Ra Sunny Day!

Friday 9:38 a.m.
Boy, do I feel good today! Surf's up! The hard work from yesterday is zinging on through now alright. The first meditation this morning was excellent although I had some home brew when I was posting last night.

Accidentally, I seem to have made home brew without much alcohol in it. This is the approach favoured by Adolf, but I don't want to mimic him too much. Last week he cut off his penis and replaced it with a bandaid. Now it looks as if the hormone therapy has kicked in big time since he's developed breasts. Quite nice breasts as it happens, but three of them?

Of course, this is all in the quest of getting more readers for his blog. I got more readers for my blog by switching from Blogpatrol (which never lets me look at the stats these days) to StatsCounter. You get more hits with that one.

Well, Jack, do we want more readers? Are we not happy with just one Spam Robot, a Masai warrior or two, and the odd extraterrestrial? Yes, we are. We do not want readers. We want money. My webpage took six hits yesterday. I'd like to be able to check for downloads so I could go and harass poor, innocent surfers to be my agent.

By the way, Blogpatrol says this blog has taken just over 5,000 hits since it was set up last February. The webpage has taken 578.

I'm really feeling cheerful today. Good boy! It's a sunny day. I'll have to go now to Bellshill to see my maw. I'll get back at four and try to do some writing before I go to see Froggie McDuck. And I am not doomed to drinking beers with these relatives. I'll take my gun with me and the first person to offer me a drink gets shot. That should create enough of a diversion so that I can run away. That should do it! But I am a happy boy today, I am!

5:50 p.m.
When you inflate a hot air balloon... when it's half inflated and shaped like an exclamation mark ... it's like having that inside you, except you're really mostly aware of the dome. The dome seems to arise till it's just below your cheekbones. Take a breath and the warmth and ra bliss pulls your face into a big, big smile. I'm supposed to be writing my book, but I thought I'd meditate for a wee bit first of all. Nearly an hour later. This is RaBlissBlog! I should really tell you sometimes about ra bliss! The dome seems a little higher now.

It seems natural to meditate in your head and not your navel because that's where ra bliss seems to concentrate. (The phone has just rang! An advert on the answering machine. If anyone needs a cave, it's me!) The uplift, ra bliss, the hissy sound in your ears. Thank God for the effort I made yesterday!

Unfortunately, I sometimes resent giving my time to other people. I get ra bliss because I made the effort. Almost no one of my acquaintance will ever experience ra bliss because they don't know what it is. It is more than a word. Also, you have to make the effort. It is far easier going around with your head stuck up your backside thinking you're having fun. Or not having fun. I cannot get away from flatheids this weekend. I'll have to learn to say no. I said no to drugs, but the drugs didn't listen. Neither do the flatheids. Someone has just come in.

Saturday 11:45 p.m.
What a wonderful time I had last night! I remember getting the taxi home. I remember looking at the clock before going to sleep (3 a.m.). All this is due to Froggie having an almost two year old kid. She didn't go down till eleven, so we didn't get to the pub till then. Yippee! Beef's kid came to the pub with us. He's six foot four but only fourteen. Beef gave him a leather jacket to make him look older. He had one pint of Guinness. I bet he had a good time! So did I. People should have lots of kids like my big brother. Go forth and multiply. The evil bourgeois know nothing of the joys of having an extended family because they have few children and are horrible people.

It is tragic that the McDucks will never get ra bliss. I sometimes feel like a lonely island of ra bliss in a huge sea of flatheids. So I have decided to start a new religion for bloggyland. I'm trying to work out the tenets. How's this:
We embrace our ignorance
We do not believe in any things
Especially thoughts.

That'll be ten percent, please. Off the top.

Ra Allotmenteer!

Thursday 10:00 a.m.
What a wonderful prospect today is! Karmically, everything is coming up roses on a day like this. Vast bliss stretches out till I'm back at work on Tuesday. The only thing that can spoil it is me, and interruptions from flatheids.

The day is beautiful out there. It's sunny and clear with just still a little nip in the air. I'm going to spend it in the allotment. I don't have to dig, but I may do a little bit. Or a big bit. It doesn't matter. I have no appointments with any flatheids all day. This is my day to retreat and further progress my investigations into ra bliss. Only if you have meditated a lot could you look forward to a day like this. Sitting in a hut, blissed out! Oh, what a fortunate, fortunate creature I am! Why should you meditate? Because it makes you happy! I'm a HotboyMadyamika away to surf the oceans of bliss!

9:50 p.m.
I meditated as much as I could till half two, then I went some messages. Then I picked up the meditating again at half four. Too much trying and not enough just doing. You'd get the just doing about the third day at the Samye Ling and then you might have the happiness really bursting out. But I was trying a bit today. A bit of effort. A wee bit of spadework. I've just stopped for some rest and recreation. I wish I could do it again tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'll go to see the aged parent. While I am in Bellshill, Froggie McDuck will be arriving in Edinburgh from Marseille and I will have to go and fall into the open grave round at Beef's place sometime in the evening. There's nothing else for it. There is no escape. People might say why don't you go there and not have a drink. People might say why don't you go to the brothel and not ... Why the hell go to the brothel in the first place? At Beef's you will drink.

