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... Along the Path
In the last Ramala Newsletter,
published in September 2002, I included the first chapter of the
book that I have been writing, entitled 'Full Circle - The Story
of one Man's Journey from God to God'. That chapter was called
'First Steps………...' I now publish the second chapter, '………Along
The Path ', for which many of you have been asking. If you have
not read the first chapter, then, I would suggest that you do so
now, by reading it in the September 2002 newsletter. I am just
sorry that a year has sped by between the publication of the
chapters, which makes the continuity process a little difficult.
Many factors have conspired to delay the completion of this book,
but I hope that it will see the light of day in 2004. 2003 has
proved to be a testing year for many of us and, for me personally,
has brought about many changes.
This chapter embraces a time
span that begins in the spring of 1970 and ends in the spring of
1993, the time of my first interview with Sri Sathya Sai Baba, and
so encompasses twenty-three years of spiritual growth and enquiry.
I have therefore tried to encapsulate in just a few pages almost
a quarter of a century of spiritual questing and growth. So many
events have taken place in my life that have been nothing short of
miraculous, so many happenings have impelled me to look beyond the
established boundaries of religion and science, that they would
form an entire book in their own right. Perhaps I will write it
one day. Of one thing I am sure, namely, that an unseen hand has
been guiding and protecting me ever since I took my first step
along the path to the Godhead. There has been so much divine
synchronicity in my life that I have never for one moment doubted
the existence of a Higher Force even if I did not know Its name or
Its form. So I have selected the events to be included in this
chapter solely on the basis of providing you, the reader, with
sufficient information to understand where I stood spiritually
when I first came to hear about Sai Baba and why I felt the need
to reject him so strongly in the beginning. I was a walking
example, as Sai Baba says, of too much information and not enough
transformation!
….…ALONG THE PATH
Within a very short time,
a matter of months not years, we both knew that we had done the
right thing - in fact we wondered why we had waited for so long to
get married. Our marriage was a living proof of the statement
"Seek you first the things of the spirit and all else will be
added unto you". We had come together for reasons of the spirit,
not of the physical, and because everything was correct on the
spiritual level, then all the levels below it automatically fell
into place. Ann often uses the analogy of buttoning up a shirt to
describe this fact. If you do up the top button of a shirt
correctly then all the other buttons below it automatically fall
into place, but if the top button is done up wrongly then no
matter what you do all the other buttons are inevitably wrong.
Now that is not to say that we did not have personality
conflicts, that we did not have tests to face, but that because
our commitment was there on the spiritual level, then, all of our
marital problems were soon resolved. Ann gave up her career and
her well paid job in New York and resigned herself to the
unfamiliar role of being a wife and a mother. I became the family
breadwinner through my job as an airline pilot. We settled into
the familiar routine of married life which young couples follow
all over the world, but with one significant exception. We
actively pursued a spiritual life.
Almost from the very
first days of our marriage Ann and I used to meditate together and
to discuss a wide range of spiritual matters on a regular basis.
We attended lectures by well-known spiritual teachers and read a
wide variety of esoteric books. Ann had been to spiritual
development classes with Dorothy Smith in the USA and had become
quite psychic. She was even beginning to channel her own guide,
Omar Khayyam, and to have visions. After the birth of our first
child, in the year following our marriage, Ann's mother came to
live with us for a few months, not just to help Ann with the new
baby but also to provide company and baby-sitting relief for her,
whilst I was away from home on airline duties, sometimes for trips
of ten or more days. The three of us used to meditate together
whenever I was home. Now Ann's mother, who was born and raised in
the USA, not only was very psychic but was also a good
psychometrist as well, that is to say she could hold an object
such as a watch or a ring, and by attuning to it she would receive
psychic impressions regarding the owner of the object. She was
particularly accurate with me and made several startling
predictions which all came true. Under her and Ann's gentle
guidance I had now become quite receptive to many so-called New
Age ideas, especially to the development and expression of psychic
talents. Having witnessed Dorothy Smith in operation and been the
recipient of the benefits of her channellings I was now a firm
believer in the human ability to communicate with other levels of
life. As I sat in meditation I began to feel a heightened sense
of awareness and to have short out of the body experiences. I was
especially aware of a tingling feeling all over my face and Ann
and her mother could see that my face was being transfigured and
that an oriental face was appearing in place of mine. They were
aware, having been to mediums and experienced the phenomenon
before on several occasions, of just what was happening to me.
They told me that a spirit being was overshadowing me, who
obviously wanted to talk through me, and that I should just relax
and let the process take place quite naturally. I resisted this
idea most strongly and blocked the process for many months.
Eventually though, one day, when Ann's mother could see the face
of the being overshadowing me very clearly, she quietly said
"Hello, who are you?" and before my personality resistance could
stop anything I was aware of my voice saying "Good evening. I am
Zen Tao, the guide of this instrument, and I am happy to be in
your midst." That was the start of a process that was to go on
for almost twenty years.
