The Secret of Life

The Oneness Temple

I've written previously here at The Secret Of Life about Deeksha or Oneness Blessing, the transfer of energy which I've been receiving for about two and a half years now and which I believe has had a remarkable effect on my spiritual development. The aim of Deeksha is to facilitate the shift in human consciousness which many of us believe - or at any rate, hope! - is almost upon us. Deeksha works not by creating the shift - which is going to happen anyway - but by helping the brain to attune to the transformation.

Now, at the Oneness Movement's HQ in southern India, a new project is coming to fruition. The Oneness Temple is a vast structure which is 108 feet high, stands on a 42 acre plot, and contains the largest pillarless hall in Asia. It is not dedicated to any particular religion but to 'the one divine presence which is everywhere'. After many years of work, it has now been completed and is being consecrated tomorrow. Built on an intersection of ley lines, the temple is intended to act as a spiritual 'power house'. The idea is that all times, eight thousand enlightened people will be meditating in the great hall, radiating their consciousness throughout the planet, facilitating the change.

This information may produce a wide range of reactions: awe, joy, curiosity, skepticism... For myself, I look at the state of the world and see how much we need such a transformation. How else are we to find a way forward? I can only be grateful for such a project. I shall be open to whatever it may bring.

Please see my Spirituality Links page for information on Deeksha-related sites.

The 'Left Brain - Right Brain' Dancer

One of my Deeksha givers, Ed Harpin, forwarded me some information on last week's lunar eclipse:

"During these times, people can tend to be more emotionally expressive. Often untruths can come to the surface and whatever part of our lives is not in sync with our life's purpose can show the most change. Old realities crumble away, and there is a feeling of freedom as we let go of the past and take a step into the new, the fresh, and the magical unknown."

This turned out to be very true in my case! Last week, over two days, I was due to attend meetings on three separate projects, none of which I wanted to be involved with. They were things I had taken on because I thought I 'should'. But there are times when something just has to give, and this was one of them. I got so stressed out with everything, I almost ground to a halt altogether. I really didn't want to be doing these things and I couldn't pretend otherwise any longer. Changes had to be made. So I've managed to get rid of two of the projects and I'm working on dumping the third. These were worthy enough endeavors but they didn't really need me - and I certainly didn't need them.

In one of my responses to the comments on my previous post, I wrote: "it's like my underlying 'program' still isn't reading my blog" - and last week brought it home to me how true this has been. Way back in January of last year, I wrote here: "in our present state, it is as though we are all carrying an enormous statue of ourselves on our shoulders, a statue which we believe is of enormous interest to everyone else around us, all of whom are constantly studying the statue and seeking to identify some deficiency in it". I went on to point out that this isn't actually true, but that it is a deeply ingrained misapprehension which most of us have: we are so preoccupied with the face we present to the world.

And yet here I am, all this time later, still seeking validation for what I am doing: still judging each day in terms of its achievements instead of simply Being. As my Mentor-in-Chief, Sue Ann, has been telling me on her blog: "we're all busy seeking a sense of validation from the world outside of us, instead of recognizing the substance of what's within us". Well, last week showed me that the time has come for me to make that change. I've written about my need to reduce my level of stress. I had intended that this would start in April, when I visit the clinic in London (as I explained in the previous post). But it's going to have to start now.

I don't think it's a coincidence that my computer problem has slowed down my blogging, because The Secret Of Life is going to have to change too. Or - to put it more accurately - my attitude to this blog is going to have to change. I'm going to spend less time worrying about sticking to a 'regular' schedule and less time checking the Stats. I'm going to write when I feel the need to write and trust that whoever needs to read what I've written will duly find it. If you would like to be one of those readers, that'll be great - it may help to put me on one of your favorites lists so you can check when I've posted. And who knows? You may not even notice much difference here - it'll be me that's changed.

So under the circumstances, I make no apologies for the fact that I still haven't finished those posts on 'the ultimate truth' which I mentioned last time. But ultimate truths always take a bit longer than ordinary truths, after all. And in the meantime, here's an interesting video. Look at it for a while and see what you see:

I don't know how this thing works. It originally came in an email - forwarded,  synchronistically enough, by another of our growing band of local Deeksha givers, Heidi Fawkes. It came as a GIF file and it looked fine in image viewing software but when I tried to post it, the motion mysteriously disappeared. So I managed to find this You Tube version instead. Here's the text that came with the original email:

If you see this lady turning clockwise, you are using your right brain. If you see it the other way, you are using your left brain. Some people do see both ways, but most people see it only one way.

