OLD WHORE LIFE, Exploring the Shadow Side of Karma

 

 

 

 

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HEALING WITH PADRE PIO

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WHY BOTHER? The Riddle of the Good Samaritan

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17: Stupidity Is Not a Gift of God

17

Stupidity Is Not a Gift of God

Letters to Ascended Master

St. Padre Pio,

Thursday, August 25, 2011

6:06 A. M.

Dear Padre,

          “‘Nature patterns after man, not man after nature,’ said Phylos the Tibetan,” I said at our last spiritual contemplation class in Barrie last Sunday to make the point that man’s consciousness is responsible for many of our climatic catastrophes. “Nature is trying to wake us up to our responsibility to life with all of these tsunamis and Katrina disasters, but man is too stupid to see it,” I added, and then quoted Rebazar Tarzs who said that the more experience one has with the peoples of the world, the more he will see that “stupidity is the reigning virtue.” And I couldn’t agree more—because I’m as guilty as the next person for making many stupid decisions in my life!

          I should tell you that I began writing the first story in my new literary endeavor. I started writing “La Familia.” And I also wrote the introduction to the book, which I may keep or not; it all depends upon how the stories turn out. But I have to tell you; I’m terrified of going where I know these stories are going to take me—deep into the private recesses of my soul.

          I have to confront some of the stupid decisions that I made in my life to liberate myself of the guilt that haunts me. As you said, how can I love myself when I have all this guilt that makes me angry with myself? And I thought I had dealt with my anger issue in my spiritual healing sessions with you! Obviously, I’m not yet finished with this issue; and I don’t think I will be until I work through my guilt with my stories.

          So, Padre, what do you say I open up this subject of man’s stupidity in this letter? I’ve come to the realization that the more conscious one becomes of how karma works, the more clearly he will see the relationship between cause and effect; and human stupidity comes into play when man sees this relationship and refuses to change his life.

          For example, science has proven that smoking causes lung cancer, but people continue to smoke knowing full well what might happen. Many do it because it’s a very difficult habit to break, which only creates what has been appropriately called “guilty pleasure,” and others simply toss the dice, taking the risk that they won’t get cancer from smoking, and the more stubborn ones go into denial and refuse to see the connection between smoking and lung cancer. These people are deceiving themselves.

          What about the battered housewife who refuses to get help because she does not want the world to know her situation? She’s too proud to admit that her husband beats her. Is that stupidity, or what?        Pride is born of vanity, and vanity is responsible for many stupid decisions. My vanity was responsible for many of my stupid decisions. God, when I think back on my life I want to throw up at how stupid I was because of my vanity! But as you told me in my last letter, I shouldn’t beat myself up over it now. Tomorrow is another day.

          “If I had children, the one gift that I would love to pass on to them would be the gift of spontaneity,” I said to Penny yesterday, because this gift would liberate my child from the fear of taking risks.

          I don’t know where I’m going with this, Padre but I think what I want to say is that stupidity is not a gift of God; it’s entirely man made. We know that pollution has devastating environmental consequences, but we continue to spew toxic gases into the atmosphere with our vehicles. And we continue to kill our soil with pesticides. And we poison our animal food supply with chemicals—our chickens, pigs, and cattle. Is this stupid, or what? It’s no wonder the Spiritual Hierarchy has decided to intervene to help save the planet from man’s unstoppable stupidity.

          I am right, aren’t I? There’s a great spiritual intervention going on as I write this letter to you, isn’t there? This is what we’ve been told by the Nine Enlightened Beings in the book The Only Planet of Choice. And this is what you confirmed in my spiritual healing sessions. So, what’s the antidote for man’s viral stupidity?

          I know the answer to this question. We have to raise the spiritual consciousness of the world, right? And how do we do that?

          In your own way, you say. Each according to his own means, and all in light of their love for man by taking responsibility for their own life; that’s the thought impression that I got from you. But I don’t want to pursue this mode of communication now. I’m not comfortable enough yet with this process, because I don’t trust my mind to be free of its own agenda; so if you don’t mind, Padre, I’ll just try to reason it out on my own and follow my “nudges” and “insights” as I’m accustomed to doing. Maybe when I’m more confident in the process I can indulge in this mode of communication; but until then, I won’t encourage it.

          It appears then that man’s capacities for stupidity has become an incorrigible habit, and we all know how hard habits are to break; but raising the level of the spiritual consciousness of the world will only work when it reaches the tipping point and man makes a shift from ego-driven behavior to soul-driven behavior. Is this possible, Padre?

          This is the challenge, isn’t it? I guess all we can do is play our little part in this BIG GAME OF LIFE, and hope for the best.

In Spirit,

Your faithful companion,

Orest

16: The Straw that Broke the Camel's Back

16

The Straw that Broke the Camel’s Back

Letters to Ascended Master

St. Padre Pio,

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

5: 39 A. M.

