Further inspirational encounters — Blog

Important!

A cursory reading and instant opinion isn't enough!

Over the years I've regularly looked in forums where people have posted about the contents of this and certain other pages on this site, and so far almost every time this has been a quite frustrating and discouraging experience. Why? — Because people are disagreeing with me?…

>>> Click to read more / less… >>>

— No, it's not that (although indeed, predictably, plenty of people do 'disagree' with me). It's because, with only the odd rare and isolated exception, so far I've seen no sign of anyone having read this (or the other respective pages) really carefully and without some sort of preconception that causes them to have a seriously distorted interpretation of at least some part of what I've written — even on the rare occasion when somebody does more or less 'agree' with what they think I've written.

It would be so helpful if people who come here would let go of their preconceived notions and read carefully what I'm actually saying — and then sleep on it and then re-read it to see where their interpretation of what I've written has actually turned it into something else, so they can at least get a more accurate view of what I've written — whether or not they eventually choose to 'agree' with it.

I'd not mind so much if people at least took issue with what I'm actually saying, but they almost invariably go telling the world that I believe or am claiming this, that and the other that actually I hadn't said at all*, or they radically change the meaning of something by taking it out of context, and typically a succession of people then go pulling the stuffing out of what I'd actually never said in the first place, then regarding me as some sort of deluded 'nutter' with very confused ideas, who is best steered clear of.

* A related claim sometimes made about my writings is the generally completely false one that I've obviously based my own insights on the views of a particular specified tradition, 'teacher' or organisation.

Let me emphasize here, as is really made clear throughout this site — at least for those who are genuinely prepared to look at what's there — that, apart from getting some useful initial prompts from Steve Gamble in April 2007 just to get me ditching the 'received wisdom' from the healing and New-Agey mystical traditions, my insights are NOT, to any material or really significant extent, based on any person's, tradition's or organisation's views or outlook. I've worked things out for myself, based on my own observations plus the results of my own inner inquiry supported by Helpfulness Testing. The fact that there are apparent overlaps between my own working model and the scenarios believed in by various teachers, traditions and organisations DOES NOT in itself mean that I've therefore taken on board ideas from them — though naturally I'd have got initial prompts from various views that I've seen or heard expressed.

The reality is that it's the people who keep misinterpreting and misrepresenting my writings who are the confused ones.

It would help so much if those who are about to make forum posts about any of my material checked carefully the accuracy of any supposed quote or interpretation of that material before making their post.

N.B. There's an inherent problem with forums generally, in that these are places where people discuss ideas. Unfortunately doing that is one of the myriad side-tracks that point people away from genuine self-actualization — for the 'forum-heads' forever consider and discuss other people's views and outlooks instead of turning to the one source of the vital information and insight that they actually need — their own deepest aspects.

So, asking another person, for example, What do you think of this fellow Philip Goddard? may be a fascinating pastime, but that sort of behaviour is also a virtually complete block to any genuine self-actualization direction.

I talk here NOT about right and wrong, nor should and shouldn't, but simply of cause and effect. What do you want in your life — forever fascinating discussions relating to various notions of self-actualization, or genuine self-actualization itself? The two are virtually completely mutually exclusive.

Also, a careful reader would understand from what I've written, that I hold no beliefs, and that what I present in my writings is a set of helpful working hypotheses (at least they've helped me greatly) — NOT a statement of categorical fact, apart from recounting actual observations / experiences of mine. So, anyone who says Philip Goddard believes that… is straightaway off the rails, simply spouting opinion, and isn't worth heeding at all.

It's in the light of this pervasive tendency to misunderstand and misrepresent my writings on this site that I indulge in apparent redundancy by frequently repeating certain explanations and clarifications. I appreciate that some readers may find this tiresome (indeed, I myself do!), but hard experience has shown this repeated-clarification approach of mine to be necessary in order to hammer certain points home to the many less receptive people, so with any luck minimizing the quantity of pointless come-back and misrepresentational forum posts relating to this site's contents!

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The encounters

10 August 2022 — A 'malevolent yobbos' pick-up that I accepted this time, with a most welcome surprise for him and me…

Another weird hitch-hiking encounter!

The prior history

During my long history of long hard solo hikes, hitch-hiking out and back, once in a long while I'd get a car-load of loud-mouthed and, I should think, drunk or/and stoned young guys make out to be stopping for me and offering me a lift. Usually they'd drive off as soon as I get close to the car, usually shouting out some unintelligible things, presumably offensive in intent, and clearly imagining that they were being very smart. As a great rarity such events have been real lift offers, but clearly with troublesome motivation / intent.