If you try to see it the other way and you do see, your IQ is above 160, which is almost a genius. Then see if you can make her go one way and then the other by shifting the brain's current.

Both directions can be seen! This was proved at Yale University over a 5 year study on the human brain and its functions. Only 14% of the US population can see her move both ways.

Just to provide a bit of context: experiments have shown that the left hemisphere of the brain is responsible for logical, analytical thought, while the right hemisphere is associated with a more intuitive, holistic approach. This would suggest that meditation, for instance, would be a right brain function.

When I first got the email, I tried this out, and the results seemed to bear out the theory. Most of the time, I saw the dancer rotating anticlockwise, but as I managed to relax and still my mind, she changed direction. Today, the results are less well defined. Most of the time, she's clockwise, but if I look away and look back again, she sometimes changes direction for no apparent reason. Maybe I'm more relaxed today.

Or perhaps my IQ is falling...

Let me know what you see - and if you can make the figure change direction!

P.S. I've just found another, 'cleaner' version here.

Free Teleconference

I was posting recently about the planetary transformation which many people predict will occur in the near future. If you're interesting in finding out more about this idea, then you might be interested in taking part in a free teleconference which is scheduled for this coming Friday, January 11th, 2008. You can find full details of this conference - and sign up for it - here.

The scheduled time for the conference is from 11-11 am to 1-11 pm EST; 8-11 to 10-11 am Pacific Time. Here in the UK, it will run from 4-11 pm to 6-11 pm, which is surprisingly civilized. We British usually have to get up in the middle of the night for this sort of thing...

(In case you're wondering about the conference starting and finishing at 11 minutes past the hour, I assume this has to do with what I've recently been told about '11' being a number of spiritual significance! Having just moved in to a #11 myself, I'm quite chuffed about this...)

One of the panelists taking part will be Kiara Windrider, author of an 'unofficial' book about Deeksha called Deeksha - The Fire From Heaven. So this seems like a good time to mention, by the by, that Windrider's web site is a brilliant resource. The wealth of articles includes information on Ilahinoor, a transformative energy similar to Deeksha which has emerged in Turkey; what seems to me to be a very sensible perspective on recent controversies within the Oneness (Deeksha) Movement; and a valuable discussion of the 'dark night of the soul', about the 'negative' emotions which can arise during spiritual transformation.

Cartoon Time (and more...)

A few things this time. First of all, here are a couple of interesting animations on a similar theme:

This first one, based on a vintage recording by Alan Watts, makes an interesting comparison between life and music. It's an old recording and the quality is poor at first, but it swiftly improves as it goes along:

I found the above on richgrad's blog. Many thanks to him for finding it!

Thanks too to Linda (aka Cosmic Sunshine) for sending me the link to an animation called The Book Of Now, which you can find here. They request your email address unfortunately but I don't seem to have been spammed as a result - and it's a great animation, kind of a cartoon version of Eckhart Tolle's teaching.

Did anyone else try the recent Jyothi transmission? I've written about my own impressions here. Please feel free to add yours too...

Special thanks to those of you who left supportive comments on May's blog, in response to my recent post! May left some response here.

Finally, here are a couple of local notices. If, like me, you live in Yorkshire in the north of England (or thereabouts) my friend Ed Harpin (who contributed two fascinating comments on enlightenment a few months back) is starting up Deeksha sessions in Huddersfield again. He is now combining Deeksha (also known as the Oneness Blessing) with Kundalini Yoga. The details of his classes are here.

And if you live a bit further north, Heidi Fawkes is continuing her regular Deeksha sessions in Otley and Hunton. You can contact Heidi here.

There are links to information on Deeksha sessions worldwide in my original post on Deeksha.

