A Life Affirming No and Yes

It was the first week of the second semester and I sat in my acting class taking notes. As I wrote, I suddenly became aware of this energy coming up from my lower chakras, into the crown of my head, releasing an inner scream, saying, "No!" I knew instantly I wasn't supposed to be an actress, that I was on the wrong path, and dropped out of the school by the end of the week.

On the one hand, it was a relief to leave acting school. After reading Power of the Mind, by Adam Smith when I lived in Boston, I used affirmations consistently (3 times a day with emotion) as well as visualization, to get myself into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. As I had tested almost "off-the-chart" in introversion when I took the Meyers-Briggs test, and had led a fairly reclusive life in Boston, this feat of auditioning and getting accepted into this acting school was a major one.

On the other hand, though I now knew I had the power to create what I wanted, I was had no idea what I wanted. Acting had seemed like it would be fun, a great way to live, but since it wasn't "me" the fun turned out to be only theoretical.

I slept for a month at my Dad's house. I was sad, empty, directionless. Yet, even in this mini-depression, I kept praying, I prayed as I fell asleep, as I woke up, as I'd pondered in bed, I never let go of God. Then one morning, I was sitting on the floor, leaning against my bed, thinking about the Santa Anita Church, and suddenly my third eye opened up and Santa Anita was all Light. Just as instantly knew I wasn't an actress, I knew instantly this was my path and that I needed to study and learn all I could about New Thought at this church.

I drove across country again, back to Pasadena, CA, this time to immerse myself in the life at Santa Anita Church. In retrospect, it seems so obvious, my journals were full of my desire to know and serve God. When I told my therapist in Boston, this new direction I was taking, he said it made sense since I talked about God so much in our sessions. I remember thinking, "I did?" It was always there, but I never saw it. This Light experience put me on a path I had never been off, but could now consciously see and participate in.

Wow! A Metaphysical Bookstore With a Church Attached

Metaphysical bookstores were one of my favorite places to hang out in Boston. I also went to workshops, saw a psychologist for 4 years, worked in halfway home for juvenile deliquents, majored in psychology and joined the Institute of Noetic Sciences in my quest to discover who I was.

While I was learning about myself psychologically, I still spent a lot of time trying to understand God and the world. One of the questions I was trying to answer was, what did the major worlds religions have in common? Having taken a class on eastern religions, I found it hard to go to "just" a Christian church. I kept thinking that there had to be a Truth that was true in all religions.

After many months of pondering this, I am came to the conclusion that all religions taught Oneness in their own way and the purpose of life was to know our Oneness with God. I wrote out my new philosophy, religion by religion, in great joy.

In 1989 I moved out to Pasadena, CA to go to acting school. I had decided at the end of college I wanted to be an actress without ever actually having done any acting. It appealed to me because unlike college where all the knowledge was to be found in the head, acting included the body, the emotions, and I craved to experience the physicality and emotionality of life. Acting seemed like the perfect choice for a career.

While in Pasadena, I found a metaphysical bookstore in the neighboring city of Santa Anita. Upon arriving, I was amazed to discover there was a beautiful church there too!! I couldn't imagine what kind of church would have a metaphysical bookstore as part of it so I eagerly went to a service on Sunday. To my amazement, the core principle of this church was Oneness. "There's a whole church with my philosophy!" - I remember the exact place I was standing when I had this euphoric realization.

In my psychological work I had gotten used to always finding what was wrong with me and what I could do to improve myself. Now, sitting in my first New Thought service at the Santa Anita Church I was hearing that my Real Self, was whole, perfect and complete, that there was nothing wrong with me, nothing I needed to fix, or change. I was loved just as I was. I deeply breathed in the ministers' words and felt relief and joy wash over me. Even in the midst of my human imperfection, I was perfect. And this wasn't true just about me, but all beings, regardless of race, religion or sexual orientation.

I was home.

Seeing The Matrix, New Life Is Birthed

Tired and confused I sat on a hill. I decided I was going to sit there until I died of starvation since life no longer made sense to me.

We all identify with some part of our habit patterns, usually our better ones, as our sense of "I". The habit patterns I had cherished as my identity were ones that validated that I was a "good moral" person. My first year away from home obliterated the illusion of "goodness" as I defined it. Yet it wasn't that I had gone against so many of my moral values that threw me into this loss of identity, it was that I didn't feel like I was a bad person because of it. Surely, not being good, made me a bad person, yet I didn't feel bad. I sat on that hill, thinking to myself, "this doesn't make sense, I should be a bad person if I'm not good, but I don't in anyway feel like a bad person. If I'm not good, and not bad, what am I? What I thought was up is down, down is up, right is left, left is right, nothing makes sense."

