The Pagan Yogi

Back in the ‘80’s there was a TV Programme created by  J. Michael Straczynski which attempted to be both SciFi entertainment, and a profound exploration of the deepest questions about politics, religion, and what it means to be Human. That epic was called Babylon 5, and we spent most of Lockdown rewatching it with our millennial housemate - and blowing his mind. If you’ve not seen it - watch it. Really. Sure, it’s space opera, but the writing and the characterisations and the sweep of science and spirituality is just superb. As an example, I give you this - from when G’Kar becomes an unwilling spiritual leader: ‘What is truth?’ https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N_oQkSh2lq8 An acolyte askes G'Kar, "What is truth, and what is God" G'Kar replies: "If I take a lamp, and shine it towards the wall, a bright spot will appear on the wall. The lamp is our search for truth, for understanding. Too often we assume that the light on the wall is God. But the light is not the go

The ‘bone cave’ story is a lie: we are not consciousness trapped inside matter - brains  in the prison of our skulls, sealed away from a world we can only experience by the shadow-play of our senses... We ARE those senses - and the neurones, and the skull the protects them, and the skin around it, and the blood and the heart that feeds them, and the lungs and the belly, and EVERYTHING.  The lonely ego lies to itself: There is no real demarcation between ‘me’, ‘my body’ - no material separation between ‘self’ and ‘the world’; all that there is is the Universe itself!  So when the Darkness tries to tell you: ‘I am nothing. I am alone and I am powerless’ - remember, that it is a symptom of believing the  illusion of separateness... I am not alone. I am not singular - ‘I’ am billions of cells, arising and dying continuously, giving and sharing and working in tireless harmonious community for the good of all - every single one a fractal fragment of the whole, as essential to the whol

I have been in a dark place again:  lost in old habits and unhelpful self-criticism and analysis; second-guessing my every thought and action and feeling utterly at war between my ‘Self’ and my ‘desires’. So lost in feelings of worthlessness and sinfulness that every moment was filled with such horror and pain that I planned my death just to ‘cleanse’ the world of my pathetic and sekf-hate filled existence. But, even amidst all this angst and sorrow, a deep quiet voice kept telling me:  “this is old, now - let it go: just come home” And I realise now, forgiving myself for both my depression and the traumas that created it, that really:  does any of it really  matter?! All this angst over ‘sin’ and ‘worthiness’, ‘sex’ or ‘spirituality’! This childhood fear of the Big Angry Disapproving God, watching and judging, pontificating and condemning. When really, there is no god ‘out there’ - only the Watcher in  here -  what my Therapist calls  “the Deep knowing” -  the Heart of Buddhism, and t