Guiding Dreams and Visions: A personal Account

Each one of us has a purpose in life: our life's work, our life's calling. And that calling is from the ever-living God. Both the Scriptures and early philosophers have taught that God's pure Light exists within us as the "divine spark". Our innermost potentials and talents are the very essence of this inner spark. The purpose of each individual life is to manifest its unique talents by lighting up its own divine spark. When our inner spark is burning bright, we become enlightened and consciously aware of our own talents and our life's calling.

In existing scriptures of both east and west, there are ample records of such enlightened people, who literally heard God's calling them to action for the betterment of humanity. In Bhagavad Gita (meaning: Song of God), the loyal warrior Arjuna heeded Lord Krishna's call for standing up for righteousness in a battle between good and evil. In the Bible, Moses' leading the slaves to freedom and St. Paul's conversion to Christianity are also the result of following God's callings.

Since biblical time, the ever-living God has continued calling us to act on our life's purpose. Numerous valid records exist throughout the last two millennia, and most notably in the writings on religious saints and sages.

In contemporary times, the word God is often shunned and replaced by such neutral terms as "universal consciousness" or "infinite mind'. God's perennial calling is then construed as rather mystical occurrences of the universal consciousness or the infinite mind.

Regardless of the terms we use, many people today also hear their life's calling. And not unlike the saints and sages past, they also conscientiously follow the calling and diligently perform their life's work. This short book presents some available accounts, provided by these people themselves, of how they became aware of their own unique callings. The validity of each account lies with the readily observable and known "fruits" of their life's work, which without exception, have greatly enriched numerous lives.

The main aim of the present book, in citing these inspiring personal accounts, is to show this much witnessed perennial truth:

In the course of carrying out one's life's work, unexpected graces, as subjective personal experiences, will unfailingly provide necessary and timely guidance.

These personal experiences often take the form of visions, voices, dreams or other co-incidental yet meaningful synchronistic events. While the more dramatic forms of apparitions and clear voices are rare, the less dramatic experiences of guiding dreams and synchronistic occurrences are potentially common affordances to all of us. Regardless of the specific form of such guiding graces, the certitude the person him/herself feels is equally beyond doubt. The inspirational novelist Paulo Coelho, in The Alchemist, puts it this way: when one really wants something, the whole universe conspires in helping one to achieve it.

These unfaltering guiding experiences are seen by many today as inexplicable mysterious happenings. However, our life's purpose is the very essence of our innermost divine spark; whenever we are lighting up this spark, we are working in accordance with God's calling. Given that God (the universal consciousness, the infinite mind) is ubiquitous and all-embracing; the timely guiding graces from the whole universe are nothing mysterious; they are simply our natural birthright and inheritance.

Footnote: Most personal cases cited in this book appeared in my 2003 book, Sentience: Companion to Reason. London: Free Association Books.

Richard Maurice Bucke

Source: Bucke, R. (1901/1969). Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind. New York: E.P. Dutton.

Richard Maurice Bucke's 1901 milestone masterpiece, Cosmic Consciousness, was the first to systematically investigate and document personal and private mystical experiences. Cosmic experiences typically involve glimpses of the infinite universal reality that leads directly to instantaneous "illumination": a perfect understanding of reality with a sense of absolute certitude. These experiences are also accompanied by intense feelings of blissful ecstasy. Yet, it is the positive all-embracing and persistent life-transforming effect that really characterizes such experiences. Almost without exception, cosmic experiences bring out the best of one's life's work.

Bucke was a successful Canadian psychiatrist and a university academic. He was also a man of literature well versed in poetry. At thirty-five, Bucke had a mystical experience that had a profound impact on his life's work.

The experience took place while Bucke was away from home on a visit to England. In the evening when the experience came unexpectedly, Bucke and two friends had been reading Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, Browning, and his favorite poet, Walt Whitman. Bucke left his company at midnight and was driven home in a hansom. During the drive home, he was feeling calm and peaceful. It was in that state of "quiet, almost passive, enjoyment" that the cosmic experience took hold.

Bucke wrote about the experience from a third-personal perspective, "All at once, without warning of any kind, he found himself wrapped around, as it were, by a flame-colored cloud. For an instant he thought of fire-some sudden conflagration in the great city. The next (instant) he knew that the light was within himself....Directly after there came upon him a sense of exultation, of immense joyousness, accompanied or immediately followed by an intellectual illumination quite impossible to describe. Into his brain streamed one momentary lightning-flash of the Brahmic Splendor which ever since lightened his life....leaving thenceforward for always an aftertaste of heaven."

Bucke recognized the transformative effect of the experience on his life's work. His mental energies were vastly extended and refined after the illumination. One of his great works, Man's Moral Nature, was written soon after. Decades later, the milestone book Cosmic Consciousness was published. This influential book is a collection of detailed cases of cosmic experiences that had not been documented previously.

George Acklom described the significance of this book in these words, "It is a book of encouragement and promise; it opens a new door in the dark walls of materialism by which we are surrounded to give us a vista of strange and wonderful possibilities, and to admit the sound of lovely harmonies-not far away and elusive, but implicit in ourselves."

Edgar Cayce

Source: Sugrue, T. (1988). There Is a River (The 50th anniversary edition). Virginia Beach, VA: A.R.E. Press.

The "Sleeping Prophet" Edgar Cayce is well known for his ability to make accurate medical diagnosis as well as personal predictions while in a hypnotic trance state. Many of these diagnoses and their efficacies are on record at the library of the Association for Research and Enlightenment. Cayce helped people worldwide through his sleeping-state diagnoses of physical illness and his predictions of life events. His life's work has come to be known as the "Cayce phenomenon."

Like most other great humanitarians who have made a giant difference in the world, Cayce's lifework was also foreshadowed in a mystic vision. On a spring day when Cayce was thirteen, he was reading the bible in his favorite retreat in the woods near his home. And all of a sudden, he became aware of the presence of another person. His biographer, Sugrue, continued,

"He looked up. A woman was standing before him. At first he thought she was his mother, come to bring him home for the chores-the sun was bright and his eyes did not see well after staring at the book. But when she spoke he knew it was someone he did not know. Her voice was soft and very clear; it reminded him of music. 'Your prayers have been heard,' she said. 'Tell me what you would like most of all, so that I may give it to you.' Then he saw that there was something on her back; something that made shadows behind her that were shaped like wings. He was frightened. She smiled at him, waiting. He was afraid his voice would not make a sound, the way it did in dreams. He opened his mouth and heard himself saying: 'Most of all I would like to be helpful to others, and especially to children when they are sick.'....Suddenly she was no longer there."

Cayce was to "hear" from the same lady in the vision twice in his life during times of need. The day after the first vision, Cayce had been unable to pass a spelling test in class and the teacher, Cayce's uncle, told his father how stupid Cayce was in school. Cayce's father was naturally upset and tried to get Cayce to learn the words in his spelling book that evening. After repeatedly being punished for failing the tests, Cayce suddenly "heard something." His biographer continued,

"His ears were ringing from the blow that had floored him, but he heard words, inside him. It was the voice of the lady he had seen the day before. She was saying, 'If you can sleep a little, we can help you.' He begged his father for a rest....The boy closed his spelling book, put it at the back of his head, curled up in the chair, and almost immediately was asleep." After a short while, his father woke him up and tested him again. And this time, "answers came quickly, certainly. They were correct." According to the biography, Cayce was able, from then on, to place a school book under his pillow overnight and to recall its content upon waking the next day.

