Call the Midlife (14 page)

There’s so much more I want to ask him, but our time together is running out, and he has to catch a train in fifteen minutes to Cambridge where he’s giving a lecture to the Cambridge Union, followed by a question-and-answer session. The man never stops.

‘John, I worry about the Church in as much as it doesn’t seem to be worrying enough about itself and its declining popularity. They say of addicts we can only help them if they first hold out their hand and seek assistance having accepted there is something wrong. I see the Church today as an addict in denial.’

‘Chris, once again I hear you. All I can say is I have a psychiatrist member of my congregation in York who is actively lobbying for people who already believe and want to help spread the word officially but without having to give up what they already do and love and is useful to society. In the Minster at York now people have to arrive early if they want to guarantee getting in. The world is waking
up to the fact that what’s been rammed down our throats since the end of World War II as the path to a better life has been nothing more than an elaborate self-fulfilling web of advertising and propaganda to get us to acquire more and more of what’s less and less important to us as human beings. You watch, all successful revolutions start sincerely before exploding into an unstoppable force for change, especially the unconscious ones. I am more optimistic than ever before.’

I can’t say I disagree with him. For a while now I have been of the firm belief that there is a growing trend towards doing as opposed to having. I see it all the time with the various events I’m involved in, having received thousands and thousands of messages following many of them from families wanting me to know how a few days of togetherness has helped them reboot their long-term priorities.

I know exactly what they mean, which is why I need to change. I need to continue this theme of creating yet more time and space in which to see, hear and simply breathe more easily, more freely. In short I need to get rid of a whole load of crap in my life. It’s like I no longer have a choice.

‘Chris, people have begun listening to you because you have already changed more than you realize. The authenticity of the messenger is just as important as the message. Children know when Dad is fibbing. They know when Dad is listening and not just nodding, which is why they often repeat questions over and over again. They want a response, they want attention. But most of all they want Dad. Because they need to know you love them. Anything that takes away from that, anything that distracts you both physically and mentally, you need to get rid of. It’s stealing your life from underneath you.’

By now about a million alarm bells were going off in my head. I needed to instigate the Mother of All Clear Outs. And all this while we were sitting in one of the best-known auction houses in the universe. Where clutter is their business. Much of it beautiful clutter, but clutter nevertheless.

‘Do you ever desire things, stuff?’ I asked John as we headed out
the big plate-glass, bronze-framed front doors back into the sunlight.

‘Oh sure,’ he replied. ‘But only for a moment. Then I instantly realize I have everything I need or could reasonably wish for. If it needs dusting it’s usually surplus to requirements. That’s my rule.’

Great rule, Archbishop.

Why don’t we all do that?

Spirituality

The Shaman

Another one of my ever-growing band of magi is Andy, as I shall refer to him here, primarily ’cos that’s his name. He comes as one of several hi-ball recommendations from the ebullient force of nature whom I’m delighted to call a friend, Ms Fearne Cotton.

So what does a shaman do?

Anything they want to, it seems. Sounds so cool though, doesn’t it? The thing is, according to Andy, a shaman is something he would never refer to himself as. Whereas I would have it stamped on my passport immediately.

The accepted definition of a shaman is one who is connected with a world beyond ours. That is to say beyond what is more traditionally accepted as ours. Which one could further say is only a temporary stage the human race is going through anyway.

In fact, that’s the whole basis of a lot of what Andy and his shaman co-workers believe.

They see it as audacious and ridiculous that we in the Western world base so many of our theories and ideas on relatively recent science and discovery, while choosing to ignore thousands of years of ancient Eastern philosophy. Even though so much of it has its roots in good old-fashioned common sense to do with the seasons – what our environment is trying to tell us and how our seasons and their corresponding elements affect our energy and moods.

Shamans are here as testament to the fact that there is magical and omnipotent equilibrium available to us should we wish to recognize it and tap into it. They, along with others, offer bridges to connect us laymen to the ultimate physical and emotional universal via the ethos of yin and yang.

So what exactly does Andy do for a living?

‘Oh, I get involved in a huge variety of things – all people-based. Helping them identify, cope with and overcome challenging situations. I help them to develop whatever skills they might need to navigate through whatever troubled or turbulent waters they may be up against at the time.’

Andy, a former manager of pubs, discos and restaurants, began his own journey into becoming enlightened, awakened, call it what you will, via experiencing his own profoundly adverse set of circumstances. After his daughter became seriously ill due to a string of tragic events, to quote his exact words: ‘My life turned to shit, basically.’

He gave up almost everything to look after her, and what he didn’t, eventually gave up on him. Including, incredibly, his wife, and mother of his daughter.

Already an epileptic, his poor little girl suffered further brain damage as a result of a cumulative series of misfortunes, leaving Andy feeling helpless and heartbroken. Having lost his home and job and ending up in sheltered accommodation, still with his daughter, he felt he had no choice but to scour the world for any shred of possible hope as to what to do next.

This is how he came across Chinese medicine and, as a consequence, Ancient Chinese philosophy. The initial flashing beacon being the belief that the key to solving an issue is often doing the opposite of what might at first seem most obvious. What is one thing at any one time will eventually become its own mirror image; thinking counter-intuitively, therefore, ofter helps to cut to the chase before it’s too late.

‘I was so stressed one day I attended a t’ai chi class out of sheer desperation, where for the first time in my life I spent two hours looking inside as opposed to outside. It was an enormous revelation to me and one that I knew was there to tell me something.’

After just this one close encounter with himself, Andy simply had to find out more. To the extent he embarked upon a committed
period of studying Chinese medicine here at the School of Complementary Medicine.

‘What I discovered was mind-blowing to me. The fact that the Ancient Chinese had an entirely different understanding of our anatomy and physiology than that of the Western world today.’