Dear Padre,

          I fell off the tightrope, and I’m too ashamed to talk about it; but I have to tell you that I’m still in a state of anger because of my tooth. Well, not just my tooth; that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

          I didn’t think I had that kind of anger still left in me since you cured my wounded soul. I harbored a deep anger for my Roman Catholic faith, which is why you came into my life. My spiritual guide arranged for me to meet you through the spiritual sensitive so we could work together. But first you had to heal me of my anger, which you did because I no longer feel as I did about Christianity; but ever since I bit into that cherry pit and lost my tooth, I’ve been unbelievably angry.

          I came close to the source of my anger in my last spiritual musing, “The Foul Winds of Life,” which has to do with my character flaw of faultfinding; but even though I’ve raised this flaw to a conscious level, I’m still in a state of bitter anger. That’s why I fell off the tightrope.

          It’s not an excuse, but I just didn’t give a damn about my life and I fell into the bowels of my own mind and forfeited myself to fantasies that gave me temporary relief. It was foolish, and I know it was foolish, but I just didn’t give a damn and let go. Now I know how an alcoholic feels, and drug addict; they just let go and give in because they have to escape from the pressures of their own life.

It may be a small thing, biting into a cherry pit and losing a good tooth, but that was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The real issue is all of the other straws that the good camel had to carry before that one straw broke its back. That final straw symbolizes the full brunt of one’s life-load. And just what is my life-load?

In a word, my unbelievable struggle to find my true self. To find my true self I had to find the Way, which was a monumental task, and when I found the Way I had to live it because that was the only way I could find my true self— because one does not find one’s true self, one BECOMES one’s true self by living the Way—and then writing about my search so I could pass on my spiritual quest to other seekers; and this has tried my soul.

Unless one has been called by God to find their true self they will never understand how demanding it is to be a spiritual seeker, let alone write about the quest, and when I bit into that cherry pit last month that caused me to lose my tooth I was so angry that I cursed the cherry pit because I felt let down just as Jesus was let down by the barren fig tree; and in my state of anger I fell into a state of wicked despair.

I called my despair a “life funk” to make light of it to Penny and my friends, but it was and still is much more than a funk. I feel like I was put into the forge of life (my private hell) to be tempered some more when I had no desire to be tempered; I just wanted some respite from life, that’s all. Given all on my efforts, I felt I deserved respite.

Padre, I remember from your letters to your Spiritual Director how despaired you were at certain times in your life, how your soul cried out in anguish and your only recourse was more prayer; but I’m not the praying type. My context is different from yours. I know that I am the author of my own state of consciousness, and my anger comes from some of the choices that I have made in my life that were blindly stupid. I’m angry with myself. I don’t blame anyone for my despair. I cursed the cherry pit because it brought everything to a head, which was too much for me to bear, and I lost it. So, what do I do now?

Forgive myself? Is that what I heard you say to me in the silence of my mind?

Forgive yourself, and then love yourself, because you cannot love yourself until you are free of the guilt that makes you angry.

And how do I forgive myself of all that blind stupidity? Have you any idea of how stupid I’ve been in some of my decisions?

You are not alone in the gifts of stupidity, my son. But you are more than the sum of your stupid decisions. Remember what I told you, that it’s all about understanding. Well, now you know that you have made stupid decisions in your life, and it’s time to forgive yourself.

How? How can I forgive myself when the memories of my stupidity haunt me practically every hour of every day? I can’t get past them. They rise up to torment me as I work, as I drive, as I watch TV, as I read, as I eat, and especially when I’m trying to sleep; everything that I do is a link to one or another stupid decision that I made, and I can’t free myself of my stupid self; so how can I forgive myself? It’s easier said than done!

I know. That was my dilemma as well. I prayed, and you write to ease your pain and guilt. Well, write yourself through your guilt. Use your pain for your writing. Let writing be your saving grace. As you said, your context is different; that’s why life is a journey of the self. Think about it.

To be honest with you Padre, I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a book of short stories, with the title “We May Be Tiny, But We’re Not Small.” The other two stories would be “The Cherry Pit,” and “La Familia.” All of these stories would force me to deal with the guilt of some of my stupid decisions—not to mention another book of stories under the title “The Sunworshipper” which would deal with the enormous guilt of my stupid decision to practice solar techniques that did irreparable damage to my eyesight. I’m reminded every day of the enormous stupidity of that decision, and I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for that.

That’s why you have to write about it. By writing about it, you will work your way through your guilt, and I promise that you will find yourself on the other side free of the pain of your despair. I will guide you through your pain. I promise to be there for you.

Forgive myself, eh? That’s the new challenge of my life. I’ve never given this concept of self-forgiveness much thought. Is that because I was much too self-centered to confront my own stupidity?

