New

There’s a new way to be, a new humanity. It’s not new to me but I’m feeling it freshly. I’ve been personifying it steadily since late last century and bringing it to the global community, yet it is still coming to me, ever-more amazingly. It’s reached a zenith of clarity as it tips into universal reality. The rest is history. I’m so happy. 

Like a lotus rises from the mud, so an enlightened species is emerging from the madness. Like a phoenix is born from the ashes, so a transformed consciousness is coming out of the cremated remains. Like the new needs the old to die, so the discontinuous human is surprising itself. 

I’ve written this body of books along the way to usher it all in. Here’s your ticket and your seat. Stand tall and enjoy the whole experience.

Fullness prevails now.

Words

I have no words for this but I shall surely share it in due course. The nature of it is that words cannot reach or come from it, and yet words are my predilection and profession.

I am drawn not to speak by the nature and pressure of it and yet the first thing I reach for is the writing. The contradiction is right here as I say that I cannot.

I hereby reach out by reaching in, declare my silence, and teach what I am learning.

I am in transformation.

Heroes

A hero always hesitates before taking a leap into new life. It is a hero’s business to leap into new life, and yet he hesitates every time, because, for one thing, that’s what heroes do. They wouldn’t be heroes otherwise. It’s part of the package to be drawn to the beyond and to be challenged before saying an irreversible ‘yes’.

If the hero didn’t face new frontiers and feel afraid, there’d be no triumph in the trip, no story in the narrative, and no hero. One must overcome oneself to earn the title, and so one will invariably hesitate before facing one’s fears and heading into the unknown.

The hero may even resist! We are called forward into new adventure that requires someone soulful to live and share it, but that means death of the old life and trust of the uncertainty. This means possible avoidance and certain hesitation by the protagonist before ultimately going for it. 

This hesitation is a sign of intelligence, and part of the process, and the going-for-it has meaning only in context of how much of the old self is overcome en route.

The name of the game is transformation and one never undertakes such a venture without due consideration. The stakes are high and the deal is real. Heroes have to be real.

Heroes have to go for it.

Club Tropicana

Excerpt from 'Death is the Ultimate Orgasm' by Robin Wheeler, released worldwide on 31 October 2018:

I am at the burger joint. The waitress has just taken my order for a beer and backed up my interest in the food special advertised on the table display. 

"This," she said passionately as she placed her hand on the promotion stand, "is amazing!"

"I got that sense from reading about it," I replied, buying some time to behold her. 

"I'll bring you the menu to look at,” she smiled appetisingly, “but this..." 

A beer and that, I thought. Two beers.

I am feeling the lift that comes from an uplifting environment. It reminds me of Thailand. That's why we go there, and why I come here on a Thursday afternoon. Gentle buoyancy. Quiet happy hour, sweet scents from hookahs, and well-chosen classic rock music. Cold beer, flashing car windows in the setting sun, raucous bikes, and show-off modified cars roaring past more than occasionally.

That's Bedfordview for you, where I grew up and still live. The high school is over the road where thirty one graduation classes have passed through since I did. Fuck me! 

Let's get back to the cheerfulness, and back to 1983, when I was into music in a big way and at the beginning of my sexual prime.

Wham! released “Club Tropicana”, their forth single from their first album Fantastic, and the video featured George and Andrew in Ibiza playing the role of air stewards who have a great time on the island despite missing a chance with two hostesses played by the backing singers Shirley and Dee. The visual and sonic imagery of that song has surely stayed with me and informed some of my passions in the ensuing thirty five years. Beach life, sunset swims, warm water, and women. 

Exotic pleasures appeal to me. I am happy in the sunshine. It feels free and makes me happy.

