Chapter 7

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" height=82 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="0408dfe1esnpes.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>Warp Experience</B></FONT><B>     |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Warp Experience"><U><B>home</B></U></A><B>     </B><A HREF="id81.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Articles"><U><B>Articles</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id85.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chapter One"><U>Chapter One</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id87.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chapter Two"><U>Chapter Two</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id91.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chapter Three"><U>Chapter Three</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id93.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chapter 4"><U>Chapter 4</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id94.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chapter 5"><U>Chapter 5</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id95.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chapter Six"><U>Chapter Six</U></A>   |   <B>Chapter 7</B>   |   <A HREF="id97.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chapter 8"><U>Chapter 8</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id98.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Chapter 9"><U>Chapter 9</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id99.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="10"><U>10</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id100.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="11"><U>11</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id101.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="12"><U>12</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id102.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="13"><U>13</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id103.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="14"><U>14</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id104.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="15"><U>15</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id105.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="16"><U>16</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=398 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="0408dfc3.jpg"> <div> CHAPTER SEVEN</div> <div>                                            </div> <bR> <div>                                         TEN</div> <bR> <div> "I think the cause of all my previous unhappiness.....is down to `looking for a message."</div> <bR> <div> "Yeah?"  Arnold nodded whilst staring intently into the fire. The heavy old iron kettle was nearing boiling point.</div> <bR> <div> "We all seem <I>trapped</I> in this compulsion," said Molly in what still seemed to Arnold to be a weird accent. He'd never heard this North Carolina twang before...and Molly was a twanging addict. She couldn't <I>stop</I>. She never had stopped....and now she was  going full pelt. "We've all got a point to make.....that's <I>why</I> I took up abstract painting....not to make a point.....but to get away from all that...and I was so excited to get away from <I>images.....</I>to just <I>see</I>...period....I got to the point where what I put on the canvas didn't really matter....what counted was <I>the seeing. </I>I fell in love with <I>seeing</I>.</div> <div> I trained myself to not recognise....what I'd seen before...so I became...<I>alive!</I> Alive in my mind."  </div> <bR> <div> A LONG PAUSE</div> <bR> <div> ...Arnold and Molly...unsure...enjoying the atmosphere of the gypsy bender.  After the rapid bubbling had changed tone...and the P.G. tips had been swamped in the sudden downpour, Molly realised she had been hypnotised by Arnold's <I>quietness</I>.</div> <bR> <div> "Atmosphere....is the key for me. I think it's central to <I>seeing. </I>I thought I would be able to paint abstract paintings which generated a specific atmosphere...like Mark Rothko's do."</div> <bR> <div> "But isn't all painting about atmosphere?" asked the naked Arnold whilst putting Molly's tea down beside the 'bed'.</div> <bR> <div> "Yeah I'm coming to that....you see I'm just coming....slowly....just coming out of a terrible <I>crash</I>. For years I was <I>convinced</I> that figurative painting was nothing to do with <I>seeing</I>....but about creating <I>images</I> to feed to the ever-hungry black hole of one's memory.  Like the after-image of a pop song which goes round and round and you just can't get rid of it.  I'd thought figurative painting is <I>rape</I>. You don't have a chance. Bang! It's in! I thought then that the senses were being <I>used</I> to serve the <I>ego</I>...and I thought the ego was bad news.....and I thought I don't want to rape or titillate expectation......