Channelling, being a
medium, call it what you may, came quite naturally to me. It was
not something that I sought. It sought me. In one sense I was a
reluctant medium, because I was never really completely happy with
the channelling process, if only because I was always very
conscious of the fact that I was still totally responsible for
everything that came through me. If I misled anyone, then, the
karma for that was all mine. I firmly believe that there is no
greater God than Truth. I have always been a seeker of Truth and
for me personally the greatest evil that any one can do is to
mislead someone in the name of Truth, is to advocate spiritual
teachings that are untrue. During the period of my mediumship I
channelled hundreds of teachings on a wide variety of spiritual
subjects and gave personal counselling sessions to the many
individuals who all came to me searching for answers to the
problems in their lives. At all times I was very aware of my
responsibilities towards them and of the karma that would be
created if I acted inappropriately. I was very conscious of the
fact that what I said could influence their lives in so many ways.
To this end I have never charged a fee for any lecture or
channelling that I have given, believing it to be a gift from God.
As a matter of interest, the beings on the higher planes of life
that spoke through me insisted on this course of action right from
the very beginning. I was also very conscious of the fact that
the source of the channellings was not God per se. The beings
that spoke through me simply identified themselves as spiritual
Masters belonging to the White Brotherhood and said that they
taught only from the perspective of having walked a little further
along the Path of Life than most of the souls on the Earth.
The channelling process
for me was quite automatic. It was not something that I had to
learn. It was just like turning on a tap and the wisdom flowed.
The Masters who gave the teachings said that I had been preparing
for this incarnation for many lives and that I had been a channel
in many past lives. Be that as it may, within a few weeks of the
channelling process starting I was receiving the lectures that
were to form the basis for the first book of teachings that I
published - The Revelation of Ramala - in 1978. The book was
published anonymously, as indeed were all of the Ramala books,
firstly, because I recognised that the teachings were not mine,
they only came through me, they were not of me and, secondly,
because I, the channel, was not important in this process. I was
just the funnel for the teachings. What was important was the
teachings, which had to stand or fall on their own merits. Right
from the very beginning, though, it was apparent that the Ramala
teachings struck a chord in many people. I used to channel the
teachings whilst sitting in meditation. I was what was called a
mental medium as opposed to a trance medium and was conscious
throughout the whole process. I was never in trance, as had been
the case with Dorothy Smith. The overshadowing being would just
use my voice box to give a talk. This talk would be recorded on a
tape recorder, to be transcribed later and then published in a
booklet form. The demand for them grew in leaps and bounds and
Ann and I were soon forced to produce a small monthly newssheet.
Eventually the demand outgrew this time-consuming form of
communication and so we decided to publish the teachings in a book
form, which would be both self-financing and self-distributing.
Up to that time we had financed everything ourselves and had made
no charge for the newssheets that we printed. We chose the name
Ramala because it was the common part of the spiritual names that
had been given to us on our wedding day by Master Light and so the
Ramala Society came into being. It was to be, or so the Ramala
Teachers said, A School on Earth teaching the Truth of the
Heavens. The Ramala teachings covered almost every facet of human
existence ranging from esoteric subjects like the spiritual
significance of the Earth and its place in the cosmos, down
through the purpose and the meaning of birth and death,
reincarnation and the Law of Karma to right living, correct eating
and drinking, marriage and divorce and the raising of children.
Advice was given on almost every aspect of human existence and
after a lecture had been given Ann and those present at the
channelling would indulge in a lively question and answer session
on a variety of subjects.
In 1975, following
guidance from the Ramala teachers, we moved to Glastonbury,
Somerset, in England, the ancient Isle of Avalon, of King Arthur
fame. We bought the old manor house there, which we converted
into a guesthouse and operated as a spiritual retreat centre. It
was to be our home for the next twenty-two years. The Ramala
Society became The Ramala Centre and our real work began. The
Ramala Centre was run by a small community of mostly young people,
who helped us with the day-to-day business of running the Centre
and caring for the many guests that streamed through the house.
We used to have around 2000 paying guests a year, staying with us
on a Bed and Breakfast basis, and twice that number of day
visitors. They all came to enjoy the spiritual energy of the
Centre, to read and listen to the Ramala teachings, to join in our
regular meditations and channellings, to borrow books from our
library and to watch videos on a variety of spiritual topics.