You don't have to. You could go there and be bored.

It was quite hard today. You should be in the way of it. I cleared out the hut. There is a blue carpet on the floor of the hut. You see no blue. Usually, you see no floor. Today I cleared it out because sometime this Spring/Summer I will be staying in the hut overnight, and will have to stretch out on the floor in my sleeping bag. Some people may say: Hotboy,why do you do stupid, hard things like trying to sit up all night in your allotment? Why do you always want to give everything up? Well, I'm prepared to make an effort.... because of ra bliss. But you made the effort before you got ra bliss. I know.

Better thoughts and feelings will arise tomorrow because of the hard work today. It's mind control. From yesterday. Your present is dependent on your past. Shame about the sweetie eating flatheids. I should really tell them to fung off. I should go away and be alone, but I'm a bit of a sweetie eating flatheid myself! But I will go away and be on my own. I will! I've cleared out the hut. I need a shotgun. As soon as anyone chaps on the hut door, let them have it. I need solitary. My weaknesses ... well, I challenge them enough myself!

Ra Force!

Wednesday 2:00 p.m.
Such great globules of ra bliss arising after the vase breath there. I knew it was going to be a good day for ra bliss straightaway this morning. It's the force of it somehow. You can feel it as you start to meditate. The developments are developing. Just breath out and the increase of ra bliss increases again with every new one. Oh, what a fortunate creature I am! I shall go to the allotment when I finish this to succumb to ra bliss all afternoon, and maybe evening and ... on and on and on .... I don't have to go back to work till next Tuesday!

Digging the allotment hasn't been such a problem this year, now that most of the couch grass is finally out of it ... till it starts to grow again. But the whole place should be dug and planted by Tuesday. Then I will just have to weed it and cut the grass paths. Yippee! Then I can get back to proper useless physical exercise like running, and doing Tai Chi sets, hatha yoga and shadow boxing. All the folk who say keeping an allotment is healthy don't know what they're on about. As a form of physical activity all that digging and bending is useless and probably as dangerous as cycling. Much safer just to sit in the hut and investigate ra bliss!

I even got paid today! How bloody brilliant can a day be!

I re-read the first three chapters of the re-write yesterday and was quite encouraged. No way is this current draft going to be near the final one, but I feel able to batter on with it.

Today is a wonderful day because I have spent a lot of time meditating in the past. The time's gone now. What did you get from all the time that's gone by? Some memories? A nice place to live maybe? A car? A horse? Maybe you've just had enough, a maintenance dose of cash to keep you going along. If you do not meditate sufficiently, you will not get ra bliss. Flatheids do not get ra bliss. You could have had some nice memories, a nice place to live, a car, a horse and ra bliss. Dearie me. God preserve us from flatheids for they are an affront to human beingness and will never get ra bliss. Dearie me. Oh well! I suppose I'll just go to the hut and succumb to ra bliss on my own then!

Ra Cyclists!

Sunday 1:00 p.m.
Wonderful bliss this morning in the lobby. Meditated from half ten till the back of twelve. Superb. Despite me, the meditations continue to develope brilliantly!

Brian Wilson showed up at five yesterday and we went cycling. There is an alternative Edinburgh of cycle paths which were once railway lines and we used these to get to Leith. Then we cycled along the shore way to Granton where we stopped at the Old Chain Pier Pub.

You can look out the window at the Forth and watch the lights come on over in Fife as darkness falls. Neither of us had lights on our bikes. I did not have any money. It should have been a safe wee outing on bikes to celebrate the Spring. Thought two pints max and we'll get out of here. Brian had to leave the pub to smoke fags. He had to go by the bar. Once he came back and plonked his false teeth on the table then pulled out this pig's face and started chewing ... well, I knew then that the jig was up.

He fell off the bike twice on the way back to Portobello. I fell off once, but he was in front and he'd just fallen off for the second time so I fell off in sympathy. Where are the polis when you really need them? Of course, I'd stuck with the real ale while he blitzed these vicious Danish lagers and I had to make sure he got home. I slept on the couch and cycled back to Stockbridge before eight o clock.

What a fortunate creature! How beautiful the town was this morning with the clear, clean light and the sun shining, the roads practically empty. I've got a slightly sore wrist, but have got all my fingers and toes, so I'm quite happy with that result.

I'm supposed to be hiding away, but had to go to this benefit on Friday. It was in St Paul's Church, up by Waverley Station, and had been organised by the kid's ex-boyfriend, who plays lead guitar in this band. Walked into the church hall and it's like a hellish vision of the jobbie. The place was full of pupils and ex-pupils from the school where I work. Totally unexpected. We were at least twenty five years older than anyone else there. Freaked, but I calmed down and started tanning the bottles of Bud. My partner asked me later if I'd noticed the girl who stood in front of me, patted down the back of her mini-skirt, then slowly bent down to pick up something invisible. Certainly not!

It's a lovely day. What a fortunate creature! What a fortunate, fortunate creature I am!