Your quests kept you so busy that you had no time or energy to pour into self-pity. Now that you have realized your spiritual goal, you have to deal with the consciousness of your self-guilt. As you say, that’s your new challenge now. Don’t despair. You have plenty of time to see this through.

About falling off the tightrope?

What about it? Is it so hard to admit that you are human? You are in the flesh, and when soul is in the flesh it will always seek the pleasures of the flesh. It is a fact of life. Accept it, and try harder next time. As they say today, don’t beat yourself up over it. Tomorrow’s another day.

What about my anger?

It will wear thin soon enough. You are not a man to stay angry very long. It is not in your make-up. You are what you are, and be proud of it. Soon you will be caught up in your new challenge, and all of the universe will conspire to assist you. 

Fair enough. Thank you, Padre. I didn’t expect this at all this morning. You are full of surprises. I don’t know what else to say. I feel like I’ve just been given a new set of marching orders!

I remain,

Your humble companion,

Orest

         

15: Why Bother?

15

Why Bother?

Letter to Ascended Master

St. Padre Pio,

Friday, August 19, 2011

6: 50 A. M.

           

Dear Padre,

          You did tell me after the spiritual healing that you gave me that I would write more from the heart now than from the mind, which you said would be how I would connect with my reader, but whether what I write is from the heart or mind I have to ask you—something that has been brewing from the day those foul karmic winds began to blow into my life, leading to the unexpected loss of my tooth and leaving me in a state of inner turmoil—a very pertinent question: why bother?   

          I’ve devoted the best energies of my life to finding my true self, and I was blessed to awaken to the Way—the mysterious River of God that flows through life that you also awakened to by living la via di sofferenza (which is why we have a meeting of minds) — and I devoted my best creative energies to demystifying the Way for my reader with every book that I write, but I ask you again: why bother?

          When you were alive, you devoted every ounce of your energy to serving Jesus in his mission to bring souls back home to God, saying the daily Mass which people came from everywhere to witness, such was the spiritual intensity of your Masses, and listening to  over one hundred confessions daily (people were given numbers, there were so many who wanted to confess their sins to you, and it has been estimated that you heard five million confessions in your lifetime!), and still you prayed to do more for the love of Jesus and your fellow man—which you did by initiating the project of a new hospital which you called a House for the Relief of Suffering—and still you wanted to do more because your love to serve was so great that you could never do enough; but I can’t help but ask the question: why bother?

          The more I experience life—what I witness on television and the daily news and life around me—the more I am forced to agree with what the great Spiritual Master Rebazar Tarzs said to Paul Twitchell: “As you grow older in your observations of the peoples of the Earth world, it becomes more noticeable that stupidity is the reigning virtue.”

          In principle, I know you would agree with this comment; but having experienced you for an hour and a half once a month for ten months I know that you would also say, “Yes, that’s one interpretation.” And then you would proceed to inform me of the goodness of man, which would then soften my hardened and inflexible view and pry my heart open a little more; but you know what, Padre? I really don’t know why I should bother.

          You saw results from your service to Jesus and your fellow man—despite all the flak that you got from those who resented your spiritual gifts—by the love and affection of your “spiritual family,” but my world is barren of this goodness that comes with service. Which can mean one of two things: either my heart is not pure, or my time has not yet come.

          Let’s look at the first. Is my heart pure in my intent? I’ve always wanted to write, and I write about my life experiences—with a liberal use of the imagination; but do I write for myself, or to serve my fellow man by passing on the wisdom of my own spiritual quest?

          In all honesty, the very thought offends me that I am writing for pure selfish reasons, because I vowed that I would pass on the wisdom of my own spiritual quest simply because I KNOW how hard it is to find the Way and I simply want to make the search easier for the seeker. That is the raison d’être of my writing life—to help the seeker awaken to the Way. But I cannot help but wonder: why bother?

          I’ve experienced this feeling before, Padre. In fact, “old whore life” pushed me to the point once where I climbed on my platform and shouted: “Let the world find its own way!” And in an ironic way, you confirmed this when you told me “life is a journey of the self.”

          If life is an individual journey, then why bother? Everyone has to find their own way through the labyrinthine tunnels of their own karma, and we can give them all the Ariadne’s string in the world, but it won’t mean a damn thing—because “life is a journey of the self.” So, why bother?

          I read a book a couple of weeks ago about a Roman Catholic who could no longer suffer the indignities of her faith—the same indignities that I suffered in my belief in eternal damnation and that salvation was only possible through Jesus Christ and the “one true Church”—and I experienced this woman’s spiritual anguish as she wrestled her soul free from these false doctrines, which only goes to prove your truth that “life is a journey of the self,” and I have done everything in my power—which I am still doing, with these letters to you—to awaken my reader to the eternal saving grace of the Way, which is everywhere to be found; but again I ask, why bother?—because no one’s listening!