They also came to visit the sacred sites of Glastonbury. Ann
used to give guided tours around the area, which included the Tor,
Chalice Well and the Abbey, which, incidentally, was the site of
the first above ground Christian church in the world. We built a
beautiful pine sanctuary, the Sanctuary of the Holy Grail, and we
embarked on a programme of courses and workshops as well as
travelling all over the country and abroad to share the Ramala
point of consciousness. We were busy people. I had a full time
job as an airline pilot. Ann was raising a family of three active
children. We both were running a bed and breakfast business and,
if that was not enough, we felt duty bound to talk to almost every
guest who came through our front door. We became a focus of
pilgrimage for many people. We never advertised. People came to
us solely on personal recommendation or through reading one of our
books. We worked long gruelling days and Ann, of necessity,
carried most of the burden of running the house because I was
always departing on my airline duties. It was a good job that we
were young, healthy and energetic people. Nevertheless, although
we gave a great deal of ourselves, the people who came to stay
with us gave just as much of themselves in return. A wonderful
exchange of energy took place.
Many of the leading
lights of the New Age movement came and stayed with us. Although
we were too busy to go and hear them talk in London, at some big
conference or other, they somehow managed to come down to
Glastonbury to stay with us, if only because they wanted to
experience the energy of this ancient power centre which is held
to be amongst the most powerful on the Earth. We were exposed to
almost every spiritual philosophy and esoteric understanding that
is practised in the world today. This gave us a wonderful
perspective on life, increased our powers of discrimination and
exposed us to the wonderful variety and colour of some of the many
paths to the Godhead. At the same time as all of this was going
on we were continuing with the Ramala teachings. Channellings
were being held regularly each week, with hundreds of thousands of
words being transcribed and disseminated. Two more books were
produced - The Wisdom of Ramala in 1986 and The Vision of Ramala
in 1991 - and were reprinted over and over again. The Ramala
teachings were translated and published in five foreign languages.
Ann and I were continually travelling, giving talks and
presentations, speaking at conferences both in England and abroad.
We ranged from Alaska, USA, to Amsterdam, Holland and from
Sydney, Australia to Antigua in the West Indies. As the work of
the Ramala Centre expanded, so it took up more and more of our
time. We had to employ people to run the Ramala office and shop,
to answer the mail, to send out books and to run the Centre when
we were away.
I was always conscious of the
fact that I was forever wearing two hats, that of an airline
captain flying a Boeing 747 all over the world and that of a
mystic and a spiritual teacher. My two worlds never met. It
gradually became apparent to me that I couldn't go on living this
way. Ann had a vision one night of me standing with one foot on a
boat and the other on a dock with the boat slowly drifting away
and with me doing the splits trying to stay in both places. I got
the message but I wasn't prepared to give up either world! Then,
in 1984, the company that I worked for offered some of its senior
pilots, including me, early retirement with a golden handshake.
The moment of truth had come. I didn't want to give up the
flying, which I enjoyed with a passion, but on the other hand Ann
quite rightly pointed out to me that if I didn't, then, we would
have to give up the Centre because she could no longer run it
single-handedly. The workload and the responsibility were
becoming just too great. I agonised over the decision.
Retirement would mean a big reduction in our income. Could we
survive on this income and maintain our present lifestyle and fund
all our spiritual work as well? I asked the Ramala teachers for
help, but all that they would say was that it was for me to
choose. They suggested that I should ask myself why I was in
incarnation on the Earth at this time and how I could best serve
Humanity. Then my mind went back to our wedding and to the leap
of faith that I had taken in agreeing to an arranged marriage, in
fact, to a spiritually arranged marriage. I did not need to
remind myself how blessed we had been, how everything had worked
out so perfectly. I remembered the saying 'Seek you first the
things of the spirit and all else will be added unto you'. I took
the early retirement and decided to devote my life to running the
Ramala Centre and to disseminating the teachings that came through
me. I felt that when I died I would rather be remembered as a
spiritual teacher than as an airline pilot!
It took me several years to adapt
to the change. Whereas, before retirement, flying was the primary
purpose of my life and the spiritual work was something that I did
in my spare time, now the spiritual work was my primary focus. I
had to refocus my vision on the new purpose of my life. After
spending thirty years of my life living out of a suitcase and
having breakfast in a different country practically every day of
my working life, to remain fixed in one spot did not sit easily
with me. My poor wife did not have a happy time of it. Although
I had made the decision to leave flying, and although in my heart
I felt that it was the right thing to do, I still felt cheated out
of the prime of my flying career. I missed the lifestyle, I
missed my pilot friends and I missed the challenge of flying.
However, as the workload of running the Ramala Centre and
honouring all of our many speaking engagements gradually
increased, so I had less and less time for introspection and for
feeling sorry for myself. I slowly began to appreciate not being
tied to a demanding flying roster and I enjoyed having both the
time and the space to do what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do
it. I could offer a date to give a talk and know that I would be
able to keep it. I could choose to go and visit anywhere in the
world without having to worry about getting time off work or
taking leave. There were many advantages to being retired, only
in my case, of course, I hadn't retired, I had simply changed my
job! Although we had heard about Sai Baba at this stage of our
lives we were not in the least attracted to him. Ann, in
particular, was drawing close to the Brahma Kumaris, the
practitioners of Raja Yoga. We visited their headquarters in
Mount Abu in Rajasthan in India and were very impressed by their
leaders, who were all women, and by the purity of their lifestyle.
