Don't kiss the statue!

While it is good to do what you love, problems can arise when you love what you do.

Yesterday I watched a scene from the film “My Fair Lady”, starring Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn. The film is a reworking of Bernard-Shaw’s play “Pygmalion”, in which Prof. Henry Higgins turns a Cockney flower-girl called Eliza into a society beauty, and then begins to fall in love with her.

Incidentally this reminds me of when I was at school in Greenwich and went in for a race. When I went to report my position, I was rather taken aback when the prefect shouted “NINE”! I was unsure how to answer this, until a teacher helped me out: “He wants to know your NAME”. What has this to do with My Fair Lady? Prof Higgins lives in Mayfair, which sounds like “My Fair”, when Eliza says it.

Perhaps if I had loved the work of my hands as much as the mythical sculptor Pygmalion, I might have done better at school. The danger comes from loving your work too much. Then you become the slave of your own creation, and it makes a mockery of your life.

What happens if your work is taken away from you? If you’re strong, like Doris Day, who trained from an early age to be a dancer then broke her leg in an accident, you reinvent yourself and start again. If you’re not so gifted, life loses its meaning. Too many people have not lived past their first year of retirement. We should get to know ourselves now, not our job, not what we do, but who we really are. We should find out now while there is still time.

If the prophets and the sages are right and there is a Heaven waiting for us, we will not be spending eternity catching the 7.21 train to the office, or waiting at tables. We will be our true selves, freed from the bondage of work. But why wait until then? We may have to work to live, but we should not live to work.

Photo by Beaton / Six - © 1978 Beaton / Six - Image courtesy mptvimages.com

Near Death

Is there life after death? It used to be said that no-one has ever returned to tell us, but now it is increasingly common for those pronounced clinically dead to be resuscitated, and in many cases to relate their experiences.

What is surprising is the striking similarity of the majority of these experiences. The one feature that comes up in almost all cases is seeing a very bright but not dazzling white light, which is associated with an overwhelming sense of unconditional love. Many people report beautiful scenery and music. Often they meet dead friends, pets and relatives. In some cases they don’t know who the person is until they search old photographs at a later date. The feeling of bliss is so intense that few people want to return, or if they do it is with a heavy heart.

My aim here is not to try to prove that we are immortal. What interests me is the wisdom that experiencers bring back from their encounter with death. Their new understanding radically alters their lives. They become less interested in material things, and more focused on being of service to the world. They are more patient, more caring, more aware of other people's feelings. They speak of love as the only thing that matters, and that we are all connected, not only to each other, but to the entire universe, to each star and each atom.

The radiant light experience has been known to living people too, not only by St Paul on his way to Damascus, but in more recent times by Dennis Shipman and others, always marked by intense love and understanding. And the wisdom is not new either. It is pretty much in line with the writings of a long line of mystics from pre-Christian times through Christians such as Julian of Norwich and through Sufis such as Rumi and Hafiz.

This message that we are all one could not have come at a better time. If anything can now save this fragile skin of life clinging to the surface of the globe, it will be the power to overcome our petty differences and work together for the good of all.

31/01/14 Heaven and Hell

The closer you get to the meaning

The sooner you'll know that you're dreaming

(from Heaven and Hell by Black Sabbath)

Let me tell you about a couple of dreams I have had. The first was when I had a bad reaction to Prozac, following the death of my parents. In one nightmare night, punctuated by frequent violent awakenings that felt like electric shocks, I dreamt I went to Hell.

I felt myself being dragged at speed by an unseen hand across a black scorched landscape towards a precipice. At the last moment I was roughly pulled back from the edge and I was shown what lay beyond. I saw, far, far down, another even darker plain, a land of infinite blackness, a land from which there could be no return. I was permitted only a few moments to take this in before being forcibly taken back the way I came. I awoke with another wrenching spasm, cold and perspiring.

The other dream was a few years ago, after my first career had hit the rocks, and my second was about to crash. It was a three-part dream. In the first part I was killed while trying to escape urban warfare. In the second, I was making contact with something that looked rather like one of a number of distant moving dots. In the final part I awoke to find myself on a bench positioned on what seemed to be a quay which curved gently out to sea, although the sea was only guessed at. When I stood up I saw that someone had been quietly waiting for me. All I could see in the middle and far distance was suffused in white light, which gave everything a misty appearance, and I realised I was in Heaven. "Ah" I said to the other, "so it's true, there really is a heaven". It's hard to describe the scene because I experienced it in ways beyond my five senses. There was an infinite peace, but not a dead silence, more a matrix of infinite possibilities. Night no longer followed day; day would last as long as I wanted it to. The peace was all around and the peace was in me.

I didn't know what to say next, so I started to thank my host, but at that point the dream dissolved.

What do I make of all this? Do I believe in Heaven and Hell? I have often pondered this question, but I still can't bring myself to believe in Hell, even having seen it with my own dreaming eyes. I think on both occasions I was shown what I needed to see. I had needed to confront the depth of my despair in order to overcome it. I had needed to be reminded that there was more to life than just my career.

My own view is that, if there is an afterlife, it will be in the place we have prepared in this life. So it won't be a shock; it will be exactly what we expected. I think the Kingdom of Heaven starts here and now, it is within touching distance as Jesus said.

Photo:Wikipedia

By the way, if you click on the Harry Potter picture you will be taken to another blog. Click on the link "The Head Project", and on the page that comes up there is a video, which I recommend you watch.