The Vanishing of Everything But Love Itself, part I

The Vanishing of Everything But Love Itself – Part 1

Since I claim to have practiced the Art of Forgiveness since 1999,  people have naturally, asked me,  ”Well…what happened in 1999?”

The following is an account of an unprecedented experience I had beginning in February of 1999, following a period of profound disenchantment with my life and the world in its entirety. Utter bleakness enveloped me in a total mental and emotional devastation that brought me to my knees in prayer. I begged God for a Real Solution. I wanted Love Itself to come to my aid!

An Answer came that went beyond religion, beyond everything I had tried and exhausted. I had tried relationships, material success, artistic fulfillment, deep involvement in my faith (Baha’i) and a vast array of self-help, psychological and spiritual cures. I knew I needed something that far exceeded the narrow limits of my own machinations.

Little did I know that I was asking for far to little, even though, at the time, I felt I was praying for a great thing. I did not understand that I was asking for my disenchantment, my depression, my frustration, my ego and with them–the world itself –to vanish.

My prayer went something like: “God, I don’t know what I need, I can’t do this by myself, I need your power, I just want you…and on, and on, desperately, like that.” This prayer was recited mostly on the floor, vigorously for weeks.    

After a succession of events that led up to the magnificent event described in this article, I received the Answer to my prayer. Here’s what happened:

It’s 6:00 am and I’m standing in the Continental Check-in line at San Francisco International Airport. I feel a sense of wonderment curiously laced with nonchalance. This is going to be no ordinary plane ride.
From somewhere else in another line down the terminal, a caged rooster crows, “Time to wake up!” Strange thing: a rooster in the airport. But I know the rooster and its crowing are just for me. Spirit is speaking directly to me through everything around me and, for once, I am hearing the language that I’ve longed to hear since I became aware of its absence.

“You are about to come to full awakening.”, the Voice says. This is not an imagined voice. It is certain and spoken clearly– somehow without sound or timbre.

I take my window seat on the plane. Seat B and C are taken by an older couple. The wife is nagging her husband. He is apparently ill and I get the sense that they have just visited a medical center regarding his illness. I glance over at the man who is sitting next to me. The glance becomes a gaze. “Hello”, I say. “It’s nice to see you.” And although I’ve never seen him before, he seems utterly familiar to me.

His eyes have a timeless, holy light in them, which belies his ordinary human disguise. He gives me a tiny smile of recognition. His pant leg is touching mine. Yet, I do not mind. Instead I’m aware that our physical proximity is a necessary facilitation for what is occurring in another dimension. My light body has become an energetic channel seemingly having its own will and purpose: the reclamation of projected thought. Energetic whorls spiral from my midsection into the man seated next to me and seem to be clearing out old ideas about his identity as a sick old man. I soon forget to think of him in this way.

I glance over at his wife. She does not smile. She has noticed that her husband’s pant leg overlapping mine. Still, her eyes, too, have a deep timelessness to them. They seem to glow. As I glance across the aisle and behind me, I notice that everyone’s eyes appear this way.

“Don’t sit so close to people. You’re bothering her!”, the wife nags.

“That’s all right”, I hear myself say in a soft, courteous voice. “It’s not bothering me.”

The energy spirals continue of their own accord to clean out my historical images– this time, of the wife. I watch while thoughts of: old woman with a sick husband who nags and lives a dreary existence, disappear into me. A whole ethereal happening is superimposed upon the surface of our verbal exchange.

A moment later, the three of us relax. Apparently, the clearing has come to completion in our joint release from the past. Gifts of a different order have been given through me and I have similarly received through these two souls. There is a quiet, tangible bond that now exists here, though it would be inappropriate to speak of it. Indeed, it requires no verbal communication to be understood.

The aircraft taxis down the runway and lifts off. As I climb higher through pink- shadowed cumulus clouds, I have the uncanny sensation that I am climbing into Heaven itself: it’s something like hearing exquisitely beautiful music with my whole body.

“Your assignment with these two is complete. You’ll be moving to the back of the plane now.” The Voice directs.

“Excuse me,” I say to my two traveling companions. “I’ll be changing seats now. Feel free to take the window seat. I won’t be returning to it.” I get up and move past them. I walk down the aisle to the very last row.

There is a young, blond woman in business attire seated there. She’s napping. I drop into the seat beside her and the energetic whorls become activated. “Over-privileged, too-attractive-for-her-own-good career girl.” I hear my old ideas about who I think this young woman is. They flow back into me via these fibers of energy that circulate between us as she naps.

As my thoughts empty and the whorling subsides, she suddenly jolts awake and looks around her. She is initially annoyed that someone has infringed upon her space by taking the vacant seat next to her. “Wow, you sure woke up!”, I say. “Do you remember me?” I ask her, smiling.

She looks perplexed. “Do I know you?” she asks.

“Not from here, no.” She stares at me.

“From…?”

I smile again. “From before either of us got here, remember?” I do not wonder if she thinks I am a kook. She understands me perfectly. We speak as dear friends; we both are elevated by our meeting.

I am instructed again to move to another seat. “You will meet a Friend of God. Start heading towards the forward rows. I find my new traveling companion who looks up at me and smiles as I take the empty seat next to her.

“Hi there.” We both smile. There don’t seem to be any words of explanation. We both know why we have come together. She begins to sing a chant into my ear. Simultaneously, in the other ear, the loudspeaker comes on as the grating voice of the stewardess announces landing information. The gentle Hindu chant being sung in one ear and the jarring voice of the stewardess in the other, produces the effect of my awareness being split, opened somehow. A see a golden light, a kind of elixir flowing down over my crown and forehead. I sense that this is a gift, an essential bestowal for what is about to occur.

The Voice informs me that time is about to speed up. I do not yet know that time will go so fast that material reality– everything–is about to vanish. Conversely, I feel slower, calm, completely quiet inside.

(the astonishing story continues… proceed to part two)

The Vanishing of Everything But Love, part II