</div> <bR> <div> God...I don't know where I got it all from.....it was a viewpoint...that's for sure...so I painted BIG ABSTRACT paintings....which I imagined demanded full participation. I wanted people to become <I>active</I> inside. To reach out. To feel....what was there....without being given any clues as to what they <I>should </I>feel...or think.....and all that."</div> <bR> <div>  Molly propped up her head and whilst sipping the sweet tea...she welcomed Arnold's gaze with her eager heart...which `caused' Arnold to feel afraid...afraid he was on the brink of losing his.....freedom.  Arnold's freedom was the one note which always rang clearly in his life....and by this he meant his ability to feel complete....on his own. Freedom had always meant his ability to always relish <I>solitude......</I>but now he felt his ballast was disappearing....and he was being drawn out of his own orbit....but not by Molly...but by a force coursing through his <I>blood...</I>which was changing the wave-length on which his mind usually operated. And he couldn't just put it down to the <I>acid</I>. No, it was obvious that `his' life had...re-awakened....but not on the circuit he had so carefully cultivated over the last thirty years...or <I>if</I> his life had woken up on the old route...it must have immediately plunged into the nearby...mysterious river. River?  BLOOD! The medium through which Molly's mind felt exalted. He kept wondering when he should tell Molly that she was on an acid trip...but the dice kept telling him to keep quiet.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> Arnold's awkwardness was completely transparent to Molly....in fact she sympathised with his dilemma. She'd been caught on the same horns many times before she finally abandoned abstract painting. She'd been conning herself for years...but now she could only paint what <I>grabbed </I>her...and no more pissing about. </div> <bR> <div> That is what she had told herself whilst waiting for her latest crush to phone up and tell her if he was coming over....to fuck her...again? ( An Italian philosophy student who had done some nude modeling at the art college where she used to teach). Suddenly she had flared up into wild anger. Her life wasn't <I>real</I>. She was completely <I>split</I>. At home...in her studio there wasn't a nude to be seen....in fact no recognisable images anywhere...yet there she was <I>waiting for an image to appear.</I> She was continuously painting images of this bloke in <I>her mind</I>. Bloody <I>bimbo!</I>  This was exactly how her mother had destroyed her own life....driving round the States with her brakes on.</div> <bR> <div> <I>Bimbo</I>! Here I am, she had thought, ready and eager to <I>eat</I> the poor guy.  Ready to flesh out an off the peg fantasy. The fantasy was generated by a mechanism which she now suddenly saw very clearly.  It was her cut-off mechanism. And again, right here now with Arnold, she was using it to create an illusion of closeness. And this, even after she'd realised months back, that her abstract paintings performed the same function. Sure, on first seeing them, they looked like there was some<I> life</I> there...but she came to the terrifying conclusion that actually her abstract paintings sucked life out of the viewers...because actually all her paintings were examples of psychic <I>farming! </I>They didn't<I> </I>give<I> </I>but farmed the viewer's psychic energy.  She hadn't obeyed the impulse to destroy them, but she now knew that they were all images of a terrible <I>absence</I>. Every one...an image of <I>avoidance</I>. An image of `Being out to lunch'. Images of <I>hurt</I>. They were all totally <I>false</I>.</div> <bR> <bR> <div>  When she'd come to that...she'd felt an abyss opening up inside her. up to this point she'd been vacillating between plodding on with a <I>dead heart</I>.....or being dragged about....like a hungry animal...by sexual fantasies.  She'd felt totally <I>hollow</I>.....and contemplated taking a bottle of pills...or something....but she'd kept having the thought `what is this <I>abyss</I> I'm trying to avoid?' She didn't know what it was.....she only knew the <I>fear of it</I>.....and then.....she flashed!</div> <bR> <bR> <div> In one shot....she immediately understood the reality of fear. Everyone lives in fear..but everyone <I>believes</I> they have to conceal this fact from everyone else....and above all from their own<I> self</I>! At that point Molly took the phone off the hook.....calmly opened a tin of titanium white... and with a one inch brush wrote `My CONSCIOUSNESS IS FEAR. THE FEAR OF FEAR' across her most accomplished huge, maroon and blue abstract canvas. Under that she wrote `All my sexual fantasies are fueled by fear'. </div> <bR> <div> Right across another huge abstract canvass she wrote in big letters...`I'm afraid to be touched in my soul.' Then she cried out, " O God! Alberto...I'm <I>sorry</I>...to have used you in such a cheap way!  