          I know, I know; you told me to speak only to those who have ears for what I have to say, but where in the hell are these people? I can’t help but feel that the whole world is deaf to what I have to say!

          You told me it would take three years for the ripple effect to reach out and touch the people who would hear what I have to say, and it’s only been a little over one year now since you told me this; so, am I impatient? And why should I believe you? Am I supposed to have blind faith in you?

          I know you did everything you could to bolster my confidence, by showing my yet-to-be published books to my spiritual sensitive, and that I should commit myself to getting them out there (especially my novel Jesus Wears Dockers, which my spiritual sensitive felt was the main reason why I was having those spiritual healing sessions—to get that book out there), but since that foul karmic wind blew into my life, I can’t help but ask: why bother?

          Last night, sleeping alone in our big king size bed because Penny went up north to attend her niece’s wedding and visit with her father, I almost came to tears because I could have poured more energy into making Penny’s life a little more financially secure, and I had to ask myself whether all of my creative efforts to demystify the Way were worth it.

          I broke the code of the sayings of Jesus, which is why you want to see my novel Jesus Wears Dockers out there, but why bother Padre? You told me that a little worry is good, that it keeps one sharp on and edge, but I tell you that the anxiety wrought by the struggle to survive with dignity is not worth the bother of the commitment to serve life—and yet, I know it has to be this way because service is the ultimate goal of life. God, what a conundrum!

          But I do have one reader who loves my writing and believes in me, and you can guess who that is—Penny Lynn, the love of my life; and thank God for her belief in me, or I would have given up long ago. If it weren’t for her, I wouldn’t have my novels My Unborn Child and Keeper of the Flame out there seeking to find their readers. They may not have connected yet, but at least they’re out there, and that’s all that matters.

          I guess when all is said and done—and I am through with all this moaning and groaning—I have to just bow my head and keep butting at life until I either smash my skull or break through to the other side where all of the karmic rewards for my service to life are waiting for me. What did Henley say in his poem Invictus?

“In the fell clutch of circumstance

            I have not winced nor cried aloud.

  Under the bludgeonings of chance

               My head is bloody, but unbowed.”

          I guess what it comes down to is that these foul karmic winds (“the fell clutch of circumstance”) are bound to blow through our life every so often because our journey is all about spiritual resolution, so we really have no choice but to hold our course through the tempests; but I don’t mind confessing, Padre, it can get quite fatiguing.

I remain,

A very tired companion,

Orest

         

14: The Tempest Has Passed

14

The Tempest Has Passed

Letters to Ascended Master

St. Padre Pio,

Thursday, August 18, 2011

6: 30 A. M.

Dear Padre,

          The tempest has passed. I’ve calmed down somewhat. I’m still not a happy camper, but I’ beginning to adjust to my new reality. I haven’t made my appointment with the denturist recommended by my dentist. I’m not ready yet. I’m not that resolved.

          I drove Penny to Barrie yesterday morning to catch the 7 o’clock Go Train to Toronto. She flew to Thunder Bay for her niece’s wedding, and when I came home I went for a walk around our street.

          I brought my notebook with me. I felt that the tempest of my dismay had passed, and I jotted that down. As I’m walking, I find myself crossing the street to walk on the other side. I have my head down, thinking about the foul karmic wind that blew into my life and threw me out of spiritual balance when I spotted a ten-dollar bill on the ground.

          “What’s this?” I wondered, with mixed emotions. I wondered who had lost it, knowing that there was no way I could return it to the person, which gave me moral permission to keep it, and I knew it was a sign that pointed to something beyond itself (when something out of the ordinary happens, I’ve learned that it points to something else; in other words, Spirit is trying to tell us something), but what?

          I knew it was a good sign, but I was much too suspicious of “good” signs to read too much into it, so I resisted the temptation…

          Penny just called to say good morning, so I had to suspend my letter; she had some good news to share. She brought her father to the casino last night. He went on his motorized scooter and she walked because the casino is a short distance from her father’s apartment, and her two sisters joined them. Penny told me she won four hundred and fifty dollars; and then she shared the dream she had last night, and one part of her dream had to do with a phone call she got from an investment lawyer from New York!

          So, Padre; is Spirit teasing us again? We’ve gotten so many signs that my writing is going to connect that we’re both very suspicious of good signs, and we refuse to read into them what we desperately wish for; that’s why I said to Penny when she shared her dream, “I’m not going there,” meaning that I wasn’t going to tease myself again.

          See what “old whore life” has done to me? She’s made me suspicious of the language of life, and it’s going to take time to regain my confidence. Not that I doubt Spirit’s guidance, which would be foolish; but both Penny and I are tired of grasping at hope.