Generally I've recognised such threats to my safety and have refused such offers, though there was one case decades ago on a return journey from the Hartland area (north Devon) where anxiety about an extra-long wait in the dark at Tiverton Parkway Interchange on the M5 caused me to get dangerously careless and accept a lift with four young drinking yobbos (yes, the driver was drinking at the wheel!). I'll spare you the sordid details, but I was lucky to get away with just a bit of offensive and humiliating behaviour from them, and apparently an intent not to drop me where I needed to be dropped (my powerful commanding shout made them reluctantly stop to drop me there — just past — after all).

Then on 26 July this year I had another 'warning' experience on a return journey, this time in Okehampton, early evening, as recounted in my hikes journal:

My inner inquiry about that one as I continued on my way indicated that those guys were going to continue on their way in the direction in which they'd turned off, and were pretty definitely not intending to go to or even towards Exeter! Thank my lucky stars I'd refused that one!

Oh no, here we go again!!…?

Then on a sweltering 10 August 2022, which touched an exceptional 32°C in Exeter, I had a short hike in the Teign Gorge, where I could find a fair amount of shade in the woods. For my return hitch-hike I got one prompt lift and then one immediate one at Whiddon Down to Alphington Junction on the outskirts of Exeter (so far, so good), where usually I get picked up within a few minutes for going into the city centre. On this occasion after some 18 minutes, and sweltering with no shade at that spot, and with the regular afternoon rush-hour tailback now developed, I decided to walk on in my wilting state, though still with my 'CITY CENTRE' sign visible (it's a good half-hour's walk along a purgatorial busy road).

After a few minutes, as I was just coming to the complex junction at the city end of the Alphington Spur road, one car in the tailback pulled in as much as it could just in front of me (very little so, so then being rather an obstruction).

Like a lift to the City Centre?, a lively young man's voice beckoned, two ebullient-looking young men beaming out at me, the driver looking most unprepossessing, clearly with a lot of energy for better or worse deeds, and with very prominent tattoos on his upper arms and, his hair done into (to me) the most hideous-looking and conspicuous dreadlocks.

I ummed and erred a few seconds as I sought to quickly use Helpfulness Testing on this offer, but was feeling too hot and flustered to tune in sufficiently quickly, so must have seemed rather ungracious and stand-offish, but did notice that there was no actual giggling (which would be a real contra-indication), and the driver was actually sounding inviting in a human way, despite his visual false persona triggering 'danger' signals for me. So, the passenger seat guy got into the back to give me space to sit in the front (another good signal, in that I was being treated with respect).

Being that close to the driver, it was easier, or at least less difficult, to see the real guy here despite his rather outlandishly aggressive appearance. His face was actually looking really nice and human, and not aggressive at all, and I was starting to feel drawn to him. He introduced himself as R, and almost at once I fished out a souvenir for him in the form of one of my 'business' cards that puts people in touch with my websites. He quickly took an interest in Clarity of Being, and at the end of that short lift we talked a little further.

I did a little check on him and told him he wasn't quite no-soul but almost so — what I call a 'top-level soul incarnation' (meaning that this is his first soul incarnation, the previous one having been no-soul), but, for some reason, with an exceptionally small amount of soul programming for that particular status.

I gently pointed out to him that it was a pity he'd had those tattoos done, as they were part of his strategy for projecting a false ID to the world — including his hairdo, and that he really needed to undo all that could workably be undone of that image projection, for his real personality and natural appearance was way more 'special' and wonderful than anything he or anyone else could manufacture and self-consciously present to the world.

His responses seemed for all the world to be telling me over and over that this was all what he'd been longing to hear from somebody so that he could feel supported towards stepping straight out of his lonely identity confusions into being simply his real self. He did tell me he had a lifelong stress from his sensing there was something 'different' about him, and people not understanding him.

What was particularly encouraging was that after I said his tiny bit of soul programming should be quite easy to clear, he asked in a purposeful tone how that might be done, and I pointed him to the methods given on this site. Another encouraging thing was that he asked for my phone number, in an earnest tone that suggested he really was wanting to keep in touch.

— Of course, before getting out of the car I suggested a parting hug, which got his instant approval, so we both got out and had a real 'wow' hug. His energy felt remarkably clean and 'pure spring water'-ish, very much suggesting his being more no-soul than 'nearly' so, which struck me as a little odd (in some meaningful and good way), but in any case what a wonderful, beautiful guy to encounter, and really make my day, once the obfuscations of that false persona were set aside!

… And then, as I was toiling up the very steep cobbled Stepcote Hill for my last bit of the day's leg strengthening, I did the further checks on him that 'Silly Me' neglected to do while I was still with him. It turned out that he'd got a 'sniff-it-out' configuration, i.e., same as me, which of course helped explain why he seemed so no-soul even with a bit of soul programming, and of course that meant a great compatibility with me, and immensely rewarding friendship and project-sharing potential.

