Welcome
Readers often tell me they value the first‑person voice in my book because it offers a clear sense of how I think and creates a kind of intimacy... “in‑to‑me‑see.”
I believe we need more authenticity and less persona because when we’re open, it becomes easier to recognise the “oneness” beneath our different experiences.
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While my book and other articles explore symbolism, allegory and ancient ways of understanding the world, here is where I will reflect more personally on ethics, self‑realisation and how we choose to show up. I’ll be sharing what I’ve learnt about life, along with whatever feels relevant, topical, or simply interesting.

There will be no schedule, no fixed purpose, just following where my inner temple takes me.

​ I hope you’ll read along…
Scroll down for the latest 2026 posts

​Congruence: The Heart of Authentic Connection

December 2025
Today, I wish to discuss the old adage, “watch what people do, not what they say.”

In the context of fostering unity consciousness, this principle encourages us to look beyond words and observe the congruence between words and actions, which is a vital step towards genuine connection.

Since social media became an everyday part of our world, I have noticed there is an increasing number of people sharing advice; some with an air of guru-like authority.  Nothing wrong with that, but what we should all be mindful of (myself included) when sharing info and quotes is whether we practise what we preach.

In my book I mention the fact that it is all too easy to be a peace-filled Monk on a mountaintop, what's truly impressive is when the Monk visiting a city can keep his cool!

To be fair, no one can walk their talk all the time. Life is a learning curve, and none of us is perfect. What separates the self‑aware person from the personality‑driven individual though, is that if any hypocrisy or inconsistency is pointed out between word and actions, the former will readily accept it.

Hopefully you'd avoid doing any 'pointing out' publicly but, even if you did, the response to expect might be something like, “Oh my goodness, you’re right”  or "Oops, you got me there." The person may still proceed to offer some defence or justification for the incongruence, however, the central premise remains: they'll quickly recognise and own the mismatch you have identified. Perhaps even laugh a little.

That is self‑responsibility and 'flying lightly.'  Those who aggressively try to make you wrong for pointing out incongruency are likely to still be struggling with implementing self-awareness.

Others might react in a passive‑aggressive manner, saying, “Oh, you are so right, thank you for pointing that out,” but then ignore you for weeks. That’s ok, it's likely just embarrassment, but it’s not ok if they hold a grudge or block you or whatever.

Consistency is an important value to hold and to cultivate. I try to watch for incongruities and inconsistencies in my own actions and I'm alert to it in others. Not policing, just observing.  Noticing may not always stop me saying one thing and doing another, but at least I'm aware of what I'm doing!

So the adage we are discussing here says, “watch what people do, not what they say” but, actually, we can dig deeper. Paying attention to the words people use can also sometimes offer great insight.  For example, if someone is inconsistent in their contact with you, perhaps flipping from engaged to distant, when it is discussed, they may say, “Oh, I’m sorry I'm just so busy.” 

One of the highly insightful quotes attributed to one of my favourite poet/philosophers, Kahlil Gibran, is this:

“No matter how busy a man is, he is never too busy to stop and talk about how busy he is.”

This observation reminds us that attention and presence are choices, and that genuine connection requires prioritising others.

Do be aware though that, for whatever reason, a person may choose not to prioritise you in a given moment. This doesn’t automatically mean they don’t care; often it reflects their current capacity, their bandwidth, or the level of congruence they’re able to embody at that point in their life. Still, patterns matter.

Simply take note of the consistency of their behaviour over time. 

If you hear pushback such as, “That’s not fair, I am busy and everyone’s different and dealing with their own issues,” of course that is true - their feelings may be more complex or kinder than their actions suggest. However, their behaviour is showing you where you sit in their current hierarchy of attention. 

No one is ever too busy to contact the lottery office if they realise they've won a big prize!

It speaks to a person’s character when they consistently show up for others and make time for them. 

Valuing others as equal to oneself is not just a personal virtue, but a contribution to the collective harmony we all seek. Relational congruence should be a spiritual and psychological practice every day. I don't think enough people talk about this. Congruence is a very real indicator of self‑awareness. 

Kahlil Gibran

December 2025
Kahlil Gibran was a poet–philosopher and artist devoted to simplicity, love, and beauty.  He was a deeply religious man who refused to be confined to any single sect. He believed in a divine source of ever‑unfolding life, in the essential goodness of nature, and in the equality and brotherhood of all people.

