MEETING MARY

The financial wizard at the peak of his career unexpectedly encounters a radical transformation in his being after meeting an enlightened woman of love.

Preface

 

We are living in the end times. This does not mean eternal gloom; rather it is a time of celebration, the evolution of our consciousness nearing completion. The human race is now on the threshold of the golden era, the prophesised fulfilment.

 

The flower is about to open, the fragrance from its petals unprecedented. Our one retardation is the accumulating past, our traditions and structures holding us back. This is currently evident in the fiscal dilemmas facing governments and world bankers. It is evident in our belief structures, the self deceptions appeasing our lack of discernment.

 

The person this story centres upon directly experienced the current world situation two decades past. He saw the fulfilment being received by humanity and he also saw it being missed. Nobody was willing to listen then, all believing in the programme.

 

We have the opportunity. We also have the greed cloaked in the fear of loss. We have the quiet masters among us gently guiding the way. We also have the loud masters of pretence, their personal glories another distraction. Broad is the road leading to missing, narrow is the path to the fulfilment. Discernment is vital right now.

 

CHAPTER 1

 

MEETING MARY

 

What is your Zen, your inner desire that nothing seems to fulfil? We chase the world teeming with objects, having lost sight of our original quest. The more we achieve the more the raw emptiness bites for that something forgotten. Examples are all about us, billionaires, power seekers, driven for more by insatiable hunger. How do we get caught in this program? Is it innate at the moment of birth? Or is it the software installed by the caring people clambering about the new infant? Is it possible to return to that state, to that first moment of life in the body?

 

It’s a cold, wet evening in Glen Carrigh, Barry’s first time in this small town west of Loch Lomond. He’s attending the funeral of a stranger, all in the day’s work of a financial consultant, his business expanding through referrals leading to such situations. Removed from his highflying life he stands alone taking in the blackness about him, dark clouds, dark faces, his unexpected external world.

 

The power of positive thinking spins his mind from the seminar he has just attended in Glasgow. Focus on whatever you want, give it your undivided attention and it will manifest in your life. Selling just ten life assurance policies delivers the car of your dreams. Selling fifty pensions delivers a sea-going yacht. He thinks of last year after taking his degree in sociology as a mature student, a different man, his goal at that time not clearly defined. His first consideration was teaching, bringing what he saw and understood to the young so they might better their lives. Distractions pop up whenever you take your eye off the target. He followed the advert on positive thought, ‘Are you sports minded? If so, join our team.’ Three months into the sales business without setting any goals for measuring his wants he broke the European record. He was hooked by something other than greed, the buzz, that adrenalin gush in closing a sale.

 

‘Dong " dong " dong’ the sullen church bell rings loud piercing the heavy clouds overhead. The coffin slowly enters, people, old, young, fat and thin, a shuffle of feet piling into the country chapel. He finds a spot inside the doorway, his back to the granite wall, a moving wave of humanity in its expression of death before him. ‘So this is the product you’re selling, preying upon people’s ultimate fear,’ the disturbing thought speaks loud enough to be heard. An eerie sensation engulfs his body. Struck by the unfamiliar, his skin creeps.

 

He firms his feet to hold balance as people push through, the winter evening outside edging towards night, sharp wind nipping his cheeks; a funeral, the unacceptable face of the human condition presenting undisputable fact that everybody dies. Why life assurance policies? Deception flashes in the name. In truth they should be called death policies, a gamble with death, probabilities and numbers. More appear, anxious to share sympathy with the bereaved. The thick fingers of the round-bellied priest tap on the prayer book, heavy eyebrows in one straight line shouting impatience; just another workday for him. People squeezing into over-packed pews, he opens abruptly with the homily for the dead. ‘We’re gathered to pray for the soul of Peter…’ His sharp voice stills the congested chapel. Barry switches off to the words, the rumble in his stomach reminding him life goes on; thought flashing his favourite Italian restaurant. He must get away, but not before shaking the hands of the extended family, this added opportunity for making more business his mission.

 

His attention returns to the priest. ‘Our Lord Jesus Christ has said I am the way, the life and the truth, come unto me and I will give you rest. Let these words be our comfort.’ The loudspeakers vibrate on the dull grey walls. Barry is thankful for his height enabling him to take in the altar and the family huddled in the front pews close to the coffin. The calculations spin in his head, at least five more sales in the offing, refusing to recognize the distance his new occupation has taken him from his original plan. His thoughts ramble into his personal world, the speed of his success since he set a new sales record, the commissions made in such a short time, more than he could possibly have earned as a teacher. How did it happen, something triggers his mind? What was the lure that sucked me away from my path? The priest interrupts: ‘I now hand over to the bereaved family to add their special farewell,’ his hurried words jerking Barry back to the moment. A woman rises to her feet, much too young and delicately fragile to be a widow. She slowly ascends the steps and faces the crowd, endeavouring to hold balance in her inescapable pain. Auburn hair peeps out from beneath the headscarf loosely touching her shoulders. Her voice quivers, ‘Peter, my dear husband, our Lord has taken him from me…’ Unable to continue, she pauses and weeps.