19:43 p.m.
I never mixed with the progeny of the evil bourgeois until I went to university. Shiva reminded me the other day that I said they were all just waiting for their parents to die and the trust funds to check in and all that rich stuff. I remember asking folk if they wouldn't pay for their parents to get bumped off so they could land in the money. The trouble with the evil bourgeois is that they practically live forever. But my money worries are over. Adolf has posted a photie of his mother. I'll get posters made and stick them around town. LOST OLD DEAR! If you spot her, ring this number. I'll hit her with Brian Wilson's creekit bat and run away. That'll be ten percent off the top, Adolf.

Adolf has posted a photie of me taken about a year and a half ago. I think I'm fifty three or four in it. He was doing things to my webpage. I can't remember what. It gets ten or eleven hits most weeks still.

Brian Wilson's son is in a band. One of the guitarists read Alma Mater and one of the kidsbooks. Seemed to like them. Fifteen, sixteen maybe. He's too young to be an agent. If I had his email, I'd still pester him though. Fifty fifty, kid, till you're rolling in it. Get rich quick. Use your initiative. Sell, sell. Then I wouldn't have to murder old dears.

Ra Dentist!

Thursday 4:15 p.m.
Whilst waiting for my face to thaw out!

Doing the juju in the lobby all morning till Shiva came to visit me. See? Do deity yoga and deities appear! You can't call Shiva a flatheid since he is a hindu god. Just none of ra bliss.

The city was wet as I looked out at all the people from the bus on the way to the dentist. No smiley, happy, open-faced basturns there at all. Girning into the weather. Nobody gets ra bliss. It's obvious. The poor flatheids!

Once due to the filthy communist swine, dental treatment in Scotland was more or less free. It was crap, but free. Now, it's still crap, but costs an arm and a leg. Since the bank already has my arm, the dentist might have to struggle with the cannibals for my leg. Maybe I could sell portions. Yes, make soup! Millions of cannibals could join in. Make millions of gallons. Homeopathic soup for cannibals. I could just dip my toe into cold water before it got boiled. My Narcissistic Personality Syndrome ambitions will then be possible.

Of course, God's a communist and it's against God's law to deprive folk of their teeth just because they can't pay. This is clear when the preacher hollers that on the day of Judgement there will be a weeping and gnashing of teeth. What if you haven't got any teeth? Teeth will be provided. Free beer for the workers!

Ra Neotropismists

Wednesday 1:52 p.m.
There was an intriguing comment on an earlier post from a neotropismist. I checked neotropism on web dictionaries, etc., and got zip. Maybe a wee mention of philosophy.
He blogs uner Neotropism. He says he's real. I'm not sure about that. There's only two posts on his blog and you can never tell in bloggyland. He could be a martian, or a spam robot. Or Adolf Hitler's reincarnation.

If he's a genuine human being, I'd say he's a student, probably Scottish, studies philosophy and ... he's interested in anarchism. Also, has the Communist Manifesto as one of his favourite books. That is a brilliant piece of writing. He also has Bomber as one of his favourite books. I clicked on that. Five people have Bomber as one of their favourite books. Definitely, one of them is a Len Deighton fan. He wrote a book called Bomber. So did I. It's on my web page, but has never been published before, so it can't be anyone's favourite book. If you could employ really cheap nine year olds to post tons of phoney blogs with all your unpublished books ... it probably wouldn't help at all.

Neotropism is reading his way through this blog from when it started just over a year ago. I would strongly advise against this as ... well, I was drunk at the time, your honour.

If anyone would like to stalk me, I'd like to remind everyone that although I'd like to aspire to sainthood, I am as yet still only the last in a long line of truly murderous basturns. Also, I am getting to know some cannibals and any flatheids I don't know coming near me risk being chopped up and sold off as mince. Or getting dug into my allotment.

I've just remembered that I wrote a play about folk eating each other. It was called Jock Tamson's Half Hearted Transformation and is on my page. It's all cannibals and caves with me.

If any criminals come upon this blog and would like to organise a place to bury some dead bodies, I've got just the place. I know all this DNA malarkey has made murdering people more problematic, but .... I can make them disappear! I'm just away to practise my digging skills at the moment.

Wonderful things will happen over the next couple of days. Wonderful, wonderful things!

9:10 p.m.
This is RaBlissBlog. Here comes some real time blissblogging! But to set the scene: it's just got dark about quarter of an hour ago. The lama says late afternoon is less use for the heat. Let's see!

From a cold start. Take a breath and do the vase breathing juju.

The difference between doing this an hour ago and doing it now is amazing. I meditated for about forty odd minutes then, I suppose, and it was working towards the end. Now ... I'll go again. Before, it might have gone pulse pulse up your body. Then it just went whoosh! Ra bliss, ra bliss, ra bliss! Go again. The navel symbol seems much, much brighter and more obvious. Type and breathe! I don't want to blog. I'll do ra bliss and get back to you in a minute or two with a resume. Maybe not. Looking at the screen, you feel the uplifting sensation uplifting round the front of your face and upper body. This is the sheath thing. I think with the appearance of the sheath thing, other things can happen. You're in a different zone. Breathe out there. Yippee! Quite blows you away. That went a lot further, gave you a bit of the shoogly sensation on your body. It's a loss of bearings really. Close your eyes and that's sublime!

Twenty minutes have passed since I started blogging. I'm only at the start of all the wonderful, wonderful feelings. Just take a deep breath and there's a very pleasant after-effect indeed. Ears roaring a little. You might as well just float away! This sheath thing is the key bit. I think once you've got that, it's green lights all the way to ra bliss.

You don't even need to be properly meditating. I'm not really meditating just now. It's just doing a pranayama really, or an occasional vase breath. This is just a taster. You can feel the heat coming. I think I should go and meditate now, but I might go out to the pub and see how Arsenal got on in the European Cup!

10:45p.m.
Walked all the way (five minutes, less!) to the pub and then all the way back. Game was over. No excuse for a pint of beer. Came home. Good boy!

So what do you get instead? Ripples of bliss texturing the edge of the envelope. That's in the later stages of the vase breath effect. A swelling of heat and ra bliss. Everthing is expanded. The distant roaring. Waves of pleasure. We're now in the complete bliss zone. Eyes closed. How could anything afterwards ever compare to this!

Have to take the kid to the bus stop! Embedded I am! Still a HotboyMadyamikaSurfingTheOceansOfBliss!

Ra Tuesday!

6:30 p.m.
Stephanie Thwaites from Curtis Brown agreed to have a look at the start of Ancient Futures today, so that's okay! I sent out about four emails and got one reply. The trouble with hustling stuff is that I lose interest in books once they're written. By the time you've had a couple of rejections, you're onto something else, and probably aren't too skint or reduced to selling body parts to cannibals, like I am just now. So why bother putting up with the rejections? It took me three years to write Ancient Futures, but I only sent it out to about four publishers when it was finished.

I'm going to the allotment just now. Bright, but a little chilly when it blows. Hope the wrens make an appearance this year.

The after-effects of vase breathing continue to develope rather quickly. I'm really keen to clean up my act since, whenever I get out of my face on anything other than air, sometimes a little worry creeps in. The boy in Surface turning into the big lizard has my every sympathy.

Ra Christ!

Easter Monday 0:23 a.m.
I was brought up with Christ as the son of God, or God, part of the Trinity. This is an idea to exclude you. You are not the son of God, or God. The boy was something special in his divinity.

I think this might have been a decision of the Nicene Council, maybe about three hundred years after the death of Christ. It's almost like where the jews met the Romans and blew it. It's definitely got a touch of Olympus about it. It seems as if they said that Christ was the son of God but nobody else was. One son, definitely no daughters.

Then you might read the Koran and it says Christ isn't God and you think spot on. Then they tell you that Mohammed was God's last word. After speaking through Mohammed, there's nothing left to be said.

Both these positions, at least as I've characterised them, are stupid.

The buddhisty boys had a meeting about three hundred years after the death of the Buddha and the number one question on the agenda was: What is Reality? More like the thing.

Of course, I'm a Christian. My Christ was some kind of buddhist, a yogi. He's got a photie, or a negative of a photie. It's on the Turin Shroud. It really might be a thirteenth century Frankish boy, but it's a good enough photie of Christ for me.

When I started going to the hatha yoga classes about eighteen years ago, I remember thinking that Jesus Christ was just a guy like me. Guys like me can walk on water. This is an entirely liberating thought. All you need after having this thought is how? How do you do it? Got to be application and technique.

I read once that Milarepa, the great Tibetan saint, told folk he wasn't an incarnation of a god or whatnot. He had to make the effort. It was hard work.

There are two kinds of cosmic revelation. One is unitive, involving a loss of self and a merging with everything: the one big thing thing. The other is seeing God as being out there ... maybe up there on a throne surrounded by angels and whatnot. I used to disparage these visions, but I'd like to have one now. Be brilliant! The Book of Revelation is like one long description of this. Timeless as well. Cellini, the renaissance man, describes a brilliant instance of this when he was kept in a dungeon, and, I assume, was under pressure.

St Teresa says look within. God is within. Interesting this. You get into yourself and get the tranquility and peace of the seventh mansion of the Interior Castle. She also had lots of the other stuff, the God being out there on a throne stuff. I think of that as being like the movies. The hard work is in the thinking and focusing on what thinking is, etc. This seeing God with the angels, trumpets, etc., is more like the acid stuff. It happens. The other stuff is surely from effort. Maybe so could be the Cecil B. De Mille, but it just probably happens ... like with Cellini when he was under a bit of pressure.

I think I maybe know something about this juju. That means I have to make the effort. Sometimes I wish I was a flatheid, but only the kind with rich parents who come from California about 1970. The trouble with flatheids is that they are so unhappy.

Two ways of looking at life: One way is moment by moment. Flatheids are sad basturns on this indicator. Buffeted in the wind! Then there is the shape of your life. Are flatheids happier over the long haul? Dearie me! Grief, sorrow, lamentations ... suffering in this life.

Didn't work out that I was on holiday till too late. I don't want to ever go to work. Ever. Going to work is for poor people or folk with compensation life styles. Maybe I go to work because I'm too scared to do anything else! Still a HotboyMadyamikaSurfingTheOceansOfBliss.

