Once a month, on the evening of the third Sunday, the Silent Eye hosts a zoom-based get-together on the internet. People join us from across the world.

The purpose is to share our (and others’) explorations of the mystically-oriented life; hence its name: SE-Explorations.

In the comfort of our own homes, those who might be curious and those who seem to have been curious all their lives, get together to exchange insights and ideas for the practice of what is simply a journey into the deeper parts of our selves.

This is not an academic pursuit… The complex and shrouded language of the past has done little to point the road to the soul, a path that is startling simpler and more personal that history’s priests of all colours would have us believe…

Our zoom meetings begin with a simple opening ceremony. We light a candle and quieten our minds to be in tune with our shared purpose and each other across the planet.

This Sunday’s exploration was a virtual guided ‘walk’ of an unusual nature…

Guided meditations are familiar things, these days. The one at the heart of our meeting used a different formula: guided images.

We envisaged being in London, next to St Paul’s Cathedral. We imagined being collected by our guide for a journey: a woman who seemed familiar, yet none of us could say why…

Shall we follow her now?

She takes us along river path towards the financial district. We begin to think there might be some significance in this choice as a first stage. Perhaps the heart of the City is symbolic of the importance of the material world, with its focus on monetary values and the rigid ideas of success and failure?

Ideas that often leave the creative and sensitive soul feeling cold and abandoned…

With each step, we feel we are coming closer something different. She points to the river, asking us to remember it.

The closely-packed buildings represent history, too. We can be so defined by history – societal and personal, that we have no means of expressing ourselves in terms that are deeply us, and of the now.

Finally, we come to a strangely shaped building whose upper floors appear to lean out, over the world.

It’s not so much a building, more a state of mind… and beyond. The lush garden looks down on the whole of London. We can choose to look at anything.

The guide points to St Pauls, in the distance. She also asks us to consider the mighty river, the Thames. She tells us it represents time and that our personal evolution happens in time…

She invites is to consider whether we would voluntarily enter the world of time in order to advance our selves; to enhance our souls with experience of the world – the Creation.

She looks around at our eyes… we seem willing to do this. She leads us from this high place, where we can see everything but are part of nothing…

We descend and regain the riverbank, this time turning to cross the mighty river of Time, and emerge on its other bank – entered into life, to find a strange building before us.

It’s a reconstructed theatre from the Elizabethan period. Its name is Globe, and it is a microcosm of human evolution.

We enter…

Inside are examples of the parts great actors have played, here. They were praised for their ability to assume the personality of those whose lives or stories they enacted. In some cases, too well – thinking themselves the actual character they played!

Acting can have far-reaching consequences… And not all the plays staged here have happy endings…

The guide asks if we are ready to ‘take the stage’ and we follow her along the curving corridors and past the ‘cheap seats’ – the ‘penny stinkers’ where the poor and tradespeople came to see the afternoon performances and wonder at the many kinds of life other people led.

And the we are suddenly ‘in the arena’… and the light is bright. All around us the world of this Globe is alive. Directly ahead of us is a huge platform over the main stage. This was for the rich and titled of the day, and, though they could not see the stage below, they achieved their purpose – which was to be seen in their splendour. Perhaps little changes…

The splendour of this concept of ‘theatre’ is brought home to us; the power of rendering life as drama, and finding writers and actors powerful enough to become the characters they portray.

And now the guide ask us if we are ready to take our place in this stream of time and play our allocated parts?

We climb, one by one, onto the central stage and she gives us our character parts. We study them and immediately feel an identity with them. Soon, our parts are all we know.

One man, last to climb the stairs, is taken to one side by the guide. In hushed tones – which we hear but then immediately forget – she tells him, “Your role is to waken the actors when they have finished the play and show them that they were never the part they played, but something much more conscious of the world…”

A few actors have even awakened, joyfully, while playing their parts…

The Silent Eye holds SE-Explore meetings every month, on the third Sunday, at 8:00 pm, London time.

We would love to have you join us, even if you simply want to be there and watch what happens.

Email us at Rivingtide@gmail.com. We’ll send you a link.

You’d love it!

©Stephen Tanham 2022

Stephen Tanham is a Director of the Silent Eye, a journey through the forest of personality to the dawn of Being.

http://www.thesilenteye.co.uk and http://www.suningemini.blog