On the train heading for Glasgow I raised a subject I’d read about the day before. “Is your church-going a substitute for Christianity?” My wife looked puzzled so I explained. “It’s about folk who claim to be Christian because they go to church every Sunday but don’t actually lead very Christian lives the other six days of the week.”
In a nameless fishing village on the shores of a nameless sea, there lived a young boy whose joy it was to run up and down the beach, collecting pebbles and shells. At the end of each day, he would keep only the most beautiful of those he had collected, and bring them back to his secret place in the village – an old cellar beneath the ruins of a hut swept away by a long forgotten flood. There he polished them with bits of cloth and ribbon he had scavenged from his mother’s sewing….
The light jazz fades behind me as the sound of rushing air reaches my ears. I’ve just walked out of the coffee shop, one hand trying to hold onto the plastic cup just a little too hot to handle, the other keeping the door from slamming.
Nothing to see here, just trying to balance all the things I’m carrying as I step out into the bright sun. I’d reach a hand up to shield my eyes but something would have to fall. So I blink, as the sun warms the tops of my eyelids…
I frequently found myself alone but I never recall being bored. The simplest things formed the basis for imaginative games or fantastic adventures that took place in my mind. The physical pain would very quickly be blotted out by distractions of my making. So would any thoughts of further sadness or hurt. I could not or would not focus on it. It was quite literally like a light switch.
Imprisoned in my room I felt safest…
“We are all connected to the Earth,” she was saying, pushing the bead-adorned braids away from my face, then letting her hands rest on my shoulders. I listened, mostly because her mouth was beautiful, hearing her roll over the words in her native tongue was like music. I listened because the light touch of her fingers on my bare collarbone was somehow intense and exciting, yet at the same time comforting.
I must have been silent too long, because she…
A certain man believed that the ordinary waking life, as people know it, could not possibly be complete. He sought the real Teacher of the Age. He read many books and joined many circles, and he heard the words and witnessed the deeds of one master after another. He carried out the commands and spiritual exercises which seemed to him to be most attractive.
He became elated with some of his experiences. At other times he was confused; and he had no idea at all of what his stage was…