Earth Doomed! (see page 53)

More 'Heart Of The Secret' to follow soon but first of all I'd like to draw your attention to the UN Geo-4 report on the 'global environment outlook', which was published last week. According to The Times, 'the report was drafted and researched by almost 400 scientists, all experts in their fields, whose findings were subjected to review by another 1,000 of their peers'. The report warns that 'the speed at which mankind has used the Earth's resources over the past 20 years has put humanity's very survival at risk'. We are warned that 'the point of no return' is fast approaching.

What causes me greatest concern is not the report itself, chilling though it is, but the low degree of priority it has been assigned in the news media, at least here in the UK. I heard about it last Thursday morning in a brief bulletin on BBC Radio 5 Live but as the day went on, the story seemed to slide down the news agenda. When I searched on Google News in the evening it appeared at number 9 in 'world news'. When I checked the papers the following day, I found that of the four 'quality' UK dailies, only The Times and The Independent chose to put it on their front page. To their credit, both ran it as their sole front page story, clearly believing that it deserved maximum publicity. In The Telegraph, by contrast, it appeared on page 16.

I also checked the Daily Mail, the 'popular' UK daily which does so much to inform our population about the threat to our national way of life from immigrants and other minorities. But they didn't seem to believe that the threat to our national way of life from the destruction of the planet warranted so much as a mention. At any rate, I couldn't find anything about the report in the paper at all, and I got as far as page 56.  I could have actually bought a copy, I suppose, and checked more thoroughly, but that would surely have been taking things a bit too far.

OK, so we already knew that the planet was in a bad way, but we're talking here about an authoritative, well-researched international report which clearly states that the survival of the human race is in imminent danger. The fact that it has been given such a relatively low profile in the news media says much about the capacity - or rather, incapacity - of humanity to respond to this crisis. An immense concerted effort from us all is required if planetary disaster is to be averted, yet not only can't we be bothered to make such an effort, we don't even feel it's necessary to make sure that everyone knows it's needed.

If you read this blog regularly, you may have gleaned from the occasional comment I've made that I believe - or at any rate hope - that the human race will shortly undergo a subtle transformation, that we're in for a consciousness upgrade, from a mindset in which we care mainly about ourselves and our own selfish needs and desires to one in which we come to perceive ourselves more as an integral part of the human race and the universe, in which we 'widen our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty', as Albert Einstein put it. For as Einstein presciently warned: 'we shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive'.

The reasons why I 'believe' in this transformation are several:

1) Starting with what some might see as the 'wacky' side of things: there are numerous prophecies - including the fact that the Mayan calendar ends mysteriously in 2012 - which suggest that either the end of the world or a new golden age will occur at this time. Being a natural skeptic, I wouldn't give much credence to these were it not for the following:

2) So many resources are now available for personal transformation. I've talked about Deeksha and other resources on this blog. I shall talk about more in the future. Most of these have only emerged in recent years, some having apparently been guarded secretly for millennia, waiting for this time in history to arrive. It is not unreasonable to ask why all these resources have suddenly emerged. Could it be because we are going to need them?

3) And finally, the most compelling reason is the one which echoes the words of Einstein. A transformation is surely required if humanity is to survive.

In a recent article in The Sunday Times, the science fiction writer Brian Aldiss asked the question: 'is human consciousness fit for purpose?' As it stands at present, the answer is clearly  'no'. Our perspective is too self-absorbed and short-termist. We are so entrenched in our present lifestyles that it would take a tsunami and California-style fires on everyone's doorstep to grab enough of our attention to prompt us to take the action that's needed to save ourselves. And if such a thing happened, it would probably already be too late...

So that's the principal reason why I 'believe' in the coming transformation: not because of the prophecies or because there's  a 'new age' category in the bookshop, but because  I'm at heart an optimist and I can't see any other way ahead.  It's as though the prophecies and the planetary crisis are converging synchronistically into the only possible future for the human race: a future of transformation.

Only when we come to think of ourselves as first and foremost an integral part of the human race and the universe at large, rather than as separate entities in competition with each other, will we have the perspective needed to sit down as one and work together to find a way out of this mess. Even then, the road ahead will not be an easy one.

But at least we'll be in with a chance.

