Back in December 2010 I uploaded a vlog on my youtube channel saying that I had booked a ticket to Australia and that I was off to “be the change I seeked”.

Up until then I had been diagnosed and suffered from depression and paranoid schizophrenia. It was bad. I was on medication for over 10 years and one day stopped them cold turkey and replaced the pharmaceutical drugs for marijuanna. Mainly skunk. A lot of skunk every day. Wake and bake. It did more harm than good for me. It was becoming increasingly difficult for me to be me and I can’t even start to imagine how it was for everyone who loved me.

So I bought a return ticket and 3 month visiting visa to Australia two days before departure. I don’t bother thinking before I jump. I thought enough on the way to the edge of the cliff. Why the other side of the world? Why not? I thought I would be beyond rescuing. I tried suicide before and failed. I had been bought to hospital where they resuscitated me. I was trying to find another way out again.

I landed in Brisbane and then made my way to Byron Bay, the most easterly point of Australia. I had planned to do a sky dive and not pull the chord to open the chute. I wanted to experience flying or at the very least, free-falling. Free from control, free from burdens, free from everything. Free from my self. Turned out I needed papers to prove I had clocked enough solo jumps to hitch a ride on a skydive ride. Evidently, I had not thought out my escape plan enough.

Escape. Remember that.

So there I was in the tourist spot. The place was beautiful but at the same time it was no different to any other place I had been. I still wanted out. About a week in, I phoned a close friend back in the UK told him I needed a place to stay and if he knew anyone he could hook me up with in Byron Bay. I didn’t really need anything, it was my way of saying goodbye. That evening, after I had sat in my own gloom watching the party goers drink and frolic like they do any where else in the world to escape (escape, there it is again) I wondered on to the beach, following at first the smell and sound of the ocean and when I got nearer to it, completely hypnotized by the immenseness of it, I entered naked.

I couldn’t swim well. I was afraid of the ocean up until now. Now it welcomed me. This dark thundering wet mass of swaying that could not be indistinguishable to the sky. I was alone. I had always been alone. I swam. I drank. I wanted it to take me. I got tired. I drank well. It got to the point where I knew it was coming. Whatever “it” is. Death? No matter what name you call it by, it’s going to come.

Panic set in like a thick tar viscous embrace of certainty. I was alone. I had always been alone. I wanted to escape and now, this was the exit coming right at me. You can’t fight it. You can’t scream at it and tell it to fuck off. It’s hungry and it’s going to rip you to shredds before it devours your pityful self whole.

My life did flash before me. All those things I could have done. All those people I was going to leave behind. I was about to escape all of this. Escape to where?

Finally, I realised and accepted my fate. I conceded to my will. It was my will that got me here and it was my will that was going to take me. I stopped fighting and allowed her to hold and rock me. I closed my eyes and let my self sink into sleep. It was at this moment that I had realised who, what, where and when I was.

I was a figment of my own imagination. I was a character in my own tale. Chasing tale. I had been living out my own nightmare and fairytale. I was an ego believing it was real. I was a tyrant and a fool forsaking the gift of existence. I surrendered to the unknown and it was then when I was set free from my own mental imprisonment.

Time stood still. The freezing cold subsided and was now replaced by warm loving surrender. I rose and looked down on the lifeless body. It was floating there faced down. The stars glistening on its pale wet skin. I was free yet tethered. “I’ve been here before”, I remember thinking. “Here is called Now.” Then I went higher and higher until I could see the lights of the town below. The light house shown out a thick moth winged ray that hovered below. I could see the coastline and the tiny little car tail lights. “I’ve been here before. Here is called Now.”

“I am free? This is not existence. This is not free. This is not free!!”

Within this realisation came the will. Thy will be done, thy kingdom come. The body let out a final gulp of air and with it, turned facing up. It vomited. Cold replaced by warm inside and then the first breath came. The first sound. The first word. Reborn.

I didn’t move. I just layed there staring up at everything. For a long while I did not know that I had a body. I, this ego. Then slowly, I could feel my self-realisation expanding with every inhale and exhale. I could feel, see within, the heart pumping warm blood around this body. The empty stomach. Then I could feel the motion of the medium around me and the taste of sea. For a while I watched the stars through wet eyes. The heavens. So many perspectives like lights at the end of a trillion tunnels. The black between the stars slowly became ebony navy blue. The Sun was rising. The Son was rising. Resurrected.

By the time the stars were being blanketed by hues, lime green to yellow, merigold, white and then blue, I was swaying my limbs and treading water. Land seemed not so far and I nearly drowned again swimming to it. By the time I reached the surf and white sands inland the membrane of waves gave in to my will to live again. Those first steps met stumbled and waded over wave after wave. It was all worth it making it to this place of existence. It was worth it nearly dying again to be born.

After the exhaustion. After the sun had dried the skin leaving behind salt and sand I sat lotus under the trees on the rocks in meditation.

I am still there now. I am still here now. I am here. I am now. I am. I.

Om ne du fu a Om 🙏

There’s no where to escape to because freedom is just another dream to be dreamed and to live is to awaken from the dream. Sometimes you have to get lost before you are found. Sometimes you have to let go to be free. Sometimes you die so you can live again.

The Avatar Known As Tao Chi Kai 🙏

Kai left this free flow as a reminder about 2 months after its awakening.