To him that knocketh

I mentioned yesterday that when I know what I want but don’t know how to get it, I do what comes naturally then give up and ask the Universe.

Example 1

For several months now, I’ve brooded on an idea to help others discover who they are via self-expression and good writing. I envisaged a small class in the community centre at the end of our road, a converted school building 100 years old. Here’s a small pic of part of it, taken on a rainy evening—it had separate entrances for boys and girls when first built more than 100 years ago.

I discussed the idea with two community workers and waited for something to happen. I didn’t have the confidence to do anything on my own: needed some kind of collaboration.

Yesterday I was looking for some way to volunteer in good causes and discovered idealist.org. As “skill offered” I put “writing” and pressed the button. An organisation in New York is offering a free course to youngsters over the internet, on exactly the lines I had envisaged. They are looking for additional mentors. I sent in my application.

Example 2

I’ve been looking for work and if an angel had visited, clipboard in hand, to record my specifications, I’d have said “a small company nearby which appreciates the experience of an older person, needs a computer programmer, and has premises within walking distance”. Today I discover that a friend of a friend is recruiting with that specification for a company 200 yards from my house.

Example 3

I’ve had an idea in the back of my mind, to write a regular column in a newspaper: basically to get paid for writing what’s essentially a blog post, tailored to the paper’s standards and readership.

Unprompted by me, a journalist friend* from India asked his editor if I would be considered in such a role and was told yes. I only have to send some samples. Given this amazing opportunity, I tried it out and soon realized that gathering local or national news wasn’t what I wanted to do after all.

I’ve written about this phenomenon a few times in my blog and mentioned “The Cosmic Ordering Service”—getting what you want as simply as ordering pizza, though you sometimes have to wait longer. I’ve met one of the authors of a book with this title†.

I don’t actually believe anything, in the sense of a theory. “Angelic signs” make a handy label. It seems to me that the Universe is saying I can have everything I want: just ask. This might have implications for others but you won’t catch me writing a book telling how “You too can get everything you want”. People can work that out for themselves.

In my experience, this gospel quote holds good:

For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

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PS: None of these three examples led to anything worthwhile. I’ve noticed in the years since (and long before, going back through my life) that whilst the asking never goes unheard, the thing received has been often what I needed as opposed to what I wanted. And what I need is often to see the folly and irrelevance of my specified want.

* “Ghetufool” or “Ghetu”—noms de plume of my good friend who’s a, financial journalist in Mumbai.
† Jonathan Cainer: Cosmic Ordering: How to make your dreams come true. He was an astrologer in various national newspapers. I met him briefly some time between 1999-2001. Both of us were involved with a certain guru, and attended a meeting for his top henchmen in Ascot, Berkshire. I was no kind of henchman but volunteered as a chauffeur for several of the holiest of them, as i had a seven-seater car at the time. Finding their pious silence oppressive, I played a cassette of my favourite African music, with complex joyous rhythms, sparkling with sensual life. One of the mahatmas asked if it was a devotional album by some of our African brethren. Nope, I said, I just like it, thus conveying that they weren’t travelling in some mobile ashram but a space of my own; not even a taxi because they weren’t paying a penny. The pious silence seemed to turn into a disapproving one.

After the meeting, which made me realize finally that I should get out of this guru racket, the henchmen let me know that they didn’t need my services for the return journey. But Jonathan Cainer was there too, not as a henchman but a “major donor”, for astrology had made him very rich. He was ready to take a taxi to the railway station back to London, but I offered him a lift, and we had a little light conversation to pass a few minutes. I suggested he was basically a journalist mining a rich vein, and that it was his brilliant writing style that got him the readers. In his deepest self, he must know that astrology is a seductive illusion. He vigorously defended his craft and asserted that astrology is the real thing, whatever others may think. And then I thought, “Why wouldn’t he defend it? it made him rich. If he admitted it was bullshit, I might have secretly recorded his words.” He died of a heart attack in 2016. Did the stars warn him of approaching death?