Four years ago I glimpsed enlightenment. Perhaps it was something else. I am not sure how to classify it, nor do I have anything to compare it with. And even though it was only a fleeting glimpse, it set off a strange chain reaction of events that has changed my life forever.
Let's see if I can remember what happened.
It was the seventh week of the year 2019. I can't remember if it was the 17th or the 19th, but I do remember waking up feeling dizzy, nauseous and with a sore throat. I almost fainted on the way to the bathroom. I could barely stand on my feet and had to support myself by leaning on the sink, splashing cold water on my face. When I finally felt some strength returning to my legs, I went back to bed and called in sick. I kept waking up because I felt extremely ill and falling back asleep because I had no energy to keep myself awake. I remember having several dreams during this period of coming in and out of consciousness. At one point I woke up and looked at the clock to find that it had only been 20 minutes since I had called work! Oh boy, did I have any idea what was about to happen?
I slept most of the day and missed the opportunity to buy some medication from the convenience sore in the village, and the nearest working one was a good 40km away. Living in the country has its drawbacks. Anyway, it was late in the evening and I still had a high fever. I was about to go back to bed when my phone alerted me to a new message. It was from a friend who had just lost a dear family member. As I wrote to her, trying to comfort her and cope with a body-shaking 40 degree fever, I tried to find the words to express my feelings at the loss of a loved one. The next thing I remember was an explosion of hundreds of thoughts or ideas exploding almost simultaneously in my head. Like fireworks, they were loud and vivid, and they were giving meaning to everything. Energies, the universe, life, people - it all made sense. It was as if someone had just downloaded the everything manual into my brain and all I had to do was think of something and a new set of firework thoughts would go off explaining the essence of what I had just thought of. I realised that it might be a good idea to start writing down whatever came into my head so that I could read it later. And in case I'd forgotten something the next morning.
I began to write in a notebook I had nearby, only to find that my hand couldn't cope with the speed at which thoughts and ideas appeared out of nowhere. Expanding, explaining and disappearing, leaving their knowledge behind. Then I decided to record myself. The words came out of my mouth much faster than what my hand could produce, but I was still overwhelmed by the Big Bang creating a new universe inside my head. I tried desperately to catch a thought and hold on to it. I was also trying to hold my breath, as I had a terrible cough that evening. Despite my illness I felt energised by what was happening to me. Word by word I was constructing the concept of a philosophy that would change my whole life. I went on and on. At some point I realised it was already morning. Everything felt so surreal. As if I had just woken up from a dream that was about to disappear into reality without a trace. Unwillingly, I forced myself to sleep.
I woke up eager to read and listen to what the notebook and voice memos had to offer as fragments of last night. So eager that I didn't notice that the only thing left of my illness was a sore throat. I rushed into the living room and opened the notebook. Imagine my shock when I saw half a dozen unfinished sentences written in a distorted version of my usual handwriting. I then checked my voice memos. When I heard four or five coherent sentences dragged out over three or four minutes, I literally felt a kick in the gut. There was a lot of coughing to make up for it. It was then that I began to feel desperately useless. It was then that I realised that I still had access to the knowledge I had been given. I could understand on an abstract level everything that was going on, be it life, the universe, emotions, people, society, humanity - you name it, and I could talk for hours explaining its basis and its interconnectedness with everything and everyone. I was saved! Or was I?
I remember thinking that the most reasonable explanation for the night before was that my brain was fried from the high fever. Then I asked myself what if it wasn't. In the end I came up with two good explanations. The first was that I had completely lost it due to brain damage caused by the fever, the other was that I had somehow tapped into some ancestral knowledge that was hard coded into my DNA. Or what if it was given to me by something my senses could not register? ... I decided not to let my imagination run wild, but to prepare a plan of action - if I went mad then I'd be just another madman in the world, BUT if this abstract knowledge was something real and reliable then I had to act on it. I had to share it with the world, because it wasn't mine to keep. I called my sister and my closest friends and told them what I'd been through. Although most of them were supportive, I felt their doubts and reservations. As if it was just another day of someone feeding them nonsense. Not that I could make any other sense of what was going on.
I spent the next few days at home reviewing my entire life through the prism of my newly acquired knowledge. I saw clearly the mistakes I had made - both the ones I was aware of before and the ones I had overlooked and kept repeating. For the first time in my life, I almost had a panic attack. I feared in my bones that I wouldn't have enough time to redeem myself and right every wrong. That I wouldn't be able to help others avoid the mistakes I could see so clearly now. What I didn't realise then was that fear should be contained and tamed. We will talk more about fear later. I thought the best way to help people was to guide them, to point out their mistakes and say that's wrong or right. That other people are wasting their time making easily avoidable mistakes. That is how the idea of The Radiant People was born. I created a website for the project, started doing webinars on Zoom, sharing my knowledge, blogging and sharing my thoughts on social media. Eventually I managed to help a few people deal with their emotional trauma. Some of the people I helped came back with information about religions, Eastern philosophies, lectures by Western psychologists and scientific experiments and theories that in one way or another confirmed my abstract ideas and gave them more detail and nuance. I felt extremely encouraged to continue on the path I had chosen and my belief that whatever had happened in February had a higher purpose.
Fast forward to the next few years. I continued to help where I could and to offer help where I felt it was needed. And the universe, in return, would confirm my beliefs with signs that some people would call amazing coincidences. I wouldn't call them that, because in a way I expected them to happen. Despite my strong faith in what I was doing and in my beliefs, I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to achieve some of the goals I had set for myself, namely to make the world a better place for everyone. Especially for our children. I was afraid that The Radiant People wouldn't reach the people who needed it most. At some point I felt discouraged and disconnected from the project. During the pandemic I was sacked without notice and my savings began to dwindle. I abandoned the blog, the website and the Sunday webinars. I continued to share thoughts on social media from time to time, but that was about it. I felt connected to the people, not the project. It had somehow lost its meaning to me. The next few years were a struggle. I knew I had to get back into the project, I just hadn't found the way. In a way you could say that I didn't feel ready, nor that it was the right time for the next amazing coincidence to happen.
Our actions shine, radiate, if you will, most when they are driven by love.
I kept meeting people from all over the world. I was able to help some of them and the universe kept providing me with evidence and details to continue building my own philosophy of life. For 6 months I applied for jobs and was rejected. Every. Single. Time. Two weeks later, I completely ignored my ego and admitted what I really wanted to work as. Two weeks later, I was invited to an interview for an "in development position" that turned out to be exactly what I wanted. I will tell you more about that another time.
This helped me to finalise the construction of my give-meaning-to-everything philosophy. It turned out to be more of an 'it's all about love' concept of life. And so I began to apply it to everything I did. Every. Single. Day.
And the results have been nothing short of amazing!
I have reconnected with some friends in such a way that we are now more brothers than friends. Communication with my daughter's mother is so much better. So much so that even my ex-mother-in-law, who had every reason to hate me, is now happy to offer me some tomatoes from her garden. I am happy at work and people praise me for the good energy I radiate. My daughter and I now have such a strong connection that people often tell us that they are a bit jealous of us. If only they knew how easy it is to build! And how this helped me get out of the karmic cycle I was in. The projection of love into everything I did helped me to see something that I hadn't been able to see before - the difference between acting out of love and acting out of fear. This is how my karmic circle was revealed to me: like many others, I had the wrong idea about love and so my actions were mostly driven by fear instead, and recognising these two fundamental forces in my actions helped me to break away from it. The karmic circle. That one mistake you make over and over again, but fail to notice. Thanks to how love has revealed itself to me, I was able to notice the above mentioned mistake, and I chose love over fear at a very crucial moment. I cannot describe the feeling of freedom I felt at that moment. It was as if I had just emerged from the deepest, darkest and most suffocating depths of the ocean. And the most wonderful thing is that I can and still can feel that same feeling in every thought and action. And that's when I realised the true purpose of The Radiant People. It is not a new philosophy nor religion. It is a way of living free from thoughts and desires that are not true to us. A way of life that is a shortcut to true happiness. It is what makes me feel complete, healed and rejuvenated. And that is why, I want to share it with the rest of the world, just like a little kid would share candy with their siblings.
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