The lady in the vision had kept her word helping Cayce, and perhaps more interestingly, the help was always given during the sleeping state. But regardless of the unique manner in which Cayce's life's work was carried out, the divine gift was no doubt an answered prayer to Cayce's intense desire to help bringing comfort to the sick and the weary.

Willie Davis Jr.

Source: Davis, W. Jr. (1986). Ten Years of Pasturing: The Good, and Bad Times. North Carolina: CRT.

The CRT apostolic church community is located in North Carolina, USA. The community was established over thirty years ago by pastor Willie Davis Jr. The mission of this church community is "people helping people". Indeed, countless people either passing through or residing in this community have been the beneficiaries of pastor Davis' establishment.

The church offers many services including a rest home for the elderly, a day care center for youngsters of single or working parents, a rural farm housing compound for meditative retreats, affordable apartments for low income and needy families. Other regular social services include the distribution of donated clothing and free meals for the needy.

In his ministry, pastor Davis places pivotal importance on character education and spiritual growth. As such, his ministry also oversees the Higher Heights Student Enrichment program and other outreach educational programs.

Pastor Davis' passionate and tireless work over the past half a century has significantly uplifted the self-esteem and living standard of his mostly African American community. His work has been recognized by several honors including the title of Bishop within the Christian church establishment, and a city street in North Carolina being named after him.

In his earlier book, Ten Years of Pastoring: the Good and Bad Times, Davis recounted several earlier "callings" that had led him to his life's work. There were three clear occasions, which spanned over three and half years during the time he was serving as a deacon in his previous church. The first calling came to him as a "clear inspiration" of what God wanted him to do: "To move on to lead the people." But there was another part to it: "when you accept this calling, I will call your pastor home." It was only because of the love and respect Davis had for his pastor that he agonized over, and eventually disobeyed that first calling. In his own words, "I cannot allow my pastor to be called home."

But the second calling came within a year. That same "clear inspiration" first reminded Davis that He had ordained him for this ministry; and then exactly the same message as the previous one was repeated. Again, it was for the same reason concerning his own pastor that Davis once more turned away from the calling. His own decisions had caused himself so much grief that he described the intervening years as being "like hell", despite the fact that his outer world went on rather smoothly during those years.

Three and half years after the first calling, God asked again. This time, the message was spoken as a "clear voice". On that day, Davis was working the third shift and was sleeping during daytime. In his own words, "I was lying in bed asleep but was suddenly awoken to find myself from a lying position to a sitting position. I heard the Voice saying, 'I told you to go and now you go. Get up and read Joshua Chapter one.' It was at this moment that I finally said yes to the Lord. Then the Voice continued, 'when you go I will call the man' (my own pastor)."

As Davis reread Joshua chapter one immediately after, words in that familiar chapter somehow took on a brand new and totally personal meaning. Furthermore, it was only eighteen hours after Davis had accepted the calling that his then pastor suddenly passed away.

Since starting his life's work, Davis has been blessed with several other "visions" that had foreshadowed his later work concerning the CRT community. Each time the pastor has conscientiously persevered with the completion of the work.

Morris Fonte

Source: Ford, A. (1998). Hot Chocolate for the Mystical Soul. New York: Plume.

Morris Fonte is an internationally known psychic who has helped countless people with his psychic gift of extrasensory perception. Fonte's extraordinary psychic gift came as a "divine gift" in a waking mystic experience. He described the experience in a radio interview with Bruce Holms. Fonte was working as a window washer in New York decades before then. One very cold March afternoon when he was passing the city's cathedral on his way to lunch, he heard his name called. The call came from a lady in a long dress and a shawl, holding a baby in her hand. Holms recorded what followed in Fonte's mystic episode:

"He (Fonte) was worrying about the health of the baby in such cold when the woman said, 'Morris, you have forgotten your God. Come pray with me.'....They'd been speaking for about half an hour when she said that she represented God in his life. When she went on to say that she had a message for him from God, Morris felt that the conversation had gone too far. He was beginning to think that the woman, although well meaning, was probably crazy....So he excused himself."

However, later that day when Fonte walked past the cathedral, the same lady called him and repeated the message again. For the following three weeks the same thing happened every time Fonte passed the church. During the many brief conversations about spiritual matters and the "gift" she was to give him, Fonte noticed that "the baby was beautiful, the woman was beautiful-it was as if neither one of them belonged in this world".

After the three weeks, Fonte decided to invite the lady to a near-by café so that they could continue the conversation in warmth. When he asked her name in the café, the lady replied that she was the Blessed Virgin Mary and that she had come to bring Fonte a gift. Holms continued,

"Morris stood up from the table in shock. This was too much! He walked outside for a moment. After he'd regained his composure, he went back in to confront this woman once and for all. She greeted him by saying, 'I am the Blessed Virgin Mary, and I live in the hearts of all in the world.' Morris blurred out, 'You're nuts! I'm going home!' Walking out of the coffee shop, he decided he would never talk to her again....even if it meant going out of his way to avoid the church where she's stationed herself."

After about half an hour's walk, Fonte arrived at his apartment. As he opened the door, he saw the lady was waiting for him inside. As she started to tell him again about the "gift from God", Fonte threatened to call the police as she had broken in. The lady then told Fonte that she was spirit and could move around at will. When Fonte angrily asked for proof, the lady showed herself wherever Fonte turned and looked. It was then that fonte passed out. But the lady repeated her message about giving him a gift again immediately after he picked himself up from the floor. The story continued,

"'Use it in a mannerly fashion,' she told him, 'and do not hurt anyone with it. Use it to help people.' Then she began to teach him how it worked. Later, they went back to the coffee shop. As Morris started to talk to the waitress, he found he was able to tell her about herself, her future, her past, her dreams-it was amazing. Then Mary went away for a while, but she came back to the apartment later that night-with Jesus. Jesus said to Morris, 'This is the gift that my mother has given to you. You must listen to her ad use it exactly as she has taught you.'"

This gift from God was to be Fonte's life's work in helping a great number of people worldwide. Although the gift came suddenly and unexpectedly in this case, each and every one of us has a specific gift from God: our individual talent unique to each of us. Our life's work is our effort in making manifest this gift for the betterment of all others. And when we heed our calling in life, our work will never be in want of clear guidance that helps to smooth the way.

Marilyn Grace Graham

Source: (1) Barclay, W. (1958). The Mind of Paul. New York: Harper & Row. (2) Graham, M.G. (1998). On Reincarnation: The Gospel According to Paul. Miami, FL: Quest.

The interpretation of St. Paul's letters to the Romans is widely regarded as being one of the most important in biblical hermeneutics. Many theological scholars have argued that it was Paul's unique multicultural background that led him to bring Christianity out to the wider world. As William Barclay wrote in The Mind of Paul,

"In order that Christianity might go out to all the world a unique person was necessary-and Paul was that person. Here uniquely was the man of two worlds, the man who was Jewish to the last fiber of his being, but also the man who knew the Romans and the Greeks as few Jews knew them. Here indeed was the man prepared by God to be the bridge between two worlds, and to be the bridge by which the Gentiles might come to God."