          Padre, you were known as “a man of hope and prayer” in your life; maybe you could shed some light on our situation. Is Spirit teasing us with these signs and symbols, or are we just teasing ourselves by wanting them to mean what we would like them to mean; or, do they really point there, to a comfortable, successful future?

          I have a little job to go to today, a few hours of taping a washroom for a contractor whom I work for now and then, and Sunday I went to see an old customer of mine (I taped the drywall of his new house before my bypass surgery) to give him a price for taping their basement, so if I get this job it will offset some of these expenses that the foul karmic wind has blown into my life—and by calling it a foul karmic wind, I mean that I didn’t see it coming and the surprise really upset me.

          I would love nothing more than to be free to write without the worry of monthly expenses; that’s why we’ve always read the signs and symbols the way we have, which upon first appearance point to where we would like to be; but we’ve grown suspicious, because life is crowding us.

I don’t want to go into detail about these signs and symbols, because there are too many; but not only do we get signs and symbols, I’ve been told outright by you and other Spiritual Masters that we’re headed where the signs and symbols point to.

          When I asked you point blank in one of my spiritual healing sessions if my writing was going to pay off you said, “He will get what he seeks.” This wasn’t clear enough for the spiritual sensitive who channeled you, so she asked if this meant financial remuneration, and you said yes. And at one of my book discussion classes recently a member of the class, who is also a spiritual sensitive who gives me information that Spiritual Masters pass on to her about my writing, said they told her to tell me to remember where I came from, who I am, and where I am going—implying that when my books connect it’s going to change my life financially and socially. So, what am I to think, Padre?

          I don’t know, and quite frankly in the mood I’m in after this last little tempest I really don’t give a damn. I’m just going to plug along as I’ve always done and hope for the best. You see, I too am a man of hope! Maybe not a man of prayer like you (you prayed the rosary dozens of times a day, calling the rosary your “weapon”), but I have to have hope to get me through the rest of this life; otherwise I’d have to resign myself to a life of angry desperation—which is a side of life that Thoreau failed to acknowledge when he said that the vast majority of mankind has resigned itself to a life of “quiet desperation.”

          I know, I know; it’s all about surrender. We have to let go and let God. I know this, but what the hell’s the point of evolving through millions of lifetimes only to realize our own individuality—a new “I” of God that we have to surrender to God? Isn’t that like saying that God has to surrender to God to become more God? It is a mystery!

          We touched on this theme of in one of my spiritual healing sessions in our discussion on the selfless self.  I guess I still have a long way to go before I experience that bliss that you experienced when you crossed over—that joyous surrender that lifted you to the heights of Ascended Spiritual Master.

You’ll have to share more of that experience with me when I start my next book project with you after I publish Healing with Padre Pio—unless, of course, you choose to tell my in a dream. I’d love that. But, as I said, Spirit does what Spirit wills, so I’m not going to hang my hat on that dream!

I remain,

Your tempered companion,

Orest

         

13: Every Cherry Has a Pit

13

Every Cherry Has a Pit

Letters to Ascended Master

St. Padre Pio,

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

5:35 A. M.

Dear Padre,

          It’s going to take some time before I calm down. It may not seem like much a year or two from now, but losing a tooth for something as accidental as biting into a cherry pit has really got me worked up. It’s the straw that broke the camel’s back.

          What really hurts is that I asked you to accompany me to my dentist appointment, hoping you would work a miracle and let me walk out of the dentist’s office with my dignity intact; but no, I lost a tooth that’s so obvious I’ve stopped smiling.

          I have to get a partial plate because we can’t afford the expense of an implant or bridgework (four to five thousand dollars for an implant, and three thousand for bridgework). Maybe down the road, if one of my novels connects with the public and we can afford such luxuries as proper dental care, I will get bridgework done; but for now I have to get a partial plate because I have to salvage my dignity somehow.

          And to think that a little thing like a cherry pit could cause so much personal devastation? Talk about a journey through vanity to humility! That damn cherry pit has initiated a chain of events that I could have done without, and I have to ask why?

          When Penny and I went out for a Tim Hortons coffee last night I thought of Jesus cursing the barren fig tree. “That damn cherry pit!” I exploded. “I’m not going to attend any more classes at that woman’s house!”

          I don’t know why yet, but I cannot go back to the house where I bit into the cherry pit after one of our Spiritual Discourse classes. I can’t make the connection yet, Padre; but there’s a message in the barren fig tree and the little bowl of cherries that the woman who hosted the classes put out for after-class fellowship.

I don’t want to give up our classes, but I’m so angry at the loss of my tooth that I just can’t bring myself to go back to that woman’s house; and it’s not simply a matter of vanity. It’s much deeper than that. I can’t put my finger on it, but it has to do with the clash of my energies and “old whore life.” I rankle the “old whore,” and she stirs up karma!