10:05 a.m.
The morning meditations have been going well! It looks like a beautiful day outside and it's all mine. Going to the allotment. Going to meditate my socks off, dig and plant, then come back here to write my book. What a fortunate, fortunate creature I am!

8 p.m.
The allotment is half dug and planted. What progress! How much easier it is without having to weed it first. Anyway, the grass is growing and everything is bursting out now. What a difference a week makes! Only downside is that I didn't see any wrens hopping about inside the hut, so I don't know if they'll be nesting there this year.

Brian Wilson told me a friend of his son has downloaded one of the books from my site and says he's liking it. I wonder which one. Fifty fifty to you, kid, till you make your first million. Re-write it if you want. Sell it a sheet at a time. Do what you like. You is your chance to be filthy rich by the time you're eighteen and will maybe save me from having to sell body parts to cannibals!

I think I've really really started the re-write now and it's going very well!

Rat Big Lizard!

Saturday 9:55 p.m.
So I'm trying to be normal, and instead of running away and hiding in the hut going mumbo jumbo, mumbo jumbo to myself all day (and what else is there to do?) I accompanied this other human being up to the Hub. That's where you buy Festival tickets. It's on the road to the castle. Outside there are slopes and cobbles. Inside, it's been done up a bit. An old church maybe. Sectioned off. So I sat down on this row of blue seats on a blue carpet against a blue background, and, of course, going blue is a piece of cake to a yogi joe like myself. Anyway, there's nothing else in this square except the other human being, who is talking to the ticket booth person, and anyone who comes in to look at the one rack of tee-shirts. The tee-shirts sold well. I took a breath and tried a wee bit visualisation. Whoosh!

What's normal about that? Getting off your face on air. I was really enjoying sitting there as well. But it was only by pretending to be normal and accompanying the other human being to the Hub that I realised how wonderful this juju has been for me!

One of the other ways I was trying to be normal was by watching drama series on the telly. Once I had an interest in this kind of drama and used to watch it to find out how it worked. Then I forgot about that. Then I watched Rome last year and that was wonderful. After that I started watching Surface, which is on one of the free channels here in Desperate Dan country. It's got this kid in it who seems to be turning into a hugely smart super lizard. It's freaking him out, this tranformation into the lizard thingy. It's so bad it's brilliant. Anyway, me and this kid have much in common. He's freaked out about transforming into a big lizardy thing and I'm thinking I'd rather be dead than bourgeois, while sitting in this blue square contrived space inside the big churchy place and trying to emanate as a light being. I wear dead peoples clothes. I might be starting to smell, but I can empathise with the kid who's a bit worried about the transformation into the big lizardy thing. That's nothing, kiddo! You're just going for the wrong side. Try the light being, radiant and full of vajra pride. I can't do that yet of course. But, but slowly slowly catchee monkey!

Dearie me! Slowly slowly ... is that a racist jibe? Or an affectionate acknowledgement that the Chinese were there well before the rest of us honkies? Sorry, anyway. I don't think I'll use that one again!

So once you have at least sometimes connected the breathing with ra bliss, you cannot afterwards be described as normal. It is hard to describe to flatheids what it's like when the breath is connected to bliss, but what is ra bliss? And has it got an end? Surely the huge greatness of ra bliss at the end of ra bliss is unchanging, thoughtless still blissy bliss bliss.

Of course, if you're too dumb to meditate, you might just be scared of dying. If you don't want to be scared of dying, remember I am available and will also sell parts of my body for beer money.

Thanks to everyone who's ever read this blog. I will try to tell myself to try harder. Why is there no one else blogging about connecting breath to bliss? Sorry, I haven't searched. Dearie me. If it wasn't for everyone else what else would there be?

We should stick to the breathing and ra bliss. That is the wonderment, the totally unexpected sweetie, the favour, the graciousness, the hullo, Hotboy, well done for doing the human being juju at least this tiny insect so far .. well done! Good boy!

Of course, if y0u d0n't meditate ... well, no sweeties for flatheids, I'm afraid. Keep a gun by your side. I'll sell you the inscribed in blood quote: A dead rat! Ah, what company that would be! Grief, sorrow, lamentations ... ten percent to me, please. All the money you send me will be completely wasted.

Jack, keep the anagrams away. But it is a shame if there was so much of ra bliss there and it was so easy to access, but you missed it. Just completely missed it. No one's fault. Just had your head stuck up your backside from day one. Just completely missed it. No wonder you see the weeping and wailing on the news, but please don't do that for me. I have been blessed. I have sat in such amounts of ra bliss. Breathtaking, astonishing doses of ra bliss. And you don't have to be clever. There surely is far more bliss than anything else. Why else would it be the best thing. It is overwhelming, ris bliss!

This is RaBlissBlog! Trying to relate the stuff about what flatheids don't ever and will not ever unfortunately get: ra bliss! Only available to meditators and perhaps incredibly fortunate creatures, but I don't think so. This is HotboyMadyamikaSurfingTheOceansOfBliss, here very early Sunday morning telling you all about ra bliss!

Ra Good Friday!!

11:22 a.m.
What a fortunate creature I am! What a good day to count your blessings! Nobody gets crucified this afternoon, not around here anyway.

