While sitting cross-legged at a waterfall in the mountains my thoughts turn to how I'd spent thirty years taking care of day-to-day routine and not paid attention to life's bigger mysteries.
To my surprise, I asked, "God, if you exist, please let me know you!" Seeking some unfathomable face, I closed my eyes.
Like a heart-stopping explosion, a presence of intense love in the form of dazzling white light entered the top of my head and radiated out through my heart. The feeling was so encompassing, it was like being bathed in an ocean of ecstasy.
Bursting with bliss, I broke into violent sobs. All my life I had searched for love from others, and here it was welling up within and around me. The love was so powerful and unconditional, my heart surged with joy. Everything looked holy: the river, the trees, the plants.
Looking around me with new eyes, I saw that all of creation was a sacred temple.
Feeling one with the trees, the water, the mountains, and the sky, I knew we were all of one energy and we were all connected. There was no doubt in my mind. I had experienced the presence of a God, a God that was not a big daddy in the sky but a loving energy permeating everything.
To understand why I had not met others who had encountered God in the wilderness, I began studying everything I could find on religion and spirituality: Christianity, Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Native American Spirituality.
I could not relate to the loving, vengeful God of the Western Religions’ (Islam, Judaism, Christianity).
The leaders of Western religions say we must choose between heaven or hell and that most of God’s children on earth will go to hell when they die.
This confused me. Why would God create a Devil? I found it is hard to love such a God.
Since I’d lived in Africa and America and worked as a mental health counselor I know we’re influenced by our temperament, families, friends and culture and that most of us are a combination of good and bad.
I was puzzled how a loving God could hold us totally responsible when we’re born under such different circumstances. I also wondered how God dealt with the children, the developmentally challenged, the mentally ill, the senile, the handicapped and the persecuted when they die?
Something opened up inside of me when I learned about reincarnation in the spirituality and traditions of the Eastern Religions (Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism and Native American Spirituality).
With reincarnation the playing field is level and it is fair to hold us responsible for our actions.
Reincarnation also explained some of my earlier experiences. When I visited India in the 70s I had the feeling I had been there before. Also the yoga positions I was shown at a yoga retreat in the Bahamas were the same positions I’d taught friends when I was a child.
A woman I’d just met told me that I’d been an Indian physician in Calcutta and taught yoga in a former life. Because of my affinity with the Eastern religions the woman’s comment made me less skeptical of psychic phenomena.
The more I studied reincarnation the more I saw that one life is too short to find God.
We spend nearly half or our lives sleeping, another chunk in infancy and childhood and often become senile as we age.
During our middle years our time and attention is taken up with survival and raising families. Many of us spend our free time trying to escape reality or relieving stress through television, books or addictions.
The idea that we are given infinite opportunities to learn our lessons and perfect our souls through reincarnation felt right. Hell became not a place but a state of being right here on earth. I now believe God is beyond good and evil and that we need the negative (evil) and the positive (good) in earth school to learn unconditionally love like God. Jesus confirmed this.
It was a relief to finally find the loving God I’d been searching for.
Edgar Cayce, an American prophet who died in the mid 40s, also helped me understand reincarnation. I read in his autobiography titled “There is a River” that he was a gifted clairvoyant who under hypnosis did 30,000 readings on people. He was able to diagnose their ailments and prescribe cures with incredible accuracy although he knew nothing of medicine.
Cayce a devout orthodox Protestant who taught Sunday school and read the Bible every day for 46 years never sought publicity or payment.
One day a friend asked Cayce if he would answer some questions about theology while under hypnosis. Fearing the questions might be sacrilegious Cayce was reluctant.
However, since he knew his gift was good he finally agreed.
Cayce was shocked to learn while under hypnosis that reincarnation is a fact. He was shaken since he could not recall the Bible making reference to reincarnation. While rereading the Bible he was relieved to find a number of references such as Jesus answering John, “Verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” (John 3:3)
Upon researching the Bible’s history Cayce found that reincarnation had been removed from the Gospels by the 5th Ecumenical Congress of Constantinople in 553 A.D.
Upon reflection Cayce decided both one life and reincarnation were true . Since time is our creation one minute may be a million years in another dimension and that many physical lives might equal one soul life.
From the Eastern Religions and Cayce I came to understand that life is a paradox, we are nothing and we are everything, life is imperfect and it is all perfect, life is very serious and yet not to be taken seriously.
I believe the introduction to “The Course in Miracles” sums up our journey on earth best. The book says, “This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim , however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.
This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