However, the complex cultural milieu within which Paul's theological teachings were embedded also made his letters difficult to interpret. While many scholars have acknowledged the difficulty, it was Graham who has articulated a feasible, albeit controversial, interpretive framework. According to Graham, such an interpretive difficulty is closely linked to a rejection of the belief in reincarnation. While this belief was a common worldview in Paul's times, it has been obscured through the centuries. Graham believed that Paul's letters to the Romans could be more readily understood if this interpretive framework was presumed. Graham set out her thesis in On Reincarnation: The Gospel According to Paul, which was published posthumously by the surviving members of her family.

During the twelve years working on the book, Graham had many guiding experiences. Knowing that writing that book was her life's calling, Graham wrote, "This work was spiritually inspired, sustained and written. It exemplifies the life of the Spirit and intellectual endeavor working in tandem-separate, yet inseparable from each other, over the course of a lifetime."

Graham wrote about one of the guiding experiences that took place when she was in the process of printing out a section that she had written. To her surprise the last page of the printout was a quote from Arthur Schopenhauer; the quote was supposedly on a totally different file from the one that was being printed. That quote from Schopenhauer reads,

"The theory which sets forth the unifying principle on which Christianity and the religions of the East meet should find the warranty of its truth in the unity established between Biblical and extra-Biblical texts.-a unity which is not apparent apart from that theory. No doubt then remains that the theory is correct." Graham could immediately see that the quote was a confirmation for her own theory, which asserts that the eastern notion of reincarnation is necessary in interpreting Paul's texts. The confirmation was obvious to her because the notion itself constitutes the unifying theme underlying most religions, East and West.

However, graham agonized over telling the "Schopenhauer event" in her book. It was only after consulting the director of the Exceptional Human Experience network in North Carolina that she decided to record that experience in her book. Graham wrote about the advice she received from the director Rhea A. White,

"Not only did Rhea advise me to include it, but she implied that it is obligatory for those who have had exceptional human experiences to make them known. I knew that she was right."

There were many other guiding experiences during the course of her writing the book, Graham wrote,

"The way the writing of this book came about-that it came about at all-the manner in which the right people and information appeared at the right time, as well as the occurrence of the Schopenhauer event, confirm what I now know has always been. Looking back, I know there has always been an invisible Presence guiding me throughout my life in matters great and small. A Presence that 'knew' before I knew. A Presence that went before and made straight the way."

From her own account, it is clear that Graham saw her intellectual endeavor and spiritual faith as being inseparable. Her life's calling was unceasingly supported and guided by a larger reality within which her work unfolded itself in its own time.

Andrew Harvey

Source: Harvey, A. (2000). The Direct Path. London: Rider.

The contemporary mystic and writer, Andrew Harvey, Is well versed in both western and eastern spiritual teachings. Harvey's academic achievements were admirable. He won a top scholarship to Sherbourne at thirteen; another scholarship to Oxford at eighteen, from where he took a congratulatory first in English. At twenty-one, he was elected to become the youngest fellow of All Souls College. Despite such achievements, the inner turmoil left him suicidally lonely and depressed during those years. A travelling scholarship from Cambridge took him back to India where he had spent his early childhood.

While in India, one of the earliest life-transforming experiences came to him in a dream vision. In Harvey's own words, "I was on a beach, feeling very calm. Toward me, across the sand, was floating a most beautiful being, of indeterminate sex, smiling and surrounded by gold light. My whole being seemed to break into a flame of love for this creature, and I allowed him or her to come and hold me and lie down in my lap. I found the courage to ask the being who he or she might be. A voice replied laughingly, 'I am you,' and I awoke, bathed in joy. I was made to understand that I had been given a direct glimpse of my 'complete' self, my inmost human divine identity in all its androgynous perfection." That experience had a profound personal significance for Harvey and set him on a search for the transcendent truth.

Years later, Harvey went back to India to be with his dying father. On the day of the Feast of Christ the King, Harvey attended a church service where "the most important inner experience" of his life took place:

"After the priest had finished, I happened to look up at the crucifix at the back of the church. There is only one way I can describe what happened then: the Christ on the cross became alive. For fifteen astounding minutes, with open eyes, my entire being racked by the glory of what I was witnessing, I saw the Christ on the cross extending his arms in a gesture of all-embracing, absolute, and final love to the whole of reality. Wave after wave of divine love invaded me; nothing in any of the many experiences....had up to that moment prepared me for the volcanic ecstasy and passion and sheer frightening force of what streamed to me from the living Christ. It took all the strength I possessed not to crumble under the fierce intensity of what was being given me; I gripped the pew in front of me as involuntary sobs of gratitude shook me from head to foot."

Harvey went quietly with his friends to their car. It was then he glimpsed sitting in the dust at the church gate a crippled beggar in filthy clothes. Harvey continued in his writing, "I had seen the living Christ in splendor on the cross; now I saw him, just as vividly and unforgettably, in the shattered, abandoned being before me. I knew that this young man....was none other than the Christ himself. I went up to him and gazed into his eyes....As I put everything I had on me into his shirt pocket, I heard a voice say within me softly, 'Now you have seen me in everyone, you must serve me in everyone. Now you have seen that I live especially in the poor and derelict of every kind, you must devote all of your gifts and the rest of your life on earth to working to change the conditions that create misery."

Harvey vowed to heed that calling and to do as what he was asked. A gifted writer, Harvey has tried to teach in his writings the importance and the benign nature of our own inner truth and our direct connection with a perfected wisdom that is yet beyond ourselves.

Bell Hooks

Source: Hooks, B. (1999). Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work. New York: Henry Holt.

In her bestseller, Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work, Bell Hooks talked about the influence that the much celebrated writer Rainier Maria Rilke's work had on her obsession with reading and writing, "The book that most influenced my consciousness of writing during my early teens was Rilke's 'Letters to a Young Poet.'....Rilke gives meaning to the wilderness of spirit I am living in. His book is a world I enter and find myself. I read (it) over and over again. I am drowning and it is the raft that takes me safely to the shore. When Rilke's work entered my life it brought me joy and a vision of artistic freedom."

Hooks also tells the importance of her spiritual faith in her life's work as a writer, "Touched by the mystical dimensions of Christian faith when I was a girl, I felt the presence of the Beloved in my heart, the Oneness of all life. At that time, when I had not acquired knowledge of appropriate terminology, I only knew that....there was always a spiritual force that lifted me higher and gave me moments of transcendent bliss wherein I could surrender all the thought of the world and know profound peace. Religious ecstasy was real. I knew its rapture. My heart had been touched by its delight. Early on, I made a commitment to be a seeker on the Path, a seeker after truth. I was determined to live a life in the spirit."

The determination to live a spiritual life did not go well with her academic career at first. Hooks writes of her early experience with an unsympathetic academic environment,

"Indeed, my peers and colleagues mostly thought of religion as a kind of joke. They ridiculed and mocked the idea that any smart person could sustain a belief in God. So it may have been that this atmosphere also led me to take my spiritual beliefs inward. I never thought then that the university was overall a place hostile to religious practice, but in retrospect I can see that it was." Hooks continues,

"The academy as I experienced it was essentially such a dishonest, disheartening place that I felt myself torn, pulled between the longing to walk a spiritual path....and the longing to lead a contemplative intellectual life."

