Who I Am

As some visitors to this blog will not be familiar with the book of which it is an extension, I thought I should say a few words about myself here. I hope that a little background will put what is said in these posts into some kind of context.

I was born in London in 1955. From as early as I can remember I knew that there was more to the world than I was led to believe by the culture in which I was raised but, because I couldn't find an adequate form to give expression to my sense of a greater reality behind appearance, I grew up with a feeling of acute pointlessness. Hence I made minimal efforts at school and got out of my education just exactly what I put into it. I felt that there was a definite truth behind religion but that it had long since been lost, and what was left was little more than a museum piece. I know that lays me open to a charge of spiritual arrogance but religions are not eternal and can only thrive when there is a constant input of new spiritual energy or, as we might otherwise say, new saints, prophets and realised souls. Since discovering for myself the truth of which religions speak I have come to appreciate them more, and I have learnt much from them, but, in the final analysis, they are outer things and I could never identify myself wholly with one as you must do if you are to extract its benefits.

In the early days of my association with the Masters I asked them about Catholicism because Michael Lord (the medium through whom they came), as an ex-monk, still liked to go to mass occasionally. This is what they said. The Catholic Church, like any outward form of religion, is good for souls on a certain level but it was time to lead Michael away from it into a new and higher understanding of life. This is not a condemnation of Catholicism but points to the fact that we must graduate from the outer forms of all religions if we would follow the mystical path. I don't dispute that you can follow the inner path from within religion but I do think that, certainly nowadays when all religions are definitely in a cycle of decay, there will come a time when adherence to an outer form will limit more than it liberates. At the same time, to cast something off before we have outgrown it is also wrong, and to replace any of the great religions with practically any one of their modern replacements is likely to leave you the worse off.

I would sum the matter up in this way. The religions were given by God to provide ways home for a humanity in exile. In the past they have succoured and guided countless millions, some even to the end of the road, but the current cycle is coming to an end and its forms and structures are crumbling so increasingly less able to serve as vessels for light. Hence the power of the religions of the past to liberate and save is much diminished. If you find a religion that answers all your questions then, by all means, follow it, but bear in mind the Master’s point above. You may one day have to go beyond.

I left school with no idea of what I wanted to do but was fortunate enough to find work in the Geological Museum of London (now part of the Natural History Museum). It was while working there that I met a man who turned out to be very influential in my life. It was 1978. Profound dissatisfaction with the direction my current path was taking had led me to a metaphysical bookshop where I was browsing one lunchtime when a man approached me and began talking. This was Michael Lord. He told me afterwards that he had been clairaudiently instructed to do this but mentioned nothing about that at the time. If he had, I don't doubt I would have made polite noises and fled. He talked about spiritual things from a mildly esoteric perspective, and I was intrigued enough to agree to meet up at a later date for more discussion. One thing led to another and six months later we were living together in a flat in Bath with the intention of leading a life wholly devoted to the spiritual quest. By day we worked in an antiques market. In the early morning and evening we meditated.

Bath 1979. Outside the antiques market.  I'm on the left. 

It was during one of these meditation sessions that the Masters first appeared to me. Michael had known about them for a few months, having been contacted by them around the time we met. They spoke to him clairaudiently and also telepathically. He had not mentioned any of that to me, though, and I was quite ignorant of their existence. 

One evening towards the end of our meditation Michael began to sound the OM. Very powerfully. I was familiar with sacred chanting but had never heard anything like this before. My innate scepticism was completely uprooted and tossed aside by its strength, volume and duration. Surely no mortal was capable of such a feat? Michael certainly wasn't. Eventually the OM came to an end but the silence that followed was even more impressive as now the room seemed filled with a mighty presence. This was the way the Masters got my attention but I think it may also have been necessary to bring vibrations to the correct pitch and enable them to enter Michael's body in order to speak to me.

I know that trance mediumship is not favourably regarded in some esoteric circles. I think I have spoken about this in previous posts, and I also speak about it in the book, so here I will just say that normally the Masters do not use this method of communicating. But in this case they did. There are others though only a few as far as I am aware. They don't use it because not many mediums would be able to support the intensity of their presence, and also because they would normally require us to come up to their level rather than them descend to ours. It has one enormous advantage though. What comes through is unaffected by the medium. This is not the case with any other form of mediumship or channeling. When the Masters spoke to me, it was exactly as if they were seated in the chair opposite. What they said came directly from them without any input from Michael who, to all intents and purposes, was not there other than corporeally, of course.

On that first occasion when the Master spoke to me he did not say very much to begin with. He did not even say who he was even though there could be no doubt of his status from the authority of his presence. He did say that he, or rather they, since from the start they spoke of themselves as a brotherhood, were guiding us and it was their desire that we live and work together. But he did not actually explain anything initially, and that may seem odd but this outer approach was setting the seal on an inner change that they had been working on for some time (the spiritual rule is always inner before outer) so I was subliminally prepared and intuitively understood more than I was told. Therefore, although I was astonished by what had happened, I was not altogether surprised.

But soon afterwards explanations were given, and over the ensuing weeks, months and, as it turned out, years the Masters came and spoke to me through Michael many times. They were and are spiritual instructors without peer for they see directly into the heart and, though they never spoke of past lifetimes in the particular, it was clear that they were fully cognizant of my entire spiritual history as well as the karmic limitations I had brought into this life. Many times they demonstrated that they knew me better than I knew myself. They spoke with an unparalleled depth of insight and a Himalayan authority. Their abiding characteristic, though, was love and this they never failed to convey even when (as they sometimes did)  they were admonishing me for my failures.

Michael and I lived in Bath for a year and a half before the Masters put it into our heads (as they afterwards confirmed) that we should go and live in India where the psychic atmosphere would be more conducive to our way of life. This period is roughly that covered by the book which comprises my notes of the Masters' regular talks at that time. I understand that they also wanted to remove me more completely from the world. Living in England we still had to work and mingle with people on an everyday basis so distractions were constantly present and, even if you resist them, they still are an assault on your inner life that you have to waste energy dealing with. At this early stage of my spiritual endeavours it was important to be completely undistracted. Later on when I had put down proper spiritual roots I was able to go back into the world more as I was better equipped to deal with it without losing focus. This, by the way, applies to us all. We all need a time of spiritual insulation if we are to develop proper inner attunement and a stable grounding in the higher world.

To be continued in a later post.