But that wasn't all. For some reason his 'sniff-it-out' configuration is hyper-tweaked like mine, both for his previous lifetime and this one. Really such tweaking is applied NOT to a lifetime specifically but to a node on one's incarnational thread. In ideal circumstances that would indeed always represent a single lifetime, but the point is that a whole sequence of degradational soul incarnations would be occurring within one node of the incarnational thread (hijacked by the garbage, of course).

I understand that his 'hyper-tweaking' has some differences from mine, and that there are a very tiny minority of similarly 'hyper-tweaked' 'sniff-it-out' individuals scattered worldwide, with a fairly wide range of variations in that tweaking, so maximizing the chances that somebody somewhere really would sidestep, outwit or simply survive the garbage's destruction attempts when doing their damnedest to identify / understand the underlying cause(s) of the great horror-edifice of human(-type) dysfunction.

Well, at least I can feel a bit more comfortable, that there are other such individuals and I'm not unique in that respect after all. Clearly in R's case his hyper-tweaking didn't quite prevent him from getting captured into the soul reincarnation cycle, but allegedly that tweaking also contains an element that makes such an individual to be aware enough in the right ways, and sufficiently motivated and focused to shed any soul programming they've carried over from their previous incarnation — provided that the amount of soul programming is small, and they work out or get put onto suitable methods to achieve that (in other words, at the moment, this site).

I expect the situation is pretty well as indicated by my inner inquiry, for it would nicely explain why R seemed in so many ways to be no-soul despite his technically having a bit of soul programming. Anyway, he's another one — in some ways more so than all the others I've encountered so far — who I'd love to have ongoing contact with.

28 May 2022 — Loneliness of a coast path trekker gets a little bombshell

I was hiking the often very strenuous section of the South West Coast Path from Polzeath to Port Isaac on the north Cornwall coast. It was glorious conditions — sunny with strong sunshine but a reasonably gentle cooling breeze for strenuous walking comfort. To my legs' relief I was on an easy-walking stretch, with Lundy cove not far ahead. Lots of happy faces of walkers along the route.

A solo multi-day trekker was coming the other way — a tall woman, probably in her 30s, with an air of solitariness and almost 'don't disturb me' seriousness about her, with little of the obvious vibrancy I'd expect of a no-soul person or indeed anyone at all out here in such invigorating conditions, so one's automatic response would indeed be not to disturb her reveries and just let her be. Nonetheless, with a laughing smile I pushed through a certain resistance, and called out to her a greeting as brazenly bright and sunny as the weather, as though I hadn't noticed something looked to be amiss.

Oh, hello!, she responded in an almost leaden tone that rose into a note of surprise, as though pushing with difficulty through a barrier, in considerable surprise that somebody had noticed her and now had his beady eyes on her with real interest instead of walking on as though she'd never existed. She started to look interested, in a dubious, surprised sort of way, and we exchanged greetings.

We talked a little about ourselves. Her name was D, and she was visiting from South Africa — so hence her slightly dark skin colour. I made a point of being open about my using Helpfulness Testing to check if she was no-soul (follow that link for explanation of 'specialist' no-soul people), and delivered the clear verdict, no-soul. I briefly explained how this was tremendous news for her.

Without further ado I told her a warm, welcoming and 'meant' real deeply connecting no-soul hug was the thing to do right now, then delivering my 'packs-off' decree (everyone knows I'm a little dictator!), and we had a long and close hug, and it was clear that she was gradually easing up and really appreciating this new experience. I'm sure she must have been reeling internally with a quite hilarious degree of incredulity at what was happening!

Then, after a little more talking, I remembered to check her for 'specialist' configuration. Blow me, she was a 'specialist', and indeed a sniff-it-out one — in other words, same as me, apart from my alleged unique hyper-tweaks! Another hug was then very much in order, for I now understood more clearly the source of her big problem, and a lot of reinforcement of her own humanity was needed, together with big inroads on her chronic sense of being doomed to perpetual isolation from truly meaningful human contact.

The importance of that was underlined by her amazed confirmation of the accuracy of my 'reading' of her situation when I explained to her about how that sniff-it-out configuration would be at the core of the great loneliness and sense of isolation that I could see was the big issue in her life experience — the configuration specifically keeping her from connecting closely with other people, especially other 'specialist' no-soulers, who latter would be the most compatible with her. I knew about the horrors and misery of feeling doomed to perpetual isolation and loneliness, from my own first-hand experience in my earlier years.

