Sparkling Through The Tragedies of Peoples Life

As I managed to start healing my own wounds, and without self proclamation, other people started coming to me for help in meeting their own wounds. I became a therapist working among the wounded. So I learned a great deal about wounds and being wounded. Some of the lessons I learned, I suppose it is true to say, are tattooed on my soul. As the needle went in again and again, it gradually produced in me both a great compassion for the human condition, but also a great wonder. In fact, the privilege of being able to look under the surface of so many people’s lives, made love grow in me. Love for people – yes. But love for something that I saw again and again sparkling and shining through the tragedies of human lives.

I do not know how to adequately describe that mysterious wonder that lives in us, often hidden or denied, perhaps buried under the rubble of a torn life. I do know from long experience that we can open and develop a relationship with it. I do know that if I can help someone remove the debris it shines out and transforms them. I know also that even as I try to describe it now I have tears in my eyes. The mere touch of that splendour at the heart of all of us, the fragrant and fleeting memory of it, is deeply moving. See Opening to Life

Writing about it in his book Rain Upon Godshill, J. B. Priestly calls it “The White Flame of Life.” When he experienced it he said he had never before felt such deep happiness. Raynor Johnson, called it The Imprisoned Splendour in his book of the same name. Throughout the ages it has been given countless names. The point is, it is the same wonder now, for you and for me as it ever was. It may come in various guises, but it is essentially the same for all of us.

When we enter into a relationship with that; when we unblock what may have been holding it back, wounds and pains, mistakes and failings are transformed. I don’t mean they are simply healed. They are, though the action often calls us to feel the past more deeply in order to understand and integrate. What happens is that wounds are discovered to be treasure troves of insight and understanding of who you are, and what the journey of your life means; how it connects with the vastness of life itself.

Our wounds are not simply treasures of life lessons and insight, they are also markers. They are like those flares that ships can send up when they are in trouble. Like a flare, they grab your attention shouting, “Look at me! Take notice! SOS! Give me attention. There is something important here! Help!” See Tony’s Experience of Stroke

If we go to that marker and try to unblock the flow of splendid life in us then it can be healed, the treasure claimed, the insights and life changes received. However, I am not for one moment suggesting that is an easy process. We are so deeply involved in conformity and the status quo it may be easier to medicate, meditate, drug, or drink that pain away. I remember hearing a man who had suffered long years of depression say, with some bitterness in his voice, that depression was incurable. I personally know depression is curable. It requires of us more than taking a tablet though, or downing alcohol. It might mean the gradual removal of all the techniques and repressions we have used to conform to the status quo, to keep the job we have no real interest in, to remain in a life situation that is poisonous. More than anything else we may have developed a deep identification with what is, after all, a sick personality structure. “This is ME”, you might say. “Take it or leave it.” I AM a depressive. I AM aggressive. I AM hateful. I AM without hope or purpose in my life. My life DOES stink. I REALLY am lost!”

OK – I hear you. I am no St. Michael, no saviour bringing peace to the world. I just want to witness that there is a way through – and there is an Imprisoned Splendour in you.

As for how to do it, I don’t have a polished and widely ‘advertised on TV’ product that I am trying to promote to earn a million. I am a simple guy who managed to get lifted out of a pit and whose wounds stopped hurting. I have learned that we are all different and start from enormously varied places. I have seen, in being involved in many people’s lives, that if you reach out to that inner Splendour, it reaches out for you. But it might not come in the form you expect. As I said above, it comes in various guises – even disguises. Life, after all, is everywhere and in everything.

I believe too that the best way to come to the Splendour is naked – and I am not talking about clothes. I am talking about the opinions and beliefs, convictions, beliefs and fears we are often completely choked up with and trapped by. One can often hear a scientist ranting on about something they say is an absolute truth – tested rigorously in the laboratory. Down the way someone is saying much the same thing about their religion – God’s own words.

Come on! When you can honestly say you know all there is to know, that may be the time to be opinionated and rigid in your beliefs. Meanwhile, stand naked. How else can that sparkling mystery touch you and move you? See Virgin – How I became One; Healing Experience; Cell

There are many modern and ancient ways to arrive at a better life. I will give some details of them.

The Simple Secret of Them All Is

Open all of yourself to the unknown and invisible force that Creates You – Life. 

That means dropping all you present expectations, beliefs, and ideas – for you are allowing the Unknown to enter your life.

Remember: Your wounds are openings that can let in the Light.