INTERVIEWS

My story in both oral and book form has travelled this world. Here is a selection of some of the interviews  from my adventures and travels. I hope you enjoy them...

TRANSCRIPT OF AN INTERVIEW WITH JULIE CHIMES on WHY SHE WROTE A STRANGER IN PARADISE....

SO YOU HAVE SURVIVED AN ASSAULT OF THE MOST VIOLENT AND DESTRUCTIVE NATURE...WHY HAVE YOU WRITTEN ABOUT IT?

For several reasons. When anyone is murdered the crime, its motives and build up are reconstructed by the police, lawyers, judges, juries, friends, family, forensic science, accident onlookers and, God help us, the media. But who can know what it was really like? Everyone has their own perspective and their own agenda. According to individual motives, there will be a different spin on the situation. The sages say, ‘The world is as YOU see it’ In my experience, many of those involved with ‘victims’ of crime only want to 'peep' in the back of the ambulance and they tend to discuss the more gruesome aspects of the physical injury in good old melodramatic East Enders style. Had I died, I believe the case would have been wrapped up in a neat and totally inaccurate bundle. So, one of the reasons I wrote 'A Stranger in Paradise' was to recount the FULL story without all the usual censorships and limitations. How often does a body survive this degree of assault?

The next motive for writing was to give an account that is so far removed from what one would expect of such violence, that I was and still am compelled to share some good news! You see, in the midst of the worst type of nightmare imaginable....I experienced something beyond this physical body, something indescribably beautiful, something beyond what we are led to believe is death. If you discovered that there exists something beyond the pain, somewhere greater than human suffering and ignorance, wouldn't you want to rush back and tell all your friends?

One of the biggest reasons for this book is my attempt to destroy the curse surrounding the word victim. Did you know that victims are NOT encouraged to get better, let go and get on with their lives..if you look too good compensation figures and care diminish in direct proportion to one's recovery. Usually the onus is on the victim to prove the degree of injury, financial loss and inconvenience. It takes years. The greatest curse is the fact we are not expected to smile or laugh. And yet it was the laughter that carried me through my own ordeal.

NOT ONLY LAUGHTER BUT YOU DESCRIBE GREAT FEELINGS OF LOVE TOWARDS THE PERPETRATOR OF THIS CRIME...HOW CAN THAT BE?

Because of what I experienced during the attack...and what I learnt as a result of this experience.

CAN YOU DESCRIBE IT FOR US?

Within seconds of believing myself to be a woman, company director, marketing and sales person, doctor's partner, friend, daughter, sister, caring person, cook, etc. etc.. and all the identities we wear, I found some part of myself watching a psychotic, knife wielding haridan trying to stab to death the body I thought was all of me.  In the moment it raised an interesting question.  "If that is me down there being ripped to shreds, then who is this watching, who also feels like me?"

DID YOU FIND AN ANSWER?

Yes, I found many answers and many questions that until that moment I did not know I had.

Without exception we all contain a Spark of the Divine within us, the brilliance of the Light of Creation...some call it the Light of God. Most of us on this precious earth seem to have forgotten our true nature as magnificent beings full of potential to love, create, share, sing, dance and laugh. Instead our false identities and wrong understanding creates a grubby static which coats our light with dust and hides our real being. We have become obsessed with the dust! In the states especially...so much judgement takes place around the shape of the dust...we remould it putting a bit on here and taking a bit away there with plastic surgery and acute physical attention..but where does it get us? When we die dust returns to dust..it is NOT who we are. Then we analyze the dust investing fortunes in understanding the dust's issues and endeavouring to tune the mental dirt into only positive channels. This filing down of our perceived pokey bits may make us a little more comfortable to be around but it is nothing to do with who we are.

SO HOW DO WE FIND OUT WHO WE REALLY ARE - HOW DO WE REVEAL THIS INNER LIGHT?

We have to find a 'dust buster'! One who sits in the awareness of God's light ALL the time. One whose brilliance is so strong it pulls the dirt of our ignorance off our light and burns it away in the flames of Truth.

ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT GURUS? THEY HAVE A BAD NAME IN THIS COUNTRY!

I am talking about GURU in the Highest sense. The word means:-

‘One who leads us from the darkness back into the Light’.

There are many false teachers who use the word in the name of extortion, manipulation and at worst psychotic delusion. In the west we have lost its meaning so we need to practice immense discrimination when we meet someone who proclaims to be a teacher of truth.

HOW CAN WE KNOW A GENUINE TEACHER?

All I can say is this...a true guru will lead you to the place within your very Self. They will awaken the desire within you to discover the heart of God and their entire life is an act of devotion to those who invite them in...The Christ, one of the earth’s great masters said it...

"The kingdom of heaven is within you."

This is the only truth you need to remember...so anyone purporting to be enlightened who directs your attentions outwards will certainly be false. A true guru has no need of praise or adulation, they are unaffected by the swings of duality, steady as rocks, they hold open the doorways to the Highest Potential. Our earth is blessed by their presence. They are the eye of the storm, the stillness within them radiates and pervades every particle of consciousness around them. Its palpable – you will know by your own experience. And, they say when the student is ready, the Master will come. It has always been so. I met mine in the midst of attempted murder, so really, one can never know when or where they may turn up!

I FOUND YOUR DISCOURSES WITH VERITAS INTRIGUING AND INSPIRING. WAS IT DIFFICULT TO SHARE SOMETHING SO SACRED?

It was initially difficult to share my story. Thanks to being the daughter of two famous parents who were almost destroyed by public property, I had a massive aversion to being in the limelight. But, I had to get over myself. This earth is an extraordinary planet and we are truly fortunate to be here. But we need to understand the house rules if we are going to have an interesting and fulfilling ride during our time here.

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU LEARNT?

Life is a game; we don’t have to take it so seriously. Let’s be kind, be gentle, be compassionate and forgiving – especial to ourselves!

In the end, when we take that final breath, I can promise you, the only thing that we will remember is the love.

ON BEHALF OF OUR DUTCH READERS, THANK YOU