Lost in the confusion of these mixed-up perspectives, I turned to my left and stared at an object that was familiar, I just couldn't remember what it was. I knew a wise person had once taught me what it was, then it popped into my brain, "oh, that's a tree", then the next thing I knew, I was outside of the earth, looking at it from quite some distance. I was aware of 2 lines coming from me, going to the outer circumference of each side of the earth. Then I saw the people on earth, living their lives with energy boxes around them (though this experience was very geometric, I didn't see eclipses, the way energy fields around the body are usually depicted). The boxes, it was revealed to me, were peoples beliefs and values and they created those boxes themselves. Peoples beliefs and values weren't what was ultimately Real about who they were. Then I became aware of my Mom and her box was all light. Even good values were still boxes, and those boxes of identity weren't Real either, just self-made illusions. I knew that which was witnessing this vision/experience was what was Real. And with that, I was back in my body.

It is one thing to read that in words, another to experience it. The experience was so powerful, that a lifetime of attachment to my identity as being moral being dropped away instantly. I was set free and simultaneously birthed into the next phase of my journey; if our identities - collective and individual - of morals and values weren't what's ultimately Real, what was?

With all births there is a death, in all deaths, there is birth. I am grateful for this delivery into a new and mysterious world.

Choosing Culture Over God

I got pregnant the summer after my freshman year at Boston University. It wasn't a total surprise since my boyfriend Paul [name changed] and I had often fantasized about getting married and having a family.

All through my time at Shaker Hts. High School, I felt the pressure that everything I did was to get into a good college. I tried to like school, I tried to like learning for the sake of learning, I tried to enjoy participating in school activities, I tried to be a good athlete, but I just couldn't convince myself that any of it mattered. I found myself silently rebelling to the never ending push - as I perceived it - to excel, by not excelling. As long as things didn't matter one way or another - as they had for those 2 years in Chevy Chase, MD - I could participate freely. Once, however, I was actively being pushed to care about goals that were not of my heart, I couldn't give myself with much passion or genuine interest.

I went to Boston University because my best friend was going to be there, because Paul and one of my brothers were at schools in the Boston area. Relationship was why I was there, not desire for academics or working toward a future career.

What I actually wanted was love, not just any love, but God's Love. Only, I had no idea how to "get" that love. I explored various churches over the years but they just felt empty. Talking theology wasn't what I was looking for, what I hungered for was direct contact with God, and no one was even mentioning it as a possibility. So for me, the closest I could come was a boyfriend. I learned from all the romantic movies/TV shows/Hallmark commercials I had seen, that in a romantic relationship it was okay to open one's heart fully, to express love, love and more love.

The challenge with that for me was, I had so many divisions in me, my interior life and exterior life, my intellect and my emotions, that once I started to open up, all these inner battles began to emerge. I still remember the exact place I was the first time I yelled at Paul. I startled myself because up until that time, I had never yelled at anyone in so much anger. I perceived myself only as "sweet and loving", not as someone who got angry and yelled. This very angry young woman was new and a complete stranger.

Then there was the intellect, "This isn't even close to the perfect guy, why am I giving my heart to him", and I'd turn cold and distant. Then I'd get lonely, and see all the good in Paul, and then I'd become loving and kind again, whatever he wanted, to get back into relationship. Hot and cold, every moment was different. I was a mess, topped onto the mess of going to college with no desire to be there other than to fit in with my culture.

The more out of place I felt at college, the more I turned to my relationship with Paul as the only thing that did make sense to me. I remember saying over and over, the only thing I knew I wanted was to be married and have children. I loved being with my family and I wanted to continue to be in a family. College, career, seemed like something I had to do to pass the time until it was "appropriate" to do what I really wanted - get married and have kids.

Thus getting pregnant in the summer of 1985, when I was 19, was not a surprise. At the same time, as soon as I found out, I pictured myself as I had been the last 3 years with (and without) Paul..."how can I be a mother when I'm so lost myself? I'm an emotional mess, how can I take care of a baby?" In that moment, I decided to do what I promised myself I would never do, I decided to get an abortion. Paul was furious that he wasn't even part of the decision making process and very sad, he wanted the baby.

My intellect and reason had taken over again, the coldness returned, I was going to do it because it was the best thing for everyone, period.