I gave her one of my cards with website and contact details, and urged her to learn and get using Helpfulness Testing once she's back at home, so she could then identify no-soulers and indeed 'specialist' ones, so she could at last be finding real friends / companions, for this is the time for all that loneliness and isolation to be swept away, and all us 'specialist' no-soulers to be opening healthily to new and truly compatible non-attached, non-exclusive friendships and companionships among each other, and to be living examples of fully human, rationally-based approaches to 'relationship' as role models for the rest of Humanity.

Actually, I'd have been more effective in connecting with her and drawing her out if I'd been a woman, for the sniff-it-out configuration includes homosexuality as one of its means to prevent one getting into any sort of family life — the latter being a particularly strong block to the motivation to try and work out the true identity and nature of the underlying cause(s) of human irrationality and dysfunction. In any case, even without that sexual orientation issue, same-gender embraces are generally more supportive and 'healing' in effect than cross-gender ones, because of all the gender stereotype role-play patterns that almost invariably pollute such hugs.

Things that would have been extremely helpful for her that I'd neglected to say included:

• Those dreadful feelings, and indeed ALL feelings, are NOT you, but only things you're experiencing — so the reality is that you yourself are fundamentally not lonely, but are simply experiencing feelings of loneliness. Big practical difference, because those feelings can be cleared out, whereas you yourself can't be!

• Always, any emotional feeling at all is not informing you about reality, but is simply distorting your view of reality. Without such feelings in the way, you'd be experiencing your natural state, which is playful and joyfully vibrant (like this monkey here, give or take a little!), constructive and positively motivated to take rationally-based actions towards making your life and the world a better place to be.

• Now that you and I have connected in our hugs, because we're no-soul that connection between us is that of close friendship for life, regardless of whether we ever meet again. You now already have a real close friend — the thin end of a wedge that you're going to build upon to fill your life's aching void with various close friends and companions, while still having time and space to get out hiking and enjoying solitude out in the wilds as never before…

  — Er, except that now, later in June 2022, I'd explain that at least for the time being it's the encounters that matter, and we need not to be striving for or expecting ongoing active friendships to develop from such passing encounters.

Poor D! — I walked on chuckling away at the merry mayhem I'd presumably set off in her wearily suffering system. It wasn't just my little verbal pattern-busting firecrackers and self-empowerment talk that I'd been dropping for her, but what my and her deeper aspects had joined forces for during those two hugs. According to my inner inquiry, those enabled her to receive pretty powerful 'energy' bolts to shatter the 'nodal points' of her loneliness and isolation patterns and so make way for her deeper aspects soon being able to install a configuration module on her developmental trajectory to counter the effects of the isolation aspect of her sniff-it-out configuration (which exists on her incarnational thread), as there's no longer any need for that isolation.

My inner inquiry indicated clearly that her underlying positive, life-affirming motivation, which had got buried under all the loneliness and consequent depression, would now be starting a rapid surfacing, and it was almost certain that, once back at home in South Africa, she'd be strongly motivated to learn Helpfulness Testing and start recognising and bringing together other 'specialist' no-soul people. — Whether that information is correct or otherwise I shall know only if she reports back to me. I did emphasize that I wanted her to keep in touch, so we'll see…

At times over about the following half-hour my periodic bursts of joyful, playful schoolboy-type giggling over that were interspersed with bits of tearfulness, being aware of the dreadfulness of what she must have been going through. To be honest, I rather think that, never mind how deep and intense was my own loneliness suffering (up to late 1972, when I was 30), hers would have been more hellish and debilitating, because I had the advantage of the big amplification of my sniff-it-out configuration.

Although that meant I'd have been even more strongly kept away from forming close relationships, it had also given me a much stronger determination to find a meaningful way out of that situation. Faced by an apparent towering cliff of impossibility to surmount, I sure felt despair and hopelessness for a time, but my inner fire (Grrrrrrrr! ) was always driving me in purposeful directions.

— And then, when I was 30 a fluke coincidence presented me with the first 'fundamentals' class in the UK of Re-evaluation Counselling. Although that left a lot to be desired compared with the methodology I have now (and freely share on this site), at least, at last, it presented me with my first intimation that we are each fundamentally 'perfect' and our problems are self-healable superimposed issues. Thus, from then on my life had at least some basic sense of purpose and forward motion out of my own troubles towards ever better things.

So, from then on my own sense of isolation and loneliness, although decreasing pitifully slowly (as RC is an inefficient method), at least couldn't any longer be a completely enclosing hell of being apparently doomed to that state for all time.