Andy is in absolutely no doubt that this is the only sustainable way forward for the human race.

‘It’s obvious to me, yet we collectively continue to ignore it, or rubbish it, or make fun of it. And I know why. Eastern philosophy begins and ends with personal responsibility. What we do as individuals has an immediate and direct effect on anything and everything around us. That’s it, period. Whereas, in the West, it doesn’t suit our culture for that to be the case. We are brainwashed into passing the buck. We are brainwashed into believing that we can buy, steal, beg, borrow or lie our way out of the vast majority of life’s sticky situations, personal conflicts or physical and mental dilemmas.’

It’s very difficult to argue with such common sense.

‘It’s always easier to hand responsibility to other people. But personal responsibility is the key to everything.’

So doesn’t it drive him mad when he is surrounded by a world full of people with their eyes closed and fingers stuck in their ears refusing to acknowledge a simple truth that will instantly make our world a better place to be?

‘Right and wrong are vastly overrated. Being on the “I am right” side of an argument, however true that may be, is naturally bringing yourself into conflict with other human beings. Remember yin will always to turn into yang and vice versa, it always has and it always will. Journeys of self-awareness are spirals of learning that never stop. Instead of confirming how wrong someone is, you’ve got to ask yourself: “Why am I concerning myself with that? What good is that stance to anyone?” In fact it tells you more about you than it does about the original subject of observation.’

That really got me thinking. And has stayed with me ever since. Nothing in our minds is ever about anyone else unless we choose
it to be. Every time we make a judgement about another human being it is the antithesis of compassion. And at the end of everything, compassion is all that matters.

‘In order to improve something in your life, you have to first stop how you’ve been habitually doing that something before. Always do what you’ve always done and you’ll always get what you’ve always got. And just like the best stories, letting go of anything has a beginning, middle and end. The reason many of us are apprehensive of change or letting go is because we know deep inside that once we have become mindful of that something we think we need or would like to change, it is very difficult for us to become unmindful to it.’

Accepting responsibility is a huge commitment.

What Andy is talking about here is the epiphany of one’s own awakening being naturally irreversible. Each small awakening by definition then becomes part of a much bigger awakening. Either gradually, suddenly, or somewhere in between.

The cracks are there to let in the light.

‘Self-awareness gives us the opportunity to change, from which point we will forever thus walk with a well of wisdom inside us to draw from. We will be much more able to interpret mistakes as merely essential experiences in how not to do things right at first so we can then go on to do them much better than we ever could have dreamed.’

‘With more voluntary responsibility comes more ease with anything and everything we choose to do. By accepting something is difficult, it immediately makes that thing easier than it was a heartbeat ago.’

And so how should he/we spread the word?

‘Ah, well. You can only do that in my opinion by subscribing to the idea of “teaching from behind”. What that means is: living by example only and never telling anyone what they should do or how they should do it, unless they specifically ask to be told and you specifically believe they really want to know.’

Chinese philosophy is the ultimate in do-it-yourself. It has its
foundations in shamanism which in turn can be traced back to Buddhism and Taoism as well as many other religions and belief systems. The shamanic DNA has respecting and living in harmony with the world around us at its very core. And there are as many different shades of shamanism in the universe as there are languages and dialects on our planet.

As the world changes us, so we change the world. In which case everything changes as a result of everything else. It’s unavoidable, which is why we need to be aware of our interconnectedness with everything we come into contact with. We are free to think how we want to think but have to be free in the first place.

The key, Andy says, is to simply seek and feel oneself becoming more and more self-aware with every meditation. It’s not about relaxing or mind-clearing, which are both useful in their own right, but more a matter of seeing who we really are. When we see who we really are, we automatically become more humble and change will follow. And when we begin to change, hopefully for the better, everyone around us will have to make adjustments because of what we have done.

‘Small doubts lead to small enlightenment and great doubt leads to great enlightenment. Be a great doubter – but doubt yourself rather than directing your doubt at someone else. The only way to change the wider world is to start with the world inside ourselves.’

Andy believes that the decentralization of power via the Internet is no accident but merely the next major step in the evolution of how we run ourselves.

‘There are many wonderful things about the Internet which cut much deeper than its many obvious negative effects. Change is inevitable, so we need to work with it, we need to have peace with it, we need to embrace it and find a way of using it for good. I find it thrilling, amazing, mind-boggling.’

History informs us that cruel, greedy and murderous dictators thrive on secrecy, separation and propaganda. All of which is the opposite of mass communication. Sure, bad, destructive and manipulative messages can now be spread just as efficiently and
rapidly as good, but education beats isolation every time. And that simple truth, combined with our natural human inclination to want to care, nurture and love each other, can ultimately only mean one thing:

Regardless of what certain doom-mongers want us to believe, we are going to be around for a good while longer.

Not only that, let’s leave this chapter with the star of the show. Listen to this for an affirmation of how fantastic it is to be us.

‘We are fundamentally programmed to
seek joy
. The best way to achieve this is to stay energized and compassionate, which will give us the balance we need to be able to participate in that joy as and when it presents itself.’

And that, my friends, is as good a message as one could ever wish to hear.

Sleep

The Sleep Guru

‘The really annoying thing about good sleepers and the key to their sleeping prowess is that they do nothing. They merely go to sleep and that’s it,’ says Dr Guy Meadows, founder of the Sleep School and holder of a doctorate on the physiology of the sleeping brain.

The guy, Guy, is a genius on the brink of world superstardom. He is the Deepak Chopra of sleep. When the world wakes up – forgive the pun – to what he knows and how he can help us, he will become a household name, he has to. If I were still as commercially minded as I used to be, I would sign him up for life immediately.