Arrival (An Awakening & A Near Death Experience)
Excerpt from 'Signposts of The Spiritual Journey'
An excerpt from my book 'Signposts of The Spiritual Journey' (Watkins) to celebrate ten years of being fully here and doing the work I’ve been asked to do by God.
2012 was the year my old life ended, even though I’d been practising since I was 13 years old, which was in 1977. I had been having flashes since I was six years old where I would suddenly be in the wholeness of life. I used to refer to these flashes as visions. They were complete but momentary insights – moments of satori. The first occurred on a school swimming trip to the local pool. I loved swimming underwater, and as I broke the surface, I emerged into the light, along with a wave of unparalleled energy – after that, nothing looked the same any more. In that moment I knew the sense of deeper being from before this birth, and that I could see the underlying life in all things. From that day that sense has never left me, and for a long time I thought everyone could see this way. It took me until well into my twenties to understand that people could not see what they were, or what was right in front of them, because of their conditioning and projections.
I continued to have moments of bhav (spiritual feeling) right up to 2012. Because of my karmic inheritance I was always a very soul-led person, but I was also completely lost with severe attachment disorder and codependency – I sought completion always by looking outward. For instance, I believed that the right relationship would be the only thing that could fulfil me.
Though I was lost, the visions continued, urging me onward, and if one looks back to the poetry books I published at that time, particularly Recital (2009) and Full Blood (2011), and my children’s book in 2010, you can see the wisdom of the deeper dimension of being seeping out as I must have been more away from false consciousness and vasana when I was immersed in the art of writing. You sometimes see this too in the work of other artists, writers, musicians and composers. Their work is a gateway to the deeper aspect of being, but because ego attaches to it, they often think that it somehow sets them apart from everyone else.
But 2012 came, and the externals that I believed my life to be had become so painful that finally the form of it collapsed. I had attempted suicide three times in the decade preceding this falling down because the pain of living was just too much. Thankfully God was on my side, is on all our sides, and without having any choice in the matter, everything that I’d been living through collapsed. One minute I was standing in the bedroom, the next I was convulsing on the bed howling. A lost child in complete emotional pain, I realized that everything I had tried was a lie and I did not know how to live, I did not know what love was. In that howling storm it was as if a voice spoke to me and told me that Jesus’s life was true, Krishna’s life was true, Buddha’s life was true, Ryokan’s life was true. Even some of my beloved poets like Galway Kinnell, D H Lawrence, Lalla and Kabir all spoke of a greater life. Yet something in me said: “Even if I die today, I will find out for myself. I will try to understand what love really is, and I will follow the leads of Jesus, Krishna, Nisargadatta and so on.” Not just believe in them, but find out for myself. There was actually nothing left to lose, nothing. And so even though I had no idea how to move, the journey away from death began to unfold by the smallest increment toward life. I vowed to undertake my healing and used many of the things we have shared here. There was no expectation of any outcome, I only knew that there was nothing else to do.
I cannot describe the days in the desert of tears and anguish, total hopelessness, and falling back, but my soul has always led me on. There is a book by the poet Charles Bukowski titled What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire. It is a line of truth, and some days a line from a poem, or a couple of squares of dark chocolate were all I had to live by, but I did the work, knew that healing and loving my own heart were the only options. Then one day, without any indication of a change, some neighbours who I had moaned about miserably in my head for years were having a street party for their young daughter and motioned to me through the window to join them, and I went out and joined them. The next thing I know I’m dancing in the street to 1980s pop music with a plate of food in my hand and I could feel simple ordinary love. I guess this was May 2013.
The next year was remarkable in that I started travelling to Europe to go and stay at a house in a forest as a way of having some deep retreat time. I had started to notice what was taking me away from my soul toward false incarnations and out of deeper awareness. The four dimensions of awareness that we have discussed began to reveal themselves to me, and as the brokenness receded further to be replaced by a happy, authentic, loving person, my soul kept calling me onward. I was actually happy enough; I was no longer chasing anything. My idea of living the sacred path was just to live each day in authenticity and heart. This period was psychologically and emotionally better than almost anything I could recall from my past life.