 'Death is the Ultimate Orgasm' by Robin Wheeler is on Amazon.com from 31 October 2018

Manifestations

Excerpt from ‘Death is the Ultimate Orgasm’ by Robin Wheeler, released worldwide on 31 October 2018:

In early 2006, the first band I was in fell apart. Not long after the last straw fell to the studio floor, one of the singer’s friends, whom I had met on the live music circuit, a guitarist, invited me to casually “jam with a few people” one Saturday afternoon. I didn’t have my own drums yet, but there was a kit in the practice room, and so I arrived on the day open and mildly enthused, if a little cautious and jaded.

The new singer turned out to be a fine songwriter with a handful or two of roughly formed compositions to try out. The bass player, a woman ten years younger than me, had a striking backing voice and a talent for song writing too. Unexpectedly, I was part of a strong mix. Settled behind our instruments, we listened to one piece on vocal and guitar and began to pick up our respective parts. Two or three runs-through and we were already sounding like something, something notable and exciting.

By the end of the day, I knew that magic had happened in that room and that I was into a new surge of creative and productive energy with a talented and committed bunch of collaborators. The bass player had to have her scheduled wedding and go on honeymoon, but she would be back, and so the other three of us played with two sit-in musicians for a couple of months fleshing out the songs and developing the sound. When our fourth element returned, she slotted straight in and we took right off, playing our first show in the middle of that year and getting signed after our third gig just two months later.

Immediately we were opening for some of the country’s biggest bands, doing short and thrilling sets in front of significant crowds and working hard behind the scenes to be our best. My drumming leapt forward with my application of self to the challenging opportunity and fuelled by my love of the music and the thrill of a dream coming true. I was thirty eight years old going on nineteen, a grown up entrepreneur of ten years, an author for six of those, and a kid all over again. Being myself for a living had a new lease of life. Being in a band took me to the next level, and manifestation had me in its rhythmic grip.

The rise of our yet-to-be-named four-piece phenomenon happened heartily from a strong communal base of friends loving the music and supporting the shows, and it quickly reached the broader public too. The end of the year rushed up in a heady haze of late nights in a range of venues across town and a soaring, melodic indie-rock sound, festive in its sincerity and rapturous reception. Along for the ride but taking a bit of a back seat was my writing, plus my corporate speaking and training, which had more of a rock ‘n’ roll feel to them than ever.

Outside of these activities was my personal enjoyment of music, wall-to-wall in the unfolding of my ideal life. Woven into that, with the twenty fifth anniversary of the release of Wham!’s first single, George Michael had surprised the world with the announcement of a tour starting in Spain in September, covering Europe for three months, and climaxing with four closing shows at Wembley Arena in London the week before Christmas.

He had not toured for eighteen years amidst alternating doubt and confidence about his future typified by outspoken withdrawal from the industry and then comebacks that surpassed his previous peaks. Here he was, playing live again, like never before. I simply had to see him despite my frustrating isolation on the southern tip of Africa.

My sister, Heather, and her family were living in London, and so I looked into visiting them while I attempted to buy tickets online for at least one of the special shows. That pursuit proved seemingly futile as prized positions in the venue were snapped up in no time while flights in peak season were prohibitively expensive, plus my brother-in-law’s parents were scheduled to stay in the guest bedroom for the holiday season.

I had been to see Bruce Springsteen four years before, flying to London without a concert ticket, haggling at the door on the night to buy one from a tout, ultimately getting in to the show, and writing my book Hunting Power (2003) about the life-affirming jaunt. And so, doing something similar for George Michael did occur to me, but I was so absorbed in making music of my own that the longing hovered on the outskirts of my rich consciousness that was welling from within.

I did track the tour dates, though, watching the set lists as they arose, but only from the distance of resignation to my mixed fortunes. It seemed that the price to pay for my fulfilment behind the drum kit was to sit out the George Michael experience, for the time being anyway. Maybe he would tour again.

My dear friend and musical brother, Paul, also living in London, had secured tickets for the first of the four nights at Wembley, on the day that they went on sale, much to my envy, but this too had faded in my mind as the summer months down south wore on and the band and I beat our way around our gold mining metropolis at breakneck speed. 

