|
So, what’s this seeming infatuation about with this woman whom I’ve never met before? Well, you might assume that
oh, all guys get like that and women too for that matter. But that’s not what was happening to me. You conveniently
forget that I’m this person with a suppressed spirituality, feelings and connection to the Divine. What if I told you
that it just so happens that Annie or Cheryl actually, because that is her real name, is someone I knew in a past life, a
couple of past lives of mine? Do you want to hear about that or shall I continue telling my tale of joining the church? Oh,
I’ve diverted your attention enough and gone out on tangents I’ve never returned from so much through out these
articles so I’ll maintain the continuity of this story for now but I’ll try to remember to come back to that one.
Now, I’ve mentioned enough times these experiences I have when I have met people and how they elicit my memory enough
to give me this really substantial emotional experience that I need to talk about this for a moment.
When a person meets someone or finds themselves in a place that seems hauntingly familiar yet they know for surety that this
person or place is not part of their long term memory how do we refer to this? We almost always jokingly call it a Déjà vu
Experience. But for the sake of your own spiritual growth it would be helpful for you to take this a little more seriously
because when you have this experience you are almost always recalling one of your past lives.
There’s a lot of strong feeling and emotion tied to it because the whole reason why you incarnated on Earth in the first
place was to resolve issues, correct mistakes and clear your energy body and take account of who you are, what’s gone
on in the past and decide how you should proceed from there. Your soul wants so much to break free of this cycle of incarnations
and stop having your physical body die every single time you come to Earth, grow up, get old and kick the bucket. You’re
an immortal being. You need to say that about a hundred times to yourself and get brainwashed into believing that you are
a Divine Being because it is true.
So, when you have these Déjà vu experiences, thank your lucky stars you’re having them but for god’s sake,
learn from them and stop using them for quaint coffee table conversation with your friends and implement them as you would
a tool to dig into and explore yourself.
Well, it’s an understatement that Annie was happy to see me. She never expected me to come over that night. I pretty
much freaked her out when she saw me sitting in the back row that night. And so after the lecture she immediately came over
to me and we found a place to talk. She actually did much of the talking. She hadn’t had much luck lately witnessing
to people. From what she told me years later, when she saw me walk by her book table she did a double take like I did for
her in the train station. So, what she did was she immediately left her book table. There was no one with her but she just
flat out ran down the street to try to catch me. I must have gotten a good enough head start on her. I don’t remember
being in a hurry or in the mood for jogging; I was just walking at a regular pace. But she was running so it must have taken
time for the sight of me to register in her mind and then make a quick decision about leaving her book table.
She got me some food that was left over from dinner and I sat on the floor stuffing my face while she talked to me. But when
she got to the part where it’s getting late and their loading up the bus to go to the farm where they’re having
a three day workshop over the weekend and …..whoa, I had to quickly swallow my food and speak up.
Bus, farm….workshop? This was all happening much too quickly for me. I told her that I didn’t come here to get
bused to a farm and attend a workshop. I came to see her. Well, that didn’t elicit the kind of response I was expecting
from her at all. For her this wasn’t a romantic encounter. She wanted to introduce me to this organization she was a
part of. But I wasn’t ready to become part of an organization.
I had actually seen an ex-member being interviewed by Tom Snyder on his talk show in the mid seventies That gave me enough
information to forever be wary of cults and religious organizations and such so that I wouldn’t just fall right into
their clutches. But the thing is that these people here didn’t seem to be the kind of people that would do me
any harm. The only coercion going on was perhaps Annie’s overactive enthusiasm about the religious organization she
belonged to but I didn’t sense any ill will from her just a little bit on the pushy side but she always had such a sincere,
heartfelt smile.
And after coming to the point at which I looked like I was going to get up and walk out and never come back, I finally decided
to do the farm thing on the condition that if after attending the workshop that weekend she wouldn’t bother me any further
about doing anything else. She of course agreed hoping to hell in the back of her mind that something would happen, anything,
an idea from what would be talked about or perhaps a misconstrued concept on my part that would ultimately lead me to the
truth would convince me, as it did her, to call this religious movement my home.
