The Colour Of Love

 Some people are born colour-blind. They can't see the difference between red and green for example. Colours are muted and drab. The richness of vision that most people take for granted is unknown to them - the luscious green grass or the beautiful blue of a summer sky. Recently special lenses have been developed which cleverly demark the boundaries of colour frequencies so that some colour-blind people can see in full colour for the first time. If you haven't seen the YouTube clips of people putting these glasses on for the first time, you should watch. It is very moving. It is life-changing.

There is another sort of colour-blindness that is less well understood, because it's the colour of love that goes unseen. Once you know this colour you can see it everywhere - in the sun and the wind, in trees and flowers, in the faces of the people you meet. It is life-changing. Some of the things that used to seem so important no longer matter. Little things do matter: a kind word, a helping hand. Jesus described it as like finding treasure in a field. In the end it's the only thing that counts. In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says the Kingdom of God is spread out upon the Earth but people don't see it.


So how do you get glasses that reveal the colour of love? It's not that easy, and there's a price to be paid. You could compare it to when Neo gets ejected from the Matrix. In every case I can think of, a person's life has had to be unplugged from the system in some way. Some may actually die for a few minutes before being revived; some may lose everything they had; some may renounce normal life for holy orders; some escape common reality using hallucinogenic drugs. Even then, you still have to really want it. Seek and you will find.

The choice is yours:the red pill or the blue one.

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.

What's happening to me?

Guardian Spirit Quickremix by dj4star

A year ago I finally turned my back on my career in Social Housing. I had been trying to make my way within an organisation that was trying to reinvent itself, but actually tearing itself apart. This was a painful and bruising experience for me, and I wondered how on earth I had ever got involved with it in the first place.

I had decided to dedicate myself to Social Housing as a way of doing something worthwhile with my life after 20 years of writing computer programs. There were good times working with wonderful caring people to help make life better for some of the less fortunate in the social mix. This made it worth the grind and the knocks, but only just. Being used for target practice by interdepartmental snipers was not a part of my ideal.

But it's an ill wind, etc., and this kicking gave me the impetus finally to cut my ties to Housing and to follow my bliss, and so I got my life back on track. I sold the boat I had bought when the computer work dried up, and enrolled on celebrant training with Green Fuse.

Cut back to the present. I've changed. I'm still changing. As my course work progresses I find myself being drawn into increasingly spiritual realms. I have been watching old interviews with Joseph Campbell, Carl Jung and Alan Watts. Poetry, prayers and songs weave patterns of meaning in my head, and I resonate with the rhythms of the stars. I walk on holy ground. Sometimes it feels almost as if I could stretch out my arms and take flight. What's happening to me?

In my head I hear Abba:

I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I'll cross the stream
I have a dream

...or Spirits Having Flown by the BeeGees:

I'd like to take you where my spirit flies
Through the empty skies we go alone
Never before having flown".

I think of the prayer attributed to Sir Walter Raleigh:

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

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.