So I had found my calling, or so I thought. I would share my newfound understanding of life – the insights and realizations that were now coming to me - with whomever would listen.
It was my first “awakening”, if you would like to call it that. It was like the curtain had begun to be pulled aside, and I was seeing the wizard behind it for the first time. Now, a funny thing happens when a person begins to see beyond the veil for the first time: they assume, at every step of the way, that they have found it. They have found the Truth. The way it really is.
Actually, I hadn’t found the Truth. Anything but. As it turns out, much of my realizations were quite distorted and far from what I would eventually come to understand. And the few people to whom I mentioned some of my epiphanies were definitely not impressed, or enthusiastic. Quite the opposite, they thought that there was something wrong with me, with my mind.
I was growing excited about my new picture of the world, and I couldn’t help but mention some of my more profound thoughts to people around me – mostly to close friends on the teaching staff, or to a friend at Murphy’s. But none of them appreciated what I was sharing with them, and the most I got was a courteous smile, maybe a gentle rolling of the eyes. Luckily, no one took me very seriously.
One of my favorite new themes during this time was my theory that human civilization had existed far longer than people believed, and that it had all but destroyed itself many times. I saw that there was an ancient battle being fought by the forces of light and darkness. I saw a cycle of rise and fall, and each fall was followed by thousands of years during which humanity reverted back to its simplest form. There were climate changes, natural disasters, all intended to reduce man to its naked self and ready him for the next cycle.
I saw parallels to this in my own experience – the cycle of light and dark that I spoke of previously, and the period of darkness that must always precede a new dawn. I began to see that the human race was on a precipice of sorts, poised for either another period of darkness or for something completely new and unprecedented - the golden age that we’ve been hearing and dreaming about (or cynically dismissing) for countless years.
I was excited. I finally understood what was going on.
I found myself being drawn to some of the New Age materials that spoke of the “ascension” that was supposedly taking place. According to some theories, the human race was about to crumble, and those who were ready for the next level of consciousness would “ascend” somehow, leaving behind those not yet ready to do so.
There were many theories as to what this ascension would look like. Some people believed that there were aliens or spiritual beings existing at a higher vibration that would bring us into their ships and keep us safe while the Earth experienced cataclysmic changes. Then, when the changes were complete and the Earth was once again inhabitable, the ascended beings would return to Earth and usher in the New Age, a period of peace on Earth.
This may sound odd or farfetched to many of you, but I assure you that the people advocating such ideas were extremely intelligent, articulate people. They were not insane. This was their perception, and it was quite real to them. I read such materials with interest because I was looking for some way to explain the changes that were happening within me. I felt myself transforming in intense and unexplainable ways, and the idea of ascension seemed to explain it far better than anything else I had come across.
All the signs were there: the increasing violence and terrorism, the environmental destruction, the obsession with and dependence upon oil, the religious prophecies. Everything pointed to one inescapable conclusion: the human race was at some sort of fork in the road, some kind of culmination. It was make or break time, and it matched perfectly what was happening inside me.
As my perception of the world changed, my perception of my own life and my own career changed as well. I started to see that I was in the teaching profession for a reason, and that somehow I was going to be involved in spreading this information. But I needed to find a way to do so.
As winter gave way to spring, I started to feel the urge to somehow share my growing spiritual knowledge. Each day I saw a classroom full of kids who had no idea what was happening to the human race. Their parents didn’t know, their friends didn’t know, and they didn’t know. Somehow, I was going to have to tell people about all of this. But how?
That was the state I was in when I made a choice that would change me far more than it would change them. In retrospect, it was a key moment in my life, a turning point. I’m still amazed that it happened this way, still shocked that I actually did what I did. And yet it happened, and it needed to, and it paved the way for all that would follow.
Here’s what happened:
It was Easter week, on a Wednesday, and I was having a particularly interesting week. Much to my surprise, the coincidences that had all but deserted me over the winter returned without warning and with far greater intensity and frequency than they had before. It was very disconcerting, only now I was in a very different place. I had begun what I understood to be my awakening process, and now I had to somehow fit these coincidences in with my new understanding of reality.
As I pondered the return of the coincidences, I interpreted them as a signal that something was going to happen. Or that I was supposed to do something.
I know you may be cringing at the thought that I would, in such a seemingly confused state, take it upon myself to do something. I can hear some of you thinking, oh great, what’s he going to do? Shoot somebody? Blow something up? Sue God???
Certainly not the first two. I don’t have a vengeful bone in my body. And as far as suing God, that thought hadn’t yet occurred to me. I had nothing against God, per se. Sure, He could have warned us about the whole ascension thing (and many would argue that He did – the prophesies and revelations all point to something big happening at some point). But I really hadn’t yet associated God with the changes I was experiencing.
As my most interesting week continued, I noticed synchronicities unlike anything I had experienced before. The timing of everything seemed to be perfect. Lights would turn green just as I started to move my foot onto the brake. A parking spot would open up just as I pulled into a parking lot. A friend would call me on the phone minutes after I thought about calling him. All sorts of things.
So I was in a very different place that week, and my life felt quite surreal. I was hardly eating, hardly sleeping, and yet I felt better than I had ever felt. I had energy. I was quick to laugh at just about anything. There were moments when my good mood caused me to dance around the house, to say hello to strangers, or to stop and chat with students in the hall (something I rarely did).
I was having a great week. And then I remembered God. I suddenly realized that God must be playing a role in all this. But what was He trying to tell me? What was happening to me?
And then I had a very odd, possibly even insane thought: was God trying to talk to me? Was God trying to get my attention, trying to get some sort of message through to me?
I pondered this for a while, and then I decided it was true. From my very confused and excited state, I finally figured out where all of this was going, what God was telling me.
God wanted me to do something.
Deliver a message, perhaps.
