I love that expression, “a right cockney barrel of monkeys”.  For the uninitiated it refers to a can of worms or something complex and baffling.  I heard it for the first time on the Fast Show when they were doing a spoof of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

I thought it would make a good title for a blog post as I’m going to write about a dream/experience I had a few mornings ago that left me scratching my head.

Quite often my dreams take me back to periods in my life that were quite significant for me in terms of learning and life experience etc.  So quite often I am dreaming away when I suddenly realize I’m either back in the army, working for NAAFI or working for the Royal Mail.  Each time I know I’m there but the surroundings are completely alien; but I suppose that’s dreams for you!  Anyway, the other morning I had a really strange one.  I was back working for NAAFI, but for some reason, I was living in a military style dormitory.  I had been away somewhere and when I came back someone had taken my bed space.  But not only that, the dormitory had grown and had become a huge web of dormitories all lumped together.  Also, the individual dormitories had grown bigger and had loads and loads of beds all shoved up against each other.

My bed space had been taken by a very tall Indian man.  He was so tall he must have been twice my size, and I was looking up at him asking him if he knew where my things where.  He acted as if he didn’t want to acknowledge me; just looking at me and looking away again with a kind of subtle contempt.  I remember saying something like “hey, I don’t want the bed back, I just want to know where my things are”.  It was at this point that things got interesting.  I woke up but continued to lay in bed with my eyes closed.

All of a sudden (as happens from time to time in these situations) my brow chakra became illuminated and I could see a larger than life character right there within my third eye.  The best description I could give is that he reminded me of a throw back from a sixties soft-rock band, such as CSN&Y, who reform 100 years later and look old up on stage.  They still have long flowing hair but it’s all grey.  He looked as though he was driving a truck whilst singing or chatting away to himself.  What was strange was that his body language suggested that he was indeed behind the wheel of a truck, but I could see no steering wheel and no cab.  Suddenly I felt something being placed in my hand; and this left me in a bit of a predicament.  It felt oval-shaped, like a bar of soap, but if my feelings were correct and I was having an astral experience, I didn’t want to try to move or open my eyes because I knew I would simply be back in my body and it would be all over.  But, on the other hand, because of the way I was lying, and where my hand was situated, I wasn’t able to use my inner vision either in order to see exactly what it was.  It was quite amazing really; there I was laying in bed holding something oval-shaped that had simply been placed in my hand.  By now my friend had disappeared from my brow chakra and before you could say “right cockney barrel of monkeys” it was all over.

The object didn’t actually feel like soap but that is what sprang to mind because of the shape.  Having said that there is something else that is oval-shaped and is spiritually very significant; a lingham!  Linghams are significant because they are symbolic of the eternal indwelling spirit that has no beginning and no end; hence the oval shape.  When Sai Baba was still in his body he would materialize Linga on Maha Shivaratri; a very auspicious and important day in the Hindu calendar.  They would form in his stomach from the metals naturally present within his body and he would bring them up and out of his mouth.  Some of the Linga were very large in comparison to his tiny frame.  He would also sometimes materialize them from thin air (see video below).

I suppose I will never truly know what it was that was placed in my hand.  I would like to think it was a lingham.  But then again the whole episode could have been nothing more than a right cockney barrel of monkeys!