Eyesight To The Blind – Extracts 2

Posted on April 24, 2018 by Author Richard F Holmes

I’m now nearing the completion of my manuscript. 21 chapters written, but just a few little additions before the book is finished. Here is another little snippet to whet your appetite!

I think the utter craziness of my life can be summed up via the events of the two trips to Copenhagen I made back in 2004. It first came about because I was working one night at a spiritualist church in Oxfordshire; this was during July 2003 before I moved to Wales. There was a Danish lady, Annie, in the congregation whose company had an office in Oxford and she was temporarily assigned to that office. She approached me after the event and asked if I could go to her house and do some private work. We arranged a date, and one Saturday morning I ventured over to Oxford. We ended up doing meditation and healing, as well as the private reading. She asked if I could do the same for a friend who would be visiting, and we arranged that I would go back within the coming weeks. The ladies explained that they had engaged the services, on many occasions, of a lady medium from England to go to Copenhagen and carry out private readings etc. At the time this sort of thing wasn’t very common in Denmark. They went on to explain that the lady was now getting older and she found it quite difficult to make the trip, so would I be interested in going. I didn’t need asking twice, and it was arranged that I would go to Copenhagen during the first week of March 2004; you may recall my snow shenanigans? Well, I made the second journey roughly six weeks later. Annie was back in Denmark by this time and I stayed in the basement flat of her amazing house for the duration of both trips.

The crazy thing was that I was just a bloke who was technically homeless (I had to leave the Court of Circles and at this point there was no caravan in place at Keith’s mum and step-dad’s place) and I virtually didn’t have a bean to my name. Many of my clients in Copenhagen however, lived in a world that I could only dream of. One man owned a management training company and a publishing company. Annie’s friend, who I did the reading for, had some sort of high-powered job and another lady was a director of one of the largest recruitment consultancies in Denmark. During a break in the workshop I ran during my first trip, I was chatting to a lady who casually informed me that she was a lawyer at the EU Headquarters in Brussels, and her day job was as a lobbyist at the Court of Human Rights AND, she had come home specially for the weekend so that she could attend my workshop with her mother. Annie herself was a director of a big company and has extensive experience in clinical Oncology. She has since changed jobs, but to give you an idea of the kind of work she does, during my second trip, she got up one morning at “silly o’clock”, drove to Copenhagen Airport and caught a flight to London Heathrow. She then got a taxi to Oxford and attended a two-hour meeting; after which, she took a taxi back to Heathrow and caught a flight to Copenhagen. She got back home at 11:00pm that night; and these people were coming to ME for guidance? You most certainly couldn’t make it up. To quote Madness, it was..well.. “Madness”.

Ghost Driver

Posted on April 16, 2018 by Author Richard F Holmes

Well, I almost completely forgot about this little item that I wanted to share with you. A combination of trying to manage my Chronic Fatigue and working on the book are the reasons for this. Oh, by the way, I’m now on chapter 20 and I think that 21 will just about finish it off. As you may probably recall, I used the “Who Am I?” series of posts as a blueprint for the book, but I didn’t realise how bad some of my writing was in those posts until I started working on the main project, sorry about that peeps! As things stand we are still looking at a June release for Eyesight To The Blind, but I’m not going to rush this one, so if it turns out be later; then so be it.

Anyway, back to the main subject of this post. It concerns my ordination day. The venue at Stoke Gifford was a spiritualist church that I’d served for a few years. But due to the church changing hands, closing and then opening again, it must have been a good ten years since I’d been there. Me being me, I had an idea in my head as to where the venue was, but I didn’t bother to refresh my memory before the big day came. As a result of my very typical behaviour, it wasn’t until I left the M4 motorway and was driving down the exit road to the traffic lights and roundabout, that I realised that I couldn’t remember if I took the left or right-hand lane. Certain indicators told me that I took the right-hand lane; that part of my memory returned, but as I approached the roundabout I then realised that there was something akin to a “spaghetti junction” of lanes going around the aforementioned roundabout, and I simply didn’t have a clue which one I was meant to take.