Born in Lebanon, he also lived at various times in Paris and the USA.  While residing in America, at the age of 11 his name, Gibran Khalil Gibran, was misspelled and anglicised to Kahlil Gibran (switching the position of the h.) Nevertheless, he willingly adopted this spelling.

Kahlil Gibran is most well-known for his mesmerising work, The Prophet (1923) one of my favourite books of all time. However, he produced many other works in Arabic and English. All the quotes you see here are from those other books.

“Like you, I have been here since the beginning, and I shall be until the end of days.
There is no ending to my existence, for the human soul is but a part of a burning torch which God separated from Himself at Creation.
​Thus my soul and your soul are one, and we are one with God.”

Major influences on Gibran included Buddhist and Eastern mystical traditions; the Bible and the figure of Jesus; the Islamic philosophers Avicenna and Al‑Hallaj; the Sufi poets Rumi and Francis Marrash; the visionary artists William Blake and Auguste Rodin; the philosophers Nietzsche (who, incidentally, believed Sir Francis Bacon to have been Shakespeare!), Rousseau, Voltaire, Henri Bergson, and Ralph Waldo Emerson; and the poets Walt Whitman and Lamartine. Artistically, he was strongly shaped by the Renaissance masters Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo.

"Darkness may hide the trees
and the flowers from the eyes
but it cannot hide
love from the soul."

Kahlil died of Tuberculosis in 1931 at the age of 48. He has become the third best-selling poet of all time, following only Shakespeare and Lao-tzu. 

F. Holland Day (1864–1933) was an American photographer and publisher known for his dramatic, symbolist portraits. He photographed Gibran (as seen here) in the late 1890s

​Do You Make Assumptions?

December 2025
This week I have been moved to want to discuss the human tendency to make assumptions. It is all part of a wider concern of mine about the lack of critical thinking that we see these days.

Have you ever, out of curiosity or playing armchair detective, Googled someone and used Street View to see their house? I’m not talking about stalkerish behaviour, just curiosity. Maybe it’s someone you’re doing business with or thinking of dating or your boss's new home.

Google maps will drop a pin and by selecting Street View it may show you a house, and from that, it is easy to make assumptions. But do you know for sure if it’s a residential address or an accommodation/mail forwarding address you have?  I know a London Belgravia address  - an exclusive area - where in a residential row of highly desirable mews houses, one is used by many, many people as a mailing address. It's quite a common thing to have service addresses.

So before you look someone up or take an online image of a property at face value, it’s worth pausing for a second. Is this really the home or business of the person? 

And I am sure you realise how quickly things can change - the garden, the exterior, even the entire structure. The image capture might be a few years out of date and nothing like what’s actually there now. Plus, if a Google caption tells you this picture shows number 22, does it actually match the number on the house? Often it is the house next door or opposite, but sometimes it is one that is way down the street.

I once visited a new friend in an unfamiliar town. Before I departed I looked on Street View and I thought, “Ok, I’ll park there,” but I was surprised by the road of tightly packed terraced houses as it didn’t match some things she’d mentioned in our chats about horses and other livestock. I arrived but couldn't find her house. I called and she directed me to an entrance which was tucked away between two properties. The house had multiple barns and outbuildings - a huge sprawling property surrounded by fields.

Now imagine if someone was doing these searches to try and ascertain something about you and your lifestyle - they would be mentally making assumptions.

It can work the other way too. I once lived in a beautiful period flat with its own front door hidden away to the side. If anyone was checking out my address back then, they likely would have believed I must live in the whole house, one of the most attractive in the area, whereas I only had the first floor. They may have assumed I owned the house rather than that I was renting.

Does it matter? Not in this case, but you can imagine times when assumptions really might change people’s assessments or viewpoints. Potential employers, legal representatives, people you write to, they probably won't admit to looking you up online, but I'd wager they often do. 

There are other examples. Listening to a YouTube video the other day, a person referenced their husband. It was only when I watched a very old Q&A that I realised her husband had died a few  years before. My assumption was that he was still living.

Speaking of YouTube, how about old videos or posts online we might find that no longer reflect the views of the person, but they just never deleted them. You might assume those are their current views. People do change opinions.

