The Circle of Life

Is Life a Circle or a Line?

On a summer day in 1988, I was consumed by one question, “Is life a line or a circle?” Is birth the beginning of the line with death at the other end of the line, or do birth and death come together at the same point in a circle of life? Are old age and childhood more similar than different? I wasn’t sure why I had to answer that question on that particular day or why the question seemed so important at the time.

I suppose I wondered whether life had a beginning and an end or whether we go through life repeating similar cycles. Maybe a circle is not the appropriate image. Maybe life is a sphere where movement is continuous in a three-dimensional framework. I drove around in search of a place for my discovery and found a desolate beach where I could be alone with my thoughts. I then noticed a beautiful park that was next to the beach so I wandered over to the gardens and sat down. An old man was sitting next to me and he turned to me without saying hello and said just one thing, “you must know that everything is a circle.” I was in shock that this man seemed to read my mind and answered my question without any prior information. I was speechless in response to his statement. For the next hour, I just listened to everything he had to say. He eloquently expressed his philosophies, which were shockingly similar to my private thoughts -- even my view that all religions were just different paths to reach the same goal. He then told me that I was studying and I thought he was asking whether I was in school. I told him that I had graduated a few months ago but he said that wasn’t the kind of studying he was referring to. He seemed to know about all my obsession for spiritual study even though I never told him. When I left, he told me that it was his 80^th birthday. I’ve never forgotten the conversation because I felt so peaceful in his presence and it was extremely coincidental that he seemed to know my thoughts when I hadn’t revealed any information. It felt like I was listening to a mythical mentor who had knowledge that was difficult to find elsewhere. I knew he was wise the minute he started talking and it is rare in life to be exposed to such wisdom. For many years I tried to find that park again but I was always unsuccessful. I often wonder whether this man existed at all or if he was just an extension of my own imagination.

Later I found out that the philosophy of “life as a circle” was not a new concept at all. In the book, Everyday Karma, world renown psychic, Carmen Harra states, “We are all interconnected and part of the greater circle of life. None of us an escape the circle of life, which the Buddhists and Hindus call ‘Samsara’ or the ‘Wheel of Life.’ Everything in the Universe is made of energy and all this energy is contained within this circle. This circle has no end, and since energy can’t be static, it’s in constant, perpetual motion. Everything is in motion; everything is constantly transforming; everything is in a constant state of transition. Since we are all energy and energy doesn’t die, we all share in this condition of perpetual evolution and transformation.” In The History of God, Karen Armstrong says, “the most perfect motion, therefore, was the circle because it was perpetually turning and returning to its original point: the circling celestial spheres imitate the divine world as best they can.”

The Circle’s Symbolism

Life is frequently represented as a circle in ancient religions and myths. Jung said that “one of the most powerful religious symbols is the circle. The circle is one of the great primordial images of mankind and in considering the symbol of the circle, we are analyzing the self.” Joseph Campbell agrees with this analogy and says, “The whole world is a circle. All of these circular images reflect the psyche, so there may be some relationship between these architectural designs and the actual structuring of our spiritual functions. When a magician wants to work magic, he puts a circle around himself, and it is within this bounded circle, this hermetically sealed-off area, that the powers can be brought into play that are lost outside the circle… The circle…represents totality. Everything within the circle is one thing, which is encircled, enframed. That would be the spatial aspect. But the temporal aspect of the circle is that you leave, go somewhere, and always come back. God is the alpha and the omega, the source and the end. The circle suggests immediately a completed totality, whether in time or in space.”

In essence, the circle represents the continuity of life because the circle has no end. Shamans stated that the circle represented the passage from the natural to the supernatural world and circles are frequently seen in cave paintings all over the world. Surprisingly, these similar images were drawn by cultures that had no connection to one another. Plato also wrote that our “original state” was a perfect circle that was eventually split into two separate beings. Unexplained mysteries also appear as circles. Originally, Stonehenge was created with a perfect outer circle and in farmlands strange circles miraculously appear where crops can’t be grown. Ancient rituals were also practiced in sacred prayer circles; campfires are circles and nests are circles. The circle of the ring in the marriage ceremony is a symbol of continuity and infinite love and King Arthur’s roundtable used the circle as a symbol of equality. The circle as a wheel was the greatest invention of humankind. This mythical shape allowed movement and progress. Before the wheel, we lived with limitations and boundaries.

Running and Returning

The interesting concept of the circle is that the farther we travel from its beginning, the closer we come to it. The act of traveling away actually brings us nearer. In the Kabbalah, they frequently refer to “running and returning.” The farther you run, the closer you come to where you started. The farther we travel from the Source, the closer we come to it. Searching for wisdom is similar to this analogy. After years of complex thinking, we arrive back at simplicity. To unite with others, we may first have to become very different in order to recognize our similarities. At some point, we travel farther than the midpoint of the circle and then we begin our journey home (like the concept of birth and death).

Even Einstein proved that infinite travel is actually circular. In The Celestine Vision, Redfield explains Einstein’s theories by saying, “The overall universe is curved by the entirety of the matter within it in an incredibly mysterious way. This means if we were to travel in a perfectly straight line in one direction long enough, over a great enough distance, we would return to the exact same place where we began.”

Is a Circle Nothing or Everything?

It’s also not surprising that oo represents infinity. The symbol flows continuously and it is more appropriate than a circle because mathematically, the circle is interpreted as zero or nothing. When two zero’s flow together, we create the symbol for infinity. Nothing is just part of an image that reflects everything.

This concept is prevalent in meditation. At the point that you find nothingness, you find everything. The objective is to clear the mind of thoughts and external influences so that it can be an effective receiver for knowledge and insights. If the mind is full, it cannot take in new information (just as a full glass of liquid cannot take in any more substance). In essence, the person who meditates is seeking a state of “nothingness” and at this point of emptiness comes totality. In other words, by reaching emptiness, there is an infinite connection to the universal energy that envelops us in perfect harmony.

According to Fritjof Capra in his book, The Tao of Physics, he explains that the Brahman of the Hindus, the Dharmakaya of the Buddhists and the Tao of the Taoists all describe the ultimate reality as formless, empty or void. “But this emptiness is not to be taken for mere nothingness. It is, on the contrary, the essence of all forms and the source of all life.” Lao Tzu “often compares the Tao to a hollow valley, or to vessel which is forever empty and thus has the potential of containing an infinity of things.” He also says, “We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move. We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want. We hammer wood for a house, but it is the inner space that makes it livable. We work with being, but non-being is what we use.”

Emptiness as totality is at the basis of physics. If you imagine an orange and then you blow up the orange in your mind to the size of the earth, an orange’s atom would be the size of a cherry. Now take this cherry (that conceptualizes the atom) and blow it up to the size of the dome of St. Peter’s Cathedral. The nucleus of this atom is the size of a grain of sand. The rest of the atom is just empty space. Thus, these atoms that define the totality of physical objects are primarily composed of empty space. According to Einstein, 99.999% of all solid matter is actually empty space. The “O” that mathematically represents “nothing” is actually symbolic of a geometric shape that represents totality.