As for D, I chuckle in empathy at her almost certain stressfully sleepless night following our encounter, as her system would have been figuratively 'picking up the pieces' from her most constructive little 'bombshell' event. Most likely she'd have been feeling very groggy the following day, but then getting better for sleep and resumed hiking on ensuing days.

I do have some idea of that because just a month or so ago I had a spontaneous group hug from three people, which delivered such an 'energy' bolt to me, and which caused me one of the most stressful 'overactive mind' sleepless nights I've ever had, followed by a weirdly groggy following day. Big positive changes did take place during all that, however, so it was very much worth the temporary discomforts.

As for the little configuration module to be attached to D's developmental trajectory to counter the direct and indirect effects of the 'keep apart from others' aspect of her 'sniff-it-out' configuration, in my inner inquiry I checked as to whether it would be possible for that to be done for all 'sniff-it-out' no-soulers and any others for whom it would be appropriate — i.e., throughout all of 'Existence'. My indications were that it was possible, and that from that point it had been put 'in process', expected to complete 'soon'.

I probably won't ever be able to verify that the latter is correct information, but at least my inner inquiry method has enabled me to achieve some unprecedented things in this lifetime, so at least I do have some real hope for all the other 'sniff-it-outers' who are currently suffering terribly from their isolation / loneliness.

29 March 2024 — Something of more lasting significance this time…?

Maybe to give rise to a 'Rhyme of the Ancient Forester'?

On 6 August 2023, in the valley woods high up in the Teign Gorge on the south side of Fingle Bridge I encountered a guy (probably in his upper 30s) who was just starting down a side track, but he noticed me passing just above, descending on the steep Cranbrook Down byway. An initial exchange of 'Hi!' at a distance caused him to pause with a look of uncertainty, clearly on a knife-edge as to whether to continue down the track or to return to the main track briefly for a chat. I also felt a transient uncertainty, but was expecting just to continue down the long descent — but up rushed that man's two quite large and sleek-looking dogs towards me (I guess one of the slicker-looking variants of the Lurcher breed) while for a moment he remained standing down there.

Unusually, despite the dogs' speed of approach to me they made no fuss, no barking, no hint of jumping up on me, and only a transient sniff or two of my legs and 'privates', and at once seemingly very purposefully snuggled up against my legs in such a manner as to be asking or telling me to stay put — even as though they'd temporarily taken ownership of me! It felt beautifully warm and loving.

Just fancifully, of course — it felt as though they'd hurried to me as messengers from that man, communicating his own loving warmth, and wordlessly urging me to wait here for their 'boss man', who wanted or needed to meet up with me. Another, very clearly fanciful, impression I got from him, which rather haunted me afterwards, was some slight hint of the forester in Leoš Janáček's opera The Cunning Little Vixen. That opera always tended to bring me to tears in various parts, and when I watched the staged production linked to here I felt somehow very close to that forester (i.e., not so much the singer, but the personality in the opera), especially with his delivering the beautiful, nature-connected Janáček type of 'speech-song', replete with whole-tone scale nuances.

The man followed the dogs at a more measured pace, and we got talking. He seemed to be very interested when I gave him one of my 'business' cards, one side of which features this site.  He was into some sort of meditation-based spirituality, and I noted that he wasn't quite no-soul, but had only a very small amount of soul programming, so had potential for getting clear of that if he had the motivation — but his spirituality and meditation attachment would presumably prevent him progressing in that way.  We soon parted, and I thought little of that apart from a sense of that apparent loneliness of his, and the way he seemed drawn to me then — and indeed I was rather struck by the seemingly purposeful and really quite beautiful behaviour of his dogs which indeed remained snuggling against my legs, not his, while we talked. I've always had rather a soft spot for Lurchers.

One particular image that stuck in my memory was that moment of indecision of his as to whether to continue down the side-track or to come back to speak with me. The haunting image was the option that he didn't take — i.e., his just continuing on his way after the brief exchange of 'Hi!' and friendly wave and smile. That image bore about it a deep sense of sadness / loneliness about yet another missed opportunity for some deeply meaningful companionship. To what extent that impression was sourced from material of my own or from my picking up on a loneliness or sense of isolation of his had to be a moot point.

Then on 24 January 2024, close to the same spot, while I was having lunch stop he quietly turned up, sat on a close-by mossy hummock, and we talked more.  He gave his name as — let's call him B. He started off by saying he’d had an odd feeling that he was going to encounter me today.  And — weird! — he was changed.  He was now no-soul!*  He hadn't done anything specific to clear it, for he was still attached to the spirituality stuff, except that he kept asking me questions about my perspective on various related matters, and unlike 'spirituality heads' generally, he seemed remarkably keen to understand and learn more about my own insights, even though still coming out with pointless 'wise words' that he'd learnt from various gurus in the past.