I pointed the car in the general direction of “in front” as I drove onto the roundabout and its four traffic lanes. At some point the lanes split into 2 x 2, as opposed to 1 x 4, and at the point where they split they were separated by a stretch of tarmac clearly marked as a “no, no” for motorists to drive over. If you were in the wrong lane, tough! You had to go all the way round the roundabout again and have another go at getting it right. I realised that I didn’t have a clue where I was going, and then I noticed I was indeed in the wrong lane. As my car then drove over the area of tarmac which was not for driving over, I realised that even though my hands were on the steering wheel, it wasn’t me that was driving the car; a higher power just seemed to take over.

As the car changed lanes I expected to hear other motorists tooting their horns like crazy at me. But when I glanced around, there was not one single car to be seen anywhere; I had the roundabout all to myself. I was then further relieved when I looked up to see a signpost that said, “Stoke Gifford”. Great! At least I was on the right track.

Then it occurred to me that in the years since I’d driven this way, there had been major changes to the road layout, and Stoke Gifford wasn’t exactly prominently signposted. It was dark anyway, which didn’t help, but I really didn’t have a clue. Every time I came to a junction or roundabout the car just automatically took the right route. It was only when I saw a familiar landmark that I seemed to have the wheel again, and I arrived at my destination with plenty of time to spare.

Incredible as it seems… I wasn’t even surprised…

Eyesight To The Blind – Extracts

Posted on April 10, 2018 by Author Richard F Holmes

The draught for my latest book is coming along nicely. I’m currently working on Chapter Nineteen; I estimate that there will be another three or four. I thought it would be a good idea to give you a sneak peek, so here is an extract from Chapter Eighteen:

There was one little incident of note that is worth sharing with you here. The business of “surrender” is something that I know a lot of people struggle with. In an ideal world, we would all love to surrender unconditionally to the Divine, and just lay back and bask in all the rewards. But in practise, it’s quite difficult. However, during my visit to Sai in 2010, I experienced first hand that when you surrender to God, nothing can harm you. Every day after darshan, devotees, if they wish, can pass through the Mandir. It’s one of those things about Prashanthi that can be quite frustrating, because on one hand, it is an amazing experience to behold the interior of the temple. But on the other hand, you are ushered through so quickly by the seva dals that you don’t even have time to blink. The knack is to understand that all is just Swami’s play, and as grand as the inner temple is, it is only matter and will one day exist in a different form; also, it helps to remind ourselves that all frustrations are simply egoic and the result of thwarted desires.

So, the protocol is that after darshan, those wishing to file through the temple form an “orderly” queue starting from the front of the dais. At some point the seva dals give the signal to move, and devotees step up onto the dais and file through the temple and out again. On this particular day the crowds were so vast that I didn’t even think about trying to get close to Swami, I just sat somewhere towards the back of the hall where I could be as comfortable as possible. After darshan I continued to sit and soak up the God-man’s vibrations. As I did so the queue for the temple had grown so long due to the hoards, that it was now continuing to form where I was sitting and further on towards the back. I just sat there with my eyes closed basking in Swami’s love as chaos ensued around me. I was then aware of people falling on top of me.

I felt that basking in Swami’s love was more important than avoiding being crushed, and decided that I would just surrender myself to him. At that point I felt myself sliding along the concrete floor. I opened my eyes to see an Indian man with a look of horror on his face as he held my arm. He’d seen the people falling on me and dragged me away. He’d leapt into action; rather like Superman, the only difference was that he wasn’t wearing his underpants outside his trousers. I smiled and thanked him; it was a very smooth ride.

A typical darshan in Sai Kulwant Hall

What’s Ricky Doing?

Posted on April 3, 2018 by Author Richard F Holmes

Hi good people. Thought I would check in with you and update you on what’s happening. I’ve been quiet on the blog post front because I’m working on my book, Eyesight To The Blind, at the moment. I’m just putting the finishing touches to Chapter Eighteen, and I estimate there will be another 4-5 chapters. As things stand, I am looking at a launch some time in June this year.

I couldn’t communicate with you without sharing a beautiful spiritual insight that I came across recently. Hope you enjoy it:

Empty Sky

Like the empty sky it has no boundaries, yet it is right in this place, ever profound and clear. When you seek to know it, you cannot see it. You cannot take hold of it, but you cannot lose it. In not being able to get it, you get it. When you are silent it speaks; when you speak, it is silent. The great gate is wide open to bestow alms, and no crowd is blocking the way – Osho