The Interconnection of Birth and Death

I have always wondered why we mourn death and celebrate life since both events are so intertwined. Are these changes within “being” rather than changes to “being?” Do these events just create different manifestations of the same energy force? Why don’t we celebrate a person’s life on the day they die instead of grieving because we can no longer interact with this person in the physical world? Every day we celebrate one more day of our lives when in fact, we are one day closer to death. Death doesn’t just happen on one particular day. Every day that came before led up to the event. As stated by the Dalai Lama in An Open Heart, “Before we can renounce cyclic existence, we must first recognize that we shall all inevitably die. We are born with the seed of our own death. From the moment of birth, we are approaching this inevitable demise.”

The body prepares itself for death during life. As we get older, the functions of the body slowly break down so that death can occur. This may seem like a warped way of looking at life -- similar to viewing the glass as half empty -- but that is only because we view death as a negative event. The person “disappears” so it cannot be positive; yet, how do we know whether death is positive or negative if we have no memory of experiencing it ourselves?

The only real certainty in life is that we will eventually die, so why would we avoid thinking about it? Shouldn’t we prepare ourselves for the event so that we can accept it gracefully, without fear? We wouldn’t walk into battle unprepared, so why is it acceptable to die without preparation? The Tibetan Book of the Dead prepares people for death in the same way that education prepares people for life or the way an expectant mother prepares for birth. Joseph Campbell says, “One can experience an unconditional affirmation of life only when one has accepted death, not as contrary to life but as an aspect of life. Life in its becoming is always shedding death, and on the point of death… We must constantly die one way or another to the selfhood already achieved.”

According to Michael Newton in his book, Destiny of Souls, he states “In our culture, we do not prepare properly for death during life because it is something we cannot fix or change… In discussing life after death on my lecture tours, I was surprised to find that many people who held very traditional religious views seemed to be the most fearful of death. The fear for most of us comes from the unknown. Unless we have had a near-death experience or undergone a past life regression where we remember what death felt like in a former life, death is a mystery… Thus, our culture views death as an abhorrence.”

In Phaedo, Plato describes that opposites are generated from one another or for something to be greater means that something has to be less; the stronger is derived from the weaker; the swifter from the slower. He writes, “then there is a new way in which we arrive at the inference that the living come from the dead, just as the dead come from the living; and if this is true, then the souls of the dead must be in some place out of which they come again… if generation were in a straight line only, and there were no compensation or circle in nature, no turn or return into one another, then you know that all things would at last have the same form and pass into the same state and there would be no more generation of them… if all things which partook of life were to die, and after they were dead remained in the form of death, and did not come to life again, all would at last die, and nothing would be alive.”

Death actually happens every day of our lives. Our cells die at the same time that there is new cell growth. Physically, life and death happen simultaneously. In The Tao of Physics, it is stated, “Like the subatomic world of the physicist, the phenomenal world of the Eastern mystic is a world of samsura – of continuous birth and death.”

In French, the word for orgasm is “petite mort,” or little death. In essence, the interpretation is that at the height of ecstasy or at the point we find spiritual and physical exaltation, we must let go of something else. A part of us must die as we succumb to the emotional release that allows us to experience bliss; and since an orgasm also produces the seed for new life, the implication is that the creation of life requires the death of something else.

In Scott Peck’s book, The Road Less Traveled, he states, “it is abundantly clear that this lifetime is a series of simultaneous deaths and births. ‘Throughout the whole of life one must continue to learn to live,’ said Seneca two millennia ago, ‘and what will amaze you even more, throughout life one must learn to die.’ It is also clear that the farther one travels on the journey of life, the more births one will experience and therefore the more deaths – the more joy and the more pain.” In his book, Further Along the Road Less Traveled, he explains that the journey in life is not a straight line, “it is, rather, like a series of concentric circles expanding out from the core, and there is nothing simple or straightforward about it.”

In nature we constantly see a circular motion of “birth” and “death.” After snow falls and the air warms, we see the “death” of snow and the “birth” of water. If the water hits the cold air as the snow melts, we see the death of water and the birth of ice (in the form of icicles). When the air becomes warmer, we then see the death of ice and the birth of water again. Eventually, this water turns into the air, which is used to create the next round of snow.

Constant death and birth also apply subjectively. Our childhood dreams die as we walk down the path of life and other dreams are born in their place. For example, some people are forced to let their dreams about having children die due to circumstances or nature. If the dream must die then something else must live – an alternative path or a new way of accomplishing the same dream. We can adopt children or become foster parents. With advancements in medical science, the dream of children can be accomplished with fertilization treatments or by adopting an egg, buying some sperm or hiring a surrogate. If childbirth is still impossible, a different path for accomplishing similar benefits is to become Big Brothers or Big Sisters for children who are struggling to get through life. Or we can devote our time and love to our nieces and nephews. In Southern Africa, thousands are dying of starvation and there is not enough money to solve the problem. Rescue workers watch children and their parents die everyday because there simply is not enough food to go around. Instead of focusing on our own needs for a personal birth, we could be focusing our resources to help ensure that a living human being is not forced to die. Doesn’t the act of saving a human life bear similar benefits to procreation? In both cases, life goes on.

The Similarity of Childhood and Old Age

Life also resembles a circle because childhood and old age have similarities. After being independent since childhood, old age can force similar dependencies. It may be difficult to get dressed alone and it may be extremely fulfilling to have someone read to us. The frightening part of this repetition is that the support network we had as children is gone. We also aren’t adorable anymore so the attention feels different. It can feel more like pity than love. We may be forced to rely on strangers if our parents are dead and our children are busy with their own lives (or we may not have children to rely on).

In addition, our childhood dreams are gone. Hopes are replaced with regret and guilt. Innocence is replaced with wisdom. In this dependency state, we are at the end of our path instead of the beginning. What are our dreams during old age? Sometimes, the only dream is to avoid the pain of old age. How do we accomplish the dream of enjoying the journey when the day-to-day existence can be unbearable? What if we feel there is no love in our lives, including a love for ourselves? We wait for the only fate ahead of us and our lives are filled with the visions of death. Painfully, we are extremely aware of death because our contemporaries are passing away. Instead of childhood anticipation, there is fear of the unknown.

Old age gives us the time that we never had when we were young. Yet, this time may not be very desirable if a person doesn’t know what to with it. If self-worth is compromised, the time may feel like a curse. Maybe nursing homes should be more like camp. Maybe we should recognize the similarity between old age and childhood by encouraging playtime. There could be crafts classes and recreation time. We can teach the elderly how to play again. Children can even join in the fun. By recognizing the similarity between these two phases of life, we may be able to increase daily fulfillment for the elderly.

Often a negative attitude is the only barrier to fun. My grandmother was an artist her entire life but since her stroke, she has no desire to draw, paint or make sculptures. Her attitude has shifted because she is no longer fulfilled by her craft. She has decided to become unhappy. Her only pleasure comes from watching movies. This activity is similar to childhood too. When we are children, we are glued to the TV. This same desire can return during old age.

Maybe we should have puppies and kittens in nursing homes while they wait for adoption. Why should they be imprisoned at the pound instead of loved by the elderly? In my mind, the ultimate nursing home would incorporate childlike elements. We could celebrate the child that lives in older individuals instead of pitying them because some of their adult independence is gone.

Two years ago at Christmas I bought 50 little stuffed animals and I gave them away to children that I saw during my flight home. Parents were first suspicious of my behavior because it was unusual to receive free stuffed animals from a stranger, but the children that accepted my gift gave me great joy. I brought some of the stuffed animals to the nursing home when we went to visit my grandmother because I thought some children might be there. To my surprise, my grandmother’s face lit up when she saw the stuffed animals. I gave her two of them and they made her extremely happy. I was so shocked at the time. I never knew that stuffed animals gave her such pleasure.

At the time, I did not understand the similarities between old age and childhood so I was confused by her reaction. Now it makes sense to me. Maybe there needs to be more toys in her life. Why are toys only created for children? Couldn’t there be toys for older adults? We need to recognize that playtime can be fun our entire lives. In the middle of life, playtime is often achieved through sports. At an older age when sports are no longer an option, we may just need different kinds of toys.

A difference between childhood and old age is that graduation from school is replaced with graduation from this physical life. Yet we believe that academic graduation is commencement -- we see it as a beginning rather than as an end. Graduation from earth may be the same. Though we may not look forward to it in the same way because we don’t know what is waiting for us.

­The Continuity of Life

If life is a circle then physical death is only the birth to a new existence -- life is continuous eternally. Some people may interpret this as a way of saying that our lives continue through the people we have loved, or the things that we have said or the words that we have written. Actors are immortal through their movies and politicians are immortal through history. It could also mean that the life force never ends. Mary T. Browne says, “The circle is a symbol of the universal God force, which has neither beginning nor end.” We may see a two-dimensional circle that seems to be defined through birth and death but if the circle is a multi-dimensional sphere it just means that we can’t see the other dimensions right now. If life is continuous, we should not be afraid of the end of this particular existence. We should just prepare ourselves for the journey that lies ahead. As Karlfried Graf Durckheim says, “When you’re on a journey, and the end keeps getting further and further away, then you realize that the real end is the journey.”

If the wise man I met was right, then in an objective reality, everything in life has a circular flow. We already know that the earth rotates in a circle, our journey around the sun is circular and the moon’s journey around the earth is circular. Even our clocks and watches are circular. If one morning to the next is a circle and one year to the next is a circle, and seasonal flows are circular, then why wouldn’t our lives be a circle as well?

The circle seems to be the natural movement of life and it is possible that reincarnation provides a circle for an existence that transcends from one dimension to the next. The circle is the perfect representation of continual flow. The unknown is the known and the future and past flow continuously into the present.

If life is a circle, then tomorrow always comes. It may not be a tomorrow on the physical plane but it means that the future can never die. Lao Tzu says, “If you stay in the center and embrace death with your whole heart, you will endure forever.” Some may believe that at death the future turns into a state of “nothingness” but perhaps this image of “nothing” is only a part of an entity that represents everything. Just like mathematical symbols, perhaps the circle we see on the physical plane connects to another circle in a different dimension. At the point of connection, our circular flow is no longer a circle. Instead, the unification of circles transcends from a 0to oo and thus, we transcend from “nothing” to infinity. Perhaps the circular connection between this life and the next transforms our perceived emptiness into an image of totality. This would mean that from one we become all, and correspondingly our individuality becomes interconnected to the natural flow of the infinite universe.

The Critical Path

The debate between free will and fate is a never-ending battle. Some people believe that life’s events are random and free will is the only power that we have to determine our future. Other people believe that fate is controlling our destiny. Isn’t it possible that both viewpoints are correct? Randomness may only be an illusion. Many random events appear to have order when they are viewed from a different perspective. For example, if you look closely at a painting by Seurat, the painting looks like random dots of color. Yet, when you step back from the painting the dots come together to form a magnificent work of art. C.G. Jung defined synchronicity as “meaningful coincidences.” Events or actions that appear to be independently random eventually seem to have meaning when they are viewed in relation to each other.

Maybe our ultimate destiny or direction in life results from the combination of free will and fate. Free will is our right to choose a particular direction. Some of our choices may create a significant event, while other choices may result in nothing. Free will may be working with fate to direct our destiny, and the resulting events could help us accomplish our unique purpose on earth.

The root of the debate focuses on whether or not each person has a unique purpose in life. If we are spiritual beings, the purpose of life may be to evolve the soul by learning certain lessons. People who believe in reincarnation have stated that earth is being used as a “school” to help evolve the soul towards perfection. When I was younger my sister told me that reincarnation was impossible. She argued, “Reincarnation is just not logical. Why would we spend so much time learning lessons only to forget them at birth? What would be the point of learning a lesson in the first place? It also makes no sense that we would keep coming back to earth. How could we evolve in a place where we had already been? If we were supposed to learn additional lessons, why wouldn’t we learn them in a spiritual universe or on a different planet?”

Books on reincarnation have stated that amnesia at birth doesn’t really exist because all information remains in the subconscious. If we learned a lesson in a previous lifetime, we will always remember it. The individual only consciously forgets the previous events that allowed the soul to initially learn the lesson. For example, many people are naturally unselfish without being exposed to circumstances that would have allowed the lesson to be learned. It is possible that unselfishness was learned prior to the individual’s current existence. Many believe that if a person remembers past life events, it could interfere with the learning process. For example, suppose that in a previous life an individual was extremely wealthy, which created an attitude of superiority. In response, the same individual may be born to a life of poverty to learn humility. If the past life is remembered, humility may not be learned because the person may be angry and bitter that the wealth has disappeared instead of facing the conditions that are necessary to learn the lesson of humility. Furthermore, if past life events are remembered, there could never be a “clean slate” between two people. If a person remembers being murdered by another person, the anger or desire for revenge may prevent these people from making a transition from one life to the next.

Reincarnation theory also states that earth may be re-experienced so that the same people can be brought back together. During a lifetime, the karmic balance between people is not always obtained (especially if one person murders another). Therefore, reincarnation ensures that the same people may come back in different roles, so that retribution may occur. For example, if a mother abused a child in one life, their roles may reverse in the next. This opportunity gives both people the chance to balance the negative actions that were unresolved during their first life together.

The earth is also a valuable learning institution because of the imperfections of the human body. The body needs food, water, shelter, and good health to survive. By withdrawing life’s necessities, certain lessons can be learned. For example, poverty and illness are valuable tools for learning certain lessons. In the spiritual universe, the “body” does not need money and does not get sick. Therefore, some lessons learned on earth could never be learned in a spiritual universe. In the spiritual world, there is also no greed, hate, conceit, need for power or anger. The presence of these attributes on Earth can be extremely valuable learning tools.

Reincarnation has been “authenticated” through thousands of cases of past life regressions, in which a person is asked to recall past life experiences under hypnosis. Many people have recited detailed descriptions about obscure historical events and ordinary people that lived hundreds of years earlier. Since the details are not cited in history books, it is highly unlikely that this information could have been learned in the conscious state. The actual verification of the historical facts required months (and sometimes years) of significant research. The people remembered under hypnosis were not famous. To verify the recollection, birth certificates of obscure people have been found in antiquated records that have not been viewed by anyone for hundreds of years. Married couples have also described details of identical past lives from hundreds of years before, even though each partner was hypnotized separately and neither person had access to information that was reported by their spouse. Many couples have found that they were together in previous lifetimes in different roles. Sometimes they were brother and sister, or mother and child, as enemies or friends, or of the opposite gender.

Under hypnosis, patients can also speak in strange languages that are currently extinct. Sylvia Browne hypnotized a patient who described a life as a pyramid builder. He then started talking in what she thought was gibberish. She sent the tape to a professor at Stanford and she reports that the professor called back “breathless with excitement, to tell me that after considerable research, he and his colleagues were in unanimous agreement that those goofy nonsense syllables were actually my client speaking fluent seventh-century BC Assyrian, a language that would have been very popular among pyramid builders.” She asked her patient if he was a linguist or knew Assyrian but he had never even heard of the language. In Brian Weiss’s book, Messages from the Masters, he reports a story about two-year old twins who were speaking to each other with strange words that appeared to have sentence structure and there was mutual comprehension. Their parents took the twins to a professor of ancient languages at Columbia University who identified the “baby talk” as perfect Aramaic. According to the professor, Aramaic is virtually an extinct language that is spoken only in a remote part of Syria. Its last era of prominence was around the time when Jesus lived.

People even have birthmarks in the exact spot where they recall a death wound under hypnosis. For instance, someone may recall a fatal knife wound in the throat that happened thousands of years earlier and the hypnotist then notices a faded birthmark in the shape of a slash on the person’s throat. Sylvia Browne found that 98% of her patients with birthmarks had a death experience that corresponded to the shape of the birthmark (which was discovered after the hypnosis session was over). Furthermore, many irrational fears or mysterious pains are cured after past-life hypnosis. Patients who have an irrational fear of water are suddenly “cured” when, under hypnosis they recall an experience of drowning to death in the 1300’s. One of Sylvia Browne’s patients had extreme trouble swallowing on various occasions and would be unable to breathe, which resulted in continual calls to paramedics. After a hypnosis session where the patient recalled being attacked by a lion through a bite in the throat, all the episodes disappeared. Mysterious pains in the chest also disappear after recalling fatal stab wounds that occurred in previous lives.

Reincarnation theory also states that before a person is born, the soul actually chooses the exact conditions to learn additional lessons, including the parents, future spouse, religion, and geographical location. It is also believed that a person is prepared for a future life through the “programming” of certain smells, voices, or body language into the subconscious. An interesting case was reported in Brian Weiss’s book, Messages From the Masters. In one case, he cites that a graduate student had a dream when his wife was four months pregnant. They did not know the sex of the child. As stated in the book, the graduate student said that “One night, his unborn daughter came to him in a vivid dream, announcing her name, describing her immediate past life, and explaining why she was choosing to be born to this young couple, her karmic purpose and plans.” He awoke with the riveting dream sharply etched in his mind. He turned toward his wife. “I just had the most amazing dream,” he began, at which point she cut him off. “Me too!” she explained. “ I dreamt our daughter came to me…” Both people cited the same name, same past, same plans, and same details. Basically, it was the same dream. Five months later, a beautiful bay girl was born to them.

The pre-selection of our significant relationships, desired lessons, external catalysts and critical milestones is an extremely important concept. Under hypnosis, many people have described (in detail) the process of creating a “chart” for a particular life when they are asked to recall the preparation that precedes birth. They immediately know the theme for each life (according to Sylvia Browne, there are 44 distinct life themes) and the primary lessons that they were trying to learn in that life.

It’s interesting that we spend so much time on this planet being angry at fate or God when we encounter a disaster in life. Some people even turn away from religion after a personal catastrophe. Anger directed at God or the universe is futile and unfair because we alone are responsible for the disasters we experience. We are the ones who chose to face the consequences of a particular tragedy because in an enlightened state, we were eagerly willing to bear the suffering in exchange for the resulting psychological growth (and in the spiritual bliss of the “other side,” we are confident that we will be able to survive the pain that accompanies adversity). Since, we are the ones who choose to endure certain traumatic episodes in life, why do we get mad at God when something bad happens? He is there to support us and give us strength to survive the scenarios that we pre-selected.

Our fate is not some external punishment inflicted upon us by an unsympathetic universe. God and our guides have infinite compassion for our chosen suffering. Single people may spend night after night being upset at the universe because they are not involved in a successful relationship. Yet, the universe would love to save us from our misery. They are merely being respectful of our previous decision to bear the suffering so that we could learn from it. If they saved us from the agony, then we would not be given the opportunity we need to change. And if we are temporarily rescued, we may be angrier when we return to The Other Side because “someone”` took away the catalyst that we selected for growth. It is extremely important to understand that we chose a particular catalyst and the universe does not have the right to take it away (because free will is sacrosanct). As a comparison, a child may decide that he wants to learn how to ride a bike. The parent could save the child from pain by refusing to let the child fall off his bike. However, if the parent does not allow the child to fall, he will never learn how to ride the bike by himself. In this case, the child made a decision to learn something new. If the parent does not allow the child to suffer during the process, the lesson cannot be learned.

If individuals want to get upset about the hardships that are encountered, they should be directing that anger towards themselves instead of the universe. More accurately, however, they just need to understand that they chose to be subjected to the negativity of a tragedy for a reason -- and that reason is much more important than the temporary suffering that must be endured.

When charting a life, some people may choose to die early to accomplish a certain objective. After they die, their family and friends spend significant energy by being angry with God instead of understanding that the person who died chose to leave the earth at that particular time. Some may say that we need to forgive the person who chose to die, but instead we just need to understand that we cannot know the whole story or the reasons why a person chooses to leave the planet at a particular time. Most religions do not adequately explain the life-charting process. Therefore, we are not given the background we need to understand life’s tragedies.

If reincarnation theory is correct, each person has an ultimate purpose in life and the goal of a lifetime is to learn certain lessons or to balance the karma between individuals or groups of individuals. The list of possible lessons that could be learned by a soul may be infinite, which means that it is impossible to learn all lessons in one lifetime. Instead, we may have a subset of lessons that we trying to learn during each life. Some people theorize that life is similar to school. Some people are in “elementary school” and some people are in “graduate school,” and the people in “graduate school” may be older souls. The theory is that easier lessons were learned during previous lives and that each time a person reincarnates, the lessons become more difficult. At one point, everyone has been in elementary school and at some point; everyone will reach graduate school. Reincarnation doesn’t mean that the person “flunked,” it only means that the person chose to come back to school for another degree. The people in graduate school probably encounter the most difficulty in life in the same way that the material studied in graduate school is much more difficult than the lessons learned in 4^th grade. A person cannot learn everything they need for a PhD in one year in the same way that a person cannot learn all of life’s lessons during one lifetime.

According to this “education theory,” death is like graduation. When the necessary lessons are learned, it is time to move on. Graduation is called commencement because it represents the beginning of a new experience instead of the end of the learning process. It is possible that only certain lessons can be learned under the conditions of a particular lifetime and after those lessons are learned, the person comes back to learn different lessons under different conditions. This theory is different from the Hindu caste system. The Hindu religion believes that someone is born to a lower caste because of mistakes from a previous life. The theory of “graduate school” is actually the reverse. It states that someone might be born to lower economic circumstances to learn harder lessons.

The education theory implies that we all have a critical path in life that combines free will and fate. Each individual chooses a path through free will but fate ensures that some critical points are reached on this path. Some people could have many critical points, while others may have only a few. For instance, meeting a spouse may be one of the critical points. It is possible that the intended spouse can help someone learn the necessary lessons or that karma needs to be resolved through the marriage.

The way we meet this particular person is determined by free will but if meeting this person is a pre-selected critical point, our free will always leads us to the same critical point. Some actions allow us to meet this person quickly, while other actions make the event happen slower. Yet, in either case, the point is reached.

For example, suppose Lisa must meet Tom because Tom can help her learn the lesson of compassion. The way that Lisa meets Tom is determined by free will, but the eventual act of meeting Tom is a critical point and determined by fate.

The diagram below shows three paths (determined by free will) that all lead to “Critical Point A,” where Lisa meets Tom. Suppose Lisa lives in Boston. In the first case, Lisa gets a job at IBM and meets Tom who also works at IBM’s Boston office. In the second case, Lisa moves to California, gets a job at IBM in California and meets Tom at a sales convention when people from all different offices at IBM get together to discuss company goals. In the third case, Lisa gets a job at an ad agency in Boston. She then decides to move to New York. She first gets a job at a marketing company and then decides to work at an ad agency in New York. The New York ad agency gets IBM as their account and Lisa meets Tom at a creative advertising meeting after the agency won the account.

Although all three cases involve free will, they all end up at the critical point of meeting Tom. Each case varies according to the number of free will decision points. In the first case, only one decision was needed to reach Critical Point A. In the second case two major decisions were made and in the third case, it took five major decisions before the critical point was reached. For some people, reaching a critical point could take hundreds or even thousands of different free will decision points.

After Lisa meets and marries Tom, she reaches Critical Point B, which is learning compassion. This is a simplified diagram of the balance between fate and free will, but it illustrates that no matter what we choose, there are certain events that will happen, regardless of free will. Death is also probably a critical point. There are some people who believe that by exercising and eating right, they can live to an old age. However, if the death critical point happens when all necessary lessons are learned, eating right and exercising will have nothing to do with determining the date of reaching that critical point. An “accident” could occur to ensure that the critical point is reached at the right time.

Each person’s critical points may be tied to other people’s critical points. In the previous example, Tom also had a critical point of meeting Lisa. He also could have used free will to change the situation, which would automatically affect the critical path for Lisa. Drastic events that involve other people lives may be needed to reach critical points. For example, suppose a person's critical point is to learn courage and strength. In order to learn this lesson, the person may have to encounter many tragedies, including the death of a loved one, before the soul learns how to be strong.

In the interviews with Bill Moyers, Joseph Campbell talks about Schopenhauer’s essay On an Apparent Intention in the Fate of the Individual, and says that Schopenhauer “points out that you reach an advanced age and look back over your lifetime, it can seem to have had a consistent order and plan, as though composed by some novelist. Events that when they occurred had seemed accidental and of little moment turn out to have been indispensable factors in the composition of a consistent plot. So who composed that plot? Schopenhauer suggests that just as your dreams are composed by an aspect of yourself of which your consciousness is unaware, so, too, your whole life is composed by the will within you. And just as people whom you will have met apparently by mere chance become leading agents in the structuring of your life, so, too, will you have served unknowingly as an agent, giving meaning to the lives of others. The whole thing gears together like some sort of symphony, with everything unconsciously structuring everything else. And Schopenhauer concludes that it is as though our lives were the features of the one great dream of a single dreamer in which all the dream characters dream, too; so that everything links to everything else, moved by the one will to life which is the universal will in nature… Everything arises in mutual relation to everything else, so you can’t blame anybody for anything. It is even as though there were a single intention behind it all, which always makes some kind of sense, though none of us knows what the sense might be.”

In turn, an expansion of the critical path theory is that each person’s critical path is not only tied to another person’s critical path but is also related to the necessary outcome of history. Quantum theory states that every future event has a certain probability of occurring. As free will changes, the future probabilities change. Each person’s critical path can be “managed” so that the necessary future probabilities keep increasing until the desired result is reached. The planning diagram is changing every second, based on every person’s free will. Each time a decision is made, a new path is created and all paths combined must end up at the desired result.

The sophistication of this planning effort is too complicated for any modern computer. It would mean that there are an infinite number of potential future time lines. They would all have to be known in the present and the “job” of the planning committee is to make sure that each person’s free will leads to critical points that interact with other people’s critical points to ensure that the “right” future time line is reached. If we assume that critical paths are "managed" then we cannot be judgmental about life's atrocities. For example, suppose that one of the future time lines is the destruction of earth, which could be the interactions of millions of people's future time lines. Then suppose that another time line is that Hitler rises to power, World War II happens, but the world is not destroyed. We may have been influenced to land on the World War II time line, so that ultimate destruction is avoided.

Based on this “planning model,” it seems that some sort of intervention may be needed to ensure a desired end result. For example, if a speeding car is going to be running a red light at Main Street and 4^th Street at 4:04 pm and another car is headed for that intersection at 4:04 pm, the second person could get killed by the speeding car. If death were to be avoided, a distraction would have to happen so that the second car did not reach the intersection at 4:04. Possibly, there could be an old lady crossing the street that causes the second car to slam on the brakes. The unexpected street crossing ensures that both passengers are saved. The second car reaches the intersection at 4:06 pm; exactly two minutes after the fatal car crash would have happened. Some people theorize that the old lady crossing the street may not even exist. Only the illusion of a woman crossing the street would be needed to save the lives of the drivers.

There is also the noted story about a man who reached an intersection at the exact time that another car was running a red light. He was rushed to the hospital and there was only one doctor who could have saved this man’s life. The doctor had left the hospital to go home and the fastest the doctor could return to the hospital was 45 minutes, which would have been too late to save the man’s life. Miraculously, at the moment they were making the call, the doctor walked back into the hospital because he had forgotten a gift for his wife. He arrived in time to save the man’s life. These are the miracles that we know about. However, the same miracle exists if the man had gotten to the intersection two minutes later because he couldn’t find his keys before he left the house. The second type of miracle happens everyday but we are just unaware that our lives have been saved. How do we know that we don’t get cancer once a month and miraculously it disappears before any symptoms appear?

The theory of “guides” has been authenticated in a number of books, based on real life experiences. For example, one night a woman was walking home by herself, and she saw a suspicious looking man standing in a dark alley. The man frightened her, so she increased her pace and got home as quickly as she could. When she read the paper the next day, she discovered that a different girl had been raped and killed at the same location four minutes after she passed the suspicious looking man. She went to the police and correctly identified the killer. During the criminal’s questioning, the police asked why he chose to attack the second girl instead of the first. The killer stated, “I would never have touched the first girl. Two huge men were with her. I never would have had a chance.” The police related the story back to the witness. “That’s impossible,” she said incredulously. “I was alone! There wasn’t anyone else in sight.” Another documented story was about a pilot who was flying in a small plane. Unexpectedly, he encountered a dense fog that dropped his visibility to zero. The pilot contacted the nearest control tower for an emergency landing. The air traffic controllers responded, “You should not try to land at this airport. The runway is completely surrounded by mountains. Even with perfect visibility, a landing is difficult.” The pilot felt that he had no other choice because he was running low on fuel and didn’t think he would make it to another airport. As the pilot tried to explain, he lost contact with the tower. A few minutes later, the radio started working again and he was carefully guided through the mountains for a safe landing. When the pilot touched ground, he expressed his extreme gratitude to the control tower for helping him through the fog. The air traffic controllers were shocked. “We never guided you down for a landing. We had recommended against it. We lost contact with you in the air and assumed that you had flown to another airport. We had no contact with you until you landed on the runway.” These are only two of the documented stories; there are thousands of other similar experiences.

Many unknowns are involved in the theory of critical paths. The theory combines free will, fate, reincarnation, spiritual guides and an ultimate plan for the universe and every single person on earth. Even if all elements are accepted, the education theory for spiritual evolution revolves around a central issue, “why would it be necessary for the soul to evolve?” It is possible that spiritual evolution is similar to physical evolution. With each genetic or spiritual change, the human being can adapt more effectively to its environment. The critical path theory just suggests that our ultimate goal is spiritual, rather than physical. Physical changes are necessary so that earth can be used as an effective school, or to ensure the survival of the species on this particular planet; but what is the purpose of spiritual evolution?

Many people believe we were created in the image of a superior being, but due to imperfections, we can never be the same as our creator. What if the goal of spiritual evolution is to become more similar to our creator so that we can effectively adapt to the spiritual environment? What if a part of us is always spiritual and we use the human experience to help develop the spiritual entity? Is it possible that throughout history, certain people reincarnate only to set an example of the goals that we are trying to reach? At different points in time, Moses, Jesus, the Buddha or Mohammad may have been the example. Today, it could be the Dalai Lama. All of these people exhibit characteristics that can be admired and followed.

What if the goal of spiritual evolution is exactly like academia? Is it possible that after we learn the required material, we can become teachers instead of students? Or maybe some of us will become creators on our own. To become a creator, a person would need to learn some extremely hard lessons. The potential creator would need to be able to love all children equally. Judgment could never be a part of the equation. Some people believe the ultimate purpose of the “earth school” is to learn unconditional love because the conditions on earth make unconditional love one of the hardest lessons to learn. In this lifetime, we will never know. The purpose of each person’s life can only be discovered through introspection.

Spiritual evolution can be a lonely process. This principle is best explained in the book The Road Less Traveled. According to Peck, “Someone who is approaching the peak of spiritual evolution is like someone at the peak of political power. There is no one above to whom to pass the buck; no one to blame; no one to tell you how to do it. There may not even be anyone on the same level to share the agony or the responsibility. Others may advise, but the decision is yours alone. You alone are responsible. In another dimension, the aloneness of enormous spiritual power is even greater than that of political power. Since their level of awareness is seldom as high as their exalted positions, the politically powerful almost always have their spiritual equals with whom they communicate. So presidents and kings will have their friends and cronies. But the person who has evolved to the highest level of awareness, of spiritual power, will likely have no one in his or her circle of acquaintances with whom to share such depth of understanding. One of the most poignant themes of the Gospels is Christ’s continual sense of frustration on finding that there was no one who could really understand him. No matter how hard he tried, how much he extended himself, he could not lift the minds of even his own disciples to his level. The wisest followed him but could not catch up with him, and all his love could not relieve him of the necessity to lead by walking ahead, utterly alone. This kind of aloneness is ‘shared’ by all who travel the farthest on the journey of spiritual growth. It is such a burden that it simply could not be borne were it not for the fact that as we outdistance our fellow humans our relationship to God inevitably becomes correspondingly closer. In the communion of growing consciousness, of knowing with God, there is enough joy to sustain us.”

I have always believed that I was in some sort of spiritual “school” but I thought that someone forgot to give me the curriculum. Where was the required reading list? Why doesn’t someone tell me when there is a pop quiz? One day, I just developed the curriculum on my own. There were enough clues about the lessons I needed to learn, I just needed to pay attention to them. I also realized that human role models are not always famous. The best teacher could be the person living next door. If we recognize that life is similar to education, we have to develop an internal commitment to keep studying because life’s lessons require an incredible amount of discipline and hard work. Most people just don’t want to work that hard so they find alternatives to learning. For example, they can go to class without doing their homework, they can skip class altogether, or they can go to class without hearing a word that the teacher has said.

Books on reincarnation agree that we develop our own syllabus for learning life’s lessons. As explained earlier, God doesn’t make bad things happen; we choose these things for the purpose of spiritual growth and God is there to help us endure the difficult circumstances that we have chosen to face. I have often believed that I was confused by the heavenly environment that surrounds us when we plan our lives. I think that I forgot the difficulty of The Earth School; and due to an over-ambitious desire to learn tough lessons I went too far. My unrealistic optimism may have caused me to set up conditions that were really too hard to handle. I was relieved when I read that I was not alone in this supposition. In the book, Life on the Other Side, Sylvia Browne says, “I’ve often said it shocks me that The Other Side is drug- and alcohol- free, because that means I was actually sober when I wrote my chart for this lifetime. For better or worse, though, we often feel so invincible in The Other Side’s atmosphere of bliss that we choose some incredibly massive obstacles for ourselves to confront on Earth.”

On many occasions, I have asked for an easier syllabus. Can’t I modify the curriculum? If I created this program of study, why can’t I change it? Earth School is different from regular school because we are both the teacher and the student. Yet, our role as teacher was in an environment where we had more comprehensive information and we do not have access to that same knowledge while we are a student on earth. Therefore, we cannot be good teachers while we are playing the role of a student. We just need to trust ourselves. Based on the information that we had on The Other Side, we decided that this particular curriculum was best. If the curriculum’s objectives were really too difficult, a guide would have convinced us to lighten the load during the planning sessions. Only under dire circumstances do guides change the curriculum after the school term has started (such as an immanent desire to commit suicide). In all other cases, they defer to our judgment by respecting our previous choices. We just need to realize that in our current state of awareness, we don’t know what we are capable of handling. Sometimes, we need to bite the bullet and have faith that the teacher knows best.

However, I am not saying that we do not have the power to change our destiny. Our thoughts directly control reality and there is no curriculum that we can’t modify along the way. Every day we have an infinite number of choices – and it is our freedom of thought (or perceived lack of freedom) that shapes our future. The real truth is that there are no situations that we can't change; no ruts that we can't break, and no career paths that we can't alter. The correct metaphor is that we decided on the “grade” we would enter when we came to Earth, but the actual classes could always be changed during the journey. The process of “selecting the critical points” is metaphorically similar to determining the conditions that are necessary to pass the first year of a BA program in psychology (for example). When we were in college, we may have been told that a BA in Psychology requires the completion of one English class and this requirement could be fulfilled by taking Literature of the 18^th century or Romantic Novellas. Correspondingly, we may have chosen a critical point to ensure that we satisfy the English requirement, but our free will determines which class we will take.

In life, lessons are learned through introspection, observation, listening or reading and our teacher is the inner voice that speaks to us in silence. Over time, it can be relatively easy to use the harsh sounds of the city to block the whispers of the sage. Or as Michael Berg says in The Way, “We must make a determined effort to hear the truth over the noise and negativity that pervade our world. Our task is to attune ourselves to the frequency of true wisdom and to train ourselves to hear it through the static that distracts so much of the world.” Learning life’s lessons requires strenuous travel down paths that have few road signs to lead the way. The fear of getting lost can be debilitating, and what would we do if we couldn’t find our way back home?

Finding home is discovering the essence of our heart and soul. No matter where we are, we can always find our way back. We may travel down some dead end roads and we may have to retrace our steps, but along the way, we will always find beauty. We may have to travel through dangerous terrain and we may injure ourselves temporarily as a result; but eventually, we always come home. The door opens, our loved ones welcome us back, and we embrace the familiarity of our nurturing environment.

Our most important critical point is death, but we need to understand that it is not the end of our existence. Instead, it is the beginning of a timeless eternity filled with love, hope, understanding, acceptance, and compassion. At the moment of death, we leave our physical home to enter our spiritual home -- and we finally realize that our separation was only an illusion. We may lose our way along the path of life, but we never lose ourselves.

Crossing the Bar

By Alfred Lord Tennyson

Sunset and evening star

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar

When I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep

Too full for sound and foam

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell

When I embark.

For tho’ from out our borne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crost the bar.

The Magic of Knowing

There is a difference between belief and “knowing.” Belief is correlated to faith and knowing invokes a quiet, peaceful certainty that comes from the heart and soul. A state of knowing is extremely difficult to obtain and even when it exists, it can be frustrating to know something prior to its occurrence. Some people know instantly that the person sitting across from them will be the person they will share their life with. Yet, to express this knowledge would scare the other person away and could interfere with destiny. Knowing is usually magical and feelings of fear can significantly interfere with its existence.

Knowing comes from hearing the “truth” -- by listening to the small, faint voice in the back of the mind. Knowing is also unconditional. If something is “known,” then external circumstances (that may appear to contradict the ”vision”) have no power in changing the outcome. It takes great strength to place contradictory evidence in its proper perspective. Intellectual information often arises that causes doubt or fear that the “known” may in fact be untrue. With a real sense of knowing, these doubts must be consciously ignored. Instead, they are usually a test of the strength of our belief in what we “know” to be true. If the magic of knowing exists, then its predictability cannot be changed by outside influences. Something that is known goes against all odds or normal deterministic reasoning. Without skepticism, we must have confidence in an end result that appears doubtful. Knowing is the stronger than believing in destiny. Free will and fear can change destiny, yet nothing can alter what is “known.” Free will and fear cannot eradicate the truth.

James Van Praagh says, “Intuition is a sense of knowing, and this knowing comes from within. This sense of knowing is spontaneous; it is not a question of analysis. If you put too much effort into trying to be intuitive, you will impede the process. In other words, intuition is not something you can make happen. It just happens…There is such a thing as the spiritual level of intuition – the mystical experience of knowing. This is the glimpse into the true reality of our existence. Moments of spiritual intuition are unforgettable.”

How can a voice that is almost silent reveal a truth that transcends intellectual thought? I once “heard” that a person I cared about would appear at our neighborhood bar one night when I went there. I even knew what he would say to me if he came. I hadn’t seen him for two months and I had been to that bar about 10 times since I had seen him last (and I had never thought that he would be there before). Intellectually, it did not make sense that he would show up because we had a mutual friend and surely she would have known if he was coming. At the time, I thought the “voice” was only wishful thinking. In spite of my doubts, he walked into the bar and said exactly what I thought he would say. It was strange saying words that I had already mentally rehearsed in response to comments that I knew he would say. I was so shocked that my mind knew something prior to its existence that I remained in a fog the entire night.

We rationalize away our feelings of knowing. We think they are just wishful thinking or hidden fears (depending on whether it is positive or negative information). Knowing happens all the time. I woke up at three in the morning one day and I had a “feeling” that something bad had just happened. My grandfather passed away at that moment. At another time, a friend of mine felt that he knew something was wrong. He was on an airplane ready to take off. In a state of panic, he convinced the flight attendants to let him off the plane. At the same moment, his fiancé had gotten in a car crash and was being rushed to the hospital.

According to Carmen Harra in her book, Everyday Karma, she states, “Humanity is currently in a state of transition. We are making a transition from the period of the past two thousand years, the period of ‘I believe’ to the period for the next two thousand years, ‘I know.’ This is the age of knowledge; this time will be the Era of Awareness.”

Where does the feeling of knowing come from? It appears from nowhere and is probably the result of a connection with a source that we don’t really understand. When I read the book Original Wisdom, the author Robert Wolfe described an incredible experience of knowing. He decided to take a shaman, Ahmeed with him to Port Dixon. Ahmeed was part of an aboriginal tribe (the Sng’oi) that lives in the remote jungles in Malaysia. They live without cars, or cell phones, clocks or schedules. The people are indigenous to the area and they have lived in the same village their entire life. Ahmeed had never traveled far from the village before. Port Dixon is surrounded by ocean and it was the first time that Ahmeed had seen an ocean. He did not get close to the water; he just stared at the ocean from a distance in a state of a trance. When they arrived back at the village, Ahmeed told everyone in the village that they needed to have a ritual.

During the ritual, Ahmeed described the ocean and everyone became very afraid. They had only seen rainwater and the water of jungle streams. The village people had a fear of water because heavy rains had the potential to destroy their land. Ahmeed tried to appease the fear of the people in the village as he described a “Great Ocean that had water as far as you could see.” He explained that he met the Lord of the Great Ocean and he told him that this water would not eat the land. He further explained, “The whole world is covered with the Great Ocean… and the land floats on the water.” He said that the ocean was very heavy and that the land was lighter than the ocean, so it floats on the water. “The land is so big; there is so much land floating on this Ocean that it does not move, or maybe only a little but we do not feel it moving… this water is all over the earth and underneath the surface… is a whole world, in some ways like this world…there are mountains under what can be seen, very tall mountains…and there are valleys deeper than any of the valleys we have here. And through the Great Ocean there are streams, huge rivers – currents that flow all around the world, around and around... these streams are so immense that they sweep the fish around too. And there are many other animals as well, not just fish. There are animals so huge… bigger than elephants… animals that are flat and animals that are like snakes, but bigger, much bigger… but do not be afraid, the Big Ocean cannot eat the land. The land floats and the animals in the Big Ocean can live only there; they cannot come on land.” No one told Ahmeed anything about the ocean when he was in Port Dixon and he could not read, so he could not have gotten the information from a book. Robert Wolf decided to trick Ahmeed. He later said that the ocean was fresh water and Ahmeed disagreed with him by saying, “No, it is salty.” How could a shaman that lives in a remote village have so much information about an ocean he had never seen before? He was describing the ocean the way a scientist might talk about it. He never touched it or tasted it. All of his information came from an invisible source.

