The White Light of Morning

As the debris settles around me; as my head becomes clearer like the white light of morning, I find myself in possession of an airline ticket to India.

Ah, now I remember. That’s where the rent money went.

That’s why I started working in a shipyard. To buy a plane ticket to India, so I could go and sit at the feet of an enlightened master for twelve weeks and take instruction in Advaita Vedanta. The problem is – and has always been – that me and work don’t go well together. I’m not cut out for it. It’s not that I don’t like money: it’s just that I don’t like what you have to do to get it.

So obviously, I quit the job, blew the wages on ludicrous trousers, spent the money for the rent on a plane ticket and then got drunk and set fire to the building.

I mean, who wouldn't?

If, like me, you're interested in investigating the nature of Reality, check out Not 2 Likely.

Reasons to be Cheerful #5

Reasons to be Cheerful #4

Check out Not 2 Likely.

Reasons to be Cheerful #3

Everything is Alright, Actually.

Isn’t it amazing how we punish ourselves? Isn’t it insane that we have been brought up to believe that we are inherently not worthy of happiness unless we kill ourselves trying to obtain it through security, status, power, relationships or sensations?

This was brought home to me last night when in a sudden flash of the bloody obvious I realised that I have been punishing myself for getting drunk several weeks ago.

There is so much guilt and shame inherent in an alcoholic relapse that I almost subconsciously switched existential positions: from that of a man with a fairly healthy self-image to that of a worm.

It’s not surprising really, given the culture of recovery that I have “grown up” with: if you take a drink/drug your status is instantly reduced to that of a “newcomer”, and anything that you’ve learned in your former period of sobriety (regardless of how long or happy it may have been) must be discarded because “it didn’t work”.

So – true to acceptable form - as soon as I was sober I decided to flagellate myself by putting myself through the tedium of finding a new sponsor to “take me through” the twelve steps. “Must be humble,” my brainwashed subconscious belief system screamed, “must act subservient, must discard all your knowledge and deny all your spiritual experience and pretend that you know nothing.”

The problem is: I am not a newcomer and I know a hell of a lot. I have had many spiritual awakenings over the last three years, as a result of practicing the principles of the program, and the subsequent enlargement of my spiritual life through meditation, investigation and the practice of Self-knowledge. To deny who I am and my experience of “God” would be ludicrous.

I don’t need to wait for somebody to show me how to recover. I know how to recover. I know why I got drunk and I know what I have to do to stay sober, and I choose to recover NOW.

(And listen to Ravi Shankar while I’m at it.)