Never quite worked out what that crufixion stuff was all about. A human sacrifice? Is that not suicide? If you know in Gethsemane that the soldiers are coming, aren't you supposed to run away? If Christ died to atone for our sins, how does that work?

As an icon of compassion and altruism, (the basis of the path) the crosss is unsurpassed in European culture.

Paramahansa Yogananda was into Christ. He said great masters can sook the bad karma from their disciples by taking on their sufferings. So Christ was doing this for the apostles to get them ready for Pentecost, which is when Christianity kicks off. When the Holy Ghostie Men show up and give the apostles yogic powers.

Any Christians out there know anything about this?

Ranother Thursday!

Thursday 11:20 a.m.
The cherry blossoms were starting to break out yesterday, so it must be Spring. Blowy out there! Going to rain and shine and rain and shine.

You have to take a bit of a spanking every time you have what is regarded as conventionally a good time. I had many good times over the last weekend, but I'm paying for them today. In fact, I've been paying for them since they finished. This is pretending to be normal and hanging about with your pals.

All my pals are flatheids. It costs them zip to have a good time (apart from having to buy me drinks!) because they don't have to resume investigating ra bliss and find their beautiful minds now sodden in thought disordered mayhem.

What you have to do with flatheids is see them every now and again. Never socialise two days or nights in a row. But I find it really hard to keep a grip. Nobody understands the price you pay. Yes, it is a lonely old furrow we plough when we wish to surf the oceans of bliss! Still, better get on with it.

I'll resume the meditations as soon as I finish here. My family are meeting for lunch at the Filmhouse, so I'll go for a cup of coffee. I won't see anyone else all day and all evening since the flat will be empty till I'm in beddybys.

Even if you can't appreciate what I lose because you cannot even imagine it, being a flatheid, you will see that it is difficult to go from party time to spending most of the time on your own, etc. The deep calmness is hiding somewhere behind the irritation and crabbitness. And thoughts a-leaping, and pressures from stupid things to do.

This afternoon I'll write. This evening I'll go to dig and plant, if the weather permits, do the yogic jumpings, and try to be a good boy!

Ra Even More Holidays!

Wednesday 1:03 p.m.
On Saturday or Sunday I was sitting and thinking how amazing everything was. I told myself that I sit a lot because sometimes I do feel astonished. I know it's just a mixture of ra bliss, heat and light, but ... well, it's happening in a zone flatheids have no access to ... it's the combinations! Yes, the combinations!

I saw everyone accept Poisonous last weekend, so I'm hoping for a quiet, quiet time. Pretending to be normal is crap. It is also too expensive.



Rain is forecast though it's still dry as I write. I'm going to the allotment to meditate and dig, and plant. Then tonight I'll do some hatha, bathe, meditate and finally, finally, make as definite start to working solidly on the new book. I don't have to go to work till next Tuesday due to Easter being this weekend. Yahoo!

3:10 p.m.
Over the last couple of weeks, I've been reading this blog and trying to find stuff that might help me with the novel. So I've finished that. It's two years since I started it now. This is really the beginning of the re-write now. Stuttering, stammering beginning of a re-write this has been!

A quarter of the allotment has been planted. There is a lot of work to be done. How I ever kept that allotment going while working full time and writing books I'll never know. Of course, I was only meditating about twenty hours a week in those days! Anyway, I'll read everything from the blog and the draft of the book and consider that the re-write started (again!).

Ra Even More of Ra Bliss!

Sunday 12:50 p.m.
I actually did some work on my book yesterday. That was good. On Friday night I was in the company of many old friends and didn't drink. Good boy! Everybody else did. I did some vase breathing when no one was bothering to talk to me and got out of my face on air! That's the way I'd like to socialise. Take a breath and leave the planet.

But I had some beer last night! Bad boy! This wasn't supposed to happen, but it's amazing that the wall gives you money even when you haven't got any. Only the thought of getting a full time job is going to save me! But when?

So I was a wee bit crabbit with myself when I sat down to meditate this morning, but what bliss! I don't deserve it. I'm sitting there a wee bit hung over and getting loads of bliss and heat. This juju really does seem to have its own momentum.

I've been pretending to be normal this weekend. I was out on Friday night and Saturday afternoon. Brian Wilson is due round here any minute. I've reneged on the golf and suggested we go to Princes Street to see the fabulous room in the National Art Gallery where all the Van Goghs and Cezanne's, etc., hang. It's one of my favourite places. When the kid was wee, I used to go there regularly and ask her how much money we'd need to hang one of the paintings on our living room wall. There must be 200 million pounds worth of art in that wee room. You can go and look at them for nothing. What a great town this is!

There weren't any Van Goghs in the room. Would anybody like to buy my ear? Still, a fabulous day. Brian Wilson is flying off to represent Scotland and pick up an award in Chicago in about a month's time. This is a far better place to be. Today all the signs outside the pubs said NO LEAVING YOUR FALSE TEETH ON THE BAR, or NO CHEWING ON PIGS' FACES WITHIN THREE FEET OF ME , and the truly awful NO SMOKING! What has the world come to? Still, I had the best of times. If I'm dead in three years time, I think spending this afternoon with Brian Wilson will have been an afternoon well spent.

