/9

To be honest this is so personal to me, that I don't know if I can even begin to explain it. Forgive me in advance for this poor attempt. 

To start, think of an onion, think of the layers, think of peeling each layer back until we reach the centre. That’s what I meant when I talked about deconstructing my brain. Or finding out what made me tick, what lay at the centre of my brain.

Except, we aren't talking about my physical brain rather about that essence that is me.

It began with a simple decision to discover whether there existed anything else apart from what I could see or theorise and test in a lab or by extensive mathematical research by others more able in these fields.

I recall getting ready slowly that night for bed. The bedroom was soft and warm and gently lit for the long dark nights of midwinter. I was getting ready for bed, but it would be a long time before I would be asleep and a long night of serious thinking lay ahead as normal. I shot a thought out into space asking a simple question, a throwing down of a challenge.

God, I don’t know if you exist, if you do reveal yourself to me. I felt a bit silly. Nevertheless having made this sincere request I started to examine my thoughts, my emotions, my trigger points, my drivers. To look at what made me laugh, cry, get angry, indeed every aspect of my life, peeling back layer upon layer of what made me who I am. I was in modern parlance looking for the source code.

Every night for the next two or three years I worked on myself making steady progress. I remember one startling night managing to see colour so vividly that it seemed to blind me and burn through my eyeballs, on another occasion as I tried to grasp infinity I was utterly overwhelmed by terror as I caught a fleeting glimpse before running for cover and sitting bolt upright in bed gasping for breath. There was great fear in many of the places I entered on this journey to the centre of my being. Often I felt that I teetered on the edge of cliff and to proceed would lead to death. 

There were many such experiences and the further and deeper I went the scarier it became, the less comfortable I felt until one night I found something at the very centre of my being that is impossible to convey in words as I have no vocabulary that covers adequately what I saw. And I did see, it wasn't a feeling, I had moved far beyond feeling, I encountered something that was not me and yet was part of me. It was a small flickering flame, except it wasn't, yet it appeared to be, burning at the core of my being, but without consuming me in anyway. I could observe, but could go no further.

I had reached my destination. I had found, dare I say it? The answer to my question, God if you exist reveal yourself to me.

And so, within in the very depths of my being I found a very small light waiting to be let loose on my being.

A journey and a relationship was born, one I am still on, a road.

I was at peace. I was on fire.

But that’s enough of this personal intrusion. Forgive me for this indulgence.