On the Monday night of 11 December, though, I was sitting quietly at home in my apartment, a long way away in thought from Wembley Arena, when a text-message ping on my phone raised no suspicion at first but tugged at my intuition as I made my way across the room to read it. It was from London and, in Paul’s customary style, had a huge impact through minimal wording. ‘Here we go…’ it simply said.

In that instant I was electrified into full engagement. My spirit was suddenly in the cavernous room as the lights went down and the legend took the stage in the city where both he and I were born. The possibility of my body being there too burst out of the deep blue into my remote location, and I scrambled to see what was happening online.

Unbelievably, tickets had become available for the following night’s show, seemingly held back and then released for sale at the last minute. And they were at the original price! Luckily I hadn’t paid three times that on unofficial sites during my investigation phase months before. Flights were also suddenly available, those too at bottom-of-the-range fares. This was incredible. A gap was opening up in the week of the events…

I spoke to Heather, who said that her au pair was scheduled to go home to Poland for Christmas, which freed up a room in the house form me. “Come!” she said in excitement. “We’ll make it work.”

I slotted straight into gear. 

Concert tickets were not on sale for the later shows in the week but I figured that they might be made available closer to the time. I was right. As the days passed, they came up. Also, an extra date had been added on the Sunday night, which was feasible for me since my final commitment for the year with the band was on the Friday. I could fly on Saturday and land just in time to make it. It was tight but attainable.

With George’s recent album Patience playing on repeat and the framed poster of the cover watching me from my wall, I monitored the online sales and tried repeatedly to buy three tickets as soon as they went up, with no luck. In the song “Flawless”, he kept singing that maybe he would see me that night, repeating that it I had to go to the city. Maybe? Hopefully! There was no point waiting and I was working on it.

I dropped my online application to a single seat on the Sunday and one became available. I made my move and secured it. I was in! Ten minutes later I slotted a second for Heather, a couple of rows back, and twenty minutes after that I wrapped up a third for her husband, Jason. We were in. Next was my flight, which, without issue, joined the list of confirmation emails. With that, my wind-down week took off in the most thrilling direction.

Adrenaline and sleep deprivation had me on a high, enhanced by a year-end show that blew the roof off the local venue where we had played our first gig six months before. The next day I packed my winter clothes for a month away, locked my apartment, tied up a phenomenal year with the tail of a comet, and was taken to the airport by my loving and patient father (for whom, it would turn out, it was the second last festive season on earth).

As I checked in with him by my side, I noticed that the departure time was three hours later than scheduled. Once I was through customs, I established that both the flights on my airline that night were delayed, which meant a stretching of my anticipation before getting off the ground and on my way.

While I waited, the delay was extended and the later flight even cancelled. If I had been on that one, I would have been shunted to the next night and not have made it to London for the concert. This was turning out to be most intense. 

Tired beyond belief, I eventually boarded the plane in the early hours of the morning and sat upright for half a day until we landed at lunchtime instead of before breakfast. I took the tube from Heathrow to Wimbledon, met Heather at the station, saw the kids quickly, put my bags in my new room, showered and dressed, and set out for the show.

We drove through the city streets, found parking at the venue, and queued to convert the email print-outs of tickets to the real thing. As we received those, I looked at the seating plan, which suggested that they were some of the finest in the house. Could they actually be that good? I didn’t give it much thought but we would soon see. The three of us made our way up the stairs and into the buzzing arena, finding our respective spots not next to each other but close enough to communicate.

I was right on the railing of the first tier straight up from the phenomenal and by now famous stage, with Heather beaming behind me and Jason smiling a few rows back. And, yes, the seats were in prime position, clearly kept for VIPs and released at the last minute. What a place to find myself. What a moment to be in. What a culmination of effort, opportunity and seized good fortune. What a manifestation.

I had been a fan of George Michael since I was thirteen, if not of all the music then certainly of his genius and career. I had travelled all the way through it with him from the first song to the quarter century celebration. I had seen and shared the ups and downs, been inspired and mentored, and felt concerned and supportive through the twists and turns, as had millions around the world and thousands in the room that night. 