I can keep going. What about those you meet or interact with in person? How often have you thought they are confident, or “sorted” in life, happily married, or whatever, then it later transpires that was your assumption?

With some social media platforms you only have a tiny profile photo to go by.  Often we don't know how tall or small a person is, if they are abled or disabled - even wheelchair bound. We don't know whether it's a recent photo or old. These things don't matter - but we do fill in the unknowns with assumptions.

​Then, of course, there is hearsay!  Something is said, someone else confirms it, so it is easy to think it must be true, but then later something is said by the person themselves, you realise it was complete “Chinese whispers” nonsense.

I'll tell you what sparked my wanting to write about this. The other day I Googled someone and their name is quite a common first and surname, but their profession isn’t. Two images came up -  same name, identical job titles, and exactly the same nose shape and hair. They looked like the same person to me so I clicked on one. Only in the wording far down the page did I read he was from the USA, so it was definitely not the right person. Up until that point I was convinced I was learning about the person I had searched.

What if I had not read that far down and assumed it was the right person and proceeded to form an opinion or say something to others based on what I had found?

I’m also particularly sensitive to this “don’t assume” rule because of my own experience. As you’ll read in the book, part of my early training in alchemy, esoteric studies, and consciousness work included a professional qualification in Astrology. And the moment you say that word  "Astrology"  people tend to leap to conclusions.

They assume you “believe in it” in a particular way. They assume you must be into divination, tarot cards, or palm reading. Some imagine you as a certain “type” - crystals everywhere, vegetarian, eco‑warrior, the whole stereotype. There’s nothing wrong with any of those choices, of course, but it’s still a narrow box that women interested in anything labelled “woo” often get placed into.

In my opinion, life would be so much fairer if everyone avoided living life on a superficial, fast-paced level. If everyone just gave a few minutes of time when assessing any and all information instead of just blindly accepting what they read, parroting what someone else says, making assumptions and arriving at incorrect conclusions about so many things.

Indeed, this could be one of the hidden benefits of the introduction of AI and deepfakes because it is forcing the collective to stop and ask question like, Is this real? Is this true?

In this day and age of rampant misinformation and disinformation, critical thinking is key.

Don’t assume. Be open to surprises.

That's going to be my New Year's Resolution too.

Unquestioned Family/Parenting Scripts

December 2025
Following on from my previous post, another one of my big bugbears around the lack of critical thinking, is how easily people parrot social mores without ever thinking about them deeply.

When it comes to parenting, we hear the same lines repeated over and over:

“Charge them rent.”
“Don’t let your kids treat your house like a hotel.”
“Don’t give them money - they need to learn to stand on their own two feet.”
“They’ll thank you for it later.”

I couldn’t disagree more.

Children are not a right; they are a gift.

If you’re lucky enough to have them, remember: they didn’t choose to be here. You chose to bring them into the world (and unless you have been through infertility or loss of a child, no parent will ever understand how very lucky they are to have children).

The responsibility flows downward, not upward. Your job is to give them as much security as possible; a home that feels like sanctuary, and parents (or a parent) who are steady, supportive, and safe.

None of this prevents you from instilling good ethics or strong values. It simply means you don’t weaponise independence.

​If your child takes a little longer to “flee the nest,” you don’t need to coerce, shame, or panic. Your job is to guide, listen and stay consistent.

If they’re working, yes, you can ask them to contribute. If you’re financially comfortable, you might quietly save what they give you and hand it back to them later as a surprise nest egg. Or maybe if funds are tight you just ask them to chip in now and then. There are a hundred ways to teach responsibility without turning your home into a transactional arrangement.

What bothers me is how often people repeat these harsh little slogans as if they’re universal truths, when really they’re just inherited scripts; social conditioning dressed up as wisdom. They’re rarely examined, rarely questioned, and often completely disconnected from compassion or reality.

Parenting and the family home isn’t a training ground for poverty mentality and scarcity. Whether large or small, whether you are wealthy or struggling, it's a place to create the conditions in which a younger human being can grow, flourish and feel safe. It's a place where you create memories, warmth and bonds. It's a place where parents should model unconditional love, compassion and right action (accountability, self-reflection, the Golden Rule, good morals, kindness, politeness, etc.)

The best thing that can happen is your child leaves at a time which feels right for them. Some trees blossom later than others.