Ripples On A Sea Of Peace

Last time, I was talking about the concept of 'acceptance'. If we can accept whatever is happening in our lives in any one moment, instead of 'arguing with reality', we can save ourselves an awful lot of unnecessary stress. After all, what is happening is always what's happening, whether we like it or not. We can still take action to change what happens in the future, but just for the moment we have to accept what is.

If you think about it, this is the only sane attitude to have. 'Arguing with reality' isn't going to get you anywhere. But this sort of acceptance isn't always easy.

I got into an interesting discussion about acceptance over at Jon's Post-Christian Journey. A reader made the (perfectly reasonable) point that if his child was being tortured, he would find it very difficult to accept this. Indeed, he didn't even think that he should accept such a thing.

This appears to be a very powerful argument against 'acceptance'.

Two points occur to me however:

• This example is very extreme. In practice, fortunately, most of us don't have to deal with such extreme events very often, though terrible things do occur in most people's lifetimes from time to time. What's important to acknowledge is that many other much lesser 'bad' things happen in our lives on a frequent basis, and many of these we also class as 'terrible' simply out of habit. If we can 'accept' these - and save ourselves a lot of stress in the process - we are making a start.
• Acceptance does not entail inaction. It's not a prescription for apathy. If we can 'accept' that our child is being tortured one moment, we can still take action to prevent it the next. Perhaps the formula should be 'acceptance plus action'. The opposite of this would be 'lack of acceptance plus doing nothing', as in moaning about the state of the world while doing absolutely nothing to change it. This is a much more common state of being.

I suggested last time that 'acceptance' might be the cornerstone of enlightenment, of awakening to our true nature. Rather than traveling to cliff-top monasteries in distant lands to become enlightened, we simply need to accept ourselves and our lives the way they are.

We need to accept this from one moment to the next however. It is said that enlightenment, once reached, must be chosen in every instant. And perhaps there are times, when confronted with a tortured child for instance, when an 'enlightened' person might choose in that moment not to accept, might choose instead to enter into the drama of 'normal' human existence, and feel anger rather than acceptance before taking action. Jesus, after all, was reported as being angry when he threw the money-changers out of the temple. Perhaps, for a moment, he did indeed 'argue with reality'. Perhaps he did not fully 'accept' what was going on. But does that mean to say that he also got upset the following day when someone stood on his toe in the marketplace?  Or the day after that when he found a dead fly in his wine? I doubt it.

In his book Awakening Into Oneness, Arjuna Ardagh interviews people who have become enlightened (or, to use the term he prefers, 'awakened') through Deeksha. One of them comments on how things have changed now that they are 'awakened':

"When (emotions) happen, I feel them so much deeper. There's no holding back. I think that might be the biggest difference of all. If I'm angry, I'm angry with every cell of my body. I'm not suppressing anything. And then it's over. And then this stillness and peace and joy come back rapidly."

This is how it may be then. Perhaps there are times when such people experience 'difficult' emotions instead of 'acceptance', but these are fully experienced instead of being suppressed. This allows the emotions to pass through, so that calm and acceptance can return. Most of the time such people accept what is. The occasional squalls are passing things only, like ripples on a sea of peace.

(There have been some interesting discussions on previous posts: See here for 'Making Plans' and here for 'How Does It Feel To Win A Million?' (the latter including what I humbly suggest is the world's best-ever spiritual budgerigar analogy). Also, largely thanks to Liara Covert of Dream Builders, there have been further discussions on earlier posts, such as How To Have It All , How To Deal With Difficult Emotions and How To Slow Down Time. Feel free to take a look, and join in if you wish!)

Receiving Deeksha Through Music

I've written in a previous post about Deeksha (otherwise known as the Oneness Blessing), a transfer of energy which is said to nurture a feeling of Oneness - connection with "all that is" - in those who receive it. People who wish to give Deeksha to others must travel to the Oneness University in India to attend a 21 day process, the idea of which is to allow them to act as a vessel through which the Deeksha energy may flow. This transfer of energy is normally achieved by a laying on of hands, the same as in Reiki or spiritual healing, but not everyone who graduates from the 21 day process will choose to give Deeksha in this way.  Some may prefer instead to use their own individual skills, such as music, artwork, or writing.

