Part One

I don't know if it happens to other people. But in my life it turns out that the times I thought were the finest, the most glorious, the most noble, are precisely those that, in retrospect, are the worst, the most embarrassing, the ones that make you cringe. It's a dynamic that parallels one which Jung described in relation to the appearance of 'anima'. The times when we feel most numinous, most mystical and special are the ones, says Jung, when we are in truth most ordinary, most mediocre.

A prime example of the phenomenon in my own life concerns the period of the Great Renunciation.

I suppose that the renunciatory attitude had a trial run earlier in the year of 1976, when I gave away the rest of my acid to French Phil. I was above that now, gone beyond. Assumed moral and spiritual superiority is a hallmark of the spirit of renunciation. But this was nothing in comparison with what was to come....

The decision was made: I was going to take up residence with the Western Buddhists in north London. I took temporary asylum with my parents while I organised myself. A surge of optimism blew away any uncertainty and apprehension I might have felt. I was off to begin my spiritual life properly at last. I felt born-again: a born-again Buddhist.

In keeping with this sense of inspired and inspiring rebirth, I set about ridding myself of the old. The past was the past; unhelpful and irrelevant to the path that I was newly started out on. Thus was born the Great Renunciation. I threw out as much of my stuff as I could. Out with the old, in with the new. This included most of my writing from the previous ten years, along with a sense that old friendships were to be relinquished as no longer the genuine article; or at least not the article that was needed just now.

I got my father to sell off books and records for next-to nothing. Santana, the Mahavishnus, Curved Air, the Doors, all in good condition. In retrospect, they could have contributed to a comfy retirement, but money wasn't the thing. I was on my way, and it was an overwhelming feeling that everything that had gone before was no longer part of me.

Out with the old, in with the new; it didn't occur to me that things aren't that simple. The past doesn't just go away. It's still hanging in there, maybe in the shadows, but waiting for any opportunity to come jumping out and spoil your day. The day of reckoning will need to be faced some time or another.

Part Two

The plan for Enlightenment Future was simple. I would move into the Buddhist community in London, where I would find a part-time job and devote the rest of my time to meditation and studying the Buddhist texts.

London. I had never harboured the vaguest wish to live in the Big City. It was alien to nearly every bone in my body, horrendous. But if that's what it took, then so be it.

I landed in Archway, north London. Like tiny pinpricks in the vast jungle of urban life, streets of squatted houses provided a home of sorts for dropouts, layabouts, countercultural heroes and different shades of spiritual group. The sanyassins were there, purple-clad followers of Rajneesh, and also in evidence were the Nam-myoho-renge-ky-chanting monks and nuns of Nichiren Buddhism.

There was also a centre and a cluster of communities housing the Western Buddhists. That was me.

I moved in. The houses were squalid, ready for a complete overhaul or demolition. My fellow community members were active and prominent in the local Buddhist centre scene, and a friendly energetic atmosphere prevailed. The grime, noise, and perpetual tackiness of the Big City jarred horribly; it was a million miles away from the idyll of the summer retreat, still only a couple of months ago. Still, if that's what it took....

One of my new-found community friends ran a budding wholefood business based somewhere in East London. One morning he invited me to go over with him to take a look. Which I did. "Do you want to give a hand in the business?" he ventured. "OK" I replied. Why not, after all? And that was a real turning point....

Soon I was spending a large part of my waking day mixing muesli, packing beans, brown rice, and dried apricots in a basement workspace at the big Buddhist centre being built in East London. At weekends I might be out on the street markets, where we sold our wares. Before long, I was also business treasurer, so spent every Monday balancing the books, paying bills, and taking the week's proceedings to the bank. 

In addition, I became community housekeeper, my goal being to allow our modest combined finances to feed half a dozen young and hungry Buddhists. It was not an easy job. Tuesday evenings, after doing the shopping for the week, I would descend to the community kitchen and watch with thinly-concealed despair as one member shovelled peanut butter into his mouth with a large spoon. Hey, that's got to last all week!  

Cycling became the normal way to travel between home in Archway and the basement storeroom in East London. As the November nights drew in, and damp drizzly evenings became the norm, cycling home tired and weary started to really grate. Old Street roundabout was the worst: an endless succession of oversize trucks and lorries would come blazing in, lights glaring and splashing me with cold and wet clinging mud. No matter how much I studied my A to Z of London, all my routes home would involve negotiating Old Street. The place just couldn't be avoided.

I felt miserable, deflated. Then, one morning, a miracle occurred.....

I went outside to discover that my bike had disappeared. Stolen overnight. It was the best thing to have happened for quite some time. No more Old Street roundabout for me. Thenceforth transport to work was via the cramped and stuffy underground. A world of undiluted psychic chaos and turmoil, for sure, a kind-of underworld chamber of horrors, but somehow infinitely preferable.

A few weeks later, I saw a bunch of kids outside the house playing on my bicycle. I left them to it. The young criminals would probably get more enjoyment out of it than I ever would.

Part Three

The rationale for work and spiritual life was well-formulated. Work got your energies going; it provided an opportunity to go beyond your own petty likes and dislikes; working with other  people fostered communication and co-operation; and you were doing something useful, helping to create a new society based on positive principles. Theoretically, I should have been over the moon. This was precisely what my past years had been about, right? Living with others, working with others, building an alternative to the rubbish society all around us. But I wasn't over the moon. Funny, that.

I kept alive by going on retreat, meditation retreat especially. Christmas retreat in particular was a godsend: it provided the perfect excuse to avoid spending the 'festive period' with my parents. "Come and visit us at Christmas" my father implored. "Christmas is so depressing." Not a very good sales pitch there, dad. Off to Norfolk to meditate instead.

I spent a remarkable week on retreat that Christmas. The first four days were spent in struggle and strife, as I hit my head against a brick wall in efforts to enter higher consciousness. Then, the moment I gave up in despair, the divine will entered, and I spent three days in the states of higher consciousness referred to in Buddhism as dhyana. Unbroken grace and bliss rained down from above, through the crown of my head, refreshing my tired and worn-out body with sorely-needed inspiration.

The retreat was led by a particularly charismatic member of the Buddhist Order. His name translated as Lotus King, and he communicated great passion and inspiration as he led us in the many hours spent on meditation cushion and in devotion, supplicating the Buddhas to enter and guide our lives.

In a state of uplift and open-heartedness I returned to London, to the grit of the city, the rough-and-tumble of squatting community life, the commute and the peanuts.

It was tough. All the same, I managed to keep my head above water. Until one bright spring Saturday morning, that is.... 

Images: St Jerome in the Desert: Vittorio Crivelli

               Hermit Card, Thoth Tarot