Vampires. The Trost family tree. The British Records Office. Hemingway. Dorothy Parker. An 'assault on Whitney'.
What does it all mean? And who – or what – is Whitney?
This morning a friend sent me a mail. He said it was about vampires. But it wasn't. It was a newsy bit of chit-chat from someone I didn't know covering all of this, from vampires to the cryptic 'assault on Whitney'; the books he was reading, how far he jogged yesterday, that sort of stuff. It was sent in error. Obviously. Or maybe not?
As we've discovered, we have absolutely no idea how the universe really works. We simply can't comprehend the enormity or the extent of the 'unified field', what David Bohm calls the 'implicate order'. So we see the illusion; the duality, the separateness. We think duality and separateness will make us secure, but it is the source of our greatest unhappiness. And it is in this sense that illusion is 'the game that mocks us'.
But, if we have an 'awareness of one-ness', if we accept that everything is connected, that there is meaning in everything we see, (whether we understand it or not, whether we even see it or not), we can change the game. Instead, we can play in a world of coincidence, of chance, of miracles, a world in which the illusion delights us and surprises us. In this world, we can't wait to see what happens next. In this game, we live breathlessly, with childlike joy and boundless enthusiasm.
This is the game called intuition.
In spite of the sense of wide-eyed wonder, it's not just a game for children. Einstein, one of the most 'down-to-earth' thinkers of our time said: 'There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is.' He's not saying 'miracles exist', note, he's saying 'everything's a miracle'. Good, bad, everything.
What does this mean? It means: be alive in every moment. Be open to anything. Pay attention to everything, especially the stuff that doesn't seem to make sense. Watch. Wait. Listen. Be alert. There's a sanskrit word 'ritam' that means 'meaning', 'rhythm', 'alertness to coincidence', as well as 'the connection between one and all'. See the connections; between things, between ideas, between yourself and others, even (especially) 'others' you think you don't know. Remember: everything and everyone is connected. Intuition is a game of join-the-dots.
How can intuition help you? It can save your life. Intuition is what makes you look left and see the car jumping the red light, where you would not 'normally' have looked.
It can help you find your life purpose. When you look back at the twists and turns your life takes before you 'realise your passion' and 'find your bliss', you wonder why you tried to fight it when things didn't seem to be turning out as you planned.
It can help you find answers to important questions you might have. Simply ask, let go and stay alert to the answers. And don't be surprised when the answer comes in a more tangible form than you expect.
Many years ago, I asked (myself): does the one-ness of ubuntu exist in the western world? Then I asked (myself) another question: where will I find a single carved chess piece to replace the one that my daughter lost yesterday? (She threw it into the foundations of a wall we were building, for reasons best know to herself and the architect of the unified field.) So I went to the Red Door shop, where you can find pretty much anything. I asked the owner if he had any old chess sets for sale. He led me to a bookshelf and pulled out 'The I That Is We', a book about one-ness by an American psychologist called Richard Moss MD. (The blurb on the back said: 'It is this kind of book that synchronistically appears when it is most needed.') Just the book I was looking for, but hardly where I expected to find it. That's intuition in action.
How can you develop intuition? An awareness of one-ness. Learning to trust yourself. Letting yourself have fun with the mystery and fascination of all-that-is. And understanding that the most fundamental law of the universe lives in the heart of the paradox that is 'ritam'; that you are a mere speck in the enormity of the universe, but the entirety of the universe exists within you.
Get your head around that. Then drop me a line and let me know who – or what - Whitney is.
Bryn is a freelance writer living amongst the vines and olive trees of South Africa's beautiful Western Cape province with his wife and three children.