Yet, despite the hostile academic environment, Hooks persisted with passion her career as a university professor, writer and social critic. She recalled not having had a consciously worked-out plan for her childhood memoir, Bone Black, and yet the book took on a style of its own accord. Hooks describes the writing,

"The style was lyrical, poetic, and abstract. It was not the straightforward linear narrative that characterized my previous non-fiction work. The writing was different from anything I had imagined, but I like it. For what appeared on the page were words that evoked the spirit of the world I grew up in and that spirit unfolding in its own manner and fashion moved me. A gentle, tender intimacy was evoked in the words. I felt it, I felt the reader would feel it as well, and so I let the style of the work inspire and claim me."

In a more telling passage, Hooks talks about her unfailing reliance on inner guidance and divine inspiration in her writing,

"Since I always have many ideas, I count on sacred visitation to guide me to the timeliness of work. My reliance on spiritual guidance is connected to the desire I have for the writing to touch the hearts of readers-to speak to their inmost being. Much of my work is written to create a context of healing. Words have the power to heal wounds. Out of the mysterious place where words first come to be 'made flesh'-that place which is all holiness-I am given the grace to work with word in a spirit of right livelihood that calls me to peace, reflection, and connectedness with communities of readers whom I may never know or see. Writing becomes then a way to embrace the mysterious, to walk with spirits, and an entry into the realm of the sacred."

So here is a perfect example of an individual knowingly responding to life's calling and wholeheartedly intending on perfecting that work. The fruits of her work, not only have inspired and uplifted the spirit of millions, but also are moving witnesses to the guiding graces she has received from the Divine Spirit.

Carl Jung

Source: Jung, C. (1983/1961). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. London: Flamingo.

One of the giant figures in contemporary psychology is Carl Jung. Jung's life's calling concerns the pioneer work on the notion of the "collective unconscious". During the years when Jung confronted and explored the unconscious by studying his own thoughts, images and dreams, he felt a deep sense of helplessness, he later wrote of those early years, "I stood helpless before an alien world; everything in it seemed difficult and incomprehensible. I was living in a constant state of tension; often felt as if gigantic blocks of stone were tumbling down upon me. One thunderstorm followed another." Yet, Jung never stopped persevering as he was keenly aware that it was his life's purpose to make sense of these phenomena.

As the study of the unconscious directed all his effort and attention to the inner world, he felt that he could no longer keep pace with the demands of the external world. Eventually after nearly a decade's university teaching career, Jung quit his academic position and worked full-time on his quest for the collective unconscious. While this had been an extremely difficult decision to make, Jung nonetheless felt, "that something great was happening to me....I knew that it would fill my life, and for the sake of that goal I was ready to take any kind of risk."

Throughout his lifetime, Jung's work was guided by rich illuminating experiences and dream visions. Several cosmic visions of joy occurred in 1944 when Jung was hospitalized for a serious injury followed by a heart attack. Jung described these visions as depicting "....in the garden of pomegranates, the wedding of Tifereth with Malchuth was taking place....followed by the Marriage of the Lamb, in a Jerusalem festively bedecked....These were ineffable states of joy. Angels were present, and light...."

Jung considered those dream visions as being "the most tremendous things that I have ever experienced". He wrote about the significance and far-reaching consequence of these visions for his life's work,

"After the illness a fruitful period of work began for me. A good many of my principal works were written only then. The insight I had had, or the vision of the end of all things, gave me the courage to undertake new formulations. I no longer attempted to put across my own opinion, but surrendered myself to the current of my thoughts."

During the early stage of his exploration of the unconscious, two guiding dreams came and gave him a sense of deep certainty about the direction of his life's work. In the first dream, Jung was in a "magnificent Italian loggia with pillars, a marble floor, and a marble balustrade....sitting on a gold Renaissance chair; in front....was a table of rare beauty. It was made of green stone, like emerald....Suddenly a white bird descended, a small sea-gull or a dove. Gracefully, it came to rest on the table...."

From his study of the teachings of Hermes Trismegistos, Jung knew that Hermes left behind a table and on it, the basic tenets of the alchemical wisdom were engraved in Greek. No doubt, Jung identified the table in his dream with the "Emerald Tablets", the original core of the Hermetica itself. The white dove is typically a symbol of the divine spirit. In the dream, the dove's descending onto the beautiful emerald stone table suggested the divine wisdom of the Hermetic philosophy. Jung's life's work on unearthing the collective unconscious is essentially a mind's journey in search of the eternal truth within: the very tenet of the Hermetic wisdom. This dream thus provided a much needed affirmation for Jung's quest for the knowledge of the unconscious.

In a second clear guiding dream, Jung was going from a city and was in a place that reminded him of old church burial chambers. He continued,

"Thus the dead lay in my dream, in their antique clothes, with hands clasped....they were not hewn out of stone....I stood still in front of the first grave and looked at the dead man....he suddenly moved and came to life. He unclasped his hands; but that was only because I was looking at him....I walk on and came to another body. He belonged to the eighteenth century. There exactly the same thing happened: when I looked at him, he came to life and moved his hands. So I went down the whole row, until I came to the twelfth century....I thought he was really dead....but suddenly I saw that a finger of his left hand was beginning to stir gently."

Jung described the significance of this second dream for his life's work on the collective unconscious: "(the dreams) taught me that such contents are not dead, outmoded forms, but belong to our living being....in the course of years there developed from it the theory of archetypes." In Jung's theory, at the very core of the notion of the collective unconscious, there lies the archetypal self (i.e., the "anthropos", the philosopher's stone, the divine spark, or the Universal Spirit), which represents the end goal of self-actualization.

Those guiding dreams came at the beginning of his exploration of the collective unconscious. Toward the end of the searching some sixteen years or so later, Jung had another dream which showed him that he had reached the final goal in his quest.

In that significant dream, Jung was with a group of Swiss people travelling in Liverpool. It was a raining wintry night, the group climbed from the harbor up the cliff to the city above. Jung described what happened when they reached the city,

"We found a broad square dimly illuminated by street lights, into which many streets converged. The various quarters of the city were arranged radially around the square. In the center was a round pool, and in the middle of it a small island. While everything round about was obscured by rain, fog, smoke, and dimly lit darkness, the little island blazed with sunlight. On it stood a single tree, a magnolia, in a shower of reddish blossoms. It was as though the tree stood in the sunlight and was at the same time the source of light. My companions commented on the abominable weather, and obviously did not see the tree. They spoke of another Swiss who was living in Liverpool, and expressed surprise that he should have settled here. I was carried away by the beauty of the flowering tree and the sunlit island, and thought, 'I know very well why he has settled here.' "

Jung understood that the name Liverpool signified "the pool of life" as the liver was traditionally believed to be the seat of life. "The Swiss who was living in Liverpool" referred to himself, a Swiss, who was studying the unconscious and the central core of the self. The magnolia tree with the blossoming flowers represented the nature of the core self, as the source of light, which radiates light irrespective of, and totally unaffected by, its gloom surroundings. Jung wrote of the significance of this dream for his life's work,

"This dream brought with it a sense of finality. I saw that here the goal had been revealed. One could not go beyond the center. The center is the goal, and everything is directed towards that center. Through this dream I understood that the self is the principle and archetype of orientation and meaning....The dream depicted the climax of the whole process of development of consciousness. It satisfied me completely, for it gave a total picture of my situation. I had known, to be sure, that I was occupied with something important....The clarification brought about by the dream made it possible for me to take an objective view of the things that filled my being. Without such a vision I might perhaps have lost my orientation and been compelled to abandon my undertaking. But here the meaning had been made clear...When....such a dream comes, one feels it as an act of grace."