Even if you are a jerk!...I've not helped you but made you worse!" Then across another big abstract she scrawled  `This painting like my mind is DEAD, because I've been afraid to let LIFE control my imagination.'</div> <bR> <div> Though Molly had reminisced silently, Arnold nodded....feeling he was drifting into a vast Sargasso.</div> <div> "I 've been enmeshed in constructions of <I>avoidance</I>, Arnold.  Thought-forms born of concealed fear. I wrote `FEAR' across all my abstract paintings."</div> <bR> <div> "Really. What you painted the word 'fear' on all your paintings?"</div> <bR> <div> "Absolutely. I suddenly understood I was living in fear....and my paintings were attempting to conceal this truth. </div> <bR> <div> At that point I didn't know what the nature of fear actually <I>is</I>. Do you get me?"</div> <bR> <div> "Sure."</div> <bR> <div> "I could see that fear is <I>not</I> the abyss. My abyss was what fear could not grasp....It could imagine....the worst....but that, I could...at last see....was just another <I>form</I> of fear. I realised that fear is a program....like a computer program.....so I turned it off...and looked into the abyss...and of course discovered <I>it was the EXIT....</I>from the world I knew...so I walked through...and collapsed!"</div> <bR> <div> "What d'you mean.....literally?"</div> <bR> <div> "Yes..... in all ways.....it was like my soul became incredibly <I>clear</I> and suddenly very strong...but my body felt frazzled...dazed...very weird....like I wasn't <I>in it</I>...and as I said....I <I>crashed</I>.....and here I am.......feeling <I>weird...again."</I></div> <bR> <div> Arnold knelt beside Molly's slim naked waist, whilst holding his mug of tea with both hands. He decided to not throw the dice. He decided to make no decision. Immediately he felt deeply relaxed. He didn't need his old 'certainty'. His so called 'freedom' was in reality his adherence to his self-image. A fixation which set him up for endless conflicts. Now he felt blissed out....massaged by an impersonal vibrant energy. "Mind and body are the same," Arnold whispered seductively, "Two forms of one being....like the way light can be viewed as particles or waves."</div> <bR> <div> Molly....slowly sat up...and let her head rest lightly on Arnold's shoulder. Then she gently whispered,"Truth is <I>personal, </I>Arnold. There is no abstract truth. No impersonal viewpoint superior to my own..or yours. The idea of an impersonal God....or absolute viewpoint....is an expression of fear. Power. The evil black hole which sucks the personal life out of our souls. Thankyou for spiking me with the acid. It's <I>beautiful</I>."</div> <bR> <div> "When did you realise?"</div> <bR> <div> "When it came on...down by the river. I've tripped lots of times before....so I knew how to be calm. The hash helped me to be relaxed as I went up on the acid. I'm not goldilocks.....</div> <div> I'm not Molly either.....my real name is Gail....and I'd like to be spiked...again...but this time with your essence...please!"       <I> </I>     </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> (FROM TIM'S DIARY)</div> <div> Master said," Because you can perform different (psychic) activities....does not mean these activities stem from different locations. Because you assume you feel `bad' as a consequence of 'negative' thoughts....you <I>believe</I> you will feel <I>good</I> if you `hold' `loving' thoughts.</div> <div> Only when <I>by chance</I> one day you find yourself in a place of <I>no thought</I>....will you be able to be totally <I>relaxed</I>.  Then you'll know what feeling good really means....which will not mean that you have suddenly become morally good. The goodness you will feel is the beginning of real joy......health.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> Unless you are already <I>awake</I> to the real love vibration....which is omnipresent....any encounter with true cosmic consciousness will have a catastrophic effect upon you. You will automatically PING OUT into meaningless SPACE....like a crazed electron.....and find yourself whizzing about looking for an unstable molecule....a family which is desperate to stabilize. PLONK!  Soon you'll find yourself trying to convince the nucleus....mother/father of your cosmic consciousness insight! You'll end up whizzing round the whole agitated family trying to convince them they should all cluster round you. It will <I>never</I> work. And so eventually....somehow you'll break free of their magnetic bonding abilities.....and go off looking for another `opening'.....and keep repeating the same performance.....and what you'll be doing is imitating the ways of the virus which you profess to hate. Actually what you hate is your own empty electron existence which is always yearning to be magnetically <I>attractive</I>....like every heavy proton you come across. You'll want to be so attractive...thousands of particles (people)....will crave to gather round you. Tim, Master said very slowly, do you really think an empty, highly charged, envious electron can ever become a tranquil, centered, positive proton"?