I’ve been getting exactly what I’ve wished for for some time now. maybe I always have, it’s just that in the last couple of years I’m starting to recognise how my dreams are coming true. There is a saying, something about ‘be careful what you wish for’ – good advice, for what we wish for will come to be.

This may sound astonishing and to some incredibly naive – new-agey in the extreme, but I am coming to know it as true. I think what has happened is that in the last couple of years I am paying more attention to what it is I am actually seeking.

I spent years, over a decade I’m sure, writing notes, plans, lists of goals, objectives, dreams and desires. Maybe this was an important stage, I don’t know, but in the last few years there have been very few lists and plans. instead I guess there has been quiet contemplation, a non-hurried processional approach to realising what it I want. Within this contemplative process there has been a combination of meditation and praxis, reflection and action.

As I have pondered, I have acted, so that what I want has come into greater focus and has become more real simultaneously. Another saying comes to mind – ‘it won’t happen overnight, but it will happen’. Lately it has often seemed like just when I am about to act in a way that will lead me away from my dreams something happens that makes me realise that I have been moving towards them for some time already.

don’t lose faith

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

The freedom that is gained through realising that life is not a stage. There is no audience, there are no parts. Life is a one-man show played to an empty room.

The freedom that is gained when we no longer wait for the applause. Life is not a performance, it is a self-indulgent dream.

The freedom that comes with the knowing that life is no more, or less precious that death. What is only exists, because of what isn’t.

The freedom that awakens when we no longer care about what others think or say, or feel. When we understand that no one can hurt us more that we can hurt ourselves.

The freedom that is found through the abandonment of being, and the dissolution of self.

The freedom that comes from knowing that we no longer wish to be what we were, or what we aren’t.

The freedom that appears once we disappear.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

‘There is a saying in …  in my country’.  He hesitated to describe ‘his’ country in this way; as his, as ‘mine’, as if he owned it, possessed it. It was so commonplace he knew to use such words; no one thought twice about it, or so it seemed. It seemed like he was the only one who choked on these little words. Nevertheless he continued.

‘What is important? It is the people, only the people, always the people.’ He looked around, as if sad, as if elsewhere. ‘I never really understood what it meant until now. Now I know.  All that is important, all that remains, all that makes something what it is; whatever it is, are the people. There is nothing else.’

‘Your country? Adam jumped in excitedly, thinking that there was a chance to find out more about this stranger. ‘Where exactly is your country?’

He looked at Adam squarely, the ubiquitous half-smile on his face. ‘I don’t have a country. There is no place that belongs to me, there is no land, no place that is mine.  So there is no ‘my country’. Its a possessive adjective, that’s what it is. It denotes how something belongs to someone’.

Oh no, not another English lesson!

No, just a personal idiosyncracy. There are a bunch of English words that I don’t particularly like using. Well, most actually, but there are some in particular that stick in my throat. ‘Have’ and ‘have got’, and ‘have to’ for that matter.

‘And should’ I added helpfully.

‘And ‘but’, although I do seem to be using that one a bit more lately. Not too sure why that is.

Because you have been away from us my friend.

This is true. I have, and now I’m back. We are back together.

‘But…’ I paused to make sure he was aware of the word, ‘for how long?’

The half-smile remained on his face as he answered, ‘I don’t know. I never know’.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x

Making the most of it I try to string together words to make some shared meaning, to try and communicate my feelings to you. Why does this seem to plague me so much? It haunts me, a floating sceptre hovering behind my rationality; always there.

And yet not. On examination there is nothing there. This is madness.  No question. Not the madness of manic antics, of deep holes and commanding voices, but the madness of knowing. The insanity of knowing too much, knowing that none of what we do makes sense. The more I try, the more confused I become, the further I take myself away from my centre of peace.

I am distracted and in being so I have forgotten why I entered the room. Now as I gaze at the still blank faces I know. I know I am not alone in this madness. Thankfully there are others congregated here who feel the disjuncture.

x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x