A typical conversation between me and a 'spirituality head' would quickly break up as the person would either clam up  and withdraw into his seemingly supercilious peaceful composure or go on the defensive so that I'd have to stop the proceedings as continuing would be a total waste of time.  Another thing was that despite my being very circumspect about his all more or less harmful spirituality stuff and his pervasive peaceful composure (actually a strong sign of serious harm done to him by his meditation), I felt him really lovely to have in my presence.  Prior to parting, we spontaneously had a real 'wow' beautiful hug. The particular surprise was that, just before I suggested a parting hug, he was clearly preparing for just that. Extremely few (at least, wholesome no-soul) people are proactive with me like that for hugging — particularly for the first time (off the top of my head I can think of only one such person, actually owner of a local restaurant).

Then, on 16 February 2024, high up on my first descent on that same track from Cranbrook Down, there was B again, running (slowly) up the steep and treacherously stony track towards me.  This was quite lovely.  He came up to me for a long and deeply felt hug straight off, and clearly that was something he was really wanting*.  We had a long chat, he coming out with his spirituality talk, yet clearly seeking to reconcile his spiritually based notions with my own more grounded and directly rational approach. I hope that in time he'll come to understand that reconciling isn't at all helpful for that sort of thing. He needed to understand the importance of actually letting go of all the 'teachings', 'wise words' and trappings (i.e., traps!) of tradition and the whole meditation-based mindset and get properly to grips with the observable practicalities of 'What Is', without any belief in sight.

He reported having been experiencing rather ‘destabilizing’ changes that suggested to me that he was unawarely being used as another beta tester of the new inner communication channel, and my inner inquiry pointed to that actually being the case, though he can’t be as ‘readable’ as me by deeper consciousness at the moment because he wouldn't yet be actively communicating with deeper consciousness from his ’ordinary mind’.  We parted with another long and beautiful hug.  Also, he offered an open invitation to me to visit him at his abode (very near there).  I didn’t know quite how to handle that one in practical terms, but my inner inquiry did suggest that he was really wanting to have some sort of ongoing friendship / companionship with me, and, with certain qualifications, it could be beneficial for both of us if we did so.

As further weeks passed with no further encounters with B, I was struck by the way that it was feeling as though B and I were already loving close companions, even in absentia, and all too often this was having an unsettling effect on me, including a lot of additional sleep disturbance. So naturally I used some inner inquiry to seek more understanding of what was going on.

It turned out that, allegedly, during our parting hug on the third encounter, his deepest aspects and mine, seeing that he was opening up to me with unexpected ease, following his losing his little bit of soul programming, and revealing a very strong compatibility and mutual aspiration for us to be ongoing close companions where and when it made sense to be so, opened up a deep-level 'close companionship' connection between us. Because of all sorts of current circumstances, that companionship wouldn't necessarily have much chance to manifest in practical terms in this lifetime (bearing in mind too that I shall likely terminate well before the end of this year), but it would set us up with an aspiration for and high probability of coming together into some sort of constructive, stimulating and creative close companionship in our next lifetime or one soon beyond that.

Further, although he himself has no 'specialist' configuration to account for his particularly strong compatibility and rapport with me, allegedly, as well as making that connection between the two of us, deeper consciousness had added a modified 'sniff-it-out' configuration* to his incarnational thread to increase his compatibility with me in the next incarnation onward — i.e., till that be removed or changed later on. That wouldn't take effect till his next incarnation.

Of course, all that is completely unverifiable, but at least it does 'add up' with a lot of other observations, and 'makes sense' in a deep sort of way. Most people live just on a belief basis rather than make any intelligent appraisal of what really makes constructive sense of life.

I deferred writing this up here till I had to do so in order to link to it from my rather belated March 2024 Website Visitors' Newsletter. In the course of doing so, I examined more closely the various impressions I got from the three encounters with B so far, and came up with some surprises through my focused inner inquiry.

In the following, it's understood that 'I' / 'me' means not me here now, but the relevant earlier incarnation on my incarnational thread.

• That image of B missing the opportunity to come and speak with me, and continuing down that side track with a sense of loneliness and loss.
  

  My deepest aspects managed to find the primary thing that underlies that impression. Apparently, a very long time ago, in another planetary system, most likely before our Solar System existed, I had a similar experience in a forest, where the other man then met a violent death of some sort as he started off in that other direction. Maybe fell over a precipice, got killed in some sort of hostilities, crushed by a falling tree, or taken by some large carnivore. I'm not seeking to establish such details because they're irrelevant; I'm only seeking to understand my experiences / observations to a helpful extent, with a minimum of unverifiable story.