The weekend before the abortion, I went with a friend and her family to a beach in the Hamptons. I remember having almost constant morning sickness, I remember watching Boris Becker play in Wimbledon for the first time, and I remember the vision/dream I had while lounging on the beach.

I was staring at a sail boat crossing the ocean in front of me as I drifted off to sleep. We were in a hotel, Paul, our 6 year old, blond-haired boy, and me, getting ready to go somewhere. I was dressing in the bedroom, Paul and our boy were in the bathroom, goofing around in front of the mirror. I'm annoyed, trying to hurry them along. Then I woke up. I remember staring out at the ocean absolutely clear I could and would never get the abortion. This vision/dream was Real, and it showed me that it would work if we had the baby, that Paul and I could do it.

Yet, my intellect and the culture I lived in prevailed. I couldn't even imagine telling my parents I was going to have a baby. I didn't know a single person from high school or college that had a baby, and I had no desire to be the "loser" who dropped out of school to have a baby instead of a college education. I hadn't yet learned to trust the visions given me, so I went back to my "normal" - race-conscious - mind, and went ahead with the abortion, to Paul's devastation.

Later I "decided" (I use this word a lot in my journals when my intellect is in control) that since I was pro-choice, I wasn't going to be ashamed of having an abortion. As I began to share with friends that I had had an abortion, I found out something astounding. Many young women, and young men, had gone through this experience too. Where I thought I was the only one in my world who had gotten pregnant, I found out I was part of a very large club and this made me angry and very sad. What if we had been able to talk about it out loud? What different choices might have been made if I knew I wasn't alone?

Yet even learning that the highest rate of abortions was among women age 18 - 19, I still felt a bit different. I was confidant that all those pregnancies were accidental, and I was ashamed to admit that I had had actually desired to be pregnant.

I had the abortion, I told myself, because I didn't know who I was or what I wanted (this was culturally appropriate reasoning ). I was avoiding "finding myself", my career, by wanting to be married and have a baby. It never once occurred to me that I did know who I was, and I knew exactly what I wanted. I made a devastating decision based on the values that surrounded me, but not from the ones in my heart.

It is also a decision that caused Paul lasting heartache...I broke some major Soul agreements. Having the abortion is a choice for which I still feel pain, regret and sorrow, time hasn't lessened it. It is especially heart-wrenching since I was blessed with such a loving, wise vision from God guiding me to make a different choice. Culture over the Infinite Love-Intelligence of the universe...never a great way to go.

Out Of My Body

I lay in bed reading Little Women the summer before tenth grade. As I read, I humbly realized that I was more like Beth than the outspoken, tomboyish, main character Jo (Josephine). My false self wanted to be like Jo, but I couldn't deny the similarities between Beth and myself. Beth was happiest when she was home with her family, she didn't have any need for the world outside, and she often was quiet in the middle of the family noise. This is so much how I was, I loved holidays and family vacations where the world outside was temporarily forgotten. Though on holidays, I'd do my part to make them special, I also was completely happy being quiet and letting my brothers and parents do the talking.

About two thirds of the way through this book, Little Women, Beth dies. By this time, I had so completely owned how I was like this character, that her death was devastating to me. I cried and while I cried, I started to think about this name "Harriet". I saw it, the name, floating in front of me, and I didn't know what it was. The next thing I knew, I was on the ceiling, above my bed (interestingly, the place I looked the most when I was prayed/talked to God), looking down at my body. The name Harriet floated over the body, and then the "I "at the ceiling had the thought, "Oh, this is who I am this time" and with that, "I" was right back in my body again, looking through this body's physical eyes.

At the time, I had no context in which to contemplate this experience. I had never heard of "out of body" then, so I just didn't think about it. Years later, Willis Harman, the former president of the Institute of Noetic Sciences wrote in his book, Conscious Creativity, that we can only reflect on ideas that are within our paradigm, our structure of thought. So first we have to widen our structure of thought before we can seriously reflect on experiences that lay outside these limited paradigms.

It wasn't until I was in college, taking an introduction to eastern religions class, writing a paper on Zen Buddhism that my paradigm of reality opened wide enough to recall this experience and be able to reflect on it. I still don't remember having any deep insights around it other than wonder that I had left this body, and this body was clearly temporary. I am still struck that the exact words that "I" thought while on the ceiling are imprinted in me, I have no trouble recalling them. The ones that have really made me ponder are the last two, "this is who I am this time", implying of course, that there were other times.

