…About A Lot Of Things
In my Junior year at university, when things were beginning to unravel for me there (more on which, later), I went one evening to some talk or other at the Mem(orial) Church on campus, with a gal friend from high school days, who was a year or two behind me. Something happened to me while sitting in the audience, and I told my friend about it after the conclusion of the evening’s presentation: that for some reason, I had had the feeling come over me that if Jesus had suddenly appeared down there in the front of the audience, the people would have basically been shocked and stunned, not knowing precisely what to do, but I felt that I would have just stood up and gone right down there, “as though that was where I belonged”.
I don’t recall now if that was before or after my ‘spiritual experience,’ which ultimately caused me to drop out of my formal schooling and go searching after capital-t Truth on my own. About not just ‘spiritual’ things, but about the true history on this planet, and what all was really going on, behind the scenes, for general human consumption. Because something was telling me that we were being misled about life. In general. And in various particulars. For whatever reason. Which I wanted to find out about.
I now understand that that business about going right down there and being with the Jesus personage was my feeling because
that was my natural place.
As one of of the spiritual leaders of this planet.
Here, to help guide it into
The New World.
As many of us
claim our Christhood
NOW.
—
P.S. My ‘unraveling’ took the form - after receiving notice of my conditional acceptance into Stanford Medical School come the following, my Senior, year (‘conditional’ simply upon completing my current year’s studies), and deciding to relax a bit and take a course for me, rather than for fulfilling my pre-Med major requirements - of taking a Short Story writing course; which ‘saw’ me getting involved in a story that began taking on a life of its own, and becoming more of a novella than the short story that was the course assignment. But my lecturer, to whom I took my material, and asked if I should let it go and get back to the assignment proper, told me that she (a published short story writer of some note) felt that it was okay for me to continue on with it. And so I did. To the extent that I began cutting my Vertebrate Zoology lab sessions, and staying home to work on the story.(1)
The specifics of the story are not totally relevant to this telling of my experience; but briefly: It was about a young doctor who got involved in searching out a former ’bull surgeon’ who had dropped out of his very successful career and become a recluse, for whatever reason, and it caused my lead character to want to trace him down and find out what had happened to him, that he had chosen that outcome for his life. One evening, while engaged in that ‘unfolding’ - I had no idea where I was going with the story, was curious about its outcome myself - I found myself getting restless, and, unable to concentrate, closed my typewriter (in a small storage room in the basement of my dorm, that I had found and moved my typewriter and a desk into in order not to disturb my roommate while working late at night) and went out for a walk.
This was in around February of the year, as I recall (this was back in 1955. Before many - most? - of you lot were even born), shortly after having started the second quarter of my Junior year; and though being in northern California it was not so cold that it was uncomfortable, but I still had to zip up my jacket against the evening air. Not sure where to go on my ‘cooling out’ break, I found myself being drawn to head for the outdoor ‘natural’ amphitheater on campus. It was only a short walk from my living quarters, and it would be quiet there, and I could sit down in there and collect my thoughts.
It was in a ‘cloaking’ stand of trees, and I immediately found that there were absolutely no lights around or in it to guide my way in between them. I realized much later in life that it was very much like entering a sense-deprivation chamber. Anyway, in I went; and there was just enough ambient light at least to see not to run into any branches or tree trunks. Once inside - which I could tell that I had accomplished because I could see the night sky clearly - I felt with my foot to find a place to sit. It felt as though I were about halfway up the terraced sitting levels, though I could not actually see enough to go by accurately in that feeling. Sitting down on the grass, I took a moment to ‘take stock’. And the first thing that came to me was acknowledging that ‘Gee, it’s really dark in here’. There was nothing but me (and my butt on the cool grass) and the sky. Which was wall-to-wall (and very much only so to speak) with stars. Not a cloud in the sky. No moon. No sounds or lights from the campus, which I only knew was there from having just come from it. Nothing, but me and that deep, impenetrable sky. Which I gazed at, with a sort of sense of longing. I remember thinking, then: How small and insignificant we are, and this is, in the great scheme of things.
And then - as if in reply - suddenly I felt as though it were something really huge coming from that vast expanse which came hurtling into my heart-chakra area - Whooo-OOSH - and knocked me back onto my back, and a vibrant energy coursed through me, from tip to toe, for some time - five minutes? Ten?? Twenty??? - that caused me to break out into deep sobs. (Of what. Relief??) And then it subsided. And I sat back up, and just sat there, in the constant dark, for a moment longer, ‘regrouping’. Before my logical-thinking right brain, scientific brain kicked in, to analyze what had just happened.(2) And having asked that question calmly in my mind, it was as if I got an answer, from that deep expanse, or from wherever. And the answer - calmly, simply; feeling as though from an all-knowing Source - was:
‘The universe has Purpose; and that purpose is Good.’
To clarify: These are my words. The words I put to the feeling experience. I didn’t hear any actual voice. Either external to my brain or from within, telepathically. But it left me with what I would call a knowing.
Which has been with me ever since.
Through thick and thin.
And believe me, there have been some really ‘thin’ places along
The Way.
Mostly to do with humanity appearing to have lost its way. Terribly.
But we wilt get there. Ultimately. Because
the universe has Purpose.
And that Purpose is
Good.
—
footnotes:
(1) I didn’t care for all that sort of thing, anyway. ‘Medicine’ was a good career move to be of service in life; right?? What else is a person, so inclined, to do???
(2) I don’t think that I had heard about ‘kundalini experiences’ by then. And I don’t even know if that was what I experienced. But I imagine that it was something of that nature.
No comments:
Post a Comment