</div> <bR> <div> (END OF FAX TRANSMISSION)</div> <div>  </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> Thank God for candle-light....softness.  Sweet Molly.....I think Tim got going in that last bit.....but I wish he had been more interested in the action....the texture...colour....atmosphere.  I suppose I mean I wish he was a good writer...but there again Tim's Tim. I mean....does it mean that if one can't write as well as say...Salman Rushdie....then one shouldn't put anything down?  Anyway, despite a lack of literary brilliance....on the whole....I think Tim's writing has its value. </div> <div> And I'm aware that I can't write...as well as Tim. </div> <div> It's pitch dark again...outside. Another gale rattles the windows. The candle flame...like my mind....flickers rapidly. I could have said `nervously'....but would that have been an improvement? I don't know if I'm an electron or a proton? Or neither. Maybe I'm a neutron!</div> <bR> <div> This morning I walked to my post box in a gale and posted the letter to Mary...stating that I promised to publish Tim's novel in its entirety within twelve months of receiving the complete text. On my walk through snow and hail....I tried to remember the salient points and digest them. I can't recall who made the point that <I>digestion</I> of insights is the path of enlightenment. I've invented my own `ritual' to help accomplish this process. I suppose it's a part of meditation....going about my day very slowly....spending time in candle-light contemplating implications. Walking....that's a big part of it...it's like I can get it into my blood...if I think whilst I'm walking....even if it's only up and down inside my hut.</div> <bR> <div> Still, I haven't yet grasped why Tim, living in an extremely remote cave in the Himalayas with an immortal alchemist, should want to write about his sexual fantasies...unless the writing was a premonition of the time that Kate would arrive with his brother's twisted version of his work?  Maybe that's why the Master told him to publish it in the West....so we would have to face up to the fact that `the future' is in fact an old movie....which we unconsciously re-enact. It sounds plausible....but surely the Master didn't organise this entire saga so I would have to confront the notion that I am here in this remote hut....because I'm acting out a part from an old movie?  It seems so far fetched..but no more so than Simon's notion of The Big Bang. Putting those two notions together....I am living out an old movie which was first made in Harry Manic's universe....which means that a fragment of that exploded universe has entered my being....like a virus...and is <I>using my mind like a factory</I>....to produce <I>ideas</I>...which I'm putting into action....for <I>the benefit of the virus</I>. I'm being used to re-create the destroyed Harry Manic universe.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> On the other hand, I don't know as yet, whether the Master warned Tim of what was in store for him when he returned to the West.  I mean, The Master could have told him NOT TO GO. And is that what a Master is......someone who has mastered the Harry Manic virus? </div> <bR> <div> So the pivot of this crunch focusses on whether or not I....we....are aware or not of the <I>source</I> of the ideas which I....we....act on....or act out?  I think in my case....usually not. I can see how easily seduced I am. If the idea excites me I go for it. If it quells fear I go for it. If it makes me feel more <I>powerful</I> I go for it. If it brightens up the horizon I go for it. Why am I here in this hut on my own?  Because the idea of moving here arose in my mind....and I thought I loved solitude....so it was easy for the virus to move me here. And of course now that I'm deeply dug in....there's no way that I could now know where I would be now had I not followed `the voice' of the virus. So if all of this is true I'm well and truly.....<I>lost</I>!  Tim followed `the virus' and he lost his life.  Stuart followed `the virus' and he also lost his life. Joe followed `the virus' and he's banged up. Maybe Kate is the only one in this tale who's not lost.....since she's with The Master...who can <I>see</I> all the machinations of `the virus'.</div> <div> <I>BONG!!!</I></div> <div> Am I supposed to go now and find The Master?  Is this what this novel is all about? An invitation........from THE MASTER to visit him in the Himalayas?</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> "Frankly Phil darling, your guess is as good as mine. I probably vacillate as much as you over the aims of Tim's novel."