• The Cunning Little Vixen connection

  That is allegedly NOT fanciful but very significant. In the scenario described above, the two of us were foresters, and both of us were very aware and both nature-connected and musically creative in some way!

• Why I feel so connected to the forester in the opera, to the point of readily getting tearful picturing him there

  Allegedly, that fellow-forester companion of mine back then was the respective incarnation on B's incarnational thread. In other words, in more normal, though misleading, parlance, B is the current incarnation of that fellow forester who met an untimely death.

  That also would help explain the exceptionally deep and strong rapport between B and me, and the strong urge indeed to experience closeness together once more.

• The apparently purposeful behaviour of his dogs during our first encounter
  

  My inner inquiry points to that having indeed been purposeful, but the purposefulness having been primarily from B's deepest aspects, though my having still more 'open' and vibrant 'energy' at that point would also have been an attraction factor once they'd set eyes on me. My indications are that there was a considerable likelihood that indeed he and I would both have continued on our ways without more than that passing friendly 'Hi!', and what B's deepest aspects were able to do was to give the dogs an impression that their owner was enthusiastic to return to the main track to speak with me (i.e., without any doubt). That set them off in a mad rush to greet and retain me there, and that in turn ensured that their owner would follow.

  Broadly speaking, Lurcher-type dogs tend to form particularly deep relationships with very 'open' and aware people, particularly no-soulers, and in rare cases, where the owner has sufficient openness of communication channel between 'ordinary mind' and his deepest aspects, the latter can occasionally send some non-verbal message to his dog that he needs to give it but is failing to because of some unhelpful mental block.

• B's apparent loneliness or isolation feelings

  Without prejudice to any insights that B himself may add in time, my own inner inquiry results on the matter suggested that any such feelings affecting his life experience would be from a different cause than my own deep sense of isolation. Having apparently already cleared the normal type of loneliness from my system quite some years ago now, what I'm left with is the result of my 'hyper-tweaked specialist configuration' that was aimed at preventing me from connecting closely with anyone, at least for any sort of ongoing relationship / companionship, so that I wouldn't get side-tracked from my primary life task.

  On the other hand, my inner inquiry indicates the primary cause of B's loneliness or sense of isolation comes at least in large part from a wall of isolation that he himself unwittingly built around himself through all his spirituality and meditation involvement. He'd also aggravated his situation by shaping his beard to have a 'long' look to it. Actually it wasn't very long, but he'd shaped it so it was fairly narrow and came to something of a point. It was quite enough to project an image of him as being 'old and wise', and supposedly something of an authority on 'spiritual', metaphysical or philosophical matters (and therefore not to have anyone hold his ideas up to rational scrutiny).

  I've no idea yet to what extent he was aware of what he was achieving with that beard shape, but that is a widespread comically silly practice. It's absurd whoever does it — to grow a long-looking beard and cultivate meditation damage that gives one that peaceful composure, making one appear to be some sort of authority and not to be challenged, however lovingly.

  I assume B fell into all that in an attempt to deal with some issues that were troubling him earlier in his life; maybe even some garbage or related 'occult' troubles as had beset me. He no doubt found some initial comfort that way, but only through using means to hide and go into denial of the real issues. Countless people throughout the world fall into that trap.

Follow-up — practical issues

B had made it clear enough that he did want to see more of me, and I myself would love to have more of his company (provided he'd be progressively dropping the harmful meditation and spirituality stuff now that he's fully no-soul), but what to do about that to cultivate something healthy between us, rather than restrictive or unbalancing?

The card I gave B had all my contact details on it, but I think he was of a quite shy disposition, and so uninclined to keep in touch off his own bat, at least until I or we had done a bit more to build our friendship — and that would need more encounters.

On the face of it I could divert from the odd hike to call in at his abode, but without a contact phone number I couldn't establish in advance whether or when he'd be in. Also, now in my 80s, I need those hikes of mine in their fullness to maintain my leg strength as much as workable, and the diversion (or indeed the odd outing dedicated to an attempted visit to him there) would reduce the amount of sufficiently challenging leg-strengthening I get in.

Additionally to those issues, my own use of Helpfulness Testing has consistently given a 'weakening' response to the idea of seeking him out like that, because of a certain imbalance in our relationship that would thus be created. Rather, my indications are for getting purposely focused such time as we have another encounter out there, and then to discuss any ways we can have some time together in sensible, practical ways that are empowering for us both and maintain a healthy balance in our interactions.

Even if it turns out not to be practical for us to get together significantly beyond the odd chance encounters, at least allegedly the two of us would come together 'properly' in our next lifetime or at least soon after that one. — So, in the event of little or no further contact in this lifetime, at least we're pretty well set up to come together in happier times further ahead.