Ra New Day Dawns!

Friday 10:30 a.m.
I have not meditated today yet due to enjoying drinking all those beers last night. Must say it did brighten up a dull patch. However, I must put these childish amusements behind me now and start more seriously investigating ra bliss!

I'm going to sit in the lobby all day.

Amazingly, I haven't had a single offer to buy myself for £1,000,000, which I thought was a very small price. I've decided to downsize and see if I can sell my arm. My left arm. It's yours for half a million. A steal! I read a great book once called The Fatal Shore, about convicts in Australia. Some of them tried to walk from Tasmania to China. This was before they knew Tasmania was an island or that Australia was an island. Anyway, these boys started eating each other. The sole survivor said that the tastiest bit was the upper arm. So an upper arm casarole can be yours for only $500,000. Only genuine offers entertained!

4:20 p.m.
I meditated in the lobby till four with short breaks, during one of which I went to the barber's for a No.1. A baldy! Also to take out £100 on the plastic. Got a letter from the bank saying I'd overdrawn my overdraft. They punish you for this, so I'll have to withdraw the offer of the left arm since they've got it already. The rest of the body is still on offer though. Dollars, not pounds. A million of them. Maybe I should offer myself for adoption. That might work, but it didn't work the last time I tried it.

Dora and Jerry are arriving from the west. Let the shenanigans commence!

Rat Fortunate Creature!

Thursday 9:15 a.m.
Had ra bliss this morning lying flat in bed. I'm looking for contentment, equanimity. I can feel myself creeping into that zone. But I've got everything going for me over the next couple of days, and I've a holiday on Monday! How wonderful!

Stopping and starting when you're writing a novel is really not helpful. I've got to get into a routine with it now. Then there's the digging and planting, which looks like being a lot easier than I'd anticipated. Get to the dentist this morning, see my maw tomorrow, no other tasks. Yippee!

If you buy me for $1,000,000, of course, you get all the money I make from wonderful writings in the future, except for the stuff I've already given away. I've already promised two thirds of the fortune I make from the novel I can't get round to writing at the moment to someone else and the Samye Ling, so you can't have that. Other than that, you get all of me! (If you'd like to be my agent for this purpose, it's ten percent to you!)

9:30 p.m.
Setting the scene. The Dom Bliss is away for the evening and night, so it's just little old me here, Jack. I went out for the beers. First up is Baltika Classic, four the the price of 3, and then there's two Erdingers (they weren't in the freezer at Peckhams, and that's what I really wanted.)


The evil bourgeois are all going to hell. I have to count myself in that number. When I was a young prole, I grew to despise and have great contempt for the evil bourgeois. They were in my mind - since there was no middle class people anywhere near where I lived - managers, and joes with fat bellies in Pringle sweaters. I hated them. Middle class people do not understand this.

There is a community, or communities, in Bellshill. My maw was telling me about Andy today. He gives her CDs of Irish music. He goes hither and yon to do wee things for people, some of whom are housebound like my maw. He is helpful and, thus, could never qualify as an evil bourgeois.

The evil bourgeois have houses that are surrounded by fung off signs. They don't even like each other. They are in secret organisations. They believe in families, not communities. They subject their offspring to cruel toilet training regimes and are generally sadistic in their motivation.

I hate their complacency. I hate their stupidity. They are all going to hell because they think they are better. They think their anal retention makes them worthwhile. So the Dom Bliss asks me if I know this guy mentioned in the local paper.

A really good thing, among many other really good things, about becoming attached to the Meadowbank Boxing Club was being able to meet normal, working class people again. You don't see them where I was in Edinburgh. The person the Dom Bliss mentioned was called Davey. I did know him. His brother was murdered in Pilton last week. Seems to have been killed by a large stone. His two other brothers died from overdoses. I knew Davey when he was sixteen. He was a Scottish junior boxing champion. One night in Shotts, Shiva got him pissed when he was with us and not fighting that night. Great night. He was in the motor in case an opponent showed up for him.

The Domestic Bliss said the paper said that Davey had set up a boxing club in Pilton to help young people keep out of trouble. What have I done to help anybody? It's not as if I didn't know. It's not as if people didn't tell me. Essential evil bourgeois. Dearie me. Oh well, back to ra beer!

Ra Allotment Beckons!

Wednesday 1:25 p.m.
My knee got a wee bit stiff after running on Monday (good boy anyway!), but I think I can still dig. There's a helluva amount of digging and planting to be done and I'm just the boy to do it. At least, there are less monstrous weeds to be cast asunder this year due to my assiduous attentions over this past two years of half employment.

I don't have to go back to work till next Tuesday. I must be doing something right in this life! Between now and then, I've only got a dental appointment and a visit to my maw. So I'll go dig and bliss, and write and bliss, and bliss and bliss and bliss. There's got to be a lot of ra bliss between now and next Tuesday. I hope the wrens use the nest in the hut this year. That would be nice! Here comes ra tweety birds!

