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
About Love: Part Two
Upon deplaning, I cross through the arrival gates. While crossing through the first doorway, an energetic veil strips away from my perceptual field. Everything pops into a bright and vibrating luminosity, the very molecules appear to be moving faster. I scarcely have time to notice this, when I passed through the next gate. A second veil strips away. Bloooop!
Suddenly, I’m standing in an ocean of light! Everything, including my body, has blown to light. Waving lines of energy are emanating from the horizon in all directions and flowing towards me and through me then rolling up behind me like waves on the shore. There are no separate objects, no names. My thoughts have ceased I am pure experience, pure being. All is unified, connected in waving flows of energy, ecstatic, alive.
No matter which direction I turn my head rolling up of the waves is always behind me. This phenomenon seems to relate to the flow of eternity, as though time itself is rolling up behind me. I have no memory. There’s no link between each moment and the next, each a total NOW. Each thought is a total communication that speaks to me of the Divine.
“I” had disappeared. There was only this profound, unspeakable Love…Supreme Bliss…God
“For when the true lover and devoted friend reacheth to the presence of the Beloved, the sparkling beauty of the Loved One and the fire of the lover’s heart will kindle a blaze and burn away all veils and wrappings. Yea, all he hath, from heart to skin, will be set aflame, so that nothing will remain save the Friend..
Ecstasy alone can encompass this theme, not utterance nor argument; and whosoever hath dwelt at this stage of the journey, or caught a breath from this garden land, knoweth whereof We speak.”
(Baha’u’llah, The Seven Valleys, p. 35 & 39)
I see that “I” do not exist and, in fact, “I” never have. It has always been this…this Totality. This is the biggest deal of all, and paradoxically, because this feels so natural… it’s no big deal!
And then “I” have a thought: “One would have to exercise a great deal of sobriety to sustain such an experience.” Whoops. The following thought: “That’s the floor”..and then “Oh, yeah..that’s an escalator… that’s…an arm”, and then the whole world arises again in place of the undulating, vibrant cosmic sea..
“This must have been how I “made” the world in the first place.”, I realize.
I sit down. Something stupendous has just happened to me. This was an unmistakable experience of God. This was orders of magnitude more than I had prayed for! I have been taken by Grace into a state without time, without historical reference, a vanishing of everything but Love itself. I am forever changed.
I look around me. Although I am aware of the people and airport happenings, I still can’t see normally…my eyes are effervescent with light. I feel –within and without– intensely illuminate.
A kindly, middle-aged couple appears at my side and guides me down the escalator towards the baggage claim. It’s as if they know I need a seeing-eye dog. They happily chatter away and take me right to my bag on the carousel.
There is a certain comedic tone to the communication I am witnessing. A brightly lit confirmation and elucidation of my experience springs into existence before me. There, at the bottom of the escalator, is a gigantic sign, hugely lettered, that reads: “Knowledge of God”. Coincidentally, some book venders had set up a stall to sell some kind of religious books in the terminal. I can almost hear a Calliope playing humorously behind the scenes.
As I stand outside the terminal, waiting for the shuttle to take me back to my parked car, I’m struck by the supreme orchestration of occurrences that led me to this singularly significant moment.
I had prayed for a miracle. I had become completely devastated to find that I couldn’t seem to realize the promises being outlined in the Baha’i Writings. I had asked God to either end my life immediately or bring me a total solution.
As His unmistakable answer, I was astonished to find a thick volume in my hands: A Course in Miracles. I was invited to “A Teachers of God Reunion” in San Francisco in the spring of 1999 where I met highly skilled practitioners of the Course. There I was introduced to the ways of healing love through Singular Illuminate Mind and the principle of the Atonement as outlined in the Course (ACIM).
From the Introduction:
“This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it 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.” (A Course in Miracles, Introduction)
I have been practicing the Art of Forgiveness ever since.
Mercy Unalloyed to you. – Oraea
Note: The content of this article is based solely on the author’s experience and is not intended to represent any official Baha’i Viewpoint.
The Polished Mirror
Your heart can be likened to a mirror. When it is clouded up with the dust of self-centered desires, it is like turning your mirror towards a landfill…the county dump. You will reflect worthless trash. Your thoughts will be filled with meaningless distractions and you will attract unworthy elements to yourself because like attracts like. On the other hand, the more you turn your mirror towards the light, towards heavenly attributes and qualities, the more you will begin to attract happiness, joy and find real and lasting fulfillment in your life.
“One thing and only one thing will unfailingly and alone secure the undoubted triumph of this sacred Cause, namely, the extent to which our own inner life and private character mirror forth in their manifold aspects the splendor of those eternal principles proclaimed by Baha’u’llah.” – Shoghi Effendi, Baha’i Administration, p 66)
These eternal principles are the same as those put forth by all the great saints and masters. They are the same principles that Jesus taught in his Sermon on the Mount. These Divinely charged principles, faithfully practiced, change the very fabric of existence because of their power.
We can greatly accelerate our mirror polishing by focusing on one, key Divine principle. The Principle of loving our enemies as friends. Really. Sounds nice in theory, but how does loving one’s enemy polish the mirror any faster than say, regular prayer, giving to the poor or being a person of high morals?
The principle of “turning the other cheek” when your first response would be to “hit back”, is what all the other principles lead you towards. It is an exquisite art to forgive your enemy.
“”…ye must show forth tenderness and love to every human being, even to your enemies, and welcome them all with unalloyed friendship, good cheer, and loving-kindness. When ye meet with cruelty and persecution at another’s hands, keep faith with him; when malevolence is directed your way, respond with a friendly heart. To the spears and arrows rained upon you, expose your breasts for a target mirror-bright; and in return for curses, taunts and wounding words, show forth abounding love.” (Abdu’l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, p. 20)
The act of returning kindness for cruelty is at the heart of all successful revolutions. You can revolutionize your life, polish the mirror of your heart and step into the ministry that only you can perform and must perform by practicing this radical and exquisite art: the art of forgiveness.
“Thus will all peoples witness the power of the Most Great Name, and every nation acknowledge the might of the Ancient Beauty, and see how He hath toppled down the walls of discord, and how surely He hath guided all the peoples of the earth to oneness; how He hath lit man’s world, and made this earth of dust to send forth streams of light.” (Abdu’l-Baha, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Baha, p. 20)
When an unexpected miracle of forgiveness occurs, a spot of dust is erased from your mirror. A light is uncovered. Do this enough and soon you’re nice and shiny. Then will your Polished Mirror reflect the Sun of the Divine…and not a garbage dump.
~ D.Oraea Varis
Note: The ideas expressed herein are based solely upon the author’s experiences and do not seek to represent any official Baha’i viewpoint.
The Dawning of a New Light in You
A new light is dawning upon the soul of man. Can you feel it? Perhaps you notice that things are becoming more dire and at the same time there is an awakening, a stirring of some latent awareness. It’s the dawning of a new light in you.
As this light grows stronger, it will cast a deeper shadow. This is reflected in the situations and circumstances that seem to be outside of you. Before you lament over an imminent crisis, a terrible threat of disaster, and a hopeless state of affairs, think on this: you are the Cause of this world.
Now you can do something about it. As we explore the Causation of the world, we can determine that you are also the Cause of the Most Great Peace. If you assume responsibility for the errors of thought that cover its unveiling, you can begin to release the worlds Great Light, to illumine the world of humanity through your own illumination.
Fly free, in an endless sky of boundless Love.
