The 33rd Sage and the Elements Part 1
My spiritual life began in my late twenties, when I first met my old Chinese teacher. From that moment my inner spiritual life became my dominant life. Before I begin to share the Elements of Man I need to share a small part of my own story to put the teachings in context.
Most of the posts will be shorter than this one, but as with all things that matter patience and discipline are required. For those of the Fire persuasion that will be quite difficult as you always want the answer before you begin. My little joke to the Fire Elements amongst you.
I thought of doing video and or audio posts but this would prove impossible as over half my current audience is from non English speaking countries. So I will try to make it as enjoyable as possible while at the same time giving you enough information to allow the teaching of the Elements to grow magically and organically from within you.
"It was three days before the solstice and the sage must prepare him."
I surveyed the pale blotchy skin on the back of my left hand. I pinched it into little hills of flesh and watched them slowly collapse back. I looked up towards the receptionist. Her lips moved quickly, sharing a story on the telephone. I looked at my reflection in the glass-top coffee table. I didn’t like what I saw. Stroking my greying skin, I flapped my hand under my double chin. It wobbled in time with my sighs. My fingers reached up for the bags under both eyes. I pushed them up, but they dropped back in resignation. My eyes ached, their red streaks visible in the table’s reflection. I sighed deeply, closed my eyes and lay back, my head resting on the back of the couch.
“Mr. Spalding, Doctor will see you now.”
I shook my head, waking from a slight sleep. Groggy and confused I followed the receptionist into Dr Collins’ office.
Dr Collins sat in his black patent leather chair behind his large mahogany desk. He smiled, hands clasped behind his head. He was in his mid forties, his flecks of grey hair massaging his temples.
“How are you feeling?” he asked. His voice was soft, almost effeminate. His eyes were warmer than his smile.
I grunted, “Okay, I guess.” My shoulders dropped further with each word.
“No improvement on the new diet?”
“No, Doc.” I breathed deeply, my shoulders rising to their natural height. “Some days I wake up with a burst of energy, but it doesn’t last.” My shoulders drooped again, and the corners of my mouth dropped like unexpressed tears. “Why, Doc, why is it happening to me? One day I was fit, healthy and successful, everything to live for and the next I can barely walk to the toilet? Why? Why me? I did everything right. I dieted. I exercised. I took vitamins. I worked hard. I was good to everyone. Why me, Doc?”
Doctor Collins sat back in his chair, his palms opened out. “I don’t know, every test we have done has shown nothing. There is a hint of something viral left over, but other than that we are simply in the dark.” His hands turned over; he gently rapped on the table. “All we know is that you are allergic to at least 93 substances and it could be more.”
The front door of the clinic slammed behind me. I continued to look down, shoulders hunched, hands slack at my side. Walking to nowhere I began to replay pictures in my mind. I smiled weakly at the picture of myself crossing the finish line of the Melbourne Marathon, and then there was the picture of first place in the Horsham 10K. One after another I replayed pictures and relived the emotions of my many sporting and working victories.
“No more,” were the only words, which escaped from my lips.
The early winter wind ripped through my clothes. I shivered and pulled the collar of my jacket tightly around my throat.
I continued walking and thinking. I heard the voice of Doctor Collins in my head. “As I see it, you have two choices. Either you can go on as you are, but this will only lead to a further downward spiral in the foods you can eat. The other, the only real choice, is to spend a month in a bubble while we scientifically quantify the foods and chemicals you are allergic to.”
It was the best science had to offer. I was to become an experiment in reductionism, in the hope that they could rebuild the whole.
I was in deep shit and I knew it
I continued walking. My arms hanging limply by my sides, my shoulders pinched in an attempt to keep out the cold. More pictures began to invade my mind. I remembered that fateful Sunday morning when I rose for my weekly 32K run. I dressed quickly, taking a noisy swig of orange juice; for there was not time for breakfast: I’d laced up one of my many pairs of old Nike's and ran out the front door.