Jung's consuming passion for his life's work has been enormously richly guided by dreams that he himself readily understood. As Jung has fittingly pointed out, these guiding dreams are yet another form of the "act of grace" from the ever-present yet invisible nurturing hand of the Divine.

Patrice Karst

Source: Ford, A. (1998). Hot Chocolate for the Mystical Soul. New York: Plume.

The extraordinary phenomenon of "automatic" creative activities has been reported throughout human history. A more recent and perhaps less known example of automatic writing comes from the bestselling author Patrice Karst. According to Karst herself, ever since early childhood, she has had a deep and urgent need to make sense of the mysteries of human existence and life's purposes. Karst writes, "This and a passionate love of writing have been two constants in my life, along with a knowledge that there was something I was here on Earth to do, but I just couldn't seem to remember what."

Then something happened in the early morning of a November day in 1995, Karst recalled,

"I awoke simultaneously seeing and hearing the words 'God Made Easy.' My first thought was, 'What a clever title for a book. If I was going to write a book called God Made Easy, what would I say?' Some ideas came, and I thought, 'Well maybe I'll write a book like that one day,' and proceeded to try to go back to sleep. It didn't work. An inner voice practically bellowed out, 'Get up and write it now!' This wasn't particularly what I felt like doing. As a working mother I cherished my sleep, and I knew that I had a good hour and a half until my son would arise. Still, I reluctantly did as told. What happened next was a most extraordinary experience. The words poured out of me faster than I could write them down. It was as if I were taking dictation from deep within my being: no thinking, no pausing, no rewriting. It just one hour it was done. As I sat on my bed wondering what in God's name had just happened, reading what I'd written, I got goose bumps in places I didn't know you could get them! Either I was completely deluding myself, or I had just written a mass market book about God for the planet. It was now seven o'clock, too early to call one of my friends for a reality check. My son was still peacefully asleep. The voice spoke again: 'This is to be a book, and now your job is to get it published.'"

Karst did try her best to get her very first book into print form. During the short time period leading to the publication of this bestseller, many seemingly extraordinary events took place. Karst described one of these, "I was at my day job when I was told I had a call. It was Marianne Williamson's (a bestselling author and inspirational speaker who used to give endorsements to new books) literary agent, one of the best in New York. He told me that never in his life had he chased down an author, but he'd had a mysterious experience. While Marianne was in Egypt leading a spiritual tour, he had gone over to her apartment in Manhattan to collect her mail. He said God Made Easy 'jumped into my hands, saying read me, read me, read me.' I'll never forget his next words;.... 'I think this book is going to be a bestseller.'"

Karst continued, "There have been more unbelievable coincidences and showers of grace, one after the other. The doors have continued to open, guiding my little book out into the world."

Karst's deep need to understand life's purpose and her intense passion for writing has been rewarded with this wonderful gift of grace. But like all other examples, such amazing gifts come not only as a heavenly delight for Karst herself, they are meant to be graces for humanity as a whole. For it is truly for the benefit of all people that God Made Easy has come into being through the writer Karst.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Source: Kubler-Ross, E. (1999). The Wheel of Life. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the Swiss born medical doctor and author of numerous books including the monumental work, On Death and Dying, is the pioneer researcher into near-death experience. Her work revolutionized the practice of caring for the dying in terms of both body and soul, in the establishment of hospices and in the healing of "the unfinished business" (i.e., past unresolved regrets and hurts).

In her memoir, The Wheel of Life, Kubler-Ross recounted many visions and mystical experiences that had guided her life's work. In early 1970 at the time she made the decision to end her controversial work after an intolerable period of rejection from her medical peers, she encountered one of such life-changing guiding experiences.

On the night after her supposedly last seminar on death and dying, she was about to tell her co-presenter that she was quitting the work. At that very moment, she had an "apparition" of one of her deceased patients, Mrs. Schwartz, who told her, "I came back....to tell you not to give up your work on death and dying....not yet....Your work has just begun." Despite lingering doubt, that striking experience did change her mind and lift her courage in continuing with her life's work.

Her setting up the Shanti Nilaya Healing Center in 1977 was heralded by her first mystical experience. During that unusually agonizing and excruciatingly painful experience, Kubler-Ross sensed, "an awesome feeling that someone was waiting for me to say something, say the word 'yes'. Then I knew that was all that was being asked of me-to say yes to it." Once this realization dawned on her, she responded with the word yes to the agony and pain. Soon after, this happened:

"Whatever part of my body I looked at began to vibrate with the same fantastic speed. The vibrations broke everything down to their most basic structure, so that when I stared at anything, my eyes feasted on the billions of dancing molecules. At this point, I realized that I had left my physical body and become energy. Then, in front of me, I saw many incredibly beautiful lotus blossoms....opened very slowly and became brighter, more colorful and more exquisite....they turned into one breathtaking and enormous lotus blossom. From behind the flower, I noticed a light-brighter than bright and totally ethereal....I knew that I had to make it though this giant flower and eventually merge with the light. It had a magnetic pull, which drew me closer and gave me the sense that this wonderful light would be the end of a long and difficult journey."

Still in that state, Kubler-Ross realized that her vision had also extended beyond normal to such an extent that she could see everything in the finest details down to its molecular structure and vibrations. With a great sense of "awe and respect", she observed that "everything had a life, a divinity." She continued slowly moving through the flower and finally reached the light behind and "merged with it", a feeling of extreme warmth and love engulfed her. At this moment, she heard a voice coming from somewhere saying two words totally unknown to her, "Shanti Nilaya."

The meaning of these Sanskrit words was given to her several months later by a monk: the words mean "the final home of peace" and that it is the place where people go at the end of their earthly journey. As a result of this profound experience, Kubler-Ross set up the Shanti Nilaya Healing Center with the goal to promote healing "through the practice of unconditional love." The center was one of the many contributions that kubler-Ross made towards the betterment of a great many people's lives.

After a long period of much publicized controversies involving the friend with whom Kubler-Ross had worked on spiritual healing at Shanti Nilaya, she was bitten on the face one evening by a poisonous spider. This, she believed, was a set up by this flawed co-worker. During the night her face continued to swell at an alarming rate and it was then that she knew she no longer had much time to live. However, after many agonizing thoughts including suicide, she finally made the choice to carry on living. Kubler-Ross described what followed after making the choice:

"I walked into my living room, where a picture of Jesus hung on the wall. Standing before it, I made a solemn vow to live. The instant I said that, the room filled with an incredibly bright light. As I had done before when faced with that same bright light, I moved toward it. Once enveloped by the warmth, I knew that, no matter how miraculous it seemed, I would live."

Live she did, and soon after, she started her new work with aids patients. After the demise of Shanti Nilaya, Kubler-Ross was about to set up another healing center on a Virginia farm. After months of hard physical work of building, constructing and digging, the center was taking shape. The night before Thanksgiving, when she was working on the building alongside the head construction worker, she suddenly had the premonition that something very unusual and good was going to take place.

