09.24.07
Wandering Through Space by Margaret Karmazin
I dropped to my knees in the bathroom, blubbering and pleading with
God to forgive me. I was sixteen and had been entertaining
blasphemous thoughts. What if Jesus
really wasn’t the son of God? What if everything the church says is wrong?
The Methodist church my family attended every Sunday had begun to cramp my style. As president of Youth Fellowship, I’d taken it upon myself to educate my fellow youth and Sunday evenings presented lessons on different religions. We’d covered Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism and were heading for more. I had wearied of
Protestantism. The Catholic girls in my neighborhood pinned kleenex on their heads and looked pious and sure of their salvation. Catholicism seemed so neatly tied up and romantic. There was nothing romantic about Methodists. The church ladies had wobbly fat arms and the men snored quietly during the sermons. They were hypocrites when
a hobo wandered in one day to sit at the back; he stank, he was dirty, what was he doing there? I saw then that whatever Jesus said in the Bible had little to do with actual application by churchgoers. (stage three awakenings here)
Being an avid reader of science fiction, this occurred to me: if the universe is out there, huge beyond our imaginings and teeming with stars, undoubtedly there are other planets supporting intelligent life, possibly billions of them. On many of those planets might be
huge civilizations, some having moved out to other stars, populating whole sections of space. Each of those civilizations of humanlike or almost humanlike beings would likely have religions at some stage of their development. Like our own, they might have several different religions each, might even war over them as we do. It is highly unlikely that any of these faiths would be Christian, Jewish or Muslim. If another planet has an historical person who claimed to come directly from a monotheistic deity, it is unlikely that
individual would be Jesus. Even, by a stretch, suppose it was Jesus, only of course in the guise of that species’ own physical type, it’s unlikely any of their resulting religions would stack up with the same dogma, rules and regulations as earthly Christianity. And
certainly not as any particular branch of Christianity such as Roman Catholics, Episcopalians or Jehovah Witnesses. In the vast reaches of space, any little brand of religion, proclaiming its way was the right and only one to heaven was beyond ridiculous. (Stage three reasoning!)
All the silly rules people follow here - no meat on Friday, sin if you miss church, kosher food in today’s world, not shaking a woman’s hand, making women worship in a different place from the men and cover themselves in sacks, telling people how many children they
should have, it’s all pathetic, useless nonsense. (has surpassed the stage two need for such rules) Why not stand on your head five times a day, draw blue circles on your chin, only eat yellow fruit on Tuesdays too? I wondered how anyone with an IQ over
a hundred could fall for any of it. I still do.
However, though one’s mind may run in such twirls of thought, one’s emotions may not immediately follow. The wages of being raised Christian are entrenched guilt and hatred of self. Hence my teenage terror in the bathroom. What would I do now? I wondered. Was I falling off a cliff? Who could I talk to? Would God still love me? Assuming there was a God.
Eventually, I got over it. At college there were many who had parted ways with churches, and so it was comfy to think for oneself. I began to remember something I had pushed to the back of my mind, an astounding incident that had occurred when I was five years old. I’d been playing by myself, sitting in the grass in the front yard of our house. Suddenly, I had a flash of what I now call “cosmic consciousness.” For a split second, my self as I knew it disappeared and was replaced by a huge consciousness, a mind as vast as the
universe. I understood everything that exists. It was far beyond description in words. I must have been staring at a blade of grass, for I suddenly knew that it and everything else was all of the same substance, that the grass, like all things, was a temporary construct inside this Mind. The flash ended and I ran to the house to tell my mother that I “understood everything in the universe,” and amazingly, she knew what I meant for she too had experiences such flashes.
Recalling that, I knew why I could never be constrained by religion. Once you had glimpsed eternity, how could you ever crawl back into a box? (stage four concepts)
I noticed an ad in a magazine. It showed a figure sitting in the lotus position with a beam of light extending from his head to the starry sky with the words “cosmic consciousness.” I thought YES! This is IT! The ad was put out by the Rosicrucians. Eventually, I
met a married couple who were members and joined myself. The whole deal was rather hokey, almost embarrassing to admit being associated with, but in fact, the weekly lessons were quite good. They consisted of a ponderously slow instruction in various esoteric
practices, such as energy healing, understanding manifestation and controlling matter with your mind. I enjoyed some mildly exciting successes, but especially enjoyed my friendship with the Rosicrucian couple. Together we read and studied the Seth books, other channeled information, various spiritual paths, reincarnation and healing.
With them, I witnessed regressions to past lives and visited a medium.
Over the years, I delved into writings on reincarnation, such as Ian Stevenson’s Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, Edgar Cayce’s readings, and any book on the subject I could borrow or buy. After-death contact fascinated me and I read Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death (Studies in Human Consciousness) by Frederic
Myers in its original form written in the late 1800s. That just whetted my appetite and I read anything more I could obtain on after death contact, near death experiences, shared apparitions at death, etc. I liked the scientific approach best, studies performed by
paranormal scientists, especially at Duke University. Eventually, I got up the nerve to be hypnotically regressed myself and experienced several visits to possible past lives, following up with some limited research of my own, which proved interesting. I had gone to Africa in the Peace Corps and found it familiar, later was told by the medium I had come over as a slave. All of these studies worked together to form my personal ideas of how karma might work, how the soul might choose where it goes in each life and with whom it will spend time for soul lessons.
For a short time, I dabbled in Wicca. This was my feminist phase, a strengthening of my sense of female power. The stage didn’t last, because Wicca too had rules which seemed silly after a while, but during my time with it, I learned to focus a bit more and direct my
will. Now books such as The Secret and What The Bleep Do We Know? describe this procedure as if it is something new.
When the New Age movement hit popular consciousness, I joined groups in which we read and discussed writings by Deepak Chopra, Barbara Marciniak, Wayne Dyer and other New Age authors. I wasn’t completely sold on everything promoted by these books. The channeled books were somewhat ridiculous and often contradicted each other. (obviously a truth-seeker, unafraid of having current beliefs proved wrong) While my belief in reincarnation and the ongoing life of the soul after death was strong, I grew disillusioned with New Age groups in general. As in most groups, egos vied for dominance and power, people subtly and not so subtly put down others and if you didn’t follow the party line, they treated you as a pariah.
One day Oprah had Marianne Williamson as her guest. Marianne was promoting her book, A Return to Love. I was very touched and actually cried. I bought the book and was moved even more. A Return to Love was an introduction to A Course in Miracles. An acquaintance had been suggesting that I study the Course, but I hadn’t been
ready. Now I was. From my first contact with it, I knew that the Course was my personal path. This was in 1993 and fourteen years later, I have not wavered from feeling that A Course in Miracles is the most perfect and intelligent view of reality and our place in it
that has ever been written. From the first line in the text, I felt that someone was speaking to me intimately and as a powerful, creative being. This was so far from the way organized religion and all of its “sacred” writings dealt with followers, as if they were
children or sheep. The Course does not talk down to the reader. On the contrary, one comes away from it awed, and while I have not yet achieved what it calls The Holy Instant unless that is the same as my moment of cosmic consciousness, I have no doubt such an experience exists and that some people have experienced it. Eckert Tolle, for one.
I am now on my fourth reading of the Course. It takes me about a year or more to read the text, the same for the workbook and a month or so for the teacher’s manual. Every time I read the Course, I see things that I missed before. I am open to other spiritual writings and enjoy reading paranormal subjects for pleasure. It is possible that someday I might find a spiritual study or path I prefer to the Course and that is okay. But for now, it’s the Course. I’ve come a long way from that terrified teenager crying in the bathroom, afraid of having offended God.
My goal now is to achieve that Holy Instant and to see in my fellow humans only their reaching for heaven and become blind to their petty machinations in hell. (mystic and communal aspects of Stage four) Before I leave this particular life, may I witness that, if only for a second.
Note from MPJ: I have not yet read A Course in Miracles, so I am not familiar with its concepts, but this person sounds like a Stage four to me - as you can see, she passed beyond the Stage two organized religion in her teen years, went through a period of rejecting organized religion which would have been a Stage three time, except that part is not real clearly brought out here and she was all the while still seeking further truth. It sounds like she still seeking, and all along is also experiencing mysteries of the Stage four type. I personally had a hard time seeing the stages in this story until the author herself provided the insight she offered herself which appears below. Especially important are the last few sentences which I have hightlighted in bold:
> I’m so glad to hear from you! I just read a crash course on line of
> Ken Wilber and more Scott Peck. I’d read his stages a few years ago.
> I see where you might have trouble with my submission as it might not
> follow the stages in perfect order, especially since I had that flash
> of cosmic consciousness at around 5 years old. My take on it is that
> all of Creation is in the Mind of God, including his Son (us, and by
> “us”, I mean the separated ones, which would include all projected
> beings all over this universe and others and in all of their
> dimensions and levels) and while all of this is indeed a projection/
> illusion of the collective Son’s mind and occurs all at once, within
> in it there appears to exist time and this includes the recycling of
> “souls.” (i.e. bits of the collective consciousness that believes
> itself to be separated into parts). Hence, a soul does not lose its
> spiritual advancement at death but carries it to other lives, not
> necessarily in perfect order on the “time line”. It follows then,
> that a soul can be born into a baby body (or project into the grand
> illusion as such) and quickly, as soon as it can gather its wits,
> return to its movement through spiritual progression. It might slide
> back and forth from glimpses of its former level in another “life” to
> Stage I and Stage II in childhood, but its underlying character is
> advanced beyond this. Anyway, it’s a thought.
Diane said,
April 26, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Margaret, I am so sorry for your boredom and “cramped style” within your parent’s church. When you really have Jesus as you Lord and Savior, you will experience excitement everyday. God will take you into this world in ways you could never imagine. Fellowship with Jesus and receive joy in your life. Of course, not all will be”good, according to a worldly definition”. But in everything God works to the good for those who trust and know Him. He is forever faithful and never will forsake us. I know that you have heard all this before but I do know for certain that you have never “knowingly experienced the joy of God” in your daily life. Why not ask Jesus into your life and learn of Him and from Him? You are so eager to delve into other beliefs. Why not try God again? Why not accept Jesus, the greatest gift man has ever received? Please give God another try. With Him you will have everything you will ever need. You will know love without end and you WILL be satisfied. And that is a promise. Prayerfully yours in Christ, Diane
Margaret Karmazin said,
June 29, 2008 at 10:12 am
Diane, you’re clearly in Stage II, which is fine, but as one of the philosophers referred to on this website mentioned, it is almost impossible for someone in any of the stages to understand the other stages. I never said I don’t believe in God, but my idea of what God is, is probably different and wider than your version. When you say I have “never knowingly experienced the joy of God” in my daily life, apparently, you didn’t understand my description of what I experienced when I had the flash of what I call Cosmic Consciousness. That was so wonderful and blissful, that I recently told my husband if a person had the chance to reexperience that but had to give up all his worldly goods, he would probably still jump at the chance.