After a hundred meters I felt like shit.
Nothing unusual, I would be okay in another couple of kilometers, I assured myself, when I warmed up, or so I’d thought. No such luck; fifty meters further and I was doubled over, spilling last night’s vegetarian dinner in a heap on the side of the road.
I had walked and half crawled the 150 meters back to my home, where I spent the whole day in bed. Next day I could barely drive the 2 kilometers to work or walk the fifty meters from the car park to my office at the supermarket, where I was manager. I stayed in the office resting for an hour before I made a pathetic tour of the supermarket. Exhausted, I went back to the office and rested for another hour before I surfaced again. I struggled on like this for four days before; finally, my complete lethargy forced me to see a doctor.
That had been when the tests began and continued for the next eighteen months. I had become a human pincushion. And every time the results showed the same thing: nothing, or next to nothing. The traces showed something viral but not enough for them to be sure what the virus was.
I was passed from one doctor to another: an endless procession of wise men in white coats, with stethoscopes hanging around their necks. The final doctor I saw had seen recommended me to an allergy clinic, where the tests began again. At least, there had been no more blood tests. The tests they performed were to find what it was I was allergic to. The diet was depressing, but at least it seemed to be helping. That was, until my last bout of sickness. I had gone back to work and for two months everything had been going well: I was working too many hours and had even started running again. Then one morning I woke up and could barely make it to the shower. That had been two weeks ago and that was why the only choice I had left was the allergy bubble.
I saw in my mind a picture of myself in a bubble, sucking foods through a straw and having no contact with the outside world. My mind pictures were over dramatised but they at least took me away from the real world of exhaustion.
When I finally escaped the inner worlds of my mind, I stopped walking and looked around. I shook my head in disbelief. I had walked all the way from Richmond to the city. A distance of only a few kilometres, but given my current state, anything over a hundred meters was a bonus. Confused, I asked myself. “How could I have walked so far?”
There was more to this illness than the purely physical. I did not know what or how, but in that moment I sensed, in a deeper part of myself, that there was a way out of this debilitating disease and it had something to do with my mind. Given my current understanding of mind body medicine this was a quantum leap of universal proportions. We are talking about a man whose only reading consisted of books on athletics or marketing. My whole world had revolved around work and running. I was obsessed with becoming better. The better I became the harder I worked, the harder I trained. The illness brought all that to an end. The illness caused a crack in the person I thought I was and yet, at the same time, there was a hint, a small glimpse of something else.
It was then that I prayed for the first time. It was not an ‘our father who art in heaven,' sought of thing, it was more a stillness in my mind where I asked whatever was out there for help, help, plain and simple. I did not ask for any specifics. Then, within seconds, my mind was once again a jumble of the millions of thoughts that fought for my attention in the stillness.
A red flash appeared at the edge of my awareness. My head snapped back, only to discover it was a red dragon flapping above the entrance to a Chinese restaurant. My mind responded to the memories of food eaten in the past and I began to salivate.
I wanted Chinese food. ‘Fuck the allergies. What’s happening?’ I thought to myself. ‘I had been so careful to only eat what I was supposed to eat, for such a long time. What was I doing?’ I watched as my feet took my body through the doorway and under the Red Dragon.
Once inside the door, my shoulders raised and breath filled my lungs. I sniffed at the thousands of smells that filled the restaurant, smells I had denied myself. I sniffed through the smells, reacting to one spice laid on top of another. There was garlic, which usually made me sick, then lemon grass, then chili, and then I could not quite make out some of the other smells. I closed my eyes and took another deep breath.
The waiter led me to a table while I was still in a state of ecstasy. The part of me, which existed in the earthly consciousness, ordered a bottle of De Bortoli Chardonnay and mulled over the menu while the other part of me danced in the province of angels.
The waiter coughed gently, his hand in a fist in front of his mouth. I shook my head free from my revere. I looked up into the waiter’s smooth, creaseless face and smiled. A smile returned instantly, as if we were sharing a secret.