Now, a group of musicians have joined together to produce a CD with the specific intention of passing this Deeksha energy to all those who hear it. Everyone who has worked on the CD: the musicians, the writers, the producer, and even the sound engineer (not sure about the guy who fetches the sandwiches) have undergone the 21 day process. The CD is Om Deeksha by Maneesh de Moor, Maneesh being the musician who has coordinated the project.

Regular readers of The Secret Of Life may regard me as a sucker for all this spiritual stuff, but I honestly didn't approach this CD with any great sense of anticipation. For whatever reason, the idea of receiving Deeksha through someone's hands (which I had already done myself on many occasions) seemed a rather more credible prospect than simply putting on a CD and flicking a switch. There may not be much logic to this, but that's how I felt. So as I sat back to listen, I didn't expect to experience a great deal more than some relaxing music.

It came a very pleasant surprise, therefore - an unexpected and very welcome gift - to feel the familiar sense of peace which Deeksha can bring spreading through the room as the music played. There was something very powerful happening here, and Chris, who was sitting beside me, also sensed it. I have played the CD many time since then, and have always felt that same sense of peace, sometimes even of joy.

I cannot guarantee, of course, that you will experience a similar effect from this music. But if you are intrigued about Deeksha and either find the laying on of hands a bit too wacky or are too far away from a Deeksha event to attend, then do consider trying this CD. After all, this is world music. It's cool. You don't have to own up to the spiritual stuff if you don't want to!

The CD is widely available. Here is the link for Amazon.com and here for CD Universe, where you can listen to samples. The CD is also on iTunes, but I don't have iTunes on my computer, so I don't know if it is possible to download individual tracks. If it is, then try the first track, Moola Prayer, which is almost ten minutes long and should provide you with all you need for a Deeksha experience in itself.

Now comes the tricky bit to explain. If you listen to this music, please forget all I've said above. These things are best approached with an open mind and without expectations. I don't know what - if anything - you will experience from this. So simply listen to the CD as you would any other music. Then see what happens...

(Naturally, I shall be interested to hear any feedback you may have!)

Something else that's worth mentioning here is a new book, an excellent introduction to Deeksha called Awakening Into Oneness by Arjuna Ardagh (with a foreword by Ervin Laszlo). This is the preeminent book about the Deeksha phenomenon. I opened it almost at random just now to quote you a bit and this is the encouraging extract I came across:

There were several things that really impressed me on that first visit to The Oneness University... I have spent a great deal of my life around organized spirituality. The situation has always been more or less the same. A great teacher, great teachings, wonderful practices, meditations or prayers, and then among the followers, there was always a certain degree of politics. Who could get higher in the organization? Who had the power? During my three-week stay at the university, I looked under every rock and behind every bush. Where was the politics? I could not find it, even after an exhaustive search. What I found instead was an extraordinary quality of oneness: people living together, working together, being together as many bodies but one heart, one consciousness.

Does that sound like a good way to run the world?

Update and Events

Events at The Secret of Life HQ are continuing to produce serious impediments to effective blogging. Not only do we (strictly speaking) not actually have an HQ - unless you count the occasional work station I manage to worm my way into here at the public library - but my wife Chris has gone and scalded her leg very badly by spilling a cup of (almost boiling) tea all the way down it.

I'm please to report that her recovery is progressing successfully (if somewhat painfully) and she has learnt the important lesson that next time she makes a cup of tea she doesn't like she should pour it down the sink instead. But what with all the trips to the doctor to get Chris' dressing renewed, the seemingly endless process of house moving, and grabbing a few precious minutes once in a blue moon to sneak away to the library only to find that all the computers are down, there hasn't been much opportunity to post on this blog in recent weeks - though you may have noticed this already. Your patience really is greatly appreciated - but I am even now researching ISPs for the net connection at our soon-to-be (permanent!) residence, so I hope that normal service will be resumed here very soon eventually.

I hope to have a more substantial post completed shortly, but in the meantime I encourage you to take a look at the comments on the previous post, where you'll find some particularly intriguing insights on enlightenment from Deeksha giver Ed Harpin. I especially like this bit:

Just to avoid the idea of hierarchy or competition... it can be good to know that there are always infinite beings less Enlightened than you, and always infinite beings more Enlightened than you..! so wherever you are on the path, you are always in the middle...!! And wherever you are, that is the only and most perfect place for you to be.

