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The Light of BEing

Updated: Jan 29

For my 111th article, I would like to discuss and share with you some thoughts on the Light of BEing, in the week of my mother's funeral. We equate darkness with hardship, conditional love, and negativity; and light with unconditional love, miracles, healing, peace, joy, and hope. But what if the darkness is not what it seems? Thank you to my friend and fellow journeyman Michel for your inspiration through your poetic writing. Death brings growth. It seems that all challenges do, and darkness brings light. Carl Jung said that "God enters through the wound." He continued "Be grateful for your difficulties and challenges, for they hold blessings. In fact... Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health, personal growth, individuation and self-actualisation."


The Light of BEing


When you awaken, you don't avoid suffering. It is the fire that purifies.


Bel Kaufman wrote “Education is not a product, mark, diploma, job, money… It is a process.” We all think of education in terms of cash and security. We get the order wrong. It’s not have, then do, then be. The true order is BE, then do (which flows naturally from the BEing), then have (which follows naturally from the doing.) We are human BEings, not human doings. Education is a way of BEing and of viewing the world: It is a way, a path. It is a journey, an adventure, an exploration of ourselves and our relationships with others in the world and those that we have lost. This adventure, of a life fully lived, lasts a lifetime, and will direct everything that you do to have true success in life (joy, peace, love, and abundance), as surely as an acorn grows into an oak, and as a river flows downstream from your BEing. You just need to let go and surrender. Like life, this kind of education is continuous, open-ended, and enduring. I have every degree you can imagine. A PhD from University college London, a Master’s degree in philosophy and science from Trinity College Cambridge, a medical degree from The Royal Free Hospital in London, and numerous higher medical degrees. But not one of these taught me any wisdom. Wisdom comes from your journey. Are you on the path yet?


I buried my mother this week. It was a very difficult day, but not one without light. We never allow ourselves to explore the darkness contained within our healing. Instead, we scramble to get out of this sacred place as though we had fallen into a deep ditch, in search of light. In the end there is no evil or enemy, simply the illusion of such. There is only love. I visited her grave every day this week and I only felt love and peace. Quite the step forward on my path from her being my Narcissistic abuser throughout my childhood. Oscar Wilde said "Where there is sorrow, there is Holy ground."


As Marianne Williamson says about ‘A Course in Miracles’ “A Course in Miracles says that only love is real: “The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.” When we think with love, we are literally co-creating with God. And when we’re not thinking with love, since only love is real, then we’re actually not thinking at all. We’re hallucinating. And that’s what this world is: A mass hallucination, where fear seems more real than love. Fear is an illusion. Our craziness, paranoia, anxiety, and trauma are literally all imagined. That is not to say they don’t exist for us as human beings. They do. But our fear is not our ultimate reality, and it does not replace the Truth of who we really are. Our love, which is our real Self, doesn’t die, but merely goes underground.” As my mother was placed underground this week, I stood closest to her tomb, and I felt total peace and love.

 

‘Darkness' is simply light that we cannot see with our human faculties or measure with our quite frankly limited and basic sciences (and I am a basic scientist). In this light there are no shadows as everything is made of this light, including the apparent darkness.

 

Light is the foundation and power of this wondrous awe-filled Universe: It is unconditional love, including the darkness and our shadows.

 

Our perspective on this light shapes all our perceptions. Don’t be a victim: Do be a human BEing: A soul. A soul is the sum total of your emotions. So, open your heart, drop out of your ‘monkey mind’ (as the Buddhists call the constant inner incessant negative dialogue of our material minds) and feel. As Rumi said "Caught by our own thoughts, we worry about everything." Psalm 46:10 says “Be still, and know that I am God."

 

It’s not about letting our egos, wounded inner child, inner and outer critics judge incessantly: That is the basis of mental illness, spiritual dis-ease, addiction, and other coping mechanisms for our emotional pain, that defines the human condition until we wake up to abundance, love, and joy. We must not let those second-rate players run and ruin the show. Once we awaken and show up as our soul, we can let our inner child play, simply be a loved child, and banish our inner and outer critics, or employ them as creative coaches to guide us.

 

The darkness of healing and recovery is different to the darkness of felt brokenness and mental dis-ease... We must let these define our human experience. Otherwise, we are headed for failure and remain stuck in victim mode (where there is no possibility of personal growth), when we are far from it. Recovery teaches you to cry from the depths of your soul. Recovery teaches you that you can fail and that doesn’t mean you are a failure. Recovery allows you to face your darkest days and only see the light of awareness.

 

On days of deep grief like this week, memories will appear and in the long term we adjust. This is the great miracle. We are not simply turning water into wine or filling the empty sea with bounteous fish: We are transcending the unprotected and unfettered hellishness of our dysfunctional childhoods and our past to find Heaven in the here and now. We are extracting the wine from the blood that courses through our veins. The brokenness from our DNA; To discover who we truly are: A divine blueprint.

 

There was a strange yet marvellous synchronicity around the funeral of my mother this week - my eldest daughter and my French aunt both independently chose the same poem to read. The other synchronicity was that my older brother put some objects in my mother’s coffin before they finally closed it permanently last week. In order to represent her love of cookery he put a kitchen knife into her coffin, amongst other things. It was the very same knife that I tried to kill myself with four years ago when my previously undetected high-performing depression and anxiety finally unravelled. The knife was buried today with her. I can close the door to my childhood trauma at last. Goodbye and jolly good riddance.