It has puzzled the world why Jesus cursed the fig tree, but I think I understand why Jesus did it. I think he could see “old whore life”—those negative forces that resisted him every step of the way—and that day he had enough and cursed the barren fig tree. “Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever,” said Jesus (Math. 21: 19).

That’s how I feel about the cherry pit that cracked my tooth and given me so much aggravation that I cursed the cherry pit like Jesus cursed the barren fig tree. It may be a preposterous comparison, but I don’t think so. There’s a connection between the barren fig tree that could not nourish Jesus when he was hungry and the cherry pit that caused me so much aggravation, and I think the connection has to do with how my energies clash with energies of “old whore life.” But that’s too deep to ponder now.

“Thank you, Padre!” I lashed out at you when I came out of the dentist’s office Friday afternoon—as if you had anything to do with my cracked tooth!

 Or did you? Was Spirit orchestrating the next chapter of my life? Was Spirit telling me that I bit too hard on life with my spiritual musings on “old whore life” and struck a nerve—like I did when I bit too hard on the cherry pit and struck a nerve? Have I seen through life’s bowl of cherries and gone straight to the pits of life?

The saying “life is a bowl of cherries” has taken on a whole new meaning for me, because I know now that every cherry has a pit, which is what my spiritual musings on “old whore life” are all about—the cherry pits of life!

What gets me is how innocent it was. When I told my dentist what happened to my tooth, he said, “Life is full of surprises,” and was I surprised when it happened!

 We were having fellowship after our Spiritual Discourse class. I placed three cherries onto my plate along with a piece of cinnamon cake, and after I ate the cherries I picked up the piece of cake and took a bite, but I hadn’t noticed that a cherry pit had stuck to the bottom of the cake and I bit into it and yelped in pain when it struck a nerve.

I didn’t know I had cracked my tooth, so I didn’t go to the dentist right away. I thought the pain would eventually go away, but after two weeks of chewing on the right side of my mouth I went to the dentist and learned that my tooth couldn’t be saved.

So what’s the karmic lesson? Is there a price to pay for the cake we eat? Is this what it means when we say that we can’t have our cake and eat it too? We all know that nothing is for nothing in this world, so what’s the lesson, Padre?

Life may very well be a bowl of cherries, but every cherry has a pit!

I really don’t have much more to say. I’m in a real funk, and I don’t know when I’m going to get out of it. It may take a few days, weeks, or months; but I had to write this letter because I just had to vent. Thanks for listening.

I remain,

Still not a happy camper,

Orest

12: Orest Walks with Orest

12

Orest Walks with Orest

Letters to Ascended Master

St. Padre Pio,

Monday, August 15, 2011

6: 30 A. M.

         

Dear Padre,

          Sitting at my writing desk, I can look out the window to my left that looks onto the main stretch of our street and yesterday morning as I was writing I turned to look out and saw Orest walking very slowly towards our house.

          I got up to check and make sure it was Orest, and it was; so I got dressed (I had on a pair of shorts and T shirt, which I always wear in the summer when I’m writing), and went out to the front deck and yelled to Orest in Italian: “Bon jorno, Oresto! Aspeta!”

          I went upstairs and woke Penny up to let her know where I would be. “I’m going for a walk with Orest,” I said, and laughed.

          Orest is a friend of Eugenio, who has a cottage just down the street that he comes to half a dozen times a summer, and Orest and his wife had come up for a visit and he was out for an early morning walk. When I saw him walking down the street I just had to go for a walk with him because it was a coincidence fraught with so much symbolic meaning that I would never forgive myself if I didn’t go for a walk with him.

          The chances of going for a walk with a man called Orest were astronomical. In fact, Orest S. (his surname even has the same initial as mine, and our street is called Stocco Circle, the same as my surname) was the only man I had ever met with the same first name as mine, so I knew that this was divinely orchestrated. So, Padre; I know that you planned my walk with Orest yesterday morning, and now I have to explore the reason why…

          Penny came into my room for her morning coffee and chat this morning, as she always does, so I had to put my letter to you aside; and then I had to do my morning chores (today is garbage day, and I had to take out the garbage and blue boxes for recycling), and after I fed all the critters—our goldfish, cat, and seeds and peanuts for our outdoor critters—I was free to continue with this letter.

          Over coffee, Penny and I were talking about my writing. She felt that I quoted too much. “Good God,” she said, “you should be confident in your own voice by now. I just think that all those quotes get in the way. I feel like you keep grinding your point, and I come away exhausted. I love your writing, but it’s exhausting. That’s what my sister said about your novel My Unborn Child. She said the novel kept calling her, but it exhausted her. You don’t want to exhaust your reader. You want them to walk away feeling inspired. I think you should just write with your own voice. You don’t need all those quotes.”

          She’s right. And this is what you tried to tell me Sunday morning when I felt compelled to go for a walk with Orest.