The bus rolled into Booneville, a little town with lots of acreage and a little known farmed owned by a questionable tax exempt
organization, at around eleven that night. It was so dark you couldn’t see your hands in front of your face. We were
led by someone with a flashlight along a dirt road, across what seemed like an old wooden bridge and then over about a thousand
feet to our sleeping quarters. Men bunked in one building and women in another. Remember what I said about Unification Church
members giving names for their church centers? The same goes for buildings located on workshop sites that house workshop attendees.
The building where we stayed for the next two nights was called, The Chicken Palace.
But that was what the building was called that housed the men. Perhaps the one where the women stayed was called The Crows
Nest; I don’t know. To be honest with you, I slept better than any place I had ever lived in my life, including
my bed at home and that’s the god’s honest truth. I think the reason was that I slept on a piece of foam rubber
the dimensions of which were 4 x 7 feet. When I awoke the sun had just started coming through the windows in the palace and
as far as I could see everyone else was still sleeping and snoring. So, I rolled up my sleeping bag and delicately tiptoed
past all of those unconscious bodies until I came to the entrance.
This was a beautiful place. The sun was still hidden by the mountains to the east of us. They were gentle rolling hills it
seemed and rich with deciduous trees and lush green grass. To my right I could hear what sounded like a stream. That’s
what we must have crossed over via that bridge last night. So I’m up early. What do I do now? I let myself be led by
my nose and so I eventually found my way to the kitchen. When I arrived there were several young women working to prepare
breakfast. You know, the first thing that came to me when I came upon this sight was Amish People. Not that they were dressed
like the Amish but there was this energy in the air. Cooperation, Solidarity, many people of different backgrounds working
in a collaborative effort toward a single goal via simple means. That was my first impression.
One of the women caught sight of me and asked me if I’d like to help. And so they gave me a job to do which I can’t
remember but I remember feeling that I needed to just be a part of what they were doing. By the time we finished getting breakfast
ready more people had awoken and the morning meal was brought out to a table outside by the stream on the lush green grass.
Breakfast was oatmeal with raisons, and Thomas’s English Muffins.
Food was not hard to come by for this religious organization. Early on when the San Francisco chapter of the Unification Church
was established some industrious person had the idea that because of all of the fruit and vegetables harvested in the Simi
Valley near the Bay Area, there is quite a substantial amount of it that never makes it to market given that it’s bruised,
oddly shaped or doesn’t meet strict agricultural specifications. But yet it’s all perfectly safe for you to eat
and very good. It would otherwise get plowed under by the farmers tractor if it wasn’t for an organization that was
started called Project Volunteer. With the purchase of an old warehouse church members had a place to store this produce
and begin to distribute it to poor families in the Oakland City area. But enough of that good stuff gets trucked in to their
two workshop sites here at Booneville and Camp K so that we could enjoy it.
The same idea was applied to other foodstuffs like English muffins, oatmeal, brown sugar and other stuff. Before food like
this reaches it’s expiration date up on the shelf it’s taken down and usually thrown away but soup kitchens and
other pantries in the Bay Area make requests for it. So, Project Volunteer became one of those relief organizations to receive
this otherwise perfectly good food and feed their people with it. That’s why this breakfast table began to look like
the horn of plenty. This was a feast.
But, in the Unification Church, especially in The Oakland Chapter as they would be later affectionately known, before
you sat down for a meal there was one particular protocol that was always paid strict attention to. A Singalong.
Yes, in the morning when you wake up, before you eat and before the lecturer proceeds with his or her topic for that hour,
everyone sings a song together. And in this particular circumstance that would have been adhered to and implemented without
pause if it wasn’t for the fact that someone in charge asked of all of the participants gathered there if anyone wanted
to sing a song to the group. Naturally I volunteered. Remember that guitar that my mother bought me for my birthday years
ago? Well it was one of things that did not get shipped home with the backpack for I would never, ever, part with it. It was
my life. And so I flung the guitar strap around my back, tuned up briefly and began to play. My selection for this deeply
religious group was a cheery little tune by Stephen Stills called, “Love the one you’re with”.