 

Barry is unexpectedly moved. A surge of compassion turns his face to the shadows to hide the tears welling up in his eyes. He picks up the words of gratitude to life for her two young children, observes her stepping to the head of the coffin and placing her fingers upon it, again the words ‘thank you’ shaping her lips. A notable quiet stills the gathering as the young widow is helped back to her seat. Barry visions the contrast in her delicacy flickering precious life to that of Agnes, the seasoned widow from Glasgow with her schemes and bookmakers business currently trying to control him.

 

His attention is brought back to the moment, sensing something strange about to happen. His eyes move to another woman, small in stature, rising to speak, apprehension visible in the immediate family. Shifting postures demonstrate a sense of fear that reaches him all the way to the back of the chapel. The woman walks slowly but positively to the microphone. A hushed silence descends as she turns and faces the crowd. Like the others, she is dressed in black, her youthful face emanating a glow of purity with a contrasting fierceness underneath. Taking a long, purposeful pause, her stillness permeates the assembly. In a clear voice she speaks. ‘In this coffin rests my brother’s body, his spacesuit in time, having walked with us for just a short while on this planet. Now he has stepped back into the inner void from whence we all come, where we must again return, as sure as night follows day.’

 

The departing sun descending beyond Argyll breaks through the pregnant clouds, the plate glass window to her right casting dazzling light on her face. She takes another deliberate pause, her countenance changing from a gentle innocence to a fiery and passionate beauty. Barry shivers; conscious of an unfamiliar nervousness in his body. ‘Who is this Lord who has taken Peter from us?’ her voice suddenly explodes through the loudspeakers. A shuffle of feet indicates disturbance close to the door. She takes a third decisive pause. Her softness returns. ‘The Lord is the love in our hearts where Peter forever abides. I feel him, sense him and hear his song of life within me.’

 

A woman in the back row breaks into sobbing. To his left a handkerchief clears out a nose. The priest straightens from his slouched position on the armchair close to the altar. Is this woman about to create a public disturbance? With a hint of challenge, she hones in on his words, manner and tone. ‘I am the way, the life and the truth. Come unto me and you will have rest!’ Another pause, she steps to the side of the podium exposing a fragile femininity beneath the plain black skirt hugging her waist and touching her knees, her neatly shaped legs perfectly balanced on modest, black shoes. ‘Who is this ‘I’ to whom the Lord is referring?’ The sudden power in her voice unexpectedly contests. ‘Who is this me mentioned?’

 

Silence grips the assembly. Is this slender young woman about to dispute the words of the priest? She takes one step forward. ‘In your direct experience there is one ‘I’ as the one me in the body, your body now receiving this message,’ her gentleness responds in a deliberately slow declaration. ‘Here is the key to your immortality, if not realized and lived, all is misunderstood. The key is the Logos that the discursive mind, by its nature, can never comprehend.’

 

The priest shifts in his chair giving signs he is about to intervene. She has taken him down without even referring to him. Barry views the cutting-edged scene, uneasy movements of her brothers and sisters in the front pew. Pausing again she looks over the heads of the many to the back. He feels she is directly looking at him. ‘This me is beyond interpretation,’ her voice resounds through the columns supporting the beehive design of the roof. ‘The undivided me within each of us resonates the inner space to the outer. A pure heart, a pure spirit is the way to this first realization.’

 

Another blast of sunshine flares over the silent bodies huddled together as one shadowed mass. The darkness hits back; another pause, another moment of anxious waiting. ‘Come unto me and I will give you rest. These are the words of the Lord.’ her fierce beauty calls out. ‘But you and I have personified me to whom it refers. By separating ourselves from the inner oneness, we create our conflicting worlds. My brother has returned, so grieve not for him.’

 

Barry is confused, catching her message of there being one me in the first instance, me alone in my body, the realization causing him to shudder, feeling grief for himself, suddenly struck that he alone is responsible for his life, that he alone must get it right, there are no external agents to save him.

 

She looks directly at him, her eyes piercing. ‘Cleanse yourself as you come unto me.’ The strange vibration coming from her voicing the final word me causes something to explode in his solar plexus. Terror grips; a fear he has never experienced. Legs trembling, the strength leaves his body. His heart calls out to be with this woman, not yet realizing this moment the most pivotal point in his life.

 

His direction is about to be changed completely, the gates of the cosmos unlocked. Raw innocence is not going to protect him now, an unforeseen door to the inner dimension having opened by chance. But before he can enter, he must first enter the hell of his self.

 

For the first time in his life he feels grossly unclean, seeing the distance between the ‘me’ she mentioned and his personified me championed as the top life assurance sales person in Europe. Such things do not happen by chance. His body shudders, the realization dawning, at this very moment his destiny in precarious balance.

Author's Note

Does it demonstrate the current surge in consciousness?