          I listened to Orest talk about his life, and it was so engaging that it took two and a half hours to walk around Stocco Circle, which normally takes less than ten minutes; and after talking with Penny this morning I think I finally got the point—that my life is no less interesting than Orest’s life (he was born in Calabria, Italy where I was born, and he immigrated with his young family to Canada because destiny called him), and I don’t need to lean upon other authors to validate the integrity of my own life and voice.

          And this, believe it or not, is exactly what a psychic old me several months before My Unborn Child was published last summer. She was at Mountainview Mall in Midland, and she gave me a reading (twenty minutes for sixty dollars), and told me that I should just write about my own life, tell my own story, that I shouldn’t quote all those authors that I like to quote because they just got in the way of my story. “The story of your life is going to be your most successful book,” she said.

          So there you have it, Padre; but it wasn’t until Orest went for a walk with Orest yesterday morning that I finally got the point! But what was it about Orest’s life that fascinated me?

          If I had to distill his life story, I would say it was his integrity that defined him. It was obvious from the many anecdotes of his working life that he shared with me that he hates cheaters, liars, and hypocrites (he told me he was Catholic but didn’t go to church because of his experiences with priests), and I related to everything he said; perhaps that’s why you orchestrated our walk yesterday morning—to set me free to write about my own life without depending upon other authors and let my life speak for itself.

          But did you have to orchestrate a walk with another Orest born in the same part of Italy as me and with a defining steely integrity for me to see myself in him and learn to trust in the integrity of my own voice?

          I don’t know what to think, Padre; especially since I lashed out at you Friday afternoon when I came out of the dentist’s office with one less tooth that made me so self-conscious that my vanity almost kept me away from my spiritual book discussion class in Orillia the following day. God, was I angry!

“Thank you, Padre!” I lashed out at you in disgust as I drove home from my dentist appointment. I invited you to be with me during my appointment, hoping you would see to it that everything went well; but I never thought I would lose my tooth. I thought the worst scenario would be a root canal, but the crack from the cherry pit that I bit into was too deep and it had to be extracted and it shows when I smile!

Now I have to get a partial plate because it’s much too expensive to get bridgework (three thousand dollars). Even a plate is an expense we don’t need at this time. We just got news that the bearings on our lawn tractor deck were ceased and have to be replaced, plus a new belt, which is another expense we can’t afford at this time, not to mention the expense for the  muffler on my van this week. I was not happy when I came out of the dentist’s office, and I don’t know how I was able to manage my anger as I did. I wanted to scream, but all I could say was, “Old whore life” sure screwed me good this week!”

I have to stop writing. I’m still too angry.

I remain,

Not a very happy camper,

Orest

         

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

10: The River of God

10

The River Of God

Letters to Ascended Master

St. Padre Pio,

Thursday, August 11,2011

8: 45 A. M.

Dear Padre,

          Okay, Penny and I thought it over and this morning decided that I should go ahead with a new blog; but Penny wasn’t comfortable with the title that I had chosen for my book of letters to you, so we tried a variety of titles until we came upon one that we both agreed upon: The River Of God, Private Letters to Ascended Master St. Padre Pio. “There,” she said; “now you can have your cake and eat it, too.”

          She said that because I wanted to keep “Ascended Master” in my title, which she didn’t like (she still can’t wrap her head around my relationship with you, but she’s going with it), and she wanted the word “personal” in the title, but we settled on “private” because it’s catchier. What do you think?

          Penny thought the image of a river would catch the reader’s attention, and I agreed because it makes reference to the River of God that you spoke about in my spiritual healing sessions, the image of the Divine Current that flows from God to create life and carry soul back home to God.

          You went into more detail, though. You used the image of one placing a big stone in the River of God, which impeded the flow of the Divine Current in his life, like the huge boulder that I had created with my spiritual conceit that impeded the flow of the Divine Current in my life—hence, my spiritual healing brought about by your sanctifying grace!

          I’ve thanked you already for my spiritual healing, Padre; but I’d like to thank you again because my sessions with you changed my life. Like I said to my friend at her bookstore yesterday, “I feel such an enormous relief since my healing sessions with Padre Pio. You don’t realize how heavy ego can be until you’re relieved of its weight upon your soul. Honest to God, I think ego has to be the most burdensome thing in the world!”

          I wanted to puke at the thought of my pre-Padre Pio life; that’s how disgusted I was with my own spiritual conceit. Had I not been slain by your humility I would still be out there blindly strutting my stuff like the spiritual peacock that I was! This reminds me of the comment made by the Spiritual Traveler Rebazar Tarzs about Jesus strutting his stuff like a peacock—not to compare myself with Jesus, though. God forbid!

          No, all I want to do is show that we are all blind to our own vanity—our own “stone” in the River of God that impedes the flow of the Divine Current of Love in our life, and I’m sure that Jesus had his moments.