They maintain that God is an individual soul being and is quite
separate from Humanity. They believe that God never incarnates on
the Earth and speaks to Humanity through prophets and seers. At
the time this philosophy appealed strongly to both of us.
As the years passed by I
gradually began to grow more and more uncomfortable with the whole
process of channelling. Whilst I believed in and trusted the
whole channelling process I recognised that the source of the
teachings, albeit more evolved than I, was still not God. The
Master who gave the talks was still an intermediary, offering only
his version of Truth, and the longer I relied on it, the longer it
would take for me to establish my own direct link with the Godhead
within me. Thus it was that in 1989 the channelling process
stopped, almost twenty years after it had started. For me it was
like being born again. I was able to look at life from a fresh
viewpoint, to try to contact the Godhead within me and to develop
a new source of guidance. By this time I had been out to see Sai
Baba twice and had been introduced to the spiritual understanding
that great beings known as Avatars incarnate on the Earth from
time to time. At his ashram devotees told me that Sai Baba was
the Father who had sent the Master Jesus down to Earth and that he
himself had now incarnated because the affairs of Man were in such
a perilous state. Whilst I found these facts hard to believe,
because of all my esoteric conditioning, I nevertheless determined
that I would investigate Sai Baba fully, to see if he was indeed a
Godman, if he behaved like God. Of course I didn't know what or
who God was; to me He had always been a formless and a nameless
being, but I expected that at the very least Sai Baba should
exhibit perfect human qualities and should lead a perfect human
life. The thought also occurred to me that if Sai Baba was indeed
an Avatar, then, there was no need to read any more books on
spiritual teachings other than his, to listen to any other gurus
or teachers other than him, to go searching anywhere else for
answers because the Source was here. We could get everything
straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.
So I began to investigate Sai
Baba in thought, word and deed. The more I read his teachings the
more I found not only that, for the most part, they blended
perfectly into the Ramala teachings but also that they were in
complete accord with my own understandings of life. On successive
visits to the ashram I found his public lifestyle to be beyond
reproach. He lived and demonstrated a life of total service to
all who came to him. I talked to devotees both in the ashram and
back in England and listened to the stories of their own
experiences with Sai Baba. I read about his miracles, his
healings, his manifestations and his divine qualities of
omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence. Gradually my feelings
of hostility and suspicion turned to feelings of openness and
trust. When I saw how lovingly and how wisely he handled the
other members of my family in successive interviews I sensed that
I was truly in the presence of a Godman. Whether he was an Avatar
or not, I did not know, I still do not know, if only because I do
not know who or what an Avatar is. Nevertheless, I felt that I
had met a realised being, and that he exemplified how we should
all lead our lives. It was not until our fifth visit to Sai Baba,
in 1993, that we were privileged to be granted our first interview
with him and our relationship with him moved on to a more intimate
level. Since that time Ann and I have been graced with many more
interviews and we have talked to devotees who have been close to
him for many years, yet still we are only just beginning to get a
sense of who he is and of what is his mission.
The talks in this book reflect my
inner journey. They are based on my own experiences and
observations. What is true for me may not be true for you. I
offer them to you in the earnest hope that they will help you
along your own journey to God realisation, to the realisation of
the God in you. Sai Baba has taught me that there is only one God
and that that God dwells within the heart of every human being. I
commend him to you as a great spiritual teacher. The test of any
teacher can surely only be, "How has he or she transformed me?
Has he or she helped me to become a better person, a happier, a
peaceful and a more compassionate human being?" To all these
questions I can answer a resounding "Yes". Sai Baba has changed
my life in so many ways and in such a short time. The impact of
my relationship with him will be with me not just for the rest of
this life but forever.
Once you have been touched by
divinity you will never be the same again. Once you have
experienced real love, unconditional love, divine love, you can
recognise and reject the false love born out of attachment and
desire. The only way to discover the reality of Sai Baba and the
relevance of his teachings for you is to take one step toward him.
That is why he has come on the Earth at this time. Let us not
miss this great opportunity, which, according to Sai Baba, will
never happen again. Go, see and experience him. What have you to
lose by taking that first step? Nothing but your ego! What will
you gain? Perhaps an understanding of who you really are! I
commend Sri Sathya Sai Baba to you in the certain knowledge that
if you take one step towards him he will take a hundred steps
towards you.
Source: Ramala Centre Newsletter,
September 2003,
http://www.ramalacentre.com/newsletter09_03_02.htm
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