As long as they leave with excitement and desire for an independent life, equipped with all the right skills to survive but with a tinge of sadness about leaving you, you'll know you've done well. They need to know beyond doubt though that they can call on you or come back at any time, and you will always welcome them.
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Children don’t need a hotel manager; they need a home that tells them they matter.

It should never about money, but it should always be about love.

* Before you think I am being utopian, I am fully aware there is a whole other discussion to be had about the breakdown of marriage or those who have abusive parents.

Patterns, Presentiment, Perspective

January 2026
I called this blog The Inner Temple, not because I intend to share information from inner sanctums connected to secret societies or ancient orders (there is plenty of that in my book), but simply as a place to document what is swirling around in my own inner temple - my head.

When I wrote the post that appears prior to this one, it was quite an opinionated piece, and I distinctly remember thinking, where did that come from? what sparked that? I posted it anyway. In this blog (which is a long-form one) I want to explore why it has since taken on a particular relevance.

Over the course of my life, I’ve noticed that a particular phenomenon seems to recur, and I’ve often wondered whether I’m simply wired a little differently, or whether this is something many people experience but don’t speak about openly. Perhaps you’ll recognise it in your own life too.

The Dinner Party Phenomenon
This phenomenon appears to involve some form of tuning into the unseen and the unspoken. Imagine this, if you will.

You’re invited to a dinner party. There are ten or twelve people around the table. You begin chatting to the person next to you, and during the course of the conversation something prompts you to raise a particular topic. You don’t know why it pops into your head; it’s just part of the flow of conversation. Let’s say it’s a news item about someone who gambled an extraordinary amount in Las Vegas and lost everything.

As you’re speaking, you notice (imperceptible to anyone else) that a woman further up the table, on the opposite side, who had been deeply engaged in conversation with her neighbour, flinches slightly and glances towards you. Later, you notice that she is the first to leave.

Weeks later, you meet the host of that dinner party. They were completely unaware of anything you’d said that evening, and you haven’t mentioned it either. You then ask why that particular guest left early. The host tells you it was her first night out without her husband and explains that they are in the midst of a divorce after she discovered his gambling addiction. He had lost everything.

Would you make a connection? And if you did, would you brush it off as coincidence?

Do I consider myself psychic? Not in the slightest. What I do know is that I am highly sensitive to atmospheres, undercurrents and micro-movements - and I’ll explain in another blog how I believe that came about.

In this situation, what the host later revealed would explain why the woman might selectively hear my conversation and flinch at the mention of gambling. But it doesn’t explain why that subject surfaced in the first place.

It has happened often enough that if I feel a sudden urge to reference something (even if it seems left-field in the context) I tend not to self-censor, unless it would be wholly inappropriate. Experience has taught me that I’m probably picking up on something.

I’ve noticed the same phenomenon across a wide range of subjects. On one occasion, I found myself talking about long-term affairs - the kind that remain hidden for years, where no one would have suspected a thing. Months or even years later, it emerged that the very people present had been engaged in precisely that sort of duplicity at the time.

Affairs and gambling are, sadly, commonplace. But this can happen with far more obscure topics too.

What Is This?
So what is going on? In my view, it may be that we share some form of consciousness matrix, and that from time to time we pick up on unspoken issues swirling around us. This can happen on a personal level, in small settings like a dinner party, or on a broader, impersonal level, within what is often described as the collective unconscious.

Next time you are in a gathering, take note of conversations that spontaneously come up via you or others, and look around the table!

Returning to the post I published on 13 December, I didn’t know why I was suddenly writing about adult children living at home. I remember that same fleeting inner voice - why are you saying this? -  and again, I chose not to censor it.

Near the start of that post, I wrote:
When it comes to parenting, we hear the same lines repeated over and over:
“Charge them rent.”
“Don’t let your kids treat your house like a hotel.”
“Don’t give them money — they need to learn to stand on their own two feet.”
“They’ll thank you for it later.”

The following day, those exact sentiments (particularly the latter three) were suddenly being debated publicly and vociferously. Not because of my writing, of course, but because of the deaths on 14 Dec of Rob and Michele Reiner and the arrest of their son, Nick, who had been living on the property, apparently in the guest house.

