Looking back now, my path to "A Course in Miracles" probably all started in 1969 when i accepted Jesus our The almighty and Deliverer, under the influence of the Campus Crusade for Christ. However, after joining a Christian brotherhood of aspiring monks, where I was daily quizzed on how many Sort poems I had memorized and may even recite verbatim, I was totally confused by it all. Their version of reality just didn't sit well with me. I felt like a parrot of Sort poems, i always didn't even learn to understand, or metropolis crier that nobody wanted to hear. Jesus would show me more, much more.
As divine synchronicity would have it, I taken in a hallucinogen that resulted in a near death experience the day after Christmas, 1970. When i was in the black void, with only the consciousness that "I Am", George Harrison's song My Sweet The almighty began playing. That was my voice vocal skills to God, not George's! Soon a brilliant white light began appearing out of the darkness, as my soul sang "I really want to see you Lord". Then somebody started to emerge out of the light. This Holy One oscillated between strong and female. As I'd been praying to Jesus, I thought it might be him, but without a beard. I began weeping from the depths of my soul, as the Holy One divulged telepathically into my heart. I knew this Being to be merely pure love. Then it was over. I was shot back into my body, hearing the lyrics to a new song telling me "it's been a long time coming, it's going to be a long time gone. inches How true that has been.
A year later, I saw the cover of Autobiography of a Yogi. It was Paramahansa Yogananda who had come to me! Next came meeting Baba Ram Dass, who confirmed i always had not been crazy and stated that Yogananda had appeared to many young spiritual hunters on drugs. He also autographed my copy of Be Here Now. My next decade was spent being an aspiring yogi and practicing Yogananda's Self-Realization Fellowship lessons and exercises, chanting, meditating and receiving initiation into Kriya yoga. a course in miracles Yogananda's path and linage of " teachers " brought the much needed clarity for me to understand Jesus and Christianity better. Yogananda also showed me the primary truth behind the oneness of all made use of. And he brought me to Babaji, the Mahavatar who sent him to America back in the 1920s. Ever since I heard the name Babaji, I knew I knew Him. He and Jesus work together, behind the scenes, in the cosmic scheme of things. And Babaji was to be the next step in my ongoing spiritual advancement. However, I did so not know at this point which he had expected described a body again and was moving into the miscroscopic community of Haidakhan, in northern Of india. That would come later, along with the mystery and fable of this current manifestation.
After hearing Bhagavan Das train my voice, I purchased this breadmaker a dotara and began chanting mantras to God daily. This simple, ancient two- stringed instrument is easy to play and lets one follow the drone sound into silence. At this point, I purchased my own place in the woods and met a man who'd lived with Babaji. He conducted a Vedic fire ceremony that Babaji had taught him to trigger my new abode. I wondered and grilled him repeatedly, asking if this new Babaji was the same business Yogananda had written about. Yes, one and the same but lenders egos still question His true identity. Babaji's new Kriya yoga was the path of truth, simplicity and love while performing karma yoga- work : and keeping one's mind on God, through rep of the ancient concept Om Namaha Shivaya. Babaji stated that this concept alone was more powerful when compared to a thousand atomic bombs and His 1-800 number. I began at this point seriously doing japa, or the rep of the concept on 108 rudraksha beans, to get this vibration into my sub-contract consciousness. I also learned many ways to chant it on my dotara. With all of this going on, I purchased this breadmaker "A Course in Miracles" and began the daily lessons immediately. I tried to make sense of the Text but got nowhere; each word bogged me down and had to be re-read over too many times to assimilate. I was just too young, I told myself. I was thirty-three. I'd deal with this Text later, one of these days, maybe.
Then after having a year of being married, our house burns down- a real karmic fire ceremony. In the ashes, unblemished by the fire, was a photo of Babaji and His cymbals from Haidakhan. Talk about miracles! Next, was the unexpected news that we have a baby coming, after losing everything? My marriage started to dissolve quickly after i fell into twenty feet off a roof, breaking my body in twelve places. Living through death, I was put back into college for two years to be retrained, while my ex-wife and son left for the Southwest. This is when all of my abandonment issues led to extreme drinking alone. After university, I left for Of india to see Babaji's ashram, as He had already left His physical body again, and to wish for help with warring in the most spiritual country on earth. I attended the 1995 Kumbha Mela happening with ten million others and lo and catch sight of, who should appear? It was Babaji, asking me if i was having fun. Yes, but I couldn't speak to answer Him! Then he gone back into the crowd, leaving me blown away. Returning state side, I finished up following my ex- wife and son to the Southwest, where my alternative was peyote meetings with the Native Americans for many years to come. Everything I'd read and studied in the Course was evident on the medicine inside that tipi. God Is. I learned more in one night than I had in years of studying metaphysical books. But I didn't practice all I'd learned and I let my depressed ego, alcohol and abandonment issues take me closer to death's very door.