Before I Found My Spiritual Path
The Darkness Before The Light
Firstly, Thank you for reading my Substack post, If you feel these messages could help or inspire others, please do share them.
Also, my latest YouTube video was a BIG topic - ‘The truth about Karma & Reincarnation’ You can check it out here:
If you’ve seen any of my content before, you’ll know I bang on about the fact I met my meditation/spiritual teacher before I had really even started with life. Despite his influence, I still managed to mess things up pretty dramatically in the early days. In fact I genuinely believe that my tendency to go off the rails back then, was the real reason he came into my life when he did. Divine timing at its best. If it wasn’t for him, I genuinely don’t know where I’d be now, but it probably wouldn’t be good.
Simply put, I was a menace as a youngster. I could put on a polite and friendly front to win over family friends, but I had a dangerous blend of mischief and adventure in my blood. I was kind and had a big heart, but I was easily swayed by others. I was regularly getting told off at school and was brought home by the police on several occasions. At the age of twelve, I was arrested for shoplifting, something me and four ropey ‘friends’ had gotten into the habit of doing. One of my friends was such a professional, he’d remove the rubber bladder from a football and fill the empty football with sweets, walking out undetected. I found out not so long ago that two of them are now in prison for two totally separate stabbings, such was the trajectory of the path we were on. Around this time, I was on the head-of-year school report and on one occasion, climbed across various school roofs and onto the top of the school bell tower to sign my name (I’m dying to know if my name is still there!).
Upon leaving school, I followed the normal path of an 18 year old British lad; boozing, smoking and dabbling with drugs. In fact, I think I was fifteen when I first took ecstasy with friend. Fortunately though, I only dabbled with drugs, but drinking on the other hand was heavy. I was a shy lad, but when brimmed with lager, I’d come to life, bringing all my latent negative tendencies with me. We’d start every Friday and Saturday night with eight pint cans of Stella and twenty Marlboro lights. Nothing different to what the average eighteen your old Brit does mind you, but it’s a far cry from the quiet spiritual path I have now followed for the last 10 + years.
When I had finally finished with black eyes, swollen knuckles and stinking hangovers that accompanied a boozy weekend, my life started to take a turn for the better. Or should I say, I finally decided it was time to forcefully steer it in a healthy direction. Surprisingly, I had accumulated a wealth of spiritual knowledge over those years. My teacher let make the mistakes and learn the lessons for myself, whilst still keeping the spiritual light just about alive within me. Similar to someone who knows how to eat healthily, but chooses not to, I had all the know-how, but found myself doing the opposite.
For me it’s important for me to share these stories. Life is a journey, no matter how low you go, you can always re-align. My life now is monk like. I live simply, I meditate lots, I talk to the Divine all day long, I pray and I help others as much as I can. Of course, I have many imperfections and defects, but I have spent the last 10 + years refining. This way of life can easily get misconstrued as being ‘boring', but it’s far from it. I’ve climbed mountains all over the world and raced in high level ultra triathlons, but this inner path is more exciting than all of those things.
Every day, I move closer to home, closer to the Divine. I don’t think I’m on the right path - I know I am. It is one hell of a difference, not to mention the way I feel within myself. My progress is such that recently, during a meditation a random thought of Putin came into my mind - accompanied by a deep sense of Love for him. Not for what he’s doing or the personality he’s developed, but for his inner being, which I Knew on a deep level, ultimately, is me (and you!).
So if you’re searching, if you feel discontented, if you want to change and improve yourself - you can! I have been a 20 a day, boozing idiot. I have been an elite level Great Britain age-group triathlete and I have been a simple spiritual seeker. The latter is the real path. You aren’t Human, you are spirit. Don’t take my word for it, experience it for yourself.
With Love
Ben