At the time of writing, Nick Reiner has been charged, bail has been refused, and the case is awaiting trial. He is, quite properly, innocent until proven guilty.

In the immediate aftermath, social media posts and YouTube crime blogs were filled with certainty. People weighed in on how he must have been raised, how long he had lived at home, whether his parents had indulged him, whether he should have been forced to stand on his own two feet. Phrases such as they should have kicked him out or he never learned to stand on his own two feet appeared repeatedly.

I’d like to refer back to my even earlier blog on the dangers of assumptions. No one (except those in, or closest to, the family) should be making claims about how Nick Reiner actually lived in recent years, how he was financed, or the nature of his mental health or addiction issues. No one knows what goes on behind closed doors.

Nor am I suggesting that Rob and Michele Reiner failed to offer love, guidance or support.

It’s also important to note that Nick Reiner is 32 years old, whereas my article was referring to far younger adults, typically those between 18 and 25. The situations are not the same.

That Familiar Feeling
What struck me though was not simply the coincidence, but the familiarity of the feeling that accompanied it. The same quick, fleeting inner voice that says why are you writing this now? The one I’ve learned, over time, not to ignore.

Was it coincidence? Possibly. Am I drawing a connection where none exists? Maybe. But there was another layer to this particular instance that made it more resonant for me.

Many years ago, I was in a relationship that lasted three intense years. This former partner (a lovely, gentle person) later married someone else but lost his life, not too long ago, in remarkably similar circumstances - at the hands of his son. 

The Toll on Everyone Left Behind
The true toll of such events is not borne by the person who dies - though they are mourned and remembered - but by those left behind. A wife and siblings who in an instant lose not only a husband and father from their life but, when and if the perpetrator turns out to be a family member, they lose them too. The devastation ripples outward: grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, colleagues, friends (and even ex-partners from the past) all carry the weight of it.

These tragedies do not happen exclusively to low-income families, nor only to those at the extreme end of wealth or celebrity. They occur across the spectrum, in ordinary middle class homes, within intelligent, kind and upright families. Those who rush to label the accused as monsters show a profound lack of compassion and only deepen a much larger societal problem, rather then learning lessons from it.

These perpetrators of patricide are not monsters. They are often the product of complex psychological and psychiatric conditions, combined with a form of societal hypocrisy in which addiction and mental illness are condemned when they end in tragedy, while some of those doing the condemning may have their own unexamined relationship with drugs. I have never touched drugs but I know that Cocaine and “Molly” etc., are very popular recreational drugs - Mums or Dads at the school gates (fee-paying or not) collecting their children can often tell stories of seeing cocaine being openly passed around at dinner parties. This hypocrisy, so easily brushed aside, deserves scrutiny.

Tackling drugs and mental health issues needs a societal shift.

Before It Happens
There is something else worth noting about the timing of that previous post. As I say, I wrote it the day before the Reiner tragedy occurred. Some might describe this as a form of precognition of an impending topic within the collective consciousness. I don’t make that claim.

There is, however, some emerging research into what is known as presentiment - studies suggesting that the body may sometimes show physiological responses to future stimuli before the conscious mind registers them. Research by Mossbridge and colleagues (2012; 2018), including work associated with the Institute of Noetic Sciences, has produced results that some researchers find compelling, though the field remains controversial and many scientists remain unconvinced.

This is not precognition in the fortune-teller sense. It may simply be that we are, at times, sensitive to patterns forming beneath conscious awareness i.e., events that have not yet crystallised, but are gathering momentum somewhere in the shared space or matrix we all inhabit.

Although I’m fascinated by every facet of consciousness, we obviously don’t yet understand how it operates or if time is just a construct of the mind. I only know that I’ve learned to trust that fleeting inner question, the one that says Why am I bringing this up?  because more often than not, there turns out to be a reason, even if I won’t understand it until later.

I touch on shared consciousness in my book. 

Dark Nights of the Soul: ​relinquishing your conceptual reality
January 2026
"When the ego weeps for what it has lost,
the spirit rejoices for what it has found."
Over the decades, I found myself drawn to the teachings of a vast number of spiritual teachers, both living and deceased, immersing myself in a wide range of perspectives. This journey was enlightening in many respects, but it also left me at times overwhelmed by the sheer diversity of viewpoints. 