You can read more from Ed here. And just in case you were wondering what Deeksha is, you can read all about it - and find out how to get info on Deeksha events worldwide - in this previous post. If you happen to live near me in Yorkshire, Northern England, Deeksha giver Heidi Fawkes is running numerous Deeksha events over the summer. You can contact her via her web site here.

Finally, a bit more information for British readers (which I realize a lot of you aren't!). The Secret Of Life reader and peace activist Linda has asked me to mention some upcoming British concerts by James Twyman. According to Twyman's web site, Twyman is "an internationally renowned author, singer and "peace troubador" who has a reputation for drawing millions of people together in prayer to influence events of world crisis. In 1995 he had an experience in the mountains of Croatia that led to his best-selling book Emissary of Light, called "the second coming of the Celestine Prophesy" by Variety magazine." You can read more here.

The James Twyman concert dates are as follows: 18th July Liverpool; 20th July Leeds, 22nd July Shrewsbury; 24th July London; 28th July Devon. Tickets are £10 in advance. For full details re. all these venues, phone 0870 879 3623. Linda herself is a contact for the Leeds concert at Lidgett Park Methodist Church. You can email her for full details.

A Taste Of Enlightenment?

I posted last time about the breathing technique, Quantum Light Breath. I mentioned that I had found this effective in helping to clear suppressed emotions. This is very true, though my experience of using the technique has been much more remarkable than the above description suggests, so I thought I'd tell you a bit more about what happened.

The first few times I listened to the QLB audio, I found myself in tears. This may not sound like a pleasant way to spend an evening, but after decades of suppressing such emotions, it came as a welcome relief to me to express the feelings I'd been holding back for so long. In the days that followed, I found that my habitual anger - always ready to rear its head if the slightest thing went wrong - had magically disappeared, and the next time I did the QLB, I felt what I can only describe as 'light energy' flooding through the top of my head. It was as though in expressing - and so releasing - the emotions, a blockage had been cleared, allowing a connection with a source of light to be established. I could feel the energy flooding into me and see what appeared to be flashes of light through the closed lids of my eyes.

The following day was like heaven on earth. I found I had a persistent sense of peace and joy inside me, a feeling which coloured my interaction with everything around me. My impression was that this was how it might feel to be enlightened: to be in the world yet not of it, to be very much engaged in the events of my day, yet at the same time aware of a source of love which could sustain me against whatever I encountered. This experience lasted for round about forty-eight hours. On the third day, my connection to the source of joy became intermittent and then apparently dwindled away altogether. I've had flashes of it since, but things have pretty much returned to 'normal'. (Unfortunately!)

Over the years, I've had various similar experiences of altered states of consciousness - all achieved without the aid of drugs, I should make clear... Most of these have been for shorter periods of time, in most cases a few minutes, in others a few hours - sometimes spontaneously, sometimes in response to such events as meditating or attending a spiritual seminar - though on one occasion (after first receiving Deeksha), the experience was once again for about forty-eight hours, much of which time I spent sorting through the clutter in my study and throwing a large proportion of it into black bags, filled with a spontaneous impulse to lighten my load of worldly possessions.

On this latest occasion, with the Quantum Light Breath, the experience seemed somehow more stable. Part of me suspected it would fade away again, though as I was very much in the present moment, whether or not it would last was of no great concern to me. Perhaps for this reason, another part of me felt that the experience was here to stay: that this was how it would be for me from now on, and - more importantly perhaps - that this was how it could be for all humanity.

Much of the time, I am writing this blog about spirituality from the perspective of someone who is still trying to make sense of it all, who still seems to be on the outside looking in. Sometimes, I'm so steeped in the endless churnings of my mind that the ideas I'm writing about seem to bear as much relation to my everyday life as they do to the surface of Mars. So it's nice to get these reminders from time to time that these ideas are real, not some ridiculous pie in the sky - and the really good news is that if I can have such experiences, then so can everyone else. There's nothing special about me. There's nothing special about any of us. Or, to put it another way: we are all special, because we're all one, all part of a single entity which is everything that is, and all capable of experiencing that for ourselves. Naturally, I am exercising my mind as to how exactly to get that understanding, that knowing, back right now, but all it seems to take, when put at it simplest, is to be willing to let go and accept what is: to be willing to feel and let go of emotions instead of holding them fast, to be willing to let life unfold instead of trying to control it, to allow the universe to simply be. Because, let's face it, that's what's going to happen anyway, so we might as well save ourselves the pain of trying to stop it.