That’s what the River of God is, an endless current of Love that flows from God and back to God. Jesus called it the “water of everlasting life,” and as it flows from God it creates and sustains life, and as it flows back to God it awakens and returns soul back home a spiritually self-realized, God conscious soul ready to serve in the Divine Plan of God as you are doing by helping souls on their journey through life.

Padre, how did you know that you would do more to help mankind from Heaven than you were doing in your humble role as a Capuchin monk who said Mass every morning and listened to over one hundred confessions every day, not to mention your personal response to the many letters that people wrote you, when you were allowed to respond that is?

Your superiors, whom you obeyed absolutely because of your vow of obedience, denied you this precious gift of service for a period of time; but I don’t want to get into that here. Suffice to say that I know how much you had to suffer to serve your fellow man, but serve you did; and now you are serving from the Other Side in your capacity as an Ascended Master, and I can’t thank you enough for bringing me together with my spiritual sensitive who channeled you so we could do a book on spiritual healing. And when I asked if we would meet again, you said, “Our work is not yet done, my son.”

Did you “anticipate” this book of letters? I did ask if we would be doing another book with my spiritual sensitive and you said yes, and I even caught a glimpse of the theme of this new project which was inspired by Ecclesiastes; but it never occurred to me to write you a series of letters until a few weeks ago when I was reading on our front deck.

The thought came to me out of the blue, but I know that you planted that seed in my mind, and it didn’t take long to take root because I’ve always wanted to write a book of letters. And just the other night as Penny and I were doing our spiritual contemplation you planted the seed in my mind to create a new blog for my letters and share them with the public before I publish them in book form!

Once again, I had no thought of posting them on a blog site. That idea came to me out of the blue also, and I know you gave it to me; so Penny and I have decided to go ahead with it, and when she comes back from her trip up north where she’s going for her niece’s wedding (and to visit her father), she will create my new blog site for me because I don’t have a clue how to go about it and I can begin posting my letters to you. Are you happy now?

When you’re called to serve, you’re called aren’t you? I almost feel like I felt when I caught my first scent of the Way and had to follow it like the hound of Heaven in Thompson’s poem. I had to go wherever the scent took me, and believe me it took me to places that taught me lessons I will never forget—like that offshoot Christian solar cult teaching brought into the world by a “Child Christ” that did damage to my eyesight! But I can’t bring myself to talk about that now.

Strangely enough however, the thought came to me just yesterday to dig out my old manuscript of the novel that I started to write on my experience with this Christian solar cult teaching that I studied for three years.

I never think about this novel, because the thought of reliving that experience horrifies me. I called it “The Sunworshipper,” but the thought came to me yesterday to write it as the main story in a book of short stories, and it was strong enough for me almost go to the basement and dig up my manuscript; so I guess you just planted the seed for now. But it would make a great story because it would reveal how far one will go to find his way back home to God—like risking one’s eyesight as I did by burning three holes in the retina of my eyes with the solar techniques that this teaching taught to ingest the Logos supposedly imbued with the rays of the sun!

Wow! I still cringe at my experience. I couldn’t write this novel because I couldn’t relive the trauma of that whole experience, especially with my ophthalmologist who was so angry with me for doing those solar techniques that he dismissed me from his examining room and I had to fly down to the eye clinic in Waterloo for the appointment that my brother had arranged for me to find out how much damage I had done to my eyes.

 But how could I explain to the ophthalmologist at the Thunder Bay Clinic the power of the Call of God? I could have asked him to read Thompson’s poem “The Hound of Heaven,” but what good would that have done? Nobody can understand a “hound of heaven” but another “hound of heaven.” “Rise, clasp my Hand, and come!” God commands, and I paid a dear price to be clasped by the Hand of God—as did you, Padre. God, I can’t begin to fathom the pain you suffered for fifty years with the stigmata; but that was your choice. You did ask Jesus how you could serve his mission, and he gave you his five crucifixion wounds, and you embraced la via d’sofferenza so passionately that you said, “I want to inebriate myself with pain.” But why, the reader may ask? Why would one be so foolish to suffer like that? Where’s the logic?

We could tell them, couldn’t we? But I think I’ll wait for another letter when I can delve into the mystery of what you called your “glory” and I came to call “virtue” and Jesus called “treasures in heaven.”

Indeed, the River of God has as many streams as there are souls in God’s Kingdom. As you said, “life is a journey of the self.” But mercifully, every stream will eventually find its way back into the River of God and flow back to the Godhead—eureka!

Didn’t I say at the beginning of this project that my book of letters would find its own theme? Well, it just popped up—the River of God! This theme speaks to everyone, and I do believe that this is going to be the final title to my book of letters to Ascended Master St. Padre Pio!

I remain,

Your faithful companion,

Orest