The UK’s leading New Age magazine, “Kindred Spirit”, features me in the latest issue (November/December). Because of limited space, they weren’t able to include all the questions and answers, so here is the complete interview. If you live in the UK, make sure you pick up the latest issue of “Kindred Spirit” – it’s always a good read.
Q: The central koan of the book is: the thought thinks the thinker. This is quite a tough concept for people to grasp. Could you give us an example of how this can manifest in our lives?
Yes, it is a strange one, and certainly counter-intuitive. But when you look carefully, there is only thinking. Thoughts come into your head. Built into every thought is the idea of a ‘you’, and so ‘you’ are created in the process of thinking. The next question is: so what is a thought if it has the power to create you? Essentially, a thought is the brain’s interpretation of an energetic wave, and that wave comes from past experiences that continue to live on. If you doubt the past is alive in you now, there’s plenty of evidence that demonstrates that children who were abused in any way – even shouted at – don’t live as long and suffer more chronic disease in the meantime. Here’s an example of how the thought thinks the thinker. Let’s say you suddenly get angry. Where did that energy come from? From a past experience that was similar to what’s happening in the present moment, and some recognition occurs. That wave gets translated by the brain as a thought – angry thoughts about a person or situation – and creates you at the same moment. That has to happen in order to sustain the energy of the thought. A thought without a thinker would collapse under its own logical absurdity. So, the thought comes first, then the idea of a thinker. Now, instead of there just being anger, I am angry!
Q: You suffered from chronic depression for more than ten years. If you had not done so, would you have had the insight to be able to uncover the theories outlined in the book?
We can’t take anything away from our lives. It all matters. I suffered from chronic depression, but I’d also suffered an abusive childhood, too. As I say in the book, everything combined to create a perfect storm where this deep understanding became possible. It started with the very strange, and Biblical-sounding, thought that came roaring into my skull: That to which you do not fully attend will weigh you down. It all started pouring out from there.
Q: You talk about the ‘Three Selves’ – past, present and potential time bodies, as you call them. How much of our present body is spent dealing with the issues/experiences that we never fully understood from our past time body?
It varies all the time, depending on the situation and the person. As a general rule, the more we live and are unconscious of the full significance of experience, we become increasingly ‘time-heavy’, as I call it. We are more past than present. By then, we see little of the wonders in front of us, but are consumed by past hurts, sadnesses, and so on. By comparison, a child in a happy home environment is invariably ‘time-light’ because it doesn’t have the same heavy burden of the past, it hasn’t had the overload of experience it hasn’t understood. If we’re in a field and a raging bull is running towards us, we’re surprisingly present. But, in the main, we keep on reliving past experiences; we can see this from the patterns that keep recurring in our lives. These are all energy waves from a past we never understood in the first place.
Q: Many KS readers are on a path of self-development or spiritual enlightenment. Your book seems to suggest that searching for a more spiritual way of life does not hold the answers. Is that fair to say?
That isn’t quite what it says! We’re all on a spiritual journey, whether we know it or not. One of the central questions of the book is this: our true and natural state is ‘enlightened’, for want of a better term. But if that is so, and it is one of the central tenets of Zen Buddhism, for instance, why doesn’t it feel like that? Why don’t we know we’re enlightened already? When our consciousness becomes body-centred – and this happens usually as a result of pain and discomfort—so we have experiences that are more limited. They are limited, or incomplete, because they are seen from the perspective of our body. This starts to build a substantial body of incomplete experiences, and increasingly the world is interpreted through this, the Past time-body as I call it. It also becomes the driver of many of our desires, ambitions and dreams, because it is a place of dissatisfaction and unhappiness. So, it is this that wants a bigger car, a bigger house, a more beautiful or handsome partner – because this one extra thing may just scratch that metaphysical itch. Seen that way, the drive for a new car or God is the same: it comes from deep dissatisfaction. So, if you are already ‘enlightened’, any drive towards something else – even an imagined enlightened state – must be a move away from the perfect state you already are. It’s all from unhappiness.
Q: By following the 21-day programme outlined in the book, do you believe we can all learn how to heal the negative patterns that we’ve created, to self- heal, or do some people need help from others?
Again, it depends on the individual. One woman who read an earlier version of the book – I self-published it originally as Time-Light – said she ‘got it’ after reading just a few pages, and started dancing and singing around the house. I guess you could say she was ready! Others have read the book four or five times and ‘got it’. Some may need to see me or hear me talk. It’s different for everyone. But, yes, the 21-day programme will help you wake up, gently and sweetly. It’s all so ridiculously simple: the issue is how difficult have you decided to make it?
Q: What ambition do you have for this book?
That it wakes up the world, that we realize our true nature as extraordinary creators, and that we all grasp this extraordinary thing called life and sing, dance, and laugh our unique message to the world. A life without the past is a life lived without any fear. When there is no fear, there is no separation.