</div> <div> This was the first time I'd heard from Mary for over a week. She said she'd been to see Joe and he was thrilled that I'd promised to publish Tim's novel. I'd asked her if she thought I was meant to go to India to see The Master, but she said the first priority was for me to read the whole work, and then edit and publish it. She thought by the end of reading the novel I would hold a different view on the matter.</div> <bR> <div> "You sound a bit dreary Mary, are you feeling O.K.?"</div> <bR> <div> "I'm <I>tired</I> darling. I've been doing a lot of driving....all over Britain...and I've just got the next installment ready to fax to you.  Your letter was sweet....but I'm not sure if it's the right time for us to meet....again.....yet."</div> <bR> <div> I knew she was going to say something like this. For the last week I've been in a complete <I>turmoil</I>. Without any more installments to think about I ended up thinking that Mary was purposely <I>torturing me</I>. Never before had my beautiful cabin seemed such a <I>prison</I>. My whole situation seemed <I>contrived and unreal</I>. Mary had been absolutely right. I'll never ever make it as a hermit. Lately I've felt a great ache to be with her.....and no sooner I'd admitted to my need for her..... she vanished...leaving me completely stranded in the wreckage of my ridiculous dreams. And the pain was amplified by the sudden arrival of Spring.  Every scraggy gorse bush has become a golden yellow <I>nightmare</I>.  Blue tits, longtail tits and chaffinches are everywhere mocking my condition. Nature jeers at my imagined need. No,worse, she ignores my imagined need, and gets on with her mating season.</div> <bR> <div> "Mary, I get the sense that you're power tripping me. No sooner I want to see you....you play hard to get."</div> <bR> <div> "What do you want to <I>see</I> me for Phil?"</div> <bR> <div> "I think you could transform my state of mind...and bring me into the human fold."</div> <bR> <div> "How do you think I could do that?"</div> <bR> <div> "By letting me love you."</div> <bR> <div> "You want me to be a substitute for your mother?"</div> <bR> <div> "No I don't want you to be a substitute for my mother....Mary. That wouldn't bring me into the human fold."</div> <bR> <div> "Are you sure you're <I>capable</I> of loving me Phil?  You seem to be frightened of real women."</div> <bR> <div> "I want the opportunity to learn how to love."</div> <bR> <div> "I don't know what you mean by <I>love</I> Phil.....but it sounds like you want a couple relationship...which I'm not into....because it doesn't provide the opportunity to overcome jealousy.  I agree with D.H. Lawrence when he wrote that women want to be preferred...not loved. If we met somewhere...in your hut or in a hotel....I would bring a girlfriend..... since you don't have one.  When I first phoned you...I was hoping that you were still hanging out with that marvelous <I>slut-goddess</I> Carol. I told you I'm bi-sexual Phil...so unless you're into being a part of a threesome with me...you can forget your so called <I>love</I> fantasy trip."</div> <bR> <div> "Have you got a girlfriend at the moment?"</div> <bR> <div> "I"ve received a proposition...from a horny chic I've not met <I>yet</I>...but will do <I>soon</I>. I answered her advert she put in a sex magazine...and this morning I received a red hot letter telling me what she's into...from her photo and what she says in her letter she's a filthy bitch. Do you want me to read you what she's written?"</div> <bR> <div> "No....I don't. I think that's between her and you."</div> <bR> <div> "So you're not interested in a threesome Phil?"</div> <bR> <div> "Put it this way, Mary. If you and I were making it together....and you wanted to bring a girlfriend into our relationship...I'd probably say 'O.K. let's try it...but I don't want to open myself up to you in a threesome situation."</div> <bR> <div> "But that's exactly the way we first got together in that ill-lit hotel."</div> <bR> <div> "No, the first time we got together....there was just you and me....in the loo at the Traverse."</div> <bR> <div> "True, Phil....darling. I'm sorry....am I being a bitch?"</div> <bR> <div> "Yes. You're playing with me like a cat with a mouse."</div> <bR> <div> "But if you weren't <I>behaving like a mouse</I> the bitch-cat in me wouldn't take control."</div> <bR> <div> "So I'm to blame for your sadistic expressions?  I don't buy that Mary. You're sadistic towards me because it turns you on.....but I'm not a masochist so I'm not into being <I>abused</I>....in any way. If you want to have an open loving relationship with me....you'll have to wake up to your manipulative power games. I'm not going to be sucked into that vortex."