I had made it all the way from my bedroom in early high school through my climactic week with the band to the city of my birth, and there I was looking at the big black cloth draped like a velvet void in the sizzling crowd over the soon-to-be well-lit centre spot. I was encrusted by exhaustion, cresting on cumulative experience, and liberated by pure presence. It was tough to tell pleasure from pain.

Immune to my state but speaking straight to it, the lights went down and the stage lit up. The people went crazy, my heart pounded, and the show began with an acoustic song from George’s second solo record, Listen Without Prejudice Vol 1, from 1990. It was the album’s closer, now opening the historic evening, “Waiting (Reprise)”, sung from backstage. 

There was still no sign of the star but as the song ended the door in the middle of the stunning stage opened and George Michael walked out into the frenzy of love. “Good evening, London!” a most familiar voice said to us all as the next song started, the one I had heard on repeat in my lounge only days before telling me to go to the city. This time I was there, in the room, not maybe tonight, but definitely, and about to hit an all-time high.

Song by magical song I disappeared into that mystical night. My tensions fell off me like dry mud, helped along by plastic cups of strong beer and increasingly uninhibited and ecstatic dancing until I was clapping like carefree toddler under a Christmas tree. Poignant moments punctuated the timeless proceedings leading into colourful flares of escalating festivity with out-of-this-world visuals and sublime sound increasing in volume and vitality until there was nothing left but the totality of the occasion.

One of the musical highlights ever for me, the break into the last verse of “Fastlove”, came to pass and took me over the top. Two hours and a lifetime of music later, just before the end of the show, George apologised self-deprecatingly for playing it, adding that he simply had to, and then launched into the only performance on the tour of “Last Christmas”, with snowy scenes on stage one week ahead of that particular Christmas in the singular city.

By then I was a bundle of bliss. I had never known such joy, love and communion. My whole life had led me to transcendence.

Manifestations exceed all expectations.

'Death is the Ultimate Orgasm' by Robin Wheeler out on 31 October 2018

Loved

Let yourself be loved. The universe wants to love you. Life wants to reward you for being here and ravish you with appreciation. People want to give you gratitude and affection. Everything and everyone is delighted and overflowing. The only barrier is you. Let love in.

Let your guard drop and your armour fall to the floor. Let your tenderness soak in the warm sunshine. Let your realness reign and feel the fresh air against your tingling skin. Hear the music on the breeze and let your heart sing along. Allow love to take control of your being.

Let life take care of you. It brought you here in the first place and is carrying you all the way home. Let it fill you along the way. Don’t stand in its way and don’t hold up a wall. Don’t maintain your pain or justify your jaundice. They are more than valid but all part of the process! Love is the process. Let love in.

We are traumatised by life experience. We are alienated from ourselves by hurt and social conditioning. There is a wedge between us and the wide and wonderful world, a barrier that breaks us into separate bits. We feel like we exist in isolation. There is a cynical, doubtful self that stays clear of perceived danger and protects itself at the expense of wellness. Will I get hurt? I always have been. Will I feel abandoned? That’s my core theme. Will I allow love to have its way? I don’t even know what that is anymore. It’s a common tale that we all can tell.

But love is the way. Love is baking us from all directions, hot and keen to get in. Love is the eternal summertime surrounding us with rich opulence. Love is also aching to get out. Love is our essence and our fragrance, a soulful flower keen to continuously bloom. It must be shared so that we may be free and happy. It must come in and go out all the time. Let yourself love and be loved.

Let the truth prevail.

Dangerous

A few years ago I was stopped by a traffic officer for yielding at a stop sign in a business area of my hometown. He told me that he was going to give me a fine for the offense and, of course, I took offense, which kicked me into retaliatory action. While he prepared his form, I prepared my impromptu presentation.