After work late that night, as the two sat and talked in the room, she had another wonderful guiding vision. She recalled in her memoir, "the room filled with a warm light....Gradually, an image appeared against the far wall. It was immediately apparent who it was. Jesus. He gave his blessings and disappeared. He came back again, left and then returned once more and asked me to name the farm Healing Waters Farm. 'It is a new beginning, Isabel.' My witness was incredulous.'" Isabel is the name that Kubler-Ross' spiritual guides used to call her.

Throughout her phenomenal life's work, Kubler-Ross was guided by several spiritual guides with advanced wisdom. She received from them a great deal of philosophical teachings which she often incorporated into her workshops. Their guidance greatly inspired her life's work.

As someone who has had more than her share of hardship in life, Kubler-Ross' one pressing message throughout her memoir is on the importance of patience at times of adversity. This advice also came to her as a spiritual guidance, "In the river of tears, always count your blessings. Make time your friend."

It seems that, quite proportional to her monumental contribution to humanity, Kubler-Ross received equally rich and continuous spiritual guidance on her life's work. Yet, precisely as the monk, who explained the words Shanti Nilaya to her, has pointed out that any means of giving, serving and caring for others is a form of deep meditation. Through the giving, a constant flow of communication with the good-intentioned and nurturing God ensues. Again, while one acts on one's calling, God's invisible helping hand is always there.

Robert Monroe

Source: Monroe, R. (1994). Ultimate Journey. New York: Doubleday.

Robert Monroe, founder of the Monroe Institute in Virginia, has devoted much of his life to the understanding of human mind and consciousness. The experimental research carried out at the institute aims at creating practical programs to induce various states of consciousness such as deep meditative state for stress reduction as well as spiritual development. Other practical programs include the hemispheric-synchronicity process, the Life-Span 2000, and the Lifeline program. Monroe's work has not only shed light on the nature of the mind reality, but also carried the significant consequence for the promotion of personal growth. These programs have helped numerous people worldwide.

In his book, The Ultimate journey, Monroe recounted an illuminating experience that had profoundly changed his outlook on life. The event had taken place well before Monroe started his work on the personal growth programs. At that time, he was exploring an old hand-dug but dried-up well on his old family farm. After slipping down almost seventy feet and reaching the bottom of the well, Monroe first had an intense feeling of claustrophobia, but soon that intense fear was replaced by a feeling of total calmness and peace. He described what followed,

"I felt no more panic....There was no need to hurry now. I relaxed even more....Then the pattern changed. Slowly, the feeling of a warm intelligence blend into every part of me, body and mind. I became a part of that intelligence, or the intelligence became a part of me. There didn't seem to be any difference. And there was a message. I could translate it into words only crudely. 'My son of sons of sons, you have found joy in my winds and sky....You have reveled in the beauty and ingenuity of my other children spread across my surface. Yet it is only now that you have taken a moment in my bosom to be still and listen. In that stillness, hold this song forevermore. You were born of me, yet it is your destiny to become more than I can ever be. In this growth, I revel with you. My strength is your strength; thus you take with you the glory of me to express in ways that I will not understand. Not understanding, I nonetheless support and share happily that which you become. Go with this truth within you, my son of sons of sons.' That was it. The warmth continued for a while, then slowly faded."

That episode made Monroe aware of the benign supportiveness of Nature itself in our daily existence. And this illumination no doubt paved the way for Monroe's subsequent life work on the enrichment of people's spiritual growth.

Monroe's lifework aside, the illuminating message clearly was meant for humanity as a whole: each of us is born with a spark of the infinite glory-it is our gift, our talent, and our innermost potential. Our "destiny", our own growth and our life's purpose, is to make manifest this glorious gift to the benefit of all others. And in that journey of following our life's calling, all kinds of graces, mundane and grandeur, shall unfailingly support our effort.

Melvin L. Morse

Source: Browne, S. (2002). The Other Side and Back. New York: Penguin Putnam (foreword).

Melvin Morse is a medical professional with research interest in children's near-death experience. Morse's work in this controversial field was guided by a life-changing experience which took place around 1992. At that time, he was a critical-care physician and cancer researcher. While engaging in mainstream pediatric practice, he was also interested in a side-line research on the near-death experience of terminally ill children. His research revealed that such experiences are real and their functions may be traced to the brain's temporary lobe in the right hemisphere. This was reported in the Pediatric Journal of the American Medical Association. The paper immediately attracted severe attacks from his fellow medical researchers. At that time, Morse himself believed that the drugs these terminally ill children took were the real cause behind their near-death experiences. The well publicized controversy generated by this area of his work was highly stressful, as Morse felt that it seemed to have "made everybody angry". Given that the topic was only a side interest, Morse finally decided to quit that research and focus totally on mainstream pediatrics.

However, around the time, Morse was invited to give a talk on his near-death research by a fellow researcher and cardiologist at Ultrech University in Holland. At the end of his talk, a woman insisted on speaking with him so that she could pass a message on to him. Morse wrote about the event,

"She told me, through an interpreter, that she was a psychic. She said a child I had interviewed who subsequently died had a message for me. She pulled out a picture she had drawn. She said; 'This is the girl. She wanted you to see her picture so you would believe me.' In fact, I did recognize the child....She then gave me a specific message from the girl. It was that I was to continue in near-death research, and that two angels would watch over me and assist me. It also contained some personal elements, which had meaning only for me."

Bur Morse was highly skeptical about the whole episode that he "labeled it one of those quirky things that happen that I couldn't really explain but didn't take seriously either."

However, some time after that, Morse was invited to appear on a national television show with Sylvia Browne, whom he had not met before, to talk about his controversial work. While waiting to appear on the show, the two met and after a brief time of chitchatting, Browne suddenly said to Morse, "I knew what a raw deal you got. I want you to know that the children you have helped are on your side."

Morse continued in his writing, "She spoke of the same little girl that the Dutch psychic had told me about. She told me that she had a message for me. Then she told me word for word, the exact message that the Dutch psychic had given to me. This message contained highly personal elements that would have been difficult to have simply invented or guessed at, and seemingly known only to the little girl and myself."

The two co-incidents together had a significant impact on Morse's life's work. Morse wrote, "I returned home, completely reinvigorated. The obvious explanation was that both psychics had independently received an identical message that had meaning only for me. They were the passive transmitters of information from a child who had died. As a medical scientist, I was determined to learn how such transmissions are possible. Perhaps the fact that I had no spiritual belief system at all....was why I was meant to continue in this field."

This is yet another example of mystical help coming to guide us at difficult times while we are doing our life's work.

Fredrick Nietzsche

Source: Nietzsche, F. (1979). Ecce Homo (translated by R.J. Hollingdale). London: Penguin Books.

Fredrick Nietzsche is one of the most celebrated yet controversial figures in contemporary philosophy. Despite a brilliant academic career that had started early in life, he resigned from the post soon after and spent most of his remaining years in solitude. It is clear from some of his writings that he saw his life's work as a continuation of the works of the great philosophers who had lived before him, and in particular, Plato, Pascal, Spinoza and Goethe.