6:25 p.m.
Got an email from Julia Churchill of Darley Anderson saying she's passing on Ancient Futures. I suppose I'll have to bother someone else with this after what Robert Dudley said about it, but this hustling agents stuff is just a pain in the neck.

The allotment will be a lot easier to dig and plant this year since most of the couch grass is out of it now. Sod busting is pure murder, but any wimp could dig the stuff I was digging today.

I've decided to sell myself for $1,000,000. For this the purchaser gets to own me. I'll send them regular correspondence to let them know how my quest for an agent is getting on and I'll tell them all about ra bliss, of course. This is just a simple one off sale. Only genuine offers entertained. No cranks, please.

11:25 p.m.
The person who sent in the first bid has to realise that, yes, you get to eat me when I'm dead. No hanky panky unfortunately - unless you are a gorgeous young babes and able to do the juju as a kamamudra - but in capitalism everything must be negotiable! Yes, and I am as rare as unique. There is only ever going to one of me and I may emanate as a juju master. Yes, you can be a stupid flatheid and OWN ME! Just put up the money! How about a down payment. That would be good!

Rem Rejections!

Tuesday
Got an email this morning from Robert Dudley of the Elizabethan era. It said:
John - I think your book may well be a commercial proposition, but I'm afraid it isn't really my sort of thing and I do think it is important to be enthusiastic about what I am selling. I'm sorry. I would have thought though that it would not be difficult to find an agent to take it on. - Robert

That kind of means that I've got to try to sell Ancient Futures now. What a nuisance! I would have been better just not bothering and getting on with investigating ra bliss.

It's very hard to find time to write my book at the moment. In a similar situation when I was forty - I had a job share then - I wrote Ancient Futures start to finish in three years. That included time when I had to re-write 50,000 words due to discs no longer functioning. In fact, I had less time then since the kid was wee. These days I'm writing at ... well, 20,000 words in two years! It would be a great situation to write in just now if I didn't have to do the allotment and spend at least four hours a day investigating ra bliss. But it can be done! Oh yes, I'll start again today!

Ra Even More of Ra Bliss!

Sunday 7:45 p.m.
There's a wee island in a pond at the Samye Ling. It's in front of the stupa. If you cross the bridge, you get to the island and there's seat on it dedicated to Gwen Millburn, I think. Once two years ago I sat on this seat all day, apart from gettting food and etc. You could see the sun move over the sky and behind the hill, which is at the back of the stupa from there. I haven't been at the Samye Ling since last July. But I sat on that seat today.

Can you tell the difference from the last time you were there? I've never had meditations like it...

Had to dash out then!

Monday 1:00 p.m.
I remember clearly when I was about ten having a real cosy feeling for God. I remember thinking it didn't matter what happened to me or anyone else because God was watching over us and it was all going to be alright in the end.

This is an example of where you can reach with the best, low key toiliet training! All the anxieties and neuroses begin to arrive when they should ... when you're a teenager!

This is god as reassurance. I was getting this yesterday though I don't believe in anything anymore. It doesn't matter what happens to me or anyone else. It's going to be alright. This is a very nice feeling to have and I would recommend it. It's the contentment breaking through, I hope.

Julia Churchill of Darley Anderson Literary Agency, etc., has agreed to have a look at the first couple of chapters of Ancient Futures. This was a bit unexpected since she's already knocked back Light in the Dark and Bomber. But maybe it goes to show that all the spadework in agent harassment over the past thirteen months hasn't been a complete waste of time. I wish Ancient Futures was a bit better now!

I got an email today about a guy at work who's just been given the Black Spot. He's going to be terminated from his connection with the five sense bases pretty soon. Termination through a very, very bad cough. What a shame! Younger, much younger than me. No bliss. And I must have smoked more fags and such than him. I hope when I get the Black Spot (I'm three years overdue already!) that, after the initial shock and horror passes, I will think it's alright. Everything's going to be alright. As the man said: Why worry? Be happy.

10:15 p.m.
I went out for my first jogette this evening since I done in my knee maybe six or eight weeks ago. Felt like a fat old bloke. I am a fat old bloke, but I don't usually run like one. Anyway, the knee feels fine so no excuse now for being a fatboy!

This is RaBlissBlog telling you about further developments in ra bliss. Report so far:
1) Ra bliss you get sitting up. This takes a while, but since you're sitting this is the way you're going to get ra bliss.
2) Ra bliss you get lying flat. This bliss showed up a couple of months ago. This puts yoga nidra into an entirely different context. Yoga Nidra, one's told, is how yogis sleep without sleeping. The body sleeps, but the mind doesn't. Yeah? With ra bliss you get the point maybe.
3) Ra bliss you get on your side. The buddha died like this. On his right side. This has only happened once or twice, but is the way to go!
4) Ra bliss you get rolling over. So at the Samye at the weekend I was doing yoga nidra on the floor of room 16. Quite some bliss, but I wanted to sleep so rolled over onto my side. Wakened up and felt good, but none of ra bliss. Then I rolled over onto my back and voila, ra bliss! Flattened into an envelope of ra bliss.
Be fun if someday you walked along in ra bliss. Could you be like that? Well, I've lived like a crabbit basturn for most of my life, so walking around with ra bliss will be a piece of cake!