And the really, really good news is that how I was for those forty-eight hours felt great. I was still very much me, but the connection to joy which I felt seemed to take away the pain of being me. It was like everything was exactly the same but the sun had come out. Was this enlightenment then? I suspect it was only base camp on the foothills of enlightenment, but it would do very nicely for now, thanks very much.

If Sri Bhagavan (and numerous others) are right, this is what is in store for all humanity in the years ahead. All humanity, that is, not only those who behave in a specified way or eat the right foods or believe in a, b and c instead of x, y and z, but all of us. All humanity will be enlightened, and will have this connection to joy.

Or if others are right then perhaps this outcome is not assured and we will have to work for it: we will have to work to make it happen. If that is the case, this latest experience of mine has taught me that we need to do that. We need to work to achieve this change in consciousness for all humanity. Because if we could all be in that state of being of which I was given a brief taste, there would still be challenges for the human race, there would still be arguments, there would still be a lot of work to do to make the world the kind of place we all want to live in, but at least we would have a chance of making that happen. Because all the stuff that gets in the way: the anger, the hurt, the cruelty; all the violence, all the abuse, all the injustice; that great burden of sadness which afflicts the human race, would be lifted from our shoulders. In the presence of that connection to joy, such things could not survive. They would melt away like shards of ice in the sun.

World Oneness Day - Global Peace Meditation

In the comments on an earlier post, we were discussing various attempts to monitor the positive effects which might be produced by mass meditation and prayer. People wanted to know if anyone had really proved that such things made a difference. In the course of this discussion, I mentioned the Global Consciousness Project at Princeton University, the purpose of which is to measure the effects of consciousness on physical systems. You can see the Wikipedia entry for the Global Consciousness Project here.

In another recent post, I wrote about Deeksha, a transfer of energy which is claimed to initiate an evolution in human consciousness. Deeksha, or the Oneness Blessing as it is now becoming known, has been brought into the world by Bhagavan and Amma, founders of the Oneness Movement, which is based at the Golden City in southern India. Their aim is to bring into being a new golden age for mankind.

Now, in an interesting piece of synchronicity, the Global Consciousness Project and the Oneness Movement are coming together for an exciting event called World Oneness Day, a Global Peace Meditation, on Sunday 20th May. On that day, many thousands of people worldwide will be coming together to meditate and pray on the theme of global peace and harmony with nature. There will be twelve main events, the largest of which, with an estimated attendance of 50,000, will be led by Bhagavan and Amma at the Oneness Temple in Golden City. The other main events will be at Mount Fuji, Japan; Sydney, Australia; Auroville, India; Lucknow, India; Tel Aviv, Israel; Budapest, Hungary; Damanhur Federation, Italy; Duluth, MN, USA; Hawaii, USA; Samoa; and online. The effects of this global meditation are to be monitored by the Global Consciousness Project and the results will be made public. Many of these events will also involve the giving of Deeksha. For details of all the above events, including contact information, plus some information on the measurements which are to be taken, please see here. For some other good articles about the events and the associated experiments, see here and here.

In addition to the above events, many smaller gatherings will also take place worldwide. It's not too late to organize your own! The best way to find the events is probably to do a google, but if anyone knows of an event they would like to publicize here, please leave the details in a comment on this post. Here are a few that I've found: California, USA; Virginia, USA; Bristol, England - contact Paul for details; Leeds, England - contact Heidi or Ed for details. My wife Chris and I, together with one or two Secret of Life readers, will be at the Leeds event all being well, so perhaps we will see you there?

Do have a read about Deeksha (Oneness Blessing) before you attend one of the events: follow the links above or take a look at the article on Deeksha in the latest edition of Kindred Spirit Magazine. There are also some interesting articles and DVDs on Deeksha available at Path To Oneness. If you can't make it to one of the events but would like to participate online, you can sign up here.