)