I did not have to wait long. Within a few days my prayers were answered when I was introduced to a man named G who ran a weight loss program mainly for women called the IFA which stood for "Improper Fat Accumulation". At a sickly 72kgs I did not need to lose any weight, but there was something about him that attracted me to his teaching. The program ran over a season, or about 13 weeks during which time there was a number of cleansings and detoxes, combined with mega doses of vitamins and minerals and a special diet. Within about six weeks my allergies had reduced dramatically and I was feeling better than I had in a number of years.
I was in the audience on one of the last days of the program when G asked a question that would change my life forever. "Would you like to look at a person and know them better than they know themselves; to be able to talk to them in their own language, to know their strengths and weaknesses and be able to their see their health and disease patterns now and into their future?" Although I was one of maybe a hundred in the audience I felt like he was talking directly to me. In that moment my life was changed. My life from that moment turned in a direction that even a few months before I would never have been able to even comprehend what was happening.
The Elements of Man
‘In Old China, The Emperor of the Fourth Dynasty of Chao did not know what to do. Around him was disagreement. No matter what he tried, his ministers could not get along with one another. They were always fighting. His wife and children he could not understand. The people he was told about, the royalty, the governors, and those of the provinces throughout China - many times there was difficulty understanding them. But specifically, he had difficulty learning what their strengths and weaknesses were. One minister told him that to be able to do this; he needed to have those that would spy secretly. Others told him that he needed a great magician or mystic that could sit and whisper into his ear if a person was telling the truth. Others said that he must be extremely harsh and strong and, no matter what was said, not rely on it. He was always to know that the words that came forward were not true. He did not know what to do.
‘Soon he walked within his garden, each evening; and as he would touch the leaves or sit beneath the tree or watch the birds fly, he wondered. The old sage of the forest of K'an had taught him, when he was younger, of nature. What had he said? His memory was old. It was so far away. He had once asked, `How do I know when a person is truthful?' What had the sage answered... what were his words? He could not remember. But as he sat beneath the tree he remembered that the sage had taught him these things. And so he rose, and walked to his most trusted minister, and said, `Go to the forest of K'an and bring back the sage. You will enter through dark trees. Go forth for one half day until you come to a lake, the lake of purification. Sit beside it until the sage comes to you.'
‘And so the minister went and he found the forest and went into it. He sat beside the lake and waited for the sage. As the sun was setting over the mountains, as the birds were beginning to quiet their day, as the insects were defying the silence, he felt a touch on his shoulder. `What can I do for you, messenger of the Emperor?'
‘The Emperor would like you to go to him. He has much trouble.' And so the old sage said, `Three days from this day the old sage will be in his garden, beneath the willow tree.' And so the minister went back to the Emperor. He told the Emperor what was said, and he was happy. Three days later he went to the tree and sat, and the sage appeared. They talked for many hours. And the sage said, `I cannot teach the way to do this in one night or two. Being a dictatorial ruler will not bring this wisdom. Mystics and magicians cannot. Spies will not. You must leave your court for one year.'
‘The Emperor said, `but I cannot.' And the sage said, `Let me tell you how you can.' And so they prepared. And the Emperor was told how he would begin each day for the next five days, to prepare his court for his leaving.
‘And so the routine was changed, and the Emperor would sit upon his throne and he would say, 'Listen. I will sit now.' And the ministers would come and talk; and he would wave them away. This went on for three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening. And the Emperor would dismiss his court. At the end of five days, the sage said, 'We are now ready for you to leave.'
‘And as the Winter Solstice approached, in the cold of the night, as the sun was shining in the other parts of the world, and as the moon was high, they slipped through the garden of the palace. And each day, at exactly the same time, the old sage would appear in the guise of the Emperor and sit upon his throne. He would sit and listen, as the Emperor was in the forest of K'an learning to deal with people.
