A Taste of the Other Shore

 The 8-Ball

On Tuesday 14 October, for the first time in years, instead of sitting together in silence, or with music, in Radiance Evening, as usually happens, Michael had something to say:

Back in the Villa days I always used to use the expression: to keep one eye on the eight ball. Since that time I have said it many times, probably you have all heard me say it, but I want to mention it again. It means that when we are playing with the other balls, which is what we do in life – with relationships, interaction, following our desires, goals, and jobs as well – all the time you have to keep one on the eight ball, because if you put it in the pocket before the end, you lose the game.

Well, a game of pool is just a game of pool, and there can be another game of pool and another game of pool, which you might win or lose this time, but when the game you are playing is your life, then you may not so easily get another chance.

So the eight ball that you have to keep your eye on is something that has no name and also has many names. One of the names is ‘God’. It doesn’t have to mean the Christian God, the God of the Bible, it can stand for something else – it is the name that you in a way create for something that of course is always there. So you can call it God if you like, you can also call it the Work that we do, or you could also call it ‘Michael Barnett’, who brings it. That doesn’t mean that you can’t knock balls around with me, as some of you do and which I am quite happy to do, but it means that in addition you have to see that I am a connecting rod with that which is deepest in you.

I know that many of you, and many other people that connect with me, are perfectly aware of that and regard it and honour it. Even when they are playing balls with me they honour it, and it is important that they do that because that is what makes me different from ‘just another guy’. I am also just another guy, I know that and have no wish to pretend otherwise; I was born, I will die, and I have family like most people, and children, friends, interactions, preferences, and things I choose to do with my time apart from my Work. So that is all very regular, but I also have this connection with God, with the One, with the Space, with the Eternal. And because that is present in a human being that you are in connection with and know, it means that you can also receive it, awaken it in yourself, respond, resonate, participate, and finally own that for yourself. Otherwise you will miss something that is not around in so many places, not so available, not on show, not advertised, not on the internet, because it needs a beating heart, it needs giving hands, it needs the passing through the eyes and the energy from one human being to another.

This is an entirely impersonal statement. I am not especially interested in promoting to you what is in myself that I am with, but I think that I have a duty to let it be known that this is the case, and not to appreciate it and recognise it is to betray your true self.

The Sufis say there is only God, everything is God and there is only God, and I have come to see that in a way that is absolutely true. Everything else is mist, forms and shapes, games and dances, phantoms really, taken very seriously, and that is part of the leela of life. But essentially, not as an idea but as a discovery, as a personal experience, you will find that everything is God and there is only God. And that is a name for something that I use without calling up the same image as others have done using the same word, I call up a state of original being out of which the multitude comes. Everything comes from that, everything returns to that, and that is why that is all there is, essentially.

Often I see in people’s houses and around people’s necks a chain with the symbol of what is known in the East as ‘Om’, the so-called sound of the universe. I now have a CD that I play sometimes in the seminars of the Dalai Lama of Tibet, chanting a mantra which is composed mostly of the word Om. It is very deep, very intense, very profound, very touching, very energetic, very penetrating, and very universal indeed. There are few who would not be touched by it.

When you not only find but join that which is everywhere, in everything and beyond everything at the same time, allow it to swamp you, free you, you will recognise in that experience the presence of Om. And when you copy it as the Dalai Lama does, as many people have done, it will not be the silent sound of Om, but it can at least reflect to some extent the presence and quality of the true Om.

You have to believe what I say with all your being, you have to trust what I say with all your being, you have to seek what I talk about with all your being, and then you can relax and be your being. When you seek it with all your being then in a way you can’t ever find it through that seeking, but in a way you can. It is like this marvellous ego that sets you on a journey, and the second thing it does with that intensity of looking, asking and opening, is it takes you away from all that binds you, imprisons you, and manacles you into your desires, ambitions, and ego. It frees you from all of that because you turn your energy towards something that is not included in those games. That freedom enables your energy to soar free and find that which is invisible, that which is tenuous and subtle, and that which requires a silence and a fine ear to hear. It is something that requires the absence of yourself to meet, and then the sound resounds in you whenever you stop what you are doing. You return to your source and it is there, and then once it is there you can return to what you were doing only you won’t do it like you were doing it before. It will be a new kind of dance, a new kind of action, it will take you away from your patterns and your habits, your repeated responses, you will leave all these things behind and you will be dancing the cosmic dance.

(Michael plays the Dalai Lama ‘Om’ mantra)