Nevertheless, when I encountered periods that might fairly be described as dark, I often used to reach instinctively for the familiar tools: positive thinking, affirmations, vision boards and the broader language of self-help. They offered something to hold onto, and to be fair, they sometimes worked. They provided a sense of agency, even hope in moments when things felt unmanageable, so all the rah-rah optimism did serve a purpose.

But over time, I began to notice its limits. Each “fix” seemed to function only until life introduced the next complication. Eventually, the optimism collapsed, leaving behind disillusionment - not just with the tools themselves, but sometimes with the teachers too - and also with the unspoken suggestion that failing to feel better and fix things was a personal or spiritual shortcoming.

Eventually, through a slower process of elimination and discernment, I noticed something unexpected. The only moments of genuine relief during times of difficulty came not from reframing my thoughts into something from the standard self-help playbook, but from remembering how profoundly strange existence itself is.

We live on a spinning ball of rock hurtling through space at unimaginable speeds. What we experience as “reality” is, in large part, electrical signals striking the retina, inverted and interpreted by a nervous system doing its best to keep us alive. We don't know where we came from or where we are going to. In other words, there is always a far larger context than the one the mind insists upon - and nothing is quite as solid, personal, or catastrophic/chaotic as it may appear in the moment.

When events are viewed within this wider "bigger picture" frame, something quietly shifts. The story my mind is telling loses some of its authority because it no longer claims to be the whole truth. Perspective changes.

In that space, I found a form of relief; a relief that didn’t depend on having to maintain positive thoughts at all costs, but on allowing reality to be far larger than the commonly accepted narrative. And it was here that my attention began to turn toward the possibility that if the universe is ordered with such precision that total solar eclipses occur and life arises under exactly the right conditions, then perhaps life does not need to be controlled or corrected so much as recognised as already unfolding within an intelligence far wider than the one I habitually claim as “me.” 

For those interested in exploring this line of thought more deeply, there are two living teachers (and plenty who are deceased) whose work has been especially meaningful to me.

They are Swami Sarvapriyananda and Eckhart Tolle.

Swami Sarvapriyananda is a teacher of Advaita Vedanta, which, in simple terms, is the teaching of non-duality i.e., understanding the Self as part of one unchanging consciousness, temporarily differentiated into human, physical form. Eckhart Tolle, on the other hand, speaks from what we might term neo-Advaita: a modern synthesis of non-dualism, Zen Buddhism, and Christian mysticism.

It may interest you to know that the Swami’s chosen name, Sarvapriyananda, means “the bliss of the One who is beloved by all,” or “the joy that comes from universal love.” Eckhart Tolle’s first name (his given name is Ulrich) was chosen following a dream he had, and because it aligns with the 13th-century Christian monk Meister Eckhart and the mystical tradition he represented.

I am linking to two videos (see end). The first features Swami Sarvapriyananda, and I chose this particular talk because it clearly explains Advaita Vedanta.

​The second is a compilation of just a fraction of Eckhart Tolle’s most transformational teachings on adversity and fear. This video has had over 1,136,000 views since 2024. Towards the end, Eckhart speaks about the Dark Night of the Soul (you can find this precise section of the video in the chapters, 56m41s), ancient mystical traditions, and how adversity leads to the death of the old self and the birth of the true Self.

After this section, Eckhart goes on to explain another mystical teaching that I feel is particularly pertinent to the times we are going through in the world right now. He references a parable from the New Testament and explains the use of metaphor, such as the house representing the body, and the rock symbolising the unshakeable foundation of higher consciousness: consciousness that is not identified with the mind or body, but with that which we truly are.

Two teachers. Similar teachings: When adversity comes, it accelerates awakening.

​I hope that some of you reading will find this very useful.

Oldest Living Scriptures of the World

February 2026
Yesterday someone sent me a DM recommending a YouTube video. They definitely hadn’t read my recent blog post, so the suggestion wasn’t connected to anything I’d written.

In the video, a book was mentioned. I looked for it on Archive.org and couldn’t find it, but it turned up on Scribd, which is a platform I hadn’t visited in years. If you’ve ever used Scribd, you’ll know how it constantly nudges you toward other books and documents. One of the suggestions it presented me with was a title I’d read long ago, but hadn’t opened in ages, so I clicked on it out of curiosity.