The publication of his masterpiece, Thus Spake Zarathustra, made many readers wonder if this writing had been inspired by private visions and mystical experiences. Like Plato's using Socrates as his spokesperson, and expanding upon Socrates' original teachings by voicing his own ideas through Socrates; Nietzsche did the same with the Pre-Mohammed Persian prophet Zoroaster. Zoroaster lived between the 6th and 7th century BC, and his teachings in the Avesta advocate one invisible Spirit that embraces both good and evil attributes. Nietzsche extended the teachings from there and argued that man has the potential as well as the will to transcend beyond the good-evil moral dichotomy and to progress into an enlightened "master morality". In this monumentally significant work, Nietzsche has knowingly and intentionally furthered the teachings of Zoroaster into the twentieth century.

The scripture-like poetic style of Thus Spake Zarathustra was indeed inspired by mystical experiences, which Nietzsche himself referred to as "the inspiration....a force larger than oneself". He wrote about that experience in Ecce Homo, another of his masterpieces,

"If one had the slightest residue of superstition left in one, one would hardly be able to set aside the idea that one is merely incarnation, merely mouthpiece, merely medium of overwhelming forces. The concept of revelation, in the sense that something suddenly, with unspeakable certainty and subtlety, becomes visible, audible, something that shakes and overturns one to the depths, simply describes the fact. One hears, one does not seek; one takes, one does not ask who gives; a thought flashes up like lightening, with necessity, unfalteringly formed-I never have had any choice."

Nietzsche went on to describe the intense emotions that he felt during the experience in terms of an ecstasy with tremendous tension and a joy with a "superfluity of light". The whole experience was also totally involuntary and altogether outside his control:

"Everything is in the highest degree involuntary but takes place as in a tempest of a feeling of freedom, of absoluteness, of power, of divinity....The involuntary nature of image, of metaphor is the most remarkable thing of all; one no longer has any idea what is image, what metaphor, everything presents itself as the readiest, the truest, the simplest means of expression. It really does seem....as if the things themselves approached and offered themselves as metaphors (- 'here all things come caressingly to your discourse and flatter you: for they want to ride upon your back....Here, the words and word-chests of all existence spring open to you; all existence here wants to become words, all coming here wants to learn speech from you-)."

Such "involuntary" kind of creativity has been the personal experiences of many other well-known artists, poets, musicians and writers, including Blake, Botticelli, Brahms, Bruno, Dante, daVinci, Goethe, Hugo, Milton, Mozart, and Shakespeare. This unique type of creative process resembles closely to that of the automatic writing phenomenon discussed elsewhere in this book.

Rainier Maria Rilke

Source: Wakefield, D. (1995). Expect a Miracle: The Miraculous Things that Happen to Ordinary People. New York: HarperSanFrancisco.

Rainier Maria Rilke is a much celebrated contemporary writer. He was one of the very few writers who had recorded their own guiding experiences during the course of doing their life's work. Rilke described his own personal experiences this way,

"Like many writers, I have felt a presence of writers of the past when I was immersed in reading their work, or when in my own work I sensed their encouragement, their inspiration. Henry James is a writer who seems to have such an effect on people, as I feel he has on me, not in terms of writing style or politics or even 'religion' in the narrow sense of the term, but in the spirit, in the sense of the sacredness of life that runs like a bright thread through the rich tapestry of all his work. He exerts, I think, a spiritual power. In one of my visits to Aunt Ollah's (Rilke's aunt who seems to have the ability of sensing spiritual presence) house when I was in high school she described a man who was standing beside me in spirit, who was going to help me, and when in college I saw for the first time a portrait of Henry James, I said to myself, 'That's him!' I recognized him as the presence Aunt Ollah had described. Later, at a critical juncture, I read a journal entry he made after suffering a shocking failure with his first play on the London stage, and the words and sentiment seemed addressed to me and gave me the will to go on with writing a book I was near giving up on (the book became my greatest success)."

Rilke went on to relay a similar experience of another writer, "The novelist Louise Erdrich tells of such an experience while she and her husband, Michael Dorris, were writing 'The Crown of Columbus': I hated the man [Columbus] and what he did in sending back the first slaves to Europe. And yet he had a fascinating questing spirit and a brilliant mind that showed through so much of his journal. I could feel his presence sometimes. It sounds absurd, but I wanted so much to meet this man."

Such guiding experiences for these writers are readily explicable by the golden rule of "like attracts like. The writers' intense passion and sincere intention to perfect their life's work inevitably attracts the most appropriate and best competent support from the unbounded reservoir of the Infinite Intelligence. After all, these writers are fulfilling their life's purpose and responding to their life's calling.

Although Rilke openly confirmed the invaluable guiding graces that the "felt presence" had had on his own life's work, he also acknowledged the potential negative consequences of such personal confessions in contemporary times. Here he wrote,

"The presence of God, spirits, saints....is not confined to any one religion, belief, school of thought, culture, or part of the world. It is part of the human experience....No self-respecting historian nowadays would dare include the actions of God, saints, spirits, or non-human presences in accounts of contemporary life. She would not get published, much less get tenure. Yet here are perfectly intelligent, educated people, many of them highly successful in their field, telling of their personal experience of such phenomena, in a variety of places and circumstances, all of them in our own time."

While Rilke felt the guiding hand from the much accomplished writer Henry James (brother of the "Father of Contemporary Psychology", William James), Rilke's own work was later to have profoundly inspired another much celebrated intellectual and author, Bell hooks. And just like Rilke's "prediction", Hooks was to tell her own experience that has guided her life's work. (See the entry on Bell Hooks).

Jane Roberts

Sources: (1) Roberts, J. (1972). Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul. Eaglewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. (2) Roberts, J. (1976). Psychic Politics: An Aspect psychology Book.Eaglewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

In recent years, the best known records of automatic writing come from the collective works of the late Jane Roberts. Roberts was a poet and writer with several books to her "own" credit, and many more substantive volumes written "through her" in a trance state. Most of the published works in the latter category was "dictated" through her by a "personality" called Seth. According to Roberts, the "writer" Seth described himself as being an "energy personality essence" existing no longer in physical form but in spirit.

The huge collection of the Seth works, published during 1970s and 1980s, focuses primarily on the nature of human consciousness and its potential applications in our daily existence. The richly informative teachings of the Seth works have been the basis for a number of reputed personal development programs. These programs have greatly benefitted countless number of people worldwide.

Roberts described the first time when Seth began to "dictate" his writings through her, "My psychic initiation really began one evening in September, 1963....as I sat writing poetry. Suddenly my consciousness left my body, and my mind was barraged by ideas that were astonishing and new to me at the time. On return to my body, I discovered that my hands had produced an automatic script, explaining many of the concepts that I'd been given. The notes were even titled-'The Physical Universe as Idea Construction'."

Like other automatic writers, Roberts was fully cognizant of the fact that her writing through trance was meant to be her life's work. She described her passion for the work in her "own" book, Psychic Politics, "Listening to these messages, translating them, writing them down is life to me. Seth says that being is its own justification, and for a while I thought that perhaps I wrote to justify my life. It took some time for me to realize that being is writing to me. When I'm not 'turned on' in my own particular fashion, my being seems dimmer. I became glum. So when I've finished one book, I can't wait to begin another."

Roberts' passionate intent for perfecting her life's work and the extraordinary guidance she has received is yet one more testimony to the main theme of the present book: All kinds of amazing graces will come our way when we are wholeheartedly acting on our life's calling.