In the light of relatively imminent destruction of Earth's human civilization through no doubt combined action of war, human-sourced climate change, and of course global economic collapse, in fundamental terms there's little now for anyone to live for on Earth, except in the very short term, and I'm expecting my own termination to be later this year (2024) — so at this stage I'm not really all that bothered as to whether or not any particular relationship develops in the remainder of this lifetime, my priority now really being to make connections that would secure great friendships at various points in future lifetimes.

(The above text rendered irrelevant since it's become clear that he hadn't lost his final bit of soul programming after all)

Something of more lasting significance this time…? — Hmmm…!

12 April 2024 encounter
This time 'B' was coming the other way, early in the particular hike, on the Hunter’s Path on the north side of the Teign Gorge, somewhat east of Castle Drogo. We had a really long chat, with greeting and parting hugs, and I got his mobile number, so in future I could let him know when I was having a hike there. Weirdly, I failed to recognise him at first, because he’d now got his hair cut very short indeed, and his beard was only slight and no longer long or pointed. An amazing coincidence, seeing that his long-looking beard was something I’d been intending to talk with him about. I also gently asked him about the origin of his name. As I expected, 'B' was a name he was given during his spirituality pursuits years ago (actually when he was ordained as a Daoist priest in China, quite a few years ago!), and his original given name is (let's call it G). That was much more harmonious.

On the surface it looked as though he was in the cusp of very positive changes that would reflect reducing barriers between him and me, but on closer scrutiny the situation looked less straightforward. Why did I experience something unsatisfactory about that encounter, which left me unmotivated to contact him or even all that much to look out for him on future walks there? — My eventual inner inquiry about that brought various fuzzy background details into clearer focus:

• I was rather bewildered to find that he no longer gave the impression of being fully no-soul; his 'energy' had the same indicative coloration that I'd noticed on our first encounter — so he didn't after all have such a degree of compatibility with me as appeared to be the case in the second and third encounters.
  

• I'd gone further than just asking after the origin of his name, commenting on its not being healthy for him, for it was part of a false ID he was projecting, which was keeping him apart from other people and thus was a major factor in his own personal isolation issue. I'd suggested that it would be a very positive move to carefully review as to the relevance and genuine helpfulness of that 'B' name in everyday life nowadays, seeing that it was clearly given to him to reinforce his self-image as a Daoist priest. Was that what he really wanted nowadays?

  My inner inquiry about that suggests that that was too much for him, and from then on he really didn't want to see more of me; he appeared still to be regarding himself as having some sort of superiority through being a supposed Daoist priest — apparently not understanding that any notion of priesthood stands right in the way of his own or anyone else's self-actualization, and reinforces any tendency of his to keep himself isolated from genuinely human friendship.

• I'd also commented about his peaceful composure being a sign of what's effectively brain damage caused by ongoing regular meditation — something that I've seen time and time again with people who do ongoing meditation. He assured me that his meditation was something different and much more like my own approach to self-actualization. I didn't argue with him over that, as I had no data on which to do so, but his response simply begged the question as to why he had that peaceful composure and apparent non-engagement sort of mindset; something he'd been doing had done that to him. I didn't pursue the matter, but I've no doubt he saw I was unconvinced by his assurance.

  See Dissolving the ego — Why one could never achieve that aim.

  Again, my inner inquiry indicates that although superficially he sounded perfectly reasonable, he was quietly rather appalled that I was, in his view, seeking to undermine him and his standing as a Daoist priest or however he was then regarding himself.

• I was noticing something about his apparently really beautiful hugs. I'd been doing my best to filter out the rather supercilious-feeling peaceful composure element of his 'energy' in those interactions. Now that I was looking at those hugs more in context, I could see that he'd been keen to hug me as something of a ministration from him as an implicitly superior Daoist priest, so there was a quietly twisted personal status issue in those hugs' motivation. The parting hug on that last occasion felt more explicitly uncomfortable, and that would add-up neatly, because during that encounter I'd challenged his spirituality-based posturing too much for him to really want anything further to do with me.

To many, it would sound as though I was acting as an ignorant and insensitive bull in a china shop in raising such issues with him, but of course people who are seeing it like that are completely missing the point because of their fear of their own personal status and false-ID posturing getting held up to proper scrutiny. They form attached relationships based on their various false IDs, while this errant monkey holds out for the authenticity of healthy human functioning, for the benefit of all.

I am pretty sure there was a genuine human side of his interactions with me, but that was being consistently distorted and effectively sabotaged by the troublesome 'fruits' of his spirituality involvement(s) and consequent false ID that he was still unwittingly projecting.