</div> <bR> <div> "I'm schizophrenic Phil. Maybe not clinically....but psychologically I'm about five or six different people.....and the truth is....I haven't got <I>any control</I> over <I>who</I> is in control  at any moment. I'm triggered by my reactions to events......and <I>especially</I> <I>to what people say....or more important... to how they say it</I>. That's <I>why</I> I've never been able to be with <I>one person</I> throughout my life....because no one could ever <I>satisfy</I> all my different selves. It's tragic...really....because I'm doomed to always feel <I>incomplete. </I>Even when I became pregnant twenty years ago....I only partly felt like an expectant mother. It was the same when I was bringing up my daughter....I only partly was <I>a mother</I>. Can you imagine what it's like Phil to never know who you're going to be at any moment?"</div> <bR> <div> "I don't think your condition is unusual Mary...it's just that you're more aware of it than most people. One of the reasons for me living here as a hermit....is I believed that through solitude....I would become <I>whole</I>.....but like you pointed out , how could I become whole when I was repressing large parts of my being?  I'm in a position now where I don't know which way to turn?"</div> <bR> <div> "We're on the same pleasure boat,honey....but I'm getting more pleasure from it than you. I'm going to <I>think over</I> this conversation...on my own...and try to come to some sort of decision about whether to see you on my own...or drop the whole thing."</div> <bR> <div> "What,drop the book as well?"</div> <bR> <div> "No, the fantasy about us making it together. I just don't know. I'm sorry for fucking you around Phil. I'll contact you again when my mind is <I>clear</I>. Look after your self darling. Bye!"</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> (NEXT FAX TRANSMISSION)</div> <div>                                                         </div> <bR> <div>                                                                  ELEVEN</div> <bR> <div> After Shanti and Simon left the Indian restaurant they went for a midnight swim in the crystal clear water of the Highland bay. Sure it was a trifle cold....but with the near full moon floating  right overhead no one  complained. `What does the concept of beauty actually signify?' thought Simon breaststroking his way towards the shore. "I think", he said later as they strolled through the old pine forest towards the Ashram, "that each one of us is given a question by The Great Spirit....like for instance Socrates' question might have been 'if beauty depends on Truth.....what is Truth?' I'd been wondering what my question is.......when it struck me.....as Lance's coffin disappeared into the furnace.....that we <I>all</I> are called upon to answer a preliminary question before we are <I>given</I> our own particular line to develop....and of course the first question is `what does it mean to be a real person?' "                                                                                                                                                                              </div> <bR> <div> They walked silently....along the moonlit wet mossypath....for a long time.....then Shanti said, "you don't mean we have to be able to explain what the word means?"</div> <bR> <div>  Simon felt disappointed at Shanti's lack of depth....as he saw it. He didn't know whether to pursue the point or not?  After another long silence in which every now and then an old pine could be heard groaning as its branches rubbed another in the dark....Simon said, "when the soul heeds this preliminary question.....it becomes <I>aligned</I> to its source. Through this alignment it real-Ises itself as a unique person." </div> <bR> <div> "Wouldn't this mean", asked Shanti emphasizing her enticing Irish accent, "that the question would cause me to move out of my natural unfocused condition into a focused one.....and so I'd be in no position to be touched by the fresh Spirit?" </div> <bR> <div> "In a way you're right....but it's a stage in the learning process. A soul has to come out of the unfocused condition in order to <I>be</I> a real person. That's the point. Being a real person entails a lot of <I>work</I>. I'm afraid so Shanti....the work of being focused on the needs of the suffering whirld....but a real person <I>can</I> focus without losing touch with the Spirit....without forgetting his or her unfocused condition. In a way being a real person is a service to the evolution of humanity. A difficult....yet joyful service. I mean....like right now".....Simon leant against the old wooden gate they were about to clamber over...."we could <I>not</I> go back to the Ashram and just space out....and let Nirvana gather us up into its magical loft....but as we both know there's work to be done. We're here to create Heaven on Earth. Heaven on Earth Shanti....that's the <I>task</I>!"  </div> <bR> <div> "Maybe," Shanti drawled holding Simon's cold hand and looking through his `gold' rimmed glasses at his bright eyes. "Maybe that's <I>your</I> personal question Simon, `how can <I>you</I> create Heaven on Earth?' "</div> <bR> <div> Simon was jolted......and sensed Shanti was moving away......no, <I>had moved away</I>      onto a different wavelength. "I think",Shanti added climbing the gate, "I prefer paradise to Heaven. Every heaven that's ever been created.....casts a terrible shadow where millions suffer in <I>hell</I>. They pay with their <I>life</I>.....to keep the heaven going for the chosen few. No, I'm not in on this project of yours Simon. I'm sorry."  </div> <bR> <div>  "Blimey Shanti......what are you talking about?  The heaven <I>I'm</I> talking about can only be created out of paradise. It's not going to destroy paradise......that is the foundation of this Ashram.....it's a subtle circle drawn around a remaining slice of paradise....given to me by The Spirit....to develop."</div> <bR> <div> "Development <I>is</I> the whole fucking problem on our planet...mister!  Every poor sod's mind is focused on different <I>ideas</I> of what development means. It's chaos. Mother Earth was much more healthy before stupid bastards <I>like us</I> started developing it.....don't you <I>see</I> that....professor?"</div> <bR> <div> That was <I>it</I>!  Arnold's got to her whilst I've been at the funeral.  Simon was about to ask why she was <I>insulting</I> him when he decided to keep quiet....as if he hadn't noticed it was a put-down. "Look," Simon <I>barked</I>....then softened his approach and added, "I can't <I>control</I>  what's going on out there. It's madness out there...(soldiers at Heathrow )....but <I>we've</I> got a chance to do something with the little bit of paradise that's left....which we've been given. This Ashram is like a single healthy cell in the body of the world which is suffering with rampant <I>cancer</I>. <I>If</I> we can develop this cell...we might....spark off a healing process to the whole Earth!" </div> <bR> <div> "O.K...O reverend Monk....so what do you consider is the difference between paradise and heaven?" </div> <bR> <div> "In paradise," said Simon whilst climbing over the gate and catching up with Shanti, "Humans are unaware of their minds. They feel as if they're in a large <I>womb.</I> They don't <I>think</I> for themselves. They haven't yet discerned the preliminary question. Their minds are<I> passive</I> to circumstances. They do not focus on events from an individual position but from a group mind....like a flock of birds."</div> <bR> <div> "It sounds positively heavenly....professor."</div> <bR> <div> "But it's <I>not</I>...and you're taking the piss. It's <I>innocent</I>....yes....but it's intellectually <I>nowhere</I>. Unborn. Asleep. Uncreative. Heaven Shanti....is paradise developed.....into a consciousness event."                                                                                  </div> <bR> <div>  "Your words....leave me <I>cold</I> Simon. Stop preaching high falutin <I>ideals</I> at me. People are killed....even by their lovers........to safeguard so called spiritual ideals!"<I> </I>  </div> <bR> <div>  "The alternative to creating heaven is creating hell, Shanti. Hell is produced by mechanical routines which require nothing but calculation and spiritual mindlessness. If you want to interface with the whirld of today you've got to be an <I>insensitive lying calculator!" </I></div> <bR> <div> "Stop fucking accusing me for being something that I'm not. I hate your fucking dry language!"</div> <bR> <div> "I think that the whirld which you seem to want to belong to.....is nothing but a consequence of the urge to exist without any relationship to <I>truth....to Spirit....to love....to God."</I></div> <bR> <div> "And <I>why</I> do the poor suckers who inhabit the <I>whirld</I> think that avoiding the Spirit....is a better bet?"</div> <bR> <div> Simon felt.....?.....deflated....as he crossed the deep rumbling gorge....walking very, very slowly on the narrow wooden bridge he and Pete had built twenty years ago. The forty foot long construction was almost as primitive as the old Himalayan rope bridges Simon remembered from his walking holiday in India twenty-five years away in the distance. It amazed him that the pine poles lashed together with fencing wire still did the job. The moonlight failed to reach the bottom of the gorge so the rumbling burn could not be seen. When Simon at last spoke he made no attempt to hide his feeling of intense irritation. "Shanti, you know as well as I do, that hell has been created as a consequence of an endless series of faulty evaluations of human needs. It's not difficult to see why most humans have withdrawn their allegiance to the Church. People were fed up with the humbug and sought freedom.....away from "God" and the so called "Holy Spirit"."</div> <bR> <div> "Yeah, brother, yeah!" jeered Shanti jumping down from a grey water-sculpted boulder lit up by the bright moon. "And it's because God and the Holy Spirit represent <I>deadness......dullness....claustrophobia to most people</I>."                                  </div> <bR> <div>  "For God's sake Shanti...<I>I know that</I>! But do these freedom seekers real-eyes that the fault lies <I>not in the concepts</I>.......but in the way these concepts have been transmitted by phony....hypocrites?  