Reincarnation is a tricky subject, especially since we tend to think linearly about it and I'm not sure it's quite that simplistic. I've had a few more experiences around it but still can't say what I definitively know. I once had a dream/vision where "I" was wandering around when the dinosaurs were here, and this voice telling Itself that I was here during this time. At another time, I had a vision while I was driving across the United States by myself. I was singing Agape chants, listening to Rev. Michael Beckwith sermons, in a great state of consciousness, and I turned to my left to look at the Colorado mountains and this voice in me, yet beyond "me" , said I was here before those mountains were formed. [At the exact same time of this awareness, I knew I'd be working with Rev. Michael Beckwith someday, which made no sense since I was driving back east to permanently settle down. 5 years later, I was back in Los Angeles, on staff at Agape, Rev. Michael's church.].

I also had a dream once where I was the witness along with this same "I Am" voice. I was being shown this woman on a beach, with long black hair, it was really windy and she was screaming in agony. I was told, "this is who you were once". That's it. I have no idea what she was screaming about, though since the dream, I've had the intuitive sense that she had lost her baby in the ocean...but I don't know, nor do I know for what reason this was shown to me.

The I Am was, is and forever shall be. When we let go of our identity with our individual drop of the ocean, and dissolve into the vast ocean of Beingness, we become awake as all the ocean. In other words, we can see all time and space as this I Am when we drop our identity with our limited temporary self. This for me is the effortless explanation of being around when there were dinosaurs, and before the formation of the Rockies. However, there is no question that in that one dream, I was told that I was specifically this woman. And in the out of body experience, it wasn't that I was all people, I was this body, "this time".

Being an individual Soul that reincarnates until it is free - in general, a perspective of Hindus and Buddhists - makes sense to me, but at the same time, my sense this concept is a bit too linear. I resonate with Helen Greaves book, A Testimony of Light, where she talks about group Souls, which makes a lot of sense to me too. Group Souls can have many perspectives, and as an individual I can tap into my group Soul identity, which is me with many perspectives, as well as the all encompassing, Absolute I Am identity.

For me, speculation around reincarnation continues. However, what I do know is, to identify solely with form, with personal history is painfully constricted relative the vast, oceanic, spacious, formlessness of our true Self.

My favorite principle articulated by Ernest Holmes, inspired by Plotinus, is; God, or Spirit, or Life (whatever conceptual word that works for you) is in, through and as all creation, yet never absorbed by it. Who we really are, is in, through and as our bodies, personalities and history, yet never absorbed by it. This is the Truth that sets us free.

A 2 Year Vacation In The Zone

Our family moved from Shaker Hts., OH to Chevy Chase, MD in-between my 7th and 8th grade year. We knew we were only moving for 2 years, as my Dad was hired temporarily as Chief Tax Council of the Senate Finance Committee.

Realizing that whatever happened during my time in Chevy Chase, it would never really matter because in 2 years I'd probably never see these new people again, I felt the freedom of not caring. Where I had been feeling the overwhelming weight of the purpose, the meaning of life, now suddenly it seemed I had a 2 year vacation...from myself.

Thus when I entered eighth grade at Leland Jr. High School, I decided to join in completely, not hold back, as there was nothing to lose (and nothing to gain), as here there was no future. My Mom suggested I join a school activity to meet people, so I decided to try out for the girl's basketball team. I had never seen a game played before, but I had always loved to shoot baskets in my driveway, so I thought I'd have a chance of making the team.

The night before tryouts, I remember my conversation with God. I lay in my bed, looking up at the ceiling and told God how much I wanted to meet new people, and this seemed like a good way. I prayed for God to help me get on the team and then I wouldn't ask for help any more, the rest was up to me. I talked for quite some time, and The Presence was alive as I can even now remember the feeling of that conversation pouring from the depths of my soul.

I don't remember the tryouts except for one thing. We had to stand at the foul line and shoot 10 balls. I began to shoot, and as I did, I went into the "zone "(though I didn't have that word for it at the time). Without effort or thought, I just shot one after another, and ended up making 8 out 10 foul shots. It was so natural at the time, and only later upon reflection, did I note that I had been in a different state than I normally was when shooting baskets. For me, this was answered prayer and I was so grateful.

As it turned out, my entire 2 years in Chevy Chase felt like it was in the "zone". I definitely was in a different state than the way I normally lived life. I made wonderful friends, I participated in sports and activities fully, played with my family, just had a plain good time for the entire 2 years

It was as if I was being given a gift of what life could look like if I just let go a little bit. I was living as Krishna advised Arjuna to live in the Bhagavad-Gita (a Hindu scripture), he was to give himself fully to the role in life he was given to play, and live it without attachment or resistance. In other words, "let go and let God". This is how I lived, active, alive, participating, fully focused and yet relaxed, without fearing or attaching to anything too much...the same recipe for going into the zone while playing sports actually...and it was total joy. It didn't have to do with perfection, or winning, or being the best, or having all the answers to life's mysteries, it simply required living fully and freely in each and every moment...well simple, but usually not very easy.

Feeling the Presence so powerfully that night I prayed to make the basketball team, I realize the prayer was answered far beyond what I humanly intended. Knock and the door shall be opened, and for that Grace, I am forever grateful.

Can Heaven Really Co-Exist With Hell?

Walter Cronkite, then Peter Jennings, then Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer, these were the anchors that reported news during our dinner hour most evenings of my youth. My Dad cared and thought deeply about national and world news, so dinner began with saying grace, then watching the news while we ate. By desert, the news would be over and often my family would be in passionate discussion about some aspect of it. Just as often, I would push my plate away when I was done, lay my head down in my arms, and fall sound asleep.

One of my propensities was to be more emotionally driven than intellectually driven. I didn’t listen to the news the same way as my family did, they listened with minds attuned to what the best ideas were and how to apply ideals to the practical. For me, the news was an emotional event, not something I was able to intellectually engage in as my emotions would completely take me over. What I felt night after night after night was the pain, the suffering, the constant conflict that was the way of life of so many on this planet. Falling asleep was one of the ways I coped.

Once I started developing into rational thinking myself, I began to ask myself what I could do to make this pain stop. I thought of Jesus, the most loving human being that had ever lived, I could never love more than Him and, “Look”, I thought, “Jesus didn’t even make a dent.” Mother Teresa was alive at the time, giving her whole life to serve to the poor, she wasn’t making a dent in the nightly news either, it was hopeless. No matter how "good" I was, it wasn't going to make a difference.

Around this time, my oldest brother was beginning the college application process, so there was much discussion about futures. I began to contemplate this as a way to live, since saving the world was obviously impossible. I imagined going to a good college, having a good career, wonderful husband and children, being a grandparent, retirement, death. "So I touch a few lives, those people will die too. We come, we live and die, and everyone we know does too, but the pain, the suffering, it stays." Even Jesus hadn’t changed that and the world news every night confirmed that for me, over and over again.

There was the hope of evolution, life had gotten better right? I remember my Mom telling me a story of how poorly handicap people were treated when she was a girl and how much better it had gotten for them now. So I could see that life had evolved, and yet, what I saw, felt, every night on the news, were not signs that life was better now than a hundred years ago, but still deeply conflicted with no real hope of the pain ever going away.

Once I landed on this awareness, it became the defining energy for the rest of my youth. I continued to function outwardly, school, activities, friends, but never did any of it make any real sense to me, and my heart was never fully engaged. I just never believed in the ideals, the values, the world put before me, but I also had nothing, absolutely nothing, to replace them with, so I followed the “rules” of life, but only half-heartedly.

I didn’t mull a lot over my lack of belief in the world, since I also felt there was no answer to this problem, there was no reason to ponder it. Jesus kept arising as my example, if He couldn’t heal the pain of the world, I wasn’t going to be able to either, so trying to fit into it, be successful at this world, was all I could do. And from that place, I lived my life, outwardly cheerful, inwardly constantly working in my head how I could care more about academics, sports, friends, trying to “fix” myself to be more successful outwardly. Underneath those motoring thoughts, was the real heartfelt belief, none of this mattered, I didn’t matter, and in this awareness, there was utter aloneness.

With all this conflict happening within me, I found my comfort zone was living on the edge of life, rather in the middle of it. Without conviction, I couldn't enter fully into school, activities, friends and even family, thus I showed up with the bare minimum needed, hopefully well enough not to call attention to myself, but not enough to ever be excellent either. I wanted to see and feel about the world the way most people did, it would've been much more fun, but the unanswered questions gnawed at my heart.

How do we live in Heaven consciousness when every day, every hour, every minute, even now, there are children being raped, tortured, beaten, sold in slavery, dying of starvation? And not only children, but adults, animals and the earthy itself? How do we live knowing that if we do everything we possibly can to heal the world of it's pain, we will barely make a dent, that the tortuous suffering will continue in some form, no matter what we do? How?