Читать книгу The Oscar for Life - Declan MiscellaneousLabor Loy - Страница 17

Now that this same force was communicating with him, he would often hear others speak of feeling inspired. He’d hear tales of how people experienced moments when they get a feeling, like a rush of endorphins, that seemed to indicate a deep inner knowingness that something was about to happen or that you were about to do something in life. Sometimes it happened when the telephone rang and the person on the other end of the phone was someone you’d just been thinking about.

Ethan came to know this inner voice as the deeper part of him, which he often referred to as ‘I’, his inner inspiration, that is often sheltered behind the locked door of thought.

Ethan recognised that a battle was beginning within him, a battle between two voices – the ‘I’ or inspiration and the ‘Me’ or Ego. The ‘I’ made him feel more alive than he’d ever felt before. He’d never taken drugs but imagined that no drug could top the natural ‘high’ which his ‘I’ gave him. But there was another voice within him, struggling to control him, which was a voice of fear, worry and doubt. This voice was the ‘Me’, his ego voice of the mind, which warned him against following his ‘I’ and left him feeling down.

Because Ethan trusted his inner ‘I’ voice so much, he decided to follow that voice. He believed that the ‘I’ voice would guide him along the best path, the most effortless path, in life. He believed that voice only wanted to give him the best possible things in life.

He knew it wasn’t logical to listen to a voice like that or to participate in an existence like that, but he trusted in that part of himself. In the past, any time Ethan trusted that part of himself he’d experienced the most wonderful miracles in his life and achieved the goals he set himself whether they were in the areas of finance, health, love or self-expression. He’d already experienced all of these beautiful things so he knew that this part of him was as real as his three beautiful children.

It was said, “by their fruits you shall know them.” And the fruits which are growing in your life, the fruits or results, let you know what you are doing in your life, the actions you are taking, are right actions.

Ethan’s life at present was a life of true fulfilment. He had never experienced so much joy in life not a boastful joy, but a quiet sense of knowing what life was all about. He felt he had arrived, and all because he trusted the ‘I’ part of himself.

He was a different person with his children and with his wife, Natalie. But it hadn’t always been this way and, at times, Ethan did slip back into listening to his ‘Me’ voice. This ego voice was the mind-made identification of what he was and was difficult to resist, but he found himself increasingly able to break away from the grip of this voice and find himself in his inner light, which some people call the Spirit. Everything in Ethan’s life completely changed and transformed as a result of his beginning to trust in his self.

But the journey that brought Ethan to that point on the side of the road in Thailand was a battle. His inspiration told him to do this and he’d said yes to the inspiration, which was trust and faith! But Ethan knew that, in life, that is what you have to do when you get to know inspiration within the ‘I’ part of you. When it begins to nudge you to do something and you don’t know how to do the thing you are being inspired to complete, you need to just say, “Yes, I don’t know how it’s going to happen but I’m going to do it”.

For Ethan, logically, this journey wasn’t going to happen for many reasons. But when inspiration flows through you, there’s no such thing as excuses, justifications or rationalisations, because you will be provided with everything you need at the right time to complete your journey. So Ethan simply said yes, he was prepared to go on this journey of self-discovery.

His story became really a metaphor for life and he wanted to share that story, convinced that when people read or heard about his experiences, they would begin to understand the feelings behind the words and would start to experience their own lives in a different way. They would understand there are different layers of living and experiencing life.

As Ethan arrived in Bangkok he could see how crowded and busy the airport was with thousands of people bustling about. He took a taxi to his hotel and, for the first time, saw how much traffic there was in Bangkok City. He had experienced many different parts of the world, from London to New York, from Paris to Rome, but this city was more crowded with traffic than any he’d seen before. It was unbelievable. People were beeping horns, zipping in and out of lanes on the freeway, or just driving up the middle of the road. It was like a stock car rally. He couldn’t understand how there weren’t more accidents here but, eventually, his taxi pulled up, intact, outside his hotel.

The hotel room was beautiful, a spacious penthouse suite and a good room to start a journey like this from. Ethan stepped out onto the 19th floor balcony of the Chatrium Hotel in downtown Bangkok. As he looked out, he could see the Bangkok River stretching off in two directions and he spotted new, trendy tower blocks rising up in the distance. In between the tower blocks he could see many small little buildings that looked like poor people’s homes. So many people housed per square meter. So many minds, housed per square meter, so much consciousness in such a small area.