While a rare phenomenon, guiding spiritual personalities have been known since ancient times. Other known examples similar to Roberts' Seth may include Socrates' Daimon, Dante's Virgil, Blavatsky's Morya and Kootsumi, Jung's Philemon, Rosemary Altea's White Eagle. The resulting works so guided are beyond doubt the masterpieces in human civilization.

Betty Shine

Source: (1) Shine, B. (1996). My Life as a Medium. London: HarperCollins. (2) Shine, B. (2000). Mind Magic.London: Transworld. (3) Shine, B. (1999). The Infinite Mind: The Mind-Body Phenomenon.London: HarperCollins.

The internationally renowned psychic healer Betty Shine has over the many decades helped numerous people from all parts of the world. Her life's work as a medium and healer was profoundly enhanced after a "vision" in the early stage of her work. Shine described that life-altering experience thus,

"I remember one incident in particular. I had finished healing for the day and was just about to leave the room when I saw a spirit form taking shape from the feet upwards. This was no ordinary spirit. It was a man with long white hair, whose beard practically reached his waist. He was wearing a white gown that swirled around his feet. My first thought was that he looked like Father Time, or at least how I would have imagined him....I waited for some kind of communication, but there was nothing. Then objects began to dance around on the table and the room seemed to shake. It was scary. I was staring at the old man and our eyes appeared to be locked together in some kind of beam. Then, just like a melting snowman, he disappeared....and was gone".

Apart from her healing work, Shine has also dedicated her life to "writing books that help humanity." Many of her bestselling books teach the existence of an infinite mind which is accessible to every person by way of intuitions, visions, voices and other seemingly mysterious occurrences. These various manifestations of the infinite mind unfailingly offer clear guidance on our life's work.

Shine also recorded two guiding experiences she herself had received during the writing of My Life as a Medium. Shine wrote, "One of the strange things that happened with this was when I was writing about my spiritual teacher, whom I call the guru, because I do not know his identity. I had been working for about three hours, and decided to finish for the day. I pressed the 'save' key but instead of reading Chpt2 at the bottom of the screen it had changed into OM. If you understand the working of computers you will know that....it cannot suddenly appear. I....found that I not only had Chpt2 with Backup but I also had OM with backup. I know that 'OM' is a very well-known mantra used by Buddhists, but I wanted to know more so I looked it up in the dictionary. This is what it said. Hinduism-a sacred symbol typifying the three gods Brahma, Vishnu ands Siva, who are concerned in the threefold operation of integration, maintenance, and disintegration."

She described one more such mysteriously delightful experience, "Another strange happening occurred whenever I mentioned other spiritual teachers who had communicated with me. A box appeared on the screen, with the word sages in bold print. This is an extremely old-fashioned word for a spiritual teacher, but the message was all the more powerful because of that, as it was one that I never thought about or used."

Each of these occurrences was a clear affirmation for the specific content of writing at each respective time. As both healing and writing are Shine's life's work, her sincere and intense intent of perfecting the work for the benefit of others inevitably attracts the guidance and help from the Infinite. And without exception, these guiding graces always carry us beyond our own limited capabilities in performing our life's work.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Source: Muggetridge, M. (1971/1984). Something Beautiful for God. New York; Walker and Company.

The lifework of the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, is well known around the world. Born an Albanian in the old Yugoslavia, the young school girl volunteered for the Yugoslav Jesuits' charity work in the archdiocese in Calcutta, India. For the remaining of her years, Mother Teresa worked tirelessly for the poorest of the poor in the slums there. She established the religious order of the Missionaries of Charity. The order is dedicated to serving the poor and the down-trodden forgotten by society. Starting in the slums of India, the order of charity is now in all five continents. The establishment's numerous educational and basic-living services for the poor have been well documented.

Mother Teresa considered her life's work to be God's will. She received her "first calling" at age twelve while at school in Yugoslavia. In her own words, "..we ..had very good priests who were helping the boys and girls to follow their vocation according to the call of God. It was then that I first knew I had a vocation to the poor....I wanted to be a missionary, I wanted to go out and give the life of Christ to the people."

So from age nineteen and for the subsequent eighteen years, Mother Teresa taught geography at St. Mary's High School in Calcutta. She described her time there as being very happy, for she "love(s) teaching most of all."

However, the "second calling" came after sixteen years of teaching there. Mother Teresa recounted in her biography, "It was a call within my vocation. It was a second calling. It was a vocation to give up (teaching) and to go out in the streets to serve the poorest of the poor....I was going to Darjeeling to make my retreat. It was in that train, I heard the call to give up all and follow him into the slums to serve him among the poorest of the poor....I knew it was his will, and that I had to follow him. There was no doubt that it was going to be his work." So after a three-month intensive nursing training, Mother Teresa began her work in the slums of Calcutta.

Mother Teresa saw "the biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for and deserted by everybody. The greatest evil is the lack of love and charity, the terrible indifference towards one's neighbor who lives at the roadside assaulted by exploitation, corruption, poverty and disease." And she considered her co-workers as "the apostles of the unwanted."

This sentiment is movingly captured in her daily prayer, "Dearest Lord, may I see you today and every day in the persons of your sick, and, whilst nursing them, minister unto you. Though you hide yourself behind the unattractive disguise or the irritable, the exacting, the unreasonable, may I still recognize you, and say: 'Jesus, my patient, how sweet it is to serve you.'....O beloved sick, how doubly dear you are to me, when you personify Christ; and what a privilege is mine to be allowed to tend you. Sweetest Lord, make me appreciative of the dignity of my high vocation, and its many responsibilities. Never permit me to disgrace it by giving way to coldness, unkindness, or impatience...."

The richly magnificent legacy of Mother Teresa's life's work for humanity is simply beyond words. Her way of life exemplifies a perfected union of deep inner meditation and profound human services.

Afterword

Socrates' famous motto, Know Thyself, teaches us to know our life's calling. When we wholeheartedly take on our true calling as an end in itself, undeterred by its difficulty and unconcerned with its "fruits" (honor/dishonor), we are acting in total harmony with the Eternal order. The timely guiding graces in each of these personal stories are evidently part and parcel of this Eternal order.

However, our life's work is not meant to be a burdensome duty hanging heavily on our shoulders. As each of us is but one single instrument in the ultimate integral perfection; our life's work will naturally unfold itself, at the right moments in life, towards that overall integral perfection.

This view of ourselves as passive instruments seems to be at odds with the contemporary idea of human agency. People today would typically attribute a person's great work to his or her own "free will" in choosing to undertake the work; and to his or her own "disciplined mind" in persevering to complete that work.

And yet, the perennial truth since time immemorial is that both man's will and mind's thoughts are the natural gifts of grace. This truth is plainly evident in all spiritual traditions. For instance, in the eastern Vedic teachings, we are likened to the "flute" of the Lord, and so there ultimately is no free will, for "it too comes from God." In the western scriptures, we are said to be the "vessel" of the Holy Spirit. This sentiment is fully captured in King David's praise of God's wonderful mystery: "You know my thoughts and words before I do." It also underlies Mother Teresa's simple prayer, "Let me offer you the service of my thoughts and my tongue, but first give me what I may offer you."

Indeed, we, as instruments of the benevolent Eternal order--of that which naturally unfolds its integral perfection through us and that which unceasingly affords amazing graces in fostering us--how then can we ever fail in our life's work?