On the very first page was a diagram that aligned perfectly with what I’d written in my previous post. That piece had pointed readers toward Swami Sarvapriyananda’s explanation of the Vedas and Advaita Vedanta. The synchronicity was so precise it almost felt staged, yet this sort of thing happens to me constantly. It’s one of the reasons I always tell people not to dismiss recommendations too quickly. Even if something doesn’t seem like “your thing,” or is  a bit of a hassle to pursue, it might be the breadcrumb trail that leads you to exactly what you need at that time.

Throughout my life, there have been countless moments when I’ve been searching for an answer or stuck on a problem with no idea how to move forward. Then the phone might ring, or someone invites me to an event I have little interest in - a film, a talk, whatever it might be.

Almost every time I push myself to go, the experience not only turns out to be far more enjoyable than I expected, but something happens that provides the missing piece I’d been looking for. Maybe I meet someone, overhear a conversation, or stumble across an idea or an image I never would have encountered otherwise.

When you talk to people about this phenomena, you realise how common it is. It’s as if some deeper layer of consciousness knows exactly what we need and keeps steering us toward it. The only requirement is that you get out of your own way and ignore the part of the mind that insists, “Don’t bother, it’ll be boring” or "not for me" and follow the thread anyway. In this way life becomes like a chain of life evolving through life itself. 

So here is the diagram and as you can see at the head of it is The Vedas. 
Vedanta is considered the highest teaching of the Vedas. The Upanishads are the philosophical core of the Vedas, and Vedanta is the school of thought built on interpreting them and answering questions like, what is consciousness, what is the Self and what is ultimate reality.

This diagram does not purport to be totally accurate in terms of historical lineage, but it is showing that The Vedas are some of the oldest living scriptures in the world. And, in the words of the author of the book, the 33 degree mason J D Buck, "at the heart of every great religion lie the same eternal truths."

So hopefully, you already clicked on the video I linked to in the previous post. I say again, it may be that in doing so you will see another totally unrelated video, One that leads you to an answer you seek or some information that slightly shifts your path or understanding..

​To save you scrolling up, here it is once more.​

Our Shadow Side

February 2026
Ever found yourself vehemently opposed to something? I use the word in its full sense - forcefully, passionately, intensely  - not just mildly disagreeing. Take notice of those moments because they often lead to greater insight into your Self.

Most people walking the path of self-awareness are familiar with talk of the shadow. It is the part of us we disown, but which longs to be recognised and integrated. Yet understanding the concept is very different from observing how it actually appears in our lives and then consciously working with it toward wholeness.

Just in case the term “shadow work” is not something you are familiar with, let’s clarify what it is not. It is not as simplistic as saying: if you strongly oppose those who (for example) abuse animals, there must be an abuser lurking in your own shadow. It is not a literal mirror. Any right-minded person would oppose cruelty.

However, there is value in looking within and asking why a particular issue, this one or any other, especially ignites you.

With enough honest self-examination, the answer may not be about the outer situation at all. It may point toward a feeling, belief, or experience. Perhaps a time when you felt uncared for, unheard, defenceless, or unable to speak. Something unresolved. 

Once noticed, life seems to present situations that allow us to engage with that theme again in differing guises. Some would say this is simply circumstance. Others would say it is our higher consciousness, the larger part of us, arranging opportunities to ensure growth and integration. Either way, what arises is not random. 

This is not an external force intervening, it is not a guardian presence deciding what we need next. Rather, it is the greater Self, that part of us which remains outside of time and space, unfolding with the field of life we inhabit  - until, gradually, we come to peace with what is, and see it clearly within our embodied self. When that happens, the turbulence softens as the charge lessens. What was once reactive becomes integrated and what we call harmony or balanced awareness begins to take root.

A phrase I often use, especially when I feel reactive, is: “Where is this in me?” Then I sit with it. I don’t always succeed  - or sometimes I do see what it is pointing to but still react anyway! There are still many things that ruffle and disturb me. Change doesn't happen instantly. The practice is in noticing  - and in being willing to look. 

So, the takeaway from this is, what we feel most strongly about in the world may not only be about the world. It may be pointing us back toward something unresolved within ourselves which we could benefit from by looking at. And, if we are willing to look, those strong reactions can hold the key to unlocking greater self awareness, integration and peace.
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