The city of Bangkok is spread over an area of 604 square miles and has a population of 6.35 million people. As Ethan looked out over the city from his 19th floor penthouse, he was surrounded by an orchestra of noise coming from every direction. He could hear the rushing of traffic, the pounding of horns, and the thunder of music in the early morning sky. He was tired but was too excited to sleep. He had heard people describe New York as the city that never sleeps, but the same could be said of Bangkok. People were in their apartments, walking on the streets, driving, talking and creating noise everywhere, even at this hour of the night. He wondered if the city ever stopped, ever took a break. Lying in bed later, Ethan could hear the noise and see the neon lights that flashed in the night sky.

“Does this city never stop?” he wondered. “When does this place ever get time to slow down or take time out?”

Ethan began to consider how our environment plays a huge part in our way of thinking, how it actually helps to create our way of thinking. He thought what it would be like living in an environment like this. He had lived in London and Dublin and had experienced how environmental influences can make you think. He began to think about how there are different kinds of consciousness and, as he thought, a light bulb came on in his mind. There is a wealthy consciousness, a middle-class consciousness, and a poor consciousness, he realised. Bangkok has a certain consciousness as does England, Germany, France and other countries all of which had their own unique cultural perspective. The experience of this noisy environment in Bangkok made Ethan’s mind feel cluttered. It made his mind race and he found it difficult to relax in this busy environment.

The next morning Ethan woke up and ambled down to a fine breakfast. The sun shone brightly and the city was starting to heat up. He walked down by the river, leaning over the edge of the boundary wall and glancing into the water. It was so dirty and clogged up that you couldn’t see through the water. As he continued to walk further down the street, he felt the reality of moving from his luxurious, five-star hotel to a scene of poverty. Half-built, run-down, dirty buildings with pieces crumbling away from them, were dissected by choked roads full of motorcycles, cars, noise and pollution. It seemed to him that the people here spent much of their lives just trying to get from A to B by car. “They must be living in their cars. When did they ever get time to stop?” To Ethan, it appeared to be a waste of time. He remembered spending so much of his own time driving to and from work, nearly three hours and twenty minutes every day. And what had it achieved for him? Nothing, except unhappiness and stress.

Smells filled the Bangkok air but they were like the smells from a rubbish dump. People were cooking at the side of the street and it appeared they were living in their shops. Ethan began to feel uncomfortable about where he was staying when there was such poverty right on his five-star hotel’s doorstep.

Could this experience be a message? There certainly are different levels of existence and he thought that two weeks of living there, in such a crazy city, would leave his mind racing, wandering and maybe filled with aggression. It would be hard to get in touch with his self in the midst of such noise, he thought.

As he walked through the city, he decided to centre himself. He started listening very attentively. And as he listened very attentively, he could hear so much noise. So many people talking, so much music, intercoms, pots and pans moving in shops, clothes moving, people walking around. As he looked he could see the busy lives of these people who were constantly on the go, never taking a breather, never relaxing. He knew that, sometimes, life was like that, but the more he looked and watched, the more he could see. Suddenly, he understood. It was if he could see his inner self, his mind. It was as if, for a moment, the entire world was just one mind and that mind was God’s mind, because God creates everything. Standing there, he felt as if he was experiencing part of God’s creation with all of these people and all of the noises.

An overwhelming feeling came upon him, there was just too much happening. He began to frown at the intense level of noise all around him, as he became more aware. The noise of everyday life was always there, but Ethan had never really taken as much notice of it before as he now did. It was like being able to hear the thoughts of everyone around him all at once. He wanted it to stop. There was so much noise.

“Please stop”, he begged. “Just stop. Let me be.”

He felt that he was in a scene in a movie that was being made about his life and that all he wanted, at that moment, was to be able to freeze-frame, pause the movie and just relax and get his bearings.

He thought about God, about how, if God is the creator of everything, if he created the world, then he could imagine the world like the mind of God. If that was true, then what must God think of us when he hears all this noise caused by human existence? What must he think of all the chatter, prayers, questions, thoughts, language or inner beliefs?

“You live in a world which is constantly go, go, go, move, move, move and do, do, do.”