are we nearly there yet?

On Sunday I was discussing with friends what it feels like when your father dies.

I'm next!  is one of the feelings, I think.

It's also a bit like when you're children, all crammed in the car driving to the seaside, getting more and more restless and excited, knowing that that maybe when you reach the brow of the next hill - or if not that one, surely the one after or definitely the one after that - you'll see the sea.

The sea is death, and when your father dies you begin to coast down the other side of the hill towards it.

Comments

[Nick]

Thank Christ I'm the youngest / 'un!

[Jeff]

Hi Jonathan, excellent book, really enjoying it, haven't quite finished it yet. You mention in the book how childhood trauma can trigger a spiritual reaction later in life. I was wandering if you were familiar with the term Spiritual Emergency, it's a state of existential crisis following(but not always) a traumatic event.
When I was 20 I was at Uni in the Midlands. At the end of the summer term i got a phone call to say that my Dad was ill, so I fixed up my motorbike and headed back to Exmoor, my Dad was only 49 so I didn't think it was too serious.On the ride home I had an experience of profound peace. When I got home and saw my Dad I could see that he was going to die. The feeling of peace saw me through his illness and ten weeks later he died. I also had an experience of this transcendent peace just before my Grandad died when I was 11.
After the funeral I immediately had to go back to Uni to do two exams. When I got home after the exams I had a really nasty panic attack, it was the re-emergence of an old childhood fear,I had quite an insecure childhood. This anxiety has stayed with me ever since which is frustrating after feeling such peace. But my faith in God and these experiences have always seen me through. I think if such peace exists there must be a reason for the pain.
I mention this because your book is in the main about transformative experiences and spiritual emergency is a transformative experience that is 'stuck'. I was wandering if you had any thoughts on this.
Congratulations again on such a fascinating book.
Jeff.

[Maria Rosa Young]

on my bday last month my dad called me from barbados for the first time in 20 years...my friend had dreamt this would happen...i feel that his old age/ill health is a mirror of my insecurities and lack of control over the waves that divided us...

but strangely i do feel very safe by the sea even tho i can't swim ;)

[Scar]

What if you've already been in the sea?

[gordon phinn]

Hi Jonathan,
just discovered your book in local library four days ago, and have been thoroughly enjoying it since. Your achievement in synthesizing and demystifying the ancient wisdoms into one shockingly recognizable stream is quite marvellous.
I am taking my time in savouring the rest of the text, as your sophisticated and witty style is as enjoyable as the metaphysical content.

Dads dying: mine passed in 1968 when I was but 15. The Beatles were in India at the time, and as he had spent WW2 there, it all seemed to fit together in my young and naive mind.
Shortly thereafter I began recalling semi-lucid dreams where he would be saying "Try to imagine I've gone on a long holiday" and other such mystifications. Discovering popular spiritualist books a couple of years later helped me see what he meant. And then years of psychic questing, reading (including many weeks on Steiner's "Karmic Relationships") and meditation brought me to numerous obe experiences and my book "Eternal Life And How To Enjoy It", where I managed to unveil a good deal of what is usually hidden on the astral.

Initiation outside of secret societies demands much less of the willing disciple in the way of vows and secrecy. I believe I underwent mine on the astral plane, but of course I can offer no proof of such.

Thanks for the book and this free exchange of views. Many blessings in your direction.

gordon phinn, Toronto

[Green Ruby]

When I was about 8, my dad died. He had been bedridden from a stroke for around 4 years (he was 60 yrs. old when I was born!), so his death came as no surprise. I remember my mom rushing into his room. She called the ambulance and the next-door neighbor, who took me to her house. I knew my dad was dead. I wondered why they all tried to be so secretive about it, because I already knew. I don't remember being shocked, or even particularly upset. I was sad later on, but not unduly so. He had been a sick man in a hospital bed for almost as long as I could remember, and I had some notion that he was better off dead than alive.

I was much more upset about my mother's death in 1994 of a heart attack. It was unexpected, as she was not in bad health. In three more days, she would have turned 73. I still miss her and think about her to this day, especially at Christmas time, as she was always making gifts for people. I think about things I should have said to her but didn't, and things I did say but shouldn't have. Whatever you want to say to your loved ones, do it now, while they're alive, and don't assume you'll have plenty of time. Life can end at any moment.