This post is by my brother, a rock musician who lives
in San Rafael
(near San Francisco),
California, USA, about 6000
miles from me in the UK.
He wrote it as an email message to his family on the way to a gig in LA having just read my
post
'ET encounters but no ET life: resolving the paradox'.
'ET encounters but no ET life: resolving the paradox'.
I like my brother’s latest blog post. It explains very
well what I have instinctively felt for quite some time now. Many will disagree
with it of course; but these concepts need to be talked about on this crazy
but wonderful jewel of a planet we inhabit.
The mystery of sentient life, how we interact with our
fellow beings, and how we perceive and interpret our surroundings is just too
fantastic to be explained by mere chance. How and why the same species is
capable of such extreme goodness and selflessness, but is also capable of
inflicting almost unimaginable horrors spawned from blind selfishness and
misguided ego is a question that will be debated for a very long time to come.
To me, ego seems to be the key...the answer is in there somewhere, and on a
metaphysical level.
One of the most difficult things to do is to give up the
ego...to take this path is a life long commitment. Some of you have heard me
speak of the mystical life altering event I experienced, alone on a stormy
windswept night some forty one years ago...I have been attempting to understand
what happened to me ever since. It was not of this dimension, of that I am
certain...and the intense light that hovered directly above me emanated pure,
unfettered love and acceptance beyond anything I could ever have
imagined.
And power. There was absolutely no doubt that this pure love
and goodness was ubiquitous and all powerful...hence the deep bottomless
darkness that seemed to be slinking and slithering away below and to the left
of me. I won't go into any more details, but will say that the light appeared
to me after I cried out into the metaphysical realm for God to help me...I was
at a crossroads in my life.
I couldn't do it on my own. I needed help from the Divine. I
didn't instantly become a better person, I just knew that by surrendering my
ego and asking for help and guidance from this all powerful, metaphysical force
of creation we call God, I would always have this entity of pure peace and love
to help and guide me through times of hardship and weakness. Yes, attempting to
surrender the ego through prayer is a major key...and a very strong one. I fall
short of accomplishing this everyday of my life...but I believe the answer is
in trying.
I believe there are many ways God reaches out to us,
depending on where and when we are born. One of the most spiritual people I
have ever had the honour to call my friend was the Dakota Sioux, Floyd
"Red Crow" Westerman...he was vocal regarding those who he felt were
responsible for the horrors inflicted on his people so many years ago. He
himself had been taken off the reservation as a young child and forced into one
of the special schools designed to assimilate Native Americans into the white
man's way of life. He was forbidden to speak his native tongue...he was vocal,
but not bitter and Floyd emanated a sense of forgiveness and healing, and he
was humble but strong at the same time.
The east Indian mystic Parashana Yoginanda was also, I
believe, in touch with the Holy Spirit. Most other major religions were spawned
from some sort of mystical experience, but have been corrupted and manipulated
by man through the years. However, you will always find those good and humble
people within that are truly close to God.
Jeannette and I worked closely with Catholic Liberation
Theologists, who were at odds with Rome
in how they viewed the poor and downtrodden of Central
America during the 1980s. Father George Dyer and many nuns
quietly put their lives on the line to help the Mayan Indians of Central
America who were systematically being slaughtered by right wing dictatorships
descended from Spanish Conquistadors. These dictatorships represented the
ruling families and their offshoots who were trying to preserve their power and
wealth using any means possible. They were also supported by US President
Ronald Reagan's administration. The opposite of President Carter who had threatened
to cut off aid to Guatemala
unless they improved their human rights record. Eighty percent of the country's
population was and still is comprised of people of Mayan descent living in dire
poverty.
Father Stanley Rothers from Oklahoma was murdered one night in his
church. Previously he had been threatened by government right wing death squads
for sheltering Mayan Indians in his mission in Santiago, Atitlan, Guatemala.
He had consequently returned to Oklahoma...but
his love for the Mayas and the danger he knew they were in impelled him to
return to his mission in the mountains. This quiet spoken man had found the
strength to return to extreme danger, in spite of serious death threats,
through prayer and his faith in God. I have since visited the room in the
mission he was murdered in...an intensely moving experience, especially after I
was shown his blood stains on the wall. He had obviously put up a struggle. The
Guatemalan government tried to say he had been murdered by local Mayans in Santiago, Atitlan. But the villagers loved him, and unlike the
Maya's who are relatively small in stature, the suspected attacker, or
attackers who had been seen in the village earlier that day in their Toyota
Jeep were tall. They towered above the Mayans. The right wing Guatemalan death
squads of the 1980s usually drove Toyota Jeeps.
This is where I'm at in my lifelong spiritual journey
at the moment...this is of course subject to modification as my trek continues.
But I know the power and love of what I saw that dark and stormy night in Westerham, Kent, England...and
even though I don't pretend to understand it....nobody can ever take that
profound, metaphysical experience away from me.