With his belly in my face, I started slowly. “Can I ask you question while you write that?” I asked.
"OK,” he replied coolly, expecting the reaction he gets from everyone.
“What percentage of people do you think do what I did and slow down at that stop sign without coming to a complete stop?”
He didn’t answer.
“Really,” I continued. “Is it five percent, ten percent, fifty percent or ninety percent?”
After a moment he said, “Ninety percent.”

“That’s interesting,” I reflected calmly. “So almost everyone does the same, which means that the stop sign should not be there. People are voting with their behaviour with the vast majority making themselves clear. And you, who works for the people, choose to give me a fine.”
“It’s the law,” he retorted.

“That’s interesting too,” I continued. “That’s the same law that twenty years ago didn’t recognise you as worthy of the vote.” That got to him. “The law changes, you know,” I asserted, “and it is seldom wise or fair or in service of people.”
He kept writing.

At that point someone walked across the road in front of us and I picked up on that too. “That guy over there,” I said, “isn’t he jaywalking?”
“Yes,” replied the cop.
“So why don’t you give him a fine too?” I asked.
“I am busy with you,” he said.
“So you are exercising your discretion,” I told him.
“Yes,” he confirmed.

“Well, I exercised my discretion when I paused at the stop sign,” I said. “I slowed down, assessed the situation, saw that it was safe to go, and didn’t put anyone at risk. What makes your discretion better than mine?”
He didn’t have an answer to that.
“Are you older than me or more educated?” I went on. “Why is your decision placed above mine?”
At this point he could contain himself no longer. “You should speak to my partner,” he said. “He thinks like you.”

He shouted out across the road to his colleague, who approached and joined the conversation. I greeted him in my friendly and intense way and ran through some of the points I’d already covered, and he laughed.
“You’re right,” he said.
“I know that I am,” I smiled.

“Do you think that giving me that fine is going to change my behaviour?” I asked. “I am going to keep driving using my best intelligence and you have made no attempt to advise me on any better way of doing things, which should be the real point here, not so?”
They looked at me in disbelief.

“You’re just meeting daily income targets with those fines, not serving the community or improving the situation on the roads. Doesn’t it say on the side of your car, ‘Protect and Serve’?”
“Yes, we are given targets every morning before we leave the station,” the second cop said.
“There you go,” I nodded.

“One more thing,” I went on, “and I’m asking this man-to-man, as human beings, not to your uniform but to you as a person. Did you wear your safety belt when you drove here earlier?” Without waiting for an answer I said, “Because if not, that makes you a hypocrite. It should say on the side of the car, then, ‘Warning: Armed Hypocrite’, so that the community knows what we are dealing with.”

They were dumbstruck.

Driving my point home, I said, “So when you go to sleep tonight, just ask yourself if you are being true to yourself in what you do for a living. You may just be betraying your soul every day on this job.”

The second cop was laughing loudly at this point, loving every word of my argument, while the first just looked on.
"I’ll tell you something,” the first one said. “I’ve had pregnant women in tears begging me to let them off and I have still given them the fine, but you, you are a dangerous man.”
"That’s right,” I confirmed with a big smile. “Keep what I’ve said in mind,” I suggested, “because at some point you will be forced to be true to yourself in life.”

Stating my speaking fee, I added, “When you are ready I can come and do a talk to your department about how to live and work in a more sincere and intelligent way.”

“We have to go now,” the second one said as a vehicle drove up with two more colleagues in it.
“Let me give you each of one of these,” I finished, handing them each a copy of my book INSIGHTS and placing a business card in the chapter called ‘Questions for the Cops’. “This is a gift for you. You are welcome to stay in touch once you have read it. I have given away many over the years but never heard from anyone again, not once.”

“Thank you,” they said as they jumped into the vehicle, did a U-Turn through the intersection and sped off without wearing safety belts.

Fine-free, I continued on my way.

Bringing Down Walls

We live in a world of walls. We are surrounded and defined by them. Our perceived individuality is a function of them and our personalities are forms of them.