I didn’t give one thought about whether it was appropriate for this particular setting or not. I just wanted to play
a song that was dear to my heart. But in thinking back to that time now, it was perfect.
Well, whether they thoroughly enjoyed my taste in music or they were just being gracious, I got a very hearty applause. That’s
one thing I noticed when I first join the Unification Church. Everyone’s attitude toward me was like, I was wonderful
and I could do no wrong. Too bad that mindset is only unconditional until they’re sure that you’ve accepted Unification
Theology. It’s after that when you’re judged according to how and to what degree you tow the party line and don’t
rock the boat.
And judging by the size of that feast and for as long as I can remember while my meals were provided for me before the time
I started living with my wife, one things for sure; they never starve you in The Unification Church. But it’s not all
eating either. For as soon as we were done and the table was cleaned up in a cooperative effort, of course, it was time to
get down to some serious education.
The three day lecture has always been designed to wet the pallet of the new comer’s spiritual curiosity. It’s
not until you get into the 21 and 40 day workshops that there is time to go into depth about each chapter of the Divine Principle.
The main idea is to keep it lively and funny when it’s appropriate. After all, here they are holding religious seminars
in these old farm buildings with no air condition in the middle of the summer.
One particularly amusing mindset that Unification Church members have is that, despite a lecturers skill in speaking on a
topic in a clear, organized and meaningful fashion, when people in the audience start to dose off it’s not the lecturers
fault. Not at all. The problem has to do with the fact that there are these nasty incorporeal beings running rampant through
and among the workshop participants called Sleepy Spirits. And to be honest with you, it is a real problem.
Sometimes their numbers are quite insignificant but at other times especially during the Fall of Man lecture they just
seem to be everywhere. Man, you’d see people dropping like flies left and right. And then it gets downright embarrassing
when an elder member who should know better to come to a lecture without putting on some Off Sprayfalls prey to these
pesky phantoms.
But most everybody starts to perk right up when they here the lecturer coming around to wrapping up their talk. Lucky for
us we had a cool, spring-fed stream nearby where we could enjoy a refreshing break after lunch. No, we didn’t go swimming.
We did the next best thing. We played water polo. Everybody played and everyone got really wet.
After that we all got together again, sang some songs and then we each were allowed to go wherever we wanted to on the property
to meditate. Being the adventurous person that I am I ventured east toward those beautiful green hills. After walking through
a lightly wooded area I found a gently flowing brook. There was no one around so in the spirit of the times when a good friend
of mine from the CCC and I used to hike up to this hot spring and camp out for the weekend, I removed all my clothes and laid
down in the rushing water as it cascaded over my shoulders and over my entire body. It felt so good to just be alone like
this and be as naked as a jay bird. It was so relaxing. That is, until my meditative trance was interrupted by the sound of
a branch snapping and someone inhaling very quickly. Obviously, I wasn’t the only one to discover this little out of
the way paradise. I never knew who it was but one things for sure it was definitely a woman, and one who was very shocked
at the sight of a man lying naked on the ground. To this day the memory of that has always been a source of comic relief.
To tell you the truth, I’m not sure how much of that Divine Principle I really learned over the course of that weekend.
But one thing that I did discover was that you could have this camaraderie and brotherhood and sisterhood among so many people
from different countries and ways of life.
There was this book that I had read while I was working for the CCC and it was called “Ecotopia”
by Ernest Callenbach. It’s a novel about when Northern California, Oregon and Washington secede from the United States
to form their own country, run by a matriarchal political system that implements a totally revolutionary approach for society.
An organic way of life where they eliminate pollution, create smaller cities rather than bloated overpopulated and mismanaged
ones and revive ancient blood-sport games whose purpose is to channel anger and stress and promote more intimate camaraderie
among it’s citizens. Aside from the violent games I thought I had actually happened upon a group of people who wanted
to create an ideal world like that. This was before I found out that this was the Unification Church. But still, in the beginning
when I first joined I sincerely believed that this kind of new society could be led by a man such as Reverend Moon to herald
a new age of world peace.
Nevertheless, I revised my promise and my intentions to Annie that I would commit myself to stay at least one more week with
this organization of hers….and no more.
My Spiritual Path Part 6
|