One night the following May, I was staying at the house in the woods, and I lay down to sleep. Something had begun to dawn within. I lay awake the whole night and slipped into profound meditation, but that is not the right word for it. I noticed tears were falling and it was as if everything of the old life apart from that sense of my soul was just melting away. At around six in the morning, I was no longer the man I used to be any more. What six-year-old John had known was realized.
In December of 2014, I had just landed in India to join my partner for the winter and a pain started in my side on the six-hour coach ride on the way home from the airport. I had never known such total physical pain. Somehow, we got home and after a few days of no improvement we went to the hospital where I was promptly misdiagnosed and sent home. I knew that I was done for, that the illness was going to kill me. I insisted that we try the hospital again, and somehow found the right doctor. Within an hour I was in the ICU and over the next three days, I was placed on 20-minute watch as things were so precarious. They could not figure out what was going on, but I had a raging infection that was not responding to treatment and they dared not operate as I was so weakened. On the evening of the third day, my wonderful doctor, Dr Trehan, came to see me and my partner who had not left my side. He told us to prepare as I would not last the night and he thought it better that he should tell me directly.
I don’t know whether you can imagine being told that your time is up now. I was forced then to face my death. I remember feeling that I had a decision to make, would I spend my last moments in stories or would I be here for real? I leaned into my soul, and let go of all resistance, to be present with life and my beloved partner, Abha. We actually slept and I made it through the night, then in the morning around 9am I knew I was about to go, and I entered meditation to make my journey.
I’m told that I was gone for about five minutes. But in that place, as impossible as it is to tell you about, I felt absolutely and profoundly that I was home. That nothing I had done had ever kept me from being accepted and loved. I knew I was one with God, and yet was not God. The only way to describe it is that it felt like finally being with the friend you have always wanted, so totally alive and loved. I was spoken to then by a voice, I cannot say whether it was male or female. First, I was given a choice, did I want to go back or not? I was done, complete, but I knew Abha would not be alright. I don’t mean that she would be broken and have to grieve, I knew that she would not be alright in life after this, I was still needed. When people talk about the light, you think it’s going to be a white light, but it is not. Try as I might I find that I have no way to meaningfully relate to you in language what it is really like. Then God spoke clearly again: “Leave your work and go talk to people.” And then I was back in the bed. I had not been resuscitated; I was just back, and the infection had gone down.
Within two days I was discharged, and we had Christmas dinner at a favourite restaurant after a few days in bed at our apartment. I needed major surgery when I got back to the UK, and even now my physical health still needs a lot of balancing in order to “talk to people”. This book, I hope you can see, is part of that talking. It’s quite interesting getting a direct instruction as to what you are here to do. I don’t think you are allowed to ignore it. If you ask Abha about the two Johns, she will tell you that the old lost John is not here any more. I love him, he was a good man and really did his best, but here we are now. Just for fun I have started celebrating 19 December each year as a second birthday. My death was a completion of what started in 2012, and there is so much more that could be said about what comes after, such as not being able to speak easily for about two years after the shift, as the old words in your brain don’t match your soul and awareness any more. It takes time for awakening to settle into your form. My teacher used to say that it takes about seven to ten years to arrive properly.
John Siddique
Signposts of The Spiritual Journey (Watkins)
And have just ordered your book!
Oh John, I haven’t been keeping up to date with your posts because of a certain amount of ill health this end but oh, what a beautiful, brave and inspiring piece of writing. Thank you so much for your openness in sharing what you have gone through in the last few years. I read this with tears running down my cheeks with sadness at your despair in 2012 and how, during that long journey back, the tiniest crumbs would sustain you. But I also read on with joy and wanky as it sounds, a feeling of being spiritually uplifted as you described your rebirth into life and becoming the John you were meant to be. I don’t want to make this a post about me, but may I say it resonated with me in many ways, even down to the timing. I’m so glad to know you through these posts and thank you a million times for sharing yourself with us all.