11: A Hound of Heaven

11

A Hound of Heaven

Letters to Ascended Master

St. Padre Pio,

Friday, August 12, 2011

6: 50 A. M.

Dear Padre,

          In my last letter I wrote something that I have to explore, because it will help to explain why spiritual seekers are driven the way they are and so hard to understand. I wrote: “Nobody can understand a hound of heaven but another hound of heaven.”

          We’ve all heard the expression “it takes one to know one.” That’s because they have a similar state of consciousness, or a similar frequency of vibrations if you will. They resonate with their own kind, and a spiritual seeker has the consciousness of a spiritual seeker, which is why only a hound of heaven can understand a hound of heaven.

          But that doesn’t explain what a hound of heaven is, though; all it tells us is that spiritual seekers are different from the rest of the world. What makes them different, that’s the question? What made me different? What made you different, Padre?

For that matter, what made the author of the new book (The Gifts of Responsibility) that you brought into my life yesterday different, because from what I’ve read so far I’d say that this author is a hound of heaven?

          I was driving home from Midland yesterday when I got the sudden urge to drive into Barrie to visit my friend at her bookstore. I picked up coffee at Tim Hortons on Bayfield for us, and as I sat behind the counter talking with my friend the author of The Gifts of Responsibility came into the store to drop off four copies of her newly published book for my friend to sell in her store. She also had a bag of used books that she wanted to sell to my friend, and as she put them onto the counter the title of one book jumped out at me—The Disappearance of the Universe, by Gary R. Reynard, the book I couldn’t finish reading because I felt that something wasn’t right about the information passed on to the author by the “Ascended Masters,” and which you confirmed when I pressed you in one of my spiritual healing sessions. You said this book “poisoned the mind.”

          I made a negative comment about this book that I regret making, because you told me to be careful about how I talked about this book, and this automatically put the lady on the defensive; but it did initiate a conversation, and we ended up exchanging our newly published books; she gave me a copy of her book The Gifts of Responsibility, and I gave her a copy of my book Keeper of the Flame.

Now tell me what you think of this, Padre. I honestly believe that Providence had us meet and exchange our books because we both have something to learn from each other. She will get something from Keeper of the Flame that she needs, and I will get something from The Gifts of Responsibility that I need—and which I am getting in fact, because I’m half way through her book and I love what I’ve read so far.

Last night as I was going to sleep I got an image of being in the womb of her soul. Her book is the story of how she expanded her Roman Catholic faith to include what can simply be called a New Age spiritual perspective on life, and the impression that her book made upon me was translated into the image of being in the womb of her soul; which told me that she’s in the process of creating her own spiritual identity, and the next stage of her journey is to give birth to her spiritual self.

She’s a hound of heaven that has been “clasped” by the Hand of God and will not rest until she gives birth to her spiritual self; and I was a hound of heaven that was “clasped” by the Hand of God and gave birth to my spiritual self. As I wrote in Keeper of the Flame, I gave birth to my spiritual self in my mother’s kitchen while she was kneading bread dough on the kitchen table; so I think that Providence had us meet because we have something for each other. What that would be, I don’t know; but I believe it to be so.

And I think she would agree with this, because this is what she wrote in The Gifts of Responsibility: “There are no coincidences, only synchronicity. Once we have understood and mastered this cosmic phenomenon (karma), life will no longer be perceived as a struggle. The possibilities of unending adventures comprised of many moments in time will appear as part of a cosmic reality we can refer to as Divine Orchestration” (p. 5).

So, Padre; I know that you orchestrated our meeting, because she’s a Roman Catholic who expanded her faith to include the many dimensions of spirituality, as I have done, and we have something to learn from each other, and I thank you for bringing us together. But to get back to the point of this letter, what exactly defines a hound of heaven?

When you said “I want to inebriate myself with pain,” I understood exactly what you meant, because that resonated with me; but to explain this would be like trying to explain the color blue to a person born blind. It can’t be done; which is why my mentor Gurdjieff said that there is only self-initiation into the mysteries of life.

Nonetheless, I will try to come to an understanding by way of analogy. Take a person who is addicted. He cannot help himself. He has to have his fix, be it alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, sex, or whatever. In like manner, a hound of heaven has to have his fix also, which is God.

A hound of heaven craves God, and he will get his God fix wherever he can, which is why Francis Thompson calls him a hound of heaven. Like the hound that has caught the scent of God, he will not rest until he finds God. “Rise, clasp My hand, and come!” says God, and the hound of heaven has no choice but to come to God!

When a soul is called by God, it becomes a seeker—or, as the poet calls him, a hound of heaven. This is why you wanted to inebriate yourself with pain—because in your pain you sacrificed yourself for Jesus, and in your sacrifice you got your God fix, which in one of my healing sessions you called your “glory.” I understood that, Padre.

My spiritual sensitive who channeled you didn’t understand, because she was not addicted to God like we were; but in our addiction to God we separated ourselves from the rest of the world. This is why you said to me, “We’re very much alike.”

You got your God fix through self-sacrifice, and I got my God fix by “working” on myself as I lived the Way. I had to be very resourceful to feed my habit, but I became so frantic when I couldn’t get enough of God that I fell for an offshoot Christian solar cult teaching that promised the Logos with the solar techniques, because the God-force was said to be imbued with the rays of the sun. I was so desperate for my God fix that I didn’t care if this was true or not, and I enrolled in this teaching and practiced the solar techniques for three years when I began to feel the effects on my eyes. I went to an ophthalmologist, and the rest is history, which I may write about in a novel one day.

I have a feeling that you want me to write this story, don’t you? That’s why I thought about an early draft of my novel “The Sunworshipper” the other day; but we can talk about this some other time. The point I wanted to make with this letter is that unless one is called by God he will never understand what it means to be a hound of heaven.

That’s all I have to say for now, except that I have a dentist appointment at noon and would like you to accompany me because I dread going to the dentist.

I remain,

Your faithful companion,

Orest