No, of course they don't! And why is this?        Because these so-called "freedom seekers" are just as bad as the clergy they despise. Only a very, very few individuals outside the Church....have bothered to explore the implications of these religious concepts. It's the same with the ashram....it doesn't mean its purpose is false if hardly anyone out of the hundreds who have been here....actually bother to give birth to their real Self."</div> <bR> <div> "I s'pose not."</div> <bR> <div> "You sound.....<I>very</I> <I>flat.</I>"</div> <bR> <div> "I <I>feel very flat</I>"</div> <bR> <div> "Why?"</div> <bR> <div> "I don't know......maybe I haven't been exploring enough recently."</div> <bR> <div> "Yeah....exploring is <I>the</I> open way of freedom. Not <I>to</I> freedom. You need to feel free...to begin."</div> <bR> <div> "I don't know what you mean?"</div> <bR> <div> "It means being without fear of <I>death</I>......because I've realised that what is questioning me.....is the dimension of death."</div> <bR> <div> "You're <I>losing me</I> Simon," Shanti muttered kicking a fir cone and wondering where she would go when she left The Ashram?</div> <bR> <div> "Look Shanti....most people....who I've met think they have <I>needs</I> which require solutions. They talk of their<I> needs </I>as if they were irritants....to be got rid of....as quickly as possible.....whereas I think the energy spent on fulfilling needs.....in order to <I>not have them</I>.....could be far better spent on inquiring into the source of these <I>imagined</I> needs."</div> <bR> <div> "O.K. Simon. Give me an example?" Shanti immediately wished she hadn't said that. Now she'd get a lecture. He wasn't a professor. He'd become <I>worse</I>. A bloody politician.....immersed in cant....and she felt fed up....not being able to imagine how he was ever going to get out of his self-made trap.....especially since his sexuality had...as far as she was concerned...disappeared!  In her heart he'd become nothing else but a fucking nagging <I>bore</I>.</div> <bR> <div> "Look Shanti.....say.....as an example.....you think you have the need for self-validation. You could <I>waste</I> all your life-energy trying to gain this support.....or you could inquire into <I>why</I> you believe you need this self-validation?"</div> <bR> <div> "Don't you realise that everyone in the Ashram is seeking validation.....from <I>you</I>?"</div> <bR> <div> "Of course I do...but they're never going to get it!"</div> <bR> <div> "Are you <I>sure</I> you make this clear to everyone when they first arrive here?  Are you sure you don't feed that hope at the very beginning?"</div> <bR> <div> "I don't understand what you're up to Shanti?  You seem to have lost the plot. What's been going on whilst I've been away?"</div> <bR> <div>  They were now only a hundred yards away from the Ashram. The crow's nest of the teepee could be seen in the cold light.....and drifting smoke could be seen rising from The Hall and some of the circle of benders.</div> <div> "Arnold's left," Shanti said very quietly whilst examining Simon's <I>boyish</I> face. He looked so.....out of place.</div> <bR> <div> "That's a pity.......I was hoping he and I could sort out our differences. What did he say?" </div> <bR> <div> "Not a lot....but he's taken away something......with him!  A rare quality....of quietness....like he has a link to real <I>beauty</I>."</div> <bR> <div> "He's got a powerful <I>presence</I>. That's for sure."</div> <bR> <div> "So Molly discovered."</div> <div> .</div> <div> "I thought she'd fall for him," said Simon feeling <I>loss</I> eating into his heart.</div> <bR> <div> "Actually I think she's risen.....from the dead....idea she had of her future."</div> <bR> <div> "So...where's she now?"</div> <bR> <div> "I don't know....they left together."</div> <bR> <div> "My God! What's going on?"</div> <bR> <div> "Maybe you'll find out when you've given birth to <I>your real Self</I> SIMON!"</div> <bR> <div> "That sounded very <I>hard and mean</I>!  What's happening to you Shanti?"</div> <bR> <div> "I don't know Simon. I've lost interest in feeding your project. It's actually been sapping me of my </div> <div> potential to live my own life.....so....I'm also <I>leaving</I>."</div> <bR> <div> "Shanti <I>you CANT!</I> Shanti! Shanti! Shanti!"</div> <bR> <bR> <div> When the yogi has realised Atman.......which is his True Self....birthless and beyond the range of the mind and emotions...then the karmas no longer touch him. He may perform the rituals or leave them. To him it is all one.</div> <bR> <div> Atman realised is the master of creation.....eternal.....indestructible.....formless.....without dimensions....absolutely independent.......without pleasure.....or pain......full of all powers.</div> <bR> <div>             (END OF FAX TRANSMISSION)                                    </div> </td> </tr></table></body>