Introduction

Voyager is an essential and inspirational work that conveys the inexpressible truth of existence, "we are pure awareness at centre, human in appearance." Each of the twenty-five chapters presents a voyage toward our inner, universal self, bringing a deeper and wider perspective along the way. Exploring the shores of human-beingness ever more deeply, we realise, "soul is the lighthouse-the light that guides us safely home." By simply experiencing ourselves without distraction of mind, we see through personal drama to our true nature.

Pure awareness is an art that requires practice to quiet the surface of mind and still the moving waters of our emotional seas. Awakening is recognising all appearances are illuminated from the light that shines in our heart.

We stand at the bow of our ship. The sky is clear, the sea is calm...Now voyager sail thou forth to seek and find. --Walt Whitman

Morning Tide

O fool that I am!
In my heart lies the key of Promise.
—John Bunyan

The meaning of life can never be found in any concept of mind, because this limits us inside a belief or idea which hides the key to true existence. There is nothing mysterious about the meaning of life. The apparent mystery is our inability to perceive the obvious due to a conditioned mind which causes us to look in the wrong direction.

In John Bunyan’s classic tale, The Pilgrim’s Progress, we are given an allegorical description of a soul in search of purpose. The central character decides he must leave his familiar and established life and seek spiritual freedom. During a long and arduous journey through strange lands, he struggles to overcome his doubts, fears and superstitions. He tussles with the lures and entrapments inside his mind. It is only at the final hour that he discovers, in his heart, the key to spiritual freedom. Realising his true nature is pure awareness—the light that lights the world—he is free.

Pure awareness is a natural state of peace and happiness that arises, not from being separate from the world, but being continuous with the whole. Beyond the shores of our changing mind, body and senses, there is the light of awareness that never changes.

Awareness has neither magnitude nor form, yet we find contained in it the entire universe. Awareness comes before any appearances and reveals that our true nature is the timelessness of all that is. Self as awareness means we are the ground of all being. ‘The Origin of origins’.

Abiding in the very heart of humanity is the key to true happiness. We are pure awareness at centre, human in appearance. Therefore, the real nature of self is always perfect. As pure awareness, we are the unmanifest, the unborn, never dying, timeless and formless. In the manifest, we are mind and body, born in time and space, experiencing diversity of life. The manifest and unmanifest belong together. They are inseparable, as the seeing eye reflects the knowing light. We are the invisible in a visible world.

Heart and Soul

A seed hidden in the heart of an apple
Is an orchard invisible.
—Kahlil Gibran

There’s more to life than meets the mind. We are pure light, a divine perfect pattern. Like an apple seed, the human soul lies hidden in the heart of awareness, the origin of the world, where all the universe is born.

When we look at a painting, what do we see? Tones and hues. Light and shadow. A work of art. The canvas is absent and the paint is present. The painting cannot appear without the absence of canvas. It is the noumenon of phenomenon. The manifestation of the unmanifest. A musical symphony is similar. Between every note, every nuance of vibration, there is pure silence. We ‘hear’ music simply because there is silence out of which it arises. It is the formless and the form playing together.

We are mind and body because beneath this reality we are the unmanifest: timeless, spaceless, formless, pure awareness. Life rising out of nothing. Behind a painting there is pure canvas. Behind a symphony there is pure silence. Behind life there is pure awareness, lighting up the entire universe. Whoever knows this, recognises true self does not reside in mind or body but in the heart of pure awareness. Herein, lies the treasure of all desiring.

Mutiny Is Bountiful

The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.
—William Shakespeare

It takes courage to voyage beyond belief. Mind will endeavour to preserve the illusion of its objective perception.

When a ship is berthed at a dock the captain must provide a certificate of manifest. When a human is birthed by a ‘doc’ he or she will receive a certificate of manifest—a birth certificate. The name printed on our birth certificate is not a real name. It is a name spelt in capital letters—a stratagem used by mind to create a false self. The first of many illusions of who and what we are.

A name spelled in all capital letters or a name initialled, is not a proper noun denoting a specific person, but is a fictitious name...
— Gregg’s Manual of English

A fictitious name diverts attention from the real. It is a confidence trick, known as the mark, used by mind to deceive us. We see our name written and we assume we must respond to it. Our birth certificate is the registration of a legal fiction.

It is a belief that once we are born, personhood is given without question; and a legal fiction is created by a birth certificate.

We are more than a name on a piece of paper. We are greater than our personhood. We are souls in command of a human vessel born in sovereign waters. Let us not forget that.

Do you remember, as a child, looking up to the night sky in awe and wonder at all the stars above you, feeling they were, somehow, a part of you—that you and the stars were inseparable? How often, now, do we experience such timeless moments of pure awareness? We've grown up. We have become evermore conditioned to act in a world of fiction—a world separate from its observer.

When mind takes over our human vessel, it is mutiny against the soul. Purity and oneness are lost and the ship drifts off course into uncharted waters.

Mind is a divider, it separates out. It functions as subject and object, veiling the true way of seeing. Mind is only part of us; a social convenient mask worn by every man and woman playing in the drama of life.

Soulship

For rhyme the rudder is of verses,
With which, like ships, they steer their courses.
—Samuel Butler

Mind is mediator between the world and our senses—how we perceive, how we come to know and learn, and how we interact with reality. Mind has the ability to observe itself and to experience self-awareness. Observing and what is observed is present at the same time. These are common attributes we share with mind.

The subconscious mind is rather like the rudder of a ship: whatever is commanded from mind will be impressed upon the subconscious, whose duty is to obey. And so our ship is steered.

If we believe life is unfair, this instruction is sent to the galley of our ship; so the rudder turns, and our ship takes us to the land of injustice. If we believe we are loved, this positive thought will move us in a direction where joy and appreciation are to be found. Whatever thoughts ripple across mind, like a wave moves across the sea, whatever emotions heave and rise from the depths of our being, our subconscious receives the instruction and life is fashioned.  

Pure awareness is the open boundless sea from where all perceptions, thoughts, feelings and forms arise. It is the pristine source of life. Plato called it the ‘Perfect Pattern’. Here, we see the unseeable, know the unknowable and speak the ineffable. It is the Holiest of holy places and is everything we have been searching for, and it lies within.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson