Inner Guidance (24 page)

Yet, I now realized that my words, thoughts, and deep feelings had helped create a mold for my future, developing a scenario that was perhaps first put into place long before I was born. A sense of sorrow had permeated my life for many years after my father’s death.

Had I unknowingly drawn into manifestation an accident just like my father’s? Was the night of my accident the time that I was going to leave this world?

If so, it was only one of the possible outcomes of this life—and it turned out not to be the path I followed.

Through this expanded inner awareness and the Mahanta’s gentle spiritual reminders, I now experienced a deeper understanding of what had really happened.

I had trusted my inner guidance, and it had led me away from the almost certain doors of death. Because of the guidance and protection I had received, and what I’d learned through the teachings of Eckankar, I felt I’d been spared from my own creation and given the oppor-Inner Guidance_CH 22-27.p65

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tunity to write a new future.

This guidance from Divine Spirit is available to everyone, regardless of the path we follow. Through it, our karmic destiny may be changed.

That is what I understood had happened to me. I experienced Eckankar as an accelerated path of spiritual growth in which we can benefit by learning to carefully follow our inner guidance. As our karma is unwound and limitations released, what was once a negative outcome falls away, and new opportunities for spiritual progress await us.

We all face multiple possibilities for the course of our life at any moment. There are choices at every turn.

Anytime we go in a certain direction, one outcome is chosen and others are eliminated or avoided. As Soul, a divine spark of God, we have an opportunity to choose.

And if we follow our inner guidance, we can learn to make better and more conscious choices.

Through the teachings of Eckankar, everything changed for me. Things were sped up in a perfect way, to move me along steadily for my greatest good.

Tears came to my eyes. I was alive and would be here to raise my precious daughter.

I chose life and had been given a brand-new canvas.

The course I had chosen would not be easy; the challenges of life are where our greatest growth may lie. And yet I was grateful for whatever life would bring!

I
continued to recuperate in the weeks that followed, and one day a very special card arrived.

Sri Harold Klemp had received the letter I had finally mailed about my lottery dream, with a note at the bottom about the car wreck. He wrote lovingly and told me how glad he was to hear that I had been open Inner Guidance_CH 22-27.p65

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to the love and protection of the Mahanta.

He assured me I would see the blessings unfold in my life in many ways. Indeed they were evidenced in many ways in the weeks and months that followed, and they have been demonstrated many times over in the years since.

To receive the blessings, we listen to the inner guidance we are provided. Receiving the gifts has to do with listening and being willing to follow that wisdom.

A
few months after the car wreck, life changed dramatically for me. Eckankar, my spiritual path, had sent out a mailing; the international organization was taking applications for a new editor of publications. I had a strong inner nudge to apply, so I did and was offered the position.

Thus ended my teaching career. Sarah and I moved to California, where I took the position in the Eckankar publications department. The change to a desk job was good; my back was badly injured from the wreck, and I needed time to heal.

It was not easy, though. I was grateful for the new job, but the move and my injuries had brought a message home to me clearly: I was quite alone in the physical world. I had wonderful inner guidance and a rich spiritual life, yet at this point I was divorced, with a small daughter to care for and no one to help me with daily demands. My family lived far away and were busy with their own lives.

Feeling sorry for myself, I knew I needed help. Once again, I turned to the Inner Master. I asked for specific inner guidance—to be shown the way to create a strong family of my own that would stay together and sustain, love, and support each other.

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A new perspective is what I needed, and to remain open to the support of the Inner Master. My outer life had changed, but now I needed to make it a happy one.

W
eeks later, I had a little conversation one day in my office with the Living ECK Master and spiritual head of Eckankar, Sri Harold Klemp. He made a rare visit to my office to talk about an upcoming issue of a quarterly newsletter for members of Eckankar. When he came in, I briefly showed him the article and page layout in question, and we made a minor decision together. It hardly seemed to have warranted a physical meeting, but I was very grateful for the opportunity to work with Sri Harold.

Just as we finished the business at hand, he looked at me, smiled, and quietly said, “Anne, you have a
wonderful
family.”

I simply shook my head no.

He responded quickly, without hesitation, and with even more enthusiasm than the first time: “Anne, you have a
wonderful
family!”

Filled with chagrin, I frowned at him. I had thought Sri Harold knew me, knew who I was. He had met my daughter, and he talked with me in the course of my work. Yet now it seemed that he did not know my personal situation and perhaps did not even remember who I was.

Apparently he doesn’t
, I thought. It was a humbling experience, and I felt embarrassed.

He looked at me, smiled, and quietly said a third time, “Anne, you have a
wonderful
family.”

Disappointment washed over me in a wave. With an acute sense of shame and sorrow, I contradicted his observation. “Actually,” I said, “I
don’t
have a wonderful family, Sri Harold.”

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Before I could offer any words of explanation, he repeated, “Anne, you have a
wonderful
family!” He responded with even more enthusiasm than the first time.

What could I expect?
I thought.
He has so many
responsibilities—so many students of Eckankar who
share information with him. How could I expect him to
remember the details of my life? Silly me!

But it was OK. I would gently explain and let Sri Harold get on with his work.