It was three days before the Solstice, and the sage must prepare him. He told him what his role was to be. He said, `First you must know that man is like nature. Man is but a cycle, as your world is a cycle. Each thing has its seasons, as man has a cycle of the seasons. This is not only within man, but also within the history of mankind.' He pointed that in time he would be learning of the people who identify with the seasons. And the Emperor was glad. As the Solstice approached, the Elements of Man were revealed. Years later, Emperors later, when the Emperors no longer went into the forest of K'an, these were lost."
When G finished telling the story I felt like I had been on the journey with the Emperor and the sage. I knew in that moment that I would spend the rest of my life working to understand the seasons within man and mankind. The story was alive to me. The elements of Fire, Water, Air and Earth were dancing through the room. The elements within my body were reacting with the elements in the room and elements within the earth. In my own microcosm I was connected with the macrocosm.
This was the beginning of the study of the elements. As the course continued I began to develop my understanding of the elements. There were a number of disciplines which G gave me that allowed a deepening of my understanding of the elements and one in particular that would become a part of my life for the next 28 years. The first discipline was to keep everything I learnt in these sessions to myself. To only discuss it with others who were attending the workshops. This was not done because we needed to keep these teachings a secret. It was because we had such a tenuous grip on their understanding that to discuss them with those who did not understand could cripple the unfolding of the teaching that came from within. We were not to discuss the teachings for a season. I went one step further and did not share any of the teachings for a full year. Looking back I could see that this and my passion for the teachings helped them to continue to develop, even to this day.
Come with me over the next three months, a full season, during which time I will reveal to the beauty and wonder that is the Elements. I bless my old teacher every day for giving me this wonderful gift and although he no longer teaches this course it is a pleasure for me to share these teachings with you.
All that I ask is that while you are studying the Elements that you do not talk about them to anybody who is not also studying them. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly it will take a full season for the concepts to start take root within you and secondly the old teaching of 'those who talk do not know and those that know do not talk.'
If you are excited about the teachings share the link to blog with others as something they may find interesting or buy them a copy of 'The 33rd Sage,' as much of what I will share is in the book. For some the story itself will help them open up to the more spiritual aspects of their life. 'When the student is ready the teacher appears.'
Although the Elements were never meant to be taught in this way, I feel that the changes that are happening on the planet make it more necessary than ever for people to get back in touch with the Elements and nature. It is important for all of us to realign ourselves with the cycles within nature.
I dedicate these blogs to Old Chinese, G, Stuart and Marshal for they were the wonderful teachers who brought the elements alive for me.
Chung Fu, who first shared the story, was the assumed name of the spirit guide of trance medium Marshall N. Lever. It was chosen by the guide from the I Ching, meaning inner truth. His last incarnation was as a student of Chuang Tzu, in China.
Chung Fu discouraged any form of physical phenomenon in his teaching circles. He emphatically pointed out that his teachings and guidance are not the way, but one of the many ways that individuals may take on their journey to Inner Truth. He taught that there must be an unfolding within the individual and an awareness of Inner Truth through meditation and self-discipline. It was during one of his teaching circles that he shared the story of the Sage and the Emperor.
Twenty eight years ago I was suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome when I was first introduced to the teachings of Old Chinese, as Chung Fu was also known, by G. Through the wonderful teachings of G and Old Chinese I was not only able to heal myself but have the strength and the courage to attempt the greatest journey of all: The Quest for Inner Truth.
I have not shared G's full name because he has chosen the way of the silent warrior and I honor and respect him deeply. I am one of the many thankful students that he has taught on his journey. A journey that has touched so many people in such a beautiful way.
The 33rd Sage is available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Book Depository, Watersons, Xlibris and a number of online book stores.
Twitter @GeofSpalding
Official Author Blog - the33rdsage.authorsxpress.com/
Translatable Author Blog - 33rdsage.blogspot.com.au/
Thanks to Ella James (Author of Chosen) for this wonderful picture from a castle in Skye. It is perfect for a doorway to another world which is where I hope the Elements will take you.