 

I previously wrote an article about being stuck in a corridor between an open door to my past (dysfunctional childhood, Narcissistic abuse from my mother, and my childhood trauma that she inflicted on my brother and me) and a closed door to my future, and that I couldn’t open the door ahead of me mentally, emotionally and spiritually, until I closed the door marked trauma behind me. By burying the knife that I tried to commit suicide with my mother today - out of fifty knives that my mother owned that my brother could have chosen (he did not know which knife it was, when they closed the lid to her coffin), this closed the door to my past, my childhood trauma and my darkest moments. As my mother said in her final words to me “I love you, I adore you, and I will protect you all.” Taking the knife away with her for eternity, she did just that today. Now that is the light in the illusory darkness.

 

As it states in Revelations 3:8 “‘I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I know that you have but little power, and yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.”

 

So, in the words of Simon and Garfunkel “Hello darkness my old friend. I have come to talk to you again.” And this time the darkness is pure light. There is no darkness my child, only the realisation that you were blind and asleep. Sometimes you can see even better in the dark: How else can you see the wonder of the stars? Don’t let the part of you that is hooked on light define the darkness.

 

Nothing has meaning until we give it meaning. What meaning will you give this darkness? It is beautiful, sacred, and contains Truth. It is exactly as it is meant to be unless you interpret it. It holds something too big for the small ego in you, but not too large for your heart. Go to this place as often as you can. And know that you are bathing in the sunlight of Truth. Forget the melodrama. Forgive the conflict. Go to this Enlightened darkness and be still in this haven of abundance. It is not the shadow of the Valley of Death, where the divine walks beside you and protects you, but the crucible for a new life, a rebirth, your Self renewed. This place of awakening to the Truth, where the part of you that is not you will melt away into nothingness: Your false self, your ego, must die. Your true identity will inevitably rise to the surface like a ball held under water for too long. You will see through new eyes, and as you return to the illusion, everything will have changed, and you will smile serenely. I guarantee it.


How do we invoke the miracle of BEing? Firstly you have to surrender to it. Whether that be to the Universe, to God (a short name for the unknowable), the virgin Mary (the cocreator of your saviour), or Jesus (who said that "The Kingdom of God is within YOU"). We do this through prayer and meditation. I have tried everything else, and this increase in your conscious contact with the divine is the only thing that works. I have already discussed meditation. For my article on meditation click here:



Prayers are ideally prayers of appreciation not supplication. In the Bible in Philippians 4:6-7 it states that “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” As Marianne Williamson says in 'Tears to Triumph' “The most powerful thought is a prayerful thought. When I'm praying for you, I am praying for my own peace of mind. I can only have for myself what I am willing to wish for you.” 


When I spoke to the priest at the end of my mother's funeral in France he said "Croyez! Croyez! Il n'y a que l'amour!" which means "Believe, believe. There is only love!" It's worth a go, right? He said that the virgin Mary will take your hand and lead you to her son Jesus: She will guide you home. She was the first ultimate creator. But you are too. You can create your own saviour, and that saviour is you! Ask Jesus to look after your life path and he will. You must claim miracles. Albert Einstein said "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." It's the first time I have hugged a priest and it felt like the peace that passes all understanding.


I made a pilgrimage this week after the priest's recommendation to the stunning village of Rocamadour (one of the four main Christian sites of pilgrimage in the world - the others are Jersusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela in Spain). I truly felt something. I felt peace.


My mother's tomb with Jesus


My mother's coffin with Jesus


The pilgrimage site of Rocamadour set on a steep hillside. The beautiful churches are at the very top of a long climb


The 'Sanctuaire Notre Dame de Rocamadour'


The chapel of the virgin Mary and Jesus at Rocadamour: A place of miracles


As it says in Romans 12:2 "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will."


If you are going through grief and loss, I hear you. It is all about acceptance and transmuting darkness to light. As Mahatma Gandhi wrote "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Do everything with a good heart and expect nothing in return, and you will never be disappointed. Say to your Self "I understand myself, because only I lived and experienced my story; Because I know myself, I know who I am, what I feel, what I do and why I do it."


Namaste.


Sending you love, light, and blessings brothers.


Olly



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Hello,

I am delighted and enchanted to meet you. I coach men with 'Deep Coaching', 'Supercoaching', and Transformative Life Coaching (TLC). Thank you for reading this far. I very much look forward to connecting with the highest version of you, to seeing your highest possibility, and to our conversations. Please do contact me via my email for a free connection call and a free experience of coaching on Zoom or in person. 


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I have a Bachelor's degree in Natural Sciences from Trinity College, Cambridge; a Master's Degree in Philosophy from Trinity College, Cambridge; a PhD Doctorate in Scientific Research from University College London (UCL); a Medical Degree (MD/MBBS) from The Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, London and have been a doctor and reconstructive trauma and cancer surgeon in London for 20 years. I have a number of other higher qualifications in science and surgery. I have published over 50 peer reviewed PubMed cited scientific journal articles, have been an associate editor and frequent scientific faculty member, and am the author of several scientific books. I have been awarded my Diploma in Transformative Life Coaching in London, which has International Coaching Federation (ICF) Accreditation, as well as the UK Association for Coaching (AC), and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council (EMCC). I have been on my own transformative journey full time for over five years and I am ready to be your guide to you finding out who you really are and how the world works.




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