It seems like a long time since my last blog post, so I thought it was about time I got my fingers tapping again. I have been struggling with my energy levels again lately so it has made concentration difficult, and therefore made writing nigh-on impossible. But I’m here now, and I thought I would use a personal experience from years ago as a kind of parable in order to illustrate a spiritual concept.

I grew up in a place called Harringay in North London and my street was very close to the old Harringay Stadium, where as a kid my older brother would take me to watch Stock Car (Banger) racing. Alas, the old stadium was raised to the ground many years ago and replaced, I believe, by a shopping centre. But I remember one day, many years ago, being down on the High Street and seeing a couple of Red Indians on motor scooters heading along the road and into the stadium. I couldn’t believe it! My tender young mind was telling me that Red Indians didn’t exist today (they had all been butchered by the cowboys) and certainly not in Harringay.

I went running home as fast as my little legs would take me, and burst into the house announcing with great excitement that I had seen Red Indians on motor scooters heading into Harringay Stadium. My heart sank when my dad accused me of making it up, and my mum didn’t believe me either. No matter how vigorously I argued my case, my father especially, was unmoved. I remember being deeply hurt by that because I knew I wasn’t lying.

It later transpired that there was a carnival and that I had indeed seen some men dressed as Red Indians heading into the stadium, albeit that they were not the real thing.

The spiritual message in this little story is that we all view the word from our own eyes, we all see different things; yet we are all always right from our own perspective. I had told the truth, but so had my dad in denying me. Yet not only were we both right, we were both technically wrong.

In the world that we can see, all is nothing but illusion; a play of the mind. Yet at the same time it is a temporary reality that we have created for ourselves; thus seemingly real. Even though I was but a child my senses picked up the information from the external world (the indians on scooters) and fed it to my mind. My mind then drew a series of conclusions from that information. When I was accused of lying after expressing those conclusions my ego then caused me to experience great pain. So I suffered because of something that didn’t really exist. This just about sums up how most people live their lives within this dimension.

Reality can change by the second, but Truth is eternal and changeless. By looking beyond the surface and delving into that great ocean of divinity we will find our truth; that which passes all understanding and delivers to us a state of bliss. Whilst it’s also a fact that reality can be enjoyable and exciting, it can also be very painful; this is the nature of the human experience.