Sighing, I began, “Sri Harold, I
don’t
have a wonderful family. I am a single, self-supporting mother on my own with my daughter, Sarah, and I am doing my best to create a lovely little family, but it is not easy. I’m not even dating anyone special, and all my relatives are way across the country. I never see them that much. I am quite alone with just my daughter to raise on my own.”

A sense of loneliness enveloped me as I expressed the facts, and the picture of my sad little situation overwhelmed me. Tears welled up in my eyes, and despite my best efforts, they trickled onto my cheeks.

Sri Harold did not speak for a moment. Then he took a deep breath, smiled, and said, “Anne, you have a
wonderful
family.”

Didn’t he hear me? Didn’t he understand what I was saying? I felt like putting my head on the desk and just weeping. What was I not getting? A communication breakdown for sure. I was not certain how to resolve it.

Wiping away my tears, I calmed myself and gently persisted in trying to remind him of my state of affairs.

“Remember me, Sri Harold? Divorced recently, all on my own, self-supporting, no family around, just me and my little daughter. That’s my situation, and as much as I would love it
not
to be true, it is. I’m sorry; I don’t understand what you are saying, because I simply
don’t
have a wonderful family.”

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Sri Harold almost seemed to giggle. “Anne, you
do
have a wonderful family,” was all he said, and he seemed to be trying to suppress a big grin. In the face of all my protests, apparently he was going to hold steadfastly to this one positive line about my wonderful family.

Slowly, it began to dawn on me. I knew this spiritual principle taught in Eckankar: if you can imagine a thing and hold it in your heart, it can become real in your life.

The Master was very patiently reminding me of this spiritual truth.

A spark of insight began to seep into my heart. The Mahanta had heard my plea for guidance and insight, and now he was supplying it in the best way possible.

I had already received inner guidance through Golden-tongued Wisdom. I had received it through dreams. I’d also found it in the Eckankar writings. Here I was now, in an incredibly wonderful moment, receiving guidance from the Living ECK Master himself. He was speaking wisdom to me and teaching me spiritual law.

Harold Klemp, this respected spiritual teacher, was showing me how to create my
own
world with a beautiful, wonderful family!

Quickly, I returned his smile. “Are we
creating
something here?” I asked.

He smiled at me and nodded, and I asked him, “Are we creating
a wonderful family? Are we acknowledging a possibility for a wonderful family that is out there in the ethers somewhere? I am all for that!”

Sri Harold looked well pleased as I continued. “OK,”

I agreed, “I have a wonderful family!”

I
was being shown how to place my attention on what I wanted in life, rather than what I did
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and goals as a
future
possibility. Yet he saw it as real, right now, in this present time and place, regardless of any contradictory circumstances that I might have been holding on to. He paid no heed to my misunderstanding or need to make it a complicated matter. He went for the truth he was presenting and stuck with it.

“Yes,” he replied, “you
do
have a wonderful family, Anne.”

“Yes, I do,” I agreed, with more enthusiasm than before. With rising confidence I added, “I have a
wonderful
family!”

This time he laughed loudly, and so did I. As he left my office, he added a final confirmation. “Yes, yes,” he said and paused. He looked me straight in the eyes as he repeated, “Yes, you do have a
wonderful
family, Anne.”

The ECK Masters can guide us inwardly and outwardly, and I was being guided to a new perspective, a new state of awareness. I knew the experience was extraordinary, especially because it was occurring outwardly. It was unusual to be guided outwardly by the Living ECK Master one-on-one, but there was nothing unusual about being guided, for he also speaks to us at seminars and through his writings, inwardly in our dreams, and in our awareness, moment by moment.

Many times since, I have been guided by his words, his stories, and his gentle inner nudges.

It was the simplest of conversations, if you could call it a conversation at all. Sri Harold had spoken the same few words over and over again—nothing else really. He was guiding me gently but directly. No explanations, and yet I knew my life was changing. In that short time, he had taught me about an important spiritual law, the Law of Attitudes. And oh, the silly resistance I had put up!

While I had argued for my limitations, Sri Harold had taught me to laugh in the face of apparent circum-Inner Guidance_CH 22-27.p65

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stance, and to speak only the best. In those few moments together, we lived as if the best possible outcomes were already true, and he kept our focus there. We spoke with gratitude and feeling. It was not complicated or difficult; it was masterful.

“Yes, you do have a
wonderful
family, Anne.” That is what he had taught me.

For me, it was about taking responsibility for my own life, to create the greatest good. He did not lecture.

He did not even encourage. He went straight to the heart of the matter. He addressed my belief, my attitude. I was previously expecting and experiencing the worst—and he turned that all around.

I persisted in contemplating my joyous situation and my wonderful family. The consequences were astounding. Where I had experienced difficult relationships in the past, now that all fell away.

Without drama, the discord vanished as if it had never existed. From my point of view, that was a miracle.

Following this meeting with Sri Harold, I continued to ask for guidance and direction and received much in the process. In short order, all the strained relationships of my past were healed, through many different circumstances. I never even wondered how it might happen; I just held the belief that it would, with the great certainty Sri Harold taught me. Joy and optimism followed.

It is quite interesting how such a simple step in the direction of a new vision of life can be so powerful. For me, it changed everything.

I
t was truly a release of karma that day, for me.

I was given direct guidance on how to leave behind the sorrowful ending of my first marriage and career, to heal at a deeper level than I could have imagined.

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