YHVH

This is God's name

That's the saying anyway, so this is just the starting point as to what the actual name might be.

Well, first of all, it's not a name but a vibration, an energy you feel, and, it is a doorway.

It's a Saturday morning and the Jehovah's Witnesses are banging on the door. Do you know that the American Standard Bible Isaiah 42:8 says "I am Jehovah, that is my name"? Well, that conflicts with my King James "I am the Lord, that is my name" (Adhonai/Kyrios) but that's OK, the pastor's from my local JW Kingdom Hall and he's a nice guy; I'm always glad to see him.

Then you look at how language has evolved over time, and how sound encapsulates energy, every name has an energy, and every sound has a numerical value that is an energy in itself. And you look at the hidden meanings in the vowels and not just the consonants and the space between the sounds and you get to know this: it doesn't really matter.

Yes, it can be Jehovah or Allah or Krishna or Lord, and it can be no name at all. Even to pursue that might send you down so many narrowly confined paths, aka Religion. Mysticism, as I have said, is expansion and not just constriction.

But knowledge is, to know. So yes, the names are also important in their own way. YHWH has two male and two female letters, so it's about balance, yet it contains the conflict between the two. The hidden vowels, or the sounds are the unifying force, and you can also say this, that the four letters YHVH or Tetragrammaton is represented in this way:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_OUTg5nd8YFk/SNVvgqv379I/AAAAAAAAAB4/Yg9rSvqz_Vg/S220/yhvh2.jpg

which is the stick figure of Man, or, humanity. That we are God, or, that we are in God's image.

But, there is more. The hidden meaning of YHVH is Yohav, or, to love. That God will always love you, and God will always be your healer.

But this, then, is the message of The Way of Atlan, that God reincarnates ever so often here on Earth, and to know him, first you must find him. That is the ultimate goal.

Films I have loved

"The stuff that dreams are made of."

I've been a writer, a composer, and an artist. But what comes back to me now is the visual sense. We are so closed there, and I see that as a third eye chakra issue, over and over again. How nice it would be to be to see things as they really are, instead of the way we would like them to be? This is what we need to balance our psychic-spiritual needs.

And to see not only bleakness, but, beauty. Humanity and Nature in all its colours. We are beings of light, and the play of light in a darkened cinema hall awakens us in so many ways.

We stayed for a while in a hotel in Tokyo when we moved there. There was a movie theater across from us. I already had snuck away from home a few times in London at age 2, and so, I snuck away from home, age 3, to see a movie. It was Captain Blood, the silent 1928 version with Douglas Fairbanks Sr, and I was hooked.

Hitchcock's 1956 movie, Rear Window, Mike Todd's 1958 Around the World in 80 Days, and Hammer Films 1959 Dracula, to thrill me. The 'toga movies' Ben Hur and The Fall of the Roman Empire, and El Cid, to inspire me. Chaplin, the Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin and others that made me laugh. And countless others I saw, with permission or not :)

At the military school I went to they had an outdoor auditorium that showed movies every Friday night! New releases that didn't have the heavy handed Pakistani censorship all over it. Every Friday night, except when I was in detention, which happened all too frequently due to an unfortunate disciplinary problem of talking back, and not doing my homework (because I was too busy reading books from the library) Mostly British movies but also the old American classics. Wow.

Then we got a TV set, and I've watched every Academy Award since 1968.

Then we came to Canada and I REALLY started watching movies. My first job offer? Working in a porn cinema which I didn't take due to anticipatory legalities, alas :(

But yes, I watched films since I was three and seen thousands since. I even have over six hundred DVD titles. But I can't give you a list of all my favourites, and even a 10 best or whatever. But still, here's a list of just some of the movies I have loved.

• 
  
  To Kill A Mockingbird: great characters, great actors, great movie


• 
  
  Night of the Generals and Lord Jim: with the great Irish actor Peter O' Toole.


• 
  
  Lawrence of Arabia: A sweeping movie never matched since.


• 
  
  The Longest Day: the many stories of war that culminate on D-Day.


• 
  
  The Servant: Dirk Bogarde, evil butler.


• 
  
  Avatar: In Imax 3-D, an earth as a living energy.


• 
  
  Gone With The Wind: A great movie made even more enjoyable by reading the novel first.


• 
  
  The Musicals: Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, The Chorus, Hello, Dolly!


• 
  
  Chariots of Fire: The runners, the music, and a man who runs to celebrate God.


• 
  
  Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Everything I love about the Chinese culture, and film.


• 
  
  Dirty Dancing: Dance AND Music, Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey, a chemistry that lights up the screen!


• 
  
  The Deer Hunter: The music score alone was amazing, the great anti-war movie.


• 
  
  The Mists of Avalon: I loved the novel, and the movie transcended it. The energy glowed.


• 
  
  The Lord of the Rings trilogy: Wow!


• 
  
  Once: A charming little movie, with ordinary artists making extraordinary music together.


• 
  
  The Red Violin: Chloe's a sucker for strings. Me, too. The violin's a character in the movie too.


• 
  
  Zombie movies: Shaun of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead. Gebbriel's a sucker for Zombie movies. Me, too. More so than Vampire or Werewolf movies. Go figure.


• 
  
  Movies about composers: Impromptu, Chopin; Immortal Beloved, Beethoven; Amadeus, Mozart; Tous les Matins du Monde, Marais. And any movie with a score by Ennio Morricone automatically gets added to my list.


• 
  
  Mad Hot Ballroom: too many documentaries to list; well, Up the Yangtze and Man on a Wire comes to mind, but this little charmer about inner school kids whose teacher starts the first ballroom dancing class in New York City schools and teaches them self-esteem.


• 
  
  Cinderella Man: Because I was in it, and I showed up in the movie poster (sorta)


• 
  
  Star Wars: Spaceships, interplanetary wars, yeah!


• 
  
  Y tu Mama Tambien: Two horny teens grow up. If there's a language I just love the sound of, it's Spanish. But the road trip through Mexico was beautiful too.


• 
  
  The Motorcycle Diaries: Road trip through South America, Che Guevara, Spanish.


• 
  
  Slum Dog Millionaire/Monsoon Wedding: All the intense colours I remember from India. Jai ho!


• 
  
  Amelie: A little girl sets out to make other people happy, and it's in Paris, though then you'll have to see the director Jean-Pierre Jeunet's OTHER movie, Delicatessen, about a deli that er, eats the rich and unpleasant :)

So yes, I love movies. I love them because like all good art, they can actually raise people's awareness to a higher level. I love them because the combination of sound, and light in a dark theater has an effect that reaches us at the level of our souls. And I loved them, and wanted to make one myself.

When I wrote Man From Atlan I saw the book as a movie unfolding before my eyes; I heard the dialogue and the music of the spheres, and I knew that the book could reach one audience, and a movie based on the book, another, larger one.

I knew nothing about making movies, just what it would look like. So I went to Hollywood and an agent wanted me to play an Indian palmist "if you could do it with a funny accent" :( Damn, I could have got my Union card. And all the studios said the book would have to be published first and that's how I published the book myself, and if that didn't help me get anywhere in Hollywood, it helped me get started on my healing practice, and one door closed, and another opened.

So even though I did go back to Los Angeles again, and had ONE actual chance, even then I knew it just wasn't where I should be focusing at that point in time.

Los Angeles was the best place for me, for a while. But even if I helped the lead singer for Earth Wind and Fire who somehow wasn't able to connect me with Michael Jackson or lived up the road from Stephen Spielberg or healed Denzel Washington's children's nanny's grandson :) or cured Mel Gibson's producer's diabetes it just wasn't right anymore (I know, the name dropping is sooo Hollywood:) Even a Canadian producer who really liked it said "it'll be too expensive". No it won't because it won't have the special effects that ruin every movie. It'll be simple, on a human level.

But that is by the bye. There was a time when I realized I already had done everything I wanted. Had the school, the healing center, the students and passed on my knowledge. All the spiritual events have been set in motion, and now it's not up to me to look for people, but people who are looking for me, will find me.

Yes there are movies to see and still enjoy, and even, perhaps, to make. But what I wanted to share with you today is my love of film, and if it is in you to make a film yourself, then, do so.

Books I Have Loved

Just some of the books I've read

I've loved the journey, and the people I've met, and had great joy in my children and loves. There even are so many pleasures I have had, art, and film, and food :) among many. But what comes back to me now, is the books I have read.

I was reminded of this because the 50th anniversary of Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird came up. I read it when I was 12, and it inspired me in so many ways. It was a book about America, not just the racism that permeated it but all the good that existed side by side with it. It had great characters, Scout, and Jem, and Boo, and humanity and decency were characters in the book too.

Scout was the main character, or so I thought at first. She's a tomboy growing up in the old South, and as she matures, you see that the South was changing too. There's a rape, and a black man falsely accused, and there's her father, Atticus Finch, a lawyer reluctantly agreeing to defend him, because he knows it will cause his neighbors to react, but also, because it's the right thing to do. Scout listens to him talking to people saying this was wrong, and one day it would come back to haunt them.

And the movie has the greatest role ever played, Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, for which he won an Oscar. He inspired me to want to defend people, and, in seeing his relationship with his children, he was the sort of man and father I wanted to be. I just ordered the book and movie to pass on to my children.