Many people define “knowing” as intuition, but in many cases, it is stronger than intuition. We just know that there are some streets we should not walk down and we know when to feel fear. Our biggest problems arise when we fight our feelings of knowing. When I have ignored the faint voice in the back of my mind, something always goes wrong.

A state of knowing can be invoked through meditation. During certain meditative sessions, I have jumped up with a singular thought on my mind. There is just something I need to do. During one of these experiences, I heard that I would relate to the Essenes, which was an ancient religion that I knew little about. I was shocked when I went to the Internet to discover more about the Essenes. Many of their beliefs were similar to my own (except for their purity laws and beliefs in separatism). They are a mixture of Eastern religion and Western religion and many believe that they studied the Kabbalah. The religion was an ancient sect of the Jewish religion and they had women priests. Jesus practiced with the Essenes and some of their beliefs are consistent with Buddhism (such as reincarnation). They were also the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Robert Wolfe refined his susceptibility to the sense of knowing. In his book, Original Wisdom, he describes two occurrences when he used this unusual “intuition” that he learned while living with the Sng’oi in Malaysia. Once he was walking up a steep and narrow trail that goes into the Hanakapi’ai Valley on the Island of Kauai. He had a very serious sinus headache that was interfering with his journey. He looked up and saw a plant that he was unfamiliar with. When he looked at the plant, he knew what it would feel like and what it would smell like. He also knew that if he could get one leaf (it was 20 feet up), and crushed it and put it in his nose, his headache would disappear. The plant felt and smelled exactly the same as he had imagined and the experiment worked. His sinus headache was gone in a matter of moments. Does intuition explain this unusual discovery? Another time in the mountains of Luzon in the Philippines, he slipped thirty feet down a very steep slope and badly scraped his hands and there was dirt, mud and debris inside the wounds. He knew that an infection would be serious and they were two days from civilization. He could not find a water source but he saw a plant and “knew” what the leaf of the plant would feel like and what it would taste like. He then “knew” he had to chew the leaves to make a poultice with some other leaves and to tie the bundle to his hands with vines. He “knew” that this concoction would clean out the dirt from the various scrapes and would disinfect the wounds. In the evening, he opened the bandages and found that the wounds were clean and without infection.

The sense of knowing can be overwhelming. If we become extremely sensitized to these feelings, we may feel emotionally overloaded. This experience happened to me one day. For some reason, my perception shifted and I feel what other people were feeling and through some form of telepathy, I could tell them what they were thinking. Every time I touched someone, I would feel a wave of emotion that was generated by the person’s state of mind. If a negative emotion was encountered, I actually had to lie down to recover. Only through deep breathing could I continue to function. I was completely drained by the end of the day. Robert Wolfe has had the same experience. In his book, he stated, “When we moved to Hawaii, after two years in Malaysia, I went through a long period of adjustment. The kind of openness I had learned with the Sng’oi probably has survival value in a tropical jungle, but in the jungle of a modern city, it is a burden. I learned that I did not want to sense what people were feeling. It was frightening to discover how many people think nothing at all, but feel waves of anger resentment and bitterness – although they act as if they are deaf and blind to their own feelings. Often our environments are so full, so busy, that allowing all senses (including the knowing sense) to be open will result in overload… I avoid places of overload if at all possible. One learns to shut off some senses, to protect oneself from all that noise.”

There can also be a sense of calmness from knowing something. Our minds are not cluttered with the “what ifs.” We know the end result of an encounter and our minds are at peace with the knowledge that we obtain. Before I knew I would date someone, I was constantly worried about what would happen or what wouldn’t happen. I was worried about saying or doing the wrong things. Once I had the sense of knowing that the relationship would work out for a period of time, all the noise went away. At some point, I also knew the relationship would end, but the realization never bothered me. It was just one of those relationships that needed to play itself out. The end was as peaceful as its beginning.

It takes practice to obtain a sense of knowing and it requires extreme trust in the “voices” we hear in the back of our mind. Edgar Cayce (famous healer) always had the peace of knowing. Once his credit at the local grocery store was cut off until he could pay the bill for $87.50. His wife was extremely upset because she could not buy the necessities that were needed for the household. Edgar Cayce calmly reassured her that the money would arrive. That morning a letter arrived with a check that was just large enough to cover the bill.

With all the thoughts that race about in our heads, we can easily ignore our ability to obtain the magic of knowing. Everyone has the potential to reach this state – it is only a state of heightened perception. It is easier to use our logic to discount these feelings than to believe in something that we don’t really understand. It is interesting that people talk about “women’s” intuition. This may just be a product of the difference of the sexes. Women just tend to be more in tune with their perceptions -- logic doesn’t easily overrule their feelings of intuition. If we can tune out the noise of our calculated logic, we can obtain a greater sense of knowing. If we can just relax and think about nothing, we may find that we have access to everything. A mother instinctually knows when her children are in trouble. This is only because she is relying on her increased perception and connection to her children and her instinctual need to ensure that her children are protected.

Animals probably have a greater sense of knowing than humans. They live in an environment where knowing something may be the difference between life and death. We are born with these instincts, but over time, we just learn to ignore them. We rationalize and analyze because that is our nature. A return to the sense of knowing is just getting in touch with our more innate animalistic instincts.

Knowing is not about belief, faith, wishful thinking or fear. It transcends all of the evolved emotions of humanity. Knowing is a connection to a source that is more powerful than ourselves. Jung would say that we could access the ability to “know” by connecting with the collective unconscious. Knowing is different from being psychic or telepathic (though sometimes it is hard to tell the difference). Knowing comes from the soul and it can be very difficult to live with knowledge that cannot yet be proven. Many scientists have accessed this ability and have spent their whole lives trying to prove something they knew from the start (and they are often successful).

To enhance our ability to “know,” we can use meditation techniques. By connecting with the source of our soul, we may find that we are aware of events and feelings without prior knowledge. Since the information we receive during this state may conflict with our expectations and beliefs, it may be very difficult to accept what we hear. We need to become comfortable when we hear things that has no concrete basis in reality. If you feel that a stranger will be special, he or she probably will be. If your instincts tell you there is danger, there probably is. We need to stop rationalizing and intellectualizing the events in our lives. If we follow our instincts and listen to the faint voice in the back of our head, we may be able to discover the magic of a universe that doesn’t always conform to our preconceived rules and expectations.