We are closed in by constructs of which we are largely and insistently unconscious. We put and keep these walls up. Have a look.

When we see them, they dissolve. We realise why we have put them up and we remember our oneness behind the barriers. We live the high of freedom and reunion. Healing happens when the walls come down.

We don't want to be closed. We have cut ourselves off to protect ourselves from pain, to keep danger out, and to try to keep vulnerability in. But we have created bigger troubles than we have saved ourselves from. 

We are lonely and isolated. We are sad and sore. We look strong and safe but we are broken and miserable. Walls are the way we have set up this suffering.

We want to be open. We want to merge with the oneness. We want to reconnect and truly live. We want to be successful in our natural state. We want to be happy and barrier-free. We want to be ourselves for a living. 

We can and we are. It hurts but the constructs are crumbling. It's scary but the structures are subsiding. It's revolutionary but it's rudimentary. The transformative time in history here. 

High walls are making way for high humans.

Working with the Inner

Do the inner work. There is nothing more worthwhile within, and no better endeavour for affecting the outer. 

Go in and face what's there. Feel it, see it, let it be and allow it to unravel. Surrender to the awakening that it provides. It reveals everything you need to know and carries the timeless truth within it. It also shows the way in the world and makes you ready to encounter it. The inner is the way.

The work is the way. Life is work, in gratitude and giving. It is a blessing to be here unpacking who we are and sharing it with the world. Work is how we actualise and give service. 

Work is art, love and joy. Work is making a difference. 

Inner work is tuning in and sitting with what's there. It is letting go into the vortex pulling us ever towards it, without releasing awareness. It means never letting go of awareness. 

Watch whatever happens wherever you go. Always be allowing the watcher to be growing from every experience. Every experience is an intensification of watching. You will one day watch yourself die. 

You are always watching yourself die. Be increasingly aware of it. Everything is you dying. This is true living! Every moment is the burning up of everything. The world is on fire. Your physicality is a flame. Watch it. 

This is the work. This is the fun. This is the magical mystery. This is the deepening of being. This is the settling into who you really are.

This is the awakening. 

Processing Emotions

People don't know how to process emotions. This is a big problem. How can you live rightly if you don't know how to feel? You will block and deny what you do feel, endure endless inner conflict, and act that out wherever you go.

How can you relate to others if you are not aware of and managing what you are feeling, or when you are acting out your intrinsic war? How can you thrive or connect if you are repressed? Your life will be superficial and your effect on others will be destructive. Emotions are essential elements of wellness. 

Emotional wellness dictates the quality of our lives. It defines our intimacy by allowing us access to it. The degree to which we are one with ourselves determines our openness to others and to existence as a whole. Feeling is fundamental. 

Face your feelings. Let them be there fully. Let yourself feel. Let the energy move through and reveal its magical messages. Be alive on every level.

Allow the doors to be open and the life force to flow. You will thrive on another level altogether. You will be yourself and bond with others. You will see clearly and connect properly.

You will be, deeply. 

Up Your Standards

Up your standards. Stop putting up with anything that isn't up where you belong. 

You know you should be up there with the knowing you have always had. You know you have compromised yourself your whole life into a compromised position. 

You know its the way of the world but you know even more that you have given way to it. You know that's why nothing is working as it's supposed to. You know you are fed up with people's nonsense.

You know that it's up to you to make things right.

The world can't give you what's in keeping with your worth when you keep selling yourself short. You can't get what you deserve when you keep giving up on your inherent standards. 

I know it's tremendously tough to stand your ground, to overcome the pain inside and be firm. I know, too, that you simply have to find a way, and that you can. You will be bullied at every turn until you learn your lesson. You are worth standing up for. 

Up your standards to where you feel met. You won't be at peace until you do. And met you will be. The immediate and wider world will have no option but to deal with you as you present yourself. 

People may throw tantrums at first but they will respect, admire and emulate you. Everyone wants the same for themselves. Up your standards for you and for everyone.

See you in the sky.