There is no list of best books I have read, of course. I've read thousands, I've got many more still to go.

But there's Orwell. 1984 was a dystopian view of the world, and I recommend that, and Animal Farm, and that you read this: http://antiwar.com/reese/?articleid=8661"The Value of George Orwell"

Along with Orwell I hope you'll read Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Two writers, one who said we would be manipulated by propaganda and lies and torture, and the other who said we would be controlled through pleasure, sex and drugs.

P.G. Wodehouse was one of the finest, and funniest writers I have known. I think I've read more than 80 of his books,. Laughing Gas and Pigs Have Wings still makes me smile 50 years after I read them.

Anna Karenina by Tolstoy, and The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, and Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago, covers my gloomy Russians, I have not read Pushkin, alas. There is a part in The Brothers Karamazov where the village whore tells the priest a story. In it, a woman gives an onion to a poor person. That was all she had, but because of that one act of kindness, she is granted salvation. I think of it when reminded of the spirituality of the Russian people.

Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Farewell to Arms and lastly, The Old Man and the Sea, which taught me the endurance of the human spirit.

Leslie Charteris' The Saint Novels. Read the first, Enter the Saint, and you'll be hooked. I've read them all, about a gentleman thief and Robin Hood type character. There's a limerick of his I still remember:

"When Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden did sin,
Adam, instead of confessing to his deed like a man,
Cried "the woman tempted me"
And tried to hide behind the snake"

The Wheel of Time Novels by Robert Jordan. It is my ultimate fantasy series about the battle between good and evil. The writer passed away, but left notes to complete the series. The new writer's book, The Gathering Storm is quite good, and I look forward to the 13th of the series in November.

Cheiro's books on Palmistry and Numerology inspired me more than one could imagine, and I shall always be grateful.

Historical biographies and fiction; I've read ALL of Dorothy Dunnett, who is both literate and captures some very interesting characters and historical periods.

Harry Potter, and the Stephenie Meyer's Bella the Vampire books for not guilty at all pleasures.

Too many books on Science, Astrology, Maps, Art, Language, Music and Kabballah to mention.

The Gita, for its poetry.

I met a man in a bookstore once and we talked about the books we had in our libraries that we never had time to read and he said, "that's ok, I just sit and Breathe them in".

May you always breathe books.

Are We There Yet?

No

Here we are, again, and it isn't the beginning of the end, or even, a new beginning. We're always on this journey, because we're immortal. We're all at some point of our own journeys, but, right now, we're all at this stage of incompletion, of karma, of seeking.

So, it's a life of hard work for us right now, and, in spite of all the obstacles, we have to hang in there. And the only thing I can promise you is peace. Oh, and whatever you fear, will be fine.

So is it heaven you seek? That's only a stage, and heaven can also exist here on earth, and you can find it if you find your connection to God. And the fastest way for that is to feel love and compassion, and then, you will find peace.

Oh, I could be angry a hundred times over, and when I am, it really is something. But what you see right now, the imbalance and nature's way of trying to correct it, is your doing. And only you can correct it.

But in the end, you will have to find your way back to me.

When God Created Humanity

We were given free will

And if we were truly given free will, is it possible that all of what we are going through is, unplanned? Yes, it's possible to see a possible outcome. But what if we must also accept that there's no Plan behind all this, and we truly are responsible for whatever happens?

Exactly one year ago I wrote several blog posts here. For those who found my last post too, er, bleak, I suggest you go back to the July 2009 archives and see if I didn't explain my thoughts well enough, and didn't I say there would always be hope, for those who could change?

For now, it's enough to say that if things are unfolding, then it's not as they should, or could have done, but as to what we've created over several millennia of Earth's history.

• 
  
  First, we lost sight of God. And for that we can't blame God, or the man made religions. We had the ability to see they were temporary structures passed through all too human beings, and they were meant to evolve as we were meant to evolve. That we were meant to one day look for a direct connection without having a whole lot of tribal rules imposed on us.


• 
  
  And if God out of should try to teach us certain lessons about karma and we missed that, then whose fault is that?


• 
  
  And when teachers came, who rejected the teachers because they weren't perfect, or wouldn't fit our preconceptions? At least they, however flawed, tried to help us. All you had to do was learn the lesson, and move on.


• 
  
  Ultimately, who made the choice to shut off the spiritual so we could pursue the material? Humanity did. And the fear and scepticism, hoo hah! So don't complain when you're told it's too late.

So Humanity had a choice, and even if free will had been eroded over thousands of years, yet, it still had a choice